Forgotten Realms, other Earth-Like settings, and the laws of physics, among others [Archive]

Carden-Gix'oth

2021-08-27, 07:56 AM

Everything in this post is D&D 5e

So, I'm in a D&D Discord, which shall be unnamed to not cause drama and some community members actually told me yesterday that D&D does not have our laws of physics, and that there are no elements in D&D.

I responded with "So there's no iron, or silver, or gold in D&D?"

They countered with "Show me where manganese is".

I made the mistake of saying I didn't know what manganese is, beyond being an element and a metal. They focused on that for a bit, and one of them even went so far as to imply I should not be arguing for D&D being Earth-Like because "I don't know what I'm talking about".

On the topic of physics, or lack thereof, one of the members said "Physics cannot exist in D&D because magic does". So we can't have physics, because magic violates physics. Water cannot flow downhill by default, because Control Water exists, guys.

Oh, and the same "physics no because magic" tried to say you can make gunpowder from nothing more than guano and sulfur (the same material components for Fireball). Despite needing a stabilizer...

Not to mention that there is Trinitrotoluene (TNT) in the DMG. As well as gunpowder, and frag grenades.

This is not the first time these folks have said what amounts to "because it's explicitly stated this thing exists, it does not exist, and you cannot say it does," and I was just wondering what ya'll think I should say/do in response to this level of nonsense, because I don't want to leave the server, as aside from the handful of folks contributing to the nonsense, it's a good server.

How do you respond to "Physics can't exist because magic does"?!

Millstone85

2021-08-27, 08:50 AM

D&D does not have our laws of physics, and that there are no elements in D&D.

I responded with "So there's no iron, or silver, or gold in D&D?"There are elements in D&D: fire, air, water and earth.

These are the fundamental essences from which all matter, including iron, silver or gold, is derived.

Living beings are furthermore composed of positive energy, and the undead of negative energy, or a mix of both.

On the topic of physics, or lack thereof, one of the members said "Physics cannot exist in D&D because magic does". So we can't have physics, because magic violates physics. Water cannot flow downhill by default, because Control Water exists, guys.I disagree about there being no physics. It is just different physics.

Often, the world matches our expectations. For example, indeed, water flows downhill by default.

Other times, it doesn't. For example, in the vacuum of space, air sticks to ships, asteroids and other objects in a way that, while somewhat related to mass, clearly doesn't follow the equations of our world.

Carden-Gix'oth

2021-08-27, 09:13 AM

There are elements in D&D: fire, air, water and earth.

These are the fundamental essences from which all matter, including iron, silver or gold, is derived.

Living beings are furthermore composed of positive energy, and the undead of negative energy, or a mix of both.

Elements are Fire, Cold, Acid, Poison, Thunder, and Lightning. Positive Energy and Negative Energy do not exist in 5e. They are Radiant and Necrotic, and are also Elements.

I'm talking the periodic table of elements, not Avatar the Last Airbender/ancient alchemy 'sciences'.

In order for there to be certain things in D&D, it has to follow the same rules/have the same shiz in it. You can't have TNT without Trinitrotoluene, because that is what it is. If it's not made of Trinitrotoluene then its not TNT, by definition. And you have to have Nitrogen to make TNT. So now we have Gold, Iron, Copper, Nitrogen, Sulfur (cause Gunpowder exists), Silicon (because sand and glass), and probably more that I'm missing right now.

Their argument is "Because the books don't explicitly state that this exists, it doesn't."

So, by their logic, sand exists cause the books say it does, but the things that make up sand (the elements, or silicon, or whatever) don't exist, cause the books don't say that.

Anonymouswizard

2021-08-27, 09:17 AM

In short, how much the physical laws of an RPG world should parallel our own is a meter of opinion and should be decided on from group to group.

Okay, sensible statement done.

Personally both myself and the group I played with at university leaned heavily towards Parity Unless Noted. That is magic and the like was an extra set of rules/laws laid atop the laws of physics which made them more complicated, but the energy to do work still has to come from somewhere.

I'm not sure whether or not chemical elements exist ever came up, but I'm fairly certain they'd have been confirmed if only because electricity did observably follow the same rules as in our universe (I think lightning spells polarised the target and generated a large source? We did spend a bit of time discussing how teleportation worked, but that wasn't understood well in universe.

On the other hand another game basically had energy and momentum ruled to not work as normal when I tried to build a device that would accelerate enemies to .9999c for a minute fraction of a second (in atmosphere). Mainly because a) the system want built for modelling that, b) we'd agreed we were running under comic book roles anyway, and c) the GM really didn't want to break out the maths on how much energy I'd be imparting.

Of course, you have to reasonable about this stuff. Don't use spells to create a mad of Francium just above a lake.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-08-27, 09:28 AM

Carden-Gix'oth

2021-08-27, 09:34 AM

Millstone85

2021-08-27, 09:39 AM

Elements are Fire, Cold, Acid, Poison, Thunder, and Lightning. Positive Energy and Negative Energy do not exist in 5e. They are Radiant and Necrotic, and are also Elements.What you are listing here are damage types. With the exception of fire, they are no more elements than bludgeoning, piercing and slashing.

5e's standard cosmology includes the Elemental Planes of Fire, Air, Water and Earth.

There are also the Energy Planes, Positive and Negative, though it is true 5e refers to the energies themselves as radiant and necrotic.

I'm talking the periodic table of elements, not Avatar the Last Airbender/ancient alchemy 'sciences'.And I am saying these 'sciences' are the ones that hold true in the worlds of D&D.

False God

2021-08-27, 09:39 AM

"Magic breaks physics." /the end

But you have to actually apply magic somewhere, imbue it in something, have it exist as part of a creature in order for it to do anything. Otherwise magic is just "there" like air or water as essentially a "5th element".

All things held equal, I assume physics still exists and functions in the D&D-verse as normal, except when you apply magic to something.

Oddities that are clearly game-rule issues are clearly just that: simplified ways for the players to interact with the game. There should not be arguments that fall damage is a result of "strange physics" in D&D, but simply a game rule for simplicity.

Beyond that, I try not to think to hard on it because it's a game with magic and arguments with people who want to get into hardcore debates about what is physically possible or biologically possible or whatever tend to make the game less fun for me. I'm happy to accept however the DM decides the universe works, provided he gives us some ability to see and understand that function. I don't enjoy constantly guessing if today the world uses normal IRL physics or it uses completely absurd magical whatevers. Ya know, unless that's the underlying premise of the game.

Warder

2021-08-27, 09:40 AM

PhoenixPhyre

2021-08-27, 09:42 AM

See, this sounds correct, until you realize that Quantum Mechanics actually requires contemporary physics to be violated. If the underlying foundation of how the universe works has to be violated for its underlying foundation to function, why can magic and physics not interact?

Why can "water flow down, unless magic say no" not be a thing, but "light functions like this, unless quantum bull**** say no" is perfectly fine?

And I know very, very little about QM. I do know that it gets really damn ****y, and the chance of you walking through a solid wall is always more than 0%, but that's nothing compared to an actual quantum physicist.

No. Absolutely not. My PhD is in quantum chemistry. Just no. Been there, studied that. And no, no violations of physical laws there.

Carden-Gix'oth

2021-08-27, 09:49 AM

Well, we know for a fact that things don't work the same as on Earth in the Forgotten Realms. Gunpowder doesn't ignite in the Forgotten Realms. The stars in the Forgotten Realms are the dashes and dots of enormous runic writing on the inside of the Crystal Sphere that makes up Realmspace. The law of conservation of energy doesn't exist (or doesn't function in the same way). So yeah, the writers have opted for internal consistency rather than emulation of Earth, and what's more they've always left the door open to expand on the things that are different.

Gunpowder does ignite in the Forgotten Realms.
5e DMG, Pg. 267 Section "Explosives", subsection "Gunpowder" paragraph 2 reads as follows:

Setting fire to a container full of gunpowder can cause it to explode, dealing fire damage to creatures within 10 feet of it (3d6 for a powder horn, 7d6 for a keg). A successful DC 12 Dexterity saving throw halves the damage. Setting fire to an ounce of gunpowder causes it to flare for 1 round, shedding bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet.

If gunpowder can't ignite, cannot achieve ignition, cannot be lit on fire, explain the above.

Finally someone knows Spelljamming! I can't argue with the star one.

Conservation of energy.... I'll be honest, I've not seen anything that even mentions that in any D&D book, game, or novel.

Millstone85

2021-08-27, 09:57 AM

I like this quote from the 5e Player's Handbook:
The worlds within the D&D multiverse are magical places. All existence is suffused with magical power, and potential energy lies untapped in every rock, stream, and living creature, and even in the air itself. Raw magic is the stuff of creation, the mute and mindless will of existence, permeating every bit of matter and present in every manifestation of energy throughout the multiverse.

It also got expanded upon in the Sage Advice Compendium:
Our game makes a distinction between two types of magic:

the background magic that is part of the D&D multiverse’s physics and the physiology of many D&D creatures
the concentrated magical energy that is contained in a magic item or channeled to create a spell or other focused magical effect

In D&D, the first type of magic is part of nature. It is no more dispellable than the wind.

It seems that magic can supersede the laws of physics because it actually underlies them. Or in other words, magic runs the universe's physics engine.

Anonymouswizard

2021-08-27, 09:58 AM

Water can flow uphill, if you spend the energy to do the work.

