So I'm running a Rise of the Runelords campaign, and one of my players is a psion shaper who focuses on using ectoplasmic creation (minor creation) to create plant based poisons inside of little amber vials, and throwing them at opponents. The party's level is roughly level 10, and the shaper recently acquired a Handy Haversack. After clearing the end of Hook Mountain Massacre, the party was given about a months worth of downtime, so my shaper started filling his handy haversack with Quintessenece. I thought nothing of it, assuming he just wanted to have a viable amount of the stuff on hand in case he ever needed it, and because I knew how difficult it would be to amass any significant quantity of the material (4th level spell produces a 1 inch diameter dollop), I figured "no big deal."
WRONG!!!!
After he had filled one pouch with time stopping goo, he started crafting poisons for the day, and putting them in the quintessence filled Haversack. He seems to think the goo will keep the duration on the poisons from expiring, and I while can't think of a reason why this wouldn't work, he also thinks that the "whatever you're looking for is always on top" function of the bag will continue working despite the bag being filled with time stopping jelly!
Any thoughts on the subject? I can understand the quintessence being used to get around the duration ( I can't believe I never thought of that), but would the Haversack still work?
Anything in quintessence suggest it would extend the duration of a magical creation?
Natural material, sure, something with a rule-defined duration? maybe not.
This is the text for quintessence.
Discipline: Metacreativity (Creation)
Level: Shaper 4
Display: Material; see text
Manifesting Time: 1 round
Range: 0 ft.
Effect: 1-inch-diameter dollop of quintessence; see text
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None; Power Resistance: No
Power Points: 7
You collapse a bit of time from the continuum,
forming a 1-ounce dollop of thick, gooey material
called quintessence. This substance shimmers like a
silver mirror when viewed from some angles but is
transparent from other viewpoints. You can smooth
a dollop of quintessence around any extremely small
object.
Objects sealed within quintessence are protected
from the effects of time; in practical terms, they enter
a state of stasis. Living flesh with only partial contact
with quintessence is also partially pulled out of the time
stream (the manifester is immune to this effect). This
disruption deals 1 point of damage per round beginning
10 rounds after partial contact occurs.
Quintessence can be manually scraped away from a
protected object, freeing it to rejoin the time stream.
When you do this, there is a 75% chance that the
quintessence evaporates back into the continuum.
Otherwise, it coalesces again into a 1-inch-diameter
bead, available for later use.
Large quantities of quintessence could theoretically be
gathered to preserve large items or structures (or even
a complete living creature; if completely immersed, a
living creature would not take the damage associated
with partial contact). However, psionic characters
and creatures are generally loath to do so because
accumulations of quintessence weighing 1 pound or
more hinder psionic activity within a 5-foot radius
of the accumulation: Powers require twice as many
power points to manifest, unless the manifester makes
a successful Will save each time he or she attempts
to manifest a power. Also in these circumstances,
manifesting a psi-like ability that is usable at will is a
full-round action rather than a standard action.
From what I can gather, it halts the flow of time for both objects and creatures of any kind.
Nothing in the text suggests it effects magical items any differently.
if you are looking for a RAW means to dis-allow the player's behavior..
"Objects sealed within quintessence are protected from the effects of time"
This basic statement means the quintessence only works on objects it is applied to.. and in the case of a haversack, the items within the extra-dimensional space are never 'sealed within quintessence'.
Interpret sealed within to mean "completely covered in goop" not to mean "in a container that has goop on it"
Since the Haversack can pull any item at any time means, once the first item is removed from the haversack, there is no longer a complete seal of quintessence on the contents.
This won't make the quintessence useless, it will simply restrict it to specified targets, which seems to be the intent of the writing.
|
Clever but not working.
To completely cover with quintessence something you need to carefully smooth it over the object or to immerse the object in the stuff. As there is no one in the haversack to smooth the quintessence he need to immerse the item in it. But to do that he need a haversack full of quintessence, at that point the haversack is full and he can't put anything in it.
Even the "always on top" feature will mess with his idea. The items are always on top, so one of them can't be immersed in the other.
To do his trick he need a mundane container.
The wording on the haversack says that "the item you need is always on top".
