The Weapon Bond ability for the eldritch knight allows you to bond with a specific weapon and summon it if you need it. This is handy if your disarmed or even for a thrown weapon.. but can you use it iwth a bloody seige engine?
For Example:
The Eldritch Knight has a loaded, cocked ballista stowed in a special room at home. he goes on a dungeon crawl and while creeping a passegway and suddenly, there's a huge ogre coming the other way. He snaps his finges and POOF, there's a loaded ballista in his hands. He fires it at the very surprised ogre. Much halarity ensues.
That would be awesome.
If you want a rulesy reason why it doesn't work, I'd say that "weapon" has to refer to something on the "weapons" chart on p149. A ballista wouldn't be a "weapon"-type object in that sense, it would be a "seige engine"-type object.
I wouldn't feel compelled by that argument, myself.
It depends on whether or not the class feature specifies a restriction on weapon type (melee, ranged, any) and whether or not ballistas are classified as "siege engines" or "siege weapons", RAW. In either case, a ballista isn't going to appear in the Eldritch Knight's hands; in the passageway in front of him, perhaps (if the ballista will even fit within the passageway).
The only technical glitch I see with it is that it only summons one weapon. It doesn't say anything about ammunition. So it depends on what your DM says ammuntion is for the ballista. If it could shoot javelins, then you are all set, as long as you bring some with you, which is not unreasonable. If the ballista in question uses larger ammunition, then I would allow the second weapon bond of the eldritch knight to be used on a single piece of ammunition. Due to silly rules with ammunition, it would be destroyed when fired, but if it is not, you could keep re-summoning the ammuntion with a bonus action.
Lucas_Blackstone wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
I would say that a summoned ranged weapon gets there with reasonable amount of ammunition for it. If you summon a longbow you should also summon quiver with 20-30 arrows atleast.
so summoning a balista with 5-10 bolt is not unreasonable.
Lucas_Blackstone wrote:
Razintarr wrote:
Weapon bond says it teleports to your hand, I'd say it has to be a hand-held weapon.
Also, i wouldn't allow an improvised weapon, seems too abusive.
I would allow improvised weapons that could fit into your hand.
It's fun, and i can always have a second oger behind the first.
mellored wrote:
I checked the DMG, siege equipment are categorized as weapons, not engines.
The Eldritch Knight feature states "to your hand"; that does not, necessarily, mean into your hand. A ballista could be teleported to your hand in such a way that you end up gripping it in the manner required to fire it (if it is fired via a hand gripped trigger). I know, it sounds a little extreme; but, it is RAW.
I think someone has been watching too many web videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTccvj0gc58 Skip ahead to the 4 minute mark if you want to save time.
It would be ok summon any siege weapon, as it is weapon that can be loaded/operated by single person.
and that size balista can be.
OoftaMeg wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
mellored wrote:
Was all ready with the backstab joke, but luckily I actually read through the thread first and saw that I was too late.
I would agree that the intention of the rule is to have a cinimatic display of raising your hands up, calling in an echoing voice "I Call you to me SWORD OF OGER DECAPITATION" and hav it appear in your hand with a clash of lightening and a fatal cleave.
HOWEVER, the rules are vague enough that you can bond any ":weapon", even your favorite lead pipe.. or "blasto" your ballista. In my original point, I said "loaded ballista" and I think that's actually an important point. I dont' think ammo would come with it, nor do I think it should be a seige tower (that's not a weapon, it's a bloody building on wheels).
A serious response: While I allow a fair amount of lattitude for creativity/fun I wouldn't allow it as a DM. The weapon has to appear in your hand, which to me means you have to be able to hold it in one hand. Last time I checked a ballista is a large weapon and probably weighs a ton or more.
Or if I did allow it you raise your hand to the sky and summon "THE BALLISATA OF DOOM!" which then falls on your head doing 10d6 damage and you are pinned underneath. Reflex save for half damage.
I don't know, I might be tempted to permit it if a player really wanted it. Although, after summoning it, it depends where they left it, or they may find the next time it has been summoned the wheels have been stolen and someone had away with the bolt when someone else discovered it in the last dungeon. It's probably not something that is hugely manueverable or adjustable on the fly, and what's the action on launching one? Unless it's a particularly well timed and planned shot, it seems more likely that the target is getting out of the way, or having a fair chance of being at the wrong angle to begin with. Plus, even assuming you can get the bolt back, you need to reload it to have it ready for next time, and if you can't reuse the bolt, you have to go through the process of finding somewhere to restock it, and summoning it to that location, and rearming it...
OoftaMeg wrote:
transcendantviewer wrote:
Can you turn a monk into your bonded weapon? Then you could teleport him in for tag team action.
Dropping things on top of people does not damage automatically damage them. Well, you could make an attack with an improvised weapon at disadvantage i suppose. But those do little damage on a hit.
If a pc can drop an item to deal 20d6 then other flying creatures could just 'drop' on PCs and kill PCs kamikaze style. That dragon can drop himself onto 2-3 party members costing 0 movement then breath attack the party from a very advantageous angle. Then fly straight back up 120 feet and drop on you again for another 12d6. It would be stupid to allow PCs or NPCs to do this.
