Shrink Item

[willpell]

I just read this spell and I think it's the weirdest one I've seen yet. Apparently you can shrink "a fire and its fuel", and "change its composition to a clothlike one". WHAT? Please someone tell me what on Oerth is going on with this thing, what's the story behind it and how have you seen it used in games, so I can figure out whether to ban it in my campaign just to save myself from scratching my head until it gushes a fountain of blood.

[Lateral]

I just read this spell and I think it's the weirdest one I've seen yet. Apparently you can shrink "a fire and its fuel", and "change its composition to a clothlike one". WHAT? Please someone tell me what on Oerth is going on with this thing, what's the story behind it and how have you seen it used in games, so I can figure out whether to ban it in my campaign just to save myself from scratching my head until it gushes a fountain of blood.

...I don't get what you're confused about. You can either shrink something three size categories, in which case it is the same as it was before, only smaller; alternatively, you can shrink it to that tiny size and turn it into a piece of cloth. (Well, a clothlike material, anyway.) Until the spell is released, is dispelled, or wears off.

As for use in games... well, I love it. It's a long-lasting spell, and it has a million uses for clever players. There's the old lead cone hat trick, but beyond that it's handy for taking heavy or dangerous loot with you. It isn't difficult to weaponize, either, especially with the clothlike composition- wrap it around a rock and use it with a sling, and it'll change back and regrow wherever it hits. To use it well, though, it requires a lot of creativity and foresight on the part of the player; that's kind of why I love it so much, that it makes you think to use it effectively, but it also makes it more abusable. Really, it's your decision on whether you think your players are capable of using it creatively without breaking your game.

[Randomguy]

From the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shrinkItem.htm)

Optionally, you can also change its now shrunken composition to a clothlike one.

The "shrink a fire and it's fuel" part isn't from Shrink Item, it's from the glove of storing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#gloveofStoring). That exact line isn't actually in the SRD though, but it's in the DMG (since the SRD cut out all fluff.) That's only possible because the glove of storing stores things in stasis (that part is mentioned in the SRD) so the fire doesn't keep using fuel while it's in the glove.

Shrink item has a bunch of fun uses: Use it on a fallen tree, and use that as your quarterstaff, and then speak the command word and drop it while you're flying over an enemy, or just drop it on someone in an Antimagic Field. Or use it on a big iron cone so you can wear it as a hat, which will grow when you enter an AMF, which stops the AMF from affecting you. Or just speak the command word and you've got a nice shield from anything other than disintigrate.

[olelia]

Step 1 : Cast Shrink Item on enemy armor.
Step 2 : Enemy fails save.
Step 3 : ????
Step 4 : Profit

[willpell]

It isn't difficult to weaponize, either, especially with the clothlike composition- wrap it around a rock and use it with a sling, and it'll change back and regrow wherever it hits.

This is exactly the kind of cheesy stunt I would rather not have my players pulling on me.



The "shrink a fire and it's fuel" part isn't from Shrink Item, it's from the glove of storing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#gloveofStoring).

It does also appear under Shrink Item in my version of the DMG, with no clarification on whether the fire continues to burn.


Or use it on a big iron cone so you can wear it as a hat, which will grow when you enter an AMF, which stops the AMF from affecting you. Or just speak the command word and you've got a nice shield from anything other than disintigrate.

This seems like a good way of suffocating and/or crushing your skull. Certainly if a player was trying to pull this one, I wouldn't shy away from ruling that the cone shears off an arm or something as it grows back to its proper size while he's inside the space it should have occupied.

[Invader]

This is exactly the kind of cheesy stunt I would rather not have my players pulling on me.


If you're worried about spell abuse in D&D there are about 2 dozen other spells that that should be higher on the ban list than shrink. I think shrink has far to many beneficial uses to ban it for the couple ways it can be taken advantage of personally :smallamused:

[Jack Zander]

Yeah, shrink item is great for player ingenuity. And I don't personally see the hat thing as something that is broken in any way. Just another contingency for paranoid casters.

I remember using it one time when we came across a solid gold statue that was meant for nothing more than decorative flair in the DMs dungeon. Now every dungeon we come across is completely barren of all valuable decorations.

[willpell]

If you're worried about spell abuse in D&D there are about 2 dozen other spells that that should be higher on the ban list than shrink.

I have presumably not yet discovered most of them as yet, as I'm working my way up the list in rough spell order (I've learned nearly all the 1sts, many if not most of the 2nds, a few 3rds and like three 4ths, in all cases limited to the PHB). Grease and Glitterdust are exceptionally strong as-written, but not too hard for me to nerf, and figuring out what to do with Polymorph is a good safe distance in the future.

[Invader]

I have presumably not yet discovered most of them as yet, as I'm working my way up the list in rough spell order (I've learned nearly all the 1sts, many if not most of the 2nds, a few 3rds and like three 4ths, in all cases limited to the PHB). Grease and Glitterdust are exceptionally strong as-written, but not too hard for me to nerf, and figuring out what to do with Polymorph is a good safe distance in the future.

Polymorph can def cause some problems but I'd say glitterdust and grease are hardly abuseable and def don't need nerfed though.

[Kansaschaser]

For me, I normally use Shrink Item to help transport large object, such as treasure chests full of gold or adamantine doors we removed from a dungeon. :smallwink:

However, I also use it to help carry around giant weapons that have been shrunk down.

1. Shrink Non-magical simple weapon to Medium size.
2. Do not turn it into a "cloth-like" object.
3. Use dagger in combat to stab something.
4. As a free action, speak the magic word to return the object to normal size.
5. Confuse the hell out of the DM when he tries to figure out how much damage an expanding metal object does inside someone.

I also use it to shrink down vats of acid, burning oil, and pools of lava. It's always fun to throw them in combat and then say the magic word.

[willpell]

More evidence of the need for a nerf/ban. What I really don't get about it though is the need for the "cloth-like" clause. It makes no sense; transforming an object's material composition ought to be a completely different spell, not a throwaway clause included in a spell that does something totally unrelated.

[The Redwolf]

It seems to me if you want to hit simple spells like shrink, grease, etc. with nerfing that badly because you're afraid of the creative things your players are going to do then you really need to lighten up. It's a game; therefore it's meant to be fun. It's a roleplaying game; therefore you're meant to play a role and get into the world and the game. Let them be creative, let them come up with fun ideas, if you're going to take most of the possibilities from these spells away from them where's the fun in them? They're now totally straightforward and boring. Magic is the ultimate tool, it lets you solve your problems in ways that make no sense, because magic makes no sense. Let your players make no sense, have fun with it, lighten up and be just as creative back to them if they come up with stuff like that, otherwise they may not want to play very much, or at least not with you at the helm.

[willpell]

It seems to me if you want to hit simple spells like shrink, grease, etc. with nerfing that badly because you're afraid of the creative things your players are going to do then you really need to lighten up. It's a game; therefore it's meant to be fun.

Yes, and it needs to be fun for the non-spellcasters too. When a first-level spell like Glitterdust instantly renders an entire battlefield worth of enemies helpless, there's no point in being any character other than a Glitterdust wizard. The fighter is balanced - he gains a point of BAB every level and a feat at almost every level, so he gets incrementally better at fighting monsters even while monsters get incrementally deadlier. Wizard, on the other hand, is utterly useless for about the first three levels and then suddenly becomes the only thing able to have an impact on the game. This is unacceptible, and so I am working to figure out how to balance the game, so that all characters classes are equally relevant at all levels. It will be a vast undertaking, and I'm nowhere near done; addressing the errors in this spell is just one of a thousand steps in the process.


Let them be creative, let them come up with fun ideas, if you're going to take most of the possibilities from these spells away from them where's the fun in them?

There's plenty of room to be fun without being silly and unrealistic.


They're now totally straightforward and boring.

Straightforward does not equal boring.


Magic is the ultimate tool, it lets you solve your problems in ways that make no sense, because magic makes no sense.

I could not disagree more. Magic has its own logic, even if it's contrary to what we think of as logic in reality; a spell can break one or two rules of reality at a time, but the others should always be firmly in place. The spell shouldn't be capable of applications beyond what it was designed (and balanced) to possess. "Designed" in this case can also mean "redesigned by the GM", and that's the part I'm working on now.

[Gavinfoxx]

No, it doesn't need to be fun for non spellcasters too if a Wizard is on the field. What you do is just not mix Tier 1s and Tier 5s in the same party! Or go play Legend if you want balanced d&d. So make a party of Warblade/Beguiler/Psychic Rogue/Shugenja for one party or Artificer/Druid/Mystic/Sorcerer for another or Ninja/Healer/Fighter/Warmage for another. Bam, balance.

[willpell]

No, it doesn't need to be fun for non spellcasters too if a Wizard is on the field. What you do is just not mix Tier 1s and Tier 5s in the same party!

