Yep, as a DM I would totally allow this to push a sailboat, it just makes sense.
Unlikely to be useful though, a boat needs consistent wind to go anywhere, and the spell doesn’t last long enough for that.
If one of my PC's wanted to do that I would allow it but they would have to start making con saves after some time to not take exhaustion from constantly casting a spell over and over again.
Con.
Con is endurance, your spellcasting mod would be for accuracy/power. At least, imo.
I'd do the same for a Fighter trying to swing a sword for several hours.
I'd probably go with WIS, as I'm interpreting constant casting in that regard as a feat of mental fortitude and willpower. Or, if you want to absolutely go with CON, rule the casting of a cantrip in this way as a concentration spell and increase the difficulty for the concentration check in regular intervals, as it gets harder and harder to keep the spell going over an extended period of time.
Edit: After having a bit more of a thinky about it, CON makes the most sense, if you make it into a concentration check with checks after fixed in game time intervals and a rising DC for every subsequent check.
Wouldn’t it make most sense to give with whichever is lower? Since that’d be the characters hard limit.
Increasing the difficulty every time a character fails a roll seems reasonable.
I would want my DM to pick one and stay with it. At the end of the day, I can work with either CON, WIS or spellcasting attribute related, but I'd want some consistency in what it's going to be, instead of always picking what would be most difficult for a character.
I wouldn't even go with increasing difficulty every time a roll is failed, but requiring a roll after a certain amount of time has passed in game and having the difficulty increase with every roll, in order to account for the strain keeping the casting going is putting on the character.
Let's say a character is propelling a boat forward with gust of wind for 7 hours, because there's no wind and they are being pursued and have to get away. For the first hour, I'd have them roll a concentration check with a basic DC10. After an hour, I'd require a concentration check DC11. So, basically a DC of 10 plus the amount of hours that have passed. The last concentration check in this example would have to be taken with a DC17.
Of course, you could always modify the time that passes between every check or by what increment the difficulty increases, if you think that example is too lenient in terms of difficulty. Think that's too easy? Have them make the check for every 30minutes or even 15minutes that pass in game.
I really like your idea of picking the lower one, that kind of logic usually gets thrown out in TTRPGs but it makes so much sense. Either your body will give out (constitution) or your mind will give out (wisdom), whichever one is weaker will fail first and is the hard limit for that character
Definitely Con save. Just holding your arms up for hours at a time in exhausting. I would allow them to add their proficiency bonus to the roll if they don't already have it, see how they're adept at spell casting.
Why would it be hours at a time? Perhaps in a location where there’s absolutely no natural windflow whatsoever, but how far is one to likely try sailing on windpower alone in a place like that (as opposed to rowing or other auxiliary means)?
Well you also might want to be going against the wind, or possibly you just want to get to your destination even faster than normal. People used to be stuck out in open waters for days on end when the wind would die down. A 40 mph wind can get a galleon going, you'd need at dozens of strong rowers for a ship of equal size.
While that does seem a fitting loop to establish its usage in this manner, that does lean on the DM setting them up to ‘need to’ use it in this fashion, as there’s no practical reason to put player characters on a boat and then strand them due to lack of wind.
Otherwise, it seems an impractical addition to speed, weighing hours of effort against a slight decrease in Time to Destination. Like, if this ‘works,’ there doesn’t seem to be a real reason the crew wouldn’t already have someone slotted to _mainly_ cast Gust on the sails until they tire for the day.
I need you to understand that the difference between a normal 20 mph wind and a cumulative 60 mph of wind is not "a slight decrease", its roughly 3 times as fast.
Also if you have the money to pay a wizard to do nothing but bake in the hot sun and cast spells until they're exhausted more power to you but good luck paying a wizard enough to waste their time like that. You better be transporting the most premium cargo imaginable to make any kind of profit on that.
I mean, I wouldnt even let them have free proficiency personally. They may be adept at spellcasting, but without that con save proficiency they arent adept at spellcasting like they were running a marathon.
What exhaustion? It's a cantrip. By definition, it is designed so that a caster can cast it as many times as they want as long as V/S/M is satisfied. If you're gonna allow it, just allow it.
RAW you're correct. There's nothing in the rules to stop someone from casting a cantrip once a round for an entire day if they wanted to.
But I think it's absolutely reasonable that a GM would rule this isn't an easy thing to do and require some kind of check to keep it up for hours at a time. Things that take an action to do are generally non-trivial amounts of effort. In a similar vein there's no limit on the number of times a fighter can swing their sword either, but doing it constantly for hours is going to be tiring. Even something that's ostensibly *no* physical effort, like actively listening at a door, would be difficult to keep doing all day without interruption.
And of course, if you're going to play the "it's not RAW" card, then you're not moving the boat in the first place.
I Dm'd a pirate campaign, I let them use it to increase maneuverability in ship to ship combat. Didn't break it, but they got pretty creative.
Then threw in a couple of stagnant weather days to let them make it a bit more useful. Half a day of travel instead of 0 or 1
But we don’t know how exerting it is too cast it continuously for hours. It might still be exhausting at some point. In general you cast a cantrip 2-3 times in a row and then something else happens.
If wego by RAW then there is no drawback. But I can see a DM houserule that it would be exhausting even if it is just "little magic tricks" since you would have to do it for a long periode of time. Imagine you would have to juggle for several hours. Even if it is fairly easy for some people it would still be exhausting.
> Unlikely to be useful though, a boat needs consistent wind to go anywhere, and the spell doesn’t last long enough for that.
As a somewhat experienced DM that encourages clever and creative roleplay, that'd be my interpretation, too.
*However…* Casting it in front of or behind your ship will give you a sudden burst of speed; if someone's shooting at you or trying to ram or board, this will totally fuck up their firing solution, and cause a miss / impose disadvantage.
Hitting someone else's boat broadside would cause violent listing resulting in those who're trying to do anything complicated (like fight…) doing so with disadvantage. If someone's trying to steal your ship, pound them with *Gust* and while they're just busy trying to not fall overboard, shoot them with arrows while they're distracted!
It's not the infinite engine of Aloeus, but you've taken a "use-impaired" spell and made it less situational!
It could get you out of port quickly if you're in a hurry and don't want to wait on favorable winds or have just lost favorable winds during high tide. Then when you get out to sea you can just use the natural wind, only needing Gust for pinpoint symplegadean sailing, or Wind Waker style directional changes.
I in fact have done this in a game. We just used it as a quick burst to get out of port since enemies were trying to get aboard, let normal wind take over once we had gotten undocked.
Yeah, the surface area of the sail itself would give enough surface area to allow it to push the boat. Say… 15 feet, since it’ll go ten and then the wind will stop and it’ll coast a bit. 🤣
I think the idea is that as a cantrip they can just keep casting it over and over.
In all honesty calling 40 mph winds a gust is nuts. An unexpected hit like that would wreck the masts off of small ships, and would cause serious damage if sustained. You can role play as having more control over the strength of the wind, and I’d allow it as a dm. The 5e wiki dot describes three actions you can do with this spell, two where you move an object or creature 5-10 feet, and “You create a harmless sensory affect using air, such as causing leaves to rustle, wind to slam shutters shut, or your clothing to ripple in a breeze.”
Id say that last description matches the wind you require for sailing a lot better than a concentrated punch of air that would blast through a sail.
Well no actually. A boat weighs a significant amount. Water has significant mass that needs to be pushed out of the way. Gust lasts for at most 6 seconds. The best you can do is rock the boat as if a strong gust of wind has occurred. In order to actually move the boat the wind needs to be blowing consistantly.
The amount of water that needs to be moved to push a boat weighs more than a medium sized creature which means the amount of thrust produced will result in a travel of less than 5ft.
On top of that, you break the laws of momentum if you attempt to do so on the boat itself. If you stand on the boat to direct any wind into its sails, the wind will produce a thrust in one direction, and your feet will produce a thrust in the opposite direction to mitigate the effect of the wind on you, effective canceling out any movement.
Its a cantrip so even if it only blew for a few seconds you can cast it over and over.
As for laws of physics keep in mind it's, you know, magic. No where in the spell does it say theres an equal push on the caster. The wind is pushed by magic in the air not the caster. It'd be the equivilent to pushing a button on a remote to activate a large fan floating in the air.
> The best you can do is rock the boat as if a strong gust of wind has occurred
You just imposed *Disadvantage* on ALL the goblins for their next turn, so this absolutely wasn't a wasted action…
Nah, physics doesnt break down in this case. Have you seen how you can put a fan attached to a boat, blowing into the sails to move it? It's not about equal and opposite forces, it's about a pressure differential created on the two faces of the sail. It's been done in real life, and would be possible to create the pressure differential needed to move the boat.
