Ultimate Equipment already gave us the Sphere of Annihilation...
Slot none; Aura strong transmutation; CL 20th; Weight —
DESCRIPTION
A sphere of annihilation is a globe of absolute blackness 2 feet in diameter. Any matter that comes in contact with a sphere is instantly sucked into the void and utterly destroyed. Only the direct intervention of a deity can restore an annihilated character.
A sphere of annihilation is static, resting in some spot as if it were a normal hole. It can be caused to move, however, by mental effort (think of this as a mundane form of telekinesis, too weak to move actual objects but a force to which the sphere, being weightless, is sensitive). A character’s ability to gain control of a sphere of annihilation (or to keep controlling one) is based on the result of a control check against DC 30 (a move action). A control check is 1d20 + character level + character Intelligence modifier. If the check succeeds, the character can move the sphere (perhaps to bring it into contact with an enemy) as a free action.
Control of a sphere can be established from as far away as 40 feet (the character need not approach too closely). Once control is established, it must be maintained by continuing to make control checks (all DC 30) each round. For as long as a character maintains control (does not fail a check) in subsequent rounds, he can control the sphere from a distance of 40 feet + 10 feet per character level. The sphere’s speed in a round is 10 feet + 5 feet for every 5 points by which the character’s control check result in that round exceeded 30.
If a control check fails, the sphere slides 10 feet in the direction of the character attempting to move it. If two or more creatures vie for control of a sphere of annihilation, the rolls are opposed. If none are successful, the sphere slips toward the one who rolled lowest.
See also talisman of the sphere.
DESTRUCTION
Should a gate spell be cast upon a sphere of annihilation, there is a 50% chance (01—50 on d%) that the spell destroys it, a 35% chance (51—85) that the spell does nothing, and a 15% chance (86—100) that a gap is torn in the spatial fabric, catapulting everything within a 180-foot radius into another plane. If a rod of cancellation touches a sphere of annihilation, they negate each other in a tremendous explosion. Everything within a 60-foot radius takes 2d6x10 points of damage. Dispel magic and mage’s disjunction have no effect on a sphere.
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TLDR:you are a 20th level wizzard and have to discover what the f@+! is a black hole and were to find one
Here's a little insider secret from the world of physics: The very existence of black holes has never been proven; they are merely hypothetical objects so far.
Black Holes, Dark Matter, and similar things have their origin in observational data not matching the calculations of our models: scientists hypothesize about something, that would explain the gap between prediction and data. Sometimes these gaps are errors in calculating things, sometimes the models are off ("wrong"), and sometimes such hypothetical objects actually exist.
This is a completely normal way of doing scientific research.
Example 1: When Mendeleyev introduced the model of the periodic table of elements, there were gaps, and these gaps were filled with the prediction of as yet undiscovered (un-isolated) elements with specific properties; these predictions have proven true and the table of elements was filled over time as these elements were discovered.
Example 2: When astronomers debated over which model was true in the 17th century (geocentric/heliocentric/geo-heliocentric models by Ptolemy/Copernicus/de Brahe), all these models featured little additions to explain the gaps between prediction and observation - the Epicycles of Copernicus the most famous. Later Kepler proved all of these 3 models to be wrong, as orbits were elliptical instead of circles. Epicycles never existed.
However, the fine details of hypothetical object and proven reality become increasingly blurry in "popular science", and we are to suffer for it. Long story short: sometimes these predicted things do not exist at all - as seems to be the case with "Dark Matter".
And Black Holes are one such matter, where most of the world seems to have forgotten that fact.
Personally, I do not believe that Black Holes exist.
Concerning Pathfinder: I do not believe they exist in the Pathfinder universe either, as the Gods would have surely tossed Rovagug into one instead of sealing it inside Golarion.
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Black holes are an established part of Golarion/Pathfinder lore. Just as stars serve as portals to the positive energy plane, blackholes are portals to the negative.
But just how does knowledge of this allow one to destroy planes?
Black holes are an established part of Golarion/Pathfinder lore. Just as stars serve as portals to the positive energy plane, blackholes are portals to the negative.
Is that in Starfinder?
However, if these blackholes are gateways to the negative energy plane, then they aren't Black Holes in the sense of weapons of mass destruction.
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Starfinder runs further with it, but this is from Iron Gods, People of the Stars, Dominion of the Black etc lore. Pathfinderwiki can steal years of your life if you start reading.
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Okay, assuming black holes actually exist and aren't just inconsistencies in data, what makes you think that a God/deity would suffer near death injuries being near a black?
And why would they teleport out hundreds/thousands of years later?
