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raptor1056
2009-06-03, 05:22 PM
I have a challenge, of sorts. Let's see how quickly(read as: at how low a level) a given character can end the world. By this, I mean actually break apart the physical planet Earth. This is assuming that this character dwells on Earth. Simply killing everyone on the planet is not the final goal.
Rules:
Rule 1: No infinite loops. No pun pun stuff.
Rule 2: Cheese is to be limited when possible.

To get things rolling: create a portal to the center of the planet. Get a Sphere of Annihilation in there. Assuming Spheres are inherently weightless, the planet collapses, then drifts apart.

Olo Demonsbane
2009-06-03, 05:33 PM
Summon Anti-Osmium Bomb!

Doc Roc
2009-06-03, 05:34 PM
Singularity bomb.

Or

Drop the moon. (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=18281974&postcount=102)

Or

Drop a sphere of annihilation into the sea.

Swordguy
2009-06-03, 05:35 PM
See my sig. It assumes a 50th level caster (a consequence of the thread) but a 17th level caster produces a blast big enough to pop every last hit point (figuring the earth as a series of 10x10x10 cubes of rock, hardness included in every block).

Ravens_cry
2009-06-03, 05:38 PM
Anything that will end the world is by it's nature inherently cheesy, IMHO.
[edit]
Return of the Cat Girl Genocide Machine, yay!

Tsotha-lanti
2009-06-03, 05:41 PM
Anyone unaging, immune to fire, and able to cause something like 20-30 points of damage per attack (with full PA on a two-handed weapon). A fire genasi fighter should work, fairly low level. You take your weapon and start smashing the world apart. Earth and rock only have a hardness of something like 20, and magma is a non-factor with your immunity. It'll take a while, but eventually you'll break the Earth apart.

shadzar
2009-06-03, 05:41 PM
O-level classless farmer opens a box removing the protection spell on the sphere of annihilation and dumps it on the ground.

Thajocoth
2009-06-03, 05:46 PM
Opening a portal between the center of the planet and anywhere on the surface would release the pressure in the core, and the solid core would vaporize as it came out the portal, searing anything nearby. As things fall to fill the space, the planet would be dissolved.

That has nothing to do with D&D though, so I don't have a character level for you.

Alleine
2009-06-03, 05:46 PM
Drop the moon. (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=18281974&postcount=102)

Or throw the moon (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=142565). The damage gets higher and higher the further you get into the thread.

You could probably make an epic spell that specifically destroys the earth. I don't go into epic so I don't know the specifics.

Coidzor
2009-06-03, 05:46 PM
Anyone unaging, immune to fire, and able to cause something like 20-30 points of damage per attack (with full PA on a two-handed weapon). A fire genasi fighter should work, fairly low level. You take your weapon and start smashing the world apart. Earth and rock only have a hardness of something like 20, and magma is a non-factor with your immunity. It'll take a while, but eventually you'll break the Earth apart.

Well you'd have to have a weapon that was immune to the magma's effects as well.. and you'd have to do something about breathing. Mostly though I can see this working on the crust, but the mantles are sort of like porridge/ooze and the core is molten so what's he do once he's down there other than go for a swim?

...
...At what level could a magic-user scry out the molten core of a planet and then open a two-way portal to it for long enough to vent it out?

chiasaur11
2009-06-03, 05:52 PM
Wouldn't the 1 d2 crusader manage the job?

Doesn't need to be above level ten, if I (unlikely as that may be) remember right.

RS14
2009-06-03, 06:05 PM
Be an Elan Wizard 11 with a ring of minor fire resistance.. Cast disintegrate at the earth 1/day. Once you reach the mantle, sit atop your many Extended Floating Disks. Try not to go insane over the next 1017 years.

lsfreak
2009-06-03, 07:16 PM
See my sig. It assumes a 50th level caster (a consequence of the thread) but a 17th level caster produces a blast big enough to pop every last hit point (figuring the earth as a series of 10x10x10 cubes of rock, hardness included in every block).

