| Crimeo |
Read the description for greater teleport. No range limit if on the same plane.
Teleportation doesn't make any sense to cast in the astral plane, because the whole point of teleportation is going through the astral plane as a shortcut. It would thus be undefined / meaningless there wouldn't imply anything about that plane.
| Milo v3 |
Where in RAW does it state that the Astral Plane has 5 dimensions? Where in RAW is "3D Slice" even defined and where is it stated that you can't get to another "3D Slice"?
Well it sort of has to have at least 5 dimensions: Length, Width, Depth, Time, and Plane.
| Crimeo |
Where in RAW does it state that you can't teleport in the Astral? The description of Teleport and Greater Teleport doesn't have any limits except that it can't be used for interplanar travel.
It describes teleportation spells as working via travel through the astral plane in the description of Conjuration school spells (same place it talks about conjuring things only on solid ground, etc.).
This just doesn't make sense in the astral plane itself. You're already IN the astral plane, traveling through it clearly wouldn't make you go any faster than normal, it becomes nonsensical int hat case.
Unless you argue that teleportation involves, as one of the steps "disappearing in the astral plane and then appearing elsewhere in the astral plane" in which case, A) That's like saying that humans are intelligent because we have tiny little intelligent people in our brains, and B) It still wouldn't prove that any point in the astral plane can be reached from any other point by non magical means. So you still can't conclude necessarily that Find the Path can trace a path for sure.
Also it'd be real hard for monsters who live on the Astral to get around without teleportation.
Yeah, that's, kind of my point.
| Crimeo |
Celanian wrote:Well it sort of has to have at least 5 dimensions: Length, Width, Depth, Time, and Plane.Where in RAW does it state that the Astral Plane has 5 dimensions? Where in RAW is "3D Slice" even defined and where is it stated that you can't get to another "3D Slice"?
Upon closer inspection, the astral plane is described as being "between" the inner and outer planes. So it implies it doesn't contain all other planes like I originally thought (except demiplanes, which it does), just touches them.
However, it would still have to be higher dimensional anyway, because there's no other way it could connect to all points in shadow, material, and ethereal, while those same points in shadow and ethereal ALSO connect to material.
There's just no way to arrange 3D blocks that that's possible. The astral would have to be higher dimensional to snake around and pull it off, even if it's just "in between"
The weirdest thing though is that if astral is between and not containing all planes, there still has to be some OTHER bigger space containing all of them. Why does that not have a name?
| Bob Bob Bob |
The Astral plane is explicitly coterminous but not coexistent with other planes. This is to allow "you can't teleport here because it's not connected to the Astral plane", presumably. You can always teleport on the Astral plane though, because it should have access to the Astral plane. Nothing about the Astral plane bans astral travel (which is what teleport requires), so teleport still works.
Find the Path works by locations, not people. And "the demiplane Bob" is a location, provided it's prominent enough. A better question is what "within the Astral or Ethereal Plane" means, as that's the language Create Demiplane uses. The part most of interest is that is says you can enter the demiplane using planar travel magic like Astral Projection, Etherealness, or Plane Shift. Astral Projection drops you on the Astral plane but then says you can go to "any plane connected to the Astral plane", Plane Shift explicitly travels to other planes, but the important one here is Etherealness. It just takes you to the Ethereal plane, nothing else. That means a demiplane made on the Ethereal plane can be reached by traveling to the Ethereal plane and nothing else. So yeah, apparently demiplanes are counted as part of the plane they're created on, otherwise Etherealness couldn't reach a demiplane. So you can totally cast Find the Path on the Astral plane and go to a private demiplane, provided you know the name and it's big enough (and it was made on the Astral plane).
Uh, it's pretty easy to model the planes. The Ethereal sits between the Material and Shadow planes, the Astral connects everything.
AAAAAAA
AMEsAAA A whole lot more Astral and the other planes
AAAAAAA
Like that, with the MEs (Material/Ethereal/Shadow) fixed and each point being translated to the identical point on the other two planes.
| Crimeo |
Uh, it's pretty easy to model the planes. The Ethereal sits between the Material and Shadow planes, the Astral connects everything.
AAAAAAA
AMEsAAA A whole lot more Astral and the other planes
AAAAAAA
No, this doesn't work. How do I move from the point on the left edge of the material plane in your picture to the corresponding point in the Ethereal plane? Those two points are not touching in your image, so it doesn't work as a model.
I.e. think of them as wooden blocks. Two faces of your E and M blocks are touching, but not every corresponding point throughout their entire volumes which is necessary by RAW.
The only way the material, ethereal, and shadow make sense as written is if they are situated within some 4-spatial-dimension realm (unnamed cosmic warehouse of planes). Because that is the minimum type of space where you can line up every corresponding point between different 3D spaces.
