Going supersonic

[ayvango]

Sometimes game rules overstep real physics by a great margin.

People tend to extract absurdity from free actions. They assume (falsely) that free action takes literally zero time to perform and deduce many irregularities from division by zero. Free action has never actually described as having zero time. It just has negligible cost and has specific notion that DM could limit free actions as he finds reasonable. So Quick Draw doesn't literally take zero time, but could be performed seamlessly as part of move or attack action. Likewise rapid reloading light crossbow actually takes some time which could be incorporated into firing the said crossbow. But if you try to traverse great distances mounting/dismounting through line of horses with free actions DM could stop you somewhere about 3rd horse being perfectly rules legal.

Putting aside shenanigans there are pretty straightforward methods to get supersonic speed. First is the notorious Footstep of Divine spell. Being extended and persisted it allowed user to traverse 351 km single round (6 sec) giving about 58.5 km/sec speed. Quite a feat. More then enough to escape solar system. And you could add some more obscured options to double that speed again. Like using shadow miracle with extended illusion. Well, it is an iconic example of bad design in D&D. When author give out with fancy spell mechanics in pursuit for flavor and uniqueness giving little thought to interoperating with other game options.

Another option have no obvious guilty. Just normal buffs staking on a composite bow to increase its shooting distance. Basic distance - 110ft, Far Shot feat gives 1.5x, Distance weapon enhancement - 2x, Hawkeye spell gives 1.5x, Accuracy spell gives 2x, Wind Tunnel spell gives 2x. Full 10 range increments would give us total 19800 feet, 3.75 mile or 6.035km. Considering the projectile should traverse all distance in single round (6 sec) we would get 1005m/s. Mach 3. And if you would insistent on stacking more obscure options, weapons and classes, you could double that distance and double the speed consequently. It's funny how little damage supersonic arrows inflict considering its weight and speed.

[Mr Adventurer]

Sometimes game rules overstep real physics by a great margin.


Yes, and I welcome the majority of times it happens, because I'm here to oppose evil and fight monsters, not do calculations or care about physics apart from that necessary to fight monsters.

[Vizzerdrix]

Yes, and I welcome the majority of times it happens, because I'm here to oppose evil and fight monsters, not do calculations or care about physics apart from that necessary to fight monsters.

Maybe this is his way of fighting the evil catgirls?

[AvatarVecna]

We can get arrows more ridiculous than that.

And just so we're clear, the rule about "two doublings is a tripling" is in regards to game-mechanic-only values like damage and crit range, real-world values like weight and distance multiply normally. Oh, and let's put aside exactly how you're getting all of these abilities crammed into one build; maybe it's a tristalt game, or a high-op game where you can steal class features or something.

Anyway, first step is maxing out range increments:
base 130: Composite Greatbow weapon (Complete Warrior)
base +20: Dragonbone material (Draconomicon)
base +20: Ranged Weapon Mastery feat (Player's Handbook II)
x1.5: Far Shot feat (Player's Handbook)
x1.5: Aerial Avenger 4/Range Increase class ability (Dragon Compendium)
x1.5: Hawkeye spell (Spell Compendium)
x2: Distance weapon enchantment (Dungeon Master's Guide)
x2: Accuracy spell (Complete Arcane)
x2: Wind Tunnel spell (Spell Compendium)
x2: Colossal weapon modifier (Savage Species)
post-multiplier +100: Deepwood Sniper 10/Range Increment Bonus class ability (Masters of the Wild)
+5 range increments: Cragtop Archer 3/Arcing Shot (Races of Stone)

This gets us to a maximum range of 139200 ft, or approximately 26.36 miles. Ah, but that's not in six seconds. You see, when you make a full attack, you can decide after you see the result of each arrow where you want to target the next one; if the third arrow kills your target at the edge of your range, you can aim the fourth arrow elsewhere. Thus, when making a full attack, each arrow takes at most its own equal amount of time relative to the full six seconds. How many attacks can you make in six seconds at full range? Well...

If you can pick up immunity to Daze and get enough maneuvers/spells/items to pull it off, you could do something like this:
Cast "Time Stop" with a Greater Rod Of Extending to get as many as 10 "rounds" of free time this round
For each of those ten rounds, use the "Time Stands Still" maneuver to make two full attacks
After using "Time Stands Still", swift-action activate a Belt Of Battle for all three charges to get another full attack. You'll need a bunch of belts but that's not a huge issue in TO.

