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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steverooo" data-source="post: 944240" data-attributes="member: 9410">Tolkien's Essay on Fairy Stories, Compasses, and Experimental Evidence:In said essay, Tolkien notes that the realm of Faerie doesn't consist solely of the magical, but also mundane wine and bread and cheese...  Just because a game is Fantasy doesn't mean that things of the real world should operate differently, there (sans the use of magic).Thus, I pulled out two survival knives from the box by my desk, unscrewed their steel end-caps, and checked the two compasses within.  They both indicated the same direction, even when brought together until they touched.I then went to my closet and moved boxes until I found my mail (the word "Chainmail" was a Victorian-era misnomer), and tried the compasses near it...  Even when sitting on top of the mail shirt, the compass was not noticably thrown off.  Nor did the needle deviate when placed right next to it from different directions.Returning to my desk, I took a folded pocket knife, and held it close to the compasses...  Nothing.  I moved it closer and closer to one of them, until it touched...  Nothing.  Finally, I opened the blade, moved it about, and finally touched the compass with it...  Only when right next to the housing did the needle react.I then tried the much larger blade of the survival knife, and found that when the blade was within about one inch of the compass, that the needle moved, and that touching this large piece of steel threw it off.I also tried setting the compass on top of a steel toolbox...  Nothing, again.  I moved it around, put the compass next to the toolbox on various side...  Still nothing!Conclusion:  It is the inverse square law, with a vengeance!  Of course a steel battleship needs a binnacled compass.  The quantity of ferrous metal is quite large, and the proximity is near.  As the distance increases, however, the intensity of the magnetic field drops off with the square of the distance.  A suit of armor, at arm's length (where you usually hold a compass when trying to read it) would have little affect... unless it were magnetized!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Besides, even if only the Druids and Rogues in leather, or the Rangers in mithril chain shirts can use'm, aren't compasses still valid?Most compasses are only accurate to within a few (2-5) degrees, anyway.  Even if you're one degree off north, due to being near a very large quantity of high-grade iron ore, will it really matter, much?  Assuming they max it out, by tenth level or so, your Barbarian, Druid, or Ranger will have enough Wilderness Lore/Survival to never get lost, anyway (unless you use the "1 is a Fumble" optional rule)![Edit: Typos!]</blockquote>

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