Is it possible to use Apport Object offensively?
Like, could I borrow an alchemist time bomb and transport it to a person's pocket?
Could I send an anvil 30' above somebody's head to cause falling damage on them?
Yes... it appears you could use it to get the Prankster acheivement by placing a live grenade in someone's pocket... it also appears that you are able to drop ACME anvils on wily coyotes.
Yes... it appears you could use it to get the Prankster acheivement by placing a live grenade in someone's pocket... it also appears that you are able to drop ACME anvils on wily coyotes.
Yes!
I've thought of similar shenanigans with the Trade Items spell, but Apport Object is probably better for this sort of thing.
The 1 pound and 1 cubic foot limit will restrict you to only tiny anvils.
From the spell description: "You can place the object in the open or inside a container, a pocket, or even someone’s hand. If there isn’t room in the space you select (either because the space chosen is too small or because there is already something else there), or if the person doesn’t want or isn’t expecting the object in his hands, ___it appears on the ground within the target’s square instead___. You can transport the object to an elevation above the floor as long as the destination is within the spell’s total distance limit."
So no putting bombs in the bad guys pockets
The spell [Apport Object] specifically states that "a pocket" is a valid destination.
The only refusal possible is if you try put it directly into their hands. The target is not said to be able to refuse it in their pocket, so they cannot refuse you from putting it in their pocket.
If the pocket is unoccupied, and the bomb fits in the pocket... then there it is... whether they want a bomb in their pocket, or not.
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Personally, I would not allow this to work. Otherwise, teleporting Scarabs of Death and other Cursed Items into the pocket of the corrupt mayor becomes an I Win! button that will get pushed in every encounter for the rest of the campaign.
Likewise, you wouldn't want DMs doing this to PCs either.
Personally, I would not allow this to work. Otherwise, teleporting Scarabs of Death and other Cursed Items into the pocket of the corrupt mayor becomes an I Win! button that will get pushed in every encounter for the rest of the campaign.
Remember that the caster must have the object in their possession to send it out. Not easy to do with cursed objects.
Remember that the caster must have the object in their possession to send it out. Not easy to do with cursed objects.Personally, I would not allow this to work. Otherwise, teleporting Scarabs of Death and other Cursed Items into the pocket of the corrupt mayor becomes an I Win! button that will get pushed in every encounter for the rest of the campaign.
Yep, and Beguiling Gift can do the same thing as "Apport Object Attack", but the target at least gets a Saving Throw vs. Beguiling Gift. And with Beguiling Gift you have to be right next to the target, so there's a lot of risk as a caster getting that close.
Apport Object Attack is essentially a Close Range 25ft + 5ft/2 level Beguiling Gift, and more importantly, with No Save.
For a 2nd level spell, that's insanely powerful, and potentially game-breaking.
Because if you're allowed to bypass the "unwilling" rider in the Apport Object spell description because of the "pocket loophole", then I'm going to abuse that with Needful Doll-straight-into-your-possession shenanigans.
I could see a homebrew version of this Apport Object Attack as a 3rd level spell that HAS a Will Save, or if you want to keep it as a No Save, then I think 7th level spell or higher would be appropriate.
How are you not already the victim of the Needful Doll before you try to pawn it off on an enemy? Isn't that precisely the kind of action that the doll would punish you for?
When a humanoid creature picks up this ugly old doll, he triggers a horrible curse. Thereafter, the cursed doll considers that creature its owner. If the owner leaves the doll, it appears next to him the next time he sleeps.
The doll is vindictive. If the owner repeatedly tries to get rid of it or leaves it behind at home, it torments him with terrible nightmares in which everyone he trusts abandons him. If the owner destroys the doll, he has disturbing nightmares in which people he trusts murder him in gruesome ways. If the owner keeps the doll in a backpack or other closed container for much of the day, he has nightmares in which he slowly suffocates in a dark, cramped place.
The nightmares occur the next time the owner sleeps. This functions as per nightmare (DC 22); the doll is considered to have firsthand knowledge of the owner (or familiar knowledge if the owner has owned the doll for more than a week) and to have a body part. Regardless of how the owner abandons or destroys the doll, it returns the next night in the same condition as when the owner first found it. Using break enchantment or remove curse on the doll makes it unable to return for 1d4+1 days, though at that point, it returns as usual.
The doll is quick to forgive, however. If the owner treats it well for a day, carrying it openly and maintaining physical contact, the nightmares fade away until the doll feels that it has been mistreated again. The only certain way to get rid of or destroy the doll (short of miracle or wish) is to find someone who accepts it as a gift. If the owner dies, the curse is lifted, and the doll patiently waits until a new owner finds it, though if the previous owner returns from the dead before that time, the doll returns to his side.
Step 1: Teleport Needful Doll to pocket of victim
Step 2: Victim picks up the doll from his pocket, triggering the curse and transfer of ownership
Step 3: Profit
My call as a GM: someone who takes the doll out of their pouch is not "accepting it as a gift" and it remains attached to you. Now, if a/your GM interprets this cursed item differently then it could make an ugly combo with this spell, sure.
Well that's kinda my point I guess. I wouldn't allow this to work. If we're bypassing the "unwilling" rule in Apport Object due to an "into-the-pocket-loophole", then that means the target is willingly accepting the item into his pocket. And I'm telling you that IF we're bypassing this "unwilling" rule, then I'm going to abuse that with Needful Doll and Scarab of Death shenanigans.
