Spells dealing cold damage. effects?

[Dozen]

While I enjoyed this reading

Thank you?

a minute or two is hardly useful in a combat situation with 6-second combat rounds. And Cone of Cold is gaseous, not a liquid.

...Which is why I pointed out the Leidenfrost effect(which protects you from freezing to death) applies to liquids only. In the same sentence you quoted.

Still, it's magic. That works for me.

Magic has, thankfully, some quasi-defined set of semi-rules you can figure out if you're too nerdy for your own good and have enough time to waste on pointless thought exercise. The spells themselves defy physics, but spell effects are within our natural laws. Otherwise you could change a minor property of reality through a low level Transmutation spell that would make existence impossible and everything within the area of effect would be unmade.

If we accept that simply ignoring the rules is not possible, and you have to work within the set rules first to change them, something as grandiose as the utter destruction of the universe, or imploding people becomes a lot harder. Again, if you play with the kind of people I do, thankfully.

While we're talking implosion, there is a ninth level spell of the same name which does just that. Mechanically, it's ninth level because it would break most campaigns at lower levels, obviously. From an in-game observer's standpoint however, it has to be high level because it's hard to cast. But if it was just "magic", all the caster would have to do is flip a boolean switch and the target would be crushed under it's own weight. That's a cantrip's level of complexity and energy requirement.
Instead, what happens is that the spell creates the exact set of circumstances necessary for the implosion to happen in the specified spot. Ever wondered why Wizards have every Knowledge skill on their class list? That's why.

 

[Greenfield]

While I enjoyed this reading, a minute or two is hardly useful in a combat situation with 6-second combat rounds. And Cone of Cold is gaseous, not a liquid.

Still, it's magic. That works for me.

Gaseous? I was under the impression that it was a "pure cold" effect, radiant cold if you will. What makes you say that it's gaseous?


Dozen: Recognizing that "instant" death can't happen at all (it takes time for anything to take place), I'll stand by my statement: Sudden cold can shut down the brain, or cause the heart to stop. In game terms, let's call "instant" something that happens in six seconds (1 round) or less.

Note that I'm not talking about cellular damage, freezing the water inside to cause the cell walls to rupture. Nor am I talking about ths slow "sleeping death" of hypothermia. I'm talking about shock to the system from sudden, extreme temperature change.

But to answer the original question: Cold damage in the game is damage, just like any other.

 

[Dozen]

Gaseous? I was under the impression that it was a "pure cold" effect, radiant cold if you will. What makes you say that it's gaseous?

I think I get it. Assume you're not underwater. Cold itself is the lack of heat. Heat needs the matter containing it interacting with other matter to travel - which in most cases is air.

Dozen: Recognizing that "instant" death can't happen at all (it takes time for anything to take place), I'll stand by my statement: Sudden cold can shut down the brain, or cause the heart to stop. In game terms, let's call "instant" something that happens in six seconds (1 round) or less.

Why would we change the definition of the word? Under that interpretation the guy who caught on fire and burned screaming for five seconds before the embrace of death would count as "instant". That's just silly.

And mind you, I didn't mean instant death was impossible. I said instant death by cold was impossible.

Instant means taking an unmeasurably small amount of time. What is unmeasurable and what is not is subjective, of course - assuming you have a machine to assist you in measuring, you can potentially use planck time, which is as accurate as you can get. The increment of time a human can percieve is measured in milliseconds however, not seconds. There is always a moment when you're alive and not in the next, but when discussing gradual death, your body dies bit by bit. An outside observer or in some cases the dying creature itself can discern a process. Instant death would mean the entirety of the body died under such a short period you can't tell which part was first by experiencing it. The spells Implosion, Finger of Death, Negative Energy X, Inflict X Damage, and so on and so forth cause instant death. So does falling into lava and dying of thermal shock, as you said.

 

[Greenfield]

First, "Cold" is listed as an energy type, not the "lack of thermal energy" type. It's magic, not physics. We have things like Polar Ray, which are clearly radiant. And as far as I know, Cone of Cold works the same underwater or in an airless void. So unless there's something in the rules that says its gaseous, I'll argue that it's radiant cold, a negative energy if you please.

As for "Instant Death": It isn't possible. It takes some measurable amount of time for cells to die. Even in a nuclear blast, the energy propagates at the speed of light, max. And it does take a measurable amount of time for that to travel the depth of a human body. (Approximately one nano-second, in fact). So we're "redefining" it any time we use the term at all.

But as far as "instant death" is concerned, a thermal shock that stops the heart is about as instant as anything. Hell, it's faster than death in the electric chair. (They don't try to be subtle and simply stop the heart. They all but cook it.) And all you need is enough shock to stun the vegas nerve, which controls involuntary autonomic functions.

As far as the original post is concerned, your own example is a good one: Cold enough to liquify any part of the atmosphere is enough to do cellular damage on the spot (i.e. frostbite). The liquid nitrogen you mentioned in your example is actually an exceptional case, in that it has a very low thermal mass, and takes relatively little to cause it to change state. Try super-cooling anhydrous alcohol with dry ice some time. You'll get all the thermal drain of frozen carbon dioxide, coupled with the full surface contact of a liquified gas, without the boil-off to create an insulating gas barrier. You'll lose that hand a lot faster, even though the temperature isn't as low.

