Shrink item applications for archeologist (no cheese)

[Torvon]

Hey there.

I'm not looking for shrink item cheese, which would not be allowed by the DM anyway. I'm looking for useful applications for the spell.

The character is going to be an 8lvl factotum, so I can shrink up to 16 cubic feet (that should be about 5 cubic metre) of material. For example, that is about 5 tons of water, and 7.5 tons of stone.

Now, one idea I had was to shrink a bath-tub (they are probably made of brass?), and a huge cannister of water, to have a portable bathtub on long expeditions in dirty dungeons?

The character is pragmatic on the one hand, but has aristocratic roots on the other, so these applications might be the first he's thinking of.

I'd very much appreciate ideas and recommendations on this!

Thanks
Torvon

[Lycanthromancer]

Tinfoil hat is my first recommendation. Shrink a dome/cone/box of wood/metal/stone and wear it as a hat. Protects you from AMFs (since they're emanations) and can be activated as a readied action from a raven familiar (though this requires Obtain Familiar if you can swing it).

Find a giant chunk of ice and shrink it. Encapsulate it inside a hypodermic dart designed for delivering poisons, and call out the command word next round to make whatever you inject explode (though this is likely the cheese you mentioned).

Freeze a pool of acid/poison/whatever and wear it as a cloak. Now you have a nice big pool of whatever to use however you can think of.

Shrink a bunch of big stone blocks and then Fabricate them together. Multiplies your Fabrication capabilities by a factor of 4000.

Shrink a giant wedge made of something hard. Insert the wedge into a crack and unshrink it. Now you've very likely split the crack all to hell. Works nicely on doors and chests and such.

[Esgath]

Your conversion factor is wrong. 35.3 cubic feet are about 1 cubic meter. Your factotum could therefore only shrink up to 0.45 cubic meter

[Torvon]

Tinfoil hat is my first recommendation. Shrink a dome/cone/box of wood/metal/stone and wear it as a hat. Protects you from AMFs (since they're emanations) and can be activated as a readied action from a raven familiar (though this requires Obtain Familiar if you can swing it).

I do have a familiar (Pseudodragon even). What is AMF? Sorry.

Freeze a pool of acid/poison/whatever and wear it as a cloak. Now you have a nice big pool of whatever to use however you can think of.

Too bad I can only memorize the spell once per day, and it only lasts 9 days. But that sounds like a great deal of fun. If I read the description correclty you can shrink a pool of water and give it a cloth-like form, that means you can decide it should be silk, or linen? And you can also designate the color? That also means when you would be stripped naked in a dungeon, and you find some stones, you could create clothes for you (if the DM lets you and your DEX is high enough etc.)?

Shrink a bunch of big stone blocks and then Fabricate them together. Multiplies your Fabrication capabilities by a factor of 4000.

Didn't get that. I'm not sure what you mean with fabrication.

Great ideas. I think it's one of the most useful spells ever

Your conversion factor is wrong. ?35.3 cubic feet are about 1 cubic meter. Your factotum could therefore only shrink up to ?0.45 cubic meter

Thanks, you are absolutely right.


Torvon

[Cagemarrow]

I think with the fabricate option he's referring to shrinking the raw materials and then making a scale model of the item you want to fabricate, so when the spell wears off it expands to full size and remains completed/manufactured. Definitely an interesting idea, especially with an at will item of fabricate, reasonably priced if you use the trapsmith spell version as a 3rd level spell instead of 5th.

If you can craft wondrous item you could sew a  bag together with a continuous shrink item spell applied that makes all items placed in the bag shrink down to cloth form. Then carry every tool known to man just in case. Heck make it like an artist's paintbrush roll, unroll it and pull out little versions of the tools that look like toys till you get them clear of their little pocket when they expand to full size.

[Lycanthromancer]

Tinfoil hat is my first recommendation. Shrink a dome/cone/box of wood/metal/stone and wear it as a hat. Protects you from AMFs (since they're emanations) and can be activated as a readied action from a raven familiar (though this requires Obtain Familiar if you can swing it).

I do have a familiar (Pseudodragon even). What is AMF? Sorry.

AntiMagic Field. Much cheaper than spending a 9th level spell to cast while inside one, yes? And you don't have to waste Contingencies and such for them, either.

In this case, you're plunged headfirst into an Antimagic Field, and the field hits the shrunken hat, suppresses the Shrink Item effect, and makes it big. AMF is an emanation effect and you're now under a big box/cone/whatever that totally blocks it, so you're not affected. Now you can teleport out.

As far as a familiar goes, have it ready the command word each round you're not using it for something else. Any time you want it to block an effect (whether from a Fireball, a barbarian's charge, or whatever), then have it say the command word as its readied standard action to block the hell out of it.

Wear multiple layers of Permanencied tinfoil hats for even more (and reusable!) fun.

Freeze a pool of acid/poison/whatever and wear it as a cloak. Now you have a nice big pool of whatever to use however you can think of.

Too bad I can only memorize the spell once per day, and it only lasts 9 days. But that sounds like a great deal of fun. If I read the description correclty you can shrink a pool of water and give it a cloth-like form, that means you can decide it should be silk, or linen? And you can also designate the color? That also means when you would be stripped naked in a dungeon, and you find some stones, you could create clothes for you (if the DM lets you and your DEX is high enough etc.)?

I assume things like color are whatever the original item was. However, you can use Prestidigitation to change colors on the fly.

But yes, I imagine you could indeed make clothes out of rocks or dead dwarves or whatever (not that there's much difference between dead dwarves and rocks, so YMMV).

Shrink a bunch of big stone blocks and then Fabricate them together. Multiplies your Fabrication capabilities by a factor of 4000.

Didn't get that. I'm not sure what you mean with fabrication.

Cagemarrow caught it on the nose. Shrink down a bunch of materials, Fabricate a scale model, then blow it up to normal size after you've placed it where you want it. So instead of 10 cu ft per level, it's now, what, 40,000 cu ft per level? That is a LOT.

Great ideas. I think it's one of the most useful spells ever

That it is. Yup. Now, how do we combine this with Explosive Runes?

[Cagemarrow]

Well if the runes a written very small on a shrunk item, then launched at an enemy, when they expand with a message written on them the target will naturally read the suddenly appeared message and boom! It also drastically increases the number of runes you can fit into a rune bomb.

[Torvon]

Well if the runes a written very small on a shrunk item, then launched at an enemy, when they expand with a message written on them the target will naturally read the suddenly appeared message and boom! It also drastically increases the number of runes you can fit into a rune bomb.

If one of my players would try to do that, I'd drop a cow on his character immediately.

[Cagemarrow]

So you would penalize a character for playing smart and using known applied psychology while using two spells to apply damage from one of them? Isn't that how wizards are supposed to be played? They are supposed to be the smart Wiley old men the world fears to tread near. This just reinforces that.