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SilverSheriff
2008-07-04, 01:26 AM
Hey, I was just thinking that we should make a Compiled list of items that can be abused in D'n'D (3/3.5 ED) and how the can be abused, I'll start:

1) Decanter of Endless water + Water Tight Room / Underground tunnel.

Kurald Galain
2008-07-04, 01:52 AM
Belt of Battle.

Candle of Invocation.

Draz74
2008-07-04, 02:00 AM
Dust of Sneezing and Choking.

Starmantle Cloak (BoED).

Nightsticks (LM).

Splitting bow enhancement (CoR).

Manyfang Dagger (SK).

Animated shield enhancement.

Quaal's Feather Token - tree.

martyboy74
2008-07-04, 08:08 AM
Anything with infinite uses.

Reinboom
2008-07-04, 08:25 AM
Thought Bottle
Rod of Metamagic, Greater
Thought Bottle
Heward's Fortifying Bedroll
Thought Bottle
Tooth of Savnok
Thought Bottle
and an emphasis on the candle of invocation. :smalltongue:
anything phallic

RandomNPC
2008-07-04, 11:17 AM
lets just say anything with the description "magic item" and half the ones without it.

monty
2008-07-04, 01:24 PM
You're obviously not thinking like an optimizer. Everything can be abused.

kjones
2008-07-04, 02:00 PM
Maybe a silly question, but how do you abuse the feather token (tree)? I mean, in a way that you couldn't abuse other feather tokens?

mikeejimbo
2008-07-04, 03:01 PM
Ladders
Quarterstaves

Eldritch_Ent
2008-07-04, 03:04 PM
Thought Bottle
Tooth of Savnok

Which book is the Thought Bottle from anyway, and what does a "Tooth of Savnok" even DO?

RTGoodman
2008-07-04, 03:09 PM
Maybe a silly question, but how do you abuse the feather token (tree)? I mean, in a way that you couldn't abuse other feather tokens?

1. Find a token-sized hole.
2. Insert Tree Token.
3. Activate.

Result - You now have a TREE-sized hole.

I know I've read at least a couple of RHoD recaps where parties had one of the Tree feather tokens and used it to bring down the whole Skull Gorge Bridge with basically no effort. I think it's just smart playing, but I imagine it'd be kind of annoying for the DM.

There are probably other ways to abuse it, also.

Chronos
2008-07-04, 03:11 PM
SweetRein, how do you abuse the Tooth of Savnok? All it does is remove the movement penalty for heavy encumbrance, and by the time you're at all likely to find it (it being unique and all), you'll almost always have a Handy Haversack, anyway (and therefore never be encumbered). Were you thinking of one of the other Teeth, perhaps?

Skyserpent
2008-07-04, 03:11 PM
Maybe a silly question, but how do you abuse the feather token (tree)? I mean, in a way that you couldn't abuse other feather tokens?

The exact same way, frankly. I had an assassin character who exclusively used Feather Token: Trees as weapons. He'd sleight of hand them into peoples belts and shirts, and activate the command word. It's a good getaway mechanism...

and for the coup de gras, place one in someones mouth when they're sleeping.

Reinboom
2008-07-04, 11:55 PM
SweetRein, how do you abuse the Tooth of Savnok? All it does is remove the movement penalty for heavy encumbrance, and by the time you're at all likely to find it (it being unique and all), you'll almost always have a Handy Haversack, anyway (and therefore never be encumbered). Were you thinking of one of the other Teeth, perhaps?

Possibly, I forget what I was thinking actually.

Aside, thought bottle shall stand.

-edit-
Oh, thought bottle is from Complete Arcane.

Silence
2008-07-05, 12:00 AM
You're obviously not thinking like an optimizer. Everything can be abused.

Win.

At the moment I don't feel like thinking of something that can be abused, but I do have a little cheap stratagy.

Take greatsword.

Add throwing ability.

Add returning ability.

Add viscous ability.

4d6 damage and you have a sword that's 10 feet long.

Jade_Tarem
2008-07-05, 12:57 AM
Hey, I was just thinking that we should make a Compiled list of items that can be abused in D'n'D (3/3.5 ED) and how the can be abused, I'll start:

1) Decanter of Endless water + Water Tight Room / Underground tunnel.

Close, but no cookie for you. Spring for the bottle to be made of adamantine, and cast Otiluke's Resiliant Sphere around it after you activate it on "jet" mode. The decanter will fill the sphere in a round or two, and every round after that (for the several minutes that it takes for the ORS to run down) the water is being compressed (remember, liquids don't really compress well like gasses do) at unimagineable pressure. When the ORS does snap off, you will have the equivelent of a small lake explode out of the ORS at great force, making a powerful time bomb that can level large structures or kill things, in addition to the flooding after that. You can also reuse the decanter... if you can find it.

There's a greater version of this same tactic that can destroy a world (2 level 9 wizards are all that is required) , but it doesn't count since it doesn't involve any magic items.

Also, nightsticks. Remember cleric divine metamagic cheese? Enough of these babies let him do it all day long.

monty
2008-07-05, 01:19 AM
Add viscous ability.

Did you mean "vicious," or is there some weapon ability that makes fluids flow slowly?

Jade_Tarem
2008-07-05, 01:28 AM
I'm pretty sure he meant vicious. :smallamused: And it's actually 4d6+1, since you can't have vicious on it without a +1 enhancement bonus going on there first.

That... probably sounded snotty, but I'm going to leave it anyway and indulge my inner geek.

monty
2008-07-05, 01:31 AM
I just like word "viscous," and now I think it should be an enchantment. Also, doesn't Throwing make it a ranged weapon by giving it a range increment (and therefore disqualifying it from Vicious)? Or is that just a cheesy loophole?

Albonor
2008-07-05, 07:23 AM
cheesy loophole. Lesser one thus far (you cannot park a hummer in it) but still a loophole.

Patashu
2008-07-05, 08:16 AM
Decanter of Viscous Water ftw.

kjones
2008-07-05, 08:25 AM
See, I've always ruled that, with the Feather Tokens, you can't activate them unless they have room on all sides to expand... basically, if they would have to push anything around, they just fail to activate. Re-reading the description, this isn't exactly RAW, but the rules don't specify how that would work in the first place, so I think it's a reasonable ruling.

