I am an inexperienced DM. Recently, in my first campaign (Forgotten realms world, homebrew) , my party decided to "think outside the box". They used ALL THE GOLD in the local black dragon hoard to buy MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS OF BALL BEARINGS, and the wizard and two sorcerers dumped all the ball bearings into hundreds of backpacks carried by the rest of my 14 player party (Yes that likely too much for a first timer DM but somebody gotta bear the weight of a large D&D club). They are planning to dump all their spell slots on enlarge and roll them down the big hill west of Waterdeep. And when they use half the spell slots, the wizard is gonna slow time, shoot the rest of the ball bearings out of a smokepowder cannon and them use enlarge on them. Thankfully, they were in the middle of getting the powdered iron necessary when I ended the session. Unfortunately, next session, The party is going to investigate rumors in Waterdeep to find a Lich, but they can't do that if Waterdeep is in ruins. How do I stop the slaughter and preserve the plot of my homebrew?
Unfortunately you've already missed some opportunities to stop this. Like where did they find millions of ball bearings for sale?
But I don't think this is going to be a impressive as they think it will be. What level are these (very many) characters? How are they going to slow time? How are they going to set cannons up on a hill outside of a major city without drawing very unwanted attention? Even with a lot of spellcasters, they can still only cast an concentrate on one spell at a time. So each round they each make a single bearing slightly bigger. Enlarge increases an object's size by double and eight times the weight. These ball bearings are going to grow to about the size of... a billiards ball.
You're definitely in over you head, and I'm sorry about that. But this isn't really adding up. And the rules, intelligent NPCs, and some physics might come to your aid.
First of all, your party is way too large, and your D&D club would probably be better off splitting into multiple games, probably three. Everyone would get more play time in their game, and likely have more fun.
Secondly, your players, or at least the most dominant ones, are a bunch of chaos muppets, and even if you defuse this scheme, you're going to keep having to deal with the same instincts. It's possible this is partly because of boredom from playing in such a large group -- you end up with a lot of downtime. For whatever cause, if players are trying to destroy large portions of the setting, it may well point to a problem they have with the game, and a discomfort with just talking to the GM or other players about it.
With that out of the way, this particular scheme is easy to defuse by looking at what the spell actually does. Enlarge doubles the size of the target. On a ball bearing, that's still not very large. It also works on a single target, and is a concentration spell, so as soon as a caster tries to enlarge another object, the first one shrinks. (That works only for this scheme. It doesn't solve the underlying problem.)
(Also, in future, when the players announce "we want to buy an absurd amount of Thing", you're allowed to say "you can't find anyone who has anything like as much as you're asking for". )
Another possible problem is suggested by the phrase "the plot of my game". Do the players have actual input in what they're doing? It's very easy, especially as a new GM, to push a story one has in mind on the players without getting their buy-in. This all could be pushback against a lack of agency. Now, you're new, your players are new, and the group's too big, so there's something to be said for the simple "here's the adventure I have planned" approach, but you and the players need to actively agree that that's how the game's gonna go.
I am an inexperienced DM. Recently, in my first campaign (Forgotten realms world, homebrew) , my party decided to "think outside the box". They used ALL THE GOLD in the local black dragon hoard to buy MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS OF BALL BEARINGS, and the wizard and two sorcerers dumped all the ball bearings into hundreds of backpacks carried by the rest of my 14 player party (Yes that likely too much for a first timer DM but somebody gotta bear the weight of a large D&D club). They are planning to dump all their spell slots on enlarge and roll them down the big hill west of Waterdeep. And when they use half the spell slots, the wizard is gonna slow time, shoot the rest of the ball bearings out of a smokepowder cannon and them use enlarge on them. Thankfully, they were in the middle of getting the powdered iron necessary when I ended the session. Unfortunately, next session, The party is going to investigate rumors in Waterdeep to find a Lich, but they can't do that if Waterdeep is in ruins. How do I stop the slaughter and preserve the plot of my homebrew?
You don't. Let them do the thing, declare them winners of D&D, and start a new campaign with 3-5 players, splitting the 14 players up into smaller, more manageable groups.
As far as the actual plan goes, the general answer to this is "it fails embarrassingly badly", millions of ball bearings in hundreds of backpacks is a total non-threat (it's only a few tons of stuff so it wouldn't do much to the city even if it hit, and since the hill isn't a smooth ramp, it's not going to reach the city, it's going to get stuck in loose dirt, mud, or a ditch).
