PDA

View Full Version : A player's revenge



The Mentalist
2010-08-29, 03:25 AM
My DM recently gave some enemies gunpowder and when my character got a hold of it we very suddenly came up against a lot of fire using enemies and I had to make an additional reflex save every time I was hit. I fail these saves about two sessions in and it's an instant kill because "1kg of gunpowder in your backpack will kill you. Physics still works"

So I roll up a Wizard.

At this point half the party (who has played with me before) starts laughing a little and waiting for what I have planned (They don't know what exactly is happening)

I start acquiring anything I can that's "Indestructible" (DM's fond of them, rings, toys, some food, just general rubbish) and start an infinite acceleration system with them (Keeping it in a bag of holding). DM finally shows us the BBEG (The first dragon RAWR!) and it goes through it's monologue.

DM: "Blah blah blah."

Me: "I cast Greater Celerity."

Everyone at table: "What?"

Me: "I open the bag of holding and teleport the top teleporter on top of the dragon."

DM: "So?"

Me, passing him the calculations: "Two dozen indestructible objects at the nearly the speed of light entering a high friction environment and hitting the dragon. Physics still works"

A bit extreme maybe but he killed my rogue, in the middle of a Kobold dungeon full of traps, because he couldn't cope with his own toys.

Drakevarg
2010-08-29, 03:33 AM
Wouldn't the resulting impact kinda... obliterate everything in the immediate area?

The Mentalist
2010-08-29, 03:36 AM
It did. The party was saved by contingent teleports. Even if they had died I think they would have approved though. They hated the rest of that dungeon without a trap springer.

Drakevarg
2010-08-29, 03:37 AM
Ah, good show, then.

Chunky Salsa Rule is fun. :smalltongue:

DragonOfUndeath
2010-08-29, 03:55 AM
Chunky Dragon Salsa Rule FTW :smallbiggrin:

Project_Mayhem
2010-08-29, 04:09 AM
Normally I'd frown at player white-whale-ery, but this seems both funny and fitting

_Zoot_
2010-08-29, 04:16 AM
Ouch, good thing you could teleport, there would not have been much left after that kind of impact :smallbiggrin:

FelixG
2010-08-29, 04:43 AM
How did the GM react? :D

The Pressman
2010-08-29, 05:25 AM
How did the GM react? :D

That's what I was wondering, although I can already almost picture it...:smallamused:

stenver
2010-08-29, 05:55 AM
can anyone give me drawing or explain really good what just happened? Im not that good in physics and how did that explosion happen, exactly?

Teleport isnt faster then speed of light, it is jumping from one place to another.

Amoren
2010-08-29, 06:16 AM
...Screw teleport, I think you're going to need a plane shift spell to get out of that one! The potential damage on a PLANET with sufficient indestructible relativistic kill vehicles traveling at the speed of light might cause an extinction level event.

Of course, if I was the DM, I would have argued that the indestructible objects were not, in fact, traveling at anywhere near the speed of light. Due to A) potential friction in the teleporter set up, or B) the speed of light is really, really, really big and any perpetual teleportation acceleration set up would take years, perhaps centuries to get that fast.

jpreem
2010-08-29, 06:18 AM
to stenver

Maybe he used some exit portal over the entrance portal type of thing ( with ring gates or what not) stuff falls from the exit portal into the entrance portal, pops out of the exit again. And keeps on falling and falling steadily gaining the speed. When theres somekinda of a gravitational force and no air in a portable hole then the stufff just keeps gaining speed.

Stompy
2010-08-29, 06:19 AM
[...] and start an infinite acceleration system with them (Keeping it in a bag of holding).

I have no clue how you can manage this with one bag of holding. (two linked portals, sure...) Someone enlighten me.

Amoren
2010-08-29, 06:21 AM
can anyone give me drawing or explain really good what just happened? Im not that good in physics and how did that explosion happen, exactly?

Teleport isnt faster then speed of light, it is jumping from one place to another.

It helps if you've played Portal, as the demonstration of the gameplay really hits the underlying rule of this home. Basically, you assume that the momentum of an object being teleported is conserved (or in layman's term "Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out"). So, say you have a (frictionless) environment with gravity, and a teleporter entrance and exit ten meters apart vertically (they're on top of each other).

