That darned Eversmoking Bottle....

[nefele]

I'll ask this question in "Simple Q&A" too, but I'm not only interested in RAW, I'm also interested how we can make this thing work by RAI and Common Sense (TM). IF at all possible. So, the item in question is:


This metal urn is identical in appearance to an efreeti bottle, except that it does nothing but smoke. The amount of smoke is great if the stopper is pulled out, pouring from the bottle and totally obscuring vision across a 50-foot spread in 1 round. If the bottle is left unstoppered, the smoke billows out another 10 feet per round until it has covered a 100-foot radius. This area remains smoke-filled until the eversmoking bottle is stoppered.

So you begin your round with the bottle in your hand. You open it, smoke begins to spread, and then you move, bottle in hand. Except that you're an Epic Hasted Monk (or something) and you move faster than the smoke. And you keep moving.

What happens to the smoke? How does it spread? Does the original radius simply expand, even if the bottle is out of the smoke effect? Does it make a 10 ft radius circle wherever the Epic Hasted Monk happens to be at the beginning of his turn? Or what?

Personally, I'm this close to just ban it, on the grounds of "it's a bleeding headache". :smalltongue: But how would you rule it?

[dsmiles]

What happens to the smoke? How does it spread? Does the original radius simply expand, even if the bottle is out of the smoke effect? Does it make a 10 ft radius circle wherever the Epic Hasted Monk happens to be at the beginning of his turn? Or what?

Personally, I'm this close to just ban it, on the grounds of "it's a bleeding headache". :smalltongue: But how would you rule it?

Ok. Lemme see here.

Open it first, then move? 10 ft radius is good for the instantaneous effect. If he is moving faster than the smoke, I'd say it covers a line, consisting of his movement path and 5 ft to either side of it, which then dissipates at the end of the round, as if the bottle was stoppered in that area. Count the number of squares in a 50 ft spread, and fill the rest of the spread in at the point where he finished his move. Like a "wall of smoke" that doesn't last very long.

that was long, maybe I was ninja'd?

[DemLep]

I'd rule in favor of a wake effect behind the moving monk (think of a speed boat). And it starts expanding at the points he stops. So if he doesn't stop moving he could get a 100 ft., maybe 150 ft. tail behind him. When he stops it would start encircling him and acting as normal.

[JeenLeen]

Trying to look at it by RAW
The monk moving faster than the smoke matters little, because it is "in one round" that the smoke spreads. When the monk takes a standard action to open the item, it happens.

By a very technical reading, more smoke is not necessarily exiting the bottle. The smoke released in round 1 is continuing to spread 10ft/rd. I think, by a very exact reading of what you quoted, the smoke would continue to spread from the initial point of release.

If the bottle happens to be 100 or 1000 ft away at the moment, it doesn't matter. The smoke released in round 1 continues to spread up to 100 ft until the bottle is closed. All smoke magically vanishes the moment an action is taken to stopper the bottle.

No new smoke cloud starts after the initial cloud is released until the bottle is stopped and re-opened.

Using RAI and common sense
The intent, especially due to the verb 'billows', seems clear. 50 ft spread initially flows out, and more smoke flows out causing it to flow another 10 ft/round.

I would say, if the monk moves, the 50 ft cloud is re-emitted at his current position. I guess the old smoke vanishes, the bottle not being near it enough to provide existence to the smoke. Or you have it dissipate over time as the smoke disperses.

[Snake-Aes]

It is easiest to just make the effect happen at a fixed time in the round it was activated. So when your monk opens it and starts running, it will spread on a fixed moment every round.

If there is rules for dissipation, use that for previous positions' smoke. Otherwise just assume it fades as the new smoke is spread.

[awa]

i believe the smoke fades as if it were normal smoke so how long it would last would be based on the local weather conditions.

The bottle must be resealed by a command word, after which the smoke dissipates normally. A moderate wind (11+ mph) disperses the smoke in 4 rounds; a strong wind (21+ mph) disperses the smoke in 1 round.

[nefele]

i believe the smoke fades as if it were normal smoke so how long it would last would be based on the local weather conditions.
The smoke dissipates normally only after you reseal the bottle. The problem is what happens when the Epic Hasted Monk is running around with an open bottle.

To add some context, this is about a Warrior Arena. I'm not looking for a solution that would make the bottle more powerful than it already is. :smalltongue:

[Lysander]

The most mathematically accurate solution would be to figure out the area covered by smoke in one round, and then allow a same sized area overlapping the monk's path to be covered by smoke.

If stationary the bottle covers a 50-ft spread with smoke, which we can treat as a circle with a radius of 25ft. That gives us an area about 1963 feet.

Now we just have to treat the "wall of smoke" created each round as a rectangle with an area of 1963 feet. Just divide 1963 by the length of the monk's path each round to figure out the width of the wall created. So for example if he say runs 100 feet in one round, the wall would be 19.63ft thick, which I would round up to 20ft.

The thickness of the wall could change each round as the monk varies his speed. Should he ever stop, or barely move, I'd just make a new 50ft spread appear around him.

Smoke left behind would dissipate normally, but I would make thinner areas of smoke dissipate proportionally quicker. For example, I'd let moderate wind disperse a wall 20ft thick in 2 rounds instead of 4. And I'd let a strong wind disperse it instantaneously.

If I've made any mistake please correct me, since I usually just employ math when calculating restaurant tips and grocery bills.

[jiriku]

Overall I'd say RAI leans on the "wall of smoke" effect. The rules describing the effect are clearly operating under the assumption that the bottle remains stationary. And if you've ever watched a smoke-belching car driving at relatively slow speeds, you know exactly what the smoke effect is going to look like. The "wake" would be much wider than one square. How wide exactly is open to guesswork.

