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    Peasant Railgun

    (knightsdigest.com)
    280 points cainxinth | 15 comments | 03 Jul 25 14:05 UTC | HN request time: 1.25s | source | bottom
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    disillusionist ◴[03 Jul 25 15:19 UTC] No.44455949[source]▶
    I personally adore the Peasant Railgun and other such silly tropes generated by player creativity! Lateral problem solving can be one of the most fun parts of the DnD experience. However, these shenanigans often rely on overly convoluted or twisted ways of interpreting the rules that often don't pass muster of RAW (Rules As Written) and certainly not RAI (Rules As Intended) -- despite vociferous arguments by motivated players. Any DM who carefully scrutinizes these claims can usually find the seams where the joke unravels. The DnD authors also support DMs here when they say that DnD rules should not be interpreted as purely from a simulationist standpoint (whether physics, economy, or other) but exist to help the DM orchestrate and arbitrate combat and interactions.

    In the case of the Peasant Railgun, here are a few threads that I would pull on: * The rules do not say that passed items retain their velocity when passed from creature to creature. The object would have the same velocity on the final "pass" as it did on the first one. * Throwing or firing a projectile does not count as it "falling". If an archer fires an arrow 100ft, the arrow does not gain 100ft of "falling damage".

    Of course, if a DM does want to encourage and enable zany shenanigans then all the power to them!

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    1. altruios ◴[03 Jul 25 16:35 UTC] No.44456789[source]▶
    > The rules do not say that passed items retain their velocity when passed from creature to creature. The object would have the same velocity on the final "pass" as it did on the first one.

    Since this wooden rod travels several miles in a 6 second time frame - traveling more than 500M/s on average - don't we have to assume it accumulates?

    Falling damage is the mechanism that makes the most sense to shoehorn in there. Using an improvised weapon on a rod already traveling more than 500M/s seems even more clumsy, as well as calculating the damage more wibbly-wobbly.

    There's also the rule of cool. If it makes the story better/ more enjoyable: have at it.

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    2. disillusionist ◴[03 Jul 25 17:50 UTC] No.44457536[source]▶
    If we were trying to create a real-time simulation system, then YES you are totally correct. However, many table-top RPGs rules only make sense in the context of adjudicating atomic actions (such as one creature passing an item to another) rather than multi-part or longer running activities. Readied actions are already a bug-a-boo that break down when pushed to extremes. While not listed in the rules, it might make sense for a DM to limit the distance or number of hand-offs that the "rail" can travel in a single round to something "reasonable" based on their own fiat.
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    3. altruios ◴[03 Jul 25 19:03 UTC] No.44458189[source]▶
    Agreed. Chaining readied actions is the real issue here. Maybe the mechanical fix is - as you say - a limit on that. I would simply say that a readied action can not be in response to a action that has itself been readied.
    replies(1): >>44458306 #
    4. shitpostbot ◴[03 Jul 25 19:08 UTC] No.44458241[source]▶
    It's far more reasonable to assume it moves infinitely fast between peasants, but comes to a halt at each one.

    Or if not infinitely fast, but we're going to assume a chain could accelerate it indefinitely, than it's still more reasonable to assume each pass happens exactly how fast it needs to for 6s/num_peasants, comes to a halt, and then moves to the next. That way all the peasants have the same, minimum, speed, Instead of some slow, other absurdly fast based on an arbitrarily assumed, linear, acceleration.

