I disagree. Otherwise the GM has to decide which form he will use for the formula every time. In any event, when on the boards its better to not use examples which will need GM Fiat. One GM might make you use the smallest possible volume, and another will make you use the largest possible number.
I skipped a few post but are people trying to argue that volume which is made of a specific mathmatical formula works differently in fantasy land?
Volume=LWH or S1xS2xS2 IIRC
The arguement isn't of volume but of material, we need the cubic material, not the amount that material holds.
Which means we need the surface area of the material times its thickness.
As to the air displacment stuff... really? That's where you want to go with this? Just shrinking the item is going to cause vacuum issues already then you do realise that right? But we are really going to go all physics on this MAGIC SPELL? Can we hit form of the dragon 3 medium size starting? Cause this will be quite the funny rabbit whole.
At the end of the day it is rediculous to me to say you can shrink a material in one case but not the exact same material in another case simply cause you don't like the shape.
Ciretose's point about keeping the hat on is a better one in my opinion. However I would just go with prestidigitation as my means of keeping it on.
For the record I DO NOT think wizards are super powerful or all powerful or anything of the sorts. I think they are good, and in the hands of someone who plays wizards well are very strong, but that's true of most classes.
The arguement isn't of volume but of material, we need the cubic material, not the amount that material holds.Which means we need the surface area of the material times its thickness.
As to the air displacment stuff... really? That's where you want to go with this? Just shrinking the item is going to cause vacuum issues already then you do realise that right? But we are really going to go all physics on this MAGIC SPELL? Can we hit form of the dragon 3 medium size starting? Cause this will be quite the funny rabbit whole.
At the end of the day it is rediculous to me to say you can shrink a material in one case but not the exact same material in another case simply cause you don't like the shape.
Ciretose's point about keeping the hat on is a better one in my opinion. However I would just go with prestidigitation as my means of keeping it on.
The area of effect of the spell is one object touched of up to 2 cubic feet/level.
How do you calculate the volume of a burning fire? How do you determine the volume of material in a house? A stable? A fence? A boat?
From a GM perspective, the only way this spell makes sense is if you adjudicate it as 'This spell shrinks one object touched, so long as that object fits inside the AoE of the spell'. I have no rules on how much volume individual components of a complex object take up, much less something as ephemeral as 'fire', and as such the only ruling that makes sense is to use the volume as a limiter on the *current* size of the object, not the *potential* size of the object.
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Ciretose's point about keeping the hat on is a better one in my opinion. However I would just go with prestidigitation as my means of keeping it on.
"Prestidigitations are minor tricks that novice spellcasters use for practice. Once cast, a prestidigitation spell enables you to perform simple magical effects for 1 hour. The effects are minor and have severe limitations. A prestidigitation can slowly lift 1 pound of material. It can color, clean, or soil items in a 1-foot cube each round. It can chill, warm, or flavor 1 pound of nonliving material. It cannot deal damage or affect the concentration of spellcasters. Prestidigitation can create small objects, but they look crude and artificial. The materials created by a prestidigitation spell are extremely fragile, and they cannot be used as tools, weapons, or spell components. Finally, prestidigitation lacks the power to duplicate any other spell effects. Any actual change to an object (beyond just moving, cleaning, or soiling it) persists only 1 hour."
Respectfully, what part of this keeps a hat on? And what additional part causes it not to smash/crush you as it explodes to it's full shape.
Being able to very slowly move 1 pound of material is not constantly keeping you hat on your head during combat.
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So people don't like the TP in a hat trick?
That's not unreasonable. It takes a special kind of DM to hate whenever a player tries to be clever.
Jumping further down into the rabbit hole...
At a molecular level there is a ton of "space" between each molecule, so if we are truly only interested in the volume of the material, then the molecular volume of most solids is much less than the spatial volume, by a huge margin.
But when you go to nuclear scales, it gets even crazier. A typical atom is 99.999999% purely empty space all by itself!.
