How to fix lightning breath?

[S@tanicoaldo]

So, I have a very aboying player who insists that lightning breath on dragons and other creatures makes no sense.

He claims that lightning is not a thing that can just be thrown around, he's fine with ice and fire but can't seem to be ok with lightning for soem reason.

Does anyone know how to make it more realistic?

[Lapak]

I can but laugh at the idea of other breath weapons being 'realistic', but ok.

Every lightning breath is actually a two-stage breath weapon. A chemical-fueled laser creates an ionized plasma path between the dragon and the target; a split second later a massive electric charge is released and follows the path. Electrolasers in action!

[Goaty14]

Did he tell you why he's not ok with it, or does he just have some sort of an innate grudge vs spitting lightning?

[S@tanicoaldo]

He did, I'm not sure why since I can't remember.

Something about the fact that for electric current to flow there must be a difference in electrical potential. There must be negative and positive termini for current to flow between, so it's not possible for some device or some creature to simply fire a lightning bolt more or less straight forward toward another presumably electrically neutral object, with no sign of building up charge separation beforehand.

I was thinking about the dragon or hydra bulding up some sort of liquid in their body and them spitting the electrified liquid in their foes, would that work? Or am I failing in science?

[TheStranger]

Well, it could maybe work if dragons were like supercharged electric eels that built up a pretty substantial charge. Not discharged at random because insulating tissue surrounds the lightning gland. Then, when they actually use the breath weapon, they simultaneously release the electric charge and spit a conductive mist to direct the discharge. Or Lapak's idea about lasers - same concept.

Anyway, remind your player that electric eels are a thing. In fact, far more real-life creatures generate electricity than fire or ice. So your player is pretty much just wrong.

[shadow_archmagi]

So, I have a very aboying player who insists that lightning breath on dragons and other creatures makes no sense.

He claims that lightning is not a thing that can just be thrown around, he's fine with ice and fire but can't seem to be ok with lightning for soem reason.

Does anyone know how to make it more realistic?

Tell him every time he complains about physics in D&D he has to take a shot. Either he'll learn his lesson or die of alcohol poisoning. Either way, not your problem.

[S@tanicoaldo]

Well, it could maybe work if dragons were like supercharged electric eels that built up a pretty substantial charge. Not discharged at random because insulating tissue surrounds the lightning gland. Then, when they actually use the breath weapon, they simultaneously release the electric charge and spit a conductive mist to direct the discharge. Or Lapak's idea about lasers - same concept.

Anyway, remind your player that electric eels are a thing. In fact, far more real-life creatures generate electricity than fire or ice. So your player is pretty much just wrong.

Yeah he knows that, he just claim that the shock people on contact rather than throwing lightning bolts as if they are things, since acording to him eletricity is not a thing it's energy, then I joked about energy being a thing and then everyone left becuase it was late and we have been arguing about this for hours -.-

[Celestia]

Remind him that dragons are explicitly magical creatures and that their breath attacks are, likewise, explicitly magical. It's not so much a biological process as it is casting a spell from your mouth.

[TheStranger]

Yeah he knows that, he just claim that the shock people on contact rather than throwing lightning bolts as if they are things, since acording to him eletricity is not a thing it's energy, then I joked about energy being a thing and then everyone left becuase it was late and we have been arguing about this for hours -.-

That's where the laser/conductive mist comes in - allowing the charge to bridge a gap in a directed way. Seems straightforward enough.

And yeah, magic.

[JoeJ]

How does electricity come into it? Lightning isn't electricity, it's a type of fiery air that deities, wizards, and certain dragons know how to wield.

[Kane0]

Toss a battery at him and tell him to lick it.

[Doorhandle]

They vomit forth a torrent of conductive material, followed by a massive electric shock provided by the electric-eel-like organs inside their lengthy necks. The shock is powerful enough to vaporize most of the conductive material: hence it's unrecognised by all but the most dedicated arcanists, and the dragonslayers who witness it seeping from their corpses.

If he's so finicky through first ask him how come fire breath(the spell) doesn't burn the mouths of it's users? Sure, dragons are fireproof, but human arcanists aren't!
Also, on that point: fire-proofing isn't something found in nature often, if at all: and even then it''s only the seeds of certain plants that survive.

Though the best explanation is probably magic: even on a colossal dragon, it's hard to explain how there's enough space inside them to fit a 180ft line's worth of lightning-juice!

[Anonymouswizard]

Every lightning breath is actually a two-stage breath weapon. A chemical-fueled laser creates an ionized plasma path between the dragon and the target; a split second later a massive electric charge is released and follows the path. Electrolasers in action!

I was going to suggest exactly this. Don't we have working electrolaser prototypes in real life?


Something about the fact that for electric current to flow there must be a difference in electrical potential. There must be negative and positive termini for current to flow between, so it's not possible for some device or some creature to simply fire a lightning bolt more or less straight forward toward another presumably electrically neutral object, with no sign of building up charge separation beforehand.

I was thinking about the dragon or hydra bulding up some sort of liquid in their body and them spitting the electrified liquid in their foes, would that work? Or am I failing in science?

Okay, he's completely right about how electric charge flows. The problem is, no dragon breath weapons can work the way he's implying they do.

If you want to get technical then dragons almost certainly don't breath fire, but breath a flammable gas and then generate a spark to set it alight. So dragons don't breath lightning bolts, they emit a laser which ionises a stretch of air and then generate a large electrical charge to travel down the path. Honestly, the one I have trouble working out is frost breath, the various gas breaths are really easy and even slow breath could be beathing a gas that makes people tired without knocking them out.

Note that this means that lightning breath is probably the most energy intensive of the various breath weapons. But we've got giant flying lizards casting spells, energy concerns can take a break.

[BlacKnight]

I hope that he doesn't notice the technicality that white dragons breath cold, not ice. Apparently it's a magical beam that makes things cold. Where does the energy go ?
To not talk about how dragons fly, or what is their evolutionary line...

In short applying real life science to D&D is stupid and trying to do it will make everything a mess.

[Doorhandle]

I was going to suggest exactly this. Don't we have working electrolaser prototypes in real life?



