Where's the mass come from?!?

[Roninblack]

Me and my gaming group discuss this pretty often, (we all dislike "but magic" as an answer) so it occasionally gets tossed back out as to where the mass comes from for druids, polymorph, warshapers, and other shape changers. So board, any opinions?

[Mechalich]

Other planes. That's the original canonical answer. Generally the elemental planes or the ethereal, depending on what the spell in question represents. In 2e certain spells were actually impossible to cast in certain places because you couldn't grab mass from the inner planes if you were presently in the outer planes. Also, the answer to the counter question of where the mass goes - in the case of shrinking and so on - is that it ends up temporarily stored in the Astral Plane, in the same fashion as items in a bag of holding.

[Pronounceable]

we all dislike "but magic" as an answer

Whatever other answer you invent will also boil down to that, whether it's conjured matter from ethereal or nanotransmutative boosters. Technobabble (magicbabble in this case) is never anything other than but magic.

This is the only true answer. But not very interesting or satisfying. So instead I'll make **** up (you should too):
-It's solidified mana from the spell
-Nanotransmutative alchemical reactions of ingredients from standardized druid initiation rituals (this is the worst, don't do this)
-The creature gets gated inside the caster's body and leaks out
-It's particularly persuasive illusion
-Dopplegangers are sentient chameleon oozes
-Shifted bodies become hollow shells
-Yo momma's so fat, mass runs in the family (still better than nanomachines)

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Conservation of mass isn't a thing.

[curious-puzzle]

All extra mass is drawn from the Forever Flesh, through tiny extraplanar pinholes in the gates locking the Far Realm away. Every spell weakens said gate a little more...

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Me and my gaming group discuss this pretty often, (we all dislike "but magic" as an answer) so it occasionally gets tossed back out as to where the mass comes from for druids, polymorph, warshapers, and other shape changers. So board, any opinions?

For those stuck on the matter can neither be created nor destroyed......Think of the act of magically creating a chalice as the steps of converting magical ("dark maybe") energy into a physical form.

Don't let them hold up the game on that.

Although I do like the idea of limiting shapeshifters from gaining much mass unless we decide magic is involved.

[Khedrac]

Read "The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped" by Sherri S Tepper.
I don't remember where the extra material comes from when Mavin turns into a larger form (it might be conversion of surrounding matter - earth and air etc. or it might just be created). When she turns into a smaller form the extra material is left behind - at one point I think it gets used as a food source for the party!

Hmm, I really must re-read these books at some point, they are excellent.

[Flickerdart]

If you love physics so much, just say that spells flip dark matter (which we cannot interact with or detect) into baryonic (conventional) matter.

[GungHo]

It comes from Mysterio Etheros, God of the Gaps

[Joe the Rat]

Draws from the border ethereal, turning pre-material potential into actual material (and vice versa). It's really trippy looking from the other side.
Borrowing mass from other points on your timeline - all the time you spend as a spider gives you a window of time to T-Rex yourself.
You have an extra-dimensional pocket you can shunt mass into. As you gain power, you can permanently store additional mass in that space (higher HD allowances). High level druids are big eaters.
Body-swapping with a creature. Somewhere, there's a pasty looking druid with the mind of a giant elk running around right now.
Body-swapping with a spirit. As above, but your body is hanging out in Arborea until you're finished.
Literal shapeshifter baggage. You keep masses of organic material on hand to build your alternate forms. You keep it on a cart. Your oxen is rather traumatized from all the times you didn't pack enough.

[John Longarrow]

I think this comic has it right...

Spoiler: Link to comic

Show

[Fri]

Other planes is the canon answer. Actually animorph's morpher also works that way. I remember a weird scene where they see the dimension where all their extra mass got shunted as they transform into insects or something, there's blob of flesh floating around or something. I also remember something about how ships in ftl also went through this dimension? It was weird. Was it real or it's my/their acid trip?

[EccentricCircle]

At one point I created a setting where shape shifting did take extra mass into account. If you wanted to turn into something larger you had to "burn" additional mass as part of the spell materials, for example sacrificing a tree or a cow.

When you turned into something smaller your excess mass turned to ash and blew away, but of course you then need to replace it when you turn back to human form...

Wizards also extracted energy from the world about them, so whenever they cast a spell they either burnt some material components, or else left scorched footprints on the ground, where some of the material they were in contact with had been burnt away to power the spell.

It would be a pain to keep track of in an RPG, but creates some pretty cool visuals, and makes magic feel a lot less clean and easy.

[Jay R]

Me and my gaming group discuss this pretty often, (we all dislike "but magic" as an answer) so it occasionally gets tossed back out as to where the mass comes from for druids, polymorph, warshapers, and other shape changers. So board, any opinions?

Conservation of mass is a scientific concept, that doesn't belong in a fantasy world.

The question itself is making the assumption that scientific principles hold, and that mass is conserved. It assumes things that aren't true about that world. It doesn't "come from" anywhere, because mass isn't conserved.

