I just wanted to share something that one of my players came up with tonight. They fought an Ochre Jelly and one of the fighters got hit and when he took acid damage realized that the jelly had acid properties. Once they figured out how to kill it (after dividing it into three different pieces they had to fight) he asked if he could put some of the jelly at the bottom of his quiver so that his arrows would be tipped with ochre jelly.
I thought it was such a cool idea I told him he could roll an extra 1d4 of acid damage every time he hit something with those arrows!
Well... thing is, quivers are traditionally made of leather, wood, and other organic materials. Precisely what an ochre jelly dissolves. Unless your player lines their quiver with something non-organic, they're going to have a very bad time.
Yeah, I thought of that but it was such a cool idea I just decided to let him have it and assume his quiver had some sort of plate or cup at the bottom to hold it ;)
Rule of cool and all, so it’s good and sounds fun. But wouldn’t the acid ruin the arrows? Even if they didn’t dissolve them, I’d think they be damaged to the point they wouldn’t fly straight.
Rule of cool and all, so it’s good and sounds fun. But wouldn’t the acid ruin the arrows? Even if they didn’t dissolve them, I’d think they be damaged to the point they wouldn’t fly straight.
It wouldn't damage the tips as long as they were metal, but it would damage the wood.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
Uhm, lots of acids damage metal. For rule of cool I'd say that if you'd put it in a glass vial or similar it could be used for a few arrows if it was applied directly before combat. Otherwise it would just muck everything up and you'd end up with a ruined quiver and ruined arrows.
While I appreciate the rule of cool, I feel a character is more likely to hurt themselves with such a setup. Having said that, I might still allow it if the player is willing to assume some risk.
I can imagine a pool of acid at the bottom of a quiver (which, must now be kept upright) leading to much regret on the part of the player.
We table rule that 1’s and 20’s always have a penalty or boon on all d20 rolls, otherwise leaving the fail/success as per the rulebooks. While someone might succeed on a check with a 1, something still goes wrong. They might pick the lock, but their lockpick was jammed in the keyhole. They made the jump, but landed on their pack, breaking a potion bottle or cracking a bunch of arrows. I’m pretty aggressive on this as it provides another avenue to burn through party resources, giving them something to spend their money on and forcing them into alternate solutions.
Where I’m going with this is that it ties in nicely to these types of player requests that really wouldn’t work. It provides a balance for the rule of cool: it’ll be fine until something inevitably goes wrong.
I should note that outside of the obvious fantasy elements, I try to minimize suspension of disbelief as much as possible. Our world works as much like the world we are familiar with as much as possible. That’s not for everybody, of course.
According to the Ochre Jelly monster page it says it dissolves flesh quickly but has no effect on bone, metal, or wood. So I think the arrows are safe. I told him if he could hit something with one of those arrows I would let him roll 1d4 acid damage on top of the normal piercing damage. Of course if he tries to hit a creature that has acid resistance or something it's not going to work but he seemed pretty happy with his new arrows.
I like the idea of there being some consequence if he rolls a natural 1. Maybe the arrows get stuck together when he tries to pull one out and that causes some of the acid to get on him.
I like the idea of there being some consequence if he rolls a natural 1. Maybe the arrows get stuck together when he tries to pull one out and that causes some of the acid to get on him.
Well, any kind of athletic manuever where the quiver isn't kept upright will cause the acid to spill, so there's always that if you want to be mean... ;)
I would probably just use the rules that address the harvesting, application and effects of Poison and apply it to the Acid as untrained(no proficiency).
I don't want to be mean. I think it's a cool idea and I want him to have fun with his acid arrows for a little while within the bounds of reasonable game mechanics. An extra hit point or two of acid damage isn't going to break my encounter scaling. I do think it would be fun though for him to experience the occasional complication or hassle given that he's carrying around a cup full of ochre jelly acid everywhere he goes.
Don’t forget about the rarely spoken of, but always feared Ochre Jelly Stalker! It will relentlessly seek out the smallest tastings of the acidic innards of the Ochre Jelly if it catches the scent ...
It reminds me of the dip mechanic from BG3. This kind of thing can encourage more environmental interaction. which is good. I do also like the idea of presenting it as a creative challenge and getting the player to come up with a solution like glass tipped arrows.
You do want to be careful how easy you make things like this to get. I remember I played Solasta and that had an arrow crafting mechanic that resulted in basically every attack having a bonus. In terms of balance you probably want to aim for your most common arrows to be just damage type replaces for the purpose of dealing with resistances ect... then have ones that are straight damage boosts be rarer. Some classes could probably do with a damage boost like rogues so for them you can probably be more liberal
Honestly, I think that rewarding this sort of creativity with a minor damage improvement for a short period of time is absolutely fine, and that adding complications to the whole thing is a little unnecessary. If you start saying "if you roll a 1 then you take the acid damage", then they will stop being creative!
Add the higher risk when it's something a bit more dangerous to be working with!
