IMO, the entire pit stays with the largest portion of whatever it was originally created on, and when the spell ends, those trapped within the pit are shunted out at the location of that largest piece.
That said, this is a corner case that I would NEVER click an FAQ request on, lol, but I know what inspired this thread...
Whatever the GM tells you that happens is what happens. This discussion shouldn't even be happening...
For what it's worth, I would make the spell end if you tried doing anything to disrupt the surface area that the pit was created on.
oh god no, i'm not looking to FAQ this or anything. I'm just opening the topic on the rules forum to see what kind of consensus can be had on what people think would happen.
Yeah, I understood that, but just wanted to mention that it was an extreme corner case.
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Whatever the GM tells you that happens is what happens. This discussion shouldn't even be happening...
For what it's worth, I would make the spell end if you tried doing anything to disrupt the surface area that the pit was created on.
why should this discussion never even happen?
its a corner case, granted, that doesn't mean its verboten to speak of in the rules forums. on the contrary, here's the perfect place to have this discussion, where gm's can chime in with their input on how they might rule on it. thats exactly what the rules forums are for.not everything is a crusade for an FAQ, and not everything is some grey area obscure rule.
I'm just curious how other GMs would handle it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
create pit makes an extradimensional hole. It doesn't create a real hole. The boundary/interface between the two dimensions is a 10ft square at the top. Everything below that interface from the perspective of the material plane does not exist.
So, if you were belowdecks and someone cast create pit on the deck above you, you would see nothing; the pit doesn't exist in the space you can observe.
Similarly if you are standing on the deck and look down into the pit, you will not see into the ship's hold; you will see into the extradimensional pit.
To answer Jiggy, once the spell expires, its content are forced out, which means that the trapped creature will (likely) burst through the rug, shredding it. The spiral shape of the interface won't matter.
Good example of a thread appropriate for the rules forum but not for FAQ.
RAW doesn't cover it directly, but I'm in the "don't perturb the surface or the spell gets it", but that's a house rule. If you perturb the surface, then it is no longer a valid basis for the spell. A reasonable alternative is that the pit's contents each eject from one of the pieces of the surface with probability proportional to the piece's surface area contribution. The size of the "opening" doesn't matter because wizard physics.
To answer Jiggy, once the spell expires, its content are forced out, which means that the trapped creature will (likely) burst through the rug, shredding it. The spiral shape of the interface won't matter.
So if someone cast a Wall of Force over the top of a created pit, you think the Wall of Force would essentially kill them instantly when the Create Pit spell ended?
If so, I disagree.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The spiral shape of the interface won't matter.
I beg to differ. Remember that the bottom of the pit rises slowly over the course of a round for a sort of "elevator" effect until the floor meets the interface.
So a (large) troll in the pit is coming up(?) out of the pit while the interface is rolled up. Actually, for easier visualization, let's say I've arched it: I've brought the east and west sides closer to each other, while the north-south distance is unchanged. The interface is on the outer surface of the rug, facing the open air instead of the floor beneath.
The troll inside the pit is standing so that he's facing north. His left shoulder is nearly touching the western wall of the pit, while his right shoulder is nearly touching the eastern wall of the pit.
The spell ends, and he begins to rise, standing still with his arms at his side.
Let's watch him in slow-motion. In fact, let's freeze-frame when only his head and shoulders are out of the pit. His head is coming out vertically at the top of the arch, but his shoulders are coming out in opposite directions: his left shoulder is exiting horizontally west, and his right, horizontally east.
His shoulders are getting farther apart as he exits the pit.
Fast-forward to where his top 5ft space is out of the pit while his lower half is still in it. He's still (theoretically) standing with his hands at his sides.
Inside the pit, we have a set of legs standing vertically, with hands next to his hips.
Simultaneously, above the pit, we have the troll's head about 5ft directly above the center of the rug.
On the western side of the rug, there's 5ft of troll arm sticking out horizontally to the west, ending at a shoulder 5ft west of the rug. The opposite is happening on the other side.
The troll's shoulders are 10ft apart, and his head is somewhere in the neighborhood of 7ft away from each of his shoulders.
What is the condition of this troll?
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
man what
I am just going to say he gets pulled out by a dragon because reading that made me feel like I am sitting naked in math class and forgot to study for the final
Don't let magic be more powerful than it is. Pathfinder is most certainly not a physic simulator, any discussion of how physic would explain this or trying to think of what happens when a creature moves between two planes of existence just doesn't make sense. It's like trying to understand what happens to a person as they enter a black hole and what they experience, and what happens as they reach the center. Normal physics breaks down.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This is just at my table, but I approach pit spells and these tricks the same. The Pit is an extra dimension it is placed in our dimension but nothing in the current dimension is affected. (spell even says the underlying material is not affected).
