Dust Explosion - Grain, flour, wheat

[Kalzazz]

When is this session taking place? Im now really curious about the outcome

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

When is this session taking place? Im now really curious about the outcome

It depends. We played a session yesterday, but it didn't involve this specific PC and concerned events at the south wall. The siege starts out well, with the commander of the opposing army having fallen to a magical arrow attack at two and a half miles. Granted, staging that attack left the Arcane Archer type PC without any ER for the next two hours and depleted his fanciest arrows, but killing the enemy general before the battle even starts is a hell of a statement.

Of course, if the PC had refrained from flying up into an exposed position to deliver a poetic eulogy in a magically-boosted voice, he wouldn't have been struck unconscious by crystal fragments when a teleported magic stone exploded close to him. So, while first blood goes to the Free Unther side, the Mulhorandi retaliated quickly (albeit hopefully less lethally).

There's a session Saturday, but odds are that we will not reach midnight in game time until the next session after that. Five hours is a very long time when so many things are happening and there are plenty of PCs with different jobs in the besieged city.

[dukofdeth]

If you're still trying to come up with a way to pull this off, how about come sort of shield spell, set like a trap on the area you want to have the explosion occur, and come up with a way to invert the effects - rather than have the shield keep things out, it keeps things in, and thus, simulates the effects of a huge enclosure. And given the power needed to set off such a shield, it would only be active for a brief moment - just long enough for the explosive effect to be magnified as if it was indoors.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by dukofdeth

If you're still trying to come up with a way to pull this off, how about come sort of shield spell, set like a trap on the area you want to have the explosion occur, and come up with a way to invert the effects - rather than have the shield keep things out, it keeps things in, and thus, simulates the effects of a huge enclosure. And given the power needed to set off such a shield, it would only be active for a brief moment - just long enough for the explosive effect to be magnified as if it was indoors.

This would work, but would require the PC to develop a variation of a spell he doesn't know. As such, it's impractical in the situation he is in.

He did consider having allied mages that are specialists in force magic help him, but the other PCs turned him down, explaining that he was free to use his own command and any non-critical laborers his rank allowed him to commandeer, but he couldn't call on anything as vital to the larger plans afoot as the Northern Wizards allies.

Any wizard with the power to enclose a large formation of the enemy within a sphere of magical energy will also have the power to destroy large formations of the enemy without resorting to a Rube Goldberg machine.

[Icelander]

The PCs have finally returned from their sojourn to the Astral Plane, returning to their recently conquered city of Shussel, still besieged by the enemy army of 30,000, only some two hours after they left.*

While they had great success and much glory on the Astral, it's a sort of good news, bad news kind of thing. When they return to Shussel, they can't help but note that a section of the city walls ca 60' long has collapsed entirely and some thousands of enemy soldiers are fighting their way through. From the slaughterhouse look of the breach, the heroic defenders in the service of the PCs have done yeoman's work, but it appears that the last reserves have been committed and the enemy is still punching through.

The fearsome martial artist and warrior poet, Rasul Khamsin Mubtasim, as well as legendary knight Sir Michael Carragher, immediately make their way to the breach** and start mixing it up. Other PCs start sniping at enemy leaders or giving orders to try to retrieve the situation. Abadas 'I Just Get These Headaches', the fiery ifrit-kin sorcerer whose plan this originally was, immediately rejoins his command and starts preparing to enact what he insists on calling 'Operation Gingerbread Man'.***

During his absence, he is surprised to discover that the freed slaves, bakers and palace cooks have loyally continued to grind flour and other substances into fine powder, while other freed slaves and a few officers have run around the whole city commandeering likely substances.

The flying mages already had enough flour, assuming that they'll want to keep some of their numbers in reserve, as a combat air patrol to protect the heavily-loaded ones who actually drop bags, but there was no real reason not to have more than they needed, in case some was misdropped and they had to make another drop or something.

So they have an extra ton of finely ground flour, some two tons of chaff scrounged from mills, a ton of charchoal dust from the shipyards and four tons of dried dung, not much of which has been properly powdered, but which has at least been placed in bags and beaten.

This unexpected bounty matters extremely, because Abadas 'I Just Get These Headaches' has found a vocation on the Astral Plane, as he exploded the floating island-body of a dead god. The god was not quite dead, silvery-blue light filled the empty astral void and the music of the spheres lifted the spirits of the destructive band of PCs. And Abadas, well, he went into the light.

