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GoC
2008-03-30, 04:24 PM
Could modern weapons like nukes, missiles or tank bullets kill D&D deities?
How many shots would be required?

Nohwl
2008-03-30, 04:32 PM
wouldnt it depend on how big the explosion is?

sikyon
2008-03-30, 04:35 PM
Could modern weapons like nukes, missiles or tank bullets kill D&D deities?
How many shots would be required?

A nuke would probably wipe out a deity. It only has 50-70 HD (max HP) and a nuke, conversion from TNT for damage is going to be MUCH more damage above that. A missile might kill it, tank round would take a number of shots thanks to the DR.

However, the trick is to fooling the deity into getting hit as they have divine senses and numerous free actions and such.

Ryuuk
2008-03-30, 04:35 PM
I don't think they'd be able to. There's the whole "Magic>Physics" thing.

To stat out a nuke, I'd probably use the Locate City Bomb as as a base for the damage and area.

mostlyharmful
2008-03-30, 04:35 PM
Not if they have any contigent effects (not just the spell), competent minions, environmental control (no, sorry, physics doesn't work like that where I live...), future knowledge (I'm willing to bet their own death would be something that affects their portfolio and more than a few of their worshippers) or really any high level powers....

While modern weapons can produce powerful effects you're talking about things that can warp the fabric of reality and most every game I've ever been in or run just refuses to stat deities and sod that book which makes them anything but plot mechanisms

Tengu
2008-03-30, 04:44 PM
If I remember correctly, d20 modern has the stats for a nuke... and the damage is surprisingly low, something along the lines of 20d10 (and a reflex saving throw for half damage).

kjones
2008-03-30, 04:45 PM
Let's crunch some numbers here.

According to d20 Modern, 1 lb. of C4 explosive does 4d6 damage. That's an average of 14. (I'll be using averages to make things easier.)

If we assume that the C4 in the book is bought from these guys (http://www.ribbands.co.uk/prdpages/C4.htm), the "TNT Equivalence" is 118%. Thus, 1 lb. of TNT does ~11.9 damage on average.

Now, assume a Minuteman II with a W62 warhead, an ICBM in service in the US. Wikipedia gives its yield as 170 kilotons, meaning 170,000 tons of TNT. Thus, this warhead does, on average, just over 2 million damage.

This is not the biggest bomb ever made. The Tsar Bomba had a theoretical payload of 100 megatons, or just over a BILLION points of damage.

So, a reasonably sized nuke could easily kill a god. The question is, how do you launch one at right angles to reality?

More to the point, how do you trick them into sitting still and waiting for it to hit them?

Also, do they get a saving throw? :smalltongue:

EDIT: Keep in mind that nukes don't actually act like a bunch of TNT all strapped together. A lot of the energy in the detonation is wasted. So, take these as an upper bound on the damage dealt... but still, it's clearly enough. Even if you roll all 1's.

shadow_archmagi
2008-03-30, 04:49 PM
As a deity, they're entitled to a reflex save for no damage, AND a will save to simply say

"Screw you bomb, I'm a GOD. Yeah, thats what I THOUGHT" and ignore all damage.

Crow
2008-03-30, 04:49 PM
If I remember correctly, d20 modern has the stats for a nuke... and the damage is surprisingly low, something along the lines of 20d10 (and a reflex saving throw for half damage).

What book was that in?

bugsysservant
2008-03-30, 04:50 PM
If I remember correctly, d20 modern has the stats for a nuke... and the damage is surprisingly low, something along the lines of 20d10 (and a reflex saving throw for half damage).

How low is the save? Could a second level rogue get hit by a nuke and take *no damage*? Just another lovely little bit of evidence in favor of the "we are all really low level" theory, I suppose.

Kurald Galain
2008-03-30, 04:54 PM
How low is the save? Could a second level rogue get hit by a nuke and take *no damage*?

Well, yes. Even if the save were high, statistically out of a group of 20 rogues, one would survive.

Tengu
2008-03-30, 04:57 PM
What book was that in?

Wish I knew. I never played d20 in any incarnation in my life, you know.

Belial_the_Leveler
2008-03-30, 06:29 PM
A) Nukes are not accurate. Most detonate at several miles away from the target to get maximum blast range. That way they destroy the maximum number of soft targets (commercial buldings) but very strong buildings and bomb shelters survive.

B) If a nuke hits a target at zero range, most things are toasted. The largest subsidence craters of underground explosions are almost 500 meters wide-this means that a multimegaton nuke can potentially chew through 150 DnD squares of soil, hard earth and loose stone. Assuming a square (5 ft) of loose stone, hard earth and soil are about as easy to damage as a 1 ft thick masonry wall which has 90 HP, this means that a major nuclear device can deal ~14.000 points of mostly thermal damage with a direct hit.

C) The majority of a nuclear blast's damage that is dangerous against a fortified target is thermal in nature-a 40% of the energy does turn into a shockwave that can tear down buildings but is ineffective against fortified targets (unless you get a direct hit-see above) because pressures do not go higher than a few dozen atmospheres even in the largest explosions. The problem is, DnD deities are immune to fire damage.

D) The strongest Earth Penetration Weapons-nuclear devices specifically made to work against fortified targets-can dig through seventy meters of concrete. That is roughly two hundred feet of masonry-or around 18.000 points of damage. That however is IF the weapon hits-because even if the EPW are the most accurate nukes yet, they still can't be aimed at targets less than a few dozen feet large.

E) Human beings as well as standard buildings have survived nuclear attacks as close as 100 meters away for a 15 kiloton weapon. Given that standard nukes have accuracy measured in miles rather than meters and that deities may have thousands of HP, survival is pretty possible.


DnD adaptation:

A multimegaton nuke should cause about 1.000 points of crushing damage plus 10.000 points of fire damage in a direct hit. Damage wound be reduced by 50 points of crushing and 500 points of fire for every 300 ft from a direct hit to a minimum of 100 points of crushing damage (and no fire damage) to a distance of two kilometers (rougly 6.000 ft). That is the primary blast.
The secondary blast is 100 points of crushing damage at a distance of 2 miles slowly falling to 50 points of crushing damage at a distance of twelve miles, applied to structures. Living beings and objects would take 20d6 points of crushing damage, reflex for half.
The tornado-force winds wound apply for two rounds after the explosion at a distance up to twenty miles.
Radiation damage translates to 4d6 constitution drain within the blast radius, 1d6 constitution drain within the surrunding area.
For fallout, roll 1d6 every day for a week plus 1d6 every year for a century. A result of 6 means a further 1 point of constitution drain.



Could modern weapons like nukes, missiles or tank bullets kill D&D deities?
How many shots would be required?
Use the stats above for a pretty large nuke (15+ megatons). Given that nukes are spectacularly innacurate, immortals-and most Epic creatures-would survive.

For missiles and tank bullets, most have trouble getting through iron walls so I wouldn't put their yeld at more than 20d6-30d6 points of damage. Given that they still need to hit vs AC or reflex and they're spectacularly innacurate, are subject to DR if they deal physical damage, most their damage is fire (to which many things are immune) and they have trouble locking onto human-sized targets, a suitably prepared epic character could survive hundreds of shots.

For plain bullets, iron is hardness 8-10 and bullets have trouble with it. So, DR 10 stops the majority of the damage. Deities have DR in the forties.

Emperor Tippy
2008-03-30, 06:50 PM
A) Nukes are not accurate. Most detonate at several miles away from the target to get maximum blast range. That way they destroy the maximum number of soft targets (commercial buldings) but very strong buildings and bomb shelters survive.

B) If a nuke hits a target at zero range, most things are toasted. The largest subsidence craters of underground explosions are almost 500 meters wide-this means that a multimegaton nuke can potentially chew through 150 DnD squares of soil, hard earth and loose stone. Assuming a square (5 ft) of loose stone, hard earth and soil are about as easy to damage as a 1 ft thick masonry wall which has 90 HP, this means that a major nuclear device can deal ~14.000 points of mostly thermal damage with a direct hit.

C) The majority of a nuclear blast's damage that is dangerous against a fortified target is thermal in nature-a 40% of the energy does turn into a shockwave that can tear down buildings but is ineffective against fortified targets (unless you get a direct hit-see above) because pressures do not go higher than a few dozen atmospheres even in the largest explosions. The problem is, DnD deities are immune to fire damage.

