Searing Light

[Greenfield]

Oh come on, Dandu, now that I've proposed a solution, you're supposed to shoot me down.

There's an obvious flaw in my proposal. Aren't you even going to try?

 

[Dandu]

You mean the 100 mile range limit?

 

[Greenfield]

Good, good! Now you're thinking like a skeptical DM should.

Question: Can you see through one Ring Gate and out the other? They transport *objects*, not visible light or attacks spells.

Same for an actual Gate spell, as well as a Teleport Circle, which would otherwise overcome the range limit objection.

You'd have to craft a custom item or spell, which reeks of just using Wishes for everything.

 

[Pergentile]

Aluminum is indeed a very abundant metal in the Earth's crust. Whether it's the same in the D&D world is an interesting question, but actually irrelevant.
You can't smelt aluminum the way you do most other metals. That is, bauxite (aluminum ore) doesn't give up its oxygen when heated, it remains aluminum oxide. To get it to give up its oxygen and become a workable metal, you need electricity, and not just a momentary jolt. You need lots and lots of electrical current over an extended period of time.
There aren't any electrical generating stations in the D&D world, at least not that I'm aware of.

All it would take would be the knowledge of aluminum's existence to prod some wizard with a smithing fetish to devise a spell to get the job done. I personally don't think that is any form of a stretch.

Regarding segmented mirrors: Binding mirror segments with force effects or Immovable Rods sounds like a wonderful idea. How were you planning to aim the thing, if it can't be moved?

I was just suggesting a way to bind them together, just because the way I suggested won't work doesn't mean that binding them together wont work. ^^

Regarding focusing an array of mirrors onto a single lens: You send a thousand beams of reflected light into a lens, and you get a thousand beams of light coming out. The lens doesn't convert them into a coherent beam.

That doesn't change the fact that there is still x amount of light energy all going to the same place, the majority of such being converted into heat energy when coming into contact with the earths surface or anything that absorbs light. Thus, a massive scale disintegrate is born.

Spotting the planet wouldn't be a problem. Spotting a particular building would be. The only man made structure visible from orbit to the naked eye is the Great Wall of China. Even with magical aid, it would be a problem to see and identify a specific castle, or even a city.

Isn't it a pretty huge assumption to say someone must SEE something in order to aim at it. Knowing somethings location, in degrees, fractions of degrees, or something else, in relation to several visible landmarks would make "seeing" your target completely irrelevant to aiming at it, from an orbital perspective. You think astronauts can "see" where they are going when they come in for a landing? It is all just calculations and fore-knowledge as to the location of things.

Question: Can you see through one Ring Gate and out the other? They transport *objects*, not visible light or attacks spells.

Energy and Mass are the same thing, simply in different form. To say something like a Ring Gate would not function in a similar manner to a blackhole (effects everything, even gravity and time), is illogical. If it transports anything, it transports everything, unless specifically stated otherwise. In my opinion, saying it transports "objects" and nothing else should not be assumed to mean one can't see through it. I however don't know the spell, so am just making arguments of logic. XD I think the limit of 100 miles does a good job of keeping people from using it to suck away earths atmosphere, or cover earths surface in magma.

@Greefield My god, you're fun to talk to. <3!!

 

[JamesonCourage]

Good, good! Now you're thinking like a skeptical DM should.

Question: Can you see through one Ring Gate and out the other? They transport *objects*, not visible light or attacks spells.

While I strongly dislike the flavor of ring gates, if you were able to build a cone-shaped focal point at the end of a convex surface with a small enough focal point to put through the ring gate, wouldn't it work?

Ring gate on the moon (wherever) would look something like:

. . /
. ./ () = ring gate
<() > = the tip of the mirrored cone, sticking through the ring gate.
. .\
. . \

I see no particular reason why that wouldn't work. You could still make an argument that light wouldn't flow through the ring gate, but as the tip of the object is actually through the ring gate that you possess, it seems like it's much more plausible now. Most people would allow natural fire to pass through a ring gate, after all, and the concept is not that different.

As for the distance limit, there may be a way to string together a series of ring gates, yeah? Sure, it'd be vulnerable now, but you cut put permanent force cages or walls around them for at least some protection.

 

[Rakusia]

it would be a bunch of ring gates if its 100 feet maximum

 

[JamesonCourage]

it would be a bunch of ring gates if its 100 feet maximum

According to the SRD:

Ring Gates
These always come in pairs—two iron rings, each about 18 inches in diameter. The rings must be on the same plane of existence and within 100 miles of each other to function.

 

[Greenfield]

Natural fire is actually matter, heated gasses in the process of combustion.

If you can't look into one ring gate and see out the other, then you can't send light through, whether it's a signal light, a the light from a spell, or the concentrated light of a thousand suns. Routing it through an object in the path won't change that.

There is always another way. There are enough specialized items, spells and sourcebooks that the rules have become a maze of twisty little passages. Or was that a maze of little twisty passages? No, I'm sure it was twisty maze of little passages. Unless it was...

 

[Pergentile]

Next project after giving the earth sentience so it can make hide checks:
One thousand strings of Ring Gates to bathe the earth in the light of a thousand suns... the mass/gravity of the sun would push itself halfway through the ring gate, leaving half on each side, allowing you to encircle the earth with 1000 half-suns and the light that's caused by them.

Wait, if combustion can pass through, fusion can too right?

 

[Dandu]

Natural fire is actually matter, heated gasses in the process of combustion.

If you can't look into one ring gate and see out the other, then you can't send light through, whether it's a signal light, a the light from a spell, or the concentrated light of a thousand suns. Routing it through an object in the path won't change that.

You can't see through a Stargate portal, but Jaffa staff weapons can fire through it just fine.