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Roninblack
2017-01-09, 03:32 AM
Me and my gaming group discuss this pretty often, (we all dislike "but magic" as an answer) so it occasionally gets tossed back out as to where the mass comes from for druids, polymorph, warshapers, and other shape changers. So board, any opinions?

Mechalich
2017-01-09, 03:40 AM
Other planes. That's the original canonical answer. Generally the elemental planes or the ethereal, depending on what the spell in question represents. In 2e certain spells were actually impossible to cast in certain places because you couldn't grab mass from the inner planes if you were presently in the outer planes. Also, the answer to the counter question of where the mass goes - in the case of shrinking and so on - is that it ends up temporarily stored in the Astral Plane, in the same fashion as items in a bag of holding.

Pronounceable
2017-01-09, 04:37 AM
we all dislike "but magic" as an answer
Whatever other answer you invent will also boil down to that, whether it's conjured matter from ethereal or nanotransmutative boosters. Technobabble (magicbabble in this case) is never anything other than but magic.

This is the only true answer. But not very interesting or satisfying. So instead I'll make **** up (you should too):
-It's solidified mana from the spell
-Nanotransmutative alchemical reactions of ingredients from standardized druid initiation rituals (this is the worst, don't do this)
-The creature gets gated inside the caster's body and leaks out
-It's particularly persuasive illusion
-Dopplegangers are sentient chameleon oozes
-Shifted bodies become hollow shells
-Yo momma's so fat, mass runs in the family (still better than nanomachines)

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2017-01-09, 07:45 AM
Conservation of mass isn't a thing.

curious-puzzle
2017-01-09, 09:29 AM
All extra mass is drawn from the Forever Flesh, through tiny extraplanar pinholes in the gates locking the Far Realm away. Every spell weakens said gate a little more...

MarkVIIIMarc
2017-01-09, 10:13 AM
Me and my gaming group discuss this pretty often, (we all dislike "but magic" as an answer) so it occasionally gets tossed back out as to where the mass comes from for druids, polymorph, warshapers, and other shape changers. So board, any opinions?

For those stuck on the matter can neither be created nor destroyed......Think of the act of magically creating a chalice as the steps of converting magical ("dark maybe") energy into a physical form.

Don't let them hold up the game on that.

Although I do like the idea of limiting shapeshifters from gaining much mass unless we decide magic is involved.

Khedrac
2017-01-09, 10:27 AM
Read "The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped" by Sherri S Tepper.
I don't remember where the extra material comes from when Mavin turns into a larger form (it might be conversion of surrounding matter - earth and air etc. or it might just be created). When she turns into a smaller form the extra material is left behind - at one point I think it gets used as a food source for the party!

Hmm, I really must re-read these books at some point, they are excellent.

Flickerdart
2017-01-09, 10:47 AM
If you love physics so much, just say that spells flip dark matter (which we cannot interact with or detect) into baryonic (conventional) matter.

GungHo
2017-01-09, 11:58 AM
It comes from Mysterio Etheros, God of the Gaps

Joe the Rat
2017-01-09, 12:05 PM
Draws from the border ethereal, turning pre-material potential into actual material (and vice versa). It's really trippy looking from the other side.
Borrowing mass from other points on your timeline - all the time you spend as a spider gives you a window of time to T-Rex yourself.
You have an extra-dimensional pocket you can shunt mass into. As you gain power, you can permanently store additional mass in that space (higher HD allowances). High level druids are big eaters.
Body-swapping with a creature. Somewhere, there's a pasty looking druid with the mind of a giant elk running around right now.
Body-swapping with a spirit. As above, but your body is hanging out in Arborea until you're finished.
Literal shapeshifter baggage. You keep masses of organic material on hand to build your alternate forms. You keep it on a cart. Your oxen is rather traumatized from all the times you didn't pack enough.

John Longarrow
2017-01-09, 12:19 PM
I think this comic has it right...
http://www.peteristhewolf.com/general/images/comics/pitw_61.jpg

Fri
2017-01-09, 12:22 PM
Other planes is the canon answer. Actually animorph's morpher also works that way. I remember a weird scene where they see the dimension where all their extra mass got shunted as they transform into insects or something, there's blob of flesh floating around or something. I also remember something about how ships in ftl also went through this dimension? It was weird. Was it real or it's my/their acid trip?

EccentricCircle
2017-01-09, 01:24 PM
At one point I created a setting where shape shifting did take extra mass into account. If you wanted to turn into something larger you had to "burn" additional mass as part of the spell materials, for example sacrificing a tree or a cow.

When you turned into something smaller your excess mass turned to ash and blew away, but of course you then need to replace it when you turn back to human form...

Wizards also extracted energy from the world about them, so whenever they cast a spell they either burnt some material components, or else left scorched footprints on the ground, where some of the material they were in contact with had been burnt away to power the spell.

It would be a pain to keep track of in an RPG, but creates some pretty cool visuals, and makes magic feel a lot less clean and easy.

Jay R
2017-01-09, 01:54 PM
Me and my gaming group discuss this pretty often, (we all dislike "but magic" as an answer) so it occasionally gets tossed back out as to where the mass comes from for druids, polymorph, warshapers, and other shape changers. So board, any opinions?

Conservation of mass is a scientific concept, that doesn't belong in a fantasy world.

The question itself is making the assumption that scientific principles hold, and that mass is conserved. It assumes things that aren't true about that world. It doesn't "come from" anywhere, because mass isn't conserved.

Segev
2017-01-09, 02:28 PM
Magical energy is sucked in by the spell and generates nutrients along with the spontaneous change in how they're processed to cause you to grow.

Mass is converted to magical energy that is held in suspension when you turn into a smaller shape.

braveheart
2017-01-09, 05:10 PM
The air, you suck immense amounts of air into yourself creating a strong wind when gaining mass, and expel gasses rapidly when losing mass in transformation.

Or planes that works to...

Dr_Dinosaur
2017-01-09, 05:23 PM
Conservation of mass is a scientific concept, that doesn't belong in a fantasy world

I'm calling BS. If science has no place in your fantasy world then nothing can ever be consistent and no one can reliably do anything. Science is the process of identifying how things work through experimentation and thus replication. If science can't exist that means nothing can be replicated, which is objectively untrue in every tabletop RPG setting anyway.

Segev
2017-01-09, 05:39 PM
I'm calling BS. If science has no place in your fantasy world then nothing can ever be consistent and no one can reliably do anything. Science is the process of identifying how things work through experimentation and thus replication. If science can't exist that means nothing can be replicated, which is objectively untrue in every tabletop RPG setting anyway.

To be fair, while he was misusing the word "scientific," he meant "law of physics of our world," which, if you make that substitution, is a valid argument to make.

There are counter-arguments, of course, but it's not pure BS.

oudeis
2017-01-09, 06:08 PM
Didn't one of the classical Greek philosophers postulate something about atoms changing shape to account for different phases of matter? I remember from a freshman course a loooooooonnnnggg time ago.

Jay R
2017-01-09, 09:29 PM
If science has no place in your fantasy world then nothing can ever be consistent and no one can reliably do anything.

This is historically untrue. Things were just as consistent and reliable in our world before the scientific method was developed.


Science is the process of identifying how things work through experimentation and thus replication. If science can't exist that means nothing can be replicated, which is objectively untrue in every tabletop RPG setting anyway.

I didn't say that "science has no place in [my] fantasy world" or that "science can't exist". I spoke about a single scientific concept. Specifically, I said that conservation of mass is a scientific concept, that doesn't belong in a fantasy world. It is a scientific concept, and it's one that doesn't belong in a fantasy world. Specifically, it's an 18th century scientific idea. [Yes, Epicurus said something similar. But until Lomonosov's experiments, that was a philosophy, not a science.]

There are lots of scientific concepts that don't belong in a fantasy world. I wrote the following as part of the introduction to a game:

A warning about meta-knowledge. In a game in which stone gargoyles can fly and people can cast magic spells, modern rules of physics and chemistry simply don’t apply. There aren’t 92 natural elements, lightning is not caused by an imbalance of electrical potential, and stars are not gigantic gaseous bodies undergoing nuclear fusion. Cute stunts involving clever use of the laws of thermodynamics simply won’t work. Note that cute stunts involving the gross effects thereof very likely will work. Roll a stone down a mountain, and you could cause an avalanche. But in a world with teleportation, levitation, and fireball spells, Newton’s three laws of motion do not apply, and energy and momentum are not conserved. Accordingly, modern scientific meta-knowledge will do you more harm than good. On the other hand, knowledge of Aristotle, Ptolemy, medieval alchemy, or medieval and classical legends might be useful occasionally.
In fact, in that world, the earth is the center of the universe, the planets are the wandering stars - the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The PCs were quickly involved in a quest about seven artifacts called the Staves of the Wanderers. These were staves that had powers drawn from the seven planets.

Also, mass and energy are not in fact conserved and gravity is not universal - as is clearly shown by Enlarge, Fireball, and Levitation spells.

Yes, people could conduct scientific experiments on that world. And if they do, they would discover that mass is not conserved - because universal conservation of mass does not, in my view, belong in a world in which mass is clearly and obviously not conserved.

Nifft
2017-01-09, 09:32 PM
Me and my gaming group discuss this pretty often, (we all dislike "but magic" as an answer) so it occasionally gets tossed back out as to where the mass comes from for druids, polymorph, warshapers, and other shape changers. So board, any opinions?

