# Are there compasses in D&D?



## Oryan77 (Oct 7, 2006)

I run a normal 3.5 Planescape game and one of my players tried buying a compass in the last session. I couldn't find prices for a compass in any of my books. I wouldn't have thought this was a more modern item. There's sextants & magnets in the typical D&D world, but no compass? 

I never really thought about how technologically advanced a compass is. If a compass is from a different era, where there any other types of equipment people used to gauge north & south besides the stars, moon, & sun? I'm not much of a history buff.

Also, isn't there something like a planar compass in one of the books? I thought I remembered seeing one but I couldn't find it.


----------



## Henrix (Oct 7, 2006)

The compass was in use in europe in the 12th c, and in china a couple of centuries earlier. In D&D a lot of technology is more advanced than that, so it should probably be available.


----------



## Cedric (Oct 7, 2006)

My answer? Setting dependent. Compasses rely on stable magnetic fields to function...if I don't want my game world planets to have stable magnetic fields or if I don't want magnetics to exist at all in my game world...then no, you won't find a compass. 

However, in an earth like game world, yup, I'll throw 'em in, but in all but the biggest cities and learning centers they will probably be unheard of...unless I want a higher or slightly higher tech level.


----------



## taliesin15 (Oct 7, 2006)

Yeah, at least primitive compasses were available in the Middle Ages--oft times these were simply a pin on a piece of cork floating in water, which made it a bit dicey to use on a ship in heavy weather.

FWIW, other methods were more often used as navigation techniques--especially dead reckoning, and the flight of birds near coastlines. Many historians point out that the higher tech devices pretty much led to the spread of European influence, especially beginning with the Portuguese spread down the west coast of Africa, round the horn, up to the Orient.


----------



## reanjr (Oct 8, 2006)

Oryan77 said:
			
		

> I run a normal 3.5 Planescape game and one of my players tried buying a compass in the last session. I couldn't find prices for a compass in any of my books. I wouldn't have thought this was a more modern item. There's sextants & magnets in the typical D&D world, but no compass?
> 
> I never really thought about how technologically advanced a compass is. If a compass is from a different era, where there any other types of equipment people used to gauge north & south besides the stars, moon, & sun? I'm not much of a history buff.
> 
> Also, isn't there something like a planar compass in one of the books? I thought I remembered seeing one but I couldn't find it.




Well, on the planes I don't see how a nonmagical compass would function.  Magentic planetary fields are formed by spinning cores of metal.  If a plane does not have a core (which none of them would to my knowledge) then it would not have working compasses.  Unless you presume that the planes have a magnetic field anyway just because.  Certainly a valid way to go about it.

Technologically, compasses would be available in standard D&D style campaigns, though I think they would be pretty expensive.  On the other hand, the planet may not have a magnetic field similar to that of Earth.  If the core of the planet is not made up in a similar manner (one fast layer spinning over a static or slower layer) then there would be no magnetic field.  This is unlikely to support life as radiation would fry it without the protective magnetic field.

But, a planet can have a magnetic field but not a stable one like Earth's.  At least a few times in Earth's history, the poles have flopped around.  These pole changes are usually preceded by several (hundred?) years of instability wherein you will have numerous localized poles.  This might actually be a kind of cool idea for a campaign.  Doesn't help much with long range navigation, but you can make magical power centers the poles which all compasses point to.

Anyway.  Compasses may or may not work in a D&D campaign.  Even if they do, they may or may not work on the planes.  They would technologically viable if they did work.  And there is no official compass from WotC to my knowledge.


----------



## reanjr (Oct 8, 2006)

Addendum:

Sunstones should always work.  They are limited in pointing you directly East or West and require the sun for navigation.  The Vikings were probably using them before the 8th century.  Basically, by polarizing light from the sun you can cast a prism-like effect that tells you what the angle of the sun is.  When calibrated and used over the period of a day (or perhaps just at noon, I'm not clear on that), it could tell you your latitude (not longitude, a much more difficult thing to determine due to the arbitrariness of it).


----------



## kirinke (Oct 8, 2006)

Also, remember that most folks would use the stars as a way of reckoning distance and direction as well as familar landmarks too. Unless they were nomadic, most folks tended to stay in one place.


----------



## Numion (Oct 8, 2006)

taliesin15 said:
			
		

> FWIW, other methods were more often used as navigation techniques--especially dead reckoning, and the flight of birds near coastlines.




The stuff I read about micronesian navigation recently was very intriguing. It depended on memorizing nightsky, currents and birds.


----------



## Mark CMG (Oct 8, 2006)

This has the basics of the development of the compass -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass

Although, I am just happen to be finishing up listening to an audio book on the subject, _Compass_ by Alan Gurney.  Facinating stuff and I recommend it.

Wind and stars one what you could see of land were the primary navigational tools of the West until the compass was developed in the 12th century.  The modern "liquid" compass really didn't develop until the mid-19th century.  This book drives home how wildly inaccurate compasses were right up through present times, how many accidents were caused by overconfidence in having falsely solved the mysteries surrounding those inaccuracies, and how developments in the materials used aboard ships over the centuries only served to further cause problems and confound those looking for navigational solutions.  It's incredibly more complex than one might think.


----------



## Nonlethal Force (Oct 8, 2006)

Technologically, I think any good alchemist should be able to know about magnetism enough to figure it out.  

Of course, the bigger if that needs to be answered is if the planet has a magnetic field ...

Another question is if the magnetic field point North ... or West ... or some random direction...

Granted if the planet does have a magnetic field North would probably just be "the direction the compass points," but that's no guarantee, either.


