TLDR; I'm making a deforesting laser gun powered by human sacrifice and don't know how to give it HP or DMG stats.
So I'm working on a Fairy Tale-esque campaign that heavily features "The Wood," a magical forest that connects all known civilizations, even across continents. The Wood isn't logical, and travel through it where you want to go is very difficult.
There's a faction dedicated to putting Roads through The Wood, and the behind the scenes big bad influenced them to be able to create this magic laser gun that cuts down trees in a line, 35' wide by 100' long. It works once per day and requires a human (I actually don't know how to phrase that, since there are several sentient races) sacrifice to fire once.
I see the party eventually coming into conflict with this machine, but I'm not sure how to give it stats. How much damage should it take before it's broken? What happens if you get hit with it?
The best idea I can come up with is to make it a dragon breath ability or something similar. Any ideas are appreciated. If I've posted this in the wrong place, please direct me to the correct forum. Thanks!
Super cool ideas, all the way around. Love the Wood. :)
Just have it require a 'Sentient' sacrifice. You might run into some issues if someone tries to throw a more advanced sort of monster in there, but...why not allow that? Toss in an orc, the gun works. Toss in a human, or elf, etc, the gun works. You could maybe have it powered by the creature's stats, as a way to reflect some creatures being able to power it more. But that could all just be done with flavor too. They toss in an orc and sure, it works. But not like when you throw in an elf. :)
Damage for it being broken, imo, should be determined by how tough the party is when they encounter it. You want it to be a challenge to break this thing. If they run into it when they are 5th level, it shouldn't take as much to damage it as if they run into it when they are 10th level. And if they run into it twice at different levels, the increased toughness is because the bad guys improved it after last time :) I'd set the damage pretty high, so that lower levels can damage it but would have a very hard time destroying it. But then feel free to increase the HP as the party gets tougher.
How much damage should it do? That's tougher. Looking at the DMG, a 'Resilient' Large Object has 27 hp. The books gives the example of a cart. I'd think a full size tree should be considered a Resilient Large object. And actually, maybe make it even more, because a tree is bigger than a cart. A tree should be 'Huge' at least. The object HP chart scales like this: Tiny (2d4), Small (3d6), Medium (4d8), Large (5d10). So maybe make a tree Huge, 6d12 hp? So call it 40hp?
That sounds alright. If I can do 40 hp in one shot, I could blast through a normal-ish sized tree? Maybe? It's not outlandish at least.
Okay, so a tree has 40 hp. The rest is actually somewhat easy. Just say that the ray does 50 pts of damage to anything it hits, and specify the width and range. Anything in that path takes 50 hp with one shot. You could then play it where hiding behind a particularly large tree could save you--a really big tree, or a building, might stay standing after 50 hp, and if you're behind it, it stops the ray. But otherwise, if you're in the open or behind trees with less than 50 hp, it just cuts right through them and hits you too. Throw in a save to be knocked prone, and you'll most likely hit everyone in its path. But it would be possible to not get hit.
Then determine what the height of the ray is. If I jump in a ditch, will it go over my head? If you say for example that it is a 10' high beam, now your players can know whether they can jump, climb, etc out of the way.
Give it a +15 attack bonus, or just forget the attack bonus and give anyone in its way a Dex save. Or if they have a round of warning, give them a chance to run, fly, etc.
Well the goal of the laser isn't really to attack the players. My plan is to have the laser fire once a day; that much magical power too often would break the machine. I think it'd be incredibly unlikely for the players to get hit with it, I really just needed a number just in case. I imagined it more as a large piece of logging equipment, not a weapon to use against people. But as these things go, it turns out large industrial machines are very good at killing people.
The sentient sacrifice was really just a way to cement the "evilness" of the group using the machine.
Super cool ideas, all the way around. Love the Wood. :)
Just have it require a 'Sentient' sacrifice. You might run into some issues if someone tries to throw a more advanced sort of monster in there, but...why not allow that? Toss in an orc, the gun works. Toss in a human, or elf, etc, the gun works. You could maybe have it powered by the creature's stats, as a way to reflect some creatures being able to power it more. But that could all just be done with flavor too. They toss in an orc and sure, it works. But not like when you throw in an elf. :)
Damage for it being broken, imo, should be determined by how tough the party is when they encounter it. You want it to be a challenge to break this thing. If they run into it when they are 5th level, it shouldn't take as much to damage it as if they run into it when they are 10th level. And if they run into it twice at different levels, the increased toughness is because the bad guys improved it after last time :) I'd set the damage pretty high, so that lower levels can damage it but would have a very hard time destroying it. But then feel free to increase the HP as the party gets tougher.
How much damage should it do? That's tougher. Looking at the DMG, a 'Resilient' Large Object has 27 hp. The books gives the example of a cart. I'd think a full size tree should be considered a Resilient Large object. And actually, maybe make it even more, because a tree is bigger than a cart. A tree should be 'Huge' at least. The object HP chart scales like this: Tiny (2d4), Small (3d6), Medium (4d8), Large (5d10). So maybe make a tree Huge, 6d12 hp? So call it 40hp?
That sounds alright. If I can do 40 hp in one shot, I could blast through a normal-ish sized tree? Maybe? It's not outlandish at least.
Okay, so a tree has 40 hp. The rest is actually somewhat easy. Just say that the ray does 50 pts of damage to anything it hits, and specify the width and range. Anything in that path takes 50 hp with one shot. You could then play it where hiding behind a particularly large tree could save you--a really big tree, or a building, might stay standing after 50 hp, and if you're behind it, it stops the ray. But otherwise, if you're in the open or behind trees with less than 50 hp, it just cuts right through them and hits you too. Throw in a save to be knocked prone, and you'll most likely hit everyone in its path. But it would be possible to not get hit.
