Ideas for using Magic as Technology [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Slayn82

2009-12-13, 02:06 PM

Hello fellow playgrounders.

After reading some old threads that explored the topic, and due to some discussions that i have around, i was thinking about how most fantasy settings dont explore well the potential of Magic in name of keeping the status quo. Sometimes because the DM dont know much about the theme. So my proposal is that we post our ideas for ways that D&D spells could be used to emulate technology.

My first sugestion is that you could go for using permanent firewalls (2000XP for permanency) to heat industrial boilershttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiler, and then transfer the power throught line shaftinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_shaft. Now you have the basis for your steampunk society. Watch out for huge explosions, thought. Well, at least if /when your BBEG dies, you have an excuse...

If you fancy ice cream, you can alter the spell to be cold based, and use it to freeze foods for your cities. Just put the food in a resistant cart, and throw it throught. Also produce ice at your heart's content, and make the salt commerce take a hit.

If you prefer something more modern, alter the same spell to be eletric based, and put enought conductors in the room, taking the eletricity to storage batteries. Now you have an eletric powerstation.

Acid based firewall could be very usefull for removing corrosion of pieces, but its somewhat limited. Maybe to refine ores, removing impurities?

Sonic based firewall uses is a puzzle, still thinking about it.

Also, there is the classic "lots of zombies chained at wheels, feral, winding the weels as they try to get a livestock in a cage nearby". Good by not requiring XP to set up, and being an effective weapon too (just use an invisible servant to release the undead). If you have control undead and invisibility to undead spells, mindless undead's danger factor is easily controlable.

jseah

2009-12-13, 02:23 PM

Permanent Gust of Wind in a box can lift things and make airships fly.
Well, more like rocket around.
It's also less engineering intensive to set up a Gust of Wind powered line-shaft than a boiler based one.

Permanent Gust of Wind could be used to pressurize or depressurize a room. Not sure what that could be useful for... =/

Other things like decanter of endless water at the top of a tower could net a tower of waterwheels anywhere you like. And a small stream for irrigation as well.

That said, your boiler idea is a good one. I'll snitch it.
The mages don't have to care if the boiler is heat efficient or not, it doesn't need fuel. What they want is maximum power output. That changes a few things in boiler design. Like putting in any number of safety valves.

Have you read the thread about abusing Ring Gates and Portable Holes yet? Or maybe you don't want mages to have a PhD in relativistic physics... XD

root9125

2009-12-13, 02:29 PM

Short answer:

Read Eberron.

Megaduck

2009-12-13, 02:31 PM

Permanent Gust of Wind could be used to pressurize or depressurize a room. Not sure what that could be useful for... =/

Well, Vacuum Distillation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_distillation) comes to mind. You might also be able to use it in air conditioning to move cool air through a ventilation system and through a permanent cone of cold.

jseah

2009-12-13, 02:56 PM

Good point about the vacuum distillation.

You could run a rotating line shaft, a high-pressure line and a vacuum line to wherever you could need such a thing.

Since the Gust of Wind spell fixes the air flow at a certain speed, pressure of anywhere from 0 to pressurized condensation of nitrogen can be achieved.

High pressure lines can be used to power air guns that fire small metal pellets at velocities high enough to punch through steel plate.
Or serve as a source of hydralic pressure to lift impossibly heavy things. Like houses or even whole sections of pre-fab wall.

Vacuum lines can be used for alchemical processing. (the vacuum distillation Megaduck mentioned)
Or simply to power vacuum cleaners, your housekeeping staff will love you.
Depressurized rooms can be used as vacuum traps, or to alter air flow to prevent a gas attack.

Line shafts drive various mechanisms, like opening gates, raising/lowering bridges, milling, pumping and if you're good enough at engineering, anything post-industrial.
Most of our electric motor powered machines can be replaced with a line-shaft powered one if it doesn't need to move around.
Or power a crane in a warehouse.

And then layer quintessence over the stuff to prevent them from wearing out. XD

Optimystik

2009-12-13, 02:58 PM

Short answer:

Read Eberron.

Pretty much this, yeah.

Giegue

2009-12-13, 03:05 PM

Depending on how high tech you want to go, any electric spell could potentinally be used as a source of energy. In fact, if a would be "Tesla mage" found a way to have some kind of artifact continously cast an electric spell to be converted to power, you could have an emensly high tech society based on free energy. Role playing, item making and world building for such a world would be emensly enjoyable, at least to me. I can already see a lot of neat plots surounding such a setting. It would allow for CEOs of megacorps as BBEGs, robots and mecha and lots of other fun things. That may be too high tech for some, but it would be an interesting break from your typical D&D world. Kinda like a less gritty, more romantic, magic heavy(as appose to magic light) shadowrun.

Aron Times

2009-12-13, 03:07 PM

I second Eberron.

kieza

2009-12-13, 03:59 PM

I'm working on a steampunk setting right now. Basically, except for the dwarves, nobody has the level of metallurgy to make steel strong enough for, say, steam engines, or firearms, or whatever...but they have magic to reinforce it. For a steam engine, you build a boiler out of whatever metal you can come up with, and then cast Bolster Object to keep it from bursting and something to seal it if there are leaks (using 4e here). Voila, you have the critical part of a steam engine made out of, say, pig iron. Same thing with the barrels for firearms.

So, we've got metallurgy down. What next? Electricity? You should have no problem getting a device that produces a small charge. String enough together, or scale it up a bit, and you have a power plant. You can then use it for telegraphs, lighting (although an everburning torch is more convenient), to replace steam power in fixed locations. You'd want a physical distribution system, though, with lines all over the place like in real life. For that matter, it might be cheaper to generate with a steam boiler. Or to sell the generators to people for their homes to cut down on transmission loss.

Planes? Airships. Possibly steam-powered propulsion (boiler powers turbines which turn propellers) with magic keeping it in the air.

The trick with combining tech and magic is to meet somewhere in the middle. The idea for a boiler incorporating its own permanent fire is great...if you really, REALLY need it never to go out. If you have something that's not vital, not mobile, and can be maintained regularly, fueling it with coal (or some alchemical distillate fuel) is a much preferred alternative to fueling it with magic...which is the motive for the rise of steam power in my setting. Sure, a caster can do something really well, with lots of really cool features, that'll last a really long time, for a really high price. Whereas an industrial foundry where they stamp out swords day in, day out only needs it done decently, with basic features, that'll last long enough that it's cost efficient.

As an econ major, I feel obligated to go into the math here: you said 2000 XP for the permanency, right? So, if I'm remembering my 3.5 rules right, that's 100,000 gp for the enchantment on top of what it costs for the physical apparatus. Let's assume that a mage-built steam engine lasts forever, and that a standard one lasts twenty years. The cost of the physical apparatus is X. Assume a discount factor of 10%. That is, people are indifferent between 90 gp now and 100 next year. With this we can solve for the annual cost of coal fuel C that would make a cheap boiler efficient: 100,000 + X > (1/(1-.1))(.05X + C), which gives us C < .85X + 5000.

Assuming I've gotten the math right, people are going to want the cheap, coal-fueled boiler unless a) coal costs more than 85% of the price of the apparatus plus 5000 gp per year (unlikely, since coal is, what, 1 gp per lb? Even if the apparatus is free, we're talking 2.5 tons of coal a year.) or b) they don't have sufficient access to coal or other fuel (i.e. the boiler is for a machine that needs to be operated away from supplies, or may be besieged and cut off, or would have disastrous consequences if it ran out).

Okay, after that diversion, my point is that rational people wouldn't build a magically fueled boiler unless they really needed to. Now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't combine tech and magic; it should just be smaller scale: instead of your 100,000 gp spell for permanent fuel, maybe a 500 gp spell to make the boiler better insulated and reduce fuel costs. Maybe some sort of custom Mage Hand to pull the safety lever if the pressure gets too high. Small, affordable stuff, not huge, expensive stuff.

Slayn82

2009-12-13, 05:06 PM

Well, good ideas all around, nice to see this much interest.

Short answer:

Read Eberron.

Hello root :smallbiggrin: i dont have Eberron, so i never had a look at how the setting deals with this question. Will try to correct this mistake soon.

Have you read the thread about abusing Ring Gates and Portable Holes yet? Or maybe you don't want mages to have a PhD in relativistic physics... XD

I am thinking about anything that could be reasonable with our world natural laws, so out goes the peasant railgun and the likes. That said, if someone decides to make a particle acelerator...:smallamused:

And i forgot about Vacuum Distilation, shame on me:smallredface: (chemist here) well, at least distilling tar would be easy, for some pretty good chemicals and rubber.

Also, creating Vacuum could enable a lot of nasty traps, not like there is a shortage of them in a tipical D&D world. Better yet, indirect effects would bypass an anti magic field. Your genius is apreciated, jseah.

So, could we get the hot air of a wall of fire down a corridor with gust of wind? Or the cold air from a wall of ice? Interesting. A wall of iron or cooper could be used as a diathermic to transfer heat between 2 chambers, and send the normal air around, bypassing spell resistance or anti magic fields. And the idea of harnessing liquid nitrogen or streams of acid is good.

Kieza, i like your ideas. The main reason why i suggested wall of fire is that it doesnt generates that much smoke, and it can be kept around without depending of external suplies that could be taken by enemies. And at 25gp/XP, its actually 50,000gp for the permanency. And dont get you a bunch of angry druids. Also, brass would be fine for most boilers, and better materials could be obtained thanks to a fabricate spell. For eletricity, metamagiced Wall of Fire to cause eletric damage.

The thing is that suposedly Wizards are academics that try to advance the magic and arcane. But what do they do for their societies in most games? Especially ironic given that wizards are supposed to shy from the dangers of adventuring.

Also, on the offensive side, fireballs can melt "metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze(brass)." So we could pour large amounts of molten brass over our enemies too, maybe even fill up a room?

Foryn Gilnith

2009-12-13, 05:54 PM

I think Tippyverse is closer to magical "reality" than Eberron is.

