Too big for a Rift

[Khanibal]

I swear I did at least five searches to see if this question had been answered. If anyone remembers a thread where it was, or has a page reference, please let me know.

Hypothetical: Shane the Shifter opens a dimensional rift. He's 10th level so he elects to open the full 100' so his buddies can drag race their Mountaineer ATVs(tm etc.) through it. Unfortunately the ritual took so long that the CS had noticed him and the gang is chased by a Sky Lifter APC(tm etc.). The Sky Lifter has a 100' wide nose, but is 200' at the wings. Do the wings get scrapped off if the pilot passes through the rift?

[dragonfett]

I would rule that the Sky Lifter would fly through the open Rift as if it were not there (as opposed to flying into the Rift).

[Nightmartree]

I don't think I've ever seen this answered in any book...logically there are two suggestions I can think of plus what dragonfett said above should be considered.

1) It flies into the rift and the wings are sheered off by the dimensional energies
2) It flies into the rift and the rift "swallows it" bending reality so it all fits and comes out the other side

Edit: Actually lets add 3) it explodes in a mass of dimension warping energies resulting in total chaos and devastation

I like three, I feel like this should be a random roll table with three as a rare but beautiful option

[guardiandashi]

I don't think I've ever seen this answered in any book...logically there are two suggestions I can think of plus what dragonfett said above should be considered.

1) It flies into the rift and the wings are sheered off by the dimensional energies
2) It flies into the rift and the rift "swallows it" bending reality so it all fits and comes out the other side

Edit: Actually lets add 3) it explodes in a mass of dimension warping energies resulting in total chaos and devastation

I like three, I feel like this should be a random roll table with three as a rare but beautiful option

I would say it depends on how the GM wants to run it.
all of the options are possible, but I would say 1 and 2 are most plausible and the outcome depends on how "safe and sane" you want the rifts to be. IE if a rift opens on rifts earth to a star ... what happens? I believe canon, says that there is a flash, and some amount of the local terrain is vaporized (like a nuke or small explosion went off) in reality (ha) if more than a minuscule amount of energy/plasma came through the planet would either be incinerated, or severely damaged/destroyed. since this hasn't happened, there has to be some level of "safety features" involved in the rifts. which means I could see the rift momentarily reshaping to allow it to pass through, or it chops the vehicle up or the vehicle comes to a screeching halt as its wings "ram" the sides of the rift and either shear off or just hit the sides like hitting a brick wall, (cork in a bottle) etc. depending on the structural integrity of the vehicle.

the only thing is whatever ruling is made should be consistent for the campaign.

[Axelmania]

Option 4: it gets stuck, as if the edges of the rift were an object?

[dragonfett]

I don't think I've ever seen this answered in any book...logically there are two suggestions I can think of plus what dragonfett said above should be considered.

1) It flies into the rift and the wings are sheered off by the dimensional energies
2) It flies into the rift and the rift "swallows it" bending reality so it all fits and comes out the other side

Edit: Actually lets add 3) it explodes in a mass of dimension warping energies resulting in total chaos and devastation

I like three, I feel like this should be a random roll table with three as a rare but beautiful option

I would say it depends on how the GM wants to run it.
all of the options are possible, but I would say 1 and 2 are most plausible and the outcome depends on how "safe and sane" you want the rifts to be. IE if a rift opens on rifts earth to a star ... what happens? I believe canon, says that there is a flash, and some amount of the local terrain is vaporized (like a nuke or small explosion went off) in reality (ha) if more than a minuscule amount of energy/plasma came through the planet would either be incinerated, or severely damaged/destroyed. since this hasn't happened, there has to be some level of "safety features" involved in the rifts. which means I could see the rift momentarily reshaping to allow it to pass through, or it chops the vehicle up or the vehicle comes to a screeching halt as its wings "ram" the sides of the rift and either shear off or just hit the sides like hitting a brick wall, (cork in a bottle) etc. depending on the structural integrity of the vehicle.

the only thing is whatever ruling is made should be consistent for the campaign.

Actually, a similar situation has already been covered by the World Book 7 (iirc), the Underseas book, where it talks about Rifts to planes of water and how most Rifts contain environmental differences to either side of said Rift, which is why a Rift that opens underwater in one place and above water elsewhere doesn't immediately flood the immediate surrounding area, or why a Rift to the center of a star doesn't fry the immediate area, etc.

