There is an item in our game, a simple stick with only one property to it: it completely negates any kind of effect...

There is an item in our game, a simple stick with only one property to it: it completely negates any kind of effect, action or influence that tries to affect it, either directly or not. How would you design a spell to break this stick? Any kind of wording is applicable.

Can it be carved?

But user, if you break stick, then there are two stick.

Stick win every time.

> it completely negates any kind of effect, action or influence that tries to affect it, either directly or not.
ANY kind of effect?
Does gravity affect it?
If yes, you can make it collapse onto itself.
If no, congrats, user, you've got an immovable rod.

I name myself pope, declare that any of my flock that can break the stick shall inherit me as pope.

If it can negate anything that will affect it directly or indirectly, then it's a lost cause, it'll negate anything to do.

You're just going to run into the immovable rod problem here of trying to match a specific description like that to the rather fuzzy set or physical and magical rules that govern most fantasy RPG settings.

For example, try matching that to Newton's third and the damn thing must be entirely without substance, letting anything and everything pass right through it without obstruction. It'd ignore gravity, it'd have no gravity, light would go right through. It'd essentially not exist.

But apparently it is there. Somehow possible to interact with. So the rules of this world are not those of ours, they merely, usually, give very similar results. What exactly they are no one knows, but we'd have to know to answer the question properly.

So instead just teleport all of existence to somewhere the stick isn't, as having it not affected by the teleport-fucking-everything spell should come automatically. Or so we hope.

The deal is, stick creator swears that there is a way to destroy it, but it requires such an autistic effect design that noone will ever come up with it. And GM kinda confirms that.

Turning the thing against itself is a way to go I think, but have no idea how to word it properly.

Summon termite swarm.

The stick is use to make true fire.

So pick related in stick form?

Can the stick's magical properties cancel an anti-magic field? It's a bit of a chicken-or-egg problem here, if the antimagic field affects it first then the stick is no longer magic and becomes a regular breakable stick, but if the stick's powers activate first then the antimagic field cannot affect it...

...do the stick and anti-magic field roll initiative?

Why's the stick moving in orbit around a star around a galaxy? Surely it is unaffected by momentum?

Who says it's not a flat endless plane?

Offhand, that wording suggests that something that does not try to affect it may well succeed. If it requires designing as well, then it would imply something that fails at what it was designed for and happens to instead affect the stick. With the appropriately low chances that basically trying to randomize effects (after initially failing) such that it would affect the stick, you aren't looking at the best of chances but it might be technically doable (if likely to end in demise).
Given that you hope to do this, you could be said to be indirectly doing so if you at all induced people to do this for you, so it may well depend on such a circumstance naturally coming about, which would further reduce probability and completely much such a thing a matter entirely of plot.

do the stick's powers work in stopped time?
i'm serious

The setting is an immobile arena outside time and space, so it could be absolutely stable for all we know.

Yeah, pretty much. It doesn't roll, doesn't cast, it is just here, doin' nothing but be pain in everyone's asses.

Like, example: one dude had a mage with an ability to instantly cast all his spells on random targets if he ever dies. He died, and his death ability got completely halted and just didn't work simply because damn thing turned out to be a legit possible target for his all-out. It's like an informational black hole, used as a lightning rod for AOEs and whatnot. Until we get it to collapse on itself, I don't even know.

>Inb4 Spiral Power

Just to add to the things to consider: if the wording is "tries to affect it", does that mean a force that doesn't TRY may end up affecting it?

Design a spell that let's you make a single statement objectively true. The statement you must make true is "This stick never existed."

Is it indestructible otherwise?

If it is otherwise an ordinary stick, then I suggest dunking it in water or a field of accelerated time and to let decomposition take its course.

Can you plant it and make it a tree?

hit it with another one

The spell negates any property of the object it is cast on.

Though now we have the unbreakable shield vs unstoppable spear argument.

If you "remove the space around it" (depending on how such things work in your setting) you could make it virtually not exist by making it inaccessible by anything. If you wanna get all smart assy or semantic about "breaking the stick" you could convince everyone that a stick couldnt have such properties, making it something else than it previosly was.

>Though now we have the unbreakable shield vs unstoppable spear argument.
I wield both, and become unstoppable.

So you have to destroy it by pure accident? Problem with that is that it results in a chicken and egg problem. If you leave it somewhere prone to volcanoes, it will prevent volcanoes. If you carry it into a frozen wasteland and die so someone can pick it up and use it for kindling, it will prove to be immune to fire or even stop the snowstorm completely.

Only way for it to be destroyed seems to be by total, complete, unintentional accident. Problem is that provoking one of these accidents causes its defense mechanism to come into place.

So I just leave it alone. Eventually it'll die along with the universe. Problem solved.

The portable hole and bag of holding trick strikes again.

So what you're saying is build your city around the stick?

user, this is the magical item equivalent of that Oglaf overthinking trap

Just leave the stick alone and go be an adventurer

Copy it.

>Effect, action, or influence
Seems to me like a Sphere of Annihilation (or setting equivalent) might work - it can't stop nothing, after all.

Unrelated and I haven't looked up if there is a ruling for this already but...
What happens if you put a bag of holding inside a bag of holding inside a bag of holding.... etc etc etc

>Like, example: one dude had a mage with an ability to instantly cast all his spells on random targets if he ever dies. He died, and his death ability got completely halted and just didn't work simply because damn thing turned out to be a legit possible target for his all-out
so what you're saying is it's the safety button to make sure wherever you are cannot be destroyed. Any spell or effect that would destroy everything is nullified because the Stick would need to be one of it's targets. Any attempt to study, scry, or apply magic to stick is also nullified nixing any chance to circumvent it's powers.

If it's an immovable rod you could bull rush people into it

also just realized it's a very powerful charm (if mobile). Wear it as a necklace (or really just have it on your person) and all AoE spells/abilities that you get caught in are cancelled

Take the stick, beat the GM with it until he lets you break it.

"In the physics of Dungeons & Dragons, putting a bag of holding inside a portable hole will cause a rift to be opened to the Astral Plane, and both items will be lost forever. If a portable hole is placed within a bag of holding, it instead opens a gate to the Astral Plane, sucking in every creature in a ten-foot radius, and destroying both the bag and hole. The contents of the bags are either scattered throughout the Astral Plane or destroyed.[1] Placing bags of holding into one another (or within a Heward's handy haversack or vice versa) has no adverse effects in the 4th edition of the game and would allow one to store an unlimited quantity of items (each bag of holding being limited in total weight capacity to roughly 40 additional bags, depending on the size of each).[citation needed]

In earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons, putting one bag of holding inside another would have the same effect as placing a portable hole into a bag of holding. Interactions with portable holes had the effects listed above."

Have you tried talking or yelling at/to the stick? Obviously you would be affecting the stick, maybe not emotionally with your words but in some way structurally with soundwaves. Does the stick just mute your voice or does it not simply care about soundwaves passing through it?

Just cast a reconstruct stick spell, as it negates it it will break/disappear as it will have to counter it :^)
PD: your question and a lot of answers are just stupid and I'm disappointed at the lack of banter here

That's assuming the stick itself doesn't prevent the end of the universe just so it cannot be destroyed.

but does it negate iner

CLANG!

-what the fuck was that?

Ahhh mk.
Thank you kindly for the response user.

If you ignore the stick then it negates the effect and forces you to pay attention to it.

Well, then that's one less thing to worry about.

Underrated