Eberron does not use magic as technology, at least not in this sense. Rather than using magic to produce and exploit physical effects, they just brute-force mystic power. The Lightning Rail at no point involves lightning - it just moves due to massive magical input from Cannith conductor stones. They might as well have gotten Elminister to make the Lightning Rail Mythal or some bull. Very disappointing.

jseah

2009-12-13, 05:56 PM

Firstly, going off the price of a scroll, the cost for 1xp is 5gp.

That makes the cost of a 2000xp Permanency equal to spell cost + 10k.
5x12x10 + 10 000 + 4x7x10 = 10 880gp for a permanent wall of fire
wall of fire - level 4 spell, caster 7
permanency - level 5 spell, caster 12, 2000xp
I'm using the price of hiring a spellcaster to cast the spell instead of scrolls. Since that's the more likely solution.

################################

I looked at the low melting point clause. Ouch. I never noticed that before.

Here's a simple application:
A pressure plate triggered trap zaps the person on the plate with a fireball. Standard magic trap.

The catch is that the ceiling has lead plates on it. And the room is only 10ft high. The plates melt, and cover everything in the room with molten lead (for more fire damage). The second phase of the trap activates one round later and launches a cold-version fireball and freezes the lead solid, encasing everything with a layer of lead.
How do you like your armour welded to your skin? XD

Nice find there.

################################

The ring gate thing doesn't violate any laws of physics we have. Well, ok the Ring Gate itself does. Everything else we do doesn't.

Think about it. Whatever you put through one Gate comes out the other side without actually touching the Gate. You can wiggle the Gate or the object around and the other won't experience force.

This means you just violated the law of conservation of momentum. IE. momentum going in one direction can come out in another direction. This can be used to convert forces to all point the same way.

You get to circumvent the weight limit by never pushing an object completely through the Gate. (things that are partially pushed through and withdrawn do not count to the limit)
The rods you use have safety disks welded to them that are larger than the Gate so they won't even accidentally slip through it.

http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/?action=view&current=RingGateDrive.jpg
In this one, I redirect the force of gravity in another direction to push against a wall.

http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/?action=view&current=DriveAmplifier.jpg
This one forces the outer casing to move as faster as the inner casing is going, without communicating the force back to the inner one.

http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/?action=view&current=SpringDrive.jpg
This one generates as much force as needed, up to the amount needed to break your spring.
Temporal Stasis / Quintessence makes the spring invulnerable...

I strongly recommend we don't apply these. Since the objective of the thread that spawned these ideas started from a stardrive powerful enough to destabilize the Moon's orbit... =/

################################

Let's say our world doesn't have magic powerful enough to build a STAR drive and destroy the plane with an infinite energy burst...

What can we do with cheap electricity (electric version of wall of fire), permanent free artificial lighting (Everburning Torch, cheap boiler power (wall of fire) and a very effective air pump (Gust of Wind)?

Well, we can stop there and go all steampunk. With steampowered airships kept aloft with Gust of Wind in a box, using high-pressure air cannons to duke it out in the skies while the cities slowly industrialize and build factories everywhere.
Or super-fast fighter planes powered solely through Gust of Wind rocketing around, with Permanent Solid Fog around a docking tower as a landing strip.

Or we can take it further and crank magic up to the Ring Gate level, and have Star Wars.
Battleships fire relativistic missiles at each other, trying to get past Prismatic Wall shields with Rods of Cancellation. Or they just slag a planet with them. Any emergency gets a Battleship-class starship simply teleporting into the local space and solving the threat with excessive violence.
Colony ships FTL to an unknown star (Doctor Rocktopus came up with the idea of bending space with a Portable Hole) and carry a Teleportation Circle with them. You could colonize a planet and build a city in weeks.
The Universal Databank is really just a bunch of wizards Shapechanged into Air Weirds (MM2) for the at will free action SU divination, using unlimited questions to divine the answers to anything and everything in the universe, including divination immune subjects. Theoretical Science is a defunct field.

TheThan

2009-12-13, 06:43 PM

How about you turn it idea on its head, and use technology as magic.

Think of a society where they only have the basic grasps of technology, sort of a semi-dark ages state, but other more advanced technology exists. But the advanced technology is shunned and feared by the general populous. The few people who use advanced tech are considered witches or sorcerers. Children are taught to stay away from them, they get run out of town by a screaming mob with torches, that sort of stuff.

Androgeus

2009-12-13, 08:00 PM

TheThan

2009-12-14, 02:04 AM

Fits this quote quite nicely

Exactly, that’s sort of the idea.

Imagine a situation where technology led to the downfall of mankind. Out of the ruins rises the survivors, weak and frail with no food or shelter. They band together and start rebuilding their society. But here’s the catch, they remembered what brought their society down, and now fear that it would happen again. So they begin to ban technology. Imagine them writing holy scriptures that contain lists of what sorts of items are blessed and what are not.

Then there are the rebels and explorers, the ones that head out into the wastes and start to rediscover more of what they lost. But these trinkets and bits of tech are not allowed by the church, they are unclean and forbidden, using them will bring about another cataclysm and it’ll be a cold day in hell before the priests let that happen.

Some conform, but others decide that they have nothing to fear from using this lost technology, so they start learn how to use and maybe even repair some of it. They do it in secret, for using such technology is not only blasphemous but dangerous. Eventually some of these people are found out, and to escape the prejudice and intolerance, these people fled into the wastes. There they spend their time adventuring, learning of the “magic” they discover and wielding it to defend themselves. Slowly they learn that there is nothing “magical” about the bits of technology they have and they begin to master its use.

With time their exploits become stories, and stories become legends, eventually these people are regarded as witches and sorcerers, strangers with powers far beyond that of normal folk. They are feared and hated by normal folk, but none can deny, sometimes there are jobs only a sorcerer can complete.

... ok now I have a new D20 future (Apocalypse) setting

Ganurath

2009-12-14, 02:51 AM

Permanent animate object on a cog creates a steampunk machine with a simple command: Start spinning (counter)clockwise when [trigger event] occurs. The trigger could be a key turning on a motorized tricycle carriage, a level being pulled for gate control at the city wall, or the direction controls on the elevator disc, which has gears attached to a toothed pillar.

The field of weaponry lets you get a tad crazy: With an animated wheel inside the guard and a trigger on the grip, a chainsword becomes a viable option. That alone is reason enough, but when you add in springblades, self-winching crossbows and ballistae, and power armor (animated full plate ordered to aid the actions of the wearer) then it just has to be done.

Slayn82

2009-12-14, 07:09 AM

Thats a golden one. If a given cog is a tiny animated object, and moves 80ft. per round, making it double move its 160ft. At this point, i convert it to 48.768 m/round or 8.128m/second. A tipical value for the speed of the chain in a 1800W chainsaw is 13.5m/second with a 40 cm blade. I guess its close enought, specially with a adamant chain. Even with str 8, thats gonna be a lot of Torque, enought to make a good bite.

But as the sistem increases, the required Torque becomes way larger, but larger cogs would have better emcumbrances to realize their jobs. The trouble is that due to how the animate spell and the encumbrance rules work, small objects are probably the best for powering structures (since each one has 3/4 of the encumbrance of a medium object, and the strenght increase is too little, and the spell animates more small objects anyway).

The XP cost for Permanency is a little high (3000XP per object?), and using Ravids is a little of in my book, but feasible. Or maybe just use craft wondrous item already. For some objects, it would probably be best animating the entire thing.

DragoonWraith

2009-12-14, 08:11 AM

Exactly, that’s sort of the idea.

Imagine a situation where technology led to the downfall of mankind. Out of the ruins rises the survivors, weak and frail with no food or shelter. They band together and start rebuilding their society. But here’s the catch, they remembered what brought their society down, and now fear that it would happen again. So they begin to ban technology. Imagine them writing holy scriptures that contain lists of what sorts of items are blessed and what are not.
Final Fantasy X has some of this, with the Al Bhed being very vehemently hated for their use of machinas (not the proper Latin plural, but I believe it is what they use).

AslanCross

2009-12-14, 08:23 AM

Eberron does not have magic as an industrial force, if that's what you're asking for. It's still the monopoly of guilds and skilled laborers. Your average neighborhood magewright (who is probably deputized by a Dragonmarked House anyway) could probably churn out a few dozen image projectors a month, but the really shiny stuff like airships (flying, rocket-powered ships driven by trapped air or fire elementals--no, they're not dirigibles), the lightning rail, and warforged are the exclusive purview of the Dragonmarked Houses.

Life in Eberron is relatively more comfortable for commoners since they benefit from the technology in some ways. However, you only really get Gnome Text Messaging, MagLev monorail, and Weather Control if you're very wealthy.

dsmiles

2009-12-14, 08:29 AM

I was once DMing for a group that bought an inn, and managed to invent hot and cold running water using heat metal/chill metal, and create food/drink. They also managed to invent working toilets that incinerated the waste instead of dumping it into any type of sewer system, but I can't remember how.

Johel

2009-12-14, 08:31 AM

Also, there is the classic "lots of zombies chained at wheels, feral, winding the weels as they try to get a livestock in a cage nearby". Good by not requiring XP to set up, and being an effective weapon too (just use an invisible servant to release the undead). If you have control undead and invisibility to undead spells, mindless undead's danger factor is easily controlable.

This.

That's just the most efficient mechanical engine ever.
Use skeletons rather than zombies : they are cheaper and move faster.
Make it skeleton rats if you really want to stereotype the whole wheel thing.

Also, you might be interested to read about the Tippyverse and its creative use of magic traps. "Create Food and Water" traps to feed the proletarians, combined with lot's of Teleportation Circles to transport the food everywhere. Alternatively, for less XP cost but more gold cost, Greater Teleport traps work too. There are dozen of such society-friendly "traps". Just search Tippyverse or Emperor Tippy.