[Killer Cyborg]

We always had different kinds of Rifts that operated different ways.
Some rifts would be stretchy enough to accomodate big things.

[ShadowLogan]

Option 4: it gets stuck, as if the edges of the rift were an object?

+1.

And when the Rift closes it gets cut into 2 pieces.

[Eagle]

I don't think I've ever seen this answered in any book...logically there are two suggestions I can think of plus what dragonfett said above should be considered.

1) It flies into the rift and the wings are sheered off by the dimensional energies
2) It flies into the rift and the rift "swallows it" bending reality so it all fits and comes out the other side

Edit: Actually lets add 3) it explodes in a mass of dimension warping energies resulting in total chaos and devastation

I like three, I feel like this should be a random roll table with three as a rare but beautiful option

I would say it depends on how the GM wants to run it.
all of the options are possible, but I would say 1 and 2 are most plausible and the outcome depends on how "safe and sane" you want the rifts to be. IE if a rift opens on rifts earth to a star ... what happens? I believe canon, says that there is a flash, and some amount of the local terrain is vaporized (like a nuke or small explosion went off) in reality (ha) if more than a minuscule amount of energy/plasma came through the planet would either be incinerated, or severely damaged/destroyed. since this hasn't happened, there has to be some level of "safety features" involved in the rifts. which means I could see the rift momentarily reshaping to allow it to pass through, or it chops the vehicle up or the vehicle comes to a screeching halt as its wings "ram" the sides of the rift and either shear off or just hit the sides like hitting a brick wall, (cork in a bottle) etc. depending on the structural integrity of the vehicle.

the only thing is whatever ruling is made should be consistent for the campaign.

I don't think it would vaporize the planet. Now the Shifter is probably screwed, but the planet is okay. While stars are very hot, they're also not very dense. What makes stars give off so much energy is their heat combined with their size. A hundred foot wide chunk of star is going to superheat the immediate area (like a hydrogen bomb, which is what it is), but it's such a tiny percentage of the sun's total area that I don't think it would be much worse than a normal nuke.

The important question is how quickly does the rift close, because that will determine how long the nuking continues.

[kaid]

I am fairly certain unless members of a disavowed team the CS is not going to willingly enter into a rift especially not trying to ram their entire skylifter through an aperture not visibly big enough to admit it.

[eliakon]

My personal opinion is that if a portal isn't large enough for something to use... then to that something it is 'mystically' not a portal.
This means that if your vehicle is to large for the rift then you will just drive right through it and come out on the other side.... on the same world.
Now anything loose on your vehicle might be rifted.

I do this to prevent rifts from being used as superweapons (there were some 'core sampler' weapons early on) which I don't feel is appropriate.

The environmental thing I follow the Undersea rules and figure that the environment can't cross a rift. Thus you can not cause Armageddon by opening a rift to a star, or to deep space, or to Jupiter or the elemental plane of water or any of the other shenanigans. You will instead have a rippling blue wall of light... that may or may not have view of the other side visible through it like a TV screen.
Thus a portal to an ocean would be like looking through the glass side of an aquarium... only in this case you could walk through the wall, and a fish could swim out of the wall. But the water is going to stay put.

[Axelmania]

Option 4: it gets stuck, as if the edges of the rift were an object?

+1.

And when the Rift closes it gets cut into 2 pieces.

Or, less brutally, the closure of a rift causes an object to be expelled into its home side or destination side, or into wherever most of its mass is hanging.

I mean... what if an atom was half-through? Nuclear explosion?

[Nightmartree]

I mean... what if an atom was half-through? Nuclear explosion?

Random dimensional dispersion

that's my personal preference though

[eliakon]

Option 4: it gets stuck, as if the edges of the rift were an object?

+1.

And when the Rift closes it gets cut into 2 pieces.

Or, less brutally, the closure of a rift causes an object to be expelled into its home side or destination side, or into wherever most of its mass is hanging.

I mean... what if an atom was half-through? Nuclear explosion?

The energy released from one atom being cut is going to be undetectable with out the most advanced super sensitive scientific instruments... aka not an issue. Random nuclear decay produces more energy and more often.

