Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

[incrdbil]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

I don't consider any of my [edit] 5th Edition moaning [edit] to be useful for members of this board.

 

Fixed your post.

[gojira]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

As for 300 Mega dice' date=' that would imply would it not the damage going out to 300 million " or 600 million M, or 600 000 KM, or 360 000 miles, which no A or H bomb has ever done.[/quote']

 

GURPS damage drops off much faster than Hero. For an explosion this size, concussion damage would be quartered every 128 meters or so. So after about 1.4 km or so the concusion damage is under 4 body. (If I figured right.) I'm not sure how accurate this is compared to the real world, but it sounds about right.

 

Quick link: I haven't checked there much : Storm Media

 

Second quick link: Wikipedia

 

Cool!

 

Goes Boom.

[Guest Black Lotus]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

This Wikipedia page should provide plenty of information for any salty GM to extrapolate a Hero write-up. And the pictures are neat, too!

 

Edit: Uh, yeah, what gojira put for his link.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

Right. Just call it an even 900,000,000 STUN, 300,000,000 BODY.

 

Don't forget to subtract your Defenses!

 

*checks sheet* Is that killing or normal?

[keithcurtis]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

I think I have around here... ah yes... GURPS nuclear weapons.

 

Ahem.

 

Little Boy detonated over Hiroshima equivalent 12,500 tons of TNT. Or about 300,000,000 dice of damage. (Hero and GURPS are close in damage in that about 10 points of damage will kill, or at least mortally wound, an average person.)

GURPS damage is an arithmetical progression, HERO is logarithmic.

 

3x10^8 dice in HERO is more than the energy output of the universe over its lifetime, I would expect.

 

Keith "Hasn't done the math, though" Curtis

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

GURPS damage is an arithmetical progression' date=' HERO is logarithmic.[/quote']

 

Ooh! This sounds like it might be interesting!

 

Can you put that monosyllabicly for a simple wrench-bender?

[gojira]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

GURPS damage is an arithmetical progression, HERO is logarithmic.

 

3x10^8 dice in HERO is more than the energy output of the universe over its lifetime, I would expect.

 

Keith "Hasn't done the math, though" Curtis

 

Oh, god. Let's not start that discussion please.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

has anybody written up detonation laser nukes for Star Hero?

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

I think I have around here... ah yes... GURPS nuclear weapons.

 

Ahem.

 

Little Boy detonated over Hiroshima equivalent 12,500 tons of TNT. Or about 300,000,000 dice of damage. (Hero and GURPS are close in damage in that about 10 points of damage will kill, or at least mortally wound, an average person.)

 

Flash: about 40% of the energy of a nuclear device. Increase damage above by 15 for very clear conditions, 10 for normal conditions, or 3 for hazy conditions. People are only blinded if they are looking at the flash. Roll a 3d6, on a 17 the blindness lasts 1d days, on an 18 it is permanent.

 

"Okay; I Dive For Cover!"

 

Duke

[Rapier]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

I suppose would could look at the building damage a nuke does, with explosion rules and figure it out, if the rules mesh well with reality, but I was wondering if anyone else has looked at this.

 

At ground zero a nuke weapon will vaperoize just about anything for a short distance, thats gotta hurt at least a bit.

 

The short answer and the only one that matters is, of course, as much damage as you need it to do. If the plot requires everything to be destroyed, destroy it. If the plot requires heroes to remain alive and rather singed...go for it. There's been a couple really good threads about nukes and the multi-phase damage from pressure blast, heat, radiation, etc if you REALLY need to know.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

According to Weapons: An International Encyclopedia from 5000BC to 2000AD, for a 200Kton warhead, the heat will vaporize metals up to 1.7km away, melt metals up to 2.5km away, burn and melt rubber and plastic up to 5km away, burn and char wood up to 5.8 km away, cause third degree burns at up to 7.6km, second degree burns at up to 10.5km, and first degree burns at up to 15.3km.

