Debunking the Commoner Railgun

[monkey3]

This topic was inspired by another more recent thread, but I think it stands on its own.

If you are reading this topic, you know what the Commoner Railgun is, but for completeness, I will paste in a good description I found (stole) elsewhere: "Put 10000 commoners in a line. Start as far away from the invading army as possible and pass quarterstaves down the line using their free actions. By the time each quarterstaff hits the last guy, it will be moving at 83,333 feet per second (4.4 miles per second). Use this line as a railgun and launch your massive number of free quarterstaves at the army (whom should be pretty tough to miss)."

This fails because the argument starts at the beginning, with ever increasing quaterstaff speeds, and jumps to the end with a 4 mps missile, skipping the middle part in which the process breaks.

First break:
At some point (oh about commoner number 113) the staff is no longer being handed to the next commoner, but being thrown at him. What defines throwing vs. handing? Certainly not the intent. A retarded commoner might want to hand me an apple, but instead he chucks at me full strength. So what determines a throw is the speed. At some point, the staff is moving fast enough to be considered a throw, and thus turns from a "free action" into a "standard action."

Second break:
If something hits you going fast enough, you will take damage. It does not matter if anyone is trying to hurt you, or you are in a trap. If you walk under a rock slide, and one randomly hits you, you take damage. The damage is based on the rock's weight and speed, and not on anything else. Again, at some point (lets say commoner number 512), we have to calculate the damage that the commoner is going to take when his hands are hit by a staff traveling at a high speed. At some point in the chain, a commoner is going to fall unconscious from the damage of a speeding staff as it hits his hands. In his unconscious state, he will not be able to hand the staff to the next person in line, and the staff falls to the ground. Unconscious people do not get free actions.

[Typewriter]

While your arguments are valid, and I feel that if this were ever brought up in an actual game the DM would be obligated to dismiss it in some way, even if by simply saying no, the reason your argument won't stand is because your creating homebrew rules. Rules based off of reality, but still - homebrew. Whether or not something would work in real life has no bearing on whether or not it would be possible in a D&D world, where the only thing that matters is what the book says. The book never states that speed determines the difference between handing something over and throwing something, therefore - in the sense that it matters in a RAW discussion - this is not a valid argument.

[Prime32]

No, it falls apart because it selectively picks from game mechanics and real-world physics.

The quarterstaff doesn't build up any speed being handed from one person to another. When the last commoner lets go it falls at their feet.


This "trick" is the D&D equivalent of "I have my Catapult Turtle knock off your castle's flotation ring, therefore crushing your monsters!" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScrewTheRulesIHavePlot)

[The Big Dice]

Yes, in real world terms it breaks down because of all the above mentioned stuff. However, in game terms, it breaks down because the RAW doesn't allow for objects to be thrown at anything approaching those kind of speeds.

The staff would pass along the line in a single round, then the final peasant in the chain would throw it as an improvised weapon. Which is an ultimate letdown, really.

[Jayabalard]

No, it falls apart because it selectively picks from game mechanics and real-world physics.Yes, there does seem to be quite a few "X happens by RAW" arguments that do that.

[Douglas]

Both of your arguments fall prey to the same fallacy that gives rise to the commoner railgun in the first place: mixing D&D rules and real physics.

By D&D rules, neither of your objections have any merit. Also by D&D rules, the last commoner in line throws the quarterstaff as an improvised thrown weapon with a terrible attack bonus, 10' range increment, and 1d6+strength damage.

By real world physics, the quarterstaff would be traveling at ridiculous speed and do a lot of damage at very long range, but also by real world physics a line of commoners can't get a quarterstaff moving that fast in the first place.

Pick one or the other. D&D rules or real world physics, not both at once. They are not compatible, and that is where the commoner railgun goes wrong.

[The Endbringer Xaraphim]

Make the commoners all undead and make them pass a sap instead of a staff. Undead are immune to subdual damage, so it won't affect them.

Admittedly, it won't kill the enemy army but it will make them easy pickings for some hungry ghouls.

[Jayabalard]

Both of your arguments fall prey to the same fallacy that gives rise to the commoner railgun in the first place: mixing D&D rules and real physics.I'm not sure it's falling prey to it... it's kind of a loosely worded proof by contradiction. He accepts the idea implicit in the commoner railgun (the way that real physics and RAW can be picked selectively as needed) and then shows contradictions that result from that.

[Kantolin]

Basically, what Douglas said.

The ending commoner would, should he/she throw the quarterstaff, have an improvised weapon which does 1d6+str damage with a range increment of 10.

The staff would've been going pretty dang fast by the end there, but 'going pretty fast' doesn't do anything in D&D except perhaps be pretty neat to watch.

Doesn't seem worth analyzing.

