lets destroy the sun [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

SimonMoon6

2012-10-02, 12:40 PM

A: find a way to go to the elemental plane of water.

B:find a way to cast gate and keep it up permanently. (gate plus permanency is one way)

C:find a way to automatically leave the elemental plane.

First go to the elemental plane, then open up a gate to the sun. The infinite water of the plane should take out all the fire and plasma and heat of the sun....eventually.

The way to leave the plane automatically is because you don't want to be sucked into the sun.

That's one way to do it.

Assuming real world physics, this might not work:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3071/how-many-ice-cubes-would-it-take-to-put-out-the-sun

Basically, the water would just become more fuel for the sun. You'd probably make the sun bigger and more powerful, the opposite of what you were trying to accomplish.

On the other hand, in a fantasy universe, who knows what the sun is like? If, for example, it's just a giant candle floating a mere 100 miles from the Earth, then you just need to blow it out.

Harry

2012-10-02, 12:42 PM

you could go one level in archmage and get True Creation as a SLA to make a box of electrons with no space between each of the particles, inside the sun.

Electrons repel each other. True Creation creates a 5x5 cube. That's a 5x5 cube of a high amount of (haven't done chem in ages) of particles all suddenly trying to repel each other at once from the atomic equivalent of point blank.

That cube holds 5x5x5 feet, or 125 feet³. One foot ~= 0.3048 meters, so the volume of the cube in meters is about 125 f³ x (0.3048 m/f)³ ~= 3.5396 m³.
Now, the upper limit on the radius of an electron is 10^(-22) m (this depends on who you ask. Obviously there is some question of whether or not you can actually measure this radius. Hush. Since things in D&D occupy 3-space in cube form, I will simplify the calculations by assuming the electron is a cube with radius 10^(-22) m, which is to say a cube of side-length 2 x 10^(-22) m.
Given this, an electron occupies the following volume with our D&D approximation: (2 x 10^(-22) m)³ = 8 x 10^(-66) m³.
We now have enough to do our calculation, which is simple enough: we divide the cube's volume by the electron's volume to get the number of electrons we've created: (3.5396 m³)/(8 x 10^(-66) m³) = 4.4245 x 10^65 electrons.
Note that this number (which because of our D&D "physics" is actually much less than the actual number of spheres you can fit in this cube) is completely ridiculous. For comparison, the number of particles in the universe is estimated to be only a few powers of 10 more than this (somewhere kind of around 10^75).
The charge on a single electron is -1.602 x 10^(-19) Coulombs. Multiply this by the number of electrons you've just made, and you get a total charge of 2.836 x 10^48 C. We need to know more about the environment (and how the particles interact, as Urpriest noted) to know more, but that much charge is outrageous.
The mass involved here is also stupidly huge. Even though each electron has almost negligible mass (about 9.109 x 10^(-31) kg), the sheer number you're dealing with means this cube weighs about 4.03 x 10^35 kg. Compare: the sun weighs about 2 x 10^30 kg. Whoops. The Chandrasekhar Limit (above which point this pile of electrons would become a black hole) is about 1.4 solar masses. This box, then, obviously becomes a black hole (in fact, it becomes Supermassive, with almost 150,000 solar masses). In case you are reluctant to believe this based on a Limit you've never heard of...
The escape velocity from a planet with raduis r and mass m is v = √(2Gm/r). In this case, m = 4 x 10^35 kg, and r = 0.762 m. The gravitational constant, G, is 6.673 x 10^(-11) m³/(kg s²). So the escape velocity from our box is
v = √((2 x (6.673 x 10^(-11) m^3/(kg x s^2)) (4 x 10^35 kg))/0.762 m)
ve = 8.37 x 10^12 m/s. The speed of light e = 2.998 x 10^8 m/s. You got yourself a black hole. 'Gratz.
Finally, there is some chance that the actual volume of an electron is 0 (or infinitely small, at any rate). In this case you would almost certainly destroy the whole plane, because you would never "fill" your cube with electrons, but would rather dump infinite mass (and charge, but I'm not sure that would matter at that point) into your little box. Bye-bye, everything. Hope you cast that as an Astral Projection from a protected demiplane. Maybe that would even save you.

Only problem is not destroying everything else

SimonMoon6

2012-10-02, 12:47 PM

Acquire a Sphere of Annihilation, establish control over the sphere, send the sphere into the center of the sun. Star implodes as all of its matter is sucked into the sphere.

Here are some difficulties with this plan:

A person can control a sphere of annihilation from a distance of 40 ft plus 10 ft per character level. Assuming a max of 20th level (pre-epic) characters, we're talking about a distance of 240 ft. So, to get the sphere into the sun, you only need to get within 240 ft of the sun... which could be problematic. You'd need to be able to survive in space (or use weird Spelljammer rules), you'd need to be immune to heat (not impossible) and radiation (more difficult... assuming radiation exists in a D&D world), and be able to travel with the sphere that incredibly long distance away from the Earth.

And, since it's a D&D world, there are probably all sorts of creatures living in the sun who would object most strenuously to such a plan. And since you have to get very close to them, some sort of epic combat is likely to ensue.

SowZ

2012-10-02, 12:52 PM

Acquire a Sphere of Annihilation, establish control over the sphere, send the sphere into the center of the sun. Star implodes as all of its matter is sucked into the sphere.

How are you going to get within a few hundred feet of the Sun's core? Also, the Sphere only sucks in matter it comes in direct contact with at a time. Even if it continues to suck in more and more of the sun, it can only destroy about 170 square feet of the sun at a time. Even if the sphere destroys its own surface area of the sun 1,000,000,000 times a second you won't even see the sun destroyed in your lifetime if you are a dwarf.

Harry

2012-10-02, 12:55 PM

Immunity to fire plus immunity to radiant damage (which If I remember correctly is considered radiation.)

Plus gate.

But you make a good point on The time it takes.

Sipex

2012-10-02, 12:55 PM

You could try reversing the plan. Go with something you know is going to make the sun more intense then let those pesky above landers put their resources into the fallout and figure out a solution which you can (probably) abuse to extinguish the sun (or at least diminish it significantly).

Eldan

2012-10-02, 12:58 PM

SowZ

2012-10-02, 12:58 PM

Immunity to fire plus immunity to radiant damage (which If I remember correctly is considered radiation.)

Plus gate.

But you make a good point on The time it takes.

Of course, if you can somehow make the sphere much much larger, (it will be exponential in how much it sucks in with each size increment,) then accelerate time, (or slow down everyone elses time,) you may accomplish it. And if you can craft one sphere, why not more than one? I am not saying the plan should be forgotten, but it needs some more oomph.

Eldan

2012-10-02, 01:00 PM

How about, instead of destroying the sun, you start by building a filter between it and the earth? That should be easier.

SowZ

2012-10-02, 01:01 PM

Hm. If, instead of the plane of water, we used the Quasi-elemental plane of vacuum for the gate to the core, could we suck away a significant amount of material from the sun's core, eventually draining it of fuel?

Again, though, time. There are many octillians of cubic feet in the sun. How will you suck that in at a rate not measured in millenniums?

SimonMoon6

2012-10-02, 01:02 PM

Anyway, wouldn't it be better, (and easier,) to block out the sun enough to make the upperworld liveable? I am pretty sure the Drow wouldn't be too thrilled living on a planet whose orbit is all screwed up and is now too cold to sustain almost any life.

Maybe they are suicidal Drow?

Of course, the problem with any sort of temporary blockage of the sun is that anything that a PC can do to affect things on a global scale can be instantly undone by a higher level NPC (of which there are millions in a standard D&D campaign world).

So, while one could block out the sun ("Simpsons did it!") or even move the Earth far enough away from the sun to make the sun no more relevant than any other star in the sky... if a PC can do it, it can be undone ("a wizard did it").

But yeah, any plan to destroy the sun is a monumentally bad plan for anyone who wants to live in, on, under, or near the Earth.

Gandariel

2012-10-02, 01:06 PM

Gate in it matter (even water) until it becomes a black hole.Warning, this has a high chance of destroying the earth too.

Have a Hulking Hurler throw the Moon at it. Surprisingly easy.

SimonMoon6

2012-10-02, 01:18 PM

Something else to consider:

Suppose you do destroy the sun (or start one of these million-year long plans to do so). Just how do you think Apollo (and the other dozens of sun gods) are going to feel about that?

If you destroy the sun, your own personal life expectancy is not very high.

Assuming the sun gods can survive without the sun, they will kill you. If they die or fade away now that their portfolio (the sun) no longer exists, all their friends (the other gods) will come smite you.

But perhaps, one could think about this the other way. If the sun god and the sun are somehow inextricably linked, it is possible (just *possible*) that if you managed to kill the sun god, you might destroy the sun at the same time. Certainly, in a universe with only one pantheon, this might be plausible. In a universe with a million sun gods, well, you might have to kill them all.

Harry

2012-10-02, 01:34 PM

Certain of the metabreath feats in the Draconomicon allow you stack their effects without limit,

but increases the recovery times between uses of your breath weapon each time you apply the feat.

As such some creature with a breath weapon could stack the Enlarge Breath feat ad nauseam to engulf the entire star in a massive energystorm,

though at the cost of probably never using their breath weapon ever again, but that's the price one has to pay for destroying the sun.

Get the half dragon (white) template get the feats enlarge breath and clinging breath and lingering breath.

Enlarge Breath is a metabreath feat that explicitly allows itself to stack any number of times. Each time you do it, you get to increase the range of your power by 50% in exchange for waiting another round for your breath weapon to recover.

For something the size of the sun, it will need a stupid amount of stacks of Enlarge Breath (best just stack it infinitly:smallwink:), and then you can't use your breath weapon ever again.

lingering breath allows us to leave behind a cloud that deals half the damage of the original attack (2d6 now) in the same area. The cost is two rounds of cooldown per one round of duration added. Since half of infinity is infinity it lasts forever (or as long as you want depending)

End result:The sun becomes a giant ice cube in the sky.

Kaeso

2012-10-02, 01:35 PM

Can't you use wish to wish the sun out of existance?

Andreaz

2012-10-02, 01:41 PM

Basically, the water would just become more fuel for the sun. You'd probably make the sun bigger and more powerful, the opposite of what you were trying to accomplish.That would, however, make the sun burn out faster and brighter, charring everything before dieing out in mere millions of years.
Again, though, time. There are many octillians of cubic feet in the sun. How will you suck that in at a rate not measured in millenniums?Not with vacuum. Vacuum does not exert force. Our sun is in a vacuum, for example, as is earth's atmosphere!
Have a Hulking Hurler throw the Moon at it. Surprisingly easy.The moon is really, really pitifully small. It'd be like throwing a normal man-made snowball at eurasia.

Eldan

2012-10-02, 01:50 PM

But if there ws a gate from the core of the sun to vacuum, wouldn't the pressure differential force sun matter through the gate?

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-02, 01:50 PM

Can't you use wish to wish the sun out of existance?

Nope. That's way beyond the power of a wish spell. You've got a better shot at diplomancing a greater god into trying to put it out with alter reality, but even that might not be enough.

Some elder evils blot out the sun as they approach/awaken. Maybe get one of them to help?

Andreaz

2012-10-02, 01:59 PM

But if there ws a gate from the core of the sun to vacuum, wouldn't the pressure differential force sun matter through the gate?Then it would, yes, and at absurd rates too.
Hardly enough though. I wish I knew the exact calculations from memory, but i'm too far from my books. Except something in the rate of milions of years though.

nedz

2012-10-02, 02:09 PM

Use it as the fire source for Pyrotechnics.
This 2nd level spell will then extinguish the sun.
You just have to be able to get into range.
You'll get a great fireworks display as well.

darksolitaire

2012-10-02, 02:13 PM

Greater Teleport has unlimited range :smallamused:

Harry

2012-10-02, 02:22 PM

Use it as the fire source for Pyrotechnics.
This 2nd level spell will then extinguish the sun.
You just have to be able to get into range.
You'll get a great fireworks display as well.

That's just......beautiful.

nedz

2012-10-02, 02:22 PM

Yeah - so
Immunity to fire (somehow, several methods)
Greater Teleport
Quickened Pyrotechnics
and either another Teleport or a Contingency to get home.

With a bit of luck you will be home before it gets dark.

NichG

2012-10-02, 02:26 PM

Its much easier to move the planet than it is to put out the sun. Still might not be 'achievable with PO' easy though. I do believe there's a PrC that lets you steal bits of land to another plane. Planeshifter, from Manual of the Planes. Each use gets you a 1000ft radius at max level. Get enough people to use this and you can move the whole (surface of the) planet to Pandemonium, where sun isn't a problem. Unfortunately, they shift back in 10 days. So you just need to keep it up and the sun comes out once every 10 days for an instant.

Unfortunately there's a fixed DC 20 Will save to negate the transfer if the area contains any unwilling people. Negate the whole transfer, mind you, not just them getting transferred...

Andreaz

2012-10-02, 02:31 PM

That's just......beautiful.It fails to consider two things though.
1) The sun is not on fire
2) Pyrotechnics doesn't consume the entire fire if it is "significantly large". I'd consider coronas with jets the size of planets significantly large.

Harry

2012-10-02, 02:34 PM

Or you could just be a wizard/incantatrix or wizard/tainted scholar and persist (perhaps with reserve of strength?) undermaster.

Then just use move earth to.....MOVE ALL THE EARTH!

nedz

2012-10-02, 02:36 PM

Having re-read the spell, it will only work if the Sun is a 20' cube, curses.

Harry

2012-10-02, 02:36 PM

It fails to consider two things though.
1) The sun is not on fire
2) Pyrotechnics doesn't consume the entire fire if it is "significantly large". I'd consider coronas with jets the size of planets significantly large.

Yea your right. After I posted that I looked up pyrotechnics.

ericgrau

2012-10-02, 02:46 PM

Any solution that involves extinguishing it "eventually" won't be any faster than waiting for it to die out on its own in 5 billion years as it uses up its own nuclear fuel "eventually". The sun is big.

Teleport is limited by your maximum load. With a strength of 394 you could carry the earth as a heavy load and teleport the planet to another location.

A way to keep the earth warm after the sun is gone would be helpful too.

An alternate solution would be something to block the sun.

Hmm... still thinking.

killem2

2012-10-02, 02:48 PM

I'm not really great at these things, but couldn't you teleport to the sun with a pretty decent chance of failure, if you are immune to the suns heat, release your sphere of annihilation. If you are worried about missing it and being stuck in space, sure you can prepare a slew of wands to try to teleport again and again. right?

If not I fail :P

Andreaz

2012-10-02, 02:54 PM

Any solution that involves extinguishing it "eventually" won't be much faster than waiting for it to die out on its own in 5 billion years as it uses up its own nuclear fuel "eventually". The sun is big.

A way to keep the earth warm after the sun is gone would be helpful too.

An alternate solution would be something to block the sun.

Hmm... still thinking.

Well, draining it away in the gate mode is certainly viable. if you make a large gate (say the size of asia) it'll be noticeable within mere years, and it'll dim signifnicantly over a few hundred thousand years.

I'm not really great at these things, but couldn't you teleport to the sun with a pretty decent chance of failure, if you are immune to the suns heat, release your sphere of annihilation. If you are worried about missing it and being stuck in space, sure you can prepare a slew of wands to try to teleport again and again. right?

If not I fail :PThis is the same as the gate... The sphere is just too small.

ericgrau

2012-10-02, 02:58 PM

If you can make a gate the size of asia why can't you make a gate the size of the sun? Asia isn't exactly a standard size for a magical effect. That's why 99.999% of those solutions aren't going to work. You'd need an awfully precise amount of semi-infiniteness for "eventually" to be something to consider rather than "right away" or "practically never".

Strength 394 + teleport the earth seems workable. Has char op gotten 394 strength without pun pun?

