Have you ever used a ballista or catapult?

[Bullgrit]

Have you ever had or seen a PC use a ballista or catapult (or other similar siege weapon)?

I remember my first exposure to the items was in the adventure module B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Although we talked about using them against various monsters, I don't think I've ever seen a PC use one in a game.

[There's a hilarious use of one in the The Gamers movie.]

Bullgrit

 

[demiurge1138]

The finale of a campaign I played in last year featured a huge siege. Among the many defenses the city walls had were, of course, ballistas. Not that they worked very well...

Demiurge out.

 

[Kuld]

I love using siege engines in warfare. Trebuchet in particular. I also developed stats for a Dwarven 'orc smasher' but that was many years ago.

 

[Dog Moon]

I think I've had a character use a ballista like ONCE, but I stopped cause he wasn't particularly skilled in its usage.

Besides that, I've seen them used a couple of times, but for the most part, it was by NPCs while the PCs did bigger/better fighting cause they want to be in the center of the action and shooting a ballista is generally way to the side.

 

[shilsen]

I've never used siege engines as a PC, but as a DM, I did have a bunch of gnolls shoot the PCs with ballistas, using chimpanzees for ammunition

 

[Falkus]

At a climatic point in the last DnD campaign I played in, when an evil wizard had, through a series events, essentially imprisoned hte liviing incarnation of my Paladin's god, I got to use a ballista. We were searching some old ruins, looking for him, and we split up at one point. I eventually found myself on top of wall surrounding a courtyard in which the incarnation (in the form of a gold dragon) was bound. A minute later, the other PCs showed up in the courtyard having taken a different route. Immeidately, the evil wizard and a number of his minions appeared, and he began a dramatic speech.

It would be important to note that the DM of this campaign had greatly increased the damage of balistas.

As the wizard started his speech, the only thing I said to the DM was: I shot him with the balista.

I rolled to hit. Natural 20. Roll to confirm critical: Another natural 20. The best two rolls of my life.

The wizard took over sixty points of damage, and failed his massive damage save. In the DM's words: He got pinned to the wall.

Finally, I got experience what my player's have continually done to me. One shotting the boss. It feels great.

 

[kenobi65]

Way back when we were playing 1E, we (the party) were hunting a dragon. Somehow, we got the bright idea that we should buy a ballista, and use it to shoot the dragon.

So, we wheeled this big-butt weapon up the mountain, positioned it at the cave entrance, and hurled insults down the tunnel. Eventually, the dragon got peeved and came to kill us, and we fired the ballista. And missed.

I think half of the party died before we could retreat.

 

[kenobi65]

[There's a hilarious use of one in the The Gamers movie.]

DM: "You're gonna backstab him with a f***ing siege weapon?"
Thief: "Yeah!"

 

[Hussar]

I ran a naval campaign a while ago which saw extensive siege weapon usage. I have to admit though, that's one thing I truly dislike in 3.5 - the seige weapons. Gack, you can fire a catapult every other round!!!

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Yes, both in game and in real life. (Actually both a trebuchet and a ballista.)

The Auld Grump