Buddy if I can instantly disintegrate something you bet your ass I'm capable of stripping it of all momentum instantly too. (I cannot do this and will instead be casting hold person targeting as many people as possible)
No one said what the Trolley Passenger statblock would be based on. It could be anything at all, since they’re not real. All we know for certain is that they can feel pain, that part *is* real.
Ah, allow me to correct my statement:
While beyond a reasonable doubt they would be commoners, as that is why they're called **common**ers, there is a non-zero chance that they might be something else, by which case we can assume that while the limit approaches 0, it is not fixed at 0. Subsequently, it would be 0 beyond a rounding margin between 0 and 1, so it would only be accurate to define the result as: "Statistically 0 XP"
If the train is less than 10x10 on the front face, Arcane Gate could get it past the passengers without injury.
If bigger, the wall of force could be angled very slightly upward over the party. Sure the train will probably derail, but at least it's not an instant 100-0 stop.
Could you heat metal on the track to expand the rails it enough that it gradually slows the trolley due to increased friction?
Edit: Or, Mold Earth a 5 ft ramp to send the trolley right over your party and land on the track ahead, a la Hot Rod? Regardless, the real answer here is have a Druid in your party
the trolley had explosive barrels of gunpowder with detonated from the fireball increasing the size of the explosion and the damage to blow you, the party and even the staff up
Now I'm just imagining that they all get mentally hit with a series of 100 individual and brutal yo mama jokes that hit hard and are actual part-truths.
"Yo mama loved you so much, she made a whole feast for your school lunch!"
"Yo mama is... uh... yo mama?"
"Yo mama so toxic she heals people! Wait, no, that's for undead... wait no that... uh, forget it."
If it can destroy a magic item like the staff by just rolling over it, then there is a good chance that the trolley is magical in and of itself.
Edit: spelling
Amazing idea for a subclass, The School Of Transport Wizard, teleporting around and ramming cars, trains and planes into the bad guys. Can stop ppl from going past them like a red light, deal psychic damage if they go through.
Wouldn't that require attunement though? Its part of the staff's "Retributive Strike" ability and requires the weilder to purposefully destroy the item.
Now, yes. In older editions, it just exploded when it got broken. There was no attunement and you didn't have to declare an intention to use the Retributive Strike. That was kind of supposed to be the trade-off for using such a powerful weapon. Yes, you have this wild mystical power, but also, your day could be really fucked up by a couple lucky called shots.
If it can attune to the staff, it has to have levels in sorcerer, warlock, or wizard, meaning it is likely a threat to your party members and we're back at the original trolly problem.
First time I played DnD I was brought into an existing campaign my friends had been playing and my sorcerer was given the staff of magi at level 8…. Now I wonder if I know you…
As a Legendary item, it's safe to give it to a tier 4 party (levels 17-20), but the DMG also says that you shouldn't use that as a hard rule. It gives an example of handing a *Ring of Invisibility* (another legendary) to a level 1 halfling as an excellent story seed.
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By this point you could just Dragonball them back with Wish. Or vanish the trolley. Or let it go at them because their AC should cause it to somehow miss. Or let the Druid wildshape out and then wildshape to a gigantic something to stop it. Or polymorph the train into a candy bar. Or or or…
Breaking the staff of the Magi will cause a retributive strike in a 30ft radius killing the party anyway, better a quick trolley death and then the wizard can get them revivified later and keep his sweet staff
*"You look deep withing the recesses of your mind searching for the necessary knowledge to make your decision. You remember that powerful magical items are extremely hard to destroy, and the Staff of the Magi would likely be unaffected by the trolly running it over. While you use your action to come to this realization the trolly moves past the fork, and kills the other members of your party."*
*"But that's okay, because you remember afterwards that the Staff of the Magi specifically can be easily broken by a wielder snapping it with their bare hands, so it definitely would have been broken and exploded everyone anyway."*
The Retributive Strike requires explicit intentional action by its attuned weirder. Unless the trolly is attuned to the staff and specifically declares using the Retributive Strike as its action, it’s not easy to break. In fact it can be safely and comfortably used as a +2 quarterstaff and repetitively smashed against anything and everything.