The Fighter/Wizard/Cleric/Thief ensemble is a classic. If the rules say it is not balanced, the rules are wrong and need to be changed.


Or go play Legend if you want balanced d&d.

Does Legend have beholders, mind flayers, the Temple of Elemental Evil, and half-copper-dragons silver dragons with brass-dragon-shaman levels? Does it have Illumians, Maenads, Warforged and Blackscale Lizardfolk? Does it have Incarnum, pact magic, truenaming and Mystic Theurges with the Magic domain? If not, then it isn't what I'm looking for.

[Gavinfoxx]

All three parties I mentioned do the Fighter/Thief/Cleric/Mage thing. That was intentional. And balancing the thousands upon thousands of class features of Tier 1s is insane. We have tried! It doesn't work. Just build a party to a particular power level.

[rot42]

<snip>
The spell shouldn't be capable of applications beyond what it was designed (and balanced) to possess.
</snip>

These, for me, are among the best moments of the game - on both sides of the screen. This is when the game transcends anything a video game or a board game or countless other entertainments can offer. These are the moments that you and your friends will bring up and laugh about for years to come. There can be plenty of those even with a heavy hand at the tiller for spell applications, sure, but I think you should be very careful to make your interventions narrowly targeted and serving a compelling interest.

The compelling interest test is passed since you do not want your game to involve Shrink Item shenanigans (I actually agree with you here; an unShrinking dagger currently stabbing someone should just fail to expand similar to an Enlarged person failing the strength check to expand in close quarters; likewise, a puddle is not an object (corollary: any Wizard who learns the spell understands how it works in my games)). For making your adjustment narrowly targeted I think you could apply a time and action cost to return an object to normal size and composition. Requiring a full round action to issue the command would impose a stiff cost to using the spell in combat. Requiring a full minute for the item to return to normal would have negligible impact on most utility uses but make the spell useless in combat except as part of a well-planned ambush.

[willpell]

an unShrinking dagger currently stabbing someone should just fail to expand similar to an Enlarged person failing the strength check to expand in close quarters

Exactly! See, I want these sorts of common-sense DM rulings incorporated into the text of every spell; it can be however slow a process is necessary, but I don't accept it's impossible.


corollary: any Wizard who learns the spell understands how it works in my games

Again, exactly. Some of the resistance to fix efforts is probably a reflexive reaction to some GM who said "Sorry that doesn't work like you thought, but you still did it anyway and now your spell is gone and the bugbear kills you because i said so". If someone tried something like the lead-hat trick on me, I'd say "no", but I'd allow him to go back and pretend he never bought the lead hat and still has the gold he spent on it, unless his possession of the lead hat had been beneficial to him in some other (approved) way during the game.


For making your adjustment narrowly targeted I think you could apply a time and action cost to return an object to normal size and composition. Requiring a full round action to issue the command would impose a stiff cost to using the spell in combat. Requiring a full minute for the item to return to normal would have negligible impact on most utility uses but make the spell useless in combat except as part of a well-planned ambush.

This is a bit too restrictive for my preference; I prefer a degree of flexibility in any applications that do not come across as unreasonable.

[Khedrac]

The party I was playing in was ship-based - so for land adventures the main fighter carried our ship in "shrink item" form around on his back to make sure it could not get stolen while we were away from it. I think the "cloth-like" texture is so that when shrunk it work keep breaking and can be rolled up (well partially) to make for easier storage.

"Shrink item" on an attended object gives a saving throw using whichever is better of the object and the person's will save - so that is hardly broken - there are much nastier spells. Also it would not be unreasonable for worn armour to rule that when it tries to crush the wearer it ends as if it struck a solid surface - after all skin is a solid surface.

In general abuse is not something to worry about for most things, unless you know your players will try to abuse stuff (creative use is what the game is about and is not the same thing). You also have Rule 0 (the DM is always right) and, nest of the lot, you can talk to your players about abusing things and see if they agree and will compromise. If you cannot get your players to stop trying to abuse stuff, just throw a load of Drowned at them (MM3, CR8, 20HD and very very lethal).

[whibla]

I just read this spell and I think it's the weirdest one I've seen yet. Apparently you can shrink "a fire and its fuel", and "change its composition to a clothlike one". WHAT? Please someone tell me what on Oerth is going on with this thing, what's the story behind it

It's another legacy spell, one that holds a special place in my heart. It was created partially to answer the question "how does one go about making a Robe of Useful Items?" If memory serves it originally appeared in 1st ed. UA, as the Item spell. The spell description hasn't changed much, other than the fact that it no longers affects creatures - and you're worried it's a bit broken now...:smallwink:

To be honest I have never really considered it broken. But, like others have suggested, you have to apply a bit of common sense:

"Objects changed by a shrink item spell can be returned to normal composition and size merely by tossing them onto any solid surface or by word of command by the original caster.

1. 'onto' does not mean 'at'
2. A person or creature does not count as a 'solid surface'.
3. 'by word of command' is one of the ways of activating magic items. Unless otherwise specified this takes a standard action, so you cannot do it in the same round you make an attack, as you can't take 2 standard actions in a round.
4. It doesn't work on magical items - a fact that some people happily overlook.


...how have you seen it used in games, so I can figure out whether to ban it in my campaign just to save myself from scratching my head until it gushes a fountain of blood.

While shrinking fires, and turning them to cloth, is a common usage this is not, imo anyway, at all broken. The fire is never going to be that large, and the damage dealt by a non-magical fire of a size that a caster can shrink pales in comparison to the magical fire damage done by a fireball, for example, cast by the same level caster. The fire does not continue to burn, when in 'cloth' form by the way, any more than a picture or a tapestry of a fire burns or sheds light.

Other, trivial, uses include avoiding weight limits or size limits for carrying round bulky items (but within the spell limits!). This can range from removing looted statutery from the dungeon, carrying a petrified companion back to town so he can be fixed, to carrying round a 10'-20' ladder with you, without figuring out how exactly you're wandering down a 5' wide corridor carrying it.

I think the 'best' use I ever got out of the spell, some years back, was tricking a beholder to look up with his central eye, thereby restoring the patch I'd stuck to the ceiling, which promptly fell on him. Fairly minimal damage, but, as a mage, before AMF nerfs and daft SR: none conjuration spells, you were happy to be able to do anything at all to one.


The party I was playing in was ship-based - so for land adventures the main fighter carried our ship in "shrink item" form around on his back to make sure it could not get stolen while we were away from it.

Ship or boat? Even a sloop, one of the smallest sailing ships (only 8 crew), is 30-40' long, 10' wide, and has 2 or 3 decks...say 15' high. Total volume* (granted including air gaps, but still) about 5000 cubic feet. With a target volume of 2 cu. ft./level your mage would need to be level 2500 (*cough*) in order to shrink it...

*Assuming a 'generous' interpretation of the rules regarding volume, it would be possible to calculate the actual volume of just the solid parts of the ship by working backwards from its displacement and using the density of wood. A quick search reveals that a sloop displaces about 20 tonnes. Wood density varies, but let's assume about 30 lbs/cu.ft. At 2000 lbs per tonne, that gives us a volume of wood of about 1300 cu. ft. Ah, that's much better, a mage of merely 650th level would be able to shrink it...

I digressed a bit :smallredface:. I'll just add, I do not think the spell is broken, it just needs a little common sense applied. Most of the so called broken appplications of the spell are not inherent in the spell they're simply extensions of something that's broken within the rest of the rules. The spell works fine as it is, and is a useful, and potentially fun, addition to any game.

[Dairuga]

The party I was playing in was ship-based - so for land adventures the main fighter carried our ship in "shrink item" form around on his back to make sure it could not get stolen while we were away from it. I think the "cloth-like" texture is so that when shrunk it work keep breaking and can be rolled up (well partially) to make for easier storage.



Fun fact. I tried to do something akin to this in another campaign, where my kobold wizard tried to shrink a bed to carry with him. That sounded like a fun little shenanigan, yes? I mean, sleeping on rocks is not exactly the most comfortable, so hey; shrink down the bed. You now have a portable sleeping area!

Then I was smacked in the head by the DM whom promtply showed me the area restriction of Shrink Item.




Shrink Item
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S
Casting time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: One touched object of up to 2 cu. ft./leve


Note, it can only affect things up to 2 -cubic- feet. Which is something I Realize almost no one pays attention to, ever. Granted, I will admit to myself not realizing this clause before I tried it on the bed, to which the DM ruled was three feet wide, two foot tall and eight foot long; hence six times eight, or 48 cubic feet. Far, far away from what this spell can do for reasonably leveled wizards.