Of course, if you're planning this for competitive use, you should be asking the DM of the competition, not us, because our opinions won't matter one whit vs. what the DM decides.

[nefele]

I am the DM. :smalltongue:

[jiriku]

Well heck, easy call for you then. :smallbiggrin:

I am a strong believer in making players do the legwork for adjudicating their crazy stunts. Thus, the "I don't want a headache over this" DM solution is to tell the monk's player that:

The monk gets a trail of smoke of a volume no greater than the per-round additional volume of the bottle.
It's up to the player to calculate how large an effect that is.
If the player can't figure it out, then your default ruling is that the monk's great speed causes the smoke to immediately dissipate.

If you want to check your player's work, just post it here. There are enough math geeks on the Playground to throughly proof it.

Edited for brevity.

[Snake-Aes]

Well heck, easy call for you then. :smallbiggrin:

I am a strong believer in making players do the legwork for adjudicating their crazy stunts. Thus, the "I don't want a headache over this" DM solution is to tell the monk's player that:

He gets a trail of smoke of a volume no greater than the per-round additional volume of the bottle.
It's up to him to calculate how large an effect that is.
If he can't figure it out, he can't use the bottle.

If you want to check his work, just post it here. There are enough math geeks on the Playground to throughly proof whatever he comes up with.

Interestingly, this might even lead to a situation where he is going too fast. A 5'thick smoke line won't do much.

[nefele]

I think I can handle the math once we get the formula, but which formula would that be? To use your example, why 30 ft wide and not 10 or 20? That's why I'm asking here.

I'm considering all your proposals, more are welcome. :)

[Snake-Aes]

I think I can handle the math once we get the formula, but which formula would that be? To use your example, why 30 ft wide and not 10 or 20? That's why I'm asking here.

I'm considering all your proposals, more are welcome. :)

since the battle zone is already fragmented in 5' cubes, just sum them up. a 10' radius per round is 16 "blocks" of smoke(13 if you want to kill catgirls by going by circle area instead). That's how much he has to play with after the initial effect(which is 5x that). Also note that settling and fillin a 100' radius after moving around takes much longer too.

13-16 "5-foot squares" of smoke per round and his movement will "cap" at 65' before thinning it out too much. At this point he's making a single file of smoke.

[Lysander]

I think I can handle the math once we get the formula, but which formula would that be? To use your example, why 30 ft wide and not 10 or 20? That's why I'm asking here.

I'm considering all your proposals, more are welcome. :)

The formula would be 1963 divided by the distance the monk travels equals the width of the wall of smoke he creates that round.

The per round addition of 10ft is added to all points around a huge circle. That's a lot more smoke than just filling one ten foot square. It would be like saying "the beach is 10 feet wide, therefore all the sand on the beach would only fill a 10ft square)

I agree that to simplify things you might just convert the spell from feet to "squares covered".

[jiriku]

Hmmmm...

The volume of smoke put out by the bottle is irregular. Example: the volume of smoke necessary to expand the spread from 90' radius to 100' radius is dramatically larger than the volume necessary to expand it from 50' to 60'. We'll assume that rather than an attempt to model increasing smoke pressure over time, this is probably a simplication intended to eliminate the need for complex mathematics.

However, we like complex mathematics! For hyper-pickiness, let's average the maximum and minimum possible volume increase, and assume that the designers were expecting a hemisphere of smoke rather than a sphere (since the typical player is expect to be standing on the ground.

For:

Volume = 4/3*pi*radius cubed

V1 = volume of 100' sphere = 4,186,667
V2 = volume of 90' sphere = 3,052,080
V3 = volume of 60' sphere = 904,320
V4 = volume of 50' sphere = 523,333
Vx = Average volume of smoke created

Vx = (V1+V3-V2-V4)/4
(dividing by 4 to simultaneously average the numbers and convert from spheres to hemispheres)
Vx = (4186667+904320-3052080-523333)/4
Vx = 388,894
Vx ~ 400,000 cubic feet

Double that number if the monk is airborne and leaving a contrail behind him.

Assuming the monk is moving at a speed of 120' per round, he'd leave a trail with dimensions of:

\ /---------
\/(Vx/120)

\ /---------------
\/(388894/120)

57

60 feet high by 60 feet wide by 120 feet long.

If the monk is double-moving at 240' per round, the trail is 40 feet high by 40 feet wide by 240 feet long.

If the monk is running all-out at 480' per round, the trail is 30 feet high by 30 feet wide by 480 feet long in a straight line.

Math check, anyone?

[Sir Giacomo]

Ah...the eversmoking bottle, an old favourite of mine...:smallwink:

I'd suggest the following simple solution, being as close to RAW as I can imagine:

- initial activation causes the 50ft radius smoke to arise within one round (using linear spread increase, this means 25ft radius have come up when it is the opponent's turn)
- the spread of 50ft originates from the point of initial activation. That is, when the monk or other bottle owner moves outside the original spread in the round of activation, he'll move out, only trailing behind him some smoke still coming from the bottle.
- every round the bottle remains unstoppered, another 10ft radius is added, from the point the bottle user is at the beginning of his turn. Again, 5ft during his turn, 5ft during that of the opponent. Again, the bottle user can opt to remain in the smoke or move on.
- the smoke disdipates normally, as per smoke rules.
- a possible trick to create more smoke faster is to activate, get 50ft radius, move, next round close bottle, move again, next round activate again to receive another 50ft initial radius, etc

Hope that helped.

- Giacomo