the same editions give the peasant ansible - basically a peasant passing a packet to another peasant within arm reach doesn't take any time according to RAW, so if you have a row of peasants (or skeletons) that stretches from one town to another they can pass superluminal messages from town to town, with infinite bandwidth no less.
Yup. *Almost* happens in non-crap edition, too: Each peasant delays his turn until the packet is handed to him, then takes his turn to hand the packet on. The packet reaches the end of the line in one round no matter how long the line is.
(L5R had the Dragon Samurai Teleportation technique: If you killed someone with an attack, you could move your speed and make a new attack, for free. You couldn't miss a peasant and you couldn't not kill a peasant on a hit, therefore a line of peasants would take a Dragon-clan Samurai anywhere, instantly.)
Isn't that the peasant railgun? Because if what they're passing is a 10 foot poll, and you line up, say, 500 peasants passing it in a 10 second time and the last one throws it, the poll is technically moving fast enough to bring down castle walls?
No, because the same rules that say it takes zero time also say that the peasant at the end can only throw it as hard as a single peasant.
I mean, that IS "the peasant railgun", but the peasant railgun doesn't work, under the rules. Whereas the instant FTL communication and package delivery does work.
On the other hand, if you can get enough peasants then the deceleration from near-lightspeed to peasant-throwing-speed within six seconds is going to create the kind of explosion for which you would want to be on the other side of the world.
On the other other hand, that's a lot of peasants, but are global populations hardcapped in the rules?
if you can get enough peasants then the deceleration from near-lightspeed to peasant-throwing-speed within six seconds is going to create the kind of explosion for which you would want to be on the other side of the world.
Nope. Again, the same rule that says you can pass an item to the person next to you for free in near-zero time says you can *pass* it to them and they can *take it*. It's never moving faster than one person handing it to the next person, despite it getting from the start of the line to the end of the line, uh, instantly.
Real physics never comes into it, because the object never gains speed or momentum. If real physics *did* come into it, you couldn't hand it from one person to the next perpetually. You're abusing a rules loophole to do the absurd, but to do so you need to follow the rules you're abusing.
The Murphy's Rule here is the instantaneous transfer of any holdable object from one of the line to the other. Isn't that miraculous enough? Sheesh.
the core problem is that you have to sort of mush together BOTH newtonian physics and RAW while also ignoring key parts of both to get a railgun - you need the rod to be gaining momentum due to moving BUT you have moving because RAW, when newtonian physics would have the amount of energy needed to move the rod from even ONE peasant to another instantaneously be infinite, while at the same time RAW caps the amount of damage and range of a peasant throwing an object to just a few feet and a single damage die.
(remember that 1 peasant can easily be subdued by a house cat, which has better offensive and defensive stats than the peasant)
Kittens are vicious, man. a Claw/Claw/Bite(rake/rake) combo when a good chunk of the universe has 1HP? There's a reason you drown sacks of kittens - self-preservation! Although you're generally better off throwing them at goblins, because a litter will *eat* a goblin raiding party in seconds.
Of course, this is also a universe where a common cause of death is "cut myself shaving, was instantly decapitated".
And where one of the great civic nuisances is that every night the thieve's guild is liable to cause 1 out of every 20 locks in a given city to irreperably jam.
Sadly, the engineer who designed this arrow failed to notice the bit in the rules (first, second, and 3rd ed) where the bag of holding always weighs the same amount, even when empty. The smallest capacity bag weighs 15 pounds, so one of these gadgets would make a pretty poor arrow.
Compared with the cost of *not* instantly killing the dragon with your first shot. This is way cheaper than even a single resurrection, and all those stacks of [healing potions / wands of healing] that you bought because [nobody likes being the healbot/the cleric has a win button that he'd rather push than heal you] cost money.
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(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-07 03:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-07 03:22 pm (UTC)(L5R had the Dragon Samurai Teleportation technique: If you killed someone with an attack, you could move your speed and make a new attack, for free. You couldn't miss a peasant and you couldn't not kill a peasant on a hit, therefore a line of peasants would take a Dragon-clan Samurai anywhere, instantly.)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-07 05:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-07 06:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-07 05:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-07 05:09 pm (UTC)I mean, that IS "the peasant railgun", but the peasant railgun doesn't work, under the rules. Whereas the instant FTL communication and package delivery does work.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-07 05:11 pm (UTC)I'll have to send them home then
(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-08 11:03 pm (UTC)On the other other hand, that's a lot of peasants, but are global populations hardcapped in the rules?
(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-08 11:11 pm (UTC)Nope. Again, the same rule that says you can pass an item to the person next to you for free in near-zero time says you can *pass* it to them and they can *take it*. It's never moving faster than one person handing it to the next person, despite it getting from the start of the line to the end of the line, uh, instantly.
Real physics never comes into it, because the object never gains speed or momentum. If real physics *did* come into it, you couldn't hand it from one person to the next perpetually. You're abusing a rules loophole to do the absurd, but to do so you need to follow the rules you're abusing.
The Murphy's Rule here is the instantaneous transfer of any holdable object from one of the line to the other. Isn't that miraculous enough? Sheesh.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-09 12:13 pm (UTC)(remember that 1 peasant can easily be subdued by a house cat, which has better offensive and defensive stats than the peasant)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-09 12:48 pm (UTC)Of course, this is also a universe where a common cause of death is "cut myself shaving, was instantly decapitated".
(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-09 01:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-09 02:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-07 03:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-07 04:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-08 01:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-08 01:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-08 05:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-09 12:15 pm (UTC)An artificer could probably rig a mechanical timer to make it into a satchel charge too.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-08 01:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-09 09:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-08 02:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-08 12:09 pm (UTC)