Challenge: Make a character that can see the moon.

[Aquillion]

From this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?579856-Class-and-Level-Geekery-XVI-These-Characters-May-Now-Drive-the-Plot/page32) thread:


The moon is 11,398,464' in diameter. That would be 17 categories above colossal, for a whopping +84 to spot.

The distance penalty is minus over 250 million. You can not see the moon.
Let's take that math at face value, assume that you need a Spot check to see the moon in all cases, and assume that we're in a setting that has a moon comparable to Earth's.

What options are there to make a character capable of seeing the moon? Some initial thoughts:

Greater Teleport is an obvious option (teleport closer to the moon to see it.) Scrying works, but only if there's a creature on the moon to target. Those seem like cheating, though.

Is there a build that will let you see the moon, from the surface of the setting's planet, with a Spot check? (The Omniscifier, I guess?)

Or a build that could reasonably discover the moon without intentionally looking for it (ie. nobody is going to know it's there at first, so they won't deliberately use teleport / scry to find it.)

Or, perhaps the most difficult option, a build that can consistently see the moon from the surface of the planet, without having to spend resources on it or leap through Omniscifier-style tricks every time?

[Chronos]

This actually got fixed in a splatbook (accidentally, I'm sure), but it was an Underdark book, of all things. It has rules for visibility of light sources, and says that they're visible out to some multiple of their bright or dim light radius.

Of course, then that gets into the question of whether the Moon counts as a light source.

[Saintheart]

Or a build that could reasonably discover the moon without intentionally looking for it (ie. nobody is going to know it's there at first, so they won't deliberately use teleport / scry to find it.)

Possibly the otherwise completely useless PrC of Master Astrologer, from Dragon 340, and in particular its 7th level (Ex) ability Planetary Alignment, which expressly allows you to "sense when your world moves into alignment with other cosmic bodies."

[NNescio]

Possibly the otherwise completely useless PrC of Master Astrologer, from Dragon 340, and in particular its 7th level (Ex) ability Planetary Alignment, which expressly allows you to "sense when your world moves into alignment with other cosmic bodies."

Might not work for geocentric planes though. (e.g. Oerth)

[Uncle Pine]

Binding Malphas grants you the Bird's Eye Viewing ability (achievable at 1st level via Bind Vestiges + Practiced Binder, or as Binder 3). Afterwards, getting a hold of a necklace of adaptation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#necklaceofAdaptation) and putting on your dove or raven lets you explore the sky and space withot issues, possibly eventually reaching the moon.

[Quertus]

This actually got fixed in a splatbook (accidentally, I'm sure), but it was an Underdark book, of all things. It has rules for visibility of light sources, and says that they're visible out to some multiple of their bright or dim light radius.

Of course, then that gets into the question of whether the Moon counts as a light source.

So, should the challenge be to see a new moon?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

So, should the challenge be to see a new moon?I dunno. That +20 due to being invisible would be awful hard to overcome. :smallamused:

[Zaq]

I mean, if you allow scrying as mentioned in the OP, clairvoyant sense (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/clairvoyantSense.htm) has no range limit, does not require LoS/LoE, and is available to anyone via a 24k gp item. I agree that this seems a bit outside the intent.

Otherwise, yeah, if you want to do it “honestly,” you’re gonna need a loop of some kind. My Sacrificial Horse trick might work if your CL is high enough? The trick in a nutshell: the “spur mount” function of Ride is an uncapped doubling damage function if used repeatedly. Give your sacrificial horse delay death and beastlands ferocity, cast sadism on yourself, and spur the poor beast over and over and over and over, doubling the damage you do to it every round. Gets really, really, really high numbers until your spells expire. I don’t feel like doing the math on how many rounds it takes (and therefore what CL it requires) right now.

I’m kind of tinkering with a version of the trick that doesn’t rely on the old “semi-immune to death from HP damage” combo, but that’s a topic for another thread.

[Doug Lampert]

I seem to remember someone in a previous discussion claiming that if you let multiple spyglasses stack, then a sufficient number of spyglasses would let you do it. They had an argument for why spyglasses should stack rather than counting as multiple occurrences of the same bonus but I don't recall what it was.