From there, we just need to max out the number of attacks we can make in a full attack:
4: BAB (core)
1: Rapid Shot (core)
1: Haste (core)
1: Whirling Frenzy barbarian (UA)

Yeah that seems like some pretty hefty investment. Sure, the Splitting enchantment would end with more arrows in the air, but also that doesn't increase the number of arrows fired, so it doesn't change how quickly we're shooting in the sense we're trying to figure out. So in the six seconds it takes for this Time Stop to finish, you'll get a total of 210 attacks that can go out to that full distance in their fair fraction of the six seconds. Each arrow is traveling at ~3321818 mph, or approximately 0.00495 C (half a percent of the speed of light). And because these arrows are Colossal instead of Medium, each size up is going to have x8 mass/volume/weight, so they each weigh 614.4 lbs (incidentally, these arrows would be about 24 ft long and have a diameter of 4 inches; why does that matter well you'll see). That's got a kinetic energy of 3.073 x 1014 joules.

For comparison, real-world kinetic bombardment systems end involve taking a 20-ft long, 1 ft diameter tungsten rod (which weighs in at around ~18876.9 lbs) traveling at Mach 10 (~3430 m/s). It's about the same size, and it's much much heavier, but it's also much much slower, bringing its kinetic energy to 5.03679 x 1010, meaning our super-magic'd arrow is packing about 6000 times as much kinetic energy as an orbital bombardment system. And it's just dealing 8d8 damage.

Without even getting into Footsteps Of The Divine shenanigans, especially since it was errata'd to not be Persist-able, we can get to some absurd speeds by just teleporting. Have your lvl 20 caster take part in Circle Magic to get CL 40 for the day, have them cast Greater Consumptive Field and murder a beehive for another +20, and...that's enough CL cheese for now, I think. Anyway toss on Wayfarer Guide 3 for some nice teleport benefits, and cast Teleport to go 9000 miles in (at most) 6 seconds. Really most of the round is spend casting with the actual act of teleportation taking a fraction of a second, but let's pretend it takes a full 6 seconds. That's still 1500 miles per second, compared to the 922 miles per second the arrows were traveling at. But if we use Greater Teleport instead, there's actually no real range limit, so we can just go as far as we want in that six seconds and just break all the physics. Which is none, because physics is a mild suggestion in-game rather than the law it is in our world.

[Saintheart]

Just normal buffs staking on a composite bow to increase its shooting distance. Basic distance - 110ft, Far Shot feat gives 1.5x, Distance weapon enhancement - 2x, Hawkeye spell gives 1.5x, Accuracy spell gives 2x, Wind Tunnel spell gives 2x. Full 10 range increments would give us total 19800 feet, 3.75 mile or 6.035km. Considering the projectile should traverse all distance in single round (6 sec) we would get 1005m/s. Mach 3. And if you would insistent on stacking more obscure options, weapons and classes, you could double that distance and double the speed consequently.

I think your physics are off, based on the fact a standard action notionally takes less than 6 seconds. If you can do a move and an attack in a round, the arrow's travelling the same distance in maybe 3 seconds or so, thus, Mach 6, a tad slower than the X-15, fastest aircraft ever built. Gets proportionally better if your archer full attacks.

[Elkad]

Without even getting into Footsteps Of The Divine shenanigans, especially since it was errata'd to not be Persist-able, we can get to some absurd speeds by just teleporting. Have your lvl 20 caster take part in Circle Magic to get CL 40 for the day, have them cast Greater Consumptive Field and murder a beehive for another +20, and...that's enough CL cheese for now, I think. Anyway toss on Wayfarer Guide 3 for some nice teleport benefits, and cast Teleport to go 9000 miles in (at most) 6 seconds. Really most of the round is spend casting with the actual act of teleportation taking a fraction of a second, but let's pretend it takes a full 6 seconds. That's still 1500 miles per second, compared to the 922 miles per second the arrows were traveling at. But if we use Greater Teleport instead, there's actually no real range limit, so we can just go as far as we want in that six seconds and just break all the physics. Which is none, because physics is a mild suggestion in-game rather than the law it is in our world.

Teleportation isn't speed, because you don't traverse the distance. You cheat.

[AvatarVecna]

Teleportation isn't speed, because you don't traverse the distance. You cheat.

There's certainly not any reap momentum issues going on, but teleportation still requires treating the laws of physics as suggestions whether you consider it speed or not. If you'd prefer an example where we objectively go super-fast that isn't flagrantly ignoring mechanics, ylu could just set up a commoner railgun and get any single thing you want (including a person) traveling any arbitrary distance you desire in six seconds.