But if you rule that tossing one in someone's mouth and activating = instant death, then yeah, b0rken.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-07-05, 10:01 AM
See, I've always ruled that, with the Feather Tokens, you can't activate them unless they have room on all sides to expand... basically, if they would have to push anything around, they just fail to activate. Re-reading the description, this isn't exactly RAW, but the rules don't specify how that would work in the first place, so I think it's a reasonable ruling.

But if you rule that tossing one in someone's mouth and activating = instant death, then yeah, b0rken.

As always, most "broken" or abusable items essentially rely on the "it doesn't say you can't" school of rules design. Same with the Resilient Sphere / Endless Water thing. The rules don't say that the container doesn't continue to create water even when there's nowhere to put it, so it must produce a tidal wave of hyper-pressurized water.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2008-07-05, 10:25 AM
Decanter of Endless Water + Metamagic Rod of Chain Spell + Flesh to Ice spell (FB) + Snowcasting feat (FB) = +10 DC; works with Snowcasting and any Fort-save spell, but Flesh to Ice is just so fitting. Use the spell Summon Component (CM) if there is no snow on hand for Snowcasting.
"increases the DC of all Fortitude saves to avoid taking damage from cold or resisting cold-based spells and effects by 10 until the character and his clothes become dry." (FB p10 under Hypothermia)

Chronos
2008-07-05, 11:21 AM
You can also reuse the decanter... if you can find it.Just how much pressure do you think is necessary to destroy a decanter? Whatever it is, it'll almost certainly be reached not long after you fill up the sphere. Liquids are very difficult to compress, which means that squeezing even a little bit more water than "fits" into the sphere would result in truly tremendous pressures.

And even with a sane interpretation of tree tokens, they're still pretty powerful. There are a lot of times when it's really nice to suddenly have a big, solid object appear wherever you want it. You can use it as a ladder, or as cover, or as a campsite safe from wildlife on an otherwise treeless plain, or as a barrier in a tight spot, or many other ways. Not sure if this qualifies as "broken", but it's certainly worth the cost.

monty
2008-07-05, 11:33 AM
And even with a sane interpretation of tree tokens, they're still pretty powerful. There are a lot of times when it's really nice to suddenly have a big, solid object appear wherever you want it. You can use it as a ladder, or as cover, or as a campsite safe from wildlife on an otherwise treeless plain, or as a barrier in a tight spot, or many other ways. Not sure if this qualifies as "broken", but it's certainly worth the cost.

Fly over someone and drop it on them?

Jade_Tarem
2008-07-05, 01:52 PM
Just how much pressure do you think is necessary to destroy a decanter? Whatever it is, it'll almost certainly be reached not long after you fill up the sphere. Liquids are very difficult to compress, which means that squeezing even a little bit more water than "fits" into the sphere would result in truly tremendous pressures.

And even with a sane interpretation of tree tokens, they're still pretty powerful. There are a lot of times when it's really nice to suddenly have a big, solid object appear wherever you want it. You can use it as a ladder, or as cover, or as a campsite safe from wildlife on an otherwise treeless plain, or as a barrier in a tight spot, or many other ways. Not sure if this qualifies as "broken", but it's certainly worth the cost.

Thus, the note that you should spring for the decanter to be made of adamantine, the mythical substance that's supposed to be darn near invincible - and remember that enchanting an object makes it inherantly harder to destroy, no matter what the enchantment actually is. While not completely indestructable, magical adamantine is going to be pretty much the hardest thing you'll see in the entire game of DnD to break, crush, or what have you. There's also the distinct possibility that the pressure inside the decanter is increasing too, which means that to destroy it you would have to start compressing adamantine... molecules, I guess? There's a solid chance that it will hold up to the increasing pressure for a few minutes.

Of course, your DM can always rule that the decanter can't be made from adamantine, at which point you're sunk. Then again, that's how it is for most of these tricks.

martyboy74
2008-07-05, 04:40 PM
For coup de gracing with a the tree token, you could just put the token on their face. I'm pretty sure that having a tree appear on your face is going to kill you.

Heh, put a token on each eye. Call it a funeral rite. For greek pequeninos.

Aquillion
2008-07-05, 04:55 PM
Win.

At the moment I don't feel like thinking of something that can be abused, but I do have a little cheap stratagy.

Take greatsword.

Add throwing ability.

Add returning ability.

Add viscous ability.

4d6 damage and you have a sword that's 10 feet long.Wow, a whole 4d6 damage, at ten feet? Color me unimpressed.

The thing you're overlooking is that because of the way returning works (it comes back to you just before the start of your next turn), you can't use it for an iterative attack without buying another copy of the sword for every iterative attack you want to make -- this is what really kills your idea. In order to throw multiple copies, you'd probably need Quick Draw or something similar, and at that point you're wasting huge amounts of cash and a feat on what boils down to a fairly small damage bonus in the long run.

If you don't have yet another weapon aside from all the ones you throw, you'll be unarmed after throwing them (until the start of your next turn), too.

In fact, using multiple returning weapons has other issues, too. Catching one when it comes back is a free action -- but sheathing it or otherwise putting it away isn't. So if you have five throwing returning greatswords coming back to you in the same round, you can probably catch one or two at most, and the remaining ones fall on the ground.

Also, you've overlooked something else. Nowhere in the Vicious description does it say you can avoid the damage it does to the wielder in this fashion; so you can't. The person who threw it is still the wielder, the 'flash of disruptive energy that resonates between the opponent and the wielder' happens at about the five-foot mark if you threw it ten feet, and somehow it still deals 1d6 damage to you.


As always, most "broken" or abusable items essentially rely on the "it doesn't say you can't" school of rules design. Same with the Resilient Sphere / Endless Water thing. The rules don't say that the container doesn't continue to create water even when there's nowhere to put it, so it must produce a tidal wave of hyper-pressurized water.
Dust of Sneezing and Choking (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/cursedItems.htm#dustofSneezingandChoking) requires no special interpretations, though. 5d4 rounds of stunning with no saving throw.

(Technically you can argue from the exact text that you only get the massive stun if you succeed on the saving throw against the con damage... but that's kind of a moot point given how massive the con damage is, making it mostly a matter of "die this way or die that way.")