And as a side effect of that, it implies that the astral plane must then be 4-dimensional, in order to be able to wrap around and touch every part of all those things that themselves exist in a 4D space. If it were merely 3-dimensional, then it wouldn't fit in well enough--it would only be able to touch either all points in the shadow or all points in the material, not all three.
And a side effect of THAT is that your barbarian is no longer guaranteed normal travel around the astral plane, because not all of it can be reached with normal 3D movements. Nor would he be able to see a 4-dimensional found path marker with his 3D eyeballs.
| Bob Bob Bob |
Yes, I already said they needed to exist in at least 5 dimensions for the ones we understand. The standard 3 movement dimensions, time, and plane of existence. My complaint with your description was implying that the astral was 5 dimensional and none of the others were, when all of the others were as well.
The model works just fine. In case you missed it, the left side of the M is also the left side of the E is also the left side of the s. That's what the sentence about translating the points means. If you expect me to accurately model a 5 dimensional space with an ascii drawing and nothing else, I'm going to have to disappoint you.
Again, no, the 4th dimension is "what plane you're in". The astral plane is no different from any other plane in that regard. Let's try a different model. The Material plane is Earth. The Ethereal plane is Earth if the Nazis won WW2. The Shadow plane is Earth where the Nazis won WW2 and the Americans won the Vietnam War. The Astral plane is the Universe where V762 Cas has a planet. You'll notice that you can't reach Shadow without passing through Ethereal, traveling from one plane to the other would still land you in the same geographic location, and the Astral plane exists around all of them (in theory, since I don't actually know if V762 Cas has a planet or not). Look, the other planes aren't that much different from the Astral plane. Just smaller. And with gravity.
The barbarian can travel freely in 3 dimensions on the Astral plane. He can't travel to other planes (the 4th dimension) or through time (the 5th dimension). Neither can anyone else. Not unless they have a spell, special ability, or something else that grants that ability. It's not a property of the Astral plane. That three dimensions is enough to reach everything on the Astral plane because fourth dimension travel would mean going to other planes. Or traveling through time, neither of which would make any sense.
| Crimeo |
It needs to be at least 4 SPATIAL dimensions to geometrically work. It then also has time and whatever else on top of that. If it is less confusing to talk about, it needs to have [Material + 1] dimensions.
When you say "Yes I just can't draw the model that way, you have to imagine them overlapping" that is another way of saying "Yeah you need an extra spatial dimension for it to be possible."
An easy way to conceptualize it (and draw it) is to pretend that Earth is actually just one spatial dimension. As are ethereal and shadow. We can draw them all as lines existing in a higher dimensional space (the unnamed cosmic warehouse of planes, represented by this computer screen's 2 dimensions). Ok so our three inners look like this:
-------Material
-------Ethereal
-------Shadow
The proximity and parallel-ness represent touching along every point. Great! Now where does the astral plane go? It has to be parallel like the rest in order to have any chance of connecting at all points:
-------Material
-------Ethereal
-------Shadow
-------Astral
No that won't work, it only touches all of the points in the shadow plane. But it needs to touch all 3...
-------Astral
-------Material
-------Ethereal
-------Shadow
Nope, that won't work either. I can't put it in between any of them, it still wouldn't touch all the points, plus it would mean those two didn't actually directly touch either. Hmm.
|-----------------|
|
| -------Material |
| -------Ethereal |
| -------Shadow | Astral
|
|-----------------|
Now we added another dimension to the unnamed cosmic plane warehouse (depth into the page, space for planes is now 3D) and make the astral higher dimensional too (a 2D surface, material+1 with all the lines resting directly on that surface), NOW it all works! Astral touches every point of every other inner plane, while each inner plane touches every point of its connected inner plane, but not the M and S directly. Perfect.
Unfortunately in this analogy, our native material world is 1 spatial dimension, so barbarians can only travel in 1 spatial dimension, and are thus unable to trivially explore the entire 2 spatial dimension astral plane without magical spells that allow that, like plane shifting spells. Let's say the asterisk is our demiplane and B is the barbarian. Casting "Find the Path" makes a line show up:
[ASCII FAIL, see: image
But the barbarian only has 1 dimensional eyeballs, so he only sees a 1 dimensional cross-section of this line, and has no idea which direction it is going, nor can he move up/down on the diagram.
| Crimeo |
And if you want to explain teleportation, do this:
|------------------|
|
| /\/\/\/\Material |
| /\/\/\/\Ethereal |
| /\/\/\/\Shadows | Astral
|
|------------------|
Take all those inner planes and crinkle the s@#~ out of them. Note that they all crinkle in the same way, so they are all locally parallel still, allowing shadow walk at any point, etc. They are also all still touching the astral plane at any point.
BUT now, when we cast teleport, what it does is shift us to the corresponding astral point, then sideways (x dimension here), for example, a short distance, then back to the plane we started. This is taking a shortcut over the crinkled plane though, so we traveled only a short distance, but ended up far away on our starting plane.
The description in RAW pretty strongly implies it works something vaguely like this.
