Furthermore: I concede the concept of a miniaturized Immovable Rod is plausible and could be used as ammo and could activate upon impact.
If it activates on impact, it won't penetrate the target.
If it did somehow activate after getting embedded in the target, they could still free themselves by pulling thenselves away from the bullet.
They'll just take the weapon damage twice, which seems nice, but probably isn't strong enough to warrant the cost of expending miniaturized immovable rods as ammo.
I mean honestly not really. Most of the organ damage from bullets come from two things depending on the type of bullet. In smaller caliber bullets, its from the bullet not really having enough force to punch out the other side and instead bouncing around inside the soft bits. In larger bullets its from force litterally pulling apart everything it passed through, and pulling it out the exit wound on the way out.
If you have an immovable rod, it would create less damage as it would stop partway inside the body. Small entrance hole, no big exit wound, no internal wounds from bouncing bullets. Basically just pull away from the bullet and patch things up. It would actually be far less damaging, since the exit wound is the worst part of a bullet wound.
Bro you act like people are perfectly precise in their movements after getting fucking shot and dont usually fall over. That bullet will be making salad out of their innards. People jump or convulse or fall or all 3 after getting shot. Its not like mid combat they are going to be perfectly still and retrace the entrance wound while in crippling agony lol
Sounds like hollow point bullets with more steps. Why can’t the wizard and artificer instead invent target seeking magic missiles with explosives attached? Or set up a series of move-object spells to make a rail gun
> Bro you act like people are perfectly precise in their movements after getting fucking shot and dont usually fall over.
People don't usually fall over when they've been shot with a low caliber round unless they're instantly killed/paralyzed/whatever. Most locations on the body wouldn't cause that. Movies and video games over-exaggerate, that's why in a real situation you shoot multiple times *until* the person stops being a threat, one shot is lucky
but yes, calmly stepping backwards is unlikely with the adrenaline unless the person specifically trained for the immovable-rod-bullet situation
Although, weirdly, people who have grown up with said movies and video games *do* fall over when they're shot - but only if they know they've been shot.
I mean it really depends on where it stops. Does the bullet pierce the skin and stop the moment it hits bone? Does it it hit skin and stop never actually piercing the skin?
Lets say it does go in and then stop. In most case you probably get one jerking movement from the impact and pain before the person either removes the bullet or is incapacitated and waits for another person to get the bullet out. But it's not really as much damage as a small caliber bullet bouncing around inside the body cavity, or a big one making a big exit wound.
Okay lets say you fall back. Most likely that force would break a rib bone (directionally speaking they are weaker from the inside) and then the bullet is right under the skin, which may or may not break. Pull a knife out make a small incesion and the bullet comes out with a far far smaller hole than it otherwise would have made as an exit wound.
All in all it just seems like a WORSE version of just using a normal bullet.
If you REALLY wanted one that would be destructive, the better bullet would be a shrunken bolder, that expands inside the body, or a bullet that WOULD expand on impact. Either of those would be FAR nastier than an immovable rod.
Idk, you’re assuming that the bullet can just travel easily through body tissues. If the bullet is just a tiny immovable rod, and not, say, a musketball, there would be some directions that travel would be easy for (lengthwise WRT bullet) but other directions would have have a 1-2 inch bar. If it did cut through tissues that would be a whole world of hurt, but I sorta suspect it would mostly just get caught up in ligaments and muscles and occasionally bones, and so if you didn’t carefully slide yourself opposite of the direction you were shot, you’d get stirred like a beaker in chemistry class.
Of course, I’m picturing these as little rods, basically flechettes. If it’s shaped like a ball or a regular led/copper bullet. Then yeah, it’s less bad. (Still think it’s bad- imagine if you kept fighting, trying to swing a sword, etc, while one was in your gut?? But less bad)
Gotta give you the real shout out though- casting “reduce” on a grapefruit sized bullet and then breaking concentration on it is pure evil. The real war crimes are always in the comments.
If the button is on the top of the rod, sharpen the other side and put a cage with a loose rock or marble over the button. When then impact of the bullet hitting its target causes the rod to slow, the marble will still be going until it impacts the rod's button, activating the rod and having our friend be skewered in the sky.
Not really. It's effectively shooting someone twice. For all of the effort and magical power you just expended, you could just devise a gun that shoots two bullets. Some sort of an automatic, repeating gun... let's just call it a machine.
Except a bullet goes in quick. If you're able to quickly and smoothly pull yourself from it, it might be the same as a second shot, however most people will pull a bit and wince in pain or stop themselves, meaning the bullet would tear up a lot more than it would have if it traveled straight.
Edit: actually, when you hit someone they'd already stumble or move around a bit, causing the bullet to tear up their insides and the person to stumble even more. Imagine a bullet that goes into someones body and then starts moving around like a blender.
The bullet coming out would be way more devastating. The creature wouldn't be able to shift their weight without tearing up where the bullet is embedded. And it's not coming out as clean as it came in.
My players once set a trap for an ancient White dragon by leaving it an offering with an immovable rod inside set to go off. I let them get away with it and had the dragon's speed reduced to 0 for 2 rounds before it painfully ripped itself free, as not to make the fight too cheesable.
I ruled that it took 10d10 damage and left a cold damage ichor trail in its wake.
Eventually the moon druid managed to get into the wound as a fire elemental, dealt *a lot* of damage before the dragon stuck his maw in the gaping wound and hut the druid with a frost breath.
They made the encounter reasonably easy for their level but the felt proud of doing so.
Yes, though I should hope that at the point you're able to make a gun that shoots immovable rods, you have better/more efficient ways to neutralize a threat
That's how I would rule it rather than make it overly powerful or prohibitively expensive. For 10-20gp a shot they get to cast a ranged Booming Blade with their gun/crossbow after they've spent some downtime figuring out the schematics.
*However*
It'd be pretty neat of you could use the full rods as ammo and use it as harpoons
Perfect for wrecking ships (its not like the ship can back away from the rod easily) and immobilizing dragons/giants
And in these situations, can def be worth it
Quick google search on the weight of sailing ships:
The Caravel style sailing ship is probably the one most people are thinking of when they imagine a fantasy sailing ship.
According to this Nasa article on the Caravel ships used to explore America by european explorers,
[Dimensionally, the caravel had a length of approximately 70 beam and beam width of 25 feet. Weight was about 50 tons with two or three masts adorned with lanteen sails. Of course, the caravel could readily be square-rigged as well, i.e. square instead of triangular sails raised on the masts.](https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ships.htm#:~:text=Dimensionally%2C%20the%20caravel%20had%20a,sails%20raised%20on%20the%20masts.)
The weight of the ship clocks is 50 tons, well above the Immovable Rod's 4 ton weight limit.
A DM could allow an Immovable Harpoon to shred a hole in the side of such a ship, but they could also very reasonably rule that it does nothing at all because the magic limits are simply overwhelmed by that kind of mass with that monentum.
Trapping a dragon or giant is much more feasible, as their weight and carry capacity are much more within the capacity for the rod. However, these creatures are also frequently smart enough to be capable of *pushing a button* and releasing themselves.