So if we're going to talk about TRUE volume of material being affected by this spell, since a typical mountain will compress down into less than a teaspoonful of neutron star matter (and we're not even talking about quarks and gluons yet) then this spell could conceivably shrink down an entire planet if you TRULY want to calculate out MATERIAL VOLUME.
I like Marshall_Jansen's approach and that's how we rule in our games.
But to answer your question Marshall, the way you calculate the volume of all those complex and changing shapes is "calculus."
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So people don't like the TP in a hat trick?
That's not unreasonable. It takes a special kind of DM to hate whenever a player tries to be clever.
Yeah, I know, that's why I won't play with any GM who won't let me defeat a dragon by grabbing onto his nose hairs to keep him from breathing on me.
Stupid meany GMs...
So people don't like the TP in a hat trick?
That's not unreasonable. It takes a special kind of DM to hate whenever a player tries to be clever.
Yeah, I know, that's why I won't play with any GM who won't let me defeat a dragon by grabbing onto his nose hairs to keep him from breathing on me.
Stupid meany GMs...
Yep finding uses for shrink item and making up combat actions are two equivalent things.
When people debate things like a TP in the hat I wonder if they have real GMs that they can talk with about things.
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So people don't like the TP in a hat trick?
That's not unreasonable. It takes a special kind of DM to hate whenever a player tries to be clever.
Yeah, I know, that's why I won't play with any GM who won't let me defeat a dragon by grabbing onto his nose hairs to keep him from breathing on me.
Stupid meany GMs...
Yep finding uses for shrink item and making up combat actions are two equivalent things.
When people debate things like a TP in the hat I wonder if they have real GMs that they can talk with about things.
Some GMs find it important to have their worlds behave in rational, predictable, consistent ways as opposed to a Harry Potter world where "it's magic" allows for just about any arbitrary thing to happen just because "it's cool."
A GM who takes the time and effort to work out and keep consistent the actual in game effects of spells, even non-combat spells, is indeed a "special kind" of GM Marthkus, but you and I have completely different ideas of how that GM is "special."
Wait so magic can't work just because it's magic?
Please explain the thermodynamics of a fireball, the seven hells, or the plain of fire.
Unlimited energy breaking every physical law that we have in the universe.
"Because it's magic" is something you come to accept in a fantasy setting.
@ ciretose: Prestidigitation performs simple tricks, keeping a hat in place on your head is a pretty minor trick, more so than changing its color or changing flavor, polishing something up,etc. Now does it explicitly say it can keep a hat on your head? No and I wouldn't expect this spell to hold up to a combat manuever or even a rather windy day. But in gneral it does seem like a huge stretch to me.
As to it not crushing you when it expands? It's hollow and all of about 2 and some cubic feet of material.
Personally we've always caculated out the material the spell was affecting. After all that is what the spell states it affects. Because of this common shrunk items have been bath tubs (empty), mithral summoning circles, tents and the like. This thread is the first time I have everheard of a table that didn't do it that way.
Wait so magic can't work just because it's magic?
Please explain the thermodynamics of a fireball, the seven hells, or the plain of fire.
Unlimited energy breaking every physical law that we have in the universe."Because it's magic" is something you come to accept in a fantasy setting.
Marthkus, if you think we can "explain" the "thermodynamics" of, say, a steam engine, you are fooling yourself.
It is not required to have a doctoral dissertation on the thermodynamics of magic missile to have a consistent, predictable, rational world for your PCs Marthkus.
Unless you accept "Because it's magic" when you ask your level one wizard player how their unique custom-researched spell has slain your CR 30 huge, ancient red dragon in one round, don't waste my time lecturing me how "because magic" allows anything to happen in fantasy.
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Walking along the adventurer's trail, Ciretose the mighty, wizard extraordinaire and keeper of eldricht secrets, was having a relaxing stroll, enjoying nature...
WHEN SUDDENLY!!:
A) A bunch of mercs jump out of the woodwork and attack our hero.
Ciretose is a mighty wizard, and using his permanencied arcane sight, he notices that the mercs are equipped with magic items. Having line of sight to his foes and their magic equipment, mighty Ciretose was quick to recognize the auras of the different items. One of them in particular caught his attention. A powerful abjuration aura. No fool to the ways of wizardry, mighty Ciretose realized that such a powerful abjuration, might be an item made to suppress magic when activated. Clever Ciretose, not one for needless risks, quickly made to retreat from the battle.
