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Zaq
2010-08-03, 08:24 PM
So, let's set up a scenario. We have a character who can teleport. Let's name him Jack.

Jack is holding a rope. It's a light rope, and much longer than the distance he can teleport.

Jack holds on to one end of the rope and teleports. Being an attended object, the rope comes with him. So far so good.

Let's reset the scenario. Jack ties one end of the rope to something big and sturdy, like a tree or a hook on a wall. He then holds on to the other end of the rope and teleports. There are no solid objects between his origin and his destination, if that matters.

Where is the rope, and most importantly, why? Is he holding it, stretched between the anchor point and his new location? Did the whole thing come with him, undoing whatever connected it to the anchor point? Did it stop being considered "attended" and stay behind? No matter what you say, why?

Fax Celestis
2010-08-03, 08:27 PM
...you, sir, owe me a new brain.

I would be, personally, of the mind that the rope would teleport, regardless of what it was tied to, and the object it was tied to would teleport as well, IF it was within the weight/size restrictions of the associated teleportation spell. Otherwise, rope comes, item tied to stays behind, and you're left holding an excuse for a lasso.

The Dark Fiddler
2010-08-03, 08:32 PM
I agree with Fax (it's a good thing I check the replies before I started typing or I would have typed all that up for nothing).

However, none of this really matters since it's obviously Candle Jack and he'll use the rope to kidnap people who say h

TechnOkami
2010-08-03, 08:34 PM
I had a similar issue with a campaign I was in. I was playing a character who could shift into a were-blinkdog at will, and thus gain dimension door and blink as at will abilities (the class was a homebrew). So after rolling a fumble with my Katana, lodging it firmly into the ground, and criting with my wakizachi (I was also a samurai), I got nommed by the purple worm abomination thing we were fighting. So I shift into blinkdog and dimension door over to my Katana. But before it came back to my turn, the purple worm had been killed and one of my allies had been injured severely. So I get the brilliant Idea to dimension door myself and the katana over the enemy my ally was being slowly killed by. Then questions like your occurred: *does the katana come with me? Does the world dimension door with me as I'm technically one with it through the katana? etc.*

We solved this by seeing how much I could carry with my strength score, which for my character was a large number. So after I dimension doored over the enemy, what came down on him wasn't a katana to the head, but something more along the lines of a meteor on a stick. Needless to say, he was killed as soon as said meteor made tochdown.

P.S. I now discovered a new and amusing method to killing my enemies.

Aroka
2010-08-03, 08:35 PM
The rope is not in his possession, he's just holding on to it; ergo, the rope falls down where Jack was, and his hand is empty when he arrives.

That's the only reasonable ruling. If the rope, or part of it, teleported with Jack, then Jack could teleport away doors and anything else that fits the weight limit so long as he can hold some part of it (like the doorknob on a locked, barred door).

Coidzor
2010-08-03, 08:40 PM
Friction causes it to combust, probably, if he still has it and it's still on the tree. Or maybe get subject to a heat metal spell if it's metal... If I were to allow that sort of thing at all.

But, really, probably just going to go with Fax.

I don't think the rope is within the weight/size restrictions though, if it's longer than teleport range.

You can bring along objects as long as their weight doesn’t exceed your maximum load.

Is 10 pounds per 50' for hemp, 5 for silk...

Teleport gets you
100 miles per caster level. and is a 5th level spell, meaning one has to have a 9 CL minimum to cast it, at least via SRD.

So, 900 miles. 5,280 feet per mile.

900 * 5,280 = 4,752,000 feet. divided by 50 = 95,040 sections of rope.

So 950,400 pounds of hemp rope(475,200 pounds for silk), if it is only as long as he can teleport (the scenario specifies it is actually longer).

It might be possible to make a rope out of light enough materials that someone other than pun-pun could have it within their maximum load.

W3bDragon
2010-08-03, 08:47 PM
The rope is not in his possession, he's just holding on to it; ergo, the rope falls down where Jack was, and his hand is empty when he arrives.

That's the only reasonable ruling. If the rope, or part of it, teleported with Jack, then Jack could teleport away doors and anything else that fits the weight limit so long as he can hold some part of it (like the doorknob on a locked, barred door).

