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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 5:50 pm
by JigokuBosatsu
Okay, let's see.

To best preserve grain in D&D, that would be one application of Cloudkill, then Transmute Air to Carbon Dioxide.

To keep your skeletones from being infectious, lacquer them.

Lots of great ideas. I'm definitely going to use the skeleton computer in my 3Day Novel. I like the idea of having a the skeleton computer being discovered, and they have a specific computational method, but the protagonists don't have the faintest clue of what it's actually doing.

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 7:22 pm
by K
Temporal stasis only works on creatures.

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 7:51 pm
by RadiantPhoenix
K wrote:Temporal stasis only works on creatures.
Until that was pointed out, I hadn't realized that it was the case.

So...

An animated object is a creature, and temporal stasis stops time for the creature, which should stop it from ceasing to be a creature, so you animate a thin sheet of, say, paper, then have it form into an appropriate shape, then put it in stasis. Once you have all the pieces, you put them together and animate some wax to flow into all the gaps, and put it into stasis; finally, you dimension door in with a necklace of adaptation, do something to remove the air, and silent dimension door back out.

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 8:07 pm
by Vebyast
Instead of using sheets of paper, use gargantuan metal-foil tarpaulins; that's up to a 64-foot-square sheet per animate/stasis casting. That's actually pretty feasible.

Sealing it is a bit harder; I don't think that wax can resist vacuum. Since the stasis'd foil is invulnerable, a better option might be to braze the seams with adamantine.

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 8:14 pm
by Meikle641
Quintessence rigged as a trap could work for preserving buildings and items. As a DM, various supply caches the party has found were sealed with the stuff. Of course, traps and items are the only real way to get the substance in any appreciable quantity.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/power ... ssence.htm

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 11:01 pm
by K
Am I the only one considering making fortresses out of creatures in a temporal stasis?

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 11:45 pm
by DSMatticus
It would be both impenetrable and intimidating. Also expensive. Make it a log cabin instead. An 'evil vacation home.'

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 12:05 am
by Whatever
K wrote:Am I the only one considering making fortresses out of creatures in a temporal stasis?
By 'creatures' you obviously mean 'dragons'. You'd have to get them to pose with their wings spread out for the roof and the walls, though.

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 12:08 am
by DSMatticus
You could totally find creatures with more surface area than dragons. I'm certainly too lazy to, but oozes seem like a good starting point. Are there any that can explicitly spread themself out nice and thin? Even if not, the cube-like structure (of some) is super useful for building. And it makes dispel magic-ing the cube under an intruder a downright hilarious trap.

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 12:08 am
by Vebyast
K wrote:Am I the only one considering making fortresses out of creatures in a temporal stasis?
The best part? If someone tries to attack your castle by dispelling the stasis spells, they get attacked by whatever huge nasty thing you're using as your front door.

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 12:13 am
by Whatever
DSMatticus wrote:You could totally find creatures with more surface area than dragons.
Yeah, but none of them would look as awesome as a dragon-castle.

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 1:25 am
by Prak
Temporal Stasis the Tarrasque, it should be big enough for a comfortable living inside. Then no one will dare dispel it.

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 2:13 am
by Vebyast
Prak_Anima wrote:Temporal Stasis the Tarrasque, it should be big enough for a comfortable living inside. Then no one will dare dispel it.
You can't hollow it out or move any of it... I guess you'd be living in its frozen lungs and gut, then?

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 2:33 am
by Prak
Pretty much, I guess. It's gullet can hold 32 medium creatures, so it'd probably make a decent entry way/dining room. It's stomach can almost assuredly hold at least that many, and just imagine how spacious the intestines would be*.


(There's a line I never expected to type... though sending a gelatinous cube through to clean it out does bring new meaning to the term colon cleansing.)

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 2:43 am
by K
Vebyast wrote:
K wrote:Am I the only one considering making fortresses out of creatures in a temporal stasis?
The best part? If someone tries to attack your castle by dispelling the stasis spells, they get attacked by whatever huge nasty thing you're using as your front door.
I was thinking of just casting animate object on random stuff, telling it to assemble into structures, and then casting the temporal stasis. Since the object is frozen in time, the duration should never run out on the first spell so if someone dispels part of your castle, they are freeing an animated object you control.

That being said, I did think about making a castle out of fire elementals. "Yes, I made my castle out of living fire because I'm too cheap to buy candles to read by."

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 2:57 am
by DSMatticus
Saves money on heating, too.

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 3:06 am
by fectin
Prak_Anima wrote:Pretty much, I guess. It's gullet can hold 32 medium creatures, so it'd probably make a decent entry way/dining room. It's stomach can almost assuredly hold at least that many, and just imagine how spacious the intestines would be*.