None of this makes sense to me. Not even for a 20th level Wizard.
If you 20th level spell'ed a black hole into some deity's plane of existence, they would just kick it like a soccer ball back towards you, and tell your lame 20th level Wizard @$$ to politely go F yourself.
You had to use a Wish to to get your little toy in the first place... and who grants wishes? Gods.
Ain't never scared of your stupid gravity ball, bro.
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Okay, so first: how serious is this? Because referencing the painter wizard as support for your argument/plan implies that it's not serious at all, as the painter wizard concept is very silly. It's a flaw in the game design and something that no one is actually out there doing (or else Pathfinder's setting would just be Pathfinder: All Is Paint"). But then at other times it seems like this is meant to be very serious.
Second, using real-world physics as ways to "break the game" just falls into the realm of GM fiat. You aren't going to be able to find a way to reliably pull this sort of thing off. The painter wizard and Pun-Pun rely on strict RAW and the technicalities and loopholes it contains, not teleporting your enemies into quezars or polymorphing the atmosphere into banana pudding. There just aren't any rules for that stuff.
Third, if black holes exist (and who knows? Maybe they don't), they don't destroy stars in seconds. I mean, look at the super massive black holes that are theorized to exist at the center of each galaxy. Those mammajammas would be hundreds of light-years across, and...well. We're all still here. Been here for a while, too. And we'll probably be here for a while longer.
And fourth, check out the Neutronium Golem. He's essentially a black hole with fists.
Not a very well-designed monster; some of his abilities require you to be beyond crazy-powerful to survive (like Str700, I believe), but the others, while they seem scary, don't even appear on radar once you've managed to endure the "really scary ones" (like having fasting healing and DR 1,500 in on something with...I think 1.5mil hp? Who cares?).
I would really like to know how they calculated the hp of the "average planet", though.
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So assuming that all of this would work, how are you going to get the blackhole on target?
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Yeah, is your spell creating a black hole on command? Or are you somehow moving one to a designated target?
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TLDR:you are a 20th level wizzard and have to discover what the f@+! is a black hole and were to find onePersonally, I do not believe that Black Holes exist.
Slight derail...then what do you think "black holes" are?
I always was under the impression that they were just super dense points of matter where the gravitational force overcame the umm small or weak nuclear force or both or whatever. I science person! :) Xo you believe something different than that?
Anyways, just curious. Thanks. :)
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TLDR:you are a 20th level wizzard and have to discover what the f@+! is a black hole and were to find onePersonally, I do not believe that Black Holes exist.Slight derail...then what do you think "black holes" are?
I always was under the impression that they were just super dense points of matter where the gravitational force overcame the umm small or weak nuclear force or both or whatever. I science person! :) Xo you believe something different than that?
Anyways, just curious. Thanks. :)
I am also curious, but figured I would just let it slide. Lol.
I have never found the theoretical existence of black holes to be unbelievable, personally. The little bit I think I know about gravity can logically see mass building up in one location to the point that its gravity starts feeding it other nearby masses.
Makes as much sense as most other things on the outskirts of my limited understanding of physics/science.
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It sounds like an attack with an improvised weapon, so 1d4+str.
The in game effect of real world forces is always substantially less than you'd expect. Any object falling from any height takes and deals only 20d6 damage, so gravity clearly has a cutoff in Golarion. On gravity heavy planes the cut off is 20d10, but there's still a cutoff.
Knowing that there's a low cut off on the force of gravity at about double earth gravity, we also know that a blackhole can't form.
I would expect an in game black hole to behave more like a cartoon concept of a black hole than the real world phenomena.
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Slight derail...then what do you think "black holes" are?
I always was under the impression that they were just super dense points of matter where the gravitational force overcame the umm small or weak nuclear force or both or whatever. I science person! :) Xo you believe something different than that?
Anyways, just curious. Thanks. :)
The question "what they are" makes an assumption that there really is something there to begin with.
As of now, all we have are gaps between observation and models, e.g.: We don't know whether there really is something huge in the center of the Milky Way (or other galaxies), all we know is that the observable stars move/behave different than our models predict.
That's why I gave the examples with the Epicycles (and the Dark Matter): Epicycles were a concept introduced to fit the data to the model. In the end it might just be that our models (or some calculations) are off ("wrong").
Even in the old Newtonian physics -- before our understanding of Gravity as geometry of space-time -- there was the concept of a "Black Hole", back then called a Dark Star. It's basically the same idea, with gravity being too strong for light to escape (Newtonian physics did not include whether light was affected by gravity or not).