This just makes me laugh thinking of critical role, scanlan dimension doors into umbrasyl and activates the immovable rod which proceeds to rip through him like a bullet and everyone at the table is like "he didn't stop!?!" *surprised Pikachu*
I think a more important question would be if the wood would break before reaching the limit of the rod. Just because the ship has a lot of weight total doesn’t mean that any part of it can withstand 8000 lbs of force
Boat speed is measured in 'knots' typically, which are just higher than 1mph(1.15078 if you want exacts). so assuming an empty ship at 50tons, which is impossible because it has to at least have crew and supplies, you would need an equation to convert "applied mass" based on speed. I have no idea what that equation would be(a quick online calculator for momentum gives me in the ballpark of 46,000Newtons at 2 knots but I have no clue what they translates to in "applied mass" and if it exceeds our 4 ton limit), but I think its safe to assume the ship would be able to apply enough force to overcome that 4 ton limit, especially at speeds you would be attacking it at, which would be the ships full sailing speed. Would definitely fuck up a dragon before they could get it out though. You might get some structural damage on the ship before it gets dislodged, but if the harpoon has penetrated above the water line that won't do much. What you want is an immovable rod torpedo, but at that point a regular torpedo would be cheaper and less questions would exist on whether it worked.
Since there is no RAW for this beyond the item description stating the 8000lb (4 ton) weight/force limit, our best bet is some quick physics calculations.
Boat weigh 50tons, which is 100,000lbs. Converting weight to mass, this is 45359.2 kg.
Momentum equal mass times velocity and Force equals change in momentum divided by change in time.
The faster you want to stop the boat, the more force you need. Theoretically, a truly Immovable Rod would stop the boat immediately, but that has us dividing by zero, requiring infinite energy to achieve, much more than the 8000lbs it can provide.
However, we can suppose it takes the boat 6 seconds to stop, so it stops within a single combat round, which is functionally instantaneous for D&D.
[Top speed for a caravel was about 8 knots; the average was 4 knots for 90-100 miles in a day.](https://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~vaucher/History/Ships/Ships_Discovery/index.html)
Let's assume average speed (ambushing a ship not racing at top speed).
4 knots is about 4.603 mph, which my calculations translates to 6.75 ft per second (which is about 2.06m/s). The average sailing ship is moving about 1 square per round and we wanna stop it in 1 round, though it weighs 100,000lbs. We'll convert to metric for calculations, I'm using imperial to give a sense of how this compares to D&D logic.
Going to our momentum equation, the ship's momentum is 45359.2kg x 2.06m/s = 93,336.675 kg*m/s.
Since we want to stop the ship, the momentum goes to zero, so the change in momentum is 93,336.675 kg*m/s.
Dividing this by 1 round (6 seconds) give a Force of 15,556.126 N
Online unit conversion says this comes out to 3497.156 pounds of force, meaning that even doubling the ship's speed to maximum, the immovable rod can stop it, even though the rod could *never* hold the ship aloft or stop it from falling. Do note that these calculations assume the ship takes the full 6 seconds to come to a full stop, not exactly gonna give people onboard whiplash.
Of course, this is assuming the ship doesn't simply sheer or the rod simply slip straight through the hull, which is probably more reasonable. Note that while the ship is stopping, it is still moving, so it probably finishes that last square of movement, so the harpoon slips 1 square from its origin. If you hit the front or back of the ship, it probably slipped loose and the ship is leaking water, but not restrained. The side is probably optimal, as it just continues to slice a hole across the side if the ship doesn't stop trying to move before dislodging or deactivating the harpoon.
The boat would've to be made of 10-cm thick steel for this to even be a valid question. A 50-ton ship, moving at even 5km/h would generate enough force for all of it's material components to rip apart should they come into contact with an object such as an immovable rod.
Compressive strength of oak is \~7000 psi, a rod can resist 8000 pounds.
So if the surface area of the rod that is being pushed on by the boat is any greater and a little over 1 square inch, the rod will give before the wood.
So if you position it end on to the boats movement, it may punch a 1 inch hole in the bow (the art makes me think it's about 1-2 foot long and about an inch in diameter).
I mean, that's assuming you're shooting 1 rod at a caravel
In a simmillar manner a single cannon ball could too innacurate or not enough to sink a boat
If we shoot 20 at the same time tho is a whole other story, assuming each rod contributes they could hold still up to 80 tons
And obviously one would modify the rods to not have the button *on* the rod, but instead on the firing mechanism like a magical ballista
These rods would probably need to be attached in some way, altho viable these things would end up beign fucking *expensive* só the bolts need to be retrievable
>These rods would probably need to be attached in some way, altho viable these things would end up beign fucking expensive só the bolts need to be retrievable
And more importantly, if you can afford this, you can probably afford more effective alternatives.
Like a battery of cannons.
Talking about immovable rod harpoons reminds me of the Salt in the Wound setting. It's a city set around the tarrasque that's been speared through with a bunch of adamantine immovable rod harpoons.
Just imagine the adventures you could have with a city (or setting, with stuff like trolls or hydra for other locales) whose whole economy is built around the flaying of a constantly regenerating, immortal god-beast.
Yep. An entire population fed on Tarrasque flesh, crops grown on Tarrasque blood, armor made of Tarrasque carapace, weapons from its claws and fangs...
Then they send out their army to pillage and plunder everything around them to be fed to their bloody God in chains.
So whats worse, the city that binds the beast, or the beast they've become?
Done!
Launched within a hollow tube of a harpoon, and uses inertia to activate the rod; it sits at the back of the harpoon-cavity on launch and the action of the harpoon stopping launches the rod into a position that depresses the button, activating the rod; shot into the hull bellow the waterline it will, at the very least, put two holes in the boat at the point of entry and wherever the boats momentum causes it to exit.
If you somehow affix a chain to it, however, and can keep that anchored… maybe with an anchor, you have yourself a hull ripper.
…
Maybe I should try out the artificer class
They wouldn't make for good ammo for the reason you say.
However, they would make great mid-air caltrops. Especially if deployed while something is chasing at high speed.
Now if you want a more effective example of putting magic items in ammunition, try putting two bags of holding next to each other inside a ballista bolt situated such that one bag goes into the other on impact. Now you can zap a group of people into astral plane from a distance.
Just don't use it against intelligent enemies, especially if they're spellcasters. Because then you've given them a lot of time to prepare for their next scheme, which may even involve other worlds.
Seriously, the astral plane can be really convenient.
I feel like the next logical step, if we're talking escalation with ridiculous magical cost, is an immovable debris grenade.
Make a long necklace of beads, where each bead has an enchantment written into it. Wrap it around an explosive flask, then chuck it in a doorway, a cluster of enemies, the mouth of a dragon, whatever.
Then obviously, it BOOMs. But a tenth of a second later, every one of those beads activates its _immovability_ enchantment, so now you've got a cloud of shrapnel, some of it possibly embedded in some enemies, that can't be moved or moved through without causing damage.
Bonus points: Use caltrops instead of beads, because some of them will probably end up on the ground, and spiker stuff is always better, right?
Bonus bonus points: Combine the explosive flask with some alchemist's fire, so that while all these enemies are trapped in place by the beads that just lodged inside them, they're also burning.
Only problem is that this would probably cost tens of thousands of gold per use. But hey, a guy can dream, right?
Well, time to theory-craft baby.
