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(TFT) Re: TFT Digest V3 #1004



At 22:14 -0400 4/27/08, Jay wrote:
I hear you Peter and Erol.
Now if I was a Player I'd be bugging you about learning to fly upsidedown.
No?
What about if I pick up Acrobatics?

"Aerobatics" would be the appropriate skill if it existed, but I'd say you could substitute "Acrobatics".

At 22:14 -0400 4/27/08, TFT Digest wrote:
 > > @ 100psi per 1pt dam this is 1,600,000psi
 >
 psi? Seems to me fireballs would do damage by heat rather than pressure.


<oversimplification alert>

Explosions that create shock waves can do damage according to the "overpressure" which is reasonable to measure in psi (and decreases like 1/r^2 from the center of the blast, I think).

This is why most of even an HE bomb's mass is in the casing, rather than the explosive. The concussion effect is built up by the explosive pressurizing the casing up to its burst point. Any more explosive is more or less wasted. The point is to store as much energy as possible in stretching the casing, then release it all at once when the casing ruptures.

Fuel-air explosives are one exception; they detonate fast enough (and are large enough in volume) that the inertia of the air surrounding them is enough to build up a reasonable shock wave against.

Nukes are another exception; again, the prompt radiation heats a sufficient volume of air that the inertia of the air "outside" allows a good shock wave to build up.

Next question is *how* a Fireball does its damage. I think of it as being an energy-deposition effect. Magic Fist deposits impulse (like a fist) (and which I would attempt to convert to kinetic energy), Fireball deposits convected heat (like a flame-thrower), Lightning deposits ions or electrons (like a lightning bolt). In any of those cases, I would assess damage by energy deposited rather than by overpressure. It's not completely trivial, but it would be possible to add up kinetic energy (assume some mass for fist + arm, use E = 1/2 (m) (v^2) ), or thermal energy (BTU's isn't quite right, but close), or total charge times voltage for kWh in the lightning bolt.

I don't know how to convert petard or grenade explosions into an energy system. Those clearly do concussion damage most appropriately rated by overpressure. If Fireballs (Or Lightning, or Wizard's Wrath) work like these weapons, the above is not worth reading and I'll crawl back under my rock...

At 22:14 -0400 4/27/08, TFT Digest wrote:
Is that a limit on how big a Fireball can be?

I like some practical limits I've seen used as "house rules", such as "no more points than the basic ST of the wizard", or "no more points than the basic IQ of the wizard". There's a hint of a limit (20 points) in the size limitation on Fireball Rods in the Magic Items sections of AW. That said, as a Wizard, I'd really love to be able to hire a whole flock of apprentices and take down Hoover Dam with a single, Thor-like Magic Fist of several thousand points. Very cinematic.

Has anyone run statistics on how powerful a spell could be cast by having a wizard at the center of a bunch of concentric rings of Aid-ing apprentices? Start at the outer ring, everyone casts a full-ST Aid on the next ring in, then next turn everyone in that ring casts a full-Aided-St Aid on the next ring in, and so on? Eventually missed rolls catch up with you, but it would be interesting to see how much ST could make it in to the wizard at the center and what the variance on that number is.

At 19:37 -0400 4/26/08, David wrote:
I have to agree here.  It has not been my experience either that the
lethality of a combat system encourages people to be more diplomatic.

Hmmm. May I deduce we have a rather non-lethal combat system here on the mailing list?

:-)
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