"Mass" is just a contraction of the true origin of all profane material.

One becomes a Wizard, and then one pulls it from one's magical ass.

JeenLeen
2017-01-09, 10:04 PM
Other planes, or something about density/mass not being conserved in the physics of this world, seems to make the most sense. Maybe conservation of mass is how things normally go, if there's no mages, elementals, etc. active at the moment.


Other planes is the canon answer. Actually animorph's morpher also works that way. I remember a weird scene where they see the dimension where all their extra mass got shunted as they transform into insects or something, there's blob of flesh floating around or something. I also remember something about how ships in ftl also went through this dimension? It was weird. Was it real or it's my/their acid trip?

I was thinking to Animorphs as well. I recall that scene where they saw where their mass went when they got small. Was there also a lot of random material there that they used when they got large?

RazorChain
2017-01-09, 10:17 PM
It's well known in physics that energy creates mass, just like photosynthesis creates slight mass or in a pair production where photon becomes an electron and a positron.

What physics would have trouble explaining is where the druid is getting all that Energy from. Especially if he is creating the mass not just transfering it....just to put this way the energy needed to make 1 kg of matter is roughly enough to power a 1000 HP engine for 3500 years.

Friv
2017-01-09, 10:38 PM
I'm calling BS. If science has no place in your fantasy world then nothing can ever be consistent and no one can reliably do anything. Science is the process of identifying how things work through experimentation and thus replication. If science can't exist that means nothing can be replicated, which is objectively untrue in every tabletop RPG setting anyway.

That's not actually true if you're playing in a mythic setting. You can't reliably reproduce Thor drinking an ocean or Maui dragging up islands from the sea, because those things are rooted in legendary nature rather than scientific fact. Things happen because the gods will it, not because of repeatable mortal phenomena, and scientists will only get repeatable results if they don't piss off a deity who changes all the details.

Things can still be usually consistent in such a world, even usually enough to be reliable for the bulk of the population the bulk of the time. They just won't be always consistent, and everyone knows that once in a while when you try to take an ocean voyage, it'll take you ten years to get home even though you took the same route as the guy who got home after a week, because you upset an ocean god and he steered your boat to magic islands.

RazorChain
2017-01-09, 11:15 PM
That's not actually true if you're playing in a mythic setting. You can't reliably reproduce Thor drinking an ocean or Maui dragging up islands from the sea, because those things are rooted in legendary nature rather than scientific fact. Things happen because the gods will it, not because of repeatable mortal phenomena, and scientists will only get repeatable results if they don't piss off a deity who changes all the details.

Things can still be usually consistent in such a world, even usually enough to be reliable for the bulk of the population the bulk of the time. They just won't be always consistent, and everyone knows that once in a while when you try to take an ocean voyage, it'll take you ten years to get home even though you took the same route as the guy who got home after a week, because you upset an ocean god and he steered your boat to magic islands.

Well if the Gods can control overabundance of energy then Thor was just destroying liquid....else he would just peed the sea and we would be without beaches again and a whole lot of urine in our drinking water.

Well you forgot that Odysseus was a already home when his men foolishly opened the bag of winds and they got blown away. Also he spent one year with Circe and seven years with Calypso so that leaves only 2 years of actual traveling....also don't forget he was lost and sailed to the western edge of the world....that takes some time :smallbiggrin:

Hawkstar
2017-01-10, 01:46 AM
I'm calling BS. If science has no place in your fantasy world then nothing can ever be consistent and no one can reliably do anything.

This matches up to my observations of fantasy worlds pretty accurately.

GungHo
2017-01-10, 11:52 AM
It's well known in physics that energy creates mass, just like photosynthesis creates slight mass or in a pair production where photon becomes an electron and a positron.
If we're going to go this route... converts. Energy converts to mass (which is a form of energy). Mass converts to energy. There's no creation. It's all equivalent. The totality of energy doesn't change as things change state. Unless you can go steal from another universe (or part of the multiverse), Invocation/Evocation and Transmutation are bunk (but Conjuration/Summoning are not). So, they fanwanked (official fanwanking is still fanwanking) that the entirety of the multiverse represents the whole system and therefore Invocation/Evocation and Transmutation along with everything else that pulls stuff from nowhere are really an indirect Conjuration/Summoning.

Hell, I had someone tell me that Abjuration is really based in string theory and clairvoyance represented a unidirectional wormhole that only allowed a spectrum between 400nm and 700nm to pass, and furthermore the reason the Great Old Ones make you go crazy is because they are so far away that their messages are distorted by the CMB. I threw a beer bottle at him. It was full.

To Dinosaur's point, this doesn't mean that there can't be any form of science (or SCIENCE!) in a fantasy world. But, here be dragons and whatnot. It's okay for someone to turn lead into gold without asking to see a protonic crowbar. "i played around with Magnum Opus Oscillator, and this happens every time as long as I don't call the cat ugly" is okay.

Flickerdart
2017-01-10, 11:55 AM
Unless you can go steal from another universe (or part of the multiverse), Invocation/Evocation and Transmutation are bunk (but Conjuration/Summoning are not).
I believe the Tome of Magic goes into detail about what Evocation actually does, which ultimately works out to importing energy from the relevant planes of energy. Meanwhile, when you use a Conjuration spell that deals with energy, you are creating nonmagical energy.

gkathellar
2017-01-10, 01:55 PM
It doesn't. Mass doesn't exist in D&D worlds, and weight is simply a function of underlying platonic concepts.


I believe the Tome of Magic goes into detail about what Evocation actually does, which ultimately works out to importing energy from the relevant planes of energy. Meanwhile, when you use a Conjuration spell that deals with energy, you are creating nonmagical energy.

Other way around, IIRC. Evocation spells sorta temporarily create energy via magic, while conjuration brings it in from an inner plane - as is appropriate to the name. Orb spells bypass SR because the energy that you conjure is real, as opposed to evoked energy, which is more like forcing the universe to pretend there's energy.

Braininthejar2
2017-01-10, 04:33 PM
I like the morphic field theory that most Pratchett's books used.

In a world where magic exists, an object has a morphic field - just like mass affects how it interacts with things through gravity, a morphic field is its 'physical quality of shape' - if it is changed by a spell, the object will still have its original mass and shape (ready to pop back into existence when the effect is dispelled) but will interact with everything as if it had a mass/form dictated by the spell.

Morphic field is partially connected to consciousness - deep down we know what we are - which is why we get save against polymorph, and why it is easier to teleport, even forcefully, the whole person, than half a person.

Beneath
2017-01-11, 10:16 PM
Conservation of mass wasn't even a scientific concept until the 18th century. So if you're talking a world with a medieval understanding of science, then maybe some philosophers speculate about it, there might be some intuitive sense that extra mass should come from somewhere which might set you looking for the source to prove it, but you can't make the argument that it must or else contradict known physical law because there isn't a known physical law.

Arguably, in a magical world like that, the law of conservation of mass wouldn't even be formulated, since formulating it required isolating the systems under consideration from the outside world (to prove that e.g. a growing plant grew by incorporating air and water into its structure rather than by simply generating more plant) and you can't do that. well maybe with antimagic field, but not with dimensional lock to lock out other planes. The point is that to prove it you'd need an advanced apparatus with high-level magic, and then you need that to be replicable (meaning you need peers who can independently construct that same apparatus) to convince people on anything more than "I'm telling you I did this experiment and this happened when I did it".

And that's if conservation of mass even holds in an antimagic field, which isn't necessarily true. Maybe fundamental atoms of material can change their mass and shape while keeping atom count constant, nonmagically. Already we know biology doesn't hold since dragons (exist and) can breed with humans and also because in many D&D worlds some form of creationism is literal truth, why not chemistry?

Nonetheless, if you want to play it that physics and chemistry work according to their modern-day understanding unless they contradict the rules, there are still possibilities. Shapeshifting being essentially a really advanced non-disbelievable illusion, for one. It even explains why True Seeing can show shapeshifters' true forms (though if the 3.5e Binder class is in play, it doesn't explain vestige signs since those are real under true seeing, which would imply your true form is not an arrangement of stuff but a reflection of your soul).

Of course, an argument could be made that "really advanced non-disbelievable illusion" applies to non-shapeshifted reality too. It's verifiably true about D&D worlds, even, and all other forms of fiction, though not necessarily from the inside, and even without that benefit it's been seriously claimed by philosophers in reality.

RazorChain
2017-01-12, 06:55 AM
If we're going to go this route... converts. Energy converts to mass (which is a form of energy). Mass converts to energy. There's no creation. It's all equivalent. The totality of energy doesn't change as things change state. Unless you can go steal from another universe (or part of the multiverse), Invocation/Evocation and Transmutation are bunk (but Conjuration/Summoning are not). So, they fanwanked (official fanwanking is still fanwanking) that the entirety of the multiverse represents the whole system and therefore Invocation/Evocation and Transmutation along with everything else that pulls stuff from nowhere are really an indirect Conjuration/Summoning.

Your absolutely right...I should have said converts :) It is much more energy efficient to transfer mass than to convert energy into mass.

