Buried alive - Need Help

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

3sq yard is 27sq ft or a tunnel just over 5ft by 5ft* (5' 2.4" sq if I'm right)

To advance the space 100 yards it will require shifting 300 cy of rock


The wizard's got Move Earth (stone) at skill 19, ER 15 and FP 14 I think?

so in theory he can cast 12 cy move stone spell that will cost 23fp.

What if it's just a shell of stone (the bunker mentioned above)? The volume of stone will be less, and they can creep along at Move 1 for the whole 60 seconds of the spell's duration. 500 yards will take no more than 10 minutes.

A rectangular shell 4 yds long, 1yd wide and 2 yds tall will have a surface area of 24 sq yds. Hence, 6 inch thick walls will be 4 cubic yards- 8 FP to cast.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by gudmo

The main problem is that once this cy of stone is move the mage needs to cast the spell again (Unless the GM allows for a new target).
Even 100m of travel will require 100 rolls.

It'll require 122 rolls, actually, because you need to cast Purify Air twice every 10 minutes to provide breathable air, and you can expect to fail 2% of all your skill tests.

The mage has skill-17+ in all spells, and should only critically fail on a natural 18. That's one critical failure every 216 rolls, on average, so you should be able to make it ~150m before seeing one. The average critical failure just wastes the spell or stuns the mage, which isn't a problem here. Unless your GM is being really vindictive with critical failures - in which case you may want to have a discussion with the GM about expectations and play styles.

If you want to minimize spellcasting rolls, the Force Dome solution requires 1/10th as many, though it's a lot slower.

It's probably worthwhile to cast Seek Air and Seek Earth a couple of times - they're cheap! - to see if there are any veins of earth or other submerged caves in the vicinity. You don't have Earth Vision on your list, but if your wizard has Wild Talent that would be a good spell to cast. Tunneling from cave to cave, especially through veins of earth, would be faster and require less rolls and would give the GM an opportunity to provide encounters that are less crazy overwhelming.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

What if it's just a shell of stone (the bunker mentioned above)? The volume of stone will be less, and they can creep along at Move 1 for the whole 60 seconds of the spell's duration. 500 yards will take no more than 10 minutes.

A rectangular shell 4 yds long, 1yd wide and 2 yds tall will have a surface area of 24 sq yds. Hence, 6 inch thick walls will be 4 cubic yards- 8 FP to cast.

The problem I have with that solution is unless the spiders are truly dumb, they just keep pace with it and your only really moving the problem along a bit.

However to really be sure of that we kind of need to know what's outside the cavern. If there's a nice narrow entrance that you can move that shell to and then escape into, that might work.

However my even bigger problem is I can't help but think hundreds of ST 26 SM2 monsters are going to find a way to mess up that shell or block* it as it moves along at Mv1 for 10 minutes



*I'm not sure how forceful the movement of the stone is?

I don't know if there's a basic stone weight in GURPS but a quick look online get's me a figure for Granite of 1.56oz per Cubic inch, so 4cy is 186,624 x 1.56oz = 9.1 tons. A ST26 spider has a BL of 135lbs they can "shove and knock over" 1,622lbs (0.8 of ton) or "Shift Slightly" 6,760lbs (3.4 tons). I didn't get into if multiple legs and being horizontal helps them here, but it might well do

If they go with directly damaging it, a 6" thick wall a hex wide (10 sqft) is DR78 and I think about 80hp? DR78 sounds great but the problem is that DR is Semi-ablative or Ablative depending on the attack type, and 10 minutes worth of 2d+1 impaling + follow-up 1d-3 corrosion (10 one-second cycles) is a long time!

[gudmo]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

What if it's just a shell of stone (the bunker mentioned above)? The volume of stone will be less, and they can creep along at Move 1 for the whole 60 seconds of the spell's duration. 500 yards will take no more than 10 minutes.

A rectangular shell 4 yds long, 1yd wide and 2 yds tall will have a surface area of 24 sq yds. Hence, 6 inch thick walls will be 4 cubic yards- 8 FP to cast.

I've always been a bit confused over shape earth, it's vague and open to debate.
But the way I see it is that cubic yards is the measurement of something in size and/or volume. But do I only pay mana for the actual earth and can the area be any size as long as within it is only the 1 cy of earth.
I would think that the area I cast on is 1 cy regardless of actual volumes of earth vs. air ratio.

I don't think the spell is designed to take a volume of rock and move that volume through another volume of rock. I think one needs to cast the spell on the entire area I'm shaping or cast it multiple times to shape each part of the way traveled.

I'd love to hear more opinions on this because as I said earlier, this spell is one of many that has me somewhat wondering of it's capabilities.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

The problem I have with that solution is unless the spiders are truly dumb, they just keep pace with it and your only really moving the problem along a bit.

However to really be sure of that we kind of need to know what's outside the cavern.

If there's a nice narrow entrance that you can move that shell to and then escape into that might work.

You're right- that was my implicit assumption. There's somewhere you can escape to and set up a stronger fortification.

However my even bigger problem is I can't help but think hundreds of ST 26 SM2 monsters are going to find a way to mess up that shell or block* it etc, etc. As it crawls along at Mv1 for 10 minutes

ST26, eh? That's news. The advantage of the moving shell is that it's constantly forming, so they won't be able to start penetrating it. Further, if they only have animal intelligence, they're more likely to ignore some moving earthworks, no matter how weirdly it moves.