It's like the Lovecraft Mythos staple, massive is science we don't understand. You do a thing, something happens, and the eventual result is that the water flows uphill. If you wish to remain consistent with physics as we understand it you need to provide the energy to do the work, but strictly speaking you don't have to know where the energy comes from.

Although with divine magic it's generally pretty obvious where you're getting the energy.

Is D&D magic consistent with real world physics? Certainly not as written. But with a bit of work and throwing in the right planes of existence we could come up with something that was close enough for gaming purposes.

Batcathat

2021-08-27, 09:59 AM

I'm in the "laws of nature work as in real life unless noted otherwise", but there are of course many, many exceptions noted directly or indirectly. I'm no biologist, but I suspect that a lot of monsters (even non-magical ones) wouldn't work very well in reality.

Carden-Gix'oth

2021-08-27, 10:01 AM

I like this quote from the 5e Player's Handbook:

It also got expanded upon in the Sage Advice Compendium:

It seems that magic can supersede the laws of physics because it actually underlies them. Or in other words, magic runs the universe's physics engine.

This is actually perfect. Magic and Physics can, and do, exist together cause in the D&D Multiverse it's Magic that powers the Physics.

Warder

2021-08-27, 10:03 AM

Gunpowder does ignite in the Forgotten Realms.
5e DMG, Pg. 267 Section "Explosives", subsection "Gunpowder" paragraph 2 reads as follows:

Setting fire to a container full of gunpowder can cause it to explode, dealing fire damage to creatures within 10 feet of it (3d6 for a powder horn, 7d6 for a keg). A successful DC 12 Dexterity saving throw halves the damage. Setting fire to an ounce of gunpowder causes it to flare for 1 round, shedding bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet.

If gunpowder can't ignite, cannot achieve ignition, cannot be lit on fire, explain the above.

Finally someone knows Spelljamming! I can't argue with the star one.

Conservation of energy.... I'll be honest, I've not seen anything that even mentions that in any D&D book, game, or novel.

Gunpowder doesn't ignite in the Forgotten Realms, by decree of Gond. Specific beats general, and the rule in the DMG is general while Gond's decree is specific. It's the reason for why smokepowder exists instead - it's a magic item that's far more volatile and difficult to create than gunpowder, which is why pistols are so rare in the Forgotten Realms. However, I'm sure you could substitute the DMG gunpowder rules for smokepowder 1:1 and still use them in the Forgotten Realms.

Conservation of energy is easy, just look at all the spells that destroy or create matter or energy!

Millstone85

2021-08-27, 10:07 AM

This is actually perfect. Magic and Physics can, and do, exist together cause in the D&D Multiverse it's Magic that powers the Physics.I am glad you like it! :smallsmile:

Conservation of energy is easy, just look at all the spells that destroy or create matter or energy!Created and destroyed, or moved between planes?

Carden-Gix'oth

2021-08-27, 10:09 AM

Gunpowder doesn't ignite in the Forgotten Realms, by decree of Gond. Specific beats general, and the rule in the DMG is general while Gond's decree is specific. It's the reason for why smokepowder exists instead - it's a magic item that's far more volatile and difficult to create than gunpowder, which is why pistols are so rare in the Forgotten Realms. However, I'm sure you could substitute the DMG gunpowder rules for smokepowder 1:1 and still use them in the Forgotten Realms.

Conservation of energy is easy, just look at all the spells that destroy or create matter or energy!

Oh, you mean Ed Greenwood's Tweets that aren't in a source book, or a Sage Advice, or an errata at all, and mean nothing? Unless you have a book where it states this. I'll take any edition, not just 5e. Can't find it in a book, SAC, or Errata, then it doesn't count. We're talking RAW, and perhaps RAI, and neither of them says "gunpowder doesn't burn", in fact, RAW specifically states it does.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-08-27, 10:13 AM

Conservation of energy.... I'll be honest, I've not seen anything that even mentions that in any D&D book, game, or novel.

Right. And that's the problem. Basically all magic violates it in horrible ways. And without conservation of mass-energy[1] as a rock-solid "thou shalt not break it" rule, all of modern physical law goes away, because everything depends on that being there. It's a fundamental principle of modern physical science.

Let's consider the classic "basilisk turns someone to stone" event.

The density of a human being is, to a first approximation, 1.0 g/cm^3. The type of stone is unspecified, but the artwork and factors such as hardness, etc. suggests something like granite or at best limestone (ie not pumice). So let's go with limestone, as it's the most generous variation that's reasonable. It's also clear that the volume of the person isn't substantially reduced. The density of limestone is between 1.5 and 2.7 g/cm^3. In order for mass to be conserved at the most surface level, you'd need something like 100% extra mass from somewhere. Or reduce the volume to 50% of the original.

This is not to mention that limestone is 40% calcium by mass, 12% carbon, and 48% oxygen. Calcium makes up only 6.5% by mass of the human body. So that trivial, effortless effect, caused by simply looking at the basilisk's eyes also causes completely unfavorable (from a nuclear perspective) nuclear reactions without giving off or absorbing measurable quantities of energy. And the kicker--it can be reversed and the person will be alive afterward.

This all requires so many violations of so many laws of physics it's not even funny. And this is one of the more mild issues.

And you can't even get around this by positing that you're pulling energy/mass from other planes--that just makes the issues even worse. Because it's a well-known principle of general relativity that if there are other dimensions (or planes or universes, etc) accessible at points in space-time, the energy-density of those universes counts for the local gravity. And since D&D posits that there are infinite, non-transitive planes (and thus infinite energy density at every point in real-space), that would require that the observable universe collapses into a singularity. Which...rather does not fit our understanding of the world.

The basic fact is that D&D physics is completely incompatible with a modern understanding of the world. You can have a match between D&D physics (including magic) and a medieval/Aristotelian understanding of the world, which matches at the surface phenomena[2] level with our modern understanding, but all the stuff developed since the Scientific Revolution? No. The two are 100% incompatible.

And the biggest kicker--the only reason to invoke real-world modern physics in a D&D context is to try to metagame and munchkin. Because your character has no idea about quantum physics or the periodic table--those aren't known facts in-universe. Treating it as "things work about the same as they do on earth...if you don't think about anything beyond the surface level" does everything you need to do and lets you play without worrying about the deeper meanings. And lets you actually reason, where as if you try to reconcile magic and the modern understanding, you hit inconsistencies and contradictions and everything breaks down. And the more you know about physics and chemistry[3], the worse and more visible the contradictions become.

[1] using the relativistic combination of the two, as real physicists do.
[2] fire burns, the usual things are flammable, water flows downhill, dropped objects fall, thrown objects behave normally, etc. The stuff a 12th century alchemist would know with his tools.
[3] I mentioned my PhD? It was an interdisciplinary chemistry/physics degree. And then I taught physics and chemistry at both the high school and college level for nearly a decade. And have done lots of worldbuilding specifically around the notion of "what are the real physical laws at play here", because the real world ones just plain don't work in a D&D context.

Warder

2021-08-27, 10:23 AM

Oh, you mean Ed Greenwood's Tweets that aren't in a source book, or a Sage Advice, or an errata at all, and mean nothing? Unless you have a book where it states this. I'll take any edition, not just 5e. Can't find it in a book, SAC, or Errata, then it doesn't count. We're talking RAW, and perhaps RAI, and neither of them says "gunpowder doesn't burn", in fact, RAW specifically states it does.

I mean if you're arbitrarily disqualifying Word of God as evidence, you're making it tricky for me, you know? But this isn't something that Ed Greenwood came up with except that he adopted it into the Forgotten Realms, this is something that's been in D&D since Gygaxian times. He was the one who wrote "gunpowder is inert on some worlds" into D&D, which then made it into the Forgotten Realms. I looked for it in my 2nd edition book but can't find it, so I suspect it's even earlier than that, probably 1e which I've never actually owned.

truemane

2021-08-27, 10:25 AM

I think trying to argue either that 'D&D Physics Yes Because Gunpowder' or 'D&D Physics No Because Manganese' are both talking past the actual issue. Which is that the people who make up D&D stuff either didn't think of it or didn't care.

Like those people who get heated arguing about retroactive explanations for contradictions in Star Trek canon. Whatever side you're on doesn't matter, because the issue is: people who make up Star Trek stuff either didn't think of it or didn't care.

For what it's worth, I think that between arcane magic and the many non-magical creatures with impossible anatomies and the material manifestations of spiritual realities and the ecological nonsense of level-appropriate dungeons, it is fair to say that, however the universe works in any given D&D world is not the same as ours.

But, really, who cares?

It only has to matter if you want it to matter.

If you want to figure out what the Unified Field Theory looks like in a world where ill-defined morality is one of the fundamental forces, and then extrapolate outward to completely redefine the world from the quantum level up, I wish you every joy of it (my favourite thing in all the world is feeding crickets to the giant venomous spiders I keep in my closet so I'm in no position to judge how you spend your time). I might even read that blog post. But I won't play in that game. That's just not where I get my kicks.

I feel the same way about these kinds of cleverer-than-thou gotcha arguments as I do about people who confuse pointing out plot holes for actual film critique: it might have been done well, but the fact that you did it at all means you've kind of missed the point.