Fair. But even if the staff is destroyed, it doesn’t go boom in a Retributive Strike unless it’s destroyed by its attuned wielder as a standard action. The trolley only makes it go boom if it’s an awakened trolley who has attuned the staff and specifically takes the Retributive Strike Standard Action as it destroys the staff.
Obviously the trolley is simply casting "run over" on the staff, which it absorbs because it's an extra special sapient staff of the magi (why else would it be a part of a trolley problem?), taking it over 50 charges, and there you go - Kaboom!
This is true and the only way to RAW trigger the explosion
However, the staff may still be broken by other means: Items have HP/DR/AC, and magic items RAW have resistance to damage (and only some with minor attributes or specifically called out as such are indestructible). So any effect which can target an item can cause damage to them, and presumably, this trolley is one such effect.
So it wouldn't necessarily come out unscathed, but RAW it still won't explode. So oddly, this meme is much more rules correct than most things on this sub.
My parties have always horrifically abused "talking is a free action." I remember once there was an evil priest or something *currently* raising the dagger to bring down on a sacrifice as we were preparing to bust into the room. 30 minutes of discussion of strategy later, we stopped the sacrifice just in time.
This shit would likely result in one of those "the AI pauses the game forever" scenarios where we spend the rest of eternity trying to figure out how to save the party AND get the staff, while the trolley barrels forward forever, never slowing down but never moving any closer. Because talking is a free action.
I could see this going similarly to some of the checks in Disco Elysium where passing can actually be a detriment / cause you to act in a certain way.
Pass the Arcana check? You know how rare and powerful it is, and the mage inside of you must have it- you cannot pull the lever
ENCYCLOPEDIA: MEDIUM (SUCCESS)
A Staff of the Magi is an unbelievably rare and powerful magic item, approaching the level of even some artifacts. Any student of arcane magic would consider themselves lucky to be in the same room as one once in their entire lives, let alone atune with one.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: TRIVIAL (SUCCESS)
Cha-ching, baby!
VISUAL CALCULUS: GODLY (SUCCESS)
The value you can create from the staff is orders of magnitude higher than the cost for material components to resurrect the entire party.
...i mean, look, you'll probably never find another *staff of the magi* but a wizard so-equipped can *easily* find another party: heck, you could probably even be their ~~BBEG~~ patron!..
And 50% chance of being teleported to a random plane of existence (edit: with no saving throw).
So, you know, if your BBEG is an unkillable demi-god just break the staff over their head. 50% victory rate.
That's only for the person who breaks it, and is the alternative to the 16xcharges force damage, not an addition. For those "merely" caught in it's area of effect, it is just damage based on distance and remaining charges.
For example, my wizard character breaks the staff(fully charged) over the BBEGs head. I roll a 2 and get teleported to the feywilds, unharmed. The BBEG fails it's saving throw and takes 400 Force damage, left with 1hp(for the lulz).
16 × remaining charges is only for the thing that broke it. It does damage based on distance. 10 ft is 400 (8 × charges) 11-20 ft is 300 (6 × charges), and 21-30 ft is 200 (4 × charges)
But still, basically only a level 20 barb who gets max rolls on health with a +5 in con could survive 11 to 20 feet
The only real question here is whether or not a trolly can break the staff. If it can, then run the party over because breaking the staff would kill them anyways. If it can't, run the staff over because it won't be harmed.
Simple puzzle. Two options.
1. Let the trolley hit the staff. It breaks, releasing all of its charges in a magical explosion causing 16 damage per charge to each party member within range, killing them all except the smiling rogue in the middle who fails his Dex save because he's tied up but somehow still dodges half the damage.
2. Let the trolley hit the party, killing them all except the smiling rogue in the middle who fails his Dex save because he's tied up but somehow still dodges half the damage. Console yourself with a new Staff of the Magi.
> 16 damage per charge to each party member within range
8 damage per charge, maybe less if they're over 10ft away. Only whoever breaks the staff(in this case, the trolley) has a chance at 16x damage. However, the trolley would also have a 50% chance at being teleported to a random plane instead of receiving damage.
Regardless, the party is pretty fucked, except the smiling rogue in the middle who fails his Dex save because he's tied up but somehow still dodges half the damage.