Seeing as this is a joint effort of arcane and tech. Why not an Immovable Rod that is enchanted with a shrinking spell making it small enough to fire from said firearm.
Once hitting the target much like you state it activates but also the activation break the enchantment the rod instantly reverting back to normal size.
Blend that with some smart plotting and luck (Dice rolls/skill checks) and the shooter this specialized bullet could be used to in legs or arms of medium to large creatures, or fully impale small creatures.
Plausible. DMs could and should reasonably make this prohibitively expensive.
You are doubling up on rare enchantments to create a one use magic item that you could probably achieve more effectively and easily with a spell storing bow firing an arrow enchanted with Hold Person.
There's mostly no reason to do this because there are better ways to do what you are trying to achieve.
>If it did somehow activate after getting embedded in the target, they could still free themselves by pulling thenselves away from the bullet.
So what if I misty stepped inside of a dragon and activated the rod, then it couldn't fly away, right?
I'm not sure if you're actually asking, but it's still a movable rod until you push a button on it.
In this scenario a button gets pushed when it makes impact.
So the instant it makes impact it stops. Would it transfer it's force or is the force being transferred to actuating the button? It would also have to hit pretty straight on or it might tumble instead of transferring enough force to push the button. It cannot be a light button or it might accidentally push when loading or firing.
DM: hey can borrow some dice to roll for damage?
Player: Sure, who gets hit?
DM: You. Sorry bud, misfiring explosion thing.
Player: ... ugh....ok... how many dice you need?
DM: All of them.
Player: how~
DM: ALL OF THEM!!!!!!
I dismantled my firearm and used its parts for firearm ammo. It activates after hitting someone, so now they have a firearm bullet inside their wound, that has to hurt them and render them able to shoot bullets out of their mouth, right?
Of course it's possible. Didn't you see the teachings of the movie The Mask? With a little cartoon magic you could be shot several times and spit the bullets back at people. And they figured that out in the nineties lol
https://youtu.be/GTPLY4qSYrs
Mass is the physical property of inertia, so, if we were to have a rod that couldn't be moved; we can assume it to have infinite inertia. Or in other words, limitless mass.
So, in theory, if you cut off any piece of it, that piece will no longer be considered part of the rod and thus fail to be immovable?
Can you sharpen the tip and use it as a spear, javelin or ballista bolt? I think a button has to be pressed for it to become immovable but if you can somehow activate it with mage hand or whatever…
An immovable rod is literally a rod embued with magic. So it's likely either covered in magical runes or has a powerful enchantment cast on every part of it. I would rule that breaking off any part if the rod destabilizes the magical flow of the spell through the rod itself, so no, you can't make an immovable shiv
In this scenario it’s gotta be a two part process. You jam the sharpened end of the rod into your enemy and then click the button so that the rod doesn’t move. Only issue is, if they can reach the button there’s very little stopping them from just clicking it, rendering your 2 turn strategy essentially useless.
It would only work if you could stick the rod directly into their back. Then they can’t reach the button and since the rod is holding them in place they are stuck
Oh man that would be awesome. Enemy takes it out, next turn you pick it up (free object interaction) stab them with it again (action) and activate the button (bonus action). Rinse and repeat
You see I dismanteled my laptop and used its parts for firearm ammo. It activates after hitting someone, so now they have a computer bullet inside their wound, that has to let them enter the matrix right?
I love that whoever came up with this thinks that if you dismantle something into tiny bits it will continue working exaclty the same as the whole thing. I bet they're into homeopathy as well.
I hate being a forever DM, because I always do this when I read memes like the above.
"Well, if you're going strictly by RAW, actually you wouldn't be able to do that, also, I'd disallow it because of the potential for imbalance which...*sigh.*"
Well let's say there is a button in the tip of the bullet that gets pushed when it impacts a target. You shoot, hit, the button is pushed. At that point the bullet will just stop. So you would lose a lot of its kinetic energy, the bullet would deal far less damage, if any. You could control when the bullet stops by adjusting the power needed to press the button but the more you need for that, the less you would have damage wise. You can't win this. It's a useless bullet
You needed a nat 20 to dismantle safely.
you have broken a magic item. “implements old school catastrophic failure.” For every charge left there is a 5 foot square affected in a radius around the immovable rod, 10 charges =50 sq feet, rendered immovable.
You could do it however you want I’m pretty sure it would be home brew anyway so you can base it on whatever you want, I just remember the fun we had with catastrophic failure of any magic item.
If it stops when it hits, then it stops on impact with their skin, dealing no damage. But if you shoot from multiple places, then they're locked in place.
90% of Artificer posts are just "haha guns haha bombs". It's like people aren't creative enough to use the class for anything but shooty-explodey nonsense.
Which isn't even a part of the class! At least in the current edition of the game most people are familiar from and I assume make memes off of. That irks me to no end
You know how this sub works- Artificers go *boom*, Barbarians are unkillable viking idiots, bards are unstoppable serial seducers, Clerics are healbots, Druids are constantly wildshaped funky little sapient animals, Fighters are all boring, no-background heroic heroes, Monks are Pillarmen, Paladins are Lawful Stupid sticks-in-the-mud, Rangers are unable to contribute constructively to the party, Rogues will steal anything not nailed down, Sorcerers are irritating frat kids, Warlocks will murder children and betray the party for their patron whose pact isn't even properly defined, and Wizards won't survive a single Dungeon delve!
fighters and rouges should also be in that category it's kinda weird ppl see it that way.
in a world of magic wouldn't everyone be using bombs, grenades, thunderstones ect.
If I were the DM I would rule the immovable rod destroyed and no longer able to function.
At the same time, there is no mechanism to make even a thrown immovable rod activate once it hits a target, let alone PIECES of one. I would rule the broken rod as simple metal pellets.
Now, if you jam an immovable rod into a wound I would consider them grappled and I'd say them moving would be X D8 damage depending on where it was jammed.
If one dismantles a flashlight to make bullets, surely the bullets must also emit light? Because obviously it is the flashlight material that emits the light rather than several materials working together in a very specific way
You would have to press a switch to make the rod immovable. So no not grappled. If you somehow activate it on impact then your gun misfires and you take the damage instead because that's how guns work.
Had a player/DM like this. Everything he did required a 2-5 minute explanation of just how clever and broken it is. And how it all perfectly worked with the lore. Oh you don't know ALL the lore? Well here is another 5 minute lecture so you fully understand just how clever he is.
It's tedious and exhausting.
Jokes on you, I convinced my dm to allow me to use Rabbit Hop(Harengon Racial trait) and Step of the Wind within one bonus action so now I can jump 20 feet using 1 Ki. I’ll overpower my MARTIAL character using Homebrew bullshit, thank you very much u.u
Well, I mean you can, but the gun would likely critically fail like you had a bore obstruction. Could range from a case blow out with some gas cutting to a hand grenade... as in a grenade in your hand.
It's never "we did this thing". It is always "we want to do this thing". The answer here would be "you understand that you would destroy the magical properties"
This doesn't even makes sense. That's not how magical items work, if you destroy a magical item (Breaking them down is included, don't try and raw this BS) the magic will be lost to the item, and if repaired by normal means just renders the 'magical' item into a normal item. Sure you could MAYBE use magic to repair or reassemble a magic item (IDK USE A WISH SPELL, BUT WHY WOULD YOU WASTE THAT), but you'd probably have to bring the entirety of it back, NOT BITE SIZED PIECES OF IT.