You drop an item in at the top of the system, and it falls for one second acquiring a velocity of 9.8m/s (assuming Earth gravity) then travels into the teleporter entrance. It then teleports to the exit, which is on top of it, and acquires another 9.8m/s of speed every second of this, forever. Since there is no friction, aka air, to slow the object down, there is no terminal velocity, and thus no limit to how fast an object could become from doing this. Hell, you don't even need indestructible items to pull this off, the indestructible RKV's just make it all the more 'oh god we're dead' thing.

This is assuming he's used a similar system though.

Edit: You could, potentially, do this with a bag of holding if you assume whatever sub pocket dimension/whatever that the items you place in it are junted to still possess gravity. Then you would only need to somehow get it to hold two portals and set the items in motion. Then you would only need to change the exit portal to your intended target, and then make peace with your gods because anything you use that on within sight is still going to turn you into submolecular ash.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-29, 07:11 AM
Ring gates work particularly well for these(and other) shenanigans.

I must say, I approve. It's a particularly appropriate vengeance, and that makes it clever and satisfying.

GM.Casper
2010-08-29, 08:24 AM
Yeah, but then you are getting free energy. Laws of physics forbid that.

jmbrown
2010-08-29, 08:31 AM
It helps if you've played Portal, as the demonstration of the gameplay really hits the underlying rule of this home. Basically, you assume that the momentum of an object being teleported is conserved (or in layman's term "Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out"). So, say you have a (frictionless) environment with gravity, and a teleporter entrance and exit ten meters apart vertically (they're on top of each other).

You drop an item in at the top of the system, and it falls for one second acquiring a velocity of 9.8m/s (assuming Earth gravity) then travels into the teleporter entrance. It then teleports to the exit, which is on top of it, and acquires another 9.8m/s of speed every second of this, forever. Since there is no friction, aka air, to slow the object down, there is no terminal velocity, and thus no limit to how fast an object could become from doing this. Hell, you don't even need indestructible items to pull this off, the indestructible RKV's just make it all the more 'oh god we're dead' thing.

This is assuming he's used a similar system though.

Edit: You could, potentially, do this with a bag of holding if you assume whatever sub pocket dimension/whatever that the items you place in it are junted to still possess gravity. Then you would only need to somehow get it to hold two portals and set the items in motion. Then you would only need to change the exit portal to your intended target, and then make peace with your gods because anything you use that on within sight is still going to turn you into submolecular ash.

Teleportation is instantaneous movement from point A to point B. There's no buildup of momentum or velocity, you instantly travel through the Astral plane and immediately begin existing at the point specified.

Force
2010-08-29, 08:32 AM
Yeah, but then you are getting free energy. Laws of physics forbid that.

Wizard's existence = laws of physics commit suicide. 'nuff said.

hotel_papa
2010-08-29, 08:43 AM
Teleportation is instantaneous movement from point A to point B. There's no buildup of momentum or velocity, you instantly travel through the Astral plane and immediately begin existing at the point specified.

If I'm reading correctly, that's not the point. The buildup of momentum and velocity occurs when the object is in free fall between the two teleporters in a frictionless environment. The teleportation simply allows it to be perpetual. While there is no buildup during your instant jaunt in the Astral plane, there is also no degradation.

Also, the energy is not free at all. Once an object is in perpetual free fall in a frictionless environment, the force of gravity on it renders an amount of potential energy approaching the speed of light. The only limitation is the object's mass and the acceleration of gravity. But, what was said earlier was true. In my opinion, this would take longer than a Draconic monologue.

That aside, wouldn't allow it in my campaign. There's nothing that says the inside of an extradimensional space is frictionless, especially since it contains 10 minutes of air, or that gravity continues to work consistently in one direction. Maybe a portable hole, but not a bag of holding. But then, I also wouldn't have made you roll another save for the backpack full of explosives unless you rolled a one on a fire area effect. Like dem rules sayz.

That being said, he was punishing you for taking advantage of something he put into a campaign. Screw the dragon.

MightyTim
2010-08-29, 10:09 AM
The formula for relativistic acceleration isn't terribly complicated in and of itself.