As for the use of spells only, [Permanency + Animate Objects + Unguent of Timelessness] on a Gigantic-sized full-plate armor gives you a loyal, tireless servant, extremely resilient to damage and with a carrying capacity of 5.600 lb. If the Permanency can be shared on several objects, you can even have 16 Small-sized similar servants but whose individual carrying capacity is only 50 lb, which is still better than most human workforce can accomplish (tireless, I repeat, tireless !!)

Ormur

2009-12-14, 09:39 AM

dsmiles

2009-12-14, 09:47 AM

Short answer:

Read Eberron.

IMHO, Eberron did a poor job of it.

bosssmiley

2009-12-14, 09:57 AM

Short answer:

Read Eberron BECMI D&D's Book of Wondrous Inventions.

If not the BoWI (Jim Holloway fanboi *squee!*), then see if you can't find a copy of TSR's old Magitech game, which was set in a magic-as-tech world.

Eberron did not spring upon the world ex nihilo.

How about you turn it idea on its head, and use technology as magic.

Think of a society where they only have the basic grasps of technology, sort of a semi-dark ages state, but other more advanced technology exists. But the advanced technology is shunned and feared by the general populous. The few people who use advanced tech are considered witches or sorcerers. Children are taught to stay away from them, they get run out of town by a screaming mob with torches, that sort of stuff.

We called that game either Gamma World, or Fading Suns. The latter even had a sourcebook called Forbidden Lore: Technology. The mechanics were wonky, but the chapters on technosophy (worship of tech), the luddite Inquisition (they like picture comics, coz words can get in your head and change you...), and future computers as a combination of oracle and puzzle were gold.

Johel

2009-12-14, 10:12 AM

I made a whole thread about mage hand pumps because I wanted plumbing for my keep on flat ground. I also included purify food/water and prestidigitation for clean and hot water. Neither plumbing nor pumps are industrial but a single mage hand object can create a surprising amount of work if it's continuous. The math is in another thread somewhere but it was at least more than enough to pump a daily requirement of water 12 metres up to a water tank on the roof. A stationary pump that couldn't be removed would cost 500 gp (as per the SBG) and portable ones 1000 gp if using the custom items rules from the DMG but I don't know how you'd calculate the multiplier for a continuous item of a spell that has a duration of "concentration".

For the concentration, you don't.

You use the "Violent Thrust" of Telekinesis.
The duration of that specific effect is 1 round.
If you want to kill a catgirl, you can calculate what working force is needed to hurl a 225 lb object 90 feet away in 6 seconds : that's the amount of force Telekinesis develops at Caster Level 9.

Ravens_cry

2009-12-14, 10:23 AM

Johel

2009-12-14, 10:32 AM

Very basic idea, geysering decanter of endless water waterwheel. If you need more power, just get more flasks.
Also zombies and skellies don't even NEED the livestock bait, you just order them to run.

@Decanters :
Perfect !!

@Order the skeletons :
Naaaan !! :smallamused:
That means we have to actually control them, which might reduce the amount of working running undeads. Better animate 1.000 of them, put a few living humans (that's what convicts are for...) in front of them and have them run to catch the preys. Since the undeads are chained too, they merely make the wheel move.

Ormur

2009-12-14, 10:47 AM

For the concentration, you don't.

You use the "Violent Thrust" of Telekinesis.
The duration of that specific effect is 1 round.
If you want to kill a catgirl, you can calculate what working force is needed to hurl a 225 lb object 90 feet away in 6 seconds : that's the amount of force Telekinesis develops at Caster Level 9.

Telekenisis is too expensive, such an item would cost 360.000 gp according to the custom magic item creation rules.

I think the final calculations for the power of mage hand pump were made in this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6919289&postcount=109), appropriately in a thread called catgirl genocide. My numbers were off but when they were corrected, based on the description of the spell, mage hand could pump 5220 kg/hour up 12 metres. But if I'm supposed to calculated the price of a mage hand item as if the spell only works for a single round that would mean multiplying it by 4 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicitems/creatingmagicitems.htm) so a portable mage hand pump would cost 4000 gp.

Decanter of endless water set to geyser, coupled with a waterwheel would probably be more cost effective since it would only cost 9000 gp + change.

jseah

2009-12-14, 10:51 AM

dsmiles

2009-12-14, 10:55 AM

GAAAHHH!!!!PHYSICS!!!!!
*brain aneurysm*

Ravens_cry

2009-12-14, 11:05 AM

@Order the skeletons :
Naaaan !! :smallamused:
That means we have to actually control them, which might reduce the amount of working running undeads. Better animate 1.000 of them, put a few living humans (that's what convicts are for...) in front of them and have them run to catch the preys. Since the undeads are chained too, they merely make the wheel move.
Skellies are mindless. Not an animal mind, or even a jellyfish mind but mindless in 'they don't move unless ordered to'. Skellies and zombies in D&D are so stupid as to make Romeros look like geniuses. Putting food in front of them will just make them do. . .nothing. Uncontrolled mindless undead, I believe, simply follow their last orders to the best of their ability. So you simply command 'run', and move onto the next batch. If you want the machine they power to actually STOP, simply disengage the gears while it is in motion. Basically, you have to invent a transmission.

Slayn82

2009-12-14, 11:43 AM

It's actually really hard to beat the wall of fire in terms of energy output.

Heat is very inefficient in doing anything. Tons and tons of energy is needed just to boil water. Similarly, you get tons of energy back out of it.

*cracks knuckles and brings out calculator*
Lets kill some catgirls now. XD

10 ft^2 of ice wall has 3 hp per inch of thickness, full damage from fire.
Wall of Fire deals 2d6+7 at minimum caster = 14 average damage
this allows 10 ft^2 of wall of fire to melt 4 and 2/3 inches of corresponding 10 ft^2 of ice.
I'm assuming the ice goes from 0*C ice to 0*C water.

Ice has enthalphy of fusion 333.55 J/g
Ice has a density of 0.9167 g/cm3

We're melting 3 and 8/9 cubic feet of ice. This is 110 121 cubic cm.
Which is 100 947 grams of ice.
This takes 33 671 200 J of energy. Or around 33.7 MJ.

This is per round, so it gives us an output of 5611 kW per 10ft^2 section of firewall.
Wall of fire is 20ft long per level, 20ft high. At minimum caster, we're looking at 140ft long and 20ft high. This is 2800 square ft of firewall.

Placing the net energy output of a minimum CL wall of fire at 1.571 gigawatts of heat.
At the cost of a low 10 880gp. And it lasts basically forever.

Without using random brokenness of ring gates and portable holes, I challenge you to find a better energy generator.

And i thought the Catgirls had magic resistance from all the Dragonballs explosions around.

Personally, while the calculation stands from pure game mechanics, its a little over the top, one of those holes that come from D&D rules of cool (ironically).Well, the Itaipu hydroeletric dam in Brazil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu has a generation capacity of 14GW. Given that "If Brazil were to use Thermal Power Generation to produce the electric power of Itaipu, 434,000 barrels (69,000 m3) of petroleum would have to be burned every day."

Now lets take a look at the Electric arc furnace method for steel refining.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc_furnace

"To produce a ton of steel in an electric arc furnace requires approximately 400 kilowatt-hours per short ton of electricity, or about 440kWh per metric tonne; the theoretical minimum amount of energy required to melt a tonne of scrap steel is 300kWh (melting point 1520°C/2768°F). Therefore, the 300-tonne, 300 MVA EAF mentioned above will require approximately 132 MWh of energy to melt the steel, and a 'power-on time' (the time that steel is being melted with an arc) of approximately 37 minutes, allowing for the power factor. Electric arc steelmaking is only economical where there is plentiful electricity, with a well-developed electrical grid."

A fireball in game probably would have a heat like the order of a modern furnace, but it doesnt have the time. A FIREWALL (from now on i will refer to this spell only on bold letters) providing those kinds of energy is just pure weird. And i was thinking i was going way over the top with just a generation of 800 - 1200HP boiler (here is a reference)
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:LrygYJCy64AJ:www.cni.co.th/download/cni_co_th/kb_conversion%2520of%2520boiler%2520in%2520kg.pdf+ boiler+kw/h&hl=pt-BR&gl=br&sig=AHIEtbS5z-MQ5BimLaNCIMGkwSKtTnRhmA

Edit:
And a 600HP boiler exploding is already a hazard big enought to level small city blocks. Smaller boilers can do significative damage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiler_explosion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWnL8SipXT8&NR=1

Johel

2009-12-14, 12:26 PM

Skellies are mindless. Not an animal mind, or even a jellyfish mind but mindless in 'they don't move unless ordered to'. Skellies and zombies in D&D are so stupid as to make Romeros look like geniuses. Putting food in front of them will just make them do. . .nothing. Uncontrolled mindless undead, I believe, simply follow their last orders to the best of their ability. So you simply command 'run', and move onto the next batch. If you want the machine they power to actually STOP, simply disengage the gears while it is in motion. Basically, you have to invent a transmission.

Which explains why uncontrolled undeads wander and attack on sight in most scenario rather than getting catatonic once their master lost control. Seriously, vermin are mindless too, yet they have some basic instincts, if only conservation.

In addition, skeletons have an alignment despite their lack of intelligence. This, for me, indicate their behavior when confronted to other creatures : they are evil and not exactly the subtle kind, so they cause harm in the more direct way they can.

If uncontrolled undeads simply keep following their last command, then I can raise an army as soon as I hit level 7 by ordering every undead I animate to "protect me". I'll then wander around, animate thousands of undeads and still be able to use them as body guards : as long as nobody threaten me, they won't attack. I can't order them around but I'm still technically in charge of an army...which sounds both cheesy and against the spirit of the rule for me.

Ganurath

2009-12-14, 12:28 PM

jseah

2009-12-14, 01:05 PM

A fireball in game probably would have a heat like the order of a modern furnace, but it doesnt have the time. A FIREWALL (from now on i will refer to this spell only on bold letters) providing those kinds of energy is just pure weird. And i was thinking i was going way over the top with just a generation of 800 - 1200HP boiler (here is a reference)

A 1200 horsepower boiler is WAY too conservative.

