I was mulling this idea over for a while and I don't exactly see a problem with doing this but I figured I would open it up to scrutiny.
Magic Stone on the arrow heads of an arrow provided they are made of stone. Or perhaps literal stones placed onto the shafts and deal bludgeoning instead of piercing. Thoughts?
Edit: With stones on the shaft, the added weight would affect trajectory, I'd probably limit range to 30/60 effectively with short bow, maybe 60/120 longbow.
Well, since I'm the DM in question and this is a since ruled thing. I'm just asking for opinions. I'd argue that if it works by hurling it from a sling that it works hurling it on a stick with a bow.
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You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
My own opinion would have been no for the same reason InquisitiveCoder mentioned; however, I'm curious about what the situation was that came up in regards to using the spell this way. I guess if this was some sort of creative answer to a problem I would reconsider, I like to allow slight rule bends for creative problem solving, but I don't like it if the purpose is just to be more optimized in combat. Like were the players just trying to squeak out some extra damage somewhere? Or were they facing an enemy that's immune to piercing and slashing damage and thought of this as a solution?
My players found a cavern with an invisible floor but completely missed a chest that contained the clue that there were invisible floors lol. So they wanted to destroy a column and knock it over to the gap. Unfortunately, they had no idea how to do that because the only caster that they had was a warlock and he didn't focus on damage so much. So I said screw it, there's some flint mixed in with some of the rock and they had a bit of explosive powder from a previous run (Very small amount frankly. The original amount shouldn't have broken this column technically but I really didn't know how they were going to cross this gap lol) so the archer (With initiate to get some cantrips) fashioned two arrows and a bolt with rocks, cast magic stone on them and they lit a piece of rope that ran up into the column where they had put the remaining powder into a small bag and bored it into the center of the column. When the explosion went off, they all fired along the top 1/3 of the piller to push it and make a bridge. The irony is that the particular column they had ended up landing ON the invisible bridge and couldn't, on it's own, fit but no one noticed cause they rushed across after the explosion, thinking that some enemies may have heard it. XD
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You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
Well, since I'm the DM in question and this is a since ruled thing. I'm just asking for opinions. I'd argue that if it works by hurling it from a sling that it works hurling it on a stick with a bow.
I'd be inclined to agree if you could use the pebble as is, but you can't. You'd have to carve it into an arrowhead, and then it's no longer a pebble.
I don't think it's game-breaking to allow it, mind you, it's just clearly outside the scope of the spell. But if you think your players would enjoy it, go ahead. The goal is to have fun.
Well, since I'm the DM in question and this is a since ruled thing. I'm just asking for opinions. I'd argue that if it works by hurling it from a sling that it works hurling it on a stick with a bow.
I'd be inclined to agree if you could use the pebble as is, but you can't. You'd have to carve it into an arrowhead, and then it's no longer a pebble.
I don't think it's game-breaking to allow it, mind you, it's just clearly outside the scope of the spell. But if you think your players would enjoy it, go ahead. The goal is to have fun.
Well, I practice archery for exercise in the torso and back muscles. Arrow heads are used to minimize the influence of wind resistance so that the arrow itself does the maximum damage on impact and drives into the target, be it an animal or a target. With a pebble on the end, you are much more subjected to the wind resistance and therefore I would lower the arrow's range before suffering disadvantage because once an arrow loses a good chunk of it's momentum, the tail will do a small spin and for the most part it just sort of falls to the ground. This can be seen when using a heavier arrow with a higher poundage bow. Affixing a pebble to a head in such a way that it does any better than 120 feet (Which is incredibly generous in my opinion) with disadvantage is about as far as I'd let it go but I'm often pro-customized arrows to even out the curve of lack of magical bows. But that would just be my opinion on the matter. I don't see magic stone being such a high powered cantrip as to break anything but I've only had this one experience dealing with it.
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You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
You could always carve the wood of the arrow to hold the pebble securely...
It wouldn't even be that hard split the shaft insert pebble... wrap to secure... cut off any excess shaft so that pebble has fair exposure... could be made easier by using river stones that are flattened by the current
If someone is going to go to the effort, time and have the materials to affix a pebble to the shaft of an arrow with some resin (tree sap) and some waxed twine... I would allow the extra damage. And just to make sure they don't intend to use it as a frequent thing, I am going to require some checks along the way and specifically detailed material gathering, storage and preparation. I am also going to decrease the range. If they try to use it in combat, they will also incur disadvantage. That way it stays as a situational tool when they are stuck somewhere... yep... a tool... not a weapon... if they want the weaponized version, I will have them learn to use a sling.
