I'm a DM looking at the Arcane Artillery from Exploring Eberron. More specifically, the two that serve to amplify spells: Long Rod and Focus Staff. They increase the range and area of effect of spells cast through them, and turn single-target spells into 10ft radius effects. The downside is, they take several actions to set up, 3 to fire, and they're heavy and enormous to transport.
I like the idea of including these on battlefields the party comes across, as fun toys or side-objectives to secure, but I worry about the cheese options this could open up if the party decides to haul them off the battlefield they find it in. So, I ask: How hard can you shenanigate with a Siege Staff or a Long Rod? Let's look mostly at tiers 2 & 3.
As a basic example to get things going, I'm picturing a goliath wizard with a few points in strength so he can carry a Long Rod by himself, with a couple skeletons via Animate Dead as his artillery crew. He still needs extra time to set things up, but if he knows a fight is coming, he can set up in place without worrying too much about range. If he's doing this ASAP, he spent his 3rd level spells on skeletons, but can still do nasty things like an AoE Hold Person or Tasha's Mind Whip. If he has 4th level spells, that opens up stuff like AoE Banishment or Polymorph, or huge coverage and reach with Hypnotic Pattern.
Don't worry about it, if they figure out how to break the game with them let them do it once or twice after that the siege weapon "breaks" so they can't use it anymore, setting them off on a side quest to try and figure out how to repair it. Using Skeletons to man it is nothing to worry about because one enemy Fireball or other AoE and those skeletons are all dead anyway.
I'm a DM looking at the Arcane Artillery from Exploring Eberron. More specifically, the two that serve to amplify spells: Long Rod and Focus Staff. They increase the range and area of effect of spells cast through them, and turn single-target spells into 10ft radius effects. The downside is, they take several actions to set up, 3 to fire, and they're heavy and enormous to transport.
I like the idea of including these on battlefields the party comes across, as fun toys or side-objectives to secure, but I worry about the cheese options this could open up if the party decides to haul them off the battlefield they find it in. So, I ask: How hard can you shenanigate with a Siege Staff or a Long Rod? Let's look mostly at tiers 2 & 3.
As a basic example to get things going, I'm picturing a goliath wizard with a few points in strength so he can carry a Long Rod by himself, with a couple skeletons via Animate Dead as his artillery crew. He still needs extra time to set things up, but if he knows a fight is coming, he can set up in place without worrying too much about range. If he's doing this ASAP, he spent his 3rd level spells on skeletons, but can still do nasty things like an AoE Hold Person or Tasha's Mind Whip. If he has 4th level spells, that opens up stuff like AoE Banishment or Polymorph, or huge coverage and reach with Hypnotic Pattern.
Don't worry about it, if they figure out how to break the game with them let them do it once or twice after that the siege weapon "breaks" so they can't use it anymore, setting them off on a side quest to try and figure out how to repair it. Using Skeletons to man it is nothing to worry about because one enemy Fireball or other AoE and those skeletons are all dead anyway.