Fun with Voidstone?

[Jowgen]

Lets say, you have a character with a Fortitude save modifier of 24 and the Steadfast Determination feat. Lest I am missing something, this character can handle Voidstone all day long and never be annihilated by the stuff.

Now there is bound to be some fun to be had here, right? :smallsmile:

All suggestions welcome

[ATHATH]

What book is voidstone from?

[Jowgen]

What book is voidstone from?

I have found mentions of it in the DMG, MotP, BoED, and EoE. It's that solidified negative energy stuff that Sphere's of Annihilation are allegedly made from.

[Extra Anchovies]

It's ambiguous whether voidstone can be moved by means other than its normal attraction to creatures, so I'm having trouble thinking of anything particularly useful. You could fill a sealed, preferably underground room with voidstone by using yourself to draw voidstones through portals from the negative energy plane, and then kill people by teleporting them into the voidstone. Would also make for a nice garbage disposal if you had a way to access the room without pulling the voidstone out - I'm sure there's something that could be done with ring gates.


What book is voidstone from?

It's in the DMG, from the sample Negative Energy site.

ETA: Jowgen, do MotP, BoED, or EoE give more stats on it? I'm just running off what the DMG says about it.

[Alex12]

We've got to make some assumptions about what voidstone does and how it works, but I think they're reasonable assumptions.
The biggest assumption I'm making is that it's a disintegration effect- since even Negative Energy Plane natives (aka undead) die to voidstones, and they're compared to spheres of annihilation, this isn't an unreasonable assumption. I'll be proceeding under the assumption that this is the case.
Assume it can't be Crafted into something useful directly, based on the lack of any stats for same. Obviously, if it can be forged in some way into a weapon, then you have a weapon make of solid "go away" and that's always cool. If it only can't be crafted due to tools limitations, well, you can touch the stuff, and Versatile Unarmed Strike allows you to do different types of damage, which should probably be enough to at least count as improvised tools- enough to make a club of the stuff.
Third assumption is that it's in chunks of a size small and light enough to be carried usefully. Since it's, well, stone, assuming it naturally occurs in the sorts of sizes stones can be found in seems reasonable.
There's no description I can find about what it does to objects. Ask your DM. However, there's two major possibilities. Either it disintegrates objects as well as creatures, or it doesn't.
If it doesn't affect objects, then it's time to get really good at improvised weapons. Use your random hunk of voidstone and just beat your foes to death with it. You might even be able to Mountain Hammer it to pieces and use it as improvised sling ammunition, or embed the stuff in the head of a hammer. After all, even if you can't shape it, you might still be able to break it into pieces and use the pieces. If your DM allows you to find/make dust of the stuff, well, even better- it's like throwing flour on invisible foes, except the flour destroys them (would they make saves for each fleck of powder, or just once per round total? Who knows?)
If Voidstone does work on objects, then you have some real hilarity, especially if you've got a more-or-less inexhaustible supply. After all, chances are if your Fort save is +24, you're probably tough enough to survive pretty much anything anyone throws at you. Which means you could be used as, for instance, siege engine ammunition, holding your lump of oblivion in front of you, as you're hurled through the air toward (for example) an enemy fortress, obliterating everything in your path until something or someone rolls a 20. Then you beat them to death with the voidstone. And then you get to treat the voidstone as at-will Mountain Hammer But Better. If, in some lapse of judgement, your DM allows you to craft the stuff, then hilarity ensues, as you use your tower shield (which use handles rather than straps, and can thus be made of solid voidstone) to simply walk forward as you carve a hole through whatever is in your path.
Just don't fall asleep or unconscious holding the stuff, or you might die due to unconscious=willing and if you're doing this, your DM might be feeling vindictive. Also, if voidsone works on objects, you probably don't want to set it down, or you'll end up missing gear (as it falls through the ground) and the proud owner of a new hole in the ground that may or may not become a volcano (once the gear falls far enough.)

[Jowgen]

ETA: Jowgen, do MotP, BoED, or EoE give more stats on it? I'm just running off what the DMG says about it.