You could even postulate that a teleport spell makes custom-made crinkles ON DEMAND, so that the shortcut = the width of 2 atoms or something to travel 100 miles, while still working from any two points. Or whatever.
Note that if so, teleportation in the astral plane wouldn't make any sense, because even if you crinkle it, there's no smoother place to go to take the shortcut. Which is what I was suggesting earlier.
| Bob Bob Bob |
Right... except that's exactly my model, minus the note on translating (and you use lines instead of characters), and you said it doesn't work. You can't now claim that it works.
It doesn't matter what RAW implies. By the rules as actually written, otherwise known as RAW, teleportation works unless "Anything that blocks astral travel also blocks teleportation." Nothing about the Astral plane blocks astral travel. Therefore teleport works. If you want to change that you're welcome to but again, that's a houserule.
It doesn't even matter if the barbarian has "1 dimensional eyeballs". Find the Path still finds the demiplane and it can still be sundered, because that's what Find the Path does. If you somehow need to travel to "another 3D slice" then that's what Find the Path will do for you.
That being said, I have yet to hear why the Astral plane is supposed to be special in this regard. How about comparing the Astral plane to Hell? Why does the Astral plane need to have an extra dimension over Hell? Or the Abyss? Or the Negative Energy plane?
| Crimeo |
I do not see how that can be your same model. You just said:
The astral plane is no different from any other plane in that regard.
The astral plane is quite different from all the others in this model. It has a whole extra spatial dimension the others don't have... And in fact, this is both a necessary and the critical aspect of it. So unless you're agreeing with that, which you don't seem to be, then this is not the same model as yours. ? If you do agree with that, then yes it is. And that extra dimension is why the barbarian thing won't work.
Why does the Astral plane need to have an extra dimension over Hell?
Because the rules say that the astral plane has to touch every other plane, and plane transit spells have to work from any location, so it has to furthermore touch every point in every plane. Which is only geometrically possible if it has [material + 1] spatial dimensions. The rules do not say that Hell has to touch everywhere or anything like that, so it doesn't have to be higher dimensional.
By the rules as actually written, otherwise known as RAW, teleportation works
I disagree. The rules about how teleportation works are written in the conjuration school text. Teleportation the spell does not explicitly override them, so they still apply, and they logically contradict, IMO, the use of the spell on the astral plane. I'm happy to admit it's not crystal clear, but it is a RAW based interpretation, I didn't just pull it out of a hat. *shrug* It's not a critical point anyway.
If you somehow need to travel to "another 3D slice" then that's what Find the Path will do for you.
Find the path doesn't move you anywhere, it's a divination spell. It just tells you the direction that's shortest to the place. You still have to move there under your own power. In this case, the path is one you can't physically travel along, so you can't do that.
I was being flavorful in suggesting maybe it tries to show you a path anyway but you can't see it. But if you wish to interpret it as "It only shows you the shortest path you are actually capable of taking" then fine, if so the spell will just fizzle, because not only was the shortest path impossible, EVERY path is impossible for these N-1 dimensional adventurers.
| Celanian |
Celanian wrote:Where in RAW does it state that you can't teleport in the Astral? The description of Teleport and Greater Teleport doesn't have any limits except that it can't be used for interplanar travel.It describes teleportation spells as working via travel through the astral plane in the description of Conjuration school spells (same place it talks about conjuring things only on solid ground, etc.).
This just doesn't make sense in the astral plane itself. You're already IN the astral plane, traveling through it clearly wouldn't make you go any faster than normal, it becomes nonsensical int hat case.
Unless you argue that teleportation involves, as one of the steps "disappearing in the astral plane and then appearing elsewhere in the astral plane" in which case, A) That's like saying that humans are intelligent because we have tiny little intelligent people in our brains, and B) It still wouldn't prove that any point in the astral plane can be reached from any other point by non magical means. So you still can't conclude necessarily that Find the Path can trace a path for sure.
Quote:Also it'd be real hard for monsters who live on the Astral to get around without teleportation.Yeah, that's, kind of my point.
You're using fluff, not RAW. Where in RAW does it state that astral teleportation doesn't work?
Even if it doesn't, then you just use 2 planeshifts, 1 to the material plane and the 2nd to the location on the astral plane that you want to be.
| Crimeo |
I mean if you just go around saying any text you don't like is "fluff and thus not rules" then of course nothing is RAW at all...
I already agreed it's by no means crystal clear. But it is based in the text, even if an interpretation. It is not a critical point anyway.
Even if it doesn't, then you just use 2 planeshifts, 1 to the material plane and the 2nd to the location on the astral plane that you want to be.
Yes you can do that. And if you're an astral plane resident commuting to work then great. You know the exact destinations.