Since the matter whether they exist has not yet been settled, you're free to believe in their existence or not. Many, many people believe they exist, but I'm not one of those. I believe the universe to be an interesting, fascinating place, full of wonder -- Black Holes are the very opposite of that: dull, boring blobs with no interesting features [no hair theorem] - they're like giant turds of the universe.
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Slight derail...then what do you think "black holes" are?
I always was under the impression that they were just super dense points of matter where the gravitational force overcame the umm small or weak nuclear force or both or whatever. I science person! :) Xo you believe something different than that?
Anyways, just curious. Thanks. :)
The question "what they are" makes an assumption that there really is something there to begin with.
As of now, all we have are gaps between observation and models, e.g.: We don't know whether there really is something huge in the center of the Milky Way (or other galaxies), all we know is that the observable stars move/behave different than our models predict.
That's why I gave the examples with the Epicycles (and the Dark Matter): Epicycles were a concept introduced to fit the data to the model. In the end it might just be that our models (or some calculations) are off ("wrong").
Even in the old Newtonian physics -- before our understanding of Gravity as geometry of space-time -- there was the concept of a "Black Hole", back then called a Dark Star. It's basically the same idea, with gravity being too strong for light to escape (Newtonian physics did not include whether light was affected by gravity or not).
Since the matter whether they exist has not yet been settled, you're free to believe in their existence or not. Many, many people believe they exist, but I'm not one of those. I believe the universe to be an interesting, fascinating place, full of wonder -- Black Holes are the very opposite of that: dull, boring blobs with no interesting features [no hair theorem] - they're like giant turds of the universe.
Interesting. As for them existing I can't say you're wrong...I can't say you're right. I find black holes interesting...somewhat terrifying... :)
Anyways, thanks. /end derail
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Just what "portal" are you talking about using?
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How to discover black holes?
Ask a Demilich... they meander for millennia, if anyone has seen one in passing, it's probably a Demilich.
Now, finding one of them is difficult enough, but finding a Demilich that is both sane enough to remember seeing a Black Hole and willing to tell you what/where it is... that's another story.
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Yeah, I think discovering them is way less of a concern than the fact that there aren't any rules for them. The painter wizard's reality-conquering chain of silliness works wholly within the RAW. No need for GM fiat or any of that stuff.
Though...heh. I'd be curious how Time Stop interacts with Black Holes. Time stop makes you move so quickly that 1 round of real time equals 1d4+1 rounds of your perceived time. But a black hole supposedly stretches time quite a bit more than that in the opposite direction. So...I think the spell would result in a slightly less slowed perceived time as the black hole gobbles you up.
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Fire, cold, gas and such still effect the caster of Time Stop. So you will need protection from the intense gravity, sudden lack of air, waves of negative energy, Hawking Radiation, and whatever other effects your GM rules.
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I'm going to point out that the merger of black holes has been detected.
The staggering orbital speeds of objects (both stars and smaller black holes) circling Sagittarius A has no explanation other than Sagittarius A being a black hole.
Qazars and active galactic nuclei have no other explanation than supermassive black holes at their cores.
There is substantial evidence that black holes are real. So much so that large numbers of expert physicists treat them as real at the current time.
I'm going to point out that the motion of epicycles has been detected.
The staggering orbital movements of objects (both planets and smaller planetoids) circling Sol has no explanation other than Sol causing epicycles.
Planets and meteors have no other explanation than epicylces in their orbit.
There is substantial evidence that epicycles are real. So much so that large numbers of expert physicists treat them as real at the current time.
----
Do you see how you fell into the trap of your own circular reasoning? Just like physicists did with epicycles?
Black holes are hypothetical objects, that rely solely on the perfect accuracy of our physical models. But models can be off. Sometimes they are off only by miniscule amounts, that are hardly detectable anywhere - the difference between circular orbits and elliptical orbits of planets like Mars or Saturn are so very small, that they escaped detection for millenia; only the development of great telescopes after the Renaissance allowed astronomers like Tycho de Brahe to gather data fine enough to allow Kepler his discovery. And even in this data, Kepler had to rely on the special events of Mars' retrograde motion to do so.
The idea of questioning your own model used to be a thing, but nowadays there's this "arrogance" of assuming we are so high & mighty & developed, that we couldn't possibly be totally wrong about big things.
And this mistake is not just a thing of the past, there are thousands of examples of most experts believing something false in contemporary times. "Putting ice on your injury in sports" is extremely wide-spread, still today, despite it having a negative effect on recovery - just watch all the professional, highly-paid physicians at huge sports events treat injuries by cooling them.