Now reborn as a crusader for the returned Su'en, the Crescent Moon, Lord of Light, He Who Brings Light into the Dark Places, Abadas returns at the head of the Legion of Nanna-Sin, an army of former Shusselfolk who were whisked away to Su'en's heavenly realm and there trained to fight evil.

Most of the Legion returned all around the city of Shussel and will hardly be able to concentrate at the breach in time to make a difference. Two units are potentially different, however. There is a unit of hippogriff cataphracts, which Abadas dispatches immediately to help at the breach. And there is a unit of (mostly) young girls mounted on pegasi.

Abadas adds twenty of these pegasi-riders that have bows to the CAP and instructs the other 80 to load up with bags and follow the rest of his command to the drop zone. Now they are dropping six tons of powdered substances; three of flour, two of crushed chaff and one of powdered charchoal. There are also some four tons of dried dung. A ton of charchoal dust goes with the djinn, the forty flying mages carry a ton of finely ground flour, the flying carpet carries 200 lbs. of flour, the Phantom Steeds carry 800 lbs. and the Brass Wyverns another 500 lbs. each. The eighty pegasi-riders will carry two tons of crushed chaff and other detritus from mills and four tons of dried dung.

All in all, they are dropping ten tons; six tons of fine dust and four tons of dried dung that will hopefully be somewhat powdered, at least at the end of a thousand yard drop.

When we ended the session last night, the drop had been completed. I rolled various Administration, Leadership, Operations and Tactics for Abadas**** and his lieutenants to adapt to the presence of the new unit of pegasus-riders and to carry out the adapted plan. Abadas succeeded by 11 on Administration, 19 on Leadership, 10 on Operations (Air) and 12 on Tactics (Air-to-Ground).

He dropped the first load of flour mixed with continual light enchanted pebbles, lighting himself up with fire and moonlight to guide in the others. He rolled a success by 20 on the Dropping roll and by 12 on the Forward Observer roll. Technically, when we broke for the evening, the drop was only half finished, but I figure I'll roll for everyone anyway and then modify it if something happens to prevent the latter half of the munitions from being dropped.

I roll for each sub-unit of 20 men or women, as well as for the special creatures separately. The rolls for Dropping were phenomenal. In order, they were Gold Squadron (rolled 7; avg Dropping skill 12), Electrum Squadron (rolled 11; avg Dropping skill 13), 1st Pegasus Squadron (rolled 4; avg Dropping skill 12), 2nd Pegasus Squadron (rolled 4; avg Dropping skill 12), 3rd Pegasus Squadron (rolled 5; avg Dropping skill 12), 4th Pegasus Squadron (rolled 8; avg Dropping skill 12), djinni (rolled 8; Dropping skill 18), flying carpet (rolled 13; avg Dropping skill 19), Phantom Steeds (rolled 13; avg Dropping skill 12) and Brass Wyverns (rolled 10; avg Dropping skill 14).

Edit: I have decided that Forward Observer check should give a +1 per 2 margin of success to the Dropping roll, up to a maximum of the Range penalty. I further decided that one Forward Observer skill roll cannot affect the drop for everyone. As a consequence, I have Abadas roll again for each element (at -4 if he's not focusing exclusively on Forward Observer that turn). The initial success by 12 affects the Gold Squadron, for the flying carpet he succeeds by 11, for the Phantom Steeds by 11 and the Brass Wyverns by 12. Then, he succeeds by 4 for the Electrum Squadron. For the 1st Pegasus Squadron, Abadas succeeds by 16 (critical success), for the 2nd by 9, for the 3rd by 13 and for the 4th by 6. The djinn does not enjoy a Forward Observer bonus, but it did dive with its payload and launch it at 200 yds, given in only a -4 net penalty to Dropping.

The four wizards of the CAP provided with summoning wands have succeeded in summoning eight smaller dust devils to aid the djinn and the odds are excellent that they'll manage four more. Abadas has blown to pieces a formation of elite archers, some of whom probably had magical arrows for dealing with exotic creatures, as they took aim at the djinn. Casualties are 30+, possibly up to 50, with some score of men actually on fire. He also breathed fire on a war cleric and his retinue, taking all nine of them down. Now, however, he has an arrow in his gut and just barely managed to take down the heroic archer who put it there.

It's been 30 seconds since the djinn started whirling the dust about. There has been no time to use Measurement to check if the mix is even remotely optimal anywhere in the growing dust cloud, but the djinn and his eight helpers are at least managing to thoroughly scatter dust everywhere on the targeted road.