Carden-Gix'oth

2021-08-27, 10:34 AM

I mean if you're arbitrarily disqualifying Word of God as evidence, you're making it tricky for me, you know? But this isn't something that Ed Greenwood came up with except that he adopted it into the Forgotten Realms, this is something that's been in D&D since Gygaxian times. He was the one who wrote "gunpowder is inert on some worlds" into D&D, which then made it into the Forgotten Realms. I looked for it in my 2nd edition book but can't find it, so I suspect it's even earlier than that, probably 1e which I've never actually owned.

Gunpowder used to be Smokepowder. Same thing, different name. Down to the ingredients used to make them (The alchemist Surero claimed to use a combination of 75% sulfur, 10% saltpeter and 15% charcoal mixed together in sacks to create the substance [Lies of the Light from the 3.5e era, second in a trilogy, published in 2006).

Gond, during the Time of Troubles, even taught the people of Lantan how to make Smokepowder, and firearms waayy back then (Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 3e). Gunpowder and Smokepowder being the same thing used to be the norm. I mean, I'm looking at the Smokepowder entry on the Forgotten Realms Wiki right now, and can tell you exactly when, what year and what book it's mentioned in, that Gond did this (and I did!). If it's not in a book, in any edition, it means exactly nothing. Well, book, errata, or (as far as 5e is concerned) Sage Advice.

It was not until Ed tweeted out on May 30, 2019 his long diatribe about Gond and Gunpowder that it was ever mentioned that Gunpowder and Smokepowder were different, or that Gond made it so Gunpowder can't explode/burn with an open flame.

EDIT: Apparently, the only reason for Smokepowder was that TSR execs didn't want guns in the D&D setting. So Smokepowder was made for that reason. Still, before 2019 Smokepowder = Gunpowder, at least on Toril. Any other Realm/Plane is up for debate pre-2019

LibraryOgre

2021-08-27, 10:41 AM

I disagree about there being no physics. It is just different physics.

Often, the world matches our expectations. For example, indeed, water flows downhill by default.

Other times, it doesn't. For example, in the vacuum of space, air sticks to ships, asteroids and other objects in a way that, while somewhat related to mass, clearly doesn't follow the equations of our world.

This is my view, exactly.

While I don't know if this has changed, in Forgotten Realms Adventures (1e/2e conversion document), they laid out that gunpowder as we know it did not exist. It did not function. Period. That's how the Realms worked. Now, smokepowder, a magical creation, worked like gunpowder, but it was not gunpowder. You can't Kirk the Gorn, unless you've got an alchemical laboratory.

In most cases, things that work in the real world work, but this is up to the GM. I had a player who wanted to Polymorph Any Object. He wanted to turn a boat's anchor into cesium. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4pQz3TC0Jo) In real world physics, that boat is going to blow up pretty quickly, as salt water turns that cesium into a bomb. In Realms physics? A) What is Cesium? How does your character know about it? B ) I'm not gonna let that fly just because you learned it in high school chemistry.

If someone comes up with something outside the game's physics, I think the GM should tell them it won't work, so they can pick something else, but I don't think the game's physics need to strictly adhere to real world physics, especially above the Newtonian level that is fairly observational.

PhantomSoul

2021-08-27, 10:46 AM

(fun analysis of conservation of mass-energy)

But perhaps that's a core function of the Weave and why Magic doesn't work without it (possible caveats, exceptions, etc.)? (Magical nonsense, so magical solution! :) )

Warder

2021-08-27, 10:53 AM

Gunpowder used to be Smokepowder. Same thing, different name. Down to the ingredients used to make them (The alchemist Surero claimed to use a combination of 75% sulfur, 10% saltpeter and 15% charcoal mixed together in sacks to create the substance [Lies of the Light from the 3.5e era, second in a trilogy, published in 2006).

Gond, during the Time of Troubles, even taught the people of Lantan how to make Smokepowder, and firearms waayy back then (Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 3e). Gunpowder and Smokepowder being the same thing used to be the norm. I mean, I'm looking at the Smokepowder entry on the Forgotten Realms Wiki right now, and can tell you exactly when, what year and what book it's mentioned in, that Gond did this (and I did!). If it's not in a book, in any edition, it means exactly nothing. Well, book, errata, or (as far as 5e is concerned) Sage Advice.

It was not until Ed tweeted out on May 30, 2019 his long diatribe about Gond and Gunpowder that it was ever mentioned that Gunpowder and Smokepowder were different, or that Gond made it so Gunpowder can't explode/burn with an open flame.

EDIT: Apparently, the only reason for Smokepowder was that TSR execs didn't want guns in the D&D setting. So Smokepowder was made for that reason. Still, before 2019 Smokepowder = Gunpowder, at least on Toril. Any other Realm/Plane is up for debate pre-2019

So we have the same information but you've basically come to the complete opposite conclusion than me. Everything to me here - especially the edit you made about TSR - strongly, strongly points to gunpowder and smokepowder being different and one doesn't work in Realmspace. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure the original Spelljammer boxset explains that cannons are very rare for this very reason, they just don't work in various Spheres - though I admit I can't remember if it calls out Realmspace specifically. Anyway, that Ed Greenwood clarifies this position in tweets decades after the fact just strengthens it, imho.

But the fact that we're looking at the same material and seeing two different things suggests to me that we're not getting any further with this, honestly.

Carden-Gix'oth

2021-08-27, 11:08 AM

So we have the same information but you've basically come to the complete opposite conclusion than me. Everything to me here - especially the edit you made about TSR - strongly, strongly points to gunpowder and smokepowder being different and one doesn't work in Realmspace. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure the original Spelljammer boxset explains that cannons are very rare for this very reason, they just don't work in various Spheres - though I admit I can't remember if it calls out Realmspace specifically. Anyway, that Ed Greenwood clarifies this position in tweets decades after the fact just strengthens it, imho.

But the fact that we're looking at the same material and seeing two different things suggests to me that we're not getting any further with this, honestly.

I do agree that we won't be changing either's mind on this, even with the citations I've made on Smokepowder being the exact same thing as Gunpowder. Hells, in the AD&D 2.0 book "Forgotten Realms Adventures" it straight up says the following on page 11, Section "New Weapons" Subsection "Firearms in the Realms", Paragraph 1, Line 1:

"Smoke powder, a magical powder similar to our gunpowder, functions in the Realms and has done so for hundreds of years, as evidenced by Kara-Turan rockets and small magical thundercrackers made for children."

It looks like Smokepowder was changed to Gunpowder in 3e when WotC took over. Another classic example of WotC half-assing things.

Also, according to the SpellJammer: AD&D Adventures in Space book, stars are a thing. The surface of Sol/the Sun in Realmspace is dotted with portals to the Plane of Fire. I'm looking at the book and page right now.

EDIT: There are stars and planets according to SpellJammer. Toril is an Earth Body with 1 Moon. And not the only planet revolving around the Sun. SpellJammer: AD&D Adventures Pg. 93

Tvtyrant

2021-08-27, 11:13 AM

I do agree that we won't be changing either's mind on this, even with the citations I've made on Smokepowder being the exact same thing as Gunpowder. Hells, in the AD&D 2.0 book "Forgotten Realms Adventures" it straight up says the following on page 11, Section "New Weapons" Subsection "Firearms in the Realms", Paragraph 1, Line 1:

"Smoke powder, a magical powder similar to our gunpowder, functions in the Realms and has done so for hundreds of years, as evidenced by Kara-Turan rockets and small magical thundercrackers made for children."

It looks like Smokepowder was changed to Gunpowder in 3e when WotC took over. Another classic example of WotC half-assing things.

Also, according to the SpellJammer: AD&D Adventures in Space book, stars are a thing. The surface of Sol/the Sun in Realmspace is dotted with portals to the Plane of Fire. I'm looking at the book and page right now.

EDIT: There are stars and planets according to SpellJammer. Toril is an Earth Body with 1 Moon. And not the only planet revolving around the Sun. SpellJammer: AD&D Adventures Pg. 93

It changes from Sphere to Sphere. Some of them the stars are just shiny diamonds, like the eyes of a cat in the black and blue attached to the inside of the sphere. In others the sun is a hole into the Elemental Plane of Fire, others don't have a sun and have just ambient light. The laws of physics are literally different from sphere to sphere, gunpowder explicitly stops working in some spheres and works in others.

Unoriginal

2021-08-27, 11:21 AM

Elements are Fire, Cold, Acid, Poison, Thunder, and Lightning. Positive Energy and Negative Energy do not exist in 5e. They are Radiant and Necrotic, and are also Elements.

No, those are damage types. The D&D elements are Fire, Water, Air and Earth, which all come from the Elemental Planes.

I'm talking the periodic table of elements

Those are either just very specific types of Earth, or don't exist.

In order for there to be certain things in D&D, it has to follow the same rules/have the same shiz in it.

No, it doesn't "have to follow" anything.

D&D 5e's gravity doesn't work like on Earth, for example.

It changes from Sphere to Sphere. Some of them the stars are just shiny diamonds, like the eyes of a cat in the black and blue attached to the inside of the sphere. In others the sun is a hole into the Elemental Plane of Fire, others don't have a sun and have just ambient light. The laws of physics are literally different from sphere to sphere, gunpowder explicitly stops working in some spheres and works in others.

And the space between the Crystal Spheres is not anything like our universe.

If gunpowder can't ignite, cannot achieve ignition, cannot be lit on fire, explain the above.

The DMG isn't a Forgotten Realms handbook. The setting-specific FR books make clear gunpowder doesn't work there.

