How long would it take for the effects of massive radiation to show up?
- Thread starter Craer
- Start date
Treebore
First Post
tarchon said:
Thats why I remembered playing with cesium! It isn't exactly an explosion, just a highly energetic reaction. It makes water look like it is boiling, which it is. But nothing went bang, at least not with the little pellets i was playing with. The burning of flesh is kind of a slow burn. I was taking them out of the can and throwing it into water with my bare fingers. My fingertips turned brownish yellow from the burning, but it didn't hurt, much. No, I am not the one who found out how little it burned, some other idiot did that, by the name of Bill T. I was the one who found out how big the "explosion" in water would be.
I am also not certain the cesium I/we were playing with was pure or some type of compound to make it more stable. So if you find cesium do not play with it under the assumption that your results will be similiar to what I found.
Your fingers may actually burn off and it may actually cause a TNT like explosion in that bucket of water!
Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
Here's my own (pseudo-realistic, but still fun) take:
FALLOUT
Radiation damage is measured in rads, and an area that
poses a radiation hazard is measured in rads per interval
(per round, per minute, per hour, or per day). The shorter
the interval, the more dangerous the hazard.
For each full interval that a character is exposed to
fallout, he accumulates rads. The character must make a
Fortitude save (DC10 + total accumulated rads) or he takes
1 point of Constitution damage.
If a character’s Con is reduced to 0, or if at any time a
character’s accumulated rads exceed his Con score, he
dies.
Radiation Recovery/Resistance
Provided a character can retire to a fallout-free zone, his
body will begin to recover.
x In the least grim variant, all characters recover at the
rate of 1 rad per day.
xx In this variant, the charcter must succeed at a
Fortitude save (DC10 + rads) to recover 1 rad. If the check
fails, the character’s rad level does not change.
xxx In the most grim variant, the character must make
a Fortitude save as above in order to recover 1 rad. If
this check is failed, not only does the character’s rad
level remain, the character takes an additional 1 point of
Constitution damage.
In some campaigns, PCs may be able to purchase
medication to flush the body or speed the recovery rate.
One such example is prussian blue, so named because it is
literally a type of dye used in paint. A character who takes
prussian blue immediately after exposure can recover an
additional 1 rad per day.
Better still, of course, is the use of preventative measures
prior to entering an area of fallout. Hazmat suits provide
a fixed layer of radiation resistance (similar to any other
energy resistance) while iodine-based tablets form a
buffer to absorb a fixed number of rads before losing
effectiveness.
Variant: Mutations
In some campaigns, fallout does not simply kill; instead,
those exposed to radiation become mutants with unusual
abilities.
Using this variant, a player whose rads exceed his
Constitution score does not immediately die. Instead, the
character can opt to reduce his rad level by accepting one
or more mutations.
Once per day, a character who would otherwise die
from radiation can instantly reduce his rad level by 2 for
every 0.2 CR of mutations he accepts. (See Chapter X-x,
Creature Creation, for the CR cost of various abilities and
drawbacks.)
The nature of the mutations is entirely at the whim of the
GM (though he may solicit player input). The mutations
may be either entirely positive (adding 0.2 CR in new
abilities per 2 rads reduced, and thus permanently
increasing the character’s CR) or a balance of positive
and negative (for example, +0.1 CR of a positive effect
and -0.1 CR of a negative effect, for a total of 0.2 CR in
changes but a net CR increase of +0.0). Mutations should
never be entirely negative.
FALLOUT
Radiation damage is measured in rads, and an area that
poses a radiation hazard is measured in rads per interval
(per round, per minute, per hour, or per day). The shorter
the interval, the more dangerous the hazard.
For each full interval that a character is exposed to
fallout, he accumulates rads. The character must make a
Fortitude save (DC10 + total accumulated rads) or he takes
1 point of Constitution damage.
If a character’s Con is reduced to 0, or if at any time a
character’s accumulated rads exceed his Con score, he
dies.
Radiation Recovery/Resistance
Provided a character can retire to a fallout-free zone, his
body will begin to recover.
x In the least grim variant, all characters recover at the
rate of 1 rad per day.
xx In this variant, the charcter must succeed at a
Fortitude save (DC10 + rads) to recover 1 rad. If the check
fails, the character’s rad level does not change.
xxx In the most grim variant, the character must make
a Fortitude save as above in order to recover 1 rad. If
this check is failed, not only does the character’s rad
level remain, the character takes an additional 1 point of
Constitution damage.
In some campaigns, PCs may be able to purchase
medication to flush the body or speed the recovery rate.
One such example is prussian blue, so named because it is
literally a type of dye used in paint. A character who takes
prussian blue immediately after exposure can recover an
additional 1 rad per day.
Better still, of course, is the use of preventative measures
prior to entering an area of fallout. Hazmat suits provide
a fixed layer of radiation resistance (similar to any other
energy resistance) while iodine-based tablets form a
buffer to absorb a fixed number of rads before losing
effectiveness.