The problem I see with this is that this type ruling is going to encourage your players to continue this type of "not really" a solution but what amounts to just changing the rules to change the problem. And changing the spell is needlessly complex and opens the door to a whole bunch of odd adjudication that you will need to do as now they know that a spell that says "x" actually means "x + whatever we could possibly through tortured logic extend it to". So, it sounds like they basically wanted to use ranged attacks to influence which direction the column fell. Apparently, the normal 60ft of magic stone was not far enough? If it was, problem solved, why the rube-goldberg contraptioning? If you needed a longer distance, why didn't normal arrows/bolts work? They do the same or more damage as magic stone. If they needed "bludgeoning" instead of piercing, the way simpler solution would be allow them to use practice arrows with blunted heads that do bludgeoning damage. Maybe reduce the damage a dice step (I mean it isn't like the amount of damage mattered) if you worried about a bow attack affecting bludgeon resistance... You just wanted a plausible way for this to work (and you already fudged a lot) Just thinking that you found suspending your logic around the spells easier than the more 'realistic' solutions and that opens magic up to some serious possible abuses down the road. For example, fireball uses up all the oxygen in the area, so should that actually put out any existing fire in the area of effect? In real life that is how they put out oil rig fires sometimes... so sure, don't use water on the fire, blow it up more... it sounds silly but that is what road you are heading down.
Personally, I'd allow players to affix pebbles in lieu of arrowheads then enchant them with the spell. The spell does 1 d6 force damage and that is what the hit would deliver, as the stone pops on impact, nullifying the normal arrow damage. I would also halve the range, as stated above, for physics. On a Longbow this is a reduction in damage and range and on a Shortbow it's a reduction in range. Bother "penalties" to me, are enough tradeoff for the benefit of having magical damage (overcome resistances) and a different type.
RaW I'd say it doesn't work, because as per a hundred other "what if" spell questions, everyone says "If it doesn't say it DOES something, it DOESN'T" No mention of using a bow in the spell, so RaW, I think it likely can't. Good thing Rules in campaigns are DM purview. Nothing game breaking about that.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I'm not actually sure what the point of this is. All the talk of how it would affect the flight as if it was fired from a bow is meaningless. In order to use them as Magic Stones, you would be making a ranged SPELL attack, not a ranged WEAPON attack, so archery physics no longer enter into it. If you affix them to an arrow and fire them using the archer's natural ability, you aren't triggering the spell effect and now you're just shooting an arrow with a rock on the end. Now if you want to have the archer use the spell attack but use the archery mechanics just for flavor and panache, I'm all for that :)
I was mulling this idea over for a while and I don't exactly see a problem with doing this but I figured I would open it up to scrutiny.
Magic Stone on the arrow heads of an arrow provided they are made of stone. Or perhaps literal stones placed onto the shafts and deal bludgeoning instead of piercing. Thoughts?
Edit: With stones on the shaft, the added weight would affect trajectory, I'd probably limit range to 30/60 effectively with short bow, maybe 60/120 longbow.
You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
Well, arrowheads aren't pebbles, and the spell requires throwing the stone or hurling it from a sling. Since this isn't covered by the spell's rules, it's up to your DM.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Well, since I'm the DM in question and this is a since ruled thing. I'm just asking for opinions. I'd argue that if it works by hurling it from a sling that it works hurling it on a stick with a bow.
You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
My own opinion would have been no for the same reason InquisitiveCoder mentioned; however, I'm curious about what the situation was that came up in regards to using the spell this way. I guess if this was some sort of creative answer to a problem I would reconsider, I like to allow slight rule bends for creative problem solving, but I don't like it if the purpose is just to be more optimized in combat. Like were the players just trying to squeak out some extra damage somewhere? Or were they facing an enemy that's immune to piercing and slashing damage and thought of this as a solution?