Carden-Gix'oth

2021-08-27, 11:24 AM

In fact, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure the original Spelljammer boxset explains that cannons are very rare for this very reason, they just don't work in various Spheres - though I admit I can't remember if it calls out Realmspace specifically. Anyway, that Ed Greenwood clarifies this position in tweets decades after the fact just strengthens it, imho.

But the fact that we're looking at the same material and seeing two different things suggests to me that we're not getting any further with this, honestly.

SpellJamming: AD&D Adventures in Space: Concordance of Arcane Space Pg 42 mentions that the typical Bombard (also called a Cannon) uses SMOKEPOWDER not Gunpowder.

pg 42, second collumn, paragraph 1, line 1:

"Bombards use magical smoke powder to function."

One shot uses 10 charges of powder, too. Jeez... Also, there's nothing saying they don't work in certain spheres. They just aren't used because Smoke Powder is stupid rare in space, apparently. Dunno why you wouldn't have a high level Mage casting True Creation to keep your supply up, but ok.

Carden-Gix'oth

2021-08-27, 11:26 AM

No, those are damage types. The D&D elements are Fire, Water, Air and Earth, which all come from the Elemental Planes.

Those are either just very specific types of Earth, or don't exist.

If you're gonna use that, then Salt is an Element. The Elemental Demi-Plane of Salt, Salt Mephits... Also, Smoke, Shadow, Darkness, Mud, Ice, Ash, Steam, and others I could keep listing. All Elemental Demi-Planes. Though, to be fair, this is the best argument I've gotten.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-08-27, 11:28 AM

Unoriginal

2021-08-27, 11:33 AM

OldTrees1

2021-08-27, 11:37 AM

If you're gonna use that, then Salt is an Element. The Elemental Demi-Plane of Salt, Salt Mephits... Also, Smoke, Shadow, Darkness, Mud, Ice, Ash, Steam, and others I could keep listing. All Elemental Demi-Planes. Though, to be fair, this is the best argument I've gotten.

The Para, Semi, and Quasi elemental planes have a consistent behavior based on their location between the Elemental planes. That might or might not mean they are elements or combinations of elements. Alternatively they might be the byproduct of the proximity of the elements.

As a result we know 2 things:
1) D&D has physics. Magic is a part of that reality and accurate descriptions the causality of its consistent behavior could be called physics.
2) D&D physics don't have to map 1:1 with IRL physics.

So that community member can be considered correct. D&D does not have our physics and D&D physics might not map 1:1 to IRL physics in regards to any given topic. On the topic of the periodic table, D&D physics do not have to map 1:1 with IRL physics. There might not be a periodic table of elements in D&D.

Millstone85

2021-08-27, 12:03 PM

In others the sun is a hole into the Elemental Plane of Fire, others don't have a sun and have just ambient light.Realmspace itself used to be entirely bathed in moon-like light, back when Selûne and Shar acted as one all-encompassing presence. But Chauntea complained there wasn't enough warmth for life to prosper. Selûne and Shar fought each other, revealing the stars and the darkness between them. Then Selûne reached to the Plane of Fire and set one of the planets aflame, making it the sun.

Don't exist in 5e. As planes at least, or not in Canon cosmology.To be precise, the para-elemental planes are still here. They don't appear in the PHB but the DMG has them. Oddly, the Plane of Smoke got renamed as the Plane of Ash, which used to be the name of a quasi-elemental plane.

Unoriginal

2021-08-27, 12:15 PM

To be precise, the para-elemental planes are still here. They don't appear in the PHB but the DMG has them. Oddly, the Plane of Smoke got renamed as the Plane of Ash, which used to be the name of a quasi-elemental plane.

Still, contrarily to what OP was saying, the para-Elemental Planes aren't the sources of other elements, they're the result of different combos of the Four Elemental Planes. Or arguably the stages of transition between the elements.

Catullus64

2021-08-27, 12:29 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2021-08-27, 12:40 PM

Can someone cite an example where a D&D spell actually violates a law of physics? I'm thinking as hard as I can, both about my study of classical physics, and about spell lists, and I'm hard-pressed to think of any spell that seems like it is clear-cut impossible, just deeply unlikely. People in our world have not figured out how, with nothing but words, gestures, and a few basic raw materials, to make certain miraculous things happen, but that's not the same thing as a physical law. And as others have pointed out, our physical laws tend to stop working once you take away certain earth-centric assumptions and scales.

Who can say what substances, configurations, and patterns of matter are at play in the realms of D&D such that the right word or motion cannot set them into action?

Trivially. Flesh to stone. Teleport. Fireball. Conjure X. Heck, any evocation or conjuration violates conservation of energy and/or mass and usually violates causality (FTL movement). As do most transmutation spells. Divination causes FTL violations.

It's harder to think of a spell that doesn't grossly violate laws of physics. Because magic (including all the non-spell fantastic things such as basilisks, wyverns, dragons, giants, etc) fundamentally, at its core, inevitably violates all sorts of laws of physics just by existing.

Naanomi

2021-08-27, 12:44 PM

Traditionally (yeah yeah not 5e confirmed), DnD Prime worlds work off of 'elemental alchemy, where everything is made of elemental (the classic four) atoms that may have positive or negative energy 'charge', and that cluster together to make 'molecules' that describe different properties of matter and energy. Wood is burnable because it has fire particles inside that get 'let out', etc, alchemists can create fire extinguishers by carefully extracting pure water and negatively charged fire from plans and minerals that counteract or contain the free fire particles, etc... There are energies that are seperated from this (time energy, mental/psionic energy, soul-stuff, stuff from the car realm, etc); and the stuff from the Outer Planes are not 'really' matter, it just appears that way to our limited mortal senses. Phlogiston and the walls of a crystal sphere were also implied to be their own 'stuff' not made of elemental atoms.

Other physical laws... How magic interacts, gravity, etc... Have some basic rules that can vary greatly in different places, especially in demiplanes or in specific crystal spheres on the Prime.

Magic itself was usually either described as it's own type of energy, or as the natural 'field' created when negative and positive energy interacted and annihilated each other... Sometimes modulated through other mediums like the 'weave' of Realmspace.

Catullus64

2021-08-27, 12:58 PM

Trivially. Flesh to stone. Teleport. Fireball. Conjure X. Heck, any evocation or conjuration violates conservation of energy and/or mass and usually violates causality (FTL movement). As do most transmutation spells. Divination causes FTL violations.

It's harder to think of a spell that doesn't grossly violate laws of physics. Because magic (including all the non-spell fantastic things such as basilisks, wyverns, dragons, giants, etc) fundamentally, at its core, inevitably violates all sorts of laws of physics just by existing.

Very generous to give me so many examples when I asked for one. But I still don't think you can say with certainty that physical laws are being violated, because the spells never really describe on a detailed level what is going on.

Organic matter can become petrified. Sub-atomic particles can change position in a manner that can't be accounted for by their initial position and velocity. Causality can never be demonstrated with both completeness and accuracy.

I'm not trying to argue that these phenomena are the cause of the spells, and that they are therefore consistent with real-world systems of physics (I'm not sufficiently specialized to argue either convincingly). I'm simply arguing that physical laws themselves are contingent on certain conditions and assumptions which are not necessary in all times and places.

I also object to the insistence that magic, definitionally, must involve a violation of the normal natural order of things. My assumption when worldbuilding is that magic is the natural order of things, just with very different results from our own experience.

Sorinth

2021-08-27, 01:04 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2021-08-27, 01:06 PM

Very generous to give me so many examples when I asked for one. But I still don't think you can say with certainty that physical laws are being violated, because the spells never really describe on a detailed level what is going on.

Organic matter can become petrified. Sub-atomic particles can change position in a manner that can't be accounted for by their initial position and velocity. Causality can never be demonstrated with both completeness and accuracy.

I'm not trying to argue that these phenomena are the cause of the spells, and that they are therefore consistent with real-world systems of physics (I'm not sufficiently specialized to argue either convincingly). I'm simply arguing that physical laws themselves are contingent on certain conditions and assumptions which are not necessary in all times and places.

I also object to the insistence that magic, definitionally, must involve a violation of the normal natural order of things. My assumption when worldbuilding is that magic is the natural order of things, just with very different results from our own experience.

If you make different assumptions (such that magic could exist), you'd end up with extremely different physical laws that would look nothing like the ones we know. That's called "magic breaks the (earth-like) laws of physics by existing." That's what breaking the laws of physics means! You can't break a physical law like you do a legal law. All you can do is find a place where the law doesn't hold when it should hold. And when you do so, you've invalidated that law. Magic and earth-like physical law are intrinsically, ineradicably incompatible at their cores.

That's not to say that there couldn't be different laws of physics that apply with magic. That's totally possible. It's just that deep down, they'd not look anything alike.

Causality is a hard and fast thing. No information can travel faster than the speed of light; teleportation can happen over arbitrary distances instantly. That's a hard and fast causality (not to mention mass/energy conservation) violation. Organic matter can be petrified...over multiple centuries. But take stone to flesh. That's not possible. Not just improbable, outright impossible. The actions of even the simplest of cantrips violates the very essence of the conservation laws, which are the base of all the laws of nature we know about. And not just at the level of fine detail--the very existence of such a capability means the laws are no longer universal or uniform. Which means all the symmetry assumptions that underlie those laws[1] are violated. Which means everything we know about the universe is wrong. It's all a self-consistent whole. Break one piece and the whole edifice comes crashing down.