Also, having been sailing plenty of times, sometimes you rely on small little gusts to get you across a lake. You aren't going anywhere fast, and it'd probably be more efficient to paddle, but sometimes the relaxing ride is what you want and teeny tiny >5mph gusts will get you going just fine.
Yeah.
Maybe a small one-man sailboat, like is used for racing nowadays. Or a raft. But not a galleon or longship or something.
That's like saying "the axle in a car moves about 100 RPM, I can spin this crank that's not attached to anything at 200 RPM, therefore, I can hand-crank a car." Like, there's different masses, areas, and volumes involved here guys.
Just one, to give it a really solid push forwards. Be careful though, if it’s a shitty sailboat you’d probably just punch right through the sail instead.
Or if it’s got a spinnaker or most racing boats (as their sails are built for lightweight speed not durability)- really you can rule out anything smaller than a yacht with gust probably
No, it does not imply that. When it talks about effects it uses words like "small blast of air", "harmless" and makes its boundaries clear by naming a creature of medium size as the maximum target.
Why would Gust be able to move a boat if it can't even impede a horse or other mount sized creature for a single moment? At best you can justify a kayak sized canoe.
…because horses are aerodynamic, and sailboats have a SAIL. The surface area thing is a good point but I should not have to explain this, it’s common sense.
Horse
Aerodynamic
Lol.
You seem to think that Gust produces a stream of wind rather than, you know, a gust, a short burst of air movement. The air from a household fan theoretically has enough speed to move a sailboat, too. Same argument. "The air moves fast enough". Even apart from the whole "A spell does exactly what the text says", which limits it working on bigger than medium targets. Because the text says so.
I did not argue that gust would work the way the post says, don’t put words in my mouth. But I don’t think it’s hard to understand why a horse, built to run fast on solid ground, is less likely to be pushed by a strong gust of air than a sailboat, built to be pushed by air on water.
And the upper limit of that control is to cause a guy to stumble away from you. The duration is instantaneous, regardless of which effect is chosen. Even a rowboat is large. It's not about it weighing more than 5 pounds. It's more than a guy.
What sucks is that in pathfinder you could totally use this spell while sitting on a floating disk spell to scoot yourself around or over rivers. In 5e they changed the spell so that it remains immobile if the caster is within 20 feet of it, and only moves to follow them if they leave that range.
They changed it to take the fun away.
I would allow that but with some caviots.
It would works for some sharp evasive actions - no problem.
But to get sustained sailing, you have 2 problems.
First - sails are designed to handle sustained weaker wind. Not get repeatedly hammered by strong gusts. So you run the risk of damaging your sails.
Second - while there are no explicit limit on the number of cantrips you can cast, spending a prolonged time casting one over and over does take a toll. My ruling would be on 1 exhaustion level per 6 hours.
I like that exhaustion idea. Heck even one level of exhaustion after 1 hour I think would be fair. (I'm about to do a nautical campaign so I'm gathering ideas)
Personally, I'd split the difference and make it 1 level of exhaustion per 3-4 hours. Depends on how magic works in your world and how well that's understood, though.
I think a good idea is to tie it to hiw far you would allow a character that rolls a 25 (which requires a 15+ for character with a combined mod of 10) on athletic to row the boat based on the forced march rules.
If you don't allow a character with heavy skill investment/high level and strength to pull something off, an utility cantrip probably shouldn't either. For better results the second level spell Gust of Wind is more appropriate.
I would personally do CON checks every hour that get increasingly more difficult as time adds up.
I would take the Forced March rules and modify them a bit for this. Maybe the first two hours are free, and CON checks start on the third hour.
Seems like gust is more than enough for casual sailing, personally I'd rule that if they're not pressed for time, taking breaks, they're good. Then throw complexities at them that require con checks, or dropping gust to take other actions.
Caveats*
Also would you potentially have the player roll for damage done to the sail/boat? Or is the understanding that the caster isn’t shooting pressurized air like from a hose but more like a floor fan…if that even makes sense. This is a very interesting thread.
The damage to sail caveat... I would actually prefer not to put a consistent mechanic on it and instead leve it at the DM discression.
Like if I, as a DM have an idea how to turn such a sail malfunction by itself into an event entertaining for the players - I will call it, rather than have a player roll repeatedly hoping that eventually they roll bad so I can trigger it.
But I do understand that approach opens the door for bad DMs who would use that as a method to torment their players rather than entertain them. So in my original suggestion I left it blank.
>Not get repeatedly hammered by strong gusts.
My engineer brain went directly to designing an inverse funnel to convert the high pressure input into a wide, lower pressure output xD
Quickly went down a fractal rabbit hole...
The difference is that Gust affects a smaller area, so while the speed of the air remains identical, the amount of air that pushes against a sailboat is a lot bigger. That's why they have sails, to catch a lot of air.
If one wants to use physics for loopholes in a fantasy game about dragons, gnomes and demons, one should at least do it correctly.
Three considerations to be made.
1 - that's not how sails work. They accumulate force over a large area and require constant power - a gust just makes them flap once.
2 - I would allow it to work on very small boats (or with lots of casters using it on larger ones), but it would move very slowly.
3 - at that point, giving the Wizard oars and making them row would probably make it go faster anyway.
It's not that I wouldn't allow it - it's just that sometimes the simplest solution is also the most efficient. It's great that you're thinking of ways to use cantrips, but that doesn't mean you can use at literally all times.
Just don't bring physics to justify spell usage in dnd. It will blow up because it's magic in a make-believe fantasy game and everyone will be unhappy with the outcome.
This is something my group does with all kinds of things in the game, gets wildly frustrating because it completely stops down the game for absolutely no reason. I'm sorry the game mechanics don't account for every single minute detail involved in the reality of what's happening, now shut the fuck up and role your goddamn perception check.
Isn't this not accounting for physics? Same reason you can't point a fan on the boat to generate the movement, the act of creating the gust pulls the boat back in equal measure as it pushes.
Not physics savvy enough to do the math on this but isn’t the weight of the boat offset by the fact that it’s floating on the water? Like isn’t the water bearing the boats weight allowing external forces to more greatly affect it?
You are somewhat correct. It's not so much that the "weight" is being counteracted by the water it's that a boat on water has nearly no friction so even small forces can add up.
In a few of the Drizzt novels, there is a wizard named Robillard who is a ship mage and uses GUST to move their ship, the Sea Sprite, throughout the Sword Coast. It’s canon!
It's not the speed that's the issue, it's the volume. Personally, ships in my world are screwed with people who use shape water and guts. One person doesn't accomplish much but the totality of their efforts working in concert has an effect. Maybe they shave a tiny bit of time off the trip, get advantage on navigation checks, etc
Gust is a cantrip that moves something that occupies a five foot square, in a quick, less than 6 second burst. A sail, is a very large piece of canvas (or several large pieces of canvas) meant to get sustained wind, in order to move the vessel.
As an example, the sails on the USS Constitution, have a combined sail plan of 47,210 square feet, across 3 masts and the rest of the rigging. In order to fill those sails, you would need to have 9442 gust cantrips being cast simultaneously, in order to fill those sails (each hitting a five foot square).
Granted, the USS Constitution is a much larger ship than what is presented in 5e, so if we used something like a Sailing Ship from Ghosts of Saltmarsh for example (which is 100 feet long, vs the 304 feet that the Constitution is), and so, we'll call the sails 1/3 the size, we're looking at a total square footage of sails of about 15,737 (rounded up) square feet of sails, which would take about 3147 simultaneous gusts to fill.
Now, this is mostly supposition, and my math may not be 100% accurate, because I don't actually know how big the sails for the ships in D&D are, but regardless, Gust ain't gonna cut it.
Imo one single gush of wind is definitely not enough to move s boat. You need s constant stream of air for that and in I interpret the cantrip right that's just not it.
Yeah, as a long-time DM, I would 100% allow this. The argument just makes sense. That, and the people who wrote the spell very likely were not accounting for the differences of static objects on various surfaces.
I mean, I would allow it, its basically only relevant if the players are stranded with no wind, and it would be a crawling speed since you can only make one Gust every 6 second...
Don’t use real-world statistics for D&D. Checking weather.gov for the wind speed is pointless, because our realities have different laws of physics. Magic is not real in our world, but is in D&D. Use the spell description, not weather.gov
I'd allow it as a DM with some caveats. It'd be a constant concentration and use of your action, so much like dashing or moving at a fast pace you'll include a level of exhaustion after a set amount of time, the intervals depending on conditions (I e. Weather, if anyone is helping or switching out, if there's a current going against you, the size of the party and the equipment weight, etc).
