Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 meowicus Feb 14, 2009 2:51:53	Illusions and their Infinite Power Viragnuva was a small, female whisper gnome whose love of illusion was surpassed only by her love for sugar and her tiny rat familiar, Anikathiera. In the Kingdom of Titalika, the capital city of Tristan was under siege by bandits who killed any travelers making their way to or from the city. It was on her journey to this capital from her homeland that she met her companion who called himself “Pants,” an illithid driven from the darkest regions of The Beneath. Viragnuva not being one to dirty her hands by picking up a weapon, this strong illithid warrior was a welcome friend, if a bit loopy. Now in the town of Tristan, there was an entrepreneur named, Merchant Markus. Another gnome, and lucratively successful merchant, Merchant Markus was quick to higher these adventurers to end the siege after they had proven both their wit and strength by rooting out corruption within the city’s rivaling Churches recent faction war. Our party of interest made their way from the city, and it wasn’t long before they were themselves beset by the foul bandits who held this city in their iron clutch. Many an orc was slain, many a bugbear fell, and many a kobold flew before the mastermind of this siege was identified, but such was the determination of this party that they prevailed by strength of sword and some persuasive suggestions. The villan was an efreet, bound by a powerful wizard in a labyrinth, a form of the binding spell, and forced to attack caravans to pay the wizard the price he demanded for the genie’s freedom. He was an unwilling servant, but our adventures were willing to end the product of his slavery whatever the cost. The fight to the binding location was again a long one, and guardian elementals were brought to their knees before Viragnuva and Pants were able to speak to the genie, but when they did… The Efreet introduced himself as Eldrit. He had been a merchant from the City of Brass before he was bound, but he frequently traded with creatures of the material plane. Though these two had slain many of his employees, he would happily end his orchestrated attacks and leave the material plane in peace if he could be released from this prison. Viragnuva looked about, and with a bit of logic and her knowledge of spells(read spellcraft check), she was able to determine that Eldrit was being bound by the binding spell. She knew that this version of the spell was permanent, and no spell of her meager knowledge (read 5th level wizard) could counter it. However, discussing with her companions brought up an idea. If indeed the wizard intended to release the genie after enough gold had been gathered, then there must be a way to end the spell. The simplest idea would be a command word which would end the spell. But so many possibilities! How could they ever guess such a command word!? Certainly there might be a few phrases they could guess, but consider Languages: 10 Words in each language: ~50,000 Permutations of 10 words: (500,000)^(the number of words in the phrase) With just 10 words, there would be 9.7E56 possibilities. And what if there were more!? Our adventurer’s were stuck, or were they… An illusion could create sound, and wasn’t necessarily bound at any rate of speaking. The illusion had no anatomy. It was just magic, making sound. Ah, but certainly there would be a limit, if not on the illusion then on air. Consider sound is a wave, which are just air particles bouncing back and forth between each other. At sea level and room temperature, any particle physicist could tell you that this was 340E7 Hertz. That would limit the rate of the illusions speech…except that this maximum wave speed varies with the mean area between the air particles. If only a 5th level wizard had some simple spell to increase air density to any arbitrary amount…say prestidigitation! And it was had! A simple combination of major image and prestidigitation should be able to speak at any arbitrarily rapid rate…but only in a language the caster knows…better make it speak all possible permutations of all sounds. After a night of resting and relearning spells, Viragnuva prepared herself for the chance at epic, and as she cast the spells…the planes paused to listen as one illusionary figure spoke to it all truths, all lies, all songs, all poetry, the story of every life that ever was and ever will be or ever could have been, along with an infinite, insane babbling. In an instant, the Universe listened to *all* of its possibilities and was forced for perhaps the first time took consider that something truly infinite had happened. And behold! Within such endlessness, eclipsing the all of the all was the lone command phrase to release the efreet. Now mind you, certainly no one could hear such a thing…unless perhaps their anatomy was magically based. Such a soul would be forced to take in all that is all in an instant, pondering all the possibilities of creation in an instant. And assuming they could, with sufficient ranks in autohypnosis to succeed on a 1, and given that this requires to time (a free action), a listener could memorize the entirety of this create epilogue to the infinite. And that is how Viragnuva countered an 8th level spell with major image and prestidigitation. And that is how Pants learned all literature, and considered all situations in a single instant.
#2 volatris Feb 14, 2009 3:32:23	The Nine Billion Names of God, but with magic.
#3 Grumman Feb 14, 2009 3:57:58	If indeed the wizard intended to release the genie after enough gold had been gathered, then there must be a way to end the spell. The simplest idea would be a command word which would end the spell. The binding spell is not limited to such mundane triggers - they can be arbitrarily elaborate, as long as he is capable of performing them. Consider sound is a wave, which are just air particles bouncing back and forth between each other. At sea level and room temperature, any particle physicist could tell you that this was 340E7 Hertz. Only those particle physicists that sucked on paint chips as children. It is the speed of sound, not the frequency, that is directly linked to air temperature. Frequency varies depending on what sound is being generated. That would limit the rate of the illusions speech…except that this maximum wave speed varies with the mean area between the air particles. If only a 5th level wizard had some simple spell to increase air density to any arbitrary amount…say prestidigitation! And it was had! A simple combination of major image and prestidigitation should be able to speak at any arbitrarily rapid rate…but only in a language the caster knows…better make it speak all possible permutations of all sounds. Prestidigitation cannot increase air density to any arbitrary amount - if it could, it wouldn't be limited to making candles flicker, it could crush enemies, shatter bones, destroy planets. And that is how Pants learned all literature, and considered all situations in a single instant. Pants could not use this to "consider all situations in a single instant". The autohypnosis check does not grant understanding, no more than a camera understands the information it records. There's also no reason to believe that Pants has a sufficiently high listen check to hear an arbitrarily small, arbitrarily fast, vibration of air molecules.
