Would this work?

[Edena_of_Neith]

Would this work?

It is not every day that a player figures out how to use 9th level magic to destroy an entire
Crystal Sphere.

You are aware of the Gate spell, are you not?
You are aware that Gate allows you to travel from Here to There, right?

Some mages created a reasonable (and apparently useless) variant of the Gate spell that
causes you to go from Here to ... Here.

A Gate can be made permanent
A large Gate that allows regular traffic requires 10th level magic to do this.
However, a tiny Gate that could take only a small - say, one inch in diameter - ball of steel
could be made permanent with the Permanency spell.

Now, imagine throwing this Gate upon a flat disc of steel.
Making the little Gate permanently.
Since the flat disc of steel can be moved, so can the Gate.

Now, imagine two such flat discs of steel, each with a Gate cast on them, and permanency.

Take the two plates, and suspend them in midair.
Make sure the Gates are facing each other.
Create a glass jar around the whole thing, and thus you have created a magical item, and
the jar - and the two plates inside - can be moved about at will.
The plates will stay perfectly aligned, the two Gates facing each other.

Now imagine you used technology or magic to suck all the air out of this glass jar, thus
creating a vacuum.

If you had thrown a steel ball into one of the Gates (in this case teleporting one into the
jar, then moving it with telekinesis into one of the Gates), you would find that:

The steel ball would enter the Gate, then exit the Gate.
The steel ball would move across the vacuum to the other Gate, then exit the other Gate.
The steel ball would move back to the first Gate, then exit the first Gate.
The steel ball would move to the second Gate again, enter, and exit.

Now, Gates do have height and width, so here's the real trick of it all.

You cast Reverse Gravity on the glass, twice.
You then cast Permanency on the glass, twice.

You make it so that a perfect plane exists, bisecting the two Gates exactly in the middle,
with gravity polarized on either side of this plane.

Now see what happens.

You teleport a one inch in diameter steel ball into the glass.
It falls, at normal acceleration, into the first Gate.
It exits that Gate on the OTHER side of the polarized gravity field, and falls upward, at 1x
acceleration, into the other Gate.
It exits that Gate back on the original side of the polarized gravity field, and falls
downward, at 1x acceleration, into the original Gate.

A nice trick. The ball falls faster, faster, and faster.

Now, Reverse Gravity is only a 7th level spell.
If a 7th level spell can negate gravity, there is no question that 7th level magic could alter
gravity over a specific area, to a specific extent.
This effect, could be made permanent.

8th level magic could alter gravity much more, over an even greater area.

9th level magic could alter gravity much more yet, over an even greater area yet.
Or, alter gravity very greatly, over a tiny area.
And this, too, can be made permanent.

In this case, 9th level magic can produce a gravity field 1000 times greater than normal.

Now, you make both gravity fields in the glass jar 1000 times normal (obviously, the glass
must be glassteeled to hope to survive the pressures on it.)

Now, go back and see what happens.
The little one inch steel ball, accelerates, not at one gravity, but at one thousand gravities.


In a matter of only 3 days, it reaches the speed of light.
Or, rather, it approaches the speed of light, for that speed cannot be attained by any
object with mass.

As the steel ball approaches the speed of light, it's mass grows greater.
And greater.
And greater.
To the mass of a boulder.
To the mass of a hill.
To the mass of a mountain.
To the mass of a world.
To the mass, of a star.

Then, carefully prepared Contingency spells go off, and one of the Gates is dispelled.
The ball, no longer travels from Gate to Gate.
The ball, travels through the glass.

With whatever mass it has achieved, it slams into whatever is unfortunate enough, be it a
person or a planet, to be in it's way.

- - -

Would the above, work?

 

[reapersaurus]

just in case this thread gets replied to, i post it here, as well:

in basic form, this has been gone over a few times before, and the basic problem is:

Magic is not science, and science doesn't necessarily work like magic.

To break down magic into predictable components and results like this assumes MANY times over in this example is one of the main problems that people have with 3E's magic system.

edit: shouldn't this be in Rules?

