How would you resolve Death Star Scale damage?

[CRMcNeill]

I know that most campaigns don't even approach the epic level required for the use of Death Star-Scale weaponry, but the WEG rules are extremely vague. The only information given apart from designating certain weapons as Death Star Scale is a notation in the Dark Empire Sourcebook that says planets have a strength rating of 10D to 20D Death Star Scale for resisting damage. This is so unhelpful that it might almost be better if they had just left it out.

After all, the Death Star is obviously overkill for use against an inhabitable planet. Alderaan was completely shattered from a single blast, and a planet can be rendered uninhabitable by far less extreme applications of force. A planet that suffered even light DS-Scale damage would still suffer environmental catastrophe, and casualties in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Bearing that in mind, what would a damage chart for planets look like if they were attacked by DS-Scale weaponry?

Another thing to consider is that DS-Scale weaponry, while it may not roll high enough to inflict damage to the planet, will still inflict massive damage to whatever it does hit. The planet will survive intact even if a large city is turned into a parking lot, but that won't help anyone who was in the city at the time.

Thoughts?

[vong]

Character ---
Speeder 2D
Walker 4D
Starfighter 6D
Capital ship 12D
Death Star 24D

that is the scale chart.

so from character to speeder you add the scale difference to the scale difference

eg 4D Capital scale turbo laser shooting against a 10D body planet will roll as follows: 4D vs 24D

death star (10D) firing at a capital ship (6D) will roll as follows: 22D vs 6D
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[CRMcNeill]

[vong]

i would have
lightly damage as Large Crater formed (could be a city is not a crater)
Heavily damaged: wipe a continent off the planet, sever weather problems (heat from blast will kill in large radius, cause storms, perhaps drain part of ocean, or make it steam causing massive rain storms)
Severely dmg: planet's core has been breached, is slowly breaking itself apart
Destroyed: Boom.
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[Ankhanu]

I suppose the expedient thing to do would be to run it as narrative rather than cold-hard numbers. A GM isn't going to blast off a Deathstar scale weapon without some sort of plan for what will happen... if the shot succeeds, it happens

Failing that, I suppose you could roll damage vs. planet. If the difference is enough for a "destroyed"/dead result, well, that's that, Alderaan all over again. I'd say anything from Incapacitated and up would likely result in pretty much everything being dead on the planet... maybe not immediately, but in the months to follow. Maybe Mortally Wounded result would burn off the atmosphere and destabilize the surface?

At 0, Stunned, Wounded and Wounded x2, you can have variable effects. 0 would probably destroy a couple blocks of a city, Stunned would get the city and surrounding area, Wounded 1&2 could be continent level damage...

Just a quick thought of what you could do.
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[atgxtg]

Well, if you want to, you can figure out Body STR scores for planets using the formula from D6 Ships.

Basically, it's the log(mass in kg) x5+1 pips in character scale.

So a planet with a mass similar to Earth ( 5.9736 × 1024 kg) would have a Body STR of 124 pips (41D+1) character scale, or 17D+1 Death Star Scale. Not that I consider that to be much help in the RPG. Obviously any attack from a weapon is going to damage the planet, even if it doesn7t beat the STR roll.

I susppect this might be why "Death Star scale" wasn't ported over to D20.

I'd probably go with something like Vong'sdescription of effects, and just keep in mind what Light Daqmaged, might mean on a planetary scale. For instance, the metoor impact that wiped out the dinosaurs might have been a light or heavy damage result. Not to bad for the planet, but bad if you happen to be on it.

I'd probably use one of the damage enchancing options from the SpecF Forces handbook, too, allowing the Dearth Star Gunners to trade off for increased damage( it's not like the planet is going to dodge). A competent gunner, and maybe spending a CP or 2 and Alderaan's fate is sealed.

[CRMcNeill]

[garhkal]

i would say

damage over soak
0-3 - city demolished, tremmors up to the 6.5 range for 100 miles around
4-6 - city and surrounding 20 miles demolished, earthquakes up to 7.5 for 300 miles, poss of localized nuclear winter effect (1000 miles)
7-9 - 100 sq miles gone. Earthquakes up to 9.0 felt within 500 miles, 7.5 out to 1000 miles, and 5.5 out to 2000 miles. localized nuclear winter effect in 1000 mile radius
10-12 - 250 sq miles gone. Earthquakes out for 3000 miles ranging from 5-9.5. 1500 mile radius nuclear winter
13-16 - 500sq mile gone, earthquakes out to 5000 miles. Nuclear winter out to 2000 miles, and high poss of atmosphere burn off.
17-19 planet cracked
20+ planet destroyed.

But the thing i always found interesting, is that some planets can have up to 20d planetary scale soak, where as the death star can only hit 16d damage.
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[Ankhanu]

[Jame Rowe]

I've come to the conclusion that if you're using something that's death star scale against characters, you not only don't roll for the damage, you've also gone too far overboard.

[CRMcNeill]

[garhkal]

The closest ihave come to it, was when they were playing a rebellion (early) game and were still ON alderan when the DS showed up...
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[Ankhanu]

[Hellcat]

The Eclipse and Soveriegn SSD classes both have an an axial superlaser as their main weapon. According to the DE Sourcebook

[Raven Redstar]

In my games, if something is hit with Death Star scale damage, it's gone. No damage roll, no soak, it is destroyed. I think this system is the only real way to demonstrate just how scary these weapons are.