_Puppetmaster_
2008-07-05, 05:21 PM
As for the decanter+ resilent sphere, make the decanter out of riverine. Also, cast transute water to acid on the sphere ( I assume it's smaller that 10ft-diameter) in the round before you get run/teleport/fly away.


PS: Both riverine and Transmute Water to Acid are in Stormwrack.

Silence
2008-07-05, 05:33 PM
Wow, a whole 4d6 damage, at ten feet? Color me unimpressed...

*removed to keep post size from eating my face off*

... mark if you threw it ten feet, and somehow it still deals 1d6 damage to you.

Thinking it over again, you're completely right. I fail at cheating the rules

Jayngfet
2008-07-05, 05:35 PM
Make 5 rings of spell storing, fill them with you're best spells, magically send them to a guy named whatever in a bag of holding.

Play whatever next campane.

Quicksilver
2008-07-05, 06:29 PM
Well, this isn't really an abuse thing, more like comedy, you know how the Staff of The Magi has Enlarge as a free power.

Well, one thing I did in a campaign (which actually made me some money and got me out of a few fights) was ask the various men about the village. "What if i said I could make your penis TWICE as big!"

If they could afford it, what I would do was whack in the junk with my staff, watch them strut away and then run like hell because the enchant only lasts 1 hour lol.

Spectre3541
2008-07-05, 06:32 PM
Heh, put a token on each eye. Call it a funeral rite. For greek pequeninos.

Awesome.....

Thurbane
2008-07-05, 07:00 PM
Which book is the Thought Bottle from anyway, and what does a "Tooth of Savnok" even DO?
The Tooth of Savnok is part of the Teeth of Dahlver-Nar (ToM, p. 77). It allows you to move at normal speed even if you wear medium or heavy armour, or carry a medium or heavy load. It's an "unslotted" item you stick in your mouth in place of one of your own teeth.

The downside is that you automatically are under the influence of Savnok (makes you headstrong and recalcitrant; and that once you put on any item that improves your AC, you cannot take it off). You also show his sign ( a piece of arrow under your skin).

At 2000gp, I wouldn't call it a broken item. It's basically the same as the ability you get for being a dwarf.

quiet1mi
2008-07-05, 07:28 PM
anything that circumnavigates the laws of physics or the laws of thermodynamics...

monty
2008-07-05, 07:43 PM
anything that circumnavigates the laws of physics or the laws of thermodynamics...

You just defined "magic" there. Which brings me back to my original comment: everything can be abused.

Chronos
2008-07-05, 10:32 PM
As for the decanter+ resilent sphere, make the decanter out of riverine. Also, cast transute water to acid on the sphere ( I assume it's smaller that 10ft-diameter) in the round before you get run/teleport/fly away.


PS: Both riverine and Transmute Water to Acid are in Stormwrack.So, Transmute Water to Acid is pretty obvious, but for the benefit of those of us without Stormwrack, what is riverine?

Silence
2008-07-05, 10:50 PM
Google and Srd20.org turn up nothing. I assume something made of acid immune super-strong material.

Bandededed
2008-07-05, 10:54 PM
Riverine: This unusual material is made from water
under extremely high pressure, usually obtained from
the Elemental Plane of Water but sometimes from the
blackwater trenches far below the ocean’s surface. The
water swirls and flows continuously, sandwiched between
fields of magical force.
Half of the Armor Class bonus from armor and shields
made from riverine is a deflection bonus (round down).
For example, a suit of riverine chainmail would provide
a +2 armor bonus and a +3 deflection bonus to AC. This
substance is considered masterwork and can be enhanced
magically as any other armor.
Riverine is sometimes also used to create walls and even
containers. Being enclosed in magical force, it is immune
to all damage and is unaffected by most spells. However,
disintegrate immediately destroys an item made of riverine,
as does a rod of cancellation, a sphere of annihilation, or a
Mordenkainen’s disjunction spell, causing the water to spill
out in a sudden rush. Armor and shields made of riverine
do not form a complete enclosure, so breath weapons and
spells do still affect the wearer. However, walls of riverine
block ethereal travel, breath weapons, and spell effects,
just as a wall of force does.

So, high pressure water to produce a very high pressure water sphere. That you then turn to acid. << ... >> ... :smallbiggrin:

Silence
2008-07-05, 10:58 PM
Epic win.

Not only you blast the living s*** out of people, but then you burn them.

SCPRedMage
2008-07-05, 11:47 PM
http://ksguild.org/gallery/651_05_07_08_8_46_47.JPG
Perhaps this flowchart will help out...

Silence
2008-07-05, 11:48 PM
Is it an item? No.

Go away.

Hahaha!

I agree with that sheet.

Collin152
2008-07-05, 11:49 PM
http://ksguild.org/gallery/651_05_07_08_8_46_47.JPG
Perhaps this flowchart will help out...

Even a Ring of Extra Ringslot?

SCPRedMage
2008-07-05, 11:51 PM
Even a Ring of Extra Ringslot?
Please refer to the chart.

Silence
2008-07-05, 11:51 PM
Even a Ring of Extra Ringslot?

Yes. All you need it creativity.

Collin152
2008-07-05, 11:54 PM
Yes. All you need it creativity.

It doesn't do anything.
How do you abuse that?

Jade_Tarem
2008-07-05, 11:55 PM
Even a Ring of Extra Ringslot?

Can have a stacked enchantment on it. (Rules are in the... complete arcane, I think). It costs more, but you could take that ring and make it also, like, a ring of +4 wisdom. And then you have this ring of +4 wisdom and two other ring slots open.

It costs a lot but three ring slots might be worth it. With enough money, you could accumulate ten rings in this manner, each with an additional benefit.

How's that for creatively? :smalltongue:

Aneantir
2008-07-06, 12:30 AM
It doesn't do anything.
How do you abuse that?

If you get enough of them, you'd probably end up looking like a vastly wealthy merchant, earning you random amounts of respect/muggings in the society. While it's not much, it is something.

Silence
2008-07-06, 12:34 AM
Can have a stacked enchantment on it. (Rules are in the... complete arcane, I think). It costs more, but you could take that ring and make it also, like, a ring of +4 wisdom. And then you have this ring of +4 wisdom and two other ring slots open.