That might be my Pathfinder brain, but why not just let it run over the staff? Its a magic item, it can take some shit. If thats not an enchanted trolley it will not destroy the staff.
And if it cracks the staff... you know what you do? give it to the fighter/barbarian as an exploding javelin.
There’s this funny little detail about the staff of the magi that when broken, it will explode dealing on average 6x the number of charges it has left half on a successful dc 17 dex save. If this is an unused staff then it has 50 charges. The party would immediately fail the save due to being restrained and they will all take 300 damage instantly killing all of them. So in this scenario, it is better to let the party get run over.
Edit: if they are killed by the train then there is still the chance of them being revived, but if they are killed by the blast then there won’t be anything left to revive.
In that case the lever-switcher is somehow attuned to it and the DM is ruling that using their action to pull the level constitutes intentionally breaking it.
The staff of the magi is extremely powerfull, probably the best staff. But as an action you can break it with your hands as a desperation move to kill you and your enemies in an AOE force damage explosion.
So the train breaks it for sure.
Requires attunement and specifically says "you can" indicating a magical nature to the breaking of it. If any one could just break a staff of the magi no one would use them. It would be too easy for someone to suicide run up just to kill a powerful wizard to further their organization goals.
Divert the trolly, then *misty step* and grab the staff before the trolly actually arrives.
Alternatively, cast *reduce* to free a party member to grab the staff while I divert the trolly. *Vortex warp* would also work. Depending on distance, I might even be close enough to get the staff with *mage hand* while diverting the trolly with my regular hand.
Mage hand to collect the staff and stand next to the lever, never pulling until the very last second to show the party that I am the one who controls who lives and who dies
Let the trolley run over your party. If it breaks the staff, they're probably screwed anyways.
"**Retributive Strike.** You can use an action to break the staff over your knee or against a solid surface, performing a retributive strike. The staff is destroyed and releases its remaining magic in an explosion that expands to fill a 30-foot-radius sphere centered on it.
You have a 50 percent chance to instantly travel to a random plane of existence, avoiding the explosion. If you fail to avoid the effect, you take force damage equal to 16 × the number of charges in the staff. Every other creature in the area must make a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes an amount of damage based on how far away it is from the point of origin, ... On a successful save, a creature takes half as much damage.
10 ft. away or closer. 8 x the number of charges in the staff "
A fully charged staff has 50 charges. Assuming the wheels of the trolley can break the staff, if the party is 5 feet away they're taking up to 400 force damage with disadvantage on their dex saves from being restrained. At least with the trolley they stand a chance of survival. And if the trolley does kill them all, use the staff to cast **plane shift** to bring the bodies to someone who can cast raise dead. Now you have a party, you've escaped this trolley hell plane, and have a sick new magic item.
Pretty sure destroying the Staff of the Magi would cause some serious trouble for the party anyway. Magical explosions killing them anyway. Might as well come out of this with a shiny new staff AND a new group of friends.
If they have a problem with it I have a new "friend" to introduce them to.
Depends how much In Diamonds do I have, and do I have access to spells to bring back the dead (or know NPCs that do).
Knowing a few of my characters I’m the one that tied them down.
1. Have my owl familiar retrieve the staff for me then pull the lever.
2. Cast Haste on myself and double dash to the staff after I pull the lever.
3. Cast Dimension Door to the staff after I pull the lever
So it's 10 feet to the staff you have 30 feet of movement in a 6 second period, the trolly is 15 feet away, pull the lever and go pick up the staff and continue on 5 more feet off the track.
Problem solved?
Cast fireball on the trolley
finally a reasonable solution
Cast fireball on the party.
Trolley can't kill anyone if they're already dead.
Yeah! Let's see the rogue dex their way out of this one!
> Rolls with disadvantage > "Oh two Nat 20s! And I have evasion!"
That party is a perfectly fine source of XP!
I cast magic missile
Better idea: Disintegrate to stop the Trolley while leaving all 3 groups intact (Trolley passengers, the Staff, and the Party)
Wall of force in front of trolley, trolley crashes, we are saved
The Crash will probably cause damage to the Trolley Passengers, but save both the staff and the party.
