Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 09-20-2022, 09:01 AM   #11
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
"A mouse can be dropped down a mine-shaft, however deep, and arrive at the bottom dazed but unhurt. A cat or a dog will be killed, however. A man will be not only killed but smashed; and if a pit pony happens to fall over, the speed at the bottom is so terrific that nothing is left but a few of the hardest bits of its bones and a splash on the walls."
Or the shortened version: "A mouse bounces, a dog dies, a man is broken, and a horse splashes."
__________________
GURPS Overhaul
Varyon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2022, 09:51 AM   #12
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Or the shortened version: "A mouse bounces, a dog dies, a man is broken, and a horse splashes."
Yes, that sounds familiar, but I couldn't find it in The Science of Life.
__________________
Bill Stoddard

I don't think we're in Oz any more.
whswhs is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2022, 10:20 AM   #13
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Yes, that sounds familiar, but I couldn't find it in The Science of Life.
I've never read The Science of Life; I presume the shortened version I'm familiar with was a summary of the sequence you quoted, come up with later by someone else. It's simply a version that is very easy to remember.
__________________
GURPS Overhaul
Varyon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2022, 12:16 PM   #14
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

Quote:
Originally Posted by JulianLW View Post
I think in both of those cases your body would, in fact, basically explode. The force of the impact of a Mack truck hitting a human body at 100 mph would nearly liquify most soft tissue and turn most of the bones into shards the consistency of gravel.
Impacts of high speed vehicle collisions vs. pedestrians results might tear the body to pieces, but aren't quite as efficient as you suggest. Only bones and tissue directly in contact when the collision occurred would be so badly damaged.
Pursuivant is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2022, 12:17 PM   #15
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bathawk View Post
So the question is, is there a point where blunt drama becomes superfluous?
Yes. My personal limit is about 2 minutes of reality TV. ;)

More seriously, at some point you inflict so much damage that you vaporize your target. Any damage beyond that is wasted.

As a real-world data point, it takes 2-4 hours at 1300-1800 *F to cremate a 150 lb. human body. That gives you an estimate of the amount of energy required to turn a human to ash. Lets assume that's constant exposure to a fire hex for 3 hours. That would inflict 1d-1 HP/sec. (2.5 HP of damage on average) for 10,800 sec., or 27000 HP.

Realistically, average fire temperature is a bit lower than temperatures used in a crematorium and heat in an enclosed furnace will be more efficient at inflicting damage, but good enough as an estimate.

As a second data point, people were vaporized at about 30 yards from the epicenter of the Hiroshima bomb (and possibly up to 880 yards away). Using stats from High Tech, that would be ~2330 HP of explosive crushing & ~2275 HP of burn damage, or ~4600 HP total at 30 yards, or ~233 HP explosive crushing & ~77 burn damage, or ~310 HP total at 880 yards (or ~525 HP total at maximum damage).

Assuming a HP 10 human, that means that continuous exposure to fire sufficient to reduce HP to HP x -2700 or sudden exposure to heat and blast sufficient to reduce HP to HP x -460 is good enough to vaporize, and reducing someone to -30 x HP is possibly good enough to vaporize.

The damage estimates for heat damage for nuclear bombs in High Tech might be a bit low for objects close to the blast, because the intense burst of ionizing radiation would also heat the victim.

As a dumb guess, whole body kinetic damage sufficient to reduce a living victim to HP x -100 will produce a "fine red mist" vs. scattered body parts which might still yield viable tissue. The same amount of thermal damage + blast effects results in true vaporization, or otherwise turn the victim into ash.

Whole body thermal damage sufficient to reduce a victim to HP x -30 is probably good enough to destroy DNA and leave a carbonized corpse. Toxic damage sufficient to reduce the victim to HP x -30 might have the same effect.

Last edited by Pursuivant; 09-20-2022 at 12:35 PM.
Pursuivant is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2022, 12:51 PM   #16
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
ize.

The damage estimates for heat damage for nuclear bombs in High Tech might be a bit low for objects close to the blast, because the intense burst of ionizing radiation would also heat the victim.

A.
Only a little.

It's a basic of fission reactions that 2.4% of the total energy is in the form of neutrons, 3.6% in gamma rays and 94% in charged particles.

The charged particles react most efficintly with air molecules and rapidly form the heat part of the explosion (which in turn leads to the concussion part).

Then there's also the issue that not all of the ionizing radiation will interact with human targets. Most will zip right through.
__________________
Fred Brackin
Fred Brackin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2022, 01:59 PM   #17
JulianLW
 
Join Date: Apr 2019
Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
Impacts of high speed vehicle collisions vs. pedestrians results might tear the body to pieces, but aren't quite as efficient as you suggest. Only bones and tissue directly in contact when the collision occurred would be so badly damaged.
People with experience say otherwise:

https://www.quora.com/What-happens-t...t-causes-death

"The body is often - or generally - intact. At least in my experience as a funeral director. But it is as an intact bag of smashed bits."

One medical examiner said this about bodies destroyed by falling damage:

"While the skin is somewhat complete, the bones will have shattered and offer no structure - and rigor does not seem to stiffen them. The legs are often like tubes of jelly - very difficult to remove the clothing."

We're not talking about a "vehicle" collision but rather a Mack truck at 100 mph - which is more comparable to a fall at terminal velocity than getting bisected by a car striking you at one point mid-torso. Getting hit by a Mack truck would be a full-body collision.
JulianLW is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2022, 03:41 PM   #18
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Then there's also the issue that not all of the ionizing radiation will interact with human targets. Most will zip right through.
Eh, they're only at a few MeV; it only takes a few inches of tissue to absorb half.
__________________
My GURPS site and Blog.
Anthony is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2022, 04:36 PM   #19
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

Quote:
Originally Posted by JulianLW View Post
People with experience say otherwise
I agree with you regarding high speed falls.

I was thinking of the aftermath of a typical high-speed modern truck collision, however. As an example, there are plenty of approximately human-sized deer dead by the side of U.S. highways with bones at least partially intact.

Someone directly in front of something so big and fast that they can't get at least partially out of the way, which doesn't have provisions for victims to "bounce off" (e.g., a railroad train or old-style flat-nosed heavy bus or truck moving at high speeds) will end up more or less like you describe. They're then likely to get pulled under the vehicle due to gravity and the vehicle's forward momentum, where they get pulped even more by its wheels and possibly underbody. The body might be torn to pieces, with pieces caught in the vehicle being dragged for miles.

Modern heavy trucks and school busses have redesigned front ends, in part to reduce damage in pedestrian collisions.

Last edited by Pursuivant; 09-20-2022 at 04:41 PM.
Pursuivant is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-21-2022, 04:54 AM   #20
malloyd
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
The -10xHP = nothing left honestly doesn't make much sense.
That's the key feature here. No amount of blunt (or cutting or bullet) damage will totally destroy a body, all the atoms in it are still there somewhere. You could stand next to a nuclear explosion and 99.99% of them would be.

All the -10xHP limit was originally for was to create a distinction between "mostly dead" and "all dead" for purposes of resurrection magic. Trying to stretch it to totally vaporized as always been nonsense.
__________________
--
MA Lloyd
malloyd is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
hit points, injury

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:08 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.