But in the case of the secret demiplane, you don't know the second location you want to go to in this case. At best, Find the Path told you a vector/direction it lies on, but that's not good enough. You need an EXACT distance as well. You can't even get close and look, since it slices across infinitely many 3D spaces. If you don't have THE distance, then you have literally 0% chance of guessing correctly. Because there are infinitely many points along any vector that are not exactly X, and you have no mundane way of perceiving your degree of error or moving to correct.
You can spend an eternity going
"Okay I plane shift twice and move 1 nanometer toward the direction Find the Path told me"
"Okay. You arrive in a vast empty 3D neutral sky."
"I Find the Path"
"It says it's back in the direction you came from in 4-space. You overshot it."
"Okay I plane shift twice and move 1 picometer back that way"
"You overshot it. You arrive in a vast empty 3D neutral sky"
The true demiplane is only even going to be visible at exactly 2.39874963976028793[and so on forever] nanometers from your current position, no more no less, and you don't know the number... only a vector it is on.
| Celanian |
Limited Magic: Planes with this trait permit only the use of spells and spell-like abilities that meet particular qualifications. Magic can be limited to effects from certain schools or subschools, effects with certain descriptors, or effects of a certain level (or any combination of these qualities). Spells and spell-like abilities that don't meet the qualifications simply don't work.
Astral Plane
The Astral Plane is the space between the Inner and Outer Planes, and coterminous with all of the planes. When a character moves through a portal or projects her spirit to a different plane of existence, she travels through the Astral Plane. Even spells that allow instantaneous movement across a plane briefly touch the Astral Plane. The Astral Plane is a great, endless expanse of clear silvery sky, both above and below. Occasional bits of solid matter can be found here, but most of the Astral Plane is an endless, open domain.
The Astral Plane has the following traits:
Subjective Directional Gravity
Timeless: Age, hunger, thirst, afflictions (such as diseases, curses, and poisons), and natural healing don't function in the Astral Plane, though they resume functioning when the traveler leaves the Astral Plane.
Mildly Neutral-Aligned
Enhanced Magic: All spells and spell-like abilities used within the Astral Plane may be employed as if they were improved by the Quicken Spell or Quicken Spell-Like Ability feats. Already quickened spells and spell-like abilities are unaffected, as are spells from magic items. Spells so quickened are still prepared and cast at their unmodified level. As with the Quicken Spell feat, only one quickened spell or spell-like ability can be cast per round.
The Astral Plane doesn't have Limited Magic as a planar trait, so by RAW, teleportation absolutely works.
| Crimeo |
Have you heard of triangulation? It's trivial to locate any point from 2 different vectors.
It's not when you need to have infinite precision along the 4th dimension to have any success. I don't care what the Find the Path tells you in terms of precision, your brain only has so many neurons, you cannot incorporate infinite precision no matter what.
And if you are off by any amount whatsoever, at any level of precision, then the demiplane will be completely out of vision and reach and you will arrive in an unending neutral, 3D, empty sky.
If you triangulate to coordinate 3.27182736453728289 (rounded) and the demiplane is at coordinate 3.271827364537282889... in that 4th dimension, then you arrive in an unending, neutral, 3D, empty sky.
The Astral Plane doesn't have Limited Magic as a planar trait, so by RAW, teleportation absolutely works.
not being limited magic does not mean that ALL spells just work regardless of their more specific rules text elsewhere.
But I will not get into specifics, because I don't care about this point, please agree to disagree. It has no bearing on the main topic, because teleport, even if it works, still has all the exact same issues as two plane shifts.
| Crimeo |
1) The world is not physically divided into discrete 5 foot sections. There are tons of spells that refer to inches etc. and absolute volumes you can distribute any shape you like. Backpacks hold 2 cubic feet. Tiny creatures even officially take up 2.5 feet only. Etc. Furthermore, other grids are used at other times. When overland traveling, you use a hex by RAW. Squares can't even geometrically fit into a hex, so unless you're suggesting the fabric of the universe literally warps whenever adventures start overland traveling, this is explicitly a convenience, not a comment on physics. There's not even any guarantee that when you revisit a place, the grid will be aligned the same.
2) Regardless, even if we set that aside, 5 foot distance is only mentioned 2 dimensionally anyway. Cite the rule that interplanar dimensional travel is divided into 5 foot increments. I'm 90% sure it never even mentions 5 foot gridded increments in HEIGHT in the material plane.
If necessary, you gate/planar bind/simulacra an axiomite to help with the triangulations.
INFINITE precision, not "really good precision." There exists no machine that can achieve infinite precision. There exists no number of simulacra that can search all the possibilities. The likelihood of success of these ventures is mathematically 0%. Not rounded down, actually 0%.
| Bob Bob Bob |
You can fiat away problems. You can houserule away problems. Nobody cares. Just stop trying to say that you're using the rules when you've also already said you're using your interpretation of the rules. Clearly it's different from other people's interpretation or they wouldn't be arguing over it.
