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Trekkin
2010-04-15, 07:21 PM
When using Minor Creation, what is normally considered plant-based? What level of chemistry do you allow, and is it constant or does it vary with the character?

Basically, do you let shapers make explosives?

Lycanthromancer
2010-04-15, 08:04 PM
When using Minor Creation, what is normally considered plant-based? What level of chemistry do you allow, and is it constant or does it vary with the character?

Basically, do you let shapers make explosives?There are all sorts of useful chemical compounds usable directly from plants.

For instance, walnuts and pistachios release a gas as they ripen that is extremely explosive, no chemical manipulation necessary.

Private-Prinny
2010-04-15, 08:13 PM
I'd say that anything that's usually made from only plants would count as plant-based. A vine to use as a quick rope substitute would be fine. Tree bark that functions as full plate would not.

Also, there are plenty of plant-based poisons.

Trekkin
2010-04-15, 08:18 PM
Do you mean aflatoxin? (as the explosive, not the poison.) I know of the plant-based poisons, but I need something extremely brissant like hexanitrated mannitol (mannitol is found in sugar cane) for something I'm planning. Generally sawdust explosions serve, but in this case I need less of a flame and more of a sonic boom.

I'm simply trying to determine how far is too far when specifying what you're making out of plants.

Lysander
2010-04-15, 08:29 PM
I don't see why not. You'd need to make craft checks though. Creating a highly volatile substance might be difficult though since you'd need to carry a bit of it around with you for the material component, unless you have eschew materials as a feat.

Trekkin
2010-04-15, 08:33 PM
Psionic Minor Creation doesnt ever need material components.

Incidentally, the 1 cu/ft per round limitation is ambiguous. Could I, for example, make 1 cubic foot of sawdust spread over a much wider area and use it as a fuel air bomb?

JoshuaZ
2010-04-15, 08:37 PM
When using Minor Creation, what is normally considered plant-based? What level of chemistry do you allow, and is it constant or does it vary with the character?

Basically, do you let shapers make explosives?

Chemistry? What's that? This is a vaguely middle age world. Metal smiths think that metal is made by combining different types of elemental earth (called ore) with elemental fire (heck that might even be how it works in that universe. Actually, I think there's some official material that refers to extracting metals from ore so that argument might not work). I suppose people can create nitric acid because that was known if you had a lot of alchemical knowledge. But explosives? Gunpowder maybe. But not much else.

Private-Prinny
2010-04-15, 08:37 PM
Incidentally, the 1 cu/ft per round limitation is ambiguous. Could I, for example, make 1 cubic foot of sawdust spread over a much wider area and use it as a fuel air bomb?

As long as the volume is 1 cu. ft/level, I would say yes.

Trekkin
2010-04-15, 08:42 PM
Okay, how would you determine the damage from the blast created by such an effect?

This, but optimized by creating it already dispersed much finer than normally possible. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9xCgNdZPKk&NR=1)

Private-Prinny
2010-04-15, 08:51 PM
Okay, how would you determine the damage from the blast created by such an effect?

This, but optimized by creating it already dispersed much finer than normally possible. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9xCgNdZPKk&NR=1)

I would say congratulations, you just gave fireball a 10 minute casting time.

Lycanthromancer
2010-04-15, 08:56 PM
I'd say that anything that's usually made from only plants would count as plant-based. A vine to use as a quick rope substitute would be fine. Tree bark that functions as full plate would not.Some hardwoods are incredibly tough and difficult to cut. Making armor from, say, ironwood, would be extremely effective if it were done by hand; making it through minor creation isn't at all out of the question.


Also, there are plenty of plant-based poisons.Go, turpentine! It's squeezed from mangoes, y'know.

Latex-rubber.

Pine pitch.

And flour (think about it for a minute).

Wooden marbles.

Vegetable oils.

Drinking alcohol.

Rubbing alcohol.

Ethanol.

Perfume (made from flowers and either alcohol or plant oils).

Sugar.

Margarine (and therefore, baked goods of myriad descriptions).

And anything solid that can be made from metal (ie, not sodium bombs or arsenic) can be reasonably facsimilated using amber and hard woods (http://waynesword.palomar.edu/plsept99.htm), including weapons and armor.

Really, if you can justify it as being made from plant material (regardless of the work that would turn it into its current form; for instance, chainmail), it should work. You may need a Craft check, but Craft (Alchemy), Craft (Sculpting), and Craft (Weaving) should get you pretty much anything.

Beorn080
2010-04-15, 08:57 PM
I was going to say fireball damage, but then I watched the clip. I'd say a flat 15d6, half fire half bludgeoning.

Powdered sugar makes a nice whoomph effect too. Arsenic from apple seeds is also a nifty trick. Opiates from poppies or derivatives from the coca leaf would probably be nasty when dropped on a camp site. "Powder falls, everyone OD's."

