Re: Neogi and Umber Hulks - air breathing?

On Jul 7, 2006, at 5:33 PM, Adam Miller wrote:

> The closest thing to this would be a misinterpretation
> of the (badly) worded deathspider entry (p 42, 2nd
> column, paragraphs 2&3).  Boiled down, it says that a
> crew of 30 slaves, 8 neogi, & 8 umber hulks use as
> much air as a 34-man crew.  What it REALLY was trying
> to say is that neogi breath less air, and umber hulks
> breathe more, but combined, its a wash.  So thus, it
> really should have read that they use as much air as a
> 46-man crew, not a 34-man crew.

Now, I'm not the math-iest of people here... but the way I understand 
arcane space physics, the air usage guidelines don't actually state 
that size S creatures *breathe* less air, rather that they just 
displace less air from the atmospheric envelope, and similarly size L 
creatures displace more air, thus monkeying with the air usage formulae 
as they're laid down for nice and normal size M creatures.

But I could be wrong, and it's all semantics really, because no matter 
how you describe it the practical interpretation is "bigger creatures 
means less air for a given jaunt aboard a spelljammer."

That's one thing to bear in mind about this discussion though... maybe 
Dreamer was referring to something along those lines: a reference to 
Neogi using less air (due to their being size S) being mistakenly 
interpreted for being a Neogi racial ability.

Another thing one might consider, in the 34/46-man crew air usage 
contrivance above: do we know that all 30 slaves are size M? One can 
safely assume that the author intended for that, since size M is the 
norm, but with the large populations of goblinoids in wildspace it 
would be just as easy to assume that the formula is complicated by an 
integration of size M humanoids with some possibly size S goblinoids 
(goblins and kobolds). Again, I'm retarded in math, so I couldn't work 
out a formula that nets you a 34-man air usage result. And now that I 
think about it it really would be a waste of time and is neither here 
nor there anyway.

... Gosh I've a headache now.