Tensir's Floating disk of do everything + Cranky DM

[ptarth]

The following post was caused by a miscommunication, please ignore it. It will be kept to maintain continuity.

Flying Carpet (PH p254):

- Is a 20th-level Wondrous Item, costing 125,000gp.
- Can be commanded mentally by a character riding it to fly 6 squares, as an at-will move action.
- Can fly up to 10 squares above the ground.
- Can carry a single Medium or Small creature of 300 pounds or less. More than 300 pounds placed upon the carpet causes it (and everything on it) to fall to the ground and take falling damage.​

I don't have the books on me, but assuming this is RAW, doesn't this mean that the Magic Carpet can't fly over water either?

 

[doctorhook]

Really?

Two questions:

• #1) Which "use" is an "abuse"?
• #2) How do you know there is only one "intended use for this ritual"?

Depending upon interpretation of the rules, a 1st-level ritual is competitive with a 20th-level magic item, Nail. This suggests to me that the ritual is broken or being misinterpreted.

I didn't intend to sound prescriptive above. Obviously, other DMs reserve the right to rule as they see fit on this matter. However, I personally find many of the uses of TFD being described to be distasteful or problematic, if not because they are unreasonable then because they emulate a much more expensive player-capability too closely. In my mind, many of the uses being discussed make TFD into a ritual that's too good for an adventurer to be without, and in my experience, any player capability that's too good to be without is probably just too good.

As I said before, I intend to limit Tenser's Floating Disc to objects. (I'm willing to make exceptions for creatures behaving like objects.) To me, the intended use for TFD is to follow you along and carry heavy items, and that's basically what it's going to do in my game.

 

[doctorhook]

I don't have the books on me, but assuming this is RAW, doesn't this mean that the Magic Carpet can't fly over water either?

...No, sorry. Magic carpets have "a maximum altitude of 10 squares". I've edited my above post.

This was my error; I was not careful in my paraphrasing. Good catch though, ptarth!

 

[Saeviomagy]

Depending upon interpretation of the rules, a 1st-level ritual is competitive with a 20th-level magic item, Nail. This suggests to me that the ritual is broken or being misinterpreted.

I think perhaps you underestimate the power of being 10 squares in the air when compared with being one foot above solid ground.

 

[Stalker0]

I think perhaps you underestimate the power of being 10 squares in the air when compared with being one foot above solid ground.

Like the vast majority of brutes and soldiers can't even hurt you?

 

[theNater]

If Tenser's Floating Disc is able to be used to carry creatures (including the ritual caster), then it's clearly superior to a Flying Carpet in nearly every way. (The carpet wins at altitude.)

The carpet wins at altitude by 49 feet. This is significant. It permits:

Flying over buildings
Flying over bodies of water too deep to wade through
Flying over trees
Flying up cliffs
Getting away from ground-bound foes
Surveying territory
Spying(people just don't look up often enough)
Lording your majesty over people

And probably much, much more. Tenser's Floating Disc isn't going to render Flying Carpets obsolete any time soon.

 

[DLichen]

Did anyone else laugh at the fact that someone is claiming that a flying carpet is bad while forgetting the biggest draw, the fact that it, you know, flies?

A magic carpet is just a carpet if not for the fact that it lets you rain death from above, out of reach of most attackers.

On the other hand, while I believe tensers should be a way for wizards to travel in style (at a slower rate), I don't believe that it should float over water, because that pretty much makes the level 2 water walking ritual irrelevant.

 

[Pielorinho]

A magic carpet is just a carpet if not for the fact that it lets you rain death from above, out of reach of most attackers.

I kind of like the idea of a wizard on a floating disk raining death down on an anthill,

Daniel

 

[Pielorinho]

A magic carpet is just a carpet if not for the fact that it lets you rain death from above, out of reach of most attackers.

I kind of like the idea of a wizard on a floating disk raining death down on an anthill, laughing

Daniel

 

[Commonblade]

To me Tenser's Floating Disk works like a Water Tube.

http://www.riversportstubes.com/

About the same size, could probably be used about the same way. Yeah I think it would float over water. Yeah it could move across a tight rope (make that balance/athletic check though). Just this weekend we strapped a cooler to a tube and went down the river so this makes sense to me. Could a wizard ride one, sure why not? Using magic to bypass obstacles just makes sense to me.