Say you want an army of longbowmen. Level 1 warriors are cheap. Say 3 gp each per month of service. We'll hire a thousand warriors, at 3000 gp.
Hmm. Equipping these guys is going to cost a lot, right?
Not so! For the same 75000 gp it would take to equip the army, we instead purchase a single +3 frost holy longbow for 72375 gp and have some left over. (replace frost with your favourite element at the time)
1. Your character fires the bow a bunch of times (full) and drops it in the adjacent space (free).
2. The next warrior picks up the bow (move), fires it (standard), and drops it in the adjacent space (free).
Repeat step 2.
In the space of six seconds, this one massively magical bow has been fired over 1000 times. Next round, they do the same with the bow ending up back in your character's hands.
I haven't seen this absurd bit of fun on the internet before, but I imagine it might have been thought of. In any case, I got a laugh. :D
Sure - you hire them cheap.
Then you gotta feed 'em, water 'em, clothe 'em, pay 'em, keep up morale, keep 'em healthy, HOUSE them ... yep, sure thing, easy as pie. :P
I am far too silly to consider such mundane things! The cleric can handle that. He probably cares about their wellbeing outside of being a medieval metalstorm. :P
I remember a friend and I joked about doing this once. Our characters were specialized in the same weapon, so we figured we could just pool our money together and buy a really great weapon, then just pass it back and forth as needed. Alas, our character concepts changed somewhat before play actually started, so we never got to try it out.
I am far too silly to consider such mundane things! The cleric can handle that. He probably cares about their wellbeing outside of being a medieval metalstorm. :P
Enjoys a particularly good belly laugh.
^_^
I like the way you think.
eviiiil!! *grins*
too bad it's too silly for my games.
HAH! Nice!
If someone tried that in my game...I'd let them get off one volley of arrows before the comet hit...
;)
....Or better yet, the guy who gets the bow last or one of the bowmen randomly takes it and runs away with it (or tries). A bow that valuable would set him up for life once he sells it. Unless theyre watched closely, surely the temptation will be there.
This is why I houserule that items can only be "handed off" or transferred in any way between characters only once per round. There just isn't time enough in a single round to play hot potato a bunch of times :)
If I were DMing that scenario, that bow would get fired twice before the end of the round, and the retaliatory volley from the enemy. Good luck with that :D
Definitely not in the spirit of the rules or indeed the game.
Thanks for point it out though.
Pun pun laughs at your feeble attempt at munchkinism while using buckets of snails to get a killion extra attacks.
Come to think of it: We better let this person disappear before the rules get changed because of this!
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Pun pun laughs at your feeble attempt at munchkinism while using buckets of snails to get a killion extra attacks.
Come to think of it: We better let this person disappear before the rules get changed because of this!
All right, I'll disappear him - you know my standard rates and where to deposit them.
1. Your character fires the bow a bunch of times (full) and drops it in the adjacent space (free).
2. The next warrior picks up the bow (move), fires it (standard), and drops it in the adjacent space (free).
Repeat step 2.
In the space of six seconds, this one massively magical bow has been fired over 1000 times. Next round, they do the same with the bow ending up back in your character's hands.
This reminds me of the self-named 'Peasant-based Linear Acceleration' I've read several months ago on the Internet (I cannot truly remember in which forum it was... maybe RPGNet); I've copy-pasted that theory on a text file because it was... pure genius !
My favorite trick is the peasant-based linear accelerator - you get a bunch of peasants to line up in adjacent squares, right, and then all but the first one delay their action to act after the peasant before them acts, and then the first one uses his turn's action to give something he's holding to the peasant next in line, who then uses his turn's action to give it to the next peasant, and so forth... and everyone gets one turn within a six-second round...If you can get, say, 1056 peasants lined up and cooperating, your object is now moving at a speed of 600 miles per hour. And yet, if the last peasant in the line throws it at someone, he doesn't deal any extra damage despite all that velocity! So unrealistic!
Seriously though, a force of pesants with some casters casting Flame Arrow and a bard inspiring can be a phenominal force.
Well the bard is a heck of a force multiplier all on his own. Even if you payed to equip them high level characters could employ several thousand 1st level warriors. A bard singing along weith each of them plinking arrows, suddenly that extra to hit and damage makes a HUGE difference. I wonder if this will come up in any upcoming kingmaker games.
One word: Skeletons. Problem solved.Sure - you hire them cheap.
Then you gotta feed 'em, water 'em, clothe 'em, pay 'em, keep up morale, keep 'em healthy, HOUSE them ... yep, sure thing, easy as pie. :P
Makes recruiting a snap too.
Makes recruiting a snap too.One word: Skeletons. Problem solved.Sure - you hire them cheap.