Dark Matter is a similar issue. Some hypothetical magic stuff invented to save the models from the observed differences in data. Sounds like Ether to me (though we call Ether a "Higgs field" these days, right?). xD
No, all we have is a hypothesis and some data. Black Holes might exist, or they might not. It's just not conclusive yet, so I'm going with my gut: Black Holes are totally boring, therefore I don't believe they exist until I have been proven false.
Just what "portal" are you talking about using?9th level spell portal
... do you mean the spell gate?
EDIT:
The only ninth level spell I know that opens two portals is called gate and it has several strict limitations.
We will presume (for now) that a black hole isn't a "creature" in the same way a star or planet or moon isn't considered a "creature" (and thus we ignore all that nonsense about HD limits and whatever), but, that aside, let's look at what the spell actually does:
Casting a gate spell has two effects. First, it creates an interdimensional connection between your plane of existence and a plane you specify, allowing travel between those two planes in either direction.<snip>
The gate itself is a circular hoop or disk from 5 to 20 feet in diameter (caster's choice) oriented in the direction you desire when it comes into existence (typically vertical and facing you). It is a two-dimensional window looking into the plane you specified when casting the spell, and anyone or anything that moves through is shunted instantly to the other side.
A gate has a front and a back. Creatures moving through the gate from the front are transported to the other plane; creatures moving through it from the back are not.
Planar Travel: As a mode of planar travel, a gate spell functions much like a plane shift spell, except that the gate opens precisely at the point you desire (a creation effect). Deities and other beings who rule a planar realm can prevent a gate from opening in their presence or personal demesnes if they so desire. Travelers need not join hands with you—anyone who chooses to step through the portal is transported. A gate cannot be opened to another point on the same plane; the spell works only for interplanar travel.
You may hold the gate open only for a brief time (no more than 1 round per caster level), and you must concentrate on doing so, or else the interplanar connection is severed.
... so that's kind of underwhelming.
Let's look at the other spell it references, plane shift:
You move yourself or some other creature to another plane of existence or alternate dimension. If several willing persons link hands in a circle, as many as eight can be affected by the plane shift at the same time. Precise accuracy as to a particular arrival location on the intended plane is nigh impossible. From the Material Plane, you can reach any other plane, though you appear 5 to 500 miles (5d%) from your intended destination. Plane shift transports creatures instantaneously and then ends. The creatures need to find other means if they are to travel back (including casting plane shift again).
There's really nothing of mass destruction there.
You seem to be under the impression that opening a gate instantly slide the event horizon (and any radiation and/or other "bad things") of a black hole through said gate. That does not seem to be the case at all. If it was, a gate to the negative energy plane would be a death sentence to living creatures in a large area nearby simply by local negative energy flooding. We know that's not true because a natural planar portal exists in Golarion and plants still grow and animals still live not too far away. Heck, living creatures live there, and (as a living creature) you're expected to be able to go in and survive in order to claim mythic power.
but a sphere of Annihilation is very small, and it is an artifact so it's hard to obtain, and if you whant to destroy a plane with that you will need a good milion years to clear like 10% of the surface of a plane...
what i am talking about requires like 30 seconds of prep after discovering what is a blackhole and you can relatively safely destroy a good 7.9 million miles (12.7 million km) with the cast of a single spell, plus this makes the area unable to be accessed for like milions of years.
plus this is able to kill anything instanty, well gods can deny you this and can probaby teleport out with "only" near death injuries, but in doing so they would teleport out hundreds if not thousands of years later, with noone that is still worshipping them since they don't answer prayers for that long of a time, and so they probably loose their divinity status.
if you somehow manage to land this on a deity, and that may very well happen if you aren't in that god dominion you have good chances of not only survive the encounter untill you die of old age but also effectivly kill that god. while if you tried that with the Sphere of Annihilation they would simply steal control of it and use it to kill you horribly
Pathfinder deities are, canonically, not dependent on worship to maintain their status as a deity.
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Ah! This was going to be an edit, but then I decided to spin it into its own post for actual discussion.
So, right, I also forgot to mention the fact that the gate likely can't be opened at all where you'd want it: "Deities and other beings who rule a planar realm can prevent a gate from opening in their presence or personal demesnes" - depending on where you're opening the gate you're not exactly going to hit your target.
If you are outside the area - say you determine the exact border of a deity's/other planar ruler's "presence" and/or personal demense and you slide the gate right outside of that - then you've still got the problem of how a gate interacts with the "local environment" on either side.
A gate has a range of 100+10 ft. per level, so you're going to have to be within 300 ft. of the black hole to open it. You mentioned some ideas of how you might survive, but presuming these are lacking on a god/ly creature is... well, it's a bold idea. (And, yes, I mean even the ones with printed stats - worshipers and all sorts of other creatures exist nearby, too.)
