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Old 06-24-2018, 11:42 PM   #81
Daigoro
 
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Default Re: Rate my "Big Bad Evils"

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
If I remember correctly, the 'poison' of an ant is actually formic acid, which suggests that it would be better represented as a corrosive attack that follows up a bite. A 1d-2 cutting bite would a 1d-2 corrosive attack as a follow-up would seem about right for a 'realistic' 30 lb ant.
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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
It is really a moot point through, as the bite should probably cause toxic damage rather than corrosive damage. A toxic attack can easily cause that level of damage (it is the equivalent of around 1 gram of king cobra venom) because poisons kill by disabling biological processes rather than killing by turning someone to a pile of goo. If you change the attack to a toxic attack, it will be fine.
Dude, corrosive instead of toxic was your suggestion to start with.
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Old 06-25-2018, 12:48 AM   #82
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Default Re: Rate my "Big Bad Evils"

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Dude, corrosive instead of toxic was your suggestion to start with.
Bear in mind that "corrosive" should not be defined in chemical terms. We think of acids, but strong bases can be considered corrosive, or potent oxidizers. On the other hand, an aci might not be. The GURPS definition is that a corrosive attack can reduce your DR; would formic acid reduce the DR of armor? If not, toxic would be better, even if chemically it's an acid.
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Old 06-25-2018, 01:57 AM   #83
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Dude, corrosive instead of toxic was your suggestion to start with.
Yep! Seems like he forgot it.
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Old 06-25-2018, 01:59 AM   #84
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Default Re: Rate my "Big Bad Evils"

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Bear in mind that "corrosive" should not be defined in chemical terms. We think of acids, but strong bases can be considered corrosive, or potent oxidizers. On the other hand, an aci might not be. The GURPS definition is that a corrosive attack can reduce your DR; would formic acid reduce the DR of armor? If not, toxic would be better, even if chemically it's an acid.
"A 1d-2 cutting bite would a 1d-2 corrosive attack as a follow-up" so what he really meant by this was 1d-2 cutting 1d-2 toxic? I may be hallucinating.
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Old 06-25-2018, 02:30 AM   #85
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"A 1d-2 cutting bite would a 1d-2 corrosive attack as a follow-up" so what he really meant by this was 1d-2 cutting 1d-2 toxic? I may be hallucinating.
Game mechanical the big difference is that Corrosive can damage DR (and cost 10/lvl) while Toxic can't harm machines (and only cost 4/lvl). Just so you can take that into account for what you actually want the ants to be able to do game-mechanically.
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Old 06-25-2018, 02:33 AM   #86
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Formic acid

And formic acid if injected directly into the blood could be lethal at a dose of 3 grams, so they shouldn´t need to use 750 grams at once.

Let´s drop those ants to 7.5kg each, for sacks of 0.375 kg. At HT-2 and 1d-1 toxic 1 corrosive their victims would be taking 18.15 damage (which won´t be enough to put an average person down). Let´s put them at 1d-1 tox 2 cor HT-3 for 26.4 damage (which should be enough to put an average person down). If you don´t like cor damage so much, do it 1d tox 1 cor at HT-3 for the same damage, or 1d-1 tox 1 cor instead for 20.5 damage, allowing them to sting over a hundred times before their sacks are empty and making formic acid the equivalent of acetic acid.

Conclusion:
Follow-up [1d-1 tox 1 cor, agony, blindness; secondary choking, heart attack] (HT-3 to resist) every 10 seconds for 1 minute

So get them to succesfully sting you, and you´re screwed in agony and blindness. Fail one of your seven HT rolls by 5 or more (87% probability in average), and you´re under choking and heart attack conditions, dying in HT/3 minutes under cardiac arrest unless resuscitated with 0 HP at best or in 4 minutes under respiratory arrest unless someone has antitoxins on hand. And permanent blindness by destruction of the optic nerve even if antitoxins are used and you get to stay alive is a fact, with agony lasting for up to a whole day if you´re one among the 13% who naturally resisted the secondary effects.

Coyote Peterson´s ant bite.
Long version.
Schmidt sting pain index.

Last edited by Alonsua; 06-25-2018 at 03:48 AM.
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Old 06-25-2018, 08:55 AM   #87
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A 1d-2 corrosive attack is barely within the range of possibility for a 30 lb ant, but a 7d-7 corrosive attack is not because of the amount of fluids required. If you want 7d-7 damage, you need toxic attacks, not corrosive. If you want realistically dangerous ants, genetically engineer swarms of ants with toxic attacks instead of using giant ants with corrosive attacks.

You cannot successful inject 3 grams of concentrated acid into the blood stream because the acid will burn the blood vessels shut (the damage becomes localize to the area of injection). If you bite a major blood vessel, you might cause enough damage to cripple or kill the victim, but the majority of the acid in any other attack will leak into the surrounding flesh. This becomes a greater problem when you have a larger injector, as all but the larger veins and arteries are less than a centimeter in diameter and most are only a millimeter in diameter, meaning that any injector larger than a millimeter in diameter will deposit most of the acid into the surrounding flesh.
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