Tell me, weary traveller: When I say the words "peasant railgun", what image is summoned to your mind. A high-tech rifle used to liberate the working class of a fantasy world? No. It's 2,280 hirelings standing in a line, using rules chicanery and a pretty solid misunderstanding of how TTRPGs work to argue that a sufficiently motivated workforce can fling a ladder at 1,188 miles per hour.
This whole idea is more of a fun thought exercise, rather than something that was available to players in 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons. While, yes, a line of 2,280 creatures could move an object that distance with their readied actions, it also relies on applying the rules for a falling object to something going, you know, sideways, with the proletariat fulfilling the role of gravity.
This is, to put it simply, nonsense—rules as written, the ladder would zip several thousand feet before being (best-case scenario) hucked as an improvised thrown weapon for a mighty 1d4 bludgeoning damage. Maybe 1d12 if the DM is happy to accept that a ladder is equivalent to a greatclub.
- Now D&D's 2024 rules revamp is almost finished, I've been visited by the ghosts of TTRPG past, present, and future to help me predict the next 5-10 years
- Baldur's Gate 3's accidental PS5 release of Patch 8 has the theorycrafters in a flurry—though I'm just glad D&D's blade cantrips are officially here
Well, I'm pleased to report that a genius by the name of Deathpacito-01 from the dndnext subreddit has cooked up another peasant-based strategy which, while probably still not permissible by any sensible DM, is technically within rules-as-written territory (thanks, Wargamer): "Do I think you should try this at your table? No. I'm not posting this as a recommendation, but rather as a warning."
The peasant jackhammer works as follows. Step one: cast the new 2024 rulebook's version of Conjure Woodland Beings, which works a little like Spirit Guardians, now. It deals a respectable 5d8 force damage "whenever a creature you can see enters the emanation or ends its turn there," but, says Wizards of the Coast, wagging its mighty finger, "A creature makes this save only once per turn."
That "once per turn" bit is the crucial part. Because the new ruleset lets you auto-fail a check to be grappled if you'd like, you could, hypothetically, hire a coterie of peasants to—on each of their separate turns, which will reset the "once per turn" limit on the spell's damage—laboriously shuffle your aura back and forth into the creature's space as many times as, theoretically, you have peasants to flood the initiative order.
Using the example of a Purple Worm, Deathpacito-01 writes: "Assuming the druid has 18 WIS and a spell save DC of 15, the Purple Worm will fail the save 75% of the time. The total expected damage is 100d8*0.75 + (100d8*0.25)/2 = 393.75 damage per round."
Now, granted, this strategy's got a couple of weaknesses. First off, you're banking on your 20+ peasants not unionising before you march them into battle, or dying at the hands of a fireball, or a stiff breeze. D&D also isn't a videogame with hard code—at any time, the DM can stare at you, say "no, that's stupid" and scupper your entire plan.
It is, however, pleasingly in-tradition and—more importantly—more rules-legit than its predecessor. It also fills me with a sense of pride that this nonsense has been discovered in less than a week—two days, by my mark, given the new Player's Handbook was released on September 17, and the post was made September 19. D&D's R&D division moves faster than a ladder through the hands of 2,280 beleaguered farmers.