I just wanted to share something that one of my players came up with tonight. They fought an Ochre Jelly and one of the fighters got hit and when he took acid damage realized that the jelly had acid properties. Once they figured out how to kill it (after dividing it into three different pieces they had to fight) he asked if he could put some of the jelly at the bottom of his quiver so that his arrows would be tipped with ochre jelly.
I thought it was such a cool idea I told him he could roll an extra 1d4 of acid damage every time he hit something with those arrows!
Well... thing is, quivers are traditionally made of leather, wood, and other organic materials. Precisely what an ochre jelly dissolves. Unless your player lines their quiver with something non-organic, they're going to have a very bad time.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
Yeah, I thought of that but it was such a cool idea I just decided to let him have it and assume his quiver had some sort of plate or cup at the bottom to hold it ;)
I wouldn't give him it permanently, though. Maybe around 30 shots until it's consumed.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
Yeah, it certainly won't last forever. In the meantime he's got some cool arrows.
Rule of cool and all, so it’s good and sounds fun. But wouldn’t the acid ruin the arrows? Even if they didn’t dissolve them, I’d think they be damaged to the point they wouldn’t fly straight.
It wouldn't damage the tips as long as they were metal, but it would damage the wood.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
Uhm, lots of acids damage metal. For rule of cool I'd say that if you'd put it in a glass vial or similar it could be used for a few arrows if it was applied directly before combat. Otherwise it would just muck everything up and you'd end up with a ruined quiver and ruined arrows.
While I appreciate the rule of cool, I feel a character is more likely to hurt themselves with such a setup. Having said that, I might still allow it if the player is willing to assume some risk.
I can imagine a pool of acid at the bottom of a quiver (which, must now be kept upright) leading to much regret on the part of the player.
We table rule that 1’s and 20’s always have a penalty or boon on all d20 rolls, otherwise leaving the fail/success as per the rulebooks. While someone might succeed on a check with a 1, something still goes wrong. They might pick the lock, but their lockpick was jammed in the keyhole. They made the jump, but landed on their pack, breaking a potion bottle or cracking a bunch of arrows. I’m pretty aggressive on this as it provides another avenue to burn through party resources, giving them something to spend their money on and forcing them into alternate solutions.
Where I’m going with this is that it ties in nicely to these types of player requests that really wouldn’t work. It provides a balance for the rule of cool: it’ll be fine until something inevitably goes wrong.
I should note that outside of the obvious fantasy elements, I try to minimize suspension of disbelief as much as possible. Our world works as much like the world we are familiar with as much as possible. That’s not for everybody, of course.
I’d add that I would absolutely let them try it. Whether it would work as intended is a follow up matter.
According to the Ochre Jelly monster page it says it dissolves flesh quickly but has no effect on bone, metal, or wood. So I think the arrows are safe. I told him if he could hit something with one of those arrows I would let him roll 1d4 acid damage on top of the normal piercing damage. Of course if he tries to hit a creature that has acid resistance or something it's not going to work but he seemed pretty happy with his new arrows.
I like the idea of there being some consequence if he rolls a natural 1. Maybe the arrows get stuck together when he tries to pull one out and that causes some of the acid to get on him.
Well, any kind of athletic manuever where the quiver isn't kept upright will cause the acid to spill, so there's always that if you want to be mean... ;)
I would probably just use the rules that address the harvesting, application and effects of Poison and apply it to the Acid as untrained(no proficiency).
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/running-the-game#CraftingandHarvestingPoison
https://www.dndbeyond.com/equipment/poison-basic-vial
I don't want to be mean. I think it's a cool idea and I want him to have fun with his acid arrows for a little while within the bounds of reasonable game mechanics. An extra hit point or two of acid damage isn't going to break my encounter scaling. I do think it would be fun though for him to experience the occasional complication or hassle given that he's carrying around a cup full of ochre jelly acid everywhere he goes.
Don’t forget about the rarely spoken of, but always feared Ochre Jelly Stalker! It will relentlessly seek out the smallest tastings of the acidic innards of the Ochre Jelly if it catches the scent ...
Then just have to make the ranger fletch up some glass-tipped arrows. Medieval hollowpoints.
It reminds me of the dip mechanic from BG3. This kind of thing can encourage more environmental interaction. which is good. I do also like the idea of presenting it as a creative challenge and getting the player to come up with a solution like glass tipped arrows.
You do want to be careful how easy you make things like this to get. I remember I played Solasta and that had an arrow crafting mechanic that resulted in basically every attack having a bonus. In terms of balance you probably want to aim for your most common arrows to be just damage type replaces for the purpose of dealing with resistances ect... then have ones that are straight damage boosts be rarer. Some classes could probably do with a damage boost like rogues so for them you can probably be more liberal
Honestly, I think that rewarding this sort of creativity with a minor damage improvement for a short period of time is absolutely fine, and that adding complications to the whole thing is a little unnecessary. If you start saying "if you roll a 1 then you take the acid damage", then they will stop being creative!
Add the higher risk when it's something a bit more dangerous to be working with!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
With the proper container, a DM could let the party gather the remains of an ochre jelly into an Acid vial.