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Lysander
2009-10-30, 01:28 PM
If you open a Gate leading to a plane with a different atmosphere, do you need to worry about it spilling through? For example if you opened a plane into the elemental plane of water would a torrent of water burst out? Would creatures on the other side be sucked through the portal by the current? This also goes for other planes, for example soil pouring out of a plane to the elemental plane of earth or flames bursting from the plane of fire.

Another question. Can you open a Gate between two locations in the same plane, or only between planes?

Moriato
2009-10-30, 01:39 PM
A gate cannot be opened to another point on the same plane; the spell works only for interplanar travel.


As for the first question, it doesn't say. It's up to your dm, I guess, to determine exactly how the gate works, but I can think of reasons why it might work either way.

It would probably be best to default to no, only creatures and objects that willing go through or are pushed through get through the gate. Otherwise you'd probably never be able to get through a gate to the elemental plane of water because of the huge torrent of water pouring out, for example. As far as the plane of earth goes, it would have to open up into a pocket in the earth, otherwise you'd be gating into solid stone or dirt, which I'm pretty sure you can't do.

Harperfan7
2009-10-30, 04:02 PM
I did a lot of searching to figure out if you could do that very thing, and there is nothing in the book that says no. It also doesn't specify which way the gate has to point, so you could drain a harbor by putting one on the sea floor and face it upwards.

The gate can only lead to another plane of existence.

bosssmiley
2009-10-31, 07:40 AM
If you open a Gate leading to a plane with a different atmosphere, do you need to worry about it spilling through? For example if you opened a plane into the elemental plane of water would a torrent of water burst out? Would creatures on the other side be sucked through the portal by the current? This also goes for other planes, for example soil pouring out of a plane to the elemental plane of earth or flames bursting from the plane of fire.

Another question. Can you open a Gate between two locations in the same plane, or only between planes?

Consult your DM for all the above. Some treat gate as an open planar rift (with all the water/lava/demon-spewing hilarity implied thereby), others treat it like a planar airlock.

Manual of the Planes is relevant here.

Myshlaevsky
2009-10-31, 07:58 AM
Consult your DM for all the above. Some treat gate as an open planar rift (with all the water/lava/demon-spewing hilarity implied thereby), others treat it like a planar airlock.

Manual of the Planes is relevant here.

Is that a subtle recommendation?

I'd generally prefer the airlock thing, if only to stop your players working out how to abuse the other one.

Dimers
2009-10-31, 09:43 AM
It would probably be best to default to no, only creatures and objects that willing go through or are pushed through get through the gate.

I ask for your personal opinion, here, not a rule. What would happen if a willing creature threw an unwilling creature at the opening?

jcsw
2009-10-31, 10:16 AM
The waterflow wouldn't be anywhere near as strong as you'd imagine.


Elemental Plane Of Water

The Elemental Plane of Water is a sea without a floor or a surface, an entirely fluid environment lit by a diffuse glow. It is one of the more hospitable of the Inner Planes once a traveler gets past the problem of breathing the local medium.

The eternal oceans of this plane vary between ice cold and boiling hot, between saline and fresh. They are perpetually in motion, wracked by currents and tides. The plane’s permanent settlements form around bits of flotsam and jetsam suspended within this endless liquid. These settlements drift on the tides of the Elemental Plane of Water.

The Elemental Plane of Water has the following traits.

* Subjective directional gravity. The gravity here works similar to that of the Elemental Plane of Air. But sinking or rising on the Elemental Plane of Water is slower (and less dangerous) than on the Elemental Plane of Air.
* Water-dominant.
* Enhanced magic. Spells and spell-like abilities that use or create water are both extended and enlarged (as if the Extend Spell and Enlarge Spell metamagic feats had been used on them, but the spells don’t require higher-level slots). Spells and spell-like abilities that are already extended or enlarged are unaffected by this benefit.
* Impeded magic. Spells and spell-like abilities with the fire descriptor (including spells of the Fire domain) are impeded.


No gravity on objects (ie water). Water pressure due to gravity becomes insignificant. The interface between the air of the material plane and the water of the plane of water would, in all likelyhood, actually have a net movement going into the plane of water.

Of course, by extension of this logic. This would mean that humans would explode on the plane of air due to this. So. Physics may work differently there.

jseah
2009-10-31, 11:04 AM
I answered this before, including the gravity problem. Not sure if I'm right, but it looks right to me:

The pressure problem
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6913268&postcount=83

The gravity problem
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6925207&postcount=128

If you (as DM) decide that the plane of water is going to have a pressure of 1 atmosphere, do remember that you're not going to get anything out of a Gate to the Elemental Plane of Water. (1 atm there = 1 atm here = no net pressure = no net flow)

You can drain an ocean into the Plane of Water though, since oceans are at higher pressure than 1 atm.

Moriato
2009-10-31, 02:14 PM
I ask for your personal opinion, here, not a rule. What would happen if a willing creature threw an unwilling creature at the opening?

That would be the "pushed through" part I was talking about. Pretty sure if you get pushed into an active gate, you're going to go through it.