It costs a lot but three ring slots might be worth it. With enough money, you could accumulate ten rings in this manner, each with an additional benefit.

How's that for creatively? :smalltongue:

Thank you for proving my point.

And who says you have to stop at 10? Multiple rings on one finger.

chiasaur11
2008-07-06, 01:04 AM
Thank you for proving my point.

And who says you have to stop at 10? Multiple rings on one finger.

If the ring of extra ring slot is abusable to "infinite stat boosts", we can see the heart of the optimiser.

Bless their weird but useful minds.

Silence
2008-07-06, 01:06 AM
Yay for screwing the rules.


We have green hair (+1 respect to anyone recognizing that).

Talic
2008-07-06, 01:19 AM
Lyre of building.

Silence
2008-07-06, 01:20 AM
Lyre of building.

What about it?

Gavin Sage
2008-07-06, 02:08 AM
We have green hair (+1 respect to anyone recognizing that).

But not money?

JMobius
2008-07-06, 09:14 AM
It doesn't do anything.
How do you abuse that?

In one of my favorite roguelike games, your deity would give you a random artifact if you were able to find a use for a useless item.

There is ALWAYS a way.

Lycar
2008-07-06, 03:12 PM
Just how much pressure do you think is necessary to destroy a decanter? Whatever it is, it'll almost certainly be reached not long after you fill up the sphere. Liquids are very difficult to compress, which means that squeezing even a little bit more water than "fits" into the sphere would result in truly tremendous pressures.

Let's kill a few catgirls here...

Pressure doesn't work that way. Let us assume the decanter is a conduit to the elemental plane of water. So now that means that the decanter, whatever material it is made of, obviously already does survive the pressure.

Because the potentially damaging forces arise from the difference between the pressure inside and outside of the container. Putting it in that sphere will actually decrease the stress on the container as the pressure gets equalized.

Also, since water doesn't compress, you do not get an instant lake.

Just whatever volume of water it takes to fill the sphere gets released if the sphere dissolves. Also, the effect will be quite unimpressive since there is not 'pent up pressure' to make the water explode. Since the liquid is not compressed, it cannot explosivly decompress into a larger volume. The effect will be like a very large water balloon bursting, and your decanter spewing like a high pressure hose.

Now the decanter geting bumped about hard surfaces by the thrust of the water jet, that is another matter entirely...

Lycar

Deepblue706
2008-07-06, 03:34 PM
The Head of Vecna.

chiasaur11
2008-07-06, 03:45 PM
The Head of Vecna.

Deathtraps.
You can take down a whole enemy party!

_Puppetmaster_
2008-07-06, 04:11 PM
Let's kill a few catgirls here...

Pressure doesn't work that way. Let us assume the decanter is a conduit to the elemental plane of water. So now that means that the decanter, whatever material it is made of, obviously already does survive the pressure.

Because the potentially damaging forces arise from the difference between the pressure inside and outside of the container. Putting it in that sphere will actually decrease the stress on the container as the pressure gets equalized.

Also, since water doesn't compress, you do not get an instant lake.

Just whatever volume of water it takes to fill the sphere gets released if the sphere dissolves. Also, the effect will be quite unimpressive since there is not 'pent up pressure' to make the water explode. Since the liquid is not compressed, it cannot explosivly decompress into a larger volume. The effect will be like a very large water balloon bursting, and your decanter spewing like a high pressure hose.

Now the decanter geting bumped about hard surfaces by the thrust of the water jet, that is another matter entirely...

Lycar


Except that the decanter keeps pushing out water, even if physics would say it couldn't. That's why you use a resiliant sphere, made of force, an unbreakable material. If the water can't escape, it has to compress, even if it can't.

mikeejimbo
2008-07-06, 04:38 PM
And if you use transmute water to acid, then you still have a water-balloon filled with acid. And that's just cool.

Riffington
2008-07-06, 06:58 PM
Except that the decanter keeps pushing out water, even if physics would say it couldn't. That's why you use a resiliant sphere, made of force, an unbreakable material. If the water can't escape, it has to compress, even if it can't.

The description is intended to describe the "usual" function of the item, not its function "when stopped up". Whether it generates infinite pressure or simply stops flowing depends on what is best for the story.


/swallow a Heward's Handy Haversack. Then you can spit out whatever you want as a move action.

Curmudgeon
2008-07-06, 07:00 PM
Except that the decanter keeps pushing out water, even if physics would say it couldn't. That's why you use a resiliant sphere, made of force, an unbreakable material. If the water can't escape, it has to compress, even if it can't. The Decanter only pushes out water with this limitation:
The force of the geyser deals 1d4 points of damage but can only affect one target per round. We don't deal with real-world physics when we have D&D physics supplying the rules.

Repeat after me, people:


It's a Decanter of Endless Water, not a Decanter of Endless Pressure.

No matter how long you let the Decanter operate in a container, when the water comes out it still only has the pressure specified in the item description: enough to do 1d4 points of damage to one target in one round.

Recaiden
2008-07-06, 07:12 PM
Let's kill a few catgirls here...

Pressure doesn't work that way. Let us assume the decanter is a conduit to the elemental plane of water. So now that means that the decanter, whatever material it is made of, obviously already does survive the pressure.



Let's not assume that. The elemental plane of water doesn't have gravity, so i'm pretty sure there would not be very much pressure. Thus, the water must be created by the decanter, and is forced out by the pressure of having water in the decanter over how much it could normally hold. If it keeps creating more water in a finitely sized container, that would eventually increase the pressure. Whether the decanter can stand much pressure is unknown.
Also, i vote for thought bottles.
Instant fortress is abusable too.

Chronos
2008-07-06, 07:15 PM
Also, since water doesn't compress, you do not get an instant lake.Water does compress. It just doesn't compress very much, for any sane value of pressure. Which means that if you do, nonetheless, compress it by any significant amount, your pressure is no longer sane.