As far as the campaign goes, I agree about the chaos muppet problem.
As Erik _soong said - you don’t- you let them try using the various ideas presented here then when all they’ve done is annoy the powers of Waterdeep enough that they come out in force ( there are literally hundreds of mages, sorcerors and clerics in Waterdeep and thousands of soldiers and (ex) adventurers) who decide the best place for the party is the Waterdeep jail for at least a few years. Then you break the club up into 3 groups of 4 players and 1 DM ( pick some of the chaos muppets they can have fun creating worlds and adventures) and everyone starts over.
Yeah, just let this self-licking-ice cream eat itself. You don't have a game problem, you have a player problem. Nothing that you do in game will solve that. At this point, I would suggest that you have a couple of folks showing off to the other 12, about how very clever they are. If that's how they do fun, fine. Doesn't sound like you're having much fun, and that's the actual problem.
Maybe, after they pull off their little ball bearing heist/gag/stunt, gather character sheets (or print them from DDB), and let the players know the new campaign starts after new characters are generated. Use these PCs as the BBEs / NPCs for the next campaign, and use their own shennanigans as plot hooks to defeat. Should make for at least 14 good adventures worth of material. Who knows, there might be a couple of players that step in and halt the shennanigans. Maybe the few that have a conscience will solve the question of who you invite to the next version of your group.
On the serious side, I suggest you lean on splitting the massive group that you have into something that is more manageable. 3-5 per group. If that means that a few others in the others in the club bear the weight, so be it. You're not the only person in the club, and you're not the only person to be a first time DM. The other 14 should be given an opportunity to "bear the weight", such as it is. If it's a sponsored event (I'm assuming school...willing to be wrong here.) then the facutly member that is supposed to be "assisting" might be leaned on to actually do some assisting, and help manage group size and overall club participation. Everyone can be expected to sit in the DM seat at least once, can't they? And when you start the new campaign, which I hope is sooner rather than later, set a hard cap on the number of players that you're capable of running a game for. I would also suggest that you fine tune some playstyle expectations for your session zero. Something along the lines of Heroes do Hero things. Heroes avoid doing willful malice and murder to innocents. Heroes are supposedly the ones that protect the those who are unable to protect themselves. Not devise a plan for mass unaliving a city of innocents. We leave that for the BBE.
Good luck, have fun!
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Club could've easily been split into two groups, at least, share the burden.
But if they were to go through with this, your plot isn't lost. While it lay dormant within Waterdeep for who knows how long, the bombardment has disturbed the lich, who is surprisingly quick in determining the origins of the salvo.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Several others have already pointed out some of the challenges, logistics, and that it might be better to split the large group up in smaller sessions - if that is feasible. Having said that - give how much the group has invested in this endeavour - maybe let them have that session of total carnage.
It's a pretty evil act to destroy a city with lots of people living in it - maybe the gods punish them by stripping their clerics of healing powers? There are lots of repercussions, depending on your campaign style and the age of the players (You have basically wrecked one of the largest economic engines of the sword coast, it massively weakens the Lord's Alliance, and other countries are eyeing the opportunities for land grabs, taking over trade opportunities, and of course general power. It could potentially ruin the sword coast, or drive all trade to another city with massive shifts in populations etc.)
In terms of the preservation of plot - it really depends on how much of your plot is setting dependent - you could simply shift it a bit north or south to Neverwinter or Baldur's Gate.
Enlarge causes one object to double in size. So if these ball bearings are a quarter inch large, they will now be a half inch large. If all the characters are casters, they may get ... let's say dozens of slightly larger ball bearings. This is a scandalous act of vandalism, and someone might trip and fall over these ball bearings - but it doesn't seem like something that would make the headlines of the local paper, attract the attention of the city guard (or, indeed, the high lords of Waterdeep), nor will it by even the most extreme stretch of the imagination pose any meaningful threat to the city itself.
Also, tell these jokers that if they don't want to play D&D, they really should go somewhere else and do something else.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Beyond the fact that what they are trying to do would not work for many reasons (how many spell slots do they have to make gigantic millions of ball bearings? How does the Wizard want to stop time? How big can those balls be? etc..), the problem here is another. The problem is that your players are not interested in the game. And it is very likely that they are either getting bored, or simply want to annoy you. In any case, it is best to talk to them and reach an agreement. What do you want to play? Are you interested in the plot? Because if what they want is just to be a hooligan, they might have to find another DM to put up with their childishness.
