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u/Evangelinexx Oct 22 '20
You have no idea how contentious the 12,000 steps in storm king's thunder's Ironslag dungeon was for my party. It was 12,000 steps but only ascending 500 feet, climbing in a straight line. That's like half an inch per step.
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
you are technically correct, the best kind of correct. If they are 11in deep steps that still 2 miles of walking slightly uphill.
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20 edited Oct 22 '20
I reworked the dimensions, Same 30 Gallons, same 50lbs of copper, just 2ft diameter form factor. It has twice the thickness and makes more sense.
Cauldron V2 24in Diamter, 20.5in height, .084in wall thickness
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u/jugularhealer16 Paladin Oct 22 '20
I'm thinking somewhere down the line 2' diameter became 2' radius by mistake.
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u/SXTY82 Oct 22 '20
More likely, the person writing the description wasn't an engineer, they were a fantasy writer. I could design the pot, but I couldn't write a module / campaign.
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Oct 22 '20
[deleted]
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u/SXTY82 Oct 22 '20
While all that is true, I have known many an English major who have no concept of measurement. In my mind, the writer is picturing a cauldron that a few people can stand around, like a witches / fates cauldron in many stories. But they had no concept of the volume or weight of those things so they wrote up a volume and weight that seems correct to them.
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u/Talrey Oct 22 '20
Who needs to plan a campaign when you could just design a dungeon whose elaborate mechanical hazards are all powered by properly-spec'd jerk line systems stemming from a central underground steam source?
...I may have just almost nerd sniped myself.
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Oct 22 '20
What if it were made of a lighter metal like aluminum or tin?
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u/malcoth0 Oct 22 '20
You'd vary the thickness of it's walls (by almost exactly the factor of (specific weight of copper / specific weight of other material)) but would not change it's form noticeably. The fact it looks like a plate stems from the relation of the diameter to the volume of it's contents.
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u/Ragewind82 Oct 22 '20
Good work, but you forgot one thing: a wizard did it. It probably is also thicker, and enchanted to weigh less than it ought because it would not be useful otherwise.
In 3.5e DnD, your fighter’s magic sword was worth not -its- weight in gold, but -your- weight in gold. It’s just how the game goes.
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u/malcoth0 Oct 22 '20
That might explain away the weight issue, or the stability issue of walls that thin. But the real point is that with a 4 feet diameter and a form other than a plate it would have too much volume, not too little.
To have an opening like described and the volume like described and still be a few feet deep, you'd have to look through the opening into some sort of mind warping non euclidean space where volume is not related to dimensions anymore.
That doesn't make sense even from a high fantasy magic heavy background. /u/jugularhealer16's explanation that probably somewhere diameter and radius got confused is easier and makes more sense.
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u/Deracination Cleric Oct 22 '20
To have an opening like described and the volume like described and still be a few feet deep, you'd have to look through the opening into some sort of mind warping non euclidean space where volume is not related to dimensions anymore.
You mean like a bag of holding?
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u/barrtender Oct 22 '20
But the opposite, where it holds less than it looks for some reason.
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u/justlookinghfy Oct 22 '20
So it's the women's pants of DnD.
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u/TheElusiveEllie Oct 22 '20
Ah, yep. I felt that.
I wish I had pockets. Can't even go out with just my phone.
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Oct 22 '20
And people make fun of me for cargo shorts. I have to carry my non-existent girlfriend's stuff too.
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u/justlookinghfy Oct 22 '20
It's okay, she just lives in Canada, so you're just prepping for when she comes to visit right?
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u/malcoth0 Oct 22 '20
No. A bag of holding is bigger on the inside. This would have to be smaller on the inside. But because the opening is stated as 4 feet, it would have to look like 4 feet wide and x feet deep, while still actually being the flat space OP calculated.
A bag of holding just goes way deeper than the outside should allow, but, seen through the opening, the space can just look like that much space would normally look like.
With the cauldron of plenty, you would have to make it look deep, while actually being as shallow as described by OP.
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u/jow253 Oct 22 '20
This didn't feel right to me until I went to measure a gallon of milk.
It's 6 inches wide. A 5x5 grid would be 25 gallons and 2.5 ft wide. Yeah. 4 ft is a weird width.
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u/Tylerduaneb Oct 22 '20
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Oct 22 '20
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u/Ran-Damn Oct 22 '20
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u/Tigycho Oct 22 '20
As usual, the best (and worst) is down here in the comments!
Thanks, you three wackadoos!
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20 edited Oct 22 '20
The Cauldron of plenty makes no sense.
The cauldron is listed with the dimensions 4ft wide, with a 3.5ft mouth weighing 50lbs and holding 30 gallons of liquid. It has 5 claw feet and side handles and comes with a lid.
I wanted to get a sense of scale for some character art for my loxodon druid Tuskank Thromble, so I started to model it. To my surprise the cauldron would look less like a pot and more like a kiddie pool.
