All of 'em defeated with one line : rpgmemes

[–] Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 50 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Ok, but hear me out:

If you accelerate something into a freefall orbit, then it stands to reason that the projectile would deal falling damage (equal and opposite force, you know) which maxes out at 20 d6.

[–] traceur402@lemmy.blahaj.zone 50 points 2 months ago (5 children)

If a character has 121hp or more they're able to jump from a space station onto earth with like a super hero landing??

[–] milkisklim@lemmy.world 29 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In 5e yes. I think the theory is once you hit terminal velocity, you aren't going to get any more damage from a longer fall.

Fun fact, I actually did have a villain do exactly that in a campaign once. The party achieved a secondary win condition during combat and so the BBEG jumped off the top of the space elevator to escape.

[–] turdas@suppo.fi 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (10 children)

Wouldn't jumping off the top of a space elevator just put you in orbit? Or, if by top you mean the point where the space elevator anchors to its counterweight, in orbit around the sun.

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[–] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yes.

ODST-Dropping your barbarian is objectively the best way to have him enter combat, and it inflicts psychological damage to anyone close enough to witness it.

[–] Scubus@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 months ago

I dont remember exactly what we did, but i remember we had a situation where one of my fellow players was a centaur. The dm ruled that if you were to use a battering ram while riding said centaur, both your strengths get added together for the check. The person riding the centaur has something that enabled them to more effectively use tools they were