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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6033465" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 295: May 2002part 7/10Bazaar of the Bizarre: Siege weapons! We definitely haven't covered those since the edition change. And smashing things on a larger scale than your regular weapons can handle definitely counts as a good thing in my book. How will magic further enhance our capabilities in this area?Burning and freezing metal stones unleash a AoE heat or chill metal affecting everyone around their impact point. This is a brilliant way to break formations, as everyone has to drop their weapons and scramble out of armour. Very clever idea indeed. Defoliant stone is another brutal defence breaker, especially against elves. Hit them in the fundamentals, watch them shrivel. Muahahahaha! Earthquake stone is also a quite self-explanatory fortification ruiner. Just make sure you keep a good distance away, because you don't want to be caught in the blast. Quench stones can be handy used on your own side as well if things go wrong. Or they can ruin the enemies attacks handily. One to use with caution. Softening stones penetrate Hardness. Meh. Wall Stones create walls where they land. You really want to have a good aim with this one, for instant fortifications will wreak chaos on the battlefield. They can be made of all sorts of materials, each with their own quirks. Will you go for fire, ice, thorns, force, or boring old stone? In any case, this looks like it'll change the battlefield in quite interesting ways. Chain launching Ballista Bolts fix onto your wall, and leave behind a long chain so the enemy can climb up and get in. It's not easy to detach either. You may have to hack away a chunk of your own wall to save the rest of the building. Disjunction Ballista Bolts fux004 all the enemies magical warding. Keep them ready to use for your second sortie if you find your first one countered. Needlespike Ballista Bolts are designed to AoE skewer the enemy infantry without damaging the environment too much. Nice contrast to the massive devastation surrounding them. Reverse Gravity Ballista Bolts will completely bork nearly any standard fortification, and the people manning it. Floating in the air, they'll then be easy meat for your next shots. I love the visuals on this one. Bellows of Blasting let you make a mini hurricane to blow people away and put out fires. Another battlefield control effect that'll hopefully keep you in the lead and the enemy literally off balance. Fists of Grumsh protect you from bombardment while you're holding it, letting you charge openly across the battlefield to break stuff down like good warboyz. Typical Orcish thematics then. Rams of Passage let you charge straight through walls instead of breaking them down. Should make for an amusing visual, especially if you don't know that's going to happen. Rams of Rusting Show preserved rust monster antennae go down well in mass combat too. If your enemy has metal fortifications, they won't for much longer. Remember, go for the joints. Siege Golems have a ballista on their back that they can fire themselves. They're pretty handy in close combat too. Ride on them and bring the pain to your enemies in style. Dust of Returning is sprinked over your bolts, and brings them back, albeit in a rather unpleasant way. Use with caution, possibly on your enemies. Mantlets of Warding shield you from magic on top of the usual fortification bonuses. If you have sorcerers throwing fireballs left right and centre, this'll reduce their slaughtering effectiveness. Dwarven Stonebows have shorter range but higher accuracy than regular catapults. Racial customisation's a funny thing. Goes to show what priorities they have. Halfling Catapults demonstrate the writer's sense of humour. They're not that different from regular catapults really, just scaled down a bit. Shrug. Mantlets are walls with wheels attached that you push across the battlefield as cover. This looks amusing, but is pretty invaluable really. Now if only there were such things as portable trenches. Poison Stones are just bags filled with gunk that bust on impact. Like throwing diseased maggoty carcasses, this is a rather unpleasant morale breaker, even without magic. Course, given how inflated poison prices are in D&D, this often costs more than an actual magic item.Repeating Ballista let you shoot 6 bolts before having to reload. Since it still takes 2 rounds to do so, you may be faced with panic in the face of onrushing monstersSuspended Cauldrons are of course for pouring unpleasant liquids on attackers. They present a bigger logistical problem than you'd think, for they are very heavy. Still, lots of burning oil is not to be sneezed at. And they are suitably inventive in thinking up other gross things to pour on people. Lots of fun to be had here amid the filler, presuming you have the cash to spend.</blockquote>

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