This is what I like with Creo (Creation) Spells in Ars Magica....the mages don't know if they are truly making something or just getting the item from somewhere else :)

Storm_Of_Snow
2017-01-12, 11:30 AM
Where does the extra mass come from when you become something bigger and heavier? From all the other shapeshifters out there in the multiverse that are changing into smaller, lighter forms. Especially around New Year's, when all the mages are ridding themselves of the extra inches around their waist that they put on over Christmas, and a Polymorph Self spell is easier and cheaper than a gym membership. :smallwink:

bulbaquil
2017-01-12, 07:57 PM
It comes from nowhere.

Conservation of mass is only a law of physics in this universe. There is no reason it must apply in every universe.

You could also make a decent argument that conservation of mass doesn't even necessarily apply in this universe, either. Quantum effects can spontaneously cause a particle-antiparticle pair to form that didn't originally exist; usually they annihilate each other within the next few zeptoseconds or so, but it's theoretically possible for them to be separated before that happens. Perhaps this quantum effect can simply be channeled at macro-scales by the principles called "magic" and doesn't necessarily cause an equal amount of antimatter to form.

Or, alternatively, it comes from the zero-point energy field. Quantum physics is weird.

Segev
2017-01-13, 11:32 AM
Conservation of mass is only a law of physics in this universe. There is no reason it must apply in every universe.

You could also make a decent argument that conservation of mass doesn't even necessarily apply in this universe, either. Quantum effects can spontaneously cause a particle-antiparticle pair to form that didn't originally exist; usually they annihilate each other within the next few zeptoseconds or so, but it's theoretically possible for them to be separated before that happens. Perhaps this quantum effect can simply be channeled at macro-scales by the principles called "magic" and doesn't necessarily cause an equal amount of antimatter to form.

Or, alternatively, it comes from the zero-point energy field. Quantum physics is weird.

Actually, because of the Uncertainty Principle, these spontaneous creations of matter don't violate conservation of mass/energy. The uncertainty principle relates not just momentum and position (the more commonly known form of it), but energy and time. There is a scale at which, in order to more precisely isolate an event in time, you have to give up more knowledge of how much energy the event has. And vice-versa: the more precisely you know the energy state of an event, the less precisely you can know WHEN it had that energy state.

What happens with these "quantum fluctuations" is that they spontaneously erupt and self-annihilate within a time-scale that is short enough that, if you measure the energy state of the event, you would come out with "0" because you can't capture the energy state within the short time period that the particle/antiparticle pair exists. Conversely, if you do take a reading at a time precision sufficient to adequately capture the moments of existence of that pair, your uncertainty about the energy level of the system rises to a point where you can't tell if it's "0" or a little bit higher (or a little bit LOWER), and the uncertainty range encompasses what would be sufficient for that pair to exist.



In a more classical understanding, think of "no energy at all" or the "vacuum state" as being a number, zero. However, like in math, we can have less than zero energy. It's almost like borrowing money; you can get some amount of "energy debt."

The spontaneous creation of a particle/anti-particle pair in a vacuum results in the particles having energy (as mass), and thus reduces the vacuum's energy to below zero by the exact amount that the mass/energy that that pair represents. When they annihilate moments later, the energy released in their mutual material annihilation is exactly equal to the energy "debt" - the amount by which the vacuum state's energy was reduced below zero - so all remains constant.

wumpus
2017-01-13, 12:38 PM
This matches up to my observations of fantasy worlds pretty accurately.

As long as fantasy worlds are created to be a cool place to have a game or tell a story, this will typically be true (just look at what happens when you look at stories set in *this* world, let alone another.

If you assume that all spell effects, class features, magic items and what not work absolutely as per RAW and are willing to ignore all setting/fluff (and almost certainly have a teenage view of human nature*) you will probably get something like the tippyverse. The second you assume that "the gods" happen to *like* the fluff the way it is, you can pretty much expect divine resistance and holy wars/miracles to prevent such.

It isn't that you couldn't build a consistent fantasy world (and if you want one, I'd suggest reading L.E.Modesitt Jr.) but that the effort would be unlikely to be worth it. Also expect plenty of retconning involved as the DM scrambles to fix things the players have manged to break.

* a non-teenage view of human nature would likely come up with something much closer to historical societies, and probably not as advanced. Expect great houses hoarding all the wealth and power while locked in a detente situation with other great houses. If they can't manage this, expect "the great cataclysm" and starting over.

Devils_Advocate
2017-01-14, 05:42 PM
Conservation of mass is a scientific concept, that doesn't belong in a fantasy world.
Suppose someone were to say "Wait, why should pouring liquid out of a container empty it? It's a fantasy world, there's no conservation of mass!" Would it really be inappropriate to look at that person as if he were crazy?

Also, under what bizarre definition of "fantasy" is a world with mass-conserving shapeshifting magic not a fantasy world?


The question itself is making the assumption that scientific principles hold, and that mass is conserved. It assumes things that aren't true about that world. It doesn't "come from" anywhere, because mass isn't conserved.
Um... The assumptions made in a hypothetical question determine the nature of the hypothetical world that that question considers. It does not make sense to respond to "Where does the mass for shape-shifting come from if shape-shifting doesn't create mass?" with "Yes it does!!"

Hawkstar
2017-01-14, 05:56 PM
Suppose someone were to say "Wait, why should pouring liquid out of a container empty it? It's a fantasy world, there's no conservation of mass!" Would it really be inappropriate to look at that person as if he were crazy?We're dealing with magic here. Decanters of Endless Water are a thing. As is direct deific (or servant of a deity) intervention, or even just ambient magical shenanigans resulting in containers able to pour more of a fluid than they actually contain.

RazorChain
2017-01-15, 12:11 AM
Actually, because of the Uncertainty Principle, these spontaneous creations of matter don't violate conservation of mass/energy. The uncertainty principle relates not just momentum and position (the more commonly known form of it), but energy and time. There is a scale at which, in order to more precisely isolate an event in time, you have to give up more knowledge of how much energy the event has. And vice-versa: the more precisely you know the energy state of an event, the less precisely you can know WHEN it had that energy state.

What happens with these "quantum fluctuations" is that they spontaneously erupt and self-annihilate within a time-scale that is short enough that, if you measure the energy state of the event, you would come out with "0" because you can't capture the energy state within the short time period that the particle/antiparticle pair exists. Conversely, if you do take a reading at a time precision sufficient to adequately capture the moments of existence of that pair, your uncertainty about the energy level of the system rises to a point where you can't tell if it's "0" or a little bit higher (or a little bit LOWER), and the uncertainty range encompasses what would be sufficient for that pair to exist.



In a more classical understanding, think of "no energy at all" or the "vacuum state" as being a number, zero. However, like in math, we can have less than zero energy. It's almost like borrowing money; you can get some amount of "energy debt."

The spontaneous creation of a particle/anti-particle pair in a vacuum results in the particles having energy (as mass), and thus reduces the vacuum's energy to below zero by the exact amount that the mass/energy that that pair represents. When they annihilate moments later, the energy released in their mutual material annihilation is exactly equal to the energy "debt" - the amount by which the vacuum state's energy was reduced below zero - so all remains constant.


Well this explains it.....the shapeshifter uses energy to borrow particles that get annihilated via antiparticles when the spell ends. So in fact they take the mass as a loan and repay the debt when the spell ends.

Jay R
2017-01-15, 10:14 AM
Suppose someone were to say "Wait, why should pouring liquid out of a container empty it? It's a fantasy world, there's no conservation of mass!" Would it really be inappropriate to look at that person as if he were crazy?

During the times of the stories of swords and sorcery, pouring liquid out of containers emptied them. But shape-shifting stories did not create or use up mass elsewhere. When Arachne was turned into a spider, there is no mention of most of her mass going elsewhere, but everybody is shocked and amazed when Thor fails to drain Utgard-Loki's drinking horn. Your analogy is not analogous.


Also, under what bizarre definition of "fantasy" is a world with mass-conserving shapeshifting magic not a fantasy world?

You're missing my point. Any story with roots before the 18th century does not have the concept of conservation of mass. That includes most of the shape-shifting stories that influenced the D&D spells.


Um... The assumptions made in a hypothetical question determine the nature of the hypothetical world that that question considers. It does not make sense to respond to "Where does the mass for shape-shifting come from if shape-shifting doesn't create mass?" with "Yes it does!!"

That isn't the question that was asked.

If the original poster had said, "Where does the mass for shape-shifting come from if shape-shifting doesn't create mass?", you would be correct. But that isn't what happened.

In fact, he wrote, "... so it occasionally gets tossed back out as to where the mass comes from for druids, polymorph, warshapers, and other shape changers. So board, any opinions?" This unambiguously asks for our opinions.

I pointed out that the question carried an implicit assumption of a scientific idea from the 18th century, which was unknown centuries earlier when shape-shifting was common in Greek and Norse mythology (Arachne becoming a spider, Zeus becoming a swan, Circe turning sailors into beasts, Fafnir becoming a dragon, etc.)

There's nothing wrong with making an assumption of conservation of mass. But the point I was trying to make is that it isn't inherent in a D&D world, and the question is much more easily solved if you don't assume modern scientific principles that disprove most magic.

In a world with shape-shifting and creation spells, mass is not conserved. In a world with fireball spells, energy is not conserved. And in a world with levitation, gravity is not universal.

You can certainly invent complicated and unnecessary explanations to imply that some other mass or energy somewhere else is balancing it, but Occam's razor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor) (a medieval philosophical principle) states that you should choose the simplest explanation. And that is that when you see mass being created and destroyed and changed, to conclude that mass is not conserved.