How much is this enormous leaden cone in cubic feet? Or a full, large tree? Certainly more than 10-14 cubic feet, I am willing to guess. While I thought shrinking a leaden cone to protect you from the Antimagic field (After it expands, for example, it still has an enormous hole in the middle where you stand; as hollow cones do have, and it effectively blocks antimagic areas. But as Willpell pointed out, suffocation would be a problem. Being crushed, however, would not, given that the edges of the hat would safely press down on the ground around you, not putting the weight on the wizard. Much like how people aren't crushed by entering houses), the cone would have to be of an exceptional size to do this, and if you wish to keep people away from doing this; Merely point out just how little they are actually able to shrink.

So how does other people make this spell work for their zany shenigans? Do they merely increase the Volume restriction to higher degrees; or circumvent it entirely?

[Deth Muncher]

I do not think what you are proposing is a good idea in the slightest.

There is a difference between "finding a hilarious use of a spell" and "finding a hilarious abuse of a spell." The difference is how many times a player uses that option.

Take, for example, the aforementioned "shrunken vat of acid" plan, in which a player shrinks a large quantity of acid down into a cloth patch, and throws it at an enemy, suddenly covering them in a shower of acid. The first time this happens? The player gets a pat on the back for their ingenious use of the spell, the enemy is melted into a pile of slag (or just takes the appropriate damage, what have you) and the fight goes on.

But, now that the player has found that this works, he strays to the dark path, and makes this a standard attack of his. This is where you, the DM, have to step in and say that no, it's not okay to do that all the time. You can do this very subtly, like by using things with acid resistance, for example.

But to outright ban a spell, just on the premise that there MIGHT be a use for it that puts it outside the normal rules and means funky things happen that you have to make rulings on? No, I'm sorry, that is not a good idea. Just leave the spell as it is, and watch your players carefully.

I have a question for you, willpell, and I don't mean it how it's going to sound at first, but: how long have you been DMing games? Because honestly, this sounds like something that a very inexperienced DM would do.

And why do I say that? Because I've been that guy. The first time I DM'd, I was the guy thinking "Oh man, the players can do that? I need to change that, I don't want that happening!" Or "Oh man, I remember when I did X Y and Z the last time I had a character, I can't let players get away with those shenanigans!" And then I spent the next week looking at potential abuses for things, and it just got terrible! Ultimately, it truly isn't worth it. There's no need to go make a comprehensive ban/fix list to D&D. All you need to do is make it very clear to the players that while ingenuity will be praised, abuses will not be tolerated. I believe there was a rule in the Iron Chef tournaments on these very boards which ran something like "Infinite loops will be allowed to function exactly once - should they be attempted again, your character will be immediately be devoured by the Hounds of Hell."

The moral here is, you don't have to "fix" everything to make it "balanced." You just have to encourage players to use their own best judgement, and if that doesn't work, you beat them with the DMG in hopes that some sense will be transferred in through your beating.

[willpell]

There is a difference between "finding a hilarious use of a spell" and "finding a hilarious abuse of a spell." The difference is how many times a player uses that option.

What? No, no, no. Magic is the science of D&D; a wizard who researches a spell knows exactly what that spell does, and will use it to do the same thing every time. You cannot have a spell work one time and then have the exact same application not work the next time, not without some dang good phlebotinum explaining why. As you point out, you can do things like using lots of acid-resistant monsters, but this just means you're cutting yourself off from the option to use other monsters who aren't acid-resistant, all because you allowed the player to get away with the trick the first time without thinking through the implications. That's exactly why I intend to get those implications figured out as best I can in the first place.


I have a question for you, willpell, and I don't mean it how it's going to sound at first, but: how long have you been DMing games? Because honestly, this sounds like something that a very inexperienced DM would do.

That's a difficult question to answer. I have been running RPGs for a long time, but not usually D&D, and my practical experience has been a minority of the time I've spent working with the rules; mostly it's been theoretical scenarios.

[Khedrac]

With a target volume of 2 cu. ft./level your mage would need to be level 2500 (*cough*) in order to shrink it...
Blast - I think we all missed that part - we checked the reduced weight and size to make sure the melee guy could carry it but not that. Oh well...

[kharmakazy]

I've been attaching cloth shrunk sand to crossbow bolts and screaming "pocket sand!".

The effective area is hard to figure out since A, most people think cubic feet and feet cubed are the same thing, and B, cubic feet is a measurement of volume and not size.

What is the volume of a 1x1x1 brick? 1 cubic foot. What is the volume of a 1x1x1 cardboard box? It ain't 1 cubic foot, that's for sure.

How does the caster even know the volume of the item? The only way I know of short of complex equations is water displacement. An object's volume is equal to the volume of water it displaces.

You can shrink an item that has volume equal to ~14.96 gallons of water per level.

[Invader]

When a first-level spell like Glitterdust instantly renders an entire battlefield worth of enemies helpless, there's no point in being any character other than a Glitterdust wizard.


To be fair you don't get glitterdust untill 3rd level for a wizard and 4th for a sorc and all your creatures get a saving throw to negate the blindness and even if they do fail there are rules for fighting blind and there are a ton of creatures that can very easily get around being blind to begin with.

And it only affects a 10ft radius spread, which is hardly an "entire battlefield" :smallamused:

Plus take a look at some of the creatures you'll be fighting and the abilities they get for a 3rd level party; Allips, cockatrices, wights, 5 headed hydras, the list goes on and on and some of the monsters have crazy powers that can wreck a party pretty easily.

I don't want to sound mean but it seems like it would help if you were a lot more familiar with the rules/spells/creatures etc. before you start changing the mechanics.

[Lateral]

This is exactly the kind of cheesy stunt I would rather not have my players pulling on me.

And that's exactly why I'll never play a game with you as DM. Difference of playstyle.

[The Redwolf]

I do not think what you are proposing is a good idea in the slightest.

There is a difference between "finding a hilarious use of a spell" and "finding a hilarious abuse of a spell." The difference is how many times a player uses that option.

Take, for example, the aforementioned "shrunken vat of acid" plan, in which a player shrinks a large quantity of acid down into a cloth patch, and throws it at an enemy, suddenly covering them in a shower of acid. The first time this happens? The player gets a pat on the back for their ingenious use of the spell, the enemy is melted into a pile of slag (or just takes the appropriate damage, what have you) and the fight goes on.

But, now that the player has found that this works, he strays to the dark path, and makes this a standard attack of his. This is where you, the DM, have to step in and say that no, it's not okay to do that all the time. You can do this very subtly, like by using things with acid resistance, for example.

But to outright ban a spell, just on the premise that there MIGHT be a use for it that puts it outside the normal rules and means funky things happen that you have to make rulings on? No, I'm sorry, that is not a good idea. Just leave the spell as it is, and watch your players carefully.

I have a question for you, willpell, and I don't mean it how it's going to sound at first, but: how long have you been DMing games? Because honestly, this sounds like something that a very inexperienced DM would do.

And why do I say that? Because I've been that guy. The first time I DM'd, I was the guy thinking "Oh man, the players can do that? I need to change that, I don't want that happening!" Or "Oh man, I remember when I did X Y and Z the last time I had a character, I can't let players get away with those shenanigans!" And then I spent the next week looking at potential abuses for things, and it just got terrible! Ultimately, it truly isn't worth it. There's no need to go make a comprehensive ban/fix list to D&D. All you need to do is make it very clear to the players that while ingenuity will be praised, abuses will not be tolerated. I believe there was a rule in the Iron Chef tournaments on these very boards which ran something like "Infinite loops will be allowed to function exactly once - should they be attempted again, your character will be immediately be devoured by the Hounds of Hell."

The moral here is, you don't have to "fix" everything to make it "balanced." You just have to encourage players to use their own best judgement, and if that doesn't work, you beat them with the DMG in hopes that some sense will be transferred in through your beating.

That's basically what I think, you need to be reasonable and allow the flexibility.

Things aren't made to work in only one way, I actually saw a couple people having an argument involving a crowbar and whether or not it was alright to use it as a piece of art or a weapon rather than its intended purpose as a tool, and I think it should, I believe things were made to be used however you can. Magic is and is not the science of D and D, yes it follows similar rules, but at the same time there are scientific disciplines there. But science doesn't just work one way; some of the world's best inventions and discoveries were complete accidents that came about because someone was trying to do something that everyone else said was unreasonable, and they achieved a fantastic result. So if you want to treat magic as a science then to me it encourages them to be more creative to find new ways that the spells work.


To be fair you don't get glitterdust untill 3rd level for a wizard and 4th for a sorc and all your creatures get a saving throw to negate the blindness and even if they do fail there are rules for fighting blind and there are a ton of creatures that can very easily get around being blind to begin with.

And it only affects a 10ft radius spread, which is hardly an "entire battlefield" :smallamused:

Plus take a look at some of the creatures you'll be fighting and the abilities they get for a 3rd level party; Allips, cockatrices, wights, 5 headed hydras, the list goes on and on and some of the monsters have crazy powers that can wreck a party pretty easily.