Andreaz

2012-10-02, 03:01 PM

If you can make a gate the size of asia why can't you make a gate the size of the sun? Asia isn't exactly a standard size for a magical effect. That's why 99.999% of those solutions aren't going to work. You'd need an awfully precise amount of semi-infiniteness for "eventually" to be something to consider rather than "right away" or "practically never".No reason at all. I'm just scaling slowly from the humanoid reference, where stuff you'd call "mother****ing huge" is just as much a grain to the sun as you are.

Deophaun

2012-10-02, 03:21 PM

How are you going to get within a few hundred feet of the Sun's core? Also, the Sphere only sucks in matter it comes in direct contact with at a time. Even if it continues to suck in more and more of the sun, it can only destroy about 170 square feet of the sun at a time. Even if the sphere destroys its own surface area of the sun 1,000,000,000 times a second you won't even see the sun destroyed in your lifetime if you are a dwarf.
I have a feeling it's going to destroy a lot more matter than that in a second. You're essentially creating a vacuum in the center of the sun. That's the point where two opposing forces--gravity and nuclear fusion--are at their strongest. All of a sudden, nuclear fusion stops resisting, and actually starts working with gravity. Now you have the entire energy of a star set to the singular task of putting as much matter into that space as fast as possible.

However, the length of time it takes is not going to be the biggest issue for your underdark race. At some point before the sun goes out, enough mass will have disappeared that gravity will lose to nuclear explosion. The star will supernova, and the world the underdark race wants to take over will vaporize.

mattie_p

2012-10-02, 03:22 PM

Depending on exactly how the sun and cosmology in general work on this planet...

Shaper psion to create quintessence. Why destroy when you can save it for later?

Plasma has no hardness per RAW, just do massive hp damage.

Maybe it is just a colossal+ elemental and banish it.

Harry

2012-10-02, 03:29 PM

ericgrau

Take a level of cancer Mage, get festering anger, go to a plane with slow time or no time trait.

Wait a thousand days.

You are now a wizard with 2000 strength.

nedz

2012-10-02, 03:32 PM

Just what is the Sun ?

I know that, in reality, its a large ball of plasma; but what is it in D&D terms ?
I had assumed fire because, well...

In certain mythos the Sun is a Deities chariot, or even just a Deity.

Andreaz

2012-10-02, 03:37 PM

Shaper psion to create quintessence. Why destroy when you can save it for later?One ounce of a dollop of thick gooey substance. Let's suppose it's enough to cover a cellphone, or 0,0206374m².
That's 0,0000000206374km² per casting. Covering the sun with that would take 294 billions of billions of castings, or 15 billion years. The sun would die twice before you managed that.

(this assumes the psion uses 100% of every time ever to create quintessence, without stopping for any reason)

mattie_p

2012-10-02, 03:51 PM

@Andreaz, that is why I prefaced my comments as I did (cosmology, etc). There is no guarantee a D&D sun is in any way the same as our sun.

Eldan

2012-10-02, 04:11 PM

Strength 394 + teleport the earth seems workable. Has char op gotten 394 strength without pun pun?

Cancer Mage and Festering Anger?

NichG

2012-10-02, 04:24 PM

One ounce of a dollop of thick gooey substance. Let's suppose it's enough to cover a cellphone, or 0,0206374m².
That's 0,0000000206374km² per casting. Covering the sun with that would take 294 billions of billions of castings, or 15 billion years. The sun would die twice before you managed that.

(this assumes the psion uses 100% of every time ever to create quintessence, without stopping for any reason)

But a billion psions could do it in a mere 15 years!

Also, for the 'removing material from the core' plan, lets just assume that material flows through the sphere of annihilation at lightspeed. The sphere is 2ft in diameter, which is roughly 0.5 meters. So its surface area is 0.2 m^2. If material flows in at the speed of light, 3x10^8 m/s, you get 6x10^7 m^3/s of volume flux. The volume of the sun is 1.4x10^27 m^3. So this takes 740 million years to drain the sun of its volume. You're probably going to need to get rid of at least a hundredth of it to make it supernova (and more likely a tenth), so you're still waiting 7.4 million years for anything interesting to happen.

Malroth

2012-10-02, 04:28 PM

Or you could have the same Billion Psions cover the earth with quintessence in a single day and have some method to remove the quintessence once the sun burns out

Eldan

2012-10-02, 05:19 PM

But a billion psions could do it in a mere 15 years!

Also, for the 'removing material from the core' plan, lets just assume that material flows through the sphere of annihilation at lightspeed. The sphere is 2ft in diameter, which is roughly 0.5 meters. So its surface area is 0.2 m^2. If material flows in at the speed of light, 3x10^8 m/s, you get 6x10^7 m^3/s of volume flux. The volume of the sun is 1.4x10^27 m^3. So this takes 740 million years to drain the sun of its volume. You're probably going to need to get rid of at least a hundredth of it to make it supernova (and more likely a tenth), so you're still waiting 7.4 million years for anything interesting to happen.

With gate and assuming light speed (which is probably a bit much):
20 feet diameter. So, we move one cylinder 3x10^8m long and about 6.1 wide through every second.
pi*3.05^2*3*10^8=87673996998 cubic meters per second.

Or very nearly1.6*10^17 seconds. Or about 5.1 billion years.

So, not without chain-gating sun-gating solars. And a short calculation shows that even with exponentially growing numbers of both solar-gating and sun-gating solars, it would still take a while.

karkus

2012-10-02, 05:28 PM

Many of these ideas, while brilliant, have some drawbacks. Due to gravity, you will probably need there to be the same amount of mass in the sun, while having it be in about the same location. My best theory is to attempt to block it out, which you could do with Darkness-related spells.

Here's a little fact for you, just in case: in the Epic Level Handbook, there is a spell that creates an eclipse, which will block out the sun for you. Now I know that this is Epic, so you may not want it, but it's still a pretty useful thing to know. If it's not already permanent, you will have to design it differently to make it that way, which could make it too powerful for you to cast. However, with permanent spells, you can simply increase the casting time to make it easier for you (Epic magic is a complicated, and very different magic system, so I'm sorry if you don't know what I'm referring to).

Threadnaught

2012-10-02, 06:44 PM

For a permanent way to block out the sun within a 5 mile radius, the Spellcraft DC is 450 without Mitigating factors.

Because it's permanent, the DC for everything before duration is counted is 90, any increase here increases the total DC by 5. In order to destroy the sun, I'd assume you needed an Epic Spell with the DC of at least 1000.
If the sun is positive energy, based on it's ability to destroy certain undead, I'd guess this...

Negative Energy function of the Slay Seed.
250d4 Negative Levels (to hit at least 1000 levels of energy)
A range of up to 4965840000000 feet, to hit our sun.
Fortitude save DC is 1000 to compete with what I'd assume a star would have, not to beat, just be equal.
Caster Level check is also 1000 to compete with the Spell Resistance a star could have.

So, time to break down the Spellcraft DCs.
2d4 Negative Levels: 25
248d4 Negative Levels: 992
Increase Range from 300 feet to 4965840000000 feet: 33105599998
Increase Save by 950: 1900
Increase Caster Level check to overcome Spell Resistance: 1900
Final DC: 33105604815

And this only works if the sun fails it's Spell Resistance and Fortitude Save rolls. Also no mitigating factors were counted in creating this spell.

The development cost of this spell would be.
297950443335000gp
59590008867 days
11918017733400exp

Maybe a 40th Level Character shouldn't try casting this alone, or try getting some more levels first. Most of the DC for this Spell actually comes from the range and that's assuming the sun is on par with ours for how far away it is from our world. It can be done, but you'd better hope your DM brings it a little closer to the world and makes it into a mere burning ball of positive energy radiation. 1000d100 is a low amount as well, hopefully whoever's DMing will be as generous as I'm being, otherwise I don't see it being possible for a PC.

Bomaz

2012-10-02, 07:12 PM

Use the legion trick (essentially a character that clones himself exactly every other round or so), doubling mass every other round (this assumes character/clone survival once the mass becomes large).

Given 2000 rounds mass should be 10^10 times greater than the sun. I'm guessing black hold level somewhere around here?

A black hole of this magnitude would destroy the earth ... I mean sun even if it takes the earths position.

Eldan

2012-10-02, 07:34 PM

Hm. Could the sun be collapsed into a black hole somehow by putting pressure on it from the outside?

How many walls of force do you need to build a vaguely spherical object around the sun?

Grollub

2012-10-02, 08:01 PM

hmm I recall there is a spell to bring "eternal night" to the world. I don't remember the specifics of the spell ( ie where I saw it, area of effect ).

I do remember it was a ritual that required the spell cast origin to be a specific spot where no life form has been within 10 miles of that point within the last 10 or 100 years ( don't remember which ). The spell when completed brought night to the land, til the "crossed swords" at the spell's point of origin was disturbed.

Lonely Tylenol

2012-10-02, 08:13 PM

How can you destroy what you cannot see?

nedz

2012-10-02, 08:28 PM

Hm. Could the sun be collapsed into a black hole somehow by putting pressure on it from the outside?

To make it into a black hole you just need to feed it, well quite a lot of food really.

mattie_p

2012-10-02, 08:33 PM

To make it into a black hole you just need to feed it, well quite a lot of food really.

In another thread they are making demiplanes of candy and coffee (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=257417&page=2). Would that work?

Eldan

2012-10-02, 08:42 PM

To make it into a black hole you just need to feed it, well quite a lot of food really.

True, but I think we want to keep the orbit stable, so I don't want to feed it any more mass. Just make it a bit more compact.

Invader

2012-10-02, 08:58 PM

I think most of these ideas while fun to toss around fail to really take into account the scope of the sun.

It's already been pointed out that it's to large for any kind of gate/teleport/black hole shenanigans.

As far as teleporting to the core for any kind of trick:

The core of the sun is 27 million degrees Fahrenheit, I think it's fair to say that your average immunity to fire spell isn't really going to be sufficient to protect you.

Now for the sake of funsies let's say it does protect you. The pressure in the center of the sun is a paltry 340 billion times the pressure on earth which is going to cause anything you actually manage to pull if to simply cease to be immediately.

HunterOfJello

2012-10-02, 09:15 PM

This has quite a few steps, but should be possible.

Step 1: Obtain sufficient caster levels for Step 2. This could be calculated using Wolfram Alpha
Step 2: Get close to the sun without dying. Some way to avoid gravity and getting fire immunity could be important.
Step 3: Catch a piece of plasma or w/e from the sun and preserve it inside something. I'm sure there are ways to do this with magic.
Step 3: Cast Animate Objects on the Sun
Step 4: Cast Permanency on the Sun. The Sun is now a creature.
Step 5: Create a demiplane of snow with a Sun sized object inside that is the size of the sun.
Step 6: Cast Ice Assassin on your sun sized snowball.
Step 7: Give your Anti-Sun immunity to Fire
Step 8: Send your Anti-Sun back to the material plane
Step 9: Sit back and watch the greatest fight ever.

Invader

2012-10-02, 09:24 PM

TuggyNE

2012-10-02, 09:27 PM

Aside from all the steps you don't have solutions for.. animate object works on 1 small object per caster level such as a chair.

Or an equivalent number of larger objects. You need a (literally) astronomically high caster level, but it can be done.

Invader

2012-10-02, 09:34 PM

Or an equivalent number of larger objects. You need a (literally) astronomically high caster level, but it can be done.

A colossal object counts as 32 objects, even theoretically you couldn't get a high enough caster level to effect the entire sun.

Edit* Well I guess theoretically you could a high enough level but not realistically you couldn't and if you did manage to get to be a 500 billionth level wizard or whatever ridiculous number it would have to be, would you really care about unleashing the underdark on the world? lol

Duboris

2012-10-02, 09:35 PM

The Glyphstone

2012-10-02, 09:41 PM

With gate and assuming light speed (which is probably a bit much):
20 feet diameter. So, we move one cylinder 3x10^8m long and about 6.1 wide through every second.
pi*3.05^2*3*10^8=87673996998 cubic meters per second.

Or very nearly1.6*10^17 seconds. Or about 5.1 billion years.

So, not without chain-gating sun-gating solars. And a short calculation shows that even with exponentially growing numbers of both solar-gating and sun-gating solars, it would still take a while.

There's just something wrong with the idea of using a Solar to kill the Sun...

Amidus Drexel

2012-10-02, 09:41 PM

This must be what it feels like as a fighter to attempt to read a 9th level spell.

All of my what.

Nah, that's only one page, so it's a first-level spell, at most. A ninth-level spell would be much, much longer.

The Glyphstone

2012-10-02, 09:44 PM

Nah, that's only one page, so it's a first-level spell, at most. A ninth-level spell would be much, much longer.

That could be a Power Word spell, and the remaining pages are blank.

Andreaz

2012-10-02, 09:52 PM

That could be a Power Word spell, and the remaining pages are blank.Power Phrase is the best phrase.
Now Imagine how a geometer writes that down.

TuggyNE

2012-10-02, 10:02 PM

A colossal object counts as 32 objects, even theoretically you couldn't get a high enough caster level to effect the entire sun.

Edit* Well I guess theoretically you could a high enough level but not realistically you couldn't and if you did manage to get to be a 500 billionth level wizard or whatever ridiculous number it would have to be, would you really care about unleashing the underdark on the world? lol

Greater consumptive field says hi, how ya doin'. Circle magic also inquires after your health.

(For example, use simulacra with GCF to power your circle magic, and amp that up with GCF as well. Sprinkle with suitable means of NI small critters; resetting trap of Maximized Empowered summon monster III, perhaps, or binding Malphas [?] for endless ravens.)

Power Phrase is the best phrase.
Now Imagine how a geometer writes that down.

QR codes, anyone?

navar100

2012-10-02, 10:06 PM

IIRC, Tome of Magic has a spell called Eclipse that blocks out the sun all over the world for a while. Find a way to make that permanent.

Invader

2012-10-02, 10:14 PM

Greater consumptive field says hi, how ya doin'. Circle magic also inquires after your health.

(For example, use simulacra with GCF to power your circle magic, and amp that up with GCF as well. Sprinkle with suitable means of NI small critters; resetting trap of Maximized Empowered summon monster III, perhaps, or binding Malphas [?] for endless ravens.)

QR codes, anyone?

It's still questionable whether animate object would even work on the sun even with this nonsense.

ericgrau

2012-10-02, 10:22 PM

A rough calculation revealed about caster level 1380 million to animate object the sun. Assuming you can go above size colossal. Otherwise you only need caster level 32 :smalltongue:.

karkus

2012-10-02, 11:17 PM

(Some long-ass quote about an Epic spell to "kill" the sun)

I once designed a character (he was almost completely unplayable, however) that possessed utter control over an army of a few million Vampires who were also very high-level Mystic Theurges. When they weren't conquering the very multiverse itself, he had them craft magic items on his nearly infinite and equally impenetrable demiplane. He was a demilich, who I believe either had an amulet based on Rope Trick, that could hold the items in an extradimensional space, thus "holding" them, or had them all piled up around his Phylactery, which yielded the same effect. These magic items were all Wonderous Items that didn't take up a space on the body, were smaller than a grain of sand, and granted a +1 on Spellcraft checks each.

SO, with a few million bonuses to Spellcraft, as well as the ritual part, having all the spellcasting Vampires donate their many spell slots to him, he was able to do just about anything via the most powerful of Epic spells ever conceived. This is the only way that I see possible to beat those DCs and "kill" the sun.

SowZ

2012-10-02, 11:32 PM

Alright, so after some very rounded numbers, yeah, even if a sphere of annihilation destroyed its surface area one billion times a second, you would be waiting over five thousand years.

Crazysaneman

2012-10-02, 11:59 PM

The problem with the core of the sun is the gravitational force. Gravitational force = pressure right? We would be worried about the enormous pressure exerted on the fleshy bits right? If you could creatively interpret the domain power of the Blackwater domain, that may work.

There are many ways to get fire immunity, so I won't bother. Assuming there is no radiation mechanic in DnD (and I'm not aware of one but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist) we should be fine here.

Necklace of adaptation would protect us from the vacuum and allow us to breathe.