D) The strongest Earth Penetration Weapons-nuclear devices specifically made to work against fortified targets-can dig through seventy meters of concrete. That is roughly two hundred feet of masonry-or around 18.000 points of damage. That however is IF the weapon hits-because even if the EPW are the most accurate nukes yet, they still can't be aimed at targets less than a few dozen feet large.

E) Human beings as well as standard buildings have survived nuclear attacks as close as 100 meters away for a 15 kiloton weapon. Given that standard nukes have accuracy measured in miles rather than meters and that deities may have thousands of HP, survival is pretty possible.

You are flat out wrong about the accuracy of nuclear weapons. A nuke is just a warhead, the delivery system can be anything from a large suitcase or carry on up to an ICBM. The common deleivery systems are:
ICBM
Cruise Missile
Regular Bomb

The accuracy of a current generation US Cruise Missile is 1 meter and some of the next gen ones are at the point where you can target a specific window and have the weapon go through the window.

The accuracy of a current generation US SLBM with MIRVs is under 10 meters for each warhead. And with a single warhead its as accurate as a Cruise Missile.

Nukes don't have to be accurate but the current gen ones are as accurate as any other US weapons system. And some of the next gen weapons systems capable of delivering a nuclear payload are nearing the point where a missile launch from a continent away can kill 1 person in a crowd and not hit the guy standing next to him. The reason cruise missiles are used instead of ICBMs is mainly because any launch of an ICBM has to be assumed to be nuclear and other nations will respond accordingly. And an ICBM costs more than a cruise missile.

Wooter
2008-03-30, 06:55 PM
Are we doing with fission or fusion bombs here?

PaladinBoy
2008-03-30, 07:01 PM
I agree with Tippy on the accuracy. While nukes usually detonate some distance away from the intended target, this is an intentional techique used to maximize the damage, despite a slight reduction in blast area.

Now we consider the fact that it is even possible for modern technology to place a nuke at a precisely designated height for particular purposes.

I still don't think it could kill a D+D god. Gods have way too many sensory and defense abilities to be caught off guard.

Counterpower
2008-03-30, 07:41 PM
For plain bullets, iron is hardness 8-10 and bullets have trouble with it. So, DR 10 stops the majority of the damage. Deities have DR in the forties.

Since when do bullets have trouble with iron?

AP rounds from a .50-cal sniper rifle can destroy a helicopter's engine, or the engine of most other vehicles. From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M82_Barrett_rifle): "If it becomes necessary to immobilize a vehicle, a .50 BMG round in the engine block will shut it down quickly. If it is necessary to breach barriers, a .50 BMG round will penetrate most commercial brick walls and concrete blocks."

Bullets from an Avenger cannon on an A-10 are designed for an anti-tank role. Granted, that same Avenger can only land "80% of rounds fired at 4,000 ft (1,200 m) range within a 20 ft (6 m) radius" (direct quote from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger)) but when the gun can fire well over a hundred bullets in two seconds, never mind an entire D&D round, I don't think that accuracy is all that bad.

And that's just the bullets. The latest missiles can hit targets the size of a window, as Tippy pointed out, and certainly would have no problem with anything up to and including a hardened bunker, depending on the warhead used.

Now, I think gods would be capable of avoiding those weapons. But anything less than an epic character would most likely be dead, I think.

Hawriel
2008-03-30, 09:45 PM
Tippy is right. He just didnt mention another aspect of US missile weapons systems. Bunker busters. They are missiles that can punch through 20 feat of reinforced concrete and explode inside the structure. No need to aim through the window. And yes are military does put missiles through windows 100 miles away from the ship that launched it. Just remember the 1991 gulf war reality show.

Aquillion
2008-03-30, 10:03 PM
As a deity, they're entitled to a reflex save for no damage, AND a will save to simply say

"Screw you bomb, I'm a GOD. Yeah, thats what I THOUGHT" and ignore all damage.No they aren't. They're only entitled to reflex saves for things that already allow them (which, depending on how we stat it, a nuke possibly wouldn't), and the will save you just made up.

I hate it when people do that in discussions of D&D deities. No, they don't just get to say "Screw you, I'm a deity!" The D&D gods are actually very limited. If their divine rank is low and they don't have the really broken Salient Divine Abilities (Well, the one really broken one, Alter Reality), they're really likely to be getting as much or more of their power from their ~40 HD and levels than from their divine rank. Most published deities are like that. There's a reason why the rules for deities talk about speeds and natural attacks -- yes, there are situations where those can actually matter. A typical low-rank deity in combat with a competent epic-level party of near their level is, in fact, in danger of being killed.

The only reason stats are given for deities is so players can oppose and fight them, something that has a long tradition in both myths and fantasy (many heroes fought the Greek and Norse gods. Some even won, at least to an extent.) If you want to talk about "screw you, I'm a deity" sort of things, those are Overgods; no stats are provided for them, and they're rarely used in campaigns or settings (they're phasing Ao out entirely, say.)

Yeah, yeah, high-rank deities can see the future. So what? Can you name a single instance in myth or fantasy where that has ever helped anyone, in the long run? Seeing the future is pointless. All it does is let you know the exact speed and weight of the unavoidable freight train that is about to run you down.

TheOOB
2008-03-30, 10:10 PM
A nuke's damage isn't it's strong suit. A nuke at absolute most wouldn't do more damage then a single target meteor swarm, and most likely a great deal less. A nuke's strong suit is it's crazy blast radius and special ability to destroy buildings.

Frankly, a mid to high level hero should survive a nuke, they are for wiping large areas, not targeting a single person.

Pelfaid
2008-03-30, 10:18 PM
I believe that we are forgetting the most potent weapon the nuke has...radiation. Yeah, one in twenty rogues will live through the hit, but then they will die do to radiation poisoning and so the nuke still wins.

FoeHammer
2008-03-30, 10:22 PM
A nuke's damage isn't it's strong suit. A nuke at absolute most wouldn't do more damage then a single target meteor swarm, and most likely a great deal less. A nuke's strong suit is it's crazy blast radius and special ability to destroy buildings.

Frankly, a mid to high level hero should survive a nuke, they are for wiping large areas, not targeting a single person.


Wow. Congratulations on being wrong.

Nukes do WAY more damage than a meteor swarm could even dream of. A multi-megaton bomb delivers the (roughly) equivalent payload of literally millions of tons of traditional (TNT) explosives.

Emperor Tippy
2008-03-30, 10:23 PM
A nuke's damage isn't it's strong suit. A nuke at absolute most wouldn't do more damage then a single target meteor swarm, and most likely a great deal less. A nuke's strong suit is it's crazy blast radius and special ability to destroy buildings.

Frankly, a mid to high level hero should survive a nuke, they are for wiping large areas, not targeting a single person.

Actually a nukes strong suit is its damage. A nuke is the most destructive object by mass humanity can currently construct. A 15 kiloton nuke (which can be made to fit in a duffel bag and weigh a few hundred pounds at most) has the same power as 30,000,000 pounds of TNT.

The TNT would create the same overpressure wave and heat flash as the nuke.

----
Now few single targets actually need a nuke to destroy them but some do. NORAD was targeted with over a gigaton of nukes during the cold war because the USSR felt that the only way to take it out was by liquiefing the mountain. One of the Russian command bunkers had a similar payload targeted at it.

Orzel
2008-03-30, 10:32 PM
The nuke's damage comes in 3 parts, the force, the heat, and the radiation. They are immune to the radiation due to ability damage immunity. As for the heat and pressure, A greeter deity probably has enough powers and HP to survive a close hit. But a lower deity would have to a distance away to survive the diffused energy.

Mewtarthio
2008-03-30, 10:35 PM
Bear in mind that not all deities can see the future. You need to be at least an intermediate deity to do that. That means deities as high as DvR 10 are as in the dark as mortals, albeit well-informed mortals.

Rutee
2008-03-30, 10:40 PM
Couldn't any Deity with the appropriate spells just move to the Ethereal Plane and be perfectly fine?

