who else gets really weird 'physics questions' regarding spells in their games?

[Tiona Daughtry]

This potentially might only happen in groups like mine, where literally every player has dm'd at some point (and several of us dm regularly). But we're also all neurodiverse, and have a good grounding in solid science, which makes magic 'interesting'. Now, I hadn't closely looked at the rope trick spell in pathfinder's rules before deciding that that was the effect I was using to explain how a rather distressingly competent shady character just strolled out of the kitchen of a private small air-ship (the equivalent of a balloon not unlike the one in the Island at the Top of the World, an old disney movie), while said ship was in flight.

I ended up pointing out that I am sort of merging 3.5 and pathfinder 1 to a degree, and the campaign setting is custom, so yes, I could use the 3.5 version of the spell that allows you to 'pull in the rope' from the inside, to hide it, which the pf1 version doesn't have. Still, it brought up an enormous question by my science-minded players (and I don't mind this at all, only find it is something I doubt many groups really get into). We discussed the spell for a bit after he'd vanished again (as all of them are dms sometime too, I thought I'd point out to the players, who will keep their characters knowledge separate) the spell used to allow him to simply seem to appear where it would otherwise make no sense...but we had to question, how does a spell like that, which anchors to a physical space in a way, work when anchored to a vehicle that is now in motion? It led to some very interesting questions, overall, as well as completely 'outside the box' potential tactics for the spell.

Anyone else have similar experiences, where good, long-time players, will discuss the scientific oddities relating to magic in game? Wanting to come up with practical 'logical' reasons for how something worked?

(Btw, for those curious, yes, my players were very wary to have a completely covered assassin/bounty hunter character step out of a previously unoccupied room... And yes, there was appropriate 'I don't trust this guy' to the fact that his 'introduction' was along the lines of, 'You can relax now. If I was trying to kill you, you would be dead. No, instead, you seem to be a piece of a very interesting puzzle.")

[DungeonmasterCal]

Over the years we've fielded many "physics vs rules" questions, debates, dice-hurling cussing, etc. We bent, broke, and invented new rules for answers sometimes. The advent of the internet helps a lot now.

The ones that hit me the worst are the math questions. I'm dyscalculic, and anything beyond balancing a checkbook is almost impossible to me. We used to have a guy with a degree in mathematics who could figure out the distance from the bad guy if he were fifty up the tree and you were thirty feet away from it. I can't even begin to fathom that sort of thing, but he'd throw an answer out right off the top of his head. And again, thank the Good Lord Above for the internet because he doesn't game with us anymore.

[Tiona Daughtry]

*grins* I can understand that. My husband also has dyscalculia, so I'm familiar with it. But it's always fun to see how at least some gaming groups don't just 'handwave' magic, and try to come up with logic for *why* a situation works. And, as a writer, that's something I attempt a lot in my writing too. It just occurs to me that probably a whole heck of a lot of groups out there don't want to put forth the effort in making things make sense.

[Lathiira]

One that keeps coming up somehow, down through the years: how does lightning interact with water? Is it a shocking grasp spell? LIghtning bolt? Fresh water? Salt water? Distilled? Rain water? Underwater? It's almost as aggravating to me as breeding and genetics questions.

[DeathQuaker]

Lathiira wrote:

One that keeps coming up somehow, down through the years: how does lightning interact with water? Is it a shocking grasp spell? LIghtning bolt? Fresh water? Salt water? Distilled? Rain water? Underwater? It's almost as aggravating to me as breeding and genetics questions.

Particularly lightning as a magical effect, which by some definitions is going to behave differently than real lightning. Lightning bolt's capacity to burn things also is tricky--it can't start a fire but does it superheat the water?

[Leon Aquilla]

I tried this with Dead Suns in Starfinder 5 years ago (and said an envoy can't taunt in space unless he's on the same radio frequency as an opponent) and I instantly regretted it because then players started being pedantic about other areas where physics conflicted with rules and that was about the last time I ever tried to reconcile the two.