To destroy the sun, I see two routes to go, make it alive and either imprison or gaes/quest it, or the more fun route. All we should have to do is destroy the sun's core since the core is what feeds the sun. The core is roughly 1/4 the size of the whole sun or roughly 347,500 km. Much easier to manage. It also consists entirely of gasses in a plasma state. Super dense gas yes, but still gasses.

Even if we could teleport into the center of the sun, these gasses would blow us around like a toothpick in a tornado. So we use control winds to direct these solar winds around us, and airwalk or fly to move in this calm air bubble we have created.

Since scientists have determined that the sun is the most spherical object ever observed naturally (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/aug/16/sun-perfect-sphere-nature) getting to the exact center wouldn't be an issue. Then cast Reverse Gravity to create a gravitational pocket to collapse the sun. It will become infinately small before imploding into a black hole. Before this happens, using control winds to force the now focused gas streams into a single direction, force the mini sun into a bag of holding, portable hole, whatever extra dimensional object or place you wish.

Few problems if you could get something like this to work: enjoy freezing to death, now nothing can see what is hunting them in the dark, and finally my favorite; divine intervention.
Off the top of my head... I don't have any of the books at my disposal to look at anything other than srd (I'm not at home.) Did I miss anything?

Also, remember that because this is a game, super manipulation of real world mechanics and game mechanics may not be needed. Any input from the DM on how the sun works in his/her campaign?

Wise Green Bean

2012-10-03, 12:00 AM

What about gate plus genesis? Make a plane where everything in it is just ridiculously dense. Then gate it into/next to the sun. Your plane has now om nom nomed the sun.
Course Earth is gonna get sucked in too, or tossed into space now that it's gravity well is on another plane of existence.

Tvtyrant

2012-10-03, 12:28 AM

I was going to say just hit it with a lot of disintegrates, but that would take a very long time and you would have to be really close. The Spelljammer could destroy the sun with some Spheres of Annihilation (since it can make them), but then you would need to give it to the aberrations.

MesiDoomstalker

2012-10-03, 12:44 AM

Crazy anti-gravity based theory

A few things. Mainly, 'Solar Winds' are not real winds that could be controlled by the Control Winds spell, by a far margin. Its just a term to describe what they act like. Since your in vaccum, there is no gas (plasma is a different state of matter) for Control Winds to target and manipulate, so there goes your saftey bubble. Even if you could target the 'solar winds' with Control Winds, you'd need absurd CL to drop the intensity to something you could survive.

Not to mention that even if that worked, you wouldn't stop the gravity from smooshing you into a pinprick. Just because the plasma isn't pushing on you doesn't mean your body isn't pushing on the rest of itself. A single strand of your hair would smoosh you with the kind of numbers we are talking about.

Threadnaught

2012-10-06, 05:45 AM

IIRC, Tome of Magic has a spell called Eclipse that blocks out the sun all over the world for a while. Find a way to make that permanent.

But Eclipse only blocks out the sun for a five mile radius and as I've already stated, a permanent Eclipse would have a Spellcraft DC of 450. To affect a larger area, reduce the DC to 90, make the modifications and multiply by 5.

I once designed a character (he was almost completely unplayable, however) that possessed utter control over an army of a few million Vampires who were also very high-level Mystic Theurges. When they weren't conquering the very multiverse itself, he had them craft magic items on his nearly infinite and equally impenetrable demiplane. He was a demilich, who I believe either had an amulet based on Rope Trick, that could hold the items in an extradimensional space, thus "holding" them, or had them all piled up around his Phylactery, which yielded the same effect. These magic items were all Wonderous Items that didn't take up a space on the body, were smaller than a grain of sand, and granted a +1 on Spellcraft checks each.

SO, with a few million bonuses to Spellcraft, as well as the ritual part, having all the spellcasting Vampires donate their many spell slots to him, he was able to do just about anything via the most powerful of Epic spells ever conceived. This is the only way that I see possible to beat those DCs and "kill" the sun.

I'm guessing the only thing that could possibly beat a character who can will the sun out of existence, is Pun Pun. :smallamused:

The few options we have so far are so bad, they're not worth using. An Epic Spell with a DC so high, for a character to get it by level alone, an equal level Commoner could just kick the ground and destroy the world. A few ways a 17th level caster could destroy it, just, not within their lifetimes, or their childrens', or their childrens' children... Then there's the create a black hole option, like that wouldn't end badly. :smallconfused:

Looks like the best option really is to cast a permanent Eclipse every 4 miles.

nedz

2012-10-06, 05:56 AM

Plasma does not exist in RAW.
Therefore the Sun does not exist.:smalltongue:

Alternatively the Sun is made of something else.

ericgrau

2012-10-06, 04:20 PM

To block out the sun without using the kind of cheese that grants limitless power you cast summon plot device.

Harry

2012-10-06, 06:59 PM

But Eclipse only blocks out the sun for a five mile radius and as I've already stated, a permanent Eclipse would have a Spellcraft DC of 450. To affect a larger area, reduce the DC to 90, make the modifications and multiply by 5.

I'm guessing the only thing that could possibly beat a character who can will the sun out of existence, is Pun Pun. :smallamused:

The few options we have so far are so bad, they're not worth using. An Epic Spell with a DC so high, for a character to get it by level alone, an equal level Commoner could just kick the ground and destroy the world. A few ways a 17th level caster could destroy it, just, not within their lifetimes, or their childrens', or their childrens' children... Then there's the create a black hole option, like that wouldn't end badly. :smallconfused:

Looks like the best option really is to cast a permanent Eclipse every 4 miles.

You're forgetting the freeze the sun with a breath weapon option. that's extremely simple.

Duboris

2012-10-06, 07:41 PM

To block out the sun without using the kind of cheese that grants limitless power you cast summon plot device.

This is probably the only suggestion in this whole entire thing I consider Feasible that I can, without mathematical knowledge, understand.

You win.

CthulhuEatYou

2012-10-06, 07:45 PM

Defeat the sun god? Most d&d universes has a guy that grants the sun-domain. I'll assume defeating him/her will end the sun.

Tebryn

2012-10-06, 07:53 PM

Threadnaught

2012-10-06, 07:53 PM

Defeat the sun god? Most d&d universes has a guy that grants the sun-domain. I'll assume defeating him/her will end the sun.

That's genius, killing a god with it's own stats is far simpler than anything without stats. :belkar:

Duboris

2012-10-06, 07:58 PM

That's genius, killing a god with it's own stats is far simpler than anything without stats. :belkar:

Aye, and if we're going by Romes standards its as easy as rigging a cart.

Harry

2012-10-06, 09:19 PM

Wouldn't work, let these fine people explain. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYf6av21x5c)

No I meant this one.

Certain of the metabreath feats in the Draconomicon allow you stack their effects without limit,

but increases the recovery times between uses of your breath weapon each time you apply the feat.

As such some creature with a breath weapon could stack the Enlarge Breath feat ad nauseam to engulf the entire star in a massive energystorm,

though at the cost of probably never using their breath weapon ever again, but that's the price one has to pay for destroying the sun.

Get the half dragon (white) template get the feats enlarge breath and clinging breath and lingering breath.

Enlarge Breath is a metabreath feat that explicitly allows itself to stack any number of times. Each time you do it, you get to increase the range of your power by 50% in exchange for waiting another round for your breath weapon to recover.

For something the size of the sun, it will need a stupid amount of stacks of Enlarge Breath (best just stack it infinitly:smallwink:), and then you can't use your breath weapon ever again.

lingering breath allows us to leave behind a cloud that deals half the damage of the original attack (2d6 now) in the same area. The cost is two rounds of cooldown per one round of duration added. Since half of infinity is infinity it lasts forever (or as long as you want depending)

End result:The sun becomes a giant ice cube in the sky.

pwykersotz

2012-10-06, 09:31 PM

Maybe I'm missing something here, but couldn't you just Metamorphosis into a star and Greater Teleport, Psionic directly into the sun?

Requirements of Metamorphosis -
1. Non-unique (stars are pretty common)
2. Size from Fine to Colossal (Colossal is 64 ft. or more and/or 125 tons or more)
3. Must be familiar with it (easy enough to know about the sun)

Requirements of Greater Teleport, Psionic -
1. Must have a reliable description of the place you are teleporting

End result, enough mass to cause some major havoc fairly quickly. Even then the timespan for true sun death isn't even close to a regular lifetime (I think) so then depending on DM's ruling several options present themselves.

If you merge with the sun, you can then teleport anywhere in the universe. Another star, a black hole, whatever. If not, you're the same size and occupying the same space, so, I dunno. Turn into a black hole instead and then fission yourself to give extra coverage?

2xMachina

2012-10-07, 02:23 AM

Doesn't being on the ethereal plane make you immune to the sun? Different planes and all?

Duboris

2012-10-07, 02:24 AM

Is it so wrong if I'm interested in just, what exactly the sun did?

nedz

2012-10-07, 04:31 AM

Is it so wrong if I'm interested in just, what exactly the sun did?

It has a powerful deity as a cohort.

Roaan

2012-10-07, 04:02 PM

Well here is something simple I have seen passed around in the past, and someone more skilled in Physics than I may have to back me up or disprove me, but here is the idea:

All you need is a single Epic feat, Far Shot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#direCharge)

Prerequisites
Dex 25, Far Shot, Point Blank Shot, Spot 20 ranks.

Benefit
You may throw or fire a ranged weapon at any target within line of sight, with no penalty for range.

Now, all you have to do is wait until the sun is out, aim your longbow at it and loose an arrow. Now due to silly D&D math that arrow should arrive by the end of the round (~6sec). Since the sun is about 92,960,000 miles away, then the arrow is traveling at roughly 92960000/6 = 15,493,333 MILES PER SEC.

A simple Google search tells me that the speed of light is a mere 186,282 miles per sec (https://www.google.com/search?q=light+speed+miles+per+sec&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&). So, this arrow (glossing over a lot of physics D&D doesn't account for) is traveling at roughly 83 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT.

As something approaches light speed it also approaches infinite mass allowing this arrow to destroy the sun by slamming into it and doing something like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYf6av21x5c#t=3m33s).

This both conveniently uses some laws of physics and ignores others, it is still a funny trick you can do without many steps or any class in particular.

Step 1: Meet Pre-reqs
Step 2: Fire Arrow
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit?

Credit: Google, d20 srd, The Internet, and Tebryn for the Youtube video.

Eldan

2012-10-07, 04:11 PM

Ah, but...

Is the sun within line of sight? After all, by the spot rules, you can't actually see it! :smalltongue:

dascarletm

2012-10-07, 04:27 PM

Ah, but...

Is the sun within line of sight? After all, by the spot rules, you can't actually see it! :smalltongue:

You don't need to spot things that are not hiding.
"The Spot skill is used primarily to detect characters or creatures who are hiding. Typically, your Spot check is opposed by the Hide check of the creature trying not to be seen. Sometimes a creature isn’t intentionally hiding but is still difficult to see, so a successful Spot check is necessary to notice it."
Sun is not a creature, and by common sense is not difficult to see.

The Redwolf

2012-10-07, 05:24 PM

So...would you say that your arrow will blot out the sun?:smallamused:

TuggyNE

2012-10-07, 05:33 PM

You don't need to spot things that are not hiding.
"The Spot skill is used primarily to detect characters or creatures who are hiding. Typically, your Spot check is opposed by the Hide check of the creature trying not to be seen. Sometimes a creature isn’t intentionally hiding but is still difficult to see, so a successful Spot check is necessary to notice it."
Sun is not a creature, and by common sense is not difficult to see.

This is efficiently belied by the example in the Using Skills summary: "Very easy (0) Notice something large in plain sight (Spot)".

jaybird

2012-10-07, 06:09 PM

So...would you say that your arrow will blot out the sun?:smallamused:

Beautiful :smallbiggrin:

nedz

2012-10-07, 06:17 PM

But the OP's requirement was :-

...preferably before epic levels needed.

dascarletm

2012-10-07, 06:24 PM

This is efficiently belied by the example in the Using Skills summary: "Very easy (0) Notice something large in plain sight (Spot)".

That already includes circumstance modifiers, and the sort. It isn't a base to apply modifiers to. It is a flat number for all things in plain sight, just like the tracking example. It already is modified to the total.:smallwink:

TuggyNE

2012-10-07, 06:45 PM

That already includes circumstance modifiers, and the sort. It isn't a base to apply modifiers to. It is a flat number for all things in plain sight, just like the tracking example. It already is modified to the total.:smallwink:

Devil's advocate here: so PCs can auto-spot anything that's in plain sight, no matter how far away it is or how small it might be? They can look at the moon and auto-examine the details of the dust patterns in the smallest crater? See an aphid crawling on a leaf ten thousand yards away? Or more mundanely, read small print from across a room?

No, realistically, distance does matter, and so does size; the current Spot rules just have the wrong scaling factors. (Severely wrong.) Saying "oh there's no scaling needed most of the time" is just flat-out inaccurate, and honestly isn't even that good an approximation.

elonin

2012-10-07, 07:48 PM

Do we really have to destroy the sun? It would be much easier to affect the atmosphere of the earth.

dascarletm

2012-10-07, 09:10 PM

Devil's advocate here: so PCs can auto-spot anything that's in plain sight, no matter how far away it is or how small it might be? They can look at the moon and auto-examine the details of the dust patterns in the smallest crater? See an aphid crawling on a leaf ten thousand yards away? Or more mundanely, read small print from across a room?

large and in plain sight. Large, not being used as a size category in that context, is relative to the viewer. I'd call all those examples technically in plain sight, as there is nothing in the way of it, but I wouldn't call them large.

No, realistically, distance does matter, and so does size; the current Spot rules just have the wrong scaling factors. (Severely wrong.) Saying "oh there's no scaling needed most of the time" is just flat-out inaccurate, and honestly isn't even that good an approximation.
Ideally they'd simplify equations used in real life to determine size of objects at a distance, for long range objects (past X) distance. The current rules are still good for combat distances, or shall I say, dungeon distances.:smalltongue:
It would be quicker just to have a DM common sense what you need to roll a spot check on, and what not to. As they were currently meant to.

Malroth

2012-10-07, 09:19 PM

Step 1) Be a hulking hurler 3/ Cancer mage 1
Step 2) Equip the planet as a light throwing weapon
Step 3) Hire a NPC caster to cast plane shift on you to some place with no sun

Eldan

2012-10-07, 09:22 PM

Hm. That should indeed work.

We could also decrease the Earth's mass, instead of getting an NI strong Hulking Hurler.

TuggyNE

2012-10-07, 09:57 PM

Off-topic for Spot rules:

large and in plain sight. Large, not being used as a size category in that context, is relative to the viewer. I'd call all those examples technically in plain sight, as there is nothing in the way of it, but I wouldn't call them large.

Hmm, fair enough. Although spotting a tree trunk a mile away, or a house-sized rock on the other side of a wide canyon, is probably still problematic.

Ideally they'd simplify equations used in real life to determine size of objects at a distance, for long range objects (past X) distance. The current rules are still good for combat distances, or shall I say, dungeon distances.:smalltongue:
It would be quicker just to have a DM common sense what you need to roll a spot check on, and what not to. As they were currently meant to.

Indeed, except... why are they such horrible approximations in any case? A much better approximation is not hard, involving, say, a chart similar to the current carrying capacity (although obviously scaled slightly differently).

And, of course, I'm generally in favor of making the rules slightly more complex as long as they capture situations well. (That is, "the DM can just fudge it" is not much of an excuse IMO in the case of D&D.)

Back on topic, and vaguely related to size-changing shenanigans: the Earth is roughly 1.096e+21 m3 (http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae419.cfm) in volume, or about 3.870e+22 ft3. Shrink item can manage 2 ft3/level, and PaO improves that to 100 ft3/level, but both require astronomically-high caster levels* to be effective. Any other possibilities?

*I swear I'm not obsessing about NI CL. It's just a coincidence that so many suggestions require it!

2xMachina

2012-10-08, 08:35 AM

But the OP's requirement was :-

(non epic)

So... play Venerable Dragonwrought Kobold. True Dragons* get access to epic feats. But min lvl 17, without cheese to get extra skill lvl.

