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View Full Version : Gamer Tales What's the most absurd magic you've ever seen used in a game?



Milodiah
2014-08-18, 09:04 AM
We've all read the threads arguing that magic cheese is so much cheesier than mundane cheese, and how said cheese needs to be cut. No matter what swords-and-sorcery game you're running, D&D 3/4/5, Pathfinder, or any of the other lesser-known ones, someone is always arguing for or against the rebalancing/rebuilding of magic.

But I was wondering...I personally haven't seen any particularly over-the-top uses of magic in the D&D games I've played, so I suppose I have no frame of reference for just how bad it can really get. And besides, I haven't noticed any kind of thread on the playground for people to sit down and share stories about how their wizard just looked the problem dead in the eyes, cast a 9th level spell, and turned that problem right into a newt. I'm sure there are a whole lot of tales just waiting to be told, after all. We're not talking about sharing your most deliberately OP builds you've built for the sheer purpose of optimization into godhood, or the hypothetical exploitation of 100% RAW you've thought up that could break the game if you could just slip it in past the DM's watch...we're talking what you've actually seen deployed in a heretofore rational and non-pants-on-head game.

So. What's the most absurdly powerful use of magic you've ever seen?

Jay R
2014-08-18, 09:51 AM
One player in Champions wanted to use a very low-level telekinesis effect to squeeze an opponent's carotid artery, knocking him unconscious almost immediately.

Milodiah
2014-08-18, 10:08 AM
Ah, I see you found my problem with the Force.

"...what, you can't just use the Force to push all the tumblers up in that lock? Or give that guy a blood clot in his brain so he falls over dead for no reason?"

Sure, Jedi honor is all well and good, but what about the Sith?

Jormengand
2014-08-18, 11:35 AM
"...what, you can't just use the Force to push all the tumblers up in that lock? Or give that guy a blood clot in his brain so he falls over dead for no reason?"

This is basically canon in the Inheritance cycle. Replace "The force" with "Magic" and you're good.

In the Black Magician, the author thought of this, and gave all living creatures a "Shield" around their skin, where magic cannot enter, except for healing magic and black magic. All very well, until Sonea uses "Healing" magic to stop an Ichani's heart.

Anyway, back on D&D, using Mount to drop horses on people (they have to start on a surface that can support them, but suppose it's a slanted roof, it won't hold them for very long), or telekinesis to pull high-mass-low-weight asteroids into the atmosphere and drop them on people.

LibraryOgre
2014-08-18, 12:03 PM
Always confusing when two people with identical avatars have a conversation. :smallbiggrin:

Anyway, there's a series of novels by Mercedes Lackey and (the late) Andre Norton (which will sadly likely never be finished). In it, you have elves, who have inherited magic; humans, who have randomly appearing psionics; dragons, who have a completely alien set of magic that relies on practice; and half-elves, who inherit human and elven magic to various degrees.

One of the things stressed in later books is how, though some elves inherit huge amounts of power, how USEFUL some of the smaller magics are... including one elf woman who is nudged to realize she can stop a heart with her minor flesh-bending talents, while her father has huge talents and is able to call lightning.

You've always got people who use magic (and psionics, which I'm going to roll in here) in weird ways; I remember my brothers using Palladium Fantasy's Psychic Surgery power offensively, performing organ removals mid-combat because the power didn't have a save or any guidelines about how long it took to work (in 1st edition).

Forrestfire
2014-08-18, 12:21 PM
I used a tree token to explode an airship one time in a game. After that, we had a soft-ban on using Tree Tokens creatively, because we didn't want to create a treesplosion arms race.

kieza
2014-08-18, 12:23 PM
I was once at a table with someone who conducted a kinetic orbital bombardment of the evil lair using his own body as a projectile...and lived. As I recall, it went something like this...
*Use 10 ranks in Knowledge (Astronomy) and Knowledge (Geography) to compute a firing solution ahead of time.
*Put on a Ring of Sustenance to survive in the vacuum of space.
*Cast Greater Teleport, appear halfway to lunar orbit.
*Use a Decanter of Endless Water set to "geyser" to accelerate back towards the planet, navigating by the stars and following the predetermined firing solution. This took a couple of weeks.
*Cast protection from fire and resist fire to survive the heat of re-entry.
*And here's the important part: The DM had an odd version of feather fall, which prevents falling damage...but doesn't actually slow you down. So, the player hit the villain's fortress at several kilometers per second, and took no damage. The fortress, on the other hand...

Anyways, this player had a degree in astrophysics, and he worked out all of the math to figure out how fast he would have been going, and how much energy would have been released in the impact. He had to make a few estimates, but his rough guess was that the impact would have been the equivalent of a couple kilotons of TNT.

LibraryOgre
2014-08-18, 12:32 PM
I was once at a table with someone who conducted a kinetic orbital bombardment of the evil lair using his own body as a projectile...and lived. As I recall, it went something like this...
*Use 10 ranks in Knowledge (Astronomy) and Knowledge (Geography) to compute a firing solution ahead of time.
*Put on a Ring of Sustenance to survive in the vacuum of space.
*Cast Greater Teleport, appear halfway to lunar orbit.
*Use a Decanter of Endless Water set to "geyser" to accelerate back towards the planet, navigating by the stars and following the predetermined firing solution. This took a couple of weeks.
*Cast protection from fire and resist fire to survive the heat of re-entry.
*And here's the important part: The DM had an odd version of feather fall, which prevents falling damage...but doesn't actually slow you down. So, the player hit the villain's fortress at several kilometers per second, and took no damage. The fortress, on the other hand...

Anyways, this player had a degree in astrophysics, and he worked out all of the math to figure out how fast he would have been going, and how much energy would have been released in the impact. He had to make a few estimates, but his rough guess was that the impact would have been the equivalent of a couple kilotons of TNT.

...this is beautiful. This may be the most beautiful thing I've seen online in a long time.

Milodiah
2014-08-18, 01:13 PM
...I love it. Absolutely love it.


Reminds me of my escape velocity Bag of Holding calculations I did a while back. Assuming the Bag of Holding makes a cavity underwater when opened upside down, then based on the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation
http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/9/4/5/945a66bb8ac5a46fd959ab6c12eebb00.png

the force of water rushing up to fill that vacuum would generate about half a million pounds of thrust, which is more than enough to...well, achieve escape velocity with an impossibly high delta-v. Assuming of course the finer points of math happen to run and hide, because I am not a professional rocket scientist.

As it turns out, though, my new roommate is a grad student working on a master's in aerospace engineering.

I will have fun with this.

kieza
2014-08-18, 02:05 PM
I have another, this time in a game I was running. It was a 4e game, and in 4e the basic long-distance teleportation spell is a ritual called "Linked Portal," which creates a short-lived, one-way portal to a pre-existing magic circle. Earlier, one of the players (call him Adam) had asked a few questions about how the portal worked, and I came up with the following rules:

*The portal is a spherical volume. If you walk into the volume at one end, you come out of the volume at the other end. You cannot actually enter the volume while the portal is active.
*In effect, anything that is inside the destination circle when the portal is made is shunted outside of reality until the portal shuts down, and then it reappears again, unharmed and having experienced no passage of time.
*The portal will continue to exist until the duration of the spell (a few rounds) is up, even if the magic circle is destroyed.