#4 cole_caecus Feb 14, 2009 4:23:05	Dude, Grumman, what a bloody killjoy. Meowicus- I love it.I dont know what else to say but that.
#5 lormador Feb 14, 2009 6:35:29	Even assuming that the caster was able to produce an illusion that could, indeed, produce sound at an arbitrarily rapid rate and hence utterly arbitrarily many words known to the caster, that is a far cry from being able to produce every possible meaningful sentence in that language, let alone being able to pronounce every possible sentence without qualification. Consider the following sentence. "Mialee told Jozan that Vecna told Kas that..." we have here a sentence that can be extended to any given length. We can place these words in one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers. Even if it was granted that the illusion thus created by the distinguished gnome illusionist was able to produce an infinite series of words, it has not at all been demonstrated that the cardinality of this set exceeds that of the natural numbers. Which it would be required to do.
#6 rymosrac Feb 14, 2009 8:29:42	Further evidence that illusions are limited in power only by what your DM lets you get away with multiplied by your creativity.
#7 Kerrus Feb 14, 2009 10:59:17	Actually, that's an interesting point. RAW, presdigitation could increase air density in a given space, provided there was enough air available. The problem is, you're still limited by the one pount of materiel quotient- but you could get around that via multiple castings of the spell. In addition, Presgitation can chill 'objects', which as a constant effect might be enough to prevent disolution of the sound wave. And it could compact 1 pount of air- but there's a limit on this because the compact air would, well, have a force to it. You could only compact it so far before the force it's exerting is greate-wait. Force != weight. RAW, the spell can then compact 1 pound of air a staggering amount. There's no specification that the 'object' (if we take one pound of air as a singular object) need all move on the same vectors and the same time, indeed if one were to use predigitation to make one's cloak ruffle in a non-existent wind... I don't see any DM disallowing that interpretation. Now, obviously no DM worth his salt would let you use the spell in this manner, but RAW it might well could be. Getting into semantics- the spell can't deal damage. The spell itself cannot deal damage. That's RAW. But you could still use it to drop a book on a sprite. When you get down to it, with no DM oversight, you could use it to compress 1 pound of air to critical mass. BOOM. Actually, if you want to get down to it, you could make blades of compressed air- one for each use of Presdigitation. You'd just have to be careful how you cut things with them, because any underside cut would transfer weight, and dispell the spell. Not that this would ever happen, but it's an interesting thought.
#8 empirate Feb 15, 2009 16:08:23	Guys, guys, guys, you're forgetting the cardinal truth of all things magical: they're not physics. Not particle physics, not thermodynamics, not anything related to physics. Magic is not bound by physical laws. It is, however, bound by rules such as "8th level spells are more powerful than 3rd level spells" and "If you want to find out a bit of information (such as a password), use a Divination spell, not an Illusion spell". If your DM is lenient enough to let you get away with it, fine. But then instead of "Dungeons & Dragons" you're playing a game of "[Closed Systems of Ecological Classification] AND/OR [Lifeforms Capable of Exothermic Reactions]".
#9 phaedrusxy Feb 15, 2009 17:19:44	It is, however, bound by rules such as "8th level spells are more powerful than 3rd level spells" and "If you want to find out a bit of information (such as a password), use a Divination spell, not an Illusion spell". Those aren't rules. They're "rules of thumb". There are plenty of examples of where they break down, also. Look at Silence and all the Holy Word/Blasphemy spells for an example. Per the RAW, there is pretty much nothing preventing this from working. You don't even need the cantrip. Major Image can create any sound you wantm within the limitations of the spell, and I don't see anything saying this is explicitly impossible, or outside of what the spell can do (the illusion spells are intentionally open ended, I think). I doubt most (or any) DMs would allow it, though.
#10 heliomance Feb 15, 2009 17:57:49	Force != weight. RAW, the spell can then compact 1 pound of air a staggering amount. There's no specification that the 'object' (if we take one pound of air as a singular object) need all move on the same vectors and the same time, indeed if one were to use predigitation to make one's cloak ruffle in a non-existent wind... I don't see any DM disallowing that interpretation. Fail. Weight==Force. Force!=Mass, but pounds measure weight not mass. Pounds are a measure of weight, of force. Kilograms are a measure of mass. If Prestidigitation can only exert one pound of force, then it can only exert one pound of force. Consider sound is a wave, which are just air particles bouncing back and forth between each other. At sea level and room temperature, any particle physicist could tell you that this was 340E7 Hertz. Wait, what? 340E7 Hertz? As in, 3,400,000,000 Hertz? You do realise that the range of human hearing lies from 20 to 20,000 Hertz, right? And if you mean speed rather than frequency, the speed of sound in air at room temperature is 340 metres per second. Not 340E7 anything. Oh, and it's nearly independent of air pressure and density. In conclusion, Physics Does Not Work That Way!