Hadrian_Emrys
2008-03-30, 11:01 PM
I figured a nuke would be something like a massive aoe combo of effects that assaults all three save types with force damage, fire damage, and a disintergrate effect in addition to a massive debuff to all attributes that has no save.

Chronos
2008-03-30, 11:09 PM
Keep in mind that the megaton is a unit of energy, not of damage. The reason that only one Tsara Bomba was ever built is that, despite being ten times more energetic than normal nukes, it didn't actually do any more damage. So you can't just say "Well, one kilogram of TNT is so many d6 of damage, so a megaton is a billion times that many d6s".

wodan46
2008-03-30, 11:20 PM
Some General Facts on Nukes:

The nukes used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were around 10 and 20 kilotons of TNT respectively, while the modern Hydrogen Bombs have yields in the megaton range, with the Tsar Bomba having a 50 megaton yield

The Nagasaki had a fireball radius of 200 meters, while Tsar Bomba had a fireball radius of 4600 meters.

Outside the fireball range, you only have to worry about the concussive shockwaves, which if you are on ground level and in a city, have likely been stopped. Even inside the range of a fireball its still possible to survive. And thats for us wimpy NPC humans.

That's because explosions are very inefficient at killing things, as the concussion and heat spreads out in a sphere, most of it just going away from the ground level that we're standing in, and the rest getting rapidly dispersed by barriers.

Nevertheless, a direct hit is going to kill anything that can be killed by damage, more or less.

JMobius
2008-03-30, 11:38 PM
I had a splatbook for the HERO system that stated out the effects of a nuclear detonation to a ridiculous degree of accuracy. There were something akin to 7 effects the warhead would set off, ranging from the fireball, different types of pressure waves, and radiation.

With some really lucky rolls, given adequate protection and luck versus some of the more people-unfriendly effects, survival was possible. :)

sikyon
2008-03-30, 11:43 PM
Keep in mind that the megaton is a unit of energy, not of damage. The reason that only one Tsara Bomba was ever built is that, despite being ten times more energetic than normal nukes, it didn't actually do any more damage. So you can't just say "Well, one kilogram of TNT is so many d6 of damage, so a megaton is a billion times that many d6s".

That doesn't even make any sense. A Tsara Bomba will, infact, do much more damage than a kiloton range nuclear device, as it releases more energy. The destruction radius, however, increases approximately with the square root of the energy, but to say that a 100 megaton weapon won't do more damage than a 100 kiloton weapon is frankly absurd. Only 1 Tsara Bomba was built because USSR was trying to scare the pants off of the US. Tsara bomba was too unweildly to deliver and didn't do enough damage.

At the center of the blast, you are going to suffer a substantial portion of it. You are going to absorb however much of the blast you block, if you wrapped yourself around it you'd absorb all of the damage. Obviously, surface area of the blast covered by your body decreases rapidly with distance.

Deities are also very killable, the same way wizards are killable - it's possible to kill them by hitting them, but it's almost impossible to hit them.

rockdeworld
2008-03-31, 12:29 AM
@Belial_the_Leveler: Actually, for your point B, I'd say the ground is more like "Unworked stone" than masonry, especially since the deeper you go, the denser the earth is. So let's use (for easiness sake) 150 5ft squares of Unworked stone, each of which have 900 hp and 8 hardness per block. 150 DnD squares of soil would equate to 1200 hardness + 135000 HP = 136200 damage, a magnitude more than your estimate (and keep in mind this is exactly that - an estimate). I do like your adaption though.

Another important note is what nukes are. They don't deal fire damage, they don't deal energy damage, they split atoms. There is no DnD equivalent to that, so just call it "untyped" damage. On top of this, the explosion creates concussive damage from the literal explosion, and sound damage.

For saves, consider a nuke the equivalent of a very powerful single meteor of a Meteor Swarm. If you aim it at a creature, that creature's AC applies, which includes things like dexterity and (for a deity) divine energy field and deflection bonuses. If we assume this is a greater deity who has sensed his/her death through portfolio+remote sensing (or remote sensing if it applies), a (large) circumstancial insight bonus would probably also apply to AC. For the rest, let's assume a greater deity without the portfolio to sense and avoid this fate, or gain automatic actions to avoid it.

Now if you miss with the nuke, then the deity automatically gets a reflex save to avoid (or null, with evasion) all damage resulting from the explosion, and since we're assuming a greater deity, the deity will get an automatic 20, with a possibility of critical success (still need to roll for that).

Now the nuke explodes. Assuming we use the type of nuke described above in this post, it would deal approx. 250d10*100 damage (the "*100" was for fun, you could make it d100*10 instead :P). Let's divide this up into:
50d10*100 force damage (from the concussion wave)
180d10*100 untyped damage (from the splitting of atoms)
20d10*100 sonic damage (from the sound wave)

A greater deity, with 20 outsider HD and 40 class levels (the average) would have
20d8 (outsider HD)
+40d8 (8 being the average HD between 4,6,8,10,12)
+60*10 (for excessive, deity-sized CON)
with maximized HP per level (as per deity rules)
=1080 HP
Damage Reduction 30/epic
and Spell Resistance 52 (assuming Divine Rank 20)

You decide how it would play out. I don't know D20 Modern rules :smalltongue:

How's that look?

Pronounceable
2008-03-31, 05:30 AM
(and a reflex saving throw for half damage).

Sigh...just for the limit

SamTheCleric
2008-03-31, 08:51 AM
I don't care how dex-y you are... you can't dive out of the way of a nuke.

Duck-and-cover didn't really work.

sikyon
2008-03-31, 08:54 AM
Duck-and-cover didn't really work.

In D&D it does. Also, duck-and-cover was to sheild you from 'sploding glass and things like that, not from the radiation or the heat.

mostlyharmful
2008-03-31, 08:55 AM
I don't care how dex-y you are... you can't dive out of the way of a nuke.

Duck-and-cover didn't really work.

But they arent moving anywhere, theyre just reacting..... Rogue Space for the win!!!!

Citizen Joe
2008-03-31, 11:13 AM
I think we're getting into the situational logic of: If ONE flask of oil does X amount of damage, then 50 flasks of oil should do 50 X damage... but it doesn't work like that... It works more like: If one flask does X damage, then 50 flasks can do X damage to 50 different locations... or X damage over 50 times the length of time. The burning oil doesn't really do the damage, it creates an environmental condition that causes damage. More oil just makes the environment grow but does not actually make the fire more intense, i.e. more damaging.

Specifically with nukes, one megaton or a hundred megatons doesn't make any difference at ground zero, it just spreads out the destructive radius (assuming you're not trying to contain the energy). You're also going to take multiple hits from different damage types... so for starters, you get the flash damage (fire or light) which drops off rather quickly with range. Then you'll get hit by debris, physical damage, which is likely avoidable. Next you get hit by the concussion wave which is either force or sonic damage. If you're still intact after that, you will probably be flung outwards to eventually take more impact damage as falling. Assuming you survive all of that, you are now diseased/poisoned with radiation sickness.

koldstare
2008-03-31, 11:24 AM
Another important note is what nukes are. They don't deal fire damage, they don't deal energy damage, they split atoms. There is no DnD equivalent to that, so just call it "untyped" damage. On top of this, the explosion creates concussive damage from the literal explosion, and sound damage.

It wouldn't be untyped in my opinion. Splitting the atom is just how the energy is created. A flask of alchemists fire does 1d6+1(fire) and a fireball cast by a first level (humor me for a moment) wizard also deals 1d6(fire) 2 completely different sources for the energy, but ending in similar results

ashmanonar
2008-03-31, 11:29 AM
I believe that we are forgetting the most potent weapon the nuke has...radiation. Yeah, one in twenty rogues will live through the hit, but then they will die do to radiation poisoning and so the nuke still wins.

Unless you make the fort save.


:D

Rutee
2008-03-31, 11:42 AM
Or get a Remove Disease + Restoration. Radiation isn't that scary for one adventurer. Still tough to keep it from destroying the local wildlife.

Telonius
2008-03-31, 11:44 AM
Instead of treating it like an equal-opportunity area effect like Fireball, I would think of it more like a really big flask of alchemist's fire. Squares within x radius take max damage, squares within y radius take y damage, and so on. What's the biggest, thickest thing that an actual nuke can take out at ground zero? 1 mile out? 5 miles out? That's the HP/hardness you'd need to base the standard damage on. It could be done, but I don't know enough about nuclear weapons to do it.