Or
B) A bunch of mercs jump out of the woodwork, and attack our hero, surprising him. One of the mercs activated a special item, specially made for countering the magics of mighty Ciretose, and an anti-magic field surrounded the merc. Mighty Ciretose did not have the time to react, but when the merc's anti-magic field touched the powerful wizard, mighty Ciretose just smiled. Suddenly, from one second to the next, the cunning magics of ciretose ended, and the cone of brass, he had shrunk and sewn into his hat, dropped to ground, closing out the antimagic. The surprised swearing of the mercs rang deep and hollow through the enclosure, but cunning Ciretose was not about to stay and listen. Lamenting the loss of his trusty hat, cunning Ciretose spoke the mighty word of power "hopscotch", and his contingency magic carried him far from the battlefield, to the comforts of his wizard tower. Mighty Ciretose was safe again for now, though he would need a new hat.
Then mighty Ciretose went of the offensive, and using his mighty magics, he wasted the arrogant mercs with minimal effort, over the course of the following days.
Thus ends the story of a bunch of ill-prepared mercs, who relied on one measly spell, they previously percieved to be a fool-proof way to foil a lord of magic.
-Nearyn
False equilency adamantine -- asking why you need a physics reason for a spell to work that is a part of the setting is not the same as saying that a level one wizard should be allowed to have a custom spell that takes out epic monsters.
Unless you accept "Because it's magic" when you ask your level one wizard player how their unique custom-researched spell has slain your CR 30 huge, ancient red dragon in one round, don't waste my time lecturing me how "because magic" allows anything to happen in fantasy.
Surely, if you sat down with your player, talked it over, and allowed him to research such a spell, then you cannot fault the player for using it?
-Nearyn
Yep using shrink item in a creative way is the same thing as making a custom spell to slay dragons
Saying spells can't work the way they do because they don't make sense to you in terms of scientific justification is bork.
Also a steam engine is a simple rankine cycle! God. You assume your turbine and pump are well insulated and isotropic makes the equations solving every property very doable.
So scientifically a fireball is BS yet we still use it in games 'because magic'
there are several spells that defy science and especially physics. fireball and magic missile are two of the most well known examples.
a spell specifically designed exclusively to slay dragons with a single ray, should be around a 6th-7th level spell if it's purpose designed exclusively to slay powerful dragons by simply targetting touch AC.
it isn't so much different than homebrewing a 6th-7th level spell for making evil outsiders explode into bursts of holy light and die with a ranged touch attack dealing AoE damage based on the slain monster's CR.
Edit; such niche spells would be better suited to 6th level spells due to how niche the target choices are. but these are just theoretical examples.
Jumping further down into the rabbit hole...
At a molecular level there is a ton of "space" between each molecule, so if we are truly only interested in the volume of the material, then the molecular volume of most solids is much less than the spatial volume, by a huge margin.
But when you go to nuclear scales, it gets even crazier. A typical atom is 99.999999% purely empty space all by itself!.
So if we're going to talk about TRUE volume of material being affected by this spell, since a typical mountain will compress down into less than a teaspoonful of neutron star matter (and we're not even talking about quarks and gluons yet) then this spell could conceivably shrink down an entire planet if you TRULY want to calculate out MATERIAL VOLUME.
I like Marshall_Jansen's approach and that's how we rule in our games.
But to answer your question Marshall, the way you calculate the volume of all those complex and changing shapes is "calculus."
There's a formula for measuring volume of a cone, and it's not a measurement on the molecular level. I suggest we don't obfuscate the argument by suggesting a molecular volume when the spell is clearly measuring volume as cubic feet.
The area of effect of the spell is one object touched of up to 2 cubic feet/level.
How do you calculate the volume of a burning fire? How do you determine the volume of material in a house? A stable? A fence? A boat? ...