[1] all conservation laws are, mathematically, the reflection of an underlying symmetry in the state of the universe. Energy == time-reversal symmetry, for example. And without those symmetries, we have nothing. Not even a universe.

Sorinth

2021-08-27, 01:16 PM

Causality is a hard and fast thing. No information can travel faster than the speed of light; teleportation can happen over arbitrary distances instantly. That's a hard and fast causality (not to mention mass/energy conservation) violation.

Except wormholes are theorized to exist. Also who said anything about traveling faster then the speed of light, the teleport spell could be moving the creatures at near light speeds and it would be instantaneous in D&D terms because anything between 0 and 6s are the same in D&D terms.

Naanomi

2021-08-27, 01:16 PM

Yes, the DnD cosmology has its own laws which appear in many ways to be similar to those we are familiar with, but are not. Things cannot travel faster than the speed of light *in the Prime Material Plane*; so teleportation and scrying magic has to rely on Astral, Ethereal, or more exotic planes of existence as the medium of (physical or informational) travel. Energy and matter cannot be created ex-nihilo; but can easily be drawn and shaped (usually using a combination of mental and soul energy) from the elemental planes or by combining Negative and Positive Energy directly (which releases a lot of, for lack of a better term, 'magical' energy that can be utilized to influence or even create elemental matter and associated energies).

Rules still exist (though we don't know them all as players), are studyable, predictable, etc... but we don't (as far as I know) have an 'elemental plane of fire' existing parallel (yet distant in non-spatial dimensions) to transfer heat from or the like. Saying 'the rules are different than ours' isn't the same as proving 'there are no comprehensible rules', nor that 'the rules that exist would seem largely familiar to us'

Note that there are exceptions, particularly the Far Realm; which as a genre convention has its 'own incomprehensible rules' that 'interact unpredictably when forced to interact with the Great Wheel Cosmology'; perhaps in parallel how our own 'laws of physics' don't work to model things at very high densities, temperatures, etc.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-08-27, 01:21 PM

Except wormholes are theorized to exist. Also who said anything about traveling faster then the speed of light, the teleport spell could be moving the creatures at near light speeds and it would be instantaneous in D&D terms because anything between 0 and 6s are the same in D&D terms.

Yeah, that's all pop science crap. We've ruled out wormhole travel as a possibility.

And since teleport doesn't have a max range, it could take you way further than 6 light seconds. Oh, and if it really did move you at some finite speed, you'd have all sorts of inertial problems to deal with. And energy problems--how are you accelerating that much mass that fast? And not burning up in the atmosphere? Instant "skip the space between" teleport is actually the least bad case.

Naanomi

2021-08-27, 01:28 PM

And since teleport doesn't have a max range, it could take you way further than 6 light seconds. Oh, and if it really did move you at some finite speed, you'd have all sorts of inertial problems to deal with. And energy problems--how are you accelerating that much mass that fast? And not burning up in the atmosphere? Instant "skip the space between" teleport is actually the least bad case.
You are not accelerating at all, you are briefly transporting yourself to the Astral Plane (where the Speed of Light isn't a barrier, and space doesn't line up with the spatial dimensions of the Prime Material Plane anyways) and back out at your target destination. It isn't a 'move very fast for a short time' spell, it is a teleport spell

You know, very similar to how a lot of semi-hard Sci-Fi relies on 'hyperspace' to justify FTL travel and communication

Sorinth

2021-08-27, 01:31 PM

Yeah, that's all pop science crap. We've ruled out wormhole travel as a possibility.

And since teleport doesn't have a max range, it could take you way further than 6 light seconds. Oh, and if it really did move you at some finite speed, you'd have all sorts of inertial problems to deal with. And energy problems--how are you accelerating that much mass that fast? And not burning up in the atmosphere? Instant "skip the space between" teleport is actually the least bad case.

Who is "we" because there is nothing definitive proving wormholes don't or can't exist. And that's not even taking into account the fact that even if the scientific community all agreed that wormholes can't possibly exist, they could very easily be wrong. We haven't even proven the existence of Dark Matter, we only know there's something and it best modelled by something like Dark Matter.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-08-27, 01:51 PM

You are not accelerating at all, you are briefly transporting yourself to the Astral Plane (where the Speed of Light isn't a barrier, and space doesn't line up with the spatial dimensions of the Prime Material Plane anyways) and back out at your target destination. It isn't a 'move very fast for a short time' spell, it is a teleport spell

You know, very similar to how a lot of semi-hard Sci-Fi relies on 'hyperspace' to justify FTL travel and communication

Ie -- it breaks the laws of earth physics because it relies on the existence of a parallel universe that conveniently doesn't have the same laws. Which we know can't exist (unless all the laws we know are wrong), because gravity says no[1].

And that's fine. The laws of D&D universes don't have to be the same as our laws. In fact, my whole point is that they cannot, because our laws are internally consistent and exclude D&D physics as a possibility.

And yes, those semi-hard sci-fi justifications are just as "wrong" (in the sense of "that can't happen in the world as we know it, and if it were to happen, everything we know about physics and reality would have to be different").

Edit: oh, and amusingly enough, those "go somewhere else" versions of FTL? Still violate causality. You still have an object that started in normal space-time and is now somewhere else in normal space-time outside its own light cone. Velocity only cares about the end-points, not how you got there. You've still caused paradoxes, even if at every instant you were traveling slower than the (local) speed of light.

[1] the existence of other, accessible dimensions[2] alters the geometry of space-time in measurable ways. Including the fact that if such things existed and were accessible, orbits wouldn't close because gravity would no longer (at the solar-system scale) be a 1/r^2 force. So you can have inaccessible other dimensions or none at all, if you want earth-like physics.

[2] using the broader definition of the word there. Any accessible parallel universe, as well as any other spatial/time-like dimension, fits the scientific term that's really used. If there are other "planes", we can't access them. And that's a "it's impossible for any process to have contact with them" version of "can't", not a "are not currently capable of."

Who is "we" because there is nothing definitive proving wormholes don't or can't exist. And that's not even taking into account the fact that even if the scientific community all agreed that wormholes can't possibly exist, they could very easily be wrong. We haven't even proven the existence of Dark Matter, we only know there's something and it best modelled by something like Dark Matter.

In this case, wormhole-based FTL travel breaks some rather fundamental principles on which everything else rests. So as much as we know anything, we know that wormhole-based travel is impossible in the universe we find ourselves in. That's the nature of science--it makes testable predictions. And the predictions that are required consequences of wormhole-based FTL travel are incompatible with the observations we see around us, even at the gross level. The wormholes talked about by (moderately reputable) scientists (not the popularizers who are full of crap) are so small and ephemeral that you can't even pass a photon through without destabilizing them. Because anything bigger causes everything to unravel.

That's the nature of scientific law--it's all interconnected. You can't nudge one part without the whole edifice shaking. And when you're talking about things like "causality is real" and "mass-energy is conserved", you're talking about the core of everything we know.

And more than that, there's a huge, fundamental difference between a theory and a law. Theories don't get proven and then promoted to laws. Theories and laws are fundamentally different constructs with different purposes. Laws are statements of mathematical/physical fact. If X, then Y, following formula Z. In this case, "If mass > 0, v < c. If mass == 0, v == c." They're statements about what exists, everywhere within the bounds of the statement. Theories (such as dark matter, etc) are models that attempt to explain laws and predict other, not-yet-measured facts. Theories depend on laws for their existence; the proof or disproof of a theory doesn't affect the law. Invalidating a law (finding even a single exception to something it claims to cover) means that all theories based on it have to change, which means changing all the predictions. That thing you thought was a law isn't. And at this point, we're as sure as anything that the basic laws are as close to truth as anything mortals can measure ever will be. And those laws absolutely, positively, unambiguously exclude the possibility of D&D-style magic. Doesn't matter what spell, ability, monster ability, etc. you're talking about--if it's fantastic, it's not possible using earth-like laws of nature.

Catullus64

2021-08-27, 01:58 PM

If you make different assumptions (such that magic could exist), you'd end up with extremely different physical laws that would look nothing like the ones we know. That's called "magic breaks the (earth-like) laws of physics by existing." That's what breaking the laws of physics means! You can't break a physical law like you do a legal law. All you can do is find a place where the law doesn't hold when it should hold. And when you do so, you've invalidated that law. Magic and earth-like physical law are intrinsically, ineradicably incompatible at their cores.

That's not to say that there couldn't be different laws of physics that apply with magic. That's totally possible. It's just that deep down, they'd not look anything alike.

Causality is a hard and fast thing. No information can travel faster than the speed of light; teleportation can happen over arbitrary distances instantly. That's a hard and fast causality (not to mention mass/energy conservation) violation. Organic matter can be petrified...over multiple centuries. But take stone to flesh. That's not possible. Not just improbable, outright impossible. The actions of even the simplest of cantrips violates the very essence of the conservation laws, which are the base of all the laws of nature we know about. And not just at the level of fine detail--the very existence of such a capability means the laws are no longer universal or uniform. Which means all the symmetry assumptions that underlie those laws[1] are violated. Which means everything we know about the universe is wrong. It's all a self-consistent whole. Break one piece and the whole edifice comes crashing down.

[1] all conservation laws are, mathematically, the reflection of an underlying symmetry in the state of the universe. Energy == time-reversal symmetry, for example. And without those symmetries, we have nothing. Not even a universe.

My Warlock casts Eldritch Blast. Invisible pixies, hearkening to my command, fly forth to savagely attack the target.