And, for god's sake, split that group up. The game is not intended to be played with so many people. And that's probably why they get bored.
A threat to Waterdeep sounds like the sort of thing the Blackstaff might take an interest in... Isn't the post currently held by depowered Laeral Silverhand? *edit* Scratch that, it's Vajhra Safahr, whose spell list specializes in imprisonment... depowered Laeral Silverhand is the open lord of Waterdeep--who might also be concerned with the city's well being... along with Force Grey, the (possibly) immortal owner of the Yawning Portal, and any other prominent citizens one can think of--which for me would include the Xanathar... And then there's Halaster, but he's crazy... Also, wasn't there a dragon in the bay at one point?
It's a pretty evil act to destroy a city with lots of people living in it - maybe the gods punish them...
Gods nothing, set the town guard after them for malicious disruption, vandalism, and in the cases of people who trip and fall on the ball bearings, assault. Give them the challenge of either evading the guards and having to escape the city, or turning themselves in and maybe having to perform some service/quest to get back into the city's good graces.
I do get a bit of a fun mental image of them all casting enlarge on ball bearings expecting giant Indiana Jones boulders and then being disappointed when they release millions of ball bearings with 14 of them being slightly bigger but still tiny. Their plan sounds like it would shut down a street or two at most, while the ball bearings get swept up, and again, they'd mostly just get in trouble for disturbing traffic, minor damages to property, and some of the folks who live on that street getting some minor scrapes and bruises.
As for the canons; cities have watch towers specifically to detect approaching armies. They'd see the canons rolling up and not bother with the town guard, they'd send the ARMY.
Also, how were players expecting to cast enlarge on a projectile as it fired out of a cannon? Enlarge only works on a target you can see, and cannon balls move too fast to be seen by the naked eye. By the time they finished the verbal component, the ball will already be smashed into the city wall.
It sounds like literally every part of this plan would not work.
If you truly are a new DM, I feel sorry that you ended up in such a situation.
1) Ball bearings would never be available in that quantity. Even using the D&D Beyond stats https://www.dndbeyond.com/equipment/ball-bearings-bag-of-1-000. of 2lb for a 1000. A million is 2000lbs and 10 million is 20,000lbs. How can a party of 14 even move this much? Even a million ball bearings would require each character to carry 140lbs of ball bearings. "Millions and millions" would get up to 1400lbs/character.
2) As mentioned, Enlarge targets only one item and will only double its size. So all 14 characters concentrating on casting enlarge on ball bearings will get 14 ball bearings that are 1cm in diameter instead of 0.5 cm (which is how big the D&D ones are above if made of wrought iron). Throwing a bunch of 1cm sized ball bearings at the city won't do anything.
4) A single cannon could only fire a small number of ball bearings and they honestly wouldn't go far and would spread out a lot. Lookup grapeshot or scattershot for real world examples.
5) Changing size could conserve momentum :) ... so even if they enlarged ball bearings to huge sizes using something the DM gave them by mistake, a fast small ball bearing fired from a cannon becomes a very slow huge one.
6) If the wizard is using Time stop to stop time then they are level 17 or more. Perhaps they plan to wish all the ball bearings were really large? In this case, the caster might find themselves shrunk down to 1mm in height so that they find themselves surrounded by these huge ball bearings. Wishes seldom go well when used for purposes like this.
Anyway, the bottom line is that the plan has so many holes it would never work unless the DM decides they want it to work.
I am so confused. Best of luck to you and your friends! As soon as you can divide up the group and DM responsibilities, you should try to. You'll all have more fun. Every game is a learning experience.
Just wanted to say that 14 players is insane. Even a group of 8 is considered *a lot* of players. I've been DM'ing for around 2 years and I'd be literally incapable of running a decent (or even subpar) game with more than 6 or 7 players. Seriously, how the hell do you ensure that combat isn't a slog??
Ha! I’m sorry to say I’m feeling a little bit of schadenfreude here, but like everyone else is saying, lots of issues with this plan and while I agree that you really should break up the group, I’m going to assume thats something you’re unwilling to do and just give ya straight advice on the in-game situation. Like has been said, there’s really no way that these players do anything significant with these ball bearings— the spell won’t allow it easily. If they are dead set on destroying the town though, and choose to spend days upon days enlarging these ball bearings to really do some damage, then I suggest you make it clear that they are being kind of villainous, and NPCs will not stand by and let them do this. DnD is ultimately a game of consequences, if players are going to choose chaos then they should bear the responsibility. Feel free to pull NPCs from the town, even otherwise late-game ones, and wreck house. There are other casters and such, and a simple wall of force could very easily turn this back down to bear on the players. The world isn’t exclusively their sandbox, its yours and the NPC’s as well! Sounds like a good opportunity to level up as a DM and take the reigns a bit.