I still say you might as well go all the way out and go for anti-neutron degenerate matter.
20th level caster, and assuming a .1% efficiency (Trinity test had ~4.5% efficiency, Little Boy ~1.4%, and modern weapons much higher, but we'll assume worse compression). We'll also use 1x10^9 kg/m^3, the estimated density at the surface of a neutron star according to Wikipedia, as opposed to the denser numbers. We have roughly 566.000.000kg of antimatter (doubled due to the matter involved in such a reaction).
Resultant explosion deals roughly 1.6*10^20 d6's of damage, averaging 5.630.000.000.000.000.000 (5.6 quintillion) damage.

That's if only .1% of the matter reacts before the explosion blows so much of it apart that it has no real effect; a full effect as Swordguy I believe used would instead be 5.6 sextillion damage. Using a less conservative estimate for the density (equal to the density of an atomic nucleus, 2x10^17kg/m^3) moves it all the way to roughly 11 octillian damage (and even at 1% efficiency, overcomes the gravitational binding energy of the earth).
EDIT: Big numbers > me.

woodenbandman
2009-06-03, 07:29 PM
The entire commoner population of the world locks hands and readies an action to pass a length of string around the world, from east to west. The resulting light-speed transfer of the mass will reverse the earth's rotation, causing currents to freeze. The ocean freezes over, the magma under the earth will harden, and the planet will crack and die.

Doc Roc
2009-06-03, 07:43 PM
I alternatively advocate that this can be done within RAW.

RS14
2009-06-03, 07:49 PM
The entire commoner population of the world locks hands and readies an action to pass a length of string around the world, from east to west. The resulting light-speed transfer of the mass will reverse the earth's rotation, causing currents to freeze. The ocean freezes over, the magma under the earth will harden, and the planet will crack and die.

Nah, some commoners just go flying into deep space. The commoners can only affect the earth to the extent that they can hold onto it.

Zaq
2009-06-03, 07:59 PM
I don't have any specifics in mind, but I'm pretty sure there's some shenanigans we can pull with Reverse Gravity.

There's always your standard vacuum + ring gates + pebble super-acceleration trick, but that's easy.

Perhaps something that moves large quantities of planar mass to other planes? Bringing in a handful of Voidstones would be... well, I forget if they affect nonliving matter, but they'll cause some hazard zones.

Maybe if we can get to the center of the earth (easy enough) and cast Gate, everything will be drawn into the gate and sent, well, wherever. I hear the Astral is lovely this time of year.

Eh, I got nothing, really.

Swordguy
2009-06-03, 08:09 PM
I alternatively advocate that this can be done within RAW.

Anti-Osmium bomb is RAW. Nothing says you have to be familiar with the created material, likewise, nothing in the RAW says that nuclear physics (etc) don't work in D&D. It breaks no written rules (it may break UNwritten ones, but we aren't talking about URAW, are we?).



I do regret coming up with the thing, though. It's a perfect storm of RAWtardedness and people that advocate that sort of playstyle in actual game play represent a good portion of what I HATE about gameing/gamers. "The rules say I can" is a cheap cop-out - people damn well know what the designers intended the rules to be, and are deliberately using a poor language choice to produce an effect bad for the game.

The Glyphstone
2009-06-03, 08:10 PM
I think the sort of hideous abuses you have to perpetrate upon the english language to get the Anti-Osmium bomb to function disqualify it under Rule 2 of the OP. Arguing that Antimatter is matter....gah.

lsfreak
2009-06-03, 08:20 PM
Antimatter is matter, just with a poor name. The only practical difference is how the quarks happen to be arranged. It's like saying a human is a mammal but a rat isn't, because a rat is arranged differently.
EDIT: Or perhaps a better example is calling mammals animals but refusing to accept coral or anemones as animals, because of the vastly different biology.

DamnedIrishman
2009-06-03, 08:22 PM
Antimatter is matter, just with a poor name. The only practical difference is how the quarks happen to be arranged. It's like saying a human is a mammal but a rat isn't, because a rat is arranged differently.

Arrangement is important. Citing diamonds and graphite.

kopout
2009-06-03, 08:26 PM
I think the sort of hideous abuses you have to perpetrate upon the english language to get the Anti-Osmium bomb to function disqualify it under Rule 2 of the OP. Arguing that Antimatter is matter....gah.
Ah but it is. Sort of, and for a given definition of mater as anything that has mass and takes up space.



Arrangement is important. Citing diamonds and graphite.
But diamonds and graphite fall under the blanket term "Carbon" likewise anti-mater and regular mater both fall under the term mater.

