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Attack with shrink items/weapon
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<blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 6019335" data-attributes="member: 6669384"><p>Thanks for the correction: Wall of Force is zero thickness.</p><p></p><p>I'm curious what your "cube with 5 sides" is made of, that it's big enough and strong enough to trap an opponent, yet light enough for <em>Mage Hand</em> to lift. Just curious.</p><p></p><p>And that's a good call on missile damage being determined by the size of the bow, not the size of the arrow.</p><p></p><p>As for <em>Shrink Item</em> being used to create a pit: The spell converts one item, not a given volume. Many people (including my own campaign) rule that a container can be shrunk and it will take the contents with it, but that's a house rule. In any case, the dirt isn't "one item", and it isn't in a container, so neither interpretation helps with your idea. And if you rule that "the earth" or "a mountain" is a single item, I'd still argue that you can't shrink part of an item. If it's too big for the spell to take in one bite, it isn't affected at all.</p><p></p><p>Spike strips work, though actual caltrops do pretty much the same thing and don't take up a spell slot. They cost a lot less too.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure what happens to a campfire that's been itemized (2e reference), and then torn up. Most transformation spells include the disclaimer that parts separated from the whole revert immediately. It also violates the "single item" thing. As soon as you make it several items it no longer qualifies for the spell.</p><p></p><p>Though, come to think of it, "camp fire" is almost never a single piece of wood. So the "single item" restriction may legitimately be interpreted conceptually rather than mathematically. (In other words, if we tend to think of it as a single item, the spell works, no matter how many pieces actually go into that item.) This also keeps people from using the spell to pull single pieces out of a mechanism, since we tend to see the mechanism as a whole thing. I guess that's the difference between magic and technology: Magic works the way your gut says it should, while technology has to follow the laws of physics.</p><p></p><p>The "conceptually v mathematically" interpretation incidentally supports our house rule of shrinking the chest, and everything in it.</p><p></p><p>The big conundrum with using <em>Shrink Item</em> to prepare all of these nifty oddities is that the spell has a duration of one day per caster level. You'd need to dedicate a number of 3rd level spells per day to refreshing your micro-arsenal's micro state. Spells that could probably be put to other uses (such as killing things).</p><p></p><p>Unless, of course, you use the rule that says it can't expand unless there's room, and then store said micro-arsenal in tiny containers, ready to grab and use, empty or throw. (There was a comic book character, Henry Pym, in the Avengers, who seemed to do that sort of thing. He was a master of size changing technology. After his runs as Ant Man and Giant Man were done he was still known to keep immense technology in his pocket, in shrunken form. Put Batman's infamous utility belt to shame. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> )</p><p></p><p>While <em>Shrink Item</em> is a really neat and useful spell, when people try to use it to store damage dealing weapons/situations/materials, I find myself mentally comparing the results to other 3rd level spells like <em>Fireball</em> and <em>Lightning Bolt</em>. When it comes to damage, the actual damage dealing spells of the same level tend to come out ahead.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Greenfield, post: 6019335, member: 6669384"] Thanks for the correction: Wall of Force is zero thickness. I'm curious what your "cube with 5 sides" is made of, that it's big enough and strong enough to trap an opponent, yet light enough for [I]Mage Hand[/I] to lift. Just curious. And that's a good call on missile damage being determined by the size of the bow, not the size of the arrow. As for [I]Shrink Item[/I] being used to create a pit: The spell converts one item, not a given volume. Many people (including my own campaign) rule that a container can be shrunk and it will take the contents with it, but that's a house rule. In any case, the dirt isn't "one item", and it isn't in a container, so neither interpretation helps with your idea. And if you rule that "the earth" or "a mountain" is a single item, I'd still argue that you can't shrink part of an item. If it's too big for the spell to take in one bite, it isn't affected at all. Spike strips work, though actual caltrops do pretty much the same thing and don't take up a spell slot. They cost a lot less too. I'm not sure what happens to a campfire that's been itemized (2e reference), and then torn up. Most transformation spells include the disclaimer that parts separated from the whole revert immediately. It also violates the "single item" thing. As soon as you make it several items it no longer qualifies for the spell. Though, come to think of it, "camp fire" is almost never a single piece of wood. So the "single item" restriction may legitimately be interpreted conceptually rather than mathematically. (In other words, if we tend to think of it as a single item, the spell works, no matter how many pieces actually go into that item.) This also keeps people from using the spell to pull single pieces out of a mechanism, since we tend to see the mechanism as a whole thing. I guess that's the difference between magic and technology: Magic works the way your gut says it should, while technology has to follow the laws of physics. The "conceptually v mathematically" interpretation incidentally supports our house rule of shrinking the chest, and everything in it. The big conundrum with using [I]Shrink Item[/I] to prepare all of these nifty oddities is that the spell has a duration of one day per caster level. You'd need to dedicate a number of 3rd level spells per day to refreshing your micro-arsenal's micro state. Spells that could probably be put to other uses (such as killing things). Unless, of course, you use the rule that says it can't expand unless there's room, and then store said micro-arsenal in tiny containers, ready to grab and use, empty or throw. (There was a comic book character, Henry Pym, in the Avengers, who seemed to do that sort of thing. He was a master of size changing technology. After his runs as Ant Man and Giant Man were done he was still known to keep immense technology in his pocket, in shrunken form. Put Batman's infamous utility belt to shame. :) ) While [I]Shrink Item[/I] is a really neat and useful spell, when people try to use it to store damage dealing weapons/situations/materials, I find myself mentally comparing the results to other 3rd level spells like [I]Fireball[/I] and [I]Lightning Bolt[/I]. When it comes to damage, the actual damage dealing spells of the same level tend to come out ahead. [/QUOTE]
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