Collect Lightning, Rule World

[Tallor]

===My math:
1 lightning bolt = 1.21 gigawatt-seconds = 1,210,000 watt-seconds

1 mana point = 360 watt-seconds (GURPS: Magic p.179)

1,120,000 watt seconds / 360,000 = 3,361 mana points
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===3,361 Mana Points?? That's enough for...

An explosive fireball worth 6dx280 burning damage, effectively 9.8 kilotons of TNT

A regular Mass Zombie Spell with a radius of 480 yards and an average zombie count of 115,200 zombies (which would take 8 hours, though...)

Summon Spirit could get a bit interesting, if you knew the right name...

[TGLS]

Well, aside from the back of the envelope estimation of a lightning bolt, this is fairly accurate. Lightning is on the order of 1 billion joules (== watt-second), so you're looking at a mana point level of 3361. But there are a few problems; primarily, it is very hard to collect lightning energy, otherwise we would be doing it now. And you would need to know where lightning strikes would happen, or cover the planet in collectors, then come up with a mechanism to convert it into useful energy. With all that equipment, you're better off building a steam engine (Watt's engine was 7500 Watts, or 48 seconds per point), or dropping heavy objects off cliffs (1 ton boulder off of 100 meter cliff is about 981000 joules per drop or 2.725 points per drop). Or find a nuclear power plant (516 MW, or 1433 points per second)

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by TGLS

primarily, it is very hard to collect lightning energy, otherwise we would be doing it now. And you would need to know where lightning strikes would happen

Well, the second is probably soluble via weather magic. The first might be solvable with weather magic, but the obvious way for it to work - "I catch the catch the lightning bolt and store its energy as mana!" - provides an excellent way to get yourself killed during experimental casting.

[starslayer]

1 the only way to convert electricity to magical power is draw power, draw power had limits on the amount you can use based on magery/skill
2 the power cannot be potential power, it must have a mechanism that allows useful work (ie you can't stand at the edge of a waterfall and user draw power, there has to be a water wheel or turbine attached, and your can only draw the max that the wheel or turbine could put out, not the waterfall itself)
3 lightning is pretty hard to access, and only an occasional power source
4 your probably going to need large amounts of room temperature superconductors to actually capture lightning into your useful work engine - by which point an e power cell will provide a nice portable accessible power source that has comparable output.
5 if this is possible, you won't be the only one doing it, expect to encounter large scale (possibly planet wide) pentagrams and counterspells cast by large groups of skilled mages put together in previous storms.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by starslayer

...
2 the power cannot be potential power, it must have a mechanism that allows useful work (ie you can't stand at the edge of a waterfall and user draw power, there has to be a water wheel or turbine attached, and your can only draw the max that the wheel or turbine could put out, not the waterfall itself)
...

That part never made any sense to me. You can use incredible energies but only if you prove with machinery that you don't need to.

[Calvin]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That part never made any sense to me. You can use incredible energies but only if you prove with machinery that you don't need to.

It's a kind of hacky patch for some of the shenanigains people would get up to in 3E.

There's still easy ways to abuse it though. My favorite is to set up a gate that opens ~2m above itself (Like in Portal where you put one portal above the other and jump through, falling forever)

Then drop in a big magnet, wrap that in a glass tube, and suck out all the air. The you wrap the whole thing in copper wire and you've suddenly got an amazing electrical generator. Though you might need some low power permanent repel spells set up to keep the magnet centred since it will be susceptible to the Coriolis effect, etc.

[Flyndaran]

It still makes the spell only useful in high tech societies where basic tech would be much better.
It makes what I think is the purpose of the spell impossible. A lone wizard or small coven using natural resources for magical power.

[Emerald Cat]

Originally Posted by TGLS

And you would need to know where lightning strikes would happen, or cover the planet in collectors, then come up with a mechanism to convert it into useful energy.

So that's why the mad wizards always build their towers in perpetual thunderstorms!

[Tallor]

Originally Posted by Emerald Cat

So that's why the mad wizards always build their towers in perpetual thunderstorms!

My thoughts exactly! Also creating a magitech geothermal generator in a volcano. :P