Divide by Zero
2010-04-15, 08:58 PM
Opiates from poppies or derivatives from the coca leaf would probably be nasty when dropped on a camp site. "Powder falls, everyone OD's."

Totally stealing this idea for my campaign.

Trekkin
2010-04-15, 08:59 PM
I've already done aerosolized poison, although in the form of one of the smoke poisons already in DnD. It took out twenty enemies. Good times, but now I'm banned from making that much poison again, which I find reasonable.

Besides, explosives work so much more quickly.

Come to think of it, is there any way to calculate joules of energy per point of damage? That would help.

Jack_Simth
2010-04-15, 09:00 PM
I would say congratulations, you just gave fireball a 10 minute casting time.
But on the plus side, he only spent one power point to get a 3rd level spell effect.

Beorn080
2010-04-15, 09:04 PM
Pleasure to be of service. These lists from wikipedia may prove useful in your weaponization of what should be a relatively benign spell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poisonous_plants
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_plants
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_poisoning

I'm sure there is more out there.

Edit: Another theory. Tree sap.

Trekkin
2010-04-15, 09:14 PM
Or refine it into pure sugar polymers, just to make it even stickier.

And as for it being benign, I'm playing a Shaper. Making weapons out of anything is practically a class feature. For instance: Fabricating the silicon in normal dirt into crystalline silica flour. Add wind for a cloud of pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

Divide by Zero
2010-04-15, 09:44 PM
On a somewhat related note, could you use any of the creation line of spells to create degenerate matter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_matter)? Several cubic feet of it should have a strong enough gravity well to destroy pretty much anything (though I'd want to have a contingent teleport handy).

Beorn080
2010-04-15, 09:57 PM
I just realized something. O2 is a major plant product. 20 cu ft. of solid O2, well, its 20 cu ft. of an extremely flammable gas at 5 kelvin that will sublimate extremely rapidly. Cast, then teleport away. I'd probably teleport twice just to make sure I'm out of range.

Lycanthromancer
2010-04-15, 09:59 PM
On a somewhat related note, could you use any of the creation line of spells to create degenerate matter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_matter)? Several cubic feet of it should have a strong enough gravity well to destroy pretty much anything (though I'd want to have a contingent teleport handy).OH SH-!
Textual healing.

Trekkin
2010-04-15, 11:16 PM
Of course, if you can get your DM to agree to let you specify that you're making plant-based neutrons, 1 cubic foot of neutronium and one cubic foot of antineutronium manifested via Linked Power to be present within one round of each other...

1,623,123,646 megatons of TnT for 2 pp.

And yet, degenerate matter is still more awesome.

Divide by Zero
2010-04-15, 11:20 PM
Of course, if you can get your DM to agree to let you specify that you're making plant-based neutrons, 1 cubic foot of neutronium and one cubic foot of antineutronium manifested via Linked Power to be present within one round of each other...

1,623,123,646 megatons of TnT for 2 pp.

And yet, degenerate matter is still more awesome.

And at what point in this process do you tear a hole in the fabric of spacetime? There's got to be some serious effects from that big of an explosion in that small of an area.

Trekkin
2010-04-16, 12:22 AM
I wonder :if one did this in a psychoportative shelter, would it act as a shaped charge and produce a blast effect emanating from the interface?

DnD has earthquake machines!

Ravens_cry
2010-04-16, 12:31 AM
On a somewhat related note, could you use any of the creation line of spells to create degenerate matter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_matter)? Several cubic feet of it should have a strong enough gravity well to destroy pretty much anything (though I'd want to have a contingent teleport handy).
Much less iffy is simply casting major creation Uranium 235. Either get a simulacrum of yourself to do it or contingency teleport. Remember, the one casting it has to have a small chip of the material in question.

Divide by Zero
2010-04-16, 12:55 AM
Much less iffy is simply casting major creation Uranium 235. Either get a simulacrum of yourself to do it or contingency teleport. Remember, the one casting it has to have a small chip of the material in question.

But that's not nearly as awesome as superdense matter. Also, Eschew Materials or psionic major creation solves the material problem.

Trekkin
2010-04-16, 01:08 AM
If you calculated it correctly, you could also use degenerate matter as an accelerator. Position yourself such that you reach its location as the duration of the power expires, and you're moving at incredible velocity with nothing to slow you down.

Munchkin-Masher
2010-04-16, 01:24 AM
Of course, if you can get your DM to agree to let you specify that you're making plant-based neutrons, 1 cubic foot of neutronium and one cubic foot of antineutronium manifested via Linked Power to be present within one round of each other...

1,623,123,646 megatons of TnT for 2 pp.

And yet, degenerate matter is still more awesome.

*Cough Cough* "Catgirls!" *Cough Cough*

Divide by Zero
2010-04-16, 01:47 AM
*Cough Cough* "Catgirls!" *Cough Cough*

I think we already killed all the catgirls with that space-rending explosion.