Immortals Handbook - Grimoire (Artifacts, Epic Magic discussion)

[Farealmer3]

Who/what says I don't?

You charts under in the absolutes section of your website don't make sense then because after a while the damage increases by and amount equal to temperature after you hit the corona calculations. For example at the corona it is 1 million degrees and does 16,666d6. Then at the core which according to your site is only ten times hotter yet does ten times as much damage. Thats more that three doublings for a ten times increase in energy. When you've said many a time that a x64 increase only doubles the damage.

You'll have to run me through that equation step by step. Its probably been about 4 years since I worked out the Megaton damage.

The total energy of a megaton bomb is 4^15 and the figure i've seen for the estimated energy of the big bang is 4^70(i use 71 because it goes better with calculation). Thats 31 increases by 64. By taking megaton damage doubling it 31 times thats the number i get.

BTW, there is one point about the kiloton spell. It is supposed to reflect nuclear weapons. If you will increase the amount of nuclear fuel thousandfold, you will not get a thousandfold increase in temperature, no more than with ordinary fire. You will NEVER get a Big Bang with hydrogen.

Is this addressed to me because i didn't make the nuke damage U_K did.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

You charts under in the absolutes section of your website don't make sense then because after a while the damage increases by and amount equal to temperature after you hit the corona calculations. For example at the corona it is 1 million degrees and does 16,666d6. Then at the core which according to your site is only ten times hotter yet does ten times as much damage. Thats more that three doublings for a ten times increase in energy. When you've said many a time that a x64 increase only doubles the damage.

Ah yes, okay, I understand now. Good spot.

However, Omeganian also makes a good point - do temperature increases parallel energy output. I would have thought that maybe they do - although thats a guess, I don't know for sure. How much hotter is a 10 megaton nuke explosion from a 10 kiloton nuke explosion for instance. Is it 1000 times hotter, or 10 times hotter or something else.

The total energy of a megaton bomb is 4^15 and the figure i've seen for the estimated energy of the big bang is 4^70(i use 71 because it goes better with calculation). Thats 31 increases by 64. By taking megaton damage doubling it 31 times thats the number i get.

I'm wondering if the temperature increase is equal to the squared increase of the energy.

So basically the temperature will increase by x10 when you up the energy by x100.

As best I can figure it, a nuclear explosion is about 1000 times (1750 to be exact) hotter than a fireball.

Until we can figure that out theres probably no point changing the table.

 

[Omeganian]

Well, this Wikipedia page gives the temperature inside a supernova as 10 billion K, while the temperature in the heart of a H-bomb explosion is, if I remember correctly, 400 million K. So I don't think energy and temperature follow each other that much.

But a 64 increase in power = double the damage is completely illogical. An eightfold increase in energy means that the fireball is twice in diameter - and therefore you will be hit by a double layer of heat, air blast and radiation, for at least double the damage. BTW, here is a link to a nuclear weapon calculator:

Star Wars vs Star Trek: Nuclear Weapon Effects Calculator

 

[Farealmer3]

My point was thats regardless of whether temp and energy are parallel, temp damage being astronomically higher than energy output damage is ridiculus. At the very least it should be lower. By how much is obviously going to vary. But if the big bang's heat damage is over 10 billion times more than it's total energy something is off. Thats more than a mere difference in handling.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Omeganian dude!

Well, this Wikipedia page gives the temperature inside a supernova as 10 billion K, while the temperature in the heart of a H-bomb explosion is, if I remember correctly, 400 million K. So I don't think energy and temperature follow each other that much.

I think I recently reworked supernova explosive force to 1E36 Tons of TNT. So there doesn't seem any obvious way to corelate temperature from energy or vice versa.