Hawkstar
2017-01-15, 10:25 AM
"Lack of conservation of mass in shapeshifting magic bothers me. Therefore, I need to have magic violate a dozen more even more significant laws of physics to have magic conserve mass"

Segev
2017-01-15, 02:54 PM
Suppose someone were to say "Wait, why should pouring liquid out of a container empty it? It's a fantasy world, there's no conservation of mass!" Would it really be inappropriate to look at that person as if he were crazy?
We're dealing with magic here. Decanters of Endless Water are a thing. As is direct deific (or servant of a deity) intervention, or even just ambient magical shenanigans resulting in containers able to pour more of a fluid than they actually contain.
Pretty much this: Why SHOULD pouring liquid out of a magic container empty it, if its magic says otherwise? It's magic.

The issue is that we need to establish what Magic A is. Once we know how Magic A works, it's fun to examine what can and cannot be done with it. IF we don't have a setting where Magic A is Magic A, then magic becomes truly a carte blanche for anything (and far less fun, in my opinion).


Well this explains it.....the shapeshifter uses energy to borrow particles that get annihilated via antiparticles when the spell ends. So in fact they take the mass as a loan and repay the debt when the spell ends.
Possibly! Though the magic here is that we're well outside the realm of uncertainty, as we're working on time scales much longer and energy scales much greater than the uncertainty principle obscures. So it IS still violating conservation of energy in a macro-scale, if only for a time. But...magic! And even magic following some specific rules.

johnbragg
2017-01-15, 03:00 PM
I'm calling BS. If science has no place in your fantasy world then nothing can ever be consistent and no one can reliably do anything. Science is the process of identifying how things work through experimentation and thus replication. If science can't exist that means nothing can be replicated, which is objectively untrue in every tabletop RPG setting anyway.

HE didn't say "scientific concepts don't belong", he said that conservation-of-mass is a scientific concept that doesn't belong. Fantasy universes almost by definition run on different principles of physics, or physics-prime anyway. The process and epistemology of science (might) be the same, but the results, the answers, will be different.

The principle of conservation of mass probably does not hold in a magical universe. It's not likely that "mass" as we understand it is a valid concept in D&D physics, separate from weight, which is referenced canonically in many TSR and WOTC-published books.

Flickerdart
2017-01-15, 06:38 PM
Suppose someone were to say "Wait, why should pouring liquid out of a container empty it? It's a fantasy world, there's no conservation of mass!" Would it really be inappropriate to look at that person as if he were crazy?
Decanter of Endless Water.

Roninblack
2017-01-16, 11:45 AM
Thanks for all the answers guys. I'm glad to see that the topic is one deserving of so many different ideas. I've definitely got stuff to say next time it comes up.
Cheers

Bohandas
2017-01-16, 12:12 PM
Didn't one of the classical Greek philosophers postulate something about atoms changing shape to account for different phases of matter? I remember from a freshman course a loooooooonnnnggg time ago.

Their idea of atoms were the phases of matter

wumpus
2017-01-17, 01:28 PM
HE didn't say "scientific concepts don't belong", he said that conservation-of-mass is a scientific concept that doesn't belong. Fantasy universes almost by definition run on different principles of physics, or physics-prime anyway. The process and epistemology of science (might) be the same, but the results, the answers, will be different.

The principle of conservation of mass probably does not hold in a magical universe. It's not likely that "mass" as we understand it is a valid concept in D&D physics, separate from weight, which is referenced canonically in many TSR and WOTC-published books.

Here is the tippyverse*: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-to-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy

It is one view of what happens when basic scientific principles (things like experimental repeatability) is true in an otherwise RAW game (note only the "crunch" of RAW is holy, the "fluff" gets rapidly overwritten). It isn't so much how many fundamental things are different with the natural laws (conservation of mass is ignored, or at least the relative energy moved across planes has nothing to do with the level of the spell. Just that releasing raw energy seems to scale with spell level otherwise), but that if you assume that spells will repeatably function as written, the available abuse is huge.

Of course if you assume that the gods (or similar beings) have an interest in maintaining the fluff (much like redonkously bad sci-fi, didn't the Difference Engine do this), you wouldn't really have a universe where science works (because all the laws could change at the gods/dm's option).

* I'd also note that it completely ignores all the people who quickly lose all personal/family/whatever power without a struggle. Absolutely unlike any history ever. So maybe not "what RAW will *always* degenerate into".

Stryyke
2017-01-17, 01:39 PM
I think I would go with "The amount of mass doesn't change." The magic allows the player to alter the strong and weak nuclear forces. If the change is to another shape with the same mass, no problem. Once you start getting bigger or smaller, no new mass is added or subtracted, rather the strength of the forces of energy are reinforced by magic. This allows the mass itself to take up more space, or less space depending on what you want.

Lord Torath
2017-01-17, 03:00 PM
I think I would go with "The amount of mass doesn't change." The magic allows the player to alter the strong and weak nuclear forces. If the change is to another shape with the same mass, no problem. Once you start getting bigger or smaller, no new mass is added or subtracted, rather the strength of the forces of energy are reinforced by magic. This allows the mass itself to take up more space, or less space depending on what you want.Then you run into issues of falling through the floor because your 200 lbs is suddenly occupying 1 square inch of floor space. Or your 6-inch wingspan is incapable of sustaining a 200 lb sparrow. Or a slight gust of wind blows you clear away when you polymorph into a 20' giant. Turning into a sauropod makes you float because you're suddenly less dense than the air. When shapeshifting, the mass must change if you're not going to also tinker with gravity and inertia. Which is why Antman cracked me up. Mass was only conserved when they wanted it to be.

Telwar
2017-01-17, 10:48 PM
See, wild shape is really a gate to the Beastlands residing in the druid that allows you to find and switch bodies with a creature there. Lycanthropes have a bastardized version that only works on one particular animal type, who aren't in the nice safe gated enclosure overseen by epic-level druids and as such are a bit...odd...compared to the fairly pliant animals of all types in the Druid Farm, who are used to occasionally waking up in a bipedal form.

NichG
2017-01-17, 11:35 PM
*cough*

The Savants of the Tower of Arhn claim that magic is mediated by the Weaver, who splices together alternate universes in such a way as to make a plausible continuity out of causally disconnected fragments. When a spell is cast that changes something - anything from the amount of mass to the color of someone's hair - actually, nothing is changed. Instead, the next fragment of the tapestry is taken not from the universe from before the spell was cast, but rather from a universe in which the effects of the spell have always been. This creates inconsistencies at the seam, which the Weaver resolves by working them into the chain of events forward and backward in time until they can be artfully hidden. These adaptations are the cause of the visual manifestations of magic. It is nothing so crass as actual light or energy being emitted, but rather they are hallucinations manifested in the perceptions and memories of observers. Minds are complex and difficult to perfectly integrate, and the mismatches where the Weaver has failed to perfectly mesh the selves of alternate universes into a single consistent individual create phantom memories of the alternate reality which anticipate the casting of the spell and follow its presence as it continues to exert influence. The more complex the mind, the harder it is to seamlessly integrate, and the more likely these are to be perceived. Furthermore, specific training and meditation on paradoxical geometry can create regions of the brain which are particularly hard to integrate across universes due to interference between the figures and their alternates, and therefore increase the ability to perceive and anticipate magical effects.

It's as good a story as any.

Kane0
2017-01-17, 11:58 PM
So it's like multiverse theory, but the weave is actually weaving together bits of multiple universes so things stay sane (scientifically speaking) in the one you're using?

My favourite explanation stems from the multiverse origin story I usually run with: the known multiverse was originally formed from raw chaos, loosely related to what is found in Limbo. Being the basic building blocks of everything means that sometimes their innate features (namely: chaotic BS) shine through, messing with what is normally established as observable and repeatable (ie physics and the like). Magic triggers this especially often and though the Weave does an admirable job of damage control using magic does indeed warp the fundamental laws of the multiverse when used. It also explains why the more you think about and discuss this phenomenon, the less sane you become.

NichG
2017-01-18, 12:07 AM
So it's like multiverse theory, but the weave is actually weaving together bits of multiple universes so things stay sane (scientifically speaking) in the one you're using?

Something like that. It would imply for example that one could not lift a heavy object by wedging themselves under it and using a shapechange spell to a larger form (because you aren't changing size, you're simply becoming the you that was always that size, and that version of you would not be wedged in that gap in the first place). Depending on how the spell was constructed, either it would fail ('cannot find target universe, abort') or if there were margins built in for it the result might be that it'd force things in some unexpected way (you teleport a few feet and then change shape, you shunt, etc).

DrewID
2017-01-18, 12:09 AM
There was a Fritz Leiber story in the Fafhrd/Grey Mouser series where people could shrink down to rat-size, and when they did, they were left standing in a puddle of all of the mass that they no longer needed. When they returned to their original size, they generally did so in the same place to take advantage of the necessary mass being there. In-story, when Mouser returns to size but is not in the location of his puddle, the mass is taken from nearby objects, including his body tissue apparently being taken from a rather overweight young lady of the court who was rather happier with the result than otherwise.

Perhaps the mass comes from whatever is nearby, one way or another.

Just checked; it was in The Swords of Lankhmar.


"Now about Lankhmar. She's been invaded, her walls breached everywhere and desperate fighting is going on in the streets, by a fierce host which out-numbers Lankhamar's inhabitants by fifty to one — and equipped with all modern weapons. Yet you can save the city."
"How?" demanded Fafhrd.
Ningauble shrugged. "You're a hero. You should know."