V(t)=g*t/sqrt(1+(g*t/c)^2)

Where V(t) is the velocity at any point in time, g is the accleration due to gravity, c is the speed of light, and t is the time (this assumes the object starts at rest at t=0). If we assume that D&D has the same 9.8 m/s^2 acceleration due to gravity as well as the same speed of light (about 300,000,000 m/s). I ran some quick calculations and found that you can get to about 2/3 the speed of light after 30,000,000 seconds, which translates to 8,333 ish hours. I doubt the adventuring party is going to stay in a dungeon that long, so you're not going to be anywhere near the speed of light by the time you reach the BBEG.

However, that's not the only thing we've got to take into account here. Using the same equation for the sake of rigorousness, if you assume the adventurers are in there for about an hour (3600 seconds), the objects falling can reach a speed of 35,280 m/s during that time, which is still absurdly fast. For comparison, the speed of a bullet only ever goes up to about 1500 m/s.

So while you wouldn't have something approaching the seed of light on the timeframe we're talking about, you still effectively have a railgun.

The problems with the scenario lie in what hotel_papa touched on. The pocket dimension of the bag of holding needs to have a linear directional acceleration due to gravity and be a frictionless environment. The 10 minutes of air they include seem to contradict that. Finding terminal velocity is a lot more tedious of a task, since it's determined by the physical characteristics of the object in question (and it seems like there's more than one), so there's no way to really conclusively tell how fast it'd really be going once it comes out.

tl;dr

Neat idea, probably wouldn't actually work. DM had it coming anyway :P

The Mentalist
2010-08-29, 10:38 AM
To the people mentioning the speed: Yes the environment was frictionless (A spell from a 3rd party book I can't recall) and I had a permanent Gust of Wind on all the items to increase the acceleration.

GM's reaction. "What? You're telling me... you killed the dragon? Before the end of the speech? F**K YOU MAN! Wrap game. I need time to fix this.

AtopTheMountain
2010-08-29, 10:39 AM
To the people mentioning the speed: Yes the environment was frictionless (A spell from a 3rd party book I can't recall) and I had a permanent Gust of Wind on all the items to increase the acceleration.

GM's reaction. "What? You're telling me... you killed the dragon? Before the end of the speech? F**K YOU MAN! Wrap game. I need time to fix this.

Wait... if it had no air, how does Gust of Wind work? :smallconfused:

Aroka
2010-08-29, 10:40 AM
I fail these saves about two sessions in and it's an instant kill because "1kg of gunpowder in your backpack will kill you. Physics still works"

Why? It's not going to be terribly pressurized - wouldn't it just burn up very quickly? A great flash of fire in your backpack, it might catch on fire, but you'd probably be able to discard it...

I'd argue your DM's physics wasn't that strong.

And yes, your come-back was actually appropriate. Using bad physics against a DM who used bad physics against you is definitely poetic justice.

Urpriest
2010-08-29, 10:47 AM
Many catgirls died to bring us this information.

The Mentalist
2010-08-29, 10:50 AM
Wait... if it had no air, how does Gust of Wind work? :smallconfused:

There is a small bit of air in a Bag of Holding, the other spell just made it so that there was no friction to it. Sick and defies the laws of psychics but it was worth it.

Naia
2010-08-29, 01:25 PM
Well played! *salutes*

The Glyphstone
2010-08-29, 02:14 PM
To the people mentioning the speed: Yes the environment was frictionless (A spell from a 3rd party book I can't recall) and I had a permanent Gust of Wind on all the items to increase the acceleration.

GM's reaction. "What? You're telling me... you killed the dragon? Before the end of the speech? F**K YOU MAN! Wrap game. I need time to fix this.

Marginally better than fiating it on the spot for you to fail.

Was this recent, or is there more aftermath to describe?

The Mentalist
2010-08-29, 02:52 PM
He's currently asking the party if we want to start a new game or try and continue with this one. He has definitely taken a dim view of Wizards at the moment and has asked me to play another class saying "I'm not going to play with you're going to destroy my campaigns." I want to reply "And I don't want my characters gimped or destroyed because you don't like them."

Gan The Grey
2010-08-29, 03:02 PM
He's currently asking the party if we want to start a new game or try and continue with this one. He has definitely taken a dim view of Wizards at the moment and has asked me to play another class saying "I'm not going to play with you're going to destroy my campaigns." I want to reply "And I don't want my characters gimped or destroyed because you don't like them."

