RAW physics oddities and exploits?

[Lukalaly]

Somewhat similar to the usual (and currently active, but not quite helpful to me) "dysfunctional rules" threads, I'm looking for things that don't really make sense about the ways RAW handles "physics."

Specifically, an organization in my campaign is basically attempting to use dnd logic to enhance their warfare techniques (and also just to do science, because that's a thing people like to do), which I'm playing mostly for comedy, but also to be an actual threat to the PCs. Things like drowning someone to set their hp to 0 are what I'm looking for, and reasonable readings need not apply. I'm also more than willing to to add a little bit of extra spice to already existing oddities, simply to make it more interesting/actually work (like adding in a rule to let someone stop drowning after their hp has been set to 0.)

Unfortunately I have neither the time, energy, or creativity needed to scour 3.5 books and find these oddities myself, and most threads I've seen about rules oddities are about specific classes or specific monsters or specific spells being strange, and that's not really what I'm looking for. I hope that I'm being clear enough, and if not I can try to explain myself better, but anything offered will be greatly appreciated!

[Jervis]

Somewhat similar to the usual (and currently active, but not quite helpful to me) "dysfunctional rules" threads, I'm looking for things that don't really make sense about the ways RAW handles "physics."

Specifically, an organization in my campaign is basically attempting to use dnd logic to enhance their warfare techniques (and also just to do science, because that's a thing people like to do), which I'm playing mostly for comedy, but also to be an actual threat to the PCs. Things like drowning someone to set their hp to 0 are what I'm looking for, and reasonable readings need not apply. I'm also more than willing to to add a little bit of extra spice to already existing oddities, simply to make it more interesting/actually work (like adding in a rule to let someone stop drowning after their hp has been set to 0.)

Unfortunately I have neither the time, energy, or creativity needed to scour 3.5 books and find these oddities myself, and most threads I've seen about rules oddities are about specific classes or specific monsters or specific spells being strange, and that's not really what I'm looking for. I hope that I'm being clear enough, and if not I can try to explain myself better, but anything offered will be greatly appreciated!

Horse Transportation Network
A miles long chain of horses all spaced 5 feet apart. A DC20 ride check allows you to mount and dismount as a free action. A character can take a infinite number of free actions in a round, so long as DM doesn't stop them. Mount a horse and then dismount on the other side as a free action, repeat until you get to the other side. All of these are done in the span of 6 seconds. Effectively, you can move a arbitrary distance using a arbitrarily long line of horses. Replace with skeletal horses animated by that one metamagic that gives you a free skeleton/zombie to eliminate the need for food.

Sleight of hand teleportation
A DC 80 Sleight of Hand check lets you move a adjacent creature up to 10 feet. Taking a -20 to this roll lets you do this as a free action. A pair of Davati, or any other pair of creatures acting on the same initiative, can make a effective DC 100 Sleight of Hand check to move a adjacent creature 10 feet as a free action. Bother can do this to each other and too any other creature in range. All of this again happens in 6 seconds, allowing effective infinite movement speed for the two and anyone they want to move.

[Doctor Despair]

Also note the Commoner railgun; a line of commoners can take a move action to hand an item (or character) to the next Commoner in line to transfer anything within their max load an arbitrarily large distance in one round. Requires an unbroken line of commoners (or soldiers, as this is intended for warfare apparently).

[Jervis]

Also note the Commoner railgun; a line of commoners can take a move action to hand an item (or character) to the next Commoner in line to transfer anything within their max load an arbitrarily large distance in one round. Requires an unbroken line of commoners (or soldiers, as this is intended for warfare apparently).

Just note that by raw even though it has arbitrary speed you end up dealing 1d4 damage as a improvised weapon

[Jack_Simth]

Ring Gates can be used for levitation and propulsion (if there isn't any "coupling" at the gates themselves).

What you do:
1: Mount the gates on a surface tied to the thing you're moving (e.g., a boat). You mount them in the direction you'd like to apply force, facing "back" (so if you want to lift the boat, the gates mount on the ceiling inside the boat, with the "open" sides facing down).
2: Run a rope through the gates, loop it around some sturdy portion of the structure in question (a cross beam in the boat).
3: Tighten the rope (wrap it around a stick and start twisting).

What happens?
Well, the tension on the rope applies force to the sturdy portion of the thing you're moving. A rope only pulls, so this is in the direction of the two ring gates.
The gates change the direction of tension - the rope is only pulling on itself at the gates, and on the sturdy portion.
The net effect is force pulling the thing up. As long as all materials can survive the tension, you can apply as much phantom force as you like. Boat lifts (or surges forward, or...).
If you wish to stop, simply remove the tension from the rope (untwist the stick).