[Segev]

Magical energy is sucked in by the spell and generates nutrients along with the spontaneous change in how they're processed to cause you to grow.

Mass is converted to magical energy that is held in suspension when you turn into a smaller shape.

[braveheart]

The air, you suck immense amounts of air into yourself creating a strong wind when gaining mass, and expel gasses rapidly when losing mass in transformation.

Or planes that works to...

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Conservation of mass is a scientific concept, that doesn't belong in a fantasy world

I'm calling BS. If science has no place in your fantasy world then nothing can ever be consistent and no one can reliably do anything. Science is the process of identifying how things work through experimentation and thus replication. If science can't exist that means nothing can be replicated, which is objectively untrue in every tabletop RPG setting anyway.

[Segev]

I'm calling BS. If science has no place in your fantasy world then nothing can ever be consistent and no one can reliably do anything. Science is the process of identifying how things work through experimentation and thus replication. If science can't exist that means nothing can be replicated, which is objectively untrue in every tabletop RPG setting anyway.

To be fair, while he was misusing the word "scientific," he meant "law of physics of our world," which, if you make that substitution, is a valid argument to make.

There are counter-arguments, of course, but it's not pure BS.

[oudeis]

Didn't one of the classical Greek philosophers postulate something about atoms changing shape to account for different phases of matter? I remember from a freshman course a loooooooonnnnggg time ago.

[Jay R]

If science has no place in your fantasy world then nothing can ever be consistent and no one can reliably do anything.

This is historically untrue. Things were just as consistent and reliable in our world before the scientific method was developed.

Science is the process of identifying how things work through experimentation and thus replication. If science can't exist that means nothing can be replicated, which is objectively untrue in every tabletop RPG setting anyway.

I didn't say that "science has no place in [my] fantasy world" or that "science can't exist". I spoke about a single scientific concept. Specifically, I said that conservation of mass is a scientific concept, that doesn't belong in a fantasy world. It is a scientific concept, and it's one that doesn't belong in a fantasy world. Specifically, it's an 18th century scientific idea. [Yes, Epicurus said something similar. But until Lomonosov's experiments, that was a philosophy, not a science.]

There are lots of scientific concepts that don't belong in a fantasy world. I wrote the following as part of the introduction to a game:

A warning about meta-knowledge. In a game in which stone gargoyles can fly and people can cast magic spells, modern rules of physics and chemistry simply don’t apply. There aren’t 92 natural elements, lightning is not caused by an imbalance of electrical potential, and stars are not gigantic gaseous bodies undergoing nuclear fusion. Cute stunts involving clever use of the laws of thermodynamics simply won’t work. Note that cute stunts involving the gross effects thereof very likely will work. Roll a stone down a mountain, and you could cause an avalanche. But in a world with teleportation, levitation, and fireball spells, Newton’s three laws of motion do not apply, and energy and momentum are not conserved. Accordingly, modern scientific meta-knowledge will do you more harm than good. On the other hand, knowledge of Aristotle, Ptolemy, medieval alchemy, or medieval and classical legends might be useful occasionally.

In fact, in that world, the earth is the center of the universe, the planets are the wandering stars - the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The PCs were quickly involved in a quest about seven artifacts called the Staves of the Wanderers. These were staves that had powers drawn from the seven planets.

Also, mass and energy are not in fact conserved and gravity is not universal - as is clearly shown by Enlarge, Fireball, and Levitation spells.

Yes, people could conduct scientific experiments on that world. And if they do, they would discover that mass is not conserved - because universal conservation of mass does not, in my view, belong in a world in which mass is clearly and obviously not conserved.

[Nifft]

Me and my gaming group discuss this pretty often, (we all dislike "but magic" as an answer) so it occasionally gets tossed back out as to where the mass comes from for druids, polymorph, warshapers, and other shape changers. So board, any opinions?

"Mass" is just a contraction of the true origin of all profane material.

One becomes a Wizard, and then one pulls it from one's magical ass.

[JeenLeen]

Other planes, or something about density/mass not being conserved in the physics of this world, seems to make the most sense. Maybe conservation of mass is how things normally go, if there's no mages, elementals, etc. active at the moment.

Other planes is the canon answer. Actually animorph's morpher also works that way. I remember a weird scene where they see the dimension where all their extra mass got shunted as they transform into insects or something, there's blob of flesh floating around or something. I also remember something about how ships in ftl also went through this dimension? It was weird. Was it real or it's my/their acid trip?

I was thinking to Animorphs as well. I recall that scene where they saw where their mass went when they got small. Was there also a lot of random material there that they used when they got large?

[RazorChain]

It's well known in physics that energy creates mass, just like photosynthesis creates slight mass or in a pair production where photon becomes an electron and a positron.

What physics would have trouble explaining is where the druid is getting all that Energy from. Especially if he is creating the mass not just transfering it....just to put this way the energy needed to make 1 kg of matter is roughly enough to power a 1000 HP engine for 3500 years.