And even if you DID allow it to work, I'd say Apport Object Attack should have a Will Save and should probably be a 3rd level spell (or maybe even a 4th level spell). If you're going to do this with No Save, then that's 7th+ level spell territory.
Honestly, this little gem of a trick is something that should probably be used [against the party] very carefully... it could easily be seen as/lead to "rocks fall and the party dies" type of situations.
But seriously, there aren't THAT many people out there playing with cursed items... how many Hoaxer Bards have you ever seen in actual play? Who else routinely crafts cursed items for $#!+$ and giggles? How many Alchemists actually play with timebombs?
Sure, I suppose it IS possible to weaponize this in a game-breaking way, but I just don't see it. Meh. Even if you allow a save for not wanting the grenade in your pocket, it still appears in your square... a grenade at your feet and a grenade in your pocket both equally kill you... just one is way more funny than the other.
Honestly, this little gem of a trick is something that should probably be used [against the party] very carefully... it could easily be seen as/lead to "rocks fall and the party dies" type of situations.
But seriously, there aren't THAT many people out there playing with cursed items... how many Hoaxer Bards have you ever seen in actual play? Who else routinely crafts cursed items for $#!+$ and giggles? How many Alchemists actually play with timebombs?
Sure, I suppose it IS possible to weaponize this in a game-breaking way, but I just don't see it. Meh.
Last campaign, I DM'ed an encounter with a Coven of Witches who tricked the party into getting 1/7th of a Ring Gate.
The party killed a Gravewalker Witch who had taken over a significant portion of Elven Forest with Desecrate spells and was resurrecting the inhabitants into her own personal zombie army with Animate Dead. This Witch belonged to a Coven of 7 Witches, and the PC's mistook the Ring Gate for a necklace/choker, and they looted it off of the dead witch who was wearing this Ring Gate as if it were a necklace. All the members of this Coven wear similar necklaces, and they're basically a "killswitch" to let the other coven members know that one of their sisters had fallen, and allow them to mete out vengeance upon whomever slays one of their sisters.
Once the party took the Ring Gate off of the dead Witch, they put the Ring Gate in their loot pile in their portable Permanent Mage's Magnificient Mansion that they re-purposed as a princely-luxurious "travel-ready" home-away-from home. The PC's looted this Permanent Mage's Mansion off of a Votavi Prince, which was a Votavi Artifact that was created specifically for this prince's Nindel'jzai , and after the PC's killed the prince, the mansion became under their control about an hour later. The "Mansion" was basically a hockey puck-shaped object that they could place on any flat surface large enough for a door to appear, and then they could walk through it and the hockey puck would vanish and become invisible, allowing for a portable hidden mansion wherever they wanted-- it even works if you place it on tree trunks, it just has to be wide enough for a door to appear.
Anywho, a couple of sessions later after they killed this Witch and looted her necklace, the other Witches were alerted and it took them a couple of days but the witches finally met at their rendezvous point and they discussed what to do next. They decided to attack the party's NPC's who were living in this portable mansion (they were unsure of who actually killed their sister at this point), because the PC's weren't actually there at the time. They casted Gaseous Form on a Cryohydra and then sent the Cryohydra through the Ring Gate into the PC's mansion, and then the Cryohydra became solid form again and began attacking while holding the Ring Gate with its left claw.
A few moments later, the PC's arrived back home and the mansion had been completely trashed like a cyclone had hit it, and 4 of their NPC allies were dead, and the rest were doing their best to fight off the Cryohydra + 6 witches who were casting through the Ring Gate. The PC's entered the fray and the coven of Witches were attacking through the Ring Gate with Enervations, Beguiling Gifts as a Spell Hex and Split Hex, and started handing the PCs Scarabs of Death, Necklaces of Strangulation, Flask of Curses, and Dust of Sneezing and Choking, and the PC's couldn't destroy the Ring Gate until they got it out of the Cryohydra's grasp. The PC's didn't have anyone who could Sunder, so they ended up doing Called Shots on the Cryohydra's arm until he dropped it, and then they threw the Ring Gate into a Bag of Holding to make all the nonsense stop. It was quite a chaotic fight to say the least. The Scarab of Death killed one of their NPC's and then got loose in the mansion, so tracking that little bugger down was a battle in itself.
I know this "1/7th of a Ring Gate" item was a homebrew item, but this entire encounter would've been perfectly PFS legal if it was only 1/2 of a pair of legitimate Ring Gates and not happening in a Permanent Mage's Magnificent Mansion (another homebrew item). This took some serious DM trickery to get this Ring Gate Necklace into their possession, and there was even talk amongst the PC's to destroy the necklace because via Detect Magic, it gave a strong aura of Necromancy and Conjuration schools and I described the engravings on the necklace as "unmistakably evil" with ritualistic bloodletting and the raising and glorification of undead (and I didn't influence that conversation with any suggestions to keep it or destroy it, they ended up keeping it). The necklace did some other things as well, so that's why it gave off a Necromancy aura.
Just imagine if I were able to use Apport Object to teleport a Ring Gate into someone's backpack and do all of this without making Will Saves or without them knowing. Or if the PC's were allowed to do this scenario vs. BBEG's.