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View Full Version : (2E) Fun Things to do with a Decanter of Endless Water



Caxton
2009-07-31, 04:50 AM
My Aquatic Elf has recently happened upon a Decanter of Endless Water. While the possibilities for keeping me alive are obvious, I want to find some more inventive things to do, since my plan to use it to summon water elementals fast fell flat (I can do it, but it would take HOURS).

kestrel404
2009-07-31, 07:37 AM
A decanter of endless water is a phenomenal source of power if you can reasonably 'invent' hydraulics. Depends on your character's Int score and the willingness of your GM.

In a cold climate, it can be used to alter terrain (add water, wait for water to freeze, repeat).

In a desert it can be used to make money (fill your canteen for a copper, sir?)

You could put it in a portable hole and turn it into a portable pond - or if placed on a wall in a dungeon, a portable tidal wave that recharges ever 24 hours or so.

Since you're aquatic, you could use it to flood dungeons (over a period of a week or so) and then only have to deal with monsters that can survive being submerged (in a standard/non-aquatic campaign, that's mostly just undead and aberrations like oozes).

You could use it as a portable fire extinguisher. This is especially useful if you decide to start carrying around lots of oil flasks (it won't put the oil fire out, but it WILL wash them away from the party!)

Talya
2009-07-31, 08:29 AM
My Heartwarder (3.5e, but still) used several of them in the construction of her Basillica of Burning Passions, a temple to Sune in Calimport. The grand basillica has waterfalls runing down its walls, fountains everywhere, and a wading pool open to the public surrounding it....in this hot, oppressive desert metropolis. Made it a popular place fairly quickly.

Lysander
2009-07-31, 09:03 AM
Use its Geyser setting as a jet while swimming, or bolt it under the hull to propel a boat. Who needs sails when you've 20-foot-long, 1-foot-wide stream at 30 gallons per second!

Thane of Fife
2009-07-31, 09:21 AM
Use its Geyser setting as a jet while swimming, or bolt it under the hull to propel a boat. Who needs sails when you've 20-foot-long, 1-foot-wide stream at 30 gallons per second!

30 gallons per minute. I don't know if that will push a boat.

Yuki Akuma
2009-07-31, 09:25 AM
30 gallons per minute. I don't know if that will push a boat.

Of course it would! Just not very fast.

Lapak
2009-07-31, 09:26 AM
Find invisible opponents by spraying it around a room and/or covering the floor with water.

Fill pit-traps and swim across them in safety.

Create an instant bridge by arcing the geyser across a gap and freezing it in place with an ice spell.

Lysander
2009-07-31, 09:34 AM
30 gallons per minute. I don't know if that will push a boat.

Actually it's per round. So that's quite a lot of water moving out very quickly.

Epinephrine
2009-07-31, 09:55 AM
Well, assuming a radius of 1.78cm for the opening, you get an opening with a 10cm^2 area; that's a pretty big neck, at 1.4 inches or so across, but it's not absurd, and it's a nice handy area to work with.

30 gallons per round is 5 gallons per second. About 3.8 litres in a US gallon, or 3800cm^3 per gallon, 19000cm^3 per second. The 10cm^2 opening thus results in a 1900cm long cylinder of water leaving per second, with a resulting velocity of 19m/s. Thrust is v*dm/dt, or 19m/s*19kg/s or 361 N (kgm/s^2)

Assuming a 90 kg person (roughly 200 pounds, or a 150 pound person with 50 pounds of gear), this would be enough force to accelerate them by 4m/s^2. Not enough to achieve liftoff (gravity is 9.8m/s^2), but pointing it down would substantially slow your fall. 3 of them could let you take off. Without someone holding it, the decanter would fly around like a rocket. Holding it so that the geyser is shooting upwards would be equivalent to trying to hold up an 80lb weight (361 N is about the force exerted by gravity on a 37kg mass).

Assuming my math holds - I may have gotten sloppy somewhere. You could get a little more thrust (~2.5% more?) by commanding it to make salt water.

Make the neck narrower, pushing out the same mass of water per second, and you get more thrust. Make it wider, you get less thrust.

Lapak
2009-07-31, 10:27 AM
Actually it's per round. So that's quite a lot of water moving out very quickly.Since it's 2E we're talking about, a round IS a minute.

Yuki Akuma
2009-07-31, 10:29 AM
Since it's 2E we're talking about, a round IS a minute.

Yeah but no one cares about 2E.

Zadus
2009-07-31, 10:38 AM
Turn it on and then bury it in the closest desert. Instant oasis!

Matthew
2009-07-31, 10:58 AM
Yeah but no one cares about 2E.

:smalltongue:

Caxton
2009-07-31, 12:29 PM
Hahaha. Making a jetpack intrigues me...but my friend may kill me (he was denied a jetpack in a Gamma World campaign for his bobba fett character and has been bitter about it ever since).

Also, the portable pond trick may just solve my Water Elemental question, though it may need a bit more work.

Indon
2009-07-31, 01:39 PM
Since it's 2E we're talking about, a round IS a minute.

Wait, so the decanter of endless water generates 10 times more water in 3'rd edition than in AD&D?

Edit: Also, I thought a turn was a minute.