But a 64 increase in power = double the damage is completely illogical. An eightfold increase in energy means that the fireball is twice in diameter - and therefore you will be hit by a double layer of heat, air blast and radiation, for at least double the damage. BTW, here is a link to a nuclear weapon calculator:

Star Wars vs Star Trek: Nuclear Weapon Effects Calculator

The problem with that approach is that fireball doesn't deliver air blasts and radiation, nevermind double layers of heat. Basically fireball is a 'grenade' where heat damage replaces any fragmentation damage and the air blast is subsumed into the fire damage.

I mean theoretically you could revise the fireball spell so that it included other aspects (such as air blast) but personally I think thats an unnecessary level of complexity right there.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

My point was thats regardless of whether temp and energy are parallel, temp damage being astronomically higher than energy output damage is ridiculus. At the very least it should be lower. By how much is obviously going to vary. But if the big bang's heat damage is over 10 billion times more than it's total energy something is off. Thats more than a mere difference in handling.

What we could do in the meantime is simply overlap the energy scaling with the temperature scaling using the fireball as the base figure. Although I wouldn't change anything below the fireball temp./damage.

So 128,000 degrees would be 64d6 dmg./round.

8,192,000 degrees will be 128d6 dmg./round.

524 million degrees = 256d6/round

33 billion degrees = 512d6/round

In fact the above really looks pathetic. So abandon that idea.

 

[Omeganian]

Hey Omeganian dude!
The problem with that approach is that fireball doesn't deliver air blasts and radiation, nevermind double layers of heat. Basically fireball is a 'grenade' where heat damage replaces any fragmentation damage and the air blast is subsumed into the fire damage.

I mean theoretically you could revise the fireball spell so that it included other aspects (such as air blast) but personally I think thats an unnecessary level of complexity right there.

I mean that whatever damage hits you, with a double size of a fireball and the same composition, it will be eight times the energy, but double the distance means only a four times reduction in power.

BTW, are you familiar with this?

(d20 Modern) - 1001 Sci-Fi Weapons

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Omeganian dude!

I mean that whatever damage hits you, with a double size of a fireball and the same composition, it will be eight times the energy, but double the distance means only a four times reduction in power.

Not sure exactly what you mean here - maybe I'm just feeling dumb today?

BTW, are you familiar with this?

(d20 Modern) - 1001 Sci-Fi Weapons

Never seen that before. Very interesting read. Not sure about some of his damage figures though. They seem a tad low. All his nukes do the same damage at ground zero. A 20th-level character is laughing them off. Though I suppose they are properly balanced for d20 Modern/Future.

Would have been nice to see a big table listing all the groups of weapons.

Thanks for the link.

 

[Kerrick]

I need some help. I'm trying to revise the animus blast/blizzard spells, and I'm banging my head against the wall.

The original spells deal cold damage in a 20-ft. radius; up to 5 or 10 creatures slain rise as skeletons or zombies under the caster's control. My system combines spells and level-adjustment factors to figure the spell level, so I used mass inflict wounds as the base effect (negative energy, 30-ft. radius), ice storm (the AoE cold) and animate dead or create undead (blast and blizzard, respectively). Yes, I know the original spell uses an energy-substituted fireball, but I felt ice storm was a better fit.

The problem I'm running into is this: I really like the idea of having a mixture of cold and negative energy - they're related, and it makes for really cool FX. Here's part of the description I wrote:

When this spell is cast, a storm of black ice laced lashes the ground in a 20-foot radius, dealing 1d6 points of negative energy damage per caster level (max 25d6) to all creatures in the area of effect.

There are, however, a couple problems:

a) If it uses cold, it would be an Evocation effect, but negative energy (and creation of undead) are Necromancy. I consider negative to be a type of energy and thus a valid spell descriptor, but we've still got the undead creation thing to deal with.

b) Evocation spells have Reflex saves, while Necromancy have Will saves. I could do it like flame strike, where the negative energy damage is unavoidable; considering there are plenty of spells/items that mitigate/prevent negative energy damage, it's not that big a deal.

Any ideas how I can make this work?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Kerrick mate!

My suggestion would be to make it two different spells and then "combine" them...which is in essence what Animus Blizzard is/does.