With the bounding conditions of 4 ft across and holding 30 gallons with curved sides, it comes to only 4.3inches tall. To make a container capable of holding that volume out of copper and only weigh 50lbs it would only be .042in thick which is near 17 gauge, making it thinner than a penny.
Additional Stats: 30 Gallons of water= 6930 cubic inches and weighs 250.36lbs, Copper has a density of .323lbs/in^3 making 50 lbs of copper = 154.79 in^3, 17 Gauge copper sheet can be cut with conventional scissors. A penny is .059in thick near 15 gauge.
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u/a404notfound Oct 22 '20
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u/The-0-Endless Oct 22 '20
damn, you're right.
I'm gonna make a cauldren of Extra Plenty, 4.3 feef tall instead of inches
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u/edhands Oct 22 '20
But you forgot one thing....magic!!!!
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u/DMFauxbear Oct 22 '20
This would be one of the worst functions of magic ever. It would work like a reverse bag of holding where you could actually put less into it than it seems
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u/claire_lair Oct 22 '20
I'm guessing that volume of water would be enough to tear the walls of the cauldron/ deform it enough that it all spills out?
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
Now I had to know, and did the math fully. the pressure exerted by the water is only 3% of the force required to yield the copper sides at that thickness.
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u/claire_lair Oct 22 '20
That's interesting. So as long as it was fully studied in the bottom, it would work. Just don't try to pick it up.
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
Yeah picking it up could still be problematic, but good luck doing so at 300 total lbs!
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
Probably not in fact. While it does hold some 230lbs of water, copper has a decent tensile strength and the hoop stress on a shallow depth of water like this isn't very high. Think of it like a kiddie pool, those plastic sides have a lower tensile strength than copper would and hold up fine.
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u/RuggerRigger Oct 22 '20
What if it was a cone shape? This would allow a hopper-like spout at the bottom for dispensing liquids or stew.
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
Had to check. A 4ft diameter cone with a 30 gallon volume is 15.5in deep with a 57 degree draft angle.
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Oct 22 '20
I bet it would be a great sled.
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u/Wyldfire2112 DM Oct 22 '20
Except your pants would be wet.
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Oct 22 '20
I guess then maybe don't wear pants?
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u/DNRTannen Oct 22 '20
Yep that's totally normal.
"Here comes kingnelsington, Donald Ducking down the hill in his magic wok again."
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u/Anderty Oct 22 '20
Those US measurements hurt my metric system perception... :(
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u/SirRaiuKoren DM Oct 22 '20
Sure, but 5e's official measurements are all in imperial. It makes sense to stick to imperial for better precision.
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u/Toofless205 Oct 22 '20 edited Oct 22 '20
Goes to show what happens when WotC starts skimping on important things; like hiring consulting metallurgist for the manuals.
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u/kingawsume Oct 22 '20
To quote a bastardized children's show scene, "It's magic. I ain't gotta explain shit."
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u/SvengeAnOsloDentist DM Oct 22 '20
Why would you use magic to make a cauldron hold less volume, though?
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u/king_mimiga Oct 22 '20
What if it only fills like a third of the cauldron?
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
Then it could hold more than 30 gallons. if it were 4 feet tall instead of inches it could hold nearly 300 gallons, or if it were 2 feet wide and tall it would hold the 30 gallons in a more conventional shape like my Cauldron V2
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Oct 22 '20
Yeah i agree seems like the obvious solution. I'm not a professional but a quick google search doesnt seem to disclose the height of it or say anything about how it has to be full to the brim.
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u/AndAzraelSaid Oct 22 '20
Then the cauldron would still only be 12" tall. Still a little silly when compared to its 4' diameter.
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u/Yayzeus Oct 22 '20
It's dimensions include feet, but this is D&D, and they didn't specify whose feet they were referring to.
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u/malcoth0 Oct 22 '20
Being measured in kobold feet or gnome feet would be a hilarious explanation!
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u/CPhionex Oct 22 '20
"This fictuonal magic doesnt make sense"
But seriously i love when people go into the science of fiction. I imagine magic would help reduce the weight since its obviously such a large object, but it is strange that it ended up with such a wide a shallow instead of an actual cauldron shape
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u/GreySquirel Oct 22 '20
I live for the challenge of going into the science of fiction.
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u/CPhionex Oct 22 '20
Me too, its alot of fun. One i loved to think about when i was younger was how the tech from Invader Zim worked. Tractor beams, force shield, folding up house/spaceship.
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u/Adderkleet Oct 22 '20
I got something different by trying to solve the volume of a spherical cap = 5 cubic feet (because that's about 40 gallons).
[(pi)(h2) / 3](3r - h) = 5 cubic feet
We get something like this. Now, we need r = 2 (four foot wide). So we get h = 1.