About a month later in real time, the party needed to destroy a powerful artifact in a heavily-guarded fortress. They knew of a magic circle inside the fortress that they could use for a Linked Portal, but there were a couple of problems: The artifact would, when destroyed, cause a very large explosion after a few minutes' delay, and they didn't know of any other magic circles that they could use to teleport out of the stronghold to. (They used to, but their base of operations had recently been conquered.) I had intended for it to be a race against the clock to escape the fortress before it blew up, but another player (let's call him Bob) came up with this plan:

*Acquire a timed explosive.
*Bob casts a Linked Portal to the stronghold, but stays behind while the rest of the party fights their way to the artifact. (I let him run a few monsters, since his character wasn't there.)
*The party keeps in contact with Bob using a pair of Speaking Stones.
*Immediately after the first portal closes behind his allies, Bob starts casting a second Linked Portal to the fortress. This wouldn't let them escape--since the portal only goes one direction--but just wait...
*The rest of the party slaughters the defenders, attaches the timed explosive to the artifact, and starts the timer. Then they run back up to the magic circle where they came in, and stand in it.
*Bob holds the completion of the second Linked Portal until the party sees that the artifact explosion is imminent, and tells Bob using the Speaking Stones.
*Bob finishes the Linked Portal, which shunts the rest of the party out of reality since they're standing where the portal appears.
*The artifact explodes, destroying the fortress and everything in it...but not the portal.
*The portal closes, and the rest of the party drinks potions of feather falling so that they drift gently to the ground instead of falling from the height of the tower where the portal used to be.
*They walk home and high-five with Bob.

Bob proceeded to abuse the shunt-out-of-reality effect of Linked Portal a few more times. On one occasion, they were facing a recurring villain with a penchant for teleporting away...so, Bob scryed out his teleport circle and had the party chase the villain into it. When the party gave him the signal, Bob finished his portal, and the villain disappears. When he comes back, his circle has been defiled, and there's an iron cage around him. He was suitably confused.

JusticeZero
2014-08-18, 02:30 PM
It actually gets worse if you are using real-world physics. If you build a sealed glass cylinder, pump all the air out of it, put a small object in it - a grain of sand should be enough - then create a portal from the bottom of the cylinder to the top of the cylinder, you have a very short time to escape before the planet is destroyed. Not the people on the planet, the entire planet. The object falling in vacuum accelerates constantly. At relativistic speed, it will cause a gravity effect with it's speed, which will eventually cause the cylinder to break. An object at that speed will generate enough friction and other collateral destruction when that happens to create a Death Star scaled blast and reduce the entire planet to a white-hot debris field.
Which is another reason why I don't let people start injecting real world physics into RPG settings..

Jeff the Green
2014-08-18, 02:57 PM
Well, we were dealing with the classic giant hourglass and I didn't particularly want to find out what happened when it emptied, so our warmage melted a hole in the top chamber with an orb, my archivist cast create water inside to make the sand wet, and our homebrew ice phoenix thing froze it. We then had as long as we needed to figure out what else was going on in the room.

Angelalex242
2014-08-18, 04:18 PM
Always confusing when two people with identical avatars have a conversation. :smallbiggrin:

Anyway, there's a series of novels by Mercedes Lackey and (the late) Andre Norton (which will sadly likely never be finished). In it, you have elves, who have inherited magic; humans, who have randomly appearing psionics; dragons, who have a completely alien set of magic that relies on practice; and half-elves, who inherit human and elven magic to various degrees.

One of the things stressed in later books is how, though some elves inherit huge amounts of power, how USEFUL some of the smaller magics are... including one elf woman who is nudged to realize she can stop a heart with her minor flesh-bending talents, while her father has huge talents and is able to call lightning.

You've always got people who use magic (and psionics, which I'm going to roll in here) in weird ways; I remember my brothers using Palladium Fantasy's Psychic Surgery power offensively, performing organ removals mid-combat because the power didn't have a save or any guidelines about how long it took to work (in 1st edition).

The Halfblood Chronicles! I've got those 3 books. Sadly, the 4th will never happen, out of respect for Ms. Norton, I believe. I've always wondered about a D&D campaign based on those books. Full blooded elves are obviously wizards or sorcerers (Every elf has wizard or sorcerer levels, but the elves stuck at level 1-5 are more or less enslaved by those with levels 17-20), Full Blooded Humans are obviously Psions/Psychic Warriors/whatever, but I couldn't think of a good class to set Halfbloods themselves at. Calling them all Wizard/Psion Gishes doesn't see quite right. Dragons...can get by just fine with the Gem Dragon rules for Psionic Dragons (they all seem to have Rock Shaping, Shapeshifting (nonmagical), and telepathy). And the Shaman Dragons can apparently cast Storm of Vengeance.

Cikomyr
2014-08-18, 05:26 PM
I played a Master Sorcerer in Dark Heresy. One of the Sorcery's greatest power is to create portals to travel anywhere you want, through the warp. It is obviously extremely dangerous, with the possibility of gaining corruption, insanity, or just being plain ate by Daemons for trespassing.

However, the rules clearly specified that its the mind that gets corrupted, and you have to make a Willpower test to avoid the nasty effects. So during a massive space battle, i get myself a nice cargo hold with piles (MASSIVE piles) of explosives lying around, and tell the GM i cast Portal.

"You want to board the ennemy ship? Are you crazy?!"

"No. I cast portal right under one of the exlosive pile. And i teleport it straight in the ennemy ship's bridge."

"....oh..."

Inanimate object means no willpower. So autosuccess :D

draken50
2014-08-18, 06:01 PM
And here I feel lame for only having actually seen Shrink Item abused.

The old, "hang it from a string over the door" play.

That astrophysics one was something special. Great story.

Slipperychicken
2014-08-18, 06:11 PM
...I love it. Absolutely love it.


Reminds me of my escape velocity Bag of Holding calculations I did a while back. Assuming the Bag of Holding makes a cavity underwater when opened upside down, then based on the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation
http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/9/4/5/945a66bb8ac5a46fd959ab6c12eebb00.png

the force of water rushing up to fill that vacuum would generate about half a million pounds of thrust, which is more than enough to...well, achieve escape velocity with an impossibly high delta-v. Assuming of course the finer points of math happen to run and hide, because I am not a professional rocket scientist.

As it turns out, though, my new roommate is a grad student working on a master's in aerospace engineering.

I will have fun with this.

How is that not rupturing the bag of holding? I could see this working if the bag was made of riverine, though.

Also, I'm no physicist, but don't upturned (bottom side up) containers under water simply remain full of air rather than allowing water in?

Mr Beer
2014-08-18, 06:31 PM
It actually gets worse if you are using real-world physics. If you build a sealed glass cylinder, pump all the air out of it, put a small object in it - a grain of sand should be enough - then create a portal from the bottom of the cylinder to the top of the cylinder, you have a very short time to escape before the planet is destroyed. Not the people on the planet, the entire planet. The object falling in vacuum accelerates constantly. At relativistic speed, it will cause a gravity effect with it's speed, which will eventually cause the cylinder to break. An object at that speed will generate enough friction and other collateral destruction when that happens to create a Death Star scaled blast and reduce the entire planet to a white-hot debris field.
Which is another reason why I don't let people start injecting real world physics into RPG settings..

I am very sceptical that a grain of sand travelling at close to light speed would destroy the Earth or even significantly damage it. I can imagine it causing major damage to a city perhaps.

I base this on the fact that an asteroid the size of Everest being hurled at Earth faster than a bullet would do zero damage to the main structure of the planet*, though obviously it would be devastating for life forms over the entire biosphere.

* would be a scratch on the surface.

Erasmas
2014-08-18, 07:06 PM
I've always thought it would be funny to use prestidigitation to turn someone's corneas solid white.

