How much damage would these futuristic weapons deal if converted to D and D?

[Buugipopuu]

That's what the Kiloton spell does in the IH. The disintegration part should be unnecessary if the damage were scaled properly with distance, but doing d-squared and d-cubed falloff calculations during a game is probably redundant. Some strategic-level weapon damage rules would be fairly easy to write though. Assign a damage for a contact detonation, and then halve the damage for every sextupling of the distance. I believe this points to kiloton-level weapons dealing about 125 fire damage and 125 bludgeoning damage with a direct hit. The hundred megaton Tsar Bomba would deal about 1,250 of each type. The good old KT impact which caused the last major mass extinction event would be about 20,000 damage

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Wouldn't fission weapon be best simulated with a disintegration effect over a specific radius with heat and blast effects extending outward from that?

My damage calculations were based on a successful save.

 

[kitcik]

The good old KT impact which caused the last major mass extinction event would be about 20,000 damage

Too bad none of the dinosaurs had Evasion.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Too bad none of the dinosaurs had Evasion.

Tyrannosaurus Monk, Grandmaster of RAWRRRRR!

 

[Ashtagon]

Damage scales with the fifth root of energy content in D&D, so powerful weapons tend to do fairly crappy damage.

I've never actually seen the value formulated in this way. Do you have a link to any calculations that have shown this to be a valid approximation?

 

[Buugipopuu]

I've never actually seen the value formulated in this way. Do you have a link to any calculations that have shown this to be a valid approximation?

The actual energy content of a creature's melee attack scales with the fifth power of linear dimensions (ke = 1/2 mv^2, v is linear with linear dimensions, m scales with the cube of linear dimensions). However, damage scales roughly linearly with linear dimensions (see Improved Natural Attack, Str bonuses from size, HD-Size Category guidelines).

 

[Greenfield]

The original question is somewhat akin to, "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?".

The weapons in question may exist, in one form or another, in some D20 system, but they don't in D&D so all answers are purely speculative.

And you have to ask yourselves you you relate cinematic/real world damage to the D20 system, since everyone knows that D20 damage is anything but realistic.

I know people who are very unhappy that their Star Wars lightsabers aren't just slicing through anything they touch in game. At the same time I remember players in a home-brewed supers campaign sitting in shock when they found out what a .38 pistol does to an unarmored Batman. It all comes down to the grit factor.

Still, to ask about bombs in any form should require some scale. Are we talking Hiroshima- sized bombs, tactical nukes or the cold-war titans? Give me a kilo-ton equivalent, don't just say "Anti-matter bomb". Hiroshima suffered the equivalent of 3 oz. of antimatter being released (6 oz. total matter converted to energy). We've tested bombs several times that size.

And whether it's fission, fusion, anti-matter or plain old chemical, the end result is actually pretty similar, plus or minus radiation.

The way we handled explosions in that supers home-brew was to determine damage at ground zero, then use a simple drop off formula: Measuring from ground zero, lose one point of damage per foot for the first 10 feet. Lose two points per foot for the second 10 feet. Lose three points of damage per foot for the third 10 feet, etc.

The math wasn't as bad as it sounds at first glance, and it gives a playable/credible damage drop off, even if it isn't actually realistic. Shock waves disperse on an inverse-distance squared formula IRL, which call for a lot of math in game and requires a base scale. The points-per-foot method worked pretty cleanly.

To illustrate: A 200 point blast, from 35 feet away loses 10+20+30 for the first 30 feet, plus 20 (5x4) for the last 5 feet. Total damage = 200 - 80.

To compare to D&D: A 10 D6 fireball does 35 points on average. That gives an effective blast radius of about 21.666666 feet.

A 15 dice Delayed Blast Fireball does 52.5 points on average. That works out to a blast radius of about 27.5 feet.

Adds a bit of unpredictability to the ol' precision Fireball maneuver, doesn't it?

IRL bigger bombs don't do proportionally larger areas, they just pulverize ground zero that much more effectively.

 

[kitcik]

D20 Modern Apocalypse applies a "Devastation Area" and something lesser (forget the name) that extends from that. In the Devastation Area, everything dies unless protected in some kind of bunker.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In the Devastation Area, everything dies unless protected in some kind of bunker.

Do old, lead-lined refrigerators count?

 

[kitcik]

Do old, lead-lined refrigerators count?

Well, you wouldn't breath any radiated particles (or any air either)...