| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Leon The Lion
Commander
Joined: 29 Oct 2009
Posts: 309
Location: Somewhere in Poland
|
 Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 8:36 am Post subject: |
 |
|
I guess for me it's the issue of versimilitude (nee "realism").
If you get hit with an AT-AT main gun and survive, because the damage roll was really low, or you got very lucky with the wild die on your soak roll, or both, I can easily rationalise and narrate the situation. Perhaps it wasn't a direct hit, and you ware just barely grazed? Perhaps the cannon didn't hit you at all, you just got caught in the blast radius and got lucky in that few pieces of shrapnel flew exactly your way? Perhaps your limb got blown away, but the heat of the laser cauterized the wound, so you're only incapacitated and not dead, as you should be for a direct torso or head hit? I have no issue with accepting any such explanation.
But now, you get submerged, like completely full-body submerged, for several seconds at least, in boiling hot lava. I just see no way I could rationalise and narrate away any possibility of you surviving the experience. Sure, if you slipped and just your leg got dipped in, or got splashed with a few drops, you take some, maybe potentially crippling but most probably not lethal, damage and we're done. But we already know this is not what happened. You just took a full-body dive in a liquid at 600+ degees C. I simply can't see a way a human in normal clothing should be remotely able to survive this, ever.
But maybe that's a failing on my part.
_________________
Plagiarize! Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes! So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize... Only be sure to call it, please, "research".
- Tom Lehrer |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
|
| Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 12:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| garhkal wrote: | | Na.. Inferno troopers. Using sooped up flamers! |
Or an SW conversion of WH40K Melta-Guns...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Leon The Lion
Commander
Joined: 29 Oct 2009
Posts: 309
Location: Somewhere in Poland
|
| Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 1:23 pm Post subject: |
|
|
In my game I kinda have (kinda, because I havn't yet actually statted them out) a variation of flamer, which, instead of spraying burning napalm, project a jet or cone of plasma. So like a flame thrower fueled by gas instead of liquid, only said gas is at least several hundred thousand degrees hot.
_________________
Plagiarize! Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes! So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize... Only be sure to call it, please, "research".
- Tom Lehrer |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Fallon Kell
Commodore
Joined: 07 Mar 2011
Posts: 1846
Location: Tacoma, WA
|
| Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 1:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Leon The Lion wrote: | I guess for me it's the issue of versimilitude (nee "realism").
If you get hit with an AT-AT main gun and survive, because the damage roll was really low, or you got very lucky with the wild die on your soak roll, or both, I can easily rationalise and narrate the situation. Perhaps it wasn't a direct hit, and you ware just barely grazed? Perhaps the cannon didn't hit you at all, you just got caught in the blast radius and got lucky in that few pieces of shrapnel flew exactly your way? Perhaps your limb got blown away, but the heat of the laser cauterized the wound, so you're only incapacitated and not dead, as you should be for a direct torso or head hit? I have no issue with accepting any such explanation. |
Doesn't the same thing happen when you fall in lava, though? The laval rolled 26 with 8D, and the player rolled 20. Well, didn't he manage to avoid falling into the lava, rather merely brushing it with his leg, or whatever, under the same rationale? | Leon The Lion wrote: | But now, you get submerged, like completely full-body submerged, for several seconds at least, in boiling hot lava. I just see no way I could rationalise and narrate away any possibility of you surviving the experience. Sure, if you slipped and just your leg got dipped in, or got splashed with a few drops, you take some, maybe potentially crippling but most probably not lethal, damage and we're done. But we already know this is not what happened. You just took a full-body dive in a liquid at 600+ degees C. I simply can't see a way a human in normal clothing should be remotely able to survive this, ever.
But maybe that's a failing on my part. |
How do you get submerged in lava, anyways? The stuff is as dense as basalt. Your buoyancy will keep you from being submerged, much less, for several seconds. If you take a face dive into a pool of lava and get out quickly, there will be extreme burning, and likely, death. Read: high "incapacitated" range to "killed", with a lot of "mortally wounded in between". If you're wearing sci-fi armor designed to dissipate attacks by directed energy weapons and futuristic explosives, you may walk away wounded or better. If we are talking about swimming in a lake of lava, we are talking about 7-8D damage every round for ten minutes, which will kill you eventually. Dying from direct contact lava burns can take awhile, too. Even white phosphorus takes a while to kill you, and that stuff is hotter than lava, actually exothermic, more adhesive, and harder to respond to.
Either way, 8D is enough. 12D is too much.
_________________
Or that excessively long "Noooooooooo" was the Whining Side of the Force leaving him. - Dustflier
Complete Starship Construction System |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Leon The Lion
Commander
Joined: 29 Oct 2009
Posts: 309
Location: Somewhere in Poland
|
| Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 3:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Fallon Kell wrote: | | Leon The Lion wrote: | I guess for me it's the issue of versimilitude (nee "realism").
