The Peasant Rail Gun

[User3]

The Peasant Rail Gun

*Warning: For Entertainment Purposes Only. Not Supported By RAW.*

The Premise:
You’re an adventurer and you just got your end-of-quest swag. Rather than spending the equivalent worth of a small city on an additional +1 for your equipment of choice you decide to get creative and actually interact with the mundane, 1sp/week economy. From the get-go we know that no good can come of this. So you buy a bag of sling bullets, hire a number of day laborer commoners (we’ll assume 50 and you’re paying them 1gp/day because you’re such a generous guy) and find some big open field. You have them stand in a line with 30ft of space between each other, tell them all to hold their actions as described below, give the bullet to the guy at the end of the line and yell “go!”. Now the rules for holding actions and initiative have no theoretical limit to the number of people who can hold their action for some circumstance. That means that a commoner could walk 30ft, hand a suitably small item to the next guy in line and the next guy take his action to do the same on down the row. The last guy walks 30ft and lets go of the slug. What we’ve done is move a sling bullet 3000ft in one round (6 seconds). That’s 500ft/sec which is (500*60*60/5280) roughly 340 miles/hour. It is hoped at this point that Physics wakes up, performs the following math and the sling bullet goes rocketing off at roughly Mach ½. What damage does a sling bullet do when its going half the speed of sound? I don’t know. At some speed we’ll cap at 20d6 but that’s not really the point. We’ve already left the realm of rule supported play but for the fun of it lets see what else we can do…

Fire From Above:
Each commoner in the line adds 3.41 miles/hour to the linear speed of your object (which can only weigh up to 33lbs so as not to apply medium encumbrance to the Str 10 commoners). Now, without getting into the physics too deeply let me state that, if ultimately fired at 45 degree angle, each peasant actually contributes 410ft of horizontal distance to the object (assuming an Earth-like gravitational constant). Replace the bullet with alchemical fire or acid and your shelling the castle from beyond the range of the wizard’s fireball for a few dollars a day.

Poor Man’s Teleport:
If you’re a Halfling with the “reduce person” spell up, the victim of a “baleful polymorph” or are willing to pay for 33% more commoners you can have yourself launched skyward. Since people don’t take damage from acceleration in DnD (only from the assumed crash at the end) you won’t even need a cushy flight-seat. It’s generally recommended to have “feather fall” readied to land with and some sort of screen to keep the bugs off mid-flight. For the offensively (and sadistically) inclined you can hurl living rounds at the enemy. I’m partial to kobolds wearing Kaiser Helmets (to reduce drag and add a little piercing damage upon impact). Bonus points if the critter actually survives to do sneak attack damage during the surprise round…

Who Needs Siege Equipment:
If your wizard buddy has “shrink item” available then the weight limit for munitions is somewhere between OMG and insanity. Reduce the boulder, pass it down the line and have the last guy that lets go say the trigger word to undo the spell. Repeat until there is no more castle/mountain/dragon in your way. This also works for lobbing balls of lava/alchemical burnination/whatever else you whip up with your creation spell of choice.

To The Moon, Alice!:
The escape velocity from the Earth’s gravity well is 25,059 miles/hour. That means your 7349 commoners (which sounds like a lot but cost-wise is still much less than a +2 sword), with the last one lobbing the slug straight up, will get your payload into orbit. If you plan on sending yourself up, I recommend “Otiluke’s Telekinetic Sphere” and a Necklace of Adaptation for powered flight, pressurization and breathable air. A side benefit is you only weigh 1/16th normal so there’s no need to shrink or polymorph before hand.

This originally came up during a game when the high con Elven Ranger took a level of wizard to go down the Arcane Archer track. This was 3.0 so his toad familiar gave him a +2 con meaning his familiar had in excess of 40hp (more than two party members at the time). Since the familiar was really just a hopping con boost it never saw combat or anything outside of his master’s pocket. We speculated on what could actually kill the frog and the silliness escalated to the finale: “launching it into space”. So, in conclusion, I present the Peasant Rail Gun for all your space born familiar launching needs. Thank you and goodnight.

[Catharz]

This reminds me of the 'ring gate cannon.' You levitate above a city, and hold the ring gate parallel one above the other. Drop something small and massive into the lower gate, and it comes out the higher. This loop continues until you take the lower gate away and your small missile goes rocketing down at the city at its terminal velocity (which can be pretty high if you choose the right missile).

As for 'to the moon,' is it safe to assume that the last pesent transfers all ofthe horizontal velocity to vertical? Or does he just add a small vertical velocity to the existing horizontal one?

[User3]

Yeah, the idea is the actual vector of departure from the "railgun" is set by the last peasant. If the last guy throws it forward than the munition launches horizontally. If the guy throws it skyward than it is directed vertically. Anything inbetween results in the usual ballistic arc. It feels a little silly detailing this because the whole thing is so ludicrous but then again its founded on the fact that X participants can go X*(base move speed)ft in the course of a single six second round even as X approaches infinite. You maybe able to get twice the distance out of your commoner-components by having them perform a double move (or maybe an all out run) but I'm unsure what the rules are for handing off stuff after those actions so I decided to play it safe.

