I am currently running the starter quest and we are near the end, we’re in the mine.
Currently the party is fighting the flaming skull and his Zombie minions.
The barbarian in the group has decided he wants to try and lasso the flaming skull with silk rope. Can’t fault the creativity.
As the session had been running for a while I wrapped it up as I don’t know how to go about this. Would it be a role to hit ranged attack situation, someone suggested animal handling check, I am at a loss.
My first thought as to the mechanics of what to roll is to roll an attack roll for an unarmed strike (it's not doing damage) and then a strength check to grapple the flameskull. Flameskull rolls its own strength check. If flameskull's number meets or exceeds the barb's number, he's not grappled. Give the rope HP and roll for damage from the flameskull's flames. ONce the rope is at 0 it falls away and the flameskull isn't grappled. If the grapple fails, roll a d20. Below a 10, the rope is on fire. Above a 10 it's not.
That's just my .02. We bypassed most of the mine when we played.(Went left instead of right a couple times and basically went straight to the boss chamber.)
High 5 your barbarian for creative thinking - that flame skull can be the end of many a party.
I’d take a look at the net and base a lasso off that, but probably switch the restrained condition for grappled and increase the range to 15/25. I’d also require an action to make a lasso out of the rope.
Depending on how harsh you want to be, you could impose disadvantage for the tiny size of flameskull.
I like cosplaywrite’s idea of damage over time to the rope too.
The barbarian in the group has decided he wants to try and lasso the flaming skull with silk rope. Can’t fault the creativity.
So I'm going to be the mean DM and take a bit of a counterpoint.
First, congrats to the barbarian for thinking "out of the box", consider giving the player an inspiration point.
Next, lassoin'g a flame skull doesn't really have any effect, aside from maybe pulling it towards you. I'd roll a normal ranged hit roll, then maybe allow a grapple check. That takes the character's action, but doesn't really do much to the skull since it can simply cast (most likely a fireball at the barbarian). If it's a non-magical rope, I would also just roll a d4 or something (or make it narratively important) and have the rope disintegrate after that many rounds.
I'm also assuming that the barbarian is doing this so that they can get the Flameskull in range for a melee attack. If so, are they one-hand pulling the rope? otherwise they'll need to equip a melee weapon at the end as well. I don't want to fault the barbarian for creativity, but don't also want to reward something that's ultimately not likely to have an effect -- ie, let's put a bunch of trip-wires across this hall so we can detect ghosts (as an example).
The end boss (assuming that's the end, and you don't have a spider+friends about to join in) can be tough, use it to establish how dangerous your world is, or is not. my $.02 and good luck!
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
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Hello
I am currently running the starter quest and we are near the end, we’re in the mine.
Currently the party is fighting the flaming skull and his Zombie minions.
The barbarian in the group has decided he wants to try and lasso the flaming skull with silk rope. Can’t fault the creativity.
As the session had been running for a while I wrapped it up as I don’t know how to go about this. Would it be a role to hit ranged attack situation, someone suggested animal handling check, I am at a loss.
Please help !
My first thought as to the mechanics of what to roll is to roll an attack roll for an unarmed strike (it's not doing damage) and then a strength check to grapple the flameskull. Flameskull rolls its own strength check. If flameskull's number meets or exceeds the barb's number, he's not grappled. Give the rope HP and roll for damage from the flameskull's flames. ONce the rope is at 0 it falls away and the flameskull isn't grappled. If the grapple fails, roll a d20. Below a 10, the rope is on fire. Above a 10 it's not.
That's just my .02. We bypassed most of the mine when we played.(Went left instead of right a couple times and basically went straight to the boss chamber.)
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High 5 your barbarian for creative thinking - that flame skull can be the end of many a party.
I’d take a look at the net and base a lasso off that, but probably switch the restrained condition for grappled and increase the range to 15/25. I’d also require an action to make a lasso out of the rope.
Depending on how harsh you want to be, you could impose disadvantage for the tiny size of flameskull.
I like cosplaywrite’s idea of damage over time to the rope too.
So I'm going to be the mean DM and take a bit of a counterpoint.
First, congrats to the barbarian for thinking "out of the box", consider giving the player an inspiration point.
Next, lassoin'g a flame skull doesn't really have any effect, aside from maybe pulling it towards you. I'd roll a normal ranged hit roll, then maybe allow a grapple check. That takes the character's action, but doesn't really do much to the skull since it can simply cast (most likely a fireball at the barbarian). If it's a non-magical rope, I would also just roll a d4 or something (or make it narratively important) and have the rope disintegrate after that many rounds.
I'm also assuming that the barbarian is doing this so that they can get the Flameskull in range for a melee attack. If so, are they one-hand pulling the rope? otherwise they'll need to equip a melee weapon at the end as well. I don't want to fault the barbarian for creativity, but don't also want to reward something that's ultimately not likely to have an effect -- ie, let's put a bunch of trip-wires across this hall so we can detect ghosts (as an example).
The end boss (assuming that's the end, and you don't have a spider+friends about to join in) can be tough, use it to establish how dangerous your world is, or is not. my $.02 and good luck!
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"