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View Full Version : Rules issue, can I blow up the moon?



Codenpeg
2010-09-29, 12:25 PM
I'm playing in a mixed 3.5 and d20 modern game, I've come into two different rules I'm not quite sure are correct.
The first involves C4
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/MSRD:Explosives_and_Splash_Weapons#C4.2FSemtex

Every additional block adds 2' to the blast radius, there is no upper limit on how many blocks you can add. Therefore if I connect enough C4 I can create a blast large enough to hit the moon. I would also note that the reflex save for it remains the same no matter how much I add.

The second rule that has me puzzled is a conflict in the hover rules. The 3.5 DMG says that good and perfect fliers can hover, while the hover feat in 3.5 MM states that only perfect fliers can do so. I check the feat in MM3 and it says good and perfect can hover. I believe its a typo in 3.5 MM. A second opinion is welcomed.

Oh and hello btw, first time poster long time lurker.

Flickerdart
2010-09-29, 12:28 PM
The DMG is the authoritative guide on tactical movement - if it says that they can hover, they can hover. MM is only the authoritative guide on monsters, but PCs can get flight too so it doesn't count. MM3 would overrule it either way.

Kurald Galain
2010-09-29, 12:35 PM
You mean like this? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7a-Vf8CFo4)

Esser-Z
2010-09-29, 12:56 PM
Just don't take more than three days.

Drakevarg
2010-09-29, 01:07 PM
Wouldn't an explosion big enough to blow up the moon from Earth also, y'know... blow up everything else, too? :smallconfused:

Another_Poet
2010-09-29, 01:16 PM
I imagine thyat the core of the moon is under tremendous pressure from all the mass around it, and that anything short of supernova-level explosions is not going to blow it apart.

In other words, all the C4 might shred the outside of it into dust or knock it off-orbit but not remove or shatter the core of the moon.

However I'm not a physicist to YMMV.

ap

jiriku
2010-09-29, 01:25 PM
Yes, you can hit the moon. However, given the distance from the moon the Earth, you'll need approximately 315,000 short tons of C4 to create a sufficiently large blast. Good luck fitting that purchase on your credit card, or gathering that much C4 together and wiring it to blow without getting the police, the FBI, and the national guard on your case. Oh, and you'd better detonate it from a space station. :smallbiggrin:

Tengu_temp
2010-09-29, 01:25 PM
Have fun gathering over 572000 metric tons of C4.

Coidzor
2010-09-29, 01:56 PM
Long story short, you'll need some way of surviving hard vacuumn, some way of getting to the moon, and a burrow speed that leaves a useful space.

Not sure whether being in a vaccumn inside of a tunnel dug into the core of the moon would require additional protections or not.

Of course, if you have such a burrow speed in the first place, you could just, y'know, cut the moon into easily manageable chunks given time and/or numbers.

Undead burrowers would be ideal due to the only problem being getting them onto the moon in the first place.

Talon Sky
2010-09-29, 02:24 PM
I feel a disturbance in the Force, as if a million catgirls cried out in anguish and were suddenly silenced.... ;p

Tyndmyr
2010-09-29, 02:25 PM
Have fun gathering over 572000 metric tons of C4.

Well, as the size of the explosion grows, the number of social situations remaining unsolved approaches zero. I approve of this plan.

erikun
2010-09-29, 02:35 PM
Is there either a misunderstanding or a misstatement in your plan? From what I understand, you plan on detonating enough C4 on the Earth's surface to hit the Moon with the blast radius. I feel compelled to mention that the Earth is around 4000 miles across, while the distance from the Earth to the Moon is around 250,000 miles. As such, you are going to hit everything on the planet Earth in such a blast.

Your C4 has a blast radius of 10' + 2' / additional unit. This Moon is roughly 250,000 miles, or 1,320,000,000 feet away. As such, you would need 659,999,991 charges (about 660 million pounds) to hit the Moon with such a plan.

Of course, it is entirely possible that I misunderstood what you are planning to do. Flying explosives to the Moon would be much more reasonable, but you would need to do more than simply cover the diameter of the satalite with the blast to destroy the Moon completely. (Gravity tends to keep the pieces together where they are, after all.)

Lysander
2010-09-29, 03:57 PM
You would also need to calculate the moon's hitpoints and hardness. I suspect they're both very high.

Coidzor
2010-09-29, 04:09 PM
I think you might be able to crib those figures from the anti-osmium bomb discourse though.

As I'm pretty sure they looked into several celestial bodies.