Okay, he's completely right about how electric charge flows. The problem is, no dragon breath weapons can work the way he's implying they do.

If you want to get technical then dragons almost certainly don't breath fire, but breath a flammable gas and then generate a spark to set it alight. So dragons don't breath lightning bolts, they emit a laser which ionises a stretch of air and then generate a large electrical charge to travel down the path. Honestly, the one I have trouble working out is frost breath, the various gas breaths are really easy and even slow breath could be beathing a gas that makes people tired without knocking them out.

Note that this means that lightning breath is probably the most energy intensive of the various breath weapons. But we've got giant flying lizards casting spells, energy concerns can take a break.

For cold breath, consider a freezer: they work by compressing air, and then moving it through a long series of evaporation tubes to cool it from the heat compression causes. When the compressed air is released, evaporation causes it to lose the last of its heat, creating a cold vapor...or in the case of the dragon, a cold blast.

For a biological tube the length of a colossal dragon that will be cold air indeed.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I was thinking about the dragon or hydra bulding up some sort of liquid in their body and them spitting the electrified liquid in their foes, would that work? Or am I failing in science?

That would work, actually. Although you might have to explain it the other way around a bit.

Lightning is an electric discharge along a path of ionized air, since normal air doesn't conduct well enough. you can direct the path of lightning by giving it some other conductor to follow, so it doesn't first need to ionize (as much) air. That's why lightning rods work. If the dragon spits some sort of substance that's either conducting or somehow ionizes the air around itself independent from the strong negative or positive charge build up inside or somewhere near the dragon's mouth than the discharge will follow that path. "Pissing on an electric fence" style, basically. It gets easier to time the discharge as well.

Please note that I'm not going to explain the wish spell if your friend has that as his next question.

The advantage electric breath has over hot or cold breath is that it doesn't specify weather the dragon is the positive or negative pole. He could build up a positive charge for one bolt and a negative one for the next, keeping his electron count nice and balanced.

[Corneel]

Replace comic with game and show this image:

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/936/889/47f.gif

[Anonymouswizard]

Replace comic with game and show this image:

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/936/889/47f.gif

I am, there's too many of the darn things. Need to instigate a cull somehow :smalltongue:

[Mastikator]

You can't make it realistic because that's not how electricity works.

But you can say that it's magic because that's how dragons work.

[OldTrees1]

The Blue Dragon accumulates and stores a very large charge and act as a near perfect insulator(immunity to lightning). When they "breathe" they are exposing their highly changed part to the air in front of them. The large charge discharges out of their mouth and looks for short path's to ground. Given the high voltage, the charge will take multiple routes to the ground in parallel as it arcs and splits. Like a lightning strike.

[Anonymouswizard]

You can't make it realistic because that's not how electricity works.

But if we leave aside the fact that it's 5ft wide, we can make it work like electricity works. Alright, in reality lightning breath should probably be a ranged attack with a single target and maybe a lesser damage AoE effect (depending on how much power we're using). For the standard 5 foot wide line spitting a conductive material with a massive charge is probably better.


But you can say that it's magic because that's how dragons work.

'Because magic' is lazy. I believe that there should at least be poetic logic to every magical ability, if not scientific logic.

'Because' and similar variations is essentially admitting that you don't want to think through the consequences of how it works. We have in this thread come up with two legitimate ways to model it (electrolasers and shooting/spraying a conductive material), although we do get into incredibly high amounts of energy being required. But if you go with 'because magic' you eventually end up with neat 20ft radius fireballs that adjust their size to the available volume and don't set fire to inflammable objects (say what you like, fireballs were better when they expanded to fill their volume).

I mean, you might not care about it in your game, but there are people on this thread who do care about trying to come up with a realistic explanation, or at least as close to one as we can. We've got ones for both lightning breath and cold breath (thank's Doorhandle). They're not 100% realistic (mainly because we haven't done the equations, just found the relevant devices or theories) but they'll do for a game.

[Mastikator]

But if we leave aside the fact that it's 5ft wide, we can make it work like electricity works. Alright, in reality lightning breath should probably be a ranged attack with a single target and maybe a lesser damage AoE effect (depending on how much power we're using). For the standard 5 foot wide line spitting a conductive material with a massive charge is probably better.



'Because magic' is lazy. I believe that there should at least be poetic logic to every magical ability, if not scientific logic.

'Because' and similar variations is essentially admitting that you don't want to think through the consequences of how it works. We have in this thread come up with two legitimate ways to model it (electrolasers and shooting/spraying a conductive material), although we do get into incredibly high amounts of energy being required. But if you go with 'because magic' you eventually end up with neat 20ft radius fireballs that adjust their size to the available volume and don't set fire to inflammable objects (say what you like, fireballs were better when they expanded to fill their volume).

I mean, you might not care about it in your game, but there are people on this thread who do care about trying to come up with a realistic explanation, or at least as close to one as we can. We've got ones for both lightning breath and cold breath (thank's Doorhandle). They're not 100% realistic (mainly because we haven't done the equations, just found the relevant devices or theories) but they'll do for a game.

Real world lightning is caused by static electricity building up over time in a large area, to make a lightning bolt that hits your target you'd need to create a highly localized charge in your target, not just in the dragon's mouth because otherwise it would just hit whatever is closest.

It is simply not realistic to shoot a lightning bolt at an arbitrary target at will because that's contrary to how lightning bolts work. Lightning is a phenomena created by electricity, you need to start at the electricity, the difference in charge, how does the dragon do that?

Is the dragon casting Time Stop and rubbing his enemies with balloons? Maybe it's actually beta radiation and the lightning is just an effect and if they were in a vacuum it would be completely invisible?

[Lapak]

'Because magic' is lazy. I believe that there should at least be poetic logic to every magical ability, if not scientific logic.

***

I mean, you might not care about it in your game, but there are people on this thread who do care about trying to come up with a realistic explanation, or at least as close to one as we can. We've got ones for both lightning breath and cold breath (thank's Doorhandle). They're not 100% realistic (mainly because we haven't done the equations, just found the relevant devices or theories) but they'll do for a game.As one of the people who suggested a solution, I should say that I disagree that realism is necessarily worth striving for. I think you're much closer in your first sentence, when you mentioned 'poetic logic.'