His argument is that if he puts enough quintessence to immerse the vials in, he can drop the vials in the bag, and whenever he needs them they'll be on top.
Is there any wording to indicate what happens if you put a fluid in a Handy Haversack?
Dropping them in the bag and covering them with quintessence are not the same thing.
Poisons are also kept in containers. He can't just put his hand in the bag and say he pulled out one vial worth of poison.
If the poison is in a vial then the quintessence is surrounding the vial, not the poison, so his plan still fails.
But if that were true, that'd be like covering a human body in quintessence and saying "The quintessence is surrounding the body, but not any of the blood, organs, or bone!!"
And the text goes out of the way to mention that you can seal living creatures in it.
(I'm not disagreeing with you that he's wrong, I really think there's a flaw in his reasoning, I'm just not sure what it is yet.)
There are various ways to adjudicate the interaction between quintessence and the handy haversack, but generally the simplest is the best. It would seem to me that he could preserve one tiny vial of poison in each drop of quintessence. Then, whenever he removes a dose from the haversack he would scrape off the quintessence, roll the 25% chance of it evaporating, and have a tiny vial of preserved poison. (I would say that an "extremely small object" could hold one dose of poison.)
His original plan of filling an interdenominational space with blobs and counting on the haversack to arrange the poisons inside in an intelligent and effective manner in order to preserve all of the poison? That would take conscious effort on the part of the haversack. Perhaps it could be done with a specially made magic item, but not the simple sack.
What's the difference between that and putting 80 lbs of marbles in there, and asking the haversack to always have "a blue one" or "a red one" on top?
He's not asking the Sack to sort it for him, just do what it's description says.
"Oh, I'm looking for that vial of moonberries, look there it is, sitting on top"
(And I don't know how religious the Haversack is, I think it only has outer denominations.)
:)
Although....Maybe the quintessence with the poison vials floating in it might be be considered a single item by the sack?
But if that were true, that'd be like covering a human body in quintessence and saying "The quintessence is surrounding the body, but not any of the blood, organs, or bone!!"
And the text goes out of the way to mention that you can seal living creatures in it.(I'm not disagreeing with you that he's wrong, I really think there's a flaw in his reasoning, I'm just not sure what it is yet.)
That is not the same. The bone and blood are both actually part of the body. The vial is not a part of the poison. It is just a container. Being a part of something, and just being a container are not the same.
The most strict interpretation says the quintessence has to surround the item to be preserved. It is up to you as a GM if you want to be nice, and say the effect penetrates the vial.
But isn't your stomach a container for the food that you eat? It's not you, it's just in storage until it becomes part of you. Where does the line get drawn?
If you immerse someone in quintessence, the only part it comes into contact with is their skin (plus hair, but you get the gist), yet it effects everything your skin contains.
I get what you're saying, but for the quintessence to make that distinction between the whole of a person, but not what's inside a container vs. everything within the area covered by this substance...the second seems to make more sense to me.
No your stomach is actual part of your body. You make it sound like the skin is the body, and the organs are just contained inside, but the combinations of all the organs is what actually makes the body.
The vial and the poison are not one unit.
|
|
The vial and the poison are not one unit.
I don't think it is relevant, the power say:
"Objects sealed within quintessence are protectedfrom the effects of time; in practical terms, they enter
a state of stasis." and a item in a container completely covered with quintessence is sealed in the quintessence.
" psionic characters
and creatures are generally loath to do so because
accumulations of quintessence weighing 1 pound or
more hinder psionic activity within a 5-foot radius
of the accumulation: Powers require twice as many
power points to manifest, unless the manifester makes
a successful Will save each time he or she attempts
to manifest a power. Also in these circumstances,
manifesting a psi-like ability that is usable at will is a
full-round action rather than a standard action."
Does he have 16 dollops of Q in the sack? Because that much is a bad idea, it says above.
Maybe not with the sack closed, but with the sack opened, I would rule he's subject to the effects outlined in the rules you quoted, re-quoted above.
Otherwise, if he's painting the vials as he puts them in, IMHO this will work as advertised. But q-burns and Q-field headaches are a part of the 'advertised'.
The vial and the poison are not one unit.I don't think it is relevant, the power say:
"Objects sealed within quintessence are protected
from the effects of time; in practical terms, they enter
a state of stasis." and a item in a container completely covered with quintessence is sealed in the quintessence.