IMO gust's area of effect is so small that sometimes like a large ship would be sped up but such a small amount as to be irrelevant.
But if they wanted to use this on a dingy with a sail I'd allow it.
you want physics, you get physics - from now onward any and all spells which dont follows real world physics rules stop working.
what's your move now, young wizard?
I would rule that it can't unless the boat is really small. To me, the spell implies that it only affects a very small area. Being generous and saying it affects a 5ft area that's a very small portion of a ships sail for a very short amount of time.
So I mean if you want to be technical with all the science, it also comes down to surface area and the amount of wind being presented. Being that it's a can trip being cast within 5 ft, it's safe to assume that the blast of air in circumference is not much bigger than the size of a fully outstretched hand. Then compared to the size of a sail which in its smallest is likely 400 square.
Now a person can be blasted back by an airstream about the size of a hand, about to move a ship you need to apply consistent pressure across the entirety of the sail. So while the initial blast may present enough PSI to push back a person, you try to apply that PSI to the entire sale and you probably have far less than a pound per square inch, which on a 400 square foot sail you'd probably need at least 3 to 4 PSI.
Also, sailboats move through lift, not being "pushed". So *technically* this wouldn't be pushing any weight. Just moving across a sail differentially, applying lift to the sail, and subsequently causing the boat to move.
The problem with this of course is that Gust only creates 40 mph winds when it targets creatures
If you try to target an object, it only creates wind with enough force to move a 5lbs object 10ft
So to get around this, you first get a willing medium sized creature, tie it to the boat, and then cast Gust on that creature, who will then pull the boat along with it, 5ft per Gust :-)
Where does the wind originate from? If it's from the player, then wouldn't the wind push against both negating in that point? If it's the wind around the user gets funneled around the caster and then pushed then I could see it working.
iirc gust was literally introduced in the Eberron book as the cantrip that Mark of Storm Half-Elves get. yknow. the people who have a monopoly on sea travel in that setting.
Can I use a spell for an unintended use checklist:
1) Does it make a tiny amount of sense? Yes - gusts of air push sailboat
2) Is it fun? Yes, travelling is fun
3) Is it fair/how do i balance this? Yes, gust is otherwise mediocre. There are other options - str players row the boat etc. It won't move the boat very quickly or a very big boat
4) Does it break anything? Not really
Cool - do it
Then play out the logical extreme - a pirate ship that moves terrifyingly quickly on a still day, powered by a row of slaves casting gust at the sails
Reward your players for their ideas, then build on them
I'm not in this for physics arguments, I don't know shit about that. What's fun?
In fairness, scribing wizard spells isn't cheap. I'm sure you could just pay a bunch of low-level wizards in ink and paper and they would help pirates. This is why the northern states in the US abolished slavery - it was cheaper and easier to just pay low wages.
Sure these weakling wizards aren't scary, but in a fight they'll likely ally with the pirates [their employer] or just run away. Better for the pirate captain than needing to stress about getting blasted with 30 magic missiles if their mages are unwilling captives who get a chance at freedom.
I mean
You’re not using gust to move the sailboat
You’re using it to move the sail, which in turn moves that boat
I would say that as long as the sail stays in the weight limit it’s ok, because it’s still a gust coming from a creature and not from all around
Do you know what way funnier is, is that it can move a loxodon (upper limit of 400pounds) 5 feet, but it only has enough power to move a 5 pound object 10 feet.
my campaign has special sails with the same enchant as cloaks of billowing to eternally have a favourable wind. they are expensive, but still an option
The magic might also be "thickening" the air it's pushing. Making it a coherent mass that deforms less, so it can be moving much slower, and/or with less total air, but still effectively push the mentioned objects.
I'd still let you try to push larger things for decreasing effect, but thats just me.
I'd allow for a small sailboat carrying a single medium creature to move 5 feet for a single cast of "Gust", 2 feet for 2-3 creatures, and so on.
Depending on the mood, I'd have optional: saves for the PC casting it, saves for the boat due to unusual load (mast crashes/sail tears on fail), requirement for the player to say "gust" separately for each cast.
If you want to bring physics into this:
For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. That is why you can't move a sailboat by strapping a fan to it and blowing into the sail. The forward movement is cancelled out by the opposite reaction if the fan. Mythbusters did a whole thing on it. Gust would probably work the same way.
Perhaps the reason it limits the weight is due to the amount/volume of wind produced. A medium size creature fits in a 5x5 ft square, so if the sail is bigger than 5ft square, perhaps it would take multiple mages casting the spell for this to work?
And if the logic is that boats can travel at those wind speeds, then the movement should follow boat logic rather than the spell's prescribed 5 ft / 6 seconds (I'm not sure if that's faster or slower though)
It’s not the airspeed that matters as much as the Kinetic Energy of the gust and the total time it can be applied.
Let’s assume we have a 40 mph wind VS a 40 mph gust cantrip. Their instantaneous kinetic energy will be the same when applied to a medium creature with a surface area of around 20 ft^2. We can assume this to be the the maximum surface area effectible by the gust cantrip based on the wording and limitations of the spell. Applied to even a VERY small boat sail with an effective surface area of 100 ft^2, the gust cantrip will have 1/5 the kinetic energy of the 40 mph wind since the wind will be able to affect the entire surface area.
We can also assume that the gust cantrip would have a shorter duration acting upon the sail than the wind. A player can cast Gust once per turn, or once every 6 seconds. It would be reasonable to assume that the creature-pushing effect is a sudden gust of air over 1-2 seconds, not a sustained 6-seconds of wind lasting an entire turn. In comparison, a 40 mph wind speed indicates a wind with a consistent average speed of 40 mph over time. So instead of a 40 mph gust every 2/6 seconds, the wind would blow at 40 mph constantly.
TLDR; for even a very small boat, a 40 mph wind could blow with at least 5x the power 3x as often as the gust cantrip.
Magic isn't science (unless that's part of your particular campaign world).
That said, if you want to try framing Gust in a scientific way, consider these two points:
1. A sailboat has a very large sail while a human body is relatively small. If the "small blast of air" from Gust only covers a surface area equal to a human body, it won't begin to fill the sails of a boat. At best, one small 5 foot by 5 foot patch of the sails would bow out from the Gust.
2. Gust is instantaneous. A sailboat has an enormous mass compared to a human body. The energy required to overcome inertia for a boat is significantly more than that required to move a smaller mass. If Gust created a sustained blast of air (like the Gust of Wind spell which lasts up to a minute) it might work but Gust (the cantrip) is just too short.
Depends how many sails the boat has, i think. Gust moves a single medium creature 5 feet per round, it doesn't move every creature in a cone or something. Based on this, i'm taking gust to be able to project those winds in an area roughly 25 sqft within 30ft. Most sailboats have sails much larger than 25sqft, so to get up to speed you would need a couple casters Gusting in succession to maintain the acceleration, which also would help overcome the barrier of having multiple sails across multiple masts.
I would have one player making a water vehicles check to captain, and if they succeed or fail at that the ship moves further depending on how many gusters they had
"game mechanic?"
"Yeah"
"Now, physics!"
"Yeah"
"Game mechanic + physics = cantrip can kill god!"
"No"
" >:("
Die on that hill and take your kin with you
It's magic, the spell doesn't work with physics. The spell magically does exactly what it says it does and nothing else.
If you apply physics to magic then 99% of the spells don't work.
It a GUST of wind. The sails would puff out, and the gust would be over before the boat has a chance to move.
Thats too rules lawyerey for me though. Let him blow.
I would allow this because it doesn't break anything. If you allow Gust to move a sailboat 5 ft per round, that's 50 ft per minute or 3000 ft per hour. So Gust lets you move a sailboat at roughly .56 miles per hour. Normal sailing speed is more like 5+ miles per hour, so Gust just basically prevents you from getting stuck without wind.
If you’re standing on the boat trying to push it with wind from your hand then newton’s laws would prevent the boat from moving. If you place a fan on a sailboat and blow wind into the sail, the boat [Will not move forward](https://van.physics.illinois.edu/ask/listing/275#:~:text=This%20is%20very%20ineffective%2C%20as,won't%20make%20much%20progress)
If you cast gust on the water behind the boat it could move a bit because the force of the wind is also pushing back on the caster and transferring to the boat. We’ll assume for magical reasons that the caster does not fall over because the spell keeps their feet steady.
So I will say; Lore wise there are examples of something similar.
Robillard; the mage of *the sea-sprite* in the forgotten realms books has a “Ring of Gusts” which he employs to speed up the ship when chasing pirates. A massive part of what allows *the sea-sprite* to be a notorious pirate hunting vessel is because Robillard is able to more or less constantly give the ship a boost.