[Azothath]

as a physicist/engineer I've thought about this over the years and editions. I think I've made my viewpoint clear in my posting history as well as my approach to the game. The game is more about having fun, learning some social skills, roleplaying out some situations, and wasting time in a fun/creative/dramatic setting. It does not confer knowledge about Reality or the real world in a technical sense (in fact it is quite misleading).

It's folly to try to make the rules in the game Real. It's a game written by creative people to be engaging, fun, and entertaining. It is a Work of Art.
One could say the general summation of reality is what you get in the game but consider that the game is far rougher that Newtonian physics which we know is wrong in the details. We know that the game fails when it comes to simple things like falling damage, scaling damage with spell level, equating damage to creatures versus objects, scaling ability scores, etc...
The game is more an artful descriptive model using simple rules of a common experience as to what very roughly happens in a game world. So Reality feeds into the Game, not vice versa.
PF2 & D&D5 stepped away from the AD&D to 3.5 design theme to model a game play experience rather than a common descriptive experience.

Why do people want to make it (more) Real? I think that is a common human ego issue. Who wouldn't want to make some aspects of fantasy world real and bring that fun, success, and understanding into Reality.
Truthfully whatever ideas and thoughts you have do not affect Reality. I like to say, "Reality is Perfect exactly as it is, it can't be any other way. It's your idea of perfection that's the problem."

[Today is a good day to... halp]

One possible option, if you wish to keep things RAW and are scientifically illiterate (like me), would be to suggest that the fire/lightning/cold/etc. magical effects are not the actual elements being used but are actually magical facsimiles of those various phenomenon and, as such, don't necessarily follow the actual scientific principles that the magic is imitating. Something to the effect of a continual flame/everburning torch. ;)

Now if such things gets applied to technological items, you could go the route that various hi-tech 'safety-features' are present so that stuff can act as RAW as magical effects. ;p

Lathiira wrote:

One that keeps coming up somehow, down through the years: how does lightning interact with water? Is it a shocking grasp spell? LIghtning bolt? Fresh water? Salt water? Distilled? Rain water? Underwater? It's almost as aggravating to me as breeding and genetics questions.

Paizo's PF1e Aquatic Adventures and the Cerulean Seas 3rd Party Campaign setting has some rules for how electrical magic effects work underwater. Stormwrack for 3.5 also comes to mind but I barely remember the content since I last saw it over a decade ago. ;)

[marcryser]

If you play long enough, you will encounter situations that the rules either do not cover or do not cover well.

If you play with creative people, they will try to use their skills and abilities in a creative, un-anticipated way.

There will be times that you have to adjudicate something to the best of your ability and on the fly.

I always try to make those decisions based on:
1. RAW
2. Specific over general and RAI
3. Past precedent in the game
4. What makes sense based on the table's shared experience with the game world.
5. What feels 'right' to me at the time.

The GM is more than a judge or referee but I think it is important to remember that the job of a referee is to maintain an even playing field for the players.

[Goth Guru]

As pointed out in a topic of teleport errors, a planet is a moving vehicle. The spell is anchored to the place or vehicle where it is cast. If the spell is cast in a starship bay and the bay gets ejected, your rope trick remains in the bay. Just don't use a ripped scroll or damaged item.

Glitterdust in a darkness spell is also a headache. If the torchlight is reduced to candlelight, the glitter will still reflect that. Also, it would still reflect whatever darkvision uses to see.

[Andostre]

This thread reminds me of some Dimension 20 spiel I saw on YouTube about how invisibility always has to leave at least a little bit of the invisible person's retinas visible. The argument is that if the retinas are completely invisible, then they are transparent, and therefore light passes through them instead of bouncing off of them, which is required for the invisible person to be able to see anything at all.

All the players at his table were so pleased or awed with the explanation (and maybe they're contractually obligated to be?), and I just rolled my eyes as I imagined some of the counter-arguments or ways to exploit this interpretation players I've known over the years would start to come up with.

[DeathQuaker]

Andostre wrote:

This thread reminds me of some Dimension 20 spiel I saw on YouTube about how invisibility always has to leave at least a little bit of the invisible person's retinas visible. The argument is that if the retinas are completely invisible, then they are transparent, and therefore light passes through them instead of bouncing off of them, which is required for the invisible person to be able to see anything at all.