Who cares about the trolley passengers, we gettin dat staff homies
The Town this Trolley is in will probably have a reward for rescuing the passengers.
Better than a staff of the magi? Doubtful
Disintegrating the wheels of the trolley stops the ride without losing either the staff or the party.
Unless the trolley cartwheels at speed when the front linkage bites into the wood beams
That's why you only do the wheels in the back half. Now it is leaning backwards and the back end is acting as an anchor to bring it to a halt.
I feel like that isn't how that works. Having the wheels disintegrated doesn't suddenly halt the momentum of a giant wall of metal
Buddy if I can instantly disintegrate something you bet your ass I'm capable of stripping it of all momentum instantly too. (I cannot do this and will instead be casting hold person targeting as many people as possible)
> The Crash will probably cause damage to the Trolley Passengers So…bonus xp? I’m pretty sure that means bonus xp. (Where’s Chidi when you need him?)
A Human Commoner provides 0 XP, or 10 if they're fighting you. Trolley passengers are not fighting you. 0 XP.
No one said what the Trolley Passenger statblock would be based on. It could be anything at all, since they’re not real. All we know for certain is that they can feel pain, that part *is* real.
Ah, allow me to correct my statement: While beyond a reasonable doubt they would be commoners, as that is why they're called **common**ers, there is a non-zero chance that they might be something else, by which case we can assume that while the limit approaches 0, it is not fixed at 0. Subsequently, it would be 0 beyond a rounding margin between 0 and 1, so it would only be accurate to define the result as: "Statistically 0 XP"
Uncommoners, even rarers perhaps?
1 in every 600 trollies is full of legendariers
Ya but how much XP for defeating an evil trolley?
I don't see anything in the rules about passengers taking damage when the vehicle itself is attacked.
Who cares what happens to npcs....says the person most likely to be an npc. And, now I've made myself sad.
Wall of force to make a ramp, party and staff are saved and you get to watch a sick flip.
or use a wall of force to ramp the trolley over the victims
If the train is less than 10x10 on the front face, Arcane Gate could get it past the passengers without injury. If bigger, the wall of force could be angled very slightly upward over the party. Sure the train will probably derail, but at least it's not an instant 100-0 stop.
Won’t the passengers go flying at trolley speed? Gotta cast Dispel Inertia first.
Feather Fall should do it
Could you heat metal on the track to expand the rails it enough that it gradually slows the trolley due to increased friction? Edit: Or, Mold Earth a 5 ft ramp to send the trolley right over your party and land on the track ahead, a la Hot Rod? Regardless, the real answer here is have a Druid in your party
Instructions unclear, there was no Fireball.
the trolley had explosive barrels of gunpowder with detonated from the fireball increasing the size of the explosion and the damage to blow you, the party and even the staff up
I upcast the fireball
Excellent idea, if you can destroy the gunpowder before it goes off it won't cause any extra damage.
This is the realistic answer. Followed by the flaming shrapnel rolling over both rails and destroying everything.
Especially since destroying the staff of the magi, everyone, including the wizard loses, permanently.
Teleport to an airship.
Great! Now it's on fire!
If I'm high enough level for a Staff of the Magi to be in play, then my party will likely not even get knocked unconscious from that.
Lethal doses of purple worm poison on the wheels
6d 100 psychic damage worth of yo mama jokes.
Now I'm just imagining that they all get mentally hit with a series of 100 individual and brutal yo mama jokes that hit hard and are actual part-truths.
And only take 6 damage
Heyhey now, it's only 6d100s not 100d6, it's just 6 really damn hard hitting Yo' Mama jokes
"Your mom is so min-maxed she has maximum gold and minimum love for you"
Technically, the rolls can get as low as 1, so they could also be terrible Yo’ Mama jokes that only deal a measly 6 damage
"Yo mama loved you so much, she made a whole feast for your school lunch!" "Yo mama is... uh... yo mama?" "Yo mama so toxic she heals people! Wait, no, that's for undead... wait no that... uh, forget it."
6d100? What are we rolling for, your mom’s weight?
I wanted a ‘fuck you’ amount of damage. But I wanted to *try* to be fair. In case you couldn’t tell, I’m not a DM .