And on second thought, isn't there a law of conservation or somesuch that dicates that energy cannot be created or destroyed, so that if the speed of the object gets greater, due to the equation E=mC^2, wouldn't the mass be getting smaller and smaller as the object neareed the speed of light?

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I need your help folks.

I have to make a campaign decision, based on the above.

 

[Uvenelei]

Of course it would work.

 

[Umbran]

Would this work?

You tell me. You're the one making the suppositions on what magic can and cannot do - allowing the enhanced Reverse Gravity, for instance. You're also the one saying that Relativity physics works alongside magic. You're the one making the stipulations, not us

If you are asking - would I allow this particular set of house rules to work, I'd say No. There is nothing in the description of the Gate spell that suggests it can be cast on an item to be mobile.

Within your own framework - glassteel or not, the whole device will collapse somewhere before the ball has the mass of a small moon. By tidal forces, if nothing else. In fact, I'd suspect that such a dense, small mass would disrupt the gravity-warping magics, breaking the item.

 

[Uvenelei]

Re: Re: Would this work?

If you are asking - would I allow this particular set of house rules to work, I'd say No. There is nothing in the description of the Gate spell that suggests it can be cast on an item to be mobile.

It doesn't have to be the spell Gate - there's an item in the DMG, Ring Gates, that function exactly like this.

Within your own framework - glassteel or not, the whole device will collapse somewhere before the ball has the mass of a small moon. By tidal forces, if nothing else. In fact, I'd suspect that such a dense, small mass would disrupt the gravity-warping magics, breaking the item.

Before the ball starts to go that fast - fast enough to have a noticable increase in it's mass - it will still be fast enough to deal hideous damage to anything it hits. Destroying a Crystal Sphere may be an overstatement, but seriously damaging a planet isn't.

 

[Umbran]

Re: Re: Re: Would this work?

Before the ball starts to go that fast - fast enough to have a noticable increase in it's mass - it will still be fast enough to deal hideous damage to anything it hits. Destroying a Crystal Sphere may be an overstatement, but seriously damaging a planet isn't.

Actually, the damage it might do to a planet may be negligible.

Let's get one thing straight - even "dinosaur killer" impacts don't really damage the planet. They damage the ecosphere. We, living on the surface, don't like all the dust and rain, but to the planet as a whole, it's generally akin to a bit of a ding in the skin of an apple.

So, what happens when this ball-bearing mountain hits the surface of a planet? Probably nothing.

Think - it's the mass of a mountain, with a huge density and speed. It passes right through the surface like it was butter. Normal dirt and rock don't stop it. It continues on into the mantle, and quietly disappears - the amount of energy it deposits is probably negligible compared to the heat energy already present in the molten core of a planet.

So, you have a weapon that will take the head off any living target - but you can do that with a non-magic axe. You don't kill a planet with a ball bearing

 

[The Iron Mark]

On a thread in House Rules we came up with a weapon quite like this. Instead, you have abox. You teleport all the air out of it. Then a Permanent Teleportation Circle is made to teleport any objsct to a little below the top of the box. Put stone brick in. Wait a while. Contingency to teleport yourself to safety when you cast Dispel Magic. Cast Dispel magic on the box. The guy who made this claimed it caused temperatures hot enough to cause oxygen fusion. I nicknamed it the Oxynuke, after Oxyclean .

 

[hong]

Edena's haikus
Are too long! Four-
teen syllables, please.

As to whether it would work, that's contingent on whether things like general relativity work like they do in the real world. That's something up to the DM, and not directly addressed in the rules.

 

[Umbran]

Then a Permanent Teleportation Circle is made to teleport any objsct to a little below the top of the box. Put stone brick in.

Major flaw - the description of Teleportation Circle says, "You create a circle...that teleports, as teleport without error, any creature who stands on it to a designated spot."

For this to work, you cannot use stone. You need a creature that can survive in vacuum.