The companion piece, and it’s a big one. If you want the rules, the damage, and where this spell came from, that’s all in the Catapult explainer post. Go read that first, then come back, because Catapult has more creative uses than almost any first-level spell in the game, and I went and pulled the best forty off Reddit for you.
This is the spell that turns the whole room into your ammo bag. I sorted forty of the best ideas into four buckets. Real uses that lean on the actual rules. Cheeses that are clever and mostly legal. Questionable stuff that lives or dies by your DM. And the deviant stuff, because when you can throw anything, people throw everything.
One rule before we start, and it matters. Read as written, Catapult only deals bludgeoning damage, full stop. A lot of the best tricks below involve throwing a flask that shatters and delivers its contents, acid, fire, holy water, whatever. That extra effect is a DM call, every single time, because the spell itself only ever promises bludgeoning. It’s a popular call, most tables allow it, but it is a call. So I’ve flagged which ideas are rules-solid and which ones need a yes from your DM. Bring receipts to the comments, and let’s go.
REAL USES (rules-solid, no permission slip needed)
1. Just throw a rock. The honest baseline. A good five-pound rock is always around, always legal, and always does 3d8 bludgeoning with no attack roll. When you’ve got nothing clever on hand, Catapult is still a reliable single-target nuke. Keep a couple in a pouch as no-argument ammo. (r/dndnext)
2. Bowl it straight through a line of enemies. This is the underrated one. The object flies in a straight line up to 90 feet and only stops when it hits a solid surface or a creature who fails the save. So if the first target makes their save, the object keeps going, and the next creature in that line has to save too. Line your enemies up and one mug can threaten three of them. (r/3d6)
3. Shoot around corners. You do not cast this from yourself. You pick any loose object within 60 feet and launch it from there. So a rock sitting around the corner, or one you pre-placed, lets you fire at something you can’t draw a straight line to yourself. It’s basically two lines of effect instead of one. (r/dndnext)
4. The magic can opener. Remember the object takes 3d8 too, and so does whatever it hits. That makes Catapult a great way to smash open a locked or magical chest, bust a barred door, or shatter something fragile from across the room without walking into the trap. (r/dndnext)
5. Abort a ritual from range. Fling a heavy object, or better a lit brazier, straight through a summoning circle or across a table of ritual components. You don’t have to reach the caster. You just have to wreck the setup, and 3d8 to an object does that fine. (r/dndnext)
6. Cast it while gagged, bound, or inside a Silence spell. Catapult has no verbal component. None. It’s somatic only. So a bard who’s been silenced, a prisoner who’s been gagged, or anyone standing in a Silence spell can still throw a rock at 3d8. One of the only real damage spells that works with your mouth taped shut. (r/dndnext)
7. Disarm, then yeet. Somebody at the table knocks a weapon out of the villain’s hand, a Battle Master’s Disarming Strike, a shove, whatever. Now that sword is a loose object on the ground. Catapult it 90 feet into a corner, off a cliff, or into a lake. The community lovingly calls this Baby’s First Telekinesis. (r/dndnext)
8. Deliver a MacGuffin without touching it. Aim it to land next to your ally instead of at them and it travels the full distance and deals no damage. Now you can shoot a quest item, a healing kit, or a key across a chasm to a party member. Zero-damage mode is a real option. (r/dndnext)
9. Toss the keys over the gap. Straight utility. Two party members split on opposite balconies, a locked door on the wrong side, a lever out of reach. Catapult the keys, the tool, or the object over to where it needs to be. (r/dndnext)
10. Solve the pressure-plate puzzle from a safe distance. Need to drop a five-pound weight onto a plate across a trapped room? Don’t walk it over. Launch it. (r/dndnext)
11. Anchor a grappling hook. Tie a rope to a piton or grappling hook, Catapult it into a far wall or over a ledge, and let the 3d8 impact drive it in as an anchor to climb or cross. (r/dndnext)
12. Precision knockback that dodges your friends. Because you pick the direction and it’s a straight line, you can thread a shot between teammates or drop a disarmed weapon at your own feet. It’s a scalpel, not a shotgun, when you want it to be. (r/dndnext)
13. Keep a bag of rocks, pull, and Quicken. A Stone sorcerer’s dream. Carry a bag of holding full of rocks, pull one out, and Quicken Catapult for a bonus-action rock cannon every turn. Rocks are the ammo nobody can argue with. (r/dndnext)
CHEESES (clever, mostly legal, a couple need a nod)
14. Subtle Spell makes it completely invisible to cast. Catapult is already somatic only, so Subtle Spell, which drops the verbal and somatic components, turns it into a spell you cast with no words and no gestures at all. You’re tied to a chair, you’re being searched, you’re pretending to be a normal guy. Nobody sees it coming, and something across the room suddenly takes 3d8. (r/DnD)
