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bugsysservant
2007-06-26, 02:34 PM
What is up with the immovable rod? Once placed can it be moved? I would assume so, but the way the entry is worded ("When the button is pushed ... the rod does not move from where it is") seems to indicate that once in place it can't be removed shy of 8,000 lbs.

GoblinJTHM
2007-06-26, 02:35 PM
try un-pushing the button

TheLogman
2007-06-26, 02:37 PM
I think further down the entry, it mentions using like 3 rods to make a ladder. Somewhere in that entry, there is a part about deactivating it.

bugsysservant
2007-06-26, 02:40 PM
I think further down the entry, it mentions using like 3 rods to make a ladder. Somewhere in that entry, there is a part about deactivating it.

Not in the 3.5 rules. If it did, I wouldn't ask. But if you can move it, it seems as though it would be a bit too powerful (think casting invisibility on it and luring a giant to charge into it: auto prone)

GoblinJTHM
2007-06-26, 02:42 PM
You're right about that, I can see how you could run into issues with PCs just carrying a couple invisible ones and just setting em off behind them whenever they we're being chased. Then again the idea of a rod being stuck somewhere for the rest of eternity could cause issues too.

Green Bean
2007-06-26, 02:48 PM
You're right about that, I can see how you could run into issues with PCs just carrying a couple invisible ones and just setting em off behind them whenever they we're being chased. Then again the idea of a rod being stuck somewhere for the rest of eternity could cause issues too.

Meh. If a party is willing to spend 5000gp per rod to slightly slow down a pursuing bad guy, I'd say let them. I mean, if they really are stuck there forever, then you are really only buying a one shot item.

Neko
2007-06-26, 02:57 PM
It doesnt say that pushing the button deactivates the ability but since you have to push it and let go to let it stay put... I think a fairly good assumption is that pushing it again will deactivate it.. at least thats how I've always interpreted it.. and it can be moved with a DC 30 strength check.. which I would hope a giant could make fairly easily...

Personally my favorite use for it is to hold someone against a wall with their feet dangling and than use the rod to pin their arms and torso there in place leaving them dangling there for you to interigate, torture, etc.. also the threat of shoving it somewhere it shouldnt go and than activating it.. also a good threat...

FireSpark
2007-06-26, 03:01 PM
I guess I never read the entry that closely. Think I'll have to now. My idea has always been to buy two of them, and then be able to climb anywhere I wanted to go. A cat-burgler's best friends.

bugsysservant
2007-06-26, 03:02 PM
It doesnt say that pushing the button deactivates the ability but since you have to push it and let go to let it stay put... I think a fairly good assumption is that pushing it again will deactivate it.. at least thats how I've always interpreted it.. and it can be moved with a DC 30 strength check.. which I would hope a giant could make fairly easily...

Personally my favorite use for it is to hold someone against a wall with their feet dangling and than use the rod to pin their arms and torso there in place leaving them dangling there for you to interigate, torture, etc.. also the threat of shoving it somewhere it shouldnt go and than activating it.. also a good threat...

First allow me to commend you on your...creativity, but does a charge really count as a strength check? While he could move it after he found it was there, and located it (it is invisible) he would already be knocked down by then. Also, the strength check only allows you to move it 10 ft., so assuming you can make the check every time, it is still an impractical thing to have with you if the button can't be "unpushed"

bigbaddragon
2007-06-26, 03:07 PM
I think further down the entry, it mentions using like 3 rods to make a ladder. Somewhere in that entry, there is a part about deactivating it.

Somewhere around that there was also a picture of some guy climbing that ladder and it looked like he was taking the lowest rod to put it as a topmost and thus continue climbing.

I say you can deactivate them the same way you activate them, because if you can't all realms would be full of dangling immovable rods :smallbiggrin:

Neko
2007-06-26, 03:11 PM
First allow me to commend you on your...creativity, but does a charge really count as a strength check? While he could move it after he found it was there, and located it (it is invisible) he would already be knocked down by then. Also, the strength check only allows you to move it 10 ft., so assuming you can make the check every time, it is still an impractical thing to have with you if the button can't be "unpushed"

True... I don't know if a charge would count... I mean at least when bull rushing a strength check is is made to move the other.. but if you don't see it... you might not get the check.. I suppose that might be DM's call on that. As for the unpushed part I go with the system of you push it once to activate it, and than again to deactivate it.. Kind of like when you push a pen cap to make the tip come out and than push it again to make the tip go back into the pen. I suppose you could go like that. First push, makes it stay put. Push number two makes it movable. Thats how I feel it works.

Yeah I get a bit 'creative' on how to get people to talk.. I tend to be CN for a reason... the allignment a friend once said was a bane to DMs as to the fact you can loophole around moral and ethical stuff more than any other class.

Burrito
2007-06-26, 03:21 PM
I can think of some really good uses for an invisible, immovable rod.