So basically you are using your dimension references to make an extra dimensional pit appear where you want it to be. nothing that you can manipulate in this dimension is going to affect the pit you created.
so papers, rugs, boats etc aren't actually holding the pit they are just references you used to create make the pit appear they are not actually physically connected to that item so manipulating the item has no affect on the pit itself it remains exactly where you wanted it to appear.
(to the wall of force issue, i think your only option in casting is to create a vertical wall any thing that breaks the surface of the wall causes the spell to fail ... even if you want to try a horizontal wall then the ground is not going to be a marble smooth surface.. at least in my game)
What happens if you put a cat in the pit with a radioactive isotope that has a short half-life, then cover the pit and don't observe the cat in any way?
oh god no, i'm not looking to FAQ this or anything. I'm just opening the topic on the rules forum to see what kind of consensus can be had on what people think would happen.
Then shouldn't this go in "Advice" ? Since this isn't something that the actual rules address ?
|
|
oh god no, i'm not looking to FAQ this or anything. I'm just opening the topic on the rules forum to see what kind of consensus can be had on what people think would happen.Then shouldn't this go in "Advice" ? Since this isn't something that the actual rules address ?
Advice is more, "would x be better for my character/world, or y?"
This is a rules question, in a grey area of spells.
I like the perturbed surface solution.
Why would you even be ABLE to roll up the rug?
Would not the edges of the rug below the pit be unable to be rolled? Since they've been "pushed aside" to make room for the pit?
The way I see it all you accomplish by rolling up the rug is having little bits of rug hanging into the pit so it's all messy when the rest of it shows back up.
Here's a good one I pulled on players who had started getting overconfident.
Kobold 1 cast 'Create Pit' under PCs from an arrow slit using a wand.
Kobold 2 cast 'Stone Shape' also from a wand, to cover the pit over, again using a wand from a second arrow slit in the stone wall next to the pit.
The 'create pit' arrow slits looked down a 10x10x50 ft hallway of stone. The 'Stone Shape' slits looked out from the west wall. And the 2nd kobold could run back and forth wherever the pit opened.
PCs hated kobolds after that dungeon. The kobolds also dropped pink paint on them while they slept, dropped poison pellets in the water pool while they were drinking, dropped alchemists fire down shafts on them, basically made their lives a pain. :)
I would say that if the condition of "horizontal surface" ends then the spell fails and ends. So you cant roll it up, same thing with putting it on a big piece of wood and then tilting it up, cant do it. The spell either prevents you from making the surface non-horizontal or ends. Blocking the top is a bit more complicated, I might rule that the floor rises up until it is stopped by resistance, thus making the extra dimensional space persist until it can finish. I don't think I would let it "stargate iris" things. Other fun things to do with create pit is put in on water, a platform or balcony, a silk sheet stretched over thin frame (you can slide it under double doors) etc...
@Anguish: Reread my question. You cast it on the deck, I know youccan't see it from belowdecks, but what happens when the actual surface the extradimentional space is attached to, is destroyed. Earthquake, cannon explosion, etc
Sorry, I read it a couple times but didn't parse it right. Caveat: it's magic.
That said, the fact that the spells explain that you can cast them on the deck of a moving boat actually spells out the nature of their interface; it's anchored to the material you cast on. If it wasn't, as the ship sailed on, the interface would remain floating in air where it had been cast. (Worse, as Golarion rotates the interface wouldn't.)
Once you accept that the interface is anchored to the surface it was cast on, you have grounds (pun intended) to answer your question.
Slightly different scenario: you cast create pit on a random patch of land. Then you tunnel under it and remove all the dirt from beneath. What happens?
What happens is that the topmost layer of dirt actually can't be removed. Yes, at some point there won't be enough below to support that top layer, so it will fall, just like the deck of a boat heaving up and and down due too waves. Imagine basically a 10ft by 10ft sheet of plywood. That sheet is the combination of the interface and the surface below it. For the duration of the spell, the interface cannot be disconnected from the surface below, so they are treated as one.
The thickness of the surface beneath can be arbitrarily minimal. It could be a millimeter of soil, or the varnish on top of the wood of a ship's deck, but there is some tangible layer that must remain intact. So make the plywood as thin as you'd like. This is all the natural result of the description of the spell.
As such, if the ship were set on fire, or blown up by cannon fire, some minor layer actually remains intact. That layer may be trivially thin. In the case of a ship blown up, the sheet of plywood might fly through the air wildly, then fall into the water and sink. Yes, flooding the pit with water.
Since the spell requires a "horizontal surface of sufficient size" it would be perfectly reasonable to say if the horizontal surface is no longer of sufficient size, the spell simply ends immediately.