Roderick_BR
2008-03-31, 11:54 AM
If I remember correctly, d20 modern has the stats for a nuke... and the damage is surprisingly low, something along the lines of 20d10 (and a reflex saving throw for half damage).
Wow, you can actually outrun a nuclear explosion? :smallbiggrin:
I remember a magazine once stated Predators for AD&D. Their little wrist bomb dealt 100d10 * 100 points of damage, or something.

Seriously, when I think about someone trying to nuke a god, I keep imagining DBZ like scenes, where the dust settles down... and he's standing there, as if nothing had happened...

SpikeFightwicky
2008-03-31, 12:29 PM
The d20 Modern Book: d20 Future Post Apocalypse has actual stats on a nuclear blast (by general kilotonnage). I don't recall precisely, but everything in the initial blast zone is killed (no save, no damage... just vaporized), everything in the secondary zone takes a generous amount of heat damage and everything in the tertiary zone takes either minor or no damage. It also has rules on how the radiation (both long term and initial exposure) will affect things. I'll be able to provide more info once I get to my book later on tonight. It seems to be what the OP is looking for.

GoC
2008-03-31, 03:08 PM
For missiles and tank bullets, most have trouble getting through iron walls so I wouldn't put their yeld at more than 20d6-30d6 points of damage. Given that they still need to hit vs AC or reflex and they're spectacularly innacurate, are subject to DR if they deal physical damage, most their damage is fire (to which many things are immune) and they have trouble locking onto human-sized targets, a suitably prepared epic character could survive hundreds of shots.

For plain bullets, iron is hardness 8-10 and bullets have trouble with it. So, DR 10 stops the majority of the damage. Deities have DR in the forties.
...
Tank bullets can't go through iron walls, are very innaccurate and deal fire damage and ordinary bullets can't get through fullplate armor...
Anything you'd like to take back?

Kioran
2008-03-31, 04:21 PM
Most modern weapons are effective to the point of overkill, at least compared to the resilence of the human body. Even a 7.62x51mm NATO round is sufficient to penetrate over an inch of sheet metal - in fact, Infantry weapons and especially machine guns have been sufficient to score penetrating hits on armored vehicles like smaller APCs or Humvees in the past, and still sometimes today. The 12.7x99mm projectile of the Barrett is another matter entirely - it is openly acknowledge to be overkill if used against Infantry and is mainly used to take out light armored vehicles - which it is fully capable of doing. Itīs projectiles are capable of blowing through a cars engine block, amongst others. However, even lesser calibers from less than state-off-the-art weapons can be quite deadly.

And since the advent of Fin-stabilized kinetic penetrators, like those fired from the Rheinmetall 120mm smoothbore cannon used in the Leopard 2 and M1A2, even an MBTs front armor does not guarantee safety. Itīs safe to say that these rounds, while in rare documented cases not instantly lethal against human targets, will punch through walls, even solid masonry, effortlessly. Same goes for directional charges.

Nukes play in an entirely different league. Any direct hit will obliterate the target. Anything within a few hundered meters is almost guaranteed to die. Iīd say if one can place the bomb within 50 meters of a manifest deity, they should be pizza. Beyond that? Thereīs been survivors, and I bet gods can take a lot more damage than ordinary humans.....


It all boils down to whether one can hit a deity with the nuke - or even a tank or IED. Doesnīt matter much. Any of these is solidly in the realm of overkill - if they hit.

GoC
2008-03-31, 05:13 PM
Nukes play in an entirely different league. Any direct hit will obliterate the target. Anything within a few hundered meters is almost guaranteed to die. Iīd say if one can place the bomb within 50 meters of a manifest deity, they should be pizza. Beyond that? Thereīs been survivors, and I bet gods can take a lot more damage than ordinary humans.....

You have to remember that modern nukes are at least 100x more powerful than Fat Man. That should increase the no-survival range to 500m.

Overlord
2008-03-31, 05:29 PM
Specifically with nukes, one megaton or a hundred megatons doesn't make any difference at ground zero, it just spreads out the destructive radius (assuming you're not trying to contain the energy). You're also going to take multiple hits from different damage types... so for starters, you get the flash damage (fire or light) which drops off rather quickly with range. Then you'll get hit by debris, physical damage, which is likely avoidable. Next you get hit by the concussion wave which is either force or sonic damage. If you're still intact after that, you will probably be flung outwards to eventually take more impact damage as falling. Assuming you survive all of that, you are now diseased/poisoned with radiation sickness.

That's not necessarily true. Scientists can't test whether or not a 100 megaton nuke does more damage than a 10 megaton nuke because (AFAIK) there is no known substance that withstand a direct, ground-zero blast from even the smallest of atomic weapons. You're absolutely correct that the only major difference between a higher yield nuclear device and a smaller device is the blast radius...but that's because anything caught in the fireball radius is gone. Either the blast radius reaches the target or it doesn't; if the target is outside immediate blast radius, then it might survive the shockwaves. Otherwise, it's completely annihilated.

But we're talking about putting D&D stats on a thermonuclear bomb. There is no real reason to do so. Something like a hydrogen bomb is completely dependent upon one thing: DM fiat. Nuclear devices are not like monsters or spells that can be overcome by a PC, which need game statistics so that PCs can be given an appropriate chance to avoid the encounter. No, nukes are just big huge plot devices.

If the DM says that Raccoon City is being nuked, then everything he says is within the blast radius is gone. Now, the DM is probably going to want to do a bit of research to determine an appropriate blast radius, and if PCs are involved, he'll probably have them make some checks to see if they can escape the blast radius in time. But deciding how many d6s of damage a hydrogen bomb deals is just pointless. The answer is: more damage than anything the DM wants destroyed can take.

Emperor Tippy
2008-03-31, 05:36 PM
Surviving a ground zero nuke detonation (or even a supernova for that matter) is not that difficult for a wizard. Just cast any of the force spells on your self (resilient sphere, telekinetic sphere, force cage). For real fun forcecage the nuke. You contain the nuclear blast which allows the chain reaction to go on until it is fully complete, giving you a nuke with near 100% efficiency (meaning minimal fallout).

Chronos
2008-03-31, 05:51 PM
But we're talking about putting D&D stats on a thermonuclear bomb. There is no real reason to do so. Something like a hydrogen bomb is completely dependent upon one thing: DM fiat. Nuclear devices are not like monsters or spells that can be overcome by a PC, which need game statistics so that PCs can be given an appropriate chance to avoid the encounter. No, nukes are just big huge plot devices.The same could be said of gods, yet many D&D players prefer for gods to have set, finite stats, so they can try to fight them. And in fact, the root question here was whether a nuke could take out a D&D god. If you want to play the nuke as a purely DM-arbitrated Macguffin, then why not do the same for the gods?


Surviving a ground zero nuke detonation (or even a supernova for that matter) is not that difficult for a wizard. Just cast any of the force spells on your self (resilient sphere, telekinetic sphere, force cage).That may or may not work: One might rule that a nuke produces an effect equivalent to Disintegrate at close range.

Sachiel
2008-03-31, 06:18 PM
really i myself am not sure the actual damage somthing like a nuke might do, i mean we know it is a great huge terrible explosion, but there is nothing that says the actual damage it does would be anygreater than say a maxed delayed blast fireball, or some crazy epic spell for that matter. But i can't imagine a nuke would be able to take out a god, i would say a basic intermediate diety could be standing groundzero of an atomic explosino and come out of it no problem, for the basic fact that the real problem of an atomic bomb is not the damage it does, there are more than plenty conventional weapons that can out do an H bomb on a small scale.

sikyon
2008-03-31, 07:22 PM
Surviving a ground zero nuke detonation (or even a supernova for that matter) is not that difficult for a wizard. Just cast any of the force spells on your self (resilient sphere, telekinetic sphere, force cage). For real fun forcecage the nuke. You contain the nuclear blast which allows the chain reaction to go on until it is fully complete, giving you a nuke with near 100% efficiency (meaning minimal fallout).

