How many people can go through a gateway

[Ranting Fool]

Hey playgrounders a little help if you've got the time to spend it.
I need to know how many people can go through a permanent gateway as our heroes are trying to evacuate a demi-plane and need to know how long it will take (It can take ages that's fine but a ballpark figure would be useful)


Assuming a gateway can be activated 3 times per day.

How long does a normal one stay open for or is it just X number of people per use of the gateway?


Or just pointing me at the right book + page would be very helpful.

[aeauseth]

I can't tell if you are specifically referring to the Gate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gate.htm) spell? Regardless I think the Gate spell provides a good reference for a gateway (at least the way you described it).

The rules for the Gate spell are pretty good, hold a portal open for up to 1 round/level. Assuming a level 20 caster, that is 20 rounds.

So I think the question you are asking is how many medium sized creatures can go thru a gate in 20 rounds (2 minutes)...

The mechanics of movement in 3.5 are pretty simplistic and as long as you can reach the gate in 20 rounds you can travel between the planes. Running some basic math (and hoping I don't make a silly mistake). Let us assume you have a huge crowd standing around waiting for the gate to open. A typical human has a base movement of 30. Running seems unlikely in a crowded situation like this, but you could double move. That suggests that someone (60ft x 20 rounds) = 1200 ft away could travel thru the gate before it closed. The area of the gatable humans is (1200 ft x 1200 ft x PI) = 4,523,893 ft2. Divide by (5ft x 5ft) = 25 ft2 to get the number of squares = 180,955. So I postulate that a little over 180 thousand humans could travel through a gateway in 2 minutes.

This is largely an academic exercise, because crowds rarely follow directions perfectly. You also might have flyers. People might trip. Place the gate horizontally on the ground so people can just jump in would likely be a good plan.

You want to evacuate an entire plane, that's a tall order. A 20th level wizard can cast at least 4 Gates a day. So under good conditions that is 723,456 people in one day.

EDIT: An american football field is 19,200 ft2 or 768 squares. Do you think you could fill it up with 768 people and evacuate them all thru a single exit in 2 minutes? I doubt it, but it would be fun to try.

[Ranting Fool]

Thanks for the reply and sorry for not being clear enough. As much as my players may want the theoretical max number of people using a gate I think I'll have to sort something out a little more grounded (As anyone who has ever been on London public transport during rush hour will note people don't always more as one :smalltongue: )

[Segev]

The "traffic jam" could reasonably be modeled by having everybody use the Run action, and not allowing people to pass through occupied spaces.

[Scow2]

The thing is... in crowded situations, people take up significantly less than 25 square feet of space.

[Fouredged Sword]

I would assume that an organized group of people could stand shoulder to shoulder, back to back and move through the gate. I would put that at 4 people per 5ft square. They would suffer the squeezing rules, but that doesn't matter for this exercise.

They would be able to maintain a brisk walk safely. Lets say a double move.

20 rounds is 120 seconds.

That means a 20x120 ft formation of people can move through the gate each round. At 4 people per 5^2 ft, that means 1920 people a casting. I would assume inefficiencies are a problem, and half that number for practical applications. 1000 people evacuated per casting seems a nice round realistic number.

[Gazzien]

I believe Tippy did some calculations on this for the Tippyverse... off the top of my head, it's 120 people/round for each 5' wide section of entrance (so 480 if it's a 5' square and you can enter from any side, exiting from the opposite side on the other end). Less if they're encumbered or slow, more if they're faster.

[Fouredged Sword]

I messed up my count. 1000 people could get through a gate each ROUND, so 20,000 people could evacuate a casting.