Can You Shrink Item A Lighning Bolt?

[unseenmage]

Shrink Item contains a perplexing bit of precedent in that it allows one to shrink a campfire down into a handkerchief, fold it up, and stow it in their pocket.

If it works on fire, would it work on static electric discharge?

Why, why not, and how would you manage to time it if you could?

[Zaq]

A campfire isn’t Instantaneous.

[Jay R]

A lightning bolt isn't a thing which generates energy, like a campfire is.

If the players had an electrical generator that shot out lightning bolts, then they could shrink the generator, but not the bolt itself.

Also, Shrink Item is a touch spell. I assume that the wizard touches the non-burning end of a log. But there's no "non-burning" end of a lightning bolt. You can't "touch" a lightning bolt without getting hit by it.

[Psyren]

Even a burning fire and its fuel can be shrunk by this spell.

The "even" suggests to me that this is a special/unexpected case rather than one that can be extrapolated.

[Jay R]

As a player, I would never try it. A campfire is an object, but a lightning bolt is not.

As a DM, I would disallow it. "[O]ne nonmagical item" is not a spell effect, or anything instantaneous.

The crucial fact is that your DM will rule on this. We can suggest how he or she is likely to rule, but it will still be up t the DM.

[gooddragon1]

I'd allow it. It would still discharge though. It's not in stasis. Would probably deal a lot less damage. Might be an interesting way to counter a spell.

So treat it as a special counter spell if you can reach. Or ready an action to cast for some other reason.

[unseenmage]

Hm. Could we shrink the cloud just before it discharges the bolt?

[Zaq]

Hm. Could we shrink the cloud just before it discharges the bolt?

You mean the natural phenomenon, not the spell? Pretty sure your caster level isn’t high enough to fit a natural cloud within 2 cubic feet per CL.

I guess if you’re using recursive CL BS, then maybe you could use shrink item on a natural cloud if you can get within touch range, but there’s no reasonable way to get the requisite CL without hardcore shenanigans. Also not sure how you’d predict that it would be “just before it discharges.” Maybe a crazy high Survival check, extrapolating from the “predict weather” function of Survival? Not sure if any RAW divination spells would actually help with that. Arguably foresight, but that seems like an unnecessarily big gun to use...