 

The blast will cause total destruction at up to 1.3 km, destroy massive structures at up to 1.6km, cause widescale destruction at up to 1.7km, damage multistory buildings at up to 2.2 km, wreck factories at up to 2.8km, wreck dwellings at up to 3.5km, overturn vehicles at up to 4.5km, damage brick houses at up to 5.4km, and damage wooden buildings at up to 9.4km.

 

Radiation at 1.6 km (1 mile) will be 2730 RAD (enough to kill 100% of those affected within hours), and at 3.2 km it will be 3.4 RAD (which will cause practically no effect in and of itself).

[Warp9]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

Oh' date=' god. Let's not start that discussion please.[/quote']

How do you expect to avoid that discussion?

 

You can not answer the question "How much damage do nukes do" unless you can decide if the damage progression is linear or logarithmic.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

How do you expect to avoid that discussion?

 

You can not answer the question "How much damage do nukes do" unless you can decide if the damage progression is linear or logarithmic.

Dingdingding!!!

Exactly. The correct answer is that Hero is a h y b r i d progression. Some aspects are arithmetic, some logarithmic.

 

Duke Bushido, what I meant was that 1 die is supposed to equal roughly five points, which is supposed to roughly double the effect. For example, 15 STR is twice as strong as 10 STR.20 STR is 4x as strong as 10 STR, not 2x or 3x as you might exeptct in other, more linear systems. This falls apart when examined too closely, but is the basis for figuring damage.

 

300 million dice would represent not 300 million times the effect of a punch, but 300 million doublings of the effectiveness of the punch. That's beyond an astronomical number and into supercosmic (for lack of a better word).

 

I can't give you the math, since My Excel formula freaks after 1023 doublings, but even that miniscule fraction is best represented with a 9 followed by over 300 zeroes.

 

So far, the best response I've heard on this thread for the amount of damage for game terms is your quote from Egyptiod.

 

Keith "Nukes are plot devices, unless you're playing Nuke HERO" Curtis

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

Bah. I don't fall into the nukes-as-plot-devices crowd at all. Tactical nukes are nowhere near as powerful as ICBMs, and could be used in a future or alternate history scenario without turning the entire continent into ash. In theory, it would be possible in a sci-fi world to make a round that splits only one atom on impact.

 

And once you've got sufficient stats for your tac-nuke or nuclear bullet, it's pretty much a matter of applying sufficient doublings to reach the 10Mton monsters. I'm going to stat out all kinds of nukes one day, whenever I get around to it.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

That's OK, Cap. Sometimes Ieven fall into the camp of "guns are plot devices", but that's just me.

 

Keith "Global Thermonuclear War HERO, hmm..." Curtis

[ghost-angel]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

The only Nuke I wouldn't plot device are the mini-nukes that were designed to be mounted on the back of a jeep and fired out to a couple km at a target - usually a building or emplacement.

 

Beyond that... unless I'm playing "Gobal Thermonuclear Warfare HERO" I just don't care enough to stat 'em, and really don't want to toss 'em around anyway.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

If I remember right, on the old message boards we statted out a 1 Kiloton Nuclear warhead as doing around 13D6+1K damage (the Fireball, in either case) with a 1 megaton doing around 15 or 16D6K.

 

I write nukes up with both Area of Effect and Explosion limitations. That way the basic AE Radius is Ground Zero where the main damage is applied, then for each Hex (or multiples of Hexes after, most likely) the damage drops off significantly.

[OddHat]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

The only Nuke I wouldn't plot device are the mini-nukes that were designed to be mounted on the back of a jeep and fired out to a couple km at a target - usually a building or emplacement.

 

Beyond that... unless I'm playing "Gobal Thermonuclear Warfare HERO" I just don't care enough to stat 'em, and really don't want to toss 'em around anyway.

