Burning Attack, Emanation, Irresistible Attack

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Now this is a fun one:

Innate Attack (Burning) 10d

• Area Effect 15
• Cosmic: Irresistible Attack
• Wall: Permeable (Any Shape Desired)
• Emanation

Wall is preset to make the Area-Effect into a Spherical Area Effect, working out to a 28.63 yard radius sphere. This utterly ignores DR. It hits everything (except the user) within the Spherical Area Effect. That is the easy part.

The complex part: How do I calculate how much of the landscape is slagged? Cover, barriers, etc ... none of that matters. The ground can't hide behind the ground to avoid damage so long as it is within the Spherical Area Effect. It all gets slagged equally.

A 1/64 lb homogeous "object" (itty bits of the ground) is 2 HP. Minimum damage for 10d (assuming all 1s are rolled for damage) takes that down to -8 HP (or -HPx4 if you prefer). The expected 3.5 per dice (35 damage) reduces said object to -33 HP (-HPx16.5), utterly destroying it.

Is this the appropriate method of determining the effect?

(... for those of you who are going to ask the question of what this is meant to represent: a conversion suffusion-field that partially converts some of the affected matter into micro-quantities of anti-matter, then allows the more normal matter/anti-matter reactions to take place. The other expected effects of this mixing are constrained by "special" forces and methods.)

[B9anders]

If you want a controllable field that follows you around, I would suggest aura and selective area instead of wall.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by B9anders

If you want a controllable field that follows you around, I would suggest aura and selective area instead of wall.

A variety of limitations are included in the build that aren't listed because I don't consider them relevant to the question being asked.

I've found that being more detailed than required is counter-productive on these forums; much to my dismay.

In practice, using this kills the user upon activation. It is a single pulse that isn't controllable by the user because, well, the user is (irrecoverably) dead.

Would you have an opinion as regards how to determine the minimum 'object' size and thereby how much of the landscape gets slagged or vaporized when used?

[Humabout]

My sleep-deprived shot in the dark is to apply blow-through rules and look up what the ground is made of using either the tables in the back of basic set (I believe stone and such are listed there) or in LTC 3 on p. 34. At least, you could use these for reference to ballpark what you're looking for, I suppose.

Running some quick numbers, this results in not a lot of earth really getting vaporized without tremendous damage. It's a thought, though.

[Anaraxes]

I'd suggest doing the numbers on a per hex basis. Area Effects tend to create or destroy hexes of things.

Another comparison would be to treat it as an explosion of the same number of dice for making a crater.

I suspect the numbers won't be as impressive as desired, though. 10d isn't really a lot of damage. It's about two pounds of C4. If you want to disintegrate everything in a 30-yard radius, you'll need more power than that.

[Bruno]

... How much C4 did the Mythbusters use to eradicate that dump truck?

Or was it anfo? It was a heck of a LOT whatever it was.

[zoncxs]

Originally Posted by Bruno

... How much C4 did the Mythbusters use to eradicate that dump truck?

Or was it anfo? It was a heck of a LOT whatever it was.

they filled the whole thing up and it was loud enough to be heard about 2 miles away. the ground was barely dented.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by zoncxs

they filled the whole thing up and it was loud enough to be heard about 2 miles away. the ground was barely dented.

Pretty much exactly my point :)

GURPS, rightly, doesn't break up homogenous masses into arbitrariliy small segments - 1 inch of steel isn't treated as 25.4 individual layers of 1 mm-thick steel, because damaging objects just doesn't work like that.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Now this is a fun one:

Innate Attack (Burning) 10d

• Area Effect 15
• Cosmic: Irresistible Attack
• Wall: Permeable (Any Shape Desired)
• Emanation

Wall is preset to make the Area-Effect into a Spherical Area Effect, working out to a 28.63 yard radius sphere. This utterly ignores DR. It hits everything (except the user) within the Spherical Area Effect. That is the easy part.

The complex part: How do I calculate how much of the landscape is slagged? Cover, barriers, etc ... none of that matters. The ground can't hide behind the ground to avoid damage so long as it is within the Spherical Area Effect. It all gets slagged equally.

A 1/64 lb homogeous "object" (itty bits of the ground) is 2 HP. Minimum damage for 10d (assuming all 1s are rolled for damage) takes that down to -8 HP (or -HPx4 if you prefer). The expected 3.5 per dice (35 damage) reduces said object to -33 HP (-HPx16.5), utterly destroying it.

Is this the appropriate method of determining the effect?

The problem with dirt is, it's already destroyed, similar to the way water doesn't burn because it's already burnt hydrogen. Dirt and dust is what you get when rocks, dead bodies, etc. are reduced to -10XHP and left to dry out of any remaining volatiles. If you want to blow dirt *away*, I recommend adding Overhead to your attack, which technically covers applying damage from any direction despite the name. The Irresistable nature of your attack will let it apply damage directly into the ground, and with Overhead allowing it to be directed at arbitrary angles, the combination will have the net effect of blowing the dirt and loosened rocks up and out in the directions not constrained by still more ground as yet unexploded, similar to a boiling pot blowing off its lid and much of its contents.

You still need a ruling on how Area Effect damage scales to arbitraily small things, but I can't locate one offhand.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Bruno

... How much C4 did the Mythbusters use to eradicate that dump truck?
Or was it anfo? It was a heck of a LOT whatever it was.

850 pounds of "commercial blasting agent", according to http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2005/02/m...ape_dynam.html