Morning:
My search skills have been poor today.
Are there rules for balista bolts that are hollow, and could be filled with "fun stuff"
Rules for crosbow bolts would be welcome as well.
VR
RD
The nearest thing I'm aware of is a morningstar/holy water sprinkler.
As far as I know, there are no rules for it.
Basically the assumed manufacturing tech base really wouldn't allow it.
The shock of firing glass heads or hollow shafts at that tech level would probabl cause them to shatter/collapse before they even finished leaving the launcher. It wasn't until actually fairly recent history that they were able to get the hollow aluminum shafts to work with bows. Xbows are even more sudden accel than bows (shorter distance overwhich the force is applied).
Although come to think of it there are several different types of machines that recieved the same name of 'ballista.' It actually might work ok with a couple of the more obscure ones. hmm...
I would probably allow hollow shafts if you made them out of adamntine or mithral metals.
I would allow specially grown crystals to be used for the heads.
Not sure what house rules I would throw on those off the top of my head though.
Elves of Golarion has an arrow type for what your looking for.
Raining Arrow: This thick-shafted arrow contains a
reservoir of holy water and is designed to burst on impact,
hitting the target and splashing nearby creatures as if
you had thrown the vial. A raining arrow has a –2 penalty
on attack rolls due to its weight.
My ultimate goal is a glass headed balista bolt that would contain green slime or a mold type....
Any other ideas?
Probably the easiest way to get that would be a summoning spell that goes off wherever your projectile lands and/or is destroyed.
You can use the Shades version of Trap the Soul to trap any creature in any object, and make it reappear whenever said object is broken. That works with ammunition, but requires a 9th level spell.
Don't use the ballista to fire giant crossbow bolts. Instead, modify it so it fires earthenware jars full of something, such as your slimes (or make it so it can fire both!). The ancient Greeks used to fire jars full of poisonous snakes onto the decks of ships (and imaging all those barefoot sailors trying to avoid the snakes on deck) or jars full of oil that's lit on fire just before firing.
See this as an example: link
I've even read some examples of simply attaching a ceramic jar to a ballista bolt so it shatters on impact.
Much easier than hollowing a giant bolt.
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My ultimate goal is a glass headed balista bolt that would contain green slime or a mold type....
Any other ideas?
My only feedback is to let you know that you've apparently chosen the perfect avatar.
*Shivers* Razm frazm green slime...
@Bookrat
Here's a picture of the ceramic jars the Byzantines used to throw Greek fire.
@Bookrat
Here's a picture of the ceramic jars the Byzantines used to throw Greek fire.
That looks to be about the size of the object placed in the ballista in the picture I provided. The idea should work out perfectly.
If you didn't crank back the bow too far so the accel isn't too high, it would work. But it would reduce the range, be arching flight, and wouldn't be very accurate.
There is plenty of historic precedent for ballista hurling containers of stuff at enemies. As well as catapults, onagers and trebuchets. There are even examples of arrows. I'm not aware of any crossbow bolts, but that doesn't mean there weren't any.
I allow such things in my campaigns. In some cases the items might have a chance of breakage on firing.
There is a modified version of a Crossbow somewhere out there, that can be used to launch Holy water, oil or alchemists bombs. Sadly I don't remember the name of the weapon, but you could just use a large or huge version of that as the base for your mold-throwing-balista. Additionally, I would probably allow a player to load multiple alchemists fires or something into such a weapon for a slight to-hit-penalty.
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There is a modified version of a Crossbow somewhere out there, that can be used to launch Holy water, oil or alchemists bombs. Sadly I don't remember the name of the weapon, but you could just use a large or huge version of that as the base for your mold-throwing-balista. Additionally, I would probably allow a player to load multiple alchemists fires or something into such a weapon for a slight to-hit-penalty.
It's called a launching crossbow, and it's really, really terrible. As a siege weapon with a range increment that's better than 30, though, it might have some potential, though.