A regiment of men has scattered into chaos within the cloud and the expanding cloud is catching up to archers and slingers alongside the road, who had started to back away from it. A running man could outdistance the cloud, even spread by one large and eight small controlled whirlwinds, but so far, the officers of the affected formations outside the cloud are trying to retain some semblence of control while trying to move their men away. In the dark, moving off the road, with fire and explosions in the sky, it's probably going to be hard to run full tilt even if the light troops are allowed to break formation.

*It's been almost a year of real time, gaming it out. I'll grant that there were several months where we didn't get in even one session, though.
**Rasul jumps from the highest tower in the inner keep and roof surfs, tic-tacs and wall-runs the distance, arriving maybe half a second before Mickey to kick a gigantic bare-chested steppe barbarian in the face. Mickey's delay is explained by the fact that he had to take off his magical black dragon boots and put on his magical red dragon flight boots, before launching into a controlled dive that ended on enemy shields.
***There's a bag or two of finely ground dried spices in addition to the powdered flour. He didn't really check what spices it was, though, so maybe there's no ginger.
****In a previous session, he had already rolled the Administration, Artillery (Bombs), Cartography, Engineer (Bombs), Engineer (Combat), Explosives (Fireworks), Leadership, Mathematics (Applied), Mathematics (Surveying), Navigation (Air), Scrounging and Tactics (Air-to-Ground) rolls to design and make the dust, have it bagged, select the site, plan the distribution of the dust, dictate a strike plan, draw a targeting map for his subordinate commanders and hold a pre-strike briefing.

[Walrus]

If the OP is still relevant, I'd like to add that nearly the same tactics of exploding cloud of sawdust as an incendiary were used in some book of Codex Alera by Jim Butcher in nearly the same situation of siege.

Though the defenders were outnumbered much more vastly.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Walrus

If the OP is still relevant, I'd like to add that nearly the same tactics of exploding cloud of sawdust as an incendiary were used in some book of Codex Alera by Jim Butcher in nearly the same situation of siege.

Though the defenders were outnumbered much more vastly.

If you check the post immediately above yours, you'll see that the issue is indeed still valid and we stopped last session halfway through the air drop of the dust. I would welcome suggestions for how to estimate the effects.

[Seneschal]

Originally Posted by Icelander

If you check the post immediately above yours, you'll see that the issue is indeed still valid and we stopped last session halfway through the air drop of the dust. I would welcome suggestions for how to estimate the effects.

I can't exactly help with the calculations ATM, I just wanted to say goddammit, I remember this thread from a year ago and was sorely disappointed when we didn't get to see how it went. And now you tell me that neither did you? Who the hell goes on a sabbatical to the astral plane in the middle of a siege?

On topic, after all that preparation, I'd let my players sit back and enjoy the show - it would be very anticlimactic and demoralizing for the flour bomb to fizzle out. But I'm a narrativist, not a simulationist, and Icelander seems to like having concrete numbers to base his narrative on. In that case, I'd look at the margins of victory of the various rolls that went into preparing the bomb and use them to decide on a percentage of flour that successfully fwooshes. Then plug that mass into one of the calculators upthread.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Seneschal

I can't exactly help with the calculations ATM, I just wanted to say goddammit, I remember this thread from a year ago and was sorely disappointed when we didn't get to see how it went. And now you tell me that neither did you? Who the hell goes on a sabbatical to the astral plane in the middle of a siege?

Well, bona fide, card-carrying Big Damn Heroes, of course.

If there were just one overwhelming, terrifying threat to deal with at a time, it wouldn't be a job for the PCs. They'd leave it to any ordinary legendary heroes, I suppose, it being the sort of thing any violent sod with a liberal approach to oiled nudity and a drop of divine ichor in his veins can handle.

The PCs are fighting a full-scale war against the most powerful empire in their part of the world; recently declared their die-hard opposition to slavery and slave-holding regimes*; and are publicly allied with both Tiamat's cultists and the Cult of the Dragon and officially have a policy of friendly neutrality toward the Church of Bane and the Zhentarim, while simultaneously carrying out a lethal covert feuds with all four parties, including working to unravel machinations of the Cult of the Dragon that may be causing the end of the world.

Added to these large-scale conflicts, many individual PCs have their own schemes, emnities, plans and quests, any of which may lead them to call upon their friends and fellow heroes to drop all they are doing and come to their assistance.

Their journey to the Astral was connected to a lot of things, but first and foremost, they couldn't not go, because the upshot of succeeding there was so huge. They'd have stolen a finished magical portal, changing the terminus, so that instead of going from the enemy capital of Skuld to Shussel, the newly captured city, the portal goes from Shussel to the Isle of Tan, a stronghold that the PCs own in the Pirate Isles.