[Fwib]

The problem with the ring gate is that if things go all the way through it, they count against its daily mass limit.

So no ring gate cannons

You could make it work with custom portals, though

[User3]

1175108160[/unixtime]]The problem with the ring gate is that if things go all the way through it, they count against its daily mass limit.

So no ring gate cannons

You could make it work with custom portals, though

So, use the following set-up. Get a straight rod of some sort. Stick one end of the rod through the ring gate, and then bring the other end of the ring gate such that you can sovereign glue the two ends of the rod together. The rod should weigh 100lbs

Let the rod-loop enter free-fall through the ring-gates. It never finishes passing through the ring gate, so its mass never counts against the ring gates. When the rod is travelling sufficiently fast, douse it with universal solvent (to break the sovereign glue). Quickly remove the bottom Ring Gate.

At which point the full rod object only passed completely through the ring gate once, but you gained arbitrary velocity. (Because you changed the nature of the object at the end).

Of course, such a ring-gate/rod system has other amusing properties so long as the rod makes a loop. For instance, the ring gates can neither be moved together nor apart without trying to break the rod. Turning one ring gate necessarily turns the other one equally in the opposite direction. Moving the rod with respect to one ring gate moves it with respect to the other. If you fix the rod relative to one ring gate, you fix it relative to the other.

[User3]

Yeah, a ring gate can give you at most 71 million joules of free energy per day, almost no matter what you do with it. This isn't that exciting (it corresponds to a continuous output of about 800 watts of power). There are only two exceptions:

* if you try to take advantage of the "objects stuck partially through don't count" clause, I have no clue what happens, but it's definitely really weird.
* the text says "100 lbs", but doesn't specify whether that's the weight of the object upon entry or upon exit. This might allow you to do something crazy if you got close enough to a black hole or something.

The effects of a bag of holding on physics are actually considerably worse, though I don't know if there's a way to exploit them in real time without considerable amounts of machinery.

[Judging__Eagle]

Hmm....

Using Squirreloid's Ring-gate Rod-Loop method (that sounds potentially dirty), one could use it to drive mechanical devices.


If you replace the rod with a length of metal with teeth, that can be matched to a gear mechanism that will: A) maintain the toothed rod and gear together and B) have the gear lead to a drive shaft; you've got a pile of mechanical power that very portable.

Of course, simply using a skeleton or zombie on a treadmill, or having either in a running wheel also works.

For much less cost, but takes more space and is less mobile as a mechanical source of energy.

[Endovior]

Actually, the Ring-Gate-Rod-Loop-Gear method wouldn't work too well; when it's just the rod by itself, it works great, as the rod is dropping through air, only pulling it's own weight downwards with gravity. However, when attached to a gear, it is trying to pull a gear (and whatever else the gear is attached to) with gravity that does not act in the manner you would wish upon the gear. It'd be like turning a windmill when there's no wind by having a series of midgets jump off the top and grab the sails. It'll work, sort of... but very slowly, and isn't worth the effort. Only in this case it's not worth the effort times about 10000, because midgets can be hired for 1sp/day, and Ring Gates are really expensive.

[TRQ]

You might want to pay the last peasant in line a little bit extra. After all, physics kicks in right at the end of his turn, so as he launches that 33lb object at 340 mph, his approximately 165lb body will be rocketed the other way at about 68mph (right into the peasant behind him). Throwing it to the moon will send him straight into the ground at about 5000 mph. He might want a healing potion after that.
Sling stones only weigh .5 lbs, so not much of a problem there. However, midgets don't weigh very much either, so be careful!

[User3]

1175145569[/unixtime]]Actually, the Ring-Gate-Rod-Loop-Gear method wouldn't work too well; when it's just the rod by itself, it works great, as the rod is dropping through air, only pulling it's own weight downwards with gravity. However, when attached to a gear, it is trying to pull a gear (and whatever else the gear is attached to) with gravity that does not act in the manner you would wish upon the gear. It'd be like turning a windmill when there's no wind by having a series of midgets jump off the top and grab the sails. It'll work, sort of... but very slowly, and isn't worth the effort. Only in this case it's not worth the effort times about 10000, because midgets can be hired for 1sp/day, and Ring Gates are really expensive.

Well, actually, a 100lb toothed rod would exert 100lbs of force (weight being a force measurement, not a mass measurement) downwards. This could certainly be used to generate work. Now, you're going to have to do something to stop the gear from pushing the rod away from it: The easy solution is actually to put the rod at the far end of the Ring-Gates and have the gear project in-between the two portals so it pushes the rod into the edge of the ring gates. The edge of extradimensional holes is unlikely to have friction, so this should also lead to a perfectly efficient solution.