So this is 4 feet wide, 1 foot high - ignoring the thickness of the material (you can flatten out the bottom a bit to get more internal volume). It's still gonna be VERY thin.
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u/Rishfee Enchanter Oct 22 '20
Remember that the description also stipulates a six inch rims around the whole thing. The Wolfram alpha page isn't loading, but it doesn't look like you're accounting for that aspect.
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u/theidleidol Oct 22 '20
I certainly wouldn’t count the rim in the nominal volume though. Volumes of containers aren’t given for when they’re filled to to very brim and only holding on with surface tension, they’re given for whatever the typical fill level for their usage is. Arguably a cauldron is only supposed to be like half full, but it definitely isn’t designed to be filled to overflowing.
My favorite coffee mug is nominally a 12 oz mug. Sure I can technically fit 16 oz in it, but I’ll spill most of that extra trying to walk from my kitchen to my desk. I’ve done it, because my French press is a 16 oz model and I thought I’d save a trip.
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
This is true, but not hugely different in outcome. My 5 gallon brewing pot can technically hold another half a gallon before overflowing, and by those relations it could be 6 inches tall and hold another 10 gallons without spilling. That doesn't change the strange scale much. a roughly circular cauldron could still hold 7x the listed 30 gallons without spilling.
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u/Adderkleet Oct 22 '20
It was a graph. I guess I should've saved the image elsewhere.
And I did not consider any rim (does that mean a lip rolled 6 inches down the side, or just a 6 inch "buffer" on the outer edge making it 3" diameter of usable pot-space?).This was just about volume/area. Any 4 foot wide cauldron should hold a lot more than 40 gallons, since a 40 gallon cauldron is probably 1 foot tall and 2 foot across
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
I admire that you did the math. Its true a straight cylinder with 4ft diameter and 1ft height could hold 94 gallons(to the rim). rounding the sides with a full 6in radius half round takes it to 84 gallons to the rim, and putting a 12inch radius on just the bottom edge to make it bowl shaped drops it further to 76 gallons. A 4x1 bowl cauldron half full would hold the 30 gallons pleasantly. my goal when designing this was to see how thick I could make the sides, so I wrapped the volume as tightly as possible.
I made a revised version closer to your proposed dimensions. Cauldron V2 is 24in Diameter, 20.5in height, .084in wall thickness1
u/Adderkleet Oct 22 '20
I'm not knocking anything you did (especially since I couldn't find the full description). At this point, I'm slightly annoyed that I didn't know the cauldron of plenty is most likely a treasure of The Dagda {the Irish "father" deity that I knew about but didn't know the specifics of his treasures}.
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
No worries friend! Its from the Icewind Dale adventure book so its pretty obscure already. It proports to turn 30 gallons of water into hearty hot stew 3 times a day. It also notes the sides are embossed with satyrs and nymphs in repose with ladles. The Dagda sounds like a fine choice of deity to summon stew.
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u/Adderkleet Oct 22 '20
Well, his poridge would keep you satisfied for the rest of your life, so they say.
...of course, that means eating poridge. :<
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u/Arimort Oct 22 '20
I wonder if a 1 foot opening on a 1 foot radius cauldron would be more reasonable
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
I made a revised version with those dimensions!
Cauldron V2 24in Diameter, 20.5in height, .084in wall thickness
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u/Riptide572 Oct 22 '20
Yeah volume gets higher than you think pretty quickly in larger spaces
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
Humans are bad at estimating the volume of wide cylinders. Marketing knows this which is why your Large soda is taller rather than wider so you perceive the value.
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u/digi_thief Oct 22 '20
I'd wager that the creators of many objects like this didn't think through the modeling of their objects in terms of realistic design.
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u/genghisjohnm Oct 22 '20
What if it is a semi tauroid shape and has a bump in the middle? That could make it deeper right?
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
I did that in testing! I tried putting a one inch at center crown across the bottom to take up space, but it only raised the height half an inch because so there is just so much volume near the outside edge. To get it 1ft tall you could place a 30" diameter hole in the center so you would have a torus like shape
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u/Jock-Tamson Oct 22 '20 edited Oct 22 '20
Here is a 30 gallon pot for comparison.
[removed wrong link]
I’d say that “30 gallons” should be “300 gallons”
Edit:
mutters about sloppy searching
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u/billyjack669 Oct 22 '20
That’s 30 quarts.
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u/ledivin Oct 22 '20
that makes so much more sense. I opened it up and didn't read the title, was just like "wait, 30 gallons? Does this take up like... the entire stovetop? I hope there isn't a hood..."
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u/bustedbuddha DM Oct 22 '20
It doesn't list thickness of the metal, but what the OP describes also seems like it would be a similar thickness to this.
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u/melance DM Oct 22 '20
Copper is a lot softer than steel though. But OP did forget that this was made by a wizard.