You asked us to poke holes in your concept. We've poked away. It's fairly well in tatters now. To the best of my understanding, it only works if communities are too small to find with Find the Path. Or if you houserule in extradimensional geography to the Astral plane, but then you also need to fiat away the native creature's ability to navigate it. Otherwise the Barbarian hops in the mouth of a simulacrumed Astral whale and lets it take them to where they need to smash. Oh, and the communities presumably can never meet up, because any meeting place would probably count as prominent enough for Find the Path.
| Crimeo |
Is it your house rule that it takes infinite precision, or do you have a RAW cite?
Neither, it's just how math works. There are infinitely many points on a number line between any two points. Thus the probability of finding one point with any finite precision = 1/infinity = 0%
Math is not a "house rule"? Where in the CRB does it define how to do addition to add your modifiers? Where does it tell you how to calculate cubic feet for stone shape? Nowhere. The game obviously just assumes math.
Or if you houserule in extradimensional geography to the Astral plane
Not a house rule. Geometrically required in order to meet all of the requirements stated in RAW. Unless you can present to me any model that meets all of the RAW requirements for planar geometries that does not involve this. So far, I haven't seen any. Such a model would have to account for:
* Every 3D point of the material plane touching every corresponding point on the ethereal plane
* Same for the ethereal and shadow.
* Astral has to also touch every point in every plane, without violating the two above requirements.
* Astral has to only be between the other planes and not containing them (it does contain demiplanes but not the other full planes)
fiat away the native creature's ability to navigate it.
This is not fiat. The astral whale simply lists no special movement or sensory abilities different from any other normal material plane creature. Where is this ability that I am "taking away"?
Either BOTH whale and hawk can move in all dimensions, or NEITHER can. And we have ample RAW evidence that material creatures cannot move in the 4th dimension. If they could, then you would not need spells to go to the ethereal or shadow plane at any time, you could just float/fly there at will, or to any other plane with open space available, like to the plane of air from the material sky.
Thus, since material creatures cannot, neither can the astral whale who only has the same perception and movement skills as they do.
if communities are too small to find with Find the Path.
And this is a redundant reason it doesn't work, if people simply make sure to use many small demiplanes. The argument that "9th level spell-related locations are significant" is very weak in a world and society where there would probably be literally hundreds of permanent 9th level spell effects per every living person in the universe. People in such a world would not assign any more importance or significance to such a resource than they would a hunting lodge in normal Golarion.
In fact, probably less importance, since Golarians don't own dozens or hundreds of hunting lodges each.
| Celanian |
Neither, it's just how math works. There are infinitely many points on a number line between any two points. Thus the probability of finding one point with any finite precision = 1/infinity = 0%
By your "logic", nobody could ever find anything anywhere since there is an infinite number of points between any 2 locations. I could never find my computer desk since even though it's about a foot away from me, there are still an infinite number of points in that 1 foot line. I could never find my car in a parking lot since there are an infinite number of points in the line down the parking row.
Perhaps you should google "Zeno's Paradox" to see where you're going wrong with your reasoning. And perhaps you should actually learn some math before lecturing others about math.
Incidentally the Astral Leviathan is proof positive that teleport effects work in the Astral Plane. It has Dimension Door as a SLA 3 times a day. If teleport effects didn't work on the Astral, it could never use that SLA.
BTW, if a logging camp is prominent enough to be found with a Find the Path, it'd be pretty strange if a permanent 9th level spell effect that costs a minimum of 22.5K gold isn't prominent enough to be found.
| Crimeo |
By your "logic", nobody could ever find anything anywhere since there is an infinite number of points between any 2 locations.
This has nothing to do with Zeno's paradox. Zeno's paradox is about approaching something and never getting there. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that there are no subatomic forces or means of information transit that allow you to affect across a 4th dimension. You can approach it and pass by it just fine. But passing by or near it is not good enough, you need to STOP on it, because the transit spells can only land you at a single geometric point on the 4th dimension. THAT's the problem.
This is not a problem on Earth for interacting with desks. On Earth, my eyeball doesn't have to be AT my desk, because light. And it's fine if the light wave from my desk doesn't hit the dead center of my photoreceptor, because due to how wave energy works, perfect precision is unnecessary, it affects things beyond single geometric point overlaps.
My hands in the meantime can interact with the atoms of the desk because the electromagnetic force applies over 3 dimensions and bridges the gap between atoms as well.
But in this astral plane, there is no reason to assume that any of those things work across the 4th dimension. Nothing in the rules say they do, and in the absence of rules, we should generally assume normal physics.
And on normal earth, do we see any light originating from other 3D realities? No, so light doesn't seem to be able to travel across any existing 4th dimension as far as we know. Thus, you can't see anything that way unless otherwise specified.
Do your hands tend to just stop in mid air and hit invisible things? No, so the electromagnetic force doesn't seem to apply across any 4th dimension unless otherwise specified.
And it isn't otherwise specified, so you can't. Or at the very least, saying that you can't is no more right or wrong than saying that you can.
