As an action, you can spill these tiny metal balls from their pouch to cover a level, square area that is 10 feet on a side. A creature moving across the covered area must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or fall prone. A creature moving through the area at half speed doesn't need to make the save.
But, I think that needs to be looked at, if not by WoTC, then by any DM who has them used in their game.
I was joining a campaign about 3 sessions in. I'm a Dragonborn blacksmith who had constant training as a Paladin by his epic Paladin father growing up. I also had a stint in the city watch until we, lead by my father fought off a small bandit army leading to his death and leaving the town short one blacksmith.
When I ask to join the party to take up my father's mantle, the Ranger challenged me to a duel. We met in the yard behind my smithy. the soft...grassy...yard. The Ranger threw out a bag of ball bearings in an attempt to win by not letting me engage and just picking me off with his bow. I had described the yard before the fight started so I asked the DM, "Wouldn't the bearing just get pushed into the soil when I stepped on the?" I mean, I'm a 300 lb. Dragonborn with huge, clawed feet. This should not be a problem on this terrain. But the DM held firm.
I wound up on my butt a few times but still managed to bash the Ranger down to two HP before he surrendered...while I was on my butt.
As it was my first session with them I didn't make a big deal of it, but I'm all for bending a rule if it doesn't make sense (I'm chaotic good).
I did make the Ranger clean up my dang yard. I don't think these characters are going to get along. The Ranger seems dodgy and you know how Paladins are.
Oh yeah, what do you think about the ball bearings?
If it says "level area" in the flavor text then I would have to say that grass wouldn't be exactly level. Good on you for not making a big fuss out of it, but I would buy about 8 bags and toss them out all over the dang place for every fight :).
Was this an Adventurer's League game? if so, the DM may not have had a choice - DMs aren't allowed to make rules calls or bend the game in AL, they have to let things like that stand because it's RAW.
Otherwise you may just have been dealing with an inexperienced DM, or a DM not wanting to tell his ranger he was being a dumdum. Because yes, bearings should not have been an issue in that terrain, nor should the ranger have wasted them there. Heh, ball bearings have a thousand and one uses and you should have a bag of them yourself, but their actual listed use is one of their least useful features. Unless you're playing AL, where the only thing you're allowed to do with bearings is dump them on the floor as a low-grade tripping hazard.
It's up to the DM to adjudicate the interactions in the game world. Even in AL. The description above for a bag of ball bearings only refers to a level square area. Is the surface of a pond a "level square area"? How about a pool of mud? A soft loamy soil? If a player insisted he could throw them into a pool of water and make someone swimming have to make a dex save because the pool is a flat level area then I don't think anyone would agree with that particular player. These aren't magical ball bearings.
Ultimately, it is up to the DM to decide how things interact in the game world. It doesn't break RAW to say that there are some surfaces where ball bearings won't work. In this case, perhaps the DM decided the ground was hard enough that even if the ball bearings were embedded the exposed surfaces would still be more slippery than normal. Or the DM could have decided that it just sounded cool and allowed it because of that. If the ground was really that soft, most DMs would have decided it just didn't work as expected. On the other hand, the yard at a smithy is probably pretty hard packed earth from the movement of heavy objects and other traffic across it.
Anyway, you could have chosen to move through the ball bearings at half speed and not fallen over and then just cornered the ranger. In addition, I hope the ranger took into account that the ranged shots against a prone target are at disadvantage so he wasn't really helping himself much as far as I can see. Especially since the ranger would also be affected by the ball bearings if they tried moving through them.
You should have rejected the Ranger's surrender and bitten his head off and swallowed it. RAW, he's dead and will take a high level spell to be brought back.
Honestly it sounds like you made the best choice that with that group. But from what you described even if the ranger was really really insistent I might have given you like a dc 1 or 2 for that. Sounds like you made the right call for your own sanity.
I would definitely have treated caltrops differently.
It being more than four years later and being a more experienced player, I would have treated the whole encounter differently. I know now I could have moved at half-speed. I didn't know then and I wasn't told. I would have still quit the group, I didn't need that energy.
Honestly, I'd just let the ball bearings ride; "soft" is a fairly broad term and the idea behind the bag of ball bearings is that they're pretty well covering the affected area- even if they sink in slightly, trying to low-key sprint across them is still asking for them to shift and make you lose your balance. The DM made a call favoring a hard item description over a soft terrain description, and clearly you weren't that badly impaired by it if you still won. Can't speak to the quality of the group as a whole, but that ruling is solid.
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The rules on use of ball bearings are terse:
Ball Bearings (bag of 1,000)
As an action, you can spill these tiny metal balls from their pouch to cover a level, square area that is 10 feet on a side. A creature moving across the covered area must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or fall prone. A creature moving through the area at half speed doesn't need to make the save.
But, I think that needs to be looked at, if not by WoTC, then by any DM who has them used in their game.
