Shrink Item Stones

[thompsja]

A friend of mine and I were kicking this around:

Shrink Item reduces something to 1/16 on each dimension, so you could make a round boulder 5' in diameter into a sling stone sized rock.

From the SRD: Objects changed by a shrink item spell can be returned to normal composition and size merely by tossing them onto any solid surface

Just using rough numbers, if my (shrunk) rock weighs half a pound, it weighs a ton when it hits somebody. What do all of you people think of the kind of damage it should do when it hits?

 

[Dandu]

A ton.

 

[kitcik]

If I am the DM, the "pouch" (cradle) of your sling would count as a solid surface and... oops.

But, yes, peoiple have done this. Some people have even bombed cities with them, until they realized an orbital laser platform was more efficient.

 

[xigbar]

Or you could just Fly up, as the spell, or as a natural ability, and just drop the stone for absurd amounts of damage. Hulking War Hulker can lift mountains, epic telekinesis can't lift one with their minds.

 

[Greenfield]

I'd look at the damage from Catapaults or similar siege engines, and use that.

But while putting them into a pouch isn't the same as casting them onto a surface, I do see other issues. According to the spell text, they enlarge after they land, not in mid flight, so I'd have them hit like sling stones, then return to normal size.

The other way to deal with them would be to issue the command to un-shrink while they're in the air. Of course, many DM's would have a problem with you taking an attack roll and using a command activated item in the same action, even if it is a temporary one-shot item.

So it's almost as if the authors specifically designed this spell to prevent that abuse. The free-action restore option (dropping something) won't hit like the big item, while the option that will hit like a ton of bricks isn't a free action to use.

So to pull this off you may need two people, one to sling the stones and the other to call them back to size. Either that or a Dispelling Screen spell in between you and the target.

 

[Dandu]

Actually, if you have a Raven familiar, which can speak, you could ask it to speak the command word right after you release.

 

[Iku Rex]

Just using rough numbers, if my (shrunk) rock weighs half a pound, it weighs a ton when it hits somebody. What do all of you people think of the kind of damage it should do when it hits?

For a sling? It should do the same damage as a regular sling bullet. Once it hits it will have a lot more mass, but velocity will drop to almost zero. (If the change is even quick enough to matter.)

To use it as a weapon you're better off flying high up and bashing it against a hard surface. Should be 30d6 damage from 200 ft. if it hits.

 

[Greenfield]

For a sling? It should do the same damage as a regular sling bullet. Once it hits it will have a lot more mass, but velocity will drop to almost zero. (If the change is even quick enough to matter.)

To use it as a weapon you're better off flying high up and bashing it against a hard surface. Should be 30d6 damage from 200 ft. if it hits.

Ah, yet another place where the Hamster Cannon (tm) is needed.

Conservation of momentum doesn't apply. It's magic, which involves an event that can't happen in a world where physics works: An object spontaneously gaining or losing mass.

I showed the full math on this before, and can drag it up if you need me to, but I'll give you the short form: In a physics driven world, the planet rotates on its axis and orbits the sun. Adding those two velocities together (as would happen at midnight), and multiplying by 4096 (as would happen when you shrank the item to begin with) results in the boulder ne slingstone taking off at about 37% of the speed of light. Do it at noon, when the two velocities don't add together, and the take off speed will be about a third the speed of light.

So no, the stone won't lose all momentum when Shrink Item ends, any more than it would achieve solar escape velocity when it began.

 

[domino]

To throw it out of a sling? Well, that depends on the difference between, say, a 250 grain sling bullet, and a 500 grain bullet. Which is none. Sling bullets do sling damage. Doesn't matter if you're slinging a grain of sand, or the moon at someone.

(though size differences would obviously come into play there)

For using massive rocks to do massive damage, you'd need to look at the improvised damage tables, as made infamous by various hulking hurler builds.

 

[Greenfield]

Actually, if you have a Raven familiar, which can speak, you could ask it to speak the command word right after you release.

The command word option only works for the caster. Says so in the spell.

On the other hand, why not have the raven fly the stone at the enemy, then you command it back to size? It will still hit like a ton of bricks.

Note: Every place I've looked in the SRD equates siege engine damage to the boulders thrown by giants. I'm sure there's more detailed damage charts somewhere else, but that gives a general idea of the scope of damage.