Now, I protest some of the presumptions made, but over-all, I will allow for maximum possible effectiveness of whatever it is that you're doing as I can perceive it.
But let's look at some strategies:
oh i didn't notice this part, but you don't have to last long in the blackhole, the time stop is to be able to teleport out beforte the gravity extends from the portal.... lemme think of a couple spells that could help you survive.. of course protection from energy, in particular fire and cold, winds of vengeance allows you to breathe in a vacum, radiation sounds a lot like poison and/or illness, so absord toxicity, and probably delay poison/desese for good mesure to get healed later, oh instead of protection from energy (fire) you can use body of flames to get healed if you end up in the part blackhole that has super heat, a party member could cast pressure adaptation, it of course won't protect you but it may make you last 0.0000001 seconds extra, and that may be the proc time of the contingency, of course this is all teorycrafting and the gm fiat will screw you over so bad, but you do your best
As noted, time stop doesn't actually protect you from big death-causing damage wherever things happen to be.
Protection from energy is nice, but 120 points of damage is very tiny. If you're entirely protected by that much absorption, the planes don't really have much to worry about. As it turns out, finding the hardness and hit points of common dirt is a bit difficult for me right now (possibly because it's not covered, because what would that even mean), but let's use basic material values; we can come to several useful points for discussion.
Energy Attacks
Energy attacks deal half damage to most objects. Divide the damage by 2 before applying the object’s hardness. Some energy types might be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion. For example, fire might do full damage against parchment, cloth, and other objects that burn easily. Sonic might do full damage against glass and crystal objects.
So if you're taking 120 energy damage per round, an object would be taking 60 energy damage (exceptions apply, inquire within for details).
Stone is listed as 8 hardness, and wood is 5 hardness; dirt is likely "less" but also non-zero, maybe 1. Either way, you're dealing, approximately, with 52 or 55 or maybe even 59 damage per round dealt to the surrounding environment. Let's average it (because we're hypothetically talking about huge swaths of land) and see what happens: 55 and a third. Let's make it 55. Easy math. Eh, I don't like doing it by damage, let's look at it by hardness: that's 4 and two-thirds. So, a hardness of ~5 which would be about the same, but let's round down (because that's what you do in PF) and make it hardness of 4: this makes it 56 damage per round, which will help.
Now, 15 hp for stone, 10 hp for wood, or 5 hp for other, maybe, per inch means that, at average, you've got 15+10+5=30/3=10 hp/inch. So in the end, the black hole deals about five-point-six inches of destroyed whatever per round (this decreases if there's a lot of rock, but, again, we're not looking at that right now).
Either way, that's just under a foot per two rounds or almost ten feet per minute. Not bad! Now, given about twenty rounds (the maximum amount of time you can hold the gate open) you'll have two minutes: that's just shy of two hundred feet, presuming it lasts the full twenty rounds.
... problem! There is a minor note, somewhere out there I'm waaayyyy too lazy to go find that talks about relative power levels of gods interacting with whatever, and the Golarion gods are said to be roughly on par (expected) of the "lesser" gods of the 3.5 pantheon; those lesser gods have a nifty thingy called "portfolio sense" which can be found here, and goes like this:
Portfolio Sense
Demigods have a limited ability to sense events involving their portfolios. They automatically sense any event that involves one thousand or more people. The ability is limited to the present. Lesser deities automatically sense any event that involves their portfolios and affects five hundred or more people.
I'd say large swaths of land vanishing into the nether affects a lot of people, and doing so on their planes of existence certainly applies to their portfolio (given their realms are likely crammed to the gills with stuff they like)!
But even if that's not the case, you've got some of the lower-tier common angels, devas, who have these weird mysterious scroll-thingies that happen to tell them extraordinarily precise snippits of important and random future events they only comment on when appropriate (and keep super-secret otherwise), as well as these lovely fellows and these dudes all of which will have something to say about your gate project.
Also, circling back around,
You may hold the gate open only for a brief time (no more than 1 round per caster level), and you must concentrate on doing so, or else the interplanar connection is severed.
Hrm. That could be a problem on its own, but let's see how much.
Looking at the rules^, we see some immediate problems crop up with a concentration spell.
^
Concentration Checks and Casting Spells
To cast a spell, you must concentrate. If something interrupts your concentration while you’re casting, you must make a concentration check or lose the spell. When you make a concentration check, you roll d20 and add your caster level and the ability score modifier used to determine bonus spells of the same type. Clerics, druids, and rangers add their Wisdom modifier. Bards, paladins, and sorcerers add their Charisma modifier. Finally, wizards add their Intelligence modifier. The more distracting the interruption and the higher the level of the spell you are trying to cast, the higher the DC (see Table: Concentration Check DCs). If you fail the check, you lose the spell just as if you had cast it to no effect.