*RAW, may or may not be true, so get your DM to clear it. Yay to no internet arguments.

North_Ranger

2012-10-08, 08:47 AM

Option 1: Kill/Capture the god(dess) of the Sun.

Option 2: Epic teleport on the Sun, send it into the void between stars.

Option 3: Invest in an atmospheric parasol and block out the sun.

Rubik

2012-10-09, 09:08 AM

Summon Nightmare Moon or cast Imprisonment on Princess Celestia? Hope neither make their saving throws.

Archmage1

2012-10-09, 10:21 AM

So... From OP, he wants to take over the world, and wants to remove the sun to deal with... Light blindness? Assuming you come up slowly, and carefully, you are dazzled, so a -1 to attack, search, and spot.
Perhaps a more localized solution would be a better plan:
Control weather, cloud cover.
Dominate the enemies leaders
Just move at night, instead of the day.
Use Darkness to create a barrier overhead for the day, assuming you are not moving.
Use polymorph any object to create a sun-destroying weapon of some sort, or create a barrier to block the light.

Sundark goggles, for immunity to light blindness for 10 gold might be a better option.

Really, unless you are leading an army of vampires/wraiths, you don't want to destroy the sun, which will kill everyone within ten years...

Slipperychicken

2012-10-09, 11:25 AM

DeusMortuusEst

2012-10-09, 11:44 AM

Well here is something simple I have seen passed around in the past, and someone more skilled in Physics than I may have to back me up or disprove me, but here is the idea:

All you need is a single Epic feat, Far Shot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#direCharge)

Now, all you have to do is wait until the sun is out, aim your longbow at it and loose an arrow. Now due to silly D&D math that arrow should arrive by the end of the round (~6sec). Since the sun is about 92,960,000 miles away, then the arrow is traveling at roughly 92960000/6 = 15,493,333 MILES PER SEC.

A simple Google search tells me that the speed of light is a mere 186,282 miles per sec (https://www.google.com/search?q=light+speed+miles+per+sec&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&). So, this arrow (glossing over a lot of physics D&D doesn't account for) is traveling at roughly 83 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT.

As something approaches light speed it also approaches infinite mass allowing this arrow to destroy the sun by slamming into it and doing something like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYf6av21x5c#t=3m33s).

This both conveniently uses some laws of physics and ignores others, it is still a funny trick you can do without many steps or any class in particular.

Step 1: Meet Pre-reqs
Step 2: Fire Arrow
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit?

Credit: Google, d20 srd, The Internet, and Tebryn for the Youtube video.

Problem with this is that as you fire the arrow it will cause an explosion at least as powerful as every nuke on earth, possibly worse as well, due to the speed with which it travels. So, disregarding the fact that the arrow should break in flight, you can probably destroy the sun with it, but in doing so you're also killing everything on earth as well.

Sponson

2012-10-09, 11:51 AM

Problem with this is that as you fire the arrow it will cause an explosion at least as powerful as every nuke on earth, possibly worse as well, due to the speed with which it travels. So, disregarding the fact that the arrow should break in flight, you can probably destroy the sun with it, but in doing so you're also killing everything on earth as well.

Thats the deal with the peasant rail gun isn't it? You slam the wooden arrow at 83 times the speed of light into the sun and do, what, 1d8 points of damage? There are no rules for what happens if a player character somehow exerts all the energy of the known universe. How much HP does the sun have as an object? DnD doesn't calculate damage based on velocity and force. Falling damage is 1d6 for every 10 ft, yet a jumplomancer who can jump 380 ft takes no damage from jumping (and then conversely, landing), but will take a butt ton of d6 damage if he fell from that height normally.

Axier

2012-10-09, 12:28 PM

I think it would be easier to just block out the sun with weather. Turn any major surface outpost into a place where it always rains, or is at least always cloudy.

Then, you build suits to handle the areas with the sun on it.

Of course, what does an ilithid actually have against the sun?

Light levels can be negated with a simple kobold invention, the sunglasses sundark goggles.

Heat can be mitigated by living in cities in cold climates, and using magic of endure elements to venture fourth.

That is really the only problems I can think of... Besides, this way you can keep your herd of brain food kept in the environments they can live in, and ship them into your dark, cold citidels on the surface.

nedz

2012-10-09, 12:36 PM

Burn the sky! Move your entire civilisation under ground powered by the thermal energy their bodies produce as they lie trapped in their cocoons.

Only then can you have the cool sundark goggles.

killem2

2012-10-09, 12:44 PM

Axier

2012-10-09, 01:19 PM

I know it's risky, but, couldn't you wish the sun's destruction?

I'm not sure the back fire but surely if you are wanting to destroy the sun you don't care that much for humanity as it exists right?

lol

Humans tend to be much easier to controll than the other species. Also, since a "free mind" tastes better, it would be concievable to develop a distopian society that assumed it is free, untill around age 30, when they "die" and are consumed for their brain. You then take the rest of the body and make soylent green to feed your "free herd".

A few traps of mindrape or programed amnesia will take care of creating a new society. You spend a few centuries creating a new culture and you start building your great herd. Then you just deal with the sun with mundane countermeasures.

The Redwolf

2012-10-09, 01:35 PM

Thats the deal with the peasant rail gun isn't it? You slam the wooden arrow at 83 times the speed of light into the sun and do, what, 1d8 points of damage? There are no rules for what happens if a player character somehow exerts all the energy of the known universe. How much HP does the sun have as an object? DnD doesn't calculate damage based on velocity and force. Falling damage is 1d6 for every 10 ft, yet a jumplomancer who can jump 380 ft takes no damage from jumping (and then conversely, landing), but will take a butt ton of d6 damage if he fell from that height normally.

I forget where, but they do have rules somewhere for an object that's moving slamming into another one, and I believe it isn't based off of speed but weight. As the arrow goes at that speed it becomes infinitely massive, which means it deals infinitely much damage on the impact.

DeusMortuusEst

2012-10-09, 01:35 PM

Thats the deal with the peasant rail gun isn't it? You slam the wooden arrow at 83 times the speed of light into the sun and do, what, 1d8 points of damage? There are no rules for what happens if a player character somehow exerts all the energy of the known universe. How much HP does the sun have as an object? DnD doesn't calculate damage based on velocity and force. Falling damage is 1d6 for every 10 ft, yet a jumplomancer who can jump 380 ft takes no damage from jumping (and then conversely, landing), but will take a butt ton of d6 damage if he fell from that height normally.

Yes, normally it wouldn't work at all, but now Roaan assumed that we had some semblance of normal physics in the world we're discussing. We're still ignoring the fact that the arrow would evaporate after a few milliseconds, essentially just creating a giant explosion that probably never would reach the sun at all.

Sponson

2012-10-09, 01:55 PM

Yes, normally it wouldn't work at all, but now Roaan assumed that we had some semblance of normal physics in the world we're discussing. We're still ignoring the fact that the arrow would evaporate after a few milliseconds, essentially just creating a giant explosion that probably never would reach the sun at all.

Are we also ignoring the fact that a bow could never be strung that hard without it snapping?

I mean, the physics part seems very... arbitrary, considering all of DnD is a set of rules to describe physics in a manner which is playable.

The sword does 1d6 not because it's a sword, but because you're swinging it. An abstract construction of physics. So which parts of the rules are being deconstructed to allow for real physics to take over? It would seem pretty important to know ahead of time exactly which rules are being replaced with real-world physics, and which rules are not. Else wise we're discussing a pretty moot thing, because we have no idea what is allowed to be fudged.

DeusMortuusEst

2012-10-09, 02:01 PM

Are we also ignoring the fact that a bow could never be strung that hard without it snapping?

I mean, the physics part seems very... arbitrary, considering all of DnD is a set of rules to describe physics in a manner which is playable.

The sword does 1d6 not because it's a sword, but because you're swinging it. An abstract construction of physics. So which parts of the rules are being deconstructed to allow for real physics to take over? It would seem pretty important to know ahead of time exactly which rules are being replaced with real-world physics, and which rules are not. Else wise we're discussing a pretty moot thing, because we have no idea what is allowed to be fudged.

Yes, if you had read his post you wouldn't have to ask:

This both conveniently uses some laws of physics and ignores others, it is still a funny trick you can do without many steps or any class in particular.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-09, 09:04 PM

I know it's risky, but, couldn't you wish the sun's destruction?

I'm not sure the back fire but surely if you are wanting to destroy the sun you don't care that much for humanity as it exists right?

lol

Asked and answered, but again no.

That's completely outside the bounds of wish's power. Even the divine salient ability alter reality probably can't do this unless it's on a sun god, who would have a rather vested interest in very much not doing that.

Wish can go beyond the safe list, just not that far beyond it.

dascarletm

2012-10-09, 09:07 PM

Really you should invest heavily in the Complete Scoundrel, and trick Pelor into destroying the sun.

Immediately become the god of trickery.:smallcool:

Slipperychicken

2012-10-09, 10:39 PM

Burn the sky! Move your entire civilisation under ground powered by the thermal energy their bodies produce as they lie trapped in their cocoons.

Only then can you have the cool sundark goggles.

"We do not know who struck first, us, or them, but we know that it was us that scorched the sky"

That might be the best option. You don't need to destroy the sun when you can block it. Kicking up enough dust (or igniting the atmosphere) shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Destroying the sun also has the problem of quickly making the world uninhabitable, even for Underdark denizens, because the planet will become far too cold to support life.

TypoNinja

2012-10-10, 12:06 AM

But the OP's requirement was :-

Void Disciple can arguably be used to grant Epic feats. We might have a winner.

Darksun's history explicitly calls out their casters tapping the sun for power, and changing its life cycle, blue to yellow to red. Figure out how to Defile and hope for brown dwarf. Or just go all the way till its dead.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-10, 12:59 AM

"We do not know who struck first, us, or them, but we know that it was us that scorched the sky"

That might be the best option. You don't need to destroy the sun when you can block it. Kicking up enough dust (or igniting the atmosphere) shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Destroying the sun also has the problem of quickly making the world uninhabitable, even for Underdark denizens, because the planet will become far too cold to support life.

Most of the interior of an earth-like planet is molten rock. Even without the sun you'll have a supply of heat for a pretty good while. The surface will become pretty worthless pretty quick. It's a good thing the underdark doesn't conform to RL ecology.

darni

2012-10-10, 09:12 AM

Let's assume you can get in range to cast spells on the sun (some others have made you suggestions there, which might need some ruling by your DM). I have the following ideas (they don't get rid of the sun, but the effect might be useful):

Cast "darkness" on the sun: I'm assuming the sun counts as an D&D "object". The effect of this will be somewhat strange; the sun will be dark (and as any dark object at that distance, invisible). However I don't think this spells stops a strong light source from spilling outside, so perhaps sunshine still works and cat shadows, even if you stop seeing the sun.
Cast "light" on the sun: On a silly RAW-reading of the rules, you can say that the sun will start glowing as a torch, which at that distance is nowhere bright enough to be seen :)
I'm not sure what the range is, but casting "antipathy" on the sun could get interesting too... do it 9 times, 1 for each alignment.

In general, any spell targetable to "an object" without size limit could do seriously crazy stuff.

Axier

2012-10-10, 10:40 AM

Andreaz

2012-10-10, 11:02 AM

If you tone down the light level of the sun, I donth think you are actually affecting the amount of heat that is being produced. THIS would be pretty frickin cool. Also, it would take care of the problems!The heat produced by the sun arrives exclusively in the form of radiation (visible light, UV, IR, probably some x rays too). The actual temperature of the sun does not arrive here in any form.

nedz

2012-10-10, 11:08 AM

The heat produced by the sun arrives exclusively in the form of radiation (visible light, UV, IR, probably some x rays too). The actual temperature of the sun does not arrive here in any form.

Well temperature is a measure of heat, so I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Also heat can travel by radiation.
There is also the Solar wind (No not an outsider whose been on the beans) which is mainly plasma remnants from a corona discharge. I'm not sure what temperature this is at when it arrives, but it starts off quite warm.

Dr Bwaa

2012-10-10, 11:22 AM

you could go one level in archmage and get True Creation as a SLA to make a box of electrons with no space between each of the particles, inside the sun.

*math*That cube holds 5x5x5 feet, or 125 feet³. One foot ~= 0.3048 meters, so the volume of the cube in meters is about 125 f³ x (0.3048 m/f)³ ~= 3.5396 m³.
Now, the upper limit on the radius of an electron is 10^(-22) m (this depends on who you ask. Obviously there is some question of whether or not you can actually measure this radius. Hush. Since things in D&D occupy 3-space in cube form, I will simplify the calculations by assuming the electron is a cube with radius 10^(-22) m, which is to say a cube of side-length 2 x 10^(-22) m.
Given this, an electron occupies the following volume with our D&D approximation: (2 x 10^(-22) m)³ = 8 x 10^(-66) m³.
We now have enough to do our calculation, which is simple enough: we divide the cube's volume by the electron's volume to get the number of electrons we've created: (3.5396 m³)/(8 x 10^(-66) m³) = 4.4245 x 10^65 electrons.
Note that this number (which because of our D&D "physics" is actually much less than the actual number of spheres you can fit in this cube) is completely ridiculous. For comparison, the number of particles in the universe is estimated to be only a few powers of 10 more than this (somewhere kind of around 10^75).
The charge on a single electron is -1.602 x 10^(-19) Coulombs. Multiply this by the number of electrons you've just made, and you get a total charge of 2.836 x 10^48 C. We need to know more about the environment (and how the particles interact, as Urpriest noted) to know more, but that much charge is outrageous.
The mass involved here is also stupidly huge. Even though each electron has almost negligible mass (about 9.109 x 10^(-31) kg), the sheer number you're dealing with means this cube weighs about 4.03 x 10^35 kg. Compare: the sun weighs about 2 x 10^30 kg. Whoops. The Chandrasekhar Limit (above which point this pile of electrons would become a black hole) is about 1.4 solar masses. This box, then, obviously becomes a black hole (in fact, it becomes Supermassive, with almost 150,000 solar masses). In case you are reluctant to believe this based on a Limit you've never heard of...
The escape velocity from a planet with raduis r and mass m is v = √(2Gm/r). In this case, m = 4 x 10^35 kg, and r = 0.762 m. The gravitational constant, G, is 6.673 x 10^(-11) m³/(kg s²). So the escape velocity from our box is
v = √((2 x (6.673 x 10^(-11) m^3/(kg x s^2)) (4 x 10^35 kg))/0.762 m)
ve = 8.37 x 10^12 m/s. The speed of light e = 2.998 x 10^8 m/s. You got yourself a black hole. 'Gratz.
Finally, there is some chance that the actual volume of an electron is 0 (or infinitely small, at any rate). In this case you would almost certainly destroy the whole plane, because you would never "fill" your cube with electrons, but would rather dump infinite mass (and charge, but I'm not sure that would matter at that point) into your little box. Bye-bye, everything. Hope you cast that as an Astral Projection from a protected demiplane. Maybe that would even save you.

Only problem is not destroying everything else

Cite your sources (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9617348&postcount=21), sir.

On topic, I feel like you should be able to hack Control Weather to effectively block out the sun. After all, actually destroying it (as someone else pointed out) does sound like the sort of thing that would cause some pretty serious problems (like no longer having an orbit or, in fact, any significant source of heat--in fact, you'd better leave enough of a hole in your weather control to allow some light in unless you want to rule over GlacierWorld).

Zubrowka74

2012-10-10, 11:52 AM

Concerning the arrow trick : Did I miss something or didn't you take into account the range of the bow ? Also, the heat of the sun would detroy said arrow before it even reaches it.

Concerning the weather solution : In RL, humanity has been sort of trying to block out the sun since the begining of modern industrialisation. About 150 years in and we only have the ozone layer hole and some degree of greenhous effect. I guess trying harder you might succeed. Nuclear Winter would be one solution, or something similar. I'm thinking massive volanic erruption here. Greenhouse effect would maintain some of the heat. But as previously mentioned, this could be undone by a wizard. Or it's kobold familiar.

