Glass Arrows (3.5e Equipment)

''These arrows are outfitted with large, glass arrowheads. A strange liquid of unknown origin swirls within.''

Commonly employed by assassins or hunters of strange beasts, these arrows are outfitted with enlarged glass heads. These arrowheads make them more cumbersome in flight, imposing a -2 penalty on attack rolls and reducing the range increment of the weapon they are fired from by 20% (rounded down). These heads are designed to act as reservoirs stoppered by the shafts, and are able to hold a small dose of an alchemical substance. Filling a glass arrow requires one dose of the substance and a full-round action that provokes an attack of opportunity.

Glass arrows may be filled with a variety of substances. Troll hunters commonly use acid or alchemist's fire, whereas werewolf hunters use powdered silver. Those of the church prefer liquid sunlight, or holy or unholy water. However, any substance that is commonly held in a vial flask, or bottle (such as acid, potions, oils, poison, or even alcohol) can be loaded into a glass arrow. Loading a poison into a glass arrow entails the same chance of poisoning oneself as applying poison a weapon (and so characters with poison use or a similar ability do not risk poisoning themselves).

Attacks with loaded glass arrows are resolved as ranged touch attacks that deal no damage in and of themselves. When a loaded glass arrow strikes a surface, the arrowhead shatters, exposing it to the substance inside. If the substance deals damage, this damage is not multiplied on a critical hit. Once fired, glass arrows cannot be recovered (the arrowheads are destroyed by the impact, and most substances destroy the shafts as well). Resolve a missed attack with a glass arrow as a missed attack with a grenade-like weapon. Creatures adjacent to a creature or square struck by a loaded glass arrow do not take splash damage, regardless of the substance loaded.

Glass arrows are difficult to craft. Creating the shaft requires only a DC 10 Craft (fletching) check, but because of the complex processes used to warp glass into the proper shape creating the heads requires a DC 25 Craft (glassblowing) check. Glass arrows may also be created with ceramic heads, requiring only a DC 15 Craft (pottery) check, but such arrowheads are opaque, making it impossible to tell what kind of substance is inside without uncapping the head or firing the arrow.