And perhaps you should actually learn some math before lecturing others about math.
Yeah, especially since I'm a postdoctoral researcher in a math department, and I teach university math classes for a living, I do hope nobody finds out my dark secret that I don't know any!
| Celanian |
This has nothing to do with Zeno's paradox. Zeno's paradox is about approaching something and never getting there. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that there are no subatomic forces or means of information transit that allow you to affect across a 4th dimension. You can approach it and pass by it just fine. But passing by or near it is not good enough, you need to STOP on it, because the transit spells can only land you at a single geometric point on the 4th dimension. THAT's the problem.
Zeno had a bunch of paradoxes, not just the movement one.
That's where you're getting the big 404 error. You don't have to land EXACTLY on the point to find the demiplane. You just have to be close enough. You can always triangulate from a closer distance until you get to the same 5' square that the create demiplane spell was cast and then you wipe it out with the barbarian.
This is not a problem on Earth for interacting with desks. On Earth, my eyeball doesn't have to be AT my desk, because light. And it's fine if the light wave from my desk doesn't hit the dead center of my photoreceptor, because due to how wave energy works, perfect precision is unnecessary, it affects things beyond single geometric point overlaps.My hands in the meantime can interact with the atoms of the desk because the electromagnetic force applies over 3 dimensions and bridges the gap between atoms as well.
But in this astral plane, there is no reason to assume that any of those things work across the 4th dimension. Nothing in the rules say they do, and in the absence of rules, we should generally assume normal physics.
Light and motion work exactly the same on the Astral plane as the material. That is because it's explicitly specified that the inhabitants have sight and a move speed.
Besides, if we move everything to the Astral Plane, your argument is that 2 members of an Adventuring Group could never find each other even though they stand 5' apart due to infinite points in that 5' line.
Yeah, especially since I'm a postdoctoral researcher in a math department, and I teach university math classes for a living, I do hope nobody finds out my dark secret that I don't know any!
Honestly speaking, you're not showing any math skills with your posts in this thread. Stating that you can never actually find anything because of infinite points between 2 locations is just bizarre.
| Crimeo |
You don't have to land EXACTLY on the point to find the demiplane.
Close enough yes... in dimensions 1, 2, and 3 (within a sword's swing, easy). But exact on dimension 4, since swords cannot swing through the fourth dimension. Your reach is exactly 0 distance in that dimension (confirmed by RAW in that a vanilla barbarian cannot just swing a sword and hit things in the ethereal or shadow planes whenever he wants), so you cannot fudge it, you can't just "get close" along that axis. You must be exact. The other 3 axes you don't have to be exact.
Light and motion work exactly the same on the Astral plane as the material. That is because it's explicitly specified that the inhabitants have sight and a move speed.
Oh I agree. Light works exactly the same, i.e. in 3 dimensions. And its inhabitants see and move exactly the same as material ones, i.e. in 3 dimensions.
Besides, if we move everything to the Astral Plane, your argument is that 2 members of an Adventuring Group could never find each other even though they stand 5' apart due to infinite points in that 5' line.
No you can see each other quite plainly 5 feet apart IF the vector between you is orthogonal to the 4th dimension. I.e. if you are in the same 3D cross section as one another. Which you would be, if, say, you just plane shifted there with that friend.
In other words, in any one cross section across the fourth dimension, the world will appear and act precisely as if it were the 3-dimensional plane of air more or less, from the perspective of a creature.
You cannot, however, see another creature 5 feet away if they are 5 feet away across the 4th dimension.
This does not interfere with societies existing in the astral plane, because due to the fact that you can't move across its fourth dimension, you need have no concerns about accidentally blinking out of sight or anything like that. You are anchored in that one 3D cross section with everybody else in it, and can form friendships and live in a town together and do whatever you like there without issue.
Stating that you can never actually find anything because of infinite points between 2 locations is just bizarre.
Of course higher dimensional geometry is bizarre to us, it's not native to our 3D brains.
That doesn't make it wrong or illogical. If your senses and motor abilities work only across 3 dimensions, then every other 3D cross section must be completely inaccessible and cut off from your awareness without magical plane shifting type means of transit. Even if it's technically a millimeter away in the 4th dimension.
| Milo v3 |
Thing is, we exist in only 4 dimensions. So where the destination is on the 5th dimension is irrelevant, since it is still on the same location for those 4 dimensions we experience.
| Crimeo |
So where the destination is on the 5th dimension is irrelevant, since it is still on the same location for those 4 dimensions we experience.
It's irrelevant to the astral whale who just wants to go about his business eating space dust or whatever.
It's NOT an irrelevant fact to the barbarian who wishes to spell sunder a very specific demiplane that is not on the same coordinate on the 5th dimension as the one that he is on and experiencing (exclusively).
