Tensor's Floating Disk as Travel...

[Rallets Artois]

Well an earlier character I had took it because the blasted dwarf clerics we were with were so slow that it took days to travel between towns instead of hours. but then those bridge building buaskits made themselves flying masks.

 

[Rallets Artois]

Well an earlier character I had took it because the blasted dwarf clerics we were with were so slow that it took days to travel between towns instead of hours. but then those bridge building buaskits made themselves flying masks.

 

[Scion]

The interesting aspect of "indestructible" is that indestructibility effectively equates to infinite hardness: If no amount of force can cause it to crack, chip, or shatter, then it has infinite hardness. However, I don't think TFD is indestructible, since it clearly has an overload point, which therefore has an equivalent amount of force it can withstand.

Although I think you are reading a bit too far into something that isnt there, I will try to respond

Floating Disk
Evocation [Force]

Force effect, this has a definition in the game, although I dont have time right now to find it.

No where in the spell description (at least in the srd) does it say what happens when you exceed its weight tolerance, it only states that it can only hold a certain amount. Even if overloading it caused it to 'wink out of existance', which is what happens when you do other things it shouldnt do, this is not the same as being destroyed. Or even damaged. You can cause no damage to it because it is a force effect, the spell is first level so has some limits, these limits are really no different than the area requirements for wall of force, it is just a limitation of the magic.

Since you cannot damage it and nothing you do can 'destroy' it then it is 'indestructable' to use your termonology. There are things you can do to get rid of it, but that is not the same as overcoming hardness or 'breaking' it.

Application of too much force (weight in this case) merely causes the spell to go beyond its limitation. Nothing to do with breaking it. You could technically have a 300ton giant creature smack it with its club and the disk would stay there, as the game doesnt define how much damage equals what amount of weight. So long as the giant didnt leave its club resting on the disk it would be just fine. (especially fine if the club happened to weigh less than the amount of weight it could normally hold)

 

[tensen]

For 25 years whenever this question has been brought up to the D&D designers the answer has been "no". The Tenser's Floating Disk is intended for carrying gear, not personal transportation.

Actually in campaigns I've been in... is has been personal transport... but usually for characters that have become the equivalent of gear.

Carrying around stretchers for your dead or dying is a pain... Tensen's Floating disc is the way to go.

 

[MerakSpielman]

With a sudden punch several hundred pounds of pressure can be applied for a brief moment. Though there are no rules in D&D to represent this, I still think a sudden, hard, sword-strike could overcome the weight limitation for a low-level caster, if only for a millisecond.

The question to me then becomes whether or not the disk winks out when the limit is exceeded.

 

[jgsugden]

A point: The spell description does not say that the character can direct the movement of the disk ... it says that the character can direct what interval the disk will keep from the caster.

Even with this limitation, creative characters can find ways to turn this spell into a chariot. It needs to be rewritten.

 

[dark2112]

Even with this limitation, creative characters can find ways to turn this spell into a chariot. It needs to be rewritten.

I still don't see why a creative person couldn't do that. I mean, it's not exactly game breaking. Sure, no one ever intended the spell to be used for that, but as long as it doesn't cause damage in a collision, and can't take a character over terrain they normally couldn't walk over, why not? (The lava question posed earlier is interesting. Personally, I think I'd allow it.)

Many spells over the years have been used in creative ways that were never intended by the writers, that doesn't mean we should punish the creative player by disallowing it without a good reason. If this were something that obviously was broken (say, essentially letting a 1st level character fly over pit traps and such), I could see it. But realistically, they're not getting anything out of it that they couldn't do with the same risk otherwise. So they want to cast a few illusions and float on a sedan chair. *shrugs* In a magic heavy world (like many DnD settings), such things might not be every day occurances, but the local populace wouldn't exactly be awed by it, either...

 

[Gez]

I would consider, if there is nothing else, that exceeding the weight limitation cause the disk to fall (the weight limitation is the amount it can lift, after all) and stop moving. Which may cause its winking out of existence if you're simultaneously bull rushed too far away...

 

[D+1]

TFD doesn't have a movement rate - it has an ability to maintain a distance. The caster can move it toward or away from himself up to 5'. You CAN sit on it, but by definition, you can't move it toward or away from you if you remain seated on it. It is a 1st level spell. While it's good to have creative uses for it - like carrying the REST of the party as the wizard moves - it's a mistake to let it effectively duplicate higher level spell effects such as levitate or fly.

Now what I personally WOULD allow is a variation on TFD that will let the caster - and only the caster - be carried along on a floating disk, probably at no more than a normal move rate if even that much, and of course be followed by an original TFD cast as a seperate spell.

 

[Scion]

You get to direct its movement, if you dont it stays at a certain distance.

So sit on it and direct it in that direction over there.