Even after assuming a horrendous 10% efficiency, 157 MW all day every day without need for fuel is simply too good to pass up.

Aiming for 10% energy efficiency is easy enough that you can include all sorts of safety devices. Pressure valves, emergency blows, triggerable walls of cold, you name it.

Plus, if you apply quintessence to all the pipes, then they are in temporal stasis and won't ever wear out either.

If your steampunk tech was good enough, you could potentially redirect most of the heat to a hot air rocket. The contraption should be able to generate enough energy to lift itself. It'll be big though, with a minimum dimension of 140x20ft and probably quite a few times more than that.

Furthermore, instead of heating the boiler tank with the wall, simply place the wall inside the water to better capture the heat. You could be looking at 50-80% Carnot efficiency if you optimize it well enough with magical lubricant.

Slayn82

2009-12-14, 01:51 PM

157 MW is a lot of energy. For comparison, the Cana Brava hidroeletric dam in the state i reside has an instaled potency of 471.6MW generated by 3 turbines of 157.2MW. The cost of that instalation was of US$ 420 millions.

A boiler for that amount of heat, even with most D&D magics around, would have to be enormous. I would argue more about the heat generated by a FIREWALL compared with other fire spells, but the fact is that it is somewhat coerent. Why people dont refine steel using FIREWALL is beyond me, it beats using a crucible. Certainly it would drop the price of masterwork weapons a lot, and maybe enable even better ones to be crafted.

And somehow, adventurers cross a FIREWALL easily in higher levels, even without major protections if needed, like its nothing (2d6+caster level? not that much of a threat by lvl 12). FIREWALL isnt competing with coal, its competing with nuclear powerplants now. Impressive.

Instead of powering a small village or a city, it seems this setup is powering Mechanus itself.

jseah

2009-12-14, 02:29 PM

The reason why you don't use wall of fire to melt iron and that adventurers and perhaps even normal people can run straight through it is that the energy isn't focused.

It's spread out over a giant area 2800 sq ft in size. In an inconvienient 20ft vertical wall, 140ft long. You'll be building a boiler half the size of a football field.

Spread over that kind of area, I had the number of 5611 kW per 10 sq ft section.

That's the kind of energy range you might get from a petroluem fire. People could run through one of those with severe burns but survive with medical treatment.

What you have here is a source of heat that will run 20 boilers in a row.

Unless you have electricity, concentrating the energy for arc-welding is simply not possible.

FYI, fire damage is halved then hardness applied before dealing damage to iron. This needs 21 damage minimum before any damage can be dealt to iron. Minimum CL wall of fire max damage is 19. FIREWALL cannot be used for forging.
This is easily explained as conduction removing heat from the iron object as fast as it's being generated. The equilibrium temperature is below iron's melting point.
You might be able to use it as a source of heat for working iron though. Do we have a replacement for a wood-fueled forge here?

CL 9 wall of fire will melt iron though, eventually. So, a buffed CL version of wall of fire could serve as a heat source for processing iron ore into raw iron without need for a blast furnace.

******************************************

The energy calculation is rather screwy though.

In Sandstorm, there's a spell called Wall of Water.
20 points of fire damage in one round applied over 5sq ft section of 1ft of wall of water evaporates it. (it's described as turning to steam)We have 5 cu ft of water that evapourates at 20 fire damage.
5 cu ft = 141 584 cu cm = 141 584 g of water
ΔHvap of water is 2257 kJ per kg = 2257 J per g
Leading to the crazy number of 319 555 613 J.
And that's discounting the energy needed to bring the water from room temperature to 100*C. We'll chalk it up to inefficiencies.
Hence, a CL 13 wall of fire (deals 20 average damage per round), is producing 319 MJ per round per 5 sq ft section...For CL13 max area (260 x 20ft), it has the power output of 55.4 GW.

Crazily enough, if I run the numbers using an Ice wall, I get only 3.26 GW.

Something is wrong here.

I'm inclined to take the second calculation (55.4GW for CL13) as wall of water is obviously more accurate in simulating heat effects on boiling water. But the insanely huge 55 gigawatts and the discrepancy begs some explanation before we take this further.

Johel

2009-12-14, 02:47 PM

The reason why you don't use wall of fire to melt iron and that adventurers and perhaps even normal people can run straight through it is that the energy isn't focused.

It's spread out over a giant area 2800 sq ft in size. In an inconvenient 20ft vertical wall, 140ft long. You'll be building a boiler half the size of a football field.

Spread over that kind of area, I had the number of 5611 kW per 10 sq ft section.

That's the kind of energy range you might get from a petroleum fire. People could run through one of those with severe burns but survive with medical treatment.

I might be dead wrong here (I'm not a physicist).

But given your average soldier has 5 HP and given that a CL7 wall of fire inflicts an average 14 damage points to however cross it and since said crossing will take less than a second, I bet it's actually hot enough to at least make 3rd degree burn to human skin, what with the victim dying shortly after (probably couldn't endure the pain without epidermis...)

Now, given that the same wall of fire inflict an average of 5 damage points to whoever stand up to 10 feet away from it, that means the heat wave alone is enough to kill (or at least render unconscious) a robust human, with a chance for him to be only unconscious.

Finally, given that anybody between 10 and 20 feet away is still going to endure an average of 2 damage points, it means your average commoner (1st level commoner, constitution 10, 1d4hp = 2 hp) is either killed or rendered unconscious by the heat alone, without contact with the flame itself.

The fact that there's no damaging effect once you are more than 20 feet away doesn't mean you don't feel the heat. It just mean you aren't burned immediately by merely standing there for 6 seconds.

If you're concerned about efficiency, what about making the Wall of Fire into a Ring of fire, 10 feet radius, with the heat wave turned inward ? The rules allow for it and that will allow you to accumulate heat at the very center while still producing tremendous amount of heat on the borders.

Slayn82

2009-12-14, 02:52 PM

jseah

2009-12-14, 02:57 PM

Finally, given that anybody between 10 and 20 feet away is still going to endure an average of 2 damage points, it means your average commoner (1st level commoner, constitution 10, 1d4hp = 2 hp) is either killed or rendered unconscious by the heat alone, without contact with the flame itself.
I'm sorry, it's my fault of course. I'm too used to playing in campaigns where the average Joe is a 32 pt buy 4th level PC class.

Right, if we have those observations, then the energy really doesn't match.
Simply running through a firewall of 5000kW over 10 sq ft probably won't kill you, but the rules say it should.

Clearly the wall of fire is outputting significantly more energy than the wall of ice calculation would imply.
Wall of water might be a better estimate. Perhaps the wall of ice number is bugged by the strange "frosty air" that remains.

jseah

2009-12-14, 03:06 PM

I agree with your arguments, especially your comparisson with burning petrol. Well, if you put it that way, now we have a CL 13 FIREWALL supplying 55 GW, that is the estimated consumption per hour of my country, BRAZIL at peak usage during day, and around 40 GW at night. :smalleek:
You haven't taken into account the projected 10% efficiency. So it's around 5.5 GW.

Well, we have the explanation for the industrial revolution. You CAN build an engine big and powerful enough to run an entire factory.
Multiple factories.

Remember that after the 10% efficiency to covert to mechanical power, you still have to deal with friction losses, maintenance, and other random crap in your machines.

In fact, we're probably looking at 1% useful work done.

That's still 0.55 GW though. Per firewall. Of which, you can stack many of them back to back.

So yes, we have our factory problem solved. Effectively infinite usuable mechanical power that you can route virtually anywhere you like.

Steampunk setting, here we come!

I'm now trying to work out what would happen if you could get 50% efficiency from the boiler in generating thrust from a rocket.

It might actually beat the Gust of Wind in a box in sheer lifting power. The boiler could potentially be used for heavier-than-air powered flight.

Slayn82

2009-12-14, 03:09 PM

Clearly the wall of fire is outputting significantly more energy than the wall of ice calculation would imply.
Wall of water might be a better estimate. Perhaps the wall of ice number is bugged by the strange "frosty air" that remains.

Good saving throw:smallwink:

So, i guess selectivelly destroing some sections of the firewall before casting permanency, or using a wall of stone to smolder it, wold allow to turn the process more controlable for small, non Tippy scale use.

jseah

2009-12-14, 03:20 PM

Or using the earlier suggestion of turning into a ring facing inwards and using it as a much easier to handle cylinder heating. I can't be bothered to do the energy calculations for that, but it'll be simply proportional to the area of the wall.

Slayn82

2009-12-14, 03:22 PM

dsmiles

2009-12-14, 03:27 PM

Alright, now. I'm a power systems engineer, and this is getting a little carried away.

50 walls of fire to power the whole world? It's madness. Unless I was a wizard, I'd be out of a job! :smalltongue:

Johel

2009-12-14, 03:35 PM

Gah!!!

According with oficial agencies in the Brazilian energy sector, we produce 2.2% of the electric energy in the world. USA produces 24%. So 12 FIREWALLS output could supply the entire United States with energy. Or around 50 FIREWALLS for the whole modern world.:smalleek:

Sooo... Next time you play a 12th level wizard, you're going to collect a lot of CR5 creatures, cast wall of fire + permanency, kill the creatures, then start again...

12 permanent walls of fire would cost around 24.000 XP
That's about 80 CR5 encounters when you are 12th level.
Orca are considered CR5 and Blue Whales are considered CR6... Let's go fishing !! It's for the Greater Good !! :smallbiggrin:

In D&D economy, it only take 80 whales to get unlimited supply of energy !!

jseah

2009-12-14, 03:38 PM

Slayn82

2009-12-14, 03:46 PM

Ok, now D&D has to worry about global warming and the preservation of Whales. (Not that metamagic altered Walls of Fire to Cold element could not be used to reduce the effect).

Johel

2009-12-14, 03:47 PM

Firstly, efficiency matters means we can't possibly do that. Heat engines are limited by Carnot efficiency and a water boiler are using wall of fire as a source of heat.