You seem to be forgetting that Wall of Force may or may not translate heat, but it's transparant and therefore all the EM spectrum emissions are going to go right through it. Specifically, the infrared is going to boil you alive and the gamma rays are going to destroy your CON.


really i myself am not sure the actual damage somthing like a nuke might do, i mean we know it is a great huge terrible explosion, but there is nothing that says the actual damage it does would be anygreater than say a maxed delayed blast fireball, or some crazy epic spell for that matter. But i can't imagine a nuke would be able to take out a god, i would say a basic intermediate diety could be standing groundzero of an atomic explosino and come out of it no problem, for the basic fact that the real problem of an atomic bomb is not the damage it does, there are more than plenty conventional weapons that can out do an H bomb on a small scale.

Gods arn't actually that tough if you can hit them. 50-70 HD by divine rules as a rule of thumb.

Emperor Tippy
2008-03-31, 07:27 PM
You seem to be forgetting that Wall of Force may or may not translate heat, but it's transparant and therefore all the EM spectrum emissions are going to go right through it. Specifically, the infrared is going to boil you alive and the gamma rays are going to destroy your CON.



Gods arn't actually that tough if you can hit them. 50-70 HD by divine rules as a rule of thumb.

Actually thats a houserule. Invisible just means undetectable in the visible spectrum. So we have no reason to assume that infrared, gamma rays, x-rays, etc. penetrates a wall of force.

sikyon
2008-03-31, 07:30 PM
Actually thats a houserule. Invisible just means undetectable in the visible spectrum. So we have no reason to assume that infrared, gamma rays, x-rays, etc. penetrates a wall of force.

Actually Invisible just meaning that it's undetectable visually. Doesn't say who's vision though. It's conceivable that some creatures could see infrared/gamma. Invisibilty even hides you from dark vision, which doesn't require a light source.

Edit: Actually, there's no reason to assume that those don't penetrate a wall of force. Those things arn't listed as things a wall of force blocks, ergo it doesn't block them.

Emperor Tippy
2008-03-31, 07:39 PM
Edit: Actually, there's no reason to assume that those don't penetrate a wall of force. Those things arn't listed as things a wall of force blocks, ergo it doesn't block them.

So since Wall of Force doesn't say that it blocks objects you can shoot arrows through it?

Chronos
2008-03-31, 07:46 PM
At ground zero, the visible light alone from a nuke would be more than enough to fry a person. However, a Wall of Force will stop other visible-light based attacks like a Searing Light, Sunburst, or Prismatic Spray, so it's probably safe to assume that whatever light it let through from a nuke would be rendered non-damaging somehow (perhaps it auto-tints enough to dim the light?).

sikyon
2008-03-31, 07:47 PM
So since Wall of Force doesn't say that it blocks objects you can shoot arrows through it?

Logically, it says that it blocks breath weapons and material/ethreal creatures, forcecage suggests that the weapon can't go through the bars and force sheild suggests it can block weapons. However, there's nothing in that description to suggest it can block light (I am using "light" in it's more scientific meaning of the entire EM spectrum).

Overlord
2008-03-31, 07:56 PM
The same could be said of gods, yet many D&D players prefer for gods to have set, finite stats, so they can try to fight them. And in fact, the root question here was whether a nuke could take out a D&D god. If you want to play the nuke as a purely DM-arbitrated Macguffin, then why not do the same for the gods?


Well, the fact is that if you're making stats for a deity, it's really for one eventual reason: you expect that the PCs are going to fight that deity. When you, as the DM, choose to give your deities statistics, you are by definition choosing to make it possible for a player to defeat a deity in combat (or at least, for it to be possible for a player to survive combat with one--otherwise, there would be no point to writing stats; again, it would boil down to DM fiat).

So the question you need to ask yourself is: do I want to make it possible for something (anything) to survive a direct blast from a nuclear device? Generally, the answer to this question should be "only if you (as the DM) say it does."

After some thought, I do wish to retract one of my earlier points: I do see a possible need for stats for the shockwave caused by a nuke outside of the immediate fireball. If, in your game, you need a fair way to determine whether or not players could survive a more distant nuclear attack, possibly with shelter, then yes, I do see how fairly balanced rules for a nuclear blast could be useful. I believe that D20 Apocalypse does have rules for that, those could be what you're looking for.

However, I still believe that's it's pointless to argue about how many d6s of damage a direct hit from a nuke deals: either way, it's the DM's decision. Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't be talking about this--I actually do find the discussion of how big of a crater a nuclear device can make to be quite interesting. But I do think we need to recognize that there's not a mechanical reason for us to extrapolate this sort of thing.

sikyon
2008-03-31, 08:03 PM
Well, the fact is that if you're making stats for a deity, it's really for one eventual reason: you expect that the PCs are going to fight that deity. When you, as the DM, choose to give your deities statistics, you are by definition choosing to make it possible for a player to defeat a deity in combat (or at least, for it to be possible for a player to survive combat with one--otherwise, there would be no point to writing stats; again, it would boil down to DM fiat).


Sometimes DMs like to be thorough. Deity =/= auto-fiat. In order to create a comprehensive game world, sometimes you need to include elements you don't expect to use. I mean, if you're running a module in hell and you don't expect the PC's to fight asmodeous, but you will still revert to those stats if the PC's somehow encounter him.

Also, all deitys should be defeatable in combat. Epic levels, my friend, lots of epic levels. Deity's are not the Christian god, they are not all powerful and even the bad things happen at their will. They are more like norse/greek gods who can die to other epic level challenges. Just another level in the power scale.

Treguard
2008-03-31, 08:16 PM
..and as the smoke and debris clear we see that the frenzied beserker is still alive. :smallbiggrin:

GoC
2008-03-31, 08:49 PM
..and as the smoke and debris clear we see that the frenzied beserker is still alive. :smallbiggrin:
Still alive as a collection of atoms floating several thousand feet up in the air... I'd like to see DBZ characters try and do that!:smalltongue:

Sachiel: The fact that it can go through meters of hardened steel could be interpreted to mean it does more damage than a maximized fireball.

Overlord
2008-03-31, 08:55 PM
Sometimes DMs like to be thorough. Deity =/= auto-fiat. In order to create a comprehensive game world, sometimes you need to include elements you don't expect to use. I mean, if you're running a module in hell and you don't expect the PC's to fight asmodeous, but you will still revert to those stats if the PC's somehow encounter him.

Also, all deitys should be defeatable in combat. Epic levels, my friend, lots of epic levels. Deity's are not the Christian god, they are not all powerful and even the bad things happen at their will. They are more like norse/greek gods who can die to other epic level challenges. Just another level in the power scale.

I think you're illustrating my point. I said that if you're making the decision to give deities stat's, then you're choosing to allow PCs to kill them. You have chosen to allow PCs to kill deities, so it's perfectly reasonable for you to give them stats. But not all DMs would agree with you. Some DMs do not like to let deities be killed; as such, they do not need stats for deities.

But that's kind of an off-topic point. The difference between a deity and a nuke is that one would not logically combat a nuke. One either survives the blast or one...does not. When a DM gives the nuke an arbitrary amount of damage potential, he's basically doing the same thing as outright deciding whether or not he wants the characters to survive (or at least leaving it up to chance). We aren't talking about a trap, where a PC is expected to have a chance to avoid the damage as an encounter of an appropriate difficulty. We're talking about a thermonuclear bomb. There's basically no reason for a DM to set a certain number of dice of damage for a nuclear bomb. He might as well just decide that the characters live (and possibly shave HP off of their total), decide that the characters die, or just roll a d% to give them a random chance.


..and as the smoke and debris clear we see that the frenzied beserker is still alive. :smallbiggrin:

And believe me he is still alive!
And when you're dying he'll be still alive!
Still alive! Still alive!

...Oh, sorry, what were we talking about? :smallbiggrin:

sikyon
2008-03-31, 09:24 PM
But that's kind of an off-topic point. The difference between a deity and a nuke is that one would not logically combat a nuke. One either survives the blast or one...does not. When a DM gives the nuke an arbitrary amount of damage potential, he's basically doing the same thing as outright deciding whether or not he wants the characters to survive (or at least leaving it up to chance). We aren't talking about a trap, where a PC is expected to have a chance to avoid the damage as an encounter of an appropriate difficulty. We're talking about a thermonuclear bomb. There's basically no reason for a DM to set a certain number of dice of damage for a nuclear bomb. He might as well just decide that the characters live (and possibly shave HP off of their total), decide that the characters die, or just roll a d% to give them a random chance.

