Shrinking a ring gate? Destroying a plane?

[Crazylemon64]

You might have, like me, pondered using shrink item on a ring gate so you could pass one through another and do crazy stuff, only to be thwarted by the fact that shrink item doesn't work on magical items.

However, reduce person will shrink yourself, and your equipment along with you. If you cast reduce person while holding a single ring of a ring gate and pass the smaller ring (ring A) through the larger one (ring B), it'll work like a charm. After thinking about it for a bit, I believe it would produce infinite copies of the ring A out of ring A that would be a shrunken version of the ring A that emitted it. The weight limit might seem like an obstacle at first, but since the limit doesn't count as long as you don't pass completely through/let go, this almost certainly will produce infinite copies of ring A. Either that, or the shrunken ring As would count on the weight limit and terminate (?), unless relativity states there's only one ring A passing through ring A. I'm not sure, I think somebody needs to ponder this even more than I have.

Now, if one were to let go of Ring A, it and all of it's copies would instantly return to normal size. if there are infinite copies, as soon as you let go, the plane you are currently located on will be annihilated by a flood of infinite ring As. If one were to do this on the Astral plane in a standard D&D cosmology, the rings would push each other into every portal ever and destroy the entire MULTIVERSE (At the rate of whatever the DM decides a swarm of infinite ring gates travel at)!

Does anybody else here have any thoughts/rulings/insights on this calamity waiting to happen?

[Flickerdart]

A gate ring is not equipment and would be unaffected by reduce person.

[Acanous]

I'm fairly certain that the object passing through a ring gate must be small enough both to enter ring B and exit ring A.
Given that Ring A's circumference is equal to Ring A, it would not be able to pass through the ring gate. Much like if you had a door with a brick wall behind it, containing a much smaller door. You can't go through the portal unless you can pass through both doors.

[Crazylemon64]

I'm fairly certain that the object passing through a ring gate must be small enough both to enter ring B and exit ring A.
Given that Ring A's circumference is equal to Ring A, it would not be able to pass through the ring gate. Much like if you had a door with a brick wall behind it, containing a much smaller door. You can't go through the portal unless you can pass through both doors.

I guess it depends on the DM's interpretation of a ring gate. If they view it as two "door frames" that lead to each other (Your example above), then this concept would likely not work as the ring gate would be blocked by itself.

If the DM instead interprets a ring gate as more like a wormhole, where it leads to the same universe but at the same proportions you were relative to the ring gate you entered in (if you stuck an item 1/5 as big as the entrance ring gate, it would exit 1/5 the size of the exit ring gate), shrinking one opening would cause you to enter the same universe, but smaller relative to everything else if you enter the larger one (I think, unless the independent research I did on physics stuff is off. Please tell me if I got that wrong).


A gate ring is not equipment and would be unaffected by reduce person.

What happens to non-wearable items in your backpack? Would they explode out? Would that bedroll you're carrying suddenly become awkward and cumbersome? Would those gems you're carrying become very big to you? I myself am not sure if this comes down to DM ruling.


However, it's likely that there won't be a campaign where this is possible, else somebody in that universe probably would have tried it and destroyed everything already. Maybe that could be a major plot point, and the ring gates would be major artifacts?

[Flickerdart]

What happens to non-wearable items in your backpack? Would they explode out? Would that bedroll you're carrying suddenly become awkward and cumbersome? Would those gems you're carrying become very big to you? I myself am not sure if this comes down to DM ruling.
The ring gate isn't an item, either. It's a spell effect.

[Crazylemon64]

The ring gate isn't an item, either. It's a spell effect.

The ring gate I refer to is a wondrous item found in the DM Guide, not the gate spell of the Player's Handbook. Which of the two are you referring to?

And to avoid any potential confusion in the future, should I use different fonts for items and spells?

[Acanous]

I'm mostly going off of how there's nothing in the text about object size being determined by Ring Gate size. You'd think they'd put something like that in there, as it'd be a permanent way to increase or decrease one's size. (Reduce Person on self, walk through shrunken ring gate, become normal size on exit, dismiss Reduce Person, become large.)
Alternatively the two halves of the Ring Gate count as one item, and reducing one in size also reduces the other.

[Crazylemon64]

I'm mostly going off of how there's nothing in the text about object size being determined by Ring Gate size. You'd think they'd put something like that in there, as it'd be a permanent way to increase or decrease one's size. (Reduce Person on self, walk through shrunken ring gate, become normal size on exit, dismiss Reduce Person, become large.)
Alternatively the two halves of the Ring Gate count as one item, and reducing one in size also reduces the other.

Ring gates aren't all that easy to fit through, they're a bit too small for the average character to pass through. And actually, I was thinking the ring gate and anything that passed through it would return to normal size when the spell effect that changed the size of the ring gate wore off, but I suppose that might depend on how one thinks spell effects work. Now that I think of it, what if magic were used to change the size of a planar gate, or something similar? Since there really aren't any rules on that, I guess it all falls down to DM discretion.

Note that it's probably likely that in order to prevent the universe from being destroyed and therefore instantaneously ending the campaign, that the DM shall rule that portals function like how you described with your "door" analogy, or something similar that will prevent omnicide. (Unless, of course, that's the entire point of the plot)

Though now that I think of it, what would happen if you had the two pieces that form a ring gate, cast enlarge person, and then used the two grown ring gates to make a sphere of annihilation collide with itself? Since the sphere is not made of matter, I haven't the slightest what would happen. I guess that too would fall down to DM discretion.

[Acanous]

One of two things would happen:
1: The Sphere of Annihilation destroys the Ring Gate as the weilder attempts to move it through
2: The Sphere destroys itself.

pretty cut and dry there. The Sphere can be destroyed by a Rod, so I can see it being destroyed by itself just as easilly.