DrewID

JoeJ
2017-01-18, 12:34 AM
Then you run into issues of falling through the floor because your 200 lbs is suddenly occupying 1 square inch of floor space. Or your 6-inch wingspan is incapable of sustaining a 200 lb sparrow. Or a slight gust of wind blows you clear away when you polymorph into a 20' giant. Turning into a sauropod makes you float because you're suddenly less dense than the air. When shapeshifting, the mass must change if you're not going to also tinker with gravity and inertia. Which is why Antman cracked me up. Mass was only conserved when they wanted it to be.

The amount of mass remains the same. It just expands and becomes heavier when you grow and contracts and becomes lighter when you shrink.

Alternatively, you can deconstruct the original question and ask what is meant by the term "mass" and whether that definition is appropriate for a given fantasy world.

yuvraj1068
2017-01-18, 02:59 AM
The mass of a tree is primarily carbon. The carbon comes from carbon dioxide used during photosynthesis. During photosynthesis, plants convert the sun’s energy into chemical energy which is captured within the bonds of carbon molecules built from atmospheric carbon dioxide and water. Yes, the carbon from carbon dioxide in the air we breathe out ends up in “food” molecules (called glucose) each of which contains 6 carbon atoms (and 12 hydrogen atoms and 6 oxygen atoms).

Lord Torath
2017-01-18, 08:44 AM
The amount of mass remains the same. It just expands and becomes heavier when you grow and contracts and becomes lighter when you shrink.

An object's mass is just a description of how much material there is in the object. If you spread that material out, you make the object more diffuse. If you concentrate it, it becomes more dense. But there's still the same amount of material in the object. But if the material "expands and becomes heavier", you're no longer conserving mass.

And if you're going to redefine mass, why even bother saying it's being conserved? It's easier to just say "magic can violate conservation of mass" than to come up with a convoluted explanation of how gravity and inertia work differently in specific situations so that mass is conserved.

Jay R
2017-01-18, 09:05 AM
There was a Fritz Leiber story in the Fafhrd/Grey Mouser series where people could shrink down to rat-size, and when they did, they were left standing in a puddle of all of the mass that they no longer needed. When they returned to their original size, they generally did so in the same place to take advantage of the necessary mass being there. In-story, when Mouser returns to size but is not in the location of his puddle, the mass is taken from nearby objects, including his body tissue apparently being taken from a rather overweight young lady of the court who was rather happier with the result than otherwise.

Perhaps the mass comes from whatever is nearby, one way or another.

That's right - that's what happens in Lankhmar. But none of those effects are in the D&D rules, so it doesn't happen in D&D, unless the DM changes the rules.


The amount of mass remains the same. It just expands and becomes heavier when you grow and contracts and becomes lighter when you shrink.

That's not what mass means.


Alternatively, you can deconstruct the original question and ask what is meant by the term "mass" and whether that definition is appropriate for a given fantasy world.

That's not an alternative suggestion, but exactly what you did in your first paragraph.

If the mass can become heavier or lighter without changing the universal gravitational constant, then you've made a very different definition of "mass" for your world.

And now the new thing you are calling "mass" is conserved. But that is not preserving the principle of conservation of mass that people are trying to conserve.


The mass of a tree is primarily carbon. The carbon comes from carbon dioxide used during photosynthesis. During photosynthesis, plants convert the sun’s energy into chemical energy which is captured within the bonds of carbon molecules built from atmospheric carbon dioxide and water. Yes, the carbon from carbon dioxide in the air we breathe out ends up in “food” molecules (called glucose) each of which contains 6 carbon atoms (and 12 hydrogen atoms and 6 oxygen atoms).

Sure - in our world, in which magic doesn't work.

In a fantasy world, it's just as likely that objects are composed of the four elements earth, air, fire, and water, with possibly a touch of aether.

JoeJ
2017-01-19, 12:29 AM
An object's mass is just a description of how much material there is in the object. If you spread that material out, you make the object more diffuse. If you concentrate it, it becomes more dense. But there's still the same amount of material in the object. But if the material "expands and becomes heavier", you're no longer conserving mass.

And if you're going to redefine mass, why even bother saying it's being conserved? It's easier to just say "magic can violate conservation of mass" than to come up with a convoluted explanation of how gravity and inertia work differently in specific situations so that mass is conserved.

It never occurred to me that I should conserve mass. But if mass is amount of material, how are you measuring that? By volume? Weight? Number of atoms? Something else? If you're defining it by weight then making something heavier is by definition increasing the mass. If it's defined by the number of atoms, then there's no logical reason why each atom can't become larger and heavier without changing the mass.

I'm trying to point out that by even asking the question of where the mass comes from you're making an assumption about the fundamental nature of reality that may not be accurate for a fantasy world.

Lord Torath
2017-01-19, 09:15 AM
It never occurred to me that I should conserve mass. But if mass is amount of material, how are you measuring that? By volume? Weight? Number of atoms? Something else? If you're defining it by weight then making something heavier is by definition increasing the mass. If it's defined by the number of atoms, then there's no logical reason why each atom can't become larger and heavier without changing the mass.

I'm trying to point out that by even asking the question of where the mass comes from you're making an assumption about the fundamental nature of reality that may not be accurate for a fantasy world.Mass is the amount of matter that makes up an object. It is independent of the size or volume of the object. If you add the masses of all the molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic particles that make up an object, it's the same as the mass of the object. A kilogram of gold has the same mass as a kilogram of water (both weigh about 2.4 lbs on Earth), but the kg of gold will be much more compact, or dense. Mass stays the same regardless of where the object is, while weight varies by the force of gravity acting on that object. You weigh more on Earth than you would on the Moon, but your mass stays the same in both locations. So that's mass.

Your first post you said the mass stays same (implying you want to conserve mass), just expands and gets heavier or shrinks and gets lighter (violating mass conservation). So I was clarifying that's not how mass works. Certainly there's no reason to assume that mass must be conserved where magic is involved. The point of magic is that it violates our physical laws as we currently understand them.

But however you decide mass works in your campaign, you need to be consistent. This is why Antman cracked me up. They said the device worked by changing the distance between atoms, changing the volume of the object, but without changing the number of atoms, so mass was conserved. But the ant and toy train they enlarged did not instantly start floating (and their densities should have been low enough to float in our air), and Micheal Douglass was carrying a 50-ton tank on his key ring. Yet Antman could still put 200 lbs of force behind his punches. So sometimes they conserved mass, and sometimes they ignored it.

Segev
2017-01-19, 10:53 AM
You could also approach it the way a computer game or simulation would: it adds or deletes mass simply by doing so. The value changes in whatever variables store it.

RazorChain
2017-01-19, 11:22 AM
The mass of a tree is primarily carbon. The carbon comes from carbon dioxide used during photosynthesis. During photosynthesis, plants convert the sun’s energy into chemical energy which is captured within the bonds of carbon molecules built from atmospheric carbon dioxide and water. Yes, the carbon from carbon dioxide in the air we breathe out ends up in “food” molecules (called glucose) each of which contains 6 carbon atoms (and 12 hydrogen atoms and 6 oxygen atoms).

You are too late to the party, we have already covered converting energy to matter.

RazorChain
2017-01-19, 11:27 AM
That's right - that's what happens in Lankhmar. But none of those effects are in the D&D rules, so it doesn't happen in D&D, unless the DM changes the rules.
.

Who is talking about D&D? This is not system specific else it would be on the subforums. We are discussing magic in general

Jay R
2017-01-19, 02:12 PM
Who is talking about D&D? This is not system specific else it would be on the subforums. We are discussing magic in general

Red herring acknowledged. I'll try again.

That's right - that's what happens in Lankhmar. But none of those effects are in the D&D, Pathfinder, C&S, Pendragon, or other RPG rules, so it doesn't happen in D&D, Pathfinder, C&S, Pendragon, or other RPG rules, unless the DM, GM, or referee changes the rules, or finds some obscure game with that effect built into the rules, or some player or referee builds in that effect in a universal game like Fantasy Hero.

JoeJ
2017-01-19, 02:22 PM
Mass is the amount of matter that makes up an object. It is independent of the size or volume of the object. If you add the masses of all the molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic particles that make up an object, it's the same as the mass of the object. A kilogram of gold has the same mass as a kilogram of water (both weigh about 2.4 lbs on Earth), but the kg of gold will be much more compact, or dense. Mass stays the same regardless of where the object is, while weight varies by the force of gravity acting on that object. You weigh more on Earth than you would on the Moon, but your mass stays the same in both locations. So that's mass.

That's how you define mass, which is fine. That might not be a useful definition for a fantasy world.


Your first post you said the mass stays same (implying you want to conserve mass), just expands and gets heavier or shrinks and gets lighter (violating mass conservation). So I was clarifying that's not how mass works. Certainly there's no reason to assume that mass must be conserved where magic is involved. The point of magic is that it violates our physical laws as we currently understand them.

There was an implied conditional there, in that I was suggesting that mass might not be directly relevant to either weight or volume. Maybe it would have been better to suggest that "mass" as real-world physicists define it does not exist at all.


But however you decide mass works in your campaign, you need to be consistent.