Or do you mean he can reach it because the other 3 coordinates match? If so, imagine that on earth there is a pile of gold exactly in front of you (same left/right coordinate, same up/down coordinate), but there is an impenetrable force field in between you and it in the front/back dimension. Sure, it matches in the other 2! Doesn't help you grab any gold.
| Milo v3 |
I'd say the issue with spell sundering a demiplane is the fact that the demiplane is on a different plane of existence to the astral. Since it's a different plane of existance....
| Crimeo |
I'd say the issue with spell sundering a demiplane is the fact that the demiplane is on a different plane of existence to the astral. Since it's a different plane of existance....
Oh this would be the case, except that the text of the "create demiplane" spell series specifically says that they exist within the astral or ethereal planes.
| Milo v3 |
Actually, re-reading the spell the issue is "The plane cannot be dispelled, but a creature on the plane can destroy it by using limited wish, mage's disjunction, miracle, or wish and making a successful dispel check."
| Crimeo |
Actually, re-reading the spell the issue is "The plane cannot be dispelled, but a creature on the plane can destroy it by using limited wish, mage's disjunction, miracle, or wish and making a successful dispel check."
Awesome. The text of spell sunder says "If she exceeds the CMD by 10 or more, the effect is dispelled" specifically.
So bam, slam dunk, good sir.
It's okay, all this made me think a lot and come to very fascinating conclusions about planar astrophysics.
| Celanian |
Even assuming we go by your house rules about 3D slices of a 4th dimension (which is not mentioned ANYWHERE in RAW), that would mean that it would be flat out impossible for any astral encounters to ever occur.
You couldn't hunt down an Astral Whale since there's a 0% chance of hitting the exact infinitesimal. Pharasma would never have to worry about Astradaemons ever grabbing a soul before judgement since they would have a 0% chance of finding anything on the Astral. She can just retire all Psychopomps since they literally wouldn't have a job. Not that they would be able to interact with astral denizens anyway since no denizens could be found.
Since it is in fact canon that Astral travelers can encounter each other as well as local denizens even when arriving on the Astral on different points, I think I can safely say that the theory of infinitesimal 3D slices is flat out wrong.
| Celanian |
Spell Sundering isn't dispelling. Plus you can nuke all the denizens of the demiplane by suppressing the effect and dumping them in the astral plane.
Plus while it's harder, you can just use Gate or Astral projection to enter the demiplane and wipe it out from the inside. It's only planeshift that requires a specific attunement.
| Crimeo |
Again, that's not a house rule. It doesn't have to explicitly say it in RAW, if the things it does say logically require it to be true. As long as that's the case, no other possibility exists, so it's the case in everybody's game by default.
You couldn't hunt down an Astral Whale since there's a 0% chance of hitting the exact infinitesimal.
Sure you can, you just have to have some reason why you and it ended up in the same cross section together. There are a LOT of possible reasons for this.
One major possibility is that since the astral plane is flush against the material plane, and all points touch along them, that all of those touching points are in fact in a SINGLE 3d slice of the astral plane, and that one slice would therefore naturally be the destination of any plane shift spells from the material plane unless otherwise specified.
So one might expect like 99% of the life in the astral plane to be in that one single cross section, because it all originally got there by default plane shifts, was stuck there, and has since evolved. And now you end up there by default too when you plane shift without saying otherwise.
In other words, if we go back to our diagram remember the -----Material thing, notice that the line in the astral plane that touches that material plane is perfectly horizontal i.e. a single cross sectional coherent slice.
It would slightly change the teleporting theory, but that can be dealt with, I just don't want to draw more ASCII.
ANOTHER possibility is that there is some sort of beacon in one or more cross sections of the astral plane that effectively broadcast their location willingly, which you can then lock onto to travel exactly to that one.
ANOTHER possibility is that each cross section has a resonance that can help pull you in, if you have some means of resonating, such as maybe a bit of matter that is native to that section. So creatures could return to a place once it had been visited, if somebody gives them a bit of astral dirt from that location. This is similar to the "tuning fork" concept implied by the plane shift components.
Personally I like the "default 99% of people live in one slice" one.
| Milo v3 |
Spell Sundering isn't dispelling.
This is incorrect. The ability specifically uses the word dispelled.
| Crimeo |
Spell Sundering isn't dispelling. Plus you can nuke all the denizens of the demiplane by suppressing the effect and dumping them in the astral plane.
Plus while it's harder, you can just use Gate or Astral projection to enter the demiplane and wipe it out from the inside. It's only planeshift that requires a specific attunement.
yes spell sundering is dispelling. It specifically says that the barbarian "dispells" the spell in the text, read it again, last sentence.
Suppressing isn't a big deal, even if you could (which I don't think you can as per the last 2 pages, you can't swing your sword and hit it). But if you could, yes, it would dump them... so what? They just float around until it stops being suppressed, then they're back again...
| Celanian |
Again, that's not a house rule. It doesn't have to explicitly say it in RAW, if the things it does say logically require it to be true. As long as that's the case, no other possibility exists, so it's the case in everybody's game by default.