All the players at his table were so pleased or awed with the explanation (and maybe they're contractually obligated to be?), and I just rolled my eyes as I imagined some of the counter-arguments or ways to exploit this interpretation players I've known over the years would start to come up with.

*pushes up glasses; in nasally voice* Well, aaaaacktually...

At least per Pathfinder 1st ed, which the ruleset I know best at this point... if invisibility were a polymorph spell, this might be true. But it is an illusion spell, and it is therefore a spell effect that involves others' perceptions only. You're not literally transparent, others just think you are.

PF 1st Ed Core Rulebook wrote:

Illusion spells deceive the senses or minds of others. They cause people to see things that are not there, not see things that are there, hear phantom noises, or remember things that never happened.

Specifically, also, invisibility is a glamer which the CRB says:

Quote:

Because figments and glamers are unreal, they cannot produce real effects the way that other types of illusions can.

You know the illusion is cast on you and automatically disbelieve it, so you can see yourself and everything else just fine. Moreover since it affects mental perceptions, not physical realities, your character would likely have to understand how a retina works to believe they couldn't see even if they couldn't see themselves while invisible.

[Andostre]

Yes, exactly. And I'd be surprised if the spell was significantly different in whatever ruleset they're using (probably 5E, but I don't honestly know).

[Goth Guru]

The light coming off someone who is invisible might go to nil space. It leaves only the glamor that might be detected. Maybe the glamor is hiding the light, but see invisible lets the observer see through the glamor.

[Azothath]

lol, yall just get crazier with time

[Set]

Our favorite was time stop or temporal stasis area effects, back in earlier editions (and also usable in other games, like Mutants and Masterminds or some sci-fi games).

If time actually stopped, that chunk of the planet would get ripped off and spin into space, as the planet continued A) rotating about 1000 MPH, B) spinning around the sun ~67,000 MPH, C) spinning through the milky way ~490,000 MPH and D) the galaxy itself moves through the cosmos ~1.3 million MPH. (Although if the planet was facing in the wrong direction from one of these vectors, the time-stopped area would instead plunge directly *through* the planet, leaving an appropriately-sized hole, before ripping out the other side and then flying off into space.)

Plus light wouldn't be able to travel into or out of the affected area, so even if the caster could magically move around inside the area, displacing the time-stopped particles of air, they couldn't actually see anything inside. (That's easy enough to handwave. It's called time 'stop,' but that's just exaggerated marketing hype. It really just slows time a couple thousand fold. Not even a quickling can form a single thought, let alone move or act, but light barely even notices the slowdown.)

It's just a messy spell and super-fun to think about from a science-y perspective. :) (Luckily, the 'planet as a vehicle' thing pretty much handles all the 'rips off the planet and goes far, far away' stuff.)

And yeah, my college friends and I had all sorts of science thoughts about magic, but generally agreed that 'it just works' even if we sometimes had fun coming up with the hows and whys. The important part was that it *did* work, and coming up with excuses for why it worked, not in trying to break it and make it not work.

[Goth Guru]

Time stop either slows down time throughout the entire multiverse or speeds up the caster. Because of magic the caster cannot affect anything else, which is why my leveled mutation can cast instant spells that seem to move like molasses. Light has a speed, it's just very, very, fast. It's the standard, and all magic beams or such travel at that speed unless otherwise defined.

Atmosphere is usually irrelevant as it doesn't cause fireballs to detonate or block anyone using time stop. It's mater, but not solid matter. As glass is not seen, it won't block magic missile, normally.

[quibblemuch]

If you assume the calories for fireball have to come from the wizard's metabolism, it turns out they have to eat a phenomenal amount. This then leads to some interesting speculations on defecation and explains the 15 minute adventuring day--the remaining 23 hours and 15 minutes, the wizard is either at the buffet or in the privy.