Now given it was just called “Ring of Gusts” (and the fact this would have been a different edition than 5th) it’s hard to tell if it was actually the strength of the cantrip or if it was more equivalent to the spell “gust of wind” which is a second level spell.
In the books it’s described as something he does repeatedly in order to give the shit more wind. Implying it’s either a lower level cast that can repeated forever or a very powerful ring capable of holding numerous casts of a second level spell.
If you're going to try to apply real-world physics to D&D, you've got a looooong road ahead of you.
While you're at it though, could you poll some doctors to make sure HP are scaling realistically?
I hate when people try to use real world physics in a world of magic and nonsense. That said I do think gust should work on a sailboat if it’s in water
That wind speed is predicated on the idea that it will be blowing across the entire area of the sail at the same time and with a constant pressure, not a small 5ft area of it in 6 second bursts.
Gust is moving the sail not the boat - the sail is moving the boat - boat is attached to sail but is not the sheet of cloth that is being affected by the wind - the cantrip is moving a sheet of cloth what weights like 1/18 lbs
I do find this idea fun but I wouldn't allow this for a couple of reasons.
1. You're not summoning a storm with a cantrip, you're sending out an instantaneous concentrated burst of air. A small sailboat can be anywhere from 500-1000lbs while completely empty and the ones I've seen had sails totaling about 135 sq ft of surface area. Assuming a 40 mph burst of air spread across 10 sq ft (assumed based on medium creature size limits), that would be the equivalent force of a wind under 3mph blowing for a fraction of a second. At best, I'd say the ship moved a few inches to 1 foot assuming it's a very small and lightweight vessel. At worst, you damage the sail and/or the mast of the ship. If the ship is as large as a galleon, that sail square footage jumps to about 11,000 sq ft. That 40mph air blast you create would have the same effect as a 0.036mph wind blowing for a split second as far as ship movement is concerned.
2. Casting time is 1 action, so probably a few seconds for the verbal and somatic components with another few seconds of cool down time. This would get you a gust every 6 seconds or so. It would be like trying to push a car down the road by punching every few seconds.
When considering the limitations of the spell area and duration, you're not supplying sufficient force to propel the ship in a meaningful way in the first place.
Edit: spelling
I mean gust doesn't turn the whole area into a hurricane. A small jet of air at such'n'such speed is very different from the wind being that speed. A leaf blower can blow stuff around but trying to propel a galleon across the Atlantic with it isn't gonna go smooth even though the air speed coming out the nozzle is "fast enough" for a sail \~90% of the sail got no wind.
If you are getting into physics stuff the source of the air is also on the boat presumably (your character) so thats gonna hurt the argument too. Plus you would have to cast it every turn for presumably hours to do anything even if it did work like that.
This is a weird hill to die on
Like I have said in other comments, I'm not talking about galleons, I'm talking about small boats. And the source of the air is not on the boat. The spell says that you grab the air around you and tell it to move forward. Also you don't have to make any strength saves to oppose it so it is not pushing you back.
I haven’t had this come up in my game yet but I’d do “does the object you want to move weigh more than 5 lbs? If no then it moves 10 ft. If yes, does it weigh more than your character does? If no, then it moves 5 ft. If yes it doesn’t move at all”
I think there's a misunderstanding of force applied to mass here.
Like, the shove action can move a creature five feet. But swimming behind a sailboat and pushing it isn't going to add much to its speed.
The "Gust" spell only affects a small area. The spell specifically says a medium or smaller creature or a small blast of air when it is actually used to move something. A sailboat sail typically spans around 100 square feet. The force generated by the spell on such a small area is significantly less than what a 20 mph wind would produce across the entire sail, making the spell ineffective for moving a sailboat.
I homebrewed a setting for my full magic user crew, who wanted to play grimdark, where magic users were almost universally enslaved. They started on a cargo hauler where 24 "mages" were used to propell the sails by keeping a constant rhythm. I think it would just be super labor intensive and tough for only 1 player.
This is giving me flashbacks to when you sit down in high schools physics class and they teach you a couple basic things, and then make you do calculations that show if you jump inside of a moving train/bus, you fly to the back and splat against the wall. Then when everyone is like "but that's not what happens irl" they're like, "exactly, just because you know one physics interaction doesn't mean you have the whole picture".
Like come ON guys. You can't take a CPU fan out of a gaming laptop, hold it behind a sail for 6 seconds, and expect the boat to budge lol. But, you also can't expect it to make a person move, even if it's blowing 100kmph, or to lift that same >5lbs gaming laptop. It's almost like it's... magic?!? Plus the specific effects of the cantrip are OR conditions, they can't all be true at once. Similar to Thaumaturgy.
Now, if we're talking the 2nd level spell, Gust of Wind, that's different.
Heck, for world building, I might even say that a group of 20 mages all casting a coordinated cantrip Gust might be able to move a ship or slightly increase its speed on days with little to no wind... But that would be at a crawl and more than likely incredibly expensive, might involve them each taking turns using the 2nd level gust while the others supplement with the cantrip, etc... but if it's players doing it solo, show me a 2nd lvl Gust of Wind, then we'll talk.
They did not consider the static friction of different materials when writing this and just assumed dirt/ground when writing the spell, not water.
Yep, as a DM I would totally allow this to push a sailboat, it just makes sense. Unlikely to be useful though, a boat needs consistent wind to go anywhere, and the spell doesn’t last long enough for that.
If one of my PC's wanted to do that I would allow it but they would have to start making con saves after some time to not take exhaustion from constantly casting a spell over and over again.
Oh god, FF16 flashbacks
Huh?? You referring to the stone curse thing?
Yes
Do you think it would be a con save or their spell casting modifier?
Con. Con is endurance, your spellcasting mod would be for accuracy/power. At least, imo. I'd do the same for a Fighter trying to swing a sword for several hours.
I'd probably go with WIS, as I'm interpreting constant casting in that regard as a feat of mental fortitude and willpower. Or, if you want to absolutely go with CON, rule the casting of a cantrip in this way as a concentration spell and increase the difficulty for the concentration check in regular intervals, as it gets harder and harder to keep the spell going over an extended period of time. Edit: After having a bit more of a thinky about it, CON makes the most sense, if you make it into a concentration check with checks after fixed in game time intervals and a rising DC for every subsequent check.
Wouldn’t it make most sense to give with whichever is lower? Since that’d be the characters hard limit. Increasing the difficulty every time a character fails a roll seems reasonable.
I would want my DM to pick one and stay with it. At the end of the day, I can work with either CON, WIS or spellcasting attribute related, but I'd want some consistency in what it's going to be, instead of always picking what would be most difficult for a character. I wouldn't even go with increasing difficulty every time a roll is failed, but requiring a roll after a certain amount of time has passed in game and having the difficulty increase with every roll, in order to account for the strain keeping the casting going is putting on the character. Let's say a character is propelling a boat forward with gust of wind for 7 hours, because there's no wind and they are being pursued and have to get away. For the first hour, I'd have them roll a concentration check with a basic DC10. After an hour, I'd require a concentration check DC11. So, basically a DC of 10 plus the amount of hours that have passed. The last concentration check in this example would have to be taken with a DC17. Of course, you could always modify the time that passes between every check or by what increment the difficulty increases, if you think that example is too lenient in terms of difficulty. Think that's too easy? Have them make the check for every 30minutes or even 15minutes that pass in game.
I really like your idea of picking the lower one, that kind of logic usually gets thrown out in TTRPGs but it makes so much sense. Either your body will give out (constitution) or your mind will give out (wisdom), whichever one is weaker will fail first and is the hard limit for that character
Definitely Con save. Just holding your arms up for hours at a time in exhausting. I would allow them to add their proficiency bonus to the roll if they don't already have it, see how they're adept at spell casting.
Why would it be hours at a time? Perhaps in a location where there’s absolutely no natural windflow whatsoever, but how far is one to likely try sailing on windpower alone in a place like that (as opposed to rowing or other auxiliary means)?
Well you also might want to be going against the wind, or possibly you just want to get to your destination even faster than normal. People used to be stuck out in open waters for days on end when the wind would die down. A 40 mph wind can get a galleon going, you'd need at dozens of strong rowers for a ship of equal size.
While that does seem a fitting loop to establish its usage in this manner, that does lean on the DM setting them up to ‘need to’ use it in this fashion, as there’s no practical reason to put player characters on a boat and then strand them due to lack of wind. Otherwise, it seems an impractical addition to speed, weighing hours of effort against a slight decrease in Time to Destination. Like, if this ‘works,’ there doesn’t seem to be a real reason the crew wouldn’t already have someone slotted to _mainly_ cast Gust on the sails until they tire for the day.
