Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Any D&D/D20

Shadowrun

World of Darkness

Palladium

Other (feel free to post about it)

[Cruxador]

OK-- Now, imagine that the netting is tied into a continuous "Loop", like a conveyor belt.  Embedded into the net are the rods. The rods on the "bottom" are activated, and supply the support.  The net moves along over the top of the "wheels" (big stone cylinders), and the rest of the "car" is supported on the extending axles protruding from the sides of the cylinders, as shown.

You've just invented a tank tread. Considering the amount of immovable rods you'd need would be impractical, both for cost and for the hassle of carrying them around on the off-chance that you happen to want to rig this up, I reckon a sky tank is a much more interesting direction to take this line of thought. On the other hand, once you've got flying tanks, what more do you need?

[Hanslanda]

OK-- Now, imagine that the netting is tied into a continuous "Loop", like a conveyor belt.  Embedded into the net are the rods. The rods on the "bottom" are activated, and supply the support.  The net moves along over the top of the "wheels" (big stone cylinders), and the rest of the "car" is supported on the extending axles protruding from the sides of the cylinders, as shown.

You've just invented a tank tread. Considering the amount of immovable rods you'd need would be impractical, both for cost and for the hassle of carrying them around on the off-chance that you happen to want to rig this up, I reckon a sky tank is a much more interesting direction to take this line of thought. On the other hand, once you've got flying tanks, what more do you need?

Underground attack helicopters?

[wierd]

Is context really this hard?

Ok, Big spoiler:

As grim stated, he thought seeing an overly dramatic display of impractical wealth by a wizard to travel by such a means would be cool.

This pretty much implies "The GM says some NPC prick is showing off how insanely wealthy he is."  Impracticality is kinda the point at this point. 


I said, If you are going to go there, then you should go this route-- and suggested the tread car.


BOTH would have impractical numbers of these very expensive rods, and would be shameless displays of wealth.

The former would be something more a human or high elven wizard would do.  The latter is more what a gnomish wizard would do.





Neither were intended to be done by player characters.





Slug-Rug is outlandish, but can be done realistically with just 3 rods.  You could arguably get that in a loot chest.

[Trekkin]

Also, "Congratulations for winning" sarcasm applies to ALL fantasy role play.  If you are going to go there, you dont belong in this thread, IMO.

I'd actually argue that its inapplicability is foundational to roleplaying games in general. They're multiplayer for a reason.

If you want some fancy flying carriage made of immovable rods as cool background flavor, great -- but as a DM, you can just do that; you can just put it in the game and let the players ooh and aah at it and there you go. If you want to spend a lot of time detailing to yourself how it works, that's fine too, but the thing is that unless they open the hood, that information won't enter the consensus understanding of the game, so in a functional sense it was never real, however true it is. It's the same way that you can spend ages detailing what's in the castle three kingdoms over the players are never going to visit and justifying it down to the last gold piece. If they don't ask, it's not in the shared construct of the game. It's just world-building solitaire.

Similarly, if as a player you want to build the thing, there's a question of whether the rules minutae matter. If you came to my table wanting to build it, I'd stat it as a modified carpet of flying and compute the price from that, and the details are up to whatever you think is cool. Immovable rods, enchanted swans, a boat that floats in a tiny flying ocean, whatever; it works how you want. Go nuts. If you want to be able to pull the rods out of it for other purposes, then yeah, it's going to cost as much as that many immovable rods, but ultimately whether or not the rules support the literal nuts and bolts is immaterial. Again, nobody's stopping you proving to yourself how it works, but ultimately they're not going to dispute it, either. It's a prop in the story everybody's creating together.

I'm not saying it's necessarily a waste of time to establish in detail how it works by fiat; world-building is important, after all. I'm wondering, earnestly, if there's ever a context in which it needs defending on rules grounds instead of "I made it and we're all okay with it", whether from a player or the GM.

[wierd]

Sure.  The other side of rule zero, coupled with a very good observe roll.

When describing an object, should a player ask about it, you base your description based on how good a check they did.  If they got a really good check, you describe how it works for them.

Once they know, they can suggest doing something funny while in passing.


Such as, discretely activating one of the "passivated" rods being carried over the top of the conveyor, with a single, fast, and discrete finger jab.