No I don't There's no logical necessity for a reality to operate by consistent rules, and even if it does happen to have them, there's no requirement for those rules to appear consistent to mere mortals who only understand a small fraction of them. It's not even necessary that there be "laws" of nature at all: a fantasy universe could conceivably consist entirely of special cases. Or the things that we usually think of as "laws," such as gravity, might be ruled by very powerful intelligent beings that are partly, but only partly, consistent.

IME, players need a certain amount of predictability, but not complete predictability. They need to be able to make plans, but not be 100% certain those plans will succeed. A certain amount of inconsistency can help that, and can even inspire players to ask questions that will lead to new adventures.

Jay R
2017-01-19, 03:56 PM
If the goal is to conserve mass, then that goal is not achieved by maintaining a constant number of bunnies and defining mass to mean "bunnies".

NichG
2017-01-19, 09:48 PM
Red herring acknowledged. I'll try again.

That's right - that's what happens in Lankhmar. But none of those effects are in the D&D, Pathfinder, C&S, Pendragon, or other RPG rules, so it doesn't happen in D&D, Pathfinder, C&S, Pendragon, or other RPG rules, unless the DM, GM, or referee changes the rules, or finds some obscure game with that effect built into the rules, or some player or referee builds in that effect in a universal game like Fantasy Hero.

Rules-as-physics causes more problems than it solves, IMO. Sure, you can use it to brute force past some annoying questions players might ask, but in doing so you encourage the players to not look past the surface of situations or exercise critical thinking or creativity. Better to do all you can to suggest that there is a hidden depth underlying things, and what they (as character and as players) know is but an abstraction or approximation of the real truth. Then, they may choose to seek it.

georgie_leech
2017-01-19, 09:55 PM
Mass is the property of matter that resists a change in velocity. I'm not sure it's useful to say that we can't know what mass is in a fantasy universe, because that's equally true about what a bird is, or if Scurvy isn't prevented by fresh fruits and vegetables, or whether or not people skoodilypooping leads to children. In general, we assume stuff is... well, stuff, unless shown to be otherwise.

Kane0
2017-01-19, 10:07 PM
At the risk of diverting the thread, how would people react to the concept that in D&D perhaps the world is the center of the system in which the game takes place?

Or to get really outrageous, if the world were to be flat?

Jay R
2017-01-19, 10:51 PM
Rules-as-physics causes more problems than it solves, IMO. Sure, you can use it to brute force past some annoying questions players might ask, but in doing so you encourage the players to not look past the surface of situations or exercise critical thinking or creativity. Better to do all you can to suggest that there is a hidden depth underlying things, and what they (as character and as players) know is but an abstraction or approximation of the real truth. Then, they may choose to seek it.

I'm not using the observations of what happens under the rules to brute force past the question, but to exercise critical thinking about it. If no bits of mass appear near where you shapeshifted into a mouse, it follows that mass was not preserved by creating bits of matter nearby. This is a tool for learning more about the real truth.

Similarly, I conclude that mass is not conserved in a D&D universe, because we see many examples of mass not being preserved. It is possible that mass will be conserved unless acted upon by magic, but that's the same as saying that mass is not conserved. Similarly, the presence of giants shows that the cube-square law doesn't hold, and levitation shows that gravity is not universal.


Mass is the property of matter that resists a change in velocity. I'm not sure it's useful to say that we can't know what mass is in a fantasy universe, because that's equally true about what a bird is, or if Scurvy isn't prevented by fresh fruits and vegetables, or whether or not people skoodilypooping leads to children. In general, we assume stuff is... well, stuff, unless shown to be otherwise.

Exactly. And just as fireball spells demonstrate that energy can be created, and the plane of cold shows that cold is an actual thing, not just the absence of heat, so too does shapeshifting into a dragon show that mas is not conserved.


At the risk of diverting the thread, how would people react to the concept that in D&D perhaps the world is the center of the system in which the game takes place?

Or to get really outrageous, if the world were to be flat?

In a game I ran about ten years ago, the earth wasn't flat, but it was the center of the universe. Ptolemy was correct about everything, and the first series of adventures centered around the powers of the seven planets - the moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

georgie_leech
2017-01-19, 11:06 PM
Exactly. And just as fireball spells demonstrate that energy can be created, and the plane of cold shows that cold is an actual thing, not just the absence of heat, so too does shapeshifting into a dragon show that mas is not conserved.



Also shadow, death, and other things traditionally considered an absence. In other words, I don't see any reason to assume that all the laws necessarily apply in a fantasy world; if it doesn't look like magic conserves mass, it doesn't have to. But I see no reason to believe that everything in existence behaves differently until something (like magic:smallwink:) shows otherwise. I'm not going to bet that just because Walls of Force don't seem to follow Newton's Third Law, that things don't push against each other. I mean, that's how we walk. :smalltongue:

NichG
2017-01-19, 11:28 PM
I'm not using the observations of what happens under the rules to brute force past the question, but to exercise critical thinking about it. If no bits of mass appear near where you shapeshifted into a mouse, it follows that mass was not preserved by creating bits of matter nearby. This is a tool for learning more about the real truth.

Similarly, I conclude that mass is not conserved in a D&D universe, because we see many examples of mass not being preserved. It is possible that mass will be conserved unless acted upon by magic, but that's the same as saying that mass is not conserved. Similarly, the presence of giants shows that the cube-square law doesn't hold, and levitation shows that gravity is not universal.


In a rules-as-physics approach, you can read the rules for 'Shapeshift' and say 'if it doesn't mention it, it cannot have happened'. But in a non rules-as-physics approach, anything that doesn't significantly conflict with the outcomes resulting from the rules can't be ruled out. So if you're coming at it from that angle what I would say is, you can't know if in a particular D&D universe extra stuff appears nearby (or on some other plane of existence) when someone shapeshifts just by reading the rules, because it could just be that the rules don't mention it.

But the bigger picture here is that we're not players in a particular GM's game of D&D trying to figure out what's going on based on an agreed upon set of evidence and very specific rulings. We're players and GMs who in general find ourselves describing fantasy worlds in which we have to answer questions like 'where does the mass come from?'. In that hat, the truth is what we decide it is, and we're discussing which truths make the most sense or are the most consistent. In that context, saying 'but the rules say X' is totally irrelevant.

JoeJ
2017-01-20, 12:05 AM
Maybe the mass comes from nowhere. Or perhaps it doesn't increase so much as the spell makes it always have been greater. Maybe it comes from the place where parallel lines cross. Perhaps there is no mass and never was.

As Neil Gaiman wrote in the Books of Magic, "Science is a way of talking about the universe in words that bind it to a common reality. Magic is a method of talking to the universe in words that it cannot ignore. The two are rarely compatible."

georgie_leech
2017-01-20, 12:24 AM
While I'm loathe to contradict such an icon, magic contradicts reality as we understand it. In a world with magic, science would happily go on its way studying it. They could even possibly figure out other physical laws, or even ours (with asterisks appended that all point to "unless magic gets involved").

JoeJ
2017-01-20, 01:09 AM
While I'm loathe to contradict such an icon, magic contradicts reality as we understand it. In a world with magic, science would happily go on its way studying it. They could even possibly figure out other physical laws, or even ours (with asterisks appended that all point to "unless magic gets involved").

The whole point of magic is that it contradicts reality as we understand it. If magic were real, I'm sure scientists would attempt to study it. But there's no good reason to think that the methods of science would necessarily be able to figure it out.

The scientific method requires that the phenomenon under study be consistent, and that results not depend critically on who is performing the test. Science looks for material causes, which will not be a useful approach if magic is based instead on symbolism and meaning. ("Talking backwards because time will not go backwards," I say "thigin emoceb seilfrettub" and the night becomes butterflies. By speaking what is impossible, I do what is impossible.)

Lord Torath
2017-01-20, 08:41 AM
At the risk of diverting the thread, how would people react to the concept that in D&D perhaps the world is the center of the system in which the game takes place? Spelljammer: Greyspace (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyspace) :smallbiggrin:

GungHo
2017-01-20, 09:52 AM
At the risk of diverting the thread, how would people react to the concept that in D&D perhaps the world is the center of the system in which the game takes place?

Or to get really outrageous, if the world were to be flat?

Then when someone sails to the "edge of the earth" there's an actual edge a la Erik the Viking, and when you "fall off", we've got to figure out where the heck you land.

There's no problem with having a D&D world that is on the back of a turtle which is on the back of an elephant or is actually inside Chad Allen's snow globe, or is even impossibly hollow in the middle with the core being an impossible sun like some kind of strange, rocky Dyson sphere. The problem is when you try to say "well, let's make this 'realistic' and 'sciencey'" when the best you can ever do is SCIENCE!. And SCIENCE! is fine until you try to convince yourself it's science.

JoeJ
2017-01-20, 12:37 PM
Then when someone sails to the "edge of the earth" there's an actual edge a la Erik the Viking, and when you "fall off", we've got to figure out where the heck you land.

There's no problem with having a D&D world that is on the back of a turtle which is on the back of an elephant or is actually inside Chad Allen's snow globe, or is even impossibly hollow in the middle with the core being an impossible sun like some kind of strange, rocky Dyson sphere. The problem is when you try to say "well, let's make this 'realistic' and 'sciencey'" when the best you can ever do is SCIENCE!. And SCIENCE! is fine until you try to convince yourself it's science.

A couple of the worlds in the Spelljammer setting are flat disks. There's also a GURPS setting book for Terry Pratchett's Discworld. And isn't Mystara hollow, with people living on the inside?