[Ravingdork]

DeathQuaker wrote:

But [invisibility] is an illusion spell, and it is therefore a spell effect that involves others' perceptions only. You're not literally transparent, others just think you are.

And this is why it is the most powerful spell in the game world. It impacts the minds of nearly every single creature in the whole world with no save or attack roll permitted to avoid its effects, without fail, every time you cast it. Not even 10th-level spells can make that claim.

All schools bow to Illusion.

[DeathQuaker]

Ravingdork wrote:

DeathQuaker wrote:

But [invisibility] is an illusion spell, and it is therefore a spell effect that involves others' perceptions only. You're not literally transparent, others just think you are.

And this is why it is the most powerful spell in the game world. It impacts the minds of nearly every single creature in the whole world with no save or attack roll permitted to avoid its effects, without fail, every time you cast it. Not even 10th-level spells can make that claim.

All schools bow to Illusion.

Well, it automatically fails as soon as you take the offensive, so that means while no one gets a save against the initial effect, they automatically successfully "disbelieve" as soon as you try to hurt them in some way. So its "power" is more limited than you suggest.

Greater invisibility is of course ergo far more powerful, but there exist several spells that counter or limit it that by the time you are capable of casting it, so you aren't guaranteed success.

Not to mention every version of the spell's effectiveness can be foiled to at least some extent by a well-tossed bag of flour, so...

[Andostre]

quibblemuch wrote:

If you assume the calories for fireball have to come from the wizard's metabolism

Why would anyone assume that? Everything from an arcane spell comes from ambient magical energy or whatever, merely shaped by a caster's mind. And sometimes maybe spell components get used, for some reason.

But if a spell did come from the caster's body... I guess I'd start stacking Constitution?

[Ashbourne]

I had one come up this weekend. If a character is paralyzed while their shield was raised, do they still get the AC bonus until they are unparalyzed for having a raised shield?

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

I'd say no, unless, possibly, it was ballistic fire coming in at the right direction. Honestly, I'm surprised paralyzed people don't immediately fall prone.

[Azothath]

Reality is probably weirder than you imagine. Growing Block Universe. Breaking Symmetry or how energy messed things up...lol

[Azothath]

Ashbourne wrote:

I had one come up this weekend. If a character is paralyzed while their shield was raised, do they still get the AC bonus until they are unparalyzed for having a raised shield?

really a Rules forum question...

Paralyzed:

A paralyzed character is frozen in place and unable to move or act. A paralyzed character has effective Dexterity and Strength scores of 0 and is helpless, but can take purely mental actions. A winged creature flying in the air at the time that it becomes paralyzed cannot flap its wings and falls. A paralyzed swimmer can’t swim and may drown. A creature can move through a space occupied by a paralyzed creature—ally or not. Each square occupied by a paralyzed creature, however, counts as 2 squares to move through.
===end===

and worse news

Helpless:

A helpless character is paralyzed, held, bound, sleeping, unconscious, or otherwise completely at an opponent’s mercy. A helpless target is treated as having a Dexterity of 0 (–5 modifier). Melee attacks against a helpless target get a +4 bonus (equivalent to attacking a prone target). Ranged attacks get no special bonus against helpless targets. Rogues can sneak attack helpless targets.

As a full-round action, an enemy can use a melee weapon to deliver a coup de grace to a helpless foe. An enemy can also use a bow or crossbow, provided he is adjacent to the target. The attacker automatically hits and scores a critical hit. (A rogue also gets his sneak attack damage bonus against a helpless foe when delivering a coup de grace.) If the defender survives, he must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + damage dealt) or die. Delivering a coup de grace provokes attacks of opportunity.

Creatures that are immune to critical hits do not take critical damage, nor do they need to make Fortitude saves to avoid being killed by a coup de grace.
===end===

exactly when the paralysis occurs does play a role as many things carry over until their turn starts or ends with their turn.
As they cannot maneuver the shield, no (a shield on the ground does not provide AC nor does it provide cover, tower shields have a caveat)(being helpless does not support any argument for retaining the shield's AC). The same would happen if they are Fighting Defensively or Full Defense. They DO get their armor though as it covers their body.