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Eurus
2008-05-22, 10:18 PM
Can zombies and/or constructs survive on the moon (or some other similar environment)? No real reason, I've just had this idea stuck in my head for a while now about a bunch of PCs traveling to the moon (for some reason...) and finding it full of zombies. The perfect Phylactery hiding place for the aspiring young lich.

Of course, for that matter, the moon or an orbiting asteroid would make the best Evil Castle O'Doom ever. Imagine: A demilich uses constructs to build a citadel of death on the moon and uses some kind of infinite-range spell to rain death on the planet below. A vampire clan makes a base of operations in space (Dracula's Space Palace! (http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=18&issue=11)), utilizing thralls equipped with some kind of items of baleful teleportation (or whatever equivalent spell exists, I don't know...) to fetch prospective meals from the surface. Or even something less necessarily evil, like a tribe of warforged or intelligent undead that somehow got themselves stuck on the moon umpteen centuries ago and (out of boredom, mostly) discovered interplanetary travel on their own...

Dang, now I've got to find a DM to do this stuff. XD

Solo
2008-05-22, 10:22 PM
There is no reason why you couldn't construct your Fortress of Oppression on a moon, perhaps also placing a massive weapon there as well, turning the moon into a "death star".

Emperor Tippy
2008-05-22, 10:23 PM
Sure.

Space travel is easy. Polymorph into something not bothered by the environment, look at about where you want to go, and cast Greater Teleport. Repeat until your at your destination. Now that you have visited it you can travel their with 1 Greater Teleport whenever you want to.

Scaboroth
2008-05-22, 10:24 PM
This is a great idea! And I'm not just saying that because I'm already using it in my own campaign :smallbiggrin: The world I created has two moons, representing the tides of life and death. One moon is covered in forests, meadows, small lakes, etc. and is inhabited mostly by nature-themed creatures and fey. The other moon is barren, rocky, ugly, and inhospitable. It is swarming with negative-material types, like wights and vampires, as well as their many zombie minions. It's great to have laying in wait, in case I ever want to spring a "Every 1000 years the moons come into alignment" kind of an apocalypse, with skeletons literally raining down from the skies.

Solo
2008-05-22, 10:28 PM
This is a great idea! And I'm not just saying that because I'm already using it in my own campaign :smallbiggrin: The world I created has two moons, representing the tides of life and death. One moon is covered in forests, meadows, small lakes, etc. and is inhabited mostly by nature-themed creatures and fey. The other moon is barren, rocky, ugly, and inhospitable. It is swarming with negative-material types, like wights and vampires, as well as their many zombie minions. It's great to have laying in wait, in case I ever want to spring a "Every 1000 years the moons come into alignment" kind of an apocalypse, with skeletons literally raining down from the skies.

Get a commoner/cleric 13 with a spell component pouch, the Chicken infested feat, fell animate, DMM(Fell Animate), and the spell Greater Consumptive Field.

1. Draw chicken
2. Chicken dies, giving you Str and HP
3. Chicken animated as a zombie chickent.
4. Repeat.
5. ???
6. Profit.

Inyssius Tor
2008-05-22, 10:36 PM
... with skeletons literally raining down from the skies.
GIGANTIC BALLS OF AWESOME

...

Personally, I've been thinking for a while about giving the Githzerai (or Dromites) an ancient Illithid space station--not some crazy science-fiction stuff, but an actual easily-breakable somewhat realistic one (augmented with psionics, perhaps). Some space shuttles, too.

Eurus
2008-05-22, 10:37 PM
Even ignoring the infinite Str/HP bonus... Zombie moon chickens? That is too awesome to not exist.

Coplantor
2008-05-22, 10:43 PM
I could'nt understand anything of what solo said. So you have a mix of dracula's space castle and the death star (austin powers version) right in a D&D campaign? I have to steal this idea, wait, it does'nt work this way. Anyway I like this idea for a lich to hide his filactery, much better than having a base in the positive energy plane (it just, it cant work!).

Solo
2008-05-22, 10:47 PM
I could'nt understand anything of what solo said. So you have a mix of dracula's space castle and the death star (austin powers version) right in a D&D campaign? I have to steal this idea, wait, it does'nt work this way. Anyway I like this idea for a lich to hide his filactery, much better than having a base in the positive energy plane (it just, it cant work!).
What?

....


What?

SurlySeraph
2008-05-22, 10:48 PM
Get a commoner/cleric 13 with a spell component pouch, the Chicken infested feat, fell animate, DMM(Fell Animate), and the spell Greater Consumptive Field.

1. Draw chicken
2. Chicken dies, giving you Str and HP
3. Chicken animated as a zombie chickent.
4. Repeat.
5. ???
6. Profit.

Better yet: Chicken Infested is a flaw, so you get it for free. Even though it can be used to do incredibly powerful things.

TheCountAlucard
2008-05-22, 10:50 PM
I was thinking of Atropus when I read that first post...

Coplantor
2008-05-22, 10:51 PM
What?

....


What?

Just messing with your mind.

By the way, excelent avatar.

Cuddly
2008-05-22, 10:55 PM
This is a great idea! And I'm not just saying that because I'm already using it in my own campaign :smallbiggrin: The world I created has two moons, representing the tides of life and death. One moon is covered in forests, meadows, small lakes, etc. and is inhabited mostly by nature-themed creatures and fey. The other moon is barren, rocky, ugly, and inhospitable. It is swarming with negative-material types, like wights and vampires, as well as their many zombie minions. It's great to have laying in wait, in case I ever want to spring a "Every 1000 years the moons come into alignment" kind of an apocalypse, with skeletons literally raining down from the skies.

Wow, that's eerily similar to my campaign world, except there were three moons. One was a jungle moon inhabited by homebrewed blues (psychic goblins), where everything was poisonous and hostile. There were also dinosaurs, which made the druid very, very happy. He got a megaraptor for a pet. The other was a moon full of fey creatures and giant mushrooms, underground labyrinths, oily black seas, and strange star spawn. The fey moon caused crazy growth whenever it rose every 3 to 6 years, with fungus raining down from above onto the planet, the astral plane becoming wonky causing problems with teleport spells, and fey absconding with children and unwary travelers.