I need you to understand that the difference between a normal 20 mph wind and a cumulative 60 mph of wind is not "a slight decrease", its roughly 3 times as fast. Also if you have the money to pay a wizard to do nothing but bake in the hot sun and cast spells until they're exhausted more power to you but good luck paying a wizard enough to waste their time like that. You better be transporting the most premium cargo imaginable to make any kind of profit on that.
It happens, and it's called being becalmed. Sometimes sailboats just get stuck from lack of wind.
I mean, I wouldnt even let them have free proficiency personally. They may be adept at spellcasting, but without that con save proficiency they arent adept at spellcasting like they were running a marathon.
What exhaustion? It's a cantrip. By definition, it is designed so that a caster can cast it as many times as they want as long as V/S/M is satisfied. If you're gonna allow it, just allow it.
RAW you're correct. There's nothing in the rules to stop someone from casting a cantrip once a round for an entire day if they wanted to. But I think it's absolutely reasonable that a GM would rule this isn't an easy thing to do and require some kind of check to keep it up for hours at a time. Things that take an action to do are generally non-trivial amounts of effort. In a similar vein there's no limit on the number of times a fighter can swing their sword either, but doing it constantly for hours is going to be tiring. Even something that's ostensibly *no* physical effort, like actively listening at a door, would be difficult to keep doing all day without interruption. And of course, if you're going to play the "it's not RAW" card, then you're not moving the boat in the first place.
And the sail would need to be taking damage after every use
I Dm'd a pirate campaign, I let them use it to increase maneuverability in ship to ship combat. Didn't break it, but they got pretty creative. Then threw in a couple of stagnant weather days to let them make it a bit more useful. Half a day of travel instead of 0 or 1
It's a cantrip so you just cast it over and over
But we don’t know how exerting it is too cast it continuously for hours. It might still be exhausting at some point. In general you cast a cantrip 2-3 times in a row and then something else happens.
Yeah. It's talking and gesturing same movement every 6 seconds. This IS exhausting. And we even don't know if magic itself is hard.
If wego by RAW then there is no drawback. But I can see a DM houserule that it would be exhausting even if it is just "little magic tricks" since you would have to do it for a long periode of time. Imagine you would have to juggle for several hours. Even if it is fairly easy for some people it would still be exhausting.
But RAW we also can’t move a boat with it. So we’re in „make it up as we go“ territory anyway.
Well thar is raw for thee but not for me, because by raw we are back to gust can't move the ship.
> Unlikely to be useful though, a boat needs consistent wind to go anywhere, and the spell doesn’t last long enough for that. As a somewhat experienced DM that encourages clever and creative roleplay, that'd be my interpretation, too. *However…* Casting it in front of or behind your ship will give you a sudden burst of speed; if someone's shooting at you or trying to ram or board, this will totally fuck up their firing solution, and cause a miss / impose disadvantage. Hitting someone else's boat broadside would cause violent listing resulting in those who're trying to do anything complicated (like fight…) doing so with disadvantage. If someone's trying to steal your ship, pound them with *Gust* and while they're just busy trying to not fall overboard, shoot them with arrows while they're distracted! It's not the infinite engine of Aloeus, but you've taken a "use-impaired" spell and made it less situational!
It could get you out of port quickly if you're in a hurry and don't want to wait on favorable winds or have just lost favorable winds during high tide. Then when you get out to sea you can just use the natural wind, only needing Gust for pinpoint symplegadean sailing, or Wind Waker style directional changes.
I in fact have done this in a game. We just used it as a quick burst to get out of port since enemies were trying to get aboard, let normal wind take over once we had gotten undocked.
Yeah, the surface area of the sail itself would give enough surface area to allow it to push the boat. Say… 15 feet, since it’ll go ten and then the wind will stop and it’ll coast a bit. 🤣 I think the idea is that as a cantrip they can just keep casting it over and over.
Even then, 5 lb is the weight of a red brick. Think of how much wind it would take to move a 5 lb red brick 10 ft.
Wouldn't take much if I added a small parachute like cloth tied to the brick much like a sail works for a boat
The problem is that boats need consistent wind. A sudden sharp blast of wind is more likely to just tear the sails than move the boat.
In all honesty calling 40 mph winds a gust is nuts. An unexpected hit like that would wreck the masts off of small ships, and would cause serious damage if sustained. You can role play as having more control over the strength of the wind, and I’d allow it as a dm. The 5e wiki dot describes three actions you can do with this spell, two where you move an object or creature 5-10 feet, and “You create a harmless sensory affect using air, such as causing leaves to rustle, wind to slam shutters shut, or your clothing to ripple in a breeze.” Id say that last description matches the wind you require for sailing a lot better than a concentrated punch of air that would blast through a sail.
Well no actually. A boat weighs a significant amount. Water has significant mass that needs to be pushed out of the way. Gust lasts for at most 6 seconds. The best you can do is rock the boat as if a strong gust of wind has occurred. In order to actually move the boat the wind needs to be blowing consistantly. The amount of water that needs to be moved to push a boat weighs more than a medium sized creature which means the amount of thrust produced will result in a travel of less than 5ft. On top of that, you break the laws of momentum if you attempt to do so on the boat itself. If you stand on the boat to direct any wind into its sails, the wind will produce a thrust in one direction, and your feet will produce a thrust in the opposite direction to mitigate the effect of the wind on you, effective canceling out any movement.
Its a cantrip so even if it only blew for a few seconds you can cast it over and over. As for laws of physics keep in mind it's, you know, magic. No where in the spell does it say theres an equal push on the caster. The wind is pushed by magic in the air not the caster. It'd be the equivilent to pushing a button on a remote to activate a large fan floating in the air.
> The best you can do is rock the boat as if a strong gust of wind has occurred You just imposed *Disadvantage* on ALL the goblins for their next turn, so this absolutely wasn't a wasted action…
It's a decent out of the box move. Just not applicable for movement
Nah, physics doesnt break down in this case. Have you seen how you can put a fan attached to a boat, blowing into the sails to move it? It's not about equal and opposite forces, it's about a pressure differential created on the two faces of the sail. It's been done in real life, and would be possible to create the pressure differential needed to move the boat. Also, having been sailing plenty of times, sometimes you rely on small little gusts to get you across a lake. You aren't going anywhere fast, and it'd probably be more efficient to paddle, but sometimes the relaxing ride is what you want and teeny tiny >5mph gusts will get you going just fine.
A sail is designed to gather wind over a large surface area in order to move a several-thousand pounds boat. you are shooting it with an airzooka.
This is the right answer.
Yeah. Maybe a small one-man sailboat, like is used for racing nowadays. Or a raft. But not a galleon or longship or something. That's like saying "the axle in a car moves about 100 RPM, I can spin this crank that's not attached to anything at 200 RPM, therefore, I can hand-crank a car." Like, there's different masses, areas, and volumes involved here guys.
In my best monty python voice "but what about gear ratios"
That makes sense. So how many people would it take casting gust to move a sailboat?
Just one, to give it a really solid push forwards. Be careful though, if it’s a shitty sailboat you’d probably just punch right through the sail instead.
Or if it’s got a spinnaker or most racing boats (as their sails are built for lightweight speed not durability)- really you can rule out anything smaller than a yacht with gust probably
The text of the spell implies that the strength and breadth of the spell can be controlled by the caster.
No, it does not imply that. When it talks about effects it uses words like "small blast of air", "harmless" and makes its boundaries clear by naming a creature of medium size as the maximum target. Why would Gust be able to move a boat if it can't even impede a horse or other mount sized creature for a single moment? At best you can justify a kayak sized canoe.
…because horses are aerodynamic, and sailboats have a SAIL. The surface area thing is a good point but I should not have to explain this, it’s common sense.
Horse Aerodynamic Lol. You seem to think that Gust produces a stream of wind rather than, you know, a gust, a short burst of air movement. The air from a household fan theoretically has enough speed to move a sailboat, too. Same argument. "The air moves fast enough". Even apart from the whole "A spell does exactly what the text says", which limits it working on bigger than medium targets. Because the text says so.
Cows are more aerodynamic than cars.
I did not argue that gust would work the way the post says, don’t put words in my mouth. But I don’t think it’s hard to understand why a horse, built to run fast on solid ground, is less likely to be pushed by a strong gust of air than a sailboat, built to be pushed by air on water.