 

[Dozen]

First, "Cold" is listed as an energy type, not the "lack of thermal energy" type. It's magic, not physics.

Man, I just explained why spell effects need to abide by the laws of physics in the first post of this page. Refute that first if you want me to believe you really read what I write.

So unless there's something in the rules that says its gaseous, I'll argue that it's radiant cold, a negative energy if you please.

Energy types are arbitrarily defined labels for hazards in an abstract system. They never actually mention them in game. Negative Energy, on the other hand, is an actual thing in the fantasy world. Don't try to argue based on a correlation that doesn't exist.

But as far as "instant death" is concerned, a thermal shock that stops the heart is about as instant as anything.

You will still be alive and conscious before your brain suffocates. Same as a decapitated human stays alive for a round or two.

 

[the Jester]

As for "Instant Death": It isn't possible.

Oh yeah? How about via death magic- death spell, circle of death, power word kill, etc. The descriptions even sometimes say that the target dies "instantly".

Magic has, thankfully, some quasi-defined set of semi-rules you can figure out if you're too nerdy for your own good and have enough time to waste on pointless thought exercise. The spells themselves defy physics, but spell effects are within our natural laws. Otherwise you could change a minor property of reality through a low level Transmutation spell that would make existence impossible and everything within the area of effect would be unmade.

What now? This seems like basically an assertion backed by a completely nonspecific justification. I don't think you've established anything here.

The spell effects are certainly not within our natural laws. A few example: shape change can drastically increase or decrease your mass. Disintegrate destroys matter or energy. Teleportation effects move the target instantly, faster than light. Those ones are just off the top of my head, and though you can come up with an argument that counters each (e.g. "Teleport actually moves you at light speed"), it's harder to come up with an argument that doesn't also contradict the wording of the spell ("Instant" yo).

I'll accept that D&D magic has its own rules, but not that they have anything to do with our physical laws. Not without some evidence that isn't a bald assertion.

While we're talking implosion, there is a ninth level spell of the same name which does just that. Mechanically, it's ninth level because it would break most campaigns at lower levels, obviously. From an in-game observer's standpoint however, it has to be high level because it's hard to cast. But if it was just "magic", all the caster would have to do is flip a boolean switch and the target would be crushed under it's own weight. That's a cantrip's level of complexity and energy requirement.
Instead, what happens is that the spell creates the exact set of circumstances necessary for the implosion to happen in the specified spot. Ever wondered why Wizards have every Knowledge skill on their class list? That's why.

No, actually, what implosion does (and it's a cleric spell btw, not a wizard spell at all) is "create a destructive resonance in a corporeal creature's body." (PH 3.5, pg. 243.)

You seem to be mixing up how you think magic in D&D works with how it works by the RAW. If you want to say that it works in accordance with real physics in your game, that's fine, but I don't think that's backed up in the rules.

You will still be alive and conscious before your brain suffocates. Same as a decapitated human stays alive for a round or two.

As far as I know, nowhere does the game give you a round or two of life post-decapitation. Your whole argument seems to rest on real world stuff, rather than on in-game stuff, so I think it's pretty shaky.

 

[Greenfield]

Man, I just explained why spell effects need to abide by the laws of physics in the first post of this page. Refute that first if you want me to believe you really read what I write.

Do I have to break out the hamster cannon? (Trust me, it's a long and laborious debunking of the idea that magic works via any form of physics.)

Short form: Magic routinely does things that physics says can't be done. Enlarge and Reduce spells routinely ignore Conservation of Matter and Energy rules, as the simple example. So, for that matter, do Polymorph and Alter Self. I could go through the book, spell by spell, and show how they ignore physics, but why belabor the obvious? It's called "magic" for a reason.

You will still be alive and conscious before your brain suffocates. Same as a decapitated human stays alive for a round or two.

No, actually you'll be out cold. Conscious functions are the first to go, and critical functions like the Vegas Nerve are among the very last. Will the cells remain alive? Sure. But you'll be "clinically dead", even if recuscitation is still possible.

 

[Warbringer]

You will still be alive and conscious before your brain suffocates. Same as a decapitated human stays alive for a round or two.

It depends on definition of instant for sure.

"I did not instant death that woman" ..said with southern accent.

because Hollywood is never wrong..

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HgXH949dbIE&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DHgXH949dbIE

I also agree, once magic effect takes place (ie the conjuration/creation.summoning) part of the spell is completed, the effect acts to normal physics. Some of my favorite rules was what happens to certain spells cast under water...

 

[Starfox]

First, "Cold" is listed as an energy type, not the "lack of thermal energy" type. It's magic, not physics. We have things like Polar Ray, which are clearly radiant. And as far as I know, Cone of Cold works the same underwater or in an airless void.

Yea, I realized "gaseous " was wrong after I wrote it. If you want to put it physicist's terms something like a zone of molecular agitation negation would be closer.

 

[Warbringer]

Yea, I realized "gaseous " was wrong after I wrote it. If you want to put it physicist's terms something like a zone of molecular agitation negation would be closer.

That would be a vacuum wouldn't it, if we are referring to a medium for transfering heat (or opposite, basically flow in opposite direction). Can't think of anything else.