Electrolasers work just fine as a rational explanation, but I'm not going to lie: I'd be even happier to say: "Lightning in this setting is actually crystallized wrath. It is literally fury made manifest. When lightning falls from the sky, it is the gods venting their wrath. A blue dragon is a living incarnation of the world's rage, and rage isn't random. Enmity has a target, and that target right now is you. Reflex save for half, please."

[Anonymouswizard]

Real world lightning is caused by static electricity building up over time in a large area, to make a lightning bolt that hits your target you'd need to create a highly localized charge in your target, not just in the dragon's mouth because otherwise it would just hit whatever is closest.

It is simply not realistic to shoot a lightning bolt at an arbitrary target at will because that's contrary to how lightning bolts work. Lightning is a phenomena created by electricity, you need to start at the electricity, the difference in charge, how does the dragon do that?

Is the dragon casting Time Stop and rubbing his enemies with balloons? Maybe it's actually beta radiation and the lightning is just an effect and if they were in a vacuum it would be completely invisible?

I dunno, scaled up version of what electric eels do? We know that animals can generate electric charges, we were generally more concerned about delivering it without contact.


As one of the people who suggested a solution, I should say that I disagree that realism is necessarily worth striving for. I think you're much closer in your first sentence, when you mentioned 'poetic logic.'

Electrolasers work just fine as a rational explanation, but I'm not going to lie: I'd be even happier to say: "Lightning in this setting is actually crystallized wrath. It is literally fury made manifest. When lightning falls from the sky, it is the gods venting their wrath. A blue dragon is a living incarnation of the world's rage, and rage isn't random. Enmity has a target, and that target right now is you. Reflex save for half, please."

I mean, I was focusing on realism because that's what the thread focused on.

Your example is what I'd consider 'poetic logic', means you didn't just stop at 'a wizard did it' when I asked how a dragon can shoot lightning, and sounds like a fun explanation. An explanation doesn't have to be realistic, although mine tend to be (just who I am).

[PhoenixPhyre]

I strongly tend to the "it just looks like lightning" explanation--it's raw elemental-aspected anima, mostly a mix between elemental fire and elemental fire, with fire predominant. It's why fireballs don't cause blast effects--they're not explosions, they're a resonant effect that applies a fire aspect to the local ambient anima. Cold breaths are mixed water/air, with water dominant. The acid breaths aren't producing hydronium ions, they're earth-aspected anima tuned to corrode.

[FreddyNoNose]

I wonder if it is because if the player fails a savings throw against the lightning, he has to make saves to all his items. The save vs lighting is hard and many magic items can be lost. This is something many DMs learned years ago and is one of the tools to potentially remove magic items...

[JoeJ]

Real world lightning is caused by static electricity building up over time in a large area, to make a lightning bolt that hits your target you'd need to create a highly localized charge in your target, not just in the dragon's mouth because otherwise it would just hit whatever is closest.

It is simply not realistic to shoot a lightning bolt at an arbitrary target at will because that's contrary to how lightning bolts work. Lightning is a phenomena created by electricity, you need to start at the electricity, the difference in charge, how does the dragon do that?

Is the dragon casting Time Stop and rubbing his enemies with balloons? Maybe it's actually beta radiation and the lightning is just an effect and if they were in a vacuum it would be completely invisible?

The same way this guy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHkxW_v0Ydk) does it. The bottom line is that fantasy lightning has no connection whatsoever with real world electricity. It might look similar, but it's a completely different phenomenon.

[Honest Tiefling]

I think what you need to do is to sit this player down and indicate that if he has a problem with the setting and how magic works, he needs to discuss this (not argue) outside of the game. If he doesn't cooperate, evict him from the game. Few people want to sit down and see others argue. I mean, I could repeat the whole thing of magic telling science to sit down and shut up, but I think you need to work with the player more on how to appropriately address issues.

[Tanarii]

Because magic, and because the underlying nature of D&D-type worlds is based on elemental and alchemy physics, not modern physics. Fire, earth, air, and water. Fire, Acid, Lightning, Cold. And of course phlogiston and ether and whatever the astral sea is.

[Kish]

Tell him every time he complains about physics in D&D he has to take a shot. Either he'll learn his lesson or die of alcohol poisoning. Either way, not your problem.
Yes, this.

Alternatively, tell him "It's magic." Whatever complaints he makes, just deadpan back over and over, "It's magic," or, if he'd catch the reference, "A wizard did it."

[Jay R]

"You're right - the laws of physics say that this is impossible – just as Fireballs violate conservation of energy, levitation violates conservation of momentum, etc. It's not real electricity, but a magical force that creates similar damage.

"There is a legend of a researcher who was performing experiments to determine the exact difference between lightning and the lightning-like magical force. He died in those experiments, and witnesses say that in the lightning that killed him, they saw a momentary vision of all the gods of storms – Thor, Zeus, Thunderbird, Taranis, Feng Lung, and others – laughing."

[RazorChain]

It's a a homing or guided lightning.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, so this is just very advanced technology but instead of sending a homing missile or a guided missile you are just sending energy in the form of lightning!!!!

[Knaight]

Honestly, the one I have trouble working out is frost breath, the various gas breaths are really easy and even slow breath could be beathing a gas that makes people tired without knocking them out.


I hope that he doesn't notice the technicality that white dragons breath cold, not ice. Apparently it's a magical beam that makes things cold. Where does the energy go ?
To not talk about how dragons fly, or what is their evolutionary line.

This is actually a fun one. So, short version - there's a certain amount of potential energy in a gas that comes from the molecules taking up space, as can be seen from the energy gain that you get as you bring gases closer together to allow for more intermolecular forces (which are effectively negative energy against the zero energy at infinite distance standard, just like molecular bonds).

The importance of this effect varies highly, but if you've got gases with big atoms on them, and high polarity differences between different atoms in these gases, you can actually get a pretty significant cooling effect from gas expansion. Take a room temperature can of aerosol and spray it, and you'll feel it get cold.