[Friv]

I'm calling BS. If science has no place in your fantasy world then nothing can ever be consistent and no one can reliably do anything. Science is the process of identifying how things work through experimentation and thus replication. If science can't exist that means nothing can be replicated, which is objectively untrue in every tabletop RPG setting anyway.

That's not actually true if you're playing in a mythic setting. You can't reliably reproduce Thor drinking an ocean or Maui dragging up islands from the sea, because those things are rooted in legendary nature rather than scientific fact. Things happen because the gods will it, not because of repeatable mortal phenomena, and scientists will only get repeatable results if they don't piss off a deity who changes all the details.

Things can still be usually consistent in such a world, even usually enough to be reliable for the bulk of the population the bulk of the time. They just won't be always consistent, and everyone knows that once in a while when you try to take an ocean voyage, it'll take you ten years to get home even though you took the same route as the guy who got home after a week, because you upset an ocean god and he steered your boat to magic islands.

[RazorChain]

That's not actually true if you're playing in a mythic setting. You can't reliably reproduce Thor drinking an ocean or Maui dragging up islands from the sea, because those things are rooted in legendary nature rather than scientific fact. Things happen because the gods will it, not because of repeatable mortal phenomena, and scientists will only get repeatable results if they don't piss off a deity who changes all the details.

Things can still be usually consistent in such a world, even usually enough to be reliable for the bulk of the population the bulk of the time. They just won't be always consistent, and everyone knows that once in a while when you try to take an ocean voyage, it'll take you ten years to get home even though you took the same route as the guy who got home after a week, because you upset an ocean god and he steered your boat to magic islands.

Well if the Gods can control overabundance of energy then Thor was just destroying liquid....else he would just peed the sea and we would be without beaches again and a whole lot of urine in our drinking water.

Well you forgot that Odysseus was a already home when his men foolishly opened the bag of winds and they got blown away. Also he spent one year with Circe and seven years with Calypso so that leaves only 2 years of actual traveling....also don't forget he was lost and sailed to the western edge of the world....that takes some time

[Hawkstar]

I'm calling BS. If science has no place in your fantasy world then nothing can ever be consistent and no one can reliably do anything.

This matches up to my observations of fantasy worlds pretty accurately.

[GungHo]

It's well known in physics that energy creates mass, just like photosynthesis creates slight mass or in a pair production where photon becomes an electron and a positron.

If we're going to go this route... converts. Energy converts to mass (which is a form of energy). Mass converts to energy. There's no creation. It's all equivalent. The totality of energy doesn't change as things change state. Unless you can go steal from another universe (or part of the multiverse), Invocation/Evocation and Transmutation are bunk (but Conjuration/Summoning are not). So, they fanwanked (official fanwanking is still fanwanking) that the entirety of the multiverse represents the whole system and therefore Invocation/Evocation and Transmutation along with everything else that pulls stuff from nowhere are really an indirect Conjuration/Summoning.

Hell, I had someone tell me that Abjuration is really based in string theory and clairvoyance represented a unidirectional wormhole that only allowed a spectrum between 400nm and 700nm to pass, and furthermore the reason the Great Old Ones make you go crazy is because they are so far away that their messages are distorted by the CMB. I threw a beer bottle at him. It was full.

To Dinosaur's point, this doesn't mean that there can't be any form of science (or SCIENCE!) in a fantasy world. But, here be dragons and whatnot. It's okay for someone to turn lead into gold without asking to see a protonic crowbar. "i played around with Magnum Opus Oscillator, and this happens every time as long as I don't call the cat ugly" is okay.

[Flickerdart]

Unless you can go steal from another universe (or part of the multiverse), Invocation/Evocation and Transmutation are bunk (but Conjuration/Summoning are not).

I believe the Tome of Magic goes into detail about what Evocation actually does, which ultimately works out to importing energy from the relevant planes of energy. Meanwhile, when you use a Conjuration spell that deals with energy, you are creating nonmagical energy.

[gkathellar]

It doesn't. Mass doesn't exist in D&D worlds, and weight is simply a function of underlying platonic concepts.

I believe the Tome of Magic goes into detail about what Evocation actually does, which ultimately works out to importing energy from the relevant planes of energy. Meanwhile, when you use a Conjuration spell that deals with energy, you are creating nonmagical energy.

Other way around, IIRC. Evocation spells sorta temporarily create energy via magic, while conjuration brings it in from an inner plane - as is appropriate to the name. Orb spells bypass SR because the energy that you conjure is real, as opposed to evoked energy, which is more like forcing the universe to pretend there's energy.

[Braininthejar2]

I like the morphic field theory that most Pratchett's books used.

In a world where magic exists, an object has a morphic field - just like mass affects how it interacts with things through gravity, a morphic field is its 'physical quality of shape' - if it is changed by a spell, the object will still have its original mass and shape (ready to pop back into existence when the effect is dispelled) but will interact with everything as if it had a mass/form dictated by the spell.

Morphic field is partially connected to consciousness - deep down we know what we are - which is why we get save against polymorph, and why it is easier to teleport, even forcefully, the whole person, than half a person.