Got a new one for you all. I have a DM who thinks that when using the Levitate spell, one can't do a physical push on the target to move it forwards/backwards/side-to-side. I told him that where the spell specifically says "You cannot move the recipient horizontally" means that the caster can't, but another force, like someone pushing or the wind could push the target. He refused to accept that. So here I am again asking the Paizo community to rectify this.
Got a new one for you all. I have a DM who thinks that when using the Levitate spell, one can't do a physical push on the target to move it forwards/backwards/side-to-side. I told him that where the spell specifically says "You cannot move the recipient horizontally" means that the caster can't, but another force, like someone pushing or the wind could push the target. He refused to accept that. So here I am again asking the Paizo community to rectify this.
You are correct. Your DM is not.
Levitate allows you to move yourself, another creature, or an object up and down as you wish. A creature must be willing to be levitated, and an object must be unattended or possessed by a willing creature. You can mentally direct the recipient to move up or down as much as 20 feet each round; doing so is a move action. You cannot move the recipient horizontally, but the recipient could clamber along the face of a cliff, for example, or push against a ceiling to move laterally (generally at half its base land speed).
The spell can not move a person horizontally, buy anything else can. Including the recipient pushing himself along, or someone else doing so.
Also, it says "You can not move the recipient horizontally,". It doesn't say anything about someone else doing so.
Aye, I know I'm correct. The circumstances are this. We have a ship that has been enchanted with a permanent levitation ability. I told him, yes, the spell can only move it up and down, but any other force can move it forwards/backwards/side-to-side, like the wind or some such. He kept saying the text "You cannot move the target foward" as if it was literally stuck in position. I said to him, "so if you levitated the ship, you actually think that hurricane force winds would have no effect on it huh?" Which of course he thinks it wouldn't. Basically, the ship is a folding boat, and we were trying to go silently by a sleeping dragon, so we came up with the idea of using the ship(in dinghy form) to silently glide by levitating it, and my character(that can fly) to push it. That's where the argument came up.
Yea. I wouldn't normally say this, but your DM is totally wrong.
Hostile levitation suddenly just got more interesting.
Well, more to the point, where does he draw the line on levitate keeping you from moving? Clearly you can move your arms as you can attack. Clearly you can jostle and bob as subsequent attacks cause you increasing attack penalties from exactly that. Also clearly you can move yourself horizontally by pulling yourself along walls or whatnot (also stated in the spell). Is he basically saying that the levitatee can move freely on their own accord (at least given something to push off of?) but that others can't move the levitatee? Or is his point something else entirely?
I'd love to drag physics into this, but I normally am horribly against dragging physics into Pathfinder magic, and it's not a good policy to do something like that when it's only to your benefit. :)
He says that the line "You can't move the target except by pushing along a wall" meaning one can't move the object unless they have something to push against. That's when I said to him "so you're saying you can levitate something, and even hurricane force winds couldn't move it because it's not pushing against something else?" I told him it doesn't make any sense. But he refused to budge, so eh, guess I'll just use it myself to break the system. My character is a warlock with flight. Guess that means nothing(except myself) can move me once I'm in the air, including something doing a bull rush type of action in the air. I guess if we go into extremes with physics, if the object is really stuck there, the natural rotation and orbit of the planet around the sun would make the object fly super fast away since it is, ya know, stuck in position unless of course the caster of levitate wills it up and down.
He says that the line "You can't move the target except by pushing along a wall" meaning one can't move the object unless they have something to push against. That's when I said to him "so you're saying you can levitate something, and even hurricane force winds couldn't move it because it's not pushing against something else?" I told him it doesn't make any sense. But he refused to budge, so eh, guess I'll just use it myself to break the system. My character is a warlock with flight. Guess that means nothing(except myself) can move me once I'm in the air, including something doing a bull rush type of action in the air. I guess if we go into extremes with physics, if the object is really stuck there, the natural rotation and orbit of the planet around the sun would make the object fly super fast away since it is, ya know, stuck in position unless of course the caster of levitate wills it up and down.Well, more to the point, where does he draw the line on levitate keeping you from moving? Clearly you can move your arms as you can attack. Clearly you can jostle and bob as subsequent attacks cause you increasing attack penalties from exactly that. Also clearly you can move yourself horizontally by pulling yourself along walls or whatnot (also stated in the spell). Is he basically saying that the levitatee can move freely on their own accord (at least given something to push off of?) but that others can't move the levitatee? Or is his point something else entirely?
I'd love to drag physics into this, but I normally am horribly against dragging physics into Pathfinder magic, and it's not a good policy to do something like that when it's only to your benefit. :)
lol, even worse, not just the rotation/orbit of the planet, the orbit/rotation of the solar system, the orbit/rotation of the galaxy. The moment one would cast levitate, their speed of thought wouldn't be fast enough to send the synapse to tell the target to move for they'd speed away so fast off the planet, out of the solar system, out of the galaxy before they'd even be able to make the decision hahahaha.
Honestly, it sounds like the DM got stuck on not allowing the admittedly inventive, but perhaps encounter breaking, idea of floating silently by the dragon on air.
He perhaps should have said "It simply doesn't work, move on", or perhaps he needed to realize that it doesn't matter how you float by, you wouldn't be perfectly silent doing so. On the other hand, if it was your character trying to push the folding boat, with everyone on it, he's perfectly justified in saying you can't push it, since you probably don't have the strength to do so - the boat isn't weightless, just levitated.
Regardless, the best approach now is not confrontation and abuse, but just "Hey, I get that levitate just wasn't going to work - was this one time or if not can you tell me how you want the spell to work in the future?"