If each of the 3D slices were completely separate with no normal interaction between them, they would be considered different Layers just like the 9 Hells. Since separate Layers of the Astral Plane aren't mentioned anywhere, this would have to be considered a house rule.
Logically the Astral Plane can be treated as one very large plane just like the material plane.
Your assertion that the astral plane must have infinite layers is not proven and is not supported anywhere in RAW.
| Crimeo |
Your assertion that the astral plane must have infinite layers is not proven and is not supported anywhere in RAW.
It's proven by the proof I gave, unless you care to give even a single counterexample of any other model that is possible, or otherwise establish what is wrong with the proof.
Logically the Astral Plane can be treated as one very large plane just like the material plane.
Yes, one very large plane, which 3D creatures cannot move freely within.
If each of the 3D slices were completely separate with no normal interaction between them, they would be considered different Layers just like the 9 Hells.
The 9 layers of hell are culturally relevant. An infinite series of mostly completely empty cross sections of astral plane are not culturally relevant. And thus not worth the same page space.
Also, I don't even think the layers of hell ARE completely cut off. There's a whole river that runs through them. So I don't even think it's the same concept in the first place.
Not that it matters anyway. The authors don't have to have ever even thought of it, much less written about it, for it to still be logically necessary from their written rules nonetheless.
| Milo v3 |
Suppressing is a big deal since the inhabitants get dumped into the astral plane where they can get massacred.
Suppressing is not dispelling.
Technically, the plane isn't be destroyed, just suppressed, so shouldn't everything the plane be suppressed, since the condition that ejects people hasn't been met.
Still, I don't think the astral plane is 6 dimensional. It's got length, width, depth, time (sorta), plane. Astral Teleportation means you go from the astral plane to another part of the astral plane. There is no reason for there to be an additional dimension.
| Crimeo |
No proof was ever given. Just assertions.
Call it whatever you like, but it's the ONLY and therefore BEST model that fits all the RAW written rules. Until you have something to replace it with, it doesn't really matter how much you complain, you're not offering any other solution, so you're not being productive.
You only have three choices:
1) Don't play the game or never do planar travel where this matters and requires any adjudication (including this thread). or
2) Use my model. or
3) Give another model that works.
A model that explains everything would be one massive contiguous Astral Plane where every point connects to every point of every other connected plane. Sorta how hyperspace works in a lot of science fiction.
Um.... the whole point of hyperspace in most sci fi stories is usually precisely that it is higher dimensional than the material plane. So that WOULD be pretty much my model.
And just like in pathfinder, in those science fiction novels, humans cannot just walk into hyperspace of their own accord. They need "magic" (hyperdrives) to move along that dimension.
| Crimeo |
Still, I don't think the astral plane is 6 dimensional. It's got length, width, depth, time (sorta), plane
I'm not sure why you keep referring to "plane" as a dimension. The astral plane does not contain the other planes (only demiplanes). It is described as "between" them. It is just one thing by itself, that is touching/next to other ones. It is not an index or rolodex plane or whatever.
Otherwise the reason for it needing an extra spatial dimension is purely geometric -- there is no arrangement otherwise that works physically.
| Celanian |
Celanian wrote:Suppressing is a big deal since the inhabitants get dumped into the astral plane where they can get massacred.
Suppressing is not dispelling.
Technically, the plane isn't be destroyed, just suppressed, so shouldn't everything the plane be suppressed, since the condition that ejects people hasn't been met.
Still, I don't think the astral plane is 6 dimensional. It's got length, width, depth, time (sorta), plane. Astral Teleportation means you go from the astral plane to another part of the astral plane. There is no reason for there to be an additional dimension.
What would happen if rope trick or magnificent mansion was suppressed?
| Celanian |
Quote:No proof was ever given. Just assertions.Call it whatever you like, but it's the ONLY and therefore BEST model that fits all the RAW written rules. Until you have something to replace it with, it doesn't really matter how much you complain, you're not offering any other solution, so you're not being productive.
You only have three choices:
1) Don't play the game or never do planar travel where this matters and requires any adjudication (including this thread). or
2) Use my model. or
3) Give another model that works.
Quote:A model that explains everything would be one massive contiguous Astral Plane where every point connects to every point of every other connected plane. Sorta how hyperspace works in a lot of science fiction.Um.... the whole point of hyperspace in most sci fi stories is usually precisely that it is higher dimensional than the material plane. So that WOULD be pretty much my model.
And just like in pathfinder, in those science fiction novels, humans cannot just walk into hyperspace of their own accord. They need "magic" (hyperdrives) to move along that dimension.
Asserting something over and over again isn't proof. Please provide some actual proof and not just assertions.
This form of hyperspace is conducive to life and doesn't need magic to be able to move. As proven by the move speeds of native life. Just like in some science fiction, their form of hyperspace has native life that can travel and survive.