Then I suggest you reply with that exactly. This whole situation could have been prevented in the beginning with so decent communication. Now he has a problem with wizards because of one situation. If you guys talk it out, you might solve alot of future problems long before they arise.

Lord_Gareth
2010-08-29, 03:03 PM
You could always, y'know, find a new GM. This guy sounds like a meanyface >.>

Binks
2010-08-29, 03:08 PM
Yeah, but then you are getting free energy. Laws of physics forbid that.

Nope. The Laws of Physics say nothing about free energy. They do, however, rule out all possible situations that would give you free energy, like the one. As soon as you have free teleportation all rules go out the window because you no longer have to expend energy to move something to a high potential energy state which makes it possible to create energy at no cost. It's getting the free teleportation that's impossible (but perfectly legal in d&d), not the resulting free energy :P.


He has definitely taken a dim view of Wizards at the moment and has asked me to play another class saying

Would this be a bad time to point out nothing you did was wizard specific, and that all of it could be done by just about anyone with some equipment :P.

The Glyphstone
2010-08-29, 03:11 PM
And point out, unambigiously, that the only reason you did it was because he arbitrarily killed off your last character with 'physics', so you did the same to his BBEG. If he plays fair, so will you.

The Mentalist
2010-08-29, 03:12 PM
Would this be a bad time to point out nothing you did was wizard specific, and that all of it could be done by just about anyone with some equipment :P.

I know that.

One of the other players is writing a list of ultimatums (we've had some trouble with him playing tyrant at the table before) and if he can't work with us on them (at least meet us in the middle) we're either walking or one of us is running the game and he can play.

The Mentalist
2010-08-29, 03:13 PM
And point out, unambigiously, that the only reason you did it was because he arbitrarily killed off your last character with 'physics', so you did the same to his BBEG. If he plays fair, so will you.

I'll bring that up when he cools down a bit.

Volthawk
2010-08-29, 03:17 PM
I first read this as 'A player's revenue', and I was thinking "Why's he talking about physics?".

Urist McDwarf
2010-08-29, 04:13 PM
Have you played Dwarf Fortress? If so, let me tell you, that was the dwarfiest thing EVAR

Volthawk
2010-08-29, 04:14 PM
Have you played Dwarf Fortress? If so, let me tell you, that was the dwarfiest thing EVAR

I've got it downloaded, just haven't started it yet.

UserClone
2010-08-29, 04:53 PM
Well did you even roll the 20d6 to see how much damage the dragon took? Because according to the dmg (setting aside the fact that there is no established gravity necessarily assumed inside a bag of holding, and the fact that the 10 minutes worth of air exerts friction on the objects inside), 20d6 is the most damage a falling object is capable of dealing. The end.

Drakevarg
2010-08-29, 04:55 PM
Well did you even roll the 20d6 to see how much damage the dragon took? Because according to the dmg (setting aside the fact that there is no established gravity necessarily assumed inside a bag of holding, and the fact that the 10 minutes worth of air exerts friction on the objects inside), 20d6 is the most damage a falling object is capable of dealing. The end.

1- The 20d6 cap is because of terminal velocity. No friction, no terminal velocity.
2- He cast a spell to remove the friction. Which spell, I don't know.
3- Pretty sure Bags of Holding are considered demiplanes or somesuch, and planes are generally assumed to function like the Material Plane unless specifically stated otherwise.

Ranos
2010-08-29, 04:56 PM
Well did you even roll the 20d6 to see how much damage the dragon took? Because according to the dmg (setting aside the fact that there is no established gravity necessarily assumed inside a bag of holding, and the fact that the 10 minutes worth of air exerts friction on the objects inside), 20d6 is the most damage a falling object is capable of dealing. The end.

That's kind of the whole point of the chunky salsa houserule.

The Glyphstone
2010-08-29, 05:03 PM
Well did you even roll the 20d6 to see how much damage the dragon took? Because according to the dmg (setting aside the fact that there is no established gravity necessarily assumed inside a bag of holding, and the fact that the 10 minutes worth of air exerts friction on the objects inside), 20d6 is the most damage a falling object is capable of dealing. The end.