Now, I understand conservation laws to mean that the components of a complete system stay consistent. I don't see how my example breaks with that.

You might say that the spell doesn't work that way, to which I would ask for proof. No such proof exists, because the game doesn't say how spells accomplish their effects, only what those effects are.

You might say that's a bad example, but you're the one who chose to put forth that, ipso facto, all cantrips necessarily violate conservation laws. You have to choose to read underlying causes into the spell effects to say that all of them are violations of conservation. And I don't get why you would choose to do that, when more plausible explanations can be had.

I also take some issue with your approach to consistency and completeness of systems of natural law. Our axiomatic systems of physical law are self-consistent precisely because they are incomplete. But I'm not fully convinced of my own ability to argue that convincingly in this format, so on that point we may have to part ways.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-08-27, 02:01 PM

My Warlock casts Eldritch Blast. Invisible pixies, hearkening to my command, fly forth to savagely attack the target.

Now, I understand conservation laws to mean that the components of a complete system stay consistent. I don't see how my example breaks with that.

You might say that the spell doesn't work that way, to which I would ask for proof. No such proof exists, because the game doesn't say how spells accomplish their effects, only what those effects are.

You might say that's a bad example, but you're the one who chose to put forth that, ipso facto, all cantrips necessarily violate conservation laws. You have to choose to read underlying causes into the spell effects to say that all of them are violations of conservation. And I don't get why you would choose to do that, when more plausible explanations can be had.

I also take some issue with your approach to consistency and completeness of systems of natural law. Our axiomatic systems of physical law are self-consistent precisely because they are incomplete. But I'm not fully convinced of my own ability to argue that convincingly in this format, so on that point we may have to part ways.

How did you call them? If that's all that's happening, then why can't anyone do it? Why don't those pixies take up space? Why do they deal force damage, not physical damage? Why doesn't it work on objects, no matter how weak?

This is the problem at its core. You can get there, but every explanation spirals outward and destroys all the things its based on. That's what it means to be self-consistent--changing one piece changes all the rest

Oh, and "invisible pixies that can fly and cause damage, but only in straight lines (can't go over obstacles), and don't have any mass or volume" is, in and of itself, all sorts of physical law violations.

Catullus64

2021-08-27, 02:12 PM

How did you call them? If that's all that's happening, then why can't anyone do it? Why don't those pixies take up space? Why do they deal force damage, not physical damage? Why doesn't it work on objects, no matter how weak?

This is the problem at its core. You can get there, but every explanation spirals outward and destroys all the things its based on. That's what it means to be self-consistent--changing one piece changes all the rest

Oh, and "invisible pixies that can fly and cause damage, but only in straight lines (can't go over obstacles), and don't have any mass or volume" is, in and of itself, all sorts of physical law violations.

I know your point is that the explanations just raise more questions, and that therefore my point about the limits of systems and physical effects is wrong. But it's too much fun coming up with explanations for all of these. Sorry.

I called them by speaking my magic words, which they listen for. Doi.

I suppose anyone can do it, if they practice the words and do the right favors for the Archfey who leases me these pixies.

Who says they don't take up space? They're awful small, I suppose, so I guess they don't really take up much.

You got me on Force damage. I've never understood what that's supposed to mean. But isn't all damage physical, seeing as how it can cause you to physically die?

Objects? My contract was that these fairies would help slay my enemies. If I tell them to attack a door, they'll just stare at me like I'm crazy, like everyone else does when I command my invisible pixies to do stuff.

As for the straight lines, well they're awful eager to attack and have a hard time turning around mid-flight. Hence why stuff like cover still works against them.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-08-27, 02:20 PM

I know your point is that the explanations just raise more questions, and that therefore my point about the limits of systems and physical effects is wrong. But it's too much fun coming up with explanations for all of these. Sorry.

I called them by speaking my magic words, which they listen for. Doi.

I suppose anyone can do it, if they practice the words and do the right favors for the Archfey who leases me these pixies.

Who says they don't take up space? They're awful small, I suppose, so I guess they don't really take up much.

You got me on Force damage. I've never understood what that's supposed to mean. But isn't all damage physical, seeing as how it can cause you to physically die?

Objects? My contract was that these fairies would help slay my enemies. If I tell them to attack a door, they'll just stare at me like I'm crazy, like everyone else does when I command my invisible pixies to do stuff.

As for the straight lines, well they're awful eager to attack and have a hard time turning around mid-flight. Hence why stuff like cover still works against them.

So if I fireball the area around you, you can't cast eldritch blast, because the pixies (being physical creatures with low HP) are now dead?

Not only that, but you have to change the rules to get to invisible pixies in the first place. It specifies "a beam of crackling energy". That's not "invisible pixies". And there is no fluff/crunch distinction--that's as much rules as anything.

OldTrees1

2021-08-27, 02:22 PM

I'm not trying to argue that these phenomena are the cause of the spells, and that they are therefore consistent with real-world systems of physics (I'm not sufficiently specialized to argue either convincingly). I'm simply arguing that physical laws themselves are contingent on certain conditions and assumptions which are not necessary in all times and places.

I also object to the insistence that magic, definitionally, must involve a violation of the normal natural order of things. My assumption when worldbuilding is that magic is the natural order of things, just with very different results from our own experience.

Is it possible you are talking past people?

If you are okay accepting that the natural laws of different realities can differ, then you are okay accepting the natural laws in fictional universe A can be different from those IRL.

However, due to expectations of colloquial linguistic shorthands*, it sounded like you asked for examples of D&D spells that violated IRL physics.

Yes, magic is the natural order of things in a system that contains magic. Assuming the magic has any consistency, then there are still ways you could describe its consistent behavior (aka new laws of physics). D&D might even be using Aristotelian physics when it comes to elements.

*People expect "the laws of physics" refers to the IRL physics. This assumption was reinforced by the opening post arguing for IRL elements in D&D.

Unoriginal

2021-08-27, 02:24 PM

Can someone cite an example where a D&D spell actually violates a law of physics?

I'm pretty sure the real-life law of physics don't allow for you to summon the soul of a dead person.

Tvtyrant

2021-08-27, 02:27 PM

My Warlock casts Eldritch Blast. Invisible pixies, hearkening to my command, fly forth to savagely attack the target.

Now, I understand conservation laws to mean that the components of a complete system stay consistent. I don't see how my example breaks with that.

You might say that the spell doesn't work that way, to which I would ask for proof. No such proof exists, because the game doesn't say how spells accomplish their effects, only what those effects are.

You might say that's a bad example, but you're the one who chose to put forth that, ipso facto, all cantrips necessarily violate conservation laws. You have to choose to read underlying causes into the spell effects to say that all of them are violations of conservation. And I don't get why you would choose to do that, when more plausible explanations can be had.

I also take some issue with your approach to consistency and completeness of systems of natural law. Our axiomatic systems of physical law are self-consistent precisely because they are incomplete. But I'm not fully convinced of my own ability to argue that convincingly in this format, so on that point we may have to part ways.

But then how do I know in real life that the Moon Bunny doesn't personally and invisibly pick up every airplane on his sled and carry it around the world? Maybe there's no gravity, and the world is held together by invisible tentacles from a monster whose eyes look like the night sky?

There's a reason why "you can't prove it doesn't work like that" isn't a highly regarded philosophical argument.

Catullus64

2021-08-27, 02:27 PM

So if I fireball the area around you, you can't cast eldritch blast, because the pixies (being physical creatures with low HP) are now dead?

Not only that, but you have to change the rules to get to invisible pixies in the first place. It specifies "a beam of crackling energy". That's not "invisible pixies". And there is no fluff/crunch distinction--that's as much rules as anything.

Those pixies, man. They're fast. They can see a Fireball coming and get out of the way like nobody's business.

Alternate Joke: My contract is very generous with spares.

Also, they move fast enough and with enough energy that "beam" isn't an inaccurate description.

I can do this all day, man. Still waiting on those world-breaking consequences you threatened.

OldTrees1

2021-08-27, 02:39 PM

I can do this all day, man. Still waiting on those world-breaking consequences you threatened.

What can you do all day?
1) Are you trying to find D&D magic that violates IRL physics and thus demonstrates D&D physics differ from IRL physics?
2) Are you trying to find D&D magic that violates D&D physics and thus demonstrates magic violates D&D physics?

What is your objective with this thread? The OP sounded like someone whining that they can't assume explosive chemistry in a GM's campaign world. Later you started arguing about magic spells vs IRL physics. What do you want?

Catullus64

2021-08-27, 02:43 PM

What can you do all day?
1) Are you trying to find D&D magic that violates IRL physics and thus demonstrates D&D physics differ from IRL physics?
2) Are you trying to find D&D magic that violates D&D physics and thus demonstrates magic violates D&D physics?

What is your objective with this thread? The OP sounded like someone whining that they can't assume explosive chemistry in a GM's campaign world. Later you started arguing about magic spells vs IRL physics. What do you want?

To be honest, I'm not really sure myself, anymore. It started as an argument with another poster about what a physical law actually means, and how that should apply, and then I got carried away having fun with pixies. I think I've mangled the legitimate point I may have had about how to treat real-world physical expectations, and may just bow out now.

pothocboots

2021-08-27, 02:49 PM

The Para, Semi, and Quasi elemental planes have a consistent behavior based on their location between the Elemental planes. That might or might not mean they are elements or combinations of elements. Alternatively they might be the byproduct of the proximity of the elements.