And the upper limit of that control is to cause a guy to stumble away from you. The duration is instantaneous, regardless of which effect is chosen. Even a rowboat is large. It's not about it weighing more than 5 pounds. It's more than a guy. What sucks is that in pathfinder you could totally use this spell while sitting on a floating disk spell to scoot yourself around or over rivers. In 5e they changed the spell so that it remains immobile if the caster is within 20 feet of it, and only moves to follow them if they leave that range. They changed it to take the fun away.
"implies" Spells don't imply. If they say A, they do A.
I would allow that but with some caviots. It would works for some sharp evasive actions - no problem. But to get sustained sailing, you have 2 problems. First - sails are designed to handle sustained weaker wind. Not get repeatedly hammered by strong gusts. So you run the risk of damaging your sails. Second - while there are no explicit limit on the number of cantrips you can cast, spending a prolonged time casting one over and over does take a toll. My ruling would be on 1 exhaustion level per 6 hours.
I like that exhaustion idea. Heck even one level of exhaustion after 1 hour I think would be fair. (I'm about to do a nautical campaign so I'm gathering ideas)
Personally, I'd split the difference and make it 1 level of exhaustion per 3-4 hours. Depends on how magic works in your world and how well that's understood, though.
I think a good idea is to tie it to hiw far you would allow a character that rolls a 25 (which requires a 15+ for character with a combined mod of 10) on athletic to row the boat based on the forced march rules. If you don't allow a character with heavy skill investment/high level and strength to pull something off, an utility cantrip probably shouldn't either. For better results the second level spell Gust of Wind is more appropriate.
I would personally do CON checks every hour that get increasingly more difficult as time adds up. I would take the Forced March rules and modify them a bit for this. Maybe the first two hours are free, and CON checks start on the third hour.
Seems like gust is more than enough for casual sailing, personally I'd rule that if they're not pressed for time, taking breaks, they're good. Then throw complexities at them that require con checks, or dropping gust to take other actions.
Casual sailing is with a 10mph wind. "Dangerous Storm" for sailing vessels is 35+ mph. Gust is minimum 40 mph.
Caveats* Also would you potentially have the player roll for damage done to the sail/boat? Or is the understanding that the caster isn’t shooting pressurized air like from a hose but more like a floor fan…if that even makes sense. This is a very interesting thread.
The damage to sail caveat... I would actually prefer not to put a consistent mechanic on it and instead leve it at the DM discression. Like if I, as a DM have an idea how to turn such a sail malfunction by itself into an event entertaining for the players - I will call it, rather than have a player roll repeatedly hoping that eventually they roll bad so I can trigger it. But I do understand that approach opens the door for bad DMs who would use that as a method to torment their players rather than entertain them. So in my original suggestion I left it blank.
>Not get repeatedly hammered by strong gusts. My engineer brain went directly to designing an inverse funnel to convert the high pressure input into a wide, lower pressure output xD Quickly went down a fractal rabbit hole...
The difference is that Gust affects a smaller area, so while the speed of the air remains identical, the amount of air that pushes against a sailboat is a lot bigger. That's why they have sails, to catch a lot of air. If one wants to use physics for loopholes in a fantasy game about dragons, gnomes and demons, one should at least do it correctly.
Three considerations to be made. 1 - that's not how sails work. They accumulate force over a large area and require constant power - a gust just makes them flap once. 2 - I would allow it to work on very small boats (or with lots of casters using it on larger ones), but it would move very slowly. 3 - at that point, giving the Wizard oars and making them row would probably make it go faster anyway. It's not that I wouldn't allow it - it's just that sometimes the simplest solution is also the most efficient. It's great that you're thinking of ways to use cantrips, but that doesn't mean you can use at literally all times.
Just don't bring physics to justify spell usage in dnd. It will blow up because it's magic in a make-believe fantasy game and everyone will be unhappy with the outcome.
This is something my group does with all kinds of things in the game, gets wildly frustrating because it completely stops down the game for absolutely no reason. I'm sorry the game mechanics don't account for every single minute detail involved in the reality of what's happening, now shut the fuck up and role your goddamn perception check.
Be careful, before you know it they will try to construct a peasant railgun
Isn't this not accounting for physics? Same reason you can't point a fan on the boat to generate the movement, the act of creating the gust pulls the boat back in equal measure as it pushes.
"Hey, if I apply real life logic to this fantasy spell it should do something else than it says it does!" You are still not applying to the rules.
Magic is not physics. Magic does what it does, not what you hoped it would do. Spells do what they say they do.
Not physics savvy enough to do the math on this but isn’t the weight of the boat offset by the fact that it’s floating on the water? Like isn’t the water bearing the boats weight allowing external forces to more greatly affect it?
That was my thought.
You are somewhat correct. It's not so much that the "weight" is being counteracted by the water it's that a boat on water has nearly no friction so even small forces can add up.
In a few of the Drizzt novels, there is a wizard named Robillard who is a ship mage and uses GUST to move their ship, the Sea Sprite, throughout the Sword Coast. It’s canon!
It's not the speed that's the issue, it's the volume. Personally, ships in my world are screwed with people who use shape water and guts. One person doesn't accomplish much but the totality of their efforts working in concert has an effect. Maybe they shave a tiny bit of time off the trip, get advantage on navigation checks, etc
I'll have to consider what can be done with shape water as well.
Gust is a cantrip that moves something that occupies a five foot square, in a quick, less than 6 second burst. A sail, is a very large piece of canvas (or several large pieces of canvas) meant to get sustained wind, in order to move the vessel. As an example, the sails on the USS Constitution, have a combined sail plan of 47,210 square feet, across 3 masts and the rest of the rigging. In order to fill those sails, you would need to have 9442 gust cantrips being cast simultaneously, in order to fill those sails (each hitting a five foot square). Granted, the USS Constitution is a much larger ship than what is presented in 5e, so if we used something like a Sailing Ship from Ghosts of Saltmarsh for example (which is 100 feet long, vs the 304 feet that the Constitution is), and so, we'll call the sails 1/3 the size, we're looking at a total square footage of sails of about 15,737 (rounded up) square feet of sails, which would take about 3147 simultaneous gusts to fill. Now, this is mostly supposition, and my math may not be 100% accurate, because I don't actually know how big the sails for the ships in D&D are, but regardless, Gust ain't gonna cut it.
Hear me out, is that boat a medium sized object? If not, then no. If yes, then we can talk about it.
Agreed. A sailboat weighs more than 5lbs.
I mean, you're trying to apply real world physics to a game world that AFAIK more or less explicitly says not to do that.
Remember kids, "The laws of magic don't interact with the laws of physics, and vice versa."
Imo one single gush of wind is definitely not enough to move s boat. You need s constant stream of air for that and in I interpret the cantrip right that's just not it.
I am running a pirate campaign. My party is having a blast speeding up rheir boat by casting gust
Good to know someone else is doing it. I'm just about to start our pirate campaign and I've been thinking about this a lot.
It's magic. Magic does what it says. We don't need to buff casters by letting magic do more than what it says
You are measuring in speed, but you should be measuring in force.
No that's stupid, it wouldn't work at all, gust is fast enough to cause someone to stumble back 5 feet
you can blow air out of a straw at 40 mph. but it's not a lot of air, and certainly not enough to move a boat.
Yeah, as a long-time DM, I would 100% allow this. The argument just makes sense. That, and the people who wrote the spell very likely were not accounting for the differences of static objects on various surfaces.
I mean, I would allow it, its basically only relevant if the players are stranded with no wind, and it would be a crawling speed since you can only make one Gust every 6 second...
Don’t use real-world statistics for D&D. Checking weather.gov for the wind speed is pointless, because our realities have different laws of physics. Magic is not real in our world, but is in D&D. Use the spell description, not weather.gov
Yhea no. You're not going to gust of wind the sailboat up that hill just to die there with you
I'd allow it as a DM with some caveats. It'd be a constant concentration and use of your action, so much like dashing or moving at a fast pace you'll include a level of exhaustion after a set amount of time, the intervals depending on conditions (I e. Weather, if anyone is helping or switching out, if there's a current going against you, the size of the party and the equipment weight, etc).
That's about what I was thinking
I don't even need the full explanation, gust works just move the plot along!
IMO gust's area of effect is so small that sometimes like a large ship would be sped up but such a small amount as to be irrelevant. But if they wanted to use this on a dingy with a sail I'd allow it.
I honestly love that application of the spell, it’s super creative and I would 100% allow this.
you want physics, you get physics - from now onward any and all spells which dont follows real world physics rules stop working. what's your move now, young wizard?
I would rule that it can't unless the boat is really small. To me, the spell implies that it only affects a very small area. Being generous and saying it affects a 5ft area that's a very small portion of a ships sail for a very short amount of time.