Not really. I've re-checked, and this is everything I could find:

MotP rehashes the DMG info. UA mentions the existence of "Trapped Voidstone" as an optional material compoenent that can empower Disintegrate spells. BoED suggests enclosing an artifact in Voidstone as a possible means of destroying it. Planar Handbook has a place with lots of Voidstones as a Planar Touchstone site. EoE has a tactical encounter that features a pillar of voidstone that the enemy tries to bull-rush one into.

There might be something in Dragon mag or Dungeon mag; but checking those takes forever... :smallfrown:


There's no description I can find about what it does to objects.

It says it right in the DMG that "Indeed, anything that comes into contact with a voidstone is destroyed in seconds". Anything includes Objects.

Now I like your approach to this thing, so lets see what I can add.

First off, well spotted on the Unconsciousness=Willing thing. Gotta make contingencies for that.

UA mentions "Trapped" voidstone. How does one trap something that destroys "anything" it touches? One might default to Force-effects, but then again, Spheres of Annihilation specifically waste force effects, as does Disintegrate, which a spell that Voidstone empowers. I don't see it. I would say it's more likely that voidstone needs to be magically suspended. As in, you get a contained that automatically holds the voidstone in place inside itself using magehand or whatever.

Next up, I would also very much argue that one should assume that Voidstone is unaffected by natural gravity; moving only under its own attraction to living things as well as things that make physical contact without getting annihilated. I say this for 2 reasons. First, the Sphere of Annihilation does it. Second, if it doesn't, then dropping a single piece of the stuff on the material plane would cause that piece to sink to the core of the planet and slowly devour it. Way OP.

I've also had some ideas about "forging" voidstone. Technically, there should really be no problem. Attended items "make saving throws as their owner", meaning the benefit of Steadfast Determination should apply, so using tools to shape the stuff should work. Obviously, this stinks from a realism perspective. Personally, I am partial to the idea of using one of the "Negative Energy Fire" effects (e.g. Ritual of Dark Flames, LoD) to "melt" the Voidstone, and then reshape the stuff.

Also, on a side note, I think that the voidstone's attraction to living things is potentially usefull. Voidstones would stick like magnets to our Steadfast Determination character.

Lastly, a hillarious thought just occured to me. What if you get a voidstone, and you throw it at the Bastion of Unborn Souls, which is made from solidified positive energy? I mean, I severely doubt it would be enough to break into the thing, but still, it seems like the result should be funny.

[Alex12]

Not really. I've re-checked, and this is everything I could find:

MotP rehashes the DMG info. UA mentions the existence of "Trapped Voidstone" as an optional material compoenent that can empower Disintegrate spells. BoED suggests enclosing an artifact in Voidstone as a possible means of destroying it. Planar Handbook has a place with lots of Voidstones as a Planar Touchstone site. EoE has a tactical encounter that features a pillar of voidstone that the enemy tries to bull-rush one into.

There might be something in Dragon mag or Dungeon mag; but checking those takes forever... :smallfrown:



It says it right in the DMG that "Indeed, anything that comes into contact with a voidstone is destroyed in seconds". Anything includes Objects.
I'll admit I pretty much went "what's voidstone? Sounds like some weird NEP stuff. I have a pdf of Manual of the Planes on this computer, so I'll check that. Oh, hey, there it is! Neat." And didn't think to check anywhere else.


Also, on a side note, I think that the voidstone's attraction to living things is potentially usefull. Voidstones would stick like magnets to our Steadfast Determination character.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that only voidstone quantities of a certain size are attracted to living things. Look at the description of the voidstone field in the DMG again- there's 3 sizes of the stuff (small chunks roughly a foot across, boulders that take up a square, and big chunks that are at least 10 feet across) and only the one-square ones move. If the smaller ones moved, that encounter would be a lot more dangerous.
Hm. I wonder if it'd be possible to use a block of the stuff as a transportation method? It's attracted to the nearest thing, which, if you're touching it, is presumably you. Keeping in mind that your equipment shares your saves (and thus presumably your immunity to the stuff), couldn't you make something that would allow you to strap yourself to the block and basically rotate your orientation relative to the voidstone so that it just carries you in front of it? Granted, it's slow- 1d3 squares per round- but it also ignores pesky things like terrain, means you don't need to keep having your friend cast Fly (I think we can agree the average caster won't have a Fort modifier of +24 and Steadfast Determination) and guarantees nobody's going to attack you from behind.