----------



## trancejeremy (Oct 8, 2006)

Well, a planet would probably need a magnetic field, because otherwise everyone would get irradiated.  Well, depends how much cosmic radiation there is.  In something like Planescape, in Sigil, probably none. (And I guess if the Spelljammer cosmology still applies, then that's not a problem, since everything is in a crystal sphere. But it probably doesn't anymore, since 3e)

And IIRC, the direction of the field would generally always be North/South roughly, if it's like our universe and was generated by a spinning core.  Since that's the axis of the spin (it's not exactly because it's liquid, which sloshes around, and the earth also wobbles).  

But of course, in a fantasy world (or even an science fiction one, like an artificial planet), the magnetic field could simply be because someone buried a really really big magnet in the planet. Or monopoles.


----------



## Asmo (Oct 8, 2006)

Oryan77 said:
			
		

> I run a normal 3.5 Planescape game and one of my players tried buying a compass in the last session. I couldn't find prices for a compass in any of my books. I wouldn't have thought this was a more modern item. There's sextants & magnets in the typical D&D world, but no compass?




Weird, I was thinking about the same thing yesterday. In my case it was triggered by the cover of the Complete Adventurer. She has something hanging from her belt that looks like a primitive compass. It´s probably something else    

Asmo


----------



## Necrohazard (Oct 8, 2006)

I used to run the Plane Scape Campaign some years ago and I don’t believe that a compass does work out on the planes, for there really is not a true north or south on a given plane.  The planes have there own laws that they go by and even the more normal planes don’t often go by the laws of the material plane.  But I do seem to recall a planer device that worked something like a compass, but it was not really based off of the primes N, E, S, and W. , set up.  If I get some time I may try and find out something more solid on the matter.


----------



## Greylock (Oct 8, 2006)

kirinke said:
			
		

> Also, remember that most folks would use the stars as a way of reckoning distance and direction as well as familar landmarks too. Unless they were nomadic, most folks tended to stay in one place.




Survival five Ranks. Or play a Raptoran.


----------



## Vrecknidj (Oct 8, 2006)

I would think a fairly low-level spell could accomplish the task of "find north," and so making a magical compass would be relatively cheap.

Dave


----------



## drothgery (Oct 8, 2006)

Vrecknidj said:
			
		

> I would think a fairly low-level spell could accomplish the task of "find north," and so making a magical compass would be relatively cheap.
> 
> Dave




_Know Direction_, Bard 0/Druid 0 does this.


----------



## Sanackranib (Oct 8, 2006)

in a fantasy world a compass is even easier to have then in a low tech world. basically there are several low level spells that grant acces to "north" or a direction ie: locate object, true north etc. in a lot of the 3.0 or 3.5 books and supplements. you just use permenancy and place that spell in ny item with a needle or arrow. as I recall one such spell is actually cast on an arrow which when placed on the ground rotates to point north. these types of items would cost in the 50-500 gold range in my game depending on quality/accuracy if non magical. a magical version shouldnt be more then 1000 gold or so depending on spell level.


----------



## Oryan77 (Oct 8, 2006)

Necrohazard said:
			
		

> I used to run the Plane Scape Campaign some years ago and I don’t believe that a compass does work out on the planes, for there really is not a true north or south on a given plane.



Yeah, I just wanted to find a price on a compass to base my "planar compass" on, but I couldn't even find a normal compass in the books.

The compass would only work on the plane it was designed for. Instead of pointing in the directions of N/S/E/W, it would point to the direction of a well known landscapes. They would also be 3-Dimensional depending on which plane it was made for.

But when I couldn't find a compass in the books, I wondered if even a normal compass was too high tech for D&D.


----------



## Linus Lennox (Oct 8, 2006)

Sanackranib said:
			
		

> in a fantasy world a compass is even easier to have then in a low tech world. basically there are several low level spells that grant acces to "north" or a direction ie: locate object, true north etc. in a lot of the 3.0 or 3.5 books and supplements. you just use permenancy and place that spell in ny item with a needle or arrow.





This in turn raises interesting Eberron-type questions about the integration between magic and technology in various campaign settings.  MAkes perfect sense, but something about it says "Harry Potter!!!!" to me, and the grognard in me rejects it.  One reason I don't like Eberron, I guess.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Oct 8, 2006)

Compasses sell for 50g in Praemal (the world of Ptolus), which is entering a dark age and technology is being forgotten. That's probably an appropriate price for something so simple.


----------



## Prince of Happiness (Oct 9, 2006)

Whenever we played a campaign setting that had compasses, we just figured they pointed to what is "Up" or "North" on the map and let it go at that. No whys, hows, or wherefores. Just as long as the damn thing pointed north.


----------



## Mangrum (Oct 9, 2006)

taliesin15 said:
			
		

> FWIW, other methods were more often used as navigation techniques--especially dead reckoning, and the flight of birds near coastlines.




Keep in mind that dead reckoning (the system of charting one's progress by recording current speed and heading at regular intervals) relies on the use of a compass (or, at the very least, some equivalent device for noting one's heading).


----------



## Primitive Screwhead (Oct 9, 2006)

The question I ask when looking at having a compass in the game is... what use will it be?

 Seriously...

 In most worlds directions will be based on natural landmaps.. as will most maps..making the compass pointless. The relative distance/direction on the map may have nothing to do with the real distance/direction. The map will still get you where you need to go as you follow the white sands branch of the river up past three sets of falls, then left at the Wizards Mark {the lightning split boulder} and about 3 days ride {5 on foot} headed towards Carvers Peak...etc...


 In a world where you have proportianal maps, the ones that you can measure distance on rather than a guesstimate, then compasses are worthwhile. 

Personally the concept of North is a very modern on that is used in the game to make it easier on the players.

IMCs, Eberron is the only one that has compasses...its also the only one I use something beyond hand-drawn maps


----------

