Creative spell use

In article ,
"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" wrote:

> Epic? I did it with two cantrips back in first edition. I tell you,
> they don't make magic like they used to.

That, of course, was in 1.5 E (UA) when cantrips were first introduced.

Baird
and I liked those cantrips better than the later ones, too.

--
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice
there is. -Yogi Berra

Keith Davies wrote:
> Loren Pechtel wrote:
>> On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:36:33 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>> wrote:
>>
>>> JOanna Rowland-Stuart wrote:
>>>>> *Subject:* Re: Creative spell use
>>>>> *From:* "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>>>>> *Date:* Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:41:03 -0400
>>>>> 700 pound package of alchemist's fire.
>>>> Hmmm - D&D FAE
>>> "I say we teleport away and nuke the site from my comfortable lab. It's
>>> the only way to be SURE."
>> Well, I worked out a way a nuke could be discovered using low-end epic
>> magic. However, it's in-person, you have to cast it with a delay and
>> then teleport out.
>>
>> (And I really mean a nuke--a multi-megaton fission blast.)
>
> Not quite as good as Wasp's, I saw a description of something you could
> do that would be... bad.
>
> . go to south pole (or north pole); don't want rotation of planet to
> matter
> . forcebox
> . evacuate all air from inside, creating a vaccuum
> . teleport pad at the bottom, destination the top (but inside of) the
> forcebox
> . drop a pebble on the teleport pad
> . wait for hilarity to happen

Wait for hilarity? That was one of our standard weapons.

--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com

On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:53:24 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
wrote:
> Unless, of course, the character IS the player.

Hm... Uhm, like the map is the reality thing ?

JimP.
--
Brushing aside the thorns so I can see the stars.
http://www.linuxgazette.net/ Linux Gazette
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http://poetry.drivein-jim.net/ April 25, 2009

D.J. wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:53:24 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> wrote:
>> Unless, of course, the character IS the player.
>
> Hm... Uhm, like the map is the reality thing ?
>
> JimP.

No, like, you assign stats to the players and zap! put them in the game.

Done that many times.

--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com

On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:48:39 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
wrote:

>Loren Pechtel wrote:
>> On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:36:33 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>> wrote:
>>
>>> JOanna Rowland-Stuart wrote:
>>>>> *Subject:* Re: Creative spell use
>>>>> *From:* "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>>>>> *Date:* Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:41:03 -0400
>>>>> 700 pound package of alchemist's fire.
>>>> Hmmm - D&D FAE
>>> "I say we teleport away and nuke the site from my comfortable lab. It's
>>> the only way to be SURE."
>>
>> Well, I worked out a way a nuke could be discovered using low-end epic
>> magic. However, it's in-person, you have to cast it with a delay and
>> then teleport out.
>>
>> (And I really mean a nuke--a multi-megaton fission blast.)
>
> Epic? I did it with two cantrips back in first edition. I tell you,
>they don't make magic like they used to.

Two cantrips?? How?

On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:17:04 +0000, Keith Davies
wrote:

>Loren Pechtel wrote:
>> On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:36:33 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>> wrote:
>>
>>>JOanna Rowland-Stuart wrote:
>>>>> *Subject:* Re: Creative spell use
>>>>> *From:* "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>>>>> *Date:* Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:41:03 -0400
>>>>
>>>>> 700 pound package of alchemist's fire.
>>>>
>>>> Hmmm - D&D FAE
>>>
>>> "I say we teleport away and nuke the site from my comfortable lab. It's
>>>the only way to be SURE."
>>
>> Well, I worked out a way a nuke could be discovered using low-end epic
>> magic. However, it's in-person, you have to cast it with a delay and
>> then teleport out.
>>
>> (And I really mean a nuke--a multi-megaton fission blast.)
>
>Not quite as good as Wasp's, I saw a description of something you could
>do that would be... bad.
>
>. go to south pole (or north pole); don't want rotation of planet to
> matter
>. forcebox
>. evacuate all air from inside, creating a vaccuum
>. teleport pad at the bottom, destination the top (but inside of) the
> forcebox
>. drop a pebble on the teleport pad
>. wait for hilarity to happen
>
>An assumption here was that the teleport pad conserved momentum, so the
>longer you left this running, the faster the pebble got. Without air,
>there obviously would be no air resistance, so eventually you should
>start to approach relativistic speeds -- and mass. By the time the
>pebble's mass causes gravitational effects anyone should notice and go
>to investigate, they have a few problems:

Well, I handle teleport that you carry over any velocity relative to
your local environment so that part of it would work. However, I
don't think I would allow the teleport pad to do the same item more
than once in a round.

On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:57:18 +0100, Jim Davies
wrote:

>On the grave of Loren Pechtel is
>inscribed:
>
>>Well, I worked out a way a nuke could be discovered using low-end epic
>>magic. However, it's in-person, you have to cast it with a delay and
>>then teleport out.
>>
>>(And I really mean a nuke--a multi-megaton fission blast.)
>
>I thought this was possible with Polymorph Any Object. Not that a
>fission blast will get to multi-megaton levels as the bomb tends to
>disintegrate too fast. I suppose if you make it big enough it might...

Fissionables will be valuable metals--isn't PAO restricted in that
regard?

On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:47:27 -0500, WDS wrote:

>So how did these guys figure out this whole trick not using the 21st
>century physics knowledge of the PLAYERS. Major player knowledge
>bleeding into their characters is one of the major signs of piss poor
>role playing players.
>
>I have seen this several times in my DMing days like the time a new
>player declared he was going to invent gunpowder. For fun I had him
>describe what he was going to do and he himself with his hindsight
>knowledge didn't even know how to do it but assumed his character
>somehow did.