I'm not certain you would need to calculate the fire, just it's fuel. The spell mentions burning fire and it's fuel. Fire without fuel wont stay burning, so I would suspect the intent is to shrink the fuel.
Also, I just realized you'll probably have to make a concentration check as you get damaged by the fire you have to touch to shrink :)
If the spell didn't include air, things would blow up as the un-shrunk air tried to escape from the shrinking object. If you're talking a hollow sphere, you're effectively super-compressing the air for nothing.
Shrink Item has no choice but to include the air to avoid abusing that rule, and stop people giggling and shrinking down huge clouds of poison gas to tote around.
Shrink Item is going to consider a hollow boulder and a solid boulder to be occupying the same volume. That's all there really is to it.
===Aelryinth
Question about the reverse:
If it didn't include air and the item became un-shrunk, would a vacuum be created for which the outside air would have to rush in?
LOL. Actually, in 'reality', it would be crushed by the air pressure as it tried to suddenly expand, creating a shockwave as it muscled the air out of the way...and yes, there'd be a vacuum effect.
==Aelryinth
I skipped a few post but are people trying to argue that volume which is made of a specific mathmatical formula works differently in fantasy land?
Volume=LWH or S1xS2xS2 IIRC
The arguement isn't of volume but of material, we need the cubic material, not the amount that material holds.
Which means we need the surface area of the material times its thickness.
As to the air displacment stuff... really? That's where you want to go with this? Just shrinking the item is going to cause vacuum issues already then you do realise that right? But we are really going to go all physics on this MAGIC SPELL? Can we hit form of the dragon 3 medium size starting? Cause this will be quite the funny rabbit whole.
At the end of the day it is rediculous to me to say you can shrink a material in one case but not the exact same material in another case simply cause you don't like the shape.
Ciretose's point about keeping the hat on is a better one in my opinion. However I would just go with prestidigitation as my means of keeping it on.
For the record I DO NOT think wizards are super powerful or all powerful or anything of the sorts. I think they are good, and in the hands of someone who plays wizards well are very strong, but that's true of most classes.
Ok, I get it now, but IIRC the spell references cubes which also has a formula. Using cubes would not necessarily involve volume. Maybe next time I should read the book. :)
The cubed area is the same no matter what the shape of the item is and makes it easier it easier to carry around.
On another note that hat idea is so silly that it should not be used in a game. I would rule it as still an article of clothing since I would never let an NPC do it.
I can see a world where shrink item is used to assassinate people by shockwave instead of the standard "drop something heavy on them"
It's not using Shrink Item in a 'creative way', it's using Shrink Item in a way that assumes GM Fiat it's going to work exactly as the player wants it to...ignoring all the evidence that that is exactly what is not going to happen.
because C) the brass bell on Ciretose's cap, tilted behind him by natural motion, expands backward at a 30 degree angle. It falls down, the inner surface conking him solidly on the head as it does so, and overbalances backwards and slams heavily into the dirt, while the half-stunned wizard, knocked prone by the weight of his shrunken trick, finds himself facing some grinning, laughing mercenaries who are quick to put him to the sword, take all his items, stuff them into a lead-lined chest for later sale, and burn his body and scatter the ashes so he can't be resurrected or come after them.
The clone that comes looking for his stuff a few months later is going to have a devil of a time finding them, because they use disguise skills to sell their loot and render themselves nigh untraceable. They can afford those AMF devices to ambush mages because they aren't idiots.
And yes, they've seen that 'hat trick' kill mages for them so many times they just laugh. There was the one guy who actually enchanted a little levitating disk for his to float perfectly on above him. The merc 5' in the lead of the AMF field hit the enclosure as it enlarged, knocking it off to one side as it fell down, and shocking the heck out of that gnome who also figured he had all the angles covered.
===Aelryinth
And kindly note that a volume measurement of an item via immersion is totally dependent upon which way you immerse it. The spell has no way of knowing if you want the air or not, so it's going to include it.
Just because something only contains air hardly means that it's empty. Example...what if that teepee is an 'air catcher' for breathing underwater? Then the whole point of it is to enlarge with tons of air inside...air that you wouldn't be 'paying for'.