My players found a cavern with an invisible floor but completely missed a chest that contained the clue that there were invisible floors lol. So they wanted to destroy a column and knock it over to the gap. Unfortunately, they had no idea how to do that because the only caster that they had was a warlock and he didn't focus on damage so much. So I said screw it, there's some flint mixed in with some of the rock and they had a bit of explosive powder from a previous run (Very small amount frankly. The original amount shouldn't have broken this column technically but I really didn't know how they were going to cross this gap lol) so the archer (With initiate to get some cantrips) fashioned two arrows and a bolt with rocks, cast magic stone on them and they lit a piece of rope that ran up into the column where they had put the remaining powder into a small bag and bored it into the center of the column. When the explosion went off, they all fired along the top 1/3 of the piller to push it and make a bridge. The irony is that the particular column they had ended up landing ON the invisible bridge and couldn't, on it's own, fit but no one noticed cause they rushed across after the explosion, thinking that some enemies may have heard it. XD
You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
How would you securely affix a pebble on an arrow shaft without an adhesive and without carving it? That's the real issue to me.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
You could always carve the wood of the arrow to hold the pebble securely...
It wouldn't even be that hard split the shaft insert pebble... wrap to secure... cut off any excess shaft so that pebble has fair exposure... could be made easier by using river stones that are flattened by the current
If someone is going to go to the effort, time and have the materials to affix a pebble to the shaft of an arrow with some resin (tree sap) and some waxed twine... I would allow the extra damage. And just to make sure they don't intend to use it as a frequent thing, I am going to require some checks along the way and specifically detailed material gathering, storage and preparation. I am also going to decrease the range. If they try to use it in combat, they will also incur disadvantage. That way it stays as a situational tool when they are stuck somewhere... yep... a tool... not a weapon... if they want the weaponized version, I will have them learn to use a sling.
The problem I see with this is that this type ruling is going to encourage your players to continue this type of "not really" a solution but what amounts to just changing the rules to change the problem. And changing the spell is needlessly complex and opens the door to a whole bunch of odd adjudication that you will need to do as now they know that a spell that says "x" actually means "x + whatever we could possibly through tortured logic extend it to".
So, it sounds like they basically wanted to use ranged attacks to influence which direction the column fell. Apparently, the normal 60ft of magic stone was not far enough? If it was, problem solved, why the rube-goldberg contraptioning?
If you needed a longer distance, why didn't normal arrows/bolts work? They do the same or more damage as magic stone.
If they needed "bludgeoning" instead of piercing, the way simpler solution would be allow them to use practice arrows with blunted heads that do bludgeoning damage. Maybe reduce the damage a dice step (I mean it isn't like the amount of damage mattered) if you worried about a bow attack affecting bludgeon resistance...
You just wanted a plausible way for this to work (and you already fudged a lot)
Just thinking that you found suspending your logic around the spells easier than the more 'realistic' solutions and that opens magic up to some serious possible abuses down the road. For example, fireball uses up all the oxygen in the area, so should that actually put out any existing fire in the area of effect? In real life that is how they put out oil rig fires sometimes... so sure, don't use water on the fire, blow it up more... it sounds silly but that is what road you are heading down.
I really dont understand how the magic could just be limited to "a pebble"... This pebble could be larger than some arrowheads lmao
Personally, I'd allow players to affix pebbles in lieu of arrowheads then enchant them with the spell. The spell does 1 d6 force damage and that is what the hit would deliver, as the stone pops on impact, nullifying the normal arrow damage. I would also halve the range, as stated above, for physics. On a Longbow this is a reduction in damage and range and on a Shortbow it's a reduction in range. Bother "penalties" to me, are enough tradeoff for the benefit of having magical damage (overcome resistances) and a different type.
RaW I'd say it doesn't work, because as per a hundred other "what if" spell questions, everyone says "If it doesn't say it DOES something, it DOESN'T" No mention of using a bow in the spell, so RaW, I think it likely can't. Good thing Rules in campaigns are DM purview. Nothing game breaking about that.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I'm not actually sure what the point of this is. All the talk of how it would affect the flight as if it was fired from a bow is meaningless. In order to use them as Magic Stones, you would be making a ranged SPELL attack, not a ranged WEAPON attack, so archery physics no longer enter into it. If you affix them to an arrow and fire them using the archer's natural ability, you aren't triggering the spell effect and now you're just shooting an arrow with a rock on the end. Now if you want to have the archer use the spell attack but use the archery mechanics just for flavor and panache, I'm all for that :)
The Archery fighting style reads as follows:
You gain a +2 bonus to Attack rolls you make with Ranged Weapons.
It does not specify that the fighting style is only for firing a bow and arrow.
FYI
Per Jeremy Crawford, an improvised weapon is a weapon when it is being used as a weapon.
See the Tweet.
https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/666693440600600576?s=20&t=e62rQI-6kcWcNlrResFsrQ