I don't want to sound mean but it seems like it would help if you were a lot more familiar with the rules/spells/creatures etc. before you start changing the mechanics.

I agree with this as well, it seems as though he read what the abilities can do but not the limitations on them. Glitterdust only affects a specific area, shrink object only affects a certain quantity, wizards and sorcerers have limits on daily spellcasting, etc.

These things aren't as broken as you're making them out to be, just lighten up man. :smallsmile:

[some guy]

More evidence of the need for a nerf/ban. What I really don't get about it though is the need for the "cloth-like" clause. It makes no sense; transforming an object's material composition ought to be a completely different spell, not a throwaway clause included in a spell that does something totally unrelated.

I wouldn't say it's totally unrelated. It's quite logical, as a wizard planning an heist of a specific item, to design a spell that shrinks an item and changes it into something innocuous-looking. "Yes, of course you're free to search me, dear guard, it is only your duty to be on the look out for thiefs, but you will find that this old man only has a handkerchief on his person."
I guess the inspiration for the spell comes from magicians turning things in handkerchiefs and back again.

[kharmakazy]

So let's see. Minimum of 5th level to cast.

So that's 10 cubic feet base. As a solid column that would be 1'x1'x10' by volume. If you cut that column into squares of 1'x1'x1" you would have 120 1 inch thick 1 square foot pieces.

So, a single plank of material that is 1 foot wide and 1 inch thick and 120 feet long is covered by the bare minimum caster level needed to cast the spell.



Honestly the spell is written rather poorly. Volume based calculations are nearly impossible at the game table for any but the simplest objects. How exactly it deals with all the possible cases leaves something to be desired and requires quite a bit of DM judgment out of the box. Can I shrink item on some water in this pond? Can I shrink the mud I am covered with to clean myself? If I am in a swamp, can I shrink only the water and not the particulates IN the water in order to purify it? Is a shrunken fire still hot? What about in cloth form? Can I shrink a locked door?

Basically it's either a utility spell that never gets used, or a player can pester a DM to death over the details and with repetitive creative usage. Usually it's not worth the effort required to abuse.

[Lateral]

Honestly the spell is written rather poorly. Volume based calculations are nearly impossible at the game table for any but the simplest objects. How exactly it deals with all the possible cases leaves something to be desired and requires quite a bit of DM judgment out of the box.
Volume-based calculations are almost never necessary- usually, just knowing that it's shrunk three sizes is enough unless encumbrance is an issue for it, in which case you turn it into cloth. Requiring a bit of DM judgment isn't really a problem, given that for all the examples, all it takes is a snap decision by the DM as to what he thinks it should be. For instance, this is my opinion on all of these:

Can I shrink item on some water in this pond? Can I shrink the mud I am covered with to clean myself? If I am in a swamp, can I shrink only the water and not the particulates IN the water in order to purify it? Is a shrunken fire still hot? What about in cloth form? Can I shrink a locked door?
Yes, but only up to 2 cubic feet per level. Sort of- it'll shrinks all the mud so you're just covered in small splotches of mud- but I'm not sure why you'd even bother. No. Yes. No. No, but you could shrink an open door.


Basically it's either a utility spell that never gets used, or a player can pester a DM to death over the details and with repetitive creative usage. Usually it's not worth the effort required to abuse.
It isn't pestering the DM, it requires a couple of questions. It takes less effort than working out a clever combat idea like, say, swinging across a room on a grappling hook to kick an enemy in the face. With decent players whom you can trust not to break your game in half on purpose and agree to stop if you tell them they're doing it accidentally, it shouldn't be a problem. And, frankly, I wouldn't play with anyone who doesn't live up to that standard.

[kharmakazy]

Volume-based calculations are almost never necessary- usually, just knowing that it's shrunk three sizes is enough unless encumbrance is an issue for it, in which case you turn it into cloth. Requiring a bit of DM judgment isn't really a problem, given that for all the examples, all it takes is a snap decision by the DM as to what he thinks it should be. For instance, this is my opinion on all of these:

Yes, but only up to 2 cubic feet per level. Sort of- it'll shrinks all the mud so you're just covered in small splotches of mud- but I'm not sure why you'd even bother. No. Yes. No. No, but you could shrink an open door.


.


2 cubic ft/level IS a measure of volume, not size. Every casting has to take volume into consideration. It's not "Whatever will fit into a 2 foot cube per level", it's "2 cubic feet per level" This measures volume directly and not size at all. You could cast it on a strand of wire that stretched across a whole country.

You can shrink the mud into cloth so that it would fall away theoretically. I've had an item coated in poison, shrink the poison on the item into cloth so I can use it later.

Yes those are all valid answers to the questions, but those answers are bound to change from game to game, DM to DM, which is why I say the spell is worded poorly.

[Lateral]

2 cubic ft/level IS a measure of volume, not size. Every casting has to take volume into consideration. It's not "Whatever will fit into a 2 foot cube per level", it's "2 cubic feet per level" This measures volume directly and not size at all. You could cast it on a strand of wire that stretched across a whole country.
Oh, you meant for what you could cast it on. Yes, but in most cases eyeballing it should be enough.


Yes those are all valid answers to the questions, but those answers are bound to change from game to game, DM to DM, which is why I say the spell is worded poorly.
And I say that "requires DM adjucation" ≠ "worded poorly." Especially for an open-ended spell like this, it's impossible to account for every possible case. Having concrete rules don't mean that the DM doesn't have to think about what players are doing on occasion, and to me that's part of the fun.

[kharmakazy]

Oh, you meant for what you could cast it on. Yes, but in most cases eyeballing it should be enough.


And I say that "requires DM adjucation" ≠ "worded poorly." Especially for an open-ended spell like this, it's impossible to account for every possible case. Having concrete rules don't mean that the DM doesn't have to think about what players are doing on occasion, and to me that's part of the fun.

I almost agree with you, but not quite. I think this one could have used a few little tweaks to tighten some of the vast open endedness.

As a DM I play it just like you describe. But none of my players have thought to transport large quantities of lava in cloth form. MUCH of which stems from a very poorly defined usage of the word "object". If they would just have been a bit more specific on that there would be much less potential confusion. Shrinking large quantities of air can have some unintended consequences, for example.

[Lateral]

I almost agree with you, but not quite. I think this one could have used a few little tweaks to tighten some of the vast open endedness.

As a DM I play it just like you describe. But none of my players have thought to transport large quantities of lava in cloth form. MUCH of which stems from a very poorly defined usage of the word "object". If they would just have been a bit more specific on that there would be much less potential confusion.
"Object" is the standard D&D word. I agree that they need to define it better, but that's a problem with the game as a whole, not the spell- after all, you could say the same thing about Animate Objects or Object Reading.

Shrinking large quantities of air can have some unintended consequences, for example.
It creates a brief gust of wind inward, unless you're a very small, sealed space.

[kharmakazy]

"Object" is the standard D&D word. I agree that they need to define it better, but that's a problem with the game as a whole, not the spell- after all, you could say the same thing about Animate Objects or Object Reading.

It creates a brief gust of wind inward, unless you're a very small, sealed space.

That's what I said. Also breathing shrunken air, vacuums, etc.

[willpell]

I think what I'd like to do with this spell is turn the "cloth-like" part into a separate spell; transmuting size and transmuting composition ought to be separate applications IMO. That combined with unsympathetic GM calls on tasks like shrinking lava (either "liquid isn't an object" or "you shrink the vat and the lava in the vat spills out, roll Reflex to jump clear and take 1d6 from the convection heat) should satisfy both my aesthetic preferences and the need for game balance.

I like the point (raised by Some Guy) about the hankerchiefs as inspiration, I just don't think that the name "Shrink Item" conveys that it includes such a clause; Shrink Item should be one base spell, Change to Cloth should be another, and Item to Cloth should be a higher-level third spell created by combining the two. I also would read the cubic feet as size rather than volume for most purposes; the wire-across-the-country definitely shouldn't work (and for that matter it seems unlikely that Stone Haley should have been able to meet that qualification since stone is pretty dense).

[Slipperychicken]

This is exactly the kind of cheesy stunt I would rather not have my players pulling on me.


Check out the Falling Object rules. At best, your players are going to spend a lot of time finding a big heavy thing, blowing a spell slot to Shrink it, then spending actions maneuvering/setting-up to drop it on someone, then dropping it for realistically ~10-12d6 (1d6 per 200lb, plus a capped amount for distance), with a DC 15 Reflex save for half (reflex save from Heroes of Battle). That's barely going to exceed their normal attack routine, if it gets that far at all.


It's not cheesy, and it's not a stunt. You put in work, resources, planning, and combat-actions, and you get a small payoff. In short, it's exactly what a DM generally wants his players to do: thinking, using the environment, being creative, not breaking the game.