[ShurikVch]

We can get arrows more ridiculous than that.

And just so we're clear, the rule about "two doublings is a tripling" is in regards to game-mechanic-only values like damage and crit range, real-world values like weight and distance multiply normally. Oh, and let's put aside exactly how you're getting all of these abilities crammed into one build; maybe it's a tristalt game, or a high-op game where you can steal class features or something.

Anyway, first step is maxing out range increments:
base 130: Composite Greatbow weapon (Complete Warrior)
base +20: Dragonbone material (Draconomicon)
base +20: Ranged Weapon Mastery feat (Player's Handbook II)
x1.5: Far Shot feat (Player's Handbook)
x1.5: Aerial Avenger 4/Range Increase class ability (Dragon Compendium)
x1.5: Hawkeye spell (Spell Compendium)
x2: Distance weapon enchantment (Dungeon Master's Guide)
x2: Accuracy spell (Complete Arcane)
x2: Wind Tunnel spell (Spell Compendium)
x2: Colossal weapon modifier (Savage Species)
post-multiplier +100: Deepwood Sniper 10/Range Increment Bonus class ability (Masters of the Wild)
+5 range increments: Cragtop Archer 3/Arcing Shot (Races of Stone)

This gets us to a maximum range of 139200 ft, or approximately 26.36 miles. Ah, but that's not in six seconds. You see, when you make a full attack, you can decide after you see the result of each arrow where you want to target the next one; if the third arrow kills your target at the edge of your range, you can aim the fourth arrow elsewhere. Thus, when making a full attack, each arrow takes at most its own equal amount of time relative to the full six seconds. How many attacks can you make in six seconds at full range? Well...

If you can pick up immunity to Daze and get enough maneuvers/spells/items to pull it off, you could do something like this:
Cast "Time Stop" with a Greater Rod Of Extending to get as many as 10 "rounds" of free time this round
For each of those ten rounds, use the "Time Stands Still" maneuver to make two full attacks
After using "Time Stands Still", swift-action activate a Belt Of Battle for all three charges to get another full attack. You'll need a bunch of belts but that's not a huge issue in TO.

From there, we just need to max out the number of attacks we can make in a full attack:
4: BAB (core)
1: Rapid Shot (core)
1: Haste (core)
1: Whirling Frenzy barbarian (UA)

Yeah that seems like some pretty hefty investment. Sure, the Splitting enchantment would end with more arrows in the air, but also that doesn't increase the number of arrows fired, so it doesn't change how quickly we're shooting in the sense we're trying to figure out. So in the six seconds it takes for this Time Stop to finish, you'll get a total of 210 attacks that can go out to that full distance in their fair fraction of the six seconds. Each arrow is traveling at ~3321818 mph, or approximately 0.00495 C (half a percent of the speed of light). And because these arrows are Colossal instead of Medium, each size up is going to have x8 mass/volume/weight, so they each weigh 614.4 lbs (incidentally, these arrows would be about 24 ft long and have a diameter of 4 inches; why does that matter well you'll see). That's got a kinetic energy of 3.073 x 1014 joules.

For comparison, real-world kinetic bombardment systems end involve taking a 20-ft long, 1 ft diameter tungsten rod (which weighs in at around ~18876.9 lbs) traveling at Mach 10 (~3430 m/s). It's about the same size, and it's much much heavier, but it's also much much slower, bringing its kinetic energy to 5.03679 x 1010, meaning our super-magic'd arrow is packing about 6000 times as much kinetic energy as an orbital bombardment system. And it's just dealing 8d8 damage.Actually, it may be way way more ridiculous with much less resources:
Distant Shot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#distantShot);
Stargaze;
Shoot to the sky.FTL arrow!

[Asmotherion]

Sometimes game rules overstep real physics by a great margin.

People tend to extract absurdity from free actions. They assume (falsely) that free action takes literally zero time to perform and deduce many irregularities from division by zero. Free action has never actually described as having zero time. It just has negligible cost and has specific notion that DM could limit free actions as he finds reasonable. So Quick Draw doesn't literally take zero time, but could be performed seamlessly as part of move or attack action. Likewise rapid reloading light crossbow actually takes some time which could be incorporated into firing the said crossbow. But if you try to traverse great distances mounting/dismounting through line of horses with free actions DM could stop you somewhere about 3rd horse being perfectly rules legal.