But the definition of mater is not what this is about. This is about using the commoner rail gun and such not to end the world.

Swooper
2009-06-03, 08:30 PM
I think the sort of hideous abuses you have to perpetrate upon the english language to get the Anti-Osmium bomb to function disqualify it under Rule 2 of the OP. Arguing that Antimatter is matter....gah.
Actually, that rule sort of disqualifies everything. "Cheese" is a relative term and all, but really, isn't BREAKING THE DAMN PLANET the definition of cheese? :smallconfused: How the hell are you going to do that without RAW abuse anyway?

RS14
2009-06-03, 09:00 PM
Actually, that rule sort of disqualifies everything. "Cheese" is a relative term and all, but really, isn't BREAKING THE DAMN PLANET the definition of cheese? :smallconfused: How the hell are you going to do that without RAW abuse anyway?

I submit that my solution was not cheesy at all. Absurd, yes, but not cheesy. :smalltongue:

Nohwl
2009-06-03, 09:03 PM
Actually, that rule sort of disqualifies everything. "Cheese" is a relative term and all, but really, isn't BREAKING THE DAMN PLANET the definition of cheese? :smallconfused: How the hell are you going to do that without RAW abuse anyway?

cast wish?

TheCountAlucard
2009-06-03, 09:07 PM
...but really, isn't BREAKING THE DAMN PLANET the definition of cheese?

cheese /tʃiz/
–noun 1. the curd of milk separated from the whey and prepared in many ways as a food.


http://i353.photobucket.com/albums/r382/twizzy_gurl/cheese.jpg

FMArthur
2009-06-03, 11:01 PM
Okay, so now that we've determined what cheese is by English RAW...

MickJay
2009-06-04, 05:54 AM
Clearly, then, we want to end the world without involving a group dairy products during the whole process.

Gnorman
2009-06-04, 06:24 AM
The real question here is whether or not we can summon enough anticheese to crack the world.

Anybody know the density of cheese off-hand?

Kurald Galain
2009-06-04, 07:12 AM
I do regret coming up with the thing, though. It's a perfect storm of RAWtardedness and people that advocate that sort of playstyle in actual game play represent a good portion of what I HATE about gameing/gamers. "The rules say I can" is a cheap cop-out - people damn well know what the designers intended the rules to be, and are deliberately using a poor language choice to produce an effect bad for the game.
This is not really a case of "the rules say I can", but more like "the rules don't say that I can't".

Of course, in nearly every roleplaying game (4E excepted), the default is that you can do whatever you like as long as no rule say that you can't.

mikej
2009-06-04, 07:23 AM
The real question here is whether or not we can summon enough anticheese to crack the world.

Anybody know the density of cheese off-hand?

Swiss or Gouda?

The guidelines are a oxymoron, you ask if it's possible to destroy the world, but ask for non-cheese tactics. If that isn't the gaming definition of "cheese," I don't know what is. It's like asking for a glass of water in the ocean.

Anti-Osmium Bomb still ranks high on my "lolz" list.

Tamburlaine
2009-06-04, 07:37 AM
I'm sure there must be some way to do it with an immovable rod...

quick_comment
2009-06-04, 07:41 AM
Anti-Osmium bomb is RAW. Nothing says you have to be familiar with the created material, likewise, nothing in the RAW says that nuclear physics (etc) don't work in D&D. It breaks no written rules (it may break UNwritten ones, but we aren't talking about URAW, are we?).


Jesus, this again?

Not only is there no evidence that D&D has atoms, has anti-matter, has matter-antimatter anhiliation etc. Of course the rules dont say. The rules dont say what you cant do. They say what you can do. Anyway, there is plenty of evidence that D&D does not and cannot follow normal physics.

Furthermore, creation spells all have monetary caps as to how much they can make. Current going cost for antimatter is roughly $1,000,000,000,000 per gram.

The rules also dont say that might monk cant make diamonds by compressing coal with his hands. Or that my fighter cant shoot lasers that are also swords that shoot lasers. Or that my ninja cant flip out and kill everything.