Segev
2017-01-20, 12:38 PM
Actually, science only requires something be repeatable. If it is repeatable, then the conditions behind its occurrence can be determined, and odds maximized that it will occur at times and places of the user's choosing. This leads to technology and technique.

If one of the conditions is "must be done by one 'gifted with magic'," then it can be measured. And we can learn what people with varying strengths of gifts in magic can achieve. Study can be done to determine what other things correlate to strong gifts in magic. Is it hereditary? Is it environmental? Is it utterly random?

The scientific method is not physics. Physics is what we have discovered to be the best model of the reality in which we live, and we discovered it (and continue to discover more about it) via the scientific method.

Whatever the rules under which magic operates in some alternate setting, science can be used to explore them.

JoeJ
2017-01-20, 12:56 PM
Actually, science only requires something be repeatable. If it is repeatable, then the conditions behind its occurrence can be determined, and odds maximized that it will occur at times and places of the user's choosing. This leads to technology and technique.

If one of the conditions is "must be done by one 'gifted with magic'," then it can be measured. And we can learn what people with varying strengths of gifts in magic can achieve. Study can be done to determine what other things correlate to strong gifts in magic. Is it hereditary? Is it environmental? Is it utterly random?

The scientific method is not physics. Physics is what we have discovered to be the best model of the reality in which we live, and we discovered it (and continue to discover more about it) via the scientific method.

Whatever the rules under which magic operates in some alternate setting, science can be used to explore them.

Science also incorporates a set of ideas about what questions are useful to ask and what sorts of answers are acceptable. Patterns, even consistent ones, that fall outside the dominant paradigm are dismissed as observational errors or "noise," and the paradigm itself is changed only with great difficulty. A researcher training in science would be less likely to realize that a feather is a necessary component for a Fly spell (as it is in D&D) than one who had no such training.

And it's entirely possible that no possible paradigm (or no paradigm simple enough to be comprehended, which would amount to the same thing) can encompass both natural causes and symbolic relationships.

Hawkstar
2017-01-20, 01:00 PM
Actually, science only requires something be repeatable. If it is repeatable, then the conditions behind its occurrence can be determined, and odds maximized that it will occur at times and places of the user's choosing. This leads to technology and technique.

If one of the conditions is "must be done by one 'gifted with magic'," then it can be measured. And we can learn what people with varying strengths of gifts in magic can achieve. Study can be done to determine what other things correlate to strong gifts in magic. Is it hereditary? Is it environmental? Is it utterly random?

The scientific method is not physics. Physics is what we have discovered to be the best model of the reality in which we live, and we discovered it (and continue to discover more about it) via the scientific method.

Whatever the rules under which magic operates in some alternate setting, science can be used to explore them.The magic in my setting lets the rational, scientific-minded Hobgoblin culture believe all this about magic. It doesn't stop them from being stumped about how others are able to pull off magic stunts that they proved to be impossible (because magic ISN'T required to be repeatable), nor why they seem to be losing some of their magic as they refine their understanding of it (Because they can't accept "It just is!" as an answer)

Segev
2017-01-20, 01:03 PM
Science also incorporates a set of ideas about what questions are useful to ask and what sorts of answers are acceptable. Patterns, even consistent ones, that fall outside the dominant paradigm are dismissed as observational errors or "noise," and the paradigm itself is changed only with great difficulty. A researcher training in science would be less likely to realize that a feather is a necessary component for a Fly spell (as it is in D&D) than one who had no such training.

And it's entirely possible that no possible paradigm (or no paradigm simple enough to be comprehended, which would amount to the same thing) can encompass both natural causes and symbolic relationships.

I have no idea where you get this notion. Consistent patterns are found and recorded and investigated. Don't confuse sciencism - the almost religious notion that some concepts are "inherently scientific" and others are "inherently unscientific" just based on common consensus - with science.

Consensus can be an indication that a large number of people have observed something to be true - that is part of science. It can also be part of baseless orthodoxy. That is not science.

If every time you hold a feather aloft and say, "By the power of Greyskull," you do in fact gain the ability to fly, and leaving the feather out of the ritual leaves you ground-bound, then it's perfectly scientific to posit a theory that a feather is a necessary part of this procedure. Further science would involve testing the limits of this. Both in terms of what counts as "a feather" (how much of one do you need? Can it be artificial? Is there a minimum or maximum size feather that will work? Do various feathers have measurable differences in what they grant you in your flight? etc.) and in terms of the flight itself - how much can you lift without it holding you down/causing you to fall? how fast can you go? is there a measurable force you exert elsewhere to "make up" for the force lifting you? etc.

Segev
2017-01-20, 01:05 PM
The magic in my setting lets the rational, scientific-minded Hobgoblin culture believe all this about magic. It doesn't stop them from being stumped about how others are able to pull off magic stunts that they proved to be impossible (because magic ISN'T required to be repeatable), nor why they seem to be losing some of their magic as they refine their understanding of it (Because they can't accept "It just is!" as an answer)

It sounds like there are rules that could be discovered about your magic, but that they include a self-obfuscation clause that makes learning about them cause it to work less. This almost suggests a sort of sentience to magic, with it as a force that can do all sorts of things, and the rules it follows being arbitrary. "Hey, let's see if I can convince THIS culture that flapping their arms like chickens causes the sun to be obscured by clouds." Of course, if this mischievous sapient power chooses to always respond to certain things the same way for certain people, it will seem to them that their actions cause effects.

Lord Torath
2017-01-20, 01:28 PM
Science also incorporates a set of ideas about what questions are useful to ask and what sorts of answers are acceptable. Patterns, even consistent ones, that fall outside the dominant paradigm are dismissed as observational errors or "noise," and the paradigm itself is changed only with great difficulty. A researcher training in science would be less likely to realize that a feather is a necessary component for a Fly spell (as it is in D&D) than one who had no such training.Bull. Pucky. How do you think we discovered the cosmic background radiation? Bell Labs was trying to eliminate noise from their equipment. Technicians even removed bird poop from their radio antenna because they thought that might be the cause of the noise they were getting. There's no reason to suspect everyone would rule out the presence of the feather in creating the magical effect.

What happens if we collect more Ligo events, and then discover that the data is not quite consistent with G.R.?
Physicists everywhere will gleefully run to their whiteboards/computers to figure out a new law of gravity to replace it! Because that's what physicists (and really all scientists) love: a result that defies the current explanation.
I think this is the most realistic answer. Something new and defies all explanation? Real scientists love this to death because it's the chance to learn more.There is no list of questions to check off. The only question is "what's different between the time this happened and the time it didn't happen?"



And it's entirely possible that no possible paradigm (or no paradigm simple enough to be comprehended, which would amount to the same thing) can encompass both natural causes and symbolic relationships.Yes, if you really try, you can set up a world with non-decipherable laws of physics and magic. Where nothing is repeatable. Is this a system you would enjoy playing in? Where every time you cast a spell, you roll on the Wild Surge table instead of consulting the spell description to determine what happens? If the answer is "no", why go through the effort? If you're tempted to answer "yes", please consider this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=275152) (and its sequels) before making it your final answer. Spoiler alert: Cheese Forging ahead!

Edit: Ninja'd excellently by Segev.

Hawkstar
2017-01-20, 01:45 PM
I was expecting a reference to Orcus appearing to throw tanglefoot bags at people, not Cheese Casting.

But even then - Just because known spells have largely-consistent results doesn't mean all magic relies on that same consistency. Just because a wizard can almost always cast fireball in the rules-based circumstances doesn't mean a fireballs can't happen randomly.

JoeJ
2017-01-21, 12:17 AM
I have no idea where you get this notion. Consistent patterns are found and recorded and investigated. Don't confuse sciencism - the almost religious notion that some concepts are "inherently scientific" and others are "inherently unscientific" just based on common consensus - with science.

Where I get it from is the history of science. Anomalies do not cause a well established paradigm to be discarded until they become overwhelming, and then only if there is a new paradigm into which they can be fitted. Look, for example, at the way the observed orbits of the planets only approximately follow Newton's prediction. Only after several centuries was it finally accepted that neither the difficulty of calculating a multi-body solution nor the limitations of telescope precision could fully account for the discrepancies. Other examples are easy to find: phlogiston, electricity as a fluid, planets moving in epicycles, ether.



If every time you hold a feather aloft and say, "By the power of Greyskull," you do in fact gain the ability to fly, and leaving the feather out of the ritual leaves you ground-bound, then it's perfectly scientific to posit a theory that a feather is a necessary part of this procedure. Further science would involve testing the limits of this. Both in terms of what counts as "a feather" (how much of one do you need? Can it be artificial? Is there a minimum or maximum size feather that will work? Do various feathers have measurable differences in what they grant you in your flight? etc.) and in terms of the flight itself - how much can you lift without it holding you down/causing you to fall? how fast can you go? is there a measurable force you exert elsewhere to "make up" for the force lifting you? etc.

If somebody else creates that spell and brings it to your attention, you can investigate it. I notice, however, that even with your knowledge of this and other spells in D&D, your follow-up questions about the feather deal with it's physicality. But suppose nothing about the feather's physical nature matters at all. Perhaps it's the idea of flight, symbolized by the feather, that is critical. In that case the feather itself is irrelevant, it's what the wizard thinks about the feather that's important. (Which might explain why the idea of magical power, symbolized by an arcane focus, can serve as a substitute.)