However, on thinking about it more, the Decanter's output is specified in terms of volume, not mass. Once the sphere is full, it can't continue outputting 30 gallons per round, since the sphere is already holding as many gallons as it can (about 1343 of them (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%283.5+feet%29%5E3+*4*pi%2F3+in+gallons&btnG=Google+Search), assuming minimum caster level). It could, in principle and with great difficulty, continue to output 240 pounds of water per round, but that's not what the description says it does. So strictly speaking, putting a decanter of endless water into a resilient sphere results in a rules contradiction.

Collin152
2008-07-06, 07:22 PM
Water does compress. It just doesn't compress very much, for any sane value of pressure. Which means that if you do, nonetheless, compress it by any significant amount, your pressure is no longer sane.

However, on thinking about it more, the Decanter's output is specified in terms of volume, not mass. Once the sphere is full, it can't continue outputting 30 gallons per round, since the sphere is already holding as many gallons as it can (about 1343 of them (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%283.5+feet%29%5E3+*4*pi%2F3+in+gallons&btnG=Google+Search), assuming minimum caster level). It could, in principle and with great difficulty, continue to output 240 pounds of water per round, but that's not what the description says it does. So strictly speaking, putting a decanter of endless water into a resilient sphere results in a rules contradiction.

Rules Contradiction = Tearing the fabric of reality asunder.

monty
2008-07-06, 07:49 PM
The Decanter only pushes out water with this limitation: We don't deal with real-world physics when we have D&D physics supplying the rules.

No, it also says,

"Geyser" produces a 20-foot-long, 1-foot-wide stream at 30 gallons per round.

So, it puts out 30 gallons per round.


No matter how long you let the Decanter operate in a container, when the water comes out it still only has the pressure specified in the item description: enough to do 1d4 points of damage to one target in one round.

No, that's how much damage the geyser function itself does, not necessarily how much damage the accumulated water in the sphere would do.


Water does compress. It just doesn't compress very much, for any sane value of pressure. Which means that if you do, nonetheless, compress it by any significant amount, your pressure is no longer sane.

However, on thinking about it more, the Decanter's output is specified in terms of volume, not mass. Once the sphere is full, it can't continue outputting 30 gallons per round, since the sphere is already holding as many gallons as it can (about 1343 of them (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%283.5+feet%29%5E3+*4*pi%2F3+in+gallons&btnG=Google+Search), assuming minimum caster level). It could, in principle and with great difficulty, continue to output 240 pounds of water per round, but that's not what the description says it does. So strictly speaking, putting a decanter of endless water into a resilient sphere results in a rules contradiction.

That's hard to visualize without knowing exactly how the decanter works (where specifically the water forms, etc.) so it's hard to argue. For example, if there's some magical, untouchable space inside the flask where the water forms and is then forced out, measuring the volume from that point could quite easily lead to producing more water, and insane pressure.

Signmaker
2008-07-06, 09:23 PM
Lyre of building.

We built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll

Conners
2008-07-06, 10:50 PM
Hey, thanks guys. Now I know JUST what to equip my character with in the next adventure :smallbiggrin::smalltongue:.

Talic
2008-07-07, 12:01 AM
Lyre of building can negate all damage to stone structures. Combine with wall of stone (entrapping dome effect), and have the person negating damage on the outside, and you have an indestructable wall.

Extra fun if you have a Necropolitan or warforged bard or rogue hitting up a +14 to perform for a neverending indestructible wall.

I've used this in a party setting to raise 2 walls of stone "trapping" my party in a corridor long enough for the cleric and wizard to memorize spells. Very abusable to say: "can't go extradimensional? suck it."

mikeejimbo
2008-07-07, 12:09 AM
There's actually some sort of loophole involving switching off performers with the lyre of building, so that you can keep it up constantly.

Or something like that. I suppose Necropolitan or Warforged works too.

Frost
2008-07-07, 12:11 AM
Lyre of building can negate all damage to stone structures. Combine with wall of stone (entrapping dome effect), and have the person negating damage on the outside, and you have an indestructable wall.

Extra fun if you have a Necropolitan or warforged bard or rogue hitting up a +14 to perform for a neverending indestructible wall.

I've used this in a party setting to raise 2 walls of stone "trapping" my party in a corridor long enough for the cleric and wizard to memorize spells. Very abusable to say: "can't go extradimensional? suck it."

Seems a lot easier to just use a Wall of Force and have some Planar Bound Creature slap a permanency on it.

Jade_Tarem
2008-07-07, 12:21 AM
Seems a lot easier to just use a Wall of Force and have some Planar Bound Creature slap a permanency on it.

Except you don't lose XP with the lyre. Binding planar creatures costs XP, too, in most cases.

I didn't mean to start a fight on the decanter. Considering that the game fosters such abominations as the candle of invocation, I didn't think that a giant water-bomb would be too bad. It's mostly a theoretical exercise - if your DM lets you do this, you should just go the whole hog and summon several cubic feet of antimatter through Major Creation to end the world.

For another abusable item: any weapon with the shocking enchantment on it. It doesn't seem too bad, but you combine it with a frenzied berserker shambling mound for a warrior who just won't die, ever. Granted, you'll never play as a shambling mound frenzied berserker, but my group did fight this fiendish combination once.

Talic
2008-07-07, 12:24 AM
Seems a lot easier to just use a Wall of Force and have some Planar Bound Creature slap a permanency on it.

Rods of cancellation will stop that. Same with Negation. A Disintigrate won't get rid of that stone sphere.

Frost
2008-07-07, 12:48 AM
Rods of cancellation will stop that. Same with Negation. A Disintigrate won't get rid of that stone sphere.

Actually, Disintegrate doesn't do damage to stone, it just removes it, check the spell. It gets through your scheme just fine.

Jayabalard
2008-07-07, 06:55 AM
Thus, the note that you should spring for the decanter to be made of adamantine, <snip>
Of course, your DM can always rule that the decanter can't be made from adamantine, at which point you're sunk. A decanter is a decorative glass or crystal bottle, so there's no reason to assume that you can make one out of adamantine.

kjones
2008-07-07, 08:10 AM
What about it? [they Lyre of Building]

13000 GP + ability to make a DC 18 Perform (Strings) check = 300 man-days of work. That's probably enough to build a sizeable house.

Go into the real estate business. Sell each house for 50000 GP.

???

Profit!

EDIT: Forgot about the "swapping-out-performers" trick, but a reasonable interpretation of the rules would be that it's the lyre that's the limiting factor, not the performers. I know, I know, RAW is RAW...