While they wouldn't be a useful category IRL, clearly these are paraelements, semielements and quasielements respectively.
Complete with full alchemical fields of study for each, and students warning each other about p-alchem 201, s-alchem 201, and q-alchem 201.

OldTrees1

2021-08-27, 02:53 PM

To be honest, I'm not really sure myself, anymore. It started as an argument with another poster about what a physical law actually means, and how that should apply, and then I got carried away having fun with pixies. I think I've mangled the legitimate point I may have had about how to treat real-world physical expectations, and may just bow out now.

You could shift back to your intended topic now that you realize the tangent.

Fictional realities might have different physics than IRL physics. This means some real-world expectations might not translate. For example explosives might not work on Faerun due to Gond. Or they might work but only as a result of the fire quarks being separated from the earth/water/air/positive/negative quarks in the explosive*

*Might mean explosions like Fireball deal fire damage instead of force/bludgeoning. Perhaps shrapnel is less likely since it might melt instead of being flung.

Did you have a point about managing player real-world physical expectations?

While they wouldn't be a useful category IRL, clearly these are paraelements, semielements and quasielements respectively.
Complete with full alchemical fields of study for each, and students warning each other about p-alchem 201, s-alchem 201, and q-alchem 201.

s-alchem is a 501 course due to obscurity (https://mimir.net/mapinfinity/quasi.html), but is only as difficult as a 301 level course.
q-alchem on the other hand is a 201 course, but students have trouble due to insufficient coverage of positive/negative in the alchemy 101 course.
Or did I get those backwards?

Millstone85

2021-08-27, 02:58 PM

So, I gotta ask, have semi-elemental planes been a thing outside of OotS?

OldTrees1

2021-08-27, 02:59 PM

So, I gotta ask, have semi-elemental planes been a thing outside of OotS?

The planes at the intersection of 1 of Air/Earth/Fire/Water with one of Negative/Positive was canon in 3E. I believe Manual of the Planes.

I only know of the planes at the intersection of 3 elemental planes due to the mimir.net fan theories site.
https://mimir.net/mapinfinity/quasi.html

Unoriginal

2021-08-27, 03:00 PM

So, I gotta ask, have semi-elemental planes been a thing outside of OotS?

Do you mean the term itself, or the concept of "plane of [x food]"?

JackPhoenix

2021-08-27, 03:03 PM

Those pixies, man. They're fast. They can see a Fireball coming and get out of the way like nobody's business.

Alternate Joke: My contract is very generous with spares.

Also, they move fast enough and with enough energy that "beam" isn't an inaccurate description.

I can do this all day, man. Still waiting on those world-breaking consequences you threatened.

So standing in Magic Circle set against fey make people immune to your Eldritch Blast?

Millstone85

2021-08-27, 03:14 PM

Do you mean the term itself, or the concept of "plane of [x food]"?That would be the term itself. Has it ever been used in D&D?

KorvinStarmast

2021-08-27, 03:22 PM

Modern physics and magic are incompatible. The "exception" model of magic doesn't work with the concept of physical law, because physical law requires that there be no exceptions and that measurements must be consistent and repeatable and universal. And the presence of magic, even in the abstract, breaks all those laws. Especially the conservation laws.

Choose two (at most):
Earthlike laws of nature

Internally consistent (ie able to be reasoned about) laws of nature

Magic

So D&D has chosen magic as one field. So you can either have Earth like laws or consistent laws, not both. Personally, I prefer to reject earthlike laws and choose consistency. The surface phenomena are similar, at least when analyzed using tools that a 12th century alchemist would have. Things fall, things burn, etc. Anything more modern is... Not guaranteed. Magic as the exception works as long as you have no, or few, permanent effects. I otherwise generally agree with your point on 12th century alchemy.

And I know very, very little about QM. You are in good company. Your framework is, however, wrong. If you want to approach how things work in a fantastical world, you need to reach back about a century to a presentation/talk given by JRR Tolkien (On Fairy Stories) and embrace the importance of the balancing of how much primary world, and how much secondary world, you mix together to weave your fantastical - not Life on Earth - world. Each setting and each story has a different mix. Asking for Laws of Physics levels of consistency is an approach that utterly misses the point.

Without conservation of mass-energy[1] as a rock-solid "thou shalt not break it" rule, all of modern physical law goes away Not to mention the cube/square relationship involving flying objects and creatures. :smallcool:

Which is that the people who make up D&D stuff either didn't think of it or didn't care.
{snip}
I feel the same way about these kinds of cleverer-than-thou gotcha arguments as I do about people who confuse pointing out plot holes for actual film critique: it might have been done well, but the fact that you did it at all means you've kind of missed the point. +1

All Elemental Demi-Planes.
My favorite demi elemental plane is the plane of rum, but I tend to play PCs with the sailor background. :smallyuk:

Can someone cite an example where a D&D spell actually violates a law of physics? 1. True polymorph, conservation of mass violated all over the map.
2. The fly spell. (I know a bit about flying and aerodynamics).
3. Dragons flying.
4. Enlarge/Reduce conservation of mass

Tvtyrant

2021-08-27, 03:26 PM

That would be the term itself. Has it ever been used in D&D?

Demiplanes were used back in Planescape and Forgotten Realms, specifically the Demi-Plane of Shadow which got turned into the Shadowfells during 4E. I don't know Planescape as well, but the Demi-Plane of Shadow was written backwards in the history of Forgotten Realms the same way Spelljammer did.

OldTrees1

2021-08-27, 03:27 PM

That would be the term itself. Has it ever been used in D&D?

Hmm, on further checking, I can't find semielemental. I know there were 4+4+8+2=18 official inner elemental planes (every face and edge of a cube) and a further 8 (every corner of a cube) fan theory elemental planes. However it seems to be 4 elemental, 2 energy, 4 paraelemental, and the rest were named quasielemental. No semis to be found (maybe check a truck stop?).

Naanomi

2021-08-27, 03:32 PM

That would be the term itself. Has it ever been used in D&D?
I... Think it gets mentioned in the 2e content around the Elemental Plane of Wood (in regard to Oriental Adventures content)

Anyways, at the end of the day 'the laws of physics are different, but they exist and are identical to our own in experience (with wildly different underpinnings) at least to casual observation at the human scale' has always been DnD's model... I've never seen anyone defend anything else meaningfully, nor reference 'real physics' outside of fun thought experiments (like ring gate engines etc). Just look at spelljammer to know that even in the Prime Material Plane no one is remotely playing at approximating or modeling real life.

*That being said*... Given that physical laws are potentially highly variable within a single crystal sphere (at least potentially); including essentially cutting off extraplanar contact and magic, there probably are worlds that (within the boundary of the crystal sphere) appear identical to earth conditions... Spelljammer used to joke at our Galaxy being contained in one large crystal sphere. (Planescape, of course, has other ties in-setting to modern earth via the parallel cosmology model)

To take that further, there are scientific philosophers that muse at some of the 'underpinnings' of our physical laws (speed of light, gravity, etc) being perceived as absolute; but if they were local or temporally isolated we wouldn't really have any data know they were different elsewhere/elsewhen

Demiplanes were used back in Planescape and Forgotten Realms, specifically the Demi-Plane of Shadow which got turned into the Shadowfells during 4E. I don't know Planescape as well, but the Demi-Plane of Shadow was written backwards in the history of Forgotten Realms the same way Spelljammer did.
Shadow has an interesting cosmological history in DnD. It first formed at the border between Positive and Negative energy, before the Inner Planes had formed inbetween them. When the Inner Planes got in the way, the Shadow became a Demiplane adrift in the *edited* Astral *edited* but a rapidly growing one. Ultimately it grew and connected until it became again 'unbound' and infinite, merging with the proto-medium that connected different cosmologies.

4E turned it into the Badplace because they had played a lot of Whitewolf games I guess? Not sure if they bothered for an explanation, they barely did for anything else (and the explanations they did give were pretty incompatible with established lore). Now 5E has tied it back to the Negative Energy Plane

Millstone85

2021-08-27, 04:32 PM

I... Think it gets mentioned in the 2e content around the Elemental Plane of Wood (in regard to Oriental Adventures content)Okay, thanks!

Shadow has an interesting cosmological history in DnD. It first formed at the border between Positive and Negative energy, before the Inner Planes had formed inbetween them. When the Inner Planes got in the way, the Shadow became a Demiplane adrift in the proto-Astral, but a rapidly growing one. Ultimately it grew and connected until it became again 'unbound' and infinite, merging with the proto-medium that connected different cosmologies.

4E turned it into the Badplace because they had played a lot of Whitewolf games I guess? Not sure if they bothered for an explanation, they barely did for anything else (and the explanations they did give were pretty incompatible with established lore). Now 5E has tied it back to the Negative Energy PlaneAnd let's not forget that the Demiplane of Dread got thrown into the mix!

As for the 4e origin story of the Shadowfell, each setting had its own:

In Nentir Vale, the Feywild and the Shadowfell were said to be aspects of the Mortal World that were discarded by the primordials because they were either too bright or too dark.
In Forgotten Realms, the Shadowfell was assembled by Shar from the Plane of Shadow and the remnants of the Negative Plane.
In Eberron, the Shadowfell was just another name for Dolurrh.
In Dark Sun, the Shadowfell was just another name for the Gray.