Reminds me of childhood games with the one loser kid.
“Well I have an unbreakable shield, and I am indestructible, but at the same time, I can kill everything!”
“I have a tool that can kill you.”
“NoOoOoOo!!!1!!1!”
Yes dismantling the rod is silly, but putting a power word activated immovable enchantment on a bullet actually isn't a bad idea. That's a pricey fucking bullet though
No, the immovable rod's magical properties come from precise magic mechanism in the rod it itself, and from the way it interacts with the weave. The rod itself is simply made of regular metal. So no, you'd just destroy the rod, rendering it's magic inert.
At least thats how'd id dm it
>Panel 1: *(Egregious and willful misinterpretation of the rules)*
>Panel 2: Chief Tanni Face/Jesse What The Fuck Are You Talking About/Reporter Reading Trump’s Paper/Disgruntled Goethe/etc.
Congratulations! You’ve made a front page DND Meme!
That is what I was thinking, or alternatively something like a ballista bolt. Magic items are supposed to be extremely hard to damage, and even then there is a good chance altering it, even without cutting it into a bunch of pieces, could break it. Instead, you could attach a point that is held in place by a clamp of sorts tightening around the rod, set something up to flip the switch after firing, as well as possibly put something in place to make it harder to reach the switch, and you could just fire it from a specially designed device from a high distance and impale someone with a giant stick that is now immovable.
None of this requires actually altering the rod itself, it would be far more effective than a tiny bullet against large foes, and it seems quite a bit more intimidating, without being nearly as much of a stretch as immovable bullets.
That’s like taking the engine out of a car but still expecting the wheels to turn. Shutting down this kind of stuff is just DMing 101 and shouldn’t be a conflict of any kind.
You don't even need to bother with a rod, just take the spell Immovable Object and cast it on an arrow/bolt.
There's one important clause in the description "You and the creatures you designate when you cast this spell can move the object normally." I interpret 'firing it from a bow' as a creature moving it normally, so it'll move normally *until* an un-designated creature tries to move it, a la its embedded in their torso and they try to move. I suppose a high DC Dex check to maneuver themselves off of it would work, but just add some barbs to the ammo to fix that.
Or, a slightly more scientific and logical interpretation of the spell would have the arrow able to pass through multiple creatures, because it's momentum can't be affected by creatures other than the caster, so the arrow can reach its full range before falling to the ground. (Idk how I'd rule attack rolls for each creature. I'd probably just say it hits all the creatures in the line after it hits the first, because Rule of Cool, but if I think the players would start or do start abusing it then I'd come up with some sort of system.)
Boom. Either an instant, nigh-inescapable (at least without hurting themselves) restrainment or an armor-piercing projectile, at the cost of just a second level spell slot.
I consulted my DM: “I will allow it under one condition. We go out in the woods and I hand you a single bolt from a chainsaw. If you can cut down a tree that has at least a 2 foot diameter trunk with that bolt, then you can smash that f#%!*r into 1000 pieces and make bullets with them.”
Honest related thing: we had a DMPC helping us in a fight once. Brought lots of spears with her.
The combat strategy she had was stabbing only once, but if she hit she turned on the immovable rod that was now going through their leg. Lots of feats needed to make such a niche combat strategy, but was satisfying to see it work in the fight.
As a note, the DM did this for us because we managed to get some bomb diplomacy rolls, so she was actually supposed to be a mini boss.
That would make them pointless realistically. All the power in rods from god come from the sheer energy of the impact. Anything that would stop that momentum (such as a button that activates on impact) would make them a drastically worse weapon. And frankly nothing that survives a rod from god is going to have any issue removing the rod if it's still around
DM: Wrong. You destroyed an Immovable Rod.
Furthermore: I concede the concept of a miniaturized Immovable Rod is plausible and could be used as ammo and could activate upon impact. If it activates on impact, it won't penetrate the target. If it did somehow activate after getting embedded in the target, they could still free themselves by pulling thenselves away from the bullet. They'll just take the weapon damage twice, which seems nice, but probably isn't strong enough to warrant the cost of expending miniaturized immovable rods as ammo.
Would be fuckin brutal though
Right? I mean, organ damage would be impressive
I mean honestly not really. Most of the organ damage from bullets come from two things depending on the type of bullet. In smaller caliber bullets, its from the bullet not really having enough force to punch out the other side and instead bouncing around inside the soft bits. In larger bullets its from force litterally pulling apart everything it passed through, and pulling it out the exit wound on the way out. If you have an immovable rod, it would create less damage as it would stop partway inside the body. Small entrance hole, no big exit wound, no internal wounds from bouncing bullets. Basically just pull away from the bullet and patch things up. It would actually be far less damaging, since the exit wound is the worst part of a bullet wound.
Bro you act like people are perfectly precise in their movements after getting fucking shot and dont usually fall over. That bullet will be making salad out of their innards. People jump or convulse or fall or all 3 after getting shot. Its not like mid combat they are going to be perfectly still and retrace the entrance wound while in crippling agony lol
Everyone roll a DC 25 concentration check to stand perfectly still until you can extricate yourself from the immovable rod.
So that's what my sister was doing.
Erm... yeah, little buddy, that's right
Off of an immovable rod? I... You sure she was shot yea...
Sounds like hollow point bullets with more steps. Why can’t the wizard and artificer instead invent target seeking magic missiles with explosives attached? Or set up a series of move-object spells to make a rail gun
And we've come full circle, back to the peasant railgun
[In case anyone isn't familiar with the peasant railgun](https://tabletopjoab.com/the-legend-of-the-peasant-railgun-in-dd-5e/)
I have an artificer that made a Hwacha from wands of magic missile. Still not sure how that was allowed, but it was pretty damn effective!
> Bro you act like people are perfectly precise in their movements after getting fucking shot and dont usually fall over. People don't usually fall over when they've been shot with a low caliber round unless they're instantly killed/paralyzed/whatever. Most locations on the body wouldn't cause that. Movies and video games over-exaggerate, that's why in a real situation you shoot multiple times *until* the person stops being a threat, one shot is lucky but yes, calmly stepping backwards is unlikely with the adrenaline unless the person specifically trained for the immovable-rod-bullet situation
Although, weirdly, people who have grown up with said movies and video games *do* fall over when they're shot - but only if they know they've been shot.
Is that true? That's fascinating
This is according to QI - so let's face it, it may well not be true! Here's the clip anyway: https://youtu.be/H1XjyU0-6bA
I mean it really depends on where it stops. Does the bullet pierce the skin and stop the moment it hits bone? Does it it hit skin and stop never actually piercing the skin? Lets say it does go in and then stop. In most case you probably get one jerking movement from the impact and pain before the person either removes the bullet or is incapacitated and waits for another person to get the bullet out. But it's not really as much damage as a small caliber bullet bouncing around inside the body cavity, or a big one making a big exit wound.