15. The acid vial, the flagship payload. This is the combo the whole spell is famous for. An acid vial weighs exactly one pound, so it’s a legal target, it costs 25 gold, and 3d8 shatters the glass with room to spare. If your DM lets the acid apply, you’re adding 2d6 acid on top of the bludgeoning for pocket change. Cheapest force multiplier in the game. Ask your DM first, but most say yes. (r/DnD)
16. Alchemist’s fire versus the things that need to burn. A catapulted flask of alchemist’s fire, if your DM allows the effect, sets the target alight for ongoing fire and forces them to waste an action putting it out. It’s a specialist tool. It shuts off a troll’s regeneration, it hurts a yeti, and it’s a menace to a concentrating caster. One player reported a single flask racking up around forty damage on an adult white dragon across a long fight. (r/dndnext)
17. Oil, then light it. Oil is the budget option and sometimes the better one. Catapult a flask of oil to douse the target, then have anyone follow up with a spark. Lit oil burns hotter than alchemist’s fire and costs almost nothing. It’s the classic catapult-then-Fireball one-two punch. (r/dndnext)
18. Holy water when the saves are too high. Fighting a vampire or a pit fiend whose saves laugh at your normal spells? Skip the save. Catapult a flask of holy water. It’s a radiant grenade for the exact enemies that shrug off everything else, and it shines in fiend-heavy or undead-heavy campaigns. (r/dndnext)
19. Bundle five vials in a one-pound pouch. Here’s where it gets greedy. Items inside a container count as one object, so stuff four or five acid vials into a one-pound pouch or net and launch the whole bundle. If your DM lets the vials pop, that’s 3d8 plus a stack of acid dice for a level-one slot. The community calls these supersonic bag bombs. Big DM-permission asterisk, and many rule duplicate sources don’t fully stack, but the idea is legal on its face. (r/DungeonsAndDragons)
20. The loaded clay pot. Take a light clay pot, fill it with a few units of oil and a flask of alchemist’s fire, and Catapult the whole thing. On impact you get the smash, the fire, and a lingering burning square of oil. It’s a homemade firebomb, and again, it leans on your DM buying the payload. (r/dndnext)
21. Scatter caltrops or ball bearings between you and the enemy. Launch a bag of caltrops or ball bearings and let it burst on impact to seed a hazard zone. One writer put it best imagining an ogre pulling a caltrop out of his chest. Note the weight snag, a single bearing is way under a pound, so you throw a one-pound bag of them, not one bearing. (r/dndnext)
22. The Fireball-bead grenade launcher. A bead from a Necklace of Fireballs, catapulted at a group, forces the Dex save from the impact and then detonates its Fireball on the spot. It’s an improvised artillery strike. The catch the internet always raises, an unactivated bead weighs under a pound, so RAW you have to bundle it or get a DM to wave the weight rule. (r/dndnext)
23. The Bead of Force Indiana Jones special. Encapsulate an enemy in a Bead of Force’s sphere, then Catapult the sphere so it rolls into and bowls over their allies. Same weight caveat as the fireball bead, but it is a very specific mental image. (r/dndnext)
24. Order of Scribes wizard, change the damage to fire. That subclass can swap a spell’s damage type once per turn. So Catapult a flask of oil and change the bludgeoning to fire, and you’ve self-ignited the oil with the spell itself. A rules-clean way to skip the “who’s got a torch” step. (r/dndnext)
25. Artificer, feed it from the Alchemy Jug. An Artillerist keeps an Alchemy Jug that produces acid and oil on demand, so you never run out of payloads, and the Arcane Firearm adds a free d8 to the spell’s damage. Endless ammo plus a damage bump. (r/dndnext)
26. Bag of flour, the poor man’s See Invisibility. Launch a bag of flour to burst into a cloud that lightly obscures the area and, more usefully, coats an invisible enemy so everyone can see the outline. A one-copper anti-invisibility grenade. (r/dndnext)
27. Contact poison on a door handle, or poisoned caltrops. If your table allows contact and inhaled poisons on a shattering vial, you can Catapult a jar of contact poison onto a chokepoint to seal a room, or launch poisoned caltrops for a nasty no-go zone. Injury and ingested poisons don’t work this way, contact and inhaled are the DM-dependent maybes. (r/dndnext)
28. Upcast for both more damage and heavier, stupider ammo. Every slot above first adds 1d8 and five pounds of weight capacity. By a 5th-level slot you’re throwing 25-pound objects for 7d8, and the heavier weight class opens up a whole new shelf of things to launch. (r/DnD5e)
QUESTIONABLE (ask your DM, these are argued to death)
29. Does the flask’s contents actually apply? This is the mother of all Catapult arguments, so know it cold. Read as written, Catapult deals only bludgeoning, and the item entries say you normally need an action to use them. So nothing about the acid or fire happening is guaranteed. The common house rule, and it is a house rule, is that the 3d8 shatters the vial and the contents then do their normal thrown effect. Most tables allow it. Some don’t. Settle it before the fight, not during. (r/dndnext ; and r/DnD, “Catapult with Acid Flask”, r/DnD)
