Shrink Item Questions from A Player

[Mark Chance]

These questions were sent to me by one of my players who is considering taking shrink item as one of his character's first 3rd-level spells.

1a. Can you throw a shrunk stone and drop the spell in the same action/round?

1b. What about having someone else
throw it and I ready an action and to drop the spell shortly before it hits the item?

2. If I make a touch attack against someone in plate armor and touch the armor, what happens?

 

[kreynolds]

1a. Can you throw a shrunk stone and drop the spell in the same action/round?

Well, when the stone smacks a solid surface, it will grow back in size anyway. But, I assume you could, though I don't know if speaking the command word would be a free action or not (I think it would), but I would think the stone would hit its target before you could speak the word. I don't know that I would allow a free action (speaking a command word, I don't mean talking) to take place during another action, especially when the second action can be altered by the free action.

1b. What about having someone else
throw it and I ready an action and to drop the spell shortly before it hits the item?

See previous answer.

2. If I make a touch attack against someone in plate armor and touch the armor, what happens?

You don't touch the armor. If you make a touch attack against me, you either hit or miss. Nothing else. If you want to make a touch attack against my armor, you must specifically state you are doing so (that's Striking an Object or Weapon, PH).

 

[Saeviomagy]

I would seriously suggest that you immediately make some rulings, which will restrict shrink item to doing what it was originally meant to do - ie carrying a lot more than is normally possible. Those rulings are:

1. If an expanding item would displace someone or something via it's expansion, then the expanding item is displaced. This stops people from shrinking huge, flat chunks of iron, and then arguing that their rapid expansion should damage everyone in the squares that it expands into.

2. If a shrinking or expanding item will damage something or someone through shrinking or growing (because it is unable to be displaced), then the item which is shrinking or growing will be damaged in such a way that it no longer causes a threat, and if it would still cause damage, then it ceases it's shrinking or growing temporarily.
ie - If you put a shrunken boulder in someones pocket, and trigger it to return to it's original shape it will expand to fill the pocket, and then stop expansion until removed from the pocket. If you try to use a shrunken iron bar to force a door open during it's expansion, then the bar crumples.

What does this stop? Someone shrinking items and then feeding them to someone else to kill them, someone using shrunken items as the ultimate building destroyer, someone trying to shrink a 24-inch shuriken into a regular shuriken, throwing it into a target, and then expanding it again, arguing that it should do large amounts of extra damage, someone trying to argue that an expanding item has any kind of explosive force.

3. Shrunken items cannot be triggered in mid-air. Like summoned creatures, they can only be triggered while resting on a surface capable of supporting their weight.

What does this prevent? Someone trying to shrink a huge, flat piece of iron and then trigger it while it is sailing through the air above someone. Someone trying to shrink a boulder to a pebble, tying it to an arrow, and then claming extra damage upon impact etc.

4. Shrunken items are effectively placed into stasis, regardless of whether the felt or normal forms are chosen

What does this prevent? Someone arguing that they can shrink an item and then continue to use it as normal - like tying shrunken alchemists fire to arrows, so that on impact it shatters and has full effect. Or starting out with a 12xsuper-sized alchemists fire, and throwing the shrunken version for multiples of the base damage.

5. If the shrunken item is ever disassociated into seperate pieces, then the whole item returns to full size

What does this prevent? Using a single shrink item spell to shrink a treasure chest (perfectly legal), and then drawing out individual items from it for use. Basically it stops using a single shrink item spell from being used on a ton of items.


I'm guessing your player is intending to drop or throw huge objects on top of or at enemies, and kill them by constricting them in their own armour. Make it clear that these things aren't possible.

This still leaves shrink item as a massively powerful spell, just not the powerhouse of destruction that it could be read as.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I am with Saeviomagy.

Shrink Item as written is a powerful tool for carrying mundane stuff. It serves that purpose exceedingly well.

Your player is attempting to turn a powerful noncombat spell into a powerful combat spell. That is violating the intent of the spell.

Next stop: Your player will be making "cannons", using shrunk items as the gunpowder.

Stop the insanity now before it is too late!

BTW, speaking any kind of command word should be assumed to be an action unless explicitly stated otherwise. Speaking is, indeed, a free action. If I hold 23 Wands of Lightning in my hand, all with the same command word, I get exactly zero Lightnings Bolts if I speak the command word as a free action and exactly one Lightning Bolt if I speak the command word as a normal action. Use the same common sense approach to Shrink Item.

 

[Mark Chance]

Thanks for the input. I was of two minds about answers to his questions. The player, let's call him D, is not a mad-scientist power-gamer. If he was, he would not be running a diviner with an 11 Con.

I don't think D was trying to turn shrink item into a "powerful combat spell". He just had questions about the limits of the spell

Again, danke.