A Warning and Plea, as a Player
I've had DMs who were paranoid of any tactic other than autoattacking, and especially Shrink Item. I can tell you from personal experience: it absolutely sucks when you get punished for thinking outside the box (or even when such thinking is invalidated by the word "no"). The one time in which we (the players) were really getting creative, we had shrunk a single rock and were dropping it on someone, and he trampled our creativity with paranoia and ill-conceived fiat (he claimed that a 5x5 rock was actually 500lb). My group still talks about the "magic pummace rock" as an example of awful DMing. Turns out, even if the DM had allowed the tactic to work, it wouldn't have even approached average full-attack damage.

I've also had another DM who played Core-only, then essentially banned/nerfed every spell that wasn't blasting, and homebrewed a bunch of stupidly overpowered melee classes in some clearly-misguided attempt to "fix 3.5". That was a positively awful experience, and I quit shortly after joining. I discovered later that he read "Wizards are broken!" on the internet and was scared, then nerfed and banned most of the game, and wound up making the game far less enjoyable by denying fun options in the name of balance. Mind you, I had no intention of breaking the game, nor did anyone else; he was just scared by what he read on the internet.


Please. Do not become a paranoid, ban-happy, creativity-killer who can't stand a class that isn't Fighter ,who nerfs every other class into the dirt, and cries "Broken! Banned!" at the sight of any option other than Full-Attack. I guarantee you that most players will not actively try to break your game, nor will they succeed. Google the spell or option in question, and you will find a pretty accurate appraisal of its game-balanced-ness.

[willpell]

Check out the Falling Object rules. At best, your players are going to spend a lot of time finding a big heavy thing, blowing a spell slot to Shrink it, then spending actions maneuvering/setting-up to drop it on someone, then dropping it for realistically ~10-12d6 (1d6 per 200lb, plus a capped amount for distance), with a DC 15 Reflex save for half (reflex save from Heroes of Battle). That's barely going to exceed their normal attack routine, if it gets that far at all.

Except that I don't have Heroes of Battle, and I have enough trouble keeping track of the rules that are in books I have access to and can look up. Anything that the players do which further overtaxes my already strained mental processing power is an annoyance at best. If a capability is written on their sheet or explicated within the description of the spell, item, feat, or whatnot, we're fine; the moment they try to do something that I didn't know they could do, and don't understand exactly how, they are making me a grumpy GM. Sitting behind the proverbial screen is a ton of work even without the players actively making it harder than necessary.


It's not cheesy, and it's not a stunt. You put in work, resources, planning, and combat-actions, and you get a small payoff. In short, it's exactly what a DM generally wants his players to do: thinking, using the environment, being creative, not breaking the game.

When you say "using the environment and being creative", what I hear is "weaponizing a meaningless background detail, which I threw in only for descriptive enrichment, in order to succeed at a task which they were intended to fail". The game's balancing mechanisms, like fighter damage output and spell resistance, are a crucial tool for the DM to calculate whether the players can defeat a certain challenge or not (a job that they admittedly do extremely imperfectly). It is necessary to be able to determine this, because sometimes the plot assumes that the players will mop up a nest of kobolds and win the thanks of the kingdom, while other times it assumes that the evil knight beats them within an inch of their lives and sends them running scared back to the tower of the friendly wizard (in both cases with the intent of setting up a future scenario, where the king or the friendly wizard gives them a mission either because they've earned his gratitude or because they owe him some). If the players win an encounter that they were meant to lose, they not only do not get taught to take an important campaign-spanning villain seriously so that he can be used in future scenes to heighten dramatic tension, but on top of that they get XP and loot for a challenge far above what they were intended to be able to defeat. This then means that they next time they are meant to win an encounter, it has to be a tougher encounter because they'll be more powerful - and in general tougher encounters are more likely to go awry, so replacing the nest of kobolds with a nest of dragonwrought means that it's more likely a string of bad luck will get the players killed or captured by what was meant to be a random encounter.

I'm DMing so that I can tell an awesome story, and the players have a narrative role within that story (which they hopefully enjoy acting out, but that doesn't mean they can do absolutely anything they enjoy, because it might wreck the plot and leave them unable to enjoy the next chapter). They can be creative, but they need to stay within at least a few hundred yards of the plot rails or else I won't be able to take them anywhere (and all the work I put into writing a plot goes to waste, which is seriously going to cheese me off). As a result, it is important that the mechanisms which enable me to sculpt the intended storyline function the way I need them to, in order to minimize the chances of a catastrophic mishap.


he claimed that a 5x5 rock was actually 500lb

Maybe he just didn't have any idea how much rocks weigh and was making up what seemed like a reasonable-seeming figure? For all that D&D has a chart and a table for everything, something always comes up which there aren't any stats for, and the player who's trying to prove how smart he is...is also giving the GM a headache by asking the ONE question he didn't research an answer for.


Mind you, I had no intention of breaking the game, nor did anyone else; he was just scared by what he read on the internet.

Well the internet is a scary place. :smallsmile: Wizards are too cool to not be a part of the game, but there is no question that they're absurdly overpowered even without trying to break them, and while it's easier to fix them poorly than well, it's probably wiser to fix them poorly than to not fix them at all, unless you want to play a Tippyverse where Level 20 commoners are still scared of housecats (because every housecat might be a wizard who just learned Polymorph).


I guarantee you that most players will not actively try to break your game, nor will they succeed.

"Most" would be the key word. Very few people are ever murdered, yet our society still takes a death-threat seriously; being rare does not stop something from being a big deal, and sometimes paranoia is the correct response. It only takes one bad player to tear a playgroup apart; at least if the DM is the bad one, everyone else is on the same page and probably has some idea what they're dealing with, and they as a group can either deal with the situation as best they can, or leave that DM and make a clean break with his campaign. But if one player is a problem and has to be kicked out, you're left with a campaign that hasn't ended but is now missing one of its critical pieces, and that has happened to me many times (mostly because the player just disappeared from the Internet, and there's no preventing that, but that's all the more reason to attempt to ensure it never happens for any other reason). Better that a campaign should die with one quick stroke separating party from DM, rather than that it should be disemboweled savagely by the loss of a critical player, and left to limp along barely alive and crying in terrible pain.

[kharmakazy]

Now you are just saying you are a lazy DM who can't be bothered to learn the rules, so your players should only be allowed to do things you understand.

Plus, if I were a commoner I would be equally concerned that the cat were a dragon or one of the hundreds of monsters that can change shape at will.

[willpell]

Now you are just saying you are a lazy DM who can't be bothered to learn the rules, so your players should only be allowed to do things you understand.

Really, that's not inaccurate. I do the best I can, but it's a hard job and I'm not being paid for it, and I already have a hard job which I am being paid for, so the amount of energy I can spare for a game is limited, and my patience for anything that makes it even more difficult for me is short.

[kharmakazy]

Really, that's not inaccurate. I do the best I can, but it's a hard job and I'm not being paid for it, and I already have a hard job which I am being paid for, so the amount of energy I can spare for a game is limited, and my patience for anything that makes it even more difficult for me is short.

If you think of it as a job then you are already a step behind. DMs DM because its a fun hobby. I don't consider watching TV a job I don't get paid for.

[Worira]

Maybe he just didn't have any idea how much rocks weigh and was making up what seemed like a reasonable-seeming figure? For all that D&D has a chart and a table for everything, something always comes up which there aren't any stats for, and the player who's trying to prove how smart he is...is also giving the GM a headache by asking the ONE question he didn't research an answer for.


One would hope that the DM has at least a passing familiarity with rocks, enough to recognize that they are not, in fact, lighter than balsa wood.

[Invader]

Really, that's not inaccurate. I do the best I can, but it's a hard job and I'm not being paid for it, and I already have a hard job which I am being paid for, so the amount of energy I can spare for a game is limited, and my patience for anything that makes it even more difficult for me is short.

I think the point is that you volunteered for the job so if you're going to to do it, do it properly and not penalize your players because you think its to hard.

[kharmakazy]

One would hope that the DM has at least a passing familiarity with rocks, enough to recognize that they are not, in fact, lighter than balsa wood.

I don't think the estimate is nearly that bad. I don't think a 5x5 block of balsa wood would weigh nearly 500 lbs.

A 500 lb rock is still a pretty decent sized rock. Assuming you weren't able to find a perfect 5x5 cube of rock laying around it is bound to be far less than maximum size and weigh. Google shows 500 lb rocks being at least a couple of feet wide.

[Worira]

A 5x5 block of balsa wood is a bit heavier than 500 pounds, although it's pretty close.

A 500 pound stone would be about a... 2ish foot sphere.

[kharmakazy]

A 5x5 block of balsa wood is a bit heavier than 500 pounds, although it's pretty close.

A 500 pound stone would be about a... 2ish foot sphere.