Unfortunately for party, the third moon, more a projection of the negative energy plane than an actual heavenly body, was rising in a once in a 10,000 year event. Every 1,000 years, the dead moon would rise and bolster the undead. This time though, when the moon finally rose, it created a portal powerful enough to attract Atropus. Incidentally, this also caused the dead to return to life.

Citizen Jenkins
2008-05-22, 11:14 PM
I don't see any reason why Golems wouldn't survive any more than any other hunk of rock or iron in space. Same with liches, neither the old nor the lack of pressure is going to do much to bones. Not so sure how zombies work with explosive decompression but a quick Google search indicates that the threat of explosive decompression is a bit overrated. Can't see why a properly prepared zombie couldn't survive either.

Greater Teleport has no range limit so getting there you're really just limited by how far you can see. Once you're there set up a few Teleportation Circles and you're set for transportation.

Aquillion
2008-05-22, 11:21 PM
Doesn't it depend on your campaign setting? In some places, the moon is a large planetoid that can be landed on and visited, Apollo 11-style.

In others, it's a disk about twenty meters across, or a giant silver wolf, or a goddess, or a flower someone set up there, or a gate to the positive energy plane, or... well, you get the idea. Although it would be funny to have the players try to reach it in a campaign where it turns out to be one of those... Having the stars turn out to be tiny fist-sized glowing rocks that can be grabbed and stolen could be fun, too.

Waspinator
2008-05-22, 11:43 PM
"Extra! Extra! Lich steals stars and sells them to pawn shop!"

Tsotha-lanti
2008-05-23, 05:14 AM
Doesn't breathe, immune or resistant to cold? It can survive in the vacuum of space. Or on a moon with no atmosphere, or a trace atmosphere.

But like Aquillion says, you'll want to check with your local cosmology first. I doubt Selūne would appreciate anyone walking on her, for instance.

Solo
2008-05-23, 05:21 AM
Doesn't breathe, immune or resistant to cold? It can survive in the vacuum of space. Or on a moon with no atmosphere, or a trace atmosphere.

But like Aquillion says, you'll want to check with your local cosmology first. I doubt Selūne would appreciate anyone walking on her, for instance.

I dunno, some people are into crazy sh*t...

Enguhl
2008-05-23, 06:18 AM
There is no reason why you couldn't construct your Fortress of Oppression on a moon, perhaps also placing a massive weapon there as well, turning the moon into a "death star".

That's no moon! At least not anymore.

TheCountAlucard
2008-05-23, 07:40 AM
Doesn't breathe, immune or resistant to cold? It can survive in the vacuum of space. Or on a moon with no atmosphere, or a trace atmosphere.

While you would have a hard time surviving in the vacuum, you wouldn't take cold damage from it. There's simply not enough matter around for convection or conduction to take place. Without convection or conduction, there's no loss of heat.

Nerd-o-rama
2008-05-23, 10:17 AM
There are four things in space that will kill you, in approximately this order:

1) Lack of air (obviously)
2) Fluids boiling out of your body and into the vacuum (this is defined as "taking damage from the vacuum" in an example Epic Spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/nailedToTheSky.htm))
3) Either cold or heat eventually, depending where you are within a solar system (also mentioned in that above spell)
4) Radiation (no ozone layer)

Oh, and 5) objects moving at insane velocities punching holes through you, but those are reasonably uncommon.


Now, the moon, if it's like Earth's moon, does have a thin atmosphere, so you will freeze to death eventually, but don't have to worry as much about depressurization. I think no breathing and Cold Immunity (and Fire Immunity, now that I look up the moon's daytime temperature) should be fine for game purposes, maybe with Radiation Immunity if the GM feels like worrying about that. I'd also recommend a fairly "dry" creature like a Stone or Iron Golem or skeletal/mummified/very old zombie undead, so you don't have to worry as much about the lack of atmospheric pressure keeping your blood inside you.

Subotei
2008-05-23, 10:20 AM
Can zombies and/or constructs survive on the moon (or some other similar environment)?

Our moon has a mean daytime temperature of 107 Deg C and a mean nighttime temperature of -153 Deg C. Thats gotta effect anything that is (or was) flesh. Sunlight on the moon is brighter than on earth, so would it effect undead more? Would they freeze during the night?

But why bring physics into DnD? If the idea fits, go with it.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-05-23, 10:34 AM
Yeah, this is all assuming the Earth and it's Moon.

On my favorite Moon - the Red one - conditions are already hospitable to humans. Well, Lunar worshipers, anyway.

Swooper
2008-05-23, 02:01 PM
Can't see why a properly prepared zombie couldn't survive either.
You just gave me a mental image of a zombie in a space suit.

Coplantor
2008-05-23, 02:07 PM
You just gave me a mental image of a zombie in a space suit.

This reminds me of a lot of bad Sci-Fi/horror movies...

DMfromTheAbyss
2008-05-23, 02:07 PM
Isn't this sort of conversation how Spelljammer got started in the first place... if you start out with lunar travel it's only a matter of time before other worlds open up... then you have stellar empires and space related quests... soon it's up to cosmology and what the stars are made of... or how the universe works (crystal spheres or gallaxies).

To anyone seriously interested I'd suggest the old 2nd Edition SpellJammer boxed set(s) (or at least read about them) it's great for these kind of things, at least for ideas on how your universe could work. (Besides how cool is the idea of becoming a space pirate?)

Coplantor
2008-05-23, 02:13 PM
Isn't this sort of conversation how Spelljammer got started in the first place... if you start out with lunar travel it's only a matter of time before other worlds open up... then you have stellar empires and space related quests... soon it's up to cosmology and what the stars are made of... or how the universe works (crystal spheres or gallaxies).

