Something I've often done as a player and never gotten pushback on from a DM is use a sling as my go-to weapon against enemies which care about silvered weapons, simply using silver coins as ammunition. While still suboptimal, it is emminently affordable and something you can safely forget about in your inventory until you need it. Always gets a fun reaction out of groups who haven't seen it before, too!

I'd say make it explicitly clear that you can load a sling while holding a shield, as was traditionally done, making it a more defensive ranged option with better range than throwing weapons.

@michaelbaker7499

7 күн бұрын

Good shout. Also, give it damage more reflective of its historical potential. Even 2d4 would be a massive improvement.

Slings used to be the go to weapon for wizards when they were out of spell slots, back in the AD&D days. Now that cantrips are a thing they’re much less used

@gratuitouslurking8610

3 ай бұрын

Makes sense. Wizards probably still didn't get much proficiency, and between free ammo, low weight and not using the silver/gold for arrows or bolts and thus using it for your spellbook... Alas, lesso nowadays. Not only do these magic classes usually get better ranged cantrips, but depending on the caster you also have access to melee-booster spells like Shaleigh to put your magic to use in strikes.

@isitnotwrittenthat1680

2 ай бұрын

Yeah, even in. 3.5 casters carried a weapon since cantrips were both very weak and had limited casts (though the light crossbow was dominant over the dart and the sling by that point on mages)

@Varatho

2 ай бұрын

Ironically, the Magic Stone Cantrip is one of the best ones for damage. Both in early game where it has bonus damage, and later on when you get some minions and want to boost their damage.

@gratuitouslurking8610

2 ай бұрын

@@Varatho The biggest issue with Magic Stones mostly is it's lack of scaling compared to other combat cantrips. Yes it's a Bonus Action cast instead of a main action and it can do 3 stones at a time, but it's only a minor bounce-up compared to the likes of Firebolt or Acid Splash. Being able to enchant more stones or add more damage woulda been a nice addition.

Fun fact, that snap you here as the projectile is launched is the sling breaking the sound barrier

@michaelbaker7499

7 күн бұрын

But it dose the same damage than a thrown dart 🙄

It has been a long time since I read them but in earlier editions before cantrips druids also had a spell to make nuts burst into flames when they cracked open. Enchant a bag of them and use that in a sling for 1d4 bludgeoning plus the damage from the nut popping off. Once cantrips were added it became almost useless.

@gratuitouslurking8610

3 ай бұрын

There's a spell in modern DND that's meant to be a temp enchantment for sling bullets, Magic Stones. It transforms a Sling Bullet/Pebble into a 1d6+Spell Ability Modifier damage, which is a minor buff of DPS. However, as a Bonus Action cantrip it only enchants 3 of these rocks at a time, so you'll need to repeat the bonus action every 3 shots. To make it even worse, this is a rare cantrip without any direct level-scaling that comes afterwards, which automatically makes it inferior to basically any 1 Action combat cantrip which usually has such scaling. Salting the wound, you can simply throw the stone 60ft as an action for a similar effect, outpacing the short and long ranges of a sling in kind.

I've always wanted to run a sling focused kensai monk, just to get slightly better damage

A fun, and rather dangerous thing to play with, even today. Congrats on 1K subs.

A few random observations and weird factoids. The Roman Medicus had to use special surgical procedures to treat Sling injuries, similar to how we treat gunshot wounds today including having to extract the projectile from the wound. Why? Because the sling was roughly equivalent to a small caliber (32-38) pistol by today's standards. This was neither a low range nor low damage weapon. All Roman legionaries were issued slings to hunt with and some were used as a backup weapon, depending on which historical sources you use. There was a reason this was a weapon of war. Personally I think the Sling should be changed to match the Short Bow in both range and damage. The Artificer Repeating Shot Infusion works just fine on a Sling. Now you add a +1 to both Attack and Damage rolls, and no longer need to worry about ammunition, though it does not stop you from using some if you choose. As you point out in the section about "after gunpowder", Slings can be used to "throw" things like Alchemist`s Fire, Acid Vials, Oil, Contact Poison, and Holy Water. Depending on DM buy in, this might even include things like bags of Ball Bearings and Caltrops, with all the fun that would imply... Monks can use their Martial Arts die instead of the base weapon damage, turning the Sling into a d6 at level 5, d8 at 11, and d 10 at 17th level. Kensei Monks get to do even more cool things. The Magic Stone cantrip turns the d4 base Sling damage into a d6 + your spellcasting ability modifier. While not particularly awesome as the primary ranged weapon at higher levels, this is great at low to mid levels of play where adding a flat damage boost can be easily felt, and as a (easily hidden) backup weapon. Interestingly enough, this can be combined with either the Artificer`s Enhanced Weapon Infusion, or the Repeating Shot Infusion.