[MornShine]

Doesn't work in D&D, but apparently was a thing in Baldur's Gate for a while:

Integer underflow errors. When something (usually ability mods) would be negative, it loops around to 255.

Obviously, this doesn't work with HP, and RAW in 3.5 is clear what happens when ability scores drop below 0.

But you know what's not explicitly mentioned? Caster Level. So, when CL drops below 0, it loops to 255 (or more depending on how many binary digits are used). Thus, with the feats Pierce Magical Defenses, Pierce Magical Concealment, one can get extreme CL for spells of up to fourth level. Bam.

[Gruftzwerg]

Unarmed Strike and Natural Weapons are always considered light weapons. Thus you can use the Sizing enchantment (on a necklace of natural attacks) to size your unarmed strikes to colossal size (with penalties to hit).

[King of Nowhere]

People only need to eat once every three days to avoid penalties, you can save on rations

[Telonius]

Inertia is completely dependent on the number and difficulty of challenges you've overcome. An orc swinging an axe will cut an unarmored commoner in half, but the same axe swing will lightly graze an unarmored 20th-level Fighter.

The Elemental Plane of Fire, combined with the existence of planar travel, mean that thermodynamics get really weird. An infinite source of heat plus a system that isn't closed means you can beat entropy.

An everburning torch = an endless supply of photons.

Decanter of Endless Water = perpetual motion device (hook it up to a mill).

[Kurald Galain]

There's a D&D-based story where one of the protagonists gets hurled at the planet from stratospheric heights, lands close to a wall, and is completely unharmed.

Because, you know, monk.

[Athan Artilliam]

Just note that by raw even though it has arbitrary speed you end up dealing 1d4 damage as a improvised weapon

Seconding this. I've heard so many people talk about how RAW the peasant railgun is so awesome but they never seem to carry the RAW far enough to realise it still counts as a regular thrown rock at the end

[Doctor Despair]

Seconding this. I've heard so many people talk about how RAW the peasant railgun is so awesome but they never seem to carry the RAW far enough to realise it still counts as a regular thrown rock at the end

I always thought of it as a transportation device, not a weapon

[Jervis]

Inertia is completely dependent on the number and difficulty of challenges you've overcome. An orc swinging an axe will cut an unarmored commoner in half, but the same axe swing will lightly graze an unarmored 20th-level Fighter.

The Elemental Plane of Fire, combined with the existence of planar travel, mean that thermodynamics get really weird. An infinite source of heat plus a system that isn't closed means you can beat entropy.

An everburning torch = an endless supply of photons.

Decanter of Endless Water = perpetual motion device (hook it up to a mill).

I once saw a write up for a ram jet engine powered by a decanter of endless water and a permanencyed wall of fire spell. The engine itself was made of Riverine so damage wasn’t a problem. The math on the speed wasn’t complete but you end up with a stream of hot plasma blowing out the back accelerating you across the plaid barrier.

[Lukalaly]

My apologies for completely forgetting that I made this thread for a few days!

I had heard about the peasant railgun before, but hadn't mentioned it for the reason that Jervis mentioned, the whole it not really being anything but silly by RAW, rather than some insane damage machine. Everything else has been...well, incredibly interesting, to say the least. I particularly like the infinite movement via paired slight of hand as well as the several things in Telonius' post.

Additionally, Mornshine's idea of integer underflow might actually be fairly appropriate for the tone of my game, so much so that I'm surprised I didn't think of it myself.

Thanks very much everyone! This will probably be more than enough to work with going forward, and I'm definitely going to keep some of these in mind in case I ever get to actually be a player in a high level 3.5 game again :smalltongue:

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Cold is an actual measurable thing, rather than a lack of thing. It's an actual type of energy, rather than a dearth of heat energy. And no matter how much cold damage absolute zero deals, you can always deal more cold damage than that with a powerful enough [cold] spell or psionic power. Yes, you can get colder than absolute zero.

The same goes for atoms vibrating at the speed of light (the fastest speed possible) and an appropriately powerful [fire] effect (only, "you can get hotter," in this case).

With a high enough base speed, enough speed bonuses, and speed multipliers, you can move faster than light speed without doing weird things to physics -- and you don't produce a sonic boom, either. Not unless you've got a feat or a magical effect that lets you do so, anyway.

You can blow up any rocky planet of nigh infinite size and mass with a 2nd level spell (rockburst, from Shining South; note the size "limit" in the spell description).

The d2 crusader (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?58860-Help-me-break-a-game&p=3300686#post3300686) literally deals nigh infinite damage (and thus produces nigh infinite energy) with a single punch. The only limit is how much damage (and how much energy) he wants to deal. A proper setup could harvest nigh infinite power for an electric generator. But no matter how powerful the punch, the most matter he can obliterate is a single 10' cube. And even if that cube is made from obdurium, or something even stronger, such a punch will never break his hand.