Axier

2012-10-10, 12:02 PM

The heat produced by the sun arrives exclusively in the form of radiation (visible light, UV, IR, probably some x rays too). The actual temperature of the sun does not arrive here in any form.

Yes, but magical alteration of visible light is different from actually changing the light's output.

Im pretty sure that the magic is dimming the visible light something like a "filter" on a camera, but not affecting the actual radiation.

Andreaz

2012-10-10, 12:03 PM

Yes, but magical alteration of visible light is different from actually changing the light's output.

Im pretty sure that the magic is dimming the visible light something like a "filter" on a camera, but not affecting the actual radiation.Visible light IS the light's output.

Axier

2012-10-10, 12:23 PM

Visible light IS the light's output.

I understand that, but its kinda like magic is blocking out its view, but not its existance.

Its still radiating at its normal wavelength, but it is being magically encased in some kind of unrealistic darkening agent that obfuscates it.

Im not arguing with logic, Im arguing with "A wizard did it.", because if you can reduce radiation with a spell that affects visible light levels, it gets into a whole lot of unconventional abuses if you use actual physics for spells at a low level that makes simple changes.

I would like to reference the theory of the nuclear fission capabilities of prestidigitation... Whether they pan out well or not, its best to just avoid the contemplation completely.

Something like this, at the end of the day, is kinda up to the DM... The ramifications of altering the visible light output of the sun depends on how magic affects something like that.

Although, we would only loose a little more than half of the energy we get going by your concept. Who wants to play a campagin in the Ice Age! :smallbiggrin:

Andreaz

2012-10-10, 12:36 PM

Axier

2012-10-10, 01:09 PM

You'll have dissociate light with energy, which is an entirely new premise.

Are we going to do that? Because if we do that, every single electromagnetic wave ever (x rays, for example, as well as radio, microwaves and so on) stop transporting energy.
It's an even grosser violation of everything, and one I'm not willing to cross until we get the OP telling us that it's how the game will use it.

Like I mentioned, strange, shadowy particulate that obfuscates light without altering its energy output.

I mean, unless torches don't produce heat in an area of magical darkness...

I dont know, I just think that magical darkness can be disassociated with energy alteration, otherwise, a darkness spell could invariably kill portions of the elemental plane of fire.

Also, if you cast light on a stone, how would you hold it if it where producing the heat of the torch it is also making the same light as.

Dr Bwaa

2012-10-10, 01:31 PM

Andreaz

2012-10-10, 01:59 PM

Too late.

We're already well past the bounds of sanity as soon as we made a spell that creates light (energy) without creating heat (energy).

Absolutely not. The heat it talks about there is the heat of a flame, not the heat of its light output.
And no, one CANNOT dim a light without dropping its energy output. Light is energy!

Seriously, end of story, I'm not gonna argue that.

Dr Bwaa

2012-10-10, 02:09 PM

Absolutely not. The heat it talks about there is the heat of a flame, not the heat of its light output.

I'm talking about RAW here. "The effect... creates no heat." Thus the light it produces is necessarily devoid of energy. This is hardly the strangest flagrant violation of physics in the D&D system.

Light is energy!

Seriously, end of story, I'm not gonna argue that.

Me neither, except within the confines of a game system where Magic is Real and a low-level effect can make a field (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/darkness.htm) from which people can escape, but light cannot.

nedz

2012-10-10, 03:13 PM

We have a world where the speed of light depends upon the eyes of the observer. If the observer has low light vision, then the light goes twice as far ?

We also have vision which doesn't require any light.

And darkness which propagates just like light, only its not very dark and can actually illuminate darker rooms.

I think we can forget the laws of physics on this one.

Back on target:
can not the denizens of the underdark stoke up a volcano, or two, to dump smoke into the atmosphere and blot out the sun ?

TypoNinja

2012-10-10, 03:46 PM

Concerning the arrow trick : Did I miss something or didn't you take into account the range of the bow ? Also, the heat of the sun would detroy said arrow before it even reaches it.

The Epic feat for archery (distant shot) doesn't explicitly grant you exemption from maximum range, however the RAI is pretty clear that it's supposed to be a "If you can see it you can shoot it" type of power.

Also, the heat of the sun would not destroy the arrow. Once you accelerate an object that fast it starts doing all kinds of interesting things. Since we've managed to accelerate it past the speed of light we've broken the universe, the arrow's potential energy is infinite.

killem2

2012-10-10, 04:17 PM

I am not exactly following the arrow solution but wouldn't you need to lead the arrow? (sorry if that was already addressed)

TuggyNE

2012-10-10, 04:22 PM

Well temperature is a measure of heat, so I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Also heat can travel by radiation.
There is also the Solar wind (No not an outsider whose been on the beans) which is mainly plasma remnants from a corona discharge. I'm not sure what temperature this is at when it arrives, but it starts off quite warm.

Heat travels by radiation generally in the form of IR (Infrared). Neither conduction nor convection are an effective means of transferring the sun's heat.

The solar wind is, for the most part, deflected by the earth's magnetic field and upper atmosphere, which means that the upper atmosphere is nicely hot (as much as 5000 F in spots), but it doesn't much affect the rest of the planet.

My favorite suggestions so far has got to be casting light; it has a nice broken symmetry with casting darkness to see better.

Misery Esquire

2012-10-10, 04:22 PM

I am not exactly following the arrow solution but wouldn't you need to lead the arrow? (sorry if that was already addressed)

You just need to roll To-Hit, and the character deals with the rest.

killem2

2012-10-10, 04:35 PM

You just need to roll To-Hit, and the character deals with the rest.

very true lol, I let the logic get the best of me sometimes haha :smallredface:

Malroth

2012-10-10, 04:45 PM

Unfortuneately the Far shot trick wouldn't work because an increase in velocity is not gauranteed to increasse the damage of the shot, The best you could hope for is to add 20d6 falling damage to the normal arrow's damage roll.

Slipperychicken

2012-10-10, 04:46 PM

Darkness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/darkness.htm) only makes the Sun radiate shadowy illumination for 20ft. Outside of that (i.e. on Earth), the light will be visible just fine, and there would be no noticeable effect.

Darkness does not suppress heat, so the heat/energy/etc would be as normal, even inside the 20ft radius.

Darkness has a 10min/level duration. Even if it did work (which it doesn't), it would only work for about an hour or so, depending on CL.

The Sun is not considered an object for the purposes of spell targeting. This is easily extrapolated from not being able to cast Darkness on the ground (i.e. Planets, buildings, gaseous masses, etc. are not considered Objects).

Rubik

2012-10-10, 04:46 PM

Use a hulking hurler to throw the moon at the planet. Avoid the parts you like. Then you'll end up with something akin to the end of the dinosaurs (if not worse). It won't be permanent, but given the timeframe it should be permanent enough.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-10, 06:25 PM

You'll have dissociate light with energy, which is an entirely new premise.

Are we going to do that? Because if we do that, every single electromagnetic wave ever (x rays, for example, as well as radio, microwaves and so on) stop transporting energy.
It's an even grosser violation of everything, and one I'm not willing to cross until we get the OP telling us that it's how the game will use it.
Energy already has a different meaning from its scientific meaning in-game; see cold energy.

Absolutely not. The heat it talks about there is the heat of a flame, not the heat of its light output.
And no, one CANNOT dim a light without dropping its energy output. Light is energy!

Seriously, end of story, I'm not gonna argue that.

I will. Light behaves as both matter and energy. It's basic unit is the photon, a strange little quantum particle that moves through space as a wave but still has mass that's effected by gravity.

:smalltongue:

TuggyNE

2012-10-10, 06:49 PM

I will. Light behaves as both matter and energy. It's basic unit is the photon, a strange little quantum particle that moves through space as a wave but still has mass that's effected by gravity.

Sure, but ... what exactly are you arguing? A given photon has a certain amount of energy, which determines its wavelength; a given number of photons of a given range of frequencies has a certain brightness and carries a certain amount of energy. If you reduce the energy of the photons, it changes their wavelength (and is likely to make them shift out of e.g. the visible spectrum); if you reduce the number of photons, you reduce both brightness and energy carried (which is the usual meaning of "dimming a light"). None of what you actually said in any way argues against the quoted statements*.

I suppose you could argue that you can dim a light by increasing wavelength into the UV range so it's no longer visible light; however, that's both a questionable interpretation of "dimming light" and a dubious reading of the RAW behind e.g. darkness.

* Tangentially, this is the main reason physics and D&D don't mix very well; most people, myself included, don't really know quite enough about the bizarre interactions of actual physics to properly expound on its implications with certain assumptions changed.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-10, 07:00 PM

Sure, but ... what exactly are you arguing? A given photon has a certain amount of energy, which determines its wavelength; a given number of photons of a given range of frequencies has a certain brightness and carries a certain amount of energy. If you reduce the energy of the photons, it changes their wavelength (and is likely to make them shift out of e.g. the visible spectrum); if you reduce the number of photons, you reduce both brightness and energy carried (which is the usual meaning of "dimming a light"). None of what you actually said in any way argues against the quoted statements*.

I suppose you could argue that you can dim a light by increasing wavelength into the UV range so it's no longer visible light; however, that's both a questionable interpretation of "dimming light" and a dubious reading of the RAW behind e.g. darkness.

* Tangentially, this is the main reason physics and D&D don't mix very well; most people, myself included, don't really know quite enough about the bizarre interactions of actual physics to properly expound on its implications with certain assumptions changed.

I'm just arguing that there is a sharp departure from RL physics in D&D physics, especially as relates to magic. As you said yourself, a change in the energy of a photon can remove it from the visible spectrum either by increase or decrease, and since cold energy is a thing, then obviously energy has a different meaning in the context of a D&D universe.

Casting either light or darkness on the sun as an object could be ruled to have the desired effect. RAW doesn't swing it definitively toward correct or incorrect. Especially since the sun isn't actually defined in any sourcebook and different mythologies, cosmologies, and campaign settings can all paint a different portrait of what exactly the sun is.

Eldan

2012-10-10, 07:03 PM

Duh. You don't increase or decrease the photon's energy. You turn it sideways, into imaginary energy. That's what magic does. (Calculate that, physicists! :smalltongue:)

nedz

2012-10-11, 04:35 AM

Duh. You don't increase or decrease the photon's energy. You turn it sideways, into imaginary energy. That's what magic does. (Calculate that, physicists! :smalltongue:)

i

(Obligatory extra text)

panaikhan

2012-10-11, 08:00 AM

Axier

2012-10-11, 08:00 AM

The spell light, doesn't produce any energy.
The spell continual flame doesn't produce any energy.
The spell darkness does not say that fires go out, or energy gets dampened in its effect. At the end of the day, you just cant apply physics to this system of magic, because this is a poorly written magic system to deal with scientific function.

If anyone would like to make a scientifically accurate magic system, be my guest.

I think mass effect did a fairly decent job with its magic biotics.

Dr Bwaa

2012-10-11, 09:03 AM

You don't need to destroy the sun. Just cast an 'Illusion' of destroying the sun.
Doesn't need sound, doesn't need substance (touch), doesn't need smell, doesn't need taste. Just increase the spell level to increase the area covered by this visual-only effect. High spell level = high saving throw, and only IF people viewing it have reason to disbelieve it.

Ahahaha. This is actually perfect. I believe we have hit the solution:
Fly as high as you can, ideally above cloud level.
Cast Silent Image on the sky above you to make it look like nighttime.
Silent Image has a size of at least five 10' cubes.
There's no need for your illusion to have any depth, since it is only relevant if it's viewed from below.
Use your 10' cubes to create a flat "wall" of illusory darkness. This can be arbitrarily thin and therefore may extend arbitrarily far in all directions, as long as it lies all in one plane.
Repeat as desired up to three more times (creating a tetrahedron around the planet; fewer castings are needed if you only need to shadow, say, a continent).
Win.

As long as none of your minions try to interact with the sky where your illusion is, they'll keep believing it. If they end up interacting with it somehow, it's basically irrelevant, since they'll immediately pop through the other side and see the sun up there. This solution also has the entertaining side-effects of still actually allowing the sunlight to come through, so (A) the ground is still lit when it's day; dark when it's night, (B) crops still grow, (C) Vampires still can't go out at daytime, and (D) if the peasants disbelieve it (equivalent to destroying the effect--for them), that doesn't actually hinder your setup.

Achievable Level: 1 (with potions of Fly, and assuming you're okay with a duration of Concentration, though technically if WBL isn't a factor you can just use scrolls of Permanent Image anyway).
Permanent Solution Achievable Level: No later than 11 (for Permanent Image).

2xMachina

2012-10-11, 09:10 AM

nedz

2012-10-11, 09:45 AM

I suppose you could do it with Illusionary Wall. Its only 10'x10', so you would need a lot of them, but it is permanent. A long term project for the inhabitants of the underdark perhaps ?

Andreaz

2012-10-11, 11:05 AM

I think mass effect did a fairly decent job with its magic biotics.Nope! But it's easy to swallow.

Axier

2012-10-11, 12:21 PM

Nope! But it's easy to swallow.

True...

I mean, If anything, it has more accuracies than the system we are using for this discussion.

killem2

2012-10-11, 12:25 PM

Is there a way to uncap:

Shrink Item? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shrinkItem.htm)

if so, you could shrink the sun after the other ways of teleporting to it or whatever.
If not, back to the drawing board.

Alleine

2012-10-11, 01:39 PM

Man, six pages and no one has even mentioned using low level Warblade and a certain notorious maneuver? It. . . it's like I don't even know you people any more.

:smalltongue:

Eldan

2012-10-11, 01:42 PM

But Scent doesn't kill the sun... ;)

nedz

2012-10-11, 01:44 PM

Man, six pages and no one has even mentioned using low level Warblade and a certain notorious maneuver? It. . . it's like I don't even know you people any more.

:smalltongue:

See post #4 :smalltongue:

TypoNinja

2012-10-11, 04:46 PM

I suppose you could do it with Illusionary Wall. Its only 10'x10', so you would need a lot of them, but it is permanent. A long term project for the inhabitants of the underdark perhaps ?

Long term my ass, this is what armies are for.

Get a few hundred casters to do some serious item creation, get a few thousand wands, hand them off, and swarm out one evening, have a continent covered by sunrise!

nedz

2012-10-11, 04:54 PM

Long term my ass, this is what armies are for.

Get a few hundred casters to do some serious item creation, get a few thousand wands, hand them off, and swarm out one evening, have a continent covered by sunrise!

1 mile = 5,280 feet.
1 square mile requires 278,784 Illusionary Walls.
Definitely long term.

Eldan

2012-10-11, 05:16 PM

i

(Obligatory extra text)

Well, yes. I meant "calculate the effects of imaginary energy". An i prefix should lead to a few interesting formulae.

Acanous

2012-10-11, 06:07 PM

Find a way to roll an 88 on this (http://jrients.blogspot.ca/2008/02/it-came-from-4chan.html) encounter chart.

mattie_p

2012-10-11, 06:18 PM

Find a way to roll an 88 on this (http://jrients.blogspot.ca/2008/02/it-came-from-4chan.html) encounter chart.

Totally awesome find.

dascarletm

2012-10-11, 11:24 PM

Ahahaha. This is actually perfect. I believe we have hit the solution:
Fly as high as you can, ideally above cloud level.
Cast Silent Image on the sky above you to make it look like nighttime.
Silent Image has a size of at least five 10' cubes.
There's no need for your illusion to have any depth, since it is only relevant if it's viewed from below.
Use your 10' cubes to create a flat "wall" of illusory darkness. This can be arbitrarily thin and therefore may extend arbitrarily far in all directions, as long as it lies all in one plane.
Repeat as desired up to three more times (creating a tetrahedron around the planet; fewer castings are needed if you only need to shadow, say, a continent).
Win.