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I am an inexperienced DM. Recently, in my first campaign (Forgotten realms world, homebrew) , my party decided to "think outside the box". They used ALL THE GOLD in the local black dragon hoard to buy MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS OF BALL BEARINGS, and the wizard and two sorcerers dumped all the ball bearings into hundreds of backpacks carried by the rest of my 14 player party (Yes that likely too much for a first timer DM but somebody gotta bear the weight of a large D&D club). They are planning to dump all their spell slots on enlarge and roll them down the big hill west of Waterdeep. And when they use half the spell slots, the wizard is gonna slow time, shoot the rest of the ball bearings out of a smokepowder cannon and them use enlarge on them. Thankfully, they were in the middle of getting the powdered iron necessary when I ended the session. Unfortunately, next session, The party is going to investigate rumors in Waterdeep to find a Lich, but they can't do that if Waterdeep is in ruins. How do I stop the slaughter and preserve the plot of my homebrew?
There's a lot to unpack here...
Unfortunately you've already missed some opportunities to stop this. Like where did they find millions of ball bearings for sale?
But I don't think this is going to be a impressive as they think it will be. What level are these (very many) characters? How are they going to slow time? How are they going to set cannons up on a hill outside of a major city without drawing very unwanted attention? Even with a lot of spellcasters, they can still only cast an concentrate on one spell at a time. So each round they each make a single bearing slightly bigger. Enlarge increases an object's size by double and eight times the weight. These ball bearings are going to grow to about the size of... a billiards ball.
You're definitely in over you head, and I'm sorry about that. But this isn't really adding up. And the rules, intelligent NPCs, and some physics might come to your aid.
First of all, your party is way too large, and your D&D club would probably be better off splitting into multiple games, probably three. Everyone would get more play time in their game, and likely have more fun.
Secondly, your players, or at least the most dominant ones, are a bunch of chaos muppets, and even if you defuse this scheme, you're going to keep having to deal with the same instincts. It's possible this is partly because of boredom from playing in such a large group -- you end up with a lot of downtime. For whatever cause, if players are trying to destroy large portions of the setting, it may well point to a problem they have with the game, and a discomfort with just talking to the GM or other players about it.
With that out of the way, this particular scheme is easy to defuse by looking at what the spell actually does. Enlarge doubles the size of the target. On a ball bearing, that's still not very large. It also works on a single target, and is a concentration spell, so as soon as a caster tries to enlarge another object, the first one shrinks. (That works only for this scheme. It doesn't solve the underlying problem.)
(Also, in future, when the players announce "we want to buy an absurd amount of Thing", you're allowed to say "you can't find anyone who has anything like as much as you're asking for". )
Another possible problem is suggested by the phrase "the plot of my game". Do the players have actual input in what they're doing? It's very easy, especially as a new GM, to push a story one has in mind on the players without getting their buy-in. This all could be pushback against a lack of agency. Now, you're new, your players are new, and the group's too big, so there's something to be said for the simple "here's the adventure I have planned" approach, but you and the players need to actively agree that that's how the game's gonna go.
You don't. Let them do the thing, declare them winners of D&D, and start a new campaign with 3-5 players, splitting the 14 players up into smaller, more manageable groups.
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As far as the actual plan goes, the general answer to this is "it fails embarrassingly badly", millions of ball bearings in hundreds of backpacks is a total non-threat (it's only a few tons of stuff so it wouldn't do much to the city even if it hit, and since the hill isn't a smooth ramp, it's not going to reach the city, it's going to get stuck in loose dirt, mud, or a ditch).
As far as the campaign goes, I agree about the chaos muppet problem.
As Erik _soong said - you don’t- you let them try using the various ideas presented here then when all they’ve done is annoy the powers of Waterdeep enough that they come out in force ( there are literally hundreds of mages, sorcerors and clerics in Waterdeep and thousands of soldiers and (ex) adventurers) who decide the best place for the party is the Waterdeep jail for at least a few years. Then you break the club up into 3 groups of 4 players and 1 DM ( pick some of the chaos muppets they can have fun creating worlds and adventures) and everyone starts over.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Yeah, just let this self-licking-ice cream eat itself. You don't have a game problem, you have a player problem. Nothing that you do in game will solve that. At this point, I would suggest that you have a couple of folks showing off to the other 12, about how very clever they are. If that's how they do fun, fine. Doesn't sound like you're having much fun, and that's the actual problem.
