So the party was fighting a huge underwater monster the other day and we were really taking a pounding from it's AoOp's and the fact that it had reach.
Normally one of my favorite tactics to mitigate reach is a smokestick, but that obviously wont work underwater. So I thought to myself, what would?
The answer of course lies with the humble squid, that can shoot out cloud of ink that provides basically the same benefit, and lasts the same amount of time.
So why not put a standard vial of ink to the same use? It costs 8gp in UE (a little less than half the price of the smokestick) and would only be able to provide this additional use underwater.
What do you guys think? Would you let a player get a 5ft radius cloud of ink that lasts a minute out of a single vial of ink? Or do you think we need to make up a whole new piece of equipment to fulfill this task?
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I think you should be able to do this. What you posted is reasonable, though you need to factor in water currents. Might be better to just make a special alchemical item that does it, though.
This is straying into the Homebrew territory, but yeah, I'd think ink would do what you want nicely.
By the rules no. You would need GM Fiat for this.
I give the idea full points for ingenuity and would probably allow it, but not in the crummy little clay vials that ink regularly comes in. It'd just come oozing out. A squeezable bladder would get the stuff roiling around enough to provide cover, I suppose.
Happily, ink is already expensive enough that we don't need to worry about the PCs getting 'too much' out of a super-cheap item.
Crummy little clay vials that you can crush in your gauntlet-ed hand or across your chest, thereby releasing all the ink at once, you mean?
Well, this may be adding too much 'real world' into my fantasy game, but...
As I recall, very few inks are water soluble. So it wouldn't spread out into a cloud like you are wanting. It would make little globular bubbles that would float up to the surface then spread out like a miniature oil slick. So I definitely wouldn't allow some random vial of oil to necessarily work. Just pulling a number out of ... somewhere. I would probably give a 1 in 6 chance that someone happened to have a water soluble ink.
Now if you had purposely purchased a water soluble ink (I probably would not make it more expensive, you would just have to ask around in some larger town) I still don't think a single vial would be enough to have much effect especially if just broken. That will get it in the water, but not necessarily moving very much.
A squid may be approximately the same amount but it is being expelled under pressure directly at the assailant and still doesn't last more than a few moments. If you used a somewhat large volume bladder like a wine skin and directed it, I can see it working fairly decently.
Even though the volume is more, I wouldn't necessarily charge more for it if you can work with a vendor. After all you don't need high quality materials, a shiny finish, fast drying, non-smear, non-blotting, etc...
You just want something cheap and dark with low viscosity. A little playing around by an apprentice or journeyman scrivner should be able to supply what you need.
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On the other hand...
It is a fantasy game and some people don't care about realism. If I was with one of those groups, I'd probably just say sure 1/2 area for twice the duration.
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But none of that is RAW. By RAW, I'd have to say no.
I understand RAW this is not covered, and some of you have suggested alternative rules. That's kind of what I'm looking for, what people think of the idea.
Oh and this..
SquidSPECIAL ABILITIES Ink Cloud (Ex) A squid can emit a 5-foot-radius cloud of ink once per minute as a free action while underwater. This cloud provides total concealment. The ink persists for 1 minute.
... Anyway, for a reality check I filled a sink with water and dripped ink into it from my fountain pen. The drops spread right out, and didn't try to float or clump up. ....
Like I said, I'm not sure. Modern inks are different they dry very fast because of the solvents used. Old inks dried very slow. So slow that is was common to used sand or some other grit to soak up some of it to make it dry a bit faster. I'm not real sure, but I think I remember reading that most of the old inks were hydro-carbon based. Meaning an oil that would spread on the surface.
I'm not certain. If one of my players (in a campaign that tried for high levels of 'realism') wanted to do that, I would probably research it. But I'm too lazy to do it at the moment. Plus my current group is not interested in that level of 'realism'.