equipment and items

>>52979532
Just the one bump because I posted this at 2 am like a dumbass.

>>52979532
Tried it, but most of them are situational and not worth writing them down.
I once drew up a 'basic adventuring equipment' list to go into a bag of holding, which turned out fairly well after we lost our weapons and I had spare improvised ones handy.

I tried to use catapults at one point, but ended up just flinging the bard for recon with a ring of feather fall.
Which then lead to the ruling that you can turn the ring off if you want, so you're not falling slowly for days.

>>52979532
my party has made use of quick-setting cement to kill an entrapped water elemental.

but if you mean carrying equipment specifically to have it in case you might need it, like matches, pitons, a chisel, crowbar, rope, etc...
that guy is usually me.
and I never use it all.

>>52979532
Blades in the Dark lets you decide how geared up you are before each heist. You can then retroactively have the items you need up to the chosen limit. I find that it lets people who wouldn't otherwise bother find creative solutions.

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>>52979532
European scissor siege ladder.

Renaissance codexes have all kinds of unbuilt weird shit: adjustable siege towers, battle wagons, perpetual motion machines, flaming barrels of death to roll down in your enemies downards the hill... The Ming had version of the latter that shot rockets from the sides at the same time. Players almost shit themselves.

>>52986142
you wouldn't happen to have a scan of one such codex would you?

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>>52988177
Got better.

A full database of renaissance machine drawings:
http://dmd.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/home
There are so many devices that it has categories like "amphibian vehicles", "lathes", "cranes", "forging hammers"...

However, some of the drawings are difficult to interpret. This german site has some drawings of what such things should look like:
http://klio.histinst.rwth-aachen.de/ext/tma/ma/index.htm

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>>52988177
Oh, and the chinese devices, both crazy and sensible, are here:
http://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com

Would that kind of stuff be more useful if the caster classes were removed for a very low magic kind of game?

My chars are generally kitted to high heaven. If you don't use tools, you're barely a person to my ranger. He carries a whole load of everything, with emphasis on things to make fire, cook, and build things. He's legendary among my group for being able to trap ANYTHING... And set damn near anything aflame.

>>52979532
Depends on the campaign and group. Some DMs want realistic weight and stuff.
I've got one group where the DM is pretty strict on equipment weight, size, stuff like that. In fact, we have to draw out exactly the placement of equipment we have in and on our backpacks.
One group, we just get drunk and smash things. We just run dungeons and stuff, very little RP, lots of action. I think one guy has like 3 battering rams, and between 3 players we split up a ballista and carry it around

>>52989477
Oh holy moses these designs gave me infinite ideas for my gunsmith, both in and out of a siege scenario.
>Rolling a tree trunk downhill while it fires arrows out of both its ends
>firing a fragmentation cannon ball into troops while scattering caltops across the battlefield.
>having a tripwire-arquebus that fires and pushes charging cavalry back 5ft mid - charge.
>firing 40 harpoons at once into infantry, grappling and damaging them at the same time completely halting the charge.
>firing an incendiary arrow into shipsails while a poison canister on the fletching of the arrow disuades opponents.
These guys had the right idea.

>>52979532
>playing Eldritch Knight
>buy several 10ft chains
>pick shocking grasp
>sneak behind enemy
>use chain to strangle them while casting shocking grasp
>voila, electrical garrote

>receive a flask containing a very angry water elemental
>attach flask to end of a spear
>hurl spear into enemy
>watch and enjoy

>two handaxes and a rope?
>crude climbing aid

Creativity is the spice of life.

>Tie leather loops around my weapons so that if something knocks my sword out of my hand, it dangles at my wrist and not into the chasm to either side.

>Block my ears with wet cotton before approaching a wizard to avoid use of the Command spell

>Make sure the only metal on my person is the daggers I carry so when someone casts heat metal I throw a dagger at them for 1d4+dex+2d8 and draw another. "If you keep heatin' I'll keep throwin"

>Have peasants throwing metal javelins at flesh golem during siege, cast lightning breath at the golem, takes double damage because of the amount of metal now protruding from it.

>Can't cause people to directly harm themselves using Command spell. Command them to walk to the other side of the room, they fail all their perception checks and nearly die from traps.

>Attach a hook to 10ft of chain and attach that to 50ft of rope. Fish for soldiers during a siege and pull them over the battlements into the courtyard so we can arm more zombies.

>Max out ranged attacks and build the keep so that there is 800ft of visible difficult terrain around us, rig the area with caltrop bombs and gunpowder canisters. They didn't even make it 200ft.

>>52979532

I don't know about 5e but I know that in 3.5/pf almost all mundane utility items fall into the category of "If you don't have a spellcaster that can already do this cheaper, easier, and better..."

Torches are always in vogue. Having somebody bring a multitool isn't a terrible investment. At low levels, alchemical concoctions can be combat-viable (higher levels not so much unless somebody has class abilities that interact with them).

Other than that, it's like, you probably already have a guy that can fly, or even teleport--how much mileage are you really going to get out of that ladder? If you're a big beefy fighter man it might be worth it because, why not? It's not like you're hurting for carrying capacity. Otherwise, maybe just stick to the essentials and let your eldritch Swiss army knife in his pointed hat over there take care of the rest.

They don't use them all that often, but I encouraged my players to pick professions they had prior to being adventurers. They've made pretty good use of tools and knowledge from these past professions. My favourite example was a former jeweler and farrier using their tools to inspect and dissarm a trap.

>>52995792
>>52997356
>>52997865
Things like this are what I wish my players would do. I want them to be think outaide the box and find a use for all that awesome stuff that both gives bonuses to rolls and lets players RP their characters better. Or maybe I am just overly influenced by Darkest Dungeon.
The problem is more or less that casters make it all pointless, like >>52997831
Said.

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>>52995650
They also had a lot of wrong ideas. Binge-read the site, it has triple-barreled muskets which double as shields, attempts to make rockets reusable by coming back to their source (because fuck your troops) and the axe-spear-fire-lance-five-shot-shield-gun.

But the rocket pods, oh yes sweet mayhem... I used the 5E DM Guide's rule "rapid fire" for them. I also used it for the average repeating crossbow. Interesting to find out that such weapons are more like a hip-fired lever-action shotgun (each bolt like a pellet) than the machineguns they're usually portrayed as.

Being a gunsmith, are you familiar with lorenzoni repeaters?
https://youtu.be/cwioSefgcsM?t=1m2s