This. That would be my RAI interpretation. Otherwise like Aroka said, you'll end up in a world of trouble with PCs grabbing building support beams and teleporting. I'd place restrictions similar to the Invisibility spell. The item must be on your person to teleport with you.

Giving a realistic example of how this interpretation would affect PCs, A PC would have to pick up that treasure chest and cast teleport, not just touch the chest and teleport.

Arbitrarity
2010-08-03, 09:01 PM
Friction causes it to combust, probably, if he still has it and it's still on the tree. Or maybe get subject to a heat metal spell if it's metal... If I were to allow that sort of thing at all.

But, really, probably just going to go with Fax.

I don't think the rope is within the weight/size restrictions though, if it's longer than teleport range.


Teleportation, not Teleport. Teleportation can be found by using Shadow Jaunt, Blink Shirt, and various other abilities, while Teleport is a 5'th level wizard/sorceror spell.

Coidzor
2010-08-03, 09:11 PM
Teleportation, not Teleport. Teleportation can be found by using Shadow Jaunt, Blink Shirt, and various other abilities, while Teleport is a 5'th level wizard/sorceror spell.

Fine. I went with the extreme end of things. :smalltongue: I'd probably go off of Plane Shift myself.

Fax Celestis
2010-08-03, 09:16 PM
This. That would be my RAI interpretation. Otherwise like Aroka said, you'll end up in a world of trouble with PCs grabbing building support beams and teleporting. I'd place restrictions similar to the Invisibility spell. The item must be on your person to teleport with you.

See, where you see this as a problem, I see it as a natural extension of this power. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/balefulTeleport.htm)

Tinydwarfman
2010-08-03, 09:23 PM
Even more of a mindblower in my opinion, I thought of this a few days ago. you have two portals (Blue lines). You build a continuous metal strip (red line) through them. Then you teleport away with it. What the hell just happened? You don't even need to teleport away with it, just move or rotate it. Paradoxical design! Pic for reference.

http://i984.photobucket.com/albums/ae330/tinydwarfman/PortalWTF.png

Gralamin
2010-08-03, 09:31 PM
Where is the rope, and most importantly, why? Is he holding it, stretched between the anchor point and his new location? Did the whole thing come with him, undoing whatever connected it to the anchor point? Did it stop being considered "attended" and stay behind? No matter what you say, why?

Interesting Scenario. My first thoughts: "What exactly constitutes an attended object?"

An item attended by a character (being grasped, touched, or worn)
So the rope must be attended. and MUST teleport.

Then the question is, "Does it's anchor point teleport?" Well, if within the weight limit, and it is "grasped", "touched", or "worn", then yes. This is where it gets nebulous though, as these are not quite defined. If holding a rope to an object means you are not grasping it, then does that mean that holding a backpack by a strap mean you are also not grasping it? I'm inclined to say that, in this situation, the rope is acting like a strap, a way of allowing you to grasp or wear the object without directly touching it. So in this scenario it would teleport.

But then the question is: Is the anchor connected to everything? I've established that a rope tied around a rock allows you to teleport the rope and the rock. But What if you have something shaped out of the surrounding material, or a door on a hinge? At this point I'd feel the following rules would have to come into play:

1) You can teleport any removable part of the structure (Such as a door off its hinges) through this method, so long as it meets the weight requirements. If the structure is too heavy, you may bring up to the largest component you can fit.

2) If a structure has no removable part, ie: the structure cannot be reduced to any parts but base materials, you must be able to teleport the entire weight of the structure to teleport any of it. Otherwise, you just get the rope.

Siosilvar
2010-08-03, 09:37 PM
Even more of a mindblower in my opinion, I thought of this a few days ago. you have two portals (Blue lines). You build a continuous metal strip (red line) through them. Then you teleport away with it. What the hell just happened? You don't even need to teleport away with it, just move or rotate it. Paradoxical design! Pic for reference.


Nah, moving and rotating is fine. Unless and until you pull it away from the portals.

As for teleporting... you get a continuous metal strip without the space between the portals. Just like you built it.
If I'm not mistaken, it would be very difficult to put back, however.

