Psionic Sandwiches, How Do They Work?

[aleucard]

A friend of mine, when shown this little bit of insanity, immediately cried bull**** on it. His argument was, since a sandwich doesn't have the biological equipment required to think or otherwise be alive, it is by default dead the instant whatever means of Polymorph used to get it into a Possession-capable state wears off. What explanation can you give that would permit this thing to work as advertised (he doesn't argue against the sandwich being the player, he argues against it being alive) rather than a uniquely quirky method of suicide? Any other potential issues with it that you could explain would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Renen]

Because DnD doesnt care if you have "brain matter" or not. How do gargoyles stay alive, if they are made of stone?
Magic!
How does a sandwitch stay sentient even though its so tasty?
Because its a level 20 psion!
And because Magic!

[Troacctid]

Because magic.

Seriously, it is literally magic. You can metamorphosis into an inanimate object just fine, it's not that big a deal.

[(Un)Inspired]

That's his problem this the psionic sandwich?!?

Wizard who can create his own plane of reality? No problem.

Living sandwich? How dare you you have the audacity to play something so ridiculous.

[Necroticplague]

This is dnd. Not alive doesn't equal dead, and you don't need a brain to think. Its entirely possible to awaken a golem to sentient thought, despite not having any biology. From the evidence (namely magic jar), your intelligence is more related to your soul than your brain in dnd, and thus method ends up with your soul in a sandwich.

Also, if he's focusing on the fact a sandwich was used, he's kinda missing the point. You could literally replace the sandwich with anything that can be polymorphed. While the point was to make the most useless character ever, you could easily replace the sandwich with something very strong to make a very good character.

[Renen]

You could literally be a psion that took the shape of a loincloth worn by the party barbarian. And aside from some severe mental scarring you would be perfectly capable of using any of your powers.

[Troacctid]

It's not like you need any weird trick to do it either. Again, metamorphosis, turn into an inanimate object for 1 hour/level, right out of the box. The trick just lets you do it permanently.

[Telok]

You could literally be a psion that took the shape of a loincloth worn by the party barbarian. And aside from some severe mental scarring you would be perfectly capable of using any of your powers.

I know a couple of husband and wife gamer couples who would have no problem with that.

[johnbragg]

TL DR: Your friend is using real-world logic to a setting where those rules don't hold. Expecting a sandwich in a fantasy world to obey physics rather than the whims of a high-level psion is as wrong as expecting a sandwich in the real world to levitate if you concentrate hard enough.


A friend of mine, when shown this little bit of insanity, immediately cried bull**** on it. His argument was, since a sandwich doesn't have the biological equipment required to think or otherwise be alive, it is by default dead the instant whatever means of Polymorph used to get it into a Possession-capable state wears off. What explanation can you give that would permit this thing to work as advertised (he doesn't argue against the sandwich being the player, he argues against it being alive) rather than a uniquely quirky method of suicide? Any other potential issues with it that you could explain would be appreciated. Thanks!

I don't know psionics, so this may be a series of stupid statements and questions, but...
...normally polymorphing puts you into the same physical limitations as the thing you polymorph into.
If you polymorph yourself into a fish in the middle of the desert, you're going to die unless you also get air breathing cast on your or something.
So if you polymorph yourself into a sandwich, you're a sandwich for 1/min level or about 3 hours (if psionic polymorph works the same as SRD polymorph and polymorph any object with yourself as the target). You can't talk(verbal), you can't move(somatic), you can't carry and manipulate objects (material components)

So a wizard in sandwich form is fairly useless, having to burn higher-level spell slots to cast Still Silent anything, assuming you have the ESchew Materials feat. But psionics doesn't use components, so a psion could disguise virself as a sandwich, or more seriously as a necklace or an earring, and psion away.

A psion is fundamentally a mind. PArt of psionics is the idea that the material body is very secondary to that mind.

/