Would you have allowed this?

[Jack Simth]

Yes, I understand it isn't very hard. Not in 2005. It is hard for people to realize how different things were before the ascendence of The Scientific Method.
It was an accepted *FACT* that an old shirt and some grain would spontaneously turn into a mouse. Afterall, a bit of the shirt and grain would disappear, and a mouse appear.
Pasteur was greatly ridiculed before he could prove the difference, and that was only a couple hundred years ago.

Yes... a couple of hundred years ago.... on the way out of the Dark Ages, in which much, much knoweledge was lost to the vast majority of people. Highly campaign dependant.

Look at Ptolemy, he did a *lot* of cool work advancing Trig. And he used it, along with hundreds of obervations and calculations, to *prove* that the sun (and planets) orbited the earth. Not only that, but his proof stood for *1,500* years. Again, only a few hundred years ago.

That's not quite what he did - he came up with a model based on observations that fit all those observations - and continued to do so until someone came up with some very, very accurate observations; it was not a proof. Of course, his model really only broke down when people were managing to measure things with an accuracy in the neighborhood of 1/10th of a degree of arc, and five feet (targeting a square) over the course of 800 feet is about a third of a degree of arc ... above the needed accuracy threshold for dismataling Ptolemy's model.

At one point, it was made a law that Pi equaled 3.0 Thats it, it was a law.

One might wonder what insanity decided that such a thing needed to be legislated...

Now, imagine if magic worked, and the gods were known and provable entities. Would it even be necessary to 'invent' trig? Would anyone think of it? Would anyone care? Earth folks barely cared. And for the most part, they got it wrong, very very wrong.
The point of 1. isn't "could they understand it" sure they could. It is "would they have been motivated enough to develop it". And that is far from being a sure thing.

Sine, cosine, and tangent? Probably not. The fact that you can glean the distance and location of something by a couple of displaced sightings on it? Sure - it's a basic mapmaking skill. He had Geography, too.

Yes it is. And I understand it, and its usefulness. But would someone that studies "buildings, aqueducts, bridges, fortifications" to a mere level of 6 ranks even know how to do it. I assume he doesn't know *everything* about all engineering and archetecture, does he know this? Even in places and timeperiods where this was known, it was a very very very few that actually knew it and/or used it. He should make a knowledge roll to see if he knows it, and then one to see if he does it right.

Do you have any idea of the tolerances on a Roman aqueduct? The angle involved was such that water traveling along it would neither speed up nor slow down. They had to be above the area they served, people needed to be able to pass beneath them; they were pillared and arched. Those things are actually quite the architectural marvels ... and he is defined as having studied them. Sure, he may not no every detail - but considering that the "average" venerable old man (level 1 expert, base int 10, +3 Int from age, 4 ranks) only reliably (take 10) makes DC 15, and this guy, as defined, can reliably (take 10) make DC 22. Does he know every detail? No, but quite a lot. A technique pretty much required to make accurate right angles? Sure, easily.

Sure, but then it should have been more like DC 40. There are many many ways to introduce error, and each one means 5-25' off target. He may have a whopping '6' in engineering, but how does that equate to the accuracy of the rope, or the inherrent error in the angle, etc. This would have gone off without a hitch, if McGyver was doing it. But not a human (even with a dwarf)

At DC 40, you are talking an impossible task at most levels (need a net +20 for taking 20 to succeed) when, even with a two degree margin of error, at a max range of 800 feet, you are only talking about 28 feet off in any given direction - at that level, he would have a chance of arriving on (or near enough) target (e.g., at worst, a roll of 20 would still succeed). He didn't specify the actual distance involved; if the BBEG was only 100 feet deep through the wall, it's a much easier proposition - you only need accuracy in the neigborhood of two or three degrees to pick your combat square.

You keep saying "you could just do this", and your ideas are great...in theory, but to pull them off with *NO* error, is impossible. nor formidible. And once there is error, even a little bit, they are *way* off the mark. A small error in the shaft, means a very large error by the BBEG.

.

At the extreme end of DD range, that's true.

Of course, at this point, we are talking highly campaign dependant stuff, and so there's really not all that much point in debating it in a rules forum.

 

[Storyteller01]

Back to the subject at hand folks...

AS far as we can tell, the mage in question didn't have extra tools (he didn't mention whipping out his abacus or engineering kit, nor did he mention having one). Judging by the description, it was done on the fly, and relatively quickly, lest the BBEG get bored and leave the area.

The mage had no clue what they were dimension dooring into (unless a scry spell was used as well as a locate spell, which also isn't mentioned).

Said character also has a 22 Int, so we can say that the character can (operative word) master 6 fields of study on top of what his profession requires. No mean feat. I haven't heard of anyone who has mastered so many fields, bvut then again, a person can just use that processing power to become EXTREMELY specialized in a given field.

Given JUST THESE FACTORS, is the situation in question possible?


I'd say, yes you have a chance to calculate relative depth and position (high DC adjusted by tools and equipment available; I'm assuming there was none at the time besides the dwarf). IF you made the roll, you'd still be 'porting in blind.

 

[dcollins]

I think people are seriously underestimating how smart a 22 intelligence is. It is quite likely that there has never been a 22 intelligence human on the planet.