Even with that in mind, 'two dozen' objects at that speed is still 240d6 damage, average 840. That's enough to one-shot a Colossal Great Wyrm Gold, the nastiest non-epic dragon in D&D.

Crow
2010-08-29, 08:01 PM
You need to just chill with the "physics" and have a talk with your DM.

From the way I've read things, both the OP AND the DM are being turds. Seriously, talk it out instead of having an arms race with the DM. It sounds like things have gotten worse since your little experiment, when things could have gotten better if you had both been adults about it.

Umael
2010-08-29, 08:13 PM
It is an interesting story.

How long did your objects remain in the accelerator?

UserClone
2010-08-29, 08:13 PM
No...you're assuming that the 20d6 cap is based on terminal velocity. The rule simply exists, whether you want it to or not.

The fact of it being a dozen objects, thus able to deal 240d6, is a much better argument.

But still, it all just sounds like the dm made 2 very bad calls.

Camelot
2010-08-29, 08:35 PM
"Physics still works."

Says the people playing as kobolds and wizards.

Drakevarg
2010-08-29, 08:37 PM
No...you're assuming that the 20d6 cap is based on terminal velocity. The rule simply exists, whether you want it to or not.

That's by RAW. And RAW went out the window the second the rogue was instagibbed by a keg of gunpowder.

Though a thought occurs: How was the DM caught off guard by this? You couldn't have set up the accelerator without his knowledge, and he was well aware that the objects inside it were indestructable.

Eldan
2010-08-29, 08:42 PM
Hey, at least he didn't do it with antimatter or teleporting the dragon himself to somewhere where it's momentum from the earth's rotation woudl kill it.

Tetrasodium
2010-08-29, 09:14 PM
Hey, at least he didn't do it with antimatter or teleporting the dragon himself to somewhere where it's momentum from the earth's rotation woudl kill it.

Nail to the sky is an epic level spell that does that :P, evidentially reentry is 2d6 fire/cold and 1d4 untyped from the vacuum

Shadowbane
2010-08-29, 09:31 PM
You need to just chill with the "physics" and have a talk with your DM.

From the way I've read things, both the OP AND the DM are being turds. Seriously, talk it out instead of having an arms race with the DM. It sounds like things have gotten worse since your little experiment, when things could have gotten better if you had both been adults about it.

Totally this.

Vorpalbob
2010-08-29, 09:39 PM
A two-page conversation of D&D rules and the laws of physics?

*nerdgasm*

I love you guys.

JoshuaZ
2010-08-29, 09:46 PM
The objects final acceleration will probably be a lot less than the speed of light. The speed of light is about 3*10^8 meters/s. Assuming 10 m/s^2 for acceleration that means it would take 3*10^7 seconds to reach light speed (and of course relativistic effects would kick in substantially well before that, probably becoming substantial around 5% of light speed). That's around 340 days. So unless an object was being sent through this system for about that long, these won't be going that near the speed of light. However, if one only accelerates to about 1% of light speed, that only takes around a month and really would probably take about that long even with relativistic effects. And 1% of light speed is enough to be making everything go boom (heck the immediate contact with atmosphere will be bad enough).

That said, I agree with other people who have commented that this doesn't sound like a healthy campaign dynamic. Talking to the DM is probably a better idea than seeing who can abuse the laws of physics more.

Thiyr
2010-08-29, 10:24 PM
He's currently asking the party if we want to start a new game or try and continue with this one. He has definitely taken a dim view of Wizards at the moment and has asked me to play another class saying "I'm not going to play with you're going to destroy my campaigns." I want to reply "And I don't want my characters gimped or destroyed because you don't like them."

As it seems he may just not be aware of how it works, you may wish to explain to him the Gentlemen's agreement (http://www.halolz.com/2009/07/24/i-vas-told-ve-vould-be-fighting-gentlemen/): What the players do, the DM may make use of, and what the DM does, the players may make use of (within the limits of their power). I may not have been there, but from your description, it doesn't sound like he was trying to be an ass. Once he is formally made aware of the gentlemen's agreement, inform him that it means even if you're playing a wizard, you'll be limiting yourself because you don't want to break said agreement.