Putting aside shenanigans there are pretty straightforward methods to get supersonic speed. First is the notorious Footstep of Divine spell. Being extended and persisted it allowed user to traverse 351 km single round (6 sec) giving about 58.5 km/sec speed. Quite a feat. More then enough to escape solar system. And you could add some more obscured options to double that speed again. Like using shadow miracle with extended illusion. Well, it is an iconic example of bad design in D&D. When author give out with fancy spell mechanics in pursuit for flavor and uniqueness giving little thought to interoperating with other game options.

Another option have no obvious guilty. Just normal buffs staking on a composite bow to increase its shooting distance. Basic distance - 110ft, Far Shot feat gives 1.5x, Distance weapon enhancement - 2x, Hawkeye spell gives 1.5x, Accuracy spell gives 2x, Wind Tunnel spell gives 2x. Full 10 range increments would give us total 19800 feet, 3.75 mile or 6.035km. Considering the projectile should traverse all distance in single round (6 sec) we would get 1005m/s. Mach 3. And if you would insistent on stacking more obscure options, weapons and classes, you could double that distance and double the speed consequently. It's funny how little damage supersonic arrows inflict considering its weight and speed.

Oh it's not the first and certainly not the last funny thing about RAW.

-Weather you fall 200 feet or free-fall from the stratosphere you'd receive the same damage (20d6).

-You can effectively swim in lava as long as you have Fire Resistance 1.

-You can heal someone who's at -5 hp by drowning them and then stabilising them.

-As soon as you have 8400 gp you can Wish loop for infinite candles of invocation; Every time you need a spell cast use one to gate in an Efreeti (wish for the spell/wish for an other candle/Grand efreeti one conditional wish so that it leaves you alone).

-You can use summon monster (and latter planar binding) to effectively farm enough xp to 20th level without leaving the safety of your home. Has you wonder why Mages adventure at all below 20th level.

-You can carry a hangchief that's actually a pool of lava that becomes a hangchief again at your comand. Any (unmetamagiced) blasting spell below 20d6 is obsolate as long as you have shrink item and permanancy available.

-The cost of Building/Salt/iron (weapons) would normally crash as soon as a Mage can cast Wall of Stone/Salt/iron and Fabricate. in the meanwile the Mage would be the richest person in the world wich would grant him every magic item he may desire.

-The totally non-magical Orb of Force that functions in an AMF.

-if you consume a Potion of Fireball do you cast fireball or explode in one?

-infinite damage (or infinite spells on your turn) through sanctum spell-Arcane Fusion.

Generally a DM will try to house-rule the most obvious RAW abuses but they are still there.

[ShurikVch]

-Weather you fall 200 feet or free-fall from the stratosphere you'd receive the same damage (20d6).To be fair - this damage is enough to kill your average citizen 60 times over.
Also, this phenomenon isn't unique to D&D: how often you seen, say, a comic book character hurt from falling (Gwen Stacy aside)?
The more embarrassing there is the byproducts such as Cachalot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/whale.htm#cachalotWhale) surviving the fall from orbit most of the times (unless he rolls the natural 1 on the Fort save). In your face, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!


-You can effectively swim in lava as long as you have Fire Resistance 1.Actually, you could write just "You can effectively swim in lava", and stop there: lava isn't as liquid as D&D authors, apparently, think - person who fall on lava will be fried, but wouldn't submerge (in case of fall from great height, possible broken bones).


-You can heal someone who's at -5 hp by drowning them and then stabilising them.But what's the point?
They would be dead on the third round anyway!
Exercise of futility!
There are less torturous ways of mercy killing.


-As soon as you have 8400 gp you can Wish loop for infinite candles of invocation; Every time you need a spell cast use one to gate in an Efreeti (wish for the spell/wish for an other candle/Grand efreeti one conditional wish so that it leaves you alone).Did you never heard of Jackass Genie (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JackassGenie)?
Well, all Efreeti are Jackass Genies, and they're really hate when somebody calling them in!
Are you still think it's a wise idea to call an Efreet - outside of the "last resort" situation?


-You can use summon monster (and latter planar binding) to effectively farm enough xp to 20th level without leaving the safety of your home. Has you wonder why Mages adventure at all below 20th level.Well, Planar Binding costs XP, and creature can to just refuse to come...
But what's about the Summon Monster? As a general rule, you don't get any XP for them... :smallconfused:


-You can carry a hangchief that's actually a pool of lava that becomes a hangchief again at your comand. Any (unmetamagiced) blasting spell below 20d6 is obsolate as long as you have shrink item and permanancy available.Well, Permanency costs XP, and Incorporeal creatures are immune 100%...