Light Balsa at (6-10 pounds per cubic foot), Medium Balsa at (10-14 pounds per cubic foot), & Heavy Balsa at (14-19 pounds per cubic foot)


so.. 750-2375 pounds. I really underestimated the weight of balsa wood.

The balsa they use for model airplanes is lighter it seems, but not by a whole lot.

[Wonton]

Yeah, it's a weird spell. Not a fan of it, ever since a guy I was playing with suddenly revealed that his cloak was ACTUALLY a swimming pool that had had Shrink Object cast on it. :smallannoyed:

[kharmakazy]

Yeah, it's a weird spell. Not a fan of it, ever since a guy I was playing with suddenly revealed that his cloak was ACTUALLY a swimming pool that had had Shrink Object cast on it. :smallannoyed:

Shrug. Sounds like a pretty cool use of the spell to me. (pun intended) Not sure why a dude carrying around a pool bothers you so much, but to each his own. I'll just be over there haunt shifting skeletons into household items so I can roleplay the brave little toaster.

[willpell]

If you think of it as a job then you are already a step behind. DMs DM because its a fun hobby. I don't consider watching TV a job I don't get paid for.


I think the point is that you volunteered for the job so if you're going to to do it, do it properly and not penalize your players because you think its to hard.

The answer to both of these is the same - I am doing it somewhat for my own fun, but my fun requires players (both because there's not much point to the game if I'm only entertaining myself, something easily accomplished with DVDs or Minesweeper, and because I can come up with game concepts more easily when I have the players to bounce ideas off of and give direction to my freeform creation). So I have to cater to the players, and that IS a job, albeit hopefully a rewarding and low-pressure one. I have an obligation to make their part in the game rewarding, which sometimes can only be done at a certain degree of expense to myself. I have to balance the costs and benefits to both parties as best I can, and sometimes that means prohibiting them one kind of fun they want to have, in order to make it possible for them to have a different kind of fun, which works with me instead of against me.


Yeah, it's a weird spell. Not a fan of it, ever since a guy I was playing with suddenly revealed that his cloak was ACTUALLY a swimming pool that had had Shrink Object cast on it. :smallannoyed:

Now see, that I would probably approve just for Rule of Cool reasons, although there are probably more technically accurate (in the sense that magic is actually a thing and not just all made up) for there to be other spells involved in the creation of a "water cloak". But it's a great concept and I'd probably let someone get away with doing it just for awesomeness's sake. They couldn't drown someone in the pool, but they could spread the cloak out on a flat floor and expand it back to pool form without having to dig a hole; this kind of thing is on par with the "magic items resize themselves to fit you" kind of magic, stuff that maybe ought to have deeper implications but you're not really supposed to think about them (kind of like with the whole of Harry Potter, I'm told).

[whibla]

with a DC 15 Reflex save for half (reflex save from Heroes of Battle).

I'm definitely going to have to look that bit up. By and large any 'attack' that requires an attack roll doesn't allow a saving throw (there are exceptions, but they are very rare). This includes arrow traps, being shot, or having someone throw a rock at you. If someone drops a rock on you, and rolls to hit with it, I fail to see why the target should get a saving throw. However, as I say, you've intrigued me, and I'll go look it up.


Shrink Item. The one time in which we (the players) were really getting creative, we had shrunk a single rock and were dropping it on someone, and he trampled our creativity with paranoia and ill-conceived fiat (he claimed that a 5x5 rock was actually 500lb).


I don't think the estimate is nearly that bad. I don't think a 5x5 block of balsa wood would weigh nearly 500 lbs.


A 5x5 block of balsa wood is a bit heavier than 500 pounds, although it's pretty close.

I hate to be pedantic (Actually, that's a lie, but *shhh*), but a 5 x 5 rock / piece of balsa wood is a two dimensional object, and, apart from the fact that it only theoretically exists, would weigh absolutely nothing.

It's no wonder people think the Shrink Item spell is broken when we confuse areas with volumes, even if it's merely sloppy transcription. After all, 5 x 5 = 25, so a 13th level mage can shrink a 5 x 5 rock, right?

Cobblers!

If you mean a 5 x 5 x 5 rock, say that (125 cubic feet & 63rd level mage required to shrink it). If you mean a 5 x 5 x 1 rock then say that (25 cubic feet & 13th level mage required to shrink it).

Note the not insignificant difference between caster levels, and indeed the weight of the rock in question.

/RANT :smallmad:

[kharmakazy]

Now see, that I would probably approve just for Rule of Cool reasons, although there are probably more technically accurate (in the sense that magic is actually a thing and not just all made up) for there to be other spells involved in the creation of a "water cloak". But it's a great concept and I'd probably let someone get away with doing it just for awesomeness's sake. They couldn't drown someone in the pool, but they could spread the cloak out on a flat floor and expand it back to pool form without having to dig a hole; this kind of thing is on par with the "magic items resize themselves to fit you" kind of magic, stuff that maybe ought to have deeper implications but you're not really supposed to think about them (kind of like with the whole of Harry Potter, I'm told).

Well, no. Of course you can't drown someone in cloth. It could very well have been an above ground pool though. Mechanically it has no benefit. It should burn just like regular cloth would. It would not do anything that water would do since it is currently not water, it is cloth.

[Worira]

I hate to be pedantic (Actually, that's a lie, but *shhh*), but a 5 x 5 rock / piece of balsa wood is a two dimensional object, and, apart from the fact that it only theoretically exists, would weigh absolutely nothing.

It's no wonder people think the Shrink Item spell is broken when we confuse areas with volumes, even if it's merely sloppy transcription. After all, 5 x 5 = 25, so a 13th level mage can shrink a 5 x 5 rock, right?

Cobblers!

If you mean a 5 x 5 x 5 rock, say that (125 cubic feet & 63rd level mage required to shrink it). If you mean a 5 x 5 x 1 rock then say that (25 cubic feet & 13th level mage required to shrink it).

Note the not insignificant difference between caster levels, and indeed the weight of the rock in question.

/RANT :smallmad:

I'm curious how you could possibly interpret that as not having an implicit "x5" at the end. Yes, obviously we know that you have to cube a number to make a cube out of it.

[Slipperychicken]

Will, I think you're overreacting, a lot. If the players even gain any (admittedly quite situational, costly, and small) advantage from Shrink Item damage-wise, it's not going to be enough to win an encounter you wanted them to fail.


I've had DMs who freak out just like this about anything they didn't plan for (usually translates to WBL, and any combat option that's not a Full Attack), and gets unnecessarily restrictive. I just want to help you avoid their mistakes, because they've had almost exactly the same concerns/thought-process as you do here, and tried to do the same thing, and it does way more harm than good. Namely, the mindset of "I've got to preemptively ban everything in 3.5 which could surprise me, before it breaks my game!" leads to DMs banning a lot of material which they don't need to. If an ability or option has one unbalancing use out of several non-issue uses, you can say "Do not use the ability X to accomplish Y overpowering goal".



If you do ever actually encounter balance problems, you'll be just fine if you look up the issue online (To see if it really is an issue, and how other groups deal with it. You'd be surprised; a lot of things seem scary at first but are actually quite harmless). If it is worth bothering about, you can just ask the player about it and he'll work it out with you. If a player isn't willing to address your concern, or explain a perceived imbalance, he probably doesn't belong in your game anyway. And more often than not, players are willing to self-regulate once they know the game's approximate power-level.


Here's the Heroes of Battle text. If you don't have the book, you can "houserule" it in with no trouble at all.


Heroes of Battle; Aerial Bombardment
Damage: The damage dealt by a dropped object is based
on the weight of the object and the distance the object
falls, as noted on page 303 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
A creature can avoid damage from the attack by making
a DC 15 Reflex save.

[Wonton]

Shrug. Sounds like a pretty cool use of the spell to me. (pun intended) Not sure why a dude carrying around a pool bothers you so much, but to each his own. I'll just be over there haunt shifting skeletons into household items so I can roleplay the brave little toaster.

I dunno, it was mainly because I'd never heard of the "change its texture to a clothlike one" part, so I was completely dumbfounded as to how he was doing this. I wasn't the DM anyway, but personally I wouldn't allow a liquid to count as an "item" - I would say you need a contiguous solid object (no pile of sand, either).

[kharmakazy]

I dunno, it was mainly because I'd never heard of the "change its texture to a clothlike one" part, so I was completely dumbfounded as to how he was doing this. I wasn't the DM anyway, but personally I wouldn't allow a liquid to count as an "item" - I would say you need a contiguous solid object (no pile of sand, either).

What is a solid object? Your sword is made of several pieces. Can you shrink the whole sword, or just parts of it? Glass isn't a solid object. It acts like a liquid. It runs down very slowly as amorphous solids are wont to do. Is ice a solid object? I mean it's just water with some of the heat taken out.


