D&D Orbital Strike

[Mad Wizard]

So, I recently felt like creating a way to do an orbital strike in D&D. Cometfall does damage based on the distance it falls, so if I put it 100 km up, it will do about 65,616d6 damage. There were several issues with getting it working, though.

The way I went about it is creating an intelligent wondrous item. I made it capable of speech, and, because it's intelligent, I cast a permanent Rary's Telepathic Bond between me and it. Now I have a way of telling it what to do. The next issue is targeting it. For one thing, Cometfall has to be cast over a surface. For this, I added a Wall of Force item that the intelligent item can activate. I can cast the Cometfall right above it. The magic item that casts the Cometfall also casts Disintegrate on the Wall of Force, so the comet falls past where the wall used to be. To actually give it a location to target, I gave it a Discern Location item and a continuous Clairaudience/Clairvoyance item that I carry around.

The only other things to solve were getting the item up there, making it move fast enough to stay in orbit, and the comet burning up in atmosphere. To get it up there, I simply used greater teleport after casting overland flight and Protection from Energy: cold on myself, and putting on my Necklace of Adaptation. I teleport up, and cast Time Stop. The description of Time Stop says that it actually makes you move very fast. So, while time stopped, I fly forward, and then throw the item in the last round. When time stop ends, it will be going fast enough to stay up. To protect the comet from burning up, I added another item that casts Energy Immunity: Fire on the comet.

With all this set up, all I need to do is tell the item to drop a comet, and about 110 rounds later, 65,616d6 damage! (for added fun, make it a maximized Cometfall ). Are there any problems with this that I missed?

[Fax Celestis]

You forgot the sunder attempt on the earth.

[Shas aia Toriia]

Well, I don't see how you will get it to home in. It knows where stuff is when you want, but those 110 rounds will have things move around, so unless you attack a building, it will miss 99.9% of the time.

And as was said before, the earth will blow up.

[The White Knight]

Wall of Force creates vertical planes of force, and cannot create a 'surface' for your Cometfall, as far as I know.

EDIT: How about some immovable rods supporting a Wall of Iron?

[Fax Celestis]

Wall of Force creates vertical planes of force, and cannot create a 'surface' for your Cometfall, as far as I know.

In a gravityless environment, "up" is subjective.

[Shas aia Toriia]

That can be fixed by making the comets fire horizontally, where gravity would then pull the comets to earth.

[Mad Wizard]

Well, I don't see how you will get it to home in. It knows where stuff is when you want, but those 110 rounds will have things move around, so unless you attack a building, it will miss 99.9% of the time.

And as was said before, the earth will blow up.

Yeah, I realize that. This is mainly meant to take out buildings and the like.

[Shas aia Toriia]

Still, by the time and level you can do this, enemy mages inside those buildings could create a wall of force, or just dispel it before it reaced them.

Unless you attack tribes of warrior orcs that are all conveniently level 12 fighters.

[Fax Celestis]

Still, by the time and level you can do this, enemy mages inside those buildings could create a wall of force, or just dispel it before it reaced them.

Unless you attack tribes of warrior orcs that are all conveniently level 12 fighters.

They'd have to know it was coming. Besides, you can't dodge a sunder attempt on the planet.

Of course, it'd be pretty hilarious to be a rogue at point of impact and make your Reflex save.

Wizard: "I blow up the earth with a comet of doom!"
Rogue: "I dodge."
Wizard: "..."

[the_tick_rules]

what's the radius of the spell? does it change based on distance or not? You may blow a small sqaure out of the multiverse but would that be it? Plus what about the max range on spells? I think's it's a undoable, but it's still a funny idea.

[Jasdoif]

What's the listed range on Cometfall? Long?

If so, you'd need a caster level of...8,193 to get a 100km range.

EDIT: You could Enlarge the spell to reduce the caster level needed to 4,096, I guess....

[Fax Celestis]

What's the listed range on Cometfall? Long?

If so, you'd need a caster level of...8,193 to get a 100km range.

EDIT: You could Enlarge the spell to reduce the caster level needed to 4,096, I guess....

One could (theoretically) assume that Cometfall, as a Conjuration (Creation) effect, is therefore nonmagical and can go outside of range.

[ZebulonCrispi]

Here's an interesting thought.

You say 100km up, but why stop there? That's not even out of the atmosphere. Drop it from, say, the moon's orbit. Physics-wise, that doesn't take a whole lot more effort to reach than 100km. Rules-wise, it now does a whopping total of 1,583,577,856d6 damage. Maximized, that's over nine billion damage.

How much HP does the Earth have, again? We can still drop it from farther out if we have to.

[de-trick]

why stop at the moon go from another planet then you could have 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 9999d6 or more

[Shas aia Toriia]

The range is how far from you it starts. It can fall an infinite distance. And if sent it from the moon, how would it reach Earth? There is no gravity in space.