-The cost of Building/Salt/iron (weapons) would normally crash as soon as a Mage can cast Wall of Stone/Salt/iron and Fabricate. in the meanwile the Mage would be the richest person in the world wich would grant him every magic item he may desire.Well, certain extreme environments would eat right through the Wall of Stone, and Fabricate still didn't allow to create Masterwork items...


-if you consume a Potion of Fireball do you cast fireball or explode in one?Certainly "explode in one"!


-infinite damage ... through sanctum spell-Arcane Fusion.D2 Crusader do it better! :smallwink:

[Malphegor]

on jackass genies, I feel that some and most genies would probably grant weird wishes even if they're utter jackasses. Why?

Because of novelty! If nobody ever has wishes to have tentacle arms and athelete's foot with the consistency and composition of fresh lava, then the first person to do so is going to be highly entertaining!

[Kalkra]

With Footsteps of the Divine, Demon Wings, Haste, Wings of Swift Flying, Cloud Wings, Fly Like an Arrow, and the Shadow Creature template, without even discharging FotD you can get to 3,150 ft./round, and that doesn't use any items or feats, nor all the templates and spells available. You can add lycanthrope with a paragon base animal if nothing else.

EDIT: With the lycanthropy template and a warbeast paragon wolf base creature, ditching FotD, you can get up to 22,275 ft./round using the above spells and template. Add in either Grace or Speed of Though, Dash, Quickness, Planar Touchstone (Celerity), Lesser Celerity, Dark Creature template, Improved Speed, Belt of Battle, Tempo Bloodspike, Divine Vigor, Dread Carapace can replace Haste, Wild template, and Perfect Clarity of Mind, and all the classes that increase speed, most notable Blade Dancer, and you can get more speed than I have the patience to compute.

[PhantasyPen]

-You can carry a hangchief that's actually a pool of lava that becomes a hangchief again at your comand. Any (unmetamagiced) blasting spell below 20d6 is obsolete as long as you have shrink item and permanancy available.

I'm sorry, please explain to me *how* exactly you turned a pool of lava into a handkerchief? That sounds like a hilariously abuseable magic item.

[Vizzerdrix]

I'm sorry, please explain to me *how* exactly you turned a pool of lava into a handkerchief? That sounds like a hilariously abuseable magic item.

Shrink item spell and permenancy.

[ShurikVch]

Shrink item spell and permenancy.How the heck the pool of lava: Doesn't cooling?
Doesn't burn your pocket(/bag/whatever)?
Doesn't burn your hand when you throw it?

[goodpeople25]

How the heck the pool of lava: Doesn't cooling?
Doesn't burn your pocket(/bag/whatever)?
Doesn't burn your hand when you throw it?
Just guessing here but I'm thinking
1 Lack of specific rules for that happening in TO
2&3 Fire Resistance 1(+)

[Vizzerdrix]

How the heck the pool of lava: Doesn't cooling?
Doesn't burn your pocket(/bag/whatever)?
Doesn't burn your hand when you throw it?


Just guessing here but I'm thinking
1 Lack of specific rules for that happening in TO
2&3 Fire Resistance 1(+)

Go read the spell. It says why right in it.

[ShurikVch]

Go read the spell. It says why right in it.Well, the spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shrinkItem.htm) in question doesn't say if the shrunken (extremely hot) object neither doesn't burning it's direct surrounding, nor cooling naturally
Also, it's rather questionable if enemies are count as "solid surface"

[ayvango]

Well, the spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shrinkItem.htm) in question doesn't say if the shrunken (extremely hot) object neither doesn't burning it's direct surrounding, nor cooling naturally
Also, it's rather questionable if enemies are count as "solid surface"


Optionally, you can also change its now shrunken composition to a clothlike one.

So you could reduce anything to cloth.

[ShurikVch]

So you could reduce anything to cloth.Yes - molten-hot cloth, which, in time, will cool into a regular cloth, and could be "unshrunk" into a peace of cooled lava

[PhantasyPen]

Yes - molten-hot cloth, which, in time, will cool into a regular cloth, and could be "unshrunk" into a peace of cooled lava

The statement that you can do this to fire and its fuel seems to imply that the cloth does not cool.

[ShurikVch]

The statement that you can do this to fire and its fuel seems to imply that the cloth does not cool.And how you can cool a fire?
Fire may be extinguished, but not cooled - it's exothermic reaction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exothermic_reaction)...