Then determine what the height of the ray is. If I jump in a ditch, will it go over my head? If you say for example that it is a 10' high beam, now your players can know whether they can jump, climb, etc out of the way.
Give it a +15 attack bonus, or just forget the attack bonus and give anyone in its way a Dex save. Or if they have a round of warning, give them a chance to run, fly, etc.
1. I really like this though. I think it'll be more flavor than mechanic though. They started out using small creatures and they eventually worked their way up to sentient beings.
I'll make it an ancient black dragon breath attack, just with bigger range. So 15d8 and DC 22 Dex save. This gives it acid damage, which can (flavor) corrupt The Wood around where the road is cut. This gives motivation to the party druid, and further cements the notion that these are bad guys.
Attacking the machine will cause a PC-level appropriate Acid Arrow to shoot out in a random (d8) direction.
I guess for HP it'd be fair to use a dragon, CR appropriate to the PC level. AC should be pretty low. It's about the size of an early Gatling gun on wheels.
I hadn't thought about height. It'll be 10' high, starting from ground level. So yes, a ditch will save you. So will an impressive acrobatics check. After that, it's a dex save.
So... The laser requires a Blood Sacrifice. You can make the damage equal the life die of the creature.
Example: If you sacrifice a Goblin, the laser deal 2D6 of damage. If you sacrifice a 15th level Wizard, the laser deal 15D6 of damage.
That's my idea.
Hope this helps :3
I may tinker with this idea, if anything to give a moral dilemma. I think I'd like the hit dice to correlate to the length of the beam. These are road builders, first and foremost. The more trees you can clear in a day, the faster roads will be built, the more money you get at the end of your contract. Or the sooner you can start collecting tolls for people using the roads.
Bad guys: It's not like we're hurting anything! We're just sacrificing [sentient creature 'no one' cares about].
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TLDR; I'm making a deforesting laser gun powered by human sacrifice and don't know how to give it HP or DMG stats.
So I'm working on a Fairy Tale-esque campaign that heavily features "The Wood," a magical forest that connects all known civilizations, even across continents. The Wood isn't logical, and travel through it where you want to go is very difficult.
There's a faction dedicated to putting Roads through The Wood, and the behind the scenes big bad influenced them to be able to create this magic laser gun that cuts down trees in a line, 35' wide by 100' long. It works once per day and requires a human (I actually don't know how to phrase that, since there are several sentient races) sacrifice to fire once.
I see the party eventually coming into conflict with this machine, but I'm not sure how to give it stats. How much damage should it take before it's broken? What happens if you get hit with it?
The best idea I can come up with is to make it a dragon breath ability or something similar. Any ideas are appreciated. If I've posted this in the wrong place, please direct me to the correct forum. Thanks!
Super cool ideas, all the way around. Love the Wood. :)
That sounds alright. If I can do 40 hp in one shot, I could blast through a normal-ish sized tree? Maybe? It's not outlandish at least.
Okay, so a tree has 40 hp. The rest is actually somewhat easy. Just say that the ray does 50 pts of damage to anything it hits, and specify the width and range. Anything in that path takes 50 hp with one shot. You could then play it where hiding behind a particularly large tree could save you--a really big tree, or a building, might stay standing after 50 hp, and if you're behind it, it stops the ray. But otherwise, if you're in the open or behind trees with less than 50 hp, it just cuts right through them and hits you too. Throw in a save to be knocked prone, and you'll most likely hit everyone in its path. But it would be possible to not get hit.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
So... The laser requires a Blood Sacrifice. You can make the damage equal the life die of the creature.
Example:
If you sacrifice a Goblin, the laser deal 2D6 of damage.
If you sacrifice a 15th level Wizard, the laser deal 15D6 of damage.
That's my idea.
Hope this helps :3
Well the goal of the laser isn't really to attack the players. My plan is to have the laser fire once a day; that much magical power too often would break the machine. I think it'd be incredibly unlikely for the players to get hit with it, I really just needed a number just in case. I imagined it more as a large piece of logging equipment, not a weapon to use against people. But as these things go, it turns out large industrial machines are very good at killing people.
The sentient sacrifice was really just a way to cement the "evilness" of the group using the machine.
1. I really like this though. I think it'll be more flavor than mechanic though. They started out using small creatures and they eventually worked their way up to sentient beings.
I'll make it an ancient black dragon breath attack, just with bigger range. So 15d8 and DC 22 Dex save. This gives it acid damage, which can (flavor) corrupt The Wood around where the road is cut. This gives motivation to the party druid, and further cements the notion that these are bad guys.
Attacking the machine will cause a PC-level appropriate Acid Arrow to shoot out in a random (d8) direction.
I guess for HP it'd be fair to use a dragon, CR appropriate to the PC level. AC should be pretty low. It's about the size of an early Gatling gun on wheels.
I hadn't thought about height. It'll be 10' high, starting from ground level. So yes, a ditch will save you. So will an impressive acrobatics check. After that, it's a dex save.
I may tinker with this idea, if anything to give a moral dilemma. I think I'd like the hit dice to correlate to the length of the beam. These are road builders, first and foremost. The more trees you can clear in a day, the faster roads will be built, the more money you get at the end of your contract. Or the sooner you can start collecting tolls for people using the roads.
Bad guys: It's not like we're hurting anything! We're just sacrificing [sentient creature 'no one' cares about].