You probably can't get much more than 60% efficiency even if you tried really hard. Which there's no incentive to really.

10% efficiency means at least 500 boilers. Transmission problems and utilization efficiencies might bring that up to 5 or 10 thousand of them.

Still, the ability to make a powerplant anywhere you like (it needs no cost beyond startup capital and maintenance) and output as much energy as any large power station will solve the world's energy problems with relatively few of them.

In a pseudo-medieval world, it would solve the energy problem.
It would simply create the concept of public energy distribution, period, without anybody ever knowing of something called "energy problem".

The first wizard to get that one out of his hat would basically make the whole society jump from iron age to something close to early 20th century in a matter of months.

Seeing how our own technological revolution got carried away after we mastered electricity, one can only wonder how many more months it would take for a benevolent and active magocracy to reach the space age and then conquers nearby star systems.

Of course, once in space, the dynamic of most spells would have to be rethought. Welcome to Spelljammer, by the way...

Ok, now D&D has to worry about global warming and the preservation of Whales. (Not that metamagic altered Walls of Fire to Cold element could not be used to reduce the effect).

Actually, since very few carbon is burned in the process of creating the heat, your FIREWALL plants are only slightly less green than an wind-powered plant. The only real emission is in the form of vapor if you use water as a medium to produce electricity.

And, in a world where most fishery is done along the coastline, even killing something like 8.000 whales wouldn't endanger the species. That means your D&D setting could have up to 100 FIREWALL plants, each with 12 walls of fire, and still be green.

Slayn82

2009-12-14, 04:03 PM

Well, for expanding the energy distribution system, nothing beats a skilled bard with a Lyre of Building, playing for hours. The city will sure be noisy with all the weels, cogs and shafts turning around

jseah

2009-12-14, 04:33 PM

In actual fact, I'm building a setting with the weird mix of standard medieval fantasy and these innovations.

It's slightly different from the standard D&D world in that people level by age in addition to normal xp. So humanoids range from level 4 to 7 over their lifespan (adult to venerable).
And that the standard distribution is 32 pt buy.

A number of things aren't possible due to the low CL cap on widespread use of magic but limited things, like wall of fire, can be gotten by bargaining with high-CL outsiders.

In particular, here are a few things I've considered to be part of a post-industrial D&D social system:

Basic Income Movement (infrastructure 5% complete)
- 40% food tax on all citizens until they pay 350gp
- All citizens get an Everlasting Ration (CL5, 350gp, MIC)
- 40% water supply tax on all citizens until they pay 2000gp
- Free piped water supply to all homes, public spaces have potable water fountains (Decanter of Endless Water, CL9, 9k gp)

Bardic Guild of Masonry
- Owns 100+ Lyre of Buildings
- Members study performance and architecture
- Building prices drop by 300x
- Stone hauling prices rise by 10x
- Psions create Quintessence for use in inaccessible building preservation (eg. water pipes)

Magical Development Bill
- Government subsidized development of magical goods production
- Magical ingredients have lowered cost (-5%)

Faithful Convent of Agricultural Practices and Population Sustenance
- Plant growth use to massively increase crop yeild (90x crop production)
- Clerics also undergo medical training and serve as medical practioners
- Archons provide constant light sources

Magical Education Bill
- Education for children aged less than 15 is compulsory
- Magical/Psionic/Religious education is optional but highly encouraged

Identification Act
- All people are issued an ID card that is embedded with silver, losing this is a minor offence (finable)
- ID cards have microprint and a picture on them to prevent easy forging
- Making a new card involves lots of tests to ensure identity
- High ranking people have more bling on the card. Watermarks, stereoscopic pictures, adamantine strands, arcane mark or even illusory script.
- An alternative to the card is a wristband.
- Cards have unique ID numbers. Easy to search for with Divination as specifying the exact card is easy.

Undead and Free Will Act
- Non-intelligent undead are destroyed on sight
- Intelligent undead must wear special ID tags
- Use of propagation abilities nets capital punishment
- Use on willing targets under strict conditions requiring instant release of control is allowed and must be mediated by the church

Central Bank
- Savings Accounts
- Loans
- Safe Deposit

Non-humanoid Magical Contracts
- non-humanoid peoples are less rare
- sometimes done through planar binding

- Pixie: permanent image 1/day
- Forests will not be cut for wood without prior agreement
- Sprite communities allowed to accept tourists, tourists must obey the law of those communities
- Pixies are covered by the Basic Income Movement (paid by permanent image services)
- ~400 present

- Lantern Archon: greater teleport 50lbs at will
- All churches must be good-aligned
- Doctrine must be approved by higher order angels
- ~700 present
- Serve as messengers and important goods courier
- Provide continual flame lighting (Everburning Torch costs 1gp)

- Gelatinous Cubes are bred for their trash disposal
- Dissolves everything but metal and stone
- Metal is melted and recycled
- Stone is crushed to powder and made into cement
- ~2000
- Undergoes binary fission when it reaches 30k lbs

The Big Dice

2009-12-14, 04:59 PM

Why bother using magic to emulate technology? With magic to do all the work for you, there's no need to even develop the technology you're trying to copy. Just do it with magic already.

jseah

2009-12-14, 05:12 PM

Because automation is a desirable thing, regardless of whether you're using magic or not.

Randel

2009-12-14, 05:24 PM

Create a weird magical version of the Internet and Wikipedia.

1. Get a really big library.
2. Develop something like the Dewey Decimal system to organize all the information
3. Build several more really big libraries.
4. Invent a magical printing/fax machine that can copy the information in one book or scroll and send it to another library where its used to create another book. Some sort of combined Sending/Fabrication mix could work.
5. Collect all the books in the world and organize them, then copy them into all the different libraries.
6. Make money by having people pay for library memberships, have kingdoms pay to have the libraries running, selling books created via the fabrication process, and advertisements and such.
7. Constantly increase and innovate the organization scheme, perhaps make a sort of 'search engine' into a magical database that can search through all the books in the library for phrases and things.
8. With the omni-search engine built into the library then writers and scholars can easily access information to speed up their work.
9. Eventually create a magical book that can re-write itself to be like any of the books in the library. It would basically be a laptop computer and the library is the server or database of information. Since all the library databases are set up to back-up their books into eachother then its unlikely that information could be permanently destroyed.
10. After the number of books in the world starts to increase exponentially from all the literacy in the world... invest in more efficient forms of data storage or build a gateway to a demiplane where you can store all the books (you may have to create a separate demiplane to store all the porn).

Slayn82

2009-12-14, 05:29 PM

Well, worldbuilding sounds fun. Here's some thoughts

-Walls of Stone spells could be used to make acqueducts to transport the water around.
- Public Transportation is feasible, throught cable sistems.
- Taverns and Bathhouses with hot water.
- In the cities, some kind of mail service could be disponible thanks to vacuum tubes.
- If Ring gates are disponible, pistons or axis could transmit the potency from a boiler instalation to a moving machine, allowing things like big trucks, battle machines or even mechanical Colossus to exist.

The Big Dice

2009-12-14, 05:50 PM

Because automation is a desirable thing, regardless of whether you're using magic or not.

Automation takes power away from the people with the power. That is, the ones who can use the magic. In a world where magic replaces technology, that's not a desirable situation. It makes the wizards upset when people come up with ways to do what they do, even if it involves them doing what they do.

This kind of world would be all about the monopoly, after all.

jseah

2009-12-14, 05:59 PM

This kind of world would be all about the monopoly, after all.
Precisely. And if the wizards are the ones casting the magic, who do you think owns the monopoly? ;)

Ravens_cry

2009-12-14, 06:14 PM

Why bother using magic to emulate technology? With magic to do all the work for you, there's no need to even develop the technology you're trying to copy. Just do it with magic already.
Well, if you must know, it's to kill catgirls. Every time a fangirl squees, a catgirl is born. And with the Twilight movie that recently came out, the catgirl population has reached dangerous levels, which could lead to an ecological disaster which would make zebra muscles in Lake Erie look like dodo's.
We do our part.

Slayn82

2009-12-14, 06:47 PM

@Automation
Using a cow or a man was the right way to do things at some points of the history, until someone perfected a more efficient way. And usually that changed their civilizations at that time. A lot of game designers have put small ideas in their world buildings. Here we are trying to come to some of our own.

Some people are progressists at heart. Whats the problem with that? Some of us want to escape from the classical stagnated medieval scenary, and do something a little different. Fantasy Adventures are Escapist Entertaiment by excelence, and we love it. But Fantasy is not only medieval settings. SteamPunk + Fantasy = Win, and allows to escape the usual plots around.

Personally, as technology comes, i guess more options come to all the characters in the game, and increases the fun.

@ Catgirls
Well, as far as i know, if catgirls can survive anime explosions, they can easilly survive the D&D Antimatter bombs. That will just knock them out a little.

Now, the thing to do is a little EXPERIMENT, and test the classical folklore, and while the catgirl is prone, steal their clothes. When they wake up and find themselves naked they are bound to serve the one who took their clothes away until they can recover it. If this fail, well, naked catgirl. Still a win in my book.

So, you cannot stop us, because we are doing FIREWALL for SCIENCE!!

EDIT:
@ Ganurath

Sorry for the delay in reply your post. Thinking about it, i guess we could employ well the animated cogs for precision applications, with minimal constructs. Thats something probably hard to do by other means.

Also, the great question about animate objects is: if you could animate an engine, like a modern one, a medium object, it would have Str 10. But could it still generate full power even without fuel? Does it keeps its normal functions? If it generates 800HP, and its on, would it have the real strenght of 800 Horses? Its like when you animate a Large gate, and it can locomoves in its hinges, opening/closing. But then it becomes somehow a worse gate by the rules, because it can be bullrushed around.

jseah

2009-12-14, 08:03 PM

I've been thinking about the social consequences.

Between wizards spamming Fabricate and Wall of Iron/Stone, bards exploiting lyre of buildings, druids bringing in 1 crop per day with Plant Growth, steam-powered tractors and factories to process the crops...
A social safety net where all citizens are given basic living provisions, education and basic entertainment (permanent image videos) ...