Here's a question. Can you create a pit on a horizontal liquid surface?
So if someone cast a Wall of Force over the top of a created pit, you think the Wall of Force would essentially kill them instantly when the Create Pit spell ended?
If so, I disagree.
No, but it would be very reasonable to apply damage to that someone. A reasonable baseline would be to treat it as falling damage from wherever they are in the pit to the surface.
Then what? Well, then you're in deep doo-doo. If you can't pass through the wall of force, you've got to exist somewhere else. Such as... embedded in soil below the wall of force. Not a very good place to be if you don't have a burrow speed, or if you especially enjoy breathing. You may find yourself dead shortly, but as a DM I wouldn't make it arbitrarily rapid.
Keep in mind that wall of force or even wall of stone are fairly high-level. By the time folks are teaming up to make pit-wall combinations there are usually decent ways to counter them. Doesn't mean the right spells are available, but the same thing can be said for flesh to stone.
I beg to differ.
What is the condition of this troll?
I hear you, but it's still magic. You can take your carpet and fold it flat back-to-back, then suggest the emerging victim will be split in half, bits forced two different directions.
I'd counter that while the interface is distorted, it's magic, so the spell isn't going to do more than it has to. As discussed in a prior post regarding wall of force, sometimes there's just no choice, so you have to roll with it and apply existing rules to make sense of the situation.
Again, I'd consider applying damage, but what's going to happen is the troll is going to be held within the pit until the bottom has risen nearly to the top. He can't be pressed out because the geometry is nonsensical. Then the bottom gets closer to the top, leaving insufficient room for his whole body. Well, now he's going to get hurt. How much? I'd treat it the same as the wall of force scenario. Then the spell collapses and you're left with a troll inside a wrapped carpet, which promptly gets shredded.
What I'm saying is that wherever possible apply the least intervention. The rules literally don't cover this specific scenario so the DM has to adjudicate something sensible but not outside of appropriate balance.
Rug + create pit = some damage.
create pit + wall of iron = deep trouble but not immediate death.
Why would you even be ABLE to roll up the rug?
Would not the edges of the rug below the pit be unable to be rolled? Since they've been "pushed aside" to make room for the pit?
The way I see it all you accomplish by rolling up the rug is having little bits of rug hanging into the pit so it's all messy when the rest of it shows back up.
You know, that's actually a pretty reasonable point, and nicely gels with my illustration about digging earth out from under a pit. It's entirely reasonable that the interface can't be shaped once cast. Yes, it clearly can be moved, but trying to roll up the imaginary carpet would just leave a layer of carpet stuck to the back of the interface.
A simple ruling that is RAW-consistent and not overpowered.
I don't disagree with your logic here, except your allowing an unmodified 2nd level spell deal 60+ points of damage which, I believe, is excessive for an unmodified 2nd lvl spell.
A good point. It's always important to look at what damage levels a off-the-cuff ruling results in.
That said, create pit has a maximum depth of 30ft. So 3d6 of "falling damage". Average of 10.5 damage. I think I'm okay with that.
Oh and , as I have mentioned in this thread, I would not allow the pit to be 'on' the rug, but rather it's in the same place as the rug, roll it up and the pit is still in the same space where you cast it IE where the rug was.
My problem with that scenario is that it doesn't act consistently with the specifically-allowed ship deck. Since ships are clearly movable objects, the precedent is set that the planar interface can be cast on movable objects. I think it's probably simpler to not allow the interface to be shapeable.
@Anguish: Reread my question. You cast it on the deck, I know youccan't see it from belowdecks, but what happens when the actual surface the extradimentional space is attached to, is destroyed. Earthquake, cannon explosion, etc
The contents of the pit would reappear on the 10' square of whatever was there when the spell was cast. In the case of the ship, they would appear on a 10' square of deck amid the wreckage.
I'd imagine that the requirement for a surface are only in casting it. If the surface is altered, then it is altered independently from the pit.
Essentially you have a one way entrance into an extra-dimensional space. Only things which go down into it go into it. Things would pass through it as though it wasn't there if they came upwards.
So, with the rug example.
If you cast the spell over a sufficiently large rug, it creates the pit. You could then grab a corner of the rug and lift, the rug would pull up and out of the pit as though it wasn't there. The pit itself wouldn't go anywhere, and remains fixed in space.
If you pulled the whole rug up, then it would be freed from the other side completely, and if you let it fall it would fall into the pit.
If you pulled it up only partially, it wouldn't b fully freed from the other side and if you let go it would fall back under the pit.
I know this interpretation is at odds with casting the spell on a ship, and other moving objects... but that doesn't particularly concern me, because magic. That sort of situation is likely to not come up very often for me or mine, I dislike pirate style gaming.
