What are some other items like nets and bolas that serve a purpose such as tripping, entangling, sickening, dazzling, blinding, deafening, shakening basically all the combat maneuvers and in particular dirty tricks.
What are some weapons that have a primary purpose other than doing damage?
What are some items other than alchemist's fire, acid, smoke sticks - basically things that may or may not be in the core books RAW?
Looking for ideas to make each encounter memorable and having a group of monsters / NPCs use unconventional weapons / items / tactics is what I'm looking for.
|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
You could have a gang of <insert profession here> that uses the rough and ready trait. You could even expand on it and envision the group using trade items as alchemist items.
For example.
Have a gang who call themselves the scribblers. They all have profession scribe and via the rough and ready trait they use quills as darts, ink vials as alchemist fires (but they just blind you instead of setting you on fire), and sheafs of paper as keen short swords (what with the paper cuts and all) and clubs.
Or
The gang of bakers who refer to themselves as the crumbles. They fight with rolling pins as clubs, bags of dough as tanglefoot bags, and baking peels as blunt polearms.
etc.
Crossbow bolts or arrows inscribed with Explosive and/or Incendiary Runes. It's a horrifying idea to suddenly have the area around you exploding.
|
2 people marked this as a favorite.
|
LordKailas wrote: The gang of bakers who refer to themselves as the crumbles. They fight with rolling pins as clubs, bags of dough as tanglefoot bags, and baking peels as blunt polearms. They bake an army of Gingerbread Men. As they swarm out of the ovens, they urge them on, "Run! Run! as fast as you can!
They bake bread golems that get sacrificed to religious groups every week. The Bread Golems have blood that is made from wine....
I recall there is a variety of Orc that has Scent. Maybe a combat unit full of them also has Blind Fighting. One of them has an Eversmoking Bottle.
The evil wizard casts Web on the Party. His Cohort is a Grappler...
You could have a spellcaster that has control over Swarms and soldiers in Swarmsuits.
Zarius wrote: Crossbow bolts or arrows inscribed with Explosive and/or Incendiary Runes. It's a horrifying idea to suddenly have the area around you exploding. There are a couple of sketchy rule interprations needed for this to work. I would be very cautious before implementing this as a GM, and as a player I would not expect my GM to allow it.
I'm using Roll20, I have a Pro subscription, and I have an encounter with 12 kobolds that always move in packs of 3. They have the following attack macros made on their sheets already:
Throw Net (Entangled)
Throw Flask of Acid (Damage)
Throw Alchemist's Fire (Damage, potentially on fire)
Throw Sand in Eyes (Blinded)
Poke Eyes with Two Fingers (Blinded)
Boxing the Ears (Deafened)
Groin Kick (Sickened)
Screech (Shakened)
Bag of Rotting Offal (Sickened)
Trip
Disarm
I'm looking for more dirty tricks or offensive combat maneuvers I can use in other encounters. In one encounter I have duergar that throw bolas then move into melee to attack. I've been thinking up some kind of swordbreaker / parry knife weapon for sundering and disarming.
Any other ideas like this anyone has would be greatly appreciated.
Slaver's crossbows, tangleshot arrows, caltrops (poison optional) (possibly prepositioned), bear traps.
I use Mites, often. These creatures have Scent, 120' Darkvision AND low-light vision. They're also Small with a Climb speed of 20. Due to low Strength they only have a Climb of +7, but taking a 10 with their Climb speed they can move along natural stone walls (Climb DC 15) with no problem. Said walls are described as having "... tiny holes and hidden alcoves..." Finally these creatures have a racial bonus to Sleight of Hand as well as Prestidigitation at will and Vermin Empathy.
With all of this in mind I try to take advantage of what mites HAVE instead of what they lack. They use Swarmsuits and Prestidigitation alongside their Vermin Empathy to urge Swarms to target specific areas of the map; Brewed Reek in hit-and-run type attacks to scent-mark opponents; high Stealth and Sleight of Hand to remove alchemical weapons, potions or scrolls from PCs.
Also, I take inspiration from the vermin they keep. The obvious thing to harvest is poison, but what about: the glands of fire beetles to make flash bombs that Dazzle opponents; Leopard Slug slime like potions of Spider Climb; nets made of Giant Spider webs (treat as monster ability Web).
After about level 1 or 2 mites tend to lose some of their pep. However a while ago Paizo made a monster splatbook that gave updates on Duergar, Kobolds and so on. This included ways to update these creatures with Class Levels to make them more relevant at higher level, and as well suggested unique equipment thematic to the stock standard of the race.