Method to destroy the world: First animate/awaken the earth. Then, Polymorph Any Object: World--->anything else. (That is, since PAO specifies 1 creature as target, if you turn the earth into a creature, you can polymorph it)

Reaper_Monkey
2009-06-04, 08:14 AM
Not D&D per say (http://qntm.org/?destroy), but I figure cat girls are going to die anyway, so we might as well get the physics right while we're at it :smallamused:

Or, you know, use the great "plot device artifact". Because that is what it was intended for (although there will be a fatal flaw which PC's will exploit and ultimately thwart your efforts with, but that's your problem not mine). :smalltongue:

ericgrau
2009-06-04, 10:15 AM
Anti-Osmium bomb is RAW. Nothing says you have to be familiar with the created material, likewise, nothing in the RAW says that nuclear physics (etc) don't work in D&D. It breaks no written rules (it may break UNwritten ones, but we aren't talking about URAW, are we?).



I do regret coming up with the thing, though. It's a perfect storm of RAWtardedness and people that advocate that sort of playstyle in actual game play represent a good portion of what I HATE about gameing/gamers. "The rules say I can" is a cheap cop-out - people damn well know what the designers intended the rules to be, and are deliberately using a poor language choice to produce an effect bad for the game.

Nothing says you can make things you're not familiar with, either. Just remember, "nothing" (or "not" or etc.) is never evidence for any argument. But if you seek the intent of the rules that shouldn't be a problem anyway.



Method to destroy the world: First animate/awaken the earth. Then, Polymorph Any Object: World--->anything else. (That is, since PAO specifies 1 creature as target, if you turn the earth into a creature, you can polymorph it)

You can only awaken trees or animals. And it'd be hard to come up with a PAO on earth lasting longer than 20 minutes without changing earth into another equally sized planet or a giant rock, besides requiring a rather loose interpretation of PAO, and only after you make earth a creature.

I'm not sure there is any way to end the world without cheese. Not just because it's inherently Limburger to end the world, but because I just don't think anything's that strong without cheese. Short of DM invented villian ability anyway.

quick_comment
2009-06-04, 10:38 AM
Making things your character isnt familiar with is pure meta-gaming, pure and simple. There is no way for your character to make something he doesnt know about.

Tokiko Mima
2009-06-04, 10:41 AM
Either Wish to change the gravitational constant of the universe, or;

Use a Chicken Infested Commoner to increase the mass of the Earth (with chickens!) enough to trigger a collapse of the earth's orbit, or go crazy and create your own chicken event horizon.

SITB
2009-06-04, 11:38 AM
Making things your character isnt familiar with is pure meta-gaming, pure and simple. There is no way for your character to make something he doesnt know about.

This again? It's a theoretical challenge not something that was meant to be used, y'know like Pun Pun.

But if you insist justifying it from an RP point of view: The wizard that created the bomb is an experienced Spelljammer and traveled to "our world", AKA a world with anti matter, saw a few Doctor Who episodes and thought that blowing the earth for giggles was an awesome idea.

quick_comment
2009-06-04, 12:21 PM
This again? It's a theoretical challenge not something that was meant to be used, y'know like Pun Pun.

But if you insist justifying it from an RP point of view: The wizard that created the bomb is an experienced Spelljammer and traveled "our world", AKA a world with anti matter, saw a few Doctor Who episodes and thought that blowing the earth for giggles was an awesome idea.

Congratulations, now he is familiar with antimatter. Was that so hard to justify?

Too bad it doesnt exist in DnD any more than electrons do.


There are two possibilities for DnD physics:

A) Either they are like ours, except they have exceptions for magic

or

B) they are wholly different.

If option A is chosen, then the laws of physics are inconsistent and everything goes to ****. (See: Conservation of energy + Noether's theorem)

Frog Dragon
2009-06-04, 12:44 PM
DMG P.136 Behind the Curtain
This section on world building assumes that your campaing is set in a fairly realistic world. That is to say that while wizards cast spells, deities channel powers to clerics, and dragons raze villages, the world is round, the laws of physics are applicable, and most people act like real people.

According to the core rules, D&D follows basic laws of physics by standard except it has magic.

pendell
2009-06-04, 01:02 PM
I'm a little bit shaky on how to do this IAW the rules but I have two suggestions:

1) Cast a spell that shifts the orbit such that, rather than continuing it's loop around the sun, the orbit degrades and it falls into the sun. The earth is consumed by fire. Since it will take close to a year for the earth to reach it's final resting place, there's some time to evacuate the planet.

