Spiral Saker

Weapon (cannon), rare

A spiral saker is a +1 cannon (5th Edition Game Master’s Manual pg. 255) with double the normal range whose spiraling barrel grooves impart greater accuracy to ammunition and causing it to animate upon impact, drilling into any Large or larger creature or object for 1d4 rounds, inflicting 3 (1d6) points of piercing damage per round and sickening the target with pain imposing disadvantage on the target’s attack rolls, skill and ability checks.

A successful DC 20 Constitution save negates this pain but not the ongoing damage. Objects take double damage per round, ignoring damage thresholds. Finally, the target takes an additional 1 point of necrotic damage per round the drilling continues; this necrotic damage is cumulative and can be stopped by any heal spell or equivalent effect or a DC 15 Wisdom (Medicine) skill check.

An adjacent creature can attempt to remove the drilling ammunition as an action with a DC 20 Strength check, taking 3 (1d6) points of slashing damage regardless of whether the check succeeds.

Dispel magic causes the embedded ammunition to cease boring.

A successful critical hit from a spiral saker inflicts 1 level of exhaustion but does not drill into the target for ongoing damage. Instead, it drills completely through the target and continues in a straight line until it hits another target or reaches the limit of its range; if its path intersects another target, the wielder of the spiral saker can make another attack roll against that target, which gains the benefits of half-cover against the attack. If this second attack results in another critical hit, the above process repeats itself and a third target could potentially be attacked, though with three-quarters cover against the spiral saker. Its movement ends after the third critical hit.

A creature that has been shot through by the drilling ammunition of a spiral saker has its AC reduced by 4 to a minimum of 10. Any armor reduced to 10 is ruined. An object shot through loses 4 points of damage threshold and any resistance to bludgeoning damage until it has been repaired.

A spiral saker is sometimes built to a larger scale by fiendish armies—in particular devils (or those who serve them). These cannons—sometimes called fiend’s mouth due to the cannons’ aesthetics—are very rare and do twice the amount of damage as a standard spiral saker and their damage type is changed from bludgeoning to fire. They are otherwise identical.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Pirate Campaign Compendium © 2018, Legendary Games; Lead Designer Jason Nelson. Authors: Alex Augunas, Jeff Gomez, Matt Goodall, Jim Groves, Tim Hitchcock, Victoria Jaczko, Jonathan H. Keith, Lyz Liddell, Thomas J. Phillips, Alistair J. Rigg, Alex Riggs, Loren Sieg, Neil Spicer, Todd Stewart, Rachel Ventura, Michael D. Welham, Linda Zayas-Palmer.

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