Originally Posted by gudmo

I've always been a bit confused over shape earth, it's vague and open to debate.
But the way I see it is that cubic yards is the measurement of something in size and/or volume. But do I only pay mana for the actual earth and can the area be any size as long as within it is only the 1 cy of earth.
I would think that the area I cast on is 1 cy regardless of actual volumes of earth vs. air ratio.

I don't think the spell is designed to take a volume of rock and move that volume through another volume of rock. I think one needs to cast the spell on the entire area I'm shaping or cast it multiple times to shape each part of the way traveled.

I'd love to hear more opinions on this because as I said earlier, this spell is one of many that has me somewhat wondering of it's capabilities.

If you can't move the shell along with you, and have to raise a stone roof in front of you and dump it behind you as you go- kind of like you're crawling under a long blanket, then the less advantageous way to calculate it is that you're displacing a 60-yard long path of stone per minute, say 2 yards wide and 6 inches deep, as a rough estimate. The shape of the shell itself isn't so relevant with this calculation. It'd be 20 cubic yards of stone per minute, which would be a bit rougher on the FP pool- which would become the limiting factor- but still not as bad as Earth to Air tunnelling.

[gudmo]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

You're right- that was my implicit assumption. There's somewhere you can escape to and set up a stronger fortification.

ST26, eh? That's news. The advantage of the moving shell is that it's constantly forming, so they won't be able to start penetrating it. Further, if they only have animal intelligence, they're more likely to ignore some moving earthworks, no matter how weirdly it moves.

If you can't move the shell along with you, and have to raise a stone roof in front of you and dump it behind you as you go- kind of like you're crawling under a long blanket, then the less advantageous way to calculate it is that you're displacing a 60-yard long path of stone per minute, say 2 yards wide and 6 inches deep, as a rough estimate. The shape of the shell itself isn't so relevant with this calculation. It'd be 20 cubic yards of stone per minute, which would be a bit rougher on the FP pool- which would become the limiting factor- but still not as bad as Earth to Air tunnelling.

Problem with this is the limitation in the spell that no one dimension can be more than four times the lenght of the shortest.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by gudmo

Problem with this is the limitation in the spell that no one dimension can be more than four times the lenght of the shortest.

The shell structure would still only be 4x2x1, maybe slightly larger for the barbarian. The 60 yard path is just to calculate the total volume of stone moved.

BTW- where does it mention that?

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

You're right- that was my implicit assumption. There's somewhere you can escape to and set up a stronger fortification..

Yep sounds good

Originally Posted by Daigoro

ST26, eh? That's news. The advantage of the moving shell is that it's constantly forming, so they won't be able to start penetrating it. Further, if they only have animal intelligence, they're more likely to ignore some moving earthworks, no matter how weirdly it moves.
.

Thing is it won't be constantly forming you'll be relying on the same shell for the duration you hold it for. i.e you take 4cy of stone shape it into the shell and then move that 4cy of stone about at Mv1.

I added in some stuff on the fragility of the shell but in short a 6" thick wall a hex wide (10 sqft) is DR78 and I think about 80hp? DR78 sounds great but the problem is that DR is Semi-ablative or Ablative depending on the attack type, and 10 minutes worth of 2d+1 impaling + follow-up 1d-3 corrosion (10 one-second cycles) is a long time!

(that also leaves aside the question of can they physically prevent the shell from moving forward).

If you do decide to create a new shell quicker rather than maintaining the old ones for as long as you can, than you might have issues with keeping on paying the 7fp cost at the rate you need to form the shells.


And really that's my issue with this one, the failure state is a bit unforgiving. One slip up, one second of not being surrounded by stone and your surrounded by spiders.

On the IQ thing yeah you could be right, and I made the same point myself earlier. Still territorial animals tend to pay attention to movement (especially if it starts at the point their prey was last sighted,).

One question would be if they they only have heat vision that might not be aware of the thing at all, but that said I think it's going to be hard to miss 9 tons of stone moving about!

[gudmo]

Well, RPG night cancelled after the GM cought a cold....

Gives us more time to think of something.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by gudmo

I've always been a bit confused over shape earth, it's vague and open to debate.
But the way I see it is that cubic yards is the measurement of something in size and/or volume. But do I only pay mana for the actual earth and can the area be any size as long as within it is only the 1 cy of earth.
I would think that the area I cast on is 1 cy regardless of actual volumes of earth vs. air ratio.

I don't think the spell is designed to take a volume of rock and move that volume through another volume of rock. I think one needs to cast the spell on the entire area I'm shaping or cast it multiple times to shape each part of the way traveled.

I think what he's suggesting - and it's a good suggestion - is cast Move Earth on a 2x2x1 yard block of stone near the surface. Move that stone up and out, thinning it as you go, so it becomes a wall and roof, each 6" thick, with a total surface area of 216 square feet. Now, at 1 yard per second, walk 60 yards while moving your 4 cubic yards of stone with you. Spend 3 FP to maintain it for another minute, and repeat the movement until you're free of the spiders.

Total cost to move 500 meters is 7 + 8 * 3 FP - which is a little more than your mage can get off, but you can have the Cleric cast Lend Energy on you to make up the deficit. It takes about 9 minutes to pull this trick and a single spellcasting roll.

Daigoro's got the best plan so far for sure.