Tinydwarfman
2010-08-03, 09:38 PM
Nah, moving and rotating is fine. Unless and until you pull it away from the portals.

As for teleporting... you get a continuous metal strip without the space between the portals. Just like you built it.
If I'm not mistaken, it would be very difficult to put back, however.

Except that somehow this:
http://i984.photobucket.com/albums/ae330/tinydwarfman/PortalWTF.png
Has to be connected in the middle, and yet still have all the same proportions. How?

Gralamin
2010-08-03, 09:39 PM
Even more of a mindblower in my opinion, I thought of this a few days ago. you have two portals (Blue lines). You build a continuous metal strip (red line) through them. Then you teleport away with it. What the hell just happened? You don't even need to teleport away with it, just move or rotate it. Paradoxical design! Pic for reference.


If you teleport away with it, then, because portals cannot be moved through teleport effects AFAIK, the portals stay, and you get the metal strip. It either comes as a closed circle, with impossible dimensions, or seems to have a large "Gap", the rest of the connected bit having been torn off when you teleported.

If you move it in the loop, nothing should happen. If you try to move it away from the portals, you'll probably find it "stuck" on your portals through reality. If you attempt to rotate it, then it would act as if it was a circle with the portals as a close point. Thus it will turn in various degrees as a normal object. So there is only a problem if you can force it to escape the portal. As long as you cannot, it should work without issue.

Edit: I suppose there are also some higher dimensional related ways this could work, but I don't pretend to understand those.

Tinydwarfman
2010-08-03, 09:42 PM
If you teleport away with it, then, because portals cannot be moved through teleport effects AFAIK, the portals stay, and you get the metal strip. It either comes as a closed circle, with impossible dimensions, or seems to have a large "Gap", the rest of the connected bit having been torn off when you teleported.

If you move it in the loop, nothing should happen. If you try to move it away from the portals, you'll probably find it "stuck" on your portals through reality. If you attempt to rotate it, then it would act as if it was a circle with the portals as a close point. Thus it will turn in various degrees as a normal object. So there is only a problem if you can force it to escape the portal. As long as you cannot, it should work without issue.

Indeed, but what happens when you rotate it 90 degrees? It should have impossible dimensions, yes?

Gralamin
2010-08-03, 09:45 PM
Indeed, but what happens when you rotate it 90 degrees? It should have impossible dimensions, yes?

Along which axis?

Tinydwarfman
2010-08-03, 09:53 PM
So that the hoop of metal moves through the portals from left to right. AKA, the location of the portals on the hoop is different.

Fouredged Sword
2010-08-03, 09:54 PM
From a game play view, it would be a neat reading that a character could not teleport if tied down to something. Otherwise it would be very dificult to imprison a monk after so many levels.

Logic - you may teleport with up to a weight limit of whorn, carried, grasped, or attached items.

Conclusion - you may not teleport if you exced that limit. You must take off / drop / let go of / or detach stuff before you can bamf out of there.

Or you can read it that the character chooses what to bring with him up to the limit of the teleport, then the rope ether comes with the character and moves in relation to him, but in the exact same orientation, or he dosn't teleport with him. With enough of a weight capacity, one could teleport very large items by tieing a rope to them and yourself.

Gralamin
2010-08-03, 09:55 PM
So that the hoop of metal moves through the portals from left to right. AKA, the location of the portals on the hoop is different.

So you want to move it in the X axis? That should still be fine, as long as the portals are 2d objects, and no part of the hoop is large enough to "miss". If part of the hoop is made so thats it's possible to mis, you probably could not manage to rotate it that far anyway.

Coidzor
2010-08-03, 10:03 PM
So that the hoop of metal moves through the portals from left to right. AKA, the location of the portals on the hoop is different.

Is this an infinite hoop of metal or just one that has been welded in such a way that it is continuous?

As either it simply doesn't have enough length to deal with the dimensions at play and falls out if it's not joined very well, or the stress of being stretched out over more space than it should be able to occupy causes it to narrow and stretch or break and fall out.

Math_Mage
2010-08-03, 10:49 PM
The rope is not in his possession, he's just holding on to it; ergo, the rope falls down where Jack was, and his hand is empty when he arrives.

