I have a Crossbow of Warning and recently bought a ship with my party. We're wondering if it's possible to enlarge the Crossbow permanently and mount it to the ship as a Ballista.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Permanency used to be a spell in earlier editions, but it came with a steep cost. Iirc, in 1e it cost a point of constitution, permanently lost at a time when there were no asi. Then it turned into a big xp hit. I think it was an 8th level spell. I’m just saying this because, outside of wish, as linklite mentioned, you’re looking at homebrew, so maybe this can give you some ideas.
I miss the Permanency spell. It's silly that only a 9th level spell could be used to keep a Reduced item that smaller size. There are a bunch of other things you could do for fun if Permanency were an actual spell in this edition.
Yeah, it was a neat spell. I think it was 8th level, though. And they do kind of need some high cost or people will start throwing it on improved invisibile characters, and generally wrecking the concentration mechanic.
I have a Crossbow of Warning and recently bought a ship with my party. We're wondering if it's possible to enlarge the Crossbow permanently and mount it to the ship as a Ballista.
You'd just use the magic item crafting rules; it's perfectly reasonable to rule that a crossbow of warning is an appropriate exotic material for crafting a ballista of warning.
From a verisimilitude perspective, it might be possible to enlarge the crossbow permanently, but it wouldn’t be a Ballista even if you mount it, because while ballista and crossbows share superficial similarities, they’re not actually the same weapon. Notably, your standard crossbow isn’t designed to be handled and operated by tiny 5 inch creatures. Even the winch on a Heavy Crosshow is sized for full sized humans, so even children shouldn’t be able to use it effectively, never mind tiny humanoids.
From a fun perspective, it should be just fine, so you could ask your DM to have you just transfer the enchantment onto a ballista, or maybe the weapon transforms when it enlarges.
I have a Crossbow of Warning and recently bought a ship with my party. We're wondering if it's possible to enlarge the Crossbow permanently and mount it to the ship as a Ballista.
Or just fasten the crossbow to the mast to grant the warning to all the crew.
One thing to note about magic item crafting/enchanting: it’s a “can I try this?” aspect, not a hard feature. Not saying you can’t or shouldn’t ask, just that the material clearly places this in the “at the DM’s discretion” category.
They used to have a process for creating magical items. I think the main spell was permanency, I think. For whatever reason they removed from 5e almost as stupid as Attunement
Attunement makes sense, or else the already powerful magic items become a serious balance problem. Look at the Artificer. Increasing their attunement slots makes them nigh-near unpinnable with status effects at high levels.
But Permanency applied to spells cast on objects does not necessarily have that effect on game balance. Just say that any one item can have Permanency cast on it once. You could also make a rule that magic items are unaffected by Permanency to prevent players over-tuning their own magic items with that spell.
I have a Crossbow of Warning and recently bought a ship with my party. We're wondering if it's possible to enlarge the Crossbow permanently and mount it to the ship as a Ballista.
Cast Wish and ask for the effects of Enlarge but permanent? Risk losing the spell, but...
That said, I'd just ask the DM. They could even make a quest based on your desire to make the conversion.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Permanency used to be a spell in earlier editions, but it came with a steep cost. Iirc, in 1e it cost a point of constitution, permanently lost at a time when there were no asi. Then it turned into a big xp hit. I think it was an 8th level spell.
I’m just saying this because, outside of wish, as linklite mentioned, you’re looking at homebrew, so maybe this can give you some ideas.
I miss the Permanency spell. It's silly that only a 9th level spell could be used to keep a Reduced item that smaller size. There are a bunch of other things you could do for fun if Permanency were an actual spell in this edition.
Yeah, it was a neat spell. I think it was 8th level, though. And they do kind of need some high cost or people will start throwing it on improved invisibile characters, and generally wrecking the concentration mechanic.
You'd just use the magic item crafting rules; it's perfectly reasonable to rule that a crossbow of warning is an appropriate exotic material for crafting a ballista of warning.
From a verisimilitude perspective, it might be possible to enlarge the crossbow permanently, but it wouldn’t be a Ballista even if you mount it, because while ballista and crossbows share superficial similarities, they’re not actually the same weapon. Notably, your standard crossbow isn’t designed to be handled and operated by tiny 5 inch creatures. Even the winch on a Heavy Crosshow is sized for full sized humans, so even children shouldn’t be able to use it effectively, never mind tiny humanoids.
From a fun perspective, it should be just fine, so you could ask your DM to have you just transfer the enchantment onto a ballista, or maybe the weapon transforms when it enlarges.
They could even make a quest based on your desire to make the conversion.
snaptube vidmate
Or just fasten the crossbow to the mast to grant the warning to all the crew.
One thing to note about magic item crafting/enchanting: it’s a “can I try this?” aspect, not a hard feature. Not saying you can’t or shouldn’t ask, just that the material clearly places this in the “at the DM’s discretion” category.
They used to have a process for creating magical items. I think the main spell was permanency, I think. For whatever reason they removed from 5e almost as stupid as Attunement
Oh yes, imagine wanting to cap how many effects can be running at a time. Completely unreasonable and irrational.
Attunement makes sense, or else the already powerful magic items become a serious balance problem. Look at the Artificer. Increasing their attunement slots makes them nigh-near unpinnable with status effects at high levels.
But Permanency applied to spells cast on objects does not necessarily have that effect on game balance. Just say that any one item can have Permanency cast on it once. You could also make a rule that magic items are unaffected by Permanency to prevent players over-tuning their own magic items with that spell.
well i sound stupid when you say it like that... hahaha
We've kinda been talking about the ins and outs of it. So far, logically crafting one from the other as exotic materials seems the most reasonable.