3.5 Transmute Mud to Rock volume (Silva stay out)

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 5:24 pm

This spell, and similar material spells, targets up to two 10'-cubes per caster level. Does this mean it targets the volume of the target material, or just all of the material in the target volume? A stone house may use maybe a single 10'-cube of stone, but the total volume can easily be a hundred-fold because of the empty space (ie, rooms).

Zaranthan · Post by **Zaranthan** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 5:29 pm

You get cubes, not granular volume. If half of your 10' cube is air, tough tanookies.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 5:39 pm

Compare it to the target of Stone Shape: Stone or stone object touched, up to 10 cu. ft. + 1 cu. ft./level. Expressing an effect in terms of potential area affected instead of by total potential volume of material affected, as found in the transmute spells, would suggest that much of those cubes might well have something other than mud/rock in them.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 6:12 pm

Okay, so off-topic, but why is Silva relevant enough to this thread to warrant a specific ban? Are we going for a general strategy of appending a "stay out" demand to every single thread title, thus effectively banning Silva from any thread but his own?

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 6:54 pm

Yeah, I've always read "cu. ft." in spells as fungible volume while "x' cubes" have to actually be cubes - thus a reason to differentiate between "1 10' cube per level" and "1000 cu. ft. per level".

I don't have any backup for that, but it's the only way I've ever read it and it seems pretty straightforward.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 6:59 pm

Chamomile wrote:Okay, so off-topic, but why is Silva relevant enough to this thread to warrant a specific ban? Are we going for a general strategy of appending a "stay out" demand to every single thread title, thus effectively banning Silva from any thread but his own?

I think maybe to prevent a derail.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 7:47 pm

Leress wrote:
Chamomile wrote:Okay, so off-topic, but why is Silva relevant enough to this thread to warrant a specific ban? Are we going for a general strategy of appending a "stay out" demand to every single thread title, thus effectively banning Silva from any thread but his own?
I think maybe to prevent a derail.

That would be my assumption, except that I don't see why this thread would be particularly vulnerable to a Silva derail. Which again makes me wonder if we're just banning him from every individual thread because he does have a demonstrated capability to derail practically anything.

Zaranthan · Post by **Zaranthan** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 7:50 pm

Chamomile wrote:Which again makes me wonder if we're just banning him from every individual thread because he does have a demonstrated capability to derail practically anything.

That would be a reasonable way to go about using the boards. That said, what I want to know is why virgil made a thread for a one-liner question instead of posting it in the Annoying Game Questions thread.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 8:50 pm

Zaranthan wrote:That said, what I want to know is why virgil made a thread for a one-liner question instead of posting it in the Annoying Game Questions thread.

I forgot it existed.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:50 pm

In any case, this thread is relevant to my interests. Looking to start exploiting this spell for infrastructure in Maxus' campaign.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Aug 21, 2015 12:49 am

Oh dear lord.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Fri Aug 21, 2015 2:28 am

Zaranthan wrote:
Chamomile wrote:Which again makes me wonder if we're just banning him from every individual thread because he does have a demonstrated capability to derail practically anything.
That would be a reasonable way to go about using the boards. That said, what I want to know is why virgil made a thread for a one-liner question instead of posting it in the Annoying Game Questions thread.

It's not unheard of for a question to get ignored there if there's already a discussion on another topic.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Fri Aug 21, 2015 3:52 am

Transmute Rock to Mud is a shapeable spell. From the SRD:

(S) Shapeable
If an Area or Effect entry ends with "(S)," you can shape the spell. A shaped effect or area can have no dimension smaller than 10 feet. Many effects or areas are given as cubes to make it easy to model irregular shapes. Three-dimensional volumes are most often needed to define aerial or underwater effects and areas.

Emphasis mine.