Small objects like that would begin to orbit the moon, not Earth.

[ClericofPhwarrr]

So send it from the moon's distance away, but on the opposite side of the earth than the moon is currently on.

[Solo]

The range is how far from you it starts. It can fall an infinite distance. And if sent it from the moon, how would it reach Earth? There is no gravity in space.

Is, um, physics different where you live?

If what you say is true, how does the moon orbit the earth, without there being any gravity in space?

Remember, the force of gravity is inversely proportional to the distance squared.

The gravity of Earth is weaker the further out you go, but it never disappears.

Small objects like that would begin to orbit the moon, not Earth.

If you fired it at the right angle, it would go around the moon and slingshot down to earth.

Alternatively, you could cast Reverse Gravity on the moon followed by Cometfall.

(You're a level 4000+ wizard, after all.)

[Fax Celestis]

The range is how far from you it starts. It can fall an infinite distance. And if sent it from the moon, how would it reach Earth? There is no gravity in space.

Small objects like that would begin to orbit the moon, not Earth.

Only if not given sufficient force to break orbit.

[goat]

If it's a standard comet, it'll max out at somewhere under 70km/s. Probably wouldn't even give the planet enough kick to shift the axis.

To destroy the planet, you'd need something coming in at that speed, moon sized.

Most comets are a good whack slower, and an awful lot smaller.

/studying for a planetary science exam

[ocato]

Moon sized is a bit much. Maybe like, Rhode Island sized. What with dust clouds and so on.

[goat]

Something smaller might do some decent damage, could even melt a good percentage of the surface, maybe even kick some mass into escape trajectory, but we're talking destruction here. That takes a lot of energy.

[belboz]

You can't start it farther out than the moon; it'll bang into the moon's crystal sphere.

[SurlySeraph]

*sound of catgirls splattering*

Of course, if you make it fall from farther away from the Earth than the moon is, then it would sort of be an exorbital strike. Orbital strikes have to be close enough to be in orbit around the Earth. Hmmm... could you do something like putting a contingent Improved Haste on the comet to make it hit faster after being called down? Or does Improved Haste not work that way?

[Arbitrarity]

Use explosive apocalypse from the sky!

[Renx]

You still have to hit what you're going after, and if you actually want to create something that's going to fall for 100 km, you're going to miss. Period. Your character has no reason to account for the rotation of [game world], and even if it's bloody Discworld I'm willing to bet your character never hit anything 100km away.

If any character really wants to try, he'd better roll at least three consecutive nat-20s. Otherwise, the DM decides where it falls. Assuming a non-level-20 wizard, any HQ of any law-upholding organization (and/or wizards' guild) should do nicely. That'll teach him to try to kill catgirls next time.

Oh, and dropping stuff from orbit? You'll need a nice quantum computer for that to account for everything. And to answer the eventual claim that "it's magic", let me respond with "Show me a spell that has 'can hit targets over 100 miles away with <any sort of> precision' and I'll show you a spell that's not allowed in my campaign."

//Edit1: Yes, I'm sort of a B.A.Felton in deciding what goes and what doesn't, can't you tell? ;)

[goat]

You see, the essential problem is, you're trying to use comet strike to build an orbiting death weapon. But comets have Heliocentric orbits rather than Geocentric ones.

You can have an orbiting death weapon, in that it does the spells, and it's in orbit, but the comet itself would be coming from somewhere else.

Of course, some sort of "Rods from God" system would be more than possible. You need something with the Distant shot feat and some sort of super-vision in geostationary orbit and some way of telling it where to shoot, then you just give it a load of metal rods to hurl down from orbit.

[Solo]

True Strike?


There's no reason why anyone with a Int score of over 18 shouldn't be able to deduce that the earth revolves about an axis. If Galileo could do it...

[Renx]

There's no reason why anyone with a Int score of over 18 shouldn't be able to deduce that the earth revolves about an axis. If Galileo could do it...

That's just silly. Even if your character is a navigator and/or astrologer, if you just up and say "My character knows that Oerth revolves around its axis, the moon revolves around Oerth and the Oerth revolves around the sun," you'll be met with harsh laughter, a lynch mob and 1d6 burning damage per round.

//Edit1: Let me rephrase that to answer the proposition better. If you have an Int of 18, you're well-versed in the histories of man(/elf/dwarf)kind, logical analysis and the great works of famous philosophers and scientists... all who probably claim Oerth is flat. Therefore, you would be much more likely to claim just that... and miss the stationary dragon by 300 miles.

[Jasdoif]

True Strike?

Hmm. What's the range increment on a comet, anyway?

[goat]

But if you thought the Earth was flat, you'd never try and build an orbiting death weapon!