I'm definitely going to have to look that bit up. By and large any 'attack' that requires an attack roll doesn't allow a saving throw (there are exceptions, but they are very rare). This includes arrow traps, being shot, or having someone throw a rock at you. If someone drops a rock on you, and rolls to hit with it, I fail to see why the target should get a saving throw. However, as I say, you've intrigued me, and I'll go look it up.







I hate to be pedantic (Actually, that's a lie, but *shhh*), but a 5 x 5 rock / piece of balsa wood is a two dimensional object, and, apart from the fact that it only theoretically exists, would weigh absolutely nothing.

It's no wonder people think the Shrink Item spell is broken when we confuse areas with volumes, even if it's merely sloppy transcription. After all, 5 x 5 = 25, so a 13th level mage can shrink a 5 x 5 rock, right?

Cobblers!

If you mean a 5 x 5 x 5 rock, say that (125 cubic feet & 63rd level mage required to shrink it). If you mean a 5 x 5 x 1 rock then say that (25 cubic feet & 13th level mage required to shrink it).

Note the not insignificant difference between caster levels, and indeed the weight of the rock in question.

/RANT :smallmad:

I made note of that on the first page and in my balsa weight calculations. Simple typo really.

Honestly the spell should have been worded by weight or size or something other than volume imho. So, a single plank of material that is 6 inches wide and 1 inch thick and 240 feet long is covered by the bare minimum caster level needed to cast the spell, but a 5x5x5 cube is harder to pull off somehow.

[willpell]

Glass isn't a solid object. It acts like a liquid. It runs down very slowly as amorphous solids are wont to do.

I must at this point quote the Wikipedia page "List of Common Misconceptions":


Glass is not a high-viscosity liquid at room temperature, and will only begin to flow above the glass transition temperature. An overview of published papers about the subject summarizes that glass is an "amorphous solid",[205] though the exact nature of the glass transition is not considered settled among theorists and scientists.[206] Panes of stained glass windows have been observed to be thicker at the bottom than at the top, and this has been cited as an example of the slow flow of glass over centuries. However, this unevenness is due to the window manufacturing processes used at the time. Normally the thick end of glass would be installed at the bottom of the frame, but it is also common to find old windows where the thicker end has been installed to the sides or the top.[205][206] Roman glass artifacts that predate medieval stained glass by centuries show no evidence of deformation. One researcher estimated in 1998 that for glass to actually "flow" at room temperatures would take many times the age of the earth.[205][207] It is generally agreed that glasses can be formed from "any solid in which the molecules are jumbled randomly" including some plastics, and that the molecules in glasses are immobile, as in solids, though there are many theories about the detailed nature and formation processes of glasses, and research continues.[205][206][207]

[kharmakazy]

I must at this point quote the Wikipedia page "List of Common Misconceptions":

I must, at this point, tell you that that doesn't say what you think it does. It clearly says that glass IS an amorphous solid. I said very slowly. The quote says it would take many times the age of the earth. That is slowly.

Besides glass there are other "solids" that flow on a faster scale.

The 176-year experiment
In 1927, Professor Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland Brisbane began the “pitch drop experiment,” designed to show his students that some substances that seem like solids are actually liquids. Parnell poured hot tar pitch into a sealed funnel, let it settle and solidify, and opened the funnel neck three years later. And waited. The first drop of tar fell from the funnel in 1938, and it continues to drip very, very slowly. The eighth drop fell in the year 2000, and the ninth drop is expected in 2013.
http://smp.uq.edu.au/content/pitch-drop-experiment

You can watch the live feed, but it's kind of boring.

[whibla]

Here's the Heroes of Battle text. If you don't have the book, you can "houserule" it in with no trouble at all.

I just browsed the book, and read the section on aerial bombardment, and as far as I can tell the main difference between this and 'normal' gameplay is that this book assumes attacks target a square, not an actual creature, which is why the reflex saving throw is allowed to avoid the damage. I would liken it to attacking into the square containing an invisible opponent. Assuming you target the correct square your attacks still have a 50% chance to miss (the save equivalent). If you can see the attacker you can attack them directly, and hence suffer no miss chance (no save).

You could certainly rule that 'aerial bombardment' in a non-battlefield situation can only target a square, but that would be a house rule for normal game play, after all, giants hurling boulders do not target squares, they target creatures.

I do agree with the improvised weapon penalties and the concept of range penalties, though I consider the range increments they give too high for a non-battlefield situation given that the PHB gives improvised weapons a range increment of 10'. I would, personally, also give a non-proficiency penalty to use such weapons.

As for the line saying that objects dropped from over 250' count as indirect fire, this would imply to me that objects dropped from a lower altitude do not, which, when you think about it is daft. You can hit a creature behind a wall, ignoring the cover bonus if you drop the object from over 250', but they get the cover bonus if you drop if from lower? Madness...

Granted, pretty much everything I've said might be considered a house ruling, but I think there's a consistent in-game logic behind it all. D&D has always had issues converting to battlefield situations, and vice-versa. Rules that apply to one do not always translate well to the other.

[Wonton]

What is a solid object? Your sword is made of several pieces. Can you shrink the whole sword, or just parts of it? Glass isn't a solid object. It acts like a liquid. It runs down very slowly as amorphous solids are wont to do. Is ice a solid object? I mean it's just water with some of the heat taken out.

I don't think it's possible to come up with a precise definition that covers all cases, but a sword would clearly be a single object. If you throw it in the air, and catch it, it's strong enough to hold itself together and stay as a single object. If you broke the sword in two, the hilt and blade would be individual objects.

Glass is a solid. I'm not going to break out the materials science, but on short time scales, it behaves like a solid.

Ice is a solid. It just is. "Water with some heat taken out" is a terrible argument. Otherwise you could say all matter is simultaneously in all states at once.

[kharmakazy]

I don't think it's possible to come up with a precise definition that covers all cases, but a sword would clearly be a single object. If you throw it in the air, and catch it, it's strong enough to hold itself together and stay as a single object. If you broke the sword in two, the hilt and blade would be individual objects.

Glass is a solid. I'm not going to break out the materials science, but on short time scales, it behaves like a solid.

Ice is a solid. It just is. "Water with some heat taken out" is a terrible argument. Otherwise you could say all matter is simultaneously in all states at once.

The point is that the spell does not specify solid. That is something he added. Heck, the spell lists fire as one of the things you can shrink. Water is certainly as much of an "object" as fire is.

The question is more like "what qualifies as 'one nonmagical item'? " for these purposes. A flask of water is certainly a nonmagical item. If a flask of water is a nonmagical item then it stands to reason that water is a nonmagical item.

[whibla]

I don't think it's possible to come up with a precise definition that covers all cases, but a sword would clearly be a single object. If you throw it in the air, and catch it, it's strong enough to hold itself together and stay as a single object. If you broke the sword in two, the hilt and blade would be individual objects.

Glass is a solid. I'm not going to break out the materials science, but on short time scales, it behaves like a solid.

Ice is a solid. It just is. "Water with some heat taken out" is a terrible argument. Otherwise you could say all matter is simultaneously in all states at once.

There were, when I was at school at least, 4 states of matter: Solid, Liquid, Gas, and Plasma. Essentially the only difference between them is their energy.

In terms of the thread, can we consider them all to be objects, viable for shrinking?

Solid - Absolutely, no problem at all.
Liquid - Not in and of itself, but if contained, yes. For example, a flask of oil.
Gas - Again, not by itself, but if contained, yes. For example, an inflated balloon.
Plasma - The only tricky one on the list, simply because of the containment requirements. I can't see anyone having access to a Tokamak, let alone being able to shrink one. This probably reflects the limit of my imagination, rather than a hard and fast restriction on the spell however.

The only remarkable thing about common sense is how remarkably uncommon it is...

[kharmakazy]

Liquid - Not in and of itself, but if contained, yes. For example, a flask of oil.
Gas - Again, not by itself, but if contained, yes. For example, an inflated balloon.


See, I'm not sold on this bit. I can't fathom why one would be able to effect a bucket and the water it contained, but not the water alone. Can I touch the water? Yes. (by and by, this is the hard part of shrinking lava :P)

And again, the listed example is "a burning fire and its fuel". What state of matter is fire? It's not any. It is a chemical reaction.

[Invader]

See, I'm not sold on this bit. I can't fathom why one would be able to effect a bucket and the water it contained, but not the water alone. Can I touch the water? Yes. (by and by, this is the hard part of shrinking lava :P)

And again, the listed example is "a burning fire and its fuel". What state of matter is fire? It's not any. It is a chemical reaction.

I'd totally agree. If you have a bucket of water, you'd absolutely be able to shrink just the water without the bucket.

[whibla]

See, I'm not sold on this bit. I can't fathom why one would be able to effect a bucket and the water it contained, but not the water alone. Can I touch the water? Yes. (by and by, this is the hard part of shrinking lava :P)

And again, the listed example is "a burning fire and its fuel". What state of matter is fire? It's not any. It is a chemical reaction.