Riverine has infinite tensile strength. No matter how thin the riverine is, it can hold up under infinite mass and infinite weight. A riverine lever a single planck-length thick can literally move entire multiverses' worth of mass without the slightest strain. No amount of physical damage that isn't outright disintegration can so much as scratch it. Despite that, gently tossing something made from riverine at a feather mattress less than a foot away outright destroys whatever it was you threw if it hits, and it has a 50% chance of surviving if you miss, even if you throw it off a cliff or something.

Food and water are not digested in the body. They're first dissolved and then destroyed entirely, via stomach acid. That means sewage is not a thing, and as a result, society doesn't have to account for it.

The four classic elements (earth, fire, air, and water) can exist as all of the states of matter, since everything native to each of the elemental planes consists of their respective elements. That means you can have gaseous earth, liquid fire, or solid air. And yet, a normal human can breathe "air" on the Plane of Earth and survive just fine.

The quintessence psionic power actually coalesces time itself into a physical substance. It's useful, but not very interesting. You'd think it would be, but it's not.

[Saint-Just]

Food and water are not digested in the body. They're first dissolved and then destroyed entirely, via stomach acid. That means sewage is not a thing, and as a result, society doesn't have to account for it.


I don't think that stomach acid is acid in the narrow RAW sense. If you equate IRL terms with game terms indiscriminately you'd probably end up not with weird physics to exploit, but with some absurd la-la land that puts Tippyverse to shame, or just end up concluding that the world would be inevitably destroyed by something that is present in the world.

Also I do not think that RAW says that "nothing" is left after destruction by acid.

[Jervis]

Riverine has infinite tensile strength. No matter how thin the riverine is, it can hold up under infinite mass and infinite weight. A riverine lever a single planck-length thick can literally move entire multiverses' worth of mass without the slightest strain. No amount of physical damage that isn't outright disintegration can so much as scratch it. Despite that, gently tossing something made from riverine at a feather mattress less than a foot away outright destroys whatever it was you threw if it hits, and it has a 50% chance of surviving if you miss, even if you throw it off a cliff or something.


What happens if you turn a artifact into a projectile I wonder. Besides that I want to a castle of riverine supported entirely by a single immovable rod

[Metastachydium]

I don't think that stomach acid is acid in the narrow RAW sense.

I'm pretty sure it is, though. The stomach of most critters with the Swallow Whole ability explcitly deals (bludgeoning and) acid damage.

[RSGA]

How much acid damage does an orange do? And how much does a lemon do? And is stomach acid actually in that range or outside it? These are the important questions.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

What happens if you turn a artifact into a projectile I wonder. Besides that I want to a castle of riverine supported entirely by a single immovable rodArtifacts are apparently destroyed, unless their "you must be this tall fulfill these conditions to destroy it" overrides that. Depends on the exact phrasing, I guess. Also, immovable rods have a max weight of 8,000 lbs, so you'll have to use very small amounts of riverine. Fortunately, with infinite tensile strength, you can fabricate a tiny shard of it into colossal structures with no loss of integrity. You just have to make sure everything inside the castle (including you and any guests you might have) weigh less than the maximum weight your immovable rod(s) can hold.


How much acid damage does an orange do? And how much does a lemon do? And is stomach acid actually in that range or outside it? These are the important questions.Stomach acid is hydrochloric acid, at least in humans. I imagine that deals a lot more damage than citrus juice.

[Jervis]

How much acid damage does an orange do? And how much does a lemon do? And is stomach acid actually in that range or outside it? These are the important questions.

Is it possible that every creature has Energy Resist 1/acid and that oranges do 1 acid damage. All sources of acid damage account for this and deal 1 more than listed. Because that just makes sense

[Venger]

The same goes for atoms vibrating at the speed of light (the fastest speed possible) and an appropriately powerful [fire] effect (only, "you can get hotter," in this case).

Do atoms actually exist on Oerth? Does any object smaller than fine?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Do atoms actually exist on Oerth?Well, we are supposed to assume things work like they do IRL unless otherwise stated, so...


Does any object smaller than fine?Fine is the smallest official size, but everything smaller than Diminutive is Fine, all the way down to electrons and quarks and bosons and such (assuming they actually exist).

[Jervis]

Well, we are supposed to assume things work like they do IRL unless otherwise stated, so...

Fine is the smallest official size, but everything smaller than Diminutive is Fine, all the way down to electrons and quarks and bosons and such (assuming they actually exist).

Does that mean that only 8 electrons can exist in a space?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Does that mean that only 8 electrons can exist in a space?Only if they can be considered combatants. Remember, that's combat spacing.