And jeez, you can shrink a blazing bonfire and turn it into paper. I think you can shrink air (paper tongues of flame sounds really odd to see).
==Aelryinth
And as for RD, Stone Shape doesn't say AoE 10 Ft cubed +1/level or whatever, divisible by 1/4 cubic inch blocks. It says 1 cubic foot blocks. So you can do non-fine details, in areas of 1x1x1, contiguous. That's what the spell actually says. Anything else is reading into the spell.==Aelryinth
It says nothing of the sort. You must be thinking of shapeable spells (those listed with a "(S)" in their effect line). This is NOT one of those spells. It merely gives the total volume that can be effected. There is absolutely nothing in the spell that says you are limited to shaping 1x1x1 blocks. The only limitation therein is that "fine detail isn't possible"--the amount of leeway this gives you is entirely up to what the GM interprets as "fine detail."
I think the spell and the authors assumes a solid(not flexible) container. Once you start using things that are flexible it kind of goes outside of the math.
It's actually pretty easy: take whatever complex object you want to shrink, and puree it. Take a sailing vessel for example. Mentally grind it up into sawdust, then imagine how much space said sawdust takes up.
It's an approximation to be sure, but it's quick and easy.
"1/16 of its normal size in each dimension" refers to the objects dimensions, not volume. That reading also keeps the spell consistent, so I am with the anti-volume crowd.
Dimension refers to length, width, and height when dealing with math.
So people don't like the TP in a hat trick?
That's not unreasonable. It takes a special kind of DM to hate whenever a player tries to be clever.
Yeah, I know, that's why I won't play with any GM who won't let me defeat a dragon by grabbing onto his nose hairs to keep him from breathing on me.
Stupid meany GMs...
Are you making fun of me AD?
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@ ciretose: Prestidigitation performs simple tricks, keeping a hat in place on your head is a pretty minor trick, more so than changing its color or changing flavor, polishing something up,etc. Now does it explicitly say it can keep a hat on your head? No and I wouldn't expect this spell to hold up to a combat manuever or even a rather windy day. But in gneral it does seem like a huge stretch to me.
As to it not crushing you when it expands? It's hollow and all of about 2 and some cubic feet of material.
It becomes a solid object that is sturdy enough to be considered a "Solid Barrier".
And it is now on top of your head.
When you have to stretch something else to accommodate what is already a stretch...perhaps the elasticity exceeds the threshold where it becomes bent to absurdity. If you have to stretch that much to make something work, it seems quite audacious to say that denying it is a house rule.
YMMV.
It takes an equally special person to assume cubic volume of an object icludes things that aren't a part of an object.
I disagree with the way you would rule it at your table, but I am not saying anything about your character because of it. I'm of the opinion that it's literally the object itself the spell affects which while you disagree with it is a valid interpretation as well.
You can stop being a priss about our difference Ciretose. I get it -- you don't like it, but you don't actual have anything that can prove my position is invalid, so cut the holier than though B.S.
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Wait so magic can't work just because it's magic?
Please explain the thermodynamics of a fireball, the seven hells, or the plain of fire.
Unlimited energy breaking every physical law that we have in the universe."Because it's magic" is something you come to accept in a fantasy setting.
There is magic and there is silly. If you have to resort to "Because it's magic" to make your argument work, guess which side I think you are on?
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It takes an equally special person to assume cubic volume of an object icludes things that aren't a part of an object.
I disagree with the way you would rule it at your table, but I am not saying anything about your character because of it. I'm of the opinion that it's literally the object itself the spell affects which while you disagree with it is a valid interpretation as well.
You can stop being a priss about our difference Ciretose. I get it -- you don't like it, but you don't actual have anything that can prove my position is invalid, so cut the holier than though B.S.
And again I don't have to.
The burden is on the person proposing the concept outside of the rules, not the person saying no. How many presumptions have to be made about rule interactions before even the proof of concept works.
And then, assuming all of those are agreed on, you have a small shrunken object instantly become a large solid object, on your head, and you don't think that would be harmful.
