RE: (TFT) Killing Joe, amps

["Jay Carlisle" <selfinflicted_wounds@boardermail.com>]

No wonder that forrest ranger survived over a dozen strikes.

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Michael Grouchy II" <david_michael_grouchy_ii@hotmail.com>
> To: tft@brainiac.com
> Subject: RE: (TFT) Killing Joe, amps
> Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 12:49:35 -0500
> 
> 
> > Jay Carlisle wrote:
> >
> > Lightning according to the World Book I've been using from the early '80s
> says strikes vary widely but 100,000,000 volts isn't uncommon.
> 
> > ... it's volts * amps = watts if I recall so what are the implications for
> lightning here?
> 
> > I also pulled from National Geographic Explorer 'Struck By Lightning' that a
> strike on a home can send from 20,000 to 200,000 amps through home wiring (200
> amp normal load) but of course copper is a conductor.
> 
> > 1,000,000 volts @ 1 amp = 1,000,000 watts aprox= 3704 pts dam
> > 1,000,000 volts @ 1 micro amp = 1000 watts aprox= 0.370 pts dam
> 
> Jay
>         Even if the lightning strike does 110 to 5,000 amperes to the
> characters' weapon the question is how much of that strike has to pass through
> the inside of that character to make contact with the ground. Some? All? None?
> In the time I spent investigating lightning strikes on radio, cellular, and
> power line towers I found that lightning could sometimes follow the tower,
> sometimes the cable, and sometimes jump back and forth from cable to tower
> burning it's way through the insulation repeatedly.
>         If I had to put this into game terms I feel compelled to use a
> different approach. The lightning will probably view the character with mild
> interest, if any at all. It is looking for an electron rich target that can
> heat up a lot. By heat up I mean resistance, similar to a resistor in a
> circuit. A target that will still conduct the current but will convert a good
> bit of it to heat. Characters have too much water in them to look really
> good.
>         Many of the strikes I investigated left snake trails of carbon where
> metal and wiring used to be. A lightning strike on a tower tends to blow the
> climbers off of the tower. The lightning strike I experienced was two meters
> away on the roof of the second tallest office building in down town New
> Orleans. It struck out from an antenna next to where I was working and showed
> no interest me at all. While the hair on my head and arms reacted a little, I
> couldn't swear that that was the induction field and not just my own surprise.
> The antenna and sky were having their own conversation and left me out of it.
>         I would play lightning, and describe it, as passing more around the
> character. Maybe even leaving a blackened carbon strike pattern on the outside
> of their clothing and armor. Only in the case of a lightning spell doing
> enough damage to kill a character, and consequently disenchant their magic
> items, would I consider the lightning to find the character electrically
> interesting enough to strike through them.
>         In conclusion electric pitting in metals, ruined clothes, maybe even
> burning all the hair off are effective descriptions. A trail of carbon dust
> about the size and shape of a snake that passes through the character is
> reserved for lighting strikes that actually kill them. A trail that leaps back
> and forth between their tissue and armor wouldn't be surprising at all.
> 
>         David Michael Grouchy II
> 
> 
> 
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