    (Why not assume exponential acceleration and say after 10 passe s it hits light speed)

    5. dragonwriter ◴[03 Jul 25 19:17 UTC] No.44458306{3}[source]▶
    I think the more simple and complete solution is to limit multiple characters interactions with one object similar to the way the rules limit one character interacting with multiple objects. Note that even without readied actions, an infinite number of characters could still pass an object in the space of a round, each passing it on their turn, so long as they were arranged in space in initiative order, so limiting readied actions both doesn't solve this (and allowing readied actions to be a bypass to others readied actions opens up as much space for exploitation as it closes.)
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    6. plorkyeran ◴[03 Jul 25 19:20 UTC] No.44458328[source]▶
    The problem with this interpretation is that it relies on hyper-literal RAW when it's convenient and physics when it's convenient. If you apply the rules of physics to the wooden rod, then the answer is simple: the peasant railgun cannot make the rod travel several miles in 6 seconds. If you apply D&D RAW, the rod can travel infinitely far, but does not have momentum and doesn't do anything when it reaches its destination. You only get the silly result when you apply RAW to one part of it and ignore it for another part.
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    7. patmcc ◴[03 Jul 25 19:24 UTC] No.44458368[source]▶
    >>Since this wooden rod travels several miles in a 6 second time frame - traveling more than 500M/s on average - don't we have to assume it accumulates?

    If we assume it does accumulate, then we also have to assume peasant #2000 couldn't possibly pass it successfully.

    8. pavel_lishin ◴[03 Jul 25 19:33 UTC] No.44458433[source]▶
    Yep. And if we apply hyper-literal RAW rules, then gravity also doesn't accelerate items, it simply sets their velocity to some arbitrary degree. None of the falling rules I've seen have ever mentioned acceleration, only fall speed.

    (Actually, it looks like it's Sage Advice, technically?)

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    9. PhasmaFelis ◴[03 Jul 25 23:16 UTC] No.44459899[source]▶
    > Since this wooden rod travels several miles in a 6 second time frame - traveling more than 500M/s on average - don't we have to assume it accumulates?

    The basic assumption here is that the rules as written beat physics and common sense. When you play that game, you have to do it rigorously. You can't say that rules trump physics one moment, and physics trump rules the next.

    > There's also the rule of cool. If it makes the story better/ more enjoyable: have at it.

    That does rule out the Peasant Railgun more thoroughly than any rules argument.

    10. ◴[03 Jul 25 23:17 UTC] No.44459903{3}[source]▶
    11. bcrosby95 ◴[03 Jul 25 23:20 UTC] No.44459915{3}[source]▶
    Arguably higher fall damage from higher heights models acceleration. If there were no acceleration then fall damage would be the same regardless of the distance you fell.
    replies(1): >>44460126 #
    12. bee_rider ◴[04 Jul 25 00:02 UTC] No.44460126{4}[source]▶
    But if we’re (incorrectly) interpreting the RAW as the laws of physics, then the fall damage isn’t modeling some underlying law of physics. It just is the law, there isn’t some underlying physical property called “acceleration” to talk about.
    13. da_chicken ◴[04 Jul 25 00:04 UTC] No.44460130[source]▶
    > Since this wooden rod travels several miles in a 6 second time frame - traveling more than 500M/s on average - don't we have to assume it accumulates?

    No, we don't.

    The most recent D&D Dungeon Master's Guide actually puts a note in the book[0] for things like this: The D&D rules are not a physics engine. The D&D rules are a simple framework for creating a game world, but that's not the same thing as being a 3d game engine or a generative data model. It's a game where you're expected to resolve complex events with a single die roll. It's not Unreal Engine 5 or Autodesk Inventor or COMSOL Multiphysics.

    Just like D&D's morality and ethics system (alignment) falls over and cries when you poke it with a Philosophy 101 moral quandary, the game's event resolution is not intended for you to model the Large Hadron Collider.

    [0]: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/br-2024/the-basics#Pla...

    14. fenomas ◴[04 Jul 25 03:00 UTC] No.44460792{4}[source]▶
    The simple solution is just to recognize that the Ready action lets somebody attempt to do a thing, it doesn't mean they automatically succeed.

    So N people can certainly declare that they all want to pass an object around, for any value of N. But if the object would need to move at supersonic speeds for them to all succeed, then obviously one of them won't succeed. (And the subsequent people won't do anything because the trigger for their Ready action didn't occur.)

    15. rendaw ◴[04 Jul 25 04:24 UTC] No.44461114[source]▶
    Is RAW being ignored in another part? AFAIU it's applied consistently.