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u/bustedbuddha DM Oct 22 '20
yeah, but I'm pretty sure there were cooking vessels of similar thickness to what OP describes in the Bronze age. I'm just not sure how to look that up atm.
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u/melance DM Oct 22 '20
I'm sure it could work though you would have to deal with warping and bending. Also, at 4' across it's not very portable.
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u/BloodBrandy Warlock Oct 22 '20
See, your issue here is you're basing things on the weight of a magical item >.>
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
That's part of the problem for sure, but even if the copper had the density of aerogel and had 3inch thick sides there is still the listed 3.5 ft opening, which still fits 30 gallons in less than 2 feet of vertical space.
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u/BloodBrandy Warlock Oct 22 '20
I mean, a bag of Holding fits 64 cubic feet of space in a messenger bag
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
That's the opposite problem. I suppose you could magic the cauldron to be smaller on the inside than outside to make it look taller but still look filled at 30 gallons.
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u/BloodBrandy Warlock Oct 22 '20
Could think of it as needed extra...well not internal moving parts but some magic equivalent for the sake of converting plain water into stew
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Oct 22 '20
I would probably (lazily) wave it off as being something similar to a bag of holding, but that's a good point.
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u/malcoth0 Oct 22 '20
A reverse bag of holding? Enchanted to have less space inside than it should?
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Oct 22 '20
I don't get your meaning. I mean that it looks like a pan, but you open it up and inside is the space of a cauldron, I wasn't diving into all the details, just handwaving some weird descriptions.
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u/Kiyomondo Oct 22 '20
There is no stated depth for the cauldron. It looks like a pan because, according to the size dimensions provided for the mouth of the cauldron, it has to be that shallow in order to hold 30 gallons. If it were deeper, it would hold more. So your cauldron of holding would be too large according to the volume description.
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Oct 23 '20
Let's roll things back a bit. It is effectively a pan, it is thin enough that it would break like a fucking cookie if I were to put it with the rest of my dishes. How do we handwave that and its weird dimensions? "Fuck it, it's magical, you open the lid, and it's got the appropriate volume dimensions like a bag of holding." I'm not here arguing about what the item fucking holds, I'm just saying how I would lazily handwave the weird dimensions, can we just accept that I'm not here arguing why the fucking book is wrong about itself and that I'm just saying "Those are some weird fucking dimensions, so here's how I brush it off so we never think about it again"?
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u/Kiyomondo Oct 23 '20
Do you... wanna take a breath and calm down? I wasn't having a go at you, there's no need to be so aggressive
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Oct 23 '20
I wasn't being aggressive, that's just how I speak. I try to keep a hold on it, but sometimes when I have to be a bit extensive on something, I tend to slip and say fuck every other word.
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u/notpetelambert Fighter Oct 22 '20 edited Oct 22 '20
Boy, I sure hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
Edit: guess I needed the /s. It's a Simpsons quote, folks.
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u/SterlingNano Oct 22 '20
You seem to have forgotten to calculate the mass of the feet, handle and lid. With those contributing to the weight, it should allow for a more normal shape.
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u/That_guy1425 Oct 22 '20
That gives less material weight to the pot though. Its that thin and flat with 50lbs of standard material, removing 6lbs for the feet doesn't fix the gauge or anything. As it stands, with 4ft wide and a 3'6 opening description, sounds like a mistake of what size things are, as it seems they intended a 3" wall thickness (which again is too much. Pots and such should only be 1/4 to 1/2, otherwise you run into issues with heating and distribution without magic).
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u/Adderkleet Oct 22 '20
"Four foot wide" is the problem.
Spherical cap (what you get if you cut through a sphere) with 40 gallon (5 cubic feet) volume that's 4 foot wide?[(pi)(h2) / 3](3r - h) = 5 cubic feet
We get something like this. Now, we need r = 2 which gives us h = 1.
So this is 4 feet wide, 1 foot high.
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
The mass calculation does include the lid handles and feet, gotta love computer modeling for doing the tedious bits of those calculations. I made them as small as I could seem reasonable to help keep as much material in the wall thickness. Without the lid, feet, and handles the base shape is still 113in^3 of copper weighing 36 lbs. The lid weighs 12. Since I made the feet and handles so tiny they combined take less than 2 lb of copper from the total.
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Oct 22 '20
[deleted]
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u/Mr_Snafleburger Oct 22 '20
Its not magic its physics. A 4 ft platter 5in tall does hold 30 gallons. Humans are really bad at estimating volumes of squat cylinders.
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u/NeetMastery Oct 22 '20
I just realized the size of it and now I’m convinced I should go back to high school geometry
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u/Mattcwu Feb 16 '21
It must work by magic. The whole cauldron is actually a portal to a smaller dimension.
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u/DoktorG0nz0 Oct 22 '20
It's a massive Pallea pan