Unexpectedly Useful Items

[Steverooo]

The One-gallon Iron Pot

My character, from first level on, carried a one-gallon iron pot in his backpack... Water in the wild is usually not nice and fresh and clean... it must be purified before use! With bacteria, viruses, and protozoa (biological contaminants), the best way to kill them is by making a fire and boiling the water for ten minutes, or more. Of course, Purify Food & Drink works well, too!

The pot can also be used for cooking, brewing up a mean stew, some porridge, or whatever. Making coffee or tea for breakfast, etc. These uses are more "background" than adventuring-useful, however, as most GMs seem to treat all water as fresh...

 

[Steverooo]

And now... a word on ropes!

I agree that rope is a necessity. Apparently, however, I am alone, in this thread, in preferring the lighter silk rope to the heavier, bulkier hemp rope, which also gives PCs a +2 Circumstance Bonus on Rope Use rolls.

Besides using a tied-off rope or rope & grapnel to climb things, a short length of rope can be used to help you climb a tree, pillar, or other such object. You pass the rope behind the tree/pillar, hold an end in each hand, lean back, and "walk up" it, then stop, brace both feet, and tug the rope upwards. Repeat as necessary.

Note that, in 3.5e, how far you can throw a rope & grapnel (and whether or not you hit or miss) is determined by your Rope Use skill, which most people never take! Having 5+ Ranks in it can also give you a +2 Circumstance Bonus to Climb checks involving rope.

Since weight is always a problem for my PC, I prefer the lighter silk rope. It's worth the cost, to me.

 

[Dextolen]

A sack of flour.

It can be used as a track trap to detect the passage of critters by spreading it on the floor, it can used like bread crumbs to mark a path (or escape route) through a dungeon or wilderness, it can be used to help detect invisible things, it can be used as a disguise against low Wis monsters ("I'm a ghooooooooossssst! Whooooooooooo!"), and it can be used to make yummy biscuits.

Mmmmmm...biscuits....

Also, isn't flour dust highly flammable when suspended in air?

 

[Steverooo]

And now, a word about... Tripwires & Alarms!

A bell may be worthwhile in a dungeon (maybe!), but in the wilderness, it is more of a liability than an asset! It will attract monsters to your camp, not warn you of them!

Y'see, in the great out-of-doors, THE WIND BLOWS! And every time that the wind blows, the bell will ring (or at least tinkle). An alarm that is always going off is little to no use. Here are several more useful alarms and tripwires...

The first is a series of clapper-less bells tied along a piece of wire, with both the wire and the bells darkened. The bells cannot ring unless the tripwire is hit hard enough to make them sway enough to bang into each other, as they have no clappers. Thus, light breezes won't set them off, but a storm still will. By stringing bells made from different metals along three or four sides of a camp, when the ringing starts, the PCs can determine which direction possible opponents are coming from.

A quieter idea is to take several screw-eyes and screw them into trees around camp, then use a length of snare wire strung through them... By affixing two pieces in a hemisphere about the PC, and then running the free ends back to fingers/toes, the hemisphere something blundered into can be determined by whether the left or right finger/toe received the tug.

Of course, PCs need not be attached to tripwires, at all. They can be hidden with a Hide roll, the DC to Spot them being equal to the number rolled to Hide them. A failed Reflex save then results in a fall for 1D6 damage (unless near a cliff, thorn bush, etc.)! If the tripwire also has bells on it, it will also alert anyone nearby that something is afoot!

Even if an impromptu alarm is needed, deep in the wilderness, and no bells are available, one can usually be rigged easily enough from common materials at hand... Wire or string, bootlaces, a piece of leather from a dead animal, cut circularly with a pointed knife, all will produce tripwires. For noisemakers, coins hung about an inch of so apart (depending upon size), pierced by a nail to produce a hanging hole, will suffice. Again, various metals can be used for different sounds. Be sure to cover or camouflage the bright and shiny ones (or use dirty, older ones) so that glints of sunlight don't give them away, though! If your campaign is non-standard, and tin cans exist in your world, these can easily be used, as well. Once again, a nail (or knife) comes in handy for punching some hanging holes in them. Many other items of metal work might likewise be pressed into service. Be creative!

 

[Steverooo]

Roll-Your-Own Items:

Once past second level, or so, and you have MW weapons & armour, and the common adventuring items that you need, it is time to begin rolling your own...

I've mentioned several of these, in previous posts: The Longknife, which is treated as a shortsword, when wielded in0hand, but can also be thrown as a dagger. Another was the combination Hammer-backed handaxe and prybar combination... Another one my PCs use, a lot, is a collapsible grapnel which weighs only 1#, and is much less bulky than the usual type. Others include the ringsaws, survival necklace, tinderbox, weapons such as the claws and Manriki-gusari (basically a 10' cable with large snap-swivels on both ends), etc.

Combining all these functions decreases weight and bulk, usually without increasing price. Even if the GM requires an NPC Engineer &/or Craftsman, the savings in weight is worth it, to me.