(There's a line I never expected to type... though sending a gelatinous cube through to clean it out does bring new meaning to the term colon cleansing.)
Does anything prevent you from enlarging the tarrasque somehow?

And yes, vacuum is only about a 16% advantage over helium. But vacuum is also (ironically) easier to make. Also, we basically need a spell wall to contain hydrogen or helium, so anything that works for them will work for vacuum too.

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 3:13 am
by Prak
The Temporal Stasis effect. Conceivably, you can undertake your alterations while it's not in stasis.

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 7:35 pm
by ...You Lost Me
Speaking of Fire Elementals making houses, didn't someone have a quote along the lines of: "You can't burn down the inn, it's made of solid fire,"? I vaguely remember that.

Also, freezing a Fire Elemental in temporal stasis--would it continue to radiate light and heat? Because that would make a wonderful fireplace or bath heather or personal sun.

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:34 pm
by hyzmarca
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't. The processes within it that generate light and heat are halted, and you can't even transfer heat without time.

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:18 pm
by DSMatticus
Most people are going to say no to generating heat and light, based on trying to be consistent with physics. Of course, it's an object that is completely stopped in time yet can be interacted with by other particles, so we're already telling physics it can go screw itself using magic.

But by a strict reading of temporal stasis, there's pretty much nothing that suggests any aura-like effects it has would stop. The list of effects seem to be: "time stops, condition fixed, does not age, bodily functions stop, no force or effect can harm it."

So, things like emanations/auras/whatever seem like they would continue to function, unless they were the result of bodily functions. If they're just a magical thing that happens around the creature, they would totally keep going. And their duration, if they had one, would stop counting down. So emanation spells with a duration? Cast 'em on somebody, slap temporal stasis on them, and now it lasts forever. Exploitable, perhaps?

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 10:42 pm
by K
DSMatticus wrote:Most people are going to say no to generating heat and light, based on trying to be consistent with physics. Of course, it's an object that is completely stopped in time yet can be interacted with by other particles, so we're already telling physics it can go screw itself using magic.

But by a strict reading of temporal stasis, there's pretty much nothing that suggests any aura-like effects it has would stop. The list of effects seem to be: "time stops, condition fixed, does not age, bodily functions stop, no force or effect can harm it."

So, things like emanations/auras/whatever seem like they would continue to function, unless they were the result of bodily functions. If they're just a magical thing that happens around the creature, they would totally keep going. And their duration, if they had one, would stop counting down. So emanation spells with a duration? Cast 'em on somebody, slap temporal stasis on them, and now it lasts forever. Exploitable, perhaps?
I sort of assumed that if time were truly stopped, light wouldn't be interacting with the creature at all.

Since we can see the creature, it stands to reason that it's still reflecting light because the creature is simply being reset in time to a certain point while being pushed forward in time.

Since it is living moments of discrete time before being reverted, it can be moved around in space and could still emanate, but no damage could be done to it since it would be reverting to a previously unaffected form constantly.

I could be wrong. My BA did not cover time-space dilation.

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 11:05 pm
by Just another user
K wrote:Am I the only one considering making fortresses out of creatures in a temporal stasis?
Forget the classic fortress of bones and skulls, someone could have a fortress made of slaves/war prisoners in temporal stasis.

that give a total new meaning to "human shield"

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 11:06 pm
by Just another user
Vebyast wrote:
Prak_Anima wrote:Temporal Stasis the Tarrasque, it should be big enough for a comfortable living inside. Then no one will dare dispel it.
You can't hollow it out or move any of it... I guess you'd be living in its frozen lungs and gut, then?
Well, you could kill it, carve its insides as you like, raise it as an undead and then put it in stasis.

edit: or maybe flesh to stone, carve it out, stone to flesh and a quick temporal stasis before it dies?

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 11:52 pm
by Chamomile
Just another user wrote:
Vebyast wrote:
Prak_Anima wrote:Temporal Stasis the Tarrasque, it should be big enough for a comfortable living inside. Then no one will dare dispel it.
You can't hollow it out or move any of it... I guess you'd be living in its frozen lungs and gut, then?
Well, you could kill it, carve its insides as you like, raise it as an undead and then put it in stasis.

edit: or maybe flesh to stone, carve it out, stone to flesh and a quick temporal stasis before it dies?
The first one is a good idea, but the second one means that dispelling the effect results in the Tarrasque dying pretty much immediately from extensive internal wounds, thus defeating the purpose of living inside an impenetrable fortress that will try to kill you if you make it penetrable again.