SilverSheriff
2008-07-07, 09:30 AM
Close, but no cookie for you.


actually I do get a cookie, its for drowning all of my Party while I escape with a bottle of Air on my mouth until they drown, then I just close the decanter, find a door I can open and leave...:wink:

Elixia
2008-07-07, 10:02 AM
Ring of invisiblity .... which i own MWAHAHAHAHA

Draco Ignifer
2008-07-07, 01:23 PM
Y'know, there's a serious problem with the whole "decanter of endless water bomb" trick besides any questions on whether or not the decanter would keep pumping. To whit, you're not going to get it to that high pressure. Assuming you extend the spell, and are level 20, you can get it to last for 40 minutes. The decanter pumps out 30 gallons per round, for a total of 12,000 gallons. One gallon is ~0.134 cubic feet, giving you a total of 1608 cubic feet. At level 20, you create a sphere with diameter of 20 feet (it does not say that the diameter is "up to," and if you want to limit caster level to increase the diameter, you're carving away at your duration). This means that the sphere will have a radius of 10 feet, which means a total volume of (4/3)(pi)(10^3) cf. Your sphere, in other words, will be 4189 cubic feet, and you won't have even filled it a third of the way.

The best thing you can do, then, is minimize the radius, and so cast at level 7, with extend spell. This gets you 4,200 gallons, however, which is a mere 563 cf. The sphere can only hold 180 cf, of course, but that's still not going to be a very large explosion - that water, expanded, has a radius of 5.1 cf, so you're going to be looking at an explosive expansion of 1.6 cf before the water is no longer compressed. After that, it's not going to be compressed anymore - still forceful, I'm sure, but I doubt any more than a large wave in any direction but down.

OK, yes, it can be pretty potent at smashing things. But why not just wait two levels, cast disintegrate, and not buy the decanter?

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-07-07, 02:34 PM
OK, yes, it can be pretty potent at smashing things. But why not just wait two levels, cast disintegrate, and not buy the decanter?OR BUY 12! :smallbiggrin:

Chronos
2008-07-07, 02:35 PM
Do you have any idea of the kind of pressure needed to compress water by a factor of over three? If you have something at that pressure and release it, it will explode, and it will do a very great deal of damage in a very large radius.

The compressibility of water (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_(molecule)#Compressibility) depends on the conditions, but it's somewhere in the vicinity of 4 to 5 times 10-5/bar, which means that, to compress it to a third of its normal volume, you'd need a pressure of tens of thousands of bars, or something times 109 Pascals. For comparison, a third of a bar pressure wave is enough to destroy a typical masonry building. I'm having a tough time finding the figures, but tens of thousands of bars is probably comparable to what you'd find in the core of a nuclear explosion.

monty
2008-07-07, 04:42 PM
Assuming you extend the spell, and are level 20, you can get it to last for 40 minutes.

Or you could persist it. With a cheesy enough build, you could probably do that at minimum CL.

Collin152
2008-07-07, 05:34 PM
Or you could persist it. With a cheesy enough build, you could probably do that at minimum CL.

Doesn't persist only work with spells with a personal range?
Or something like that?

Jade_Tarem
2008-07-07, 07:46 PM
actually I do get a cookie, its for drowning all of my Party while I escape with a bottle of Air on my mouth until they drown, then I just close the decanter, find a door I can open and leave...:wink:

Alright, you can have a really evil cookie, I guess...

And as for the decanter thing... Holy mother of Chaos....

Very well, I'll adjust the tactic to make everyone happy.

You'll have a decanter made of riverine, which is a kind of glass (so it can be a decanter - an invincible, pressure proof decanter, mind you, since it's mostly made of force). Instead of ORS, we will be casting force chest from the Spell Compendium, which is not a ten foot diameter ball but rather a small box 2 feet on a side. This box lasts for twenty four hours per caster level and is available at the same level as ORS, so two levels higher you can cast the extended version and this bad boy will stick around for eighteen days, instead of eighteen minutes, which should let you build up some wicked sick pressure. Does that satisfy all the requirements?

As to the other arguments - yes, this is physically impossible. But you know what? So is getting thirty gallons of water out of a handheld flask in six seconds. Water will compress under enough pressure like that, because - physics and all the little catgirls be damned - this tactic was to force ever more mass into a finite space that can't normally contain it. Things that are not compressable (like solids) will compress under extreme circumstances (like black holes). Yes, your DM can rule that the decanter doesn't work that way, but by RAW it's just volume of water per unit time, and there is nothing in there about a point where the water pressure is too great for the decanter to continue functioning.

Also, the impact and pressure of the moving water will not suddenly stop when you reach the uncompressed volume that the amount of water created was supposed to have - that's the point where the momentum stops increasing (and starts decreasing, yes). You end up with a huge ball of water accelerating very quickly in all directions, which carries with it a momentum and "pop" suitable to do some real damage. This was not likely one of the intended uses of the decanter of endless arguments water, which is why I put it here.

Edit: And for the grand finale, let's go nuts and chuck several riverine decanters into the force chest (in fact, let's just pack the force chest full of 'em in the most efficient way possible - you can actually do that with force chest, because you have a good bit more fine control over it than ORS), which not only multiplies the water output but also drastically reduces the available volume left in the container for the water to compress into.

monty
2008-07-07, 08:19 PM
Change the title of this thread. "How to make a black hole"

Emperor Tippy
2008-07-07, 09:04 PM
Change the title of this thread. "How to make a black hole"

We have already had a few of those.

Yahzi
2008-07-07, 10:20 PM
It was always pretty obvious to me that a Decanter was just a small, portable gate to the plane of Water. Hence it would not continue to build pressure infinitely.

Chronos
2008-07-07, 10:20 PM
You won't actually make a black hole that way, in the lifetime of the Universe. But you will certainly make something interesting. Crystals of metallic hydrogen and solidified oxygen, maybe?

Collin152
2008-07-07, 10:31 PM
Metallic Hydrogen?
Please, don't go scaring me with that possibility. I'd rather have the black hole.

mikeejimbo
2008-07-07, 10:39 PM
Here's an item that can be abused. Scroll of Major creation.