To anyone seriously interested I'd suggest the old 2nd Edition SpellJammer boxed set(s) (or at least read about them) it's great for these kind of things, at least for ideas on how your universe could work. (Besides how cool is the idea of becoming a space pirate?)

Was'nt spelljammer the one with the mechanical gnomes?

Any way, I always liked the idea of playing spelljammer, specially since i found an adventure designed for spelljammer that i really liked. And also, by knowing more about different settings, the more crazy things i'll be able to do in Planescape.

Illiterate Scribe
2008-05-23, 02:32 PM
Bah! Why have a moon colony when you can have nested demiplanes?

Soup of Kings
2008-05-23, 02:43 PM
Bah! Why have a moon colony when you can have nested demiplanes?

Because the moon is awesome.

Worira
2008-05-23, 03:53 PM
I prefer warforged warlocks. Because they can fly to the moon at level six.

FlyMolo
2008-05-23, 04:25 PM
Rules for space: Eminently reasonable.

1d6 cold or fire, as appropriate. Even with no air, you lose heat through radiation. Anything with blood or fluids takes 2d6 per round for 1d6+4 rounds, then have no remaining fluids from the vacuum.

Assuming that, liches are pretty much set. Most zombies will be a little weakened, but survive.

Eurus
2008-05-23, 04:40 PM
Except mummies, which are already fairly dessicated. A bit of fire resistance to deal with the light (or some kind of permanent Darkness effect), and you're set! Space mummies for the win.

Ganurath
2008-05-23, 04:43 PM
Whatever you used would need to be immune to cold damage. Low atmosphere = low temperature after all.

As for that moon-based superweapon, how about a commoner railgun made of skeletons?

sikyon
2008-05-23, 04:47 PM
While you would have a hard time surviving in the vacuum, you wouldn't take cold damage from it. There's simply not enough matter around for convection or conduction to take place. Without convection or conduction, there's no loss of heat.

I'm sorry, that's just wrong.

Convection and conduction are not the only ways to lose heat. Photon emission is a primary way to lose heat, as electrons fall into lower energy states and are emit photons carrying the energy away. Electron ejection can occur as well, for example There are frankly a massive variety of ways to lose energy without a conducting medium.

Your blood may also begin to boil if you are exposed for more than a minute or 2, and hard radiation is going to pose a problem after awhile as well.

Edit:


Whatever you used would need to be immune to cold damage. Low atmosphere = low temperature after all.


Actually Low pressure =/= low temperature. In fact, the average temperature in space is very very high. Temperature is the average energy of the particles you are considering. In space, there are very few particles but they all have extremly high energy, meaning extremly high temperature.

Yuki Akuma
2008-05-23, 04:47 PM
Whatever you used would need to be immune to cold damage. Low atmosphere = low temperature after all.

Space does not work that way! Space is not cold. There's nothing there to be cold!

No atmosphere = no heat lost due to conduction or convection. There's nothing out there to take the heat away! Sure, you'll lose heat due to evaporation as your fluids boil away, but only the fluid covering your eyes and the inside of your orrifices will actually boil away unless you have open wounds.

You'll radiate all your heat away eventually, but not nearly at such a high rate. An average human will suffocate far sooner than he'll freeze. Then he'll be baked by stray radiation. Then he'll freeze.

Remember: one round is six seconds. Your average human has 2.5 hp. You will not die within twelve seconds of being exposed to vacuum. You can survive several minutes!

sikyon
2008-05-23, 04:52 PM
Space does not work that way! Space is not cold. There's nothing there to be cold!

No atmosphere = no heat lost due to conduction or convection. There's nothing out there to take the heat away! Sure, you'll lose heat due to evaporation as your fluids boil away, but only the fluid covering your eyes and the inside of your orrifices will actually boil away unless you have open wounds.

You'll radiate all your heat away eventually, but not nearly at such a high rate. An average human will suffocate far sooner than he'll freeze. Then he'll be baked by stray radiation. Then he'll freeze.

Remember: one round is six seconds. Your average human has 2.5 hp. You will not die within twelve seconds of being exposed to vacuum. You can survive several minutes!

We're talking about long term exposure/life here, not a half minute human exposure. Cold and bodily fluids boiling away are going to be major problems here.

Yuki Akuma
2008-05-23, 04:54 PM
We're talking about long term exposure/life here, not a half minute human exposure. Cold and bodily fluids boiling away are going to be major problems here.

Yes. But people are recommending taking damage per round. Which is just too fast for an average human.

sikyon
2008-05-23, 04:58 PM
Yes. But people are recommending taking damage per round. Which is just too fast for an average human.

After exposure lasting more than a few minutes it's pretty accurate to start taking damage/round.

FlyMolo
2008-05-23, 05:03 PM
Yes. But people are recommending taking damage per round. Which is just too fast for an average human.

Your lungs and eyes and blood boil away. That is seriously bad. You eyes will pop because they're squishy. Your brain will try and squeeze itself out your eyeholes. Your lungs and ribcage will probably either pop or you'll sneeze your own epiglottis into space. UNFUN things will happen to you.

And space is hot. Stuff melts. In any case, high level chars will be able to survive in space at least until their air runs out. 15+ wizards, or 10+ barbarians or something.

(I'm not even going to point out that taking the DnD abstraction of a human and using it to prove that real humans could survive in space is silly)

Scaboroth
2008-05-23, 05:03 PM
Get a commoner/cleric 13 with a spell component pouch, the Chicken infested feat, fell animate, DMM(Fell Animate), and the spell Greater Consumptive Field.

1. Draw chicken
2. Chicken dies, giving you Str and HP
3. Chicken animated as a zombie chicken.
4. Repeat.
5. ???
6. Profit.
Solo: just curious, but what is it with you and the chickens? Did you have a bad experience in your youth?
Were you touched inappropriately during a barnyard fieldtrip?