It will be a huge boost to rebuilding efforts in Shussel, make the Isle of Tan a thriving and rich town instead of a resource-draining fortress and provide a significant military advantage by linking the main training base of the PCs infantry and marines directly with the city that now forms the new front line in the war. Also, it will make their merchant house, Purple Reign, even richer, and that just purely sets Murlak to salivating.

There were also diplomatic considerations with the Enclave, a potential ally, and as it turned out, it was all Foretold. Destiny was in Play. It was Written in the Stars. All Hail the Lord of Light, He Who Brings Light into the Dark Places, the Winged Bull, the Lord of Wisdom, Su'en of the Crescent Moon!

*Though Murlak the merchant prince, amoral and conniving master of manipulation, has managed to convince slave-holding allies-of-convenience and business partners that this is merely lip-service rhetoric from the more idealistic members of the merchant house.

Originally Posted by Seneschal

On topic, after all that preparation, I'd let my players sit back and enjoy the show - it would be very anticlimactic and demoralizing for the flour bomb to fizzle out. But I'm a narrativist, not a simulationist, and Icelander seems to like having concrete numbers to base his narrative on. In that case, I'd look at the margins of victory of the various rolls that went into preparing the bomb and use them to decide on a percentage of flour that successfully fwooshes. Then plug that mass into one of the calculators upthread.

I'm not all that merciful. If the dice call for anticlimatic and demoralising, that's what happens. Rasul, al-Andalib al-Hilal, the Moonlit Nightingale, a master of the subtle art of unarmed combat, was just choked by an unremarkable mercenary during a melee at the breach.

The mercenary held some form of minor squad leader positon in the mercenary bodyguard of an enemy officer of good family. A Status -1 to Status 0 mercenary position, with no great wealth and equipment that was functional, but neither attention-grabbing nor likely to be enchanted. All in all, a nobody, without great name, reputation or even any way to provide for himself once he grew too old for frontline service.

And that nameless nobody* held the legendary Rasul for 13 seconds, capably countering all his grappling maneuevers and attempts to break free, draining all his FPs and leaving him too weak to defend himself. The only reason he didn't manage to kill him is that Murlak finally decided to risk shooting into close combat (as Rasul would die anyway if he didn't) and blew out the brains of the unfortunate mercenary with a .60 caliber gold bullet going at 3000+ fps.

Rasul may be a 1450 point martial artist/bard carrying enough legendary magical loot to enable several parties of delvers to retire comfortably, but in a large-scale melee, there's no guarantee that you'll even see the guy who gets you. And while Rasul was fighting for his life against respectable heroes like the Tuigan wrestling champion Bulugan Arulad and the famed raider Khadai Ba'atar, son of the indomitable rebel lord Toghon Khan, a nameless mercenary snuck up behind him and captured him in a choke hold using a battered sword without enchantment or history. And his four fellow mercenaries also grabbed on and tried to thrust their daggers through Rasul's mail, finally getting in a few good stabs to his face.

Narratively, it is clear that Rasul should have faced Sorkhanira Talwar, baghatur to the Last Rani of Thommar and the bearer of her sword, Azmat, but more importantly, cousin to Bulagan Arulad and brother to Khadai Ba'atar, whom Rasul left bleeding in the dust, in a climatic duel for honour and vengeance. But as it was, Rasul fled from the enraged Sorkhanira while that worthy declared his willingness to die on this foreign field, should he have the honour to send Rasul ahead of him to the Underworld, in the name of his abused cousin and foully treated brother. Rasul knew that he could not defeat a stout three-year-old in his state and barely managed to get back ten yards to take shelter behind a line of Purple Reign marines.

*Actually, his name was Charax Ansultim, born forty six years ago in the city of Sultim, in the north of Mulhorand, to a Chessentan mercenary and a slave girl in a military brothel. He had been a soldier for thirty years, in the service of various nobles and temples in Mulhorand, but despite cool bravery and competence on the battlefield, had never managed to secure a position beyond a series of minor NCO roles. The reasons are familiar, lack of education and illiteracy, a rough demeanour, poor impulse control in times of peace, love of gambling and the bottle. But the players don't know any of this and, so, from their perspective, he was a nameless nobody.

[Gedrin]

Reading about the elementals, I can't help but think that the intelligent ones might be connoisseurs of "stuff mixed in air". The descriptive language might be difficult to convey the desired result, but assuming you could communicate, and get cooperation (possibly the hard part if they're purist types), appropriate mix and distribution accounting for ambient currents might well count as air elemental artistic expression.