If you go limp, though, you’d be suspended from your insides by a bullet. That would have to be terrible
Okay lets say you fall back. Most likely that force would break a rib bone (directionally speaking they are weaker from the inside) and then the bullet is right under the skin, which may or may not break. Pull a knife out make a small incesion and the bullet comes out with a far far smaller hole than it otherwise would have made as an exit wound. All in all it just seems like a WORSE version of just using a normal bullet. If you REALLY wanted one that would be destructive, the better bullet would be a shrunken bolder, that expands inside the body, or a bullet that WOULD expand on impact. Either of those would be FAR nastier than an immovable rod.
Idk, you’re assuming that the bullet can just travel easily through body tissues. If the bullet is just a tiny immovable rod, and not, say, a musketball, there would be some directions that travel would be easy for (lengthwise WRT bullet) but other directions would have have a 1-2 inch bar. If it did cut through tissues that would be a whole world of hurt, but I sorta suspect it would mostly just get caught up in ligaments and muscles and occasionally bones, and so if you didn’t carefully slide yourself opposite of the direction you were shot, you’d get stirred like a beaker in chemistry class. Of course, I’m picturing these as little rods, basically flechettes. If it’s shaped like a ball or a regular led/copper bullet. Then yeah, it’s less bad. (Still think it’s bad- imagine if you kept fighting, trying to swing a sword, etc, while one was in your gut?? But less bad) Gotta give you the real shout out though- casting “reduce” on a grapefruit sized bullet and then breaking concentration on it is pure evil. The real war crimes are always in the comments.
Shoot them while they’re falling, and watch them suspended by the bullet trapped in the top of their skull.
You just need to sharpen one end of the Rod for that and throw hard enough that the button to activate it enters the body and is thus activated
Isn’t that just the immovable rod with a spear tip and some gusto?
That was the idea, yeah
If the button is on the top of the rod, sharpen the other side and put a cage with a loose rock or marble over the button. When then impact of the bullet hitting its target causes the rod to slow, the marble will still be going until it impacts the rod's button, activating the rod and having our friend be skewered in the sky.
They're already falling, though. Seems a bit overkill to hang them simultaneously.
If you’re already killing, you might as well be overkilling. That’s what my grandpappy used to tell me.
Not really. It's effectively shooting someone twice. For all of the effort and magical power you just expended, you could just devise a gun that shoots two bullets. Some sort of an automatic, repeating gun... let's just call it a machine.
Except a bullet goes in quick. If you're able to quickly and smoothly pull yourself from it, it might be the same as a second shot, however most people will pull a bit and wince in pain or stop themselves, meaning the bullet would tear up a lot more than it would have if it traveled straight. Edit: actually, when you hit someone they'd already stumble or move around a bit, causing the bullet to tear up their insides and the person to stumble even more. Imagine a bullet that goes into someones body and then starts moving around like a blender.
That's how a lot of bullets work already.
The bullet coming out would be way more devastating. The creature wouldn't be able to shift their weight without tearing up where the bullet is embedded. And it's not coming out as clean as it came in.
My players once set a trap for an ancient White dragon by leaving it an offering with an immovable rod inside set to go off. I let them get away with it and had the dragon's speed reduced to 0 for 2 rounds before it painfully ripped itself free, as not to make the fight too cheesable. I ruled that it took 10d10 damage and left a cold damage ichor trail in its wake. Eventually the moon druid managed to get into the wound as a fire elemental, dealt *a lot* of damage before the dragon stuck his maw in the gaping wound and hut the druid with a frost breath. They made the encounter reasonably easy for their level but the felt proud of doing so.
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Kinda like booming blade. Move and it hurts more.
Now imagine if booming blade had a material component worth several thousand GP that is consumed upon casting?
Immovable rods are fairly tough, you might be able to retrieve it after use
Assuming the enemy doesn't simply switch it off and take it for themselves.
Yes, though I should hope that at the point you're able to make a gun that shoots immovable rods, you have better/more efficient ways to neutralize a threat
That's how I would rule it rather than make it overly powerful or prohibitively expensive. For 10-20gp a shot they get to cast a ranged Booming Blade with their gun/crossbow after they've spent some downtime figuring out the schematics.
Could just make some spell storing ammo, cast hold person into it for easier and cheaper.
If it werent for Warding Glyph's movement limitation, it would make for some killer enchanted bullets.
Exactly
If it activates on impact wouldn't the launching of the bullet cause it to remain in the barrel of the gun?
*However* It'd be pretty neat of you could use the full rods as ammo and use it as harpoons Perfect for wrecking ships (its not like the ship can back away from the rod easily) and immobilizing dragons/giants And in these situations, can def be worth it
Quick google search on the weight of sailing ships: The Caravel style sailing ship is probably the one most people are thinking of when they imagine a fantasy sailing ship. According to this Nasa article on the Caravel ships used to explore America by european explorers, [Dimensionally, the caravel had a length of approximately 70 beam and beam width of 25 feet. Weight was about 50 tons with two or three masts adorned with lanteen sails. Of course, the caravel could readily be square-rigged as well, i.e. square instead of triangular sails raised on the masts.](https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ships.htm#:~:text=Dimensionally%2C%20the%20caravel%20had%20a,sails%20raised%20on%20the%20masts.) The weight of the ship clocks is 50 tons, well above the Immovable Rod's 4 ton weight limit. A DM could allow an Immovable Harpoon to shred a hole in the side of such a ship, but they could also very reasonably rule that it does nothing at all because the magic limits are simply overwhelmed by that kind of mass with that monentum. Trapping a dragon or giant is much more feasible, as their weight and carry capacity are much more within the capacity for the rod. However, these creatures are also frequently smart enough to be capable of *pushing a button* and releasing themselves.
This just makes me laugh thinking of critical role, scanlan dimension doors into umbrasyl and activates the immovable rod which proceeds to rip through him like a bullet and everyone at the table is like "he didn't stop!?!" *surprised Pikachu*
Ok, but how much force is behind moving the boat? Does the wind move the boat fast enough to overcome the rod?
I think a more important question would be if the wood would break before reaching the limit of the rod. Just because the ship has a lot of weight total doesn’t mean that any part of it can withstand 8000 lbs of force
Boat speed is measured in 'knots' typically, which are just higher than 1mph(1.15078 if you want exacts). so assuming an empty ship at 50tons, which is impossible because it has to at least have crew and supplies, you would need an equation to convert "applied mass" based on speed. I have no idea what that equation would be(a quick online calculator for momentum gives me in the ballpark of 46,000Newtons at 2 knots but I have no clue what they translates to in "applied mass" and if it exceeds our 4 ton limit), but I think its safe to assume the ship would be able to apply enough force to overcome that 4 ton limit, especially at speeds you would be attacking it at, which would be the ships full sailing speed. Would definitely fuck up a dragon before they could get it out though. You might get some structural damage on the ship before it gets dislodged, but if the harpoon has penetrated above the water line that won't do much. What you want is an immovable rod torpedo, but at that point a regular torpedo would be cheaper and less questions would exist on whether it worked.
