EGGSHELL GRENADE, DUST
- ORIENTAL ADVENTURES (3.0)
Simple Thrown Ammunition (Eggshell)
[Splash]
Cost: 10 gp
Alchemy DC: 20
Damage (direct): Blinded 1d4 rounds
Damage (splash): Blinded 1 round
Range: 5 ft
Weight: - lb
A favorite tool of ninja, used to create distractions, eggshell grenades are emptied eggshells carefully packed with various alchemical substances. A dust grenade that hits its target directly blinds the target for 1d4 rounds. A creature within the “splash” radius of the dust cloud (5 feet) must make a Fortitude save (DC 10) or be blinded for 1 round. Naturally, eggshell grenades are very fragile and must be stowed carefully to avoid breakage. If a character carrying these items suffers damage from falling, each eggshell grenade must make a Fortitude save (as if the character were making the saving throw) against a DC of 10 + the amount of damage suffered. Eggshell grenades are too light to be used in a sling or other launcher.
: Poof! Blind attacks are nasty, the problem is having the item last long enough to use it. Fixed with extra-dimensional storage. The save sucks, but read it carefully. The main target doesn’t get a save, only the splash targets. No save touch attack blindness for 1d4 rounds. Awesome. Just Awesome.
Editor (Energy Damage): The two types of energy damage to put on something like this is fire and frost. They simply have the best spread of stackable WSAs. If you are going with only official WSAs, stick with fire. If your DM allows extrapolated WSAs from specific weapons, I recommend frost. I speak off The Frost Shard. Combining Frost shard, frost, and energy aura, you can put +6d6 damage into your grenade for 1,376 gp for one. Not bad for a touch attack. It gets cheaper if you mix and match, but blindness and a frozen face are rather impressive for a sneak attack.
Editor (WSAs): Assassination is the obvious choice. You can coat this sucker with contact poison (it does not cause injury, so injury poison is out) and whip it in someone’s face. Make sure to add virulent, so that the secondary effects kick in after 5 rounds. is a good choice for putting damage on this. True, it’s only +1d4, but it works with the touch attack. Then you can stack on other WSAs that require you to inflict damage. Strength Sapping comes to mind for the half speed and Dex/Str debuff. Clouting is also a weird choice, but when you blind the target, you would also drive him back 10 feet, possibly knock him down, and you also might stun him. A +3 bonus like that is usually expensive, but useful in ammunition. Dismisser banishes a foe on a touch attack and that +3 cost is much easier to swallow in ammo. If you fail to dismiss, they are still blind. Hideaway is a weird choice but it would fold and egg up to something you could put on a ring. Impedance is one of those WSAs I never use, but could work well with this to screw up a magic user. Forcing spellcraft checks is usually a trivial annoyance, but in ammunition, it’s not that expensive. Revealing will surround the target in faerie fire for a round. Combine this with seeking and as long as you know what square the target is in, an invisible enemy will be hit. Swarmstrike will allow you to blind an entire swarm in one shot. Torturous stuns for one round, but upgrade to the improved version for the better save DC.
Editor (Exit Wound): What happens when you buy this on something that clearly was never intended to go through people? The answer is, everyone in a line gets blinded and it does 1d6 points of damage to each target. Scary.
Editor (Explosive): Not a big fan of explosive, but for ammunition, this works. However, where the real synergy occurs is when you add in flying. Basically, you make a flying, suicidal, blinding exploding egg. It solves the problem of wondering if it’ll break open when you fall down a flight of stairs, and since they are a touch attack, it don’t matter that they attack as animate objects. They follow orders about as well as an animated skeleton, so you could have four or five of these orbiting your head and people will just think they are weird ioun stones. Then they fly off, slam into someone, then explode for 2d4 damage, blind the target, and if they miss, there’s still a chance for blinding everyone in the explosion if they fail the fortitude save.