 

But if you don't stat them out, how can you tell the PCs exactly how completely vaporized they are?

 

"Can't I roll with the punch?"

"I have +1 armor."

[Black Rose]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

But if you don't stat them out, how can you tell the PCs exactly how completely vaporized they are?

 

"Can't I roll with the punch?"

"I have +1 armor."

Well, if it's metal armor, it can melt around your rapidly vaporising corpse, I suppose....

[keithcurtis]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

"I have +1 armor."

 

Hoody-Hoo!

 

Keith "KODT fan" Curtis

[ghost-angel]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

But if you don't stat them out, how can you tell the PCs exactly how completely vaporized they are?

 

"Can't I roll with the punch?"

"I have +1 armor."

 

 

when in doubt they are this dead:

[Egyptoid]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

Too late, Amigo!

 

I used that one at the gas station about an hour ago:

 

"How much gas did you have, Sir?"

[Duke looks at $44 and change on the meter]

"'Bout all of it, I think!"

 

 

I stole the line from homer simpson:

 

Swiss Investor: "how many project initiatives have you spearheaded in

the last five years?"

 

Homer: "Umm, all of them ?"

 

but I thought nukes were described (again) in the recent hero Tool-book?

[zornwil]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

But if you don't stat them out, how can you tell the PCs exactly how completely vaporized they are?

 

"Can't I roll with the punch?"

"I have +1 armor."

Actually, I think you hit the nail on the head.

 

I feel the important thing in a game if you want to throw a nuke starts with this question: "Do supers like my PCs survive nukes?"

 

Work backwards from there. If not, if nukes destroy anything and everything at least near the core, then you don't even need to stat it, no point. Just lay waste...have fun! If so, though, then work from what would "make sense" for the PCs and the buildings, and compromise accordingly.

 

An incredibly vague answer, yes, but that's because I think this is truly in the realm of "what works in your campaign" and therefore any answer is truly highly variable.

 

Steve Long's answer on behalf of HERO, is, like everything from the rules on to "mere" articles, a guideline, a way of giving complete information so that you can then tweak to taste. As such, he gives lots of excellent info, but that doesn't mean it's relevant to your campaign. I believe Steve would say so himself.

[Cancer]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

Well' date=' if it's metal armor, it can melt around your rapidly vaporising corpse, I suppose....[/quote']

 

Hm. Might happen in the other order. I recall reading about the Pelee volcanic eruption on Martinique; a case was quoted where one victim had a paper bag of nails, and the nails melted before the paper burned away. I'd have to do the scholarship in earnest to read why they came to exactly that conclusion, though.

 

I guess I believe that most metals will absorb and conduct heat more rapidly than a burning front would propagate through organic material, as long as we're talking about modest amounts of both. That's a detail that quite irrelevant to anyone at the site at the time, of course.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Silly question, How much damage do nukes do

 

It should do enough damage to vaporize a main battle tank, or your basic 350 point brick(your choice of benchmarks), at ground zero.

the 20d6 RKX MS1 works fairly well for a simplified version--just adjust the scale between 1" = 10m and 1" = 1km according to whether you are dealing with a mini-nuke, a tacnuke or a stratnuke.

 

If your tanks have 20 DEF and 20 BODY, then doing 2x body instantly should probably be considered vaporizing it--That means 60 body, or 20d6 kill using standard effect rules.

 

If your brick has 30 rDEF and 20 BODY(a really tough 350 point brick), then 20d6 KA will do an average of 70 body in damage, enough to kill the brick(sfx: vaporized by thermonuclear heat/radiation) instantly. It should be noted that Bulletproof from Galactic Champions can survive a nuke, and on average won't even take body. Dr. Destroyer, if he has his forcewall up, can also stagger away from ground zero! DFWDrD

 

If anyone else wants to have 8 linked effects that they have to methodically roll out, then parse by distance, while the players whip out their PSPs, hey, great, knock yourselves out.