Ah, the classic "How does Intelligence relate to real-world IQ?" debate. To put it briefly, there's lots of evidence that simply D&D Int = IQ/10. And, Marilyn vos Savant's IQ was tested at 228 (i.e., about D&D Int 23). Full analysis here: http://superdan.net.home.comcast.net/dndmisc/int_iq.html

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

No, we simply figured that if the wizard made the incredibly difficult Intelligence check, he calculated correctly. (Even with a +8, I needed to roll a 17. Which I did.)

As I think on it, it might have been better to make the DC lower (the math really is pretty basic), but make the roll in secret. Miss by more than 5, and the PC has successfully solved for "Ouch."

That is how I would have handled it. The DC would be lower, but you would not necessarily know how far off you are if you roll badly. Knowing likely accuracy would require a specific skill.

I am not sure I understand all the details of the situation, but if you can reduce the problem to a 2D situation, you can often make very accurate guestimations using carefully measure lengths of string laid on the floor.

 

[RandomPrecision]

How many other *geniuses* of their time calculated the circumference of the earth, and were way wrong. Or better, had 'proof' that it was flat?

No one in history ever thought the world was flat. Well, maybe a few really dumb people, but it was never a common belief. After all, why else would the top of a ship be the first thing one sees when a ship appears on the horizon? Historically, people haven't been nearly as dumb as you assume.

 

[Ballard_Alvar]

when there are such abilites as stonecunning, I would definatly allow it.

 

[boredgremlin]

My necrotheurge has a 22 Intelligence. In a search for the Big Bad, in his lair, he used locate creature and got a lock. During the search, there was a long (250 feet or so) descent, at which point the locate creature leveled out.

I asked my DM if my necrotheurge could use basic trigonometry to calculate a distance to the Big Bad ... basically, triangulation.

Would you allow this? How would you handle it? Spoiler below.

Spoiler

My DM took my suggestion, which was to allow it with a difficult Intelligence check (DC 25). (I figured that, yes, the math involved is simple, but there are bound to be distractions in-game that make it much harder than it would be in an academic setting.) He allowed the dwarf (who can intuit depth) to assist with the Intelligence check (he later said he only allowed it because of the presence of the dwarf, which I think is reasonable), and I proceeded to roll a 17, just making it. We then dimension doored into the Big Bad's lair, bypassing his guardians, surprising him, and making short (and anticlimactic) work of him.

No, not unless your character had Knowledge, advanced mathematics. Then i would allow a skill check. I would best anything most math majors couldnt solve the problem that situation would create and niether would your mage. Short of advanced math knowledge and a good guess, no i wouldnt allow it.

 

[vulcan_idic]

I don't remember which ancient Greek guy found the circumference of the Earth within a few hundred feet, but that's pretty good for ~2500 years ago...

I believe you're referring to Eratostenes of Cyrene, closer to 2200 - 2275 years ago (lived approximately (275-194 BCE). He accomplished this feet by comparing the length of shadows in two places separated by a great (and known) distance at noon on a specific day (the first day of summer).

I'm afraid I have to concur with the group in favor of a skill check or the more restrictive ability check. It is certainly not outside of the realm of possibility and makes for good story and excitement. I can easily see this being the sort of thing retold for years as a favorite moment - remember the time I figured out how to DD to the BBEG with Trig? Those are the moments it's all about.

Overly restrictive or not, that's how I run the game. Deciding that your character has an interest in mathematics is not exactly a minor detail, especially in a medieval setting. Some people might think it is, but my opinion on that matter folds in with my complaints regarding the "I'm playing a game that takes place in a medieval period but I'm going to pull modern concepts out of my arse whenever necessary" style of game play. It's an incredibly pernicious and difficult to handle form of meta-gaming.

I just have to point this out because it's one of the things that really annoys me. This is *NOT* a medieval setting. It's a fantasy setting. The two are dramatically different things. A given setting can be both, but it's not neccesary and often not desireable. The point of playing these games is not to experience just how dismal life has been before now but to experience a wildly different sort of world, the kind of which can only be seen in the mind for it is outside the bounds of natural possibility. A setting as most in the worlds of D&D are with moderate to high magic, rampant literacy, castles in the air, and fire breathing dragons are not historical at all, least of all medieval. To force the two together is ludicrous. You can certainly create a historical, medieval sort of fantasy setting - but that carries with it other sorts of logic, which is fine, but the vast majority of D&D worlds (Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, etc. - especially Eberron) do not operate with that sort of logic and are not intended to. I find it annoying when people I'm playing with forget that and try to hobble fantasy to medieval history. Come up with the basic assumptions of your own homebrew world, or adhere to the assumptions of the setting that you're playing in so that the world operates cohesively and - bottom line - have fun with it. I know it's really not fun for me when a DM says "You can do XYZ in Waterdeep, Forgotten Realms because they couldn't do that in 1250 Italy." I know they couldn't, but it's immaterial - they also couldn't cast Magic Missle, but I can do that, right?

Sorry about that. Rant over.

 

[Storm Raven]

Yes... a couple of hundred years ago.... on the way out of the Dark Ages, in which much, much knoweledge was lost to the vast majority of people. Highly campaign dependant.

Actually, spontaneous generation (the name of this theory) was an observation originally made famous by Aristotle. It wasn't a "dark ages" mistake at all. It was an accepted "fact" of classical thought.

 

[glass]

No one in history ever thought the world was flat. Well, maybe a few really dumb people, but it was never a common belief. After all, why else would the top of a ship be the first thing one sees when a ship appears on the horizon? Historically, people haven't been nearly as dumb as you assume.

Really? http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm


glass.