@michaelbaker7499

7 күн бұрын

Agree with increasing the damage and range of the sling

I've been running an AD&D 2e campaign and almost every player has taken proficiency with the sling due to its small size (useful in dungeon crawls where a longbow, shortbow, or heavy crossbow easily get in the way), its ability to easily regain ammunition from the environment as to not get stuck without arrows or bolts, its ability to launch alchemical items (as you had mentioned in the video), and its ability to be used as a short section of rope to tie a splint or similar functions. Additionally, while this part is not true in 5e, Clerics can only use bludgeoning weapons, and so a sling is especially useful for them in a game where ranged combat is already preferred as to keep out of danger. Additionally, a sling can add the Strength damage bonus of a character wielding it, which-alongside bows that are specially tuned to take advantage of strength which is quite costly-is the only way outside of magical enhancement in 2e to add damage to a ranged attack, since Dexterity only adds to the bonus to hit with them. I've always been a fan of slings as a weapon and I'll likely be implementing some of these changes to my 5e games to help spruce it up.

Make it a automatic hold out weapon like in New Vegas. They can search all they want. You'll hold on to it. Also make it instant make shift/permant weapon. Using your hair or clothing you're wearing in a prison etc...

I think it would be cool if the sling did additive damage to its ammunition. Like if I were to pick up a rock and throw it it would still only do a D4 damage but I've seen videos of slingers breaking concrete with the things which tells me the sling is adding a bit of gusto to the attack's damage. My proposal is that the sling has the special property and it adds an extra D4 damage to the damage of whatever improvised projectile is loaded into it. So in most cases it's dealing 2d4 damage on a hit putting it in line with the light crossbow. But if you have say a druid with the magic stone cantrip you could load those in and deal 1d6 + 1d4 for an extra bit of damage with the right party comp.

On my personal stuff partly stealing from that extended weapons pdf you posted once, Slings have gotten a few siblings in the Martial side, to try and replicate a few extra things. As well as including the Hoopak, the traditional halfling fighting stick, there is also the Slinger, a wristbow variant and thus with the Hidden property, the Slingstaff, a two-handed sling that has the highest range of the slings, and the Reinforced Slingshot, a bulky and heavy sling (which is useful as Heavy slingshots could perform the item-flinging properties in my take on things). Slings do still have an issue of being weaker than the other expanded ranged weapon options, but between extended ammunition and hopefully some item/spell synergies hopefully they'll find a niche. Perhaps as a something to steal from this, consider Alchemy Items for low-tier sling throwing, and stuff like Grenades as high-tier sling throwing?

I like all the changes you've made, but I think the range should be changed to at least 50 ft/120 ft

There are a lot of alternate ammo types for slings there is the kestos a greek sling Launched dart and there's no real reason you can't launch multiple projectiles with a sling. I've seen a short of someone pouring a bunch of shot bbs into a sling and "bombing" a area with them. Also I do have to say since ball bearings are metal likely steel or at the very least for a medieval fantasy setting iron plus marbles also exist in dnd implied by the ball bearing description so imagine what getting hit with glass projectiles could do like bludgeoning and maybe bleed damage.

TORTONA MENZIONATA COSA CAZZO È UN OSPEDALEEE💥💥💥💥💥

Personally, I think D&D should recognise the difference between sling stones and sling bullets. Sling stones rely on blunt force while sling bullets have sufficient penetrative capability. This could be represented by different damage dice for each type of ammo, and classing bullets as doing piercing damage. There's also the fact that slings varied in length, which affected their effective range. So you could have a longer ranged sling and introduce some drawback to it, like it having a minimum range or granting oppents advantage against you in melee. Whatever, slings are grossly underpowered in D&D. I've become slightly obsessed with slings and have made several and used them. And I really want to create and play a character who's main weapon is a sling inspired by the baliaric slingers. Unfortunately, the easiest way I can think of doing that is reskining other ranged weapons as different styles of sling. And that sucks.

Sadly, the Sling is a victim of WotC's relative ignorance of their historical inspiration and the inherently arbitrary nature of D&D's Simple/Martial divide. Historically, slings were a tremendously devastating weapon that required years of training to use effectively. They used specially selected ammunition chosen for its low drag, allowing slingers to frequently exceed the effective ranges of contemporary archers. They were neither short ranged, nor low damage. Even internally, though, the "Sling" is just needlessly weak. There's no practical reason for it to share range with the Javelin while only doing as much damage as a Dart. In theory, I would increase the Sling's range to 125/500. Damage could be increased to 1D6 innately, and/or you could consider an additional damage buff if a user takes the "Sharpshooter" feat.