Orderic
2014-08-19, 12:23 AM
An idea that I had, which, sadly, never was used, was to use a spell to negate gravity to create a perpetuum mobile. I am not sure if a wheel alone would suffice, considering that the center of mass is still in the middle... Maybe, maybe not. Never made any calculations. But something that should work is using a water wheel, let water flow ower it outside of the area of the spell, the water then drops into a tube which goes into the area without gravity, where the water gets pushed up by inertia and the water behind it. Then it flows out of the tube and onto the wheel again.
Of course, there are more eploits this spell could have been used for... if the dm agrees. It was a spell that negted gravity inside a circular area with no height restrictions. Realistically it woud create an updraft, since the air inside the area is not being pulled down anymore, while that outside is pushing in. On the ocean it could be even more devastating...
But I think the perpetuum mobile could be done even better in D&D, with spell like Reverse Gravity or one of the many ways of teleportation. Or just a decanter of endless water.



I am very sceptical that a grain of sand travelling at close to light speed would destroy the Earth or even significantly damage it.

Why not? Now, I'm not an expert at physics, but as far as I know, the faster and object is, the more its mass increases, the harder it is to accelerate. However, in a vacuum, continuously falling?
And the speed of a bullet is far, far away from even getting close to the speed of light.

Mr Beer
2014-08-19, 12:35 AM
And the speed of a bullet is far, far away from even getting close to the speed of light.

Of course, but then the mass of a grain of sand is much further and further away from even getting close to the mass of Everest.

If the energy discharged by slamming Everest into the Earth at several times the speed of a bullet doesn't destroy the planet or even come close, why should a grain of sand, travelling however fast? It's not like light speed is infinite velocity.

I'm willing to be corrected BTW, I'm not a physicist either.

EDIT

5 minutes with Google and Excel, so it could be nonsense, but this is my approach:

If a grain of sand weighs 50 mg and Everest weighs 6,399,000,000,000 tons, then there are 127,980,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand in Everest. If an asteroid impacts at 50 m/s and light travels at 300,000 km/s, then light travels at 5,995,849 times faster than asteroids. So Everest sized asteroids are 21,344,766,451,730 more energetic than light-speed sand grains.

Jeff the Green
2014-08-19, 01:01 AM
Not an actual physicist, but yes, there is some speed at which a grain of sand will have more energy than the asteroid that created the Chicxulub crater. The key here is that a) energy of impact increases with the square of velocity but only proportional to mass and b) as an object's velocity approaches the speed of light, it mass approaches infinity. The former isn't sufficient, since there's 25 orders of magnitude difference between the mass of a grain of sand and the asteroid and only 4 between the speed of the asteroid and the speed of light.

However, since as the grain of sand gets moving to relativistic speeds, its mass increases proportional to (1-v2)-1. It'd have to be moving really freaking fast, but eventually it would have the mass of that asteroid. (And yes, this is sufficient without the square of velocity thing above, but that helps reduce the needed velocity substantially.)

Mr Beer
2014-08-19, 01:10 AM
Not an actual physicist, but yes, there is some speed at which a grain of sand will have more energy than the asteroid that created the Chicxulub crater. The key here is that a) energy of impact increases with the square of velocity but only proportional to mass and b) as an object's velocity approaches the speed of light, it mass approaches infinity. The former isn't sufficient, since there's 25 orders of magnitude difference between the mass of a grain of sand and the asteroid and only 4 between the speed of the asteroid and the speed of light.

However, since as the grain of sand gets moving to relativistic speeds, its mass increases proportional to (1-v2)-1. It'd have to be moving really freaking fast, but eventually it would have the mass of that asteroid. (And yes, this is sufficient without the square of velocity thing above, but that helps reduce the needed velocity substantially.)

OK, I understand that...so because the grain of sand gets to c or extremely close, then its mass becomes vastly greater than it's normal (Newtonian?) mass and therefore the energy released is much greater than my simple velocity x mass calculation would imply.

Jeff the Green
2014-08-19, 01:20 AM
OK, I understand that...so because the grain of sand gets to c or extremely close, then its mass becomes vastly greater than it's normal (Newtonian?) mass and therefore the energy released is much greater than my simple velocity x mass calculation would imply.

Right. (Also E=mv isn't correct. It's E=mv2, so your calculation is off by four orders of magnitude or so.)

Brother Oni
2014-08-19, 02:28 AM
Not an actual physicist, but yes, there is some speed at which a grain of sand will have more energy than the asteroid that created the Chicxulub crater.

Relevant XKCD (https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/).

Note that this is a baseball accelerated to 0.9c and while that effectively flattens a substantial area, it's nowhere near the entire planet.


However, since as the grain of sand gets moving to relativistic speeds, its mass increases proportional to (1-v2)-1. It'd have to be moving really freaking fast, but eventually it would have the mass of that asteroid.

You do have a cap of c though and to achieve that at 9.8m/s2 is going to take a long time (354 days by my count). Even achieving 0.1c would take ~35 days.
How long does the portal spell last? Wouldn't that give an estimate of how much velocity would be gained before our accelerated grain of sand impacts with the ground?

Cazero
2014-08-19, 02:34 AM
relativistic speed grain of sand
This demonstration (http://what-if.xkcd.com/1/) was to be referenced on this subject.
You all appear to be assuming that the exponentially increased mass of the grain of sand is going to collide with solid matter at some point, and that the kinetic energy released with create a crater of some sort. It is unlikely.
The sheer speed is enough to initiate a nuclear reaction with air. It results in a nuke. The exact size of said nuke depends of many factors, and is difficult to calculate.
There would still be a crater, but that wouldn't be kinetic energy. That would be the charred remains of a gigantic fusion reaction.

edit : ninja'ed link

Cikomyr
2014-08-19, 06:20 AM
But there is no air. Thats the point of thr experiment. I am still wondering how a grain would generate enough gravitation to shatter the tube

Sir Chuckles
2014-08-19, 06:27 AM
Anyway, back on D&D, using Mount to drop horses on people (they have to start on a surface that can support them, but suppose it's a slanted roof, it won't hold them for very long), or telekinesis to pull high-mass-low-weight asteroids into the atmosphere and drop them on people.

To follow that line, Summon Instrument plus Pathfinder cantrip rules. Combine with Catch Off-Guard and/or Throw Anything. Laugh as the DM tries to figure out the damage of a tuba.

Mastikator
2014-08-19, 06:59 AM
But there is no air. Thats the point of thr experiment. I am still wondering how a grain would generate enough gravitation to shatter the tube

It wouldn't.

Unless it's a grain made of a neutron star (https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110304215857AA4i7zd), then it would weigh about 1000 metric tons, the gravitational force at the range of 1 milimeter would be about 6x that of earth's, and 6% at 1 centimeter, and negligible at 1 meter. The tidal forces could potentially shatter a glass tube if the grain was traveling across the surface of the tube.


((1000 ton) * G) / (1 (mm^2)) = 60.5 m / s2
((1000 ton) * G) / (1 (cm^2)) = 0.605 m / s2
((1000 ton) * G) / (1 (m^2)) = 0.000006 m / s2

Segev
2014-08-19, 07:05 AM
Not horribly abusive, but a fun not-quite-what-was-intended use: In Rifts, there is a spell called "Mystic Alarm" which wards an object. These wards are triggered either by touch or by the wards being broken (usually by destruction of the object, but anything that "breaks" the sigil(s) works), caster's choice. When the wards are triggered, the caster immediately gets a mental notice that tells him which ward has been triggered, and that ward's current distance and direction relative to the caster. The wards last for a year per caster level.