Maybe, after they pull off their little ball bearing heist/gag/stunt, gather character sheets (or print them from DDB), and let the players know the new campaign starts after new characters are generated. Use these PCs as the BBEs / NPCs for the next campaign, and use their own shennanigans as plot hooks to defeat. Should make for at least 14 good adventures worth of material. Who knows, there might be a couple of players that step in and halt the shennanigans. Maybe the few that have a conscience will solve the question of who you invite to the next version of your group.
On the serious side, I suggest you lean on splitting the massive group that you have into something that is more manageable. 3-5 per group. If that means that a few others in the others in the club bear the weight, so be it. You're not the only person in the club, and you're not the only person to be a first time DM. The other 14 should be given an opportunity to "bear the weight", such as it is. If it's a sponsored event (I'm assuming school...willing to be wrong here.) then the facutly member that is supposed to be "assisting" might be leaned on to actually do some assisting, and help manage group size and overall club participation. Everyone can be expected to sit in the DM seat at least once, can't they? And when you start the new campaign, which I hope is sooner rather than later, set a hard cap on the number of players that you're capable of running a game for. I would also suggest that you fine tune some playstyle expectations for your session zero. Something along the lines of Heroes do Hero things. Heroes avoid doing willful malice and murder to innocents. Heroes are supposedly the ones that protect the those who are unable to protect themselves. Not devise a plan for mass unaliving a city of innocents. We leave that for the BBE.
Good luck, have fun!
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Club could've easily been split into two groups, at least, share the burden.
But if they were to go through with this, your plot isn't lost. While it lay dormant within Waterdeep for who knows how long, the bombardment has disturbed the lich, who is surprisingly quick in determining the origins of the salvo.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I kinda love the mad creativity of their plan :)
Several others have already pointed out some of the challenges, logistics, and that it might be better to split the large group up in smaller sessions - if that is feasible. Having said that - give how much the group has invested in this endeavour - maybe let them have that session of total carnage.
It's a pretty evil act to destroy a city with lots of people living in it - maybe the gods punish them by stripping their clerics of healing powers? There are lots of repercussions, depending on your campaign style and the age of the players (You have basically wrecked one of the largest economic engines of the sword coast, it massively weakens the Lord's Alliance, and other countries are eyeing the opportunities for land grabs, taking over trade opportunities, and of course general power. It could potentially ruin the sword coast, or drive all trade to another city with massive shifts in populations etc.)
In terms of the preservation of plot - it really depends on how much of your plot is setting dependent - you could simply shift it a bit north or south to Neverwinter or Baldur's Gate.
Enlarge causes one object to double in size. So if these ball bearings are a quarter inch large, they will now be a half inch large. If all the characters are casters, they may get ... let's say dozens of slightly larger ball bearings. This is a scandalous act of vandalism, and someone might trip and fall over these ball bearings - but it doesn't seem like something that would make the headlines of the local paper, attract the attention of the city guard (or, indeed, the high lords of Waterdeep), nor will it by even the most extreme stretch of the imagination pose any meaningful threat to the city itself.
Also, tell these jokers that if they don't want to play D&D, they really should go somewhere else and do something else.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Beyond the fact that what they are trying to do would not work for many reasons (how many spell slots do they have to make gigantic millions of ball bearings? How does the Wizard want to stop time? How big can those balls be? etc..), the problem here is another. The problem is that your players are not interested in the game. And it is very likely that they are either getting bored, or simply want to annoy you. In any case, it is best to talk to them and reach an agreement. What do you want to play? Are you interested in the plot? Because if what they want is just to be a hooligan, they might have to find another DM to put up with their childishness.
And, for god's sake, split that group up. The game is not intended to be played with so many people. And that's probably why they get bored.
A threat to Waterdeep sounds like the sort of thing the Blackstaff might take an interest in... Isn't the post currently held by depowered Laeral Silverhand? *edit* Scratch that, it's Vajhra Safahr, whose spell list specializes in imprisonment... depowered Laeral Silverhand is the open lord of Waterdeep--who might also be concerned with the city's well being... along with Force Grey, the (possibly) immortal owner of the Yawning Portal, and any other prominent citizens one can think of--which for me would include the Xanathar... And then there's Halaster, but he's crazy... Also, wasn't there a dragon in the bay at one point?