We just made the setting into a Golden Age. For once, this might actually be an example of a post-scarcity economy.
With the exception of service industries and basic operation of industries, we have no jobs. This is due to people being able to produce more goods than they can consume.

With too much free time on their hands, people either spend their hours socializing (and hence creating millions of jobs in service industry) or building private projects and enjoying entertainment (another major industry being the entertainment industry)

Magic research leaps forward. Strange fields of thought are explored (mathematics). Idle experiments into natural philosophy as a pursuit of knowledge (theoretical science).

Crime is at an all-time low (not least because finding out who did it is a simple divination or two away), what the heck do you want that you can't afford?
With the exception of your neighbour's wife of course. Crimes of passion are the only ones that don't drop, and maybe even increase.
Police forces and courts are revolutionized by the discovery that they can ascertain for truth exactly what happened in each scenario. Plus they can also call an angel to preside in the court if a thorny moral problem arises, surely the heavens can pass fair judgement if anyone can at all.

Things to challenge players with:
Standalone Complex
- Yes, this is cribbed. A crime is committed, involving a mass display of some kind of recognizable mark. The criminal is caught and trialed. Then another happens and the police think they haven't got the right person. And then another. And another. All by different people, all of them posing as "the mastermind" of this signature crime.

Industrial Development
- The players are tasked with the development of a new area. The locals resist due to "natural traditions". Meanwhile, the players have to meet profit quotas.

Global Warming
- The sheer amount of heat being produced is heating up the planet. (a few tens of thousand walls of fire generate lots of heat, mechanical power does not transmit well)
Climate Change protestors clash with Weather Control advocates. Do we force the weather into submission to the detriment of non-civilized areas? Or do we limit our consumption and risk unemploment and social instability?
Players have to investigate a high-profile crime committed among the political intrigue played out between the two opposing factions and the independents.

Slayn82

2009-12-15, 09:39 AM

Well, you could afford your neightbor wife, if you consider simulacrum. She will just be a little frigid.:smallamused:

What you sugest here is a benevolent utopia. Kinda remmember me of the Culture, with Celestials and Undead instead of Artificial Inteligences.

But if Celestials will pass judgement, then it will be a religious society, because of their nature. And not everyone will be happy - Chaos vs Law comes heavilly in this context. Also, Magical devices that work due to divine powers would be probably regulated by the divinities that imbued it in some way, if the gods noticed the society heavy reliance on them. Maybe prayers would be needed to activate them.

jseah

2009-12-15, 09:54 AM

Johel

2009-12-15, 10:10 AM

Convert them to secular arcane sources?

The various arcane-divine crossing classes come to mind.

I would think that relying on celestials to pass judgement would count as enough service for the Good side of heavens to view your civilization with favour.
After all, you're allowing them direct ability to dictate how your laws should be. The angels just got a garuantee that this extremely powerful society will not be turning to evil.

I think that's enough of an offer that they won't insist you convert everyone. Maybe they'll require a church of each of the good religions in the country, but that's easily accommodated.

And then, as society is already an Utopia, some wizard, a genius among his peers, finds out a strange equation.

It reveals him that the whole multiverse generates, through very complex processes involving a good thousand different types of beings from all material and spiritual origin, a fixed amount of non-typed magic.
Said magic is then pumped by planes, gods, outsiders, arcane casters and the various magic items, all of which reallocate it with a type.

Problem : Since society uses arcane magic in large quantity, it actually pump about 90% of non-typed magic...which means whole planes are collapsing. Gods haven't figured it yet... but Oh !! Now, the God of Magic just have, what with him being aware of whatever mortals are doing with his portfolio.

jseah

2009-12-15, 10:17 AM

XD that could be a possible plot.

I've used an environmental factor as an excuse to explain why industrialization hasn't occured in a fantasy setting when it plainly should have.

eg.
Magic is Life, Life is Magic.
There is a fixed amount of magic per volume in the world. Density can be changed, but magic can't be pulled out of nowhere.
Magic regenerates it's ability to do it's thing and support life normally, but since there's a maximum amount of magic, there's a maximum amount of "magicking" it can do over the whole world.
Using too much of it starts to kill off living things.

************************************************** *

There's millions of variations on this kind of explanations as to why magic won't develop into a worldwide technology.

By RAW, they don't exist. Magic is consequence-free and completely unlimited. =)

Hence all these crazy ideas.

Jayabalard

2009-12-15, 10:22 AM

Why people dont refine steel using FIREWALL is beyond me, it beats using a crucible. Lack of temperature control; it's temperature is not controlled by environmental factors. You can't add more air to make it burn hotter (like you would in a blast furnace), so it seems likely that firewall is not going to be hot enough for most smelting.

Out of curiosity, are you talking about the spell "Wall of Fire" or something else? If so, the damage for that doesn't scale very much by level.

jseah

2009-12-15, 10:24 AM

Slayn82

2009-12-15, 10:26 AM

Well, the strange thing is that 50 permanent FIREWALLS is probably more than enought for most medieval worlds, with less than 1 Billion habitants. If you took Faerum as a comparisson basis, you probably can find more than the double of that amount just in Undermountain.

And lets not considerate the elemental plane of fire, where everything is made of FIRE and does way more damage than our FIREWALLS.

Slayn82

2009-12-15, 10:30 AM

Lack of temperature control; it's temperature is not controlled by environmental factors. You can't add more air to make it burn hotter (like you would in a blast furnace), so it seems likely that firewall is not going to be hot enough for most smelting.

Out of curiosity, are you talking about the spell "Wall of Fire" or something else? If so, the damage for that doesn't scale very much by level.

Jaya, that hurts coming from a firemage like you!!!

Listen, we make Steel in our factories in our world with Coal, that is a lot less energetic than our FIREWALL. The trick is not letting the heat escape from the furnace, and start designing a proper Bessemer.

jseah

2009-12-15, 10:36 AM

Actually, with the insane power output of Wall of Fire, and the fact that Undermountain is connected to the underdark (IIRC)...

If your estimate that 100 walls of fire exist in undermountain...

that dungeon should be generating a humongous updraft and a giant low pressure sink that creates a vacuum in the underdark.

Slayn82

2009-12-15, 10:43 AM

I would not be surprised by such a thing. Would just add a little to the niceness of the place.

Not like thats the most wrong thing about it.

Johel

2009-12-15, 12:04 PM

Actually, with the insane power output of Wall of Fire, and the fact that Undermountain is connected to the underdark (IIRC)...

If your estimate that 100 walls of fire exist in undermountain... that dungeon should be generating a humongous updraft and a giant low pressure sink that creates a vacuum in the underdark.

CATGIRL HOLOCAUST !! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqV0Efo-qdQ)

jseah

2009-12-15, 12:32 PM

Hmmm.... Given the obscene amount of power the spell puts out, I wonder if it's possible to use it to fuel an artificial firestorm?

Get enough power that the heat begins to generate it's own wind system and you've got a basic weather control device.

Could also be used to make summer all year round. Just cast them randomly in the sky and permanency it.
Have an organized wall of fire layer where air traffic is hazardous and the various holes have an updraft that makes it easier to climb and achieve flight level.

I'm not a meterologist. Can someone tell what might happen if we could build gigawatt power radiators cheaply and used them to modify weather?

Amador

2009-12-15, 12:38 PM

I'm not a meteorologist either but I imagine that if you had that much energy being thrown into the atmosphere without precision control would end with massive desertification of pretty much everywhere. Essentially global warming but much, much faster and beginning at higher elevations where the walls of fire would be put. Messing with weather is usually a bad idea so this probably is as well.

Johel

2009-12-15, 12:43 PM

Could also be used to make summer all year round. Just cast them randomly in the sky and permanency it.

...You've digged out some ancient lore, here.

I read the description of "Wall of Fire" and NOTHING says the wall must be cast on the ground or any solid surface, for what it matter.

The only limit is its length and the fact that it must be horizontal.
So, yeah... let's pile up permanent ring of fire around a tower and I'm sure we could create some really interesting device.

jseah

2009-12-15, 01:15 PM

I'm thinking climate control here.

Wall of fire above or in the oceans to evapourate water, wall of cold above dry areas to encourage condensation and rain.

Temperature radiators or simply factories outputting tons of heat plus cold sinks could be used to manipulate wind currents in your favour.

A few well placed walls of cold (not permanent types) could stop a small hurricane dead.

Bah, weather control is probably more easily acheived by subdueing Hags and forcing them to apply Covey powers for the 3/day Weather Control.

************************************************** *

Another way to paint the setting:

Since our hypothetical magic-heavy civ is using angels for judgement, I'm assuming we have a Lawful Good law system.

And given that some monsters are *only* usually evil, implies that some of them will be of Good alignment.

Since our civ is so powerful, we could simply wipe out all the Evil specimens with air-pressure cannons, mechanized infantry and mass production.

Then we'll let all the Good-aligned specimens remain. Drizzt maybe an exception in drow society. But if all the evil drow get flattened, and only good ones remain, then their children are highly likely to be good as well.

Assuming alignment-based eugenics, we could exploit Darwinian selection to forcibly change the local environment to be more Good aligned. (and thus less likely to threaten the civilization and more likely to cooperate and lend services, making it more powerful)

Johel

2009-12-15, 01:27 PM

Another way to paint the setting:

Since our hypothetical magic-heavy civ is using angels for judgement, I'm assuming we have a Lawful Good law system.

And given that some monsters are *only* usually evil, implies that some of them will be of Good alignment.

Since our civ is so powerful, we could simply wipe out all the Evil specimens with air-pressure cannons, mechanized infantry and mass production.

Then we'll let all the Good-aligned specimens remain. Drizzt maybe an exception in drow society. But if all the evil drow get flattened, and only good ones remain, then their children are highly likely to be good as well.

