Would this work?

[Umbran]

You'd of course need 1,000 wands of at least 4th level, which is prohibitively expensive, but this is just a thought exercise. (1,000x4x3x750 = 5,250,000 gp.)

Now take all these cloth boulders and stack them up, then cast Force Cage around the entire group. Get to a safe distance and say the command word to end the Shrink Item spell(s).

[...snip...]

Realize of course that this is magic, so normal physics may not apply, but I think this is more doable than the reverse gravity/teleport jink.

More doable?
Let's look at crafting the wands...
Shrink Item is a 3rd level spell. Wand base price is 11,250 gp. That's 11.25 days per wand. Money aside, it takes 30 years to craft the wands. Even if we only use 100 wands, that's 3 years of labor.
Not to mention the effort in getting the boulders in the first place... I hardly think this winds up being more doable, due to the background labor invovled.

Plus, the DM is within all rights to say that speaking the command word once will free up one boulder, rather than all of them...

 

[hong]

Not to mention the effort in getting the boulders in the first place...

Not a problem; see the "beating on walls" thread.

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

totally off-topic: about special relativity

someone made the statement that mass decreases with velocity. this is in fact, the opposite.

an object approaching the speed of light "gains" mass. at the speed of light, this object (any object in fact, from a feather to a brick) has infinite mass and would require an infinite amount of energy to maintain that speed.

if objects "lost" mass the faster they moved, we'd already be travelling the universe at the speed of light.

besides, adena... i don't know if anyone else pointed this out, but...

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.

[snip]

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.

the second quoted paragraph contradicts the effect that you established in the first quoted paragraph. unless you're assuming that the reverse gravity also extends through the gate. i really don't think that's the case (my opinion of course, but others would agree i'm sure).

by the desription, this does sound like it would be a closed system. there is no other outside force being applied to the ball after the telekinesis. in that case, this is what would happen:

- the ball "falls" toward one of the gates, enters the gate, and immediately exits that same gate, heading the opposite direction.
- the reverse gravity is still in effect, pulling the ball back toward the first gate.
- assuming a vacuum, the ball loses any and all velocity it gained from the reverse gravity at the exact same point it began it's "decent".

a net gain of zero. the ball will never exceed a certain velocity. no mass driver for you!

if if if if for some reason, the ball actually did continue to accelerate, it would have to eventually absorb all available energy in the universe. all matter would have to be converted into energy, including the ball itself. of course, since there is no object available to accelerate anymore, things might get a little weird. another big bang, maybe? whatever happens, it'll generally mean the destruction of the universe as we know it. your target suddenly becomes inconsequential.

 

[Xahn'Tyr]

If I recall correctly, falling damage in 3rd Ed is 1d6 per 10 ft fallen, to a maximum of 20d6. This proves that accelleration due to gravity is linear in D&D world, with a rather low terminal velocity. Note also that there is no rule that lifts the 20d6 limit in a vaccum; so (in D&D land) this terminal velocity is not dependent on air friction. With these deduced laws of physics, you ball bearing would linearly accellerate to a speed such that it could inflict 20d6 of damage and then it would stop accellerating. Not really worth the effort.

If you wish to apply real world physics, then you are need a different game system (or a lot of house rules).

 

[jontherev]

Re: totally off-topic: about special relativity

someone made the statement that mass decreases with velocity. this is in fact, the opposite.

an object approaching the speed of light "gains" mass. at the speed of light, this object (any object in fact, from a feather to a brick) has infinite mass and would require an infinite amount of energy to maintain that speed.

if objects "lost" mass the faster they moved, we'd already be travelling the universe at the speed of light.

besides, adena... i don't know if anyone else pointed this out, but...

C'mon guys this is so elementary. Haven't you seen the movie K-Pax? It's all spelled out in there.

 

[Umbran]

If I recall correctly, falling damage in 3rd Ed is 1d6 per 10 ft fallen, to a maximum of 20d6. This proves that accelleration due to gravity is linear in D&D world, with a rather low terminal velocity.

No, it doesn't. That rule says that damage scales linearly with the distance fallen. The 20 die cap probably has nothing to do with terminal velocity. It may instead be saying that beyond a certain sspeed, the effects on the character really don't change. Hitting the ground at 150 mph is very much like hitting the ground at 200 mph.

Even in the real world, you shouldn't make the simple assumption that damage should scale linearly with speed. In a heroic fanatasy, not only can you not do that, but you cannot even say that damage has all that much to do with physics.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Credit where credit is due...

I just thought people should know that this is an idea originally published by Larry Niven, in his article about the Theory and Practice of Teleportation.

(His article on Time Travel is good, too - but the really good one is "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" and the inherent difficulties in Kryptonian reproduction - "Look out! Supersonic spermatazoa!")

Personally, I think the falling damage cap is a pretty good argument against unlimited gravitic acceleration in D&D. Furthermore, it's pretty clear that light and light-speed don't work in D&D as they would in a purely scientific universe, considering the nature of range and area of effect in D&D spells.

Do ring gates have a weight limit? If the object becomes too massive, it might not go through the gate anymore. This would certainly be the case in GURPS and Hero System - the extra time needed to pass the mass would defeat the cycle.

Beware of words like "instantly" when designing a game system. Infinites always cause this kind of problem.

 

[Caliban]

And in addition to all the other reasons it wouldn't work:

The steel ball would have to have a perfectly straight trajectory. Any deviation, no matter how small, would cause it to impact the side of the gate after enough trips through the circuit. This would either destroy the Ring Gate (if it's going fast enough), or just caust it to bounce around the interior until it shatters the glassteal jar or runs out of momentum.