[silversarith]

Too big for a rift depends on whats trying to go through and what kind of rift it is.
Anything that can teleport shapeshift or has dimensional abilities should always fit if it wants to.
Swallowing rifts should always nab anything they touch.
I tend to be leary of saying things should get sheared off as that opens some bad cans of worms.
My go to would be bad side effects if something hits the rift and doesn't fit. Depending on the size and power of the rift would change what I would want to do. If it was a naturally occuring rift I would probably go with roll seperately on the random rift table for what happens to the over size vehicle. If it was a rift created by a mortal practitioner of magic, I would probably want to either have the mage roll to control it it, if he fails the rift becomes uncontrolled and roll on the random rift table for what happens. If the mage retains control the rift lacks the power to teleport something that big but its still hitting d shifting energies, so I would probably require several piloting checks to retain control or crash, and apply a number of random crits to the vehicle, systems shorted out, components just missing or transformed, maybe some things arriving aboard, that sort of thing.

[The Beast]

Well obviously what happens is that the ship gets stuck in the rift and then Janeway has to stall the Vidians while La Forge repairs the trans-dynamic particle capacitor before the rift closes, trapping Sisko and Chewie inside.

[dragonfett]

Well obviously what happens is that the ship gets stuck in the rift and then Janeway has to stall the Vidians while La Forge repairs the trans-dynamic particle capacitor before the rift closes, trapping Sisko and Chewie inside.

But what of Katniss and Harry Potter?

[The Beast]

Well obviously what happens is that the ship gets stuck in the rift and then Janeway has to stall the Vidians while La Forge repairs the trans-dynamic particle capacitor before the rift closes, trapping Sisko and Chewie inside.

But what of Katniss and Harry Potter?

Well I never saw Catwoman, so I don't know anything about Katniss, but Potter on the other hand, he got killed fighting Magneto while trying to get his MASH unit out of Korea.

[Khanibal]

Don't forget to tune the main deflector to pick up Netfliz. Seriously, someone finally found a fix. If you play Star Trek Online, some of the ships can carry a second deflector screen so you can generate a tachyon pulse and still push the dust out of the way.

[Nightmartree]

Well I never saw Catwoman, so I don't know anything about Katniss, but Potter on the other hand, he got killed fighting Magneto while trying to get his MASH unit out of Korea.

*starts humming the MASH theme*

now we know what to do with that team of cyber-docs and body fixers

"We got a dragon in the operating room! bust out the Vibro needles and MDC bio-degradable thread!"

[Axelmania]

The energy released from one atom being cut is going to be undetectable with out the most advanced super sensitive scientific instruments... aka not an issue. Random nuclear decay produces more energy and more often.

I need to be reminded of how nukes work

[JackOfShadows]

As a GM I would say the Dead Boy pilot would never pursue anyone into a rift. They'd avoid it and and loiter around to blow the crap out of anything that came out of it until it closed.

Now answering your question specifically, I would have the wings shear off causing the Sky Lifter to crash on the other side and then disgorge whatever array of Coalition vehicles that would keep the players scrambling to get away without completely overpowering them. Then after a while I would write in an NPC who's the brother/father/sister/mother of one of the Dead Boys who died in the crash and is out for revenge on the PC's who'll saddle up sideways to them and smile before completely screwing them over.

JoS.

[taalismn]

Actually, the Mechanoid Spider Fortress trying to come through the rift the other way body-slams the DHT back out of the rift, negating the problem.
Well, there's still the problem of the PCs finding themselves at the feet of a Mechanoid Spider Fortress.

[Nightmartree]

Actually, the Mechanoid Spider Fortress trying to come through the rift the other way body-slams the DHT back out of the rift, negating the problem.
Well, there's still the problem of the PCs finding themselves at the feet of a Mechanoid Spider Fortress.

Its a good thing that they launched that orbital battle satellite, it had enough firepower to get a spot in earths orbit for itself. And that orbital bombardment cannon is perfect for fighting that fortress which I have no idea what its defences or abilities are!

Orbital Bombardment Cannon
This is a powerful cannon mounted as the main gun on an Orbital platform. It requires ground forces to mark the target for bombardment or a targeting computer not included. The preferred round for the cannon is a nuclear bullet that will penetrate hard targets and then detonate within. The damage listed below assumes that the target is directly struck. The Nuclear blast does an additional 5D6x10 damage to everything within 60 ft of each round.
Rof: 1 attack that uses an entire melee (this accounts for both the single and burst fire shot due to safety features and the cannons recharge systems)
Damage: 1D6x100 per direct hit (requires a target over 120 square ft for all 6 rounds to strike)
Clip Size- The Bombardment Cannon has 6, 12 round feeds, each one fires one shot during a burst

[Armorlord]

In general, I'd say it would depend on the rift.