This would jam the car HARD in mid air, while whatever inertial energy involved would still be in play.  Our gnomish prick would go flying out of his overly elaborate flying throne, to the delight of the children.





This is to say, this kind of attention to detail in the writeup phase is less about being the piss whizzard (who simply cannot abide a derail or slight against his carefully crafted story arc, or debasement of his world building fetishes) and more providing every possible level of detail, including the microscopic, should the players ask-- as an open invitation for them to grab that, and run with it in whatever direction they so please.

[Persus13]

Its all well and good as a piece of background fluff, but when the players inevitably end up chasing it or steal it to try and get out of town while being chased, then all of a sudden they and you are going to have to figure out how the thing actually works.

Could also point out "item type is 'adventuring gear', not 'magic (or wondrous) item'."


Does it help any that I see this kind of thing being created by a gnome?

Minor nitpick: Magic items are considered adventuring gear. Wondrous items are a subset of magic items. and the full list for the immovable rod is adventuring gear (rod), and rods are are also a subset of magic items.

It takes an action to PURPOSEFULLY activate the rod.

Since it is activated via a simple application of pressure to the sensitive end, this is an OBVIOUS DM "gotcha".  "oops, that carefully oriented immovable rod you suspended in the air, in the path of the rampaging hell beast, so that it would act as an impromptu lance, held in place by 8000lbs of resistance?  yeah-- you had the button end facing the monster.  On impact, the button got pushed."


We are abusing this same kind of logic:

I mean, a DM could do that, but there's a lot of easier ways to do this that don't require saying someone accidentally disabled the rod without using an action.

[Jimmy]

As an aside, one of my favorite DM trick traps has always been the Invisibility spell.

I'm assuming 90% of players have only ever looked at the spell as a means of stealth to bypass enemies. But there's actually a big bag of tricks that you can use with casting it on objects.

One of my all time best was a sheet of invisible iron halfway across a pit trap, hanging down from the ceiling. The player tries to jump across the 10 ft. wide pit? Bang! Straight into the iron, then splat! Down the hole.

[pikachu17]

I just realized that you can cast Invisibility on other people's clothes. If I'm ever playing a quirky magic-user with the spell, I can interrupt a dramatic moment with instant naked.
Unfortunately, RAW, you can't do that in 5e.

[Rolan7]

No, surely not, worn items generally get a save...  Aha!

So you have to deliver the touch spell (though familiars make that easier IIRC) but the bearer gets a will save, whether you target themself or merely their garment.  Magic items also get a save, higher bonus is used, yadda yadda.

So... what's the XP for a level 0 commoner killing a clever idea?

Edit: Although if you have a stealthy... or perhaps even *invisible* familiar... They likely won't be aware of your attempt.  They'd have to notice your spellcasting, which might be a decent check if their attention is elsewhere.  Or you're invisible.  If they aren't "foes", your own theoretical invisibility wouldn't drop.

[Egan_BW]

Now, why would worn and carried items be arbitrarily granted greater resistance to a spell's effect? Illogical!

[Cruxador]

Now, why would worn and carried items be arbitrarily granted greater resistance to a spell's effect? Illogical!

Because it's attuned to a soul.

[Rolan7]

Probably for the same reason that some random commoner gets a "will save" against Invisibility
Presumably that arcane force runs up against some subconscious ego which resists outside influence.  Will saves are generally subconscious unless you happen to see the weird mage make funny hand gestures at you.  Their energies try to overrule your will.

Why wouldn't that apply to your clothing, your weapon?  It's like someone patting your car hood as they walk past - it feels personal.  So, in this setting's magic, perhaps it *is* personal.  You channel your will through your sword, like it's an extension of yourself.  The wizard tells your sword to grow red-hot with Heat Metal and you say no, I will not.

Edit:  Without even being *aware*.  You naturally resist outside influence on that part of yourself, your weapon.

[pikachu17]

5e Invisibility does not have a save at all.
However, it only works on creatures; You can't cast it specifically on their clothing, or any other object, regardless of being worn or not.

[Egan_BW]

In 5e worn items are immune to being set on fire by spells, and it doesn't even take a save!

[Rolan7]

5e is great and I'm glad my group switched to it, but it sure simplified things a lot.  I have very mixed feelings about that, but they trend towards the positive.  That doesn't mean I don't miss the ridiculous depth of 3.5 splat sometimes.