It matters because the vial is being contained by the quintessence, not the poison. If a mother holds a baby, and someone hold the mother, that does not mean that person is also holding the baby.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It matters because the vial is being contained by the quintessence, not the poison. If a mother holds a baby, and someone hold the mother, that does not mean that person is also holding the baby.
The vial and the poison are not one unit.I don't think it is relevant, the power say:
"Objects sealed within quintessence are protected
from the effects of time; in practical terms, they enter
a state of stasis." and a item in a container completely covered with quintessence is sealed in the quintessence.
Next we're going to rule that touch spells never work because on an atomic/subatomic level nothing ever truly touches anything else.
|
Any thoughts on the subject? I can understand the quintessence being used to get around the duration ( I can't believe I never thought of that), but would the Haversack still work?
A few key issues (some brought up by others above):
1) You must use the Q to coat an item, rather than simply place an item into the same container as the Q.
2) Large quantities of Q will interfere with other psionic abilities. It doesn't matte if the Q is in a haversack, it will still affect the psion the same as if any other magic item were contained in the haversack.
3) In order to make use of the poison, you'd need to scrape to Q off the vial, and there's fairly good chance the Q goes away when you do this. I have no idea the time it takes to do this, but I'd err on it taking a standard action, and rule if the Q is not scraped off, the poison fails to work (seeing as the time it takes to apply to anything would be infinite).
4) As far as saying an application to a vial would only apply to the vial and not its contents, I'd say it applies to the contents of any sealed container at the time of application, and unsealing the container (to remove or add contents) counts as scraping off the Q.
What's the difference between that and putting 80 lbs of marbles in there, and asking the haversack to always have "a blue one" or "a red one" on top?
He's not asking the Sack to sort it for him, just do what it's description says.
"Oh, I'm looking for that vial of moonberries, look there it is, sitting on top"(And I don't know how religious the Haversack is, I think it only has outer denominations.)
:)Although....Maybe the quintessence with the poison vials floating in it might be be considered a single item by the sack?
The sorting I was talking about refers to how the globs and vials are arranged inside the sack - not the ability of the sack to produce whatever you ask for. If the Globs "G" and the vials "V" are arranged perfectly, all of the vials could be preserved.
Here's a simplified 2-dimensional diagram of what I mean.
GGGG
GVVG
GVVG
GGGG
But what if they're arranged differently?
VVVV
GGGG
GGGG
GGGG
Those vials aren't preserved by the globs. Sure, any glob or vial can be produced by the sack as desired, but the vials of poison aren't necessarily going to be fresh.
If someone asked to do this in my game, I'd make the following rulings:
1) If you're planning something tricky, tell me. If you wait until after you've invested in the plan rather than being up front about it, you're trying to manipulate me into approving something. This statement from the original post shows that the player was not acting in good faith when he started executing his plan, "I thought nothing of it, assuming he just wanted to have a viable amount of the stuff on hand in case he ever needed it, and because I knew how difficult it would be to amass any significant quantity of the material (4th level spell produces a 1 inch diameter dollop), I figured 'no big deal.'"
2) Since the haversack holds its contents in an extradimensional space, globs of quintessence inside it only effect you if the sack is open, which will only happen if you intentionally hold it open. Normal use of a handy haversack takes place within the span of a move action, so there's no negative side effect. (reach up, open the bag, pull out what you want, close the bag - otherwise we would have to assume that the bag is constantly open.)
3) A haversack can't do the coating and uncoating for you, so you have to coat each item yourself before you store it, and scrape off each item after retrieving it. (I would make the same ruling about other items. For example, a tied-shut purse full of coins is an item, and the sack can't pull just a single coin out of it. You couldn't put in a crossbow and retrieve "the crossbow trigger".)
This still makes "quintessence to preserve poison" and "handy haversack to protect psionic powers from quintessence" perfectly good strategies. He can preserve lots of "created" poison, making it last longer than 10 hours. He just has to plan out his poison use a little bit ahead of time.
Whew this thread makes me glad I have no psionic characters in my campaign
Whew this thread makes me glad I have no psionic characters in my campaign
Me too!