Or, you know, he takes a simplified scientific approach to calculating nuke damage and then compares it to a deity's stats. Nuke damage is fixed based on science, Deity's powers are fixed based on RAW. No decision making involved.

rockdeworld
2008-03-31, 09:30 PM
How about this:
Nuke
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 15
Components: V, S
Casting Time: Standard Action
Range: Long (400 ft + 40 ft/level)
Area: 1-mile-radius-spread
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude partial (object), Fortitude
Spell Resistance: No

As Disintegrate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/disintegrate.htm), except for the following:
-a successful touch attack causes an explosion that affects everything in a 1 mile radius.
-the damage on a successful touch attack is changed to 40d6 per caster level (to a maximum of 800d6)
-a successful fortitude save reduces the damage to 100d6 damage
-any creature that is affected by this spell and survives must make a fortitude save against the disease (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#disease) Radiation Poisoning (Incubation 1d6 weeks, Damage 2d10 Con*)
*each time a character is damaged in this way, he contracts a random disease not spread by creatures (i.e. Demon Fever, Mummy Rot, etc).

:smalltongue:

GoC
2008-04-01, 09:12 AM
How about this:
Nuke
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 15
Components: V, S
Casting Time: Standard Action
Range: Long (400 ft + 40 ft/level)
Area: 1-mile-radius-spread
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude partial (object), Fortitude
Spell Resistance: No

As Disintegrate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/disintegrate.htm), except for the following:
-a successful touch attack causes an explosion that affects everything in a 1 mile radius.
-the damage on a successful touch attack is changed to 40d6 per caster level (to a maximum of 800d6)
-a successful fortitude save reduces the damage to 100d6 damage
-any creature that is affected by this spell and survives must make a fortitude save against the disease (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#disease) Radiation Poisoning (Incubation 1d6 weeks, Damage 2d10 Con*)
*each time a character is damaged in this way, he contracts a random disease not spread by creatures (i.e. Demon Fever, Mummy Rot, etc).

:smalltongue:

I think it's a bit too low-level...:smallwink:

hamishspence
2008-04-01, 01:23 PM
Munchkin version:

THERMONUCLEAR AIRBURST

Evocation [Fire]
Level: Wiz 9
Components: V, XP
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Really Far Away (1 mile + 1 mile/level)
Area: 1,000-ft radius spread
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving throw: Reflex half
Spell resistance: Yes

Upon completion of this spell, a massive nuclear explosion takes place somewhere in the sky above the point selected by the caster. Boom. This is just like fireball, except:
~ It deals 1000d6 damage to everyone caught within the blast.
~ A pretty mushroom cloud remains over the area for about five minutes.
~ Anyone still living is now radioactive. Yay! You glow in the dark now. Radiation sickness kills you in 1d6 days. Wish or miracle is the only thing that can heal you. Even if you are raised or resurrected, you're still radioactive and will die (again) in another 1d6 days.

XP cost: 100,000 XP plus 1 XP per point of damage inflicted by the blast. Any caster reduced to 0 XP by this spell dies immediately. You must roll damge for everything in the blast. Separately.

I think this was an interesting way of doing it: making it a spell you really, really do not want to cast.

FinalJustice
2008-04-01, 01:42 PM
Yeah, and have some DweomerCheater cast it as a (Su). >D

RagnaroksChosen
2008-04-01, 02:32 PM
In the case of is a nuke > then a deity... my bets on the deity.. mainly for the fabricate reality thing(although I think all deitys have vulnerabilities) as far as RAW... I may be wrong but I would assume that the ground 0 of a nuke is considered a dissintigration effect... and if we can agree that it is then from the srd:
"Deities of rank 1 or higher are immune to disease and poison, stunning, sleep, paralysis, and death effects, and disintegration. "

I ones played in a game of d20 modern where our mage/scientist player was tryign to find out if disintigration actualy disassembled the target on an atomic level or just a molecular one...

mmm warheads that cast a blast radius disintegrate...

Ps. sorry about the grammer mistakes... at work.

Swordguy
2008-04-01, 03:11 PM
*sigh*

Wanna see how much damage is done by thermonuclear detonations in D&D? Check out my sig.

Or understand this. Lets use a 120 kiloton weapon as an example. It's a common warhead in the US armory.
-Figure out the kilotonnage of a device or desired explosion. (120kt=120,000 tons).
-Nuclear devices are listed in metric tons (1000kg=1 ton). So, convert to kilgrams. (120,000 tons=12,000,000 kg)
-Convert to pounds. (12,000,000/0.454=264,317,180 lbs, rounding down.)
-1 pound of dynamite (which is close enough to TNT for our purposes, and is actually less powerful than raw TNT) is worth 3d6 damage.

So, 3d6*264,317,180=792,951,540d6 damage to the target hex. Or, if you don't want to roll that many dice, figuring a roll of 3 per die (below average rolling, actually), 2,378,854,620 untyped damage.

In addition, dynamite has a blast radius. Anything within that blast radius take 2d6 bludgeoning per lb of dynamite. Figure out the math yourself. Interestingly, the only save listed in the DMG is for being in the blast radius, not the target square. The damage is different depending on whether you're in the blast radius or the target square, so I would postulate that there is no save for being in the target square.

Enjoy that 2.3 billion damage.

Rutee
2008-04-01, 04:14 PM
I will, because a quick ethereal jaunt renders it a moot point. As do most forms of Regeneration. Once you overkill something once, the rest is absolute wastefulness. Aside from the long term effects, that's pretty much the problem with nukes to begin with, really.

Swordguy
2008-04-01, 04:38 PM
I will, because a quick ethereal jaunt renders it a moot point. As do most forms of Regeneration. Once you overkill something once, the rest is absolute wastefulness. Aside from the long term effects, that's pretty much the problem with nukes to begin with, really.

Meh. I just didn't want people to think that a nuke does an arbitrary amount of damage. The OP wanted to know if a nuke could kill (which I call "reducing to -10 hp") a deity. To answer that, you need to know the amount of damage done by a nuke, and the answers given thus far woefully underestimated the amount of damage dealt. The D&D rules do in fact provide the toolkit to accurately state how much raw damage a nuclear weapon burst does at a given yield. So, as it stands, unless there's a diety out there with more than 4,575,709,230 hp, a nuke of this yield will reduce said deity to -10hp and, thus, kill them.

Also, this doesn't include the long-term thermal or radiological effects of being at ground zero. I'd postulate that the raw radiation damage from a point-blank groundburst would overcome a whole lot of regeneration (for a period of years, at least). As a best-guess estimate, I'd give 2 points of damage, per round, per kiloton, of radiation damage at ground zero. The damage decreases in a non-linear fashion, so somebody 500 feet away may only take 1 damage per round per kt, while someone a half-mile away may take 0.02 damage per round per kt, and someone five miles away may only take 1 point of damage per week in total.

The ethereal jaunt (etc) doesn't factor into it. Does this nuke do enough damage to kill any yet-published-with-a-hp-score deity? Yes.

Rutee
2008-04-01, 05:13 PM
Doesn't Radiation function much more similarly to a disease then any form of damage, so a quick Restoration and Cure Disease would send you back on your way?

Chronos
2008-04-01, 05:50 PM
Or understand this. Lets use a 120 kiloton weapon as an example. It's a common warhead in the US armory.
-Figure out the kilotonnage of a device or desired explosion. (120kt=120,000 tons).
-Nuclear devices are listed in metric tons (1000kg=1 ton). So, convert to kilgrams. (120,000 tons=12,000,000 kg)
-Convert to pounds. (12,000,000/0.454=264,317,180 lbs, rounding down.)
-1 pound of dynamite (which is close enough to TNT for our purposes, and is actually less powerful than raw TNT) is worth 3d6 damage.

So, 3d6*264,317,180=792,951,540d6 damage to the target hex. Or, if you don't want to roll that many dice, figuring a roll of 3 per die (below average rolling, actually), 2,378,854,620 untyped damageIf you try to stat it out that way, then you're doing that 792,951,540d6 damage in, what, a ten-foot radius? By the DMG, throwing multiple sticks of dynamite at the same spot won't increase the area at all.

