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You've got physics in my D&D!
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<blockquote data-quote="Castellan" data-source="post: 1846707" data-attributes="member: 639"><p>I'm a Physics and Astronomy guy... This is exactly how to deal with this kind of thing: mention that something might not work that way in real life, then ignore it. It's a game, and as a DM, I'd allow something like this to work because it's freakin' cool.</p><p></p><p>On a side note, your Physics guy would only be correct if the added mass appeared at a velocity of zero. Ignoring the issue of mass appearing and disappearing during polymorph, one can assume -- using Phantasy Physics (TM) <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> -- that it just doesn't matter. Ultimately, your only real argument here is based on air-resistance. If you transform from a fox into some critter with a low mass and high surface area (say, a giant bat) then I might say you're unable to accomplish the task. However, in college, one of the things we learned is that the human body makes an excellent projectile with <strong>very</strong> low air resistance.</p><p></p><p>In my games, I have a tendency to stick with real Physics and Astronomy only when it makes sense from a dramatic standpoint. If you have Mind Flayers trying to extinguish the sun, Physics is just going to make your life (and your game) miserable. If it'll benefit the players and isn't completely unbelievable from a basic Newtonian Physics standpoint (i.e. no running on small tree branches per <u>Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon</u> unless they're under the influence of some kind of spell), I generally allow it.</p><p></p><p>P.S. -- Actually, I take exception to the <em>fireball</em> spell in 3.x. Since it creates heat but no force, you have a problem. Pressure and volume are directly proportional to the temperature of a gas. If you heat the gas (i.e. the atmosphere) then either the pressure has to increase, or the volume does, or both. This is what results in the outward force. The change in <em>fireball</em> never sat well with me. I suspect it was altered to make creating video games easier on the programmers, since they don't have to worry about (a) the volume of the explosion expanding into a dungeon corridor when the spell is set off in a room that's too small, and (b) blasting the PCs, NPCs, and monsters across the map. I don't like video-game changes made to my pen-and-paper game.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Castellan, post: 1846707, member: 639"] I'm a Physics and Astronomy guy... This is exactly how to deal with this kind of thing: mention that something might not work that way in real life, then ignore it. It's a game, and as a DM, I'd allow something like this to work because it's freakin' cool. On a side note, your Physics guy would only be correct if the added mass appeared at a velocity of zero. Ignoring the issue of mass appearing and disappearing during polymorph, one can assume -- using Phantasy Physics (TM) :D -- that it just doesn't matter. Ultimately, your only real argument here is based on air-resistance. If you transform from a fox into some critter with a low mass and high surface area (say, a giant bat) then I might say you're unable to accomplish the task. However, in college, one of the things we learned is that the human body makes an excellent projectile with [b]very[/b] low air resistance. In my games, I have a tendency to stick with real Physics and Astronomy only when it makes sense from a dramatic standpoint. If you have Mind Flayers trying to extinguish the sun, Physics is just going to make your life (and your game) miserable. If it'll benefit the players and isn't completely unbelievable from a basic Newtonian Physics standpoint (i.e. no running on small tree branches per [u]Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon[/u] unless they're under the influence of some kind of spell), I generally allow it. P.S. -- Actually, I take exception to the [i]fireball[/i] spell in 3.x. Since it creates heat but no force, you have a problem. Pressure and volume are directly proportional to the temperature of a gas. If you heat the gas (i.e. the atmosphere) then either the pressure has to increase, or the volume does, or both. This is what results in the outward force. The change in [i]fireball[/i] never sat well with me. I suspect it was altered to make creating video games easier on the programmers, since they don't have to worry about (a) the volume of the explosion expanding into a dungeon corridor when the spell is set off in a room that's too small, and (b) blasting the PCs, NPCs, and monsters across the map. I don't like video-game changes made to my pen-and-paper game. [/QUOTE]
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