Then you gotta feed 'em, water 'em, clothe 'em, pay 'em, keep up morale, keep 'em healthy, HOUSE them ... yep, sure thing, easy as pie. :P
If you have enough clerics to control them all
lol, the idea is amusing. I would laugh for a little bit if a PC did this in my game. Then tell him, "Ok first guy fire the bow and passes, the second guy in line had a mean wedgie and spends the round trying to fix that. Oops."
WHY is a peasant being handed this not running off with it? (if that peasant took the Fleet feat, hes going to outrun the other peasants around him by 5 ft per round...lol, easy getaway unless the PC steps in, but even this distraction buys the bad guys army much needed charge time to gain ground on your peasant army).
He could live a very comfortable life with this in his hands once he finds someone to sell it (excluding the fact he might die or get mugged for it in the process...but thats life).
Or alternatively...a bad guy could put a spy easy into the army ranks who can use Teleport through some means. They get handed the bow and POOF, the army is down its magic bow and the bad guy gets a nice trinket in the process.
"Oh damn...where did that dude go?...what do we do now?...draw our knives and charge!....Oh my god!, they have armed knights and calvary!... (Sound of crunching bones, slicing meat, gurgling and silence)"
Cue massacre of biblical proportions.
How about this, an item also only gets 1 free action per turn...
So when the first NPC drops the bow, that uses its free action as well.
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ROFL. This reminds me of the villager railgun I saw in one post.
Basically, take a bunch of villagers (say, 1000) and put them in a straight line facing an enemy castle.
Then, you pick up a medium size stone and, if all of the villagers are acting on the same initiative (with this it isn't too bad), have them each pass it to the next villager (which is a move or free action. I forget).
In the span of 3 seconds (the move action only) the stone will have covered about two miles, and the resulting momentum rockets the stone into the castle. And, technically, they could all take that move action simultaneously, resulting in a pretty much infinite acceleration of the stone.
...and the last villager in the line throws the stone as an improvised weapon with a range increment of 10 feet. :P
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The bow is travelling way too fast, friction causes heat build up, the bow is magical so resists the damage but after about 5 uses the warriors are taking heat damage from the transfer. Committed to readied action your entire army gets a shot off but 7/8s of them are burned to a crisp.
Edit: Of course this makes the feeding and housing bit a lot less expensive ;)
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In Post #18:
This reminds me of the self-named 'Peasant-based Linear Acceleration' I've read several months ago on the Internet... THEN ...
In Post #30:
ROFL. This reminds me of the villager railgun I sawUp-thread, people ... read up-thread ...
Jeez, I feel like the thread-police tonight. If only Cheap Trick would write me a theme song.
R.
If it makes you feel any better, I did read the thread. I just didn't recognize the phrase "Peasant-based Linear Acceleration".
I love that people are starting to get into the physics of the situation, what with friction build up and "peasant rail-guns"... but oddly no one has pointed this out. A round is 6 seconds. An individual aiming, firing a bow, then passing it for the next guy to repeat the process... At most in 6 seconds it's possible 3 of these basic soldiers could do that. And that's if they're amazingly fast as thats only 2 seconds a piece.
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I love that people are starting to get into the physics of the situation, what with friction build up and "peasant rail-guns"... but oddly no one has pointed this out. A round is 6 seconds. An individual aiming, firing a bow, then passing it for the next guy to repeat the process... At most in 6 seconds it's possible 3 of these basic soldiers could do that. And that's if they're amazingly fast as thats only 2 seconds a piece.
The point being that each peasant gets a round of actions in that six seconds. There are no rules about the interaction of two characters actions in a round. Common sense, but that doesn't apply here. By the rules, each peasant could accomplish those actions on their turn, allowing the item to be passed around every single one of them in six seconds.
Haha, but you forget the oldest rule. The books are guidelines, DM word is law. Or you could let players do that sort of thing and just start making goblins have levels in glitterboy ninja juicer.
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I love that people are starting to get into the physics of the situation, what with friction build up and "peasant rail-guns"... but oddly no one has pointed this out. A round is 6 seconds. An individual aiming, firing a bow, then passing it for the next guy to repeat the process... At most in 6 seconds it's possible 3 of these basic soldiers could do that. And that's if they're amazingly fast as thats only 2 seconds a piece.
The fact that it is impossible is obvious on the surface so I felt no need to point it out.
I love that people are starting to get into the physics of the situation, what with friction build up and "peasant rail-guns"... but oddly no one has pointed this out. A round is 6 seconds. An individual aiming, firing a bow, then passing it for the next guy to repeat the process... At most in 6 seconds it's possible 3 of these basic soldiers could do that. And that's if they're amazingly fast as thats only 2 seconds a piece.The fact that it is impossible is obvious on the surface so I felt no need to point it out.
Still very amusing that the physics of these theoretical objects was being talked about but not the time. Of course I have a friend of mine who still gives me crap because a seagull fluttered in place for a moment during a session. :)
Expanding on this idea.