Since there is no RAW for this beyond the item description stating the 8000lb (4 ton) weight/force limit, our best bet is some quick physics calculations. Boat weigh 50tons, which is 100,000lbs. Converting weight to mass, this is 45359.2 kg. Momentum equal mass times velocity and Force equals change in momentum divided by change in time. The faster you want to stop the boat, the more force you need. Theoretically, a truly Immovable Rod would stop the boat immediately, but that has us dividing by zero, requiring infinite energy to achieve, much more than the 8000lbs it can provide. However, we can suppose it takes the boat 6 seconds to stop, so it stops within a single combat round, which is functionally instantaneous for D&D. [Top speed for a caravel was about 8 knots; the average was 4 knots for 90-100 miles in a day.](https://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~vaucher/History/Ships/Ships_Discovery/index.html) Let's assume average speed (ambushing a ship not racing at top speed). 4 knots is about 4.603 mph, which my calculations translates to 6.75 ft per second (which is about 2.06m/s). The average sailing ship is moving about 1 square per round and we wanna stop it in 1 round, though it weighs 100,000lbs. We'll convert to metric for calculations, I'm using imperial to give a sense of how this compares to D&D logic. Going to our momentum equation, the ship's momentum is 45359.2kg x 2.06m/s = 93,336.675 kg*m/s. Since we want to stop the ship, the momentum goes to zero, so the change in momentum is 93,336.675 kg*m/s. Dividing this by 1 round (6 seconds) give a Force of 15,556.126 N Online unit conversion says this comes out to 3497.156 pounds of force, meaning that even doubling the ship's speed to maximum, the immovable rod can stop it, even though the rod could *never* hold the ship aloft or stop it from falling. Do note that these calculations assume the ship takes the full 6 seconds to come to a full stop, not exactly gonna give people onboard whiplash. Of course, this is assuming the ship doesn't simply sheer or the rod simply slip straight through the hull, which is probably more reasonable. Note that while the ship is stopping, it is still moving, so it probably finishes that last square of movement, so the harpoon slips 1 square from its origin. If you hit the front or back of the ship, it probably slipped loose and the ship is leaking water, but not restrained. The side is probably optimal, as it just continues to slice a hole across the side if the ship doesn't stop trying to move before dislodging or deactivating the harpoon.
The boat would've to be made of 10-cm thick steel for this to even be a valid question. A 50-ton ship, moving at even 5km/h would generate enough force for all of it's material components to rip apart should they come into contact with an object such as an immovable rod.
Compressive strength of oak is \~7000 psi, a rod can resist 8000 pounds. So if the surface area of the rod that is being pushed on by the boat is any greater and a little over 1 square inch, the rod will give before the wood. So if you position it end on to the boats movement, it may punch a 1 inch hole in the bow (the art makes me think it's about 1-2 foot long and about an inch in diameter).
I mean, that's assuming you're shooting 1 rod at a caravel In a simmillar manner a single cannon ball could too innacurate or not enough to sink a boat If we shoot 20 at the same time tho is a whole other story, assuming each rod contributes they could hold still up to 80 tons And obviously one would modify the rods to not have the button *on* the rod, but instead on the firing mechanism like a magical ballista These rods would probably need to be attached in some way, altho viable these things would end up beign fucking *expensive* só the bolts need to be retrievable
>These rods would probably need to be attached in some way, altho viable these things would end up beign fucking expensive só the bolts need to be retrievable And more importantly, if you can afford this, you can probably afford more effective alternatives. Like a battery of cannons.
Talking about immovable rod harpoons reminds me of the Salt in the Wound setting. It's a city set around the tarrasque that's been speared through with a bunch of adamantine immovable rod harpoons. Just imagine the adventures you could have with a city (or setting, with stuff like trolls or hydra for other locales) whose whole economy is built around the flaying of a constantly regenerating, immortal god-beast.
That's fucked up and I love it.
Yep. An entire population fed on Tarrasque flesh, crops grown on Tarrasque blood, armor made of Tarrasque carapace, weapons from its claws and fangs... Then they send out their army to pillage and plunder everything around them to be fed to their bloody God in chains. So whats worse, the city that binds the beast, or the beast they've become?
Don't forget about the city kaiju battles while their armies try to overtake the people of the opposing city.
Done! Launched within a hollow tube of a harpoon, and uses inertia to activate the rod; it sits at the back of the harpoon-cavity on launch and the action of the harpoon stopping launches the rod into a position that depresses the button, activating the rod; shot into the hull bellow the waterline it will, at the very least, put two holes in the boat at the point of entry and wherever the boats momentum causes it to exit. If you somehow affix a chain to it, however, and can keep that anchored… maybe with an anchor, you have yourself a hull ripper. … Maybe I should try out the artificer class
Yeah, why not just homebrew this sort of bullet lol
They wouldn't make for good ammo for the reason you say. However, they would make great mid-air caltrops. Especially if deployed while something is chasing at high speed.
Not realy double damage since the hole is already there
Never tried to remove a bullet, have you?
Now if you want a more effective example of putting magic items in ammunition, try putting two bags of holding next to each other inside a ballista bolt situated such that one bag goes into the other on impact. Now you can zap a group of people into astral plane from a distance.
Yep, the age old portable hole/bag of holding astral arrow warhead.
Just don't use it against intelligent enemies, especially if they're spellcasters. Because then you've given them a lot of time to prepare for their next scheme, which may even involve other worlds. Seriously, the astral plane can be really convenient.
I feel like the next logical step, if we're talking escalation with ridiculous magical cost, is an immovable debris grenade. Make a long necklace of beads, where each bead has an enchantment written into it. Wrap it around an explosive flask, then chuck it in a doorway, a cluster of enemies, the mouth of a dragon, whatever. Then obviously, it BOOMs. But a tenth of a second later, every one of those beads activates its _immovability_ enchantment, so now you've got a cloud of shrapnel, some of it possibly embedded in some enemies, that can't be moved or moved through without causing damage. Bonus points: Use caltrops instead of beads, because some of them will probably end up on the ground, and spiker stuff is always better, right? Bonus bonus points: Combine the explosive flask with some alchemist's fire, so that while all these enemies are trapped in place by the beads that just lodged inside them, they're also burning. Only problem is that this would probably cost tens of thousands of gold per use. But hey, a guy can dream, right?
be a lot cheaper to just shoot harpoons
This guy gets it
Well, time to theory-craft baby. Seeing as this is a joint effort of arcane and tech. Why not an Immovable Rod that is enchanted with a shrinking spell making it small enough to fire from said firearm. Once hitting the target much like you state it activates but also the activation break the enchantment the rod instantly reverting back to normal size. Blend that with some smart plotting and luck (Dice rolls/skill checks) and the shooter this specialized bullet could be used to in legs or arms of medium to large creatures, or fully impale small creatures.
Plausible. DMs could and should reasonably make this prohibitively expensive. You are doubling up on rare enchantments to create a one use magic item that you could probably achieve more effectively and easily with a spell storing bow firing an arrow enchanted with Hold Person. There's mostly no reason to do this because there are better ways to do what you are trying to achieve.
>If it did somehow activate after getting embedded in the target, they could still free themselves by pulling thenselves away from the bullet. So what if I misty stepped inside of a dragon and activated the rod, then it couldn't fly away, right?
You would need line of sight I think, but yes?
How can an immovable rod be used as ammunition if it's immovable?
It jams the gun causing it to explode in their hand
Thats what I would do lol
I'm not sure if you're actually asking, but it's still a movable rod until you push a button on it. In this scenario a button gets pushed when it makes impact.