As long as none of your minions try to interact with the sky where your illusion is, they'll keep believing it. If they end up interacting with it somehow, it's basically irrelevant, since they'll immediately pop through the other side and see the sun up there. This solution also has the entertaining side-effects of still actually allowing the sunlight to come through, so (A) the ground is still lit when it's day; dark when it's night, (B) crops still grow, (C) Vampires still can't go out at daytime, and (D) if the peasants disbelieve it (equivalent to destroying the effect--for them), that doesn't actually hinder your setup.

Achievable Level: 1 (with potions of Fly, and assuming you're okay with a duration of Concentration, though technically if WBL isn't a factor you can just use scrolls of Permanent Image anyway).
Permanent Solution Achievable Level: No later than 11 (for Permanent Image).

A cube, by definition has equal height width and depth.

:smallwink:

TuggyNE

2012-10-11, 11:36 PM

panaikhan

2012-10-12, 02:12 AM

TypoNinja

2012-10-12, 02:14 AM

1 mile = 5,280 feet.
1 square mile requires 278,784 Illusionary Walls.
Definitely long term.

Not so, 278,784 walls is 5,575 wands, an apprentice can drain a wand in 5 minutes. Assume an 8 hour night cycle, and one caster can drain 96 wands in a night.

58 casters to black out one square mile in one evening. 2000 1st level apprentices could black out enough space to go from horizon to horizon.

Stockpiling the wands would take forever, In fact it's probably better to craft a custom item that lets one cast Illusionary Wall at will. But once you were prepared an army of say 10k or so could make pretty good time expanding the dark area.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-12, 02:20 AM

A cube, by definition has equal height width and depth.

:smallwink:

To be more precise: it's not "4000 cu ft + 1000 cu ft/level", it's "four 10' cubes + one 10' cube/level (S)". The distinction is unfortunately important; you can't shape it any tighter than 10' on a given dimension (according to the usual spell shaping rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#shapeable)).

The shaping rules nuked that Idea, but it gave me a brilliant one!

Wall of stone. Unlike X image and other spells it has a clause in its spell description that allows you to thin-out the wall to increase its area. It also says you can shape it however you please as long as it's anchored to existing stone.

Here's the plan. Put a handful of Largish boulders into geo-syncronous orbit. Let's say 6 of them, two points on the three dimensional axes. You then cast wall of stone with these points as the anchors and shape it into an arbitrarily thin sheet. It'll only have a fraction of a hp per 5ft square, but you could theoretically cover an entire planet.

Thus, wall of stone can give the world a stone eggshell to block out the sun. If you want to be a bit more mindful of the physics, you could find out the limit of thinness by determining how thick a sinlge molecule of "stone" is and how many are in a sheet of the spell's normal area. This may require more anchors, more castings, and simultaneous action across the globe, but that's what craft-contingent spell and mindless constructs/undead are for.

In any case, subsequent castings to thicken the stone eggshell until its opaque will probably also be necessary.

TuggyNE

2012-10-12, 02:36 AM

The shaping rules nuked that Idea, but it gave me a brilliant one!

Wall of stone. Unlike X image and other spells it has a clause in its spell description that allows you to thin-out the wall to increase its area. It also says you can shape it however you please as long as it's anchored to existing stone.

Here's the plan. Put a handful of Largish boulders into geo-syncronous orbit. Let's say 6 of them, two points on the three dimensional axes. You then cast wall of stone with these points as the anchors and shape it into an arbitrarily thin sheet. It'll only have a fraction of a hp per 5ft square, but you could theoretically cover an entire planet.

Thus, wall of stone can give the world a stone eggshell to block out the sun. If you want to be a bit more mindful of the physics, you could find out the limit of thinness by determining how thick a sinlge molecule of "stone" is and how many are in a sheet of the spell's normal area. This may require more anchors, more castings, and simultaneous action across the globe, but that's what craft-contingent spell and mindless constructs/undead are for.

In any case, subsequent castings to thicken the stone eggshell until its opaque will probably also be necessary.

This falls afoul of orbital mechanics; geosynchronous orbit is an altitude at which satellites orbit at the same angular speed the earth rotates, but geostationary orbit (which you were probably referring to), in which a satellite appears to hover over a single point, is only possible within a narrow band surrounding the equator at that altitude*; any further north or south, and the orbit describes a figure-eight pattern on the ground below it as it alternates between orbiting faster and slower than the ground is rotating. So you can't have a geostationary orbit that hovers over, say, the North Pole.

I could also go into the potential physical problems of tidal forces, orbital perturbations, cosmic rays, and micrometeorites, but that should do for now. :smalltongue:

*Tangentially, this is why competition is so fierce for geostationary orbit positions — after only fifty or so years of putting satellites there, it's already nearly full!

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-12, 03:09 AM

This falls afoul of orbital mechanics; geosynchronous orbit is an altitude at which satellites orbit at the same angular speed the earth rotates, but geostationary orbit (which you were probably referring to), in which a satellite appears to hover over a single point, is only possible within a narrow band surrounding the equator at that altitude*; any further north or south, and the orbit describes a figure-eight pattern on the ground below it as it alternates between orbiting faster and slower than the ground is rotating. So you can't have a geostationary orbit that hovers over, say, the North Pole.

I could also go into the potential physical problems of tidal forces, orbital perturbations, cosmic rays, and micrometeorites, but that should do for now. :smalltongue:

*Tangentially, this is why competition is so fierce for geostationary orbit positions — after only fifty or so years of putting satellites there, it's already nearly full!

I meant geo-synchronous. It doesn't matter how the anchor points move in relation to the ground at all. Only that they're stable relative to one another. The entire wall would then form already moving in such a way that all points on it are moving in geo-synchronous orbit. Tidal forces might make it wobble a bit, but as long as it doesn't come crashing down, it doesn't really need to be absolutely perfect. If there's anything to worry about it's the fact that IRL gravitational pull isn't perfectly equal at a given altitude. There are places relative to the ground that pull a bit harder than others.

I suppose this means periodic repar work would be necessary as places start to sag here and there above mountain ranges and such.

Already got an idea to help firm things up a bit. The hardening spell (ECS) or the psi-power of the same name can make the shell a bit tougher, and a clever caster could shape the wall with a grid pattern protruding slightly from it to anchor walls of force along its exterior over a period of time once it's in place.

TuggyNE

2012-10-12, 04:09 AM

I meant geo-synchronous. It doesn't matter how the anchor points move in relation to the ground at all. Only that they're stable relative to one another.

Sorry, I thought I'd addressed that. The problem is precisely that they won't remain at all stable relative to each other. A geosynchronous polar orbit, for example, moves perpendicular to a geosynchronous equatorial some of the time, and parallel to it some of the time; the distance between them can vary drastically (if you're lucky, perhaps only by a few hundred miles). None of the other orbits will be fundamentally any better, and there is no way to fully synchronize them.

What you would in fact need is an orbit that doesn't exist: one that describes a circle around a center point that is nowhere near the Earth's center of mass. For example, the anchor point near the Pole would need a relatively small orbit that centers somewhere along Earth's axis, but not necessarily within the crust at all. This is because you're designing a spherical cover for a (rough) sphere and making it orbit as a whole; a given unified body can only have one orbit, not the numerous disparate orbits the anchors would need to remain aloft.

Come to think of it, this is basically the problem that governs certain choices in the Dyson sphere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_Sphere) ideas — specifically, the decision to use solar wind/light pressure to support the structure, rather than orbiting as such. Which you could do, except that Earth-like planets don't radiate much at all.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-12, 04:26 AM

Sorry, I thought I'd addressed that. The problem is precisely that they won't remain at all stable relative to each other. A geosynchronous polar orbit, for example, moves perpendicular to a geosynchronous equatorial some of the time, and parallel to it some of the time; the distance between them can vary drastically (if you're lucky, perhaps only by a few hundred miles). None of the other orbits will be fundamentally any better, and there is no way to fully synchronize them.

What you would in fact need is an orbit that doesn't exist: one that describes a circle around a center point that is nowhere near the Earth's center of mass. For example, the anchor point near the Pole would need a relatively small orbit that centers somewhere along Earth's axis, but not necessarily within the crust at all. This is because you're designing a spherical cover for a (rough) sphere and making it orbit as a whole; a given unified body can only have one orbit, not the numerous disparate orbits the anchors would need to remain aloft.

Come to think of it, this is basically the problem that governs certain choices in the Dyson sphere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_Sphere) ideas — specifically, the decision to use solar wind/light pressure to support the structure, rather than orbiting as such. Which you could do, except that Earth-like planets don't radiate much at all.

I follow now, but at the same time, the choice of 6 anchor points was essentially arbitrary. You can get 2 anchors in geosynchronous or even geostationary orbit and have them stable to each other for the same net-effect. The whole wall is springing into existence in an instant in the basic version.

For the completist version start with the anchors in geostationary orbit, create a ring using the afformentioned mindless contingency carriers, and then build outward toward the poles with subsequent castings. In fact, you could build the ring up pretty massive before expanding outward to make it good and sturdy and to give it the momentum to resist gravity during the short periods that it might be a touch unstable.

Eldan

2012-10-12, 04:31 AM

Hm. Where are the earth/sun Lagrange points? Maybe you could build something there.

Malroth

2012-10-12, 04:42 AM

I fail to see how this is easier than having a cancer mage UMD a scroll of plane shift.

super dark33

2012-10-12, 04:49 AM

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-12, 04:59 AM

I fail to see how this is easier than having a cancer mage UMD a scroll of plane shift.

Mine doesn't require arbitrarily high <anything> Just prep time and a relatively small number of "magic Items" in the contingencies on the 50gp/unit skeleton carriers. With a decent sized organization behind it providing funding, say an illithid enclave, mine's actually doable if there's not some exceedingly important detail I'm still missing.

TuggyNE

2012-10-12, 04:59 AM

I follow now, but at the same time, the choice of 6 anchor points was essentially arbitrary. You can get 2 anchors in geosynchronous or even geostationary orbit and have them stable to each other for the same net-effect. The whole wall is springing into existence in an instant in the basic version.

Sure, but that is where the horrible tidal forces come in. All the sections of the wall are going to want to orbit (and/or fall) at different speeds and different directions. I don't believe iron has enough tensile strength to reasonably deal with that kind of warping; even if it somehow held together, large segments would start falling rather rapidly inward at the poles, because there's no way you'd have enough stiffness to keep them in the same shape against gravity.

Basically you're trying to make a (paper-) thin iron bubble held up and stretched out by gravity by spinning it around, and that just isn't going to happen. A narrow ring you can do, but not a full sphere.

Hm. Where are the earth/sun Lagrange points? Maybe you could build something there.

Perhaps so. Not sure if you could get it big enough to remain stable.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-12, 05:09 AM

Sure, but that is where the horrible tidal forces come in. All the sections of the wall are going to want to orbit (and/or fall) at different speeds and different directions. I don't believe iron has enough tensile strength to reasonably deal with that kind of warping; even if it somehow held together, large segments would start falling rather rapidly inward at the poles, because there's no way you'd have enough stiffness to keep them in the same shape against gravity.

Basically you're trying to make a (paper-) thin iron bubble held up and stretched out by gravity by spinning it around, and that just isn't going to happen. A narrow ring you can do, but not a full sphere.

Perhaps so. Not sure if you could get it big enough to remain stable.

You lost me again.

A) the wall isn't in sections. It's all one solid piece. At least in one version.

B) it's stone, not iron. Wall of iron has to be a flat sheet.

C) what role does centrifugal force play in this? I know it plays some role.

D) Some carefully placed reverse gravity support may be in order. Fortunately gravity is very manipulable in D&D.

I'm not saying that my project is a simple one, but I think it -may- be doable within a reasonable (relativly speaking) time frame. It's not cheap either, but I don't think it's completely outside of the bounds possibilty either.

It clearly needs more thought though.

TuggyNE

2012-10-12, 05:50 AM

A) the wall isn't in sections. It's all one solid piece. At least in one version.

Well, no; however, different areas of the piece are experiencing different forces and moving at different speeds. In particular, the closer you are to the poles, the slower the effective linear momentum is for the same given angular rotation. I was using sections to refer to those different areas, not separated chunks.

B) it's stone, not iron. Wall of iron has to be a flat sheet.

Right, sorry. That is unfortunately even worse; stone tends to be moderately strong in compression, but doesn't have much tensile strength.

C) what role does centrifugal force play in this? I know it plays some role.

You could loosely say that that's part of what's supporting the equatorial ring (which is the only part following an actual orbit). It also has some effect on the rest of the structure, but weaker and poorly directed as you move poleward from the equator in both directions (it has a roughly fixed angle and a decreasing strength), whereas gravity is exerting a fixed pull at varying angles).

D) Some carefully placed reverse gravity support may be in order. Fortunately gravity is very manipulable in D&D.

That ... could work. It would be tricky to place, and very expensive, but it would solve most of the macro-scale stresses. However, you'd still need a sturdy framework to build it on, otherwise spreading the forces from reversed and regular gravity out would break it apart in small pieces rather than big. And, of course, the other vaguely-alluded-to hazards would still need to be dealt with.

If you solved all those engineering problems, it'd be kinda interesting to run a campaign around, I think, but definitely more Isaac Asimov than Tolkien. :smalltongue:

mattie_p

2012-10-12, 06:09 AM

If you solved all those engineering problems, it'd be kinda interesting to run a campaign around, I think, but definitely more Isaac Asimov than Tolkien. :smalltongue:

Probably a little more like Larry Niven, but your point is well taken.

Although...
A wall of stone is 1 inch thick per four caster levels and composed of up to one 5-foot square per level. You can double the wall’s area by halving its thickness. The wall cannot be conjured so that it occupies the same space as a creature or another object.

I don't see it being able to be stretched any more than double per the description. Are we just extrapolating here, or are we just applying that sentence multiple times? I guess with a generous reading we could do that.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-12, 06:14 AM

Actually the gravitational thing isn't at all tricky, except in placement. The basic unit is the reverse gravity spell, which simply inverts the local gravity in its AoE. Placed in such a way as to have the wall exactly where gravity and reversed gravity intersect you get a point of null gravity.

The biggest cost problem is that reverse gravity isn't on the permanency list, necessitating the creation of magic devices if we stick to strickt raw. I actually have come up with a cost effective way to make permanent spells, but under the strictest definition it'd probably be considered home-brew.

..... RESETTING TRAPS!!!

Holy hell, I think I just invented antigravity in D&D.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-12, 06:21 AM

Probably a little more like Larry Niven, but your point is well taken.

Although...

I don't see it being able to be stretched any more than double per the description. Are we just extrapolating here, or are we just applying that sentence multiple times? I guess with a generous reading we could do that.

I'm applying the clause multiple times. There's nothing there that says you can -only- halve the thickness to double the area.

Strict V permissive reading of an ambiguous rule like this is up to the individual GM. I don't think my reading changes the power level of the spell at all.

panaikhan

2012-10-12, 07:19 AM

Not to nitpick, but are people's mathematical calculations based upon the Earth, and It's Sun?
I believe someone once stated that each of the 'recognized' settings are MUCH smaller than the Earth (I remember a map of the Earth with almost all of them placed on it, scale for scale).
Add to that, the 'Sun' may well be an orb a few hundred feet in diameter attached to the inside of a shell painted with stars. It may be a God. It may be a vehicle of a God. The only thing you CAN say, is that it gives off light.

Devmaar

2012-10-12, 07:54 AM

Could we have the Wall of Stone shell supported by Immovable Rods?

panaikhan

2012-10-12, 08:01 AM

The Wall of Stone shell could be supported by Wall of Stone columns, planted into the ground at 8 points around the globe. Just be sure to make them Invisible or fit them with SEP fields.

Jacque

2012-10-12, 08:01 AM

There's a spell which makes the sun go into an ecplipse. Isn't that a bit more tasteful?

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-12, 08:04 AM

There's a spell which makes the sun go into an ecplipse. Isn't that a bit more tasteful?

It's been adressed and discarded on account of it only covers a couple miles of area on the surface of the planet and is an epic spell.