Enemy castle drawbridge is down. Have your pesant disguised thief, "Mearly bringing a sack of turnips to sell to the keep", pretend to trip, and place the rod flat on the drawbridge, and activate it. That drawbridge isn't comming back up any time soon.

Why would you use it to trip a Giant chasing you, when you could place it lenthwise along the trail (this would work well with cave entrances also) and just let the giant, or whatever the heck is chasing you, impale themselves. Who says you can't sharpen the rod ends.

Although the problems with an immovable rod bring up some interesting questions on relativity. It is still on a spinning, moving globe, so technically it is still moving when activated. If you were on a ship, or wagon, or dragonback, would it stay where it was when actived? Or would it move along relative to the place it was activated? i.e. Would it stay on the deck of the ship forever our would it end up hovering above the water as your ship sailed out from underneath it?

Questions like that, though, are what cause DM's to suddenly say things like "Uh, pick up all your dice and the dice of the person to your left. Roll them and add up the total. Take that much damage."

TheLogman
2007-06-26, 03:22 PM
Several Immovable Rods can even make a ladder when used together (Although only two are needed) Says the DMG, Core Rulebook II First printing: September 2000. That's 3.5 right? It doesn't make sense for a ladder to only have 2 rungs, so they must be able to be picked up and moved, why else would the DMG suggest using them to bar doors considering they are so expensive, unless they were re-usable?

Dragonmuncher
2007-06-26, 03:30 PM
Burrito, that's one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to fiction- it affects many things, including time travel and teleportation.


Which is annoying, because I love time travel stories, and teleportation's always neat, too.

I suggest just explaining it away in technobabble, a "geosynchronous molecular alignment stabalizer component" sounds about right.

Belkarseviltwin
2007-06-26, 03:34 PM
Although the problems with an immovable rod bring up some interesting questions on relativity. It is still on a spinning, moving globe, so technically it is still moving when activated. If you were on a ship, or wagon, or dragonback, would it stay where it was when actived? Or would it move along relative to the place it was activated? i.e. Would it stay on the deck of the ship forever our would it end up hovering above the water as your ship sailed out from underneath it?


I always say that the rod stays at a constant latitude, longitude and height above sea level. That avoids the orbital-speed dead catgirls, but allows for cool stuff like sinking ships with it, snatching yourself off the back of an angry giant, etc...

GoblinJTHM
2007-06-26, 03:35 PM
PHB and DMG 3.5 we're first printed July of '03 :P

bugsysservant
2007-06-26, 03:42 PM
I think that the rod stays still relative to where you define yourself. Thus if you were standing on a (moving) boat and hit the button it would forever float above the deck. If, however, you jumped into the air and hit the button in the same spot, with no contact with the deck, it would stay above the sea, and you would sail away from it. Of course this raises some interesting "Ship of Theseus" paradoxes. If, for instance, you define yourself as standing on only one board of the ship, if it is removed does the rod follow? If you define it as the ship as a whole, and the ship is steadily replaced, board by board, till none of the original material is left, does it remain in the same relative location, since, strictly speaking, it isn't the same ship?

Neko
2007-06-26, 03:49 PM
Personally I think that when the button is hit.. It stops.. right where it is.. if you're moving you get tugged off.

Burrito
2007-06-26, 04:15 PM
Kinda along these lines, we had a campaign once where a NPC (the DM wouldn't let us have these items) had "Inertia Spears". Magical of course, you would active the spear and then throw it as hard as you could. The spear would not fly off, instead it would "store the inertia of the throw". You could then carry it for however long you wanted and use it like a normal spear. Once you said a command word though, the stored inertia would kick in and the spear would take off in whatever direction it was pointed. The NPC was specialized in these (way back in 2nd edition AD&D), and could get huge range on the spears by activating the inertia at the high point in the spears arc of flight. Also really good for traps, etc.

Bauglir
2007-06-26, 05:09 PM
On the subject of creative uses. Leave several of them inside the Tarrasque. Preferably inside some sort of Acid-proof sack. If your DM will let you make them out of Adamantine, even better. The Tarrasque, while incredibly heavy, needs to roll a 13 or better to actually beat that Strength check, and if you have several rods... well, it's unlikely. Heck, get enough and it won't even fall down when you kill it. And if it DOES make the check, it still can only move at 10 ft per round.

Actually this works on anything with swallow whole, but the Tarrasque is a nice fun example.

martyboy74
2007-06-26, 05:12 PM
Just say that it stays in the same place relative to the center of your campaign world.

puppyavenger
2007-06-26, 06:03 PM
Personally I think that when the button is hit.. It stops.. right where it is.. if you're moving you get tugged off.

So what's the planets str modifier?

AtomicKitKat
2007-06-26, 11:42 PM
So what's the planets str modifier?