My caster has been using the "trigger on breaking" version on slip-knots, and giving them out to friends and allies when swift signals or "come find me" notices might be necessary. "Find me, I'm lost," "Find me, I'm in danger," and other such agreed-upon meanings of various knots being pulled are pre-arranged, so he knows whose knot was pulled, which meaning was attached to it, and where it is. (Might require an IQ check to keep it straight, but the magic does explicitly let you know WHICH ward is broken, so you only have to make sure you remember that that specific ward was given to so-and-so and meant X when broken.)

In a setting where long-distance communication can be hard, and navigation is non-trivial, this is an incredibly useful technique.

Brother Oni
2014-08-19, 07:05 AM
But there is no air. Thats the point of thr experiment. I am still wondering how a grain would generate enough gravitation to shatter the tube

According to Jeff the Green, the faster it goes, the greater its relativistic mass. Get that high enough and localised gravity fluctuations in separate parts of the glass tube would cause it to crack then shatter.

Mastikator gives a good idea of the mass required, unfortunately I don't understand the equations well enough to calculate the velocity you'd need to achieve this.

LibraryOgre
2014-08-19, 07:09 AM
The Halfblood Chronicles! I've got those 3 books. Sadly, the 4th will never happen, out of respect for Ms. Norton, I believe. I've always wondered about a D&D campaign based on those books. Full blooded elves are obviously wizards or sorcerers (Every elf has wizard or sorcerer levels, but the elves stuck at level 1-5 are more or less enslaved by those with levels 17-20), Full Blooded Humans are obviously Psions/Psychic Warriors/whatever, but I couldn't think of a good class to set Halfbloods themselves at. Calling them all Wizard/Psion Gishes doesn't see quite right. Dragons...can get by just fine with the Gem Dragon rules for Psionic Dragons (they all seem to have Rock Shaping, Shapeshifting (nonmagical), and telepathy). And the Shaman Dragons can apparently cast Storm of Vengeance.

I think 3e would be a very bad system for that world; it is less that some elves are high level and others are low, but that their innate ability is so varied that some elves are born with 18th level magic user abilities and others are born with cantrips. You'd do far better with a system that represented differences in inherent magical ability better.

Afool
2014-08-19, 07:55 AM
Well I haven't had much opportunity to see highly exploitative magic though I do remember making plans to make a fusion lance or something like that. It's been ages since then so I've probably got the name wrong.

The plan was to use a spell similar to Temporal Stasis that can affect objects (or using quintessence or something like that. Point is, to have an effect that preserves an object that allows for not damaging effects to remain on it) and uses of prestidigitation to change an object's temperature to either some absurdly high degree of temperature or to 0K and then unleash it upon enemies from a VERY significant distance. Best I can figure out about it now is that with significant energy (or lack of energy) it would do a great deal of damage to something.

The only thing I've ever tried in game was attempting to use the magical monster creating/controlling artifact of the one shot of a system that I can't even remember the name of, to create my own political stake in the world and blackmail the surrounding state. The GM wisely had my tech based character not be capable of understanding this beyond ancient artifact manufactory and efforts made to understand the controls ended up causing the machine to be destroyed.

Altair_the_Vexed
2014-08-19, 09:03 AM
When one of the team was suddenly attacked and ripped to shreds by werewolves, the mage of the team interrupted the normal flow of initiative, fully healed the victim, and killed the assailants - all in one spell, all in one out-of-turn action.

From this point on, the rest of the players just declared the game was "The Magic Wizard Show" and refused to help, seeing as he could do anything better than they could.

Hunter Noventa
2014-08-19, 09:15 AM
We had an artificer in one gestalt game make an entire team of golems that were driven by his followers that could combine into one even bigger golem.

Then he proceeded to utilize some bizarre combination of divine wish magic and time travel to create, uncreate, then recreate the whole plane of existence in order to save everyone on it and make a world powered by SCIENCE! (TM).

There was a power point presentation involved.

Jay R
2014-08-19, 09:35 AM
Let m0 = rest mass of an object
v = velocity
c = the speed of light

The the relativistic mass m = m0 / [sqrt(1-(v/c)^2]


If a grain of sand weighs 50 mg and Everest weighs 6,399,000,000,000 tons, then there are 127,980,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand in Everest. If an asteroid impacts at 50 m/s and light travels at 300,000 km/s, then light travels at 5,995,849 times faster than asteroids. So Everest sized asteroids are 21,344,766,451,730 more energetic than light-speed sand grains.

OK, lets take the mass of Everest as about 3* 10^15 kg

If the velocity is 0, the relativistic mass of the grain of sand is 50 mg.
If the velocity is .99 c, then the relativistic mass is about 350 mg.
If the velocity is .9999 c, then the relativistic mass is about 3,500 mg, or 3.5 g.
If the velocity is .999999 c, then the relativistic mass is about 35 g.
If the velocity is .99999999 c, then the relativistic mass is about 350 g.
If the velocity is .9999999999 c, then the relativistic mass is about 3,500 g.
If the velocity is c - c*10^12, then the relativistic mass is about 35 kg.
If the velocity is c - c*10^14, then the relativistic mass is about 350 kg.
If the velocity is c - c*10^16, then the relativistic mass is about 3,500 kg.
...
If the velocity is c - c*10^28, then the relativistic mass is about 3.5 * 10^15 kg, or more than Mount Everest..

Note: don't think of relativistic mas as mass, which is an intrinsic property, but as mass plus energy. That's why the term "relativistic mass has fallen out of favor recently. But it's still the correct property for determining the momentum involved in a collision, so it's the correct quantity for this problem.

So, yes, a grain of sand moving at a high enough velocity can do more damage than an Everest sized meteor. The problem, I suspect, is that people are grossly underestimating the time it would take to get it up to that velocity.

One of the problems of mixing magic with science is the fact that we are accounting for physical changes at relativistic speeds, but not magical ones. For instance, how many times can a portal teleport something per six-second round? That sand is traveling almost 1,800,000,000 meters in a round. Assuming the glass cylinder is a meter high or smaller, can the portal activate well over a billion times per round? Is there any slow down cause by the jump? How much mass can it handle? Does the gravitational field of a particle that small the weight of Everest distort the cylinder?

If somebody tried this in my world, he would discover that, like much other magic, the portal actually activates once per round, or that it can't transport more than about a ton, or some other commonsense limit that lets it do what the spell is supposed to do, without letting an abuse of modern physics grant it far more power than it was intended to have.

The PCs are not the only inventive idiots in the world. If fairly easy, mid-level magic could destroy the world, it would have been destroyed by now.

Jormengand
2014-08-19, 09:37 AM
The PCs are not the only inventive idiots in the world. If fairly easy, mid-level magic could destroy the world, it would have been destroyed by now.

So basically like a combination of the Tippyverse and the apocalypse?

DM Nate
2014-08-19, 10:15 AM
Plus, there's the conservation of energy. Gravitation force alone does not equal or create energy, which is one reason no one's made perpetual motion machines. I would rule in my game that the energy created by a falling-sand-particle-bomb could not exceed the energy spent creating the portal spell. Which would be whatever I wanted it to be.

LibraryOgre
2014-08-19, 11:05 AM
Anyone else have PCs who wanted to use Polymorph Any Object or something similar to create several kilos of francium or cesium?

Jormengand
2014-08-19, 11:12 AM
Anyone else have PCs who wanted to use Polymorph Any Object or something similar to create several kilos of francium or cesium?

Yes.

