Players of Dungeons & Dragons are known to get extremely creative – especially when it comes to interpreting rules to their advantage. Many years ago, some fans took it to the extreme, and the meme has remained prevalent in the community to this day.
What kind of weapon is this? It’s the “Peasant Railgun,” a thought experiment that supposedly appeared around 2008 on 1d4chan, a (not-so-serious) wiki about all things tabletop. The entry on its successor 1d6chan still exists today.
This “weapon,” which is really just a combination of several rules, can theoretically deal infinite damage. It is therefore stronger than the most powerful spells in Dungeons & Dragons and only requires any weighted object… and many NPCs.
How does the “Peasant Railgun” work? The idea behind this “weapon” is quite simple: You line up some peasants, in this case 2,280 of them, in a row. Through the “Ready Action” rule, they then pass an object – here a stick from a disassembled ladder – forward:
- Since a round of play always lasts 6 seconds, the time in which all of this can happen is limited.
- The 2,280 peasants pass the wooden stick, which is technically considered an improvised spear, forward within 6 seconds across the entire distance.
- A peasant as a Medium creature occupies 5 feet or 1.5 meters of space according to the rules (back then it was still the 3.5 ruleset).
- Some math then results in 3,420 meters in 6 seconds, or 570 m/s (or 2,052 km/h). For comparison: The speed of sound in air is about 331.5 m/s.
The Railgun then takes another rule into account: falling damage. Objects in D&D deal damage based on weight and distance traveled, one reason why thick owl bears in Baldur’s Gate 3 are so OP.
A wooden stick of the appropriate length weighs about 7 pounds, or 3.2 kg. According to the rules, an object weighing between 5-9 pounds per 60 feet traveled deals 2d6 damage – which in this example results in 300d6, or between 300 and 1,800 damage points.
“Use rules selectively and ignore them elsewhere”
The “Peasant Railgun” has consistently sparked discussions in the community since the original thought experiment, as the interpretation of the rules sounds coherent.
However, the Railgun only works if you interpret the rules in a way that suits you. Because the idea mixes real-world physics with rules from a fantasy world with magic. If one were to proceed strictly, it wouldn’t work out as well:
- If you want to utilize kinetic energy, the stick would need to be treated as a physical object. Thus, the peasants would not be able to grab the “spear” quickly enough.
- Even if they managed to do it, there would be friction energy that would kill them. Peasants generally have about 4 hit points.
- The rules also spoil the party here: “Ready Action” requires another action, but happens before that action. Passing something forward thus only works with tricks.
- And even if that is somehow achieved, the damage in the end would merely be a throw of an improvised weapon with 1d6+Strength, which isn’t much for peasants… assuming they even hit.
This strange weapon only works as long as the written rules override physical laws – until the physical laws should override the written rules.
By the way: In the new 5e rules of 2024, the Railgun was explicitly used as an example for DMs to show what ideas should not be allowed and that rules should not suspend physics (via dungeonsanddragonsfan).
The discussion around the “Peasant Railgun” still arises repeatedly, just like the meme itself – most recently with an idea for a “Tommy Lee Jones” rule (on Reddit). A popular argument among many players against the weapon is: “Cool idea! Your group sees 2,000 enemy goblins lining up and passing a wooden stick forward…”
That said, the whole thing is highly inefficient. If you just handed all the peasants a bow, more damage would come from it, even if only a quarter of them hit.
As it is with memes, the idea of the railgun has of course crossed the boundaries of the franchise and has a dedicated section for the weapon in Warhammer 40,000 on 1d6chan. Because there, the situation looks quite different.
The Imperium of Man would have great interest in such a weapon due to its moral flexibility, but the technology behind all railguns in the galaxy resides solely with the T’au – and they would find such a weapon far too cruel: A people in Warhammer 40,000 actually wants peace with everyone but relies on questionable methods