2) Create a singularity somewhere on the planet's surface. POOF!

3) Drop an earth-sized lump of non-fusable iron into the sun. The result, according
to theory, will be a supernova. Which will not only destroy the earth but will
momentarily outshine the entire rest of the galaxy.

I recommend the scientific manual on earth destruction here (http://qntm.org/?destroy) .

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Doc Roc
2009-06-04, 01:43 PM
Jesus, this again?

They don't care, they just want their fancy trick. I guess I understand that.

Doc Roc
2009-06-04, 01:44 PM
DMG P.136 Behind the Curtain
This section on world building assumes that your campaing is set in a fairly realistic world. That is to say that while wizards cast spells, deities channel powers to clerics, and dragons raze villages, the world is round, the laws of physics are applicable, and most people act like real people.

According to the core rules, D&D follows basic laws of physics by standard except it has magic.

It's also pure fluff, not RAW. You don't want the world to follow physics. It follows Plot and runs on Narrativium. And GM Discretion. I bet you my shiny hat you can't find a serious game where any GM will let you summon antimatter.

You know what we call relying on GM fiat like that, in TO circles?
Stupid.

Waspinator
2009-06-04, 01:51 PM
Be an Elan Wizard 11 with a ring of minor fire resistance.. Cast disintegrate at the earth 1/day. Once you reach the mantle, sit atop your many Extended Floating Disks. Try not to go insane over the next 1017 years.

Warforged might be better. That way you don't need to breath, which could be useful once the planet starts to fall apart. Psion works, too.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-06-04, 02:00 PM
If we were to interpret the immovability of Wall of Force really, really literally, then a wizard could teleport somewhere in Earth's orbit and leave a wall of force or two for it to run into.

Doc Roc
2009-06-04, 02:17 PM
If we were to interpret the immovability of Wall of Force really, really literally, then a wizard could teleport somewhere in Earth's orbit and leave a wall of force or two for it to run into.

::blinks slowly::

That's actually brilliant.

Ganurath
2009-06-04, 02:21 PM
A sorceror teleports into space at some arbitrary point along Earth's orbittal path, with the proper magic items to endure the vacuum of space. The breathless ioun stone, a ring of sustenance, and a sphere of force should do the trick. The warforged brings with a sheet of stone to function as a floor.

Ensue Wall of Stone spam, using Arcane Thesis to apply Sculpt Spell and thus Widen Spell at reduced cost. For most mass per casting, I suggest the cylinder, which would be 20 feet in radius and 60 feet in height per casting. Since we're using Arcane Thesis and throwing caster level out the window, let's toss Sanctum Spell in there. Actually, since we're staying in the same spot for Vecna knows how long, let's go ahead and make it our sanctum so those unSculpted castings at the lower spell levels to fill the gaps get a little boost.

Since it's teleport, it'll take about a year to pull off. I'm not sure how much mass would accumulate in that time, but on the bright side we finally found a use for Sanctum Spell.

Jayabalard
2009-06-04, 04:07 PM
nothing in the RAW says that nuclear physics (etc) don't work in D&D. It breaks no written rules.I'm not personally convinced about that; quite a bit of the RAW directly contradicts physics, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone could extend far enough to show that an anti osmium bomb wouldn't work in D&D.

Aside from that, the ways I've seen it described depend on a rather sketchy interpretation (imo) of eschew materials; anti-osmium cannot be bought for less than 1gp, so it's cost is higher than 1gp.

MickJay
2009-06-04, 04:22 PM
If we were to interpret the immovability of Wall of Force really, really literally, then a wizard could teleport somewhere in Earth's orbit and leave a wall of force or two for it to run into.

I don't think it would work, since if that was the case, then any wall cast on the surface of the planet would have likewise immediately be gone from the relative spot on the surface (moving away at great speed, possibly killing the caster if he stood on the wrong side of the wall); if anything, it is probably immovable in relation to the nearest most powerful centre of gravity; if that's the case, then it would simply move along in space in a constant distance from the world.