Eurus
2008-05-23, 05:37 PM
Well, the epic spell Nailed to the Sky specifically says that, in D&D land, you take 1d4 damage per round from a vacuum. No variation. Ever. Unless you're immune to it, you'll continue to take damage per round, even after you logically wouldn't have any bodily fluids left. Radiation damage is not mentioned, and I don't think there's even anything to suggest that radiation exists in D&D... I mean, for all we know, the sun might well be a several-meter-radius ball of fire pulled across the sky every morning by a giant chariot. X_X

FlyMolo
2008-05-23, 05:39 PM
Well, the epic spell Nailed to the Sky specifically says that, in D&D land, you take 1d4 damage per round from a vacuum. No variation. Ever. Unless you're immune to it, you'll continue to take damage per round, even after you logically wouldn't have any bodily fluids left. Radiation damage is not mentioned, and I don't think there's even anything to suggest that radiation exists in D&D... I mean, for all we know, the sun might well be a several-meter-radius ball of fire pulled across the sky every morning by a giant chariot. X_X

forgot about those. If the sun was only a few feet wide, it'd only be a few hundred feet up. You could go fly up and touch it.

Eurus
2008-05-23, 05:56 PM
Why? You're assuming perspective is the same as in Real Life. XD For that matter, who says the sun is even real? Maybe it's a divinely-created illusion that remains the same size no matter how close you are.

Soup of Kings
2008-05-23, 06:07 PM
Except mummies, which are already fairly dessicated. A bit of fire resistance to deal with the light (or some kind of permanent Darkness effect), and you're set! Space mummies for the win.

Space mummies are sheer awesome.

Seriously, though, I wanna use this, and I may just use the Nailed to the Sky rules if no one can agree on exactly what happens in space. I think it's pretty much agreed that a lich would be alright though, so I'm using one of those.

Eurus
2008-05-23, 06:27 PM
Neat, glad the idea caught on. ^_^ Yeah, I'd think that, assuming he stays indoors to avoid the sun (or just gets fire immunity) a Lich would be fine. No cold damage, no breathing.

I wonder, though; does a Necklace of Adaption work in a vacuum? It creates a field of air around the user, I believe, but would that air actually let them breathe, or would it be sucked away into the vacuum? What about a Bottle of Air? Does anyone know what happens when you open one of those in space?

DMfromTheAbyss
2008-05-23, 06:44 PM
Yes they're called Autognomes... and they are one of the MANY weird and strange things running around SpellJammer.

They had everything from Space Peguin Salesmen (with plaid carpet bags) defended by Pegasi like riding boars, being riden by said same penguin's knights with armored beaks to peck you (they were called DeathSqueelers I kid you not) Look em up they're called Dohwar(the penguin race the knights are the deathsqueelers). To Elven Bioweapons that were basically 30'tall giant undead insect mecha (Spirit Warriors) that could wield giant sized weapons (yes including bows).

As the Spacefarers Handbook said "In space, Weirder is Better."

Spell jammer also had drastically different but consistent rules for physics...
Like
Space was a comfortable 75 degrees, it could even be said to be "Balmy" this was an excuse for the pirates to wear loose shirts I think.
Gravity was always 1G on anything over a certain size (I remember stone giants counted so you could walk on them like a planet.)
Gravity planes were weird... in that the longest dimension of whatever object you were on determined where the plane of gravity was.

Mind you this was all to make the system make sense in a survivable fashion... mind you space didn't have much air so everything just had a small air envelope around it... on a typical ship (like a galleon) it'd last maybe a month. Around a person (say you jumped overboard) it would last you maybe a few minutes.

The problem with flying to the moon (or any celestial body if we're using anything like realworld physics) is that your fly speed would have to be increadible to make it there in a not insanely large period of time(this is ignoring escape velocity of course, meaning that even if you can fly as fast as a bulet your still a ways short), by which point said object would have moved in it's orbit and you'd be where it was... you could do it but I hope your good at math and figuring relative velocities to figure out where that moons going to be in 2 months and 7 days... and then hope you can match speeds so it doesn't hit you like a buick hitting a bug. Oh and I hope you don't mind eating while flying and brought enough food. (not a problem for the undead or golem types but a logistical nightmare for some 5th level wizard).

So yeah unless you wanna be a rocket scientist (literally) the Spell jammer rules are weird... but simpler, which for a D&D game is OK.

Solo
2008-05-23, 07:19 PM
Space mummies are sheer awesome.



...in SPAAAAAACE!

Coplantor
2008-05-23, 08:29 PM
I think that with collective effort from the forum members we can turn this into a good setting.

And space mummies ROCK!

FlyMolo
2008-05-23, 08:44 PM
Actually, lemme do some math.

2000 ft/round is the speed of the moon, relative to someone flying out from the surface. 500 miles per hour. You hit that, and you're thinking several times terminal velocity.

So use a bottle of air to accelerate yourself! point it away from where you want to go and relish in the thrust.

Even with fly, which iirc grants 60' fly speed, you're going to be splattered. Or you're going to spend 34 rounds accelerating, if you allow a fly speed to be thrust.

Inyssius Tor
2008-05-23, 09:40 PM
Your lungs and eyes and blood boil away. That is seriously bad. You eyes will pop because they're squishy. Your brain will try and squeeze itself out your eyeholes. Your lungs and ribcage will probably either pop or you'll sneeze your own epiglottis into space. UNFUN things will happen to you.

Yuki Akuma was talking about taking damage per round from the cold. Context, people! Explosive decompression will be a problem, yes; it won't be immediately fatal, as accidental "experiments" have fortunately shown, but it's problem enough to knock a pretty fit person unconscious in about ten seconds (that from NASA.gov).

Cuddly
2008-05-23, 10:03 PM
Your lungs and eyes and blood boil away. That is seriously bad. You eyes will pop because they're squishy. Your brain will try and squeeze itself out your eyeholes. Your lungs and ribcage will probably either pop or you'll sneeze your own epiglottis into space. UNFUN things will happen to you.