"I'm sorry, but you'll need to take a DC 100 knowledge (nature) check to know that either of those exists."

I suppose if you had a friendly truenamer/cleric to give you a +35 (20 guidance of the avatar, 10 hidden truth, 5 universal aptitude) on your check, you miiiiight manage it. :smalltongue:

Storm_Of_Snow
2014-08-19, 11:24 AM
The reverse gravity spell with water giving perpetual motion idea from an earlier post - there's actually an even simpler version.

Build a wheel with weights evenly distributed around the rim, then cast that reverse gravity spell so that the area of effect covers exactly half the wheel. Then start the wheel spinning so it's going down in normal gravity and up in the reverse gravity region.



One of the problems of mixing magic with science is the fact that we are accounting for physical changes at relativistic speeds, but not magical ones. For instance, how many times can a portal teleport something per six-second round? That sand is traveling almost 1,800,000,000 meters in a round. Assuming the glass cylinder is a meter high or smaller, can the portal activate well over a billion times per round? Is there any slow down cause by the jump? How much mass can it handle? Does the gravitational field of a particle that small the weight of Everest distort the cylinder?

If somebody tried this in my world, he would discover that, like much other magic, the portal actually activates once per round, or that it can't transport more than about a ton, or some other commonsense limit that lets it do what the spell is supposed to do, without letting an abuse of modern physics grant it far more power than it was intended to have.

Also, does the grain of sand start in the exact middle of the cylinder, and is thus perfectly balanced with respect to the gravitational attraction of the cylinder walls?
If the grain perfectly spherical and of even density, to maintain that perfect balance?
Is the cylinder perfectly uniform in it's construction, with no variations in mass throughout the structure?
Is the environment around the cylinder perfectly uniform, with no denser materials in one area that could attract the grain of sand, especially when it starts to build up it's own gravitational effects?
Is the cylinder mounted on a platform that perfectly insulates it from any vibrations that would move the cylinder?



The PCs are not the only inventive idiots in the world. If fairly easy, mid-level magic could destroy the world, it would have been destroyed by now.
Although, the more you make something idiot-proof, the harder the universe works to build a better idiot... :smallwink:

YossarianLives
2014-08-19, 11:24 AM
This isn't that ridiculous but one time my sorcerer hurled himself off a mountain and cast feather fall because he couldn't be bothered to walk down it.

Orderic
2014-08-19, 11:43 AM
Concerning the falling sand particle: We need to find a finite, self contained demiplane with fixed gravity, preferably empty and without any air. If it is neither, one could still make a riverine cylinder, constructed in such a way that it loops back into itself while staying completely straight and emptying this cylinder of all matter except the sand particle. This should get rid of most problems, although the problem now is to find such a plane.


The reverse gravity spell with water giving perpetual motion idea from an earlier post - there's actually an even simpler version.

Build a wheel with weights evenly distributed around the rim, then cast that reverse gravity spell so that the area of effect covers exactly half the wheel. Then start the wheel spinning so it's going down in normal gravity and up in the reverse gravity region.

Not needlessly complicated and elaborate enough. Of course, it would have worked... but that would be just as boring as making an airship by filling balloon with helium, when you could use a giant ball of magically hardened ice that contains a vacuum. Which was another idea that, unfortunately, never become a reality.

Necroticplague
2014-08-19, 11:54 AM
While the party was gearing up for a few day for a battle, I left to do some epic spell research and prep for the fight. Thanks to epic spellcasting, Heal+transform seed use, and a few Simulacrams of myself, the resultant spell was cast:


Spellcraft DC: 0
Components:V, S, DF
Casting Time:10 minute
Range:Personal
Target:Self
Duration:Instantaneous
Saving Throw:Fortitude negates (see text)
Spell Resistance:Yes

This spell reduces the caster briefly into a primordial soup before re-sculpting them into a form mocking their original one, now appearing like a black hole shaped like their previous form with constant ripples moving under the surface. This restorative change neutralizes poisons in the subject’s system so that no additional damage or effects are suffered, offsets feeblemindedness, cures mental disorders caused by spells or injury to the brain, dispels all magical effects penalizing the character’s abilities, including effects caused by spells, even epic spells developed with the afflict seed, and completely cures all diseases, blindness, deafness, hit point damage, and temporary ability damage. (Note, the following are all Extraordinary abilities). The caster gains regeneration 50, is unaffected by nonlethal damage, stunning and death by massive damage, takes a a -8 penalty on any skill check that involves fine motor control or a sense of touch, such as Open Lock or Sleight of Hand checks,gains a +4 bonus on Concentration checks provoked by damage.They can now fold space around themselves (simulating the spells ethereal jaunt, dimension door, greater teleport, or plane shift) at will as a standard action. Any creature or object that comes into contact with the caster is immediately disintegrated unless it succeeds at a Fortitude save (DC 10+1/2 HD). A character or object that has been disintegrated by the caster disappears completely, leaving behind not even dust to mark its passing. Those who make a successful saving throw still take 5d6 points of damage from the disintegrating touch. Likewise, weapons or objects that save take a like amount of damage. The caster gain a flight speed of 90 (perfect). The caster may also assume the shape of any combination of physical nondeific creatures at the same time as a free action.Whatever its present form, the caster retains all its own special qualities. Plus, it gains the advantage of up to four extraordinary abilities from the forms it mimics (but not spell-like or supernatural powers). The assumed form can be no smaller than a flea and no larger than 200 feet in its largest dimension . Incorporeal traits can also be assumed, which counts as a single extraordinary ability. If a caster assumes a partial form that confers an extraordinary ability already possessed by the creature, only the better of the two abilities is retained. No matter its form, the caster can never make more than five attacks using a full-round action.

This spell is a ritual that requires 5 casters to use up a 3rd level spell slot, while a 6th one uses up a 4th level slot, in addition to the epic spell slot the caster uses to cast this spell.



Basically, I left a squishy caster, I came back a nigh-invincible shapeshifting black hole.

The Random NPC
2014-08-19, 02:04 PM
I was once playing in a game loosely based on the War of the Roses. It was about a year before the war was supposed to kick off, and magic had returned to the world in the previous year. Our party had made a name for ourselves by doing the standard murderhobo thing and killing the new and scary monsters plaguing our town (St Albans). Because we had done so well, we were being courted by both the Yorks and the Lancasters. We decided that we didn't want to serve either one, and would create a third faction. Now since St Albans didn't have a large poplulation, I decided to create our army from scratch. My party convinced me that undead wouldn't be well received, so I had to go with golems. I started with about 7 homunculi and gave them enough HD to grab Craft Construct. I also gave them Cooperative Crafting (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/cooperative-crafting). I was able to craft about one million gold worth of magic items a day; and coupled with the kingdom building rules I was able to generate a lot of gold for crafting. I created thousands of golems and Telepathic Bonded them so that if any one of them was attacked, all the rest would be aware of it. The best part, as it turned out, our GM had been running two groups in the same universe, and was changing the game base on what we did. The original plan was to have the two groups join opposite sides and have the groups compete against each other, but after the sudden introduction of the Teleporting Golem Hivemind, the other group was spun off into their own universe.


Anyone else have PCs who wanted to use Polymorph Any Object or something similar to create several kilos of francium or cesium?

Nope, but I've wanted to Polymorph Any Object up some Chlorine TriFluoride (http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_time.php)...


...
*And here's the important part: The DM had an odd version of feather fall, which prevents falling damage...but doesn't actually slow you down. So, the player hit the villain's fortress at several kilometers per second, and took no damage. The fortress, on the other hand...