Again, I reiterate, it's not as simple as just doubling the kilotonnage = double the damage.

sikyon
2008-04-01, 06:22 PM
Doesn't Radiation function much more similarly to a disease then any form of damage, so a quick Restoration and Cure Disease would send you back on your way?

That'd probably cure radiation poisoning, yes.

Swordguy
2008-04-01, 09:17 PM
If you try to stat it out that way, then you're doing that 792,951,540d6 damage in, what, a ten-foot radius? By the DMG, throwing multiple sticks of dynamite at the same spot won't increase the area at all.

Again, I reiterate, it's not as simple as just doubling the kilotonnage = double the damage.

Well, 20 foot. But still...

rockdeworld
2008-04-02, 01:47 AM
I think this was an interesting way of doing it: making it a spell you really, really do not want to cast.
Maybe you missed how my "Nuke" spell has a range shorter than its area :smallbiggrin:

Bag_of_Holding
2008-04-02, 01:51 AM
It's kinda funny that how a low-level sorcerer can simply cast Wings of Cover to ignore that sweet 2.3 billion damage, ye know.


Edit: So here's an epic spell I developed that simulates a nuclear bomb... to a degree.

Nukillar Bahm
Evocation
Spellcraft DC: 2,001,178
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 10 miles (52,800-ft.)
Area: 1-mile radius blast (5,280-ft)
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude half
Spell Resistance: Yes
To Develop: 18,010,602,000 gp; 360,212 days (986 years); 720,424,080 XP. Seeds: destroy (DC 29), slay (DC 25). Factors: extra +999,980d6 damage (+1,999,960 DC), 10 miles range or 500% increase of base seed (+6 DC), targeted to 20-ft radius area (+10 DC), 20-ft. radius to 5,280-ft. radius or 26,400% increase (+1,056 DC), 1 standard action cast (+20 DC), +18d4 negative level (+72 DC)

This spell deals 1,000,000d6 untyped damage (Fort half) to a 1-mile radius area as a standard action. In addition, all living creatures within the radius will also gain 20d4 negative level (Fort half). Anything reduced to -10 hit point or less (0 hp for constructs, objects or undead) is utterly destroyed as per disintegrate spell.

Epic, indeed! An average of 3.5 million hit point damage and around 50 persisting negative levels unless they succeed two Fortitude saves for half damage each. Well, of course all deities are immune to energy drain but 3.5 million untyped hp damage can only be negated by Wings of Cover spell, I believe. Other things not immune to energy drain such as a mature adult force dragon (50HD) will almost certainly be immediately slain unless they succeed in Fort save.

Swordguy
2008-04-02, 06:13 PM
By request: approximate damage from the M829 120mm APFSDS round fired from the M256 gun.

Assumption: We're using the M829A2 round, as it's the current most common one used by the US military, and the details for the -A3 model are as yet classified. There are significant performance differences between the various models of the M829, so we'll figure to the maximum performance that we can.

Figuring out damage dealt by the M829 can be very difficult, because as a penetrator, the angle of impact and distance to the target makes a tremendous difference in the amount of energy actually delivered to the target. For purposes of this work, we're assuming a "perfect" delivery.

Proof: The M829A2 has a muzzle velocity of 1680m/s, with approximately a 10.85 lb penetrator. This produces an approximate muzzle energy of 3.95 million pounds of energy. This energy is capable of penetrating about 81cm of rolled homogenous steel.

Manuel Eissler's book, A Handbook on Modern Explosives puts the power of 1lb of dynamite at 18,740 kilograms of force. (pg 173). There's 2.2 pounds in a kilogram, so we divide 18740 by 2.2 to convert it, with a result of about 8,518 pounds of energy.

From here, it's a simply matter to divide 3.95 million lbs by 8,518 lbs to find the equivalency. This equation produces a result of 463.72...or one M829A2 is approximately equal to 464 lbs of dynamite.

The D&D 3.5 DMG puts the force of 1lb of dynamite at 3d6 damage. Since we're dealing with 464 lbs of it, 464*3d6=1392d6 damage, yielding an average damage of 4,872 hp of damage.

GoC
2008-04-02, 06:51 PM
Energy is measured in pounds?:smallconfused:

Swordguy
2008-04-02, 07:01 PM
Energy is measured in pounds?:smallconfused:

Pounds of force. The proper term is "foot-pounds", but I'm lazy. Weapon impact energy is most commonly measured in foot-pounds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot-pound_force

"One foot-pound is the amount of energy expended when a force of one pound acts through a distance of one foot along the direction of the force."

EDIT: Wait. You're an "incurable physics geek" and you've never heard of foot-pounds?

EDIT2: Oh, I see what I did. Sorry - I was using the terms "energy" and "force" interchangeably. Replace energy with force in all cases. My bad.

Stormthorn
2008-04-02, 07:54 PM
Edit: So here's an epic spell I developed that simulates a nuclear bomb... to a degree.

Nukillar Bahm
Evocation
Spellcraft DC: 2,001,178
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 10 miles (52,800-ft.)
Area: 1-mile radius blast (5,280-ft)
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude half
Spell Resistance: Yes
To Develop: 18,010,602,000 gp; 360,212 days (986 years); 720,424,080 XP. Seeds: destroy (DC 29), slay (DC 25). Factors: extra +999,980d6 damage (+1,999,960 DC), 10 miles range or 500% increase of base seed (+6 DC), targeted to 20-ft radius area (+10 DC), 20-ft. radius to 5,280-ft. radius or 26,400% increase (+1,056 DC), 1 standard action cast (+20 DC), +18d4 negative level (+72 DC)

This spell deals 1,000,000d6 untyped damage (Fort half) to a 1-mile radius area as a standard action. In addition, all living creatures within the radius will also gain 20d4 negative level (Fort half). Anything reduced to -10 hit point or less (0 hp for constructs, objects or undead) is utterly destroyed as per disintegrate spell.

Epic, indeed! An average of 3.5 million hit point damage and around 50 persisting negative levels unless they succeed two Fortitude saves for half damage each. Well, of course all deities are immune to energy drain but 3.5 million untyped hp damage can only be negated by Wings of Cover spell, I believe. Other things not immune to energy drain such as a mature adult force dragon (50HD) will almost certainly be immediately slain unless they succeed in Fort save.

I had a friend who blew the "Magic Missile" spell up to massive epic powered-ness and called it "Magic ICBM"

I can try to get the stats for it from him.

GoC
2008-04-02, 08:01 PM
EDIT: Wait. You're an "incurable physics geek" and you've never heard of foot-pounds?

EDIT2: Oh, I see what I did. Sorry - I was using the terms "energy" and "force" interchangeably. Replace energy with force in all cases. My bad.
There's also the fact that sensible people use the metric system.:smalltongue:

Rutee
2008-04-02, 08:10 PM
Even sensible Americans. At least, even in the xenophobic deep south I was taught physics and bio through the lens of the metric system..

Bauglir
2008-04-02, 08:41 PM
Nuke
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 15
Components: V, S
Casting Time: Standard Action
Range: Long (400 ft + 40 ft/level)
Area: 1-mile-radius-spread
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude partial (object), Fortitude
Spell Resistance: No

As Disintegrate, except for the following:
-a successful touch attack causes an explosion that affects everything in a 1 mile radius.
-the damage on a successful touch attack is changed to 40d6 per caster level (to a maximum of 800d6)
-a successful fortitude save reduces the damage to 100d6 damage
-any creature that is affected by this spell and survives must make a fortitude save against the disease Radiation Poisoning (Incubation 1d6 weeks, Damage 2d10 Con*)
*each time a character is damaged in this way, he contracts a random disease not spread by creatures (i.e. Demon Fever, Mummy Rot, etc).

Bit high-level, dontcha think? Spell levels scale exponentially, I think. The spell Karsus cast to steal Mystra's deific powers and kill her was a mere 12th level, as I recall.

xanaphia
2008-04-02, 08:55 PM
For real fun forcecage the nuke. You contain the nuclear blast which allows the chain reaction to go on until it is fully complete, giving you a nuke with near 100% efficiency (meaning minimal fallout).