[clockworkmonk]

The big problem is that time in D&D is strictly sequential, which allows the basis of the Peasant rail gun. Because of that, its really hard to find the speed of the stick in any meaningful terms as far as D&D work RAW. By that, I mean the Quarterstaff does not pick up speed. For the entirety of the round, its going the velocity necessary to carry it the entire length in 6 seconds, no matter the length of the line or the number of peasants.

Essentially, you get one of Zeno's paradoxes.

Then the last guy throws it with the strength of a single peasant.

[Lysander]

Where it falls apart is that you simply wouldn't consider the commoners far from combat or only casually involved as a move exploit to be "in combat." That means there are no rounds or actions for them, just normal progression of time.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Where it falls apart is that you simply wouldn't consider the commoners far from combat or only casually involved as a move exploit to be "in combat." That means there are no rounds or actions for them, just normal progression of time.

Not really...since they are in proximity to others also involved in the "encounter," you can chain the encounter along the entire line. While it's not exactly written out in the RAW, I feel it's a pretty valid interpretation: if you're within striking distance of someone involved in an encounter, you can be in that encounter as well...and thus it progresses.

[2xMachina]

No, it falls apart because it selectively picks from game mechanics and real-world physics.

The quarterstaff doesn't build up any speed being handed from one person to another. When the last commoner lets go it falls at their feet.


This "trick" is the D&D equivalent of "I have my Catapult Turtle knock off your castle's flotation ring, therefore crushing your monsters!" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScrewTheRulesIHavePlot)

^ That.

It's a very good bucket brigade though.

EDIT: Wow, badly ninjaed

[monkey3]

You guys are no fun :P

[lesser_minion]

Bottom line: The falling objects table is for falling objects, not ones that are being thrown.

The only exploit the commoner railgun allows is instant transmission of messages.

[Androgeus]

You guys are no fun :P

internet and D&D is serious business!

Edit:

Bottom line: The falling objects table is for falling objects, not ones that are being thrown.

The only exploit the commoner railgun allows is instant transmission of messages.

wait a moment, we could create the internet using a commoner railgun!

[Sploosh]

internet and D&D is serious business!

Edit:


wait a moment, we could create the internet using a commoner railgun!

That would result in very good, or very bad porn.

[subject42]

The only exploit the commoner railgun allows is instant transmission of messages.

Could you exploit this to calculate pi to arbitrary precision in one round?

[clockworkmonk]

Well, you could build a peasant Turing Machine.

So, Sure, why not.

[Curmudgeon]

D&D doesn't have acceleration. Falling causes damage when you hit the ground, but moving horizontally at the same speed and stopping suddenly at a wall causes no damage. So there's no injury potential in acceleration; it's a special property of falling, or of thrown objects. And throwing damage is based only on the Strength of the person who releases the weapon, with nothing from any helpers. (Aid Another will let a bunch of people boost the attack roll, but there's no input into the damage part of it.)

[Arundel]

Or create a delivery company with delivery speed to rival teleport (and a lot cheaper too).

It can't launch things, but I'll be damned if it can't move them.

[JaronK]

While I agree with the basic premise of the OP (the railgun doesn't work) the logic is flawed.

The problem with the railgun is that it requires RAW without physics in the charge up phase (the commoners pass the stick as a free action, ignoring how fast it's traveling) and then physics without RAW in the release phase (the commoner lets go of the stick, and because of the velocity the stick races away doing phenominal damage). You have to pick one. By strict RAW, the stick indeed travels at arbitrarily fast speed, and then the last commoner drops it and it falls to the ground harmlessly. It breaks physics and it's a great way to pass a stick very far in a short time, but teleporting does both of those anyway. By physics and realism and "stuff your DM will let you get away with," the commoners can't pass the stick that fast anyway.

Any trick which has to swap around when it's using RAW and when it isn't simply won't work.

JaronK

[lesser_minion]

I really don't want to know how porn would be served by a Commoner Internet. At all.

Of course, giving every D&D character internet access would change the world more than magic ever could. Most people can't cast spells, after all.

[clockworkmonk]

Well, CTP (Commoner Transfer Protocol) would be very expensive to maintain, and would run into issues at hubs. Every message would need an address that the commoner at the hub would need to be able to process meaningfully, and if the commoner does not know where its supposed to go, he would have to guess.

I'm saying a commoner internet is highly impractical, but would rock used as a point-to-point or point-to-multipoint system.

[Korivan]

If no ones mentioned this I'll feel very smart. The players handbook clearly states that the DM is responsible for putting a limit on both the number of free actions in a round, and what constitutes a free action. So no, really, the commoner railgun by rules alone doesn't actually work, never did, pitty the fool that allowed it in thier game.

[clockworkmonk]

Huh. I did not realize this peasant railgun was using free actions. The others I saw used full actions to receive and pass.