I think Feather Fall used to simply negate fall damage, rather than slow you down.

Jormengand
2014-08-19, 02:24 PM
Nope, but I've wanted to Polymorph Any Object up some Chlorine TriFluoride (http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_time.php)...

I've had someone try Dioxygen Difluoride, too.


Ray Bradbury taught us that paper burns when exposed to oxygen at temperatures above 451°F. Dioxygen difluoride is so volatile that it makes almost any organic substance ignite and explode at any temperature hotter than 300°F below zero. It can literally make ice catch fire. (https://what-if.xkcd.com/40/)

That's right. Ice burns. Glass would shatter from several metres away due to the rapid temperature change, even if the explosion itself didn't blow the windows out.

The same player had previously been playing Paragon in a modern setting, and his character made a science check on 12d6b7 (7 int 5 science) to answer the question "What's the nastiest thing I could do to the enemy base?" and ended up rolling 38 when the maximum that anyone can ever roll for anything is 48. In a pile-of-d6s system.

So yes, I let him do that. Then we played D&D, and I did not let him do that.

Socksy
2014-08-19, 05:13 PM
The reverse gravity spell with nsity, to maintain that perfect balance?
Is the cylinder perfectly uniform
Having mobile issues, but can I sig the paragraph about making things idiot proof and the universe building a bigger idiot?

I've made elementals Mendeleev style, and I've cast Light on eyeballs. So nothing much, off the top of my head

Mr Beer
2014-08-19, 05:29 PM
<facts>

If somebody tried this in my world, he would discover that, like much other magic, the portal actually activates once per round, or that it can't transport more than about a ton, or some other commonsense limit that lets it do what the spell is supposed to do, without letting an abuse of modern physics grant it far more power than it was intended to have.

The PCs are not the only inventive idiots in the world. If fairly easy, mid-level magic could destroy the world, it would have been destroyed by now.

Thanks for the calcs, makes sense.

Agreed, in any normal campaign there is no way the PCs get to McGyver their way into levelling the game world like that.

Milodiah
2014-08-19, 05:39 PM
I suspect the Inevitables exist specifically as a form of "no stop doing that you'll break the universe" police. And I feel like most of the calls they go out on are originated with PCs.

Icewraith
2014-08-19, 06:09 PM
Plus, there's the conservation of energy. Gravitation force alone does not equal or create energy, which is one reason no one's made perpetual motion machines. I would rule in my game that the energy created by a falling-sand-particle-bomb could not exceed the energy spent creating the portal spell. Which would be whatever I wanted it to be.

Actually, we have this quantity we call "potential energy" or "gravitational potential energy" which is the amount of energy gained or lost by changing elevation in a gravity well. Nobody's made perpetual motion machines because when you expend energy to set a system to its original state, you expend more energy than the system released going from its original to current state. If you performed the process so slowly that you never lost any energy to friction or noise or heat you'd still only break even.

When you get right down to it, magic is essentially the ability to ignore the laws of thermodynamics. If you could set up a path through non-euclidean space (aka a wormhole) such that an object passing through the wormhole arrives several miles above the mouth of the wormhole without affecting its velocity, and devised a way to keep the path from the "end" of the wormhole to the "beginning" a perfect vacuum, the idea would indeed work. Without magic, you'd spend tremendous quantities of energy maintaining the wormhole.

Averis Vol
2014-08-19, 06:40 PM
I like how 9 out of 10 "Most absurd magics you've ever used" are actually just people working over their dm's to let them do things the rules don't with spells that don't work the way they stated it while trying to introduce real world physics into a fantasy game.

Leviting
2014-08-19, 07:08 PM
I suspect the Inevitables exist specifically as a form of "no stop doing that you'll break the universe" police. And I feel like most of the calls they go out on are originated with PCs.

I have yet to find an Inevitable in charge of preventing people from taking advantage of the various laws of the universe, even if it breaks it. In a matter of fact, Obligatum VII (and all its predecessors), from Elder Evils, exists in order to break the universe, as justice cannot be fulfilled until Pandorym is freed.

Forrestfire
2014-08-19, 10:14 PM
That would be the Quarut, which goes after people using wish and time stop effects because they're putting little puts holes in reality, right?

Demidos
2014-08-19, 10:31 PM
I was playing a homebrew witch class, with hexing abilities (SLAs) that functionally gave me a sleep spell with no HD cap. In this case, the hex had been quickened.

Our party had been exploring an underground maze when we ran into a high level trogdolyte ice-based druid. Several rounds of trouncing us later, the druid got bored, and cast a spell that killed our DPS, then walked away, covering his retreat with an impenetrable ice wall. My angry character decided to avenge his fallen comrade, and ran in the other direction. Through some rather lucky guessing, he somehow came out just ahead of the surprised druid, put him to sleep, and performed a coup de grace.

A single round to defeat the foe who had posed a serious challenge to the entire party. The DM later told me that he basically needed to roll a 1 to fail against the save. Which, being a druid, was hardly surprising. The funny part is that the plan WORKED.

Leviting
2014-08-19, 11:14 PM
That would be the Quarut, which goes after people using wish and time stop effects because they're putting little puts holes in reality, right?

Whoops, I forgot about that one. So that would mean the bureaucracy of Mechanus and it's various creche-forges is so terrible, that some forges are building reality preservers, while one is trying to unmake reality. That is sad.

Wraith
2014-08-20, 03:19 AM
My two favourite absurd magical shenanigans are ones that I have been introduced to through GitP. So I haven't witnessed them as such, but they're still very cool. :smalltongue:

Firstly, the Locate City Bomb (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?238254-Locate-city-bomb). I know that, by RAW, it's doesn't strictly work as it might look, but I don't care. Were it cool and/or amusing, I'd let it go in one of my games. :smallwink:

And secondly, Swordguy deals 485 Quintillion damage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=2010735&postcount=38) to some poor sucker. Whenever I read a story about bad players or bad GMs making things unfun, it cheers me up to know that people can still do things like this to each other. :smallbiggrin:

Storm_Of_Snow
2014-08-20, 03:24 AM
Not needlessly complicated and elaborate enough. Of course, it would have worked... but that would be just as boring as making an airship by filling balloon with helium, when you could use a giant ball of magically hardened ice that contains a vacuum. Which was another idea that, unfortunately, never become a reality.
My apologies, I'll try and do better.

What about a device that casts symbol of sleep once an hour during the hours of darkness in order to cure people of insomnia? Too simple? :smallwink:


I've had someone try Dioxygen Difluoride, too.
That's right. Ice burns.

Technically it oxidises, it just happens to do so very rapidly.


Having mobile issues, but can I sig the paragraph about making things idiot proof and the universe building a bigger idiot?

I wish I could take credit for originating that line (and I can't remember who is responsible), but I would be honoured. :smallsmile:

DM Nate
2014-08-20, 07:42 AM
Actually, we have this quantity we call "potential energy" or "gravitational potential energy" which is the amount of energy gained or lost by changing elevation in a gravity well. Nobody's made perpetual motion machines because when you expend energy to set a system to its original state, you expend more energy than the system released going from its original to current state. If you performed the process so slowly that you never lost any energy to friction or noise or heat you'd still only break even.

When you get right down to it, magic is essentially the ability to ignore the laws of thermodynamics. If you could set up a path through non-euclidean space (aka a wormhole) such that an object passing through the wormhole arrives several miles above the mouth of the wormhole without affecting its velocity, and devised a way to keep the path from the "end" of the wormhole to the "beginning" a perfect vacuum, the idea would indeed work. Without magic, you'd spend tremendous quantities of energy maintaining the wormhole.