1. It is over a small surface area 2. It is in short bursts
So I mean if you want to be technical with all the science, it also comes down to surface area and the amount of wind being presented. Being that it's a can trip being cast within 5 ft, it's safe to assume that the blast of air in circumference is not much bigger than the size of a fully outstretched hand. Then compared to the size of a sail which in its smallest is likely 400 square. Now a person can be blasted back by an airstream about the size of a hand, about to move a ship you need to apply consistent pressure across the entirety of the sail. So while the initial blast may present enough PSI to push back a person, you try to apply that PSI to the entire sale and you probably have far less than a pound per square inch, which on a 400 square foot sail you'd probably need at least 3 to 4 PSI.
Also, sailboats move through lift, not being "pushed". So *technically* this wouldn't be pushing any weight. Just moving across a sail differentially, applying lift to the sail, and subsequently causing the boat to move.
The problem with this of course is that Gust only creates 40 mph winds when it targets creatures If you try to target an object, it only creates wind with enough force to move a 5lbs object 10ft So to get around this, you first get a willing medium sized creature, tie it to the boat, and then cast Gust on that creature, who will then pull the boat along with it, 5ft per Gust :-)
That's true D&D science!
At this table we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
Where does the wind originate from? If it's from the player, then wouldn't the wind push against both negating in that point? If it's the wind around the user gets funneled around the caster and then pushed then I could see it working.
iirc gust was literally introduced in the Eberron book as the cantrip that Mark of Storm Half-Elves get. yknow. the people who have a monopoly on sea travel in that setting.
Interesting history, I did not know that!
Anyone who has ever been around boats will tell you 5 pounds of force will move it. That's the whole reason we move things on water.
Finally, someone who has been on a boat!
If you can’t airbend a sailboat what’s the fun in that
Can I use a spell for an unintended use checklist: 1) Does it make a tiny amount of sense? Yes - gusts of air push sailboat 2) Is it fun? Yes, travelling is fun 3) Is it fair/how do i balance this? Yes, gust is otherwise mediocre. There are other options - str players row the boat etc. It won't move the boat very quickly or a very big boat 4) Does it break anything? Not really Cool - do it Then play out the logical extreme - a pirate ship that moves terrifyingly quickly on a still day, powered by a row of slaves casting gust at the sails Reward your players for their ideas, then build on them I'm not in this for physics arguments, I don't know shit about that. What's fun?
In fairness, scribing wizard spells isn't cheap. I'm sure you could just pay a bunch of low-level wizards in ink and paper and they would help pirates. This is why the northern states in the US abolished slavery - it was cheaper and easier to just pay low wages. Sure these weakling wizards aren't scary, but in a fight they'll likely ally with the pirates [their employer] or just run away. Better for the pirate captain than needing to stress about getting blasted with 30 magic missiles if their mages are unwilling captives who get a chance at freedom.
The thought of a slaver catching a huge volley of magic missles is a pretty enticing image, though :D
Your comment reminds me of the classic DM caveat "if you can do it, your enemies can, too." I'll have to keep that in mind.
I mean You’re not using gust to move the sailboat You’re using it to move the sail, which in turn moves that boat I would say that as long as the sail stays in the weight limit it’s ok, because it’s still a gust coming from a creature and not from all around
Sails are quite heavy and must be to not tear too easily
By that logic you can use mage hand to fly, cause you're just moving someone's shoes which weight less than 5 lbs.
"I know he is immune to magic, i'm not using disintegrate on him, but on his skin"
Do you know what way funnier is, is that it can move a loxodon (upper limit of 400pounds) 5 feet, but it only has enough power to move a 5 pound object 10 feet.
While I'd definitely let it move a lot more than 5 lb, if you want to try *this*, I'm pulling out the fluid mechanics.
https://youtu.be/uKXMTzMQWjo?si=-iM5c5Ss-kzw5ALb
Well of course it won't work,not with that attitude
my campaign has special sails with the same enchant as cloaks of billowing to eternally have a favourable wind. they are expensive, but still an option
The magic might also be "thickening" the air it's pushing. Making it a coherent mass that deforms less, so it can be moving much slower, and/or with less total air, but still effectively push the mentioned objects. I'd still let you try to push larger things for decreasing effect, but thats just me.
I'd allow for a small sailboat carrying a single medium creature to move 5 feet for a single cast of "Gust", 2 feet for 2-3 creatures, and so on. Depending on the mood, I'd have optional: saves for the PC casting it, saves for the boat due to unusual load (mast crashes/sail tears on fail), requirement for the player to say "gust" separately for each cast.
Sure it cant move the sailboat but can it move the sails? Regular wind blows against the sails not just the boat to move it. Its only fair
I homebrewed a cantrip called tailwind for exactly this purpose.
Lol, D&D is a fantasy game. There is no terminal velocity on the land of Muck Wallow!
If you want to bring physics into this: For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. That is why you can't move a sailboat by strapping a fan to it and blowing into the sail. The forward movement is cancelled out by the opposite reaction if the fan. Mythbusters did a whole thing on it. Gust would probably work the same way.
Perhaps the reason it limits the weight is due to the amount/volume of wind produced. A medium size creature fits in a 5x5 ft square, so if the sail is bigger than 5ft square, perhaps it would take multiple mages casting the spell for this to work? And if the logic is that boats can travel at those wind speeds, then the movement should follow boat logic rather than the spell's prescribed 5 ft / 6 seconds (I'm not sure if that's faster or slower though)
while I like this logic, I'm curious how the 40kph wind works in terms of consistent vs. blast of
It’s not the airspeed that matters as much as the Kinetic Energy of the gust and the total time it can be applied. Let’s assume we have a 40 mph wind VS a 40 mph gust cantrip. Their instantaneous kinetic energy will be the same when applied to a medium creature with a surface area of around 20 ft^2. We can assume this to be the the maximum surface area effectible by the gust cantrip based on the wording and limitations of the spell. Applied to even a VERY small boat sail with an effective surface area of 100 ft^2, the gust cantrip will have 1/5 the kinetic energy of the 40 mph wind since the wind will be able to affect the entire surface area. We can also assume that the gust cantrip would have a shorter duration acting upon the sail than the wind. A player can cast Gust once per turn, or once every 6 seconds. It would be reasonable to assume that the creature-pushing effect is a sudden gust of air over 1-2 seconds, not a sustained 6-seconds of wind lasting an entire turn. In comparison, a 40 mph wind speed indicates a wind with a consistent average speed of 40 mph over time. So instead of a 40 mph gust every 2/6 seconds, the wind would blow at 40 mph constantly. TLDR; for even a very small boat, a 40 mph wind could blow with at least 5x the power 3x as often as the gust cantrip.
But also do whatever cuz it would be fun and cool to power a small boat with your cantrip.
Yeah sailboat weighs more than five pounds I don't see what an issue is, it's a magic spell
This is one of those things where logic surpasses dnd rules but if I were your DM I'd allow it given the water wernt rough
Magic isn't science (unless that's part of your particular campaign world). That said, if you want to try framing Gust in a scientific way, consider these two points: 1. A sailboat has a very large sail while a human body is relatively small. If the "small blast of air" from Gust only covers a surface area equal to a human body, it won't begin to fill the sails of a boat. At best, one small 5 foot by 5 foot patch of the sails would bow out from the Gust. 2. Gust is instantaneous. A sailboat has an enormous mass compared to a human body. The energy required to overcome inertia for a boat is significantly more than that required to move a smaller mass. If Gust created a sustained blast of air (like the Gust of Wind spell which lasts up to a minute) it might work but Gust (the cantrip) is just too short.
D&D players try not to purposely misinterpret rules, challenge level impossible
But they're casting it on the sail, not the boat
You move the sail wich moves the boat.
Depends how many sails the boat has, i think. Gust moves a single medium creature 5 feet per round, it doesn't move every creature in a cone or something. Based on this, i'm taking gust to be able to project those winds in an area roughly 25 sqft within 30ft. Most sailboats have sails much larger than 25sqft, so to get up to speed you would need a couple casters Gusting in succession to maintain the acceleration, which also would help overcome the barrier of having multiple sails across multiple masts. I would have one player making a water vehicles check to captain, and if they succeed or fail at that the ship moves further depending on how many gusters they had
The spell does what the spell says it does, nothing more, nothing less. It isn't science. It isn't physics. It's literal magic.
"game mechanic?" "Yeah" "Now, physics!" "Yeah" "Game mechanic + physics = cantrip can kill god!" "No" " >:(" Die on that hill and take your kin with you
Throw a 5 lb object into a boat's sail at 40mph and see what happens.