No. Vacuums don't work that way.

FlyMolo
2008-05-23, 10:07 PM
No. Vacuums don't work that way.
[citation needed]

More seriously, I do get it now. There are rules in frostburn for hundreds below, right? Ditto sandstorm, hundreds above. I think the scale goes up to about 215 F, but after that it's just "fire damage".

Adapting that should be easy.

Edit@ below: "interesting". By which you mean murderous? gravity would fall to about .5 its regular value at high tide. With two moons, even less when they coincide. Interesting effects on civilization. With such a regular clock to live by, tech should advance faster, and flight would have a huge advantage.

Nonanonymous
2008-05-23, 10:07 PM
Yes they're called Autognomes... and they are one of the MANY weird and strange things running around SpellJammer.

They had everything from Space Peguin Salesmen (with plaid carpet bags) defended by Pegasi like riding boars, being riden by said same penguin's knights with armored beaks to peck you (they were called DeathSqueelers I kid you not) Look em up they're called Dohwar(the penguin race the knights are the deathsqueelers). To Elven Bioweapons that were basically 30'tall giant undead insect mecha (Spirit Warriors) that could wield giant sized weapons (yes including bows).

As the Spacefarers Handbook said "In space, Weirder is Better."

Spell jammer also had drastically different but consistent rules for physics...
Like
Space was a comfortable 75 degrees, it could even be said to be "Balmy" this was an excuse for the pirates to wear loose shirts I think.
Gravity was always 1G on anything over a certain size (I remember stone giants counted so you could walk on them like a planet.)
Gravity planes were weird... in that the longest dimension of whatever object you were on determined where the plane of gravity was.

Mind you this was all to make the system make sense in a survivable fashion... mind you space didn't have much air so everything just had a small air envelope around it... on a typical ship (like a galleon) it'd last maybe a month. Around a person (say you jumped overboard) it would last you maybe a few minutes.

The problem with flying to the moon (or any celestial body if we're using anything like realworld physics) is that your fly speed would have to be increadible to make it there in a not insanely large period of time(this is ignoring escape velocity of course, meaning that even if you can fly as fast as a bulet your still a ways short), by which point said object would have moved in it's orbit and you'd be where it was... you could do it but I hope your good at math and figuring relative velocities to figure out where that moons going to be in 2 months and 7 days... and then hope you can match speeds so it doesn't hit you like a buick hitting a bug. Oh and I hope you don't mind eating while flying and brought enough food. (not a problem for the undead or golem types but a logistical nightmare for some 5th level wizard).

So yeah unless you wanna be a rocket scientist (literally) the Spell jammer rules are weird... but simpler, which for a D&D game is OK.

And that's precisely why I don't really like Spelljammer. And just a thought, what would be the effects of an Earth-like planet with one or more moons with roughly the same distance as the real-world relationship's but with at least 75% Earth-gravity for each of the moons? I imagine it'd lead to some very interesting tidal patterns...

Coplantor
2008-05-23, 10:13 PM
One of the best RPG motivational posters I've seen said something like:

SPELLJAMMER:
D&D meets Star Trek.
It's like porn for nerds!

Worira
2008-05-23, 10:25 PM
Magical flight doesn't have an escape velocity. It's just flying.

FlyMolo
2008-05-23, 10:45 PM
Magical flight doesn't have an escape velocity. It's just flying.

The trouble is catching up with the moon. I would house rule that it's a 60'/round acceleration, and that the air is what's slowing you down. Once you get to the moon, with a pile of quarterstaves, you can fling them at people. Moon-flung rods from god, as the pentagon calls them. Metal ones work best.

Eurus
2008-05-23, 11:05 PM
True Strike + Launch Bolt + Some kind of vision enhancing spell and whatever else you can get to increase accuracy. Possibly adamantine crossbow bolts, too, (+X Returning Adamantine crossbow bolts if you can afford them...) to survive the re-entry. Bonus points if you convince the DM to let you add sneak attack damage.

Two little goblins playing in the sun. Down came a pointy stick and then there was one...

Waspinator
2008-05-23, 11:21 PM
Did you just make a "Wild Griffin" reference?

Soup of Kings
2008-05-23, 11:39 PM
True Strike + Launch Bolt + Some kind of vision enhancing spell and whatever else you can get to increase accuracy. Possibly adamantine crossbow bolts, too, (+X Returning Adamantine crossbow bolts if you can afford them...) to survive the re-entry. Bonus points if you convince the DM to let you add sneak attack damage.

Two little goblins playing in the sun. Down came a pointy stick and then there was one...

Objection! (http://objection.mrdictionary.net/go.php?n=2592875)

That is, unless Launch Bolt takes care of that and I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
Lol...I love that thing...
Anyways, I think you would have to apply that to a thrown, metal weapon for it to be valid (And I don't think quarter staffs can be made of metal...) However, assuming you could somehow pinpoint someone's exact location and had line of sight, couldn't you just chuck a returning dagger or something over and over again until you rolled a natural 20?

Eurus
2008-05-23, 11:48 PM
XD My bad. Well, unless you can throw crossbow bolts as an improvised weapon... You can use them in melee as a dagger of similar size if you take the improv penalties, I think, so perhaps that extends to throwing them as well? Even if not, though, you can just stockpile a whole bunch of bolts. Cheaper anyway, just less cool. And yes, I think technically you could hit on a 20, regardless of the target's AC, assuming you could actually get a DM to rule that you can launch a weapon that far. Natural twenties are stupid that way, huh?

If you could figure it out, though, that'd be awesome. Wipe people out of existence from the moon. I'd give it ten days tops before an island of tribal orcs starts offering sacrifices to appease their new moon god.

Soup of Kings
2008-05-24, 12:10 AM
Getting to the moon shouldn't be a problem. With Greater Teleport, and a powerful telescope or magical means of studying the moon's surface, it should actually be quite simple, assuming you figure out how to survive. As for attacking people from a satellite, my method technically works, but there ought to be a more realistic (In terms of DnD, at least) way of getting hits off.

