Thread by @manic_pixie

So, the #DnD kids have managed to come up with the best improvised weapon I've ever heard of. Henry the Hazardous, an angry scarecrow on a stick. Here follows the saga of Henry.

My #DnD5e youth group were attacked by a scarecrow. The barbarian decides to grapple him, and succeeds. He then wants to hold the scarecrow aloft by its pole, so it can't reach down and get him. Sure, but you have to roll Grapple again to restrain, I say. He succeeds.

So now he's got this scarecrow waving over his head like an angry Wacky Wobbler. But Emily, I hear you say, doesn't the #DnD5e scarecrow have two legs and move like a humanoid? Yes, but I described it as resembling a classic scarecrow tied to a pole at the start of this fight.

Running a game with anywhere between 3 and 8 kids yelling at you at once means there's no room for petty concerns like 'rule adherence' or 'canon accuracy'. I just try to keep the story going forward. So when the barb reasons that this will stop the scarecrow-

- from reaching down and grabbing him, I take a leaf outta the Yes And book and go with it.
Scarecrow is justifiably furious and is hissing like a hayfever sufferer's worst nightmare. But the Barb is waving him around like a stick of hostile candyfloss, and doesn't care.

Barbarian, who is a future DM in the making, has figured out that the scarecrow-onna-stick could count as a two-handed weapon with Reach, if he holds it at the non-angry end. Scarecrow does 2d4+3 damage per attack and attacks twice per round.

However, Barbarian is not proficient with Improvised Scarecrow. But Barbarian is only a lvl 2 and has a +4 strength score, so proficiency bonus isn't much of a hassle at this point. And if Scarecrow (named Henry) gets sassy, Barb can just smack him into a wall a few times.

All very well, you say, but what will the kids do when they have to rest, and Henry tries to murder them all in their sleep? Barb has an answer for that too. In the same location the party found a Rug of Smothering, hiding a trapdoor. -

Barb grabs the rug and, with a natural 20 on his grapple check, wraps the furiously flailing scarecrow IN the rug of smothering until only its angry sackcloth face is peeping out. He then uses some of the Nature Cleric's vines to secure it.

Henry the Hazardous is now wrapped in the Hug Rug, as the kids are calling it. The Rug can't grapple anyone else while it's smothering something, and it's currently wrapped around Henry. Henry can't be smothered as he's a scarecrow who can't breathe. It's genius.

Now, I'm quite aware that the Rug also does bludgeoning damage, and that given enough time/successful checks, Henry could work his way free and escape. But these 13/14 yr olds are using their creativity and having fun, and I'm not a joyless monster. Rule of Cool applies.

Anyhow, that is how an angry scarecrow on a stick, making muffled screeching noises into a rug, has become the standard/flag of one of my kids' #DnD parties. They have renamed themselves the Rug Rats, and have plans to turn Henry into an Artificier's automaton later.