Again, it doesn't say a dead person can't move. But it suspends disbelief to argue for that rule of omission.
The air inside a house isn't part of a house? You build the house to keep that air in there, boyo.
Air is the contents of a container. It's part of the container. If that air is suddenly 'water', or 'ale' or 'gold pieces', none of them are parts of the object either, but are you going to argue they don't get shrunken down with it?
Seriously? Because then you're saying you can't shrink down that unliftable chest with 20,000 gp in it. They aren't part of the object.
And Ravdork, look at Prestidigitation. It specifically references a 1 foot cube in part of what the spell does. Not fractions of it. Not rectangles, spheres, triangles, or gerrymandered 'interpret however I like'.
Cubes.
And that's how the spell executes. Nowhere does it say you get to determine how that volume is dispersed. You get to work with and within pre-set cubes.
And Shrink Item references cubic feet...1 foot cubes. It's using an area measurement, not a mass measurement.
===Aelryinth
There is magic and there is silly. If you have to resort to "Because it's magic" to make your argument work, guess which side I think you are on?Wait so magic can't work just because it's magic?
Please explain the thermodynamics of a fireball, the seven hells, or the plain of fire.
Unlimited energy breaking every physical law that we have in the universe."Because it's magic" is something you come to accept in a fantasy setting.
Oh?
Do tell me how fireballs work? Where does the magic missile come from? How do vampires not see their reflection without being invisible? EDIT: Vampires don't cast shadows either. Explain that with science!
You need a certain suspension-of-disbelief to play a fantasy game.
It says nothing of the sort. You must be thinking of shapeable spells (those listed with a "(S)" in their effect line). This is NOT one of those spells. It merely gives the total volume that can be effected. There is absolutely nothing in the spell that says you are limited to shaping 1x1x1 blocks. The only limitation therein is that "fine detail isn't possible"--the amount of leeway this gives you is entirely up to what the GM interprets as "fine detail."
And as for RD, Stone Shape doesn't say AoE 10 Ft cubed +1/level or whatever, divisible by 1/4 cubic inch blocks. It says 1 cubic foot blocks. So you can do non-fine details, in areas of 1x1x1, contiguous. That's what the spell actually says. Anything else is reading into the spell.==Aelryinth
except the volume the ship is displacing is the reason it's a freaking boat in the first place.
That air is important. Without the open spaces, a boat can't float. The air is essential to the function of the boat.
And then you have to get into an argument for 'what is part of the boat'? Because rope, sails, stores, cargo and a whole lot of other stuff is not part of a boat. If you don't include everything that falls into the area of the spell, you are really, really asking for trouble.
no shrinking chests filled with gold and barrels of wine for you! "Because it's just air" is not an argument. turn that upside down and having that air underwater might be the whole reason it's shrunk down.
==Aelryinth
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You need a certain suspension-of-disbelief to play a fantasy game.
Yes.
Suspension of disbelief as your reasoning implies you realize the weakness of arguing your position is reasonable. So at what point do you stop suspending disbelief and simple toss aside verisimilitude as a goal.
Suspending disbelief is not the first argument. It is what you say when all else fails.
"Hey man, uh...suspend disbelief!"
It isn't a goal. It is a failure.
You need a certain suspension-of-disbelief to play a fantasy game.
Yes.
Suspension of disbelief as your reasoning implies you realize the weakness of arguing your position is reasonable. So at what point do you stop suspending disbelief and simple toss aside verisimilitude as a goal.
Suspending disbelief is not the first argument. It is what you say when all else fails.
"Hey man, uh...suspend disbelief!"
It isn't a goal. It is a failure.
Your saying magic can't work because its magic and requires scientific justification. That is what AD and I were talking about.
That ties back to using shrink item creatively. We don't need to know how it does what it does to shrink a TP under a wizard hat. We can just use the spell description and see "yep it does that"
This is starting to go down the path of the "is air something" argument. I remember an argument about figments which invalidates their usage when you consider the fact that air is indeed "something" as figments can't make something seem to be something else.
Now its well established that you can indeed make illusions in mid air, which would seem to support that air is not "something" when considering the use of figments.