Here's a list; it is long:Injury
If you take damage while trying to cast a spell, you must make a concentration check with a DC equal to 10 + the damage taken + the level of the spell you’re casting. If you fail the check, you lose the spell without effect. The interrupting event strikes during spellcasting if it comes between the time you started and the time you complete a spell (for a spell with a casting time of 1 full round or more) or if it comes in response to your casting the spell (such as an attack of opportunity provoked by the spell or a contingent attack, such as a readied action).If you are taking continuous damage, such as from an acid arrow or by standing in a lake of lava, half the damage is considered to take place while you are casting a spell. You must make a concentration check with a DC equal to 10 + 1/2 the damage that the continuous source last dealt + the level of the spell you’re casting. If the last damage dealt was the last damage that the effect could deal, then the damage is over and does not distract you.
Spell
If you are affected by a spell while attempting to cast a spell of your own, you must make a concentration check or lose the spell you are casting. If the spell affecting you deals damage, the DC is 10 + the damage taken + the level of the spell you’re casting.If the spell interferes with you or distracts you in some other way, the DC is the spell’s saving throw DC + the level of the spell you’re casting. For a spell with no saving throw, it’s the DC that the spell’s saving throw would have if a save were allowed (10 + spell level + caster’s ability score).
Grappled or Pinned
Casting a spell while you have the grappled or pinned condition is difficult and requires a concentration check (DC 10 + the grappler’s CMB + the level of the spell you’re casting). Pinned creatures can only cast spells that do not have somatic components.Vigorous Motion
If you are riding on a moving mount, taking a bouncy ride in a wagon, on a small boat in rough water, below-decks in a storm-tossed ship, or simply being jostled in a similar fashion, you must make a concentration check (DC 10 + the level of the spell you’re casting) or lose the spell.Violent Motion
If you are on a galloping horse, taking a very rough ride in a wagon, on a small boat in rapids or in a storm, on deck in a storm-tossed ship, or being pitched roughly about in a similar fashion, you must make a concentration check (DC 15 + the level of the spell you’re casting) or lose the spell. If the motion is extremely violent, such as that caused by an earthquake, the DC is equal to 20 + the level of the spell you’re casting.Violent Weather
You must make a concentration check if you try to cast a spell in violent weather. If you are in a high wind carrying blinding rain or sleet, the DC is 5 + the level of the spell you’re casting. If you are in wind-driven hail, dust, or debris, the DC is 10 + the level of the spell you’re casting. In either case, you lose the spell if you fail the concentration check. If the weather is caused by a spell, use the rules as described in the spell’s description.
Casting DefensivelyIf you want to cast a spell without provoking any attacks of opportunity, you must make a concentration check (DC 15 + double the level of the spell you’re casting) to succeed. You lose the spell if you fail.
Entangled
If you want to cast a spell while entangled in a net or by a tanglefoot bag or while you’re affected by a spell with similar effects, you must make a concentration check to cast the spell (DC 15 + the level of the spell you’re casting). You lose the spell if you fail.
So ignoring the "subject to a spell" can of worms, we first have to determine if damaging the absorption pool of resist energy actually counts as damage dealt to you for concentration. If so, that's a DC 139. If not, it's a freebie.
Are you grappled or pinned? You assert that the high-gravity is a destructive effect on the local environment, and it sure would apply to you as well, meaning it would be a very grapple/pinning-like effect, but we've established I'm lazy and don't want to do the math or think about what kind of CMB a black hole has (which should just be normal for whatever its former mass size would have been if above the event horizon), so I'm letting you off with a "meh" this time. [ooc]This brings up another potential problem with gate and the orientation thereof, but we'll get there later.
Vigorous motion? My dude, you're riding a space tornado above the event horizon of a black hole. True, the tornado itself doesn't effect you, per the spell, but you're going to have something going on, else the entire point of your WMD is moot because nothing is moving. But honestly this one isn't that bad, at a mere DC 19. Of course, I would presume it's much more like extremely violent motion (pushing the DC up to 24 or 29 for extreme), but that's still simple for a min-maxer like myself to overcome and is effectively an auto-pass.
Violent Weather? What is weather, anyway? Again, DC 19 so trivial, if it applies.
Casting Defensively is a bit tricky. Seems like it should be needed, but that DC 33 might stretch some high level casters, and we've already established you're alone, so we'll stick with the DC 29 maximum we've already noted.