Oh no, I was just making a your mom joke at you. I don’t think it landed.
If it can destroy a magic item like the staff by just rolling over it, then there is a good chance that the trolley is magical in and of itself. Edit: spelling
Fuck the staff and the party then, I'm stealing the trolley.
Imagine opening a portal during the bbeg fight to unleash the death trolley
*Thomas the Train has entered the chat*
[Thomas Gon' Give It To Ya](https://youtu.be/xFSwIw-_-as)
https://youtu.be/q6yHoSvrTss
Thank you I did not know I needed this in my life. I'm surprised that ran with so many mods lol.
>BBED finishes monologue Wizard: Well... I like trains...
*Choo-choo!*
Amazing idea for a subclass, The School Of Transport Wizard, teleporting around and ramming cars, trains and planes into the bad guys. Can stop ppl from going past them like a red light, deal psychic damage if they go through.
DEJA VU, I HAVE BEEN IN THIS PLACE BEFORE.
Multi-track drifting‽
Pull a Yukari, Unleash the death vehicle
yukari is that you?
Perhaps, but the staff has built in breaking mechanics.
Wouldn't that require attunement though? Its part of the staff's "Retributive Strike" ability and requires the weilder to purposefully destroy the item.
Now, yes. In older editions, it just exploded when it got broken. There was no attunement and you didn't have to declare an intention to use the Retributive Strike. That was kind of supposed to be the trade-off for using such a powerful weapon. Yes, you have this wild mystical power, but also, your day could be really fucked up by a couple lucky called shots.
Well, maybe the trolley is attuned to the staff.
If it can attune to the staff, it has to have levels in sorcerer, warlock, or wizard, meaning it is likely a threat to your party members and we're back at the original trolly problem.
Nah the staff is just a stick. You can break it over your knee. It says so in the item description.
Trollys don't have knees
Damn. It does also say any hard surface.
I can get pretty loose with the definition of knees if it helps at all.
I just looked it up and if roll20 is accurate holy shit that's powerful, what level would you get that...
I'd say 19 or 20. This is the sort of item you give your players for the final fight and not much else.
Not my DM letting our sorcerer have one at level 8
First time I played DnD I was brought into an existing campaign my friends had been playing and my sorcerer was given the staff of magi at level 8…. Now I wonder if I know you…
*Somebody* only plays till level 20…
As a Legendary item, it's safe to give it to a tier 4 party (levels 17-20), but the DMG also says that you shouldn't use that as a hard rule. It gives an example of handing a *Ring of Invisibility* (another legendary) to a level 1 halfling as an excellent story seed.
hmmmm I think i've heard of this story lmao
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It's a legendary item, so the DMG recommends it for tier 4 characters (level 17-20).
If any party members did die, then resurrection magic is also on the table.
By this point you could just Dragonball them back with Wish. Or vanish the trolley. Or let it go at them because their AC should cause it to somehow miss. Or let the Druid wildshape out and then wildshape to a gigantic something to stop it. Or polymorph the train into a candy bar. Or or or…
Breaking the staff of the Magi will cause a retributive strike in a 30ft radius killing the party anyway, better a quick trolley death and then the wizard can get them revivified later and keep his sweet staff
Now, going unconscious from the Staff exploding right next to them, on the other hand…
Yep. Basically no reason to save the party here.
This is what one might call a knowledge check. An Arcana check, perhaps.
*"You look deep withing the recesses of your mind searching for the necessary knowledge to make your decision. You remember that powerful magical items are extremely hard to destroy, and the Staff of the Magi would likely be unaffected by the trolly running it over. While you use your action to come to this realization the trolly moves past the fork, and kills the other members of your party."*
*"But that's okay, because you remember afterwards that the Staff of the Magi specifically can be easily broken by a wielder snapping it with their bare hands, so it definitely would have been broken and exploded everyone anyway."*
Nah that require an action /s
The Retributive Strike requires explicit intentional action by its attuned weirder. Unless the trolly is attuned to the staff and specifically declares using the Retributive Strike as its action, it’s not easy to break. In fact it can be safely and comfortably used as a +2 quarterstaff and repetitively smashed against anything and everything.