Some questions can't be answered, or even asked, scientifically. "What does this mean?" is one of those.

NichG
2017-01-21, 12:54 AM
Where I get it from is the history of science. Anomalies do not cause a well established paradigm to be discarded until they become overwhelming, and then only if there is a new paradigm into which they can be fitted. Look, for example, at the way the observed orbits of the planets only approximately follow Newton's prediction. Only after several centuries was it finally accepted that neither the difficulty of calculating a multi-body solution nor the limitations of telescope precision could fully account for the discrepancies. Other examples are easy to find: phlogiston, electricity as a fluid, planets moving in epicycles, ether.

If somebody else creates that spell and brings it to your attention, you can investigate it. I notice, however, that even with your knowledge of this and other spells in D&D, your follow-up questions about the feather deal with it's physicality. But suppose nothing about the feather's physical nature matters at all. Perhaps it's the idea of flight, symbolized by the feather, that is critical. In that case the feather itself is irrelevant, it's what the wizard thinks about the feather that's important. (Which might explain why the idea of magical power, symbolized by an arcane focus, can serve as a substitute.)

Some questions can't be answered, or even asked, scientifically. "What does this mean?" is one of those.

The nice thing about doing well-crafted experiments is that you learn something whether they succeed or fail. So if you try different feathers and you find that the type of feather doesn't matter, a picture of a feather works as well, etc, then you can systematically rule out physicality. If the real pattern is 'what the wizard thinks about the feather is important' you can discover that by a sequence of tests.

That's the nice thing about science. You don't need to receive enlightenment as to the one true explanation. Instead, you can try things and take the results seriously, thus being able to force yourself to discard lines of thought that you're biased to favor when they don't mesh up with the results. By doing that, you can find things that your mind wouldn't be able to come up with on its own in isolation.

Segev
2017-01-21, 01:41 AM
Where I get it from is the history of science. Anomalies do not cause a well established paradigm to be discarded until they become overwhelming, and then only if there is a new paradigm into which they can be fitted. Look, for example, at the way the observed orbits of the planets only approximately follow Newton's prediction. Only after several centuries was it finally accepted that neither the difficulty of calculating a multi-body solution nor the limitations of telescope precision could fully account for the discrepancies. Other examples are easy to find: phlogiston, electricity as a fluid, planets moving in epicycles, ether.You're conflating levels of detail in a model with things that are observable trivially, here. Or at least, in order to support a "magic can't be scientifically tested" claim, you'd have to be doing that. It doesn't hold water.



If somebody else creates that spell and brings it to your attention, you can investigate it. I notice, however, that even with your knowledge of this and other spells in D&D, your follow-up questions about the feather deal with it's physicality.My first thoughts, yes. But note, too, that part of the question is how far from being a "feather" can it get and still work?

Experiments may include whether it could be a propeller, or a whole bird, or a whole wing, or a drawing of a wing.


But suppose nothing about the feather's physical nature matters at all. Perhaps it's the idea of flight, symbolized by the feather, that is critical. In that case the feather itself is irrelevant, it's what the wizard thinks about the feather that's important. (Which might explain why the idea of magical power, symbolized by an arcane focus, can serve as a substitute.)If it's just a "magic feather" (in the Dumbo) sense, that is harder to test, but at the same time, gets pointed towards by how others come upon it independently. If it's a "state of mind" thing, then different cultures will have different approaches. The "state of mind" and "belief" aspects will kick in as we investigate whether telling the wizarding student what to expect changes the outcome.


Some questions can't be answered, or even asked, scientifically. "What does this mean?" is one of those.Er... That really depends on what you mean by that question. It can be taken a few ways. If you mean in a poetic sense, "What is the meaning of this symbol to the audience?" then no, that can't be scientifically determined. If you mean in a literal, "What does this result tell us about the underlying rules of the world?" sense, then absolutely those questions can be answered.

If it IS about symbolism, then the relevance of the symbols can be tested. Is it symbolic to each individual caster? IF so, then magic is a mental phenomenon, and we can study what makes a given mage more capable. We can examine their thought processes (with their cooperation), and investigate to see if there's (again) a genetic component, environmental, or a learned mental state, or what.

To make science "fail" here, you have to make magic entirely random. Even having a sapient force that is behind magic, acting as capriciously as it likes, leaves you with a "science" that is focused on learning how to manipulate it into more regularly doing what you want. Even if that's by negotiation and social trickery.

Psyren
2017-01-21, 01:47 AM
I believe the Tome of Magic goes into detail about what Evocation actually does, which ultimately works out to importing energy from the relevant planes of energy. Meanwhile, when you use a Conjuration spell that deals with energy, you are creating nonmagical energy.

I remember that line, but ToM isn't quite right, because your Fireball and Flame Strike still work in a Dimensional Lock.

My explanation is that the fire you evoke does come from the Plane of Fire, but in a much more roundabout way. You're not actually opening a conduit to the PoF right then and there - instead, with evocation spells, you're siphoning from some local store of energy (e.g. the Weave) which replenishes itself from the Plane of Fire at periodic intervals on a more global scale.

Segev
2017-01-21, 01:14 PM
I've always seen it as literally magically creating fire energy. There is energy added instantaneously to the area. Things exposed to it suddenly gain heat (hence possibility of ignition and normal fire resulting). But the fire energy isn't "real fire" drawn from anywhere. It's not even real superheated air or the like. It's just pure energy, magically created, which is expended and gone (save where it's caused self-sustaining reactions) when it's over.

This is why spell resistance ignores it: the energy isn't evoked around the existent being.

I don't like this explanation due to how it makes the fluff of a fireball's function seem odd (if it's a bead that explodes, shouldn't that be 'real' heat wafting off of the bead?), but it's the best I've got that still allows for the idiotic "no SR" explanation for "conjured" fire. (Honestly. Conjuration shouldn't be better than evocation at evocation's primary schtick.)

NichG
2017-01-21, 11:54 PM
I remember that line, but ToM isn't quite right, because your Fireball and Flame Strike still work in a Dimensional Lock.

My explanation is that the fire you evoke does come from the Plane of Fire, but in a much more roundabout way. You're not actually opening a conduit to the PoF right then and there - instead, with evocation spells, you're siphoning from some local store of energy (e.g. the Weave) which replenishes itself from the Plane of Fire at periodic intervals on a more global scale.

It'd also make sense if e.g. Plane Shift, Teleport, Conjuration spells and the like have to distort the connections between planes that are already there in order to fit something through the connection that normally wouldn't pass, whereas a Dimensional Lock reinforces the connections so that their properties cannot be altered. So you can still draw fire through existing connections to the Plane of Fire that enable heat to be a concept even in a Dimensional Lock, but you can't send a person through them.

That kind of interpretation also resolves some tricky things like, what happens if someone dies in a Dimensional Lock? Do they automatically become corporeal undead (because the soul can't enter the Ethereal to become a ghost, or the Astral to go to an afterlife)?.

Or you could go all out and say 'yes, I'll run it such that Dimensional Lock blocks those spells'. It's higher level than Antimagic Field, so it's not too out there...

Psyren
2017-01-23, 10:37 AM
I've always seen it as literally magically creating fire energy. There is energy added instantaneously to the area. Things exposed to it suddenly gain heat (hence possibility of ignition and normal fire resulting). But the fire energy isn't "real fire" drawn from anywhere. It's not even real superheated air or the like. It's just pure energy, magically created, which is expended and gone (save where it's caused self-sustaining reactions) when it's over.

This is why spell resistance ignores it: the energy isn't evoked around the existent being.

I don't like this explanation due to how it makes the fluff of a fireball's function seem odd (if it's a bead that explodes, shouldn't that be 'real' heat wafting off of the bead?), but it's the best I've got that still allows for the idiotic "no SR" explanation for "conjured" fire. (Honestly. Conjuration shouldn't be better than evocation at evocation's primary schtick.)

I'm fine with conjured fire personally. I think the bigger issue with orbs is how well they scale. If what you're conjuring is real, nonmagical fire, there should be a much lower limit to how hot you can make it without evocation's mojo; this would then let orbs serve their primary function of giving the wizard something to do in the golem fight besides summoning a thing and then going for the crossbow, but not be so good that regular fireballs get kicked out the door for being useless.


It'd also make sense if e.g. Plane Shift, Teleport, Conjuration spells and the like have to distort the connections between planes that are already there in order to fit something through the connection that normally wouldn't pass, whereas a Dimensional Lock reinforces the connections so that their properties cannot be altered. So you can still draw fire through existing connections to the Plane of Fire that enable heat to be a concept even in a Dimensional Lock, but you can't send a person through them.

That kind of interpretation also resolves some tricky things like, what happens if someone dies in a Dimensional Lock? Do they automatically become corporeal undead (because the soul can't enter the Ethereal to become a ghost, or the Astral to go to an afterlife)?.

Or you could go all out and say 'yes, I'll run it such that Dimensional Lock blocks those spells'. It's higher level than Antimagic Field, so it's not too out there...

Complete Divine 125 covers the "dying in a Lock" thing:


What Happens After You Die
...
The dead character doesn't perceive anything at all, doesn't think, and has no notion or memory of events beyond the moment of death. The soul is beyond magic's power to detect or affect. It's not incorporeal, it's not a ghost, and it's not a creature of any kind with measurable statistics.