Assuming alignment-based eugenics, we could exploit Darwinian selection to forcibly change the local environment to be more Good aligned. (and thus less likely to threaten the civilization and more likely to cooperate and lend services, making it more powerful)

And at that point, because we just commited genocide, we aren't LG anymore. Remember : evil is a state of mind. Even if people ARE evil, you are not suppose to kill them unless they've committed evil, as there's still a chance for redemption...and allowing them that chance is being good.

This restriction doesn't apply to demons and devils, who are pure concentrated evil. In their case, their very body is made of evil.

Now, since this topic isn't an alignment debate (and we don't want that silly moral debate in a scientific thread...), back to magitek !!

YES !! A heavily industrialized society with correct magic supply and divine support is going to just flat out any opposition the same way the US army can just storm Micronesia and call it a day : they can, they just don't see why they should...for now.

After a few demonstrations of such power, I guess most evil nations would reform. The few who don't will be isolated at first, then exterminated after decades of blocus if a intern "good" revolution hasn't happened in the mean time. We could easily sponsor such revolution, of course, since wealth isn't going to be a problem.

jseah

2009-12-15, 01:34 PM

We could go for a less-than-good setting.
The society appears good, and upholds most, if not all, the laws and tenets of Lawful and Good.
But it's shallow and highly materialistic. Freedom of speech and action is taken for granted to be such rights that the common man is expected to apply intelligence to any and all problems.
Eugenics isn't that much of a problem in that society.

Or we could go for a much more subtle approach.
The state is extending it's power quickly. Much like the British Empire.
Opposition are given a chance to convert to their government, ethical and moral system. Refusal indicates isolation and cold war until the opposition caves in.
Violation of human rights is an excuse to sponsor a "Good" revolution.

Jayabalard

2009-12-15, 02:18 PM

Yes, we're talking about Wall of Fire.
It's damage sucks.
But it's permanent.
Just get more of it if it's too weak. It doesn't state a thickness of the wall, but sheet implies it's pretty darn thin. More fire with the same low temperature doesn't actually help... it's just not going to be hot enough.

Jaya, that hurts coming from a firemage like you!!!What, I'm saying that you need way more fire than that. (of course, that shouldn't really come as a surrprise)

Listen, we make Steel in our factories in our world with Coal, that is a lot less energetic than our FIREWALL. The trick is not letting the heat escape from the furnace, and start designing a proper Bessemer.I fail to see any evidence that the wall of fire puts out anything close to that much energy; it's a rather insignificant amount of fire.

jseah

2009-12-15, 02:23 PM

I point to my above calculations using wall of water as a base to determine the energy output.

I'm sure you agree that wall of water is the closest approximation we can get to using the wall of fire as a heating element in a giant kettle.
Unless you have a quote from somewhere else telling us how much water X fire damage evapourates?

Jayabalard

2009-12-15, 02:39 PM

I point to my above calculations using wall of water as a base to determine the energy output. Yes, that was what I meant by "I fail to see any evidence that the wall of fire puts out anything close to that much energy" ... that those calculations are meaningless. They're based on a bunch of assumptions which I find to be rather sketchy at best.

I'm sure you agree that wall of water is the closest approximation we can get to using the wall of fire as a heating element in a giant kettle. No, actually, I don't agree at all, I think it's a horrible way of making an estimate.

A much better way to get an approximation of the energy output over time would be to compare it the fire damage from more well known sources. Say, the energy produced by burning a pint of oil, or any other regular fire. You can then get an estimate of heat produced based on the fire damage.

You'll really should get several examples, because there's no reason to assume that damage scales linearly with the heat output; in fact, it seems fairly unlikely.

Also a good comparison point:

Extreme heat (air temperature over 140° F, fire, boiling water, lava) deals lethal damage. Breathing air in these temperatures deals 1d6 points of damage per minute (no save).So 140° F is sufficient to deal 1d6 damage; Firewall does 2d4. It seems fairly likely that firewall produces a temperature closer to 140° F than it does to 1000°+ F (steel production temperatures).

Based on a cursory check, it's FAR less heat than is needed to do the things that you're looking to do with it. You need WAY more fire than wall of fire.

jseah

2009-12-15, 02:53 PM

You'll really should get several examples, because there's no reason to assume that damage scales linearly with the heat output.
Quite correct indeed.

This makes estimation very difficult unless we have an equal amount of damage.
If oil damage stacks, which my later recalculation assumes, then we have a neat approximation.

A much better way to get an approximation of the energy output over time would be to compare it the fire damage from more well known sources. Say, the energy produced by burning a pint of oil, or any other regular fire.
You make a good point. Can anyone find a mundane source of fire damage that can deal an average of 14 points of damage per round?

Assuming burning oil damage stacks, we have this:
Burning 1 pint of oil generates 1d3 (2) fire damage per round for 2 rounds over a 25 sq ft area.

Hence 2 damage is approximately equal to 1/2 a pint of oil.
14 damage is approximately equal to 3.5 pints of oil
3.5 pint = 1 989 ml

Assuming it is similar to kerosene, this has a higher heating value of 46.2 MJ per kg
Density of kerosene: 0.8 g per ml
Weight of kerosene burnt per round: 1 591 g
Energy released per round per 25 sq ft: 73.5 MJ

Power output of 2800 sq ft wall of fire: 1.37 GW

That's not too different from the wall of ice calculation.

Of course this assumes that burning oil damage stacks. Which you may not agree with.

jseah

2009-12-15, 02:56 PM

Also a good comparison point:
So 140° F is sufficient to deal 1d6 damage; Firewall does 2d4. It seems fairly likely that firewall produces a temperature closer to 140° F than it does to 1000°+ F (steel production temperatures).

Based on a cursory check, it's FAR less heat than is needed to do the things that you're looking to do with it. You need WAY more fire than wall of fire.
I got ninja edited; so here's my continuation.

The firewall does 2d6+7 damage per round. The +7 is highly significant here since it's the majority part of the damage.

140*F is only in "per minute". Which is arguably 10 times less power than per round.

************************************************** *****

Besides, we're talking about power. Energy per second. Not energy density.

I agree that the wall of fire isn't going to be extremely hot. In fact, if you look at the damage dealt, a minimum CL wall of fire can't damage iron.

That's a good indicator that it can't achieve the 1500*C needed to melt iron.

The reason why we're getting such insane energy outputs is because:
1. the wall of fire is outputting heat constantly
2. the wall of fire is HUGE. 2800 sq ft is alot of area.

deuxhero

2009-12-15, 03:27 PM

jseah

2009-12-15, 03:36 PM

Because letting angels be the judge and jury is such a great idea. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KnightTemplar)... Sure isn't going to lead to anything bad (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WorldOfSilence).
Might be the kind of setting we're gunning for.

Or maybe the angels are really the ideal morality they are supposed to be.

Could be anything you like, and that's the best part of it.

Slayn82

2009-12-15, 08:04 PM

Now lets take a look at the Electric arc furnace method for steel refining.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc_furnace

"To produce a ton of steel in an electric arc furnace requires approximately 400 kilowatt-hours per short ton of electricity, or about 440kWh per metric tonne; the theoretical minimum amount of energy required to melt a tonne of scrap steel is 300kWh (melting point 1520°C/2768°F). Therefore, the 300-tonne, 300 MVA EAF mentioned above will require approximately 132 MWh of energy to melt the steel, and a 'power-on time' (the time that steel is being melted with an arc) of approximately 37 minutes, allowing for the power factor. Electric arc steelmaking is only economical where there is plentiful electricity, with a well-developed electrical grid."

Now, compare those values with the estimated energy value output of a FIREWALL (almost forgot). Yes, i am aware that this is a process that uses electric arc instead of heating. Im still thinking about how much energy an eletric FIREWALL would give to simplify things. But im pretty sure that if i throw over 10 times the energy required by using an electric arc, i can find a way to make my steel, thank you very much.

_____________

For something different, i was thinking about the Frigid/Ice Queen joke i made earlier, and how sofisticated is the simulacrum spell from a technological standpoint. And then i remembered some articles about holography and possible uses in data storage and processing. Now im thinking about gnome bards/ilusionists figuring a way to turn Permanent Image Spells in magical computers. Like crafting the illusion of a book, where the ilusionist concentrates in putting anything that he reads, that could be accelerated a lot by Prying Eyes spells.

To allow easier access to it, make the illusionist a simulacrum, so he could simply keep storing data indefinitely in his book, and also run other "programs", like complex illusions full of cristals and shining lights or gears for mathematical processing. Silent image spells generated by the simulacrum could be used to design machines, and basic scrying spells could be used as "modems". Kinda remember me of the Psykers/Astral Beacons in Warhammer 40K universe.

__________

EDIT:

Also, the adiabatic combustion temperature for Coal is just 1500ºC. For petroleum, the flame temperature is around 2000ºC and for natural gas around 2200ºC. Now, our little FIREWALL is giving all those heat sources a beating (to my great surprise too, i must say).

Once again, if the heatsource has a greater temperature than your target, you just have to make sure the heat that goes out is less than the heat that goes in, and you will melt it eventually.

deuxhero

2009-12-15, 08:13 PM

Take a short cut. Energy sub that there firewall.

jseah

2009-12-15, 08:42 PM

Also, the adiabatic combustion temperature for Coal is just 1500ºC. For petroleum, the flame temperature is around 2000ºC and for natural gas around 2200ºC. Now, our little FIREWALL is giving all those heat sources a beating (to my great surprise too, i must say).

Once again, if the heatsource has a greater temperature than your target, you just have to make sure the heat that goes out is less than the heat that goes in, and you will melt it eventually.
While our wall of fire is certainly hotter in it's volume than a simple oil fire, I must mention that this is over a 5x5ft area.

Also, that the wall of fire is bloody thin. Technically it has no thickness. But I'll go for 1 inch just to prevent craziness.

Your problem of preventing conduction out of the target taking away most of the heat is a non-trivial problem.

Large size means massive convection currents. We lose a lot of heat that way.
It also means point wise, you aren't getting a lot of heat into your lump of iron.