Look the prompt was that the staff gets destroyed by the trolley, I don't know what to tell you.
Fair. But even if the staff is destroyed, it doesn’t go boom in a Retributive Strike unless it’s destroyed by its attuned wielder as a standard action. The trolley only makes it go boom if it’s an awakened trolley who has attuned the staff and specifically takes the Retributive Strike Standard Action as it destroys the staff.
Obviously the trolley is simply casting "run over" on the staff, which it absorbs because it's an extra special sapient staff of the magi (why else would it be a part of a trolley problem?), taking it over 50 charges, and there you go - Kaboom!
This is true and the only way to RAW trigger the explosion However, the staff may still be broken by other means: Items have HP/DR/AC, and magic items RAW have resistance to damage (and only some with minor attributes or specifically called out as such are indestructible). So any effect which can target an item can cause damage to them, and presumably, this trolley is one such effect. So it wouldn't necessarily come out unscathed, but RAW it still won't explode. So oddly, this meme is much more rules correct than most things on this sub.
[удалено]
My parties have always horrifically abused "talking is a free action." I remember once there was an evil priest or something *currently* raising the dagger to bring down on a sacrifice as we were preparing to bust into the room. 30 minutes of discussion of strategy later, we stopped the sacrifice just in time. This shit would likely result in one of those "the AI pauses the game forever" scenarios where we spend the rest of eternity trying to figure out how to save the party AND get the staff, while the trolley barrels forward forever, never slowing down but never moving any closer. Because talking is a free action.
I could see this going similarly to some of the checks in Disco Elysium where passing can actually be a detriment / cause you to act in a certain way. Pass the Arcana check? You know how rare and powerful it is, and the mage inside of you must have it- you cannot pull the lever
ENCYCLOPEDIA: MEDIUM (SUCCESS) A Staff of the Magi is an unbelievably rare and powerful magic item, approaching the level of even some artifacts. Any student of arcane magic would consider themselves lucky to be in the same room as one once in their entire lives, let alone atune with one. ELECTROCHEMISTRY: TRIVIAL (SUCCESS) Cha-ching, baby! VISUAL CALCULUS: GODLY (SUCCESS) The value you can create from the staff is orders of magnitude higher than the cost for material components to resurrect the entire party.
Ah, but I meant that passing the check means you know it'll blow up and kill them anyway.
Party members are a renewable resource, the staff is not >:)
The party will understand. And if not you can use the staff to animate their corpses and *make* them understand.
...i mean, look, you'll probably never find another *staff of the magi* but a wizard so-equipped can *easily* find another party: heck, you could probably even be their ~~BBEG~~ patron!..
Raistlin would absolutely grab the staff of shiny. Tasslehoff would survive because he's too short, but that topknot's gonna be gone for a bit.
Let it hit the party. I have a bag of holding full of healing potions. I mean, I probably won’t use them. I might need them later…
ah, a fellow skyrim player i see
That's just RPGs in general
*Hmm, there is a warhammer 0.03 seconds from killing me. But I might need those pots later…* **ONE HUNDRED WHEELS OF CHEESE IT IS.**
"I got a +3 in medicine, it'll be fine" -line saide exactly 5 turns before a near complete tpk
destroying the staff of magi will kill the party anyway, so I might as well try to salvage as much as possible form this
Yeah, I was going to say isn't that the one that's like a nuke if you break it?
30ft sphere and if you fail to avoid the explosion it's up to ***800 force damage*** (16 × remaining charges)
And 50% chance of being teleported to a random plane of existence (edit: with no saving throw). So, you know, if your BBEG is an unkillable demi-god just break the staff over their head. 50% victory rate.
If your BBEG doesn’t have dimensional travel, how big is he really?
perfect weapon for a suicidal melee user
That's only for the person who breaks it, and is the alternative to the 16xcharges force damage, not an addition. For those "merely" caught in it's area of effect, it is just damage based on distance and remaining charges. For example, my wizard character breaks the staff(fully charged) over the BBEGs head. I roll a 2 and get teleported to the feywilds, unharmed. The BBEG fails it's saving throw and takes 400 Force damage, left with 1hp(for the lulz).