Rubik

2012-10-12, 10:21 AM

It's been adressed and discarded on account of it only covers a couple miles of area on the surface of the planet and is an epic spell.Yeah. We can do better with non-epic spells, which tend to be more powerful than what's already written for epic spells, assuming intelligent use and/or metamagic.

Also, it's postulated in some sources, such as the Manual of the Planes, that the sun in some campaign worlds is merely a gate to the positive energy plane (PEP).

It should be easy enough to close via Disjunction, or possibly with a Dimensional Anchor or Dimension Lock.

Dr Bwaa

2012-10-12, 11:21 AM

To be more precise: it's not "4000 cu ft + 1000 cu ft/level", it's "four 10' cubes + one 10' cube/level (S)". The distinction is unfortunately important; you can't shape it any tighter than 10' on a given dimension (according to the usual spell shaping rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#shapeable)).

...I've never seen those rules before. Well that's out I guess.

Could we have the Wall of Stone shell supported by Immovable Rods?

Personally I doubt this thread needs to be derailed any further by questioning the physics of immovable rods (What is it that they are immovable relative to? Conventional use suggests that they are immovable with respect to a nearby given point on the earth's surface, essentially meaning that they are in very low-altitude geostationary orbit... not going into that for now). But feel free to try! :smalltongue:

HOWEVER, on the subject of the wall of stone shell: It's looking like that would be pretty hard to put together, but why do you actually need it in geosynchronous orbit, or as a solid shell, for that matter? Surely we could do the same thing by Disintegrating some walls of stone or other created blocks of mass moving at orbital speeds around the planet--a dust cloud ought to be just as effective as a molecules-thick wall of stone, and much easier to keep in orbit.

killem2

2012-10-12, 11:22 AM

Did anyone know if there is an ability to uncap those per level/ per day/ per mile whatever limits on spells?

Slipperychicken

2012-10-12, 12:49 PM

Did anyone know if there is an ability to uncap those per level/ per day/ per mile whatever limits on spells?

I recall the fear Reserves of Strength does this through its horrible wording.

I don't remember if someone mentioned it, but here goes:

Warblade is teleported into the Sun. Iron Heart Surge the radiation. IHS whatever is holding the Sun together, and so on.

Battleship789

2012-10-12, 01:48 PM

*snip*

Come to think of it, this is basically the problem that governs certain choices in the Dyson sphere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_Sphere) ideas — specifically, the decision to use solar wind/light pressure to support the structure, rather than orbiting as such. Which you could do, except that Earth-like planets don't radiate much at all.

So make a Wall of Stone Dyson Sphere with a radius less than the planet's orbit radius?

And the IHS trick is easier with a Drow/Orc Warblade (light sensitivity).

Jacque

2012-10-12, 02:57 PM

It's been adressed and discarded on account of it only covers a couple miles of area on the surface of the planet and is an epic spell.

Relics & Rituals has a spell called Eclipse. This spell effects the whole world and is a level 9 spell.

The book is setting specific to Scarred Lands though.

TuggyNE

2012-10-12, 05:14 PM

So make a Wall of Stone Dyson Sphere with a radius less than the planet's orbit radius?

That would be effective, but even more expensive. :smalltongue:

HOWEVER, on the subject of the wall of stone shell: It's looking like that would be pretty hard to put together, but why do you actually need it in geosynchronous orbit, or as a solid shell, for that matter? Surely we could do the same thing by Disintegrating some walls of stone or other created blocks of mass moving at orbital speeds around the planet--a dust cloud ought to be just as effective as a molecules-thick wall of stone, and much easier to keep in orbit.

In the short term, it'd stay in orbit better, but over a span of years it would tend to thin out (due largely to upper-atmospheric drag), so you'd need to refresh it once in a while.

mattie_p

2012-10-12, 05:19 PM

I can't imagine how many catgirls we've killed in this thread so far, with so many more to come.

That said, let me kill some more. The dust from disintegrated walls of stone in orbit would eventually coalesce into rings.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-12, 05:51 PM

Relics & Rituals has a spell called Eclipse. This spell effects the whole world and is a level 9 spell.

The book is setting specific to Scarred Lands though.

I'm not familiar with that supplement. Is it 3rd party?
Edit: found it. Not just 3rd party but technically not even dungeons and dragons. It's a sword and sorcery supplement.

RE; the complexity of my wall of stone shell:

Yeah, it's a project for an organization rather than something an individual could do, but we're getting pretty close to exhausting the non-epic options for a single caster.

Battleship789

2012-10-12, 06:42 PM

I'm not familiar with that supplement. Is it 3rd party?
Edit: found it. Not just 3rd party but technically not even dungeons and dragons. It's a sword and sorcery supplement.

RE; the complexity of my wall of stone shell:

Yeah, it's a project for an organization rather than something an individual could do, but we're getting pretty close to exhausting the non-epic options for a single caster.

Sans looping, of course (and Sand Giant shenanigans to get Epic Spellcasting at <20th level). I think the silent image idea has probably been the coolest (too bad it doesn't work.)

Slipperychicken

2012-10-12, 08:19 PM

The dust from disintegrated walls of stone in orbit would eventually coalesce into rings.

This is freaking awesome. If we decide to keep the Sun, I vote for putting dust-rings on it, sort of like Jupiter or this (http://www.audiosparksforart.com/darklight%20nebula/small/planet%20with%20ring%202-planet%20pictures-planet%20surface-space%20art-digital%20art.jpg).

Why stop with the Sun? Why not customize the whole universe generally look awesome? If you can re-arrange star positions, we could get some seriously awesome constellations out of that... and screw with stargazers at the same time. Granted, it would take millions of years for the light to get to Earth, but it'd be totally worth it.

nedz

2012-10-12, 10:09 PM

Just sculpt the moon into a skull.

NichG

2012-10-12, 11:27 PM

For what its worth, I think that nearly anything requiring an organization to do is far more likely to fly at an actual table than anything involving a single pre-epic caster. It 'feels' more like a real effort and a project of a size worthy of making such a huge alteration. Of course if the plot came from the DM's side of the table, there are good odds it'd be a MacGuffin artifact and a BBEG who wants it in order to single-handedly wipe out the sun (whereas the organization would be a much bigger challenge to stop, especially if everyone already had the instructions and the materials and it was just a matter of time).

Qwertystop

2012-10-13, 09:19 AM

I say if you're going to make it a dust cloud, don't make it out of stone dust. Make it out of iron filings. Earth has a magnetic field. If Alan Dean Foster was right, this means you wouldn't get rings, you'd get wings!

Crake

2012-10-13, 11:14 AM

I know it was discussed and likely rejected on the first page, but opening a gate in the middle of the sun would do it, and you can take out a plane of your preference in the process! The intense gravity of the sun would cause an immense amount of super-dense material to flow through the gate for its short duration, and while it won't be enough to wink out the sun, it will probably be more than enough to reduce the sun's mass by enough to trigger a supernova.
For those confused, the sun's huge mass is keeping its own explosive force from doing just that, exploding. If you can take out enough of its mass, especially from its superdense core, you'll reduce its gravity enough that it will just simply explode as its explosive force becomes greater than its implosive force.

Now the question becomes not how to destroy the sun, but rather do you want the earth intact, and if you do, how do you plan on going about protecting it from a supernova.

The other option is to go the opposite way and produce enough material to have the sun collapse into a black hole. That one would take a lot more time though. Of course.... once you've got the sun collapsed into a black hole........... its then easy enough to engulf it in a sphere of annihilation. Need to do that before tidal forces rip apart the planet though.

nedz

2012-10-13, 12:05 PM

TuggyNE

2012-10-13, 07:41 PM

I know it was discussed and likely rejected on the first page, but opening a gate in the middle of the sun would do it, and you can take out a plane of your preference in the process! The intense gravity of the sun would cause an immense amount of super-dense material to flow through the gate for its short duration, and while it won't be enough to wink out the sun, it will probably be more than enough to reduce the sun's mass by enough to trigger a supernova.
For those confused, the sun's huge mass is keeping its own explosive force from doing just that, exploding. If you can take out enough of its mass, especially from its superdense core, you'll reduce its gravity enough that it will just simply explode as its explosive force becomes greater than its implosive force.

This is... no. The sun is not massive enough to ever supernova. Instead, when it exhausts its hydrogen, it will become a red giant. (This is true for nearly all stars of the rough mass category our sun is in, from 0.23 solar masses to perhaps 10.) If you reduced its mass by enough, it would simply shrink into a white dwarf. (I doubt you could reduce its mass significantly, according to the earlier calculations, so all you'd accomplish is destroying stuff on the target plane.)

Crake

2012-10-13, 11:32 PM

This is... no. The sun is not massive enough to ever supernova. Instead, when it exhausts its hydrogen, it will become a red giant. (This is true for nearly all stars of the rough mass category our sun is in, from 0.23 solar masses to perhaps 10.) If you reduced its mass by enough, it would simply shrink into a white dwarf. (I doubt you could reduce its mass significantly, according to the earlier calculations, so all you'd accomplish is destroying stuff on the target plane.)

That's certainly true if it were to run its natural course, but you could theoretically get any sun to supernova if you were to reduce its core mass enough in a short enough amount of time.

TuggyNE

2012-10-14, 01:07 AM

That's certainly true if it were to run its natural course, but you could theoretically get any sun to supernova if you were to reduce its core mass enough in a short enough amount of time.

I'm highly dubious of this hypothetical assertion (for the reasons outlined) and also of the ability of gate to perform anything vaguely near the amount of mass reduction you're proposing in anything like the amount of time you're talking about.

However, I'll bite: how many gates will you need opened in order to pull this off, what timeframe do you expect, and what references do you have that support this idea of low-mass supernova in the first place?

Crake

2012-10-14, 06:29 AM

I'm highly dubious of this hypothetical assertion (for the reasons outlined) and also of the ability of gate to perform anything vaguely near the amount of mass reduction you're proposing in anything like the amount of time you're talking about.

However, I'll bite: how many gates will you need opened in order to pull this off, what timeframe do you expect, and what references do you have that support this idea of low-mass supernova in the first place?

I have no interest in performing the necessary calculations to figure out how many gates you'd need etc. A supernova occurs simply when the explosive fusion/fission force of a star is significantly stronger than its gravitational implosive force. If you can disrupt that equilibrium enough, the star will explode in a supernova or implode into a black hole, depending which way you do it.

Edit: Even if I wanted to throw some calculations at you, there are 3 variables that are unknown, thus detrimental to any calculations i throw your way:
1. We don't know the density of the suns core, thus cant determine how much mass would move through the gate at any one time
2. We don't know the pressure of the sun at its core, thus cant determine the force (and thus velocity) of the ejected mass
and
3. We don't know how much mass would be required to be ejected to cause the sun to supernova

Edit2: I've been informed that *technically* it wouldn't supernova, by simple definition, the magnitude of the explosion wouldn't put it at supernova, or even nova status. Sorry for that.

NichG

2012-10-14, 06:02 PM

I have no interest in performing the necessary calculations to figure out how many gates you'd need etc. A supernova occurs simply when the explosive fusion/fission force of a star is significantly stronger than its gravitational implosive force. If you can disrupt that equilibrium enough, the star will explode in a supernova or implode into a black hole, depending which way you do it.

Edit: Even if I wanted to throw some calculations at you, there are 3 variables that are unknown, thus detrimental to any calculations i throw your way:
1. We don't know the density of the suns core, thus cant determine how much mass would move through the gate at any one time
2. We don't know the pressure of the sun at its core, thus cant determine the force (and thus velocity) of the ejected mass
and
3. We don't know how much mass would be required to be ejected to cause the sun to supernova

Edit2: I've been informed that *technically* it wouldn't supernova, by simple definition, the magnitude of the explosion wouldn't put it at supernova, or even nova status. Sorry for that.

Even if you assume pretty severe things, for instance that material flows through the Gate at the speed of light, then it still ends up taking a ridiculous amount of time for anything noticeable to happen. I did this calculation for a sphere of annihilation, which can eliminate material faster than a Gate due to being a sphere rather than a disc, and its still hundreds of millions of years before you move any significant amount of material (e.g. over 1% of the volume of the solar core). And thats assuming material moving through the gate/sphere at the speed of light, which is probably a significant overestimate.

Edit: A possible rules issue also occurs to me. It doesn't look like you explicitly can't do this, but can you open Gate into or from the inside of a solid? I'd guess it comes down to Line of Effect - you need Line of Effect to every point along the minimum-sized gate. Since the mean free path of photons in the sun's core is something like 1cm and the density is ten times higher than most solid metals, it seems likely you wouldn't be able to have line of effect over any extended range (since everything is in 5ft squares and you always round down, any line of effect you could have that is less than 5ft would be truncated to 0ft, which is insufficient to establish the Gate).

TypoNinja

2012-10-14, 06:13 PM

Edit: Even if I wanted to throw some calculations at you, there are 3 variables that are unknown, thus detrimental to any calculations i throw your way:
1. We don't know the density of the suns core, thus cant determine how much mass would move through the gate at any one time
2. We don't know the pressure of the sun at its core, thus cant determine the force (and thus velocity) of the ejected mass
and
3. We don't know how much mass would be required to be ejected to cause the sun to supernova

Edit2: I've been informed that *technically* it wouldn't supernova, by simple definition, the magnitude of the explosion wouldn't put it at supernova, or even nova status. Sorry for that.

This is just wrong.

We know how big the sun is, we know what the sun is made of. A quick volume vs mass calculation and you have density. Its right on Wikipedia, its that easy.

Again, the pressure at the core is easy to figure out, its also a function of data we already have. NASA says about 250 billion bar. I assume they rounded.

NASA will also happily tell you how to get a Supernova. One of two ways. Either a star eats enough mass that its core density gets high enough to fuse Carbon, then its core explodes. Or a super-massive star at the end of its life cycle will have a large and dense enough core that once fusion stops the outer layers of the star rapidly collapse back inward.

Our sun cannot go supernova(or nova). Its not big enough. You need to feed our star, around 10 times its own mass to make it go nova. Taking mass from our sun will only get you a red giant.

Qwertystop

2012-10-14, 06:15 PM

This is just wrong.

We know how big the sun is, we know what the sun is made of. A quick volume vs mass calculation and you have density. Its right on Wikipedia, its that easy.

Again, the pressure at the core is easy to figure out, its also a function of data we already have. NASA says about 250 billion bar. I assume they rounded.

NASA will also happily tell you how to get a Supernova. One of two ways. Either a star eats enough mass that its core density gets high enough to fuse Carbon, then its core explodes. Or a super-massive star at the end of its life cycle will have a large and dense enough core that once fusion stops the outer layers of the star rapidly collapse back inward.

Our sun cannot go supernova(or nova). Its not big enough. You need to feed our star, around 10 times its own mass to make it go nova. Taking mass from our sun will only get you a red giant.

The density you get is an average density. The core density is most likely higher than the density at the edges, which does matter.

The rest I don't know enough about to make a statement on, but the first is definitely wrong.

TypoNinja

2012-10-14, 08:15 PM

The density you get is an average density. The core density is most likely higher than the density at the edges, which does matter.

The rest I don't know enough about to make a statement on, but the first is definitely wrong.

I said even Wikipedia had the information and you didn't even check that before contradicting me? Come on man.

There's a whole article called Solar Core and right there in the summary paragraph it says 150 g/cm³.

This varies of course, but look we have great figure to base any predictions or other calculations on. It certainly isn't an unknown.

Qwertystop

2012-10-14, 08:21 PM

I said even Wikipedia had the information and you didn't even check that before contradicting me? Come on man.

There's a whole article called Solar Core and right there in the summary paragraph it says 150 g/cm³.

This varies of course, but look we have great figure to base any predictions or other calculations on. It certainly isn't an unknown.

What you said was "We know how big the sun is, we know what the sun is made of. A quick volume vs mass calculation and you have density. Its right on Wikipedia, its that easy".

A reasonable assumption from that statement is that Wikipedia gives:
Volume of Sun, as a whole
Mass of Sun, as a whole
How to calculate density using volume and mass.

