D&D: Five Big Guns to Break Out When You Need Them
Sometimes you gotta break out the big guns—and when you’re playing Dungeons & Dragons, sometimes the big gun is actually a catapult.
There comes a point in every adventure where hitting things with a sword or shooting them with a longbow won’t do. But your party managed to trick you into playing something with no magical abilities, and that typically means swords and bows are your only recourse. Well not so! Welcome to the wonderful world of siege weapons in D&D—and if you have an old Weapons & Warriors playset lying around because you’re older than most liches, you already have, like, half the minis you need.
Ballista
When a regular crossbow won’t do, you can always use a large crossbow. Which is the ballista—sure, it takes three actions to use: one to load, one to aim, and one to fire, but you can shoot out to 480 ft. dealing 3d10 damage on a successful hit.
Mangonel
Okay, admittedly the ballista is a little basic, and with a 120/480 ft. range, that might still be too close if you’re talking about a rampaging devourer. After all, it’s CR 13 and you’re level 3. But that’s where a Mangonel comes in. Lure your target into wide-open fields of fire, and you’ll be able to hit targets behind cover. It default hurls stones, which deal 5d10 damage out to 800 feet, but you can set things on fire or load more volatile payloads for a different effect.
Trebuchet
What if the big gun you need to break out has to be able to shoot even further than that? That’s when you call for a Trebuchet, which deals 8d10 with a stone but is spelled out in the DMG to be able to launch other kinds of projectiles: such as barrels of oil or sewage.
Ram
Vintage engraving sowing soldiers from using battering rams on the walls of a castle.
This one’s less a big gun, and more a big melee weapon. It’ll take four friends to do, but it deals 3d10 damage to whatever you hit–a canny player will argue that the ram should also play by Siege Monster rules, doubling its damage against objects and buildings, but whatever the case, it’s also a good way to get total cover from distant attackers.
Cannon
Of course, the ultimate big gun is just a big… gun. We know that canonically guns exist in D&D, and so do cannons. You’ll have to have gunpowder, but if you have a wizard that can cast fireball around, you have that already in their components pouch, and, unlike many other weapons mentioned here, it can actually hit targets within 60 feet of it. With a range band of 600/2400 feet and 8d10 damage, it truly is the biggest gun. Literally.
Happy adventuring!