I'll add that the moon is obviously not a visible light source whether full or new, it shines only via reflected sunlight, same as most things that you see outdoors. If the moon is a light-source because it reflects light, then pretty much everything is a light source.

[Zaq]

I seem to remember someone in a previous discussion claiming that if you let multiple spyglasses stack, then a sufficient number of spyglasses would let you do it. They had an argument for why spyglasses should stack rather than counting as multiple occurrences of the same bonus but I don't recall what it was.

I'll add that the moon is obviously not a visible light source whether full or new, it shines only via reflected sunlight, same as most things that you see outdoors. If the moon is a light-source because it reflects light, then pretty much everything is a light source.

Never seen that specific argument about spyglasses, but if I had to guess, it would be something about how halving effective distance isn’t a “bonus” and therefore wouldn’t be subject to the normal stacking rules. Just an educated guess, though. And since combinations of lenses can, in very specific arrangements, be used in reality to increase magnification, there’s even a very shaky “realism” argument to be made... (at least, I think that’s a thing. High school physics was a long-ass time ago. Mebbe I’m wrong about that part.)

I feel like “moonlight” is called out as an example light source somewhere, but I might be misremembering that as well. You’re right from a physics standpoint, of course.

[AvatarVecna]

This is potentially doable if you're willing to go over to Pathfinder, and also cheat a little bit. First, we put together a Phantom Thief with 20 ranks/unchained Perception and Craft (Telescope), with Skill Focus for both of those and 20 Int/Wis. From there, we have them make a good telescope (https://www.aonprd.com/EquipmentMiscDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Telescope%20(x1 0)). Now, existing telescopes have three levels in Pathfinder, and here's their stats:



Cost
Magnification
Circumstance


2000
x10
+2


4000
x50
+4


8000
x250
+6



So, ignoring for a moment that the fluff text of the item insists you can use these items to observe celestial bodies, that's a pretty well-established pattern. Technically we can't normally follow it, but this is the part where we start cheating a little bit. If we extend the table...



Cost
Magnification
Circumstance


2000
x10
+2


4000
x50
+4


8000
x250
+6


16000
x1,250
+8


32000
x6,250
+10


64000
x31,250
+12


128000
x156,250
+14


256000
x781,250
+16


512000
x3,906,250
+18


1024000
x19,531,250
+20


2048000
x97,656,250
+22



Assuming a base DC 25, we can Double Accelerated Craft it (DC 45) with a +44 (20 ranks, 3 class skill, 5 Int, 10 Phantom Thief, 6 Skill Focus); this means we can't fail the check, and will make 4905 sp of progress per day (since we have Unchained Craft). At that rate, we will craft our super-telescope in 11 years of hard work or so, exhausting about 80% of our WBL. Eh, whatever, now we have our super-telescope.

With our +66 Perception check (including Telescope Bonus), and taking a -1 per 5,859,375,000 ft...that's actually further than the moon is, so we take no penalty for that Perception check. But if we look for a man standing on the sun (somehow), we're taking a -83 penalty from distance, meaning we have -17 and thus can basically only spot that man if we roll a nat 20.

[NNescio]

Never seen that specific argument about spyglasses, but if I had to guess, it would be something about how halving effective distance isn’t a “bonus” and therefore wouldn’t be subject to the normal stacking rules. Just an educated guess, though. And since combinations of lenses can, in very specific arrangements, be used in reality to increase magnification, there’s even a very shaky “realism” argument to be made... (at least, I think that’s a thing. High school physics was a long-ass time ago. Mebbe I’m wrong about that part.)

I feel like “moonlight” is called out as an example light source somewhere, but I might be misremembering that as well. You’re right from a physics standpoint, of course.

From a physics point of view?

Technically yes (you get magnification). Practically no (you won't be able to see anything).

Magnification isn't that important, actually. What we want is resolution. And the upper limit on resolution is determined by how much light we can get into the optical system, which is itself limited by the aperture size. Telescopes work by capturing light from a distant (reflective or emittive) source and spreading it across your field of view so you can see the object. The greater the 'spreading', the greater the magnification, but the dimmer the image (because the available light gets spread around more). In fact every 2x increase in magnification will result in a 4x decrease in brightness.