Entangled is an interesting idea, but the entire point of staying as far away from the black hole as you could means you're effectively flying around a normal-gravity locale, so that's fine, and a DC 24 isn't that significant.
Of course, running three, four, or five such checks in a row could be a problem and is very reasonable as a ruling or understanding - even more so if you're asserting the violence of the thing - but we'll presume, for now, that it's fine.
But there is one thing to note: we bypassed it earlier, but the idea that you must succeed at a concentration check to continue with a spell when already affected by a non-damaging spell is significant. While I'm all for pushing or abusing the rules to their limits (and love the idea of a painter wizard; it's adorbs), turning this into a WMD presumes pushing things to their limits, and this falls into that effect. That means that while you're under time stop and protected by protection from energy, you're going to need to make a DC 19 concentration (each is trivial, but both have potential failures) and again when you leave, and must make concentration checks imposed by the region you're in for the difficulty of the task you're doing for each of those spells.
Now, none of this is a deal-breaker: it's all merely one part of a greater problem and provides some potential failure points that could end your WMD earlier than intended.
radiation sounds a lot like poison and/or illness, so absord toxicity, and probably delay poison/desese for good mesure to get healed later,
Radiation actually has it's own rules.
To be immune to it, you'll want this amulet which will help significantly. Fortunately, they're not really all that costly at 45k, meaning that anyone with cash who wants one should have access to it 75% of the time in any large city or smaller. In any event, a lot of people are going to be relatively fine from radiation until it can all be found and removed - note, eleven classes have the ability to remove it, and five or six of those don't even need to be part of the classes limited options, so, despite being a fourth level spell, it's not going to be that uncommon.
Also, though I have one more spell, the archives of Nethys search function just entirely stopped working for me for a bit, so
Pressure Adaptation does not seem to actually do anything for you in this situation, so I'm unsure why it would get used.
I'm curious: what are you using contingency for?
Aside: I'm not bothering to look it up, now, but if you want, you might be able to get even further away by a rod that changes the medium range into a far range. So that's 1,200 feet away, instead.
Now, while you choose where to orient the gate, it's worth noting that it's unclear if putting the gate into an event horizon is a legitimate casting choice. Placing it on the event horizon would mean that (presuming it works at all) normal gravity for a planet of its size would target the stuff near the gate, however, the biggest "draw" effect you'd want - the event horizon - wouldn't actually apply. If you placed it in the event horizon, that's at least as significant as casting a spell from outside of the water into the water or more which requires a unique feat and is more akin to casting from air into the densest and most powerful stone+++ ever but more (and you can't actually do that anyway - you can't see through an event horizon simply due to the fact that light can't escape it, blocking line of sight).
Pathfinder deities are, canonically, not dependent on worship to maintain their status as a deity.oh, i didn't knew that
That's fine! We all learn stuff. :D
Just what "portal" are you talking about using?9th level spell portal... do you mean the spell gate?
i messed up the name, sorry, in my language it's called portal and i made a direct translation. (portale=portal, cancello=gate in my language and it's called portale)
but it's not the radiation that kills you, it's gravity, and i assumed that since telekinesis works from a side to the other of a gate, that gravity would to, since they are both forces and not energies
No, that's very fair. Also, you speak Portuguese? I'm asking from curiosity - it seems it's a Latin-based language, just not sure which one. :D
Regardless, my questioning was built out of a desire to make sure we were all on the same page all communicating clearly and talking about the same thing.
In any event, I am forced to switch from my computer to my phone as I have to leave and go places. That said, I am curious why you think that gravity and telekinesis are the same thing in terms of rules systems. Telekinesis is a specific, discrete, targeted affect; gravity, on the other hand, is a local environmental effect that has no particular creature creating or generating it per the rules. I am somewhat uncertain that telekinesis or other effects would pass through a gate normally, on its own, but Spells and environmental effects seem extremely different from one another and thus would likely interact with even similar things differently.
Either way, until I have an actual chance to focus and research, I am unlikely to be able to describe any discreet interaction with Ruehl – focused detail. If the gravity is what kills you, though the main two limits are the fact that the gravity would kill you on the surface of the celestial object itself anyway, and the placement of objects within the event horizon, such as the gate spell, would not readily be possible unless you could somehow perceive through the event horizon.
Also, the incredible and intense gravity of stars is, canonically and pathfinder, not going to kill people that are worded against the local plainer environment. As an example, creatures from the elemental play in the fire sometimes swim into and live within Golarion‘s sun/star even though they are not otherwise suited for or native to incredibly high gravity. I could be wrong, but I believe the primary method of survival is having the fire subtype? I couldn’t say for sure, however. Either way, there is a normal human wizard of 16th level that created a tower on the sun, and lives there.