If you get hit with an AT-AT main gun and survive, because the damage roll was really low, or you got very lucky with the wild die on your soak roll, or both, I can easily rationalise and narrate the situation. Perhaps it wasn't a direct hit, and you ware just barely grazed? Perhaps the cannon didn't hit you at all, you just got caught in the blast radius and got lucky in that few pieces of shrapnel flew exactly your way? Perhaps your limb got blown away, but the heat of the laser cauterized the wound, so you're only incapacitated and not dead, as you should be for a direct torso or head hit? I have no issue with accepting any such explanation. |
Doesn't the same thing happen when you fall in lava, though? The laval rolled 26 with 8D, and the player rolled 20. Well, didn't he manage to avoid falling into the lava, rather merely brushing it with his leg, or whatever, under the same rationale? |
Not with the way I normally see it done.
When a character is shot at, the attack and defense rolls are made. If the attack wins that's a "hit", but nothing else is really narrated yet at this point. Now the damage and soak rolls are made. Only when the result of those is known, is the attack fully narrated, with final decisions made on how good the hit was (graze, direct center mass, vital, etc.).
But when a character has to roll to save himself from falling into lava (whatever skill/attribute is apropriate in the situation, like strenght for holding on when hanging over a ledge, or dexterity for keeping his balance on a narrow beam)? The expectation is that this roll dictates the full result of this action immidiately. The character either suceeds fully and is unharmed, fails by a little and takes some damage from just his leg slipping in, or he fails completely and falls straight in. Whie the damage roll comes into play, it's too late to narrate the character not falling in fully, because that decision has already been made, and in fact directly influenced how many dice the damage roll used.
The solution, of course, is quite simple: just treat both cases equally, and handle the lava the same as the shooting, with the decision about full narration made only after the damage and soak rolls. Except, doing it like that feels wrong to me in a way I can't really explain. But that's of course my failing and my problem.
| Fallon Kell wrote: | | How do you get submerged in lava, anyways? The stuff is as dense as basalt. Your buoyancy will keep you from being submerged, much less, for several seconds. |
That's true, I guess.
| Fallon Kell wrote: | | If you're wearing sci-fi armor designed to dissipate attacks by directed energy weapons and futuristic explosives, you may walk away wounded or better. |
That would depend on how much of your body the armor acually covers, I'd wager, but the principle looks sound, yes.
| Fallon Kell wrote: | | If we are talking about swimming in a lake of lava, we are talking about 7-8D damage every round for ten minutes, which will kill you eventually. |
Also true. I kinda keep forgetting it doesn't have to kill you right the instant you touch it. Rather it does damage all the time untill you get out, and injury does stack.
| Fallon Kell wrote: | | Either way, 8D is enough. 12D is too much. |
I'm still not completely convinced. 
But it's not worth arguing over, I think. Especially as we seem to have the rest of it covered.
_________________
Plagiarize! Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes! So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize... Only be sure to call it, please, "research".
- Tom Lehrer |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14215
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
|
| Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 3:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Fallon, since we see eye to eye on putting the initial exposure to 8d, do you agree to my ramping it up 1d per additional round you are in it?
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
griff
Captain
Joined: 16 Jan 2014
Posts: 507
Location: Tacoma, WA
|
| Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 4:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I don't see the reason to roll damage to anyone who completely fell into lava because there is no reasonable expectation of survival.
_________________
"EXECUTE ORDER 67. Wait a minute, that doesn't sound like order 67..... No, wait. Yes, yes it does. EXECUTE ORDER 68" Palpatine's last moments - robot chicken. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
DougRed4
Rear Admiral
Joined: 18 Jan 2013
Posts: 2286
Location: Seattle, WA
|
| Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 10:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
It's tough for most of us, not being actual geologists (or physicists, or what-have-you) to know all of the details. What we're doing is simulating real-world physics in a fantasy environment.
The only time I've ever really dealt with lava was in our supers game (V&V). I was one of the players, someone else was GMing, and one player fell off the path and into the lava. The damage was astronomically high, and the PC died from it (something that is incredibly rare and hard to do in that game). I think we were all cool with it, recognizing how deadly lava can be.
I suppose it really comes down to the specific lava you're talking about. I can see 8D-12D/round being about right, as you want it to be deadly but not (necessarily) instantaneously so.
What Gollum fell into at the end of "Return of the King"? Probably nobody is going to survive long in stuff that hot! (at least not without an incredible suit) What happened at Pompei? I watched a "60 Minutes" (I think it was) not long ago where they showed that when the ash hit, it did so so quickly, and so hot, that people were instantaneously turned into molten statues that survive (well, they didn't survive; perhaps a better word would be "exist") to this day. They talked about lava coming down from Mt. Vesuvius so fast that people couldn't outrun it.
