D&D 5E Eversmoking Bottle Question

[Uller]

The PCs in one of my games found an eversmoking bottle. I put it there as a means of solving a puzzle. They pulled the stopper releasing a cloud of smoke...and then I realized they don't know the command word to make it stop. It seems like a typo to me that you activate it by pulling the stopper but need a command word to make it stop. The text from the SRD:

Smoke leaks from the lead-stoppered mouth of this brass bottle, which weighs 1 pound. When you use an action to remove the stopper, a cloud of thick smoke pours out in a 60-foot radius from the bottle. The cloud's area is heavily obscured. Each minute the bottle remains open and within the cloud, the radius increases by 10 feet until it reaches its maximum radius of 120 feet.

The cloud persists as long as the bottle is open. Closing the bottle requires you to speak its Command Word as an action. Once the bottle is closed, the cloud disperses after 10 minutes. A moderate wind (11 to 20 miles per hour) can also disperse the smoke after 1 minute, and a strong wind (21 or more miles per hour) can do so after 1 round.

My players' PCs have no means of learning the command word short of taking a short rest but they have no time to do that. They are in a confined area and would be effectively blinded if they can't stop the thing...so simply ruled you can just put the stopper back to stop it. Do you think they put the command word in there on purpose or is it an oversight (like maybe originally it functioned on a command word and they only edited out half of it...

 

[jaelis]

I think that traditionally the ESB is sort of a trap item. Players hope it is a bottle of efreet summoning or something, but instead they get choked by smoke. (For instance, it worked the same way in 3E.)

But if you want an item that is more useful for generating a fog cloud effect, then sure, just let them close the bottle at will.

 

[Satyrn]

I'd think it's an oversight, like it had originally read as requiring an action to remove the stopper and say a command word.

I'd ignore the command word thing entirely, so if they ever lose the stopper the thing will just endlessly smoke.

 

[Satyrn]

After reading the 3e version, I retract my oversight comment.

I think [MENTION=60210]jaelis[/MENTION] is essentially right.

 

[Ath'kethin]

An eversmoking bottle is definitely a cursed/trap item, and it was much nastier in 2nd Edition. From the 2e DMG:

Eversmoking Bottle: This metal urn is identical to an efreeti bottle except that it does nothing but smoke. The amount of smoke is very great if the stopper is pulled out, pouring from the bottle and totally obscuring vision in a 50,000-cubic-foot area in one round. Left unstoppered, the bottle will fill another 10,000 cubic feet of space with smoke each round until 120,000 cubic feet of space is fogged. This area remains smoked until the eversmoking bottle is stoppered. When the bottle is stoppered, smoke dissipates normally. The bottle can be resealed only if a command word is known.

 

[Lanliss]

An eversmoking bottle is definitely a cursed/trap item, and it was much nastier in 2nd Edition. From the 2e DMG:

Eversmoking Bottle: This metal urn is identical to an efreeti bottle except that it does nothing but smoke. The amount of smoke is very great if the stopper is pulled out, pouring from the bottle and totally obscuring vision in a 50,000-cubic-foot area in one round. Left unstoppered, the bottle will fill another 10,000 cubic feet of space with smoke each round until 120,000 cubic feet of space is fogged. This area remains smoked until the eversmoking bottle is stoppered. When the bottle is stoppered, smoke dissipates normally. The bottle can be resealed only if a command word is known.

Wow, that would be horrible in a cramped dungeon. What were the rules for suffocation from smoke?

 

[Satyrn]

Wow, that would be horrible in a cramped dungeon. What were the rules for suffocation from smoke?

"Rocks fallSmoke fills the dungeon. Everybody dies."

 

[Ath'kethin]

Wow, that would be horrible in a cramped dungeon. What were the rules for suffocation from smoke?

I was going to look them up, but frankly no answer I could give would be better than the one Satyrn did.

Ahh, the good old days.

 

[Caliban]

Perhaps what they found was instead a "Bottle of Continual Fog" that maintains a "Fog Cloud" spell centered on the bottle when it is opened, and dissipates when it is closed.

 

[Uller]

Perhaps what they found was instead a "Bottle of Continual Fog" that maintains a "Fog Cloud" spell centered on the bottle when it is opened, and dissipates when it is closed.

Yeah. This is in the Oozing Temple in OotA. I added it specifically to give them a clue to find an alternate exit (the smoke moves out with air). So I'll go with it. It does sound like it was intended to be a trap/curse item...but it would be really unfair of me to go that route since I intended it to be helpful.