If there's an epic spell that literally lets you throw someone into orbit, there's gotta be a way to strike people down from the moon.

........

I'll be right back, I have a date with my Epic Level Handbook...

Mwa ha ha and such...

Dervag
2008-05-24, 12:21 AM
While you would have a hard time surviving in the vacuum, you wouldn't take cold damage from it. There's simply not enough matter around for convection or conduction to take place. Without convection or conduction, there's no loss of heat.I'm afraid physics doesn't quite work that way.

Any object with a nonzero temperature radiates EM waves (or photons or whatever you want to call it). The frequency and amount of this radiation depends on the temperature. High temperature objects like the Sun and a flame emit on a high enough frequency that we can see it. Medium temperature objects like, say, us emit on what we call 'infrared' frequencies.

Now, if you're surrounded by objects at the same temperature as yourself, for every photon you emit you will be getting another one back, so your total energy remains constant. This is known as 'radiative equilibrium'.

In space, the temperature of radiative equilibrium is three degrees above absolute zero. That level of low-energy EM radiation is left over from the Big Bang, so it permeates all of space.

On Earth, radiation is not normally a major cause of the loss or gain of heat. But there are exceptions. For example, the reason people get horrible burns from a nuclear blast has nothing to do with convection or conduction of heat. Air can't conduct heat fast enough to cause that kind of injury that fast. Instead, the enormous amount of light created by the detonating bomb simply radiates out in all directions. If you're looking at it, some of it hits you in the face. If you're close enough to the blast there will literally be enough light to burn your face off like a giant laser cannon or something.

But except for freakishly hot, very rapid sources of heat like that, most objects on Earth move heat through convection and conduction. The reason is obvious- everything on Earth is touching other objects and/or the air around it, so it will always be able to move a lot of heat quickly through convection or conduction.

You're right that in space convection and conduction don't happen. But there's still the matter of radiation. You would be quite visible in space on infrared vision scopes, because your body is hot enough to glow in the infrared. Absent a background of other objects at similar temperatures all around you, you'd be even more visible.

Likewise, pointing your face at a nearby nuclear explosion would still be a good way to get horribly burned, because you'd still get zorched by the light emitted from the blast. Even if the radiation had no effect on you at all you'd still feel the thermal pulse of heat.

The practical upshot of all this is that if you jettison an object in space its temperature probably won't remain constant. Instead, it will go into radiative equilibrium with its surroundings.

If there isn't a star nearby (stars being even brighter than the aforementioned nuclear explosion), as when the object is in a shadow or in the depths of interstellar space, then the equilibrium temperature is about three degrees above absolute zero. It will not get colder than 3° K, but that will be its temperature. It will not simply keep whatever temperature it had when you threw it overboard.

On the other hand, if it's in direct sunlight at close range (as in, less than many billion miles) it will gain considerable heat from the star. The radiative equilibrium is reached when the object is radiating enough energy to shed all the energy it's gaining from the star's light.

For objects orbiting the Earth, this temperature is something like 100°C. Again, not necessarily the temperature you threw it overboard at.


Your lungs and eyes and blood boil away. That is seriously bad. You eyes will pop because they're squishy. Your brain will try and squeeze itself out your eyeholes. Your lungs and ribcage will probably either pop or you'll sneeze your own epiglottis into space. UNFUN things will happen to you.It doesn't quite work like that. People have actually experienced loss of cabin pressure at space or near-space altitudes, and it won't blow up your eyeballs or cause you to exhale your internal organs.

Our bodies are more or less solid objects, and solid objects don't just self-destruct when exposed to vacuum.


And space is hot. Stuff melts.Most stuff won't melt at earth-orbit levels of sunlight. I mean, spacecraft are made out of things like iron and they're just fine. Anything that won't melt in boiling water (or, to be safe, boiling oil) won't melt in direct sunlight in outer space.

Emperor Tippy
2008-05-24, 12:21 AM
You can make stars and disintegrate everything in a hundred light years with the ELH. Turning the moon into a deathstar is minor epic magic.

Soup of Kings
2008-05-24, 12:26 AM
Catgirl genocide.

So, for the stupids out there (Me) can you simplify that to "Yes/no, you do/don't take heat/cold/vacuum damage."?


You can make stars and disintegrate everything in a hundred light years with the ELH. Turning the moon into a deathstar is minor epic magic.

Yeah, but a spell that disintegrates everything in a hundred light years would have a pretty high spellcraft DC, wouldn't it? :smallfrown:

Emperor Tippy
2008-05-24, 12:41 AM
Yeah, but a spell that disintegrates everything in a hundred light years would have a pretty high spellcraft DC, wouldn't it? :smallfrown:
DC 255 pre mitigation thanks to the funky epic rules where each factor is applied in order and successively and not one after the other.

Soup of Kings
2008-05-24, 12:46 AM
Really? :smalleek:
How's that?
Not that I'm saying I don't believe you, I'm just not very good with epic spells.

Emperor Tippy
2008-05-24, 12:49 AM
Really? :smalleek:
How's that?
Not that I'm saying I don't believe you, I'm just not very good with epic spells.

The stupid Epic Level Handbook says that you apply factors 1 after the other, so unlike all the rest of the D&D universe 2 doubling's equals a quadrupling instead of a tripling.

So you get things like ((20*2)*2)*2) for a final radius of 160 instead of 80 with 3 100% increases. It's one of the stupider things in the D&D rules.

And even with the regular stacking rules you can mitigate the DC down to 0 easily and give it to yourself as an at will, free action, Ex ability.

Soup of Kings
2008-05-24, 12:53 AM
Ah. So how is it developed, like, destroy seed, change it to an area effect and multiply the hell out of it?

Emperor Tippy
2008-05-24, 12:56 AM
Ah. So how is it developed, like, destroy seed, change it to an area effect and multiply the hell out of it?