But we're trying to simulate something similar, but doing so in a way that heightens drama and leads to a thrilling story, rather than mimicking something that will kill as fast as a bullet to the brain.
As far as a suit that could allow one to survive in such an environment? Sure, I could see something like that existing in the SW Universe. But I'd personally make it so bulky (-3D to DEX?) that no player would ever consider wandering around in it in combat. 
_________________
Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14215
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
|
| Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 2:26 am Post subject: |
|
|
Depends on what you mean by survive in the environ. Just being near would put off fumes that would knock you out (or should), along with the heat burning you. BUT actually being in it? IMO anyone in armor should not only be getting MORE cooked (due to teh armor acting as tin foil to the person's potatoe) but also rolling its body resistance itself to see how long IT lasts.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
DougRed4
Rear Admiral
Joined: 18 Jan 2013
Posts: 2286
Location: Seattle, WA
|
| Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 5:03 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The "armor" I was speaking of was a full-blown environmental suit, something that provides complete protection (where one could, in theory, survive inside the heart of a star) like a life support suit.
_________________
Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14215
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
|
| Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 6:15 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I doubt anything that strong would exist. I could MAYBE see something like that allowing someone to say walk the surface of Mercury or Venus, but not the sun.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Esoomian
High Admiral
Joined: 29 Oct 2003
Posts: 6207
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 12:30 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Leon The Lion wrote: | I guess for me it's the issue of versimilitude (nee "realism").
If you get hit with an AT-AT main gun and survive, because the damage roll was really low, or you got very lucky with the wild die on your soak roll, or both, I can easily rationalise and narrate the situation. Perhaps it wasn't a direct hit, and you ware just barely grazed? Perhaps the cannon didn't hit you at all, you just got caught in the blast radius and got lucky in that few pieces of shrapnel flew exactly your way? Perhaps your limb got blown away, but the heat of the laser cauterized the wound, so you're only incapacitated and not dead, as you should be for a direct torso or head hit? I have no issue with accepting any such explanation.
But now, you get submerged, like completely full-body submerged, for several seconds at least, in boiling hot lava. I just see no way I could rationalise and narrate away any possibility of you surviving the experience. Sure, if you slipped and just your leg got dipped in, or got splashed with a few drops, you take some, maybe potentially crippling but most probably not lethal, damage and we're done. But we already know this is not what happened. You just took a full-body dive in a liquid at 600+ degees C. I simply can't see a way a human in normal clothing should be remotely able to survive this, ever.
But maybe that's a failing on my part. |
This is where I sit too.
As a GM I can explain away not being killed by massive firepower by making something a direct hit but if someone fell into a pool of lava then I'd just have them die.
That said I'd probably change the scenario so the lava was bubbling and what they're trying to avoid is lava splatter and they would also require stamina checks to be active in that much heat. That way I don't have to kill the character the second they fail a roll badly but they still might die.
_________________
Don't waste money on expensive binoculars.
Simply stand closer to the object you wish to view. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
DougRed4
Rear Admiral
Joined: 18 Jan 2013
Posts: 2286
Location: Seattle, WA
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:52 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| garhkal wrote: | | I doubt anything that strong would exist. I could MAYBE see something like that allowing someone to say walk the surface of Mercury or Venus, but not the sun. |
I agree that something like that would be exceedingly rare (in this game/genre, anyway, though it's not that uncommon in a supers game). And that's what I'd spelled out above.
I was just clarifying, that if I did allow something like that, I'd make it have a very hefty DEX penalty, so that players wouldn't be tempted to run around with them all the time.
_________________
Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cheshire
Arbiter-General (Moderator)
Joined: 04 Jan 2004
Posts: 4853
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 3:52 pm Post subject: |
|
|
IRL, how close can a human being expect to get to lava?
... and live, I mean.
_________________
__________________________________
Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
griff
Captain
Joined: 16 Jan 2014
Posts: 507
Location: Tacoma, WA
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:12 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I grew up on Hawaii and there were lava flow on some of the other islands. A human can get very close to a lava flow without any protection, it is being above it that will get ya. A slow moving lava flow that is cooling down away fro the source can be walked on as long as the top of it has solidified, and only for a few minute, with heavy boots that are melting on your feet. If you broke throught the tip layer, any body part the went into the lava would be a total loss instantly.
_________________
"EXECUTE ORDER 67. Wait a minute, that doesn't sound like order 67..... No, wait. Yes, yes it does. EXECUTE ORDER 68" Palpatine's last moments - robot chicken. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
