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Old 02-27-2020, 07:55 AM   #1
Dalin
 
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Default Druid's Harpoon?

One of my players is going to play a seafaring Viking druid (for my upcoming Noršlond campaign). He would like a harpoon that acts as a "druid's staff," giving him the ability to cast touch spells through the rope. This doesn't seem particularly unbalancing since a bunch of stars will need to align for the character to successfully hit with the harpoon and then cast a spell before the target either dies, yanks the harpoon out, or charges to engage the druid directly.

Thoughts on price or other factors I might be missing?
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Old 02-27-2020, 08:23 AM   #2
DouglasCole
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Default Re: Druid's Harpoon?

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Originally Posted by Dalin View Post
One of my players is going to play a seafaring Viking druid (for my upcoming Noršlond campaign). He would like a harpoon that acts as a "druid's staff," giving him the ability to cast touch spells through the rope. This doesn't seem particularly unbalancing since a bunch of stars will need to align for the character to successfully hit with the harpoon and then cast a spell before the target either dies, yanks the harpoon out, or charges to engage the druid directly.

Thoughts on price or other factors I might be missing?
I'd guess about $60. :-)

(DF Adventurers, p. 105: Harpoon)

If you want something more meaty, a grapnel is 2 lbs, $80; a javelin or short spear are both $30. Cord is enough to yank out the thrown spear but not pull folks around with it (90 lb carry capacity); rope is much heavier but can support 300 lbs, so man-sized creatures can be dragged around.

You throw the rope AND the spear, so range would be less than the thrown spear by itself.
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Old 02-27-2020, 10:00 AM   #3
Dalin
 
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Default Re: Druid's Harpoon?

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I'd guess about $60. :-)

(DF Adventurers, p. 105: Harpoon)
Ha. I was imagining that it required some sort of enchantment to work as a somewhat longer distance magic staff. With a normal staff, it costs $30 plus the $10 staff. So I could just add $30 to the $60 harpoon. Or maybe there's a premium... like the druid needs special druid rope for an extra $150.

I guess I'm really just wondering if anybody thinks this should be a rare/super-expensive thing, or if it's fine as a basic item that a starting character could have. (In this instance, the character will be built on 300 points with some additional gear, so it doesn't really matter, but I like the theory of things.)
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Old 02-27-2020, 11:02 AM   #4
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Default Re: Druid's Harpoon?

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Ha. I was imagining that it required some sort of enchantment to work as a somewhat longer distance magic staff. With a normal staff, it costs $30 plus the $10 staff. So I could just add $30 to the $60 harpoon. Or maybe there's a premium... like the druid needs special druid rope for an extra $150.
I like the idea of a special rope. The other way to look at it might be to look at the various builds or enhancements for increased range, either via innate attack or through imbuements, and see what kind of Cost Factor that might imply. Being able to toss your staff and deliver a spell is a less efficient version of spell archery. Being able to retrieve it with a (long) lanyard isn't bad; the ability to switch spells rather than cast, fire, forget is a definite plus.
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Old 02-27-2020, 11:22 AM   #5
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Or maybe there's a premium... like the druid needs special druid rope for an extra $150.
Require the rope to be made out of the druid's own hair. Makes it special and precious (hard to replace) without costing a lot of money, and is cool to boot.
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Old 02-27-2020, 11:32 AM   #6
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Require the rope to be made out of the druid's own hair. Makes it special and precious (hard to replace) without costing a lot of money, and is cool to boot.
I was thinking made out of vines the Druid grew personally, either naturally or by spellcraft.
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Old 02-27-2020, 03:47 PM   #7
Dalin
 
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Require the rope to be made out of the druid's own hair. Makes it special and precious (hard to replace) without costing a lot of money, and is cool to boot.
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I was thinking made out of vines the Druid grew personally, either naturally or by spellcraft.
These are delicious ideas. Since he's a sea druid, perhaps it is some sort of braided kelp. Kelp under a sea struck by lightning. Or growing along a ley line. (Or, in keeping with Noršlond lore, growing from a submarine leyferšs?) Real kelp would be awful, but his bone harpoon wouldn't be that great either. I love fantasy tech.
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Old 02-27-2020, 06:32 PM   #8
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Default Re: Druid's Harpoon?

I'd thought about the same sort of thing recently too, thinking that a lariat would make a cool variant of a wizard's staff for druids, as long as it were made of natural materials (and presumably druidically blessed in some way). Extending that to any sort of rope/harpoon/net/whatever, as long as natural materials are involved, sounds fun, and would make for a nice difference from wizards in terms of gear choice.

Along a similar line, I had this idea that it'd be cool if druids could cast through any natural object without range penalties, essentially turning, say, a whole tree into a "wizard's staff" for the purpose of zapping those orcs hiding way up in the top branches.

But, I thought, that might be simply too powerful, especially if you considered a forest or meadow of plants with intertwined roots to be one big "conductor" for druidic power - a druid could pretty much cast spells with no range penalties all over the place outdoors.

A middle ground came to mind: Imagine that druids could cast through any such natural material(s), with the benefit that they turn the regular -1/hex penalty into normal combat Range penalty. That'd let druids cast effectively at pretty hefty distances through any tree, natural rope, field of moss, whatever, though not without range limitations. (And I could see this heightened ability as costing points as a druid power-up, too.)

Anyway. It's a bit of a tangent, but could be an interesting extension of the druid harpoon idea if someone wants to play with it a bit more.
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Old 02-27-2020, 06:36 PM   #9
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Default Re: Druid's Harpoon?

I really like these ideas! The lariat and harpoon piqued my interest when I was reading through the equipment.
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Old 03-01-2020, 06:53 AM   #10
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Default Re: Druid's Harpoon?

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Along a similar line, I had this idea that it'd be cool if druids could cast through any natural object without range penalties, essentially turning, say, a whole tree into a "wizard's staff" for the purpose of zapping those orcs hiding way up in the top branches.
I like the way you're thinking.

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Imagine that druids could cast through any such natural material(s), with the benefit that they turn the regular -1/hex penalty into normal combat Range penalty. That'd let druids cast effectively at pretty hefty distances through any tree, natural rope, field of moss, whatever, though not without range limitations. (And I could see this heightened ability as costing points as a druid power-up, too.)
This is worth thinking about. I've heard that druids are a bit under-powered, but I've only had players use them in quick one-offs. I'm excited to see a fully fleshed out PC in this upcoming game. These ideas provide options to explore if he seems underwhelming.
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