Gods nothing, set the town guard after them for malicious disruption, vandalism, and in the cases of people who trip and fall on the ball bearings, assault. Give them the challenge of either evading the guards and having to escape the city, or turning themselves in and maybe having to perform some service/quest to get back into the city's good graces.
I do get a bit of a fun mental image of them all casting enlarge on ball bearings expecting giant Indiana Jones boulders and then being disappointed when they release millions of ball bearings with 14 of them being slightly bigger but still tiny. Their plan sounds like it would shut down a street or two at most, while the ball bearings get swept up, and again, they'd mostly just get in trouble for disturbing traffic, minor damages to property, and some of the folks who live on that street getting some minor scrapes and bruises.
As for the canons; cities have watch towers specifically to detect approaching armies. They'd see the canons rolling up and not bother with the town guard, they'd send the ARMY.
Also, how were players expecting to cast enlarge on a projectile as it fired out of a cannon? Enlarge only works on a target you can see, and cannon balls move too fast to be seen by the naked eye. By the time they finished the verbal component, the ball will already be smashed into the city wall.
It sounds like literally every part of this plan would not work.
If you truly are a new DM, I feel sorry that you ended up in such a situation.
1) Ball bearings would never be available in that quantity. Even using the D&D Beyond stats https://www.dndbeyond.com/equipment/ball-bearings-bag-of-1-000. of 2lb for a 1000. A million is 2000lbs and 10 million is 20,000lbs. How can a party of 14 even move this much? Even a million ball bearings would require each character to carry 140lbs of ball bearings. "Millions and millions" would get up to 1400lbs/character.
2) As mentioned, Enlarge targets only one item and will only double its size. So all 14 characters concentrating on casting enlarge on ball bearings will get 14 ball bearings that are 1cm in diameter instead of 0.5 cm (which is how big the D&D ones are above if made of wrought iron). Throwing a bunch of 1cm sized ball bearings at the city won't do anything.
4) A single cannon could only fire a small number of ball bearings and they honestly wouldn't go far and would spread out a lot. Lookup grapeshot or scattershot for real world examples.
5) Changing size could conserve momentum :) ... so even if they enlarged ball bearings to huge sizes using something the DM gave them by mistake, a fast small ball bearing fired from a cannon becomes a very slow huge one.
6) If the wizard is using Time stop to stop time then they are level 17 or more. Perhaps they plan to wish all the ball bearings were really large? In this case, the caster might find themselves shrunk down to 1mm in height so that they find themselves surrounded by these huge ball bearings. Wishes seldom go well when used for purposes like this.
Anyway, the bottom line is that the plan has so many holes it would never work unless the DM decides they want it to work.
Best idea, punish the chaos muppets! I'm gonna make them clear out 15 shambling mounds for local lumberjacks :)
There is always the Walking Statues of Waterdeep to protect the city.
I am so confused. Best of luck to you and your friends! As soon as you can divide up the group and DM responsibilities, you should try to. You'll all have more fun. Every game is a learning experience.
Just wanted to say that 14 players is insane. Even a group of 8 is considered *a lot* of players. I've been DM'ing for around 2 years and I'd be literally incapable of running a decent (or even subpar) game with more than 6 or 7 players. Seriously, how the hell do you ensure that combat isn't a slog??
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Ha! I’m sorry to say I’m feeling a little bit of schadenfreude here, but like everyone else is saying, lots of issues with this plan and while I agree that you really should break up the group, I’m going to assume thats something you’re unwilling to do and just give ya straight advice on the in-game situation. Like has been said, there’s really no way that these players do anything significant with these ball bearings— the spell won’t allow it easily. If they are dead set on destroying the town though, and choose to spend days upon days enlarging these ball bearings to really do some damage, then I suggest you make it clear that they are being kind of villainous, and NPCs will not stand by and let them do this. DnD is ultimately a game of consequences, if players are going to choose chaos then they should bear the responsibility. Feel free to pull NPCs from the town, even otherwise late-game ones, and wreck house. There are other casters and such, and a simple wall of force could very easily turn this back down to bear on the players. The world isn’t exclusively their sandbox, its yours and the NPC’s as well! Sounds like a good opportunity to level up as a DM and take the reigns a bit.