If the image is too small, you can't see the object. But if the image is too dim, you can't see it either. (And if it's too big, bright or no, it takes up the whole field of view and you can't see anything useful either.) Practically, you have to play around with the magnification until you get an image that is both big enough and bright enough to see.

Feeding multiple spyglasses into each other in series doesn't help. Only the first spyglass captures light. The rest will have to work with the same amount of light [actually less], with the image becoming progressively dimmer as it passes through each telescope, ending with you seeing nothing at the end of it. (Even just 2x spyglasses will result in [not quite pitch-black] darkness due to the limited aperture size.) As an analogy, this is like zooming into the pixels of an image (file). The resolution is fixed; you won't get more resolution this way no matter what you do.

There's also noise to consider. Imperfections in the lenses, atmospheric conditions, and how (un)steady your hands are all contribute to noise and limit the effective resolution, as the noise will get magnified along with the image and blur everything out. Again, using the "zooming in" analogy, all you see is just a bunch of blurry pixels with artifacts. (Or blocky squares or just one single color, if you go all the way).

That's why a lot of spyglasses only have magnifications at around 8x to 12x, because that's the practical limit for their limited aperture size and the (lack of) steadiness of human hands.

But there is a way around this. The solution is to arrange spyglasses in parallel (well, technically an inverted cone), not in series. Now all the apertures are gathering light. Next you need to find some way to combine the images of each spyglass into a single image with improved resolution (and to arrange the spyglasses in such a way so that they are all gathering 'similar but still slightly different' images from the object). This is... highly impractical with medieval tech, but may be achievable with magic. A Wizard might be able to it if it has photographic (heh) memory and can combine the images it sees by overlaying illusions into the same space.

(Though at that point you might as well just scry.)

This is how real-life observatory telescopes work. They take multiple images (not necessarily by using lenses), and then use them to form a composite one with increased resolution (and decreased noise). To use the image (file) analogy once again, this is like taking multiple blurry images taken of the same object from almost the same angle, and then combining all of them (and with denoising tech) to arrive at a sharper image.

[RatElemental]

The spell Dragonsight halves the distance penalty to spot checks, as does looking through a spyglass. I'm pretty sure those do stack, even if multiple spyglasses wouldn't. Beating 62 million is still a challenge but surely less of one than beating 250 million?

There are a myriad of magic items and spells that also increase one's spot check. The highest bonus I can come up with would be:

Eyes of the Avoral (+8, racial)
Vision of the Omniscient Eye (+10, insight)
Eagle Eyes (+20, I think untyped)
That art Thou (+20, untyped)
Essence of the Raptor (+8, untyped)
Mordrei'in (+2, alchemical)
Masterwork Tools (+2, circumstance)
Dragon's Eye Amulet (+10, competence)
Hawk's Ointment (+1, untyped)
Crystal Anchor of Alertness (+5, untyped)
Raptor's Mask (+5, untyped)

For... +91
Not much of a dent.

That said, if we go epic, and happen to be a caster...

The Fortify seed can grant an enhancement bonus to an ability score, natural armor, saving throw or spell resistance. If we boost our wisdom by 124 million the increase to our wisdom mod will grant a high enough bonus to our spot check to beat the 62 million from stacking Dragonsight with a spyglass. Unfortunately, that gives us a spellcraft DC of 744 million, but depending on how cheesy you want to get that's beatable by getting a ton of minions to help with a ritual.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

It won't get up in the millions for awhile, but you could always cast curse of lycanthropy on yourself (the good one, not the stupid "create sapient creatures out of nowhere with a low level spell" one from the BoVD/SC) repeatedly using all the animals you can think of, hit yourself with a negative level and fail the Fort save to make it permanent, hit yourself with a greater restoration to reset your XP level to your character level (which is now super-high due to all the template-based animal HD and LA you just gave yourself), cure yourself of lycanthropy, restore your XP level (which is now in class levels, since you no longer have the lycanthropy templates) from the thought bottle, and repeat.