That's the only reasonable ruling. If the rope, or part of it, teleported with Jack, then Jack could teleport away doors and anything else that fits the weight limit so long as he can hold some part of it (like the doorknob on a locked, barred door).

This seems like a problematic definition of possession. Surely if we're to draw the line between 'possessed' and 'not possessed' for the purpose of teleportation, it would be between the rope (held by the caster) and the tree (rope looped around, but not touched by caster). So Jack always ends up with an empty rope.


Even more of a mindblower in my opinion, I thought of this a few days ago. you have two portals (Blue lines). You build a continuous metal strip (red line) through them. Then you teleport away with it. What the hell just happened? You don't even need to teleport away with it, just move or rotate it. Paradoxical design! Pic for reference.

When you construct a portal, you are changing the topology of the universe. Consider a sheet of paper that you fold over so that one corner is touching the paper (similar to curling your middle finger so that it touches your palm). Then you draw a closed loop on the paper, through the corner (along your middle finger, onto the palm, and back up your middle finger to the starting point). That's your continuous loop of metal, and it's utterly ordinary but for the fact that it's drawn across the paper's fold (the portal). Now, teleporting also creates an effective fold, if only a temporary one (fold your pinky over). You may be manipulating the structure of the universe, but you never leave it. But this closed loop you've drawn can't get through the second fold, not without bringing the first fold with it--and I don't want to get into the Klein bottle-esque universal topology that would result from extruding one piece of folded-over universe through another fold. :smalleek:

Conclusion: You cannot take such a piece of metal through a teleport, unless you rule that you can also take the portals through the teleport with you. Otherwise, the topology of teleportation forbids it. :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Similarly, you cannot move the metal through ordinary means so that it ends up outside the portals. Movement that leaves the metal within the portal is perfectly possible; moreover, it does not stress the metal whatever.

EDIT2: All this is conditional on teleportation being a topological phenomenon as I've explained it above. If it occurs through some other means (a friend just pointed out quantum entanglement), then the reasoning is invalid.

Marnath
2010-08-03, 11:13 PM
I'm in the camp of "the rope drops to the ground where you just were, and you arrive empty handed. As to the metal, i would say you caused a breach in the laws of physics, which some sort of Over-God deus ex machina takes care of, erasing a piece of the metal strip(and finding you some nice layer of the abyss to chill out in for making him do it.)

Kurald Galain
2010-08-04, 02:30 AM
I would say that the rope exceeds the area of effect of the teleportation power, and gets severed. You end up holding half a rope, with scorch marks on the end, and gain a point of paradox.

jseah
2010-08-04, 03:20 AM
Tinydwarfman's example:
Anyone remember this?
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/RingGateDrive2.jpg
or this?
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/SpringDrive.jpg

Basically, instead of rotating the loop of metal, you rotate the portals. >.>



For those saying that you can rotate the loop of metal through the portal, let me ask a question:
What happens if the loop is not circular? Let's say it's square:
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/PortalLoopedMetal.jpg
When you rotate it, one side is coming up too short...

You'll see that the same problem applies to circular pieces of metal. It's just not as obvious.

PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2010-08-04, 12:49 PM
Please, someone. Think of the cat-girls.

jseah
2010-08-04, 01:12 PM
Conclusion: You cannot take such a piece of metal through a teleport, unless you rule that you can also take the portals through the teleport with you. Otherwise, the topology of teleportation forbids it. :smallbiggrin:
Yes, you can. Although the only way to do so is to create the identical topology of space including the portals in your target teleport destination for the duration of the teleport (ie. for 1 instant)

Afterwards, with no magic to support the existence of the pair of created portals, they just shut. Whatever happens to your piece of metal afterwards depends on what happens when an item is halfway through a portal and the portal gets turned off.

Using that analogy of the paper, turning off the portals means your "piece of paper" is now flat again. If you note the line on the paper saying where your metal was, that's where it now is.
Basically, a perfect cut across the plane of the portals.


Please, someone. Think of the cat-girls.
*Stab stab squelch*
oh... so that's what's inside them... I wonder if they make good undead?