What do you get with 42,342 goblins, 1 round, 280.67 mile path, and 1 naked (dead) male halfling?
You get the energy equivalent of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima!
1 goblins can care 38 pounds and still have a light load (max standard weight of a male halfling, naked (dead), is 38 lbs)
1 goblin can in one turn do: Move action pick up NDH (naked dead halfling), standard action move 30', free action drop in square next to him. which move said NDH 35'
With 42,342 goblins you could move that NDH 280.67 miles or 451.7 Kilometers
Now let's just observe the NDH and not how it got from point A to point B.
It moved 451.7 kilometers in 6 seconds. Which comes out to 2,710,000 meters/second for it to get from point A to point B.
The NDH weighs 38lbs which is about 17.23 kilograms.
Kinetic energy = 1/2 * Mass * Velocity^2
KE = .5 * 17.23 * 2,710,000*2,710,000
KE = 63,269,421,500,000 Joules or 63 Tera Joules
The energy release in the Hiroshima explosion was aprox 63 TJ
(Given you can fit 80,000 small creatures into an area that is 2,000ft X 1,000 ft the 42,342 goblins can easily fit with plenty of gaps for them to move amongst each other instead of requiring the 280.67 mile line.)
So at the end of the chain of 42,342 goblins if the goblin at the end would bump the NDH into anything it would set off a blast equal to a nuclear explosion!
Be very afraid of 42,342 goblins if they have a single Naked Dead Halfling!
... or 63 Tera Joules
The energy release in the Hiroshima explosion was aprox 63 TJ
Now how many d6's is that? OK... OK... d8's.
Expanding on this idea.
What do you get with 42,342 goblins, 1 round, 280.67 mile path, and 1 naked (dead) male halfling?
You get the energy equivalent of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima!
1 goblins can care 38 pounds and still have a light load (max standard weight of a male halfling, naked (dead), is 38 lbs)
1 goblin can in one turn do: Move action pick up NDH (naked dead halfling), standard action move 30', free action drop in square next to him. which move said NDH 35'
With 42,342 goblins you could move that NDH 280.67 miles or 451.7 Kilometers
Now let's just observe the NDH and not how it got from point A to point B.
It moved 451.7 kilometers in 6 seconds. Which comes out to 2,710,000 meters/second for it to get from point A to point B.The NDH weighs 38lbs which is about 17.23 kilograms.
Kinetic energy = 1/2 * Mass * Velocity^2
KE = .5 * 17.23 * 2,710,000*2,710,000
KE = 63,269,421,500,000 Joules or 63 Tera JoulesThe energy release in the Hiroshima explosion was aprox 63 TJ
(Given you can fit 80,000 small creatures into an area that is 2,000ft X 1,000 ft the 42,342 goblins can easily fit with plenty of gaps for them to move amongst each other instead of requiring the 280.67 mile line.)
So at the end of the chain of 42,342 goblins if the goblin at the end would bump the NDH into anything it would set off a blast equal to a nuclear explosion!
Be very afraid of 42,342 goblins if they have a single Naked Dead Halfling!
Only problem with this ofcourse is it is a very short ranged weapon, and who exactly would sit there and watch the thousands of goblins line up in front of them 30ft apart? Some one is gonna start killing gobbos breaking the chain and ruining the naked dead halfing doom weapon.
Only problem with this ofcourse is it is a very short ranged weapon, and who exactly would sit there and watch the thousands of goblins line up in front of them 30ft apart? Some one is gonna start killing gobbos breaking the chain and ruining the naked dead halfing doom weapon.
Ok they do it in tunnels laid out secretly under a city with the last point being just out of the end of a tunnel and throw the NDH into a building.
Only problem with this ofcourse is it is a very short ranged weapon, and who exactly would sit there and watch the thousands of goblins line up in front of them 30ft apart? Some one is gonna start killing gobbos breaking the chain and ruining the naked dead halfing doom weapon.Ok they do it in tunnels laid out secretly under a city with the last point being just out of the end of a tunnel and throw the NDH into a building.
Now i am just picturing how many cave in's/accidental detonations would occur before they succeeded in the attack. People in the city to be attacked would be looking miles off as there were distant explosions where various NDH's struck the tunnel wall accidently causing violent explosions.
I love that people are starting to get into the physics of the situation, what with friction build up and "peasant rail-guns"... but oddly no one has pointed this out. A round is 6 seconds. An individual aiming, firing a bow, then passing it for the next guy to repeat the process... At most in 6 seconds it's possible 3 of these basic soldiers could do that. And that's if they're amazingly fast as thats only 2 seconds a piece.
The way I think of it is that all the characters act simultaneously, with the ones with the highest initiatives having an advantage of a split second. The (N)PCs do not stand in a line and each act on turn (Chaotic/evil creatures would merely act out of turn, or repeatedly if this were true) which makes the peasant army/goblin nuke impossible (though still quite amusing)