Yep.

pink panther prefers purple ponies

Soup of Kings
2008-05-24, 01:00 AM
Neat.

I'm feeling a sudden urge to threaten my PC's with the imminent destruction of their entire campaign world by an epic-level lich on the moon. With space mummy minions.

Ned the undead
2008-05-24, 01:03 AM
+10 DM points for combining zombies and spacetravel in the same plot.

Soup of Kings
2008-05-24, 01:08 AM
And thus does the lich set up a Teleportation Circle, once he establishes his moon lair, and transport hordes of space mummies and zombies in spacesuits.

Innis Cabal
2008-05-24, 01:36 AM
are any of you spell jammer fans forgetting the space gyspies and their constalation friends?

jcsw
2008-05-24, 03:53 AM
Get a commoner/cleric 13 with a spell component pouch, the Chicken infested feat, fell animate, DMM(Fell Animate), and the spell Greater Consumptive Field.

1. Draw chicken
2. Chicken dies, giving you Str and HP
3. Chicken animated as a zombie chickent.
4. Repeat.
5. ???
6. Profit.

If you have the quick draw feat you can draw darts(material component of acid arrow) from the spell component pouch as a free action, allowing you to generate pseudo-infinite chickens in one round, also you get pseudo-infinite strength.

Eurus
2008-05-24, 11:56 AM
It probably becomes much simpler if you're aiming for a city, rather than a person. Your average Lich wizard with Intelligence in the triple digits (XD) should have no problem calculating what angle to hit that asteroid from at what time to send a hundred-ton ball of flaming death right into Waterdeep.

Recaiden
2008-05-24, 12:16 PM
What?

....


What?

A lich on the positive energy plane is technically really powerful. The fast healing 5 isn't technically due to positive damage, and the lich is immune to exploding because it is undead. So pretty soon your lich has all but infinite HP.:smalltongue:

I would also like to direct attention to this:

DISTANT SHOT [EPIC]
Prerequisites: Dex 25, Far Shot, Point Blank Shot, Spot 20 ranks.

Benefit: The character may throw or fire a ranged weapon at any target within line of sight, with no penalty for range. Get some fire proof arrows or something and shoot whoever you want. You could even create an undead creature with this as a bonus feat.

FlyMolo
2008-05-24, 03:27 PM
It doesn't quite work like that. People have actually experienced loss of cabin pressure at space or near-space altitudes, and it won't blow up your eyeballs or cause you to exhale your internal organs.

Our bodies are more or less solid objects, and solid objects don't just self-destruct when exposed to vacuum.

Most stuff won't melt at earth-orbit levels of sunlight. I mean, spacecraft are made out of things like iron and they're just fine. Anything that won't melt in boiling water (or, to be safe, boiling oil) won't melt in direct sunlight in outer space.

You are completely right about cold things in space, and I surrender to your greater knowledge of vacuum. Your lungs are in a bit of a spot, though. Violent exhalation or explosion? Anyone know the force required to rip someone's ribcage in half?

Your eye fluid would definitely boil off, and your blood would boil because of radiative heating if you're in the sun, if nothing else. The sunburn would be murder.

And don't go near mercury. Ever. three kelvin on the dark side, and hot enough to melt cars on the hot side. Eesh.

Soup of Kings
2008-05-24, 03:28 PM
Even with Distant Shot, though, you still need to pinpoint a target. And it wouldn't work too well except when the target is on an open plain. Tree/cloud cover and whatnot.

FlyMolo
2008-05-24, 03:47 PM
Even with Distant Shot, though, you still need to pinpoint a target. And it wouldn't work too well except when the target is on an open plain. Tree/cloud cover and whatnot.

Eternal Wand of Fabricate. You're on the moon, make it into little bricks and chuck them. Arrows, even. Make a 1 pound arrows and an appropriately sized bow. The falling damage from the arrows is more than you get for having them be huge arrows. Levels out at 20d6. Which is enough to kill most people, and Adamantine only has a hardness of 20. Under a shield of adamantine 10' by 10', and 6 inches thick (Amazingly heavy, btw) It only takes about 5 arrows to break through. Average damage 70, Hardness 20 and 40 hp/inch. And they have to be gargantuan size to be heavy enough to break the 1 pound barrier, to deal damage. In fact, it's easy to argue that terminal velocity doesn't apply, and that they keep accelerating due to gravity.

And that means that your average 1 pound Gargantuan arrow deals 250000 miles of falling damage. Umm, 18 million 857 thousand 142 d6 damage. Average damage exactly 66 million. That's enough damage to burrow 833 miles into the surface. No cave's going to help you there. More than 800 miles of solid rock!

Evil moon lich mining co. "No hole too deep."

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2008-05-24, 03:50 PM
Even with Distant Shot, though, you still need to pinpoint a target. And it wouldn't work too well except when the target is on an open plain. Tree/cloud cover and whatnot.

Homebrew a vision spell. Done.

DMfromTheAbyss
2008-05-24, 04:00 PM
In response to the space gypsies comment above...
Ah the Aperusa and their ability to summon the most poorly thought out monster in any monster manual to date. (and I include the type in the MM in second edition that says cyclops's can throw boulders for 410 damage)
Constellate's had a starbolt ability that was based on their size... for every million miles or so they do 1d12 damage per blast... only problem is the minimum size put them at like 300d12 and max was in the thousands of d12's.

So if you peeved off a space gypsy instead of having a tough fight on your hands it'd blow through you your ship and leave a scar on the planet below in one shot.

Nice to see someone else remembers the good old days.

FlyMolo
2008-05-24, 04:00 PM
Homebrew a vision spell. Done.

Don't bother. Scrying/Greater scrying and epic survival checks.