Bigbrother87
2009-07-31, 01:47 PM
Wait, so the decanter of endless water generates 10 times more water in 3'rd edition than in AD&D?

Edit: Also, I thought a turn was a minute.

2e, Player's Handbook, Glossary:

"Round: in combat, a segment of time approximately one minute long, during which a character can accomplish one basic action. Ten combat rounds equal one Turn."

"Turn: in game time, approximately 10 minutes; used especially in figuring how long various magic spells may last. In combat, a turn consists of ten rounds."

EDIT: From the 2e DMG description of the Decanter, which is the edition the OP is playing in:

"Water can be made to come forth as follows:

Stream: pours out 1 gallon per round

Fountain: 5-foot long stream at 5 gallons per round

Geyser: 20-foot long stream at 30 gallons per round"

Matthew
2009-07-31, 01:52 PM
2e, Player's Handbook, Glossary:

"Round: in combat, a segment of time approximately one minute long, during which a character can accomplish one basic action. Ten combat rounds equal one Turn."

"Turn: in game time, approximately 10 minutes; used especially in figuring how long various magic spells may last. In combat, a turn consists of ten rounds."

EDIT: From the 2e DMG description of the Decanter, which is the edition the OP is playing in:

"Water can be made to come forth as follows:

Stream: pours out 1 gallon per round

Fountain: 5-foot long stream at 5 gallons per round

Geyser: 20-foot long stream at 30 gallons per round"

Bear in mind that in Classic Dungeons & Dragons a round is ten seconds (which confuses people) and in 1995 Combat & Tactics introduced the "reduced round" of 10-15 seconds (which doubly confuses people)

Indon
2009-07-31, 01:58 PM
Indeed. Despite having played AD&D for a few years before 3.0 came out, I never really got the hang of the time system.

Since the description of the Decanter remained unchanged when 3.0 came out, I guess it does indeed generate 10 times more water in 3'rd edition.

Edit: Mind that, according to earlier calculations, this means you'd need more than 20 Decanters to make a jetpack for someone weighing 200 pounds.

Lapak
2009-07-31, 02:03 PM
All of that said, I think the device in geyser mode was envisioned as being like a fire hose. A quick look around indicates that standard truck-carried fire hoses are pushing out somewhere between 100 and 250 gallons per minute (http://science.howstuffworks.com/fire-engine2.htm), ranging up to 1000+ for water-cannon style setups. A standard shower head puts out something like 7 gallons per minute (http://www.fi.edu/guide/schutte/howmuch.html). Four times as much as a shower seems too little; a quarter or an eighth of fire hose volume seems WAY too little. So I'm thinking that even though the item description says 30 gpr (= 30 gpm) that the item was created and tuned for the shorter 10-second round that Matthew mentions. That pushes it up to the appropriate volume of water.

bosssmiley
2009-07-31, 02:43 PM
Dragon #171, the article "Care For a Drink?"

An article on Decanter of Endless Water and some unexpected uses thereof. See if you can't beg or borrow a copy, it's worth a read.

Thane of Fife
2009-07-31, 02:51 PM
All of that said, I think the device in geyser mode was envisioned as being like a fire hose. A quick look around indicates that standard truck-carried fire hoses are pushing out somewhere between 100 and 250 gallons per minute (http://science.howstuffworks.com/fire-engine2.htm), ranging up to 1000+ for water-cannon style setups. A standard shower head puts out something like 7 gallons per minute (http://www.fi.edu/guide/schutte/howmuch.html). Four times as much as a shower seems too little; a quarter or an eighth of fire hose volume seems WAY too little. So I'm thinking that even though the item description says 30 gpr (= 30 gpm) that the item was created and tuned for the shorter 10-second round that Matthew mentions. That pushes it up to the appropriate volume of water.

The Encyclopedia Magica says that the Decanter of Endless Water first appeared in the 1e DMG (though an earlier one with no statline apparently came from the Nightrage adventure).

Hawriel
2009-07-31, 10:44 PM
Have a dwarf cleric that made a decanter, exept it was a stein. It also used beer. Blessed holy beer. Stout most often, but also on command could make porters, lagers, stouts and ales. Pilsners for the elves.

Cant wait to kill undead with some holy double bock.

JadedDM
2009-07-31, 11:38 PM
Have a dwarf cleric that made a decanter, exept it was a stein. It also used beer. Blessed holy beer. Stout most often, but also on command could make porters, lagers, stouts and ales. Pilsners for the elves.

Cant wait to kill undead with some holy double bock.

You know what they say.

You don't buy holy beer. You just rent it.

I don't know if you are getting what I am hinting at here but if you drink enough of it, you could have a handy projectile weapon on you at all times. If you're male, I mean.

MissK
2009-07-31, 11:42 PM
Never tried it, but -- if you are amphibious and walk into a room filled with poison gas, can you dump one of those over your head, breathe the water and survive?

BobVosh
2009-07-31, 11:53 PM
You know what they say.

You don't buy holy beer. You just rent it.

I don't know if you are getting what I am hinting at here but if you drink enough of it, you could have a handy projectile weapon on you at all times. If you're male, I mean.

Both genders can drink enough to make a projectile out of it. It is just chunkier.