Rules for Ballistae?

Gavinfoxx · Sep 17, 2008

Also, Polybolos should maybe be able to fire every round or every other round? The really awesome repeating ballistae? How about the simpler chinese style repeating ballistae?

Silverblade The Ench · Sep 17, 2008

The repeating Roman design had 2 flaws:
-wasn't as powerful
-Too accurate, which is actually bad as it was wanted as an Area of Effect machine-gun style effect. No use hitting same target 3 or 4 times.

Saw a working recreation of them in a documentary, pretty amazing

however, since it's D&D, and magic and maybe cultures who's tech advances in their own bailiwicks are far ahead of ours...who knows, maybe they solved the problem?

(always note, other universes/peoples may have tech BETTER than ours, even if in more simpler areas, like weapons/armour: 10,000 years of trial and error, plus magic, plus different mental abilities/outlooks could have huge difference)

Mad Hamish · Sep 17, 2008

Most importantly can you sneak attack with it?

Silverblade The Ench · Sep 17, 2008

Mad Hamish,
"I backstab him with.....a BALLISTA!"

lol classic, ain't it?

lukelightning · Sep 17, 2008

Mad Hamish said:
Most importantly can you sneak attack with it?

It's a hand crossbow... for a titan.

UngeheuerLich · Sep 17, 2008

Silverblade The Ench said:
The repeating Roman design had 2 flaws:
-wasn't as powerful
-Too accurate, which is actually bad as it was wanted as an Area of Effect machine-gun style effect. No use hitting same target 3 or 4 times.

Saw a working recreation of them in a documentary, pretty amazing

however, since it's D&D, and magic and maybe cultures who's tech advances in their own bailiwicks are far ahead of ours...who knows, maybe they solved the problem?

(always note, other universes/peoples may have tech BETTER than ours, even if in more simpler areas, like weapons/armour: 10,000 years of trial and error, plus magic, plus different mental abilities/outlooks could have huge difference)

I saw a light roman torsion balista live... shooting on a steelplate 25m away... With the bolt flying right through it...

it HAS an area of effect (fear)
Imagine your neighbour, wearing the same 35kg plate armour and shield like you do, struck dead by a single shot... what would you do?

Otterscrubber · Sep 17, 2008

Thanks for all the great feedback. I like the concept of letting the DM decide what effect it will have in a given situation. Our group was mostly going to have it in the background for style effect anyways, so perhaps stating it out will only encourage us to abuse it every time we sit down to play.

Mostly our leader thought it would give our mercenary squad some props with the yocals if they saw us rolling with some siege equipment. We'll have to see if his marketing ideas backfire on us in any way

lukelightning · Sep 17, 2008

I might consider counting the ballista in your "xp budget" if you went around adventuring with one and used it in an encounter; either adding in extra monsters or taking away a small amount of XP used.

I'm not 100% sure I'd do this, but if it seems that the ballista might be too powerful this would be a way to balance it out.

UngeheuerLich · Sep 17, 2008

lukelightning said:
I might consider counting the ballista in your "xp budget" if you went around adventuring with one and used it in an encounter; either adding in extra monsters or taking away a small amount of XP used.

I'm not 100% sure I'd do this, but if it seems that the ballista might be too powerful this would be a way to balance it out.

It could be considered a "trap" or "hazard" on the players side... for what it is worth...
a fear/knockdown effect seems comparable to some traps...

Curt Roulston · Feb 2, 2018

I found this.

https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Advanced_Heavy_Ballista_(3.5e_Equipment)

Sorry if that doesn't come up as a hyper link. It's 3.5 edition but it says that the damage of a small ballista is 4d8 and a medium ballista is 6d8.

Reloading an advanced heavy ballista requires two full-round actions. Most keep a crew of three on hand, one to fire and two to reload so as to fire once every round. Having more than 3 crew lessens the time spend between them. For example a crew of five would spend a standard action (to fire) and can use one move action from each remaining crew to load the bolt.

Sorry to the DM s out there. I am planning a d&d based comic and want a troll to fire a ballista as its main weapon. Being two sizes larger than the ballista means it can be reloaded as a full round action by one large sized creature. Just been doing the research and found this thread.