Non-magical way to make object float in a fixed position permanently?

[Jowgen]

Just as it says on the tin.

Lets say you want to make a table float 100 ft in the air. Or a chandellier in the exact middle of a room. And you want this floatation to persist indefinently and not be affected by AMFs, Disjunctions, or GOIs. Nothing may touch the object, and the object's composition can't be altered for floatation purposes.

Any ideas anyone?

[flappeercraft]

Just as it says on the tin.

Lets say you want to make a table float 100 ft in the air. Or a chandellier in the exact middle of a room. And you want this floatation to persist indefinently and not be affected by AMFs, Disjunctions, or GOIs. Nothing may touch the object, and the object's composition can't be altered for floatation purposes.

Any ideas anyone?

Fill it with compressed helium? Maybe a couple 100's PSI would work, just fill make it out of something that wouldn't burst. If it can't hold it and bursts, then you at least had a nice piñata

[SirNibbles]

You could make a simple paper lantern, whereby the flame's heat causes the lantern to rise. Unfortunately, you can't use magic to make the flame last forever so you're limited.

A sealed room with gasses of different densities could be used, but only on objects with low densities. The objects would float in between the gas layers.

[unseenmage]

Maybe the Soarwood special material from Eberron?
IIRC it makes their airships lighter, not weightless.

Here's hoping it can still help though.

Alternatively, magnets exist in D&Dverse.

[Psyren]

Craft it as an Animated Object? As long as you don't use the spell it should be a regular construct and thus persist in AMF, not be dispellable etc.

Alternatively, see if you can get it haunted by something. Though I'm not sure if incorporeal creatures avoid winking out even if they're inside a body inside an AMF...



Alternatively, magnets exist in D&Dverse.

But how do they work?

[icefractal]

Put Immobile Rods inside it, completely enclosed. None of those anti-magic effects go through walls, and there's no magic to dispel on the item itself, so it stays up. Cover them in lead and it won't detect as magic either.

[EvulOne]

The object in question floats above a vertical wind tunnel that is JUST heavy enough to balance in the spot above the tunnel.

[Goaty14]

Invisiblity the ropes hanging it, that, or a ton of really thin adamantine strings.

[ben-zayb]

Put it in the astral plane?

Otherwise,change the plane's gravity?

[Gusmo]

Suspension is a level 4 spell from Shining South. It isn't permanent, but it does have a days/(level+1d4) duration. As a move action you can direct objects under the effects of suspension, and when you're not concentrating on moving them they stay in place.

[Mordaedil]

Missing the part about non-magical there...

I mean, this isn't possible using physics, so I don't see how you'd do it with even less technology available. Only magic would be able to do.

[Malacandra]

Fill it with compressed helium? Maybe a couple 100's PSI would work, just fill make it out of something that wouldn't burst. If it can't hold it and bursts, then you at least had a nice piñata

Compressed helium? You want helium at atmospheric pressure if you want it to lift anything. Less would be nice but balloons at least need to have as much pressure inside as out. If your hollow table is holding helium at ten bar then all you've got is helium weighing times what it needs to, and there goes your lift.


This question reminds me of a piece of dialogue from Mort by Terry Pratchett, in which Mort is asking Cutwell the wizard if it's possible to walk through walls. "By magic?" asks Cutwell. "Um, no, I don't think so," says Mort. "Most people would use the door," says Cutwell. "The one over there would be favourite, if you're just here to waste my time."

[Nifft]

Alright, we can't change the composition of the object.

Let's change the composition of the air.

The room is sealed, so filling it with compressed Radon might make some very light objects "float".

[ExLibrisMortis]

Creating a planar rift to a zero-gravity plane will work. A spherical demiplane with constant gravity across the surface would cause objects inside to experience no gravity.

Cheesily, Alter Reality can make Nailed to the Sky permanent.

[Nifft]

Cheesily, Alter Reality can make Nailed to the Sky permanent.



Nailed to the sky actually places the target so far from the surface of the world and at such a speed that it keeps missing the surface as it falls back, so it enters an eternal orbit. (...)


Wasn't it already kinda permanent?

[Pleh]

Put it on a plane with subjective gravity. An object can't choose a direction to fall and would simply stay in a given momentum state.

On the material plane, there is no real, physical, nonmagical solution that will be perfect.

