Electricity Damage In Real World Terms
- Thread starter Kaodi
- Start date
(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
500 Watts? (I don't think you can "store" watts 
)
I've seen an aquarium that uses an electric eel to continually generate power, but I don't have the "stats" on it. IMO, a Lightning Bolt is more powerful, since it's actually burning the victim from the inside out instead of just stopping their heart. I think the electric eel gives a minimum limit to what you can do with Lightning Bolt.
Link: http://news.discovery.com/tech/electric-eel-powers-christmas-tree.html - 800 watts, every time it moves!
Edit: Just looked at an online source that claims it's using AD&D's Monstrous Manual as a source. The electric eel did 3d8 electrical damage close up, or 2d8 damage between 5 and 10 feet away. That's pretty powerful for a 2 Hit Dice creature
)I've seen an aquarium that uses an electric eel to continually generate power, but I don't have the "stats" on it. IMO, a Lightning Bolt is more powerful, since it's actually burning the victim from the inside out instead of just stopping their heart. I think the electric eel gives a minimum limit to what you can do with Lightning Bolt.
Link: http://news.discovery.com/tech/electric-eel-powers-christmas-tree.html - 800 watts, every time it moves!
Edit: Just looked at an online source that claims it's using AD&D's Monstrous Manual as a source. The electric eel did 3d8 electrical damage close up, or 2d8 damage between 5 and 10 feet away. That's pretty powerful for a 2 Hit Dice creature
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Grogg of the North
Adventurer
*Warning: Mathematical and Physics Approximations to follow*
So, the voltage of lightning varies greatly, but according to the all knowing wiki its often around 100 MV. A natural lightning bolt does 1d10 d8 damage in D&D. Lets call that 5.5d8 because rounding is silly. So that means a natural lightning bold would do 24.75 damage on average. Therefore, each point of damage is ~4.04 MV.
So a 5d6 lightning bolt has an electric potential of 70.7 MV.
In terms of how lethal this is though I can't say for sure exactly what it does to your body. I've always been under the impression that the current and the pathway is more important. For instance, a low amperage that goes across the heart can be very deadly.
So, the voltage of lightning varies greatly, but according to the all knowing wiki its often around 100 MV. A natural lightning bolt does 1d10 d8 damage in D&D. Lets call that 5.5d8 because rounding is silly. So that means a natural lightning bold would do 24.75 damage on average. Therefore, each point of damage is ~4.04 MV.
So a 5d6 lightning bolt has an electric potential of 70.7 MV.
In terms of how lethal this is though I can't say for sure exactly what it does to your body. I've always been under the impression that the current and the pathway is more important. For instance, a low amperage that goes across the heart can be very deadly.
I don't know if this helps, but a Ohio woman was hit by lightning just a few days ago. She was pregnant, too.
The woman and the baby survived with no damage.
News Story.
The woman and the baby survived with no damage.
News Story.
Zelda Themelin
First Post
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.
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.
Scott DeWar
Prof. Emeritus-Supernatural Events/Countermeasure
the voltage overcomes the resistance of the air and the body, the amperage does the 'cooking'.
Mishihari Lord
First Post
I'm an electrical engineer, and the answer is ... it's complicated.
Electrical damage depends on voltage applied, external resistance, internal resistance, and path through the body. If the current goes through an electrically sensitive part of the body, like the heart or brain, then it takes a lot less to hurt you then otherwise.
Assuming you miss a critical area, electrical damage is essentially a burn on the inside of your body. To judge the severity of the injury you'd want to look at the amount of energy per volume affected then look at how much tissue is subjected to enough energy to kill it. Energy per volume would be internal resistance * (voltage applied / (internal resistance + external resistance)) ^ 2 * time applied / volume of current path. That involves a bunch of simplifications and from there it just gets more complicated.
Since this is D&D though, a back of the envelope calculation might be more appropriate. According to a taser site, it take 10-50 Joules of energy to cause a heart attack. According to wikipedia a lightning bolt has a electrical field gradient of about 1 MV/m, a typical duration of 30 us. Typical width of a human body would be 20 cm. The equation to solve is 50 = 1e6 * .2 * I * 30e-6, where I is the current. This gives 8.3 Amps as a lethal current, which seems reasonable, keeping in mind that this is a very short duration. Assuming that a normal human male has 6 hp, this gives about 1.4 Amps per hit point.
Going the other way, 5d6 damage averages to 17 hp, which gives 23.8 Amps. Using the same lightning estimate, energy = 23.8 A * 40 m * 1 MV/m * 30e-6 s = 28.6 kJ. That's enough to run a 60W bulb for about 8 minutes.
Electrical damage depends on voltage applied, external resistance, internal resistance, and path through the body. If the current goes through an electrically sensitive part of the body, like the heart or brain, then it takes a lot less to hurt you then otherwise.
Assuming you miss a critical area, electrical damage is essentially a burn on the inside of your body. To judge the severity of the injury you'd want to look at the amount of energy per volume affected then look at how much tissue is subjected to enough energy to kill it. Energy per volume would be internal resistance * (voltage applied / (internal resistance + external resistance)) ^ 2 * time applied / volume of current path. That involves a bunch of simplifications and from there it just gets more complicated.
Since this is D&D though, a back of the envelope calculation might be more appropriate. According to a taser site, it take 10-50 Joules of energy to cause a heart attack. According to wikipedia a lightning bolt has a electrical field gradient of about 1 MV/m, a typical duration of 30 us. Typical width of a human body would be 20 cm. The equation to solve is 50 = 1e6 * .2 * I * 30e-6, where I is the current. This gives 8.3 Amps as a lethal current, which seems reasonable, keeping in mind that this is a very short duration. Assuming that a normal human male has 6 hp, this gives about 1.4 Amps per hit point.
Going the other way, 5d6 damage averages to 17 hp, which gives 23.8 Amps. Using the same lightning estimate, energy = 23.8 A * 40 m * 1 MV/m * 30e-6 s = 28.6 kJ. That's enough to run a 60W bulb for about 8 minutes.
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Scott DeWar
Prof. Emeritus-Supernatural Events/Countermeasure
[MENTION=128]Mishihari Lord[/MENTION], given the amount of energy listed, would that be 480 watt minutes, or about 96 watt minutes per die of damage if an average damage?
Mishihari Lord
First Post
That's how I would figure it.
But now I'm curious. OP, why would you want to know this?
