D&D 5E Never Give Them Unlimited Black Powder

[wingsandsword]

Tales from the Floating Vagabond listed a weapon called "Nuclear Hand Grenade". I doubt it was very popular.

Paranoia had a Nuclear Hand Grenade as an R&D item in one adventure once.

The listed instructions were:
1. Pull Pin
2. Throw HARD.

In the same vein, I'd also like to point out the M-28 "Davy Crockett" recoilless rifle, a tactical nuclear rocket launcher from the Cold War in the 1960's. The effective range of the rocket was significantly less than the minimum safe distance of the warhead.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Tales from the Floating Vagabond listed a weapon called "Nuclear Hand Grenade". I doubt it was very popular.

And yet you have kings that would be happy to use "Holy Hand Grenades" that did radiant damage. Kill a lot of rabbits with that one.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Has anyone ever made the mistake of giving the PCs access to high level spells? Or powerful magic items?

Unlimited? No. Magic items have expensive costs, treasure is limited, and magic can be controlled (Dispel Magic, Antimagic Field, etc). On occasion I hear about someone destroying the economy because they used some spell combo to turn dirt into gold or something though. (Hasn't happened in any game I've been in.) One time my PCs tried to turn a magic orb that could use Gust of Wind at will into a perpetual motion machine, and even that wasn't broken because it was intelligent, there was only one of it, and it had a downside (could drive people insane just by talking to it).

Even Eberron doesn't have "unlimited magic" with its Dragonmarked powered magic items (there aren't that many member of House X).

 

[Ancalagon]

Unlimited? No. Magic items have expensive costs, treasure is limited, and magic can be controlled (Dispel Magic, Antimagic Field, etc). On occasion I hear about someone destroying the economy because they used some spell combo to turn dirt into gold or something though. (Hasn't happened in any game I've been in.) One time my PCs tried to turn a magic orb that could use Gust of Wind at will into a perpetual motion machine, and even that wasn't broken because it was intelligent, there was only one of it, and it had a downside (could drive people insane just by talking to it).

Even Eberron doesn't have "unlimited magic" with its Dragonmarked powered magic items (there aren't that many member of House X).

That brings an interesting point - what can unlimited magic do? What could go wrong? If you want to explore that, I highly recommend "Magical Industrial Revolution".

 

[Aelryinth]

Tucker's Kobolds are great theory crafting, but there's so many ways to get rid of them with magic the players had to be idiots. You simply set out to get rid of them, and they die easy.

On controlling tech items: Rule 1 of Combustible Materials: The more combustible a material is, the more likely it is to spontaneously combust.

Alchemical fire is carefully sealed for a reason. Black powder is doled out in small lots. If you put a bunch of black/smoke powder together, especially in a highly combustible format, it's entirely likely it will blow apart right on the spot as it starts attracting random fire spirits hungry for some fun.

So, if you make alchemical bombs, right about when you put it together is about when it explodes in your face, and you realize why nobody makes alchemical or technological bombs in a high magic world. The more they try to 'time' the thing so it can explode, the more unstable it starts getting and the earlier it explodes. Soon, they become aware there's fire spirits around them all the time, attracted by their attempts, and things start exploding at random, or the different components start flying together by themselves, before you can mix them, for a boom!

"You've been feeding the fire spirits, and they aren't stupid. They're just making dinner!"

 

[nevin]

if the pcs have unlimited use of black powder so do the bad guys and consequences are a bitch when you start blowing up the king's stuff

 

[MarkB]

Unlimited anything is unbalancing. And if they simply have a lot of black powder, that has its downsides. They should be doubly afraid of Fireballs, for one thing.

 

[Aelryinth]

Unlimited anything is unbalancing. And if they simply have a lot of black powder, that has its downsides. They should be doubly afraid of Fireballs, for one thing.

Unlimited Holy Water exists as the River Oceanus, and the sea around the Seven Heavens. Tap into that with your own custom Decanter of Endless Water, and you can fire hose away armies of Fiends.

 

[nevin]

unlimited black powder is there to be stolen and used by their enemies who will most likely frame the guys with unlimited black powder.

 

[nevin]

in a traveller game we put an FTL drive on an asteroid and slammed it onto a planet at near speed of light.