Also, it's not stated, but I'd imagine that the attraction has a range limit, since voidstone isn't just the general hazard that I'd expect it to be on the NEP if it were.

[Zaq]

If you want to get really, really stupid with the RAW, your 24 Fort + Steadfast Determination trick won't technically work. The relevant sentences from the DMG (pg. 157 for those of you playing along at home) are "Indeed, anything that comes into contact with a voidstone is destroyed in seconds. Unlike with a sphere of annihilation, a character touching a piece of voidstone gets a DC 25 Fortitude save each round he or she stays in contact with it."

What we don't see is what that DC 25 Fort save does. It doesn't say "a DC 25 Fort save to resist its effects." It just says you get a DC 25 Fort save, but there's nothing about succeeding on the Fort save making you not be "destroyed in seconds." I'm not just selectively editing that out, either—nothing in the entire section states that the Fort save does anything to let you not be destroyed. (It's possible that one or more of the later, non-DMG sources expand this a bit; the DMG is the only relevant book I have open at the moment.)

Obviously, this is way less interesting than what you're discussing, and I do feel like RAI is pretty painfully clear. So I'm not saying that you're doing it wrong. I'm just saying that if you ever want to do this in a real game, make sure you have a GM who actually goes with what's interesting instead of with hypertechnical parsing of the RAW.

[Jowgen]

Actually, I'm pretty sure that only voidstone quantities of a certain size are attracted to living things.
[...]
Also, it's not stated, but I'd imagine that the attraction has a range limit, since voidstone isn't just the general hazard that I'd expect it to be on the NEP if it were.

The attraction property is very ill defined, barely covering what is needed for that one encounter. Plus, I strongly assume that this encounter description did the common thing of only giving details for what happens when the average medium humanoid fights; so an underlying explenation that can be used to generate different scenarios needs to be made up by the DM. I personally would default to the simplest logical explenation for the known behaviour, which I see working as follows.

A voidstone of a given size will move -at the specified rate of 5-15 ft /round- towards any living creature that a) comes within a range that is proportional to the voidstone's size and b) is at least as large as the voidstone itself. Voidstones that are 1-square in size have an attraction range of at least several 10s of feet and attract to anything of small or larger size. Voidstones smaller than 1 square have a an attraction range of less than 5 ft, and do not move towards any creatures that don't enter their square. You have to enter their square for them to move towards you. Voidstones larger than 1 square have a potentially very long attraction range, but will only move towards a living creature of a volume equal to theirs (i.e. at least large).

That is my take on it, anyway.


It's possible that one or more of the later, non-DMG sources expand this a bit

I think the EoE encounter featuring the voidstone pillar covers this in enough detail (although it does leave out objects): "A creature that comes into contact with the pillar must succeed on a DC 25 Fortitude save or be destroyed as if it had come into contact with a sphere of annihilation."

[Jowgen]

I found another source on the stuff!

Dungeon magazine 153 contains the adventure "the Prisoner of the castle perilous", which takes the PCs to yet another broken-off piece of the city of Moril (where all that stuff happenened in past editions) on the NEP.

Since this issue is one of the free-online releases WotC made available for online download after they stopped actual printing with issue 150, there should be no issue with me posting some more detailed text from it (If I'm wrong there, please scrub).

Now for the actual info, this adventure features a whole bunch of doors made from Voidstone as obstacles; and we get a Trap-style entry for them and both a Knowledge check side-bar and a "how to deal with" side-bar.

