Alright, so, right to the question..
Someone wants to use a form of explosive.. something akin to a placed, shaped charge, to blast through a palicades. They are hell bent on this path in the story. So, the question becomes..
Do you get explosives from a Gnomish, Dwarven, or Alchemist merchant? Presumably a rather shady variant of whichever would have a supply of explosives.
Alchemists could mix something up; Gnomes and Dwarves do a lot of mining, and might use shaped charges to clear tunnels.
Thanks in advance for your help!
There's nothing in the 4E rules that covers large explosives, nevermind where to buy them. The closest thing to a shaped charge is probably a blast patch, an alchemical item found in the Adventurers Vault book, or a clockwork bomb, another alchemical item found in the Eberron Player's Guide... Alchemical items however, are single use items that let you use an Item Power, and powers don't affect objects unless the DM says they do. So it's entirely up to the DM whether or not there are demolition/mining explosives in his campaign and where you could find them.
Thank you! Very helpful.^_^
In my 3.5e campaign I recently introduced bombs, because the players were keen to have them and they knew that black powder existed in the setting. I facilitated the group getting them, but expressly stated that the bombs were in no way "shapeable"; I described them as Acme Loony Toons ball bombs with a fuse:
That being said, the party was smart enough to realize that putting a bomb inside a space is more devastating than laying it next to an obstacle. So they used stone shape to cut a hole in the wall they wanted to blow up. The explosion obviously had a larger impact than normal.