I'm aware. In my campaigns, magic is presented as simply another method to interact with the physical universe, like how magnetism can affect ferromagnetic materials. As such, my magic also has to follow the most basic laws of thermodynamics.

Jay R
2014-08-20, 07:44 AM
Plus, there's the conservation of energy. Gravitation force alone does not equal or create energy, which is one reason no one's made perpetual motion machines. I would rule in my game that the energy created by a falling-sand-particle-bomb could not exceed the energy spent creating the portal spell. Which would be whatever I wanted it to be.

Certainly gravity is not creating energy. It's converting potential energy to kinetic energy. The teleport spell moving the particle from the bottom or the cylinder to the top is creating potential energy.

So you are absolutely right - the magic is creating the energy, so how much energy can that level of magic create?



That's right. Ice burns.
Technically it oxidises, it just happens to do so very rapidly.

Gosh, if only we had a short, common word that means "oxidizes very rapidly".

How about ... "burns"?

DontEatRawHagis
2014-08-20, 09:08 AM
AoE attacks seem to turn tough encounters into nothing to write home about.

DM: you see a large group of 20 heavily armored guys.
Wizard: Are they within 50ft of each other?
DM: Yes they're in formation.
Wizard: Fireball! *damage*
DM: *rolls saves* ...*cries*

Jay R
2014-08-20, 09:28 AM
AoE attacks seem to turn tough encounters into nothing to write home about.

DM: you see a large group of 20 heavily armored guys.
Wizard: Are they within 50ft of each other?
DM: Yes they're in formation.
Wizard: Fireball! *damage*
DM: *rolls saves* ...*cries*

Why is the DM crying? He deliberately had this unit commit suicide, and his plan worked.

19th century infantry knew that they should spread out against artillery fire, but form into a tight square against cavalry.

This is just an infantry unit facing artillery in the wrong formation. Against a wizard, they should be spread out, and they should open with long-range missile or AoE fire. And from the start of the encounter to the end, a half-dozen archers should have a readied attack to use when the wizard starts casting a spell. That's one of the things minions are for - to lay down a covering fire against attackers.

Marching in the open in a tight formation against a wizard is as absurd for the warriors as casting Detect Magic instead of Fireball is for the wizard.

If the warriors refuse to fight the wizard correctly, they will lose - just as if the wizard refuses to fight the warriors correctly, she will lose.

DontEatRawHagis
2014-08-20, 10:08 AM
Why is the DM crying? He deliberately had this unit commit suicide, and his plan worked.

19th century infantry knew that they should spread out against artillery fire, but form into a tight square against cavalry.

This is just an infantry unit facing artillery in the wrong formation. Against a wizard, they should be spread out, and they should open with long-range missile or AoE fire. And from the start of the encounter to the end, a half-dozen archers should have a readied attack to use when the wizard starts casting a spell. That's one of the things minions are for - to lay down a covering fire against attackers.

Marching in the open in a tight formation against a wizard is as absurd for the warriors as casting Detect Magic instead of Fireball is for the wizard.

If the warriors refuse to fight the wizard correctly, they will lose - just as if the wizard refuses to fight the warriors correctly, she will lose.

The worst part is that the DM sees this and decided to have us as players go up against large numbers of these groups. The result was we just say back while the wizard killed everything. No variety on the DM part after that.

Jay R
2014-08-20, 10:53 AM
The worst part is that the DM sees this and decided to have us as players go up against large numbers of these groups. The result was we just say back while the wizard killed everything. No variety on the DM part after that.

Then your problem isn't that wizards can beat anything. Your problem is that your DM doesn't know how to attack a wizard.

Icewraith
2014-08-20, 04:08 PM
I'm aware. In my campaigns, magic is presented as simply another method to interact with the physical universe, like how magnetism can affect ferromagnetic materials. As such, my magic also has to follow the most basic laws of thermodynamics.

Sooooo... when your thermodynamics-respecting wizard Gates in an outsider, where is he getting the small universe's worth of energy required to bend spacetime without causing localized lethal gravity waves and maintain the effect long enough for the outsider to pass through the "portal"?

I get that smaller effects could be paid for by completely converting the mass of the material components into energy. Why wizards would bother with flinging fireballs around instead of just running up to their opponents, disintegrating them and using the energy for tremendous spell effects is beyond me.

As far as absurd magic, my group has used the epic spellcasting rules more or less as-is at the table. That certainly won't be happening again.

Milodiah
2014-08-20, 04:43 PM
Please tell me Nailed to the Sky came up at some point or other. Not only do you more or less irrevocably defeat the enemy, it also comes with the side effect of accidentally winning the space race.

Mr Beer
2014-08-20, 05:09 PM
Then your problem isn't that wizards can beat anything. Your problem is that your DM doesn't know how to attack a wizard.

Especially bad since D&D has a 40+ year history full of practical ways to ensure that the fireball is rarely a 'kill everyone' spell unless dealing with trivial mooks.

Every old school module I've read has numerous encounters with '...and this is why fireball/lightning bolt/cone of cold won't help' information attached.

DM Nate
2014-08-21, 06:40 AM
Sooooo... when your thermodynamics-respecting wizard Gates in an outsider, where is he getting the small universe's worth of energy required to bend spacetime without causing localized lethal gravity waves and maintain the effect long enough for the outsider to pass through the "portal"?

I get that smaller effects could be paid for by completely converting the mass of the material components into energy. Why wizards would bother with flinging fireballs around instead of just running up to their opponents, disintegrating them and using the energy for tremendous spell effects is beyond me.

As far as absurd magic, my group has used the epic spellcasting rules more or less as-is at the table. That certainly won't be happening again.

There's a couple possible explanations. One is that magic is tapping into energy differentials already at place in the universe, kind of like how a waterwheel taps into a river to do productive work. The potential (but finite) energy is massive, but the bottleneck is the efficiency of the waterwheel.

Another explanation (and one that my current campaign uses (http://www.DarkHaunt.net)) is that souls themselves can be a type of fuel (combining some elements of the Nine Hells with the Magic of Incarnum). Consequently, every time a magic-user casts a spell, he loses a bit of life to create it.

Icewraith
2014-08-21, 04:37 PM
Please tell me Nailed to the Sky came up at some point or other. Not only do you more or less irrevocably defeat the enemy, it also comes with the side effect of accidentally winning the space race.

No, people quickly picked up on the strength of the epic spellcasting rules in producing long-term permanent effects easily mitigated with large amounts of ritual casting and preparation. On one hand, it got everyone's creative juices flowing. On the other, people got increasingly creative.

Nailed to the Sky is just plain stupid when most opponents are running around with teleportation. A Nailed to the Sky that repeats the effect if the target gets back to land would be pretty sweet though, or a permanent version of the "Gravitational Upset" from "the Color of Magic" (mainly in bringing that one XKCD comic to life).

The Mythal seed resulted in a pimped out mobile base with a main weapon inspired by Bahamut's breath weapon and the Death Star. There were security features, AI, all kinds of awesome ridiculousness. We had a gentlemen's agreement not to actually use it offensively since it was pretty close to an auto-win. Also, if we ever get that campaign running again, I have figured out how to penetrate all relevant security measures. :)

The polymorph's seed's baseline permanent duration (IIRC) resulted in the ability to cherry-pick monster abilities and graft epic magic into characters. Popular choices included out-nymphing the nymph's CHA to everything and blinding beauty, some way to get actual free action greater teleports, yoinking the LeShay's innate weapon ability and building a sword into an arcane gish that would make Sephiroth feel inadequate, and shattering a wall of force and using the shards as wings, blade barriers, temporary armor, and regenerating ranged weaponry depending on the situation.

