TK vs Smoke/Gas/Fog/Mist

[beaumontsebos]

Can telekinesis be used to move gas/smoke/fog/mist?

Argument being that these are objects (of a sort) and TK affects objects.

What say you?

 

[Caliban]

Can telekinesis be used to move gas/smoke/fog/mist?

Argument being that these are objects (of a sort) and TK affects objects.

What say you?

Mist/Fog isn't really an object. Or rather, it is many, many very tiny objects and your TK would have no noticable effect on the mist as a whole, other than swirling it a bit as you pull a few droplets of water around.

You need Gust of Wind or something similar.

 

[Satyrn]

I'd wind up saying no.

The spell reads to me as saying "you can magically move one physical thing at a time" rather than having the sort of super-fine control that lets Magneto manipulate every little fragment of metal all at once with divine precision.

 

[Dausuul]

I would say no, for the same reason Caliban offers: Mist is not a single object but a multitude of airborne water droplets. At most, you could use telekinesis on one of those water droplets, and I would be cautious even about that (allowing telekinesis to work on liquids opens another can of worms).

Gas is not really an object at all - an object has to have some coherence to it, and gas does not.

 

[Satyrn]

(allowing telekinesis to work on liquids opens another can of worms)

But telekinesis works on cans.

And worms.

 

[beaumontsebos]

Thanks all. On the fly last night I made a ruling that it moved around a smoke cloud. I doubted it at the time, but moved on. But I'm going to change that ruling going forward. Appreciate it.

 

[Yaarel]

Telekinesis *should* affect gases and liquids.

I hope WotC resolves this issue for when psionics comes online.

 

[Yaarel]

Telekinesing smoke, mist, water, and so. This thread asks an important question about concept.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Sure, why not? I have no problem with it. Those saying "it's made up of very small objects"...yeah, and so is a rock; it's just that in the rock they are more densely packed.

The only thing I'd have to adjudicate is the "amount", as weight isn't going to cut it. I'd probably go with "a 10x10x10 cube of gas that the caster can see". This would give a decent amount of material, and it would cut down on rules lawyers trying to pull the "I move the sarin gas ( O-Isopropyl methylphosphonofluoridate ) down the hallway to kill all those in it, 10' at a time!" shenanigans.

Wizards in 5e already have significantly reduced number of spells...so I see no need to try and limit them any more than needed.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Caliban]

Thanks all. On the fly last night I made a ruling that it moved around a smoke cloud. I doubted it at the time, but moved on. But I'm going to change that ruling going forward. Appreciate it.

My previous answer was the RAW answer. But if you don't think it is something players are going to abuse, you can do a "Rule of Cool" exception for the situation.

Or possibly require an Arcana check to let them alter the spell a bit and affect a certain volume of air/gas/liquid instead of an object of a certain weight.