Now, lets talk specifics. Small chain carbon molecules are generally gas phase, and sticking stuff on carbon is a bit of a chemical specialty of ours (there's a reason Organic Chemistry is a whole big thing). Meanwhile what's large and polar compared to carbon? Halogens. Bromine and heavier halogens are generally big enough to force liquid or even solid phase*, so they're unsuitable for this. That leaves chlorine and fluorine.

The named atoms are probably sounding familiar right about now, and that's no coincidence - there's a class of compounds called chloro-fluoro carbons (CFCs), and they're a big deal in refrigeration. They're also a big deal in ozone depletion, which is where the term is likely to be recognized from, at least from people who aren't HVAC enthusiasts**.

*Mostly with astatine, which is also disgustingly radioactive, so these compounds are generally more theoretical.
**I'm not an HVAC enthusiast, but HVAC is pretty cool.

[Jay R]

Honestly, the one I have trouble working out is frost breath, ...

It gets easier when you stop trying to use modern physics to try to explain something that is intentionally inconsistent with modern physics.

In a D&D universe, cold is an active energy, just like heat, but in the opposite direction. It's not the absence of heat, like in our world, but the opposite of heat, as a negative charge is the opposite of a positive charge.

[Tanarii]

Exactly. It's a game system based on pre-science concepts like elementalism and alchemy and ether and pantheons of divine powers actively involved in the world. Plus pervasive magical power.

Edit: actually that's not really fair to call it prescience. Some of those *were* the results of scientific beliefs at the time. More accurately, pre-Industrial Revolution natural philosophy.

[Anonymouswizard]

It gets easier when you stop trying to use modern physics to try to explain something that is intentionally inconsistent with modern physics.

In a D&D universe, cold is an active energy, just like heat, but in the opposite direction. It's not the absence of heat, like in our world, but the opposite of heat, as a negative charge is the opposite of a positive charge.

Everybody misses the point (although thank you Knaight for getting what that part of my post was about and providing a relatively technical explanation).

This thread began with trying to explain a certain weird dragon breath to be relatively in line with science. I admitted that the one I personally had trouble working out within those guidelines was ice breath, although this has since been remedied.

Alright, a lot of terminology is going to be barstardised and used somewhat incorrectly at this point.

On this point, we're getting into weird stuff, the end result of 'cold is heat of the opposite polarity' and 'cold is below a certain level of heat' is theoretically identical, but now we've got to deal with the fact that energy moves to it's lowest available point (in physics as we know it), which with regards to heat is not going to be zero kelvins but some random point we've decided upon. Let's just say it's human body temperature, or 37 degrees Celsius, just to pick a value to work with. At thirty seven degrees Celsius an object has no thermal charge.

So now humans have no thermal charge. If the universe wants to be in it's lowest energy state it's going to want to equalise heat charges, which leads to a new law of physics: heat attracts cold. Heat flows in the same way electric charge does, although using a somewhat different set of conductors. Hilariously, if we can find a good enough thermal semiconductor we can now make solid-state heat based computers.

Am I overthinking this? I think by the point we hit heat based computers I'm officially overthinking it.

Other fun side effects might be that fires point towards cold regions, depending on how this interacts with the entire 'burning gas' thing, I don't know enough about fires work to say. You could also probably ground a white dragon's cold breath with a decent thermal conductor connected to an object with a sufficiently large thermal charge.

Oh, and potentially heat repels heat and cold repels cold, but we're already so far into silly territory nobody's batting eyelids.

Changing the laws of physics has consequences people, especially in such silly ways as 'cold is negative heat'. This probably goes on for a while longer, but the effects aren't so hilariously abusable (which leads to GMs trying to patch the logical exploits, such a shame).

...now I want to run a setting with heat-based computers.

[Mastikator]

I dunno, scaled up version of what electric eels do? We know that animals can generate electric charges, we were generally more concerned about delivering it without contact.

Electric eels still have to touch, if you scale it up enough it would art randomly. If you scale it up more it would arc more but still randomly. There's no amount of scaling up that would let you shoot lightning bolts at arbitrary targets at will.


The same way this guy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHkxW_v0Ydk) does it. The bottom line is that fantasy lightning has no connection whatsoever with real world electricity. It might look similar, but it's a completely different phenomenon.
He says it's magic in the first Thor movie. It's literally what I said. It's magic, not realistic.

[Anonymouswizard]

Electric eels still have to touch, if you scale it up enough it would art randomly. If you scale it up more it would arc more but still randomly. There's no amount of scaling up that would let you shoot lightning bolts at arbitrary targets at will.

Yeah to direct it you need something else. Like the things we discussed in this thread. A biological electrolaser may not be completely realistic (I think it's theoretically possible in the 'has not been conclusively been proven strictly impossible' sense) but it would give you your classic 'lightning bolt', a more realistic version would probably be spraying a conductive fluid and delivering the charge along that (the charge travels along the path of least resistance, generally, and our theoretical dragon fluid has significantly higher conductance than air).

We worked out possible delivery methods in like two posts, five if you want to overestimate to be on the safe side.

[Mastikator]

Yeah to direct it you need something else. Like the things we discussed in this thread. A biological electrolaser may not be completely realistic (I think it's theoretically possible in the 'has not been conclusively been proven strictly impossible' sense) but it would give you your classic 'lightning bolt', a more realistic version would probably be spraying a conductive fluid and delivering the charge along that (the charge travels along the path of least resistance, generally, and our theoretical dragon fluid has significantly higher conductance than air).

We worked out possible delivery methods in like two posts, five if you want to overestimate to be on the safe side.

If my DM said dragons shoot lightning bolts via electrolasers I'd implode from cringe and beg him to change it to just being magic. Dragons are magical creatures, supernatural abilities are totally allowed to just be magical.

[darkdragoon]

Dragons are a conduit for non-Newtonian forces that depending to type appear similar to routine phenomena such as acid or fire.

[Doorhandle]

If my DM said dragons shoot lightning bolts via electrolasers I'd implode from cringe and beg him to change it to just being magic. Dragons are magical creatures, supernatural abilities are totally allowed to just be magical.

That's the thing though: willing suspension of disbelief works differently for different people. For some, the explanation "it's magic I don't have to explain ****" is unsatisfying. For others, any "scientific" explanation is filled with too many holes and so they prefer what's on the surface a less-logical explanation. I think the problem-player in the original post is of the first type, while you match better with the second type.

