Just had a re-read of the spell and it occured to me during 1ed and now why don't people just produce a half dozen bonfires, shrink them to cloth and tie them off to blunt headed arrows. When fired at critters *bam* instant bonfire/open keg of alchemist fire/acme 1 ton weight landing on them. Or large stone dish filled with Green Slime...
Please can someone point out why you shouldn't do that.
Just had a re-read of the spell and it occured to me during 1ed and now why don't people just produce a half dozen bonfires, shrink them to cloth and tie them off to blunt headed arrows. When fired at critters *bam* instant bonfire/open keg of alchemist fire/acme 1 ton weight landing on them. Or large stone dish filled with Green Slime...
Please can someone point out why you shouldn't do that.
For starters, the Green Slime isn't an object, and wouldn't be affected.
Secondly, the duration is 1 day/level, so you can't have very many because you'll have to keep recasting. A fifth level wizard could have at most five of these. Maintaining all five of them would take up his third level slots.
Thirdly, it is not stated that the time to return to normal composition and size is instantaneous, so it's not *BAM*. It took a standard action to cast and shrink, so it may take as much again to unshrink.
Let's say I'm that fifth level wizard and I shrink an anvil of 10 cubic feet. 10 ft^3 is about 0.28 m^3. Iron is about 7850 kg/m^3, so that's 2198 kg. Divide by 4000 to get 0.5495 (about half a kilo). Convert back to pounds to get about one and a quarter pounds. Your standard Pathfinder arrow is 0.15 pounds, so your combined projectile is almost a pound and a half. Imagine your arrow with a couple soda cans duct taped to it. Not gonna fly so good.
Let's say I do it anyway and somehow manage to hit. The arrow strikes the target and stops. Ammunition is generally considered destroyed on a hit. THEN the shrunk object returns to normal composition with no particular forward momentum. If you hit the target in the chest, it might land on his toes.
This might work better with a big fragile container of alchemist's fire, but that stuff is expensive.
EDIT: The shrunken bag of coins within another container that is again shrunk doesn't work, as the effects don't stack (same source).
My opinion is pretty much the same:
(1) Launching a big, heavy object depends on how your DM determines damage caused by big, heavy objects. Personally, I use the rule of thumb that most objects do damage as a club of some size (e.g. if an object is the size of a storm giant's club, it would do 2d6 damage), which may seem overly conservative. YMMV.
(2) Bonfires don't really do much damage. Consider that even lava only does 2d6 damage per round!
Also, remember that Shrink Item is a 3rd level spell.
If you attach alchemists fire to an arrow (and it works), you end up with a single target at 110 feet taking 2d6 + 1d8 +str damage.
OR you could just cast fireball and (which DOES work) and hit a group of targets at 500+ feet for a minimum of 5d6 damage.
OR you could cast haste on your archers and have them fire more arrows, faster. Assuming you have enough ammo on hand, the total damage will be even greater than fireball.
If you DO want to play with Shrink Item, might I suggest shrinking a 1 ton rock and saying the command word as you launch it from a sling? I have NO idea how much damage that would do, though. An 80 pound rock, thrown by a giant, does 2d8 +str. I'm thinking at LEAST 4d10 +str, which isn't inconsistent with a 3rd level spell.
Also, what constitutes "an" item? The spell itself suggests a "burning fire with fuel", which is actually many items. There are usually several individual logs, plus the fire itself.
If a "burning fire with fuel" is a single item, than what about a "pile of rocks". Can you shrink a one ton pile of debris, wrap it in paper, and fire it from your sling like a shotgun!? 40 small sized projectiles in a 50' cone doing 4d6 +str damage (ref save for half) might be fun! And it IS still balanced with 3rd level spells. Sure, it doesn't grant SR and is untyped damage, but it's not as powerful as a fireball and doesn't scale.
I'd allow it!
So... Lord Griffin, would you agree that a 'quiver' classifies as an item? Namely a collossal sized quiver of longbow arrows?
I'm not sure how I'd rule on that as a GM ... but I DO like where this is going! :)
Collosal Longbow Arrows deal 6d6+modifiers damage each.
Unfortunately this is not the case.
A Colossal longbow deals 6d6 damage with appropriately-sized arrows fired from it. But that's mainly the impetus of the longbow, not the arrows. An arrow by itself deals damage equivalent to a dagger (see telekinesis). I believe that comes out to 3d6 at Colossal... still respectable, I'll grant you that. :)
Conservation of momentum and all that.
The momentum provided by a Medium longbow, yes. ;)
Not that it isn't a fun concept. Weapons of Legacy has a sling that does the same trick, in fact.
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Except it was fired by an appropriately sized bow... and then returned to it's normal size. Conservation of momentum and all that.
My players are all appropriately science and math-nerdish, so the instant the idea of shrinking sharpened trees to fire as arrows (or boulders to use as sling bullets, or whatever) came up, they determined all on their own that the momentum that went into accelerating that arrow (or sling stone) would do jack squat to move a sharped tree trunk (or boulder), resulting in the person slinging his shruken boulder, speaking the command word, and watching it drop from the air like, well, a boulder, that has been thwapped with a leather strap. As DM, I was pleased that I wouldn't have to make a similar ruling, since they'd already decided it would work that way.