I don't know if they did the same for mites in other splatbooks, but I've used some of my own, giving them leather or studded leather armor or shields made out of vermin chitin. Helmets outfitted with parts of centipedes' endoskeletons so they can mimic the "hissing" sound the creatures make. Giving them "climbing claws" made from the tiny hooks on many vermins' bodies or extremities to grant +2 on Climb checks.
Lastly, never underestimate the power of harmless bugs collected into HUGE swarms. Like imagine those gnats, y'know, that seem to swarm around your face and head when you're out walking in the summertime? Multiply that by about 10,000 and then have the mites collect all of these in a big gourd. Now imagine they whip it at the party: I ruled it not as a Swarm but rather as a Fog Cloud spell going off in the midst of the PCs.
Fun times...
Oh and one more mean trick to play on PCs. Take a low level arcane caster and put them in a dungeon for a long time ahead of the PCs. Now give said caster the Arcane Lock spell and the Open/Close cantrip. Finally have the caster get spotted by the PCs and play cat-and-mouse while they go through the dungeon.
Suddenly the caster, while moving, is opening and closing a bunch of locked portals only they can double back through with any ease. Add Small or Tiny sized spaces within the walls, Small sized minions of the caster with flasks of oil, and the Ignite cantrip and you've got yourself a fun barbeque!
But you wanted more unique weapon type stuff or Dirty Trick fodder. Well, using Stealth, Sleight of Hand and finish with alchemical glue to "peace knot" a PC's weapon on their body, that's always fun. You can do the obligatory "marbles on the floor" trick for a Trip attempt. Use alchemical grease on stairs; employ shackles for Entangled or Grapple attempts; kick to the back of the knee Dirty Trick for Trip; bag o' flour for Blinded for a round unless a Move action is taken (whipped cream pie to the face would work here too); Stingchucks force a DC 11 Fort save or Nauseated for 1d3 rounds; use Blocking weapons like tonfas or manpoles to fight defensively; smoke bullets or smokesticks to control the battlefield - bonus points if you add something alchemical to the smoke to cause irritation which in turn prompts Fort saves or Sickened while inside the smoke or for 1 round after.
Let them trigger a tripwire in the middle of a long hallway to activate a mixed floor of caltrops and marbles. Falling face first onto caltrops is just awful. Making them rusted (disease 1), adding grease, putting filth on them (disease 2) and poisoned forces two reflex saves (or a high one) to avoid falling and taking minor damage and three fort saves. Of course they can just move slowly and carefully... While you pepper them with arrows.
I had an idea a few days ago for a cool weapon, a spear that breaks at the shaft in two places. It can be a spear, a long staff and a dagger, or a short staff and another short staff but dealing slashing or piercing damage. The idea is that with piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning all in one weapon and two handed with reach, single handed, dual wielding, or double weapon fighting style being changed around as a swift action (full round, quick draw reduces to standard, custom feat with this weapon reduces to move, both reduces to swift), you can flow so smoothly from style to style as to leave a foe flat-footed from the unexpected barrage. It's a free feint action on one of your attacks when you use a full attack action, once per target. If they see you do it, they get a bonus against it, since it's less surprising. Great for rogues, I call it the Gnomish Compensator.
I've always had good luck with throwing axes and the Sliding Axe Throw feat for opening volleys or tripping melee combatants for allies. Another fun tactic involves the Equipment Trick feat and Lanterns, using the light to blind enemies quickly.
The "favorite" of my players is when enemies use Fragile weapons, typically daggers, and the feat that lets you break them for bleed damage.
Java Man wrote: Zarius wrote: Crossbow bolts or arrows inscribed with Explosive and/or Incendiary Runes. It's a horrifying idea to suddenly have the area around you exploding. There are a couple of sketchy rule interprations needed for this to work. I would be very cautious before implementing this as a GM, and as a player I would not expect my GM to allow it. Arrows and bolts can bear writing, which is the only requirement of the spell... And breaking the bolt would be just as bad as trying to Erase it, as far as setting it off is concerned. I.e., you've failed to erase it and it goes off.
Thanks for all the amazing ideas guys! I'm going to take all your suggestions and work from there!
I really appreciate everyone's input. Something I found in my quest for unique or odd tactics is the weapon creation rules:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment/weapons/#TOC-Creating-New-Weapons
Thanks again guys you all rock!
Yes, I LOVE that section of the weapons page. Our game is running a couple of items made with that.
|