[Mastikator]

That's the thing though: willing suspension of disbelief works differently for different people. For some, the explanation "it's magic I don't have to explain ****" is unsatisfying. For others, any "scientific" explanation is filled with too many holes and so they prefer what's on the surface a less-logical explanation. I think the problem-player in the original post is of the first type, while you match better with the second type.

I guess the old saying that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" is relevant now since because *only if you don't understand electricity you can be as comfortable with "because electrolasers" as I am with "because magic". Trying to add real world science to a game of magic doesn't just open up a can of worms, it opens up a bottomless can of worms. Because now you have to explain how a dragon is shooting lasers from his mouth.

[Bohandas]

He did, I'm not sure why since I can't remember.

Something about the fact that for electric current to flow there must be a difference in electrical potential. There must be negative and positive termini for current to flow between, so it's not possible for some device or some creature to simply fire a lightning bolt more or less straight forward toward another presumably electrically neutral object, with no sign of building up charge separation beforehand.


The problem isn't charge separation per se; It's as plausible to conjure up electrons as to conjure up anything else. The problem is aiming it. It should have a tendency to veer towards grounded metal objects. Maybe give people in metal armor a penalty to save or let the dragon hit people in metal armor who are one square outside the breath's normal path (possibly with the exception of people in full plate because that might act as a faraday cage)

[JoeJ]

I guess the old saying that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" is relevant now since because *only if you don't understand electricity you can be as comfortable with "because electrolasers" as I am with "because magic". Trying to add real world science to a game of magic doesn't just open up a can of worms, it opens up a bottomless can of worms. Because now you have to explain how a dragon is shooting lasers from his mouth.

To make it even worse, this thread has got me thinking that it would be much cooler if the lightning didn't come from the dragon's mouth at all but from the sky when the dragon calls for it, forking to hit everybody along the designated path. This would just be a special effect. Mechanically nothing changes - everybody along a line of whatever length (depending on the age of the dragon) takes lightning damage, or half damage with a successful Dexterity save. In terms of real world physics that probably makes even less sense, but I don't care.

[Cespenar]

To paraphrase the ideas in here and adding some of my own:

a) Dragons build up a charge in an internal organ beforehand, breathe out a ionized cloud and let it rip. The form of the cloud defines how the lightning travels, mostly. Could be a "heavier" gas if you want it to be a line effect, and a more "lighter" gas, if you want it to be a cone. Which is supposed to depict laminar vs. turbulent flow. :smalltongue:
b) Same thing, but shoot fluids out of their mouth that conducts the electricity. That's what the Ref save is for: you get hit by more or less by the fluid and thus, more or fewer strands of lightning.
c) They breathe magic, which coalesces into something akin to lightning as it travels. Similar to Conjuration or Evocation spells.

x) A different way to "charge up" could be that they fly a lot and "harvest" charges from thunderclouds?

Cold is easy:

a) Simple HVAC. They have some organs that do a pretty efficient refrigeration cycle. So they probably exude heat from their bum or something.
b) They breathe out a chemical that drops the freezing point of water below normal temperature. So the temperature doesn't really drop, but the water everywhere freezes.

Fire is also easy:

a) HVAC again.
b) Flammable gas + igniter.
c) Spit out a mixture of two fluids that make an exothermic reaction.

Poison and acid are too easy.

[Xuc Xac]

Cold is easy:

a) Simple HVAC. They have some organs that do a pretty efficient refrigeration cycle. So they probably exude heat from their bum or something.


The heat is transferred to a fire-breathing dragon, the cold dragon's "wonder twin", which is linked to them by arcane quantum entanglement. (The damage from the breath weapon is definitely quantum: Have you ever taken a fraction of a point of damage?)

[Anonymouswizard]

I guess the old saying that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" is relevant now since because *only if you don't understand electricity you can be as comfortable with "because electrolasers" as I am with "because magic". Trying to add real world science to a game of magic doesn't just open up a can of worms, it opens up a bottomless can of worms. Because now you have to explain how a dragon is shooting lasers from his mouth.

Speak with yourself. I understand electricity (I did an entire degree on using the stuff to make technology), and I'm fine with both 'because electrolasers' and 'because magic (within reason)'.

[Cespenar]

The heat is transferred to a fire-breathing dragon, the cold dragon's "wonder twin", which is linked to them by arcane quantum entanglement. (The damage from the breath weapon is definitely quantum: Have you ever taken a fraction of a point of damage?)

Hah. That's actually a cool idea. You could use it as mysticized and let the readers/players find out the quantum analogy as well. Like, spin a tale about the red and white dragons being one at birth but then separated into two.

Could be similar with blue dragons but with positive/negative ions, but no one can notice the difference by sight.

Also black dragons but with acid/base.

And the green dragons are just horrid mutants. :smalltongue:

[Lvl 2 Expert]

And the green dragons are just horrid mutants. :smalltongue:

Maybe there's a type of brown desert dragon that breathes drought, sucking the water out of its victims?

[Tanarii]

I guess the old saying that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" is relevant now since because *only if you don't understand electricity you can be as comfortable with "because electrolasers" as I am with "because magic". Trying to add real world science to a game of magic doesn't just open up a can of worms, it opens up a bottomless can of worms. Because now you have to explain how a dragon is shooting lasers from his mouth.
Exactly. The better your understanding of things, the less likely you are to accept wild-haired psuedo-scientific explanations of why magic works.

The same kinda thinking often comes up with Illusions, in discussions about if they can create light and all the ramifications therein. If you have a solid understanding of the way light works, it's much easier and less painful to just say "it's magic, it doesn't shed light but you can still see it, and you can't see what's behind it" than it is to try to get into how it is visible without shedding light.

[Glorthindel]

The trick is (both for you, and for him) to accept that most people in this world are experts at something (likely several somethings), but also, what you (him, me, etc) are an expert in, the vast majority of everyone else isn't, and while some of those that aren't will be interested to learn something new, a lot of those people don't want (or don't care) to hear someone else going on about their pet expertise.

In these sorts of situations, when something comes up painfully against what you know about something you are an expert in, you really have only 3 options.