To truly get an object to float on air nonmagically, it has to be submersed in a gas that is denser than the object. This basically does not happen without magic anyway. If you compress a gas to this density, it becomes a liquid or solid. Any humanoids caught in pressures this extreme have bigger problems than reaching a floating object.

If you want a wooden table to float, fill the room with water (or put it in a transparent water tank).

You could use propulsion systems, like rockets or propeller blades, but they would need constant or regular fueling. This also might break your "nothing touches the object" rule, much like any rope or chains would.

Magnets get closer to what you want, but to sustain a constant position, you'd pretty much need programed electromagnets to compensate for any movement. Not to mention that any hero wearing steel armor or weapons could easily be pulled into the field.

You might want to look at Quantum Levitation (https://youtu.be/Ws6AAhTw7RA). Problem here being that you would need to keep the object supercold (not just very cold, we're talking about liquid nitrogen at -196 Celsius or -381F). Again, you'd either need to routinely chill the object almost like the fueling problem, or the environment would be this cold (again, creating bigger problems for the heroes than reaching a floating table) and you'll still be using magnets. Another thing is that quantum locking doesn't work at this object size (maybe diminuitive and smaller), but in a fantasy game, if you work out the logistics, why not bend the rules a bit?

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Make a flying construct that can hover as the table or as something that hold the table in place.

[Sagetim]

Just as it says on the tin.

Lets say you want to make a table float 100 ft in the air. Or a chandellier in the exact middle of a room. And you want this floatation to persist indefinently and not be affected by AMFs, Disjunctions, or GOIs. Nothing may touch the object, and the object's composition can't be altered for floatation purposes.

Any ideas anyone?

Well, install a ring of magnetic material in the cieling, then build the thing you want to stay in place out of a super conductive material. Then super cool the super conductor, and throw it up into place. It will stick itself to the magnetic field of the magnet and hang there, at least until it warms back up. Now, keeping it cold is a great question, but I think that would be a pretty neat way to do it.

oh, just saw taht Pleh beat me to the punch about Quantum Levitation.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Wasn't it already kinda permanent?
Why yes, you are completely right. I was thinking it was a permanent spell, but it's instantaneous, so you don't even need Alter Reality! (and epic magic can be found on every street corner, as we all know!)

[flappeercraft]

Compressed helium? You want helium at atmospheric pressure if you want it to lift anything. Less would be nice but balloons at least need to have as much pressure inside as out. If your hollow table is holding helium at ten bar then all you've got is helium weighing times what it needs to, and there goes your lift.


This question reminds me of a piece of dialogue from Mort by Terry Pratchett, in which Mort is asking Cutwell the wizard if it's possible to walk through walls. "By magic?" asks Cutwell. "Um, no, I don't think so," says Mort. "Most people would use the door," says Cutwell. "The one over there would be favourite, if you're just here to waste my time."

Huh, weird, my science teacher was wrong apparently.

[shaikujin]

Just as it says on the tin.

Lets say you want to make a table float 100 ft in the air. Or a chandellier in the exact middle of a room. And you want this floatation to persist indefinently and not be affected by AMFs, Disjunctions, or GOIs. Nothing may touch the object, and the object's composition can't be altered for floatation purposes.

Any ideas anyone?

You can buy a trained Dust Twister mount for 1,500 gp in Sandstorm pg 103.
It's a medium sized air elemental with perfect flight (meaning it can hover).

If you don't want it to be seen, make a hidden compartment within the table or chandelier and put some handholds for the Dust Twister. (Or simple tell it to carry the item on it's head)
Have it hide in the compartment, then tell it to fly to the spot you want, and give it the "stay" command.

[Malacandra]

Huh, weird, my science teacher was wrong apparently.

Yeah, if they were talking about making things float with compressed helium then they sure were. The reason for using helium (or hydrogen - it's not as dangerous as you think) is that a litre of it replacing a litre of air is about, what, one-eighth the mass, so you get an uplift equal to the missing seven-eighths. Putting more helium into the same space is the exact opposite of what you want. Of course, the weight of a litre of air isn't much, so to lift any reasonable payload you need a lot of light gas, which is why a Zeppelin was way bigger than a 747 but carried far fewer people.

[Avigor]

Please define GOI? Never seen that term before and Google failed me.

[frogglesmash]

Please define GOI? Never seen that term before and Google failed me.

My guess is Globe of Invulnerability.