I was joining a campaign about 3 sessions in. I'm a Dragonborn blacksmith who had constant training as a Paladin by his epic Paladin father growing up. I also had a stint in the city watch until we, lead by my father fought off a small bandit army leading to his death and leaving the town short one blacksmith.
When I ask to join the party to take up my father's mantle, the Ranger challenged me to a duel. We met in the yard behind my smithy. the soft...grassy...yard. The Ranger threw out a bag of ball bearings in an attempt to win by not letting me engage and just picking me off with his bow. I had described the yard before the fight started so I asked the DM, "Wouldn't the bearing just get pushed into the soil when I stepped on the?" I mean, I'm a 300 lb. Dragonborn with huge, clawed feet. This should not be a problem on this terrain. But the DM held firm.
I wound up on my butt a few times but still managed to bash the Ranger down to two HP before he surrendered...while I was on my butt.
As it was my first session with them I didn't make a big deal of it, but I'm all for bending a rule if it doesn't make sense (I'm chaotic good).
I did make the Ranger clean up my dang yard. I don't think these characters are going to get along. The Ranger seems dodgy and you know how Paladins are.
Oh yeah, what do you think about the ball bearings?
If it says "level area" in the flavor text then I would have to say that grass wouldn't be exactly level. Good on you for not making a big fuss out of it, but I would buy about 8 bags and toss them out all over the dang place for every fight :).
Was this an Adventurer's League game? if so, the DM may not have had a choice - DMs aren't allowed to make rules calls or bend the game in AL, they have to let things like that stand because it's RAW.
Otherwise you may just have been dealing with an inexperienced DM, or a DM not wanting to tell his ranger he was being a dumdum. Because yes, bearings should not have been an issue in that terrain, nor should the ranger have wasted them there. Heh, ball bearings have a thousand and one uses and you should have a bag of them yourself, but their actual listed use is one of their least useful features. Unless you're playing AL, where the only thing you're allowed to do with bearings is dump them on the floor as a low-grade tripping hazard.
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It's up to the DM to adjudicate the interactions in the game world. Even in AL. The description above for a bag of ball bearings only refers to a level square area. Is the surface of a pond a "level square area"? How about a pool of mud? A soft loamy soil? If a player insisted he could throw them into a pool of water and make someone swimming have to make a dex save because the pool is a flat level area then I don't think anyone would agree with that particular player. These aren't magical ball bearings.
Ultimately, it is up to the DM to decide how things interact in the game world. It doesn't break RAW to say that there are some surfaces where ball bearings won't work. In this case, perhaps the DM decided the ground was hard enough that even if the ball bearings were embedded the exposed surfaces would still be more slippery than normal. Or the DM could have decided that it just sounded cool and allowed it because of that. If the ground was really that soft, most DMs would have decided it just didn't work as expected. On the other hand, the yard at a smithy is probably pretty hard packed earth from the movement of heavy objects and other traffic across it.
Anyway, you could have chosen to move through the ball bearings at half speed and not fallen over and then just cornered the ranger. In addition, I hope the ranger took into account that the ranged shots against a prone target are at disadvantage so he wasn't really helping himself much as far as I can see. Especially since the ranger would also be affected by the ball bearings if they tried moving through them.
As a DM I would have ruled against the ball bearings working in that environment. On a hard surface, sure. A soft grassy yard, nah.
I had already described this piece of yard as being a soft and grassy personal space. Not a well-trodden part of the smithy.
I think Ranger is a power player. He also DMs the group in a different campaign on alternate weeks.
Play style was too fast paced and strict complete with some resonant bell he would hit if you were having a second of fun.
I have quit the group.
You should have rejected the Ranger's surrender and bitten his head off and swallowed it. RAW, he's dead and will take a high level spell to be brought back.
Honestly it sounds like you made the best choice that with that group. But from what you described even if the ranger was really really insistent I might have given you like a dc 1 or 2 for that. Sounds like you made the right call for your own sanity.
Edited for grammar
Lucky you the ranger did not double up on the ball's with Caltrops 🙈
3 time you walked over them your speed would be 0 😅
I would definitely have treated caltrops differently.
It being more than four years later and being a more experienced player, I would have treated the whole encounter differently. I know now I could have moved at half-speed. I didn't know then and I wasn't told. I would have still quit the group, I didn't need that energy.
Caltrops only reduce speed once due to the rules about combining effects. So the damage could happen multiple times, but the speed reduction is once.
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Honestly, I'd just let the ball bearings ride; "soft" is a fairly broad term and the idea behind the bag of ball bearings is that they're pretty well covering the affected area- even if they sink in slightly, trying to low-key sprint across them is still asking for them to shift and make you lose your balance. The DM made a call favoring a hard item description over a soft terrain description, and clearly you weren't that badly impaired by it if you still won. Can't speak to the quality of the group as a whole, but that ruling is solid.