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From: tim@k.cs.cmu.edu (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: Laser Crystal
Message-ID: <685@k.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Sun, 1-Dec-85 03:15:17 EST
Article-I.D.: k.685
Posted: Sun Dec  1 03:15:17 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Dec-85 08:43:48 EST
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Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking
Lines: 33

Apparently my earlier message did not get out.  IN AD&D, you can make ANY
material object with the eight level spell Polymorph Any Object.  This
includes perfectly crystalline ruby rods with xenon flash tubes wrapped
around them.  So forget all this "how do you make the components" stuff; any
high-level magic user can do it with the proper spell.

As for the information, it is easy enough to picture this: a magic user has
an inspiration that light of incredible brightness could possibly be used
for more than illumination and blinding; he would know that such a thing
might give off heat.  So he goes to his grimoires and evokes a demon which
gives knowledge of sciences.  By making the proper sacrifices and so forth
(using the Cacodemon spell if that's how you run it), he is able to learn
how such a weapon would be structured.  This would probably involve some
adventuring to get the necessary sacrifices; the demon would charge out the
nose (and might be sufficiently empowered by the sacrifices to make trouble
later).  Getting the information would be troublesome and perilous, but
hardly imposssible.

I don't know why people are being so defensive about this.  The "laser
rifle" of cheap science fiction is an impossibility; it would require a huge
power source which modern technology has no way of producing, and which a
medieval magic user would be incapable of comprehending, so he couldn't make
one with Polymorph.  The lasers they're talking about deploying in orbit
would be powered by a contained nuclear explosion!  Further, lasers are not
as effective against living beings (who are water-cooled) as against
inorganic objects.  A laser would be able to cut through a lock, but
probably not through an orc.  The laser would hardly be a super-killer
weapon; any magic user who could make one already has much more powerful
spells, like a sixteen dice fireball.  So what's the big deal?
-=-
Tim Maroney, Electronic Village Idiot, CMU Center for Art and Technology
tim@k.cs.cmu.edu       | uucp: {seismo,decwrl,ucbvax,etc.}!k.cs.cmu.edu!tim
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