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A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

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Snowfire said:
we could literally build perfect clocks off the duration of certain spells. Have the hour hand pegged to a 1 hour/level spell at CL1, refreshing the moment it drops. No drift, no complex machinery necessary. Just the laws of reality doing our work for us.
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I think this may mistake the mechanical simplification of magic for a role playing game with the reality of magic in-universe. Since it is highly unlikely people level up in discrete chunks you are likely to see significant drift in time effects, especially in spells that have effects like 1hr/level and so on. Regardless, I think that would be an odd thing for our society to base our time system around. Imagine the difficulty of trying to convert rural Westorosi to a system of timekeeping that is based around magic. I think we would be much better off using other methods.

I do get the idea though, it is similar to the effort to have the metric units based on universal constants.
 
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sayeftyfirst said:
I think this may mistake the mechanical simplification of magic for a role playing game with the reality of magic in-universe. Since it is highly unlikely people level up in discrete chunks you are likely to see significant drift in time effects, especially in spells that have effects like 1hr/level and so on. Regardless, I think that would be an odd thing for our society to base our time system around. Imagine the difficulty of trying to convert rural Westorosi to a system of timekeeping that is based around magic. I think we would be much better off using other methods.

I do get the idea though, it is similar to the effort to have the metric units based on universal constants.
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We can explictly craft things at particular caster levels, that create effects which last particular amounts of time. If you play D&D you can't get away from this. As to 'system based off of magic' that's not really an issue. We use the magical devices as master clocks, then just set everything else from them.

And speaking bluntly, if clocks do exist in Planetos at the current time, which I believe they do, I will bet dollars to donuts that they work on Earth time. Which means that the same cultural inertia is going to be there.
 
Prestidigitation would serve as a perfect basis for a magic-based clock.

It's a Cantrip that lasts exactly one hour.

It can color one cubic feet of material per round, which is exactly six seconds.

Every six seconds, a sliver of the clock face could change color to show sub-minute increments of time equal to one-tenth of a minute. The same could be done to show minutes and hours that have passed.

The numbers representing hours could change color to be more visually distinct based on how many hours, or Prestidigitations, have passed within the past day.

It should cost 200 IM for a constant effect Prestidigitation-based clock.

A Continual Flame-based backlighting feature would basically be free.
 
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Snowfire said:
No, just the inertia of reality itself. Like, seriously, long-term spells give us perfect time measurement, defined on the basis of Laws of Reality. Trying to forge our own system when we have that to fall back on as a constant is just...well it's enormously questionable.

All this seems to do is add complexity to something that should be simple.

Edit: we could literally build perfect clocks off the duration of certain spells. Have the hour hand pegged to a 1 hour/level spell at CL1, refreshing the moment it drops. No drift, no complex machinery necessary. Just the laws of reality doing our work for us.
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I've always assumed that the duration times of spells were more of an abstraction of game mechanics than a hard law of reality.

I mean, different casters have different spell durations based on how adept they are at the spell via their caster level, it would be weird for their spells to be exactly the same in all aspects every time they cast.

Edit: although, i did have a fun conversation with a friend where we ended up musing that spell durations were based on pi. We wondered about running a game on 'half rounds'. We also thought it would make phrases like "spells of the first circle" make sense if you're getting other circle-y details into the spells.
 
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Goldfish said:
Prestidigitation would serve as a perfect basis for a magic-based clock.

It's a Cantrip that lasts exactly one hour.

It can color one cubic feet of material per round, which is exactly six seconds.

Every six seconds, a sliver of the clock face could change color to show sub-minute increments of time equal to one-tenth of a minute. The same could be done to show minutes and hours that have passed.

The numbers representing hours could change color to be more visually distinct based on how many hours, or Prestidigitations, have passed within the past day.

It should cost 200 IM for a constant effect Prestidigitation-based clock.

A Continual Flame-based backlighting feature would basically be free.
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Might I suggest the numbers and or clock sections scale from Black to Red depending on the time of day? With the backlighting effect it should he nice and distinct and in Imperial colors to boot.
 
Azel's complaints about people being all "BUT IT WOULDN'T MAKE SENSE" are even more amusing considering there's not really any contention.

I just don't care but I find it fun to complain that the silly Europeans consistently find a way to contrive a reason for me to use different units of measurement for everything if I ever want to participate in their reindeer games.

Is that boiling all of this down to petty rivalry?

Well, why, yes. :V
 
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Goldfish said:
Prestidigitation would serve as a perfect basis for a magic-based clock.

It's a Cantrip that lasts exactly one hour.

It can color one cubic feet of material per round, which is exactly six seconds.

Every six seconds, a sliver of the clock face could change color to show sub-minute increments of time equal to one-tenth of a minute. The same could be done to show minutes and hours that have passed.

The numbers representing hours could change color to be more visually distinct based on how many hours, or Prestidigitations, have passed within the past day.

