Two things about the Decanter of Endless Water

[NerdHut]

I've been looking into uses for the Decanter of Endless Water this evening, and there's two things that have me puzzled. I'm hoping that I can get some insight on at least one of them.

First, the spell required to craft the item is control water. Surely, it should be create water, right? It feels like there was an oversight in the book, or else I'm missing something. Maybe an older source had a good explanation.

Second, I'm having trouble visualizing this quantity of water in my head. I can follow the geyser description fairly well, even if the math is a little iffy on dimensions of the spray. But what if someone treated it like a spring? If you were to set it up in such a way that it filled a large basin with a channel to let the overflow out, how would that flow look? 5 gallons per second (30 per round) is a decent flow, but how might it compare to a small creek? I can't find much information on flow rates on anything smaller than a full-on river, so I don't have anything to compare it to.

Any insights/data/anecdotes on either or both of these would be much appreciated.

[Segev]

30 gallons of water is approximately 4 cubic feet of water, at 7.48 gallons per cubic foot.

If the geyser is just sitting at the spring basin at the head of a creek or stream, such that it falls back down and flows out through the creek bed, you just need to determine the depth and width of the stream bed to determine how long 4 cubic feet is.

A small 12 ft by 24 ft backyard pool at about five to six feet of average depth has about 10,800 gallons in it. It would take about 36 minutes for the geyser function to fill such a pool from empty.

A typical decanter has about a three-inch diameter mouth or neck. Maybe less, but that’s what I’ll use. This gives a cross section of .049 feet squared. 81.5 feet of this column of water exit the mouth each round, or just over thirteen feet per second.

My physics of force based on flux is weak, so I’ll leave that for you to research, but hopefully this gives some idea of the flow rates. It’s high pressure due to the size of the decanter opening, and it’s a lot of water to “spill” places, but it’s not going to fill large water features super fast.

A mere 1-foot-deep by 4-foot-wide creek would flow a mere 1 foot per round with the geyser serving as a spring at its head. That’s 2 inches per second.

[TheStranger]

So, you have a little under 1 cfs, which is roughly comparable to a pretty big spring, a roadside ditch after a decent rain, a tiny creek you can step across, or an almost-dry creek bed with a little bit of water in it. It’s also enough water to irrigate ~100 acres for a season (depending on crop, climate, and irrigation efficiency), assuming you have some way of delivering it to a wider area.

[Duke of Urrel]

I've been looking into uses for the Decanter of Endless Water this evening, and there's two things that have me puzzled. I'm hoping that I can get some insight on at least one of them.

First, the spell required to craft the item is control water. Surely, it should be create water, right? It feels like there was an oversight in the book, or else I'm missing something. Maybe an older source had a good explanation.

The only explanation that makes sense to me is that the Decanter of Endless Water somehow opens up a rift to the Elemental Plane of Water. Don't ask me how.

[RSGA]

I seem to recall older stuff mentioning that the Decanters did actually link to the Elemental Plane of Water rather than creating water, so in that sense Control Water does make sense as the spell to use. This also means that you can probably make a more limited Decanter using Create Water but that's probably more useful for more delicate things. Like say watering lots crops over a large area quickly without also washing away lots of soil

[Segev]

The likely reason for control water rather than create water is to justify the higher cost. It's too good an item - especially with the force of the geyser - for a 0-level spell to set its price.

[Bohandas]

The likely reason for control water rather than create water is to justify the higher cost. It's too good an item - especially with the force of the geyser - for a 0-level spell to set its price.

Actually the cost is exactly what we would expect for a level 0 spell at CL 9 (0.5xCL9x2000=9000)

If anything, the use of Control Water is to bring the cost down and justify it being only 9000 gp, because 30 gallons per round would require Create Water to be cast at caster level 15 and thus make the price 15000 gp.

Alternately, control water might be used because the water comes out under pressure.

Realisrically though, I'm inclined to think that it was an oversight and it was meant to be either create water as the prerequisite or else both spells as prerequisites.

[AvatarVecna]

A typical decanter has about a three-inch diameter mouth or neck. Maybe less, but that’s what I’ll use. This gives a cross section of .049 feet squared. 81.5 feet of this column of water exit the mouth each round, or just over thirteen feet per second.

This is actually a really good way to visualize the geyser mode. A firefighter hose is typically 1.5-3 inches in diameter as well, and puts out 500 gallons per minute (compared to the Decanter's 300 per minute). Geyser mode is essentially a handheld fire hose, as far "visuals" go.

[Bohandas]

Ok here's how to imagine 30 gallons: Approximate it by imagining 27 gallons.

Imagine a 3x3x3 cube of gallon bottles that have had their tops smooshed down flat, and that's about the size of 27 gallons

[Bronk]

I've been looking into uses for the Decanter of Endless Water this evening, and there's two things that have me puzzled. I'm hoping that I can get some insight on at least one of them.

First, the spell required to craft the item is control water. Surely, it should be create water, right? It feels like there was an oversight in the book, or else I'm missing something. Maybe an older source had a good explanation.

I also use the older explanation (not sure where it came from) that the decanter creates a wee portal to the Plane of Water.



Second, I'm having trouble visualizing this quantity of water in my head. I can follow the geyser description fairly well, even if the math is a little iffy on dimensions of the spray. But what if someone treated it like a spring? If you were to set it up in such a way that it filled a large basin with a channel to let the overflow out, how would that flow look? 5 gallons per second (30 per round) is a decent flow, but how might it compare to a small creek? I can't find much information on flow rates on anything smaller than a full-on river, so I don't have anything to compare it to.

Any insights/data/anecdotes on either or both of these would be much appreciated.

I had a player use multiple decanters to create an oasis in the middle of the Anauroch desert to make a little paradise for an entire creep of dire tortoises...


I've been looking into uses for the Decanter of Endless Water this evening...

I've also had a pseuodragon use the geyser force of a decanter of endless water as a jet engine...

[lylsyly]

I've also had a pseuodragon use the geyser force of a decanter of endless water as a jet engine...

LMAO...Classic.... Just Classic ;-)