Now, with all this nonsense going on, you might think it became even more difficult to challenge the PCs, yet somehow I persevered. For instance, the PCs ran into the ghost of an ancient swordmaster (Gestalt Warblade//Monk/Fighter) possessing a souped-up combat golem running an amped-up version of 3e haste. Opponents researched their own epic spells. It turns out if you have the right epic contacts and enough magical favors, there's a secret organization that will rent you 20-30 HD multiweapon fighting six armed blue dragonspawn minions with huge spiked chains and Destroy seed breath weapons. (Note: the Destroy seed always gets a caster level check to blow through magical obstructions, prismatic spheres, and Sevenfold Veil veils without the incredible annoyance of Disjunction)

Most ridiculous was probably their base though (although having a place they could retreat to and actually be SAFE in some ways helped the campaign tremendously and led to some excellent roleplay). And I suppose if I do subvert it, I won't even be bypassing the safeguards by the rules, but by an unintended consequence of an artifact I introduced primarily to annoy the party wizard.

An utterly useless close second was when one of the players decided to develop an epic spell closer to the spirit the epic spellcasting rules were seemingly intended to be used (i.e. on impressive one-shot combat effects). It became known as "level drain implosion time". (Remember the "peanut butter jelly time" song? Yeah. Gonna have that stuck in my head the rest of the day probably.) It rarely worked because so many things were immune to death effects and level drain, but it was certainly impressive when it did work.

Milodiah
2014-08-21, 04:56 PM
Oh no, I don't consider Nailed to the Sky as a valid combat technique by any means, considering teleportation being a thing. I just find it hilarious that "place into stable orbit around the planet" is actually a specific spell effect.

Sir Chuckles
2014-08-21, 05:08 PM
With vacuum damage. Can't forget that.

Milodiah
2014-08-21, 05:12 PM
Also, judging by what you said, I think you may have actually succeeded in putting the "epic" into "epic level campaign". I mean, what's the point of playing 20+ if all that happens is your abilities continue to scale up and match the scaled-up enemies'? There's gotta be some absurd demigod powers in there somewhere, or you might as well just go back to level 5!

Necroticplague
2014-08-21, 06:47 PM
No, people quickly picked up on the strength of the epic spellcasting rules in producing long-term permanent effects easily mitigated with large amounts of ritual casting and preparation. On one hand, it got everyone's creative juices flowing. On the other, people got increasingly creative.

Like the example I had earlier in this thread? I probably could have slapped more things on it, but I didn't want it to get dissaproved by the DM. Hilarious how the research works means that its entirely possible to have a spell that takes longer to cast then research (and as cast time gets bigger, research time needed gets smaller).

Diachronos
2014-08-22, 12:52 AM
One of my DMs had a homebrew system where he ended up giving each of us a form of magic. It had some normal ones like shapeshifting and beast control, but we also had some strange powers, such as...

Magic stones that function around a certain "element", like fire, water, electricity, or (what one of our players used) plants.
Luck magic
Threads of force that function similarly to telekinesis/Spider-Man webs
Illusion magic that functions like the illusions used by kitsune and tanukis from Japanese mythology... except the catalyst is hair instead of a leaf, and you can eventually create actual spell effects.

I ended up with a beard that continuously grew. I turned it into samurai armor.

rainwise
2014-09-02, 12:05 AM
My friends and I play this (http://www.rpgsimple.com)game right here, and let me tell you. It was a game that focused very heavily on magic. It had a TON of magic spells, which made it really flexible and cool at times.

But other times...

1--Creator forgot to put a size limit on the "conjure stone structure" spell. The players escaped from a sinking ship by conjuring a stone lid for the ocean and walking to the shore. I think at one point he committed genocide by putting a dome over an entire nation and blocking them from sunlight or rain.

2--Teleportation spell just said you could teleport up to 100 yards. So rather than teleporting people up to 100 yards away, one group interpreted it as saying you could teleport up to 100 yards....OF STUFF. With no range limit. So that was another nation gone, as this one spellslinger just kept teleporting small mountains over its cities and towns.

3--Best for last. Creator thought it was hilarious, so he put it in the site's description. There is a spell to make the insides of containers larger than the outside. He was trapped on a crumbling tower with hordes of evil whatnots charging up the spire stairs. The usual stuff that happens before you die. But he took off his pants, chucked them off the tower, enchanted the pocket, and dove in. Since pants don't fall as fast, he landed at the bottom and was pretty much fine. He proceeded to trap other people in his pants and then set them on fire.

LibraryOgre
2014-09-02, 11:47 AM
He proceeded to trap other people in his pants and then set them on fire.

If I die in the next 20 minutes, I want this on my tombstone. :smallbiggrin:

Ettina
2014-09-02, 11:48 AM
This isn't that ridiculous but one time my sorcerer hurled himself off a mountain and cast feather fall because he couldn't be bothered to walk down it.

My mage used to do that all the time in World of Warcraft.

Anyway, the coolest thing I've seen in one of my campaigns was a sireine whose opponent made the mistake of trying to escape from her over water. She jumped in the lady's boat, yanked her out into the water, then started swimming straight down while grappling her. Meanwhile she was draining Int with her touch until the target became comatose.

She decided she didn't actually want to kill this woman, though, and hauled her back up. Then she handed the lady to her boss for questioning, and removed the Int drain.

Not as cool as some of the ones here, but still pretty cool. Never, ever, try to fight a sireine in the water!

Arbane
2014-09-03, 05:49 AM
So basically like a combination of the Tippyverse and the apocalypse?

The Tippypocalypse. This is now a thing, if it wasn't already. It's like a Wightocalypse, only instead of spawn-creating undead running wild, it's spellcasters, converting everyone else in the universe into equally ridiculous spellcasters or corpses. (Which will then be reanimated.)



So you are absolutely right - the magic is creating the energy, so how much energy can that level of magic create?

All the energy. ALL OF IT. Which is the point where the Anti-Spirals decide to drop the moon on you.

NichG
2014-09-03, 07:52 AM
Lets see, most absurd magic? I was playing in a very high-powered, post-epic game with a lot of homebrew. The DM had made one of the guiding concepts of the campaign 'lets see how far we can push things while keeping things finite (e.g. Test of Spite-like limitations) and still have there be a meaningful game'. An early-game one-off plotline was us dealing with the Great Wheel cosmology falling through conceptual space towards mundanity, to give a reference frame for the power scale. Only infinite loops and the like were banned - everything else was encouraged, to drive things crazier and crazier.

The most ridiculously absurd magic I have ever seen in a game was an at-will magic power called 'Cascade' which showed up in the late-game. The ability of this spell was simple: it doubles the next thing you do. It was one of the only things that ever ended up being nerfed in that campaign. What made it worse was that it was combined with a player who didn't really understand exponentiation ('Hmm.. I appear to be stuck somewhere and my dimensional gate spell isn't getting me home. I spend a couple hours using Cascade, then try it again.')

Jay R
2014-09-03, 11:55 AM
If I die in the next 20 minutes, I want this on my tombstone. :smallbiggrin:

That's an epitaph you have to earn. Good luck with it.

Doorhandle
2014-09-06, 08:25 PM
This isn't that ridiculous but one time my sorcerer hurled himself off a mountain and cast feather fall because he couldn't be bothered to walk down it.

Reminds me of myself. In any video-game, if falling makes me get there faster, I will jump.