That assumes that to only output is force, but most people have mentionioned that there is fire damage too.

Dervag
2008-04-02, 11:30 PM
Surviving a ground zero nuke detonation (or even a supernova for that matter) is not that difficult for a wizard. Just cast any of the force spells on your self (resilient sphere, telekinetic sphere, force cage). For real fun forcecage the nuke. You contain the nuclear blast which allows the chain reaction to go on until it is fully complete, giving you a nuke with near 100% efficiency (meaning minimal fallout).Yes, but all the explodey goodness is trapped inside the forcecage.

Also, neutrons are very slippery things. I'd be tempted to rule that they can even pass through 'force' barriers.


Munchkin version:

THERMONUCLEAR AIRBURST

Evocation [Fire]
Level: Wiz 9
Components: V, XP
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Really Far Away (1 mile + 1 mile/level)
Area: 1,000-ft radius spread
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving throw: Reflex half
Spell resistance: Yes

Upon completion of this spell, a massive nuclear explosion takes place somewhere in the sky above the point selected by the caster. Boom. This is just like fireball, except:
~ It deals 1000d6 damage to everyone caught within the blast.
~ A pretty mushroom cloud remains over the area for about five minutes.
~ Anyone still living is now radioactive. Yay! You glow in the dark now. Radiation sickness kills you in 1d6 days. Wish or miracle is the only thing that can heal you. Even if you are raised or resurrected, you're still radioactive and will die (again) in another 1d6 days.

XP cost: 100,000 XP plus 1 XP per point of damage inflicted by the blast. Any caster reduced to 0 XP by this spell dies immediately. You must roll damge for everything in the blast. Separately.

I think this was an interesting way of doing it: making it a spell you really, really do not want to cast.The effects of a multimegaton nuclear explosion project for much more than 1000 feet in every directions. Creatures caught several miles from the blast should be in grave danger, but have at least some chance of survival.

Radiation sickness should have a nonlethal variant. Many people contract it and don't die, after all. Also, there are beings that would logically be immune to radiation poisoning because they don't have a body chemistry that can be harmed by transmutation of elements in their body or by the destruction of important molecules in their body.

I mean, think about an iron golem. It's literally made of iron, solid iron, through and through. The worst a massive dose of radiation can do to it is make it slightly more brittle.


*sigh*

Wanna see how much damage is done by thermonuclear detonations in D&D? Check out my sig.

Or understand this. Lets use a 120 kiloton weapon as an example. It's a common warhead in the US armory.
-Figure out the kilotonnage of a device or desired explosion. (120kt=120,000 tons).
-Nuclear devices are listed in metric tons (1000kg=1 ton). So, convert to kilgrams. (120,000 tons=12,000,000 kg)
-Convert to pounds. (12,000,000/0.454=264,317,180 lbs, rounding down.)
-1 pound of dynamite (which is close enough to TNT for our purposes, and is actually less powerful than raw TNT) is worth 3d6 damage.

So, 3d6*264,317,180=792,951,540d6 damage to the target hex. Or, if you don't want to roll that many dice, figuring a roll of 3 per die (below average rolling, actually), 2,378,854,620 untyped damage.

In addition, dynamite has a blast radius. Anything within that blast radius take 2d6 bludgeoning per lb of dynamite. Figure out the math yourself. Interestingly, the only save listed in the DMG is for being in the blast radius, not the target square. The damage is different depending on whether you're in the blast radius or the target square, so I would postulate that there is no save for being in the target square.

Enjoy that 2.3 billion damage.I'd say that much of the damage from a nuclear explosion would have a type- some combination of Bludgeoning and Fire.

At point blank, of course, it's nearly all fire damage.


Maybe you missed how my "Nuke" spell has a range shorter than its area :smallbiggrin:Nah.

That's actually a common drawback. For example, see the device-cast version of a weaker version of the spell, M388 'Davy Crockett' nuclear bazooka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device))

Overlord
2008-04-03, 12:02 AM
Ah, yes. The Davy Crockett! And you might have thought Hideo Kojima made that up for MGS3! Well, okay, Volgin did fire the thing from the hip, Rambo-style, but the thing does indeed exist.

I have to admit, taking one of those to the face does sound like it would hurt quite a bit.

Swordguy
2008-04-03, 12:16 AM
Even sensible Americans. At least, even in the xenophobic deep south I was taught physics and bio through the lens of the metric system..

Agreed. Unfortunately, the "approved" method to express weapon impact yield is in foot-pounds in all government documents. *shrug* It's just a matter of consistency.


I'd say that much of the damage from a nuclear explosion would have a type- some combination of Bludgeoning and Fire.

At point blank, of course, it's nearly all fire damage.

Honestly, you're past "fire" as a logical descriptor when discussing nuclear weapons. The blast radius, sure, it's a combination of thermal and concussive effects. At ground zero? It's so far beyond what any reasonable person would call "fire-y" as to not be in the same AU. It's hot enough to instantly vaporize a person, and then vaporize the vapor. As such, I wouldn't assign a fire descriptor to it (notably, the DMG doesn't assign ground zero of a dynamite blast any specific damage type either, possibly so it's not ignorable).

Illiterate Scribe
2008-04-03, 05:00 AM
Honestly, you're past "fire" as a logical descriptor when discussing nuclear weapons. The blast radius, sure, it's a combination of thermal and concussive effects. At ground zero? It's so far beyond what any reasonable person would call "fire-y" as to not be in the same AU. It's hot enough to instantly vaporize a person, and then vaporize the vapor. As such, I wouldn't assign a fire descriptor to it (notably, the DMG doesn't assign ground zero of a dynamite blast any specific damage type either, possibly so it's not ignorable).

I'd be inclined to give it the fire descriptor, along with a free application of the 'searing spell' metamagic feat. After all, that's basically the effect of a lot of energy being discharged, to the extent that it overcomes fire resistance and immunity.

Swordguy
2008-04-03, 05:35 AM
I'd be inclined to give it the fire descriptor, along with a free application of the 'searing spell' metamagic feat. After all, that's basically the effect of a lot of energy being discharged, to the extent that it overcomes fire resistance and immunity.

Possible...I'd be more willing to split it between fire, bludgeoning, and positive energy. The positive stuff just kinda "feels" right with the way it's described as killing people.

But, looking at the Searing Spell descriptor, I'd be fine with that. I just have issues with a fire giant or an efreeti standing there untouched at ground zero. It's this one from Sandstorm, right?


A searing spell is so hot that it ignores the resistance to fire of creatures affected by the spell, and affected creatures with immunity to fire still take half damage. This feat can be applied only to spells with the fire descriptor.
Creatures with the cold subtype take double damage from a searing spell. Creatures affected by a searing spell are still entitled to whatever saving throw the spell normally allows. A searing spell uses up a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual level.

Overlord
2008-04-03, 09:49 AM
Well, as I said, I don't think you should bother putting a set amount of damage to the ground-zero blast. However, if you did want to, I would make the damage of the same unspecific type that Disintegrate does. Nukes certainly do disintegrate things.

As for the secondary area, that's a much more tricky question. I'm not to sure about the damage type. I would have to look up whether or not nukes actually set things on fire, or just blew them apart.

There's one additional affect you should probably add to your nuke: blindness. The fireball produced by a nuclear device is so bright that it has been known to blind people who were close enough and looking in the general direction of the blast. I believe the blindness is temporary or permanent, depending on how close one was to the blast.

Chronos
2008-04-03, 12:37 PM
Personally, I'd give a nuke four radii: The innermost would do Disintegrate-type damage (Fort half), the next would do Sonic (Ref half and Fort or deafness), for the shockwave, then the next larger would do fire damage (Ref half), for the heat, and then finally the largest radius woudn't do any direct damage, but would have a Ref save to avoid blindness and a Fort save or contract radiation sickness. It'd still be survivable, but you'd need to know exactly what was coming and make exactly the right preparations (at Ground Zero, you'd need a Resilient Sphere or similar to stop (but be destroyed by) the Disintegrate, a Silence to protect against the shockwave, Elemental Body or something similar to be immune to the heat, and Remove Disease and Remove Blindness to deal with the radiation).