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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Segev's Avatar

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    Default Re: IN or ON the Phlogiston?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    Here's a link to the specific wiki page on Phlogiston. It's fairly accurate, as far as I can tell.
    Thanks!

    I know that, meta-narrative-wise, the reason fire reacts this way is because they chose to name it "phlostigon," and the original use of the word was in the old four-elements theory of matter, where phlostigon was essentially fire in its solid state, or the substance of fire within matter that wasn't actively burning. "Fire" was basically phlostigon escaping an object.

    But from a planar theory standpoint, it's weird. Why is the matrix in which the layers of the Prime are suspended so much more Fire-related than it is any other element? Maybe there's room to argue there's an air and water element to it for the "flow" business and the breathability, but it still seems...off. (Also, is it breathable, or do you need your own air supply? It mentions in the wiki page that phlostigon is flammable "in the presence of air.")

    It's also weird that electricity can't spark it off to fire.



    Also, I went ahead and ordered the hardback and the PDFs of it; I've wanted those for a while and didn't know Drive-Thru RPG had the hard copies available!

  2. - Top - End - #32
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    BarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: IN or ON the Phlogiston?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    But from a planar theory standpoint, it's weird. Why is the matrix in which the layers of the Prime are suspended so much more Fire-related than it is any other element? Maybe there's room to argue there's an air and water element to it for the "flow" business and the breathability, but it still seems...off. (Also, is it breathable, or do you need your own air supply? It mentions in the wiki page that phlostigon is flammable "in the presence of air.")
    I believe the phlogiston is not breathable on its own, but it doesn't interfere with breathing inside the atmosphere bubble of the ship. So you're "breathing" the phlog but not being harmed by it.

    On a side note, were I to adapt Spelljammer to a current 5e game, I'd tweak some of that environmental stuff for ships. Per SJ RAW, any object that leaves an atmosphere 1) has a significant gravity field that happens to orient itself along its long axis (enough such that an ocean-going ship generates a flat plane of 1G along its deck), and 2) carries a bubble of breathable air with it that doesn't dissipate in a vacuum and can support breathing for a crew for weeks or even months. As I've said in other threads, I love suspension of disbelief as much as the next critter, but I have trouble with this. It's so much easier to just say the gravity and air are generated by the spelljammer helm that's lifting the ship unto space in the first place. Anyway...

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    It's also weird that electricity can't spark it off to fire.
    Yeah, I would consider lightning damage being an issue as well. Did lightning damage exist mechanically in 2e?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Also, I went ahead and ordered the hardback and the PDFs of it; I've wanted those for a while and didn't know Drive-Thru RPG had the hard copies available!
    Let us know the quality of that, if you don't mind? I was under the impression it wasn't an actual 2e printing but more of a POD from the PDF.

  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Default Re: IN or ON the Phlogiston?

    Quote Originally Posted by EggKookoo View Post
    Yeah, I would consider lightning damage being an issue as well. Did lightning damage exist mechanically in 2e?
    The wiki page linked specifically called out casters using lightning rather than fire for damage when in phlostigon in order to avoid having it explode in the caster's face.
    Quote Originally Posted by EggKookoo View Post
    Let us know the quality of that, if you don't mind? I was under the impression it wasn't an actual 2e printing but more of a POD from the PDF.
    I'll try to remember to come back to this thread to give a report, sure. :)

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: IN or ON the Phlogiston?

    The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook (afb, title similar) book from TSR days had a bit more phlo info. Notable was that running out of air there wasn't a death sentence. Breathers without air went into infinite duration perfect suspended animation. Locking people in airtight coffins was a thing.

    Downside was that phlo couldn't exist inside a crystal sphere, it literally stopped existing at the crossover point. You needed to have breathable air before you went back in.
    Last edited by Telok; 2020-10-26 at 01:41 PM.

  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: IN or ON the Phlogiston?

    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook (afb, title similar) book from TSR days had a bit more phlo info. Notable was that running out of air there wasn't a death sentence. Breathers without air went into infinite duration perfect suspended animation. Locking people in airtight coffins was a thing.
    That's part of the original material, I believe.