Brookshw

2021-08-27, 07:51 PM

Shadow has an interesting cosmological history in DnD. It first formed at the border between Positive and Negative energy, before the Inner Planes had formed inbetween them. When the Inner Planes got in the way, the Shadow became a Demiplane adrift in the proto-Astral, but a rapidly growing one. Ultimately it grew and connected until it became again 'unbound' and infinite, merging with the proto-medium that connected different cosmologies.

I'm probably forgetting something, but though I recall the demiplane had connections to the positive and energy planes, can't recall anything about it being cast adrift or being somewhere other than the ethereal. Do you recall your source?

Naanomi

2021-08-27, 08:03 PM

I'm probably forgetting something, but though I recall the demiplane had connections to the positive and energy planes, can't recall anything about it being cast adrift or being somewhere other than the ethereal. Do you recall your source?
It was the ethereal, I just misspoke on my transitive planes, apologies. All demiplanes (except for psionically created ones) are in the Ethereal.

Shadow existing between positive and negative in ancient prehistory is both on some 1E planar maps and in various 2E sources

Brookshw

2021-08-27, 08:20 PM

Unoriginal

2021-08-27, 08:26 PM

Shadow existing between positive and negative in ancient prehistory is both on some 1E planar maps and in various 2E sources

I know it wasn't what you were talking about, but I find it funny that the Shadowfell is still between the Positive and Negative Energy Planes in 5e, in the sense that it's one of the "layers" between them, so to speak.

Negative
Shadowfell
Material
Feywild
Positive

Naanomi

2021-08-27, 08:55 PM

I don't have easy access to my books to go digging tonight, but I'm very positive that in the very ancient cosmology that it went positive-shadow-negative for a while. Maybe... Guide to the inner planes? Shadow monster descriptions? Any of the books that have shadow magic (2E or 3E)?

There are other weird bits of old cosmology too... For example there was a time when the Inner planes were energy planes not matter planes, and they were 'hit, cold, wet, dry' instead of the modern ones

I know it wasn't what you were talking about, but I find it funny that the Shadowfell is still between the Positive and Negative Energy Planes in 5e, in the sense that it's one of the "layers" between them, so to speak.

Negative
Shadowfell
Material
Feywild
Positive
Yeah 5E is very... 1E in it's 'the Prime is the crux of several axises' model... Between inner and outer, between positive and negative, etc

Brookshw

2021-08-27, 09:18 PM

Naanomi

2021-08-27, 09:45 PM

Planes or the 2e shadow monster description (they're tied to the negative plane anyway).
Sorry, meant 'one of the many monsters tied to the shadow plane over the years', not shadows specifically. They love to hide obscure bits of lore in random mephit descriptions and the like

Thane of Fife

2021-08-28, 06:13 AM

Oh, you mean Ed Greenwood's Tweets that aren't in a source book, or a Sage Advice, or an errata at all, and mean nothing? Unless you have a book where it states this. I'll take any edition, not just 5e. Can't find it in a book, SAC, or Errata, then it doesn't count. We're talking RAW, and perhaps RAI, and neither of them says "gunpowder doesn't burn", in fact, RAW specifically states it does.

The 1e Gray Box, the first Forgotten Realms product ever published (not counting articles in Dragon) says:

The physics of the Realms are slightly out of sync with the rest of the planes, so that gunpowder and many technological devices which operate on electronics do not function. Equivalent devices may be developed by player-characters. DM's judgment is advised as to what may be allowed into the world.

It is presented here in the context of bringing characters from other campaigns or worlds into a Forgotten Realms game, and is analogue to a passage in the 1e DMG about converting characters from TSR's Boot Hill (a Western game) that recommends that gunpowder, dynamite, and other explosives should become inert when brought to a D&D world, unless the DM specifically wants the setting to have gunpowder.

Millstone85

2021-08-28, 07:00 AM

It was the ethereal, I just misspoke on my transitive planes, apologies. All demiplanes (except for psionically created ones) are in the Ethereal.

Shadow existing between positive and negative in ancient prehistory is both on some 1E planar maps and in various 2E sources
or by combining Negative and Positive Energy directly (which releases a lot of, for lack of a better term, 'magical' energy that can be utilized to influence or even create elemental matter and associated energies)So as I see it, the Ethereal itself works well as a "Neutral Energy Plane" or "Para-Energy Plane of Force". I even recall reading somewhere that the Ethereal keeps forming pockets of proto-elements that eventually get absorbed into the Elemental Planes.

The 1e Gray Box, the first Forgotten Realms product ever published (not counting articles in Dragon) says:Hmm, so it could be like in The Chronicles of Amber, where gunpowder can't explode on that world, no matter whether it is made locally or brought from another reality, but it is later discovered that the opposite happens to another substance. And so Amber gets invaded with cartridges full of gem polish. :smallamused:

Brookshw

2021-08-28, 07:21 AM

So as I see it, the Ethereal itself works well as a "Neutral Energy Plane" or "Para-Energy Plane of Force". I even recall reading somewhere that the Ethereal keeps forming pockets of proto-elements that eventually get absorbed into the Elemental Planes.

Ethereal definitely contains protomatter, though not necessarily flitting that matter back to the inner planes. As it becomes stable enough it can develop into its own demiplane (or so the theory goes), and eventually full on planes (which, incidentally, appears to be exactly what happened to the plane of shadow between 2e through 5e).

Naanomi

2021-08-28, 08:08 AM

In a lot of ways, the Ethereal is the 'origin' of the Great Wheel Cosmology. It was the first plane from which everything else ultimately can be traced to. The primordial medium in which Draeden existed was... Not exactly like the modern Ethereal, but more like the Ethereal than not. (Exceptions may exist, for example the Temporal Prime may have persisted from the previous cosmology; and some stuff may have origins from other cosmologies or the like)

Carden-Gix'oth

2021-08-28, 08:37 AM

I like this quote from the 5e Player's Handbook:.

I can't find that quote from the PHB. The SAC is well and accounted for, but I can't find that PHB quote. In fact, in my PDF, CTRL+F and searching for "physics" brings up nothing. 0/0 results.

Amnestic

2021-08-28, 08:45 AM

I can't find that quote from the PHB. The SAC is well and accounted for, but I can't find that PHB quote. In fact, in my PDF, CTRL+F and searching for "physics" brings up nothing. 0/0 results.

Well "physics" is in the SAC quote, not the PHB quote, so that's probably why. The PHB quote is on page 205, just before the start of chapter 11 (Spells), in the Weave of Magic sidebar

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/561287824964452363/881172472995676210/unknown.png

TrueAlphaGamer

2021-08-28, 12:27 PM

I think trying to argue either that 'D&D Physics Yes Because Gunpowder' or 'D&D Physics No Because Manganese' are both talking past the actual issue. Which is that the people who make up D&D stuff either didn't think of it or didn't care.

Like those people who get heated arguing about retroactive explanations for contradictions in Star Trek canon. Whatever side you're on doesn't matter, because the issue is: people who make up Star Trek stuff either didn't think of it or didn't care.

True. If we are to consider this argument, it's important to at least try and go for the simplest explanation of the situation (i.e., use Occam's razor).

It's evident that the D&D world is somewhat convergent to our own in terms of physical properties, ecology, whatever else. It's also apparent that the game designers were trying to build a game/setting, rather than a well-explained, well-documented simulation of a world that exists in the presence of magic, the supernatural, gods, monsters, etc.

I think with that in mind, it isn't hard to just assume that the D&D world runs on very similar rules to ours (except when it doesn't), and that while the relevant assumptions of that universe are likely completely different to ours, they still form a similar outcome - different premises, similar conclusion. The fact that they may break our laws of physics is irrelevant, because they conform to their own laws in a manner that makes their universe similar to our own (at least when considering the mundane).

This makes the most sense when you consider the way by which D&D is played, where one player narrates and adjudicates the game world in a manner that makes the most sense to them, which will inevitably lead to them using their own knowledge and assumptions from our world and inserting them into the game.

Oh, and "invisible pixies that can fly and cause damage, but only in straight lines (can't go over obstacles), and don't have any mass or volume" is, in and of itself, all sorts of physical law violations.

It's settled, then. Eldritch Blast is a beam of ionizing radiation. :smallcool:

Anymage

2021-08-28, 01:30 PM

Any consistent rules for running reality could be considered a set of physical laws. Which means that D&D worlds do have their own laws of physics. Whether that set of physical laws is RAW or whether RAW is just a simplified set of assumptions we use to make the game runnable is its own discussion, but some laws of physics do exist and I'm sure that smart people inside the universe have put effort into making sense of them.

However, the degree to which D&D laws of physics map to our real world ones (and by extension, how much someone could pull off with a background in chemistry) is tenuous outside of the most basic surface phenomena. Many flying creatures in D&D would not be able to produce the proper thrust to weight ratios with their wings, and indeed many creatures in D&D would collapse under their own weight due to how the square/cube law affects scaling. Lingering and debilitating wounds are not things that most D&D characters experience, while severe injuries in the real world will almost always have lasting consequences. At this point we're either talking about D&D running off of real-world physics but background ambient magic making spot changes practically everywhere, or the much simpler explanation that the laws of physics and biology just work differently there.

Add in how attempts to introduce real world physics tend to revolve around either pulling off some shenanigans that allow the player to apply real world knowledge to some interesting in-game effect, and/or attempts to introduce random trivia-offs with the DM. I'm perfectly happy saying that D&D physics has only the most superficial resemblance to real world physics.