Questions on Radiation

[Hamrick]

Hello.

I've run into some confusion as it pertains to the Basic rules on Radiation.

1. When it comes to continuing doses from ingestion, the rules state that the rad dose can range from 1 rad/day, to several per minute. How long do these actually last though?

2. If you experience multiple doses of rads separately, would you experience the same exact effects over again? For example, if you experienced three different 40 rad doses, would you suffer from Hematopoietic syndrome three different times?

3. Lastly, how do you actually determine a 'dose'. For instance, if you accumulate 1 rad a day for a week, would that be 7 one rad doses, or one 7 rad dose at the end of the week.

I might be overthinking things, but I just wanted to make sure I was handling this correctly.

Thanks!

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Hamrick

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1. When it comes to continuing doses from ingestion, the rules state that the rad dose can range from 1 rad/day, to several per minute. How long do these actually last though?

2. If you experience multiple doses of rads separately, would you experience the same exact effects over again? For example, if you experienced three different 40 rad doses, would you suffer from Hematopoietic syndrome three different times?

3. Lastly, how do you actually determine a 'dose'. For instance, if you accumulate 1 rad a day for a week, would that be 7 one rad doses, or one 7 rad dose at the end of the week.

!. It depends on exactly what you've ingested. You find out the half-life of what it is and reduce your daily dose graduallya s the half-life expires. You could easily have ingested something that'll outlive you without treatment.

2. This is where the cumulative nature of radiation exposure comes in. When you get the first dose you start with a count of 40 rads and determine results for that. 30 days later it goes down to a permanent count of 4 rads. If you then take another 40 rads your count is at 44 and you determine results for that and go down to 8 rads 30 days later. After that another 40 rads puts you at 48. If you got 40 rads on Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 rather than Day1, Day 31 and Day 61 you check at 40 rads, 80 rads and 120 rads before going down to 12 rads on Day 33..

3.You check for radiation sickness when you accumulate 1 rad but no more than once per day. Your example situation would be 7 checks at once per day. If you were only getting 0.1 rads per day it be 1 check on day 10. .

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

3.You check for radiation sickness when you accumulate 1 rad but no more than once per day. Your example situation would be 7 checks at once per day. If you were only getting 0.1 rads per day it be 1 check on day 10. .

This bit becomes slightly problematic if you get exposed to 1 rad, and later to another 100 rads. So you check for radiation effects at the 1 rad point, where it's very unlikely you'll suffer more than some minor damage and Low Pain Threshold for a week. However, the 100 rads does nothing, because you've already made your once per day check, even though it should be forcing a check at HT-3 vs a rather nastier set of outcomes.

My solution is to record initial HT rolls vs radiation and if your accumulated dose in a day goes over a threshold, check that roll vs the new level. Another option would be to roll each time a threshold is reached, but only take the worst result. Either way, it's not the RAW, because they give silly results when presented with accumulating doses within one day.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Rupert

This bit becomes slightly problematic if you get exposed to 1 rad, and later to another 100 rads. So you check for radiation effects at the 1 rad point, where it's very unlikely you'll suffer more than some minor damage and Low Pain Threshold for a week. However, the 100 rads does nothing, because you've already made your once per day check, even though it should be forcing a check at HT-3 vs a rather nastier set of outcomes.

That 100 rads _will_ be forcing a check for nastier outcomes. Does it really bother you so much that the check doesn't come til the next day? At the lower end of the table the results of the checks usually don't come immediately anyway.

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Rupert

My solution is to record initial HT rolls vs radiation and if your accumulated dose in a day goes over a threshold, check that roll vs the new level. Another option would be to roll each time a threshold is reached, but only take the worst result. Either way, it's not the RAW, because they give silly results when presented with accumulating doses within one day.

I just accumulate doses for the day, and then have the players roll at the end of the day or when the radiation is done with. If, because of my mistake, they roll too early and somebody irradiates them again, I just record that for the next day.

I rarely use radiation damage, even in an SF campaign.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

That 100 rads _will_ be forcing a check for nastier outcomes. Does it really bother you so much that the check doesn't come til the next day? At the lower end of the table the results of the checks usually don't come immediately anyway.

Level A shows HT hours after exposure, likewise level B. C & D are the ones that don't show for days or weeks.

And it does bother me. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does.

[Hamrick]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

!.

3.You check for radiation sickness when you accumulate 1 rad but no more than once per day. Your example situation would be 7 checks at once per day. If you were only getting 0.1 rads per day it be 1 check on day 10. .

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but the RAW say that you only roll HT once per day, for a given source. Would that not mean you might have to roll HT multiple times per day if you experienced any amount of radiation from several, completely different sources? Or would it just be only once per day across the board, regardless of where the rads are coming from? The latter would definitely be a lot easier, but I'm not sure.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Hamrick

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but the RAW say that you only roll HT once per day, for a given source. Would that not mean you might have to roll HT multiple times per day if you experienced any amount of radiation from several, completely different sources? Or would it just be only once per day across the board, regardless of where the rads are coming from? The latter would definitely be a lot easier, but I'm not sure.

The source shouldn't matter. Cell damage won't know what caused it. Roll once per day for all sources.

[Sam Baughn]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

!. It depends on exactly what you've ingested. You find out the half-life of what it is and reduce your daily dose graduallya s the half-life expires. You could easily have ingested something that'll outlive you without treatment.

Wouldn't most radioactive material be er... expelled from the body long before half life became relevant? Even when you don't have radiation poisoning, most food only stays in your body for a couple of days.
Even if gets stuck inside you I'd think that, as you say, your life expectancy is going to be shorter than the half life. Either you die of old age before half life matters (weapons grade plutonium, for example), or you've ingested something horrifically lethal (like Polonium-210) and you're going to be dead long before it slows down.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by Sam Baughn

Wouldn't most radioactive material be er... expelled from the body long before half life became relevant? Even when you don't have radiation poisoning, most food only stays in your body for a couple of days.
Even if gets stuck inside you I'd think that, as you say, your life expectancy is going to be shorter than the half life. Either you die of old age before half life matters (weapons grade plutonium, for example), or you've ingested something horrifically lethal (like Polonium-210) and you're going to be dead long before it slows down.

Depends. Elements that your body uses may be incorporated into your body. Or elements similar to ones your body uses.

The worry about strontium 90 is that your body thinks it is calcium and puts it in your bones, promoting bone cancer or leukemia.

Iodine-131 gets sent to your thyroid gland just like iodine-127. Where it can cause thyroid cancer. That is why you see talk of iodine pills curing radiation. They don't but they flood your system with stable iodine-127 so if you eat any fallout your body just says "eh, got plenty of that already."