1 - Keep your mouth shut, and just go with it as you are told. You know its wrong, but for the sake of everyones sanity, you let it go. This is the best for everyone except yourself, so I get why some people can't do that.

2 - Do what I do whenever I run into a bit of fantasy architecture which takes hilarious liberties with the concepts of structural stability - make a quick joke acknowledging the incongruence of the situation, but then move on. This is often the best way, since you get to show off a bit of your knowledge, leave an opening for someone who is interested in learning more to ask you later, whilst also not disrupting the game.

3 - Go full arguement mode, grind the game to a halt, and leave everyone not involved in the arguement wanting to drown your pedantic ass so they can get on with playing their fantasy game. If its not obvious, I am implying to never do option 3.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The trick is (both for you, and for him) to accept that most people in this world are experts at something (likely several somethings), but also, what you (him, me, etc) are an expert in, the vast majority of everyone else isn't, and while some of those that aren't will be interested to learn something new, a lot of those people don't want (or don't care) to hear someone else going on about their pet expertise.

In these sorts of situations, when something comes up painfully against what you know about something you are an expert in, you really have only 3 options.

1 - Keep your mouth shut, and just go with it as you are told. You know its wrong, but for the sake of everyones sanity, you let it go. This is the best for everyone except yourself, so I get why some people can't do that.

2 - Do what I do whenever I run into a bit of fantasy architecture which takes hilarious liberties with the concepts of structural stability - make a quick joke acknowledging the incongruence of the situation, but then move on. This is often the best way, since you get to show off a bit of your knowledge, leave an opening for someone who is interested in learning more to ask you later, whilst also not disrupting the game.

3 - Go full arguement mode, grind the game to a halt, and leave everyone not involved in the arguement wanting to drown your pedantic ass so they can get on with playing their fantasy game. If its not obvious, I am implying to never do option 3.

I agree, with a couple reservations. I agree that #3 is wrong. #1 is good for things that don't matter (the set of which differs between people), and #2 can be good. But there are some things that do matter for the mechanics of it. And having a basic idea of how things work (even if its "It's magic, a wizard did it") can help when extrapolating to new situations.

[Jay R]

If the dragon can aim it at the levitating wizard, and it doesn't re-direct to the fighter wrapped in steel and standing on the ground, then it doesn't work like lightning. Any attempt to make the fantasy element scientific must include throwing out all the rules for how it works and substituting something else.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If the dragon can aim it at the levitating wizard, and it doesn't re-direct to the fighter wrapped in steel and standing on the ground, then it doesn't work like lightning. Any attempt to make the fantasy element scientific must include throwing out all the rules for how it works and substituting something else.

Which, since everything is connected, requires throwing out all the rules for everything else. A coherent magical universe will inevitably have very different laws of nature that may just coincidentally (Anthropic principle anyone?) have end results that look, on the surface (and in the bulk), like the ones we're familiar with. Anything else is doing a disservice to both science and magic, stretching one or the other on the Bed of Procrustes.

[Mastikator]

Speak with yourself. I understand electricity (I did an entire degree on using the stuff to make technology), and I'm fine with both 'because electrolasers' and 'because magic (within reason)'.

Apologies. When you said "dunno, whatever electric eels do" and another individual linked a video from the Marvel movie Thor: Ragnarok I put you into the same camp.


If the dragon can aim it at the levitating wizard, and it doesn't re-direct to the fighter wrapped in steel and standing on the ground, then it doesn't work like lightning. Any attempt to make the fantasy element scientific must include throwing out all the rules for how it works and substituting something else.
Add in the fact that the steel armor should act as a Faraday cage and completely nullify any amount of lightning damage the dragon can dish out also rules out it being natural electricity. In any version of D&D the metal armor provides NO protection.

[Tanarii]

Which, since everything is connected, requires throwing out all the rules for everything else. A coherent magical universe will inevitably have very different laws of nature that may just coincidentally (Anthropic principle anyone?) have end results that look, on the surface (and in the bulk), like the ones we're familiar with. Anything else is doing a disservice to both science and magic, stretching one or the other on the Bed of Procrustes.
Again: elementalism. Alchemy. Ether. Phlogiston.

You dont have to throw out everything. You just have to assume a different basis.

[S@tanicoaldo]

To his defense he's not usually a big fantasy fan, this is not my main group and they just came out form a supernatural investigation modern urban game where they faced a cosmic alien foe that apparently really followed the laws of physics well and he was expecting that to be consistent in my games.

To my defense I didn’t knew a being that caused people to die of hypothermia by draining the heat around her was more correct than a being who emits cold, I just thought it was a neat idea, like a heat vampire or something.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Again: elementalism. Alchemy. Ether. Phlogiston.

You dont have to throw out everything. You just have to assume a different basis.

That's exactly what I mean by throwing out everything (ie throwing out the modern bases of science, things like atoms and molecules and well-behaved conservation laws). Because if you start from a different basis, you get (naively) different results.

In a setting, you have to start at the end point (I want something that looks like reality except X, Y and Z) and extrapolate backward as far as you're willing to find consistent principles. Because starting with the principles and working forward is highly unlikely to get anything that looks even remotely like reality. It's why alchemy/etc are invalid in our reality--the end result isn't consistent with what we can observe.

[The Glyphstone]

There are people who don't think a dragon shooting lasers from its mouth is awesome?

[PhoenixPhyre]

There are people who don't think a dragon shooting lasers from its mouth is awesome?

I have no problem with dragons shooting lasers. Or sharks for that matter (intentional ambiguity here :smalltongue:). I do have a problem with that being a "scientific" explanation for a lightning breath.

[JoeJ]

I have no problem with dragons shooting lasers. Or sharks for that matter (intentional ambiguity here :smalltongue:). I do have a problem with that being a "scientific" explanation for a lightning breath.

I agree. To me, it seems like trying to save the physics by sacrificing believable chemistry. I don't see any net gain over just calling it magic.

[Jay R]

I have no problem with dragons shooting lasers. Or sharks for that matter.

Oh, now I want to design a sea-dragon that shoots sharks out of its mouth.

[JoeJ]

Oh, now I want to design a sea-dragon that shoots sharks out of its mouth.

