[Star Wars d20] The Death Star's Superlaser

[glass]

Treating Alderaan as a 8000 miles wide wall of stone, gives us a very rough approximation of 4 billion hit points for the whole planet. Since is a sphere and not a wall the total sould be smaller, though, but let's ignore that since the death star's superlaser wasn't only able to break the planet, but also to scatter the remains at great speed.

Edit: I screwed the calculations: that would be for a 10 foot stone wall 8000 miles long. The actual number should be in the vicinity of 48 x 10^18 hit points.

You are forgetting about the shields. That should skew the required damage up a bit.

Planetary shields easily stop a HTL blast. Anyone know how much damage an HTL does these days?


glass.

 

[Koewn]

You are forgetting about the shields. That should skew the required damage up a bit.

Plus, it will keep them from stealing all their air.


...you don't look Druish....

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

(Well, OK, possibly if you have a Planet PC...)

"As for Mogo, well...Mogo doesn't socialize."

 

[Machiavelli]

Okay, in the games my group plays, we have a not-exactly-rule that dealing enough damage to a target to drop it from full HP to dead in one hit causes that target's most conveniently hilarious piece of anatomy to explode (often the head). Given that the head is 8lb out of 200lb on the alarmingly oft-targeted human's body, I estimate that the head comprises 4% of the HP total. Causing the entire human to explode would then likely require 25 times the application of damage.

Drawing this generalization outwards to an entire planet, the Death Star's superlaser apparently deals about 12 x 10^20 HP damage. That's 1.2 sextillion hitpoints of damage. Of course, we don't know if this is the upper limit of the Death Star's laser, as this amount of damage was enough to utterly destroy Alderan, and the laser may have an un-demonstrated capactiy for greater destruction. I would stick to (3 x 10^20)d6 for the Death Star superlaser, to penalize any plucky player who fires the weapon and has to ask how much damage it does.

 

[Deset Gled]

There were full stats for all of the Death Stars (prototype, original, and second) and Eclipse/Sovereign class Star Destroyers (which also had super lasers) published by West End Games for Star Wars 2E. Damage, fire rates, the whole shebang. I'll have to dig up my old books when I get home to see what I can find.

 

[javcs]

There were full stats for all of the Death Stars (prototype, original, and second) and Eclipse/Sovereign class Star Destroyers (which also had super lasers) published by West End Games for Star Wars 2E. Damage, fire rates, the whole shebang. I'll have to dig up my old books when I get home to see what I can find.

Cool, thanks, Deset Gled.

 

[Nifft]

Driz'zt would so pwn the Death Star.

Great. Now I want to dual-wield Death Stars. My GM thanks you.

-- N

 

[javcs]

Great. Now I want to dual-wield Death Stars. My GM thanks you.

-- N

QFT. Except, my friend now hates you ... mmm ... fully automating the Death Star and making copies. Excellent. I shall use this soon.

 

[Machiavelli]

Great. Now I want to dual-wield Death Stars. My GM thanks you.

Hmm, maybe when dual-wielding wands of Message (actually, it would have to have a nearly unlimited range), you could issue orders to both Death Stars at the same time. I'm not sure about the d20 rules for "wielding" a crew-served weapon such as a howitzer, Predator Hellfire, or planet-destroying superlaser.

Also, you'd want to have Rapid Reload.

 

[javcs]

I'm not sure about the d20 rules for "wielding" a crew-served weapon such as a howitzer, Predator Hellfire, or planet-destroying superlaser.

Also, you'd want to have Rapid Reload.

It'd be like using a ballista.

Rapid Reload? Whatever for? If something survives dual superlaser blasts, you're screwed anyways.