I dunno about that, but the Earth is several thousands(hundreds of thousands? millions?) of tons, moving at the speed of 1/24 circumference per hour. That probably far exceeds the DC 30 Strength Check and 4 tons you need to move a rod.

CockroachTeaParty
2007-06-27, 12:15 AM
GAH! The whole orbit thing never came to my mind until this thread! Now my brain hurts! I suppose I would have it stay still relative to the planet...


...

Screw it, my campaign worlds are now all flat.

Icewalker
2007-06-27, 02:00 AM
Theres a class in tome of magic involving combining ones body with magic items.

I had this idea for an assassin...monocle with various penetrating visions and detections. An immovable wall in each forearm, so he can climb anywhere. That kinda thing...

Dervag
2007-06-27, 03:29 AM
I can think of some really good uses for an invisible, immovable rod.

Enemy castle drawbridge is down. Have your pesant disguised thief, "Mearly bringing a sack of turnips to sell to the keep", pretend to trip, and place the rod flat on the drawbridge, and activate it. That drawbridge isn't comming back up any time soon.If the drawbridge is massive enough, the winch to raise it has to be able to exert enough force to budge the rod or the door wouldn't lift at all... and there's a good chance that casters inside the palace would catch on and start trying to dispel whatever curse the enemy put on their drawbridge. But it would definitely slow down the process of raising the bridge.


Why would you use it to trip a Giant chasing you, when you could place it lenthwise along the trail (this would work well with cave entrances also) and just let the giant, or whatever the heck is chasing you, impale themselves. Who says you can't sharpen the rod ends.Nasty.

If I were DM I'm not sure I'd allow it because you would have to sharpen the ends and altering a magic item's shape might ruin it. Better to just glue a spear to the rod and make both invisible.

Blackbrrd
2007-06-27, 04:00 AM
Since it takes 8000lbs to move the rod, I would say that putting an activated rod just above a drawbridge is the same as putting 8000lbs of stuff on the drawbridge. I don't think the winches are made to handle 8000lbs of extra weight...

technomancer
2007-06-27, 04:07 AM
Question: What shape is Toril (or whatever you call your campain world)?

Just because earth is round doesn't mean the D&D world is round, or even orbiting anything. For all we know, it could actually be the center of the Prime Material Plane and everything else moves around it, and so an immovable rod would stay put in an absolute sense, which means it also stays put relative to the planet, because it's not moving either.

As for using it to stop a drawbridge, just because the winch mechanism is rated at 4 tons, doesn't mean it can exert 4 tons of force on something holding the drawbridge open. If you have a drawbridge that requires 3.5 tons of force to close, how much force can the winch put on the immovable rod holding the drawbridge down?

That said, I think the intent was that you can push the button to let the rod loose, but that's not what the rules actually say, so it falls to the DM to houserule that you can turn the buggers off.

AtomicKitKat
2007-06-27, 04:17 AM
If I were DM I'm not sure I'd allow it because you would have to sharpen the ends and altering a magic item's shape might ruin it. Better to just glue a spear to the rod and make both invisible.

Screw the spear. The rod's the perfect length to have a couple of darts/daggers Sovereign Glued to it.

lord_khaine
2007-06-27, 04:34 AM
yeah well, how are you planning to make those rods invisible?

Green Bean
2007-06-27, 07:10 AM
yeah well, how are you planning to make those rods invisible?

Like this! (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/invisibility.htm)

Citizen Joe
2007-06-27, 07:59 AM
That only lasts minutes/level... not enough time for the drawbridge trick. You could permanent it, but I could think of about a million better ways to use high level spells.

I say the rod becomes immovable relative to the largest mass in range. Most of the time its the planet you are on. However, if you do the spelljammer stuff or go off plane or something, the largest mass may become your ship.

GoblinJTHM
2007-06-27, 08:06 AM
you could homebrew your own new version with a runic anchor device and keep em following you relative to your backpack :smallwink:

Arbitrarity
2007-06-27, 09:58 AM
Permanency. Duh.

My campaign world is flat, but with a non-euclidean curvature. If you go far enough one way, you end up going towards the midde again.

bugsysservant
2007-06-27, 10:57 AM
Hmm... using an immovable rod to stop the Earth - Thats a new one. Because even if it could make the strength check, the Earth would be slowed to a speed of about 1 mph. That would surely have dire consequences. Or, alternatively, you could rule that the momentum of the Earth exceeds it's normal force, and have the rod plunge through the Earth to hang motionless relative to the space-time continuum forever.

Kiroho
2007-06-27, 11:27 AM
I played around with weaponizing an Immovable Rod a while back and came up with this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46826). I'm sure that the same could be done for any pointy-ended missile weapon. And think about how much fun immovable Caltrops could be with a command word to set them after you've thrown them. Now, hanging in space behind you, your very own impromptu Wall of Pointy