Voidstone Door Trap: CR 17; mechanical; touch trigger; automatic reset; annihilation (Fortitude DC 25 or disintegrated); Search DC 24; Disable Device —

A PC with ranks in Knowledge (the planes) may have valuable knowledge about the properties of voidstone with the proper check on the table below.
Knowledge (the planes)
DC Result
DC 20 These black stones can be found floating throughout the Negative Energy Plane and vary from tiny to colossal.
DC 25 Voidstone is a concentrated form of negative energy that is extremely hazardous to handle.
DC 30 Anything that comes into contact with voidstone is instantly destroyed.
DC 35 It is believed that voidstone might be the building blocks for such items as the sphere of annihilation. However, voidstone cannot be controlled through mental energy

Because of the nature of the wishes used to place these barriers in the tower, transmutation magic does not affect them (passwall, stoneshape, stone to flesh, and so on). The PCs may easily bypass them with the password (if they learn it), but otherwise spells such as dimension door are a viable way to get past. The down side is that they probably end up in areas 6 or 7. If the PCs examine the voidstone door, they can attempt DC 20 Search or Knowledge (architecture and engineering) checks to notice that it is not fastened to its frame or even touching the tower. Small gaps around the demonic slab could be used to navigate past, provided the PCs have the magical resources or powers needed to alter their sizes or body composition to Diminutive size or smaller, or to become gaseous. Of course, they might also use magic to simply deal enough damage to destroy it. The PCs can also attempt to physically batter it down, though this is by far the riskiest way of dealing with it.

Taken together, this all gives us a bunch of vital information on how voidstone works. :smallbiggrin:

First, from the trap entry, we can tell that the voidstone's effect does work like a Disintegrate, but as the trap is described as mechanical and there is no Disable Device DC to suppress the effect, we can conclude this a non-magical (i.e. Ex) Disintegrate. Voidstone can be used to destroy Walls of Force while in an Antimagic Field.

The knowledge entry only really gives us the DCs, which I guess is handy.

Lastly, from the "getting past entry", we can tell the following.
- Voidstone that hasn't been treated with Wish spells generally responds to spells that affect regular stone.
- Voidstone does not block teleportation like solid positive energy does.
- It is likely that Voidstone ineed naturally hovers motionless in a normal gravity environment like a sphere of annihilation does; as the inside of the tower has regular gravity but the doors still don't move in their no-touch fittings.
- Voidstone can be damaged and destoryed by magic. As it is affected by stone-affecting spells and no seperate values are given, it seems like one is meant to assume it has the Hardness and HP/Inch of regular stone.


Based on all of this, I change my earlier stance on how the attraction power works to "the stuff remains motionless unless it is of a certain size and floating through the negative energy planes".

[Jowgen]

Update for those interested: when going through Unearthed Arcana, I missed one interesting thing about Voidstone, namely that there is another spell that it can be used as a Metamagic component for: Disjunction.

Using a 8600 gp piece of trapped Voidstone when casting Disjunction causes it to be both enlarged and widened. That makes it the equivalent of a 14th level spell.

So you can get Trapped Voidstone that costs 3100 gp (disintegrate) and also trapped voidstone that costs 8600 gp. I would assume this means you need a piece that's about 3 times as big?

Furthermore, to get a planar metamagic component, "In general, it takes a day of scavenging and a DC 30 Knowledge (the planes) check to find enough of the relevant raw material in its purest form to serve as a metamagic component."

Lastly, I checked with Afroakuma about significant mentions of Voidstone in other editions, and apparently there is nothing.

[Graypairofsocks]

If stuff that works on normal stone works on void stone, then you should be able to use Stone Shape (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/stoneShape.htm) to make it into a Weapon.

[Jowgen]

If stuff that works on normal stone works on void stone, then you should be able to use Stone Shape (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/stoneShape.htm) to make it into a Weapon.

If we assume the same stats for stone weapons, that would give it hardness 8 and between 1-5 HP depending on size, and have a -2 penalty to attack and damage, according to A&E. Not that those matter, considering the complete and utter disintegration of anything that touches it and fails the DC 25 save.

In the same vein, I think the simple of armor could also conceivably be made from it (Dwarven stone armor from A&E and Thaluud stone armor are 2 precedents); provided of course you can get it working without the need for straps. Thaluud talks about hinges, and Shape Stone does have a 70% chance of making those work. Anyone know any simpler options?

Lastly, does anyone know wheter -from a rules perspective- incorporeal things would be subject to the Voidstone's effects?