The Longknife gives me better damage, in hand, still with the ability to throw, if needed, and with less weight than a MW Shortsword & Dagger. The Handaxe combines a MW handaxe, throwing axe, hammer, and a prybar giving +4 on STR rolls to open doors and things, without all the price and weight. The collapsible grapnel reduces personal irritation, for me, as I look at the PHB price/weight on the original (I KNOW better)! It's also "neat"! The other weapons were worked out with the GM, to better fit my style, and the tinderbox and other small items are more flavor & set dressing, than anything else (although they do help eat up some spare cash)!

Need to catch a snake (or rust monster)? The loop of rope at the end of a 10' pole may work okay, but a specially-made snake-pole, with the rope attached so that it can be pulled closed, is a better version. Many obstacles can be easily overcome with the right equipment.

When my PC needs to climb, or stop and rest, it is now easier for him... He has had a Climber's Kit worked in as a part of his armor, since second level. The price was negligible, and the benefits of the +2 Circumstance Bonus to Climb checks is on-going.

What made-to-order custom items does your PC need made?

 

[Steverooo]

Pepper-Sprayer:

Copyright 1990-2005 by SteveC.

Here's another custom item... Take a short, wooden tube. Have leather end-caps made for both ends, and make sure the whole deal is oiled or shellacked, for waterproofness... Now, get the hottest peppers available in the local area (the ones with the most Scoville Heat Units, or SHUs, for short). Dry these well, and then grind them into a fine powder. Put the powder in the tubes, and store them away for when you need'em!

When being tracked by a Slithering Tracker, or sniffed out by a Bloodhound, a little pepper along your path will disable their Scent-tracking, for a while. Better yet, remove the cap from one end, place it in your mouth, and blow the cap off the other end, blasting a cone of hot pepper out into the face of the Troll sniffing along after you. Coughing, sneezing, choking, and tearing generally follow.

These also have application to invisible opponents, showing them up, if you can hit them, and causing an area of Coughing, sneezing, choking, and tearing, if they enter the cone before the "dust" settles. Choking, coughing, & sneezing are DC:10 to Listen for, teardrops can be seen, and the pepper-powder, itself, might show up the invisibles, if they are within the cone.

Pepper-blowers are cheap, easy, and smart. You can also make hand-grenades by replacing the end-capped tubes with eggshells. Carefully take off the narrow end, remove the egg, wash the inside of the shell, and allow to dry, thoroughly. Then, fill with pepper, and seal with sealing wax. Carry them in a well-padded, hard-sided beltpouch, and use them as any other grenade-like missile. When they hit, they'll release pepper all over, in a spherical region of about 10' diameter (good enough to dazzle one Large opponent).

 

[Steverooo]

Torch Brackets?

Okay, so this one isn't useful to everyone... just the shield-using Fighter-types who adventure in the dark...

Instead of trying to hold a weapon & shield/two-handed weapon AND a torch or lantern, try one of these tricks. If you prefer torches, mount a torch bracket (you know, those doo-hickeys that hold a torch angelled away from a wall) on the front of your shield. Simply stick the torch down inside the bracket, light it, and it will work as well there as on a castle wall! At higher levels, you can acquire an Everburning Torch.

If you prefer lanterns, you'll need a well-armored one, capable of surviving the bashing that a shield receives... Mount it between three shield spikes, and wire it down.

Torches can be snuffed, or blown out (you could get a globe to protect them from that). Lanterns can be broken (Glassteel?). Linkboys are also available, if you like (or first-level Fighters). The torch bracket idea also works for lightrods, too.

Speaking of which, lightrods are generally not worth the price... Torches and candles are much cheaper (and you can get a candle lantern for about one gold piece that will keep the wind out). There are only a few times when lightrods are preferable: Within the confines of an Anti-Magic Sphere (where Everburning Torches won't work), in areas where there are explosive gases which can be ignited by candles, lanterns, and torches, and when going on long trips through the underdark, where the weight of torches/oil will be too great. Most other times, torches, etc., are a better deal.

 

[KaosDevice]

Just as an aside my character's favor a shoulder pack over backpack. Ease of access don'tcha know.

 

[SpiderMonkey]

Back in 2e, one of my groups was strangely fascinated with crampons. No one knew what they were, and a couple of the players bought dozens of them because "well...you never know." If they couldn't readily identify what something was, it was instantly called a crampon, and the word damn near became their noun-equivalent of "Smurf" (for the morbidly curious, "capitulate" was their standard Smurf verb, as in "Please capitulate me that crampon." I'm still, to this day, not sure whether to snicker or seethe with impotent fury; trying to understand them when they were were asking you to do something was the very definition of frustration.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Think something like a K-bar. Solid construction, thick 6-10 inch blade. A hollow handle for matches and fishing string is nice but not totally necesary.

A hollow handle can actually be a liability. In combat, or for prying things up, or for digging - generally for most uses of a knife, the lack of strength inherent in a hollow grip makes the knife basically worthless. Go with a full tang, and buy a small box or bag to carry other things in.