Or maybe a shlaser: a gun that shoots a beam of coherent sharks.

[The Glyphstone]

The dragon breathes a cone of sharks who shoot lasers.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Oh, now I want to design a sea-dragon that shoots sharks out of its mouth.


Or maybe a shlaser: a gun that shoots a beam of coherent sharks.


The dragon breathes a cone of sharks who shoot lasers.

All good ideas. I approve.

[S@tanicoaldo]

The dragon breathes a cone of sharks who shoot lasers.

Wait, but how do the sharks shoot lasers? :smallamused:

[PhoenixPhyre]

Wait, but hwo do the sharks shoot lazers? :smallamused:

Gnomes. Gnomes strap laser cannons to their heads as they come out of the dragon's mouth. Because gnomes can do anything...:smallcool:

[Cespenar]

Come on, guys. Sharks don't have lasers, they just chomp stuff.

Bears are the ones with lasers.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

No, sharks definitely have lasers. How else did they fight those dinosaurs, robots and aliens in space if they didn't?

[Anonymouswizard]

Wait, but hwo do the sharks shoot lazers? :smallamused:

By spelling the darn word correctly. Not only is it an acronym, you don't even pronounce it as if it has a z. Just a personal bugbear.

[Cespenar]

No, sharks definitely have lasers. How else did they fight those dinosaurs, robots and aliens in space if they didn't?

By riding tornados, of course. Duh.

[Tanarii]

By spelling the darn word correctly. Not only is it an acronym, you don't even pronounce it as if it has a z. Just a personal bugbear.
Where on earth do you come from that you don't pronounce laser as lazer? It's one of the most understandable misspellings, given its the normal way to pronounce it. Lay-zer, not lay-sir.

Same with laze a target. You don't lase a target. Clear z sound if said correctly. Lay-z, not lay-s. :smallamused:

[Rhedyn]

It's magic. It works because magic.

I think whoever this is, is selectively applying logic while accepting other absurdities as fine.

[Anonymouswizard]

Where on earth do you come from that you don't pronounce laser as lazer? It's one of the most understandable misspellings, given its the normal way to pronounce it. Lay-zer, not lay-sir.

Same with laze a target. You don't lase a target. Clear z sound if said correctly. Lay-z, not lay-s. :smallamused:

Actually, I normally do hear a short s sound (not a long s, which is what most people tend to use when going 'you don't day it with an s'). For the record, as it's no longer in my location line, the south of England. I could go further but my accent's relatively weird and doesn't quite for anywhere (closest to where I grew up, but speech therapy poshed it up a bit and it's never come down).

Lay-suhr would probably be close to how I pronounce it, but I stuck at writing phonetically. A short sharp s that blends into the 'er' sound, like the s in snake blends into the n.

My friend who did a PhD in optics also uses an s, so I see no reason to change my stance. There's no such thing as a mazer either, it's maser.

[Tanarii]

My friend who did a PhD in optics also uses an s, so I see no reason to change my stance. There's no such thing as a mazer either, it's maser.Yeah definitely another pronounce as z word, afaiac.

Accents, man. They make us look at each other wierd. 😂

[Segev]

It's actually a highly-charged ionized plasma that sucks the electrons out of the air around it a split second after reaching its full extent. It is exhaled so explosively that it has no lateral dispersion. The lightning is billions of tiny arc-discharges from the air into the ion beam.

[Lord Torath]

Add in the fact that the steel armor should act as a Faraday cage and completely nullify any amount of lightning damage the dragon can dish out also rules out it being natural electricity. In any version of D&D the metal armor provides NO protection.Okay, a properly-connected-and-grounded suit of Full Plate could act like a faraday cage. However, there's a serious drawback: ever hear of the Heat Metal spell (AD&D 2E 2nd level Priest spell)? Sending 1.21 gigawatts through your full-plate armor would arc-weld it together, with you inside it, making it exceptionally hard to move. Plus, it would heat it to glowing, inflicting serious heat damage to the unfortunate person wearing it. I'll leave it to you to decide if that's better or worse than just being electrocuted by the lightning bolt. :smallamused:

[hamishspence]

Okay, a properly-connected-and-grounded suit of Full Plate could act like a faraday cage. However, there's a serious drawback: ever hear of the Heat Metal spell (AD&D 2E 2nd level Priest spell)? Sending 1.21 gigawatts through your full-plate armor would arc-weld it together, with you inside it, making it exceptionally hard to move. Plus, it would heat it to glowing, inflicting serious heat damage to the unfortunate person wearing it. I'll leave it to you to decide if that's better or worse than just being electrocuted by the lightning bolt. :smallamused:


The Environmental Hazards section of the SRD does suggest that metal armour is hazardous rather protective when it comes to natural storms:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/weather.htm#thunderstorm

Thunderstorm
In addition to wind and precipitation (usually rain, but sometimes also hail), thunderstorms are accompanied by lightning that can pose a hazard to characters without proper shelter (especially those in metal armor). As a rule of thumb, assume one bolt per minute for a 1-hour period at the center of the storm. Each bolt causes electricity damage equal to 1d10 eight-sided dice. One in ten thunderstorms is accompanied by a tornado (see below).

[ElFi]

Take it from somebody who has had endless IRL conversations about how various superpowers would work in a realistic universe- don't try to justify it beyond a "soft science" approach. I'm not an electrician or even particularly great at physics, but I do know that if you probe far enough down, any explanation won't make sense. It'll just create still more holes until we've arrived at the aforementioned bottomless can of worms. As Varsuuvius has reminded us endless times, giving physics a pat on the back while it sobs in the corner is generally the best thing you can do in a D&D universe.

The best path might be to just give it an in-universe fluff explanation beyond "it works because magic". The exact fluff varies, but most settings seem to agree that being magical is literally genetic for dragons- their breath weapons could easily be flavored as a primal outburst of magical power that just happens to look and feel like lightning/acid/cold/whatever.

Also, maybe point out to the complainer that dragons are also shapeshifters who blatantly violate conservation of mass and, dependent on size, shouldn't even be able to fly, then ask him what the big deal is that the big reptilian middle-finger to modern scientific knowledge can also spit lightning bolts like gum wads.