Byakugan01 wrote:
Really, I'll simplify what I stated above: it's the same premise as "Rocks fall; everyone dies." just with mechanics attached.
Think about it. If someone is 200 feet above you and you are looking at them and they drop a piano 'approximately' above you, what would happen? You would move right?
This sort of thing is how hulking hurlers did a quadrillion damage. Because players wanted to abuse the rules. In this case you want to make up new rules and gameworld physics to turn falling damage into free attack damage.
In real life, a roll of quarters can kill a person after a 10 ft drop....and stabbing someone with a sword usually kills them. Its not a good excuse to ask if you can 'drop' your sword on them to do 20d6 instead. Then the next person will want to dump a sack with 20 rocks in it and do 20x20d6 instead. Then the next guy will want to play a goliath bearbarian and drop 3000 1lb rocks on someone. Its dumb.
Also eldrich knights aren't even proficient with seige weapons. Either way you cut it, it doesn't pass the smell test.
It will only get that far if you let it. Your job as DM is to reasonably, logically, and creatively disallow things such as that. If a player despirately wants to do something like that, it's fine to give them a climactic moment where he gets to push the boulder off the cliff and kill the dragon below. If you want to completely deny something like that, I have no problem with that, though I personally wouldn't prevent anyone on any side of the screen to take advantage of falling and practicality. The simple matter is; you drop something heavy, it hurts when it lands on something. I'm not saying it will always make sense for someone with Improvised Weapon Proficiency to be able to drop a boulder and kill someone with the boulder's falling damage, but once or twice, if they had the opportunity, it would be a cool way to kill a dragon that's attacking a city. Anyone that's just out to maximize and exploit the rules of the game, quite frankly, shouldn't play a story-driven game. In some circles, that's fine and even encouraged, but in others, it's just annoying and I agree that it's a tad ridiculous. But, I speak to you as a DM, not a book with rules. It's your job to adjudicate, not sit idly by with your thumb up the drain and watch a powergamer turn your game inside out because he likes the feeling of rolling way more dice than necessary.
I would restrict the choices of 'weapon' to those on the weapon table, with some wiggle room for the rule-of-cool.
Otherwise, things can get silly...
Byakugan01 wrote:
not to mention guns. summoning a shotgun could get really interesting.
thewoozle wrote:
thewoozle wrote:
I'd love to play in a more gritty D&D 5e modern game. But, you know, with magic.
Improvised weapons are, by definition, not weapons. Thus, they cannot be weapon-bonded.
Imagine if you could. Imagine that you bond a bag of holding on the grounds that you could whack someone over the head with it. You could really abuse the ability to summon a bag from your base to your hand, especially if you can use sending or the like to communicate to your servants what to put in the bag.
This is not the intent of weapon bond.
For me, just because you can call something a weapon in natural language doesn't mean that it is a weapon in D&D terms. I'd limit weapon bond to the weapons in the list of weapon types listed in the PHB. Rules already exist to allow re-skinning of these weapons to cover types not named; nunchuks being a club, for example.
Also, it summons one weapon. Not one weapon, plus ammunition/quiver/scabbard/cleaning rag/maintainance tools/protective case/letter of authenticity/ad nauseum.
For your own sanity, you know it makes sense!
mellored wrote:
OoftaMeg wrote:
I might be remembering wrong, but I thought you couldn’t be more than 100 feet away from your bonded weapon for more than 1 hour or you lose the bond? If that is true, then you would have to lug the ballista around the whole time anyway.
At any rate, I don’t think that the designers intended for siege weapons to be used by weapon bond. And I would rule (and I know my DM would agree) that the summoned weapon would have to be able to be carried in your hand.
For instance, I can grip a door handle of a door attached to a building, but I cannot pick up the building. Given that, I would never say that the building was in my hand. The door handle was but not the building. So I would say that if you were to bond to a ballista, the best you would get would be a piece of wood that your hand could hold.
Also, I agree that it wouldn’t summon ammunition. If you summon a bow, you still need arrows.
lawrencehoy wrote:
mattaddhall wrote:
mellored wrote:
mattaddhall wrote:
mellored wrote:
I'd allow it. It seems fun and badass. Raw it works.
Pretty obviously against the spirit of the rules. And also not RAW, since there is a whole lot of open interpretation.
-Does not say it comes with ammunition.
-Does not say it a balista would be aimed wherever you want it to be.
-DM could just say if its too heavy to lift when you summon it then you fall with it.
-does not cause damage to creatures under it by RAW. Any damage assigned would be completely up to the DM.
-there is no proficiency listed in the phb to use siege weapons. By the dmg they are 'tools'.
-and the best reason of all is because if the pcs can do it then so can the npcs. Think nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Byakugan01 wrote:
Byakugan01 wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
When a creature teleports, its gear comes too. But gear doesn't have gear!