And I was under the impression that the peasant railgun was simply a thought experiment, not meant to actually be applied.

[t_catt11]

What? Korivan expects munchkin exploiters to bend to the DM's application of common sense???

Never!!! :smalltongue:

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

And I was under the impression that the peasant railgun was simply a thought experiment, not meant to actually be applied.

Exactly. As previously stated it does not actually work because it incorporates things not in the rules, such as the speed progression.
As previously stated, it just gets to the end, and falls at the commoner's feet.

The commoner rail gun is a hilarious idea that was invented by some random person for the sole purposes of fun, and nothing else.
Taking said Railgun seriously or in ths case trying to debunk it, destroys any fun to be had by the thought. We already have our older siblings/parents/jocks/Groucho Marx's ghost mocking us for playing D&D, don't ruin it for yourself as well.

Thank you.

[lesser_minion]

I get the impression that the Commoner Internet might be a more interesting thought exercise, even if parts of it are things that nobody wants to think about.

[monkey3]

The Commoner Railgun "works" by using a blend of written rules, and real world physics where rules for that situation do not exist. In my arguments I used the same blend of rules and real world physics to debunk it. So it is not as crazy as some of you are saying.

I agree with the many posters that I could have simply taken a short-cut and declared that no blending of real world physics and D&D is permissible. I just felt that it would be fun to debunk the Railgun using the same ruleset (blending) that made the Railgun work.

Don't make me mad enough to debunk the Commoner Internet...

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

Don't make me mad enough to debunk the Commoner Internet...

Commoner Internet=4/chan?

[JaronK]

A commoner internet wouldn't work (the logistics are too hard... feeding them alone is insane) but an undead internet would if you can handle the startup costs. They're just drones after all... much like routers really. I'd recommend using Spell Like Animate Dread Warrior to create it so control pools never come up (plus then they have some intelligence and can thus learn new protocools).

But at the end of the day, teleports and permanent images make it irrelevant. Illusion magic makes MUCH better porn.

JaronK

[Optimystik]

Well, CTP (Commoner Transfer Protocol) would be very expensive to maintain, and would run into issues at hubs. Every message would need an address that the commoner at the hub would need to be able to process meaningfully, and if the commoner does not know where its supposed to go, he would have to guess.

I'm saying a commoner internet is highly impractical, but would rock used as a point-to-point or point-to-multipoint system.

CTP/IP (Commoner Transfer Protocol/Imaginary Protocol)

Also, toasting in an epic bread

[lesser_minion]

A commoner internet wouldn't work (the logistics are too hard... feeding them alone is insane) but an undead internet would if you can handle the startup costs. They're just drones after all... much like routers really. I'd recommend using Spell Like Animate Dread Warrior to create it so control pools never come up (plus then they have some intelligence and can thus learn new protocools).

But at the end of the day, teleports and permanent images make it irrelevant. Illusion magic makes MUCH better porn.

JaronK

Not all of the internet is for porn.

You don't need to be so high level for commoner chains, and they can transmit successfully with a spacing of 100ft, IIRC.

Any D&D setting with Commoner Internet is probably a Tippyverse anyway, so food isn't much of an issue.

[JaronK]

Not all of the internet is for porn.

Unsupported Assertion at line 1! Everyone knows the internet is entirely for porn.

JaronK

[Coidzor]

I'm pretty sure the commoners having sex would involve grappling and full-round actions that would prevent them from carrying messages due to making it so that their listen DCs would be non-trivial due to circumstance modifiers.

And that's the only way I think they can transmit porn other than via auditory communication of some described sex act.

Really, the Commoner Transfer Protocol/Commoner Internet is really more like the clacks from Discworld than the internet.


Make the commoners all undead and make them pass a sap instead of a staff. Undead are immune to subdual damage, so it won't affect them.

skeleton pony express. Transport anything capable of being dealt with by a skeleton with two hands in 6 seconds anywhere. And saves on the money that'd you'd have to spend on the commoners having shifts or sleeping or needing to eat.


Well, you could build a peasant Turing Machine.

...Now how would you go about doing that?

I can see building a peasant ankara device along the lines of doing it in dwarf fortress...

[lesser_minion]

Unsupported Assertion at line 1! Everyone knows the internet is entirely for porn.

JaronK

:amused:

Well, evidently we need a few wizards to act as modems then. It wouldn't quite be a commoner internet, but it would still count if the wizards are only serving as modems, I think.

Although traps might work equally well. I mean, we're already using them to defrag each node of the network and protect it from DoS attacks.

[Siosilvar]

:amused:

Well, evidently we need a few wizards to act as modems then. It wouldn't quite be a commoner internet, but it would still count if the wizards are only serving as modems, I think.

