D&D’s Five Most Greatest Weapons
posted Monday, December 1st 2008 by
None of the Above
They aren’t just the greatest. They’re the most greatest.
5. Lichkiller Gatling Ballista
The ballista is strictly speaking a giant crossbow used for siege warfare, although I’m not entirely sure if mediaeval engineers ever managed to construct a rapid-fire version outside of videogames. The killer is the ammunition – huge bolts, each tipped with a mace of disruption.
4. Keen Vorpal Scimitar, third edition
D&D3.5′s vorpal sword decapitates on a natural 20, and fourth edition’s equivalent merely deals open-ended bonus damage. In early third edition, however, vorpal decapitated on any critical, a natural 18-20 on a scimitar. What’s more, the Keen property stacked with the Improved Critical feat to triple the weapon’s threat range to 12-20, chopping off heads with 45% of successful attacks. Ouch.
3. Bag of Holding & Portable Hole
It’s an ancient rule that extradimensional spaces don’t play nicely with each other, and 22,500 gold pieces buys you your very own time-space shredding kit. Placing the hole into the bag has the specific effect of destroying both and pulling any creatures within ten foot radius into the Astral Plane. Among the traits of this plane are that all spells are quickened, poison doesn’t function, and everyone can fly. Alternatively, the payload can be delivered by summoned monster, who will have no qualms about sucking your foes out of reality for instant victory.
2. Head of Vecna
You’ve heard of the Hand and Eye of Vecna, artifacts that replace the wearer’s own body parts and bestow terrible power. One party of adventurers discovered an even greater relic – the entire Head of Vecna. A fight broke out over who would be allowed to cut off their own head to receive Vecna’s power. At no point did any of them discover that the head was a fake, set up by a cleverer adventuring party who returned later to loot four decapitated bodies.
1. Peasant Railgun
Here’s the idea. You line up three thousand or so peasants, and give a spear to the one at the back. The rest ready an action to take the spear from the man behind and pass it to the man in front. Since the spear makes it fifteen thousand feet in the space of one round, in other words six seconds, a thrower at the end of the line receives it moving at a truly lethal velocity in excess of mach 2. Better hope he rolls high.
Comments
greywulf
December 1st, 2008
Awesome collection. The challenge now is to find a way to drop them all into just one adventure……..
Samuel Van Der Wall
December 1st, 2008
I love it! Great list.
Zaratustra
December 1st, 2008
SPHERES OF ANNIHILATION
Micah
December 1st, 2008
Aw, come on! No mention of the straight up Bastard Sword? That’s been making me snicker since I was like 10 years old.
Francis B
December 2nd, 2008
The great warlord laughs as he unveils the great…line of peasants holding a spear?
My players will never see it coming.
McGuffin
December 2nd, 2008
he he, my favorite weapon is a magic carpet and magically remote detonating explosives.
heh… carpet bombing… ^^
Biff
January 6th, 2009
Keen and Improved Crit don’t stack in 3.5. Too broken. There might be some spells in the Spell Compendium to do something similar.
Not sure, but Keen and Vorpal might not stack, either.
Also, add “Kaorti” resin from the web enhancement to increase the crit multiplier to x4.
And might as well use a Jovar – dmg of a greatsword, crit range of a scimitar. Requires exot weapon prof: Jovar.
bob
May 3rd, 2009
what if u shove a loaf of journeybread up a dragons mouth?
mark
November 18th, 2009
along with that critical threat don’t forget the option of weapon master prestige class at higher level gains a +2 to the critical threat range also. but for even more threat range go with the bladed gauntlet from the sword and fist its threat range before eratted was 17-20 improved critical boosts this to 13-20 add keen it goes to 9-20 and the prestige class benifit you cut heads off 70% of the time. so awesome
The Prolific Mr. Anonymous
June 16th, 2010
Peasant Railgun has never and will never work. There are no rules for velocity in D&D.
Happy Lil' DM
September 8th, 2010
Hey Mr Anonymous,
Thats what the DM is for…to create house rules…Muhahahaha…
Dude
May 25th, 2011
I’d say, oh, 20d6 crash damage, like a fall, and stick a 12-20 lvl fighter @ the front for accuracy.
Defiant
June 1st, 2011
The Keen enchant does not stack with the feat. But a weapon like that one with the feat, the Weapon Master Prestige Class, and Pathfinder Fiter will give u a crit range of 13-20 with a x4 multiplier.
Aatwood
June 23rd, 2011
That’s going to be my new t-shirt. “Peasant Railgun; It’s The New Death Star”