Yeah, the basic mechanism I used could produce a *FAR* greater bang
but there's no way to discover it. The fission blast was the biggest
bang I could figure out how to actually discover.

An alchemist is studying things. He has prepared some extremely pure
samples of things he can get ahold of. (I'm assuming a magical means
of purification. While there is no official spell to do this I'm sure
someone would develop one. It's just not something an adventurer
would use.)

There was this jar of uranium that he purified and put on the shelf.
Strangely enough it seems to have acquired some impurities, albeit in
tiny quantities.

What's up?! What are these traces of impurity and where are they
coming from? The quantities are too small to study so he conjures up
a much bigger sample. Since he wants the material to stick around
forever he uses the epic spell--it doesn't need material components
and the material isn't going to go away when the duration runs out.

Since it's an epic spell he conjures up plenty of material when
casting it. Oops, one of those impurities was plutonium.

After he's been resurrected he knows how to make an a-bomb.


Note that you do *NOT* need all the fancy stuff that normally goes
into a nuke. All that engineering is simply to convert a
safe-to-handle plutonium shape into one that will explode and do it
fast enough it doesn't blow itself apart in the process. (Which is
why you can't just use the simple gun-type device with plutonium--it's
too slow, the mass blows apart before full assembly is reached.)
Conjured as a block there's no issue of assembly, the block just goes
bang.

In article ,
Keith Davies wrote:

> What 'intrinsic value' (to use the words of the spell description) does
> uranium have? I don't imagine anyone really makes much use of it, or
> values it.

Well, carnotite is a *really* bright yellow. Maybe it could be made
into a dye....

Baird

--
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice
there is. -Yogi Berra

Loren Pechtel wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:48:39 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> wrote:
>
>> Loren Pechtel wrote:
>>> On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:36:33 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> JOanna Rowland-Stuart wrote:
>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: Creative spell use
>>>>>> *From:* "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>>>>>> *Date:* Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:41:03 -0400
>>>>>> 700 pound package of alchemist's fire.
>>>>> Hmmm - D&D FAE
>>>> "I say we teleport away and nuke the site from my comfortable lab. It's
>>>> the only way to be SURE."
>>> Well, I worked out a way a nuke could be discovered using low-end epic
>>> magic. However, it's in-person, you have to cast it with a delay and
>>> then teleport out.
>>>
>>> (And I really mean a nuke--a multi-megaton fission blast.)
>> Epic? I did it with two cantrips back in first edition. I tell you,
>> they don't make magic like they used to.
>
> Two cantrips?? How?

*Mute* (I believe was the cantrip -- allows you to change things to
other things for a few seconds), twice; one to make a casing that is
tough enough to maintain compression, essentially, when the device goes
off, the other to transform what's INSIDE the casing to plutonium.

To survive use, add a higher level spell (contingency) to make sure it
doesn't go off until you're far enough away.

--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com

On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:44:11 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
wrote:

>Loren Pechtel wrote:
>> On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:48:39 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Loren Pechtel wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:36:33 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> JOanna Rowland-Stuart wrote:
>>>>>>> *Subject:* Re: Creative spell use
>>>>>>> *From:* "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>>>>>>> *Date:* Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:41:03 -0400
>>>>>>> 700 pound package of alchemist's fire.
>>>>>> Hmmm - D&D FAE
>>>>> "I say we teleport away and nuke the site from my comfortable lab. It's
>>>>> the only way to be SURE."
>>>> Well, I worked out a way a nuke could be discovered using low-end epic
>>>> magic. However, it's in-person, you have to cast it with a delay and
>>>> then teleport out.
>>>>
>>>> (And I really mean a nuke--a multi-megaton fission blast.)
>>> Epic? I did it with two cantrips back in first edition. I tell you,
>>> they don't make magic like they used to.
>>
>> Two cantrips?? How?
>
> *Mute* (I believe was the cantrip -- allows you to change things to
>other things for a few seconds), twice; one to make a casing that is
>tough enough to maintain compression, essentially, when the device goes
>off, the other to transform what's INSIDE the casing to plutonium.
>
> To survive use, add a higher level spell (contingency) to make sure it
>doesn't go off until you're far enough away.

You're assuming there is something that can maintain the compression.
And what's the weight limit??

On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:37:26 +0000, Keith Davies
wrote:

>Loren Pechtel wrote:
>>
>> Yeah, the basic mechanism I used could produce a *FAR* greater bang
>> but there's no way to discover it. The fission blast was the biggest
>> bang I could figure out how to actually discover.
>>
>> An alchemist is studying things. He has prepared some extremely pure
>> samples of things he can get ahold of. (I'm assuming a magical means
>> of purification. While there is no official spell to do this I'm sure
>> someone would develop one. It's just not something an adventurer
>> would use.)
>>
>> There was this jar of uranium that he purified and put on the shelf.
>> Strangely enough it seems to have acquired some impurities, albeit in
>> tiny quantities.
>
>He presumably has some kind of protection against the radiation he's
>going to be hammered by then, I presume.
>
>You might take a look at books by a couple of authors. All my
>paperbacks are in storage or I'd look them up directly, but from
>memory...

A chunk of uranium isn't going to fry anyone. It's simply not that
hot.

But a D&D character would know nothing about plutonium - this element does not
occur naturally in sufficient quantities to enable its discovery apart from the
discovery of radioactivity and atomic theory.

Cheers
JOanna