Gaseous Form, solid surfaces and.. earth

[Chrizzt]

Hello Folks!

With gaseous form you can pass through “mere cracks“, but not through solid surfaces. A surface of water is explicitly stated as being unpenetratable.

What about regular unpacked earth, eg a lawn. Can you sink into the natural cracks that unpacked earth consists of?

[JellyPooga]

This is of course up to your GM to make a ruling on, but I would tend to say that I would not allow it. A crack in a stone floor, perhaps (even probably), IF it led somewhere or was big enough to hide in, but Gaseous Form doesn't grant a burrow speed and if it were intended to do so, it would.

[Willie the Duck]

With gaseous form you can pass through “mere cracks“, but not through solid surfaces.

My reading (so, declaring this an interpretation) of the intent of that is that you can pass through cracks in stone walls that separate two rooms (full of air), not to occupy the space of the wall in the mere cracks and fissures (simply not enough space). So when you apply this to a patch of earth, the through part kind of fails to register. If you set up a scenario where there was a 6-24" 'wall' of earth between two open spaces, I'd definitely rule that a gaseous individual could seep through that dirt between the two spaces, but not just linger within the soil.

[NNescio]

Hello Folks!

With gaseous form you can pass through “mere cracks“, but not through solid surfaces. A surface of water is explicitly stated as being unpenetratable.

What about regular unpacked earth, eg a lawn. Can you sink into the natural cracks that unpacked earth consists of?


The target can pass through small holes, narrow openings, and even mere cracks, ...

So, it depends on what your DM consider to be "small holes" or "mere cracks" (and "narrow openings", but that's easier to judge). Or more pertinently, how small is "small" and how mere is "mere"? (and how narrow is "narrow")

Pores and microfractures in soil might count. The problem is when to decide how small is "too small" (et cetera), from a Physics/Chemistry point of view one can argue that all bulk matter have pores and cracks within them too.

A reasonable compromise is to only allow holes and cracks (and openings) that are visible to the naked eye. (I think this is what is intended by RAI too.) So unpacked earth wouldn't work, unless we're talking about gravel or aggregated clay.

Me, I might allow it to work as DM (at slower speeds the less 'permeable' the substance is), but I'm the sort who would waste time trying to figure out gas permeation rates (deriving from Fick's laws or similar and maybe eyeballing some values). And if the spell ends while (part of) the gaseous creature is still in solid matter, well, if I'm feeling generous I might shunt it to the nearest occupied space while imposing force damage (similar to the way Dimension Door and the Incorporeal trait work).

If I'm not feeling generous, welllll...

[willdaBEAST]

This opens a can of worms, almost literally... I think one could easily argue most patches of dirt contain worm passages, animal burrows, etc.

That said, I don’t think that’s the intention of the spell, especially when there are existing spells like “Meld Into Stone” and as others pointed out burrowing speed.

[Chrizzt]

Thank you for your very substantial input. I guess the sinking into the earth is off the table. Cracks should at least be macroscopic, and the “pass through“ is also to consider. Though I would certainly try to hide in drain pipes and the like.

[Chronos]

When you smoke out a burrow, smoke doesn't seep up out of the entire lawn above the burrow, only out of the tunnels the animals dug for themselves.

[Chrizzt]

Fair enough. Though this brings me to the idea of using naturally existant mouse or mole tunnels (if they can be spottet in time) to seep in. Thank you for your reply!