[Segev]

Generally speaking, if your lightning breath is on the fritz, it's either that you need a new dynamo to power it, or you're out of water for the lightning you're inhaling to properly electrolyze into oxygen.

[Bohandas]

I can but laugh at the idea of other breath weapons being 'realistic', but ok.

Every lightning breath is actually a two-stage breath weapon. A chemical-fueled laser creates an ionized plasma path between the dragon and the target; a split second later a massive electric charge is released and follows the path. Electrolasers in action!

Like in the shoop-da-woop meme!?

[Max_Killjoy]

Even if everyday lightning is exactly what it's like in real life...

...dragons and their breath weapons are inherently "extranormal". There's inherent "magic" involved, and that's what forms the channel that the discharge follows.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

If you've tried a bunch of explanations and the player still doesn't accept it make it Greased Lightning breath, throwing cars at the PCs. If he complains again threaten him with P-38 Lightning breath, Black Lightning breath or HMS Lightning breath.

[Lapak]

If you've tried a bunch of explanations and the player still doesn't accept it make it Greased Lightning breath, throwing cars at the PCs. If he complains again threaten him with P-38 Lightning breath, Black Lightning breath or HMS Lightning breath.
I endorse this solution.

Also: Lightning Connector breath. WilI Save or all your magical items are now powered by trinkets that break after 2d20 uses, only sold by one wizard in the world who can set whatever price he wants.

[Kaptin Keen]

Ever seen how static discharge at volcano eruptions causes massive lightning?

That was always my explanation: Blue dragons are essentially full of sand - or their digestive tracts are - and their breath weapon is basically a huge cloud of hot, abrasive, electrically charged sand.

Not only does it (kinda-sorta) explain the lightning - it let's me add on some damage types, heat and physical.

'Don't like the MM version? Well, here's another version that's more realistic, and far worse. Enjoy having your way!'

[Max_Killjoy]

Which, since everything is connected, requires throwing out all the rules for everything else. A coherent magical universe will inevitably have very different laws of nature that may just coincidentally (Anthropic principle anyone?) have end results that look, on the surface (and in the bulk), like the ones we're familiar with. Anything else is doing a disservice to both science and magic, stretching one or the other on the Bed of Procrustes.

My approach is roughly "this world operates in a manner that can easily be confused for 'Newtonian', but there's some magic, and as a player you have more important things to worry about than making me the worldbuilder / GM hunt for cracks to plaster." Action/reaction, inertia and momentum, friction, gross-level chemistry, light and heat, projectile motion, etc, work at the observable level in a way that looks like the real world, if for no other reason than not having to constantly explain, adjudicate, and justify something else that none of the players are familiar with.

[Max_Killjoy]

I endorse this solution.

Also: Lightning Connector breath. WilI Save or all your magical items are now powered by trinkets that break after 2d20 uses, only sold by one wizard in the world who can set whatever price he wants.

Tell the player that next time he complains there will also be a violet dragon that breathes positrons, and everyone will die from the intense radiation when the electrons and positrons annihilate.

Or a photonegative dragon that inhales electrons, causing whoever is hit to disintegrate as their molecules no longer bind...

[PhoenixPhyre]

My approach is roughly "this world operates in a manner that can easily be confused for 'Newtonian', but there's some magic, and as a player you have more important things to worry about than making me the worldbuilder / GM hunt for cracks to plaster." Action/reaction, inertia and momentum, friction, gross-level chemistry, light and heat, projectile motion, etc, work at the observable level in a way that looks like the real world, if for no other reason than not having to constantly explain, adjudicate, and justify something else that none of the players are familiar with.

I can agree with that. With the proviso that anything deeper than the surface level (think introductory high-school level) is likely to work completely differently than you expect, especially if you try to exploit it to obviate the purpose of the game (whatever that might be). You can reason from the basic results, but trying to weaponize advanced OOC player knowledge isn't cool.

If you press me on a topic, I'll try to backfill something that both works reasonably well but also guarantees that the results will be as I want them to be. Yes, this is inverted logic (choosing a cause to fit the desired result). No I don't have a problem with it.

[Jerrykhor]

You should ask if your player ever played Diablo at all. Big D's red Lightning Breath was way too awesome, plus nobody should question a magic ability from a magic creature. If he still argues, I think he just hates fun.

[ReaderAt2046]

I was going to suggest exactly this. Don't we have working electrolaser prototypes in real life?



Okay, he's completely right about how electric charge flows. The problem is, no dragon breath weapons can work the way he's implying they do.

If you want to get technical then dragons almost certainly don't breath fire, but breath a flammable gas and then generate a spark to set it alight. So dragons don't breath lightning bolts, they emit a laser which ionises a stretch of air and then generate a large electrical charge to travel down the path. Honestly, the one I have trouble working out is frost breath, the various gas breaths are really easy and even slow breath could be beathing a gas that makes people tired without knocking them out.

Note that this means that lightning breath is probably the most energy intensive of the various breath weapons. But we've got giant flying lizards casting spells, energy concerns can take a break.

Actually, frost breath has always seemed one of the easier ones to me. There are real-life chemicals that react with each other in an extremely endothermic manner, so the dragon could just be exhaling one of those.

[Anonymouswizard]

Actually, frost breath has always seemed one of the easier ones to me. There are real-life chemicals that react with each other in an extremely endothermic manner, so the dragon could just be exhaling one of those.

As should be obvious my my interactions in various threads, my knowledge of chemistry has regressed since I did my GCSEs.

[Bohandas]

Actually, frost breath has always seemed one of the easier ones to me. There are real-life chemicals that react with each other in an extremely endothermic manner, so the dragon could just be exhaling one of those.

In fact, the white dragon's breath weapon wouldn't actually need to be chemically different to just breathing out regularly at all; just mechanically different (like, physics mechanics, not game mechanics). All it would need is some specialized organ to store and compress and eventually decompress carbon dioxide; and the breath weapon would just be the equivalent of a CO2 fire extinguisher; I understand that the gas leaves those kind of extinguishers at around -66 degrees celcius

http://surreyfire.co.uk/co2-fire-extinguishers/
http://safety.eas.ualberta.ca/?page_id=197