"Black holes don't have a list price, and comparatively little volume to their mass..."

Alternatively (and classically): Antimatter.

sleepybob
2008-07-07, 10:49 PM
Close, but no cookie for you. Spring for the bottle to be made of adamantine, and cast Otiluke's Resiliant Sphere around it after you activate it on "jet" mode. The decanter will fill the sphere in a round or two, and every round after that (for the several minutes that it takes for the ORS to run down) the water is being compressed (remember, liquids don't really compress well like gasses do) at unimagineable pressure. When the ORS does snap off, you will have the equivelent of a small lake explode out of the ORS at great force, making a powerful time bomb that can level large structures or kill things, in addition to the flooding after that. You can also reuse the decanter... if you can find it.



wow, i thought i was the only person to think of something like this. my idea is dust of drying.... lots of it. one application makes a marble sized pellet after it sucks up water. it can suck up to 100 gal. with decantur of water, and about enough applications of dust to fill a five gal. bucket up full of marbles, you could catapult this over a castle wall and flood out alot of experience, magic items, gold, weapons, whatever... it would be worth the cost of that many applications of dust. 900 gold each if i remember right.:smallsmile:

monty
2008-07-07, 11:19 PM
Here's an item that can be abused. Scroll of Major creation.

"Black holes don't have a list price, and comparatively little volume to their mass..."

Alternatively (and classically): Antimatter.

I would have to disagree with this. Major creation says it "functions like minor creation, except that you can also create an object of mineral nature: stone, crystal, metal, or the like." Minor creation, in turn, says you can "create a nonmagical, unattended object of nonliving, vegetable matter." I would not call antimatter matter (although a professional physicist may correct me; I only know what I've learned through books), and a black hole is questionable at best. Also, I'd like to see you relate a black hole to stone, crystal, or metal.

To make it even more ridiculous, if your DM lets that go, you may as well spring for True Creation and make a permanent black hole, using Eschew Materials to get over the material component.

mikeejimbo
2008-07-07, 11:34 PM
Perhaps True Creation was the spell I was actually recalling, come to think of it. All I remember was that Swordguy came up with a way of dealing something like 685 Quadrillion damage.

Good times, good times. Where is Swordguy? He has a link in his signature...

Here we go: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2010735#post2010735

monty
2008-07-07, 11:38 PM
I've seen that post. I still don't think it works, though. You're better off animating the planet (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10240).

mikeejimbo
2008-07-07, 11:39 PM
Don't be silly, animating the planet won't get us a black hole! :smalltongue:

monty
2008-07-07, 11:42 PM
Also, a thought - wouldn't a bunch of Dust of Drying and <insert appropriate spell here> work as well (with none of the potential problems of the Decanter)?

sleepybob
2008-07-08, 12:29 AM
Also, a thought - wouldn't a bunch of Dust of Drying and <insert appropriate spell here> work as well (with none of the potential problems of the Decanter)?

is this a comment about MY idea? cuz if it is... it doesnt help.:frown:

kjones
2008-07-08, 12:32 AM
There's actually some sort of loophole involving switching off performers [...] so that you can keep it up constantly.


*snicker*

ten characters

Chronos
2008-07-08, 01:28 AM
You can't make a black hole using Minor/Major Creation unless you have Vow of Poverty. To use those spells, you need to have some of the material the object is made of. A black hole is made of vacuum. Therefore, to make a black hole, you must have nothing.

Jade_Tarem
2008-07-08, 02:44 AM
It was always pretty obvious to me that a Decanter was just a small, portable gate to the plane of Water. Hence it would not continue to build pressure infinitely.

This was already discussed. What's obvious to you isn't always obvious to the banana-guzzling monkies that WotC has churning out rulebooks, and so they neglect to put that into the RAW, allowing mean, mean players like me to take advantage of innocent DMs during discussions of cheesy game mechanics.

---------------------------------------------------

I remember a good one that I've posted before somewhere. Funny good, not game-breakingly OMG good, although this is an abuse. Granted, it's an artifact, but...

You can combine a deck of many things with some illusions to make it look like a normal playing card deck. Then...

"Let's just settle this over a card game. I'll deal. What? Well fine, you can deal if it makes you feel better."

*Toss* *Toss* *Toss* *Toss* *BLAM*

Congrats to you if he draws the "gems rain from the sky" card right before he draws the void.

hamishspence
2008-07-08, 04:56 AM
black holes aren't all vacuum. you have a massive singularity made of Who Knows What at the centre.

Then theres the umbral blot, which is akin to a living black hole.

In Elder evils, the combo of sphere of annihilation and Well of Many Worlds creates a black hole that sucks the world in, in a very short space of time.

Spheres of Annihilation, according to Manual of the planes, are made of material found in the Negative Energy Plane. You can find the raw material there.

llamamushroom
2008-07-08, 05:51 AM
Why is it that every single 'broken items' or 'intelligent uses of items' thread eventualy becomes a decanter/black-hole Catgirl genocide?

Griffin131
2008-07-08, 07:37 AM
You can combine a deck of many things with some illusions to make it look like a normal playing card deck. Then...

Congrats to you if he draws the "gems rain from the sky" card right before he draws the void.

The character with a deck of many things who wishes to draw a card must announce how many cards she will draw before she begins. Cards must be drawn within 1 hour of each other, and a character can never again draw from this deck any more cards than she has announced.
How often when dealing do you announce "I'm going to draw 25 cards.(5 card stud times 5 people)" Especially since theres only 22 cards in a DoMT.

Chronos
2008-07-08, 11:15 AM
black holes aren't all vacuum. you have a massive singularity made of Who Knows What at the centre. Actually, yes, a black hole (at least, an uncharged one) is all vacuum. The singularity isn't so much a thing, or made out of anything, as it is a place that doesn't exist.

As for the Deck of Many Things trick, just ask him before he's about to start, how many cards he's going to deal out. After all, many games have a number of variants with different hand sizes (Poker, for instance, can have 2, 5, or 7 cards per player).

BRC
2008-07-08, 11:18 AM
Bag of Holding+ bottle of air= Full plate fighter in the rogues pocket!

Silence
2008-07-08, 01:20 PM
Bag of Holding+ bottle of air= Full plate fighter in the rogues pocket!