Teleport treats creatures differently than it treats objects. Creatures bring their gear. No such rule for objects. Objects cannnot have gear.
Personally, if I was DMing an EK who was bonded to their longbow, I would allow them to teleport some arrows with it.
jaelis wrote:
ArialBlack wrote:
NamelessHero wrote:
ArialBlack wrote:
NamelessHero wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
The phb says spells can be weapons too, but it is fluff.
It is a bit obvious that a large wooden tool that shoots projectiles at range might require a ranged attack roll. That does not support your argument at all.
The statistics for all the siege equipment specifically says they are all, in fact, objects and not weapons. The index to look it up calls it all siege equipment. Just a handfull of pages before siege equipment is a handy section with object statistics.
For example wood objects normally have an AC of 15...which all the wood siege equipment -happens- to have. Also they have immunity to poison and psychic damage.
Also things like trebuchet and ballista specifically require actions load and to aim. So even if you could bond one, by RAW it will still require 3 actions to load aim and fire.
Its cute that you wanna go all Power Ranger wannabee on the bad guys though.
Lucas_Blackstone wrote:
Byakugan01 wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
I don't know, the idiom "to hand" can mean a lot of things, even just "nearby." I think it makes sense to read it as "into your hand" here, but its open to interpretation.
Am I the only one that thinks this argument is silly? With the two strongest siege weapons available, the fighter is still dealing only 8d10 over the course of 3 turns. And even on the turn they summon it, the only thing they can do is aim the thing, then fire on their next action. That's an Action Surge just to fire it the round you called it. Now, yes, it's a lot of damage, but the thing's got its own hit points and is slow. You could reasonably have monsters start destroying it. That way, the player has to sink money into repairing the thing. And let's not forget the fact that even though Siege Engines don't have a cost listed, but you have to think "Hmm... How much would a city-saquing destruction device cost to produce? Let alone purchase?" A cost that I project to be way beyond the amount of pocket change that PCs should be able to afford at level 3. And not only that, but let's visit the fact that its damage is spread across 3 turns. That sets this thing's average damage between 12 and 18 damage per round. Hardly anything to write home about. Now, yes, it could arguably neuter the big bad of the sudden ambush, but that's once every 3 rounds. And a full round where they could run up and beat down the fighter that just summoned it, potentially killing him before he'd even get to fire. Now, look at those facts and tell me that it's unbalanced, because that's the only reason this despute should come up.
- They would need (Likely) upwards of about 30,000 gold - impossible for an entire party of level 3s.
- The damage would be greatly dispersed out across multiple turns (Unless others help, but that just further puts the DPR on the average) and still couldn't fire the thing on the first round it's summoned. This is further exasperated when the DM says "The Trebuchet isn't loaded. (Trebuchet can't even attack anything within 60ft of itself)" so the fighter would need to use a round to load, a round to aim, and a round to fire, all after summoning it. {I'll admit, they could summon a cannon and get the same damage without the drawback of being unable to attack adjacent attackers, but cannons are probably even more expensive and require special ammunition, which would need to also be weapon-bonded and/or carried around by the fighter.}
- The Siege Engine has it's own pool of hit points, meaning it can be damaged and thus, would need repairs. What this PC gains in damage, they make up for in crafting expenses just to keep this thing up and running.
- The Siege Engine may be the party's Ace in the Hole, but the ones using it can still be killed.
OoftaMeg wrote:
transcendantviewer wrote:
Ammunition is a specific item that you require to have in order to use ranged weapons that aren't thrown. That is rules bro. As another has already pointed out....your weapon does not come equipped to a fully loaded Apache helicopter with a crew of marines on it. Class abilities and spells do exactly what they are described to do, and arent required to list the infinite possibilities that go along with context. What you are pretty much claiming is that you can shoot a bow and -say- that 500 arrows shoot out of it because you said so and the rules don't SAY bows can't shoot 500 arrows at once. Or if you are falling, you just say OK I stop falling because the rules don't SAY I can't will myself to stop falling...thats dumber than Kim Kardashian with Down Syndrome.
Very first part of the description of spells in the PHB says spells can be weapons....but you still can't bond to one. Whatever game you think you are playing, it isn't DnD.
Byakugan01 wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
[quote="lawrencehoy"]
<span>ArialBlack wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
CraggleRock wrote:
can someone else just grab your balista and teleport to you? What if you bolt it down to a keep...can you summon the keep with your sword? Can you bolt it to the ground and teleport the whole planet? The answer is no. The ability says you get a weapon. Not a weapon with ammunition. Not a weapon with a scabbard, not a weapon that is already aimed at someone.
Kinda hard to claim something is RAW in the same breath you say its up to DM adjudication. That is the equivalent of saying any interpretation is RAW because the DM -could- say so.
You can't be disarmed from your bonded weapon.
Byakugan01 wrote:
Byakugan01 wrote:
transcendantviewer wrote:
So could a beastmaster ranger with some levels in EK claim that his animal was his weapon and summon it?
It counted as a weapon in the Gunslinger 
CraggleRock wrote: