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Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Rock of Stability


Okay, here's a magic item that I think isn't too powerful. It's very useful in the context of the adventure I'm writing, so I want to give away a couple of them. Is there some use of this item that would make it super-powerful -- in other words, am I missing something obvious?


Here's the item:

A rock of stability, unsurprisingly, appears to be a normal rock. The rock’s possessor cannot be affected by turbulence, although a steady force of air or water, such as a gust of wind, will still exert one half of its normal effect in that direction. Taking river rapids as an example: the character will be moved down the river at half the normal speed and with half the normal force that the river’s flow exerts. However, the character will not be thrown from side to side in the rapids at all. If the river rapids are moving at a rate of 7mph, the character will be forced along at a rate of only 3.5mph, and will thus likely be able to avoid rocks much more easily than a character subjected to the full 7mph force of the river. Only the movement of gases and liquids is affected by the rock; a moving wall of stone or a falling anvil would push or strike the character as per normal.

(This isn't intended as a test of your ingenuity as a player, although feel free to show it off if you want.  It's really about whether there's a fairly obvious use of it that I haven't noticed).

1 comment:

  1. 10% of all Rocks of Stability are cursed, causing their user to "sink like a stone." (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

    The only way I could see the characters figuring out what it does (outside of using magic) is by being subjected to high winds or fast-moving liquids. The first thunderstorm that comes up could clue them in that the rock does something--the wind and rain doesn't blow into the character's face as much.

    Even if they use something like detect magic, it'd be interesting to see how they react to a magic rock that doesn't appear to do much of anything at first.

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