Artillery (PSR Supplement)

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Artillery includes any ranged weapon too massive for a typical character to lift or use within a single turn, such as a catapult or a ballista. Such weapons are used for laying siege to castles or taking down colossal creatures, and are sometimes called “siege weapons.”

Often artillery will be something you find on the battlefield or that is supplied by a local militia for you to temporarily use. Few land vehicles could carry and support artillery but, but larger water vehicles could.

Actions. Artillery takes multiple actions to launch a single shot, as shown in the following table. All of these are Use actions, except for the last action which is an Attack action—the action which fires the shot. A catapult for example takes one Use action to load, one Use action to aim, and one Attack action to launch the projectile.

Attack Roll. If anyone who provided one of these actions has proficiency in artillery, add that creature's PB to the attack roll. If multiple contributors are proficient, add the highest PB. You normally don’t add any ability modifier to the attack or damage roll. This attack roll has disadvantage if the target is less than 60 feet away; and as noted in the examples below, some artillery cannot attack a target less than 60 feet away.

Ammunition. Each ranged attack with artillery consumes a piece of ammunition, which itself is a common item costing 1 gold. Your narrator might enable other items, objects, or creatures to be used as ammunition.

Target Size. An artillery attack roll has advantage if the target is a creature or object of Gargantuan size or greater. If the target is Tiny or smaller, the attack roll instead has disadvantage.

Artillery (Example)

The following table is just an example. Your narrator’s campaign might feature different, fewer, or more varieties of artillery.

Size, defense, and HP refers to the stats of the weapon itself. These are detailed in the rules about damaging objects. This assumes the weapon is defended on a chaotic battlefield and subjected primarily to ranged attacks; up close, artillery could possibly be disabled with a single action, such as cutting the rope to a catapult.

"Actions" refers to how many actions must be supplied per shot.

Weapon	Size	Actions	Range	Damage	Defense	HP	Cost (if available)
Ballista	Large	3	300/1200 feet	3d10 pierce	16	25	400 gold - uncommon
Catapult	Large	3	100/400 feet (minimum 60)	3d10 bash	16	25	400 gold - uncommon
Trebuchet	Huge	5	300/1200 feet (minimum 60)	3d12 bash	16	50	400 gold - uncommon
Cannon	Large	3	600/2400 feet	5d10 bash	20	50	4000 gold - rare
Stormcaller	Huge	3	300/1200 feet (minimum 60)	5d10 lightning	18	50	4000 gold - rare

Catapult, Trebuchet, and Stormcaller. These weapons hurl projectiles in a high arc. Cover only provided protection from their attacks if the target has cover directly overhead.