Using that logic, why on earth would we consider airspace when measuring the volume of an item to be shrunk?
And Aelryinth, I think if the devs wanted us to use 2 foot cubes per level, they would have used that phrasing instead of 2 cu. ft. per level which is by definition a volume measurement.
The item is within the limits of what the spell handles. The spell never states that the item has to be in a specific form only that the item has cubic measurements with the spell's tolerances. The item is a little over 2 cubic feet in this case, which means it fits.
New example. You have a barrel with water in it. You want to shrink it. You have two choices, shrink just the barrel (meaning all the water will pour out as it shrinks) or shrink the barrel with the water in it. Which you do is going to have an effect on how much material you need to cover.
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I am saying that the term "Suspension of disbelief" indicates you are asking the audience to bear with you because you have failed as a storyteller to convince them that the narrative you are delivering is a plausible one.
They must "Suspend disbelief" because you have failed to convince them that this is a possible world.
A good story doesn't ask the audience to suspend disbelief, they do it because it is a possible world.
When you have to resort to "Suspend disbelief" as your reasoning, you've failed to come up with a compelling and believable narrative.
Which is kind of one of the primary goals...
It's not using Shrink Item in a 'creative way', it's using Shrink Item in a way that assumes GM Fiat it's going to work exactly as the player wants it to...ignoring all the evidence that that is exactly what is not going to happen.
because C) the brass bell on Ciretose's cap, tilted behind him by natural motion, expands backward at a 30 degree angle....
I think it's rather dubious of a GM to tell a player which way his head is tilted. That's for my player to decide. I believe you're picturing a hat with no rigidity to it, which is something a wizard preparing for this event would have already considered, the hat will be rigid and my head held straight and firm.
except the volume the ship is displacing is the reason it's a freaking boat in the first place.
That air is important. Without the open spaces, a boat can't float. The air is essential to the function of the boat....
Air is indeed essential to keeping a boat afloat. That has nothing to do with the boats total volume, however.
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Enough.
The lack of rules citation when discussing legality, and the DM fiat being used as a basis to spew opinion as gospel, is getting really tedious.
I am done with this argument, fully convinced now that the more vocal nay-sayers do not wish to know how the game works, if it comes at the expense of them having to admit fault.
I have neither the patience nor inclination to continue this farce of an argument. It is not like talking to a brick wall, it is like talking to a brick wall that switches language, in a transparent attempt to shield itself with a nonsense tangle of faulty grammar.
-Nearyn
I am saying that the term "Suspension of disbelief" indicates you are asking the audience to bear with you because you have failed as a storyteller to convince them that the narrative you are delivering is a plausible one.
They must "Suspend disbelief" because you have failed to convince them that this is a possible world.
A good story doesn't ask the audience to suspend disbelief, they do it because it is a possible world.
When you have to resort to "Suspend disbelief" as your reasoning, you've failed to come up with a compelling and believable narrative.
Which is kind of one of the primary goals...
So how do vampires not cast shadows? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that scientifically.
IT IS A FANTASY GAME!
Many times its better not to explain how something works than bog down the story with lengthy explanations.
I cite Midi-chlorians from star wars. Did learning how the Force worked help the narrative or hurt it?
A good story is a good story and has nothing to do with whether or not every element in that story is explained.
Tell me how does magic work in Lord of the Rings? How does magic work in D&D? How does magic work in Pathfinder?
How does a Wizard STARING at a book for an hour suddenly give him God-like powers? Explain all that with science and energy balance equations and only then can you tell me that good fantasy story telling never uses 'because its magic' as a justification.
EDIT: And unless you're confused 'Because its magic' = 'Suspension of disbelief'
the hat will be rigid and my head held straight and firm.At all times...
Do I care about all times. Not usually. Just I approach someone or they approach me. And even so, who's to say I can't do that at all times?
Anything contrary to what I want to do with my char is GM interference. If I want to walk around all rigid and stiff like the coneheads, that's my right.
DM fiat is the only way it is viable...
I would argue that DM fiat is the only way it's not viable.