owenfromcanada @ owenfromcanada @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

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Go to school for aeronautics, become a rocket scientist. Get a job making rockets and satellites. When you finally get to work on a probe that is designed to not return, make it a horcrux just before it's launched. Even if people eventually figure out what it is, they won't be able to do anything about it until we have access to FTL travel.

It's cause you gotta take it on faith that she's qualified to be within 1000 feet of the Whitehouse.

The ones that suddenly jump on you and eat your face off are the ones that really got me.

Rated E for Everyone

We've tried nothing and we're out of ideas!

If everywhere you go smells like shit, check your shoe.

Yeah, and if a regular gun is loaded with magically shrunken cannonballs and that magic is dispelled...

I did, but I already paid for two years (plus did a bunch of work to migrate files over). So I'll be here for a bit.

Not sure how beans would go about fucking.

I switched to Proton about 6 months ago.

Wish I had waited. Ah well.

That does raise some interesting questions. To break as few laws of physics as possible, we can assume there's no truly "instant" transformation. The question then becomes how quickly the transformation happens, and whether the transformation is linear with respect to radius, volume, or mass.

I feel like Randall Munroe would have a good answer.

Bullets typically weigh between 20 and 40 grams. In addition, we can calculate kinetic energy as KE = m * v^2, which means the velocity changes exponentially relative to the mass (I think I incorrectly assumed a linear relationship before).

So in your thought experiment, the 19kg to, say, 19g transformation would change the velocity by a factor of 1000^0.5, or about 32. 32 * 4.4m/s = 140.8 m/s, which is totally reasonable (slower if the bullet is heavier, not sure about the density of a cannonball).

I think the party missed another interesting (albeit elaborate) use.

Find a large pointy rock. Shrink it down to the size of a small arrow head. Attach it to an arrow shaft such that the head will slide off the end of the shaft without too much effort (staying embedded in the target). Have the rogue launch it at the big bad, then have the barbarian or monk punch the arrow wound while wearing the ring.

Based on the text in the original post, I'm guessing that table ruled that the transformation took enough time for the ball to exit the gun. If not, mounting the ring out a little ways from the end of the barrel is an easy enough solution.

Yep, and someone casting Dispel Magic on your gun would effectively ruin it, if it were loaded.

Sorry, I should say that the momentum is conserved, but it would affect the velocity (that is, the overall kinetic energy is the same, which means velocity has to drop by an equal factor to conserve energy). It would be similar to if the extra mass were to be suddenly tethered to the bullet, which would understandably slow it down.

That being said, it's D&D and people can rule however they want.

Damn, those are exactly the students they were aiming to harm.

You'd have to mount it on a wire a bit past the end of the barrel, or custom create a barrel that expands toward the end. Depends on whether dispelling the magic is an instant transformation, or if it "grows" at some rate.

This is a good take, but it partly depends on the setting. Specifically, if these magic artifacts are fairly rare and valuable (even something meager like this ring), it's entirely possible that people haven't explored that kind of application of magic. It could also be viable if there are very few inventors/scholars in the setting.

In any case, the conservation of mass thing another commenter mentioned would make this less viable, so you're right on the money. That being said, laws of physics can be bent for rule-of-cool if that's your table. Personally, if I were DMing it, I'd probably try to find a way to balance between realism and making their research process hilarious and/or dangerous, with the end result being them producing something useful but not gamebreaking (e.g., you can carry and deploy the cannonballs, but the gun doesn't really fire them, but in combination with a method of flight, could still be awesome--or they apply this method with a large boulder and have that to work with instead).

As another poster mentioned, this is likely the reason this isn't already done in the fantasy setting. Either the mass is the same (in which case your flintlock isn't going to launch it terribly far) or the mass changes and it would reduce momentum.

That being said, it's still a useful way to transport cannonballs, and could still be quite useful. Just not quite a "free" Catapult spell on demand.