30. Do duplicate payloads stack? If your bag holds five alchemist’s fires, do you get five times the fire? Most DMs say no, that duplicate instances of the same source don’t stack, which quietly caps the bag-bomb dream. Worth asking before you spend 250 gold on vials. (r/DnD5e)
31. Does the object stop at 90 feet or keep going? A 476-comment thread went to war over this. Does a launched object retain momentum and keep flying past the 90-foot mark, or does it just stop and drop? The consensus landed on the boring correct answer, the spell says up to 90 feet, so nothing past 90 feet happens. Don’t let anyone sell you a mile-long railgun. (r/DungeonsAndDragons, “Masters of dungeons, how do you rule the catapult spell? (5e)”, r/DungeonsAndDragons)
32. Can you Catapult a creature? Read as written, no. Creatures are not objects. This gets argued constantly and the answer keeps coming back the same. A dead body is an edge case some DMs allow, and a living creature is a flat no unless somebody turns it into an object first. (r/DnD)
33. It does not require you to see the target. Here’s a handy quirk. You choose the object and a direction. You never have to see the creature the object strikes. So you can fire blind down a smoke-filled hall or at something behind cover and still force the save if the object would reach it. (r/DnD5e)
34. No, you can’t Catapult someone’s organs. Same thread, because somebody always asks. You cannot target a creature’s insides, or its blood, or its bones. Those are part of a creature, not a loose object. The “isn’t being worn or carried” fence is doing exactly what it’s there for. (r/DnD5e)
35. The healing-potion-to-a-downed-ally gambit. One DM allowed a Catapulted potion to shatter over a downed party member and heal them the minimum, but the impact also cost them a death save failure. So it’s a maybe, and a risky one. Never try it when your friend is already sitting on two fails, because a hit at 0 HP is very bad. (r/dndnext)
36. Is it a “3d8 gun” that breaks the game? A DM once panicked over a player sniping kills with a catapulted frozen fish every round. The table talked him down, and the reasoning is worth keeping. It costs a spell slot, not a cantrip, it does about the same as Chromatic Orb, and it whiffs entirely on a successful save. It’s strong, not broken. Pad the adventuring day and it sorts itself out. (r/DMAcademy)
37. Net delivery, hit and entangle. Some tables let you Catapult a net to both deal the 3d8 and entangle the target on the same throw. Whether the net’s restrain actually triggers off a spell instead of an attack is a DM call, but the weight fits and the idea’s a popular one. (r/dndnext)
38. The reconnaissance-squirrel loophole. Real question somebody asked. Can you Catapult a rock that a squirrel is sitting on? The rock isn’t worn or carried, so technically yes, the rock is a legal target, and the squirrel is just along for a very bad ride. Your DM’s face is the only real limit here. (r/DnD)
DEVIANT, FUNNY, AND CURSED
39. Catapult a gnome. At a 9th-level slot the weight cap climbs high enough to throw a gnome or a halfling, and the entire internet has done the math. The only thing stopping you is the “object” clause, which is why the follow-up jokes are all about turning the poor gnome into a pebble first. Nobody tosses a dwarf. It’s about sending a message. (r/DnD)
40. Gnome pinball, the self-launch build. A level-20 gnome wizard uses Enlarge/Reduce to drop to an eighth of their weight, gets under five pounds, and Spell-Masters Catapult to throw themselves, eating the 3d8 in exchange for closing the distance. A monk variant abuses free Feather Fall to launch itself into melee and relaunch every turn. Every DM in the thread shot it down with the same four words, your gnome isn’t an object, and every player kept trying anyway. (r/3d6)
41. Death by bread. My favorite thread in the whole pile. An artificer killed the campaign’s big bad by Catapulting a loaf of bread. Just a loaf of bread, 3d8, right in the villain’s smug face, and the comments immediately turned it into a Discworld dwarf-bread bit. This is the spell’s soul. Any object. Even lunch. (r/dndnext)
42. The chaos shotgun. And the logical endpoint, a joke-but-not-really loadout where you cram acid, poisoned caltrops, alchemist’s fire, oil, ball bearings, and, one commenter insisted, a live badger into a single bundle and launch the whole warcrime at once. It won’t survive contact with most DMs, but the fact that you can even build the sentence is the entire appeal of Catapult. (r/DnD5e)
So that’s forty-plus ways to weaponize the room. The throughline is simple. Catapult is worth exactly as much as your imagination and your object list, and the difference between a boring 3d8 and a legendary table moment is whether you looked around and noticed the barrel of oil, the crate of vials, or the loaf of bread. Cast it clever. What’s the best thing you’ve ever thrown, and did your DM let the flask pop? Let me know in the comments below, and until next time, roll high and stay ridiculous.