  6. - Top - End - #36
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    Default Re: IN or ON the Phlogiston?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    The wiki page linked specifically called out casters using lightning rather than fire for damage when in phlogiston in order to avoid having it explode in the caster's face.
    (fixed your spelling for you)

    Well, it is just a wiki, after all. They're not known for getting everything right.

    I'm pretty sure the lightning bolts still triggered explosions in the Phlo (at least, they do in my games). On the other hand, the caster can have the bolt start at least 70 yards away, so it will explode, but not in your face the way that a fireball would. It's not so much that lightning doesn't explode, but that the lightning bolt spell can start far away from you.

    You are actually better off running out of air in the Phlo than you are inside a crystal sphere. If your air turns deadly inside a sphere, you take saving throws vs death until you die or get fresh (or foul) air. In the Phlo, you enter suspended animation, which you come out of when exposed to breathable air for 10 minutes or so.

    On the other hand, if you die in a sphere, you go to your regularly-scheduled afterlife. If you die in the Phlo, your spirit hangs out until it comes across a living person, which you then try to take over and force it to enter a sphere. (Once inside a sphere, you can leave the poor person, and then proceed as above).

    Quote Originally Posted by EggKookoo View Post
    I believe the phlogiston is not breathable on its own, but it doesn't interfere with breathing inside the atmosphere bubble of the ship. So you're "breathing" the phlo but not being harmed by it.

    On a side note, were I to adapt Spelljammer to a current 5e game, I'd tweak some of that environmental stuff for ships. Per SJ RAW, any object that leaves an atmosphere 1) has a significant gravity field that happens to orient itself along its long axis (enough such that an ocean-going ship generates a flat plane of 1G along its deck), and 2) carries a bubble of breathable air with it that doesn't dissipate in a vacuum and can support breathing for a crew for weeks or even months. As I've said in other threads, I love suspension of disbelief as much as the next critter, but I have trouble with this. It's so much easier to just say the gravity and air are generated by the spelljammer helm that's lifting the ship unto space in the first place. Anyway...
    Does this mean that your ship loses all gravity and breathable air when your helmsman suffers Spelljammer Shock? You can only man a helm for 24 hours straight. What happens when you're switching helmsmen? Or if you only have one spellcaster, and he needs a break?

    As far as the physics go, the entire system is designed to justify the image of a knight standing on the completely exposed deck of his spaceship. Grubbian physics (named after Jeff Grubb the main creator of Spelljammer) states that any size G body (25 feet or larger) generates its own gravity field, and gravity works "in the way that is most convenient". Spheres generate spherical fields of gravity (usually, there are occasional exceptions), and oblong objects generate gravity planes.

    I know a lot of people want Spelljammer to use more standard physics, rather than Grubbian physics. But D&D isn't real life, and I'm fine with it using physics that seems very like ours on large, earth-sized planets, but is revealed to be very different away from them. Relativity works exactly the same way. (I mean, the same way in that it is almost indistinguishable from Newtonian physics when you're standing on the surface of a planet, not that it functions like Grubbian physics).

    Also, somewhere, far, far from the known spheres, the Arcane Inner Flow, and the Arcane Outer Flow, lies a crystal sphere that is trillions of billions of miles across, and where the Grubbian laws of physics no longer hold sway. Instead, this bizarre sphere is filled with light that moves so slowly that you can actually measure its speed, and the matter in the sphere is ruled by the nearly incomprehensible and somehow mutually incompatible laws of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

    Regarding the planes, I've always maintained that the Phlo and all the crystal spheres and their interiors make up the Prime Material Plane. Inside the spheres, you can access the inner and outer planes, and outside the spheres, that access is cut off. Nothing official I've read (except, possibly, Hackjammer) has ever tried to tie the Phlogiston in as a transitive plane. That I remember anyway. (And it's entirely possible that if I did read something to that effect, I just said "That's stupid" and promptly forgot it).