To perform a hypothetical thought and experiment to see how gravity would actually function when interacting between two extremely different locations, let us presume you place a gate near a large amount of dirt, facing “down” toward the ground, on the elemental plane of earth, and then another gate facing “sideways” (or “down” or whatever) on the planet Golarion. What would happen to the dirt from the elemental plane or earth? Well one intuition might guess that the dirt from the elemental plan of earth would pour out of the portal gate that you opened to the other place, the problem is that the two different forces of gravity, the one on the elemental plane of earth and the one from the planet itself, are opposed and, in Pathfinders rule set, equal to each other. What this means in practice is that what you have done is simply shown a weird looking wall to the world and not actually created a hole of falling down material stuff from the elemental plan of earth. In order to cause the dirt etc. from the elemental plane of earth to hit the gate you would have to find a way of negating, or, perhaps a better way of saying it, is reversing the effect of gravity on the elemental plane of earths side. Which, of course, you can hypothetically do with the use of the reverse gravity spell. The problem is at this point you are not only creating and maintaining a gate near the edge of a black hole but you are also then reversing gravity on a surface that is literally just made out of gravity which, yeah, is likely to result in a pretty big and spectacular explosion, but unfortunately that is definitely going to catch you into it. Now, the time stop that you mention would very much so help with that, however once you have left the range of the gate to spell, typically about 300 feet as described earlier, I don’t think you are able to continue to maintain it. So, you could maintain the spell just long enough to be personally annihilated by the Gravity bomb you said off, or you could try to time it such that you teleport away as the wave hits the gate. You would have to let your time stop lapse, and letting your time start lapse means that you are instantly subject to whatever nearby forces of gravity are applicable. And, of course, any other local environmental effects like flying rocks, blasts of flaming hot plasma being sucked into the Event horizon, and so on.
(It’s worth noting the explosion would be strictly limited by the radius of the reverse gravity spell on its own, but in addition, it’s quite possible that the spell has clauses I’m not currently looking at which would prohibit it from being an effective explosion - might be more like a weird balloon thing instead.)
It is worth noting that physics in Pathfinder do not function like physics in the real world. If they did, reverse gravity would cause lots of strange wind effects and likely kick up lots of dust and dirt and stuff, and fireballs would create increased localized pressure effects, but as-written they don’t do any of that, so... anything presuming physics must be approached with many grains of salt.
How to discover black holes?
Ask a Demilich... they meander for millennia, if anyone has seen one in passing, it's probably a Demilich.
Now, finding one of them is difficult enough, but finding a Demilich that is both sane enough to remember seeing a Black Hole and willing to tell you what/where it is... that's another story.
Ooh. Or the Black Butterfly! Also maybe Desna. Both are interested in those kinds of things and places in particular.
Couldn't you pretty much make your own plane specifically to try create your own black hole?
Kind of like 2001 Space Oddessey... make a high gravity plane with limited space and just keep sending mass to it...? Have the high gravity epicentered/localized at a pin point spot dead center of a spherical shaped plane. Enhanced "gravity" magic, and the "move earth" thing...
Use Shrink Item on the most dense objects you can affect with the spell, send them to your personal gravity well, and let the spell expire.
Eventually/hopefully, your plane becomes too full, collapses in on itself, and becomes an unimaginably dense mass with enough gravity to become self-sustaining in its growth/consumption...
That may not help, though, since it would be where you put your plane. I'm not sure if you can willingly expel the contents of your plane, or move its location... so you may have to send stuff to it, rather than deliver it to the target.
Maybe you could position your plane adjacent to your target's plane... above it? What happens when a personal demiplane collapses? Does its bloated weight make it tumble through the Todash darkness? May its debris, say, bump into (perhaps breech) an adjacent demiplane?
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Of course, if you’re using the word believe, and not talking about fact; you may not be using the scientific method.
We humans sit here on our little planet, and gaze out at the rest of the universe with our primitive instruments. We see so little and guess so much. It’s a good bet that we’re going to be wrong about most things.
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I had a BBEG halfling Cave Druid who took residence underneath a major city and was growing a festering swamp of spore-like mushrooms all throughout the city's sewer system. The Druid's plan was to set the entire thing off like a Bio-weapon, releasing a poison that caused everyone to go to sleep for several days. And then she and her giant Bear Mr. Flufferkins would go up to the surface and kill everyone as they slept in a multi-day killing spree.