That is just my interpretation though. There isn't really a "right way" to do it. Find the best way for the situation and the story, and hopefully you can stick with that method throughout any other weird situations that come up.
Other things make this spell act strangely too. Lesser globe of invulnerability comes to mind. Anything that grants spell immunity or could peculiarly interact with only a portion of the pit.
If you can cast create pit on a rug, then move the rug out from under it, why then wouldn't the pit stay in place when cast on a ship's deck, and the ship moves out from under it? A GM's rulings should be consistent, whatever they are.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What happens if I cast create pit on a rug, put a large-size creature/object in it, then roll up the rug into a tight cylinder and wait for the spell to end? Does it make a difference whether the spell area is "facing" inward or outward when I roll it up?
A chain of events sparks the end of the universe.
First, the warped space-time continuum can no longer take the stress of converting the large creature from one dimension to the other. So instead, the creature ceases to exist.
That large-creature happens to be the BBEG, and thus a plot hole is created where the BBEG lies at the end of the campaign, slowly eating at the fabric of reality.
Then, when the PCs pursue the campaign to the end, the Wizard spontaneously invents the spell "Time Travel", and goes back in time to try and keep himself from creating the pit in the past.
When he gets there, he cannot reason with his younger self because he can't roll a high enough diplomacy. He curses himself for dumping Charisma, and decides to put a final end to this, hoping it will set things right.
He casts Summon Big Party Killing Rock IX on the party, killing his younger self.
This sparks a time paradox that ultimately ends the universe your campaign is set in, but it gets worse.
The Plot Hole survives the end of the universe, and then moves on to every other universe, trying to devour all life in the multiverse.
So, not only has the GM said that the rock falls and everyone dies, he also tells you that you were responsible for the party dying personally, and then blames you for the creation of Rovagug and the eventual destruction of the Universe.
What happens if I cast create pit on a rug, put a large-size creature/object in it, then roll up the rug into a tight cylinder and wait for the spell to end? Does it make a difference whether the spell area is "facing" inward or outward when I roll it up?A chain of events sparks the end of the universe.
First, the warped space-time continuum can no longer take the stress of converting the large creature from one dimension to the other. So instead, the creature ceases to exist.
That large-creature happens to be the BBEG, and thus a plot hole is created where the BBEG lies at the end of the campaign, slowly eating at the fabric of reality.
Then, when the PCs pursue the campaign to the end, the Wizard spontaneously invents the spell "Time Travel", and goes back in time to try and keep himself from creating the pit in the past.
When he gets there, he cannot reason with his younger self because he can't roll a high enough diplomacy. He curses himself for dumping Charisma, and decides to put a final end to this, hoping it will set things right.
He casts Summon Big Party Killing Rock IX on the party, killing his younger self.
This sparks a time paradox that ultimately ends the universe your campaign is set in, but it gets worse.
The Plot Hole survives the end of the universe, and then moves on to every other universe, trying to devour all life in the multiverse.
So, not only has the GM said that the rock falls and everyone dies, he also tells you that you were responsible for the party dying personally, and then blames you for the creation of Rovagug and the eventual destruction of the Universe.
You win the Pathfinder forums.
What happens if I cast create pit on a rug, put a large-size creature/object in it, then roll up the rug into a tight cylinder and wait for the spell to end? Does it make a difference whether the spell area is "facing" inward or outward when I roll it up?
Isn't there something like this, but it involves sealing the pit up with a wall of stone across the top. Theoretically squishing those inside.
If you can cast create pit on a rug, then move the rug out from under it, why then wouldn't the pit stay in place when cast on a ship's deck, and the ship moves out from under it? A GM's rulings should be consistent, whatever they are.
Oh it would, absolutely. (Maybe)
Haha. We don't know what anchors the EDS (extra dimensional space). It could be anything.
The entire surface to which it covers could anchor it. Or a random single point in the area it covers could anchor it instead. The EDS might anchor relative to planet wide-frame stationary. Or simply large object-frame stationary.
The EDS could move with the surface on which it was cast, or it may not. Maybe the surface under it simply cannot be moved, at all.
Some of these are hinted at; many other questions are left entirely unanswered.
Like I said, in my games the whole ship thing wouldn't even come up, so it is irrelevant. And in my ruling it would remain planet-frame stationary. And if by some weird chance it ever did happen to be cast on a ship... well... it'd be potentially disastrous.
Another interesting question... say you have a manhole to a sewer, and come up out of it being chased by a couple dozen wererats. You're in some serious trouble if they catch you, thinking fast, you close the manhole and cast Create Pit over the top of it and the surrounding street.
What happens when the wererats attempt to open the manhole?