It should cost 200 IM for a constant effect Prestidigitation-based clock.

A Continual Flame-based backlighting feature would basically be free.
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By the way. I highly suggest introducing this into your vote in some fashion, it sounds pretty cool.
 
Goldfish said:
Prestidigitation would serve as a perfect basis for a magic-based clock.

It's a Cantrip that lasts exactly one hour.

It can color one cubic feet of material per round, which is exactly six seconds.

Every six seconds, a sliver of the clock face could change color to show sub-minute increments of time equal to one-tenth of a minute. The same could be done to show minutes and hours that have passed.

The numbers representing hours could change color to be more visually distinct based on how many hours, or Prestidigitations, have passed within the past day.

It should cost 200 IM for a constant effect Prestidigitation-based clock.

A Continual Flame-based backlighting feature would basically be free.
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Hey look, our master clock design.

Sqweaktoy said:
No 'if' about it. There's a Myrish clock in the update. Can't confirm it runs on Earth time from the text though.
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If it doesn't I will be immensely surprised.
 
:p Idea: Lya spends actions modifying spell parameters until we have a version of every spell who's duration is based on our own time system. We implement these modified spells as the standard version in all scholorarium branches. We then use our cultural superiority and education system to spread these superior spell versions.

The shiatan will support us in our bid for an orderly time system. The djinn will... Not.
 
Mimas said:
The shiatan will support us in our bid for an orderly time system.
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No, no I'm pretty sure they wouldn't. We'd be spitting on millennia of established precedent and with no more justification but 'our way is better'. That would not go down well.

Leaving aside how utterly backwards the entire idea is given how it would needlessly complicate things to a ridiculous degree.
 
Snowfire said:
No, no I'm pretty sure they wouldn't. We'd be spitting on millennia of established precedent and with no more justification but 'our way is better'. That would not go down well.

Leaving aside how utterly backwards the entire idea is given how it would needlessly complicate things to a ridiculous degree.
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Just for the record, the Shaitan have their own time system and it isn't duodecimal either.
 
Mimas said:
:p Idea: Lya spends actions modifying spell parameters until we have a version of every spell who's duration is based on our own time system. We implement these modified spells as the standard version in all scholorarium branches. We then use our cultural superiority and education system to spread these superior spell versions.

The shiatan will support us in our bid for an orderly time system. The djinn will... Not.
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The Shaitan will largely ignore us silly barbarians, except in cases where paying attention gets them a Dragon roasting their enemies at their behest, or selling them jars of honey and wine and pickled plums.

Other than that though, don't expect people to really stand up and treat us like more than children scrambling in the dark until we have a full Imperial battlefleet hovering over the City of Brass and the Djinn and Shaitan have no idea how things escalated so quickly. Only that they're LIKING IT.
 
Crake said:
Other than that though, don't expect people to really stand up and treat us like more than children scrambling in the dark until we have a full Imperial battlefleet hovering over the City of Brass and the Djinn and Shaitan have no idea how things escalated so quickly. Only that they're LIKING IT.
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I made an "elite Janissary" build for the Efreet. It's something like CR 15, and DP approved it.
I fully expect the City of Brass to be stupidly well defended, and most of the fight/effort to be offscreened to our Shaitan allies.
 
@Goldfish seconding including the neat prestidigitation clocks into your vote. I think there was some ruling from DP about pricing for prestidigitation items that do fixed effects instead of giving the whole spell but you are the enchanting guru.
 
Azel said:
Just for the record, the Shaitan have their own time system and it isn't duodecimal either.
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Huh. How does one differentiate between night and day in the plane of earth anyways? There wouldn't be a sun nor a planetary rotation to make a day/night cycle, and the whole plane is filled with rock anyways.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
I made an "elite Janissary" build for the Efreet. It's something like CR 15, and DP approved it.
I fully expect the City of Brass to be stupidly well defended, and most of the fight/effort to be offscreened to our Shaitan allies.
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Artillery is the ultimate equalizer, so I fully expect to have more than a marginal effect using ingenuity and WBLomancy.

On the other hand I agree and contribution of ground forces for taking hardened locations will be extremely limited/down to just PC involvement. Though PCs just have to WIN to make the difference lopsidedly in their allies' favor. If all you need to do is clear a few rooms of high CR defenses and enemies, then once you do that the (still high CR) grunts of the Djinn and Shaitan can roll through and take over the position.
 
Azel said:
Just for the record, the Shaitan have their own time system and it isn't duodecimal either.
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This doesn't really address my point at all.

Sqweaktoy said:
Same, just don't want to assume facts not in evidence, you know how picky I can get about that, even when it doesn't support my preference. :oops:
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*chuckles sensibly in HT sanity checks*

I am aware, yes :p

@Goldfish thirding putting the design for a Prestidigation master clock into your vote.
 
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