Electricity Damage In Real World Terms

[Kaodi]

For the sake of argument, how much electricity do you suppose goes into a point of electricity damage? If a D&D or Pathfinder wizard or sorcerer was transported to the real world, what could they power with that 5d6 lightning bolt, or infinite castings of jolt?

 

[S'mon]

100 volts is supposed to be 'safe' - of course it's really the amperage that kills you, but maybe 1 hp per 250 volts? I think of a lightning bolt spell as many thousands of volts.

 

[Umbran]

If a D&D or Pathfinder wizard or sorcerer was transported to the real world, what could they power with that 5d6 lightning bolt, or infinite castings of jolt?

Directly? Not much. Real-world devices do not typically work off single huge Direct Current discharges.

If you capture the electricity, what you're now talking about is how much energy is stored - we can always convert the voltage/amperage and from DC to AC. So, if you have "infinite" castings, you can power just about anything. Pump the castings into a battery (and industrial batteries can be very big), and off you go.

A smallish real-world thunderstorm lightning strike releases enough energy to light a 100 watt lightbulb for about 2 months. A big one will power such a bulb for 95 years.

Some real-world math: The dielectric breakdown strength of air is 33kV/cm. So, to get a 120 foot (3e) lightning bolt, you're producing a potential difference of some 121 million volts (to first approximation). Some lightning storms produce potential differences of a billion volts.

 

[Scott DeWar]

As an electrician who has been 'bit' I might have a useable thought. Bear in mind I am trained in avoiding getting shocked, but stuff still happens.

As mentioned, its the amperage that damages. 15 milliamps I believe, for 7 milliseconds. not a whole lot. what the problem is, is the persons natural resistance, quite often in the mega ohms; thus requiring 90 + volts at the least.

Jolt might be 125 v for 1 ms for damage of 1-painful, aggravating, potentially an accumulation of serious damage.

240v can be very serious but, the damage of shocking grasp is a rather large jump so I would guess it to be more like 480v., which I have heard reliable witnesses say left them sitting for a few minutes after being knocked on their butts, slobbering and twitching. An average commoner would have been hurt or killed.

The next jump is even greater in damage-lightning bolt- which i see akin to 50,000v for the distance it must arc vs the resistance in air. Furthermore, I see ac arc of this nature to be multiple entry points to cross the more deadlier of paths such as hand to hand for a heart/lung interruption and potentially death for most common people.

Does any of this help?

 

[Scott DeWar]

Some real-world math: The dielectric breakdown strength of air is 33kV/cm. So, to get a 120 foot (3e) lightning bolt, you're producing a potential difference of some 121 million volts (to first approximation). Some lightning storms produce potential differences of a billion volts.

"1.21 gigavolts?! that would take a lightning bolt, unfortunately you never know where lightning will strike!!!"
Dr. Brown on the flux capacitor.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

An AC current of 10 mA for 2 seconds might be enough to give you a cardiac arrest. Sounds like a prototypical save-or-die effect, doesn't it?

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Hehe my elderly relatives got sturck by lighning while passed out in thunderstorm while too drunk. Best case by 4 times. I think it has more do with habits of person. Random.

Lightning from the sky is closer to wizardly spell however. Currents you experience in households are typically of type that causes heart attacks, not lot of burning damage.

 

[SkidAce]

Directly? Not much. Real-world devices do not typically work off single huge Direct Current discharges.

If you capture the electricity, what you're now talking about is how much energy is stored - we can always convert the voltage/amperage and from DC to AC. So, if you have "infinite" castings, you can power just about anything. Pump the castings into a battery (and industrial batteries can be very big), and off you go.

A smallish real-world thunderstorm lightning strike releases enough energy to light a 100 watt lightbulb for about 2 months. A big one will power such a bulb for 95 years.

Some real-world math: The dielectric breakdown strength of air is 33kV/cm. So, to get a 120 foot (3e) lightning bolt, you're producing a potential difference of some 121 million volts (to first approximation). Some lightning storms produce potential differences of a billion volts.

Fascinating stuff. So if you had a smallish real-world/lightning spell, and could "cast" it into a Prius, how far could it go?

 

[Janx]

Disclaimer: I am not an electicity-expert-person. But I've read and worked enough with it to know the basics.

Umbran and Scott pretty much covered it, but perhaps they were misunderstood.

For practical purposes, you cannot use lightning or a Lightning Bolt spell to charge a Prius.

a bolt of lightning (spell or storm) is a huge amount of juice delivered in a VERY short time. It causes burn marks, melting, fire whereever it strikes because of that.

the 220v charging cable from your garage to your Prius is downright slow, tame, mild compared to a lightning bolt.

This is why Umbran mentioned needing a means to capture the juice into a battery cell or some such in order to then release it more slowly and at lower voltage/amperage.

Find some sciencey device to capture lightning strikes and use it to power other devices (as a battery) and you've found your converter of magic electricity to useful electricity.

Once again, it's all about converting the surge (high voltage/amperage over very short time period) to a trickle (normal voltage/amperage over minutes/hours)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

An electric eel's attack can injure/stun/kill a person, and it's been measured in terms of current (amperage) and voltage.

In the electric eel, some 5,000 to 6,000 stacked electroplaques are capable of producing a shock at up to 500 volts and 1 ampere of current (500 watts). Such a shock could be deadly for an adult human. (Electrocution death is due to current flow; with the level of current that can be fatal in humans depending on the path that the electric current takes through the human body; human heart fibrillation (which is reversible via a heart defibrillator) can take place from currents ranging from 70 to 700 mA and higher.

Wikipedia