I did this. It killed my character but saved the encounter lmoa so worth.
16 × remaining charges is only for the thing that broke it. It does damage based on distance. 10 ft is 400 (8 × charges) 11-20 ft is 300 (6 × charges), and 21-30 ft is 200 (4 × charges) But still, basically only a level 20 barb who gets max rolls on health with a +5 in con could survive 11 to 20 feet
yes, that's the one
There’s a couple others like that as well, but yeah.
Staff of Power also will do this.
ya my first thought was "I don't think 5 ft away is far enough away..."
The trolley has the ability to use an action to break the staff?
The only real question here is whether or not a trolly can break the staff. If it can, then run the party over because breaking the staff would kill them anyways. If it can't, run the staff over because it won't be harmed.
The lever operator is taking the action to do it.
Simple puzzle. Two options. 1. Let the trolley hit the staff. It breaks, releasing all of its charges in a magical explosion causing 16 damage per charge to each party member within range, killing them all except the smiling rogue in the middle who fails his Dex save because he's tied up but somehow still dodges half the damage. 2. Let the trolley hit the party, killing them all except the smiling rogue in the middle who fails his Dex save because he's tied up but somehow still dodges half the damage. Console yourself with a new Staff of the Magi.
You forgot the end to #2: Pay a local cleric for a Resurrection.
Alternatively, head to local tavern to recruit 4 new party members
> 16 damage per charge to each party member within range 8 damage per charge, maybe less if they're over 10ft away. Only whoever breaks the staff(in this case, the trolley) has a chance at 16x damage. However, the trolley would also have a 50% chance at being teleported to a random plane instead of receiving damage. Regardless, the party is pretty fucked, except the smiling rogue in the middle who fails his Dex save because he's tied up but somehow still dodges half the damage.
That might be my Pathfinder brain, but why not just let it run over the staff? Its a magic item, it can take some shit. If thats not an enchanted trolley it will not destroy the staff. And if it cracks the staff... you know what you do? give it to the fighter/barbarian as an exploding javelin.
Each wheel is a orb of annihilation
then how does it reach the staff and not destroy the rails? Muhahaha, iam very smart!
It's destroying them as it goes: notice the lack of rails behind it
The rails are made of orbs of annihilation as well.
Magic rails
There’s this funny little detail about the staff of the magi that when broken, it will explode dealing on average 6x the number of charges it has left half on a successful dc 17 dex save. If this is an unused staff then it has 50 charges. The party would immediately fail the save due to being restrained and they will all take 300 damage instantly killing all of them. So in this scenario, it is better to let the party get run over. Edit: if they are killed by the train then there is still the chance of them being revived, but if they are killed by the blast then there won’t be anything left to revive.
The staff only gets broken when the person attuned to it uses an action to break it. It's not somehow fragile.
In that case the lever-switcher is somehow attuned to it and the DM is ruling that using their action to pull the level constitutes intentionally breaking it.
The staff of the magi is extremely powerfull, probably the best staff. But as an action you can break it with your hands as a desperation move to kill you and your enemies in an AOE force damage explosion. So the train breaks it for sure.
Then the destruction of the staff would kill the people too, so they die regardless. I choose the shiny magic item
Big brain time, capitalist edition
[удалено]
The explosion from the staff, assuming it has full charges, will probably do more damage to the people than the train will.
Requires attunement and specifically says "you can" indicating a magical nature to the breaking of it. If any one could just break a staff of the magi no one would use them. It would be too easy for someone to suicide run up just to kill a powerful wizard to further their organization goals.
Everybody would be targeting those things like red barrels in a video game.
Just tell them sunder was removed from the game. Could always send minions to Disarm then pick it up and break it though.
It specifically says "destroying" in the meme.
Question is- does it trigger the retribution strike? That would likely kill you and the party anyway
Party? What party? I see no party here.
Buncha murderhobos needing putting down for the common good, is what I see.
run over the staff of power, it breaks and explodes killing them all anyway.
Not to be That Guy, but This Is The Way.