"Is that a full plate fighter in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

sleepybob
2008-07-08, 01:39 PM
Bag of Holding+ bottle of air= Full plate fighter in the rogues pocket!

i think you are thinking of something i came up with too... but explain more.

what i thought of was to put the bottle agianst the bag's opening. fill the bag with compressed air and release it as an air cannon.

now that i think of it, you were probably just thinking of a way for the ROGUE to breathe infinitely in a very tiny, unnoticable place....

monty
2008-07-08, 01:49 PM
How often when dealing do you announce "I'm going to draw 25 cards.(5 card stud times 5 people)" Especially since theres only 22 cards in a DoMT.

The announcement thing has been answered, but for the number of cards, all but two? of them are replaced after drawing.

Chronos
2008-07-08, 08:25 PM
The announcement thing has been answered, but for the number of cards, all but two? of them are replaced after drawing.Even so, approximately half of the cards consist of "You're utterly screwed, and Gary Gygax laughs at you from behind the DM screen". If you're dealing out enough cards for a card game, the odds are going to catch up with you, sooner or later. The real risk is that your victim will notice a non-lethal card's effect and stop to try to figure out what's going on, before he reaches a "you're screwed" card.

BRC
2008-07-08, 08:29 PM
"Is that a full plate fighter in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
That same line was spoken (substitute "Full plate fighter" with "Death Knight") in a recent session.

Anyway, the point of that trick is to sneak unsneaky types into places that require sneaking into.

Aquillion
2008-07-08, 09:00 PM
Bag of Holding+ bottle of air= Full plate fighter in the rogues pocket!Or you can use it to get a pocket full of horses.

Throwing a knife into heaven is just a matter of using Gate or Precipitate complete breach to open a portal to one of the higher planes, then tossing a knife in. And I think there's a feat that lets wizards shoot beam spells from their eyes, so you can kill with a stare...

Unfortunately, holding someone's hand in a jar of acid deals a piddling 1d6 damage a round, so unless they're a level 1 commoner or something it's not all that impressive.

monty
2008-07-08, 10:22 PM
Even so, approximately half of the cards consist of "You're utterly screwed, and Gary Gygax laughs at you from behind the DM screen". If you're dealing out enough cards for a card game, the odds are going to catch up with you, sooner or later. The real risk is that your victim will notice a non-lethal card's effect and stop to try to figure out what's going on, before he reaches a "you're screwed" card.

...at which point it's too late, because the cards will keep coming whether he does anything or not.


If the character does not willingly draw her allotted number (or if she is somehow prevented from doing so), the cards flip out of the deck on their own.

Griffin131
2008-07-08, 10:51 PM
The announcement thing has been answered, but for the number of cards, all but two? of them are replaced after drawing.
I would debate the announcement thing, because him saying 5 card stud would not count as an announcement for 25 cards.

Collin152
2008-07-08, 10:56 PM
I would debate the announcement thing, because him saying 5 card stud would not count as an announcement for 25 cards.

"How does this game work?"
"Well, I draw five cards for each of you..."
So, maybe five, but not twenty five.

Griffin131
2008-07-08, 11:00 PM
"How does this game work?"
"Well, I draw five cards for each of you..."
So, maybe five, but not twenty five.
"How does this game work?"
"You suggested 5 card stud, I just wanted to deal!!"
"Oh yeah..."

Collin152
2008-07-08, 11:08 PM
"How does this game work?"
"You suggested 5 card stud, I just wanted to deal!!"
"Oh yeah..."

"How does this game work?"
"You suggested 5 card stud, I just wanted to deal!!"
"I'll admit, I only know the name. I just wanted to try it."

Griffin131
2008-07-09, 07:24 AM
"How does this game work?"
"You suggested 5 card stud, I just wanted to deal!!"
"I'll admit, I only know the name. I just wanted to try it."
"Then lets settle this with something other than cards. Like me going all stabbity on your face." (in reference to the original planned use)

You're reaching kind of far to hope that the guy says something that could be taken as an announcement of card drawing. And if he looks through the deck before doing that announcement (ie, to make sure all the cards are there) the jig is up guaranteed -- who plays poker with a tarot card deck?

Aquillion
2008-07-09, 08:04 AM
"How does this game work?"
"You suggested 5 card stud, I just wanted to deal!!"
"I'll admit, I only know the name. I just wanted to try it."
"Well, look, I'll draw one card, and if it's red we'll play your game. Huh, that's odd, it just has a picture of the sun on it... hey, why are you sobbing?"

sleepybob
2008-07-09, 11:28 PM
item that can be abused... (FISHING HOOK)


http://ksguild.org/gallery/651_05_07_08_8_46_47.JPG
Perhaps this flowchart will help out...

there is a comletely overpowered wizard in my campaign that is the same level as the rest of the party, but FEELS like he is six more levels than us. he went around SHRINK iteming everything in a dungeon and taking it in his bag of holding.

once durring combat, i grabbed a few things for my bag. he demands that he gets all the loot from this room, so i pull out a fish hook. (players handbook, page 128 = 1silver piece)

i say, you can have these priceless ancient books that i took while you were busy fighting if you can take them from me. (the books are already in my bag) and (the fishing hook is ready in my hand to pop the bag of holding)

he could screw me over by trying to take them, but he let me have it because it would cause too much trouble for him.

mikeejimbo
2008-07-09, 11:36 PM
...who plays poker with a tarot card deck?

If I'm not mistaken, the common poker deck evolved from the Tarot deck.

Worira
2008-07-09, 11:39 PM
You can combine a deck of many things with some illusions to make it look like a normal playing card deck. Then...

"Let's just settle this over a card game. I'll deal. What? Well fine, you can deal if it makes you feel better."

*Toss* *Toss* *Toss* *Toss* *BLAM*

Congrats to you if he draws the "gems rain from the sky" card right before he draws the void.

Emphasis mine.

Ninja Chocobo
2008-07-10, 12:08 AM
I'm going to throw Portable Hole/Enveloping Pit (MIC) into this.
If you get someone in here (pit trap, attach to a tower shield and Bull Rush, etc), and remove it from the surface, they cannot*get out, and suffocate in 10 minutes.
*through non-magical means