Just make sure to take ranks in Spot as you level up.

[AvatarVecna]

Wizard 10/Incantatrix 10 with "Arcane Thesis: Fireball", and "Reserves Of Strength" who (via items) is immune to stunning and has +7 CL (idk feels right). Get ahold of three hollow 40-ft radius spheres and have a Chicken-Infested Commoner fill them up. Each one has 268082 cubic feet of volume, and chickens take up about half a cubic foot of volume, so you can squeeze 1,608,492 chickens into them in total. Next, we cast Sadism, and then the following spells (somehow with all these feats even though we're feat starved):

Fireball (first twin, second quicken)
Reserves Of Strength
Energy Affinity: Acid (-1)
Energy Substitution: Fire (-1)
Invisible Spell (-1)
Empower Spell (+0)
Blistering Spell (+0)
Fiery Spell (+0)
Maximize Spell (+1)
Widen Spell (+1)
Twin Spell first/Quicken Spell (+2)
Energy Admixture: Fire (+2)
Heighten 4 levels (+3)


This ends up dealing 45d6+269 damage (avg 426.5) to every one of those chickens. One in 20 will save for half, so we can expect to deal 97.5% of that on average, so we end up dealing a total of 668,871,292 damage in total that round. Sure, most of it didn't help kill more chickens because they have so few HP, but we still dealt that much damage even if they couldn't take it, so Sadism pops in for +66,887,129 to our next check which...hey wasn't someone just talking about beating a 62 million penalty?

:smalltongue:

[StevenC21]

Well, with Dark Chaos Feat Shuffle and the Otyugh hole, you can have as many feats as you want.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Well, with Dark Chaos Feat Shuffle and the Otyugh hole, you can have as many feats as you want.Except you can't use Otyugh Hole again, since you still have a feat gained from it.

I don't think that would work, though your DM (if any) may disagree.

However! You could always get yourself a +1 morphing/sizing/ringsword breaking blade (A&EG) or another similar weapon that grants a bonus feat. Use this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?246396-Another-Addition-To-The-Tippyverse) to get as many copies of it as you want, then use morphing and sizing to turn them all into a poison ring, from Dragon Compendium and string them all together (since they're all rings). Now use some nested thought bottles (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?217819-Nesting-Thought-Bottles-millions-of-wishes) for as many DCFS's as you want for as many feats as you want.

[Mordaedil]

Arguably a moon is only actively hiding when it is a dark moon. And it could be argued that size categories above colossal eventually have to give larger penalties to hide besides just a measly -4.

[King of Nowhere]

but wait, this means that you also cannot see the sun!

so, if you can't see the brightest object around, you clearly can't see anything else, and everyone is effectively blind.

on the other hand, it is also written that spot is used against a hide check, and that you need some form of cover and concealment to hide, otherwise you can't.
As the moon has no cover or concealment to use, it automatically fails the hide check, and therefore it is automaticallly seen.

By that logic, a person standing on the surface of the moon would also have no cover, and would be clearly visible from the ground.

It is also written that you cannot hide when someone is looking at you already. so, the moment someone sees the moon, the moon becomes visible for everyone, and stays visible for as long as someone is looking at it.

another challenge could be to figure out a more sane rule fix for spot that keeps track of distance in a better way, so that seeing the moon is reasonable within the rules.

I think it could be "penalty for distance is -1 for every 3 meters. for every -10 penalty for distance, the additional distance that gives a -1 doubles."
So at 30 meters you have -10, and then it's -1 every 6 more meters. at 90 you have -20, and then it's 12 meters. at 210 you have -30, and it's 24. 450 for -40. 930 for -50. 1.89 km for -60. roughly 4km for -70, and from then on it's 2+^n. seeing the moon would only carry a distance penalty around -250 at this point.

[Akkristor]

The spell Dragonsight halves the distance penalty to spot checks, as does looking through a spyglass. I'm pretty sure those do stack, even if multiple spyglasses wouldn't. Beating 62 million is still a challenge but surely less of one than beating 250 million?