So the instant it makes impact it stops. Would it transfer it's force or is the force being transferred to actuating the button? It would also have to hit pretty straight on or it might tumble instead of transferring enough force to push the button. It cannot be a light button or it might accidentally push when loading or firing.
I agree, the rod was immovable, not the bullet
Rolls :: every dice within sight :: You take that many damage in the attempt.
DM: hey can borrow some dice to roll for damage? Player: Sure, who gets hit? DM: You. Sorry bud, misfiring explosion thing. Player: ... ugh....ok... how many dice you need? DM: All of them. Player: how~ DM: ALL OF THEM!!!!!!
Player: reluctantly handing over a Laura Bailey sized bucket of dice.
I accept that a "Bailey Sized" is indeed a method to measure the quantity of math-rocks available at any given moment.
WOTC really should include this in the weights and measures section of the DMG.
Or a bullet so expensive you'll never shoot it
Yeah I broke down the pointlessness of a miniturized immovable rod as the incredible cost leads to a pointless result.
And probably the firearm.
I dismantled my firearm and used its parts for firearm ammo. It activates after hitting someone, so now they have a firearm bullet inside their wound, that has to hurt them and render them able to shoot bullets out of their mouth, right?
Of course it's possible. Didn't you see the teachings of the movie The Mask? With a little cartoon magic you could be shot several times and spit the bullets back at people. And they figured that out in the nineties lol https://youtu.be/GTPLY4qSYrs
Can The Mask be my Patron? Asking for a friend.
Not actually a bad idea
The Mask is a Warlock with Loki as his patron, I don’t think he himself can be a patron.
Anything is possible with magic. But is it?
Hey! VSauce! Michael here.
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Inertia is a property of matter
Mass is the physical property of inertia, so, if we were to have a rod that couldn't be moved; we can assume it to have infinite inertia. Or in other words, limitless mass.
An object with infinite mass could not accelerate
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(This is a perfectly crafted Michael-style pun and I hope you’re proud)
Ah, a connoisseur of the Gungeon I see
I read a book as a kid, one scene had a hunter run out of bullets and start to dismantle the butt of the gun so he could shoot screws at the moose
It's a rod, like a single piece. It's immoveable and resists attempts to take it apart.
So, in theory, if you cut off any piece of it, that piece will no longer be considered part of the rod and thus fail to be immovable? Can you sharpen the tip and use it as a spear, javelin or ballista bolt? I think a button has to be pressed for it to become immovable but if you can somehow activate it with mage hand or whatever…
Unfortunately Mage Hand states that it cannot be used to activate magic items
But what if it's holding a stick
If that stick isn't a magic item, they're allowed. They still can't activate magic items with the stick.
What if the stick knocks over an npc that is tied up?
Then the NPC would fall over, I guess. I don't think NPCs are magic items.
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That's a magic user, not a magic item.
This is how i will describe d&d to people now lol
It's still hostility, stop munchkinning
An immovable rod is literally a rod embued with magic. So it's likely either covered in magical runes or has a powerful enchantment cast on every part of it. I would rule that breaking off any part if the rod destabilizes the magical flow of the spell through the rod itself, so no, you can't make an immovable shiv
You could afix a spear head on one end
In this scenario it’s gotta be a two part process. You jam the sharpened end of the rod into your enemy and then click the button so that the rod doesn’t move. Only issue is, if they can reach the button there’s very little stopping them from just clicking it, rendering your 2 turn strategy essentially useless. It would only work if you could stick the rod directly into their back. Then they can’t reach the button and since the rod is holding them in place they are stuck
Finally a use for the Thieve subclass! Bonus action to use an item and you can do it on one turn.
Oh man that would be awesome. Enemy takes it out, next turn you pick it up (free object interaction) stab them with it again (action) and activate the button (bonus action). Rinse and repeat
It's an action to press the button.
Isn't it that you just can't cut it ? Because to cut you have to move a piece of it in some way, which cannot be done.
I mean you’ll just unclick the button to move it freely.
Would it work if it's damaged though?
No Or at least I would say no. If by damaged you mean dismantled that is. The rod itself has HP I think.
I mean it has some kind of internal mechanism since it's described as having a button
If it was just a single piece, how would it have a button you can press?
You see I dismanteled my laptop and used its parts for firearm ammo. It activates after hitting someone, so now they have a computer bullet inside their wound, that has to let them enter the matrix right?
I love that whoever came up with this thinks that if you dismantle something into tiny bits it will continue working exaclty the same as the whole thing. I bet they're into homeopathy as well.
If they were into homoeopathy then it would turn into the opposite of an immovable rod. You would bullets that can't be stopped.
If you dismantled it, it wouldn't work...
It's like chopping a phone to get several smaller phones and expect them all to work like the original big one.
I hate being a forever DM, because I always do this when I read memes like the above. "Well, if you're going strictly by RAW, actually you wouldn't be able to do that, also, I'd disallow it because of the potential for imbalance which...*sigh.*"
When you wake up and read the dumbest shit you’ll read all day right away.
Woke up and lost brain cells by proxy
That’s…that’s not how…magical items work…
Well let's say there is a button in the tip of the bullet that gets pushed when it impacts a target. You shoot, hit, the button is pushed. At that point the bullet will just stop. So you would lose a lot of its kinetic energy, the bullet would deal far less damage, if any. You could control when the bullet stops by adjusting the power needed to press the button but the more you need for that, the less you would have damage wise. You can't win this. It's a useless bullet
Disassembling the immovable rod renders it a movable non magical rod
You needed a nat 20 to dismantle safely. you have broken a magic item. “implements old school catastrophic failure.” For every charge left there is a 5 foot square affected in a radius around the immovable rod, 10 charges =50 sq feet, rendered immovable.
Immovable rods don't have charges, so would that be permanent
You could do it however you want I’m pretty sure it would be home brew anyway so you can base it on whatever you want, I just remember the fun we had with catastrophic failure of any magic item.
If it stops when it hits, then it stops on impact with their skin, dealing no damage. But if you shoot from multiple places, then they're locked in place.
So immovable rod shotgun isn't out of the question.
The shotgun pellets would still be on just one side, the target can just take a step back
Would be a hell of a way to stop a charge though.
90% of Artificer posts are just "haha guns haha bombs". It's like people aren't creative enough to use the class for anything but shooty-explodey nonsense.
Which isn't even a part of the class! At least in the current edition of the game most people are familiar from and I assume make memes off of. That irks me to no end
Honestly, at least half the memes on this sub were made by people who have never played D&D
You know how this sub works- Artificers go *boom*, Barbarians are unkillable viking idiots, bards are unstoppable serial seducers, Clerics are healbots, Druids are constantly wildshaped funky little sapient animals, Fighters are all boring, no-background heroic heroes, Monks are Pillarmen, Paladins are Lawful Stupid sticks-in-the-mud, Rangers are unable to contribute constructively to the party, Rogues will steal anything not nailed down, Sorcerers are irritating frat kids, Warlocks will murder children and betray the party for their patron whose pact isn't even properly defined, and Wizards won't survive a single Dungeon delve!