In this case, as a Dimensional Portal with a specific size encountering a mundane object larger than it, I'd go with collision. Then I'd consult the collision damage chart in New Generation to figure out the damage.
Personally, I'd have the whole thing mostly outside the portal since threading a hole just as big as your flying skull bus' front end would be difficult. For the sake of argument, if they did thread that needle, we'd see if that damage is enough to sheer the wings or get stuck.

There's no specific rules on physical damage disrupting a portal, but I'd go with a rough rule of it surviving 100 MD of force per level, and the higher the level of the broken portal, the higher the chance of that damage resulting in an unstable rift forming instead of the portal dissipating. So 1000 MDC and 100% chance of oh fudge at 10th level. Breaking a portal that strong is always going to have issues.
Assuming the Shifter doesn't close it first. And my groups have always seen portals as the ultimate cutting tool, if one they rarely have access to use as such.

[dragonfett]

In general, I'd say it would depend on the rift.

In this case, as a Dimensional Portal with a specific size encountering a mundane object larger than it, I'd go with collision. Then I'd consult the collision damage chart in New Generation to figure out the damage.
Personally, I'd have the whole thing mostly outside the portal since threading a hole just as big as your flying skull bus' front end would be difficult. For the sake of argument, if they did thread that needle, we'd see if that damage is enough to sheer the wings or get stuck.

There's no specific rules on physical damage disrupting a portal, but I'd go with a rough rule of it surviving 100 MD of force per level, and the higher the level of the broken portal, the higher the chance of that damage resulting in an unstable rift forming instead of the portal dissipating. So 1000 MDC and 100% chance of oh fudge at 10th level. Breaking a portal that strong is always going to have issues.
Assuming the Shifter doesn't close it first. And my groups have always seen portals as the ultimate cutting tool, if one they rarely have access to use as such.

I would call for a piloting check at a -5% for every 50 mph of speed the vehicle is traveling.

[Sohisohi]

I am fairly certain unless members of a disavowed team the CS is not going to willingly enter into a rift especially not trying to ram their entire skylifter through an aperture not visibly big enough to admit it.

I was always under the impression that humans who came through a rift where considered no different to a Dbee. Now, granted, maybe the emperor pardoned them with his infinite forgiveness (feel free to correct me). But I'd have to agree, as I'm doubtful any CS solider would enter a rift.

[The Beast]

I am fairly certain unless members of a disavowed team the CS is not going to willingly enter into a rift especially not trying to ram their entire skylifter through an aperture not visibly big enough to admit it.

I was always under the impression that humans who came through a rift where considered no different to a Dbee. Now, granted, maybe the emperor pardoned them with his infinite forgiveness (feel free to correct me). But I'd have to agree, as I'm doubtful any CS solider would enter a rift.

CB1, page 36 states that the CS would view d-bee humans with suspicion because they're likely better educated and may have ideas of government different from how the CS runs things, and either imprison or more likely, destroy those they can't indoctornate.

[Khanibal]

CB1, page 36 states that the CS would view d-bee humans with suspicion because they're likely better educated and may have ideas of government different from how the CS runs things, and either imprison or more likely, destroy those they can't indoctornate.

What would be truly hilarious, is if during the Minion War, the CS and the CAF make significant and widespread contact. In a megaversal way, the CS looks like a bunch of dip-spitting, cousin-marrying, KKK yahoos.

[Shorty Lickens]

If Shifters can pull thru giant demons I dont see why they cant pull a ship as well.

[Axelmania]

I'd like to know if it's possible to make a 1-inch diameter rift which only small creatures like fairies would be able to wiggle through.

Perhaps large creatures could stick a finger or two through to try and stab a fleeing fairy with a fingernail.

It would be interesting to have some kind of rule on being able to "pry open" a small rift though. I picture large supernatural creatures trying to do that sort of thing. Would be cinematic.

[Mlp7029]

I'd like to know if it's possible to make a 1-inch diameter rift which only small creatures like fairies would be able to wiggle through.

Perhaps large creatures could stick a finger or two through to try and stab a fleeing fairy with a fingernail.

It would be interesting to have some kind of rule on being able to "pry open" a small rift though. I picture large supernatural creatures trying to do that sort of thing. Would be cinematic.

Yes its called a Communication Rift.

[Mack]

Topic locked for being dead for over a year.