Although traps might work equally well. I mean, we're already using them to defrag each node of the network and protect it from DoS attacks.

DDoS = Supreme Cleave?

Actually, this could make an interesting campaign setting.

[lesser_minion]

DDoS = Supreme Cleave?

Actually, this could make an interesting campaign setting.

That would utterly wipe out the network if you could make the will save to defeat the AV software, yes.

[JaronK]

See? This is why you want endless Dread Warriors. If the guy making the network makes them in a desecrated altered area, they've got decent HP, in addition to the fact that they need not eat.

JaronK

[lesser_minion]

See? This is why you want endless Dread Warriors. If the guy making the network makes them in a desecrated altered area, they've got decent HP, in addition to the fact that they need not eat.

JaronK

But you're cycling the commoners already, and food is handled by CFaW traps.

The biggest issue is someone doing a DoS attack (although the commoners can be up to 100ft apart, so it's not that easy to cleave the lot of them in one round.)

For that, you have both your sanctuary traps, your occasional patrol, and deathwatch.

Viruses are no match for SaD tactics.

Although I guess the undead are more resistant to the scarier 'viruses', like diplomancy.

[Androgeus]

Did we work out how to actually route the packets, or are we still stuck using single lines? Also would there be collision on the Commoner Internet?

[Prime32]

Use Fine constructs and you can pack them into wires. Now if only we could find some way to add logic gates...

Hang on, undead chokers can ready two actions per turn. Have them ready one for a "1" value and another for a "0" value.

[JaronK]

Did we work out how to actually route the packets, or are we still stuck using single lines? Also would there be collision on the Commoner Internet?

Again, undead could just follow specific orders for routing, so you'd be fine. Commoners could get confused and mixed up or just get bored and wander off in search of a better job.

Undead: they don't unionize.

JaronK

[Signmaker]

But you're cycling the commoners already, and food is handled by CFaW traps.

The biggest issue is someone doing a DoS attack (although the commoners can be up to 100ft apart, so it's not that easy to cleave the lot of them in one round.)

For that, you have both your sanctuary traps, your occasional patrol, and deathwatch.

Viruses are no match for SaD tactics.

Although I guess the undead are more resistant to the scarier 'viruses', like diplomancy.

What about those nasty worms? You know, the locate city fell-bombers?

Alternatively, rootkits? Mindraped commoners that corrupt the data?

[RS14]

...Now how would you go about doing that?


You can simulate a TM with a finite amount of memory by using a line of commoners and a spell component pouch. One commoner also tracks the state of the DFA component, and gives instructions. To encode a 0, he passes one material component, and to encode a 1, he uses some other material component. The commoners pass left or right on his instructions, and the machine proceeds in the obvious manner.

(Of course, you can do this in RL with your friends and a suitably large bag of colored marbles. :smallbiggrin:)

Of course, you can also just go to some infinite plane and leave a trail of material components behind you simulating the tape. This needs only one person and a spell component pouch.

[Prime32]

It is a little-known fact that someone is already using (Construct) commoners in this way. It's called Mechanus.

[Ernir]

Commoner internet.

Best GitP thread ever.

[lesser_minion]

Again, undead could just follow specific orders for routing, so you'd be fine. Commoners could get confused and mixed up or just get bored and wander off in search of a better job.

Undead: they don't unionize.

JaronK

:smallamused:

Well, the only reason to use commoners is that the commoner internet is built off the back of the commoner railgun, which comes from the followers you get through the leadership feat.

Now we have an Undead Railgun Internet, and we're presumably imbuing some of the undead with illusion Spell-Like Abilities so they can act as modems.

That allows us to avoid the AV software and routine maintenance traps.

Does that mean that the undead are Linux then?

[Siosilvar]

That would utterly wipe out the network if you could make the will save to defeat the AV software, yes.

Which is what, a Calm Emotions trap? Charm Person? Dominate Person? Those are all mind-affecting.

Ooh, have your "modem" entrances be 2.5ft squares, with a heightened Enlarge trap outside. Anything that fails the save can't get in without smashing the building.

[lesser_minion]

Which is what, a Calm Emotions trap? Charm Person? Dominate Person? Those are all mind-affecting.

Ooh, have your "modem" entrances be 2.5ft squares, with a heightened Enlarge trap outside. Anything that fails the save can't get in without smashing the building.

I was actually thinking of Sanctuary traps.

[Otodetu]

Hang on, undead chokers can ready two actions per turn. Have them ready one for a "1" value and another for a "0" value.

Somehow this has massive potential, i am just to tired to see why...

[Demented]

Now we just need to use D&D as an allegory for a qubit-powered internet.

[JaronK]

Somehow this has massive potential, i am just to tired to see why...

In extraplanar space, this could make computers.

In a Flowing Time Genesis plane, this could power an AI.

JaronK