Personally I wouldn't generally allow people to shrink lava, in situ, using the spell, any more than I'd allow them to shrink a pool of water either. To my mind neither of these things count as objects per se, they are part of the environment.

My litmus test for 'an object' as the target for the spell is: Can you conceivably pick it up. If you can, no worries, if not, then you can't shrink it. If a player wants to say he can pick up lava, fine, but he'll actually have to do that before he can affect it with the spell, otherwise the volume of the lava, in most cases, will be too great for the spell to affect.

As for shrinking a fire, the fire itself is not an object, true, but the fuel that's burning has an energy state that is causing it to burn. Shrinking it doesn't change its energy state, merely puts it into abeyance (assuming you've converted the object into cloth). As soon as the object is returned to its original form the fuel continues to burn. New flames form to replace the ones that winked out as soon as the fuel was originally shrunk.

While the rules do not say any of this there's an awful lot the rules do not say. As I've mentioned before, it just requires a little common sense. Of course, I do not expect everyone to agree with my interpretation, and that's cool. We all read the rules in our own way, and I'm ceratinly not going to try to tell anyone that my way is the only way of looking at it. It's just a (one of the) reasonable interpretation of how things work, and one that works for me.

[The Redwolf]

See, I'm not sold on this bit. I can't fathom why one would be able to effect a bucket and the water it contained, but not the water alone. Can I touch the water? Yes. (by and by, this is the hard part of shrinking lava :P)

And again, the listed example is "a burning fire and its fuel". What state of matter is fire? It's not any. It is a chemical reaction.

Actually, fire is plasma, and I agree with you on this that water would count.

[kharmakazy]

Actually, fire is plasma, and I agree with you on this that water would count.

Source? Fire is not made of matter. It the visible heat and light produced by a chemical reaction.




My litmus test for 'an object' as the target for the spell is: Can you conceivably pick it up. If you can, no worries, if not, then you can't shrink it. If a player wants to say he can pick up lava, fine, but he'll actually have to do that before he can affect it with the spell, otherwise the volume of the lava, in most cases, will be too great for the spell to affect.

As for shrinking a fire, the fire itself is not an object, true, but the fuel that's burning has an energy state that is causing it to burn. Shrinking it doesn't change its energy state, merely puts it into abeyance (assuming you've converted the object into cloth). As soon as the object is returned to its original form the fuel continues to burn. New flames form to replace the ones that winked out as soon as the fuel was originally shrunk.


Energy resistance = Pick up lava.

What in the holy hell is an "energy state"?

[The Redwolf]

Source? Fire is not made of matter. It the visible heat and light produced by a chemical reaction.

Physics class/textbooks/professors/demonstrations etc. It isn't the visible heat and light it's the ionization of the air due to the heat and light, which is what plasma is, just like neon signs.

[kharmakazy]

Physics class/textbooks/professors/demonstrations etc. It isn't the visible heat and light it's the ionization of the air due to the heat and light, which is what plasma is, just like neon signs.

I am almost positive that isn't true. Feel free to cite that and prove me wrong. In fact your statement is cyclical. Fire is plasma due to ionization due to heat and light. Heat and light are the byproduct of the fire. So the fire caused itself.

[The Redwolf]

I am almost positive that isn't true. Feel free to cite that and prove me wrong. In fact your statement is cyclical. Fire is plasma due to ionization due to heat and light. Heat and light are the byproduct of the fire. So the fire caused itself.

Alright, when I went to find a source I found that we're actually both right, you are right in that not all fire is plasma, it has to be fire from a source that creates a hot enough flame. However, there are sources that are hot enough to create plasma, but those are the ones with the fancy colors and whatnot. I apologize, we were told that fire is plasma period, although I suppose that's what happens in a class where they oversimplify everything until later years.

[kharmakazy]

According to Chen "only one molecule in more than 10^11 is ionized". So plasma may be a small constituent of fire.

[The Redwolf]

According to Chen "only one molecule in more than 10^11 is ionized". So plasma may be a small constituent of fire.

I don't know what Chen is, but the thing I was looking at said that some fires do become hot enough to generate plasma, it just isn't a common thing, like your average fire won't but depending on what is burned in what quantity for how long it does become plasma. My guess is that in classes they figure it's easier to say "It's plasma," than, "Well it normally isn't anything, but sometimes it's plasma so we're going to generalize," even though that would have saved a lot of confusion.

[kharmakazy]

I don't know what Chen is, but the thing I was looking at said that some fires do become hot enough to generate plasma, it just isn't a common thing, like your average fire won't but depending on what is burned in what quantity for how long it does become plasma. My guess is that in classes they figure it's easier to say "It's plasma," than, "Well it normally isn't anything, but sometimes it's plasma so we're going to generalize," even though that would have saved a lot of confusion.

Sorry. http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Plasma-Physics-Francis-Chen/dp/0306307553 I had a physics class a long while back where this was quoted occasionally.

Francis F. Chen (born November 18, 1929 in Canton, China) is a Chinese-born American plasma physicist.

[The Redwolf]

Sorry. http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Plasma-Physics-Francis-Chen/dp/0306307553 I had a physics class a long while back where this was quoted occasionally.

Alright, thanks.

[Worira]

Keep in mind that any part of a flame that isn't plasma will be gas.

[Wonton]

I'd totally agree. If you have a bucket of water, you'd absolutely be able to shrink just the water without the bucket.

I still wouldn't allow it. For me, it hinges on the definition of an item/object. It's like the difference between a chunk of sandstone and a pile of sand. One is an object, one is a quantity of material. Although, like I said earlier, it's impossible to make a distinction that's 100% accurate (this is why we have DMs). That's just how I would houserule it though, I'm not claiming the spell should/shouldn't work that way.

[kharmakazy]

Keep in mind that any part of a flame that isn't plasma will be gas.

That isn't really true either. The flame produces a gas... but the flame itself isn't really a thing. It's a collection of associated events, most commonly heat and light. Only a ridiculously small fraction of what we call fire actually has any matter at all.

[Worira]

Uh, unless you have it in a vacuum (and good luck with that), it's going to be made of gas.

[willpell]

Fires can burn underwater; not much gas in that case.

[kharmakazy]

Uh, unless you have it in a vacuum (and good luck with that), it's going to be made of gas.

The space the fire occupies will be filled with gas. That is true. Fire isn't actually made out of anything, it is an effect. "fire" is a word we use to describe a thing that is happening, namely combustion. Combusting isn't made of matter any more than running or sinking is made of matter.


It is made of the same thing as explosions.


Fires can burn underwater; not much gas in that case.

There is quite a lot of gas underwater actually. It's that stuff fish breathe.

[Augmental]

Fires can burn underwater; not much gas in that case.

They can? Which ones? (That's a serious question, by the way.)

[kharmakazy]

They can? Which ones? (That's a serious question, by the way.)

All you need to make fire is gaseous oxygen and fuel, even under water. Acetylene torches are designed for this in fact.

[tyckspoon]

They can? Which ones? (That's a serious question, by the way.)

Pretty much anything that is energetic enough to overcome the dampening influence of being surrounded by water. The Thermite reaction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite) is fairly well-known, and metallic sodium and its family of related elements are known for reacting violently enough with water to actually ignite on contact (or explode, in the case of the more volatile elements.) Mostly chemical reactions, which release significantly more energy than the mere act of taking a match to something.

[willpell]

They can? Which ones? (That's a serious question, by the way.)

Napalm is the best-known example (along with its more primitive relative Greek Fire). The fire burns hot enough that the water can't extinguish it; I think it actually fissions the water to get oxygen but I won't swear to that part.

[kharmakazy]

Napalm is the best-known example (along with its more primitive relative Greek Fire). The fire burns hot enough that the water can't extinguish it; I think it actually fissions the water to get oxygen but I won't swear to that part.

Dude, I don't know where you are getting your information from, but please stop listening to them.

Napalm is basically just jellied gasoline. It floats on water.


Napalm B has a commonly quoted composition of 21% benzene, 33% gasoline (itself containing between 1% and 4% (estimated) benzene to raise its octane number), and 46% polystyrene. This mixture is more difficult to ignite than napalm[3]. A reliable pyrotechnic initiator, often based on thermite (for ordinary napalm) or white phosphorus (for newer compositions), has been used.[4][3] The original napalm usually burned for 15 to 30 seconds while napalm B can burn for up to 10 minutes.

They started adding white phosphorus because the people they set on fire would jump in the water. The white phosphorous keeps it burning underwater.

Water boils at 212°F. Napalm generates temperatures of 1,500°F to 2,200°F.

While napalm has killed more people than the atomic bomb and has terrible destructive powers, it falls somewhat short of splitting the atom.

[willpell]

I stand corrected. White phosphorus was what I was thinking of.