Worira
2008-05-24, 04:30 PM
Eternal Wand of Fabricate. You're on the moon, make it into little bricks and chuck them. Arrows, even. Make a 1 pound arrows and an appropriately sized bow. The falling damage from the arrows is more than you get for having them be huge arrows. Levels out at 20d6. Which is enough to kill most people, and Adamantine only has a hardness of 20. Under a shield of adamantine 10' by 10', and 6 inches thick (Amazingly heavy, btw) It only takes about 5 arrows to break through. Average damage 70, Hardness 20 and 40 hp/inch. And they have to be gargantuan size to be heavy enough to break the 1 pound barrier, to deal damage. In fact, it's easy to argue that terminal velocity doesn't apply, and that they keep accelerating due to gravity.

And that means that your average 1 pound Gargantuan arrow deals 250000 miles of falling damage. Umm, 18 million 857 thousand 142 d6 damage. Average damage exactly 66 million. That's enough damage to burrow 833 miles into the surface. No cave's going to help you there. More than 800 miles of solid rock!

Evil moon lich mining co. "No hole too deep."

Heinlein says hi.

FlyMolo
2008-05-24, 07:41 PM
Heinlein says hi.

So does the pentagon. Rods From God, it's called. Look it up, I'm not kidding.

SamTheCleric
2008-05-24, 08:15 PM
So does the pentagon. Rods From God, it's called. Look it up, I'm not kidding.

Pew Pew Pew!
http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/files/articles/tech0604rods_485x500.jpg

Emperor Tippy
2008-05-24, 08:17 PM
So does the pentagon. Rods From God, it's called. Look it up, I'm not kidding.

And putting up the whole system would only cost a trillion bucks, replacing all GPS and most spy sat's at the same time as well.

FlyMolo
2008-05-24, 08:22 PM
And putting up the whole system would only cost a trillion bucks, replacing all GPS and most spy sat's at the same time as well.

I didn't say it was a good idea, you'll notice. Also, why replace GPS and spy sats? There's room up there. It can't be that.

Emperor Tippy
2008-05-24, 08:33 PM
I didn't say it was a good idea, you'll notice. Also, why replace GPS and spy sats? There's room up there. It can't be that.
Oh, its actually a very good idea. As for why it would replace GPS and Spy sats, the Rod satellites would be placed in the same orbit as the GPS birds and with the same density (so they can continually cover the whole world) and they need to be able to spot their targets. So it's cheaper and easier to just give them multiple roles and combine functions in 1 unit.

If you want to talk about it some more, IM me as this is off topic.

Norsesmithy
2008-05-24, 09:30 PM
And putting up the whole system would only cost a trillion bucks, replacing all GPS and most spy sat's at the same time as well.

Not quite, Last I heard, the Trillion was JUST launch cost. It costs 10,000 per pound to put something in NEAR Earth Orbit. Rods From God requires a Far Earth Orbit (same as a COMSAT) to generate the energy to out yield a standard chemical weapon. And replacing an existing network with an add on to an already over weight system (14 150 lb tungsten arrows, plus guidance, plus targeting, plus power, plus ground control, etc will be quite enough, thank you) is a poor idea.

Add the cost of development for all of those systems, and you are looking at a huge chunk of change for a negligible strategic advantage. Reaction times are only marginally faster than ICBMs, and they would be easier to counterforce.

Using ground based kinetic weapons, OTOH, is a great idea, whether a KE payload on a modified ICBM body, or naval rail guns (or even massive fixed rail guns), are a more durable deterrent, with only marginally slower reaction times, that require a far smaller initial and ongoing investment.

Baring a Space Elevator.

GoC
2008-05-24, 10:09 PM
And that means that your average 1 pound Gargantuan arrow deals 250000 miles of falling damage. Umm, 18 million 857 thousand 142 d6 damage. Average damage exactly 66 million. That's enough damage to burrow 833 miles into the surface. No cave's going to help you there. More than 800 miles of solid rock!
Falling damage isn't linear. The damage from 18,000 miles up isn't half that of 36,000, it's one third.

LoneGamer
2008-05-24, 10:31 PM
Objection! (http://objection.mrdictionary.net/go.php?n=2592875)

That is, unless Launch Bolt takes care of that and I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
Lol...I love that thing...
Anyways, I think you would have to apply that to a thrown, metal weapon for it to be valid (And I don't think quarter staffs can be made of metal...) However, assuming you could somehow pinpoint someone's exact location and had line of sight, couldn't you just chuck a returning dagger or something over and over again until you rolled a natural 20?

Raptor Arrows, from Magic Item Compendium, are returning ammunition.

Citizen Jenkins
2008-05-25, 03:41 AM
Has anyone actually made a spaceship using the D&D rules? I mean, that a spellcaster could just put together in any campaign, not setting specific stuff like Spelljammer.

Subotei
2008-05-25, 07:41 AM
Violent exhalation or explosion? Anyone know the force required to rip someone's ribcage in half?

I think I posted this on another thread, but can't find it now - a useful guide to explosive decompression and related issues:

http://www.sff.net/people/Geoffrey.Landis/vacuum.html

Aquillion
2008-05-25, 04:08 PM
"Extra! Extra! Lich steals stars and sells them to pawn shop!"That would make such an awesome campaign.

Eskil
2008-05-26, 06:25 PM
Has anyone actually made a spaceship using the D&D rules? I mean, that a spellcaster could just put together in any campaign, not setting specific stuff like Spelljammer.

1. Build or Stone Shape an airtight hull to protect against fire, cold and vacuum damage.

2. Get any creature with a magical fly speed and respectable carrying capacity to move your ship (example: a) Cast Animate Dead on the remains of a creature that’s large and has a magical fly speed and order it to push/pull/carry your ship. b) Persist Summon Huge Monstrous Centipede and cast Overland Flight on it, then order it to push/pull/carry your ship.) or cast Permanent Animate Objects and Overland Flight on the ship so it can move itself.

3. Give all crew and passengers Necklaces of Adaptation and Sustaining Spoons.

4. Cast Plane Shift twice to get to approximatly where you want in the universe.