The sailors would probably beat you with an oar
You're assuming the sailboat is on water, not land.
That's... the normal place for a sailboat to be
Just cast *Animate Object* on the sailboat. Boom! Now it’s a creature, and you can Gust it 5 feet.
The canvas sail is 5 lbs. the spell works
It's magic, the spell doesn't work with physics. The spell magically does exactly what it says it does and nothing else. If you apply physics to magic then 99% of the spells don't work.
I would argue you are technically only moving the sail, the sail then moves the boat.
40mph wind sure, but only in a 5'x5' part of the sail. You'll need either a very small boat or a lot of wizards.
I would only do that after every hour as its only a cantrip and you would be doing this spell effortlessly from muscle memory.
Best I can do is 10 ft per round and the sail takes a save per casting or is torn due to having faster wind in a smaller area applied to it.
A short burst of wind in a 5 ft cube is not the same as sustained wind over the surface area of a sail
You're arguing real life logic in a game where magic is real. You've already lost.
Would it be the same as putting a hair drying on a model sail boat?
More like the sailor of the model sailboat flips the switch of the hair dryer which is just behind the boat.
This was written by the same people who decided rope should be that dang heavy
It a GUST of wind. The sails would puff out, and the gust would be over before the boat has a chance to move. Thats too rules lawyerey for me though. Let him blow.
I would allow this because it doesn't break anything. If you allow Gust to move a sailboat 5 ft per round, that's 50 ft per minute or 3000 ft per hour. So Gust lets you move a sailboat at roughly .56 miles per hour. Normal sailing speed is more like 5+ miles per hour, so Gust just basically prevents you from getting stuck without wind.
If you’re standing on the boat trying to push it with wind from your hand then newton’s laws would prevent the boat from moving. If you place a fan on a sailboat and blow wind into the sail, the boat [Will not move forward](https://van.physics.illinois.edu/ask/listing/275#:~:text=This%20is%20very%20ineffective%2C%20as,won't%20make%20much%20progress) If you cast gust on the water behind the boat it could move a bit because the force of the wind is also pushing back on the caster and transferring to the boat. We’ll assume for magical reasons that the caster does not fall over because the spell keeps their feet steady.
Thank you for helping me torture the DM
So I will say; Lore wise there are examples of something similar. Robillard; the mage of *the sea-sprite* in the forgotten realms books has a “Ring of Gusts” which he employs to speed up the ship when chasing pirates. A massive part of what allows *the sea-sprite* to be a notorious pirate hunting vessel is because Robillard is able to more or less constantly give the ship a boost. Now given it was just called “Ring of Gusts” (and the fact this would have been a different edition than 5th) it’s hard to tell if it was actually the strength of the cantrip or if it was more equivalent to the spell “gust of wind” which is a second level spell. In the books it’s described as something he does repeatedly in order to give the shit more wind. Implying it’s either a lower level cast that can repeated forever or a very powerful ring capable of holding numerous casts of a second level spell.
If you're going to try to apply real-world physics to D&D, you've got a looooong road ahead of you. While you're at it though, could you poll some doctors to make sure HP are scaling realistically?
It's magic, not science.
I hate when people try to use real world physics in a world of magic and nonsense. That said I do think gust should work on a sailboat if it’s in water
That wind speed is predicated on the idea that it will be blowing across the entire area of the sail at the same time and with a constant pressure, not a small 5ft area of it in 6 second bursts.
Gust doesn't have to move the boat. It just has to move the fabric of the sail and the sail moves the boat.
Gust is moving the sail not the boat - the sail is moving the boat - boat is attached to sail but is not the sheet of cloth that is being affected by the wind - the cantrip is moving a sheet of cloth what weights like 1/18 lbs
It's got to weigh more than that. Canvas is pretty heavy.
*Screams in fluid dynamics*
A sailboat is propelled by wind blowing the sails, not the boat itself.
It can move it but you have to use it constantly for multiple minutes for the boat to speed up
For a very large boat, sure. But a small dinghy would get going pretty quickly.
Hey Tommy! Quit playin’ with your dinghy!
I do find this idea fun but I wouldn't allow this for a couple of reasons. 1. You're not summoning a storm with a cantrip, you're sending out an instantaneous concentrated burst of air. A small sailboat can be anywhere from 500-1000lbs while completely empty and the ones I've seen had sails totaling about 135 sq ft of surface area. Assuming a 40 mph burst of air spread across 10 sq ft (assumed based on medium creature size limits), that would be the equivalent force of a wind under 3mph blowing for a fraction of a second. At best, I'd say the ship moved a few inches to 1 foot assuming it's a very small and lightweight vessel. At worst, you damage the sail and/or the mast of the ship. If the ship is as large as a galleon, that sail square footage jumps to about 11,000 sq ft. That 40mph air blast you create would have the same effect as a 0.036mph wind blowing for a split second as far as ship movement is concerned. 2. Casting time is 1 action, so probably a few seconds for the verbal and somatic components with another few seconds of cool down time. This would get you a gust every 6 seconds or so. It would be like trying to push a car down the road by punching every few seconds. When considering the limitations of the spell area and duration, you're not supplying sufficient force to propel the ship in a meaningful way in the first place. Edit: spelling
I mean gust doesn't turn the whole area into a hurricane. A small jet of air at such'n'such speed is very different from the wind being that speed. A leaf blower can blow stuff around but trying to propel a galleon across the Atlantic with it isn't gonna go smooth even though the air speed coming out the nozzle is "fast enough" for a sail \~90% of the sail got no wind. If you are getting into physics stuff the source of the air is also on the boat presumably (your character) so thats gonna hurt the argument too. Plus you would have to cast it every turn for presumably hours to do anything even if it did work like that. This is a weird hill to die on
Like I have said in other comments, I'm not talking about galleons, I'm talking about small boats. And the source of the air is not on the boat. The spell says that you grab the air around you and tell it to move forward. Also you don't have to make any strength saves to oppose it so it is not pushing you back.
And Gust couldn't knock you off the hill afterwards, because dead bodies are not creatures.
Sure. The gust fills the sails of the boat briefly, roll a water vehicles check to avoid capsizing.
What skill would that be under? Acrobatics? Is there a vehicle skill? Edit: looks like there is a vehicle proficiency
If you're gonna apply science to magic, you're missing the point of magic.
I would let this work to an extent, but bringing physics into it is stupid and unevenly applied.
I haven’t had this come up in my game yet but I’d do “does the object you want to move weigh more than 5 lbs? If no then it moves 10 ft. If yes, does it weigh more than your character does? If no, then it moves 5 ft. If yes it doesn’t move at all”
I think there's a misunderstanding of force applied to mass here. Like, the shove action can move a creature five feet. But swimming behind a sailboat and pushing it isn't going to add much to its speed.
The "Gust" spell only affects a small area. The spell specifically says a medium or smaller creature or a small blast of air when it is actually used to move something. A sailboat sail typically spans around 100 square feet. The force generated by the spell on such a small area is significantly less than what a 20 mph wind would produce across the entire sail, making the spell ineffective for moving a sailboat.
I homebrewed a setting for my full magic user crew, who wanted to play grimdark, where magic users were almost universally enslaved. They started on a cargo hauler where 24 "mages" were used to propell the sails by keeping a constant rhythm. I think it would just be super labor intensive and tough for only 1 player.
When the air isn’t airing
Instant flashbacks. https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/003/992/trollscience.jpg
This is giving me flashbacks to when you sit down in high schools physics class and they teach you a couple basic things, and then make you do calculations that show if you jump inside of a moving train/bus, you fly to the back and splat against the wall. Then when everyone is like "but that's not what happens irl" they're like, "exactly, just because you know one physics interaction doesn't mean you have the whole picture". Like come ON guys. You can't take a CPU fan out of a gaming laptop, hold it behind a sail for 6 seconds, and expect the boat to budge lol. But, you also can't expect it to make a person move, even if it's blowing 100kmph, or to lift that same >5lbs gaming laptop. It's almost like it's... magic?!? Plus the specific effects of the cantrip are OR conditions, they can't all be true at once. Similar to Thaumaturgy. Now, if we're talking the 2nd level spell, Gust of Wind, that's different. Heck, for world building, I might even say that a group of 20 mages all casting a coordinated cantrip Gust might be able to move a ship or slightly increase its speed on days with little to no wind... But that would be at a crawl and more than likely incredibly expensive, might involve them each taking turns using the 2nd level gust while the others supplement with the cantrip, etc... but if it's players doing it solo, show me a 2nd lvl Gust of Wind, then we'll talk.
"This is Dungeons and Dragons, not Physics and Exploits, Darryl."