I'd be willing to bet that at least some of the RAW, if extrapolated far enough, make things like antimatter an impossibility in D&D (or at least make its existence highly unlikely). I mean, if basic stuff like thermodynamics, conservation of mass/energy are non-existent (or at least non-universal), then why should things (that ultimately exist because laws of physics are what they are) exist in a world where those laws are different?

Coidzor
2009-06-04, 04:39 PM
Because when you pick and choose what physics to keep you cannot say that anything is or isn't allowed unless you CAN extrapolate that due to a change in physics that has been detailed, said phenomenon is nonexistent or changed.

Aren't most of the places where DnD violates physics when it goes into abstractions for simplicity's sake, or uses magic as applied phelbotinum, anyway?

Set
2009-06-04, 04:47 PM
If we were to interpret the immovability of Wall of Force really, really literally, then a wizard could teleport somewhere in Earth's orbit and leave a wall of force or two for it to run into.

Huh, used Walls of Force to kill a flying dragon, but never thought of ending civilization with one.

Although in some fantasy worlds, the planet itself is the physical manifestation of a divine entity (Beory on Oerth, Denev on Sharn, etc) and might just dispel the wall of force before she hits it. (Followed by summoning a particular mage to her presence for a bit of re-education why it isn't nice to mess with mother nature...)

Immovable Rods could do the same thing, although you might want to make some size Colossal ones.

A teleport trap that was created to teleport everything in a certain area to another place whenever it was occupied could be created at the bottom of the ocean, with the end of the portal being somewhere in outer space. The weight of the ocean would push new water into it every time it activated, until the seas were in space, as massive clumps of ice, which would rain devastation down upon the planet, melt apart, and so on, until the end of time (or an ice-comet impacted on the teleport trap and destroyed it!).

A similar teleport trap created within the negative energy plane or elemental plane of fire could similarly be created to transport negative energy or elemental fire into the material world in endless quantities.

While it wouldn't break the planet, a single shadow in a village full of commoners would be able to eliminate all life from the planet within a week or so. At the end, the world will have a couple billion shadows, a bunch of dead rotting animals and plants, and a pissed off Tarrasque, perpetually at 0 Hit points and Str and swarmed by thousands of incorporeal Shadows, wishing desperately that it could Wish itself dead.

Fortunately the D&D world is full of gods who wouldn't allow this sort of junk. :)

RS14
2009-06-04, 05:09 PM
Outside of spelljammer, is there any reason at all to suppose that earth is not the immobile center of the universe?

ericgrau
2009-06-04, 06:12 PM
I think that bit from the DMG on physics apply and people act like real people means use common sense and try to make things realistic (but still including magic), not find another source of abuse to make the game lame. That also means the earth isn't the center of the universe, but it doesn't really matter; you can't make things immobile in a different frame of reference so that they move in yours. That's just a round-about way to make something move that shouldn't. I mean the sun is orbiting around the center of the galaxy as well. Relative to the center of the galaxy the earth is moving even faster. Or relative to any object somewhere in space you can pick any speed and direction you choose to move your spell while calling it "immobile". And that's clearly not the intent of the spell, as no DM would let that fly nor is it following the rules unless you get extremely technical and overly literal.

Anywayz no one knows about anti-matter in such a world and even if they did the ability for spells to create it is at the very least ambiguous and probably highly questionable. Such is also a classic form of cheese that shouldn't see the light of day in real games.

The best way to end such a world is with a Snarl or some such. Or if we want to have fun in this thread lets raise the limits on cheese while still disallowing pun-pun.

Coidzor
2009-06-04, 06:31 PM
^: I agree with you there. A certain amount of cheesy leeway is necessary for us to have some fun wrapping our brains around it. And pun-pun can just boost his strength alone until he's capable of powdering the planet in one blow by taking it and all of its mass as one object with some kind of ungodly gestalt hardness.

And of course Snarls are whimsical and fitting in with the fantasy of it more than getting too magic = science on us.

I very highly doubt it ever sees the light of play, but it's easy enough to see some interested mages looking into the construction of the universe might eventually stumble upon something at least similar enough to our conception of matter. Or y'know, the thaum which is the fundamental building block of all magic, ala Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

It stretches the bounds of the imagination of someone finding it fun enough and acceptable to actually allow it in play or accept their friend in the party doing it, but it is not entirely unreasonable that somehow someone or someones in a DnD universe could come up with a framework of understanding the world around them using spells and magical equipment instead of scientific instruments.