TypoNinja

2012-10-14, 08:42 PM

What you said was "We know how big the sun is, we know what the sun is made of. A quick volume vs mass calculation and you have density. Its right on Wikipedia, its that easy".

A reasonable assumption from that statement is that Wikipedia gives:
Volume of Sun, as a whole
Mass of Sun, as a whole
How to calculate density using volume and mass.

Sorry I didn't think I needed to turn around and specify that we can also use the same methods to figure densities of parts of an object too.

Knowing what the sun is made of and knowing its density and volume, you can extrapolate all the rest of the information about it with only a little more data.

We know what pressures are required to fuse hydrogen, we know how much energy that releases, we know how much force of gravity would be required to be pressing in to prevent that reaction from blowing the sun away, we know how much pressure is on the core based on the observable size of the sun. We even know the approximate rate of fusion, we can ballpark the mass of unfuseable material at its core based on its age.

Most of our required information is simply a matter of solving for x.

Qwertystop

2012-10-14, 08:44 PM

Sorry I didn't think I needed to turn around and specify that we can also use the same methods to figure densities of parts of an object too.

Knowing what the sun is made of and knowing its density and volume, you can extrapolate all the rest of the information about it with only a little more data.

We know what pressures are required to fuse hydrogen, we know how much energy that releases, we know how much force of gravity would be required to be pressing in to prevent that reaction from blowing the sun away, we know how much pressure is on the core based on the observable size of the sun. We even know the approximate rate of fusion, we can ballpark the mass of unfuseable material at its core based on its age.

Most of our required information is simply a matter of solving for x.

Oh, okay. Didn't realize that there was a way to figure out how much of the sun's mass was specifically in the core. Like I said, not my subject.

Eldan

2012-10-14, 08:54 PM

TypoNinja

2012-10-14, 10:51 PM

Eh. I did the sun-gate calculation a few years back. Even if the sun matter moves at light speed through the gate, it takes millions of years to eat up the sun, so I'd say even making a small dent in it would take too long (as the mass decreases, so would the pressure and hence the speed).

Oh yea, gateing material in (or out) would be like filling the Atlantic with an eyedropper. Our sun makes up over 99% of the mass of our solar system, and you'd need to drop about 10 times the suns current mass into it to give it the mass required to go nova.

Sheer ludicrous scale makes messing with it pretty hard, even with magic.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-14, 10:59 PM

Assuming you could get around the logistics of getting in place to do so, what would happen if you placed a reverse gravity effect at the sun's exact center point?

TypoNinja

2012-10-14, 11:59 PM

Assuming you could get around the logistics of getting in place to do so, what would happen if you placed a reverse gravity effect at the sun's exact center point?

Probably not much. Assuming reverse gravity provides for 2 g's. (one would neutralize gravity, two to reverse!)

I'm not sure how to convert from Gravities to units of pressure (a quick Googleing has failed me, maybe somebody else knows.) But considering the core of the sun clocks in at a crazy 250 billion bar (oxygen turns into a metal at less than a million) I'd guess that whatever the force is would be pretty feeble compared.

Even were you to cast a reverse gravity large enough to encompass the entire sun somehow, you still couldn't disperse it as surface gravity on the sun is around 28g's giving you around than 1/15th the force needed to lift some surface gasses, never mind budge the core.

Even if it did manage some noticeable effect the area affected by reverse gravity is a little over 30 cubic feet. Compare that to the suns volume of 1.412×10^18 km3, and it becomes hard to imagine it really mattering. The sun is just so ludicrously large.

My best guess? You'd slow fusion down slightly as the repulsive force you added would make it slightly harder for any potential fuel to fuse. But levels of fusion in the sun fluctuate on their own. I'd bet the change made by our reverse gravity spell would be less than normal fluctuations.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-15, 12:07 AM

Probably not much. Assuming reverse gravity provides for 2 g's. (one would neutralize gravity, two to reverse!)

I'm not sure how to convert from Gravities to units of pressure (a quick Googleing has failed me, maybe somebody else knows.) But considering the core of the sun clocks in at a crazy 250 billion bar (oxygen turns into a metal at less than a million) I'd guess that whatever the force is would be pretty feeble compared.

Even were you to cast a reverse gravity large enough to encompass the entire sun somehow, you still couldn't disperse it as surface gravity on the sun is around 28g's giving you around than 1/15th the force needed to lift some surface gasses, never mind budge the core.

Even if it did manage some noticeable effect the area affected by reverse gravity is a little over 30 cubic feet. Compare that to the suns volume of 1.412×10^18 km3, and it becomes hard to imagine it really mattering. The sun is just so ludicrously large.

My best guess? You'd slow fusion down slightly as the repulsive force you added would make it slightly harder for any potential fuel to fuse. But levels of fusion in the sun fluctuate on their own. I'd bet the change made by our reverse gravity spell would be less than normal fluctuations.

See, I've always assumed that reverse gravity did what it said on the tin. It makes local gravity go the other way in the AoE, rather than creating a force equal to twice G; G being the nomal average gravity of 9.8m/s^2; and pulling up. Pushing outward in the center of the sun with only 2g's in reverse wouldn't do squat, but what about if the local gravity stopped pulling in and started pushing out instead.

TypoNinja

2012-10-15, 12:29 AM

See, I've always assumed that reverse gravity did what it said on the tin. It makes local gravity go the other way in the AoE, rather than creating a force equal to twice G; G being the nomal average gravity of 9.8m/s^2; and pulling up. Pushing outward in the center of the sun with only 2g's in reverse wouldn't do squat, but what about if the local gravity stopped pulling in and started pushing out instead.

Well I think a countering force being created is more likely than altering reality in a local area, but either way, sure lets assume you get a reverse gravity that really does reverse it.

Problem of scale comes back in, you get 30 cubic feet at the center, and the other quintillion and a half cubic kilometers of the sun press in anyway.

I'm really not qualified to speak on the nature of solar fusion, but again, my guess would be that sheer scale would render tampering largely irrelevant. An empty spot at the center so that small I just can't picture it mattering.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-15, 12:39 AM

Well I think a countering force being created is more likely than altering reality in a local area, but either way, sure lets assume you get a reverse gravity that really does reverse it.

Problem of scale comes back in, you get 30 cubic feet at the center, and the other quintillion and a half cubic kilometers of the sun press in anyway.

I'm really not qualified to speak on the nature of solar fusion, but again, my guess would be that sheer scale would render tampering largely irrelevant. An empty spot at the center so that small I just can't picture it mattering.

The more I think about it the more I think you're right, it wouldn't do much besides maybe make a little bubble in the sun.

But "more realistic?" Really?

Ignoring for the moment it's a transmutation, which by definition means it alters something already in place rather than creating anything which would be either conjuration or evocation, you really decided to call a magic spell out for being unrealistic?

It's not any more non-sensical than darkness. Hell, reverse gravity creating microscopic fairies to lift everything in the AoE would be more realistic than a target or point in space radiating darkness.

Edit: Since tone doesn't convey well through text, I'll explicitly point out that the above should be read as incredulity, not mockery.

TypoNinja

2012-10-15, 01:13 AM

The more I think about it the more I think you're right, it wouldn't do much besides maybe make a little bubble in the sun.

But "more realistic?" Really?

Ignoring for the moment it's a transmutation, which by definition means it alters something already in place rather than creating anything which would be either conjuration or evocation, you really decided to call a magic spell out for being unrealistic?

It's not any more non-sensical than darkness. Hell, reverse gravity creating microscopic fairies to lift everything in the AoE would be more realistic than a target or point in space radiating darkness.

Edit: Since tone doesn't convey well through text, I'll explicitly point out that the above should be read as incredulity, not mockery.

I have a really.... Logical perception of magic in D&D.

Its not really magical as much as its sort of a new undiscovered branch of science. It has rules, behaves predictably, can be studied, analyzed, developed, and experimented with. Wizardry is a taught art, with the only prerequisite being enough intelligence. Spells of a certain level have certain powers, it takes stronger magic to do more impressive feats. Until you hit epic levels magic is a fairly rigid form. Its very easy for magic to be internally consistent, so you can look at an effect and say if that's typical of magic or not.

In that context (and considering the lodestone and iron filing material components) I think its more likely the generation of an opposing force is what the spell accomplishes rather than a twisting of reality. Just my personal opinion though.

You got me on the transmutation school though. Hrmmm.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-15, 01:25 AM

I have a really.... Logical perception of magic in D&D.

Its not really magical as much as its sort of a new undiscovered branch of science. It has rules, behaves predictably, can be studied, analyzed, developed, and experimented with. Wizardry is a taught art, with the only prerequisite being enough intelligence. Spells of a certain level have certain powers, it takes stronger magic to do more impressive feats. Until you hit epic levels magic is a fairly rigid form. Its very easy for magic to be internally consistent, so you can look at an effect and say if that's typical of magic or not.

In that context (and considering the lodestone and iron filing material components) I think its more likely the generation of an opposing force is what the spell accomplishes rather than a twisting of reality. Just my personal opinion though.

You got me on the transmutation school though. Hrmmm.

There it is. Your approach is a bit different than mine. Logic says to me that if magic was simply a matter of understanding and sufficient intelligence then it really would be as prevalent as many on this forum think it is/should be. Because of this, I imagine there's some other unknown variable that prevents random commoner A, who has int 13, from simply poking about and discovering how to use magic all by himself.

For one explanation, I go with the notion that wizard casting ability comes from the same source as sorcerer casting; a supernatural creature in the character's lineage. The difference being that it's weaker in the wizard, forcing him to approach it in a manner that's inherently more structured than his sorcerous cousin.

The fact that ordered approach is wildly more efficient is why the wizard gets spells earlier and isn't limited in the number of spells he can learn, but the fact that the magic in his blood isn't as strong is why he gets fewer spells per day in most cases.

TypoNinja

2012-10-15, 01:47 AM

There it is. Your approach is a bit different than mine. Logic says to me that if magic was simply a matter of understanding and sufficient intelligence then it really would be as prevalent as many on this forum think it is/should be. Because of this, I imagine there's some other unknown variable that prevents random commoner A, who has int 13, from simply poking about and discovering how to use magic all by himself.

For one explanation, I go with the notion that wizard casting ability comes from the same source as sorcerer casting; a supernatural creature in the character's lineage. The difference being that it's weaker in the wizard, forcing him to approach it in a manner that's inherently more structured than his sorcerous cousin.

The fact that ordered approach is wildly more efficient is why the wizard gets spells earlier and isn't limited in the number of spells he can learn, but the fact that the magic in his blood isn't as strong is why he gets fewer spells per day in most cases.

That's pretty plausible, I'd buy that.

Though from my point of view, I'd say that Social class is the limiting factor. D&D approximates a medieval tech base, and usually Feudal societies as well. The vast majority of the population then is the peasantry, and as such are mostly of the farmer/craftsman profession. The vast majority of whom have not the time to learn to read and write. Illiteracy among the peasantry would be quite high. Going to schools is something that is for rich peoples children, a Magic school would be like a university, even more of a rarity fior this class of people.

Even then, they still actually need the requisite intelligence. I'm sure there are oodles of students who can magic missile, but if 10 represents human average, then even students who can learn to fireball at a 13, are a cut above. There will be plenty of graduates who know some magic, but not enough to make a living, they will then largely ignore magic for more mundane careers.

Kelb_Panthera

2012-10-15, 02:20 AM

That's pretty plausible, I'd buy that.

Though from my point of view, I'd say that Social class is the limiting factor. D&D approximates a medieval tech base, and usually Feudal societies as well. The vast majority of the population then is the peasantry, and as such are mostly of the farmer/craftsman profession. The vast majority of whom have not the time to learn to read and write. Illiteracy among the peasantry would be quite high. Going to schools is something that is for rich peoples children, a Magic school would be like a university, even more of a rarity fior this class of people.

Even then, they still actually need the requisite intelligence. I'm sure there are oodles of students who can magic missile, but if 10 represents human average, then even students who can learn to fireball at a 13, are a cut above. There will be plenty of graduates who know some magic, but not enough to make a living, they will then largely ignore magic for more mundane careers.

Yeah, that's a pretty tough issue to ignore too. Lack of the necessary intel is hardly the only obstacle even if intel is the only requirement. There's also access, as you've pointed out, and superstition, prejudice, and active interference from organizations that oppose arcane magic.

My comment about logic dictating that magic would be ever prevalent if not for some other limitation is based in the idea that it's tremendous potential would, given enough time, be enough of a driving force to overcome those obstacles, just like how actuall science has overcome most of those obstacles to one degree or other. If magic were simply a science, then I really can't fathom the medieval stasis the various campaign worlds are stuck in. Magic should've completely replaced technology and run along a fairly similar time-line, maybe even faster since there're things magic can do that science still has no clue about; reverse gravity for instance can make zero-g vehicles.

Dr Bwaa

2012-10-15, 10:37 AM

Bonus points if you hit them with a permanent Gitterdust first.

Yes please. In fact let's just assume from now on that any extraterrestrial solutions also involve liberal applications of Permanent Glitterdust.

In the short term, [the dust cloud]'d stay in orbit better, but over a span of years it would tend to thin out (due largely to upper-atmospheric drag), so you'd need to refresh it once in a while.

The dust from disintegrated walls of stone in orbit would eventually coalesce into rings.

I don't have any actual knowledge to back it up, but if you get the stuff into orbit shouldn't both of these things only happen on so long a timescale as to be pretty much irrelevant?

Also, the dust-cloud idea (well, all the ideas that block/extinguish the sun legitimately to any significant extent) still has the problem of turning the world to ice over a few years, though I suppose if you have the resources to blot out the sun, providing warmth for your terrified subjects shouldn't be too big an issue.

I think it's pretty likely, as others have pointed out, that the sheer size of the sun probably makes it immune to directly affecting it with any but the cheesiest of legally-questionable hacks (e.g. Darkness/Light, etc, which frankly would be more effective if applied to the Prime anyway, no?), not to mention the problems inherent if you did actually destroy the thing.

As for more possible "solutions"--I feel like maybe it was mentioned before, but now I can't find it: shouldn't it be possible pre-epic to just put an Immovable Rod ten (or whatever) feet above the ground, cast Reverse Gravity below it, and then get a silly-optimized Hulking Hurler to stand "upside-down" on the Rod and throw the planet into deep space?

Noctis Vigil

2012-10-15, 11:16 AM

I don't remember what splatbook it is (might be BoVD), but I know one of them has a greater artifact that destroys the sun in it, because I remember seeing it. It's a spear which you leave to charge in an alter, and after a month it fires a ray of energy that destroys the sun. Will hunt for it later and post where it is if I can find it. But it would definitely be easier than most of the solutions listed here (although far far less entertaining to watch you try and pull off).

Zubrowka74

2012-10-15, 11:57 AM

[QUOTE=Dr Bwaa;14054047]Also, the dust-cloud idea (well, all the ideas that block/extinguish the sun legitimately to any significant extent) still has the problem of turning the world to ice over a few years ...[QUOTE]

It would be radical but not ice-covering, see the volcanic/nuclear/impact winters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter)

Of course, we're looking at a larger scale event but I think there would be a greenhouse effect to counter this somewhat. And a barren wasteland is a barren wasteland. We're talking evil here.

TuggyNE

2012-10-15, 05:22 PM

I don't have any actual knowledge to back it up, but if you get the stuff into orbit shouldn't both of these things only happen on so long a timescale as to be pretty much irrelevant?

Ring formation, maybe. Orbital debris removal, not so much. NASA has done a good bit of research into it, and the upper atmosphere is (diminishingly) effective at removing debris from orbits up to at least 800 km (http://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/faqs.html#12), though any given particle often takes years, or even decades, to decelerate enough to reenter and burn up. (The rate is fast enough to be distinctly measurable, but slow enough that it requires help to keep man-made debris levels sufficiently low.)

So it does take quite a while, but it would happen very noticeably over, say, your average drow's lifetime. Assuming of course that you have a roughly Earth-like planet. :smalltongue: