How threatening are nuclear missiles?

[Schattenbach]

As in ... the versions posted within the official materials (D20 Future has the stats for their 1 MT nuclear missile - i.e. 16d8 energy damage with slightly increased critical hit range -, D20 Future Tech has general rules for when Starship weapons - like missiles - are used for Orbital/Aerial Bombardement, i.e. in case of missiles, they affect something like 15x15 or 20x20 targeted squares as primary area as well as, for half damage, 25x25 or 30x30 squares as secondary area. ... though those conflict with the rules in D20 Apocalypse that give their, slightly altered, nuclear weapons, with that 1 MT missile having much larger AoE split in several effective areas, and the area around the point of impact where things supposedly are destroyed/vaporized, ecetera, while also contaminating a huge junk of land).

So ... lets assume someone who one sufficiently high-level D20 or DnD3.5, like some high-level Acolyt or some Wizard or some Adult Dragon ... when considering what being hit by nuclear weapons would mean for them besides potentially being forced to roll for massive damage), would any of them actually worry about getting hit all that much (or more than getting blasted by some effect that that character would usually be getting blasted by in combat? And if those characters would still dislike getting hit by that, at what point would that kind of attack become extremely non-threatening to them?

[Bad Wolf]

Nuke Damage: have fun.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Remember that the rules in d20 future for a nuclear missile are in the starship section. They're exoatmospheric detonations.

In atmosphere, the same weapon would create a massive shock-wave that would do dramatically more damage.

Generally, I'd expect an in-atmosphere detonation would do damage on the order of 1d<yes> damage.

[Alent]

I think I'd treat a nuclear blast against an individual creature as a coup de grace attack with an 8d3 exploding dice critical modifier bypassing all crit immunity, DR, and hardness and a sufficiently large pool of dice- your initial 16d8 actually doesn't sound bad for this, since damage scales unusually in D20.

You're not really modeling "damage" in the sense that D20 understands it, you're testing to see how dead the victim is. The best way I know to do that is a coup de grace, the exploding dice crit modifier just makes it easier to exceed target HP and then some.

[rmnimoc]

You're looking at 64 damage on average, max of 128. That's really not that much. A young Dragon has decent odds of survival, a young adult won't die unless it crits. I'm not sure sure what the nuke does for crit damage, but at x2 a mature adult can tank it, at x3 it takes an ancient for no chance of death, and at x4 it takes a great wyrm to have no chance of death.

For context, 16d8 is the exact same damage as an old blue dragons breath weapon, and that's a cr18 threat than can drop that attack once every four rounds at minimum. The breath weapon on a dragon has never seemed particularly strong to me, and I'd say your average level 15 party can tank it. Level 10 if they have classes with good hd or good constitution. A cr 13 iron golden can tank it.

That's just over (8 damage) the max falling damage(20d6), and everyone knows how easily high level characters can shrug that off. At level 20 with 18 con a fighter has 280hp, so he can tank 2 nukes. The Tarrasque can tank 7 before he falls down (6 if a nuke ignored dr/epic) and takes 3 rounds to recover from each nuke.

Hope this helps.

Of course using a 50mt nuke as base the damage should probably closer 12000d8 since that properly models the crater depth and such(estimate scaling up from the 15mt nuke I have crater depth for and assuming the ground has the durability of wall of stone).

[Jack_Simth]

Remember that the rules in d20 future for a nuclear missile are in the starship section. They're exoatmospheric detonations.

In atmosphere, the same weapon would create a massive shock-wave that would do dramatically more damage.

Generally, I'd expect an in-atmosphere detonation would do damage on the order of 1d<yes> damage.
Keep in mind: People walked out of the rubble from ground zero in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Most (not all!) of them died over the next few days, weeks, months, and years from radiation sickness, but luck and chance permitted normal humans to survive the events (a small number are still kicking around today). Luck is one of the things HP is specifically designed to model.

So yes, a reasonably equipped 20th level Barbarian or a naked Great Wyrm dragon should usually survive a point-blank nuking if they're at full health when they start. 16d8 (possibly "reflex half" with a very high DC to account for standard human survivors - Rogue-2 and Monk-2 is well within range of what you might see in a city, and they'll live through a reflex half event if they roll a 20) isn't a bad way to simulate that. Plus, of course, it corrupts the land so there should likely be a fort save vs. some form of radiation sickness.....

[Kelb_Panthera]

Keep in mind: People walked out of the rubble from ground zero in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Most (not all!) of them died over the next few days, weeks, months, and years from radiation sickness, but luck and chance permitted normal humans to survive the events (a small number are still kicking around today). Luck is one of the things HP is specifically designed to model.

So yes, a reasonably equipped 20th level Barbarian or a naked Great Wyrm dragon should usually survive a point-blank nuking if they're at full health when they start. 16d8 (possibly "reflex half" with a very high DC to account for standard human survivors - Rogue-2 and Monk-2 is well within range of what you might see in a city, and they'll live through a reflex half event if they roll a 20) isn't a bad way to simulate that. Plus, of course, it corrupts the land so there should likely be a fort save vs. some form of radiation sickness.....

Those unfortunates only survived on account of cover. There was -something- between the and the weapon to mitigate the shockwave at the edges of the blast-zone. The guy five feet from where the bomb actually hit the ground was just so-much ash and vapor before he even knew what that whistling sound was. I really don't see a dragon or sub-epic barbarian doing any better if they take a literal nuke to the face, as distinct from merely being somewhere in the effective blast-zone.

[theasl]

Then again, Little Boy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy) (Hiroshima) was only about 15 kilotons, and Fat Man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man) (Nagasaki) was about 20-21 KT. The one statted out is 1 megaton, which is about 50 times as powerful as Fat Man. 1 MT is just slightly less than the most powerful nuke in modern US service (B83 nuclear bomb (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B83_nuclear_bomb), at 1.2 MT). Due to an obvious lack of testing on people and especially dragons, we're not really sure what exactly would happen with the increased yield.

[gooddragon1]

Those unfortunates only survived on account of cover. There was -something- between the and the weapon to mitigate the shockwave at the edges of the blast-zone. The guy five feet from where the bomb actually hit the ground was just so-much ash and vapor before he even knew what that whistling sound was. I really don't see a dragon or sub-epic barbarian doing any better if they take a literal nuke to the face, as distinct from merely being somewhere in the effective blast-zone.

If you treat the radiation damage as fire damage (since it's exciting the particles which is in a way what fire does) a red dragon could take the heat. The shockwave would be a problem, but a well timed time hop could take care of that. Alternatively, being incorporeal would take care of all those problems. So a ghost dragon would do just fine. So would a ghost barbarian.

[Jack_Simth]

Those unfortunates only survived on account of cover. There was -something- between the and the weapon to mitigate the shockwave at the edges of the blast-zone.
A five-foot thick slab of rock has just 900 hp. If it's doing rocks fall levels of no-save no-immunity damage, that'd be vapor too. And yet, people walked out of the rubble. Sure, it does standard-human vaporizing damage... but a decent charger build does similar pink mist damage.

Also: You may want to actually look up some of the survivor stories. The bloke that got carried by the blastwave into the water didn't exactly have very good cover.

The guy five feet from where the bomb actually hit the ground was just so-much ash and vapor before he even knew what that whistling sound was.Neither bomb was permitted to hit the ground. Both were detonated in the air.
I really don't see a dragon or sub-epic barbarian doing any better if they take a literal nuke to the face, as distinct from merely being somewhere in the effective blast-zone.If your ideas about what HP represents are sufficiently distinct from mine that you can't see a Great Wyrm surviving, let's use the metagame reason, then:
"No save just die" isn't very fun for most players, and fun is the point of the game.

[Deophaun]

Actually, if the D20 rules are exoatmospheric, then they would better model the "nuke to the face" damage model, because you pretty much have to hit what you are targeting to do more than just give it a gentle nudge.

Otherwise, history does say that rogue space is a realistic way to survive nuke explosions. Just not fridge space.

[ngilop]

I highly advise against trying to incorporate real world stuffs into make belive land. Yes according to D&D a dragon laughs as a nuke that only does 16d8 damage at 1 megaton.


But I mean even Little Boy did a lot more damage than that. Yes while there are extreme cases of insane luck, Most everything within a mile radius around the center of impact was destroyed, except for a handful of reinfroced and earthquak proof buildings.


while some guy may have according to jack smith been at the epicenter and somehwo got knocked into a lake and lived.

the truh is peole a quarter of a mile near the epicenter literraly were obliterated, leaving only a shadow, A FREGGIN SHADOW, as their body's absorbed the heat that bleched the surrounded ennvironment.

a 1 megaton nuke would create a crater about 2,800 feat in diamater and around 250 feet deep 2 miles out from the epicenter only reinforced concrete buildings would be standing, with your average wooden family house would all be sdestroyed out to about 6 miles. Really the big thing is the amount of overpressure the explosion will cause, then the massive heat wave.. then the fallout is basically insult to injury.

take a look at this.. it wikipedia so take it for what its worth,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions#Summary_of_the_effec ts

[flappeercraft]

They would not be worried at all, 16d8 is like no damage for a decently high level character and many effects could protect from it such as Wings of cover, Wall of force, etherealness, etc. In any case I would actually instead treat a Nuke as a Area effect Maximized disintegrate with no SR or Save. For more powerful nukes add 20 damage for each MT.

[rmnimoc]

Then again, Little Boy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy) (Hiroshima) was only about 15 kilotons, and Fat Man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man) (Nagasaki) was about 20-21 KT. The one statted out is 1 megaton, which is about 50 times as powerful as Fat Man. 1 Mhave mreoT is just slightly less than the most powerful nuke in modern US service (B83 nuclear bomb (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B83_nuclear_bomb), at 1.2 MT). Due to an obvious lack of testing on people and especially dragons, we're not really sure what exactly would happen with the increased yield.

Wait is it a 1mt bomb? Whoops, my numbers are a bit high for the damage it should do then. A 1mt bomb would have a crater depth of around 300ft (3600 in) so the damage should be closer to 82,800dmg(54,000 if nukes ignore hardness). 10,000d8 in a 750ft radius would probably be the best way to model it (Note: This all assumes a surface detonation. This is just immediate damage from the shockwave of the explosion. You'd also have a 16.4 thousand foot radius fireball, but the damage from that, the radiation, and outside the 750 ft area is a lot harder to assign damage to. Pretty much every commoner in a 7000 ft radius would be dead though, but people who made a reflex save outside the 750 ft radius could survive, though they're gonna want to find a cleric to do something about the radiation really fast. You'd also have some pretty minor fire damage[minor by comparison anyway, it's still enough for 3rd degree burns] out to 32000ft[reflex save for no damage, LOE, however much damage a guaranteed third degree burn is]. You've also got a 8000 foot radius of radiation [probably best modeled as a constitution poison or something, around DC 20 1 con damage, with the save required each hour until you get aid{average person has a 50-90% chance of death without treatment in either hours or weeks depending on your constitution}]. You've also got a fort/die at 6200-8000 feet that's DC 50 18 con damage with the save required each hour until you get aid[I'd also give a reflex save to cut the fort save by half, outside LOE is counted as auto-making the reflex, average person is almost guaranteed to die without cover, and still almost guaranteed to die with it. You'd get 5000REM, enough to just start flat out killing your cells instead of just damaging your DNA, the cells making up your heart and brain just die, not really sure how to model that though, so I'd give it DC 50.] Personally I'd rule that unless you've got some way to survive every cell in your body simultaneously dying and you're within 6000 ft, your just dead. I'd give the fireball max fireball damage in tiers out to the 16k ft, with damage dropping from 10d6 at point blank by 1d6 every 2k feet. Same reflex save as the spell fireball.)

Not really sure why I bothered mathing that all out. You can check out NUKEMAP (http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/) if you're curious what changing the yield would do.

TLDR: A level 10 fighter can tank a nuke according to the game stats and if he was at least 800 feet away he probably could tank the blast wave by real life numbers, but IRL he'd want to be at least 6000 feet away unless he wanted no-save just die from radiation, he'd also take fireball damage, and he'd probably be poisoned by the radiation. Also, cover pretty much doubles your chances to survive at any distance (simulated by reflex save to find cover). That said, 0*2 is still 0, so stay at least 6000 ft away.


If you treat the radiation damage as fire damage (since it's exciting the particles which is in a way what fire does) a red dragon could take the heat. The shockwave would be a problem, but a well timed time hop could take care of that. Alternatively, being incorporeal would take care of all those problems. So a ghost dragon would do just fine. So would a ghost barbarian.

You are completely right for the thermal radiation (should be out to 32000 ft), but completely wrong for the ionizing radiation(8000ft). It's not adding exciting the particles, it's ionizing them, pounding them with so much force that it rips the electrons straight off of them. Personally I'd call it a con-poison, but if I didn't I'd say it's way closer to negative energy than fire. That's not to say it's actually like negative energy, because it's not, but it's got as much to do with fire damage as a spear of ice. Incorporeal things are fine though unless you rule the pressure wave as force damage (I wouldn't personally).

Time hop would be a bad idea unless you're high enough level to dodge an entire two weeks, since you'd dodge the shock-wave and the ionizing radiation at point blank would be 90000000 rads within 500ft of the explosion. Within two days that's down to 900000, and 9000 after two weeks. Radiation is scary.

[Schattenbach]

Thanks for the answers.

So, going only based on the 16d8 damage listed, high level creatures could laugh it of (though as it is untyped energy damage, energy immunity still wouldn#t apply), as it wouldn#t be that much more threatening (and less threatening than certain Starship weapons set on outfire) than other blast spells of comparable level, isn't it? Though I#m not so sure about how high or what the crit multplier of nuclear weapons (or Starship weapons in general) would be like as I don't remember any listings for that expect the special table about rolling how affected starships are by that critical hit (though that table includes things like severe critical hits with 10x multiplier as well as things like crew fatalities among supporting GM characters).

There are actually also (besides the stuff in regard to blast radius) rules there (in D20 Apocalypse) for how strong the Flash radiation (with reduced exposure through the hardness of cover and how far away from point zero any creature is ... without cover) is during and how the radiation contamination developes over time ... it's interesting to note that there isn't any listed radiation exposure for the flash radiation within crater radius, only for the effect zone thereafter, in which characters (without cover) are affected as it is usually the case when coming close enough to severally radiactive materials (i.e. mildly decent fortitude safe or suffer some remotely threatening Con damage through radiation sickness ... though I'm not so sure if there's only two instances of damage or if the damage applies until treatened) for only one round (I guess that after that, the table with regular radiactive area contamination for nuclear blast sites applies).

So either the radiation exposure is lethal (as there's no listed stats for that) for any regular target or they simply assumed that no regular character would manage to survive the (energy) damage (and would therefore be "vaporized" by it, as the designers of that D20 Apocalypse book assumed here, I guess)?

About another issue now that I think about it... is that 1 mt nuke actually powerful enough to create an crater to begin with its listed 16d8 energy damage to begin with? Stone is surprisingly hard to destroy, after all ... but at the same time, pretty much any part of the surface would be hit by the blast, so would it make more sense to apply that damage for each cubic metre (or inch) of material (though vehicles, robots and spaceships operate on their own central HP pool anyway and would thus not be bothered much more by it as when directly hit by it) instead and to let it spread until either the limit of its stated crater radius (or until its otherwise stopped by something it couldn't destroy)?

As specific trumps general, would other nuclear missile-like weapons (i.e. Plasma Missiles and such most certainly aren't described like that ... but the PL7 Mass Reaction Missiles that, with their Anti-Matter reaction, are described as more powerful but more focused nuclear blast, most certainly is), once the rules that don't conflict with D20 Futures rules apply, also work the same way (and there are thus rules for Antimatter bombs to work with)?

Now that I think about it ... what (for those within the crater radius at least) would happen once the cover someone hides (if that creature actually needs to bother with finding cover to begin with, like some Ancient Dragon) behind would be destroyed and while the damage within the blast radius seems pretty obvious (i.e. regular full damage with reflex for half, I guess?), the damage for whatever is outside of the crater radius isn't that clear (likely full or half damage with reflex for reducing the damage by half further?)?

[flappeercraft]

For the damage to areas and making it actually a threat just do as I suggested and treat it as an area disintegrate as disintegrate IIRC destroys objects and destroys a 10ft cube of them. If it is an area effect and it lingers it would be made to destroy 10ft deep/wide per round the blast lasts, would do damage threatening to high CR creatures, etc

[rmnimoc]

Stuff

The stuff about d20 Apocalypse is interesting, I'll have to check it out sometime
Pretty much. As for the radiation in the crater, remember my 90000000 rad thing? Yeah. Forget the flash radiation, that crater is going to be more radioactive for two weeks than the flash radiation in the instantly fatal radiation area. If you walked into the crater, you'd die. Instantly. Well, not really, since odds are you wouldn't be able to make it to the crater because the radiation from walking there would leave you semi-conscious and dying from brain hemorrhaging and heart failure long before you reached it, but my point stands.

Stone takes 23 damage to destroy per inch of depth(15 if it ignored hardness), so a 16d8 bomb could only make like a 6 inch deep crater. That's really not impressive.

If you took cover and the cover was destroyed by the blast, you'd actually be in better shape than you'd think IRL. The bit that likely destroyed your cover was the blast wave and the wind sweeping out from the blast, and that means you've already had cover from the radiation, plus the fact that the cover still absorbed some of the blast wave might help (depending on the type of cover and distance to the explosion it might not, since if you're using it for cover it's almost certainly flying at you if it'd count as "destroyed". Most people who died from the Hiroshima blast survived the pressure wave but were crushed by the debris it carried, so YMMV).

A 10x crit damage multiplier would make the nuke scary again if that's what it is, since the number of things that can hypothetically tank 1280 damage is a whole lot smaller than can tank 128. As in it one shots the tarrasque and I don't think there's any non-pc thing that can tank it pre-epic.

As for other bombs really being similar, no. Though they are almost certainly under-powered compared to how they should be, nuclear bombs are a special kind of bull**** when it comes to screwing over living things, and no one is completely sure what the effects of a large scale anti-matter reaction would really be.

[martixy]

It's always amusing when these reality vs fantasy arguments crop up.

People always have to be reminded that D&D is, by necessity, HIGHLY reductionist.

So if you want to model that under such constraints, you go with the most prevalent statistics.

Here's the things I see a nuke being:
1. Damage ignores material hardness.
2. I'd put total damage at at least 20d6(max falling damage).
3. The attack would consist of the following components:
a) Within a good range of ground zero reflex save fairly low DC, or blindness. [The flash produced by a detonation is bright enough to blind unprotected onlookers.]
b) Fire damage, burst, no or special save with high DC(no evasion) (thermal radiation) [Extremely high in close direct-line-of-sight, but subject to the Inverse-Square law.]
c) Bludgeoning damage (blast shockwave) Because liquid-filled objects like the human body are resistant to gross overpressure, the 4–5 psi blast overpressure would cause very few direct casualties at a range of c. 600 m. The powerful winds produced by this overpressure, however, could throw bodies into objects or throw debris at high velocity, including window glass, both with potentially lethal results. Casualties would be highly variable depending on surroundings, including potential building collapses. [This explains people getting thrown into water bodies and things someone mention, without getting killed.]
d) Non-lethal damage within Line of Sight (non-ionizing/neutron radiation) [The neutron radiation component
e) Disease, slow Con/Str damage, uniformly high DCs (ionizing radiation) [Mechanically, diseases fit the condition most closely]
f) Secondary damage resulting from the destruction of the environment(falling, collapses, knockback, etc). [There's a reason it's called "the locate city nuke"]

[EisenKreutzer]

Nuclear weapons are never detonated at ground level. They are always detonated in the air above the target zone, to maximize the impact of the shock wave.

Something to keep in mind.

[Keltest]

Remember that the rules in d20 future for a nuclear missile are in the starship section. They're exoatmospheric detonations.

In atmosphere, the same weapon would create a massive shock-wave that would do dramatically more damage.

Generally, I'd expect an in-atmosphere detonation would do damage on the order of 1d<yes> damage.

This pretty much summarizes up my thoughts here. Darths and Droids recently had a strip on how some systems weren't designed to operate together, using the example of a medium stick doing more damage than a blaster pistol in the "same" system (two different supplements for the same rule framework). A starship hull can reasonably be assumed to be more durable than a person, no matter how barbaric and tough they are, and they just didn't bother writing up the stats to the same scale.

[rmnimoc]

Stuff

Yeah, I probably go a bit overboard with these things, but I've had broken SOD called from stuff often enough that trying to model reality better is just something I do at this point. Probably doesn't hurt that I enjoy physics and my players tend to as well.

Can't believe I forgot about diseases when I was modeling radiation damage, I feel a bit silly now.

20d6 has a lower cap than 16d8, but I suppose the higher floor would do some good.

If I were seriously going to use it in a game I'd probably say that within the crater is dead, outside it is 30d6 untyped & 20d6 fire (reflex half), then your idea of -con/str damage disease (probably DC 40~50), double tornado effect for 1 round, and everyone with LOS makes a reflex save or is blinded for a week.

Also in addition to the thing about nukes being detonated in the air, the thing about maximizing the blast wave isn't the only reason. Fallout is the number one reason. The wave may destroy more buildings if it's the air, but the now radioactive debris being flung at speeds in excess of 700mph (especially the dirt and ash that can be carried by the wind) will kill significantly more people over a significantly larger area(airbusts do a wonderful job of limiting fallout thanks to blasting things down and not up). That makes it dangerous not just to the target, but to everyone downwind of them. Since a 700mph blast out from the nuke in all directions and messes with natural wind for a few days, that means if America detonated those bombs on the ground there is a very real chance the fallout would have caused deaths in the West Coast of America.

[Templarkommando]

A lot of this needs to be subject to the rule of fun. As a GM, I would really try to refrain from nuking my party unless we're in very specific circumstances. If you're talking about ship-to-ship battles, the damage numbers have probably been tested to create a level of challenge and playability for people in future campaigns, and there are similar considerations when you're looking at post-apocalypse scenarios. Your weapon isn't really a nuclear bomb in-game, it just gives the impression of one. A real nuclear bomb is much much scarier.

My cursory research shows that the immediate blast radius around ground zero reaches something like 100,000,000 degrees Celsius. If you are in the blast radius of a nuclear bomb, you basically don't survive, and you're vaporized. As you move out from the immediate zone of the reaction, you start dealing with explosive pressures. Depending on distance from the blast and the strength of the bomb, you're talking about pressures anywhere between 6.9 kPa and 345 kPa just for a 1 kiloton device. You might could deal with 6.9 kPa of pressure, but 35 kPa starts causing a lot of damage to houses, and 55 kPa is sufficient to destroy all wooden and brick residential structures. These pressures start to damage human tissue just by being pressure at some point and cause damage at the junction between tissue and bone, and then also between tissue and air. 70 kPa starts causing major lung damage, and ear drums start rupturing around 22 kPa, though some can resist as high as 130 kPa. Depending on elevation of the zone, blast winds can reach as high as 1000 miles per hour. An F5 Tornado reaches wind speeds of around 318 miles per hour and doesn't leave anything except hardened structures standing.

In the weeks, months and years after a blast like this, there are still after effects. The reaction of the blast releases radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere which then drift down into the water and soil, though some stay in the air. Isotopes like Strontium-90 actually binds to your bones like calcium and gives you cancer and leukemia and things like that. Caesium 134 and 137 will wash out of your system, but a single dose of 3.8 millicuries is lethal to dogs inside of a week. When the bomb detonates, the reaction sends all of these isotopes into the atmosphere which later falls out of the air. (Hence the term fallout.) The local area is more closely blanketed with these isotopes, but there is a global effect as well. Tests in the forties and fifties started detecting increasing levels of these radioactive isotopes in the air. Nuclear testing has been kind of restrained for a while now, so the levels are returning to normal, but the increasing levels can also cause leukemia and cancer and so forth on a higher level for years to come. You'll also get flare-ups from nuclear accidents like Chernobyl or Fukushima.

Again, that's what happens realistically, and not in terms of gameplay.

[martixy]

Yeah, I probably go a bit overboard with these things, but I've had broken SOD called from stuff often enough that trying to model reality better is just something I do at this point. Probably doesn't hurt that I enjoy physics and my players tend to as well.

Can't believe I forgot about diseases when I was modeling radiation damage, I feel a bit silly now.

20d6 has a lower cap than 16d8, but I suppose the higher floor would do some good.

If I were seriously going to use it in a game I'd probably say that within the crater is dead, outside it is 30d6 untyped & 20d6 fire (reflex half), then your idea of -con/str damage disease (probably DC 40~50), double tornado effect for 1 round, and everyone with LOS makes a reflex save or is blinded for a week.

Also in addition to the thing about nukes being detonated in the air, the thing about maximizing the blast wave isn't the only reason. Fallout is the number one reason. The wave may destroy more buildings if it's the air, but the now radioactive debris being flung at speeds in excess of 700mph (especially the dirt and ash that can be carried by the wind) will kill significantly more people over a significantly larger area(airbusts do a wonderful job of limiting fallout thanks to blasting things down and not up). That makes it dangerous not just to the target, but to everyone downwind of them. Since a 700mph blast out from the nuke in all directions and messes with natural wind for a few days, that means if America detonated those bombs on the ground there is a very real chance the fallout would have caused deaths in the West Coast of America.

Oh. Did not even notice it's a d8. TBH I enjoy physics as well. I've just drawn a very clear line when it comes to D&D. And I also enjoy game design.
I have a saying, that I've repeated both here and in other places time and time again(maybe I should just sig it):
Game design is an exercise in compromise.

For D&D, this is expressed in: Accuracy until it begins to compromise gameplay and simplicity.

I myself imagine similar numbers. If we break it down by damage source:
Blast: use a d12 die;
- higher variability since we're talking about air pressure, which is highly sensitive to environmental conditions. Also, untyped works, but it seems to me there should be sonic somewhere in there. Maybe half-and-half. For reference, here's a decibel chart (http://www.makeitlouder.com/Decibel%20Level%20Chart.txt) - remember that it is a logarithmic scale, so every 10 db increase is a 10x increase in power. Here's the entry for 183db:183 (P) = 6 P.S.I. TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF ALL STRUCTURES, PARTICLE VELOCITY
(BLAST WIND) IS 180 MILES PER HOUR. 0.9 MILES FROM HIROSHIMA ATOMIC BOMB
AND 3.3 MILES FROM 1MEGATON NUCLEAR BOMB, LESS 0.1 % OBJECT SURVIVAL -REF.2.
Thermal radiation: nothing wrong with a buttload of d6s.

Ground zero = vaporized.
Past that you could define an additional 2-3 damage zones, potentially allowing saves only in the outer ones.
Maybe something like 120/300/600/1200 ft per 10 kilotons.

For radiation poisoning... well, in D&D it's fairly easy to get rid of, or become immune to diseases, but the mechanic of making continual saves is what I was specifically looking for. I'd put it at no less than 3 consecutive saves, weekly with a d6 con damage and d4 str damage each proc.

[Zancloufer]

Should probably do at least 3-4 different "attacks". Initial Sonic/Blunt Shockwave, an untyped blast and maybe some fire/heat damage after that. Easily doing 40-60 dice worth of damage. Enough to kill all but the toughest of pre-epic things, but still not a guaranteed death to everything. More Kilotons = bigger AoE. Maybe make it do 50% more vs objects. That way it would wreck 80% of stone buildings but you'd still have some debris intact.

I would do Radiation as some sort of Poison that stacks. Something like 1d2 Con/Str/Dex damage every ~week you fail a save and you need 3 consecutive saves in a row to be 'cured' of it. Also should let it stack, make a new stack (no save) every day your inside the irradiated area. Would make it worse for those who stick around it, but still theoretically possible for super tough things to survive it.

[johnbragg]

Nuclear weapons are never detonated at ground level. They are always detonated in the air above the target zone, to maximize the impact of the shock wave.

Something to keep in mind.

During the Cold War (and likely still), US nuclear war plans included thousands of ground detonatios to assure destruction of things like missile silos that had been built to hopefully survive nuclear strikes. Generally three warheads each if it was "hardened".

Judging by what the Soviets built, they probably had similar plans.

Megaton Air bursts if you want to wipe out a city. Multiple Hundreds-of-kiloton Ground bursts if you want to hit some particular target.

[EisenKreutzer]

During the Cold War (and likely still), US nuclear war plans included thousands of ground detonatios to assure destruction of things like missile silos that had been built to hopefully survive nuclear strikes. Generally three warheads each if it was "hardened".

Judging by what the Soviets built, they probably had similar plans.

Megaton Air bursts if you want to wipe out a city. Multiple Hundreds-of-kiloton Ground bursts if you want to hit some particular target.

I bow to your superior knowldge of surgical nuclear strikes.

[johnbragg]

As in ... the versions posted within the official materials (D20 Future has the stats for their 1 MT nuclear missile - i.e. 16d8 energy damage with slightly increased critical hit range -, D20 Future Tech has general rules for when Starship weapons - like missiles - are used for Orbital/Aerial Bombardement, i.e. in case of missiles, they affect something like 15x15 or 20x20 targeted squares as primary area as well as, for half damage, 25x25 or 30x30 squares as secondary area. ... though those conflict with the rules in D20 Apocalypse that give their, slightly altered, nuclear weapons, with that 1 MT missile having much larger AoE split in several effective areas, and the area around the point of impact where things supposedly are destroyed/vaporized, ecetera, while also contaminating a huge junk of land).

So ... lets assume someone who one sufficiently high-level D20 or DnD3.5, like some high-level Acolyt or some Wizard or some Adult Dragon ... when considering what being hit by nuclear weapons would mean for them besides potentially being forced to roll for massive damage), would any of them actually worry about getting hit all that much (or more than getting blasted by some effect that that character would usually be getting blasted by in combat? And if those characters would still dislike getting hit by that, at what point would that kind of attack become extremely non-threatening to them?

Back to OP after many good posts. So a nuclear air burst (let's say we're not targeting the dragon).
DC 15 reflex save vs blindness from the flash.
Model the shockwave as no-save maximized disintegrate for 20d6=120 damage, which is tankable. (Real world physics stops at 100 hp, IMO).
Model the radiation as a DC 30 poison save every hour for -2 Con.
And, there's a very good chance that an airburst over a city triggers a firestorm for a few hours. Treat as a fire-dominant planar effect--3d10 fire damage per round for maybe d% rounds.

If this is a magical setting, I'd say that the immolation of a city this way triggers a transformation to a minor negative-dominant planar effect area, sucking d6 damage per round.

[Schattenbach]

Thanks for the help so far.

I#m going to respond to individual posts sometime this sunday.

Ground zero = vaporized or destroyed isn't going to work according to the rule context, though ... because Starship weapons (including nuclear missiles and "worse" things) can also be used against creatures in Starship combat and still do their regular (albeit high) energy/ballistic/whatever damage and there's no reason behind why ... and while some of the Starship weapons mention things like ...


MISSILE, KE SUBMUNITION (PL 6)

This warhead consists of a bundle of dozens or even hundreds of tungsten steel darts, each mounted on small rocket motors. As the weapon approaches its target, the warhead splits open, unleashing a lethal hail of high-velocity metal arrows. The impact alone can vaporize several square yards of heavy armor.


PLASMA CANNON (PL 7)

Using a powerful electrical charge to convert a mix of chemicals into white-hot plasma, this weapon then accelerates the plasma mass toward the target with a simple rail gun. The result is a bolt of incandescent plasma that can explosively vaporize objects in its path.

PLASMA CANNON, HEAVY (PL 7)

This weapon is simply a larger version of the plasma cannon.

... they still only do their regular damage against starships (and mechas ... and creatures, I guess).

As for attempts to use something (based on the rule context presented) ...

... that's slightly difficult but still seems possible.

So ... without taking criticals into account (because the starship weapon Table in D20 Future lacks stats for the critical multiplier and I didn#t find the errata ...
and also because I#m assuming that it doesn#t directly hit anything - i.e. it targets some empty square with 10 touch AC to hit as ranged touch attack ... which also saves
the hassle to think about what happens if the target's touch AC isn't breached - due to its regular detonation setup), here's some interpretation of what (using the rules as
found in D20 Future/D20 Future Tech and D20 Apocalypse) the damage might look like for that kind of nuclear strike ...

For the Crater Zone (up until ~500 metres in this case?) ... it's 16d8 (average is 72?) energy damage (i.e. full damage),
for the Devastation Zone (where most structures have been leveled; up until ~2km away from impact or is it the distance between the zones?) ... it's 8d8 (average is 36?) energy
damage (there are no actual rules for that, it's based on assumptions due to the Orbital Bombardement Rules & the description of the destructive effects in that zone in D20 Apocalypse),
for the Destruction Zone (where most structures took heavily damaged or have been destroyed; up until ~4km away from impact or is it the distance between the zones?)... it's 4d8
(average is 18?) energy damage (there are no actual rules for that, it's based on assumptions due to the Orbital Bombardement Rules & the description of the destructive effects in
that zone in D20 Apocalypse), for the Damage Zone (where most structures still took at least some damage and where many people - lets assume there's talk about Commoners and such -
survive but many others still die; up until ~8km away from impact or is it the distance between the zones?) ... it's 2d8 (average is 9?) energy damage (there are no actual rules for
that, it's based on assumptions due to the Orbital Bombardement Rules & the description of the destructive effects in that zone in D20 Apocalypse)

That energy damage doesn't bypass hardness (and Starship combat also concerns destroying meteroids and such, so stone is prelevant as well as far as starship combat goes) as far
as I could tell, so hardness still applies as usual.

The average HP of some low-level character (5th level or below) isn't that high (it's somewhat hard to find anyone with more than 10 HP when most of the polulation is low level NPC-type characters with bad NPC classes), so they obviously easily die depending on how high the actual roll is going to be and such.
When structures (and the ground) take their respective damage per inch and the damage spreads within that respective radius until something completely stops within that direction
at that part of the blast (like something extremely though that somehow isn't destroyed by taking the damage that's being dealt to everything hit), then these numbers (as far as
structural damage is concerned) do seem reasonable. Characters could (and though that isn#t striclty necessary ... as seen with the comment about the starship weapons on Autofire
below) get an Reflex Save (that's static and quite low) for Half Damage, though, as it is the case with the Orbital Bombardement Rules from D20 Future Tech. As for critical hits ...
as it targets an area with an ranged touch attack, it should be able to deal critical damage, shouldn't it? Once someone found out what critical multipier actually applies for
nuclear missiles, one could try to figure out to what effect zones (or targeted area, which could be defined as the entire Crater Zone, I guess, or even the entire affected area)
are subject to that potential critical hit (the severe critical hit modifier listed as potential optional critical hit result with 10x multiplier might not really apply here, after
all, it doesn't look like anything is getting - more or less - directly hit by some nuclear missile here as it is the case when it comes to Starship combat).

As mentioned before, there are actual rules for the flash radiation, for the radioactive contamination of the area for the following years (though I don't think there are rules
directly for the radiation after that) as well as rules for the fallout (though the actual fallout ... and weather effects, too, I guess ... are left in the hands of each GM about
how he applies it as it is meant to be an random element ... its hard to predict where the fallout would be transported to by wind currents, and such, after all). As mentioned
before, there aren't any rules (or if they exist, I missed them) for radiation exposure in the Crater Zone directly through the impact (or the minutes/hours after the impact,
I guess), but for the weeks/months (and maybe years) after that, for that there are rules found in the there. So what happens to those in there ... I don't know, I guess. They
should at least suffer as much as those within the zones further away ... One could theoretically also apply the rules for those who, while unprotected, are subject to Cosmic Rays
(i.e. they are directly considered to be highly irradiated) or Solar Flares (i.e. they are directly considered to be severely irradiated) (as stated here https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/MSRD:Environment_and_Hazards#STELLAR_HAZARDS) ... which means they have to make an Fortitude save or will develope one of the two highest radiation sickness found in the D20 Future rules for that (found here https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/MSRD:Environment_and_Hazards#SPACE_ENVIRONMENTS)

I would also (as far as mass destruction goes) like to point out the Autofire rules for starship weapons (found here: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/MSRD:Starships#Starship_Weapons_on_Autofire ... though they are obviously meant for combat in space, which causes some of the issues noted below), as they are of particular interest for the effect of nuclear missiles and the like as far as them causing area of effect damage goes.

Such starship weapons potentially hit everything in the targeted 1000x1000 feet area if they hit that area (touch AC of 10) and the ships (though one might argue about what would considered to be an ship in this case) in that area have to make an DC 15 Pilot check (I guess the Starship weapons shot lots and lots of attacks into the area at once ... and there#s an penalty based on the ships size on the check) to or take the weapon's damage (no save or anything like that) and there's nothing there that says that the starshipweapons can't crit on that kind of attack. Now there are three arguments to make ... either only Starships (or things that move at their speed) have to make an skill check to avoid damage and everything else is fine, or creatures (though it's unclear what happens to objects and such) also have to make an skill check (though I doubt most of them have the pilot skill) as
the integration of creatures into starship combat implies to also treat them as (though pretty small and slow) starships or, and that's the most favourable case for the attacker, e
verything in the area that isn#t a ship doesn#t get to make that pilot check and simply has to eat the damage (when considering that the Lasers, Needle Drivers, Gauss Guns, Plasma
Cannons and Heavy Plasma Cannons should be quite hard to avoid when used en mass as literal rain of destruction) ... including structures and the ground ... which would probavly
raze the entire area as standard action as starship weapons are quite powerful.

Edit: Fixed some mistake (the most glaring one being that it's supposed to be ~500 metres for the Crater Zone)

[Avianmosquito]

I remember in an old D20 modern homebrew nuclear weapons dealing XYd6 in Y miles, where X was the number, Y was the units (1 for kilotonnes, 10 for megatonnes), and while it was kinda sloppy it did well for gameplay without getting into inverse cubic progression like an actual explosion would. That meant a 20 kilotonne explosion would deal 20d6 within 1km, and a 20 megatonne explosion would deal 200d6 within 10km. Later, it got reduced somewhat so the megaton-scale bombs only dealt 10x damage in 1km within 1km and 1x damage outside that, (IE: 20MT dealt 200d6 in 1km and 20d6 up to 10km) and that actually worked better.

It's a good system, and it largely matches up with real nuclear detonations. Use it or don't.

[Templarkommando]

I don't know if it contributes to the conversation or not, but a really cool fact about nuclear war is how crazy people took it in the 50s and 60s. The U.S. had a tripod mounted "gun" called a Davy Crockett that was conceived to be used by infantry in the event of a nuclear war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)

There's also a device called an Atomic Annie that was a 280 mm cannon that shot nuclear artillery rounds. The only one that was ever tested is housed in an artillery Museum about an hour away from where I live.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M65_atomic_cannon

In 1957, they got a few air force officers to stand underneath a nuclear detonation that happened at about 20,000 feet in the air. The last guy from that group that stood under the detonation died back in 2014.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob

[martixy]

I don't know if it contributes to the conversation or not, but a really cool fact about nuclear war is how crazy people took it in the 50s and 60s. The U.S. had a tripod mounted "gun" called a Davy Crockett that was conceived to be used by infantry in the event of a nuclear war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)

There's also a device called an Atomic Annie that was a 280 mm cannon that shot nuclear artillery rounds. The only one that was ever tested is housed in an artillery Museum about an hour away from where I live.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M65_atomic_cannon

In 1957, they got a few air force officers to stand underneath a nuclear detonation that happened at about 20,000 feet in the air. The last guy from that group that stood under the detonation died back in 2014.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob

All of which reminds me of any number of Command & Conquer games, mostly Red Alert and Generals.

[Templarkommando]

All of which reminds me of any number of Command & Conquer games, mostly Red Alert and Generals.

There is a heavy gun in the Fallout series called the Fat Man that is based on the Davy Crockett.

[Schattenbach]

Thanks again for the answers and sorry for the late reply.


As for attempts to use something (based on the rule context presented) ...

... that's slightly difficult but still seems possible.

So ... without taking criticals into account (because the starship weapon Table in D20 Future lacks stats for the critical multiplier and I didn#t find the errata ...
and also because I#m assuming that it doesn#t directly hit anything - i.e. it targets some empty square with 10 touch AC to hit as ranged touch attack ... which also saves
the hassle to think about what happens if the target's touch AC isn't breached - due to its regular detonation setup), here's some interpretation of what (using the rules as
found in D20 Future/D20 Future Tech and D20 Apocalypse) the damage might look like for that kind of nuclear strike ...

For the Crater Zone (up until ~500 metres in this case?) ... it's 16d8 (average is 72?) energy damage (i.e. full damage),
for the Devastation Zone (where most structures have been leveled; up until ~2km away from impact or is it the distance between the zones?) ... it's 8d8 (average is 36?) energy
damage (there are no actual rules for that, it's based on assumptions due to the Orbital Bombardement Rules & the description of the destructive effects in that zone in D20 Apocalypse),
for the Destruction Zone (where most structures took heavily damaged or have been destroyed; up until ~4km away from impact or is it the distance between the zones?)... it's 4d8
(average is 18?) energy damage (there are no actual rules for that, it's based on assumptions due to the Orbital Bombardement Rules & the description of the destructive effects in
that zone in D20 Apocalypse), for the Damage Zone (where most structures still took at least some damage and where many people - lets assume there's talk about Commoners and such -
survive but many others still die; up until ~8km away from impact or is it the distance between the zones?) ... it's 2d8 (average is 9?) energy damage (there are no actual rules for
that, it's based on assumptions due to the Orbital Bombardement Rules & the description of the destructive effects in that zone in D20 Apocalypse)

That energy damage doesn't bypass hardness (and Starship combat also concerns destroying meteroids and such, so stone is prelevant as well as far as starship combat goes) as far
as I could tell, so hardness still applies as usual.

The average HP of some low-level character (5th level or below) isn't that high (it's somewhat hard to find anyone with more than 10 HP when most of the polulation is low level NPC-type characters with bad NPC classes), so they obviously easily die depending on how high the actual roll is going to be and such.
When structures (and the ground) take their respective damage per inch and the damage spreads within that respective radius until something completely stops within that direction
at that part of the blast (like something extremely though that somehow isn't destroyed by taking the damage that's being dealt to everything hit), then these numbers (as far as
structural damage is concerned) do seem reasonable. Characters could (and though that isn#t striclty necessary ... as seen with the comment about the starship weapons on Autofire
below) get an Reflex Save (that's static and quite low) for Half Damage, though, as it is the case with the Orbital Bombardement Rules from D20 Future Tech. As for critical hits ...
as it targets an area with an ranged touch attack, it should be able to deal critical damage, shouldn't it? Once someone found out what critical multipier actually applies for
nuclear missiles, one could try to figure out to what effect zones (or targeted area, which could be defined as the entire Crater Zone, I guess, or even the entire affected area)
are subject to that potential critical hit (the severe critical hit modifier listed as potential optional critical hit result with 10x multiplier might not really apply here, after
all, it doesn't look like anything is getting - more or less - directly hit by some nuclear missile here as it is the case when it comes to Starship combat).

As mentioned before, there are actual rules for the flash radiation, for the radioactive contamination of the area for the following years (though I don't think there are rules
directly for the radiation after that) as well as rules for the fallout (though the actual fallout ... and weather effects, too, I guess ... are left in the hands of each GM about
how he applies it as it is meant to be an random element ... its hard to predict where the fallout would be transported to by wind currents, and such, after all). As mentioned
before, there aren't any rules (or if they exist, I missed them) for radiation exposure in the Crater Zone directly through the impact (or the minutes/hours after the impact,
I guess), but for the weeks/months (and maybe years) after that, for that there are rules found in the there. So what happens to those in there ... I don't know, I guess. They
should at least suffer as much as those within the zones further away ... One could theoretically also apply the rules for those who, while unprotected, are subject to Cosmic Rays
(i.e. they are directly considered to be highly irradiated) or Solar Flares (i.e. they are directly considered to be severely irradiated) (as stated here https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/MSRD:Environment_and_Hazards#STELLAR_HAZARDS) ... which means they have to make an Fortitude save or will develope one of the two highest radiation sickness found in the D20 Future rules for that (found here https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/MSRD:Environment_and_Hazards#SPACE_ENVIRONMENTS)

I would also (as far as mass destruction goes) like to point out the Autofire rules for starship weapons (found here: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/MSRD:Starships#Starship_Weapons_on_Autofire ... though they are obviously meant for combat in space, which causes some of the issues noted below), as they are of particular interest for the effect of nuclear missiles and the like as far as them causing area of effect damage goes.

Such starship weapons potentially hit everything in the targeted 1000x1000 feet area if they hit that area (touch AC of 10) and the ships (though one might argue about what would considered to be an ship in this case) in that area have to make an DC 15 Pilot check (I guess the Starship weapons shot lots and lots of attacks into the area at once ... and there#s an penalty based on the ships size on the check) to or take the weapon's damage (no save or anything like that) and there's nothing there that says that the starshipweapons can't crit on that kind of attack. Now there are three arguments to make ... either only Starships (or things that move at their speed) have to make an skill check to avoid damage and everything else is fine, or creatures (though it's unclear what happens to objects and such) also have to make an skill check (though I doubt most of them have the pilot skill) as
the integration of creatures into starship combat implies to also treat them as (though pretty small and slow) starships or, and that's the most favourable case for the attacker, e
verything in the area that isn#t a ship doesn#t get to make that pilot check and simply has to eat the damage (when considering that the Lasers, Needle Drivers, Gauss Guns, Plasma
Cannons and Heavy Plasma Cannons should be quite hard to avoid when used en mass as literal rain of destruction) ... including structures and the ground ... which would probavly
raze the entire area as standard action as starship weapons are quite powerful.

Edit: Fixed some mistake (the most glaring one being that it's supposed to be ~500 metres for the Crater Zone)

As far as I could tell thus far (as I didn't find some erreta for D20 Future that states otherwise), as the Critical Multiplier isn't noted, it seems reasonable to assume that pretty much all those Starship weapons (for whatever reason) simply use the regular 2x multiplier on critical hits (so 2x damage on critical hit), with optional results (some of which include up to 10x damage on critical hit and/or instant-death of some NPC "crewmembers") that's originally intented for the use in Starship combat. If it would somehow end up with the 10x multiplier on critical damage (though its slightly hard to imagine what kinds of circumstances would lead to amplifying the damage that much besides "most of the time, the timing is simply slightly off and therefore the nuclear missile does much less damage), it might be quite threatening even for most epic creatures ...

... otherwise, as it's been discussed before, if its only 2x damage on critical hits (though plenty of stuff is immune to critical hits to begin with), then that would enable some of the older (i.e. adult and higher) dragons (or things like Balors and such, for that matter ... or plenty of level 15+ PCs, if they#re lucky and also don#t screw up their save against massive damage) to tank the damage even on a critical hit (which isn't that "bad" in some cases, as, for example, as dragons are more than a little bit supernatural and tend to be portrayed as pretty tough) reasonably well, but still powerful enough to wipe out pretty much everything mundane (tanks, ships, infrastructure, civilians, mooks, characters below 5th level, ecetera) as well as plenty of monsters that, despite their considerably high CR, don't possess nearly as much HD/Con as dragons and the like usually do, and are thus easily wiped out through significant HP damage (if one would actually manage to hit them, which the nuclear missile, according to the rules interpretation quoted above, would likely manage to do just fine).

So ... to sum it up, (single) nuclear missiles ... as stated out in the books ... are (with their average damage of 72 with their 16d8 attack) only extremely deadly for creatures up to level 10 or so (expect for cases where the damage ends up in the higher range, i.e. somewhere reasonably close to 128), unless they score critical hits (with average damage of 144) and even then, only remain extremely deadly for creatures up to around level 15 (though low HP per HD classes like wizards and such might think otherwise) or so (expect for cases where the damage ends up in the higher range, i.e. somewhere reasonably close to 256), while the extreme case of 10x damage (but that's the value for Starship combat where, I guess, where there might be slight differences involved as far as the energy spreads and such, as they're apperantly assuming point blank impacts and such in outer space) kills most things printed creatures that aren't somehow able to survive it thanks to being immune to critical hits and/or their huge HP pool and/or their regeneration, did I get that right?