Variant: Mutations
In some campaigns, fallout does not simply kill; instead,
those exposed to radiation become mutants with unusual
abilities.
Using this variant, a player whose rads exceed his
Constitution score does not immediately die. Instead, the
character can opt to reduce his rad level by accepting one
or more mutations.
Once per day, a character who would otherwise die
from radiation can instantly reduce his rad level by 2 for
every 0.2 CR of mutations he accepts. (See Chapter X-x,
Creature Creation, for the CR cost of various abilities and
drawbacks.)
The nature of the mutations is entirely at the whim of the
GM (though he may solicit player input). The mutations
may be either entirely positive (adding 0.2 CR in new
abilities per 2 rads reduced, and thus permanently
increasing the character’s CR) or a balance of positive
and negative (for example, +0.1 CR of a positive effect
and -0.1 CR of a negative effect, for a total of 0.2 CR in
changes but a net CR increase of +0.0). Mutations should
never be entirely negative.
Psion
Adventurer
Not to mention (as has already been noted) that its atomic number is not high enough that it would be naturally radioactive.
Lots of things. There are lots of radioisotopes, though they are more frequently occuring in nature towards the higher atomic weight end of the spectrum. Of course, lots of the naturally radioactive substances emit alpha radiation, which dead skin cells will stop but are bad news if you inhale them.
A particularly bad wavelength of gamma radiation is emitted by Cobalt 60, which is a common byproduct of nuclear power plants. And it's really not much heavier than Iron, and lasts a relatively long time.
The more radioactive a substance is, the less time it stays that way, because radiation being given off is a side effect of decay to more stable isotopes. So something really potent and dangerous won't typically stay that way for long.
Last edited:
Cesium is a bad choice for just about anything, except maybe screwing about with some very wierd chemistry. Aside from its low boiling point it is one of the most reacitve metals and will explode on contact with water and corrode in the air pretty instantainously. Its also very soft (and of low density). Uranium is a much better choice, its harder, denser (armor piercing shells are tipped with depleted uranium byproducts from nuclear refinement processess) and has a much longer half life, so is much more likely to be found lying about.
(I suspect the slow burning and low-explosive reactions treebore had were due to using old cesium samples that had thick oxide layers or still had alot of petrolium on the surface (cesium is stored under oil to prevent exposure to air or moisture). The classical experiment with cesium is to drop a pellet in a bowl sized beaker of water, the beaker pretty much always "explodes" (shatters) from the reaction)
As for the medical side, gamma-radiation easily penetrates human flesh and bone, though there is minimal absorbtion which is proportional to the density of the tissues, but at very high exposures enough is absorbed to do damage. The absorbed radiation causes radical ion formation within the cells, the body has natural radical scavengers but if the radicals are formed in very close vacinity to DNA then the DNA of cellc can be damaged, its the damage to the DNA that leads to various cancers. For this sort of exposue a Fort save is pretty reasonable
At super etreme exposure so much of you Bodies DNA is attacked that your metabolic pathways fail and you stop functioning (ie breathing). If the armor is glowing.. the players probably died when they got within about 100foot of it.
Of course, it is a game so the other option is to make the item out of madeupium and just not worry about any of this.
Majere
A decent link here
http://www.mii.org/Minerals/photocesium.html
(I suspect the slow burning and low-explosive reactions treebore had were due to using old cesium samples that had thick oxide layers or still had alot of petrolium on the surface (cesium is stored under oil to prevent exposure to air or moisture). The classical experiment with cesium is to drop a pellet in a bowl sized beaker of water, the beaker pretty much always "explodes" (shatters) from the reaction)
As for the medical side, gamma-radiation easily penetrates human flesh and bone, though there is minimal absorbtion which is proportional to the density of the tissues, but at very high exposures enough is absorbed to do damage. The absorbed radiation causes radical ion formation within the cells, the body has natural radical scavengers but if the radicals are formed in very close vacinity to DNA then the DNA of cellc can be damaged, its the damage to the DNA that leads to various cancers. For this sort of exposue a Fort save is pretty reasonable
At super etreme exposure so much of you Bodies DNA is attacked that your metabolic pathways fail and you stop functioning (ie breathing). If the armor is glowing.. the players probably died when they got within about 100foot of it.
Of course, it is a game so the other option is to make the item out of madeupium and just not worry about any of this.
Majere
A decent link here
http://www.mii.org/Minerals/photocesium.html
Last edited:
VirgilCaine
First Post
Majere said:Of course, it is a game so the other option is to make the item out of madeupium and just not worry about any of this.
So what? It's a magic artifact, problem solved.
As for radiation rules, go the Wizards.com, the D20 Modern section. One of the web enhancements, IIRC, the one for the first book, has rules for radiation (as well as making new poisons, more vehicles, and maybe some weapons, I think). Thats what you're looking for.
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