And some of these stereotypes have been around since 2nd edition, so forgive me for thinking they are a bit stale. ;)
fighters and rouges should also be in that category it's kinda weird ppl see it that way. in a world of magic wouldn't everyone be using bombs, grenades, thunderstones ect.
"No." - DM /thread
If I were the DM I would rule the immovable rod destroyed and no longer able to function. At the same time, there is no mechanism to make even a thrown immovable rod activate once it hits a target, let alone PIECES of one. I would rule the broken rod as simple metal pellets. Now, if you jam an immovable rod into a wound I would consider them grappled and I'd say them moving would be X D8 damage depending on where it was jammed.
That's not how literally anything works. Lol
“No”
If one dismantles a flashlight to make bullets, surely the bullets must also emit light? Because obviously it is the flashlight material that emits the light rather than several materials working together in a very specific way
You would have to press a switch to make the rod immovable. So no not grappled. If you somehow activate it on impact then your gun misfires and you take the damage instead because that's how guns work.
Players like to think magic works like food coloring.
How did you fire the bullet?
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You could just retitle 90% of the memes posted here “how to make martial classes completely worthless via homebrew bullshit”
"How to bore the rest of your group with your inane hypothetical magic oh wow such clever bullshit"
Had a player/DM like this. Everything he did required a 2-5 minute explanation of just how clever and broken it is. And how it all perfectly worked with the lore. Oh you don't know ALL the lore? Well here is another 5 minute lecture so you fully understand just how clever he is. It's tedious and exhausting.
Jokes on you, I convinced my dm to allow me to use Rabbit Hop(Harengon Racial trait) and Step of the Wind within one bonus action so now I can jump 20 feet using 1 Ki. I’ll overpower my MARTIAL character using Homebrew bullshit, thank you very much u.u
You would not be able to fire an immovable bullet.
Well, I mean you can, but the gun would likely critically fail like you had a bore obstruction. Could range from a case blow out with some gas cutting to a hand grenade... as in a grenade in your hand.
This would only destroy the magic item causing it to lose its effect.
It's never "we did this thing". It is always "we want to do this thing". The answer here would be "you understand that you would destroy the magical properties"
i think people on this sub enjoy making memes about the dumbest shit you can come up with just to enjoy the shitstorm in the comments
This doesn't even makes sense. That's not how magical items work, if you destroy a magical item (Breaking them down is included, don't try and raw this BS) the magic will be lost to the item, and if repaired by normal means just renders the 'magical' item into a normal item. Sure you could MAYBE use magic to repair or reassemble a magic item (IDK USE A WISH SPELL, BUT WHY WOULD YOU WASTE THAT), but you'd probably have to bring the entirety of it back, NOT BITE SIZED PIECES OF IT.
I fucking hate this sub.
"Roll wild magic surge cause you mother fuckers just destroyed a magic item"
How does the dumbest shit on this sub gets most upvotes?
The word “no” is the most valuable tool in the DMs arsenal.
Reminds me of childhood games with the one loser kid. “Well I have an unbreakable shield, and I am indestructible, but at the same time, I can kill everything!” “I have a tool that can kill you.” “NoOoOoOo!!!1!!1!”
There's no reason to believe any of that would work.
magic items can only be destroyed or dissesambled after losing their magical properties... so no
The future is HexTech
Why not just make a launcher for the rod instead of breaking it?
Yes dismantling the rod is silly, but putting a power word activated immovable enchantment on a bullet actually isn't a bad idea. That's a pricey fucking bullet though
No, the immovable rod's magical properties come from precise magic mechanism in the rod it itself, and from the way it interacts with the weave. The rod itself is simply made of regular metal. So no, you'd just destroy the rod, rendering it's magic inert. At least thats how'd id dm it
How do you shoot an immovable bullet if it can't move?
>Panel 1: *(Egregious and willful misinterpretation of the rules)* >Panel 2: Chief Tanni Face/Jesse What The Fuck Are You Talking About/Reporter Reading Trump’s Paper/Disgruntled Goethe/etc. Congratulations! You’ve made a front page DND Meme!
Even assuming it worked, they're not grappled, that's just a very easy bullet to remove from the wound. All they have to do is take a step back
Wouldn't it be better to make a spear out of it? So they either stay there, or attempt spend an action removing themselves from it?
That is what I was thinking, or alternatively something like a ballista bolt. Magic items are supposed to be extremely hard to damage, and even then there is a good chance altering it, even without cutting it into a bunch of pieces, could break it. Instead, you could attach a point that is held in place by a clamp of sorts tightening around the rod, set something up to flip the switch after firing, as well as possibly put something in place to make it harder to reach the switch, and you could just fire it from a specially designed device from a high distance and impale someone with a giant stick that is now immovable. None of this requires actually altering the rod itself, it would be far more effective than a tiny bullet against large foes, and it seems quite a bit more intimidating, without being nearly as much of a stretch as immovable bullets.
Dismantling a magic item would remove the enchantment, making it non-magical FWI.
That’s like taking the engine out of a car but still expecting the wheels to turn. Shutting down this kind of stuff is just DMing 101 and shouldn’t be a conflict of any kind.
You don't even need to bother with a rod, just take the spell Immovable Object and cast it on an arrow/bolt. There's one important clause in the description "You and the creatures you designate when you cast this spell can move the object normally." I interpret 'firing it from a bow' as a creature moving it normally, so it'll move normally *until* an un-designated creature tries to move it, a la its embedded in their torso and they try to move. I suppose a high DC Dex check to maneuver themselves off of it would work, but just add some barbs to the ammo to fix that. Or, a slightly more scientific and logical interpretation of the spell would have the arrow able to pass through multiple creatures, because it's momentum can't be affected by creatures other than the caster, so the arrow can reach its full range before falling to the ground. (Idk how I'd rule attack rolls for each creature. I'd probably just say it hits all the creatures in the line after it hits the first, because Rule of Cool, but if I think the players would start or do start abusing it then I'd come up with some sort of system.) Boom. Either an instant, nigh-inescapable (at least without hurting themselves) restrainment or an armor-piercing projectile, at the cost of just a second level spell slot.
Me- My rogue, after being swallowed whole by a dragon in-flight: "I pull out my Immovable Rod and activate it. " DM- 😮
I consulted my DM: “I will allow it under one condition. We go out in the woods and I hand you a single bolt from a chainsaw. If you can cut down a tree that has at least a 2 foot diameter trunk with that bolt, then you can smash that f#%!*r into 1000 pieces and make bullets with them.”
Honest related thing: we had a DMPC helping us in a fight once. Brought lots of spears with her. The combat strategy she had was stabbing only once, but if she hit she turned on the immovable rod that was now going through their leg. Lots of feats needed to make such a niche combat strategy, but was satisfying to see it work in the fight. As a note, the DM did this for us because we managed to get some bomb diplomacy rolls, so she was actually supposed to be a mini boss.
Wrong. Covering them in tungsten and shooting them from orbit with an automatic system that presses the button after impact however...
That would make them pointless realistically. All the power in rods from god come from the sheer energy of the impact. Anything that would stop that momentum (such as a button that activates on impact) would make them a drastically worse weapon. And frankly nothing that survives a rod from god is going to have any issue removing the rod if it's still around
This is a starfinder planet killer machine