    Here's a link to the Essays on Wildspace page of the official Spelljammer website.
    Last edited by Lord Torath; 2020-10-26 at 08:25 PM.
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    My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
    Thri-Kreen Ranger/Psionicist by me, based off of Rich's A Monster for Every Season

  7. - Top - End - #37
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    BarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: IN or ON the Phlogiston?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    Does this mean that your ship loses all gravity and breathable air when your helmsman suffers Spelljammer Shock? You can only man a helm for 24 hours straight. What happens when you're switching helmsmen? Or if you only have one spepllcaster, and he needs a break?
    Nah, gravity and the force holding in your captured air still runs even when the helmsman steps down. Possibly indefinitely, but long enough to rest regardless.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    As far as the physics go, the entire system is designed to justify the image of a knight standing on the completely exposed deck of his spaceship. Grubbian physics (named after Jeff Grubb the main creator of Spelljammer) states that any size G body (25 feet or larger) generates its own gravity field, and gravity works "in the way that is most convenient". Spheres generate spherical fields of gravity (usually, there are occasional exceptions), and oblong objects generate gravity planes.

    I know a lot of people want Spelljammer to use more standard physics, rather than Grubbian physics. But D&D isn't real life, and I'm fine with it using physics that seems very like ours on large, earth-sized planets, but is revealed to be very different away from them. Relativity works exactly the same way. (I mean, the same way in that it is almost indistinguishable from Newtonian physics when you're standing on the surface of a planet, not that it functions like Grubbian physics).
    It's fine, not trying to tell anyone how to run their game. I just know myself and my players, and we'd "embed" into Spelljammer better if it was a little more compatible with what we know. Like, take the atmosphere thing. If a body holds onto atmosphere, would that remain true if you climbed up to the top of Everest? For gravity, it says smaller body A aligns with larger body B if A is within B's gravity, but what about tiny body C near A? Is it still aligned with A because A is bigger, or with B because A is with B's range? If C aligns with B, then why are we all aligned with the planet beneath us despite us all caught in the sun's gravity?

    So all I'm saying is it's simpler to assume physics, at least within a "conventional" sphere like Realms, works mostly like we experience in reality, and the exceptions -- which are really only relevant to spelljamming -- are a product of spelljamming itself. Whether or not it being simpler is better is a matter of taste, of course, but that's what appeals to me. It still allows the image of the knight standing on the exposed deck of his ship. Thematically, it works with that Treasure Planet aesthetic the setting is going for.
    Last edited by EggKookoo; 2020-10-26 at 02:34 PM.

  8. - Top - End - #38
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    Default Re: IN or ON the Phlogiston?

    Quote Originally Posted by EggKookoo View Post
    So all I'm saying is it's simpler to assume physics, at least within a "conventional" sphere like Realms, works mostly like we experience in reality, and the exceptions -- which are really only relevant to spelljamming -- are a product of spelljamming itself. Whether or not it being simpler is better is a matter of taste, of course, but that's what appeals to me. It still allows the image of the knight standing on the exposed deck of his ship. Thematically, it works with that Treasure Planet aesthetic the setting is going for.
    NO! YOU MUST PLAY MY WAY! OTHERWISE YOU ARE HAVING FUN WRONG, AND THAT IS NOT PERMITTED!

    I'd recommend giving it a try with the Grubbian physics, but I understand I'm not everyone, and it won't keep me up nights knowing you're playing the way that works best for you.
    Warhammer 40,000 Campaign Skirmish Game: Warpstrike
    My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
    Thri-Kreen Ranger/Psionicist by me, based off of Rich's A Monster for Every Season

  9. - Top - End - #39
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    Default Re: IN or ON the Phlogiston?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    NO! YOU MUST PLAY MY WAY! OTHERWISE YOU ARE HAVING FUN WRONG, AND THAT IS NOT PERMITTED!

    I'd recommend giving it a try with the Grubbian physics, but I understand I'm not everyone, and it won't keep me up nights knowing you're playing the way that works best for you.
    What is this new fangled live-and-let-live attitude? In my day, we'd have tripped Godwin three times by now.
    Last edited by EggKookoo; 2020-10-26 at 03:54 PM.

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