Now, combined with Fly, you can have some fun with shrunken items. Float above the target, speak the command word and let the aerial bombardment begin (although we allowed Reflex saves to avoid squishage if one is aware of impending trauma, unless you are a non-mobile target, like, say, somebody's house...).
We also house-ruled that the speaking of the command word requires one to have line of sight / line of effect, pre-empting the twisted smile that came across a player's face when he realized that he could shrink 8 gallons of water into a single half-gallon waterskin, wait until someone drank it, speak the command word and make them burst from the inside.
Worst workable idea I heard was using shrink item on items intended to stay buried in bodies, like harpoon heads, to cause them to expend in the wounds and cause grievous wounds. Nobody cared enough to take Exotic Weapon Proficiency harpoon, 'though, so it was a moot idea.
My players are all appropriately science and math-nerdish, so the instant the idea of shrinking sharpened trees to fire as arrows (or boulders to use as sling bullets, or whatever) came up, they determined all on their own that the momentum that went into accelerating that arrow (or sling stone) would do jack squat to move a sharped tree trunk (or boulder), resulting in the person slinging his shruken boulder, speaking the command word, and watching it drop from the air like, well, a boulder, that has been thwapped with a leather strap.
I DO like math and science. As much as I like the sling/boulder idea, I have to agree with Set. As we all know, inertia is a property of matter, so if you increase the matter (weight) you would require more inertia to maintain equal velocity. Damn.
As far as the "unshrinking inside of somebody" thing, I'd use the rules for Enlarge Person. Basically, something can't grow beyond it's container unless it makes a strength check, and the strength of water is "-" (most likely). That would also mean that the harpoon idea might not work, either.
As far as "line of sight/effect", I'm more concerned about "line of audio clarity". YOU try understanding a unique command word through living flesh!
One use that hasn't been discussed here, yet, is the whole "make permanent" aspect. I'm sure there's SOME kind of abuse there that I'm not seeing right now!
How 'bout a shrunken item and it's interactions with dispell magic?
By my math, a collossal arrow weighs 2.4 pounds, though I may be using the wrong formula.
Indeed you are. :)
Each size category doubles the arrow's dimensions, which means it increases mass by a factor of 8 (doubled on three dimensions).
An arrow is about two feet long. A Large arrow is therefore 4 feet, Huge 8 feet, Gargantuan 16 feet, and Colossal 32 feet (titan armies must be hell on pine forests).
According to the book (a terrible source, but what the heck) a single Medium arrow is 0.05 lbs. So a Large arrow is 0.4 lbs., Huge 3.2, Gargantuan 25.6, and Colossal 204.8.
The More You Know! or something. I'm totally not killing time at work right now, no sirree...
By my math, a collossal arrow weighs 2.4 pounds, though I may be using the wrong formula.Indeed you are. :)
Each size category doubles the arrow's dimensions, which means it increases mass by a factor of 8 (doubled on three dimensions).
It doesn't work that way for weapons:
"Weight: This column gives the weight of a Medium version of the weapon. Halve this number for Small weapons and double it for Large weapons."
As far as Huge and larger weapons go, it's an open question, but I'd use the same chart as for armor (e.g. a Colossal weapon would weight 12x as much).
As far as Huge and larger weapons go, it's an open question, but I'd use the same chart as for armor (e.g. a Colossal weapon would weight 12x as much).
A Colossal longsword is about 48 feet long, two feet wide and probably three inches thick at the spine. Apparently it also weighs about 48 pounds? No. Sometimes the rules are wrong. :P
(Edit: Did the math, you're looking at 4 to 5 tons of steel depending on the sword's design.)
An arrow is about two feet long. A Large arrow is therefore 4 feet, Huge 8 feet, Gargantuan 16 feet, and Colossal 32 feet (titan armies must be hell on pine forests).
The last bit of that statement made me laugh out loud. Thanks, I needed that today! *grin*
As far as Huge and larger weapons go, it's an open question, but I'd use the same chart as for armor (e.g. a Colossal weapon would weight 12x as much).Huge at x4, Gargantuan at x8 and Colossal at x16, isn't it? Every step doubles from the previous?
For armor, the progression is:
Small ×1/2Medium ×1
Large ×2
Huge ×5
Gargantuan ×8
Colossal ×12
The price doubles, but not the weight.
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Very pedantic note: objects in motion have both momentum (measured in kg m/s), and kinetic energy, (measured in kg (m/s)^2, or joules).
If the mass of an object in motion (going, say, 100 m/s) were to suddenly change (say, growing more massive by a factor of 4), there is no new velocity that could conserve both momentum (which would be conserved by a deceleration to 25 m/s) and kinetic energy (which would be conserved by a deceleration to 50 m/s).
Which is why they call things like this "magic".