The other solution, of course, is to have the rod be toothed along multiple sides, and have it power multiple gears (such that the net force on the rod in the horizontal plane is zero). Just remember that it can only drive 100lbs of Force worth of work total.

Obviously, solutions that involve some guides will decrease the output because of friction. But its still "free" energy.

[User3]

Since you don't take damage from acceloration in DnD, only the splat at the end, you could have the end-peasant go unharmed by wearing boots of levitation and a ring of featherfall. He's given the slug/reduced wizard/shrunk boulder, levitates up and throws the payload. Physics kicks in and shoots both launcher and launchee in their respective directions and so long as the peasant is more than 3ft off the ground the ring of feather fall will kick in and render the "falling" damage moot. Requiring those two items would increase the initial expense but their infinitely reusable so they would eventually pay for themselves in all the peasants that didn't go splat.

[Nereas]

Here's a generator for ya - Take two intelligent corporeal undead attached to each end of a arbitrarily long pole on a plane with subjective gravity, then tell each one to want gravity to be right/left relative to them. I'm not totally positive on what this would do to the objects gravity as subjective gravity is made of stupid, but if you stick the pole halfway through a ring gate and rotate the exit gate then the undead and pole could have just one gravity direction but still rotate.

Something still seems wrong about that but it could just be the whole "subjective" crap.

Another use for a Ring Gate inspired by Scrubs - both gates placed around the neck (sized to fit) and a Hand of the Mage would quite effectively duplicate the "Floating Head Doctor" bit and open up some bizarre gameplay options.

Hell have a Fiend of Possession do all the dirty work of energy generation - just build the device and it doesn't matter if it requires energy input to work.

[User3]

If we want to play "DnD perpetual motion devices" we'll be here a while. Simple things like decanters of endless water (geyser + water wheels FTW), anything with no con score (since they are tireless), hacking off troll flesh and burning it (infinite fuel), solar power generation from everburning torches or tapping into planes that are themselves infinite (heat from plane of fire for example) will more than manage. The real challenge is harnessing that energy into
something meaningful. Infinite energy only means infinite profit/power/awesomeness if you have a conversion method that is 100% efficient and capable of sustaining itself forever. Anything less and its still finite, meaning your "wasting" an infinite amount of energy. Sure, dropping a rod through a ring gate will keep the gears turning but how much can that actually DO? A lot over an infinite amount of time but in the short run you have little more than a perpetually lit desk lamp. W00t? I challenge you guys to come up with bigger scale/more "profitable" energy source and means of energy extraction... or talk about other funny rule break-downs since that was the intent of my original post.

[User3]

1175179770[/unixtime]]If we want to play "DnD perpetual motion devices" we'll be here a while. Simple things like decanters of endless water (geyser + water wheels FTW), anything with no con score (since they are tireless), hacking off troll flesh and burning it (infinite fuel), solar power generation from everburning torches or tapping into planes that are themselves infinite (heat from plane of fire for example) will more than manage. The real challenge is harnessing that energy into
something meaningful. Infinite energy only means infinite profit/power/awesomeness if you have a conversion method that is 100% efficient and capable of sustaining itself forever. Anything less and its still finite, meaning your "wasting" an infinite amount of energy. Sure, dropping a rod through a ring gate will keep the gears turning but how much can that actually DO? A lot over an infinite amount of time but in the short run you have little more than a perpetually lit desk lamp. W00t? I challenge you guys to come up with bigger scale/more "profitable" energy source and means of energy extraction... or talk about other funny rule break-downs since that was the intent of my original post.

Well, the reason the rod was 100lbs originally was because you were going to let it pass fully through at one point. So long as you're using it as a power generator (and thus, it never passes 'fully through'), it can actually be as massive as you want. Which means you can have it exert arbitrary force by making it arbitrarily massive and therefore generate arbitrary work. Finding a suitable rod is left as an exercise to the reader.

This has (1) Direct mechanical conversion of energy into useful work, (2) arbitrary energy (infinite is such a dirty word), (3) small and portable (you could easily power something the size of a car with this using standard 18" diameter ring-gates, and can get quite a bit smaller. Anything smaller than the ring-gates is a problem, however. (I suppose you could always stick the ringgates in a portable hole...).

Not only that, by clever choice of the mass of the rod and the friction generated by the wheel, you could even build a device that did something complicated, like keep time.

[Judging__Eagle]

Well, an easy use of the rotational energy is to drive any device that is normally powered by a Waterwheel or Windmill.

Also, having a relatively portable Trip-Hammer to do forging on the fly is pretty neat.

[Crissa]

But anything the last peasant throws will only go at a base 5' square range, the same as the first peasant.

Which means that although an object could travel over distances impossible in our world... It also never actually accellerates to the mass of an object independently going that speed.

Mind blowing, huh?

-Crissa