There are a myriad of magic items and spells that also increase one's spot check. The highest bonus I can come up with would be:

Eyes of the Avoral (+8, racial)
Vision of the Omniscient Eye (+10, insight)
Eagle Eyes (+20, I think untyped)
That art Thou (+20, untyped)
Essence of the Raptor (+8, untyped)
Mordrei'in (+2, alchemical)
Masterwork Tools (+2, circumstance)
Dragon's Eye Amulet (+10, competence)
Hawk's Ointment (+1, untyped)
Crystal Anchor of Alertness (+5, untyped)
Raptor's Mask (+5, untyped)

For... +91
Not much of a dent.

That said, if we go epic, and happen to be a caster...

The Fortify seed can grant an enhancement bonus to an ability score, natural armor, saving throw or spell resistance. If we boost our wisdom by 124 million the increase to our wisdom mod will grant a high enough bonus to our spot check to beat the 62 million from stacking Dragonsight with a spyglass. Unfortunately, that gives us a spellcraft DC of 744 million, but depending on how cheesy you want to get that's beatable by getting a ton of minions to help with a ritual.


If we're going Epic, we can just use Cosmic Descryer. Activate Cosmic Connection, Give ourselves a +250,000,000 bonus to spot. At the end of the round, we take 1,250,000,000 damage. At this point we just need Die Hard, Contingent (or Pre-cast) Delay Death, and Contingent Revivify.

Alternatively, since we are epic, we craft an Epic Spell using the Heal seed (DC 25), add the Contingency modifier (+25DC). At only DC50, this is a Contingent FULL HEAL that casts whenever our hit-points would drop to 0 or below.

[weckar]

Can I quickly say I want to thank this thread for introducing me to the Master Astrologer? I think I'm in love.

[pabelfly]

Can I quickly say I want to thank this thread for introducing me to the Master Astrologer? I think I'm in love.

Seconded. Very cool PrC.

[Oberron]

This is easily dobe with a simple druid spell linked perception, it gives a +2 bonus to listen and spot for each ally in 20ft radius with no cap. Just have a bunch of friends or summons stand around you to help point out the moon. Or buy a lot of chickens/ turkeys


Edit: as for an actual build necropolitin archivist with linked perception and fell energy spell on it. Use animate undead for as many undead that can fit for (n-1)×4 bonus to spot and listen.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

This is easily dobe with a simple druid spell linked perception, it gives a +2 bonus to listen and spot for each ally in 20ft radius with no cap. Just have a bunch of friends or summons stand around you to help point out the moon.Summon swarm, anyone?

[NNescio]

Summon swarm, anyone?

A swarm counts as a single creature. Also the swarm summoned by this spell is hostile* to the caster.

(*Well, it will attack the caster if it's the nearest creature. It also doesn't listen to any commands. So I don't think it would count as an ally.)

[Unavenger]

If blindsighting the moon counts, there's a truenamer utterance, sensory focus which gives you blindsight at no range limit.

[Oberron]

Summon swarm, anyone?

Vermin lord

[pabelfly]

If blindsighting the moon counts, there's a truenamer utterance, sensory focus which gives you blindsight at no range limit.

If the Sensory Focus utterance gives you True Seeing as the spell, wouldn't that mean its limit would be 120ft unless otherwise noted?

[Zaq]

If the Sensory Focus utterance gives you True Seeing as the spell, wouldn't that mean its limit would be 120ft unless otherwise noted?

You’d think that, but that’s not how it’s worded.

The true seeing effect is probably limited, but by RAW, no limit is stated for the blindsight effect.

Yes, this is dumb.

[Akkristor]

If blindsighting the moon counts, there's a truenamer utterance, sensory focus which gives you blindsight at no range limit.

Blindsight doesn't work in a vacuum, so you can't Blindsight out of the atmosphere.

[Quertus]

Blindsight doesn't work in a vacuum, so you can't Blindsight out of the atmosphere.

Ooo, really? If so, I need to add "vacuum" to my list of stealth requirements. Citation?

[Akkristor]

Ooo, really? If so, I need to add "vacuum" to my list of stealth requirements. Citation?

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm


Blindsight works underwater but not in a vacuum.