[Metastachydium]

Does that mean that only 8 electrons can exist in a space?

Not quite. It means that if electrons were creatures, only a 100 of them could fight effectively within a 5 feet by 5 feet square (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/intro.htm#spaceReach) unless they formed a swarm (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#swarmSubtype).

[MornShine]

Well.

Can I interest you in the Sunder rules?


... You don’t use an opposed attack roll (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatStatistics.htm#attackRoll) to damage a carried or worn object. Instead, just make an attack roll against the object’s AC. A carried or worn object’s AC is equal to 10 + its size modifier (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#sizeModifier) + the Dexterity modifier of the carrying or wearing character...

Not only does this lend itself to in-game shenanigans-- like pulling a Mask of Zorro (https://youtu.be/Th4QuKimphk?t=179)-- but this means that an atom has an AC of 18 + Dex, or less if not worn or carried.

Get yourself an (extremely stable!) iron atom. It has hardness 10 and effectively 0 hp. Get your sacrificial first level fighter to sunder it, and BAM! atomic weaponry.

Rules Compendium also has rules on attacking worn and carried creatures, so go ahead and sunder those gut bacteria/viruses/cancerous tumors.

[Saint-Just]

Get yourself an (extremely stable!) iron atom. It has hardness 10 and effectively 0 hp. Get your sacrificial first level fighter to sunder it, and BAM! atomic weaponry.

Even if you treat sundering as annihilation (not actually supported by RAW, it is more reasonable to expect some fragments to survive), annihilating a single atom does not release enough energy to be noticeable at human scale.

[Metastachydium]

Even if you treat sundering as annihilation (not actually supported by RAW, it is more reasonable to expect some fragments to survive), annihilating a single atom does not release enough energy to be noticeable at human scale.

Fission does not annihilate the nucleus, though. It just breaks it up into smaller pieces. Also, if the sundered atom is part of an object with the right composition, there is an odd chance that its sundering precipitates a chain reaction.

The real problem is that this being D&D, the resulting damage would likely be… Underwhelming.

[Saint-Just]

Fission does not annihilate the nucleus, though. It just breaks it up into smaller pieces. Also, if the sundered atom is part of an object with the right composition, there is an odd chance that its sundering precipitates a chain reaction.

The real problem is that this being D&D, the resulting damage would likely beÂ… Underwhelming.

I was looking at the worst/best case scenario for release of energy, fission will release even less energy then annihilation (and for the record, I do not mean "not noticeable" as in "not impactful", I mean "literally impossible to register with the best instruments availiable when you do it in normal conditions").

And you cannot use fission of one atom (achieved by whatever means) to trigger a chain reaction. First you need to build a fissile device, because "objects that can sustain a chain reaction" do not lie around, second to trigger the fission you'd need a stronger neutron source than a single atom (if your device is so sensitive that it can go off after you add however many neutrons are released by a single atom, it would have gone off long ago due to variation in neutron background radiation, or other probabilistic factors).

[Pezzo]

Artifacts are apparently destroyed, unless their "you must be this tall fulfill these conditions to destroy it" overrides that.

a drunken master can destroy improvised weapons when using them ("When a drunken master rolls a natural 1 on an attack roll while using an improvised weapon, that weapon breaks apart and becomes useless"), if one would use an artifact as an improvised weapon it could break it, or at least make it useless

[Cortillaen]

Less a specific technique and more a general concept to abuse, but there are plenty of things (mostly spells, of course) that add or remove mass from existence. Given the interrelationship between mass, velocity, and energy, someone could abuse this to generate effectively infinite energy (if nothing else, summoning at a great height generates immense potential, and shortly kinetic, energy that can be utilized). One relatively simple concept that comes to mind is using one or more auto-resetting traps, one using any of the size-changing spells (Enlarge Person, Reduce Person, Shrink Item, etc) on someone/something carried in a basket of some kind on the outer edge of a large wheel, and either another trap dispelling it or perhaps a carefully placed Antimagic Field. The objective is simply to make the person/object smaller, and therefore lighter, as it passes the nadir of it's rotation on the wheel, and making it larger and heavier as it passes the zenith. Once started, this system generates infinite energy, and the only upkeep depends on whether you are using people for the weights and how much you care about them.

And of course there's always abusing Shrink Item, Telekinesis (or any other method of moving large weights), and flight to drop, and then unshrink, immense amounts of mass from extreme heights to achieve an ersatz kinetic kill weapon. If sticking to the 20d6 maximum damage for Falling Objects, releasing more, smaller objects in a stream instead of fewer, larger objects should still get the job done. Or spray them over a wider area to carpet-bomb the location.