Add the fact that lumps of iron generally aren't 1 inch thick so some of them stick out of the wall, and that iron conducts heat well, I think you'll find using wall of fire as a substitute blast furnace somewhat disappointing.

GreyVulpine

2009-12-15, 09:08 PM

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20020503e).

There's a 'fiery' wall augmentation (http://eberronunlimited.wikidot.com/building-a-stronghold) which can be placed on a wall of a room to provide heat. Ideally, you'd place that room at the bottom of a fortress, and the convection would circulate the air upwards.

The book goes on to talk about magic items being used in nifty ways. Bag of devouring to use as a waste disposal unit. All the different ways of using the decanter of endless water to fill moats, irrigate gardens, and so on.

jseah

2009-12-15, 09:17 PM

Something tells me we could survey some dwarf fortress players for death trap and plumbing ideas.

The Decanter to fill moats and serve as water supply strikes me as something similar to dwarves using aquifers for one.

A vacuum room that is linked to a Gust of Wind depressurizer would be deadly.

Slayn82

2009-12-16, 06:39 AM

While our wall of fire is certainly hotter in it's volume than a simple oil fire, I must mention that this is over a 5x5ft area.

Also, that the wall of fire is bloody thin. Technically it has no thickness. But I'll go for 1 inch just to prevent craziness.

Your problem of preventing conduction out of the target taking away most of the heat is a non-trivial problem.

Large size means massive convection currents. We lose a lot of heat that way.
It also means point wise, you aren't getting a lot of heat into your lump of iron.

Add the fact that lumps of iron generally aren't 1 inch thick so some of them stick out of the wall, and that iron conducts heat well, I think you'll find using wall of fire as a substitute blast furnace somewhat disappointing.

Thats why the walls of most furnaces are made of refratary material. To prevent heat dissipation outside the fusion chamber. Also, using the ring version of it.

The trouble for simply going for the electric wall is that it would be hardly an intuitive leap. In our world, the arc process was created in the middle of the 20th century, when the thermodynamics was already a well understood process. Research in the topic came with the study of Alumin, and then going/researching for other materials.

A craftsman would look at the FIREWALL and start thinking about how to take advantage from it. Looking at a SPARKWALL he probably would just think about keeping his distance from it. Simple like that.

Now, a modern chemist with either one would be a very rich man very fast. Electric FIREWALL would allow to process a lot of chemicals easily, like Chlorine, Sodium Hidroxide, Hidrogen, Oxygen. Anything that could be obtained by electrolisis, even if the wall output for some reason happened to be way lower than that of the fire version.

jseah

2009-12-16, 09:45 AM

It really all depends on the stacking rules.

Does two walls of fire add their damage together?
(ie. does standing in one wall while in front of another deal 2d6+7+2d4?)

It makes a lot of difference.

If they stack, it means the energy is additive. The walls of fire output energy constantly and that's represented by the damage.

If they don't stack, it means the walls of fire are dealing damage based on temperature. The walls then simply peg temperature in their area at a certain number. Probably somewhere under iron melting point and above 140*F. (deals more damage than 140*F but not enough to damage iron)

Slayn82

2009-12-16, 11:56 AM

Personally, while the calculation stands from pure game mechanics, its a little over the top, one of those holes that come from D&D rules of cool (ironically).Well, the Itaipu hydroeletric dam in Brazil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu has a generation capacity of 14GW. Given that "If Brazil were to use Thermal Power Generation to produce the electric power of Itaipu, 434,000 barrels (69,000 m3) of petroleum would have to be burned every day."

Now, CL 13 spell gives 55GW of energy acording with your calculations, and there are ways to shape that area to something more convenient.

55GW is around 1,705,000 barrels of petroleum burning in a day. Thats the estimated energy demand of my country, lets remember, and this includes the energetic demands of some of the biggest Steel Industries of the world on its own.

Now put the FIREWALL inside a furnace made of Refractory Material. You are now preventing the heat from escaping from the metal throught convection. If your fire source is hotter than Coal (most certainly, based in this absurd energy output its hotter than petroleum), you will logically melt it eventually. Its how industrial furnaces work. In small scales, you can very well allow your metal to go for an entire day in a workshop until it finally melts. Less energetic sources will simply increase the metal temperature more slownly.

Now, if you have more energetic sources, you could make it in minutes. Adjusting to that would be quite a problem, believe me. Probably you would need Iron Golens and Fire Giants to work the Furnaces, or those convenient Gust of Winds to blow away part of the heat, or simply you would have to sacrifice part of the firewall.

And of course, you have hot, melted Steel to throw at the people around if you feels like.

_______________

So, the Undermountain could also be instead a puddle of molten rock with all those spells. Guess a subterran river takes the heat away from the rocks and drops it at Neverwinter then.

Dunno what happens in Calimsham, with all the fire happy wizards descendants from the beings from the elemental plane of Fire, and forbbiden cities with guess what? Permanent Firewalls around.

Guess that to equilibrate all that, the gods had to Freeze the north of the Continent of Faerum.

jseah

2009-12-16, 12:03 PM

Keep in mind that the 55GW number is a merely an estimate based off a wall of water, which is arguably incorrect.
It'll serve as a nice upper bound, but I wouldn't trust it more than that.

That said, given that pints of oil burning deal much less damage than wall of fire (the actual wall, not the heat wave part), we can conclude that the wall's temperature is in fact higher than burning oil.

So yes, if you put it in a nice insulated furnace, the iron will melt eventually.

************************************************

I now have an irrational desire to design a railgun that can fire bolts of supersonic molten iron.

As inefficient as that might be, nothing says overkill like a giant glowing white stream punching a hole through the opponent's 10ft thick stone wall.

******************

EDIT:
Undermountain is also big. And most definetly not insulated.

I'm sure Halastar (was that his name) was smart enough not to build a dungeon that would meltdown on him.

Slayn82

2009-12-16, 12:28 PM

I now have an irrational desire to design a railgun that can fire bolts of supersonic molten iron.

As inefficient as that might be, nothing says overkill like a giant glowing white stream punching a hole through the opponent's 10ft thick stone wall.

Agreed.

Well, we have wall of Iron, Energy substituted (electric) FIREWALL, and Energy Substituted (cold) Firewall... Hum, im sure we cold make it happen in a Typpyverse. But the projectile should be melted only when exiting the Railgun, by transversing a few SPARKWALLS (because of Curie temperature)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curie_temperature

Also, maybe a levitation spell to keep the projectile at constant height. Or a improved range Floating Disk?

From Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun

When details were discovered after the war it aroused much interest and a more detailed study was done, culminating with a 1947 report which concluded that it was theoretically feasible, but that each gun would need enough power to illuminate half of Chicago.[4]

Well, its up to us then.

Jayabalard

2009-12-16, 12:37 PM

If oil damage stacks, which my later recalculation assumes, then we have a neat approximation. Burning a larger quantity of oil (assuming the rate of combustion doesn't change) doesn't indicate that the oil burns at a hotter temperature. Getting a higher temperature out of the fire requires that you increase the rate of combustion.

So if oil damage stacks, and wall of fire stacks, then that indicates that multiple wall of fires is not any hotter than a single fire wall.

Which, admittedly, seems rather counter intuitive but in my opinion it shows the flaw in assuming that damage is directly related to the energy production.

Slayn82

2009-12-16, 12:44 PM

This is about physical/thermodynamic Work done, Jaya. Burning more oil releases more heat, even if the average temperature of the flame is the same.

The heat then can be converted to realize Work, in various ways. Heating boilers to move machines, melt metals, etc...

So multiple FIREWALLS release more heat than one, and allows more work to be done. Simple like that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_%28thermodynamics%29

jseah

2009-12-16, 12:48 PM

Coming from the other thread where I asked about stacking of damage, it seems like damage does stack.

Therefore, I conclude that walls of fire output a fixed amount of heat energy per second. Not at a fixed temperature.

The kind of system Slayn is using is putting the wall of fire in a heat-insulated container and letting it heat up to molten iron temperatures.

*******************************************

Re-reading your post, it seems that you imply that wall of fire is a fixed temperature flame.

This cannot be if damage is to stack.

EDIT: if oil damage is to stack, then we ARE burning more oil per second. Since multiple flasks burning all go out at the same time, 12 seconds later.

Slayn82

2010-01-06, 09:46 AM

Well, it has been some time since the last post, and the extreme activity in the forums has made this thread fall. Also, some topics related split from here. As such, i am posting links to them:

Magic as Technology: Airships (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135812)
Magic as Technology: Society (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136577)
Both by jseah

And also, originally posted by Jack Smith, and linked with his permission:
[3.5] Permanent Image: Wizard's Phone? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136530)

_______________________________________________

So, to mark the return this thread, i would like to present the following idea:

In a lot of D&D scenarios, the use of gunpowder is restricted because its somehow produced magically, or because no one discovered its properties yet.

Well, this reasoning has an interesting flaw, as i will demonstrate. But first, lets take a look at a low power explosive of similar nature. The Flour (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIkk0D2tUU8) Bomb (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHDFDO7YOgM).
Simple, and could probably be easily discovered. Another good explosive of similar nature could be Coal Dust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_dust).

But the main trouble to adapt the use of coal dust to warfare is getting a good heat source and a good way of dispersing this powdered compounds.

Maybe something like Gust of Wind and Fireball or Lighting bolt.

Now, to get a compact explosive powder, we would need to provide some oxidizing agent to the coal dust. The sulfur could be droped entirely from it if Fireball or Lighting is used to ignite the powder. So, our options could be either the classic Potassium Nitrate, or the use of Lead Dioxide (somewhat easy to find in a deep mine). Now you have something as efficient as Blackpowder for large demolitions. Or to craft a large, Fireball fueled Cannon, like this:
Dardanelles Gun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dardanelles_Gun)

http://blog.uncovering.org/archives/uploads/2008/08022901_blog.uncovering.org_basilica.JPG

Well, at least this one could shoot a 600Kg projectile over 2 Km away.