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<blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 3393145" data-attributes="member: 1106">Some of it.&nbsp; X-ray and gamma radiation (high energy photons), yes, but alpha (nuclei) and beta (electrons or positrons), no.&nbsp; Alpha is the most damaging, but also the least penetrating, even in air, making it probably somewhat useless as a weapon because of limited range....technically, you could call it &quot;earth&quot; because of the matter involved.&nbsp; Really, really intense x-ray or gamma would probably make for the best weapon.&nbsp; The invisible and silent application looks like air, and the result (radiation burns) looks like fire.&nbsp; The sickness looks like disease, and disintegration looks like magic.&nbsp; It's a tough cookie to categorise in D&amp;D terms...why not have a go at antimatter while you're at it? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />You'd need thousands of grays of dose to get on-the-spot disintegrations, but that's probably the most &quot;D&amp;D friendly&quot; effect.&nbsp; Lesser effects start with severe skin burns, losing all bowel lining (causing starvation), or central nervous system and cardiovascular integrity falling apart, which will cause death in a few days, or years if all that's survived and it causes a cancer...so if it doesn't kill it's probably best handled as a disease.&nbsp; All in all it's effects seem to mirror that of unflashy unholy magic to the observer.&nbsp; Radioactive &quot;evil artifacts&quot; anyone?In another idea, radiation could be what the beholder's disintegration ray really is.&nbsp; All in all I think it belongs in the &quot;too hard&quot; box, except as an abstraction under D&amp;D physics (such as making it's only effect disintegration, or burns).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="rounser, post: 3393145, member: 1106"] Some of it. X-ray and gamma radiation (high energy photons), yes, but alpha (nuclei) and beta (electrons or positrons), no. Alpha is the most damaging, but also the least penetrating, even in air, making it probably somewhat useless as a weapon because of limited range....technically, you could call it "earth" because of the matter involved. Really, really intense x-ray or gamma would probably make for the best weapon. The invisible and silent application looks like air, and the result (radiation burns) looks like fire. The sickness looks like disease, and disintegration looks like magic. It's a tough cookie to categorise in D&D terms...why not have a go at antimatter while you're at it? :) You'd need thousands of grays of dose to get on-the-spot disintegrations, but that's probably the most "D&D friendly" effect. Lesser effects start with severe skin burns, losing all bowel lining (causing starvation), or central nervous system and cardiovascular integrity falling apart, which will cause death in a few days, or years if all that's survived and it causes a cancer...so if it doesn't kill it's probably best handled as a disease. All in all it's effects seem to mirror that of unflashy unholy magic to the observer. Radioactive "evil artifacts" anyone? In another idea, radiation could be what the beholder's disintegration ray really is. All in all I think it belongs in the "too hard" box, except as an abstraction under D&D physics (such as making it's only effect disintegration, or burns). [/QUOTE]

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