Several fluff-wise groups that one could see being interested in the fundamental nature and construction of being and matter dotted across the cosmos between spelljammer, planescape, and those funky people who like mechanus so much. Not to mention all of the research mages do that never actually comes to anything practical. I mean, a lich, being a competent wizard and fairly rigorous in his research never coming up with anything beyond the PHB's standard set in a thousand years of being left alone?

That strains belief more than that he's discovered these interesting things he calls "thaumoscopic daemon" that exist all around but are invisible to the naked eye of mundane races and possibly simply so small they're ignored or unnoticed by anything with better vision and that these things frigging eat decaying skin fragments and other very small detritus or take in water and air and light and emit gas almost as if they were breathing.

I don't really see why you would have it that way but I also don't see why you would boo and hiss and react as if you were a vampire suddenly put into the center of the sun to it either. *shrug*

Eldan
2009-06-04, 06:36 PM
Open gates from the mantle to the plane of vacuum? That should do the trick, nothing in the way to stop the flow of matter.

Ravens_cry
2009-06-04, 06:43 PM
Outside of spelljammer, is there any reason at all to suppose that earth is not the immobile center of the universe?
Pathfinders (http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Golarion) main universe has a heliocentric solar system, with other planets including a red one that sounds quite Barsoonian, while Greyhawks Oerth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oerth)is geocentric.

raptor1056
2009-06-05, 11:37 AM
Regarding my whole "limited cheese" comment: I was nnot saying "you are not allowed to break the game." That is essentially the intention of this exercise. Mainly, I meant no "I am pun-pun. I punch the world. It breaks." I wanted earth destruction methods to be creative, which they have been. By the way, regarding the osmium bomb idea, the general matter making up earth is iron, not stone. This presents your theory with a problem. Still very cool, though.

IM@work
2009-06-05, 03:51 PM
I've seen one where you use the RAW to have a billion villagers grapple each other in a box. Shut said box. Have them all release grapple at once. Nuclear bomb.
The deal was that once you grapple you move into that square, could be done infinetly. Therefore put in a box that is exactly size of one square...

Very cheesy and very circumstantial, but technically...

RS14
2009-06-05, 05:12 PM
I've seen one where you use the RAW to have a billion villagers grapple each other in a box. Shut said box. Have them all release grapple at once. Nuclear bomb.
The deal was that once you grapple you move into that square, could be done infinetly. Therefore put in a box that is exactly size of one square...

Very cheesy and very circumstantial, but technically...

Doesn't work. A necessary component of escaping a grapple is that "you finish the action by moving into any space adjacent to your opponent(s). " Without any space to escape to, it is impossible to leave the grapple.

I've got another. A Delver can destroy 2000 cubic feet of stone per round by dissolving it as it burrows through. Unfortunately, it appears to work only on stone. However, at this rate, the crust can be destroyed in only about 1010 years. This doesn't resolve surviving age and heat, however.

A rust monster (half-red dragon?) can be used to destroy the mantle and core over a similarly immense length of time.

If there is some way to pump the radius of Transmute Metal to Wood to sufficient heights, you can hit all or most of the earth with it in a reasonable amount of time. The reduced gravity might be sufficient to rip the planet apart as it bulges rapidly.

Edit: Ooh, here's something interesting, but not at all legal by RAW or real world physics. Nevertheless, a DM might be tricked into believing that a Rod of Flame Extinguishing works on Lava, in which case it can be used to extinguish the entire core & mantle, as it has no size limit. It wouldn't destroy the earth, but would cause problems as the rock expanded and caused the crust to shatter.

raptor1056
2009-06-05, 06:13 PM
Oh, by the way, wishing the earth/ telekinesising the earth closer to the sun will cause its gravitational pull to be different at different depths, causing it to become pulled into a series of supershallow disks. Anyways, it would be easier to put Earth next to Mars and let gravity make a planet cocktail. Another method is to use a number of metamagic rods, like enlarge and widen, to Stone to Flesh the whole world. Then the world collapses, because it hasn't enough structural integrity to stand its massive gravity. I really like animate earth/ baleful polymorph. Earth is frog!