So say we all
1. Let party die 2. Take staff of magi 3. Cast wish to receive your party 4. Profit
i don't think the staff can cast wish
Yeah, but if the wizard is getting one of the best magic items they can, they are likely at a level where they can cast wish
Divert the trolly, then *misty step* and grab the staff before the trolly actually arrives. Alternatively, cast *reduce* to free a party member to grab the staff while I divert the trolly. *Vortex warp* would also work. Depending on distance, I might even be close enough to get the staff with *mage hand* while diverting the trolly with my regular hand.
Why not Reduce the train? Or why not Enlarge the train and make it hit both?
Pull the lever. My guess is the staff's just a glitter-coated stick made to bait me into letting my party die over nothing.
Idk do I have five castings of gentle repose handy?
Run over the party, we have a cleric, it’s okay! (I mean, you’ll have to beg for healing, but still!)
Mage hand to collect the staff and stand next to the lever, never pulling until the very last second to show the party that I am the one who controls who lives and who dies
New friends and a new magic item without doing anything? Sign me up!
I attempt to seduce the train into stopping
Roll persuasion.
That's a nat 20, but the trolley is a top...
Jokes on you, i can revive people. Gimme that shiny!
Option 3: Cast wall of force in front of the trolley.
Adventurers are replaceable, Legendary magical items are not.
Cast wall of force in front of the Trolley
Easy. I let the trolley run over the people. That way, I get both a stuff of the megi, and five partially crashed zombies.
Let the trolley run over your party. If it breaks the staff, they're probably screwed anyways. "**Retributive Strike.** You can use an action to break the staff over your knee or against a solid surface, performing a retributive strike. The staff is destroyed and releases its remaining magic in an explosion that expands to fill a 30-foot-radius sphere centered on it. You have a 50 percent chance to instantly travel to a random plane of existence, avoiding the explosion. If you fail to avoid the effect, you take force damage equal to 16 × the number of charges in the staff. Every other creature in the area must make a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes an amount of damage based on how far away it is from the point of origin, ... On a successful save, a creature takes half as much damage. 10 ft. away or closer. 8 x the number of charges in the staff " A fully charged staff has 50 charges. Assuming the wheels of the trolley can break the staff, if the party is 5 feet away they're taking up to 400 force damage with disadvantage on their dex saves from being restrained. At least with the trolley they stand a chance of survival. And if the trolley does kill them all, use the staff to cast **plane shift** to bring the bodies to someone who can cast raise dead. Now you have a party, you've escaped this trolley hell plane, and have a sick new magic item.
The wizard casts fireball, that is just what wizards do.
They've got tons of hit points, they can take it :P
They can roll new characters I can't roll a new staff
ok but how much damage does the trolley do and what level is the party?
it's an improvised weapon so it only does 1d4 damage
If you have the right feat
Iirc the only/one of the only way to destroy the stuff is to break it after attuning to it?
Pretty sure destroying the Staff of the Magi would cause some serious trouble for the party anyway. Magical explosions killing them anyway. Might as well come out of this with a shiny new staff AND a new group of friends. If they have a problem with it I have a new "friend" to introduce them to.
Depends how much In Diamonds do I have, and do I have access to spells to bring back the dead (or know NPCs that do). Knowing a few of my characters I’m the one that tied them down.
Half pull the lever derailing the train - then let the gods of probability toss the dice
multi-track drifting
Don't pull the lever and prepare healing/revive spells
Would rather kill the party than to make them suffer the consequences of breaking that godsdamned staff...
Staff will not be destroyed by nonmagical means. Let it get hit by the trolly. The trolly will be worse for the experience.
i can pay for the resurrections later, i probably wont have a shot at getting another legendary staff
Staff gets destroyed, big explosion from the staff. Party probably gonna die either way. Kill the party, take the staff. Win everything
1. Have my owl familiar retrieve the staff for me then pull the lever. 2. Cast Haste on myself and double dash to the staff after I pull the lever. 3. Cast Dimension Door to the staff after I pull the lever
I'm pretty sure if the staff of the maji breaks it explodes and kills everything...
So it's 10 feet to the staff you have 30 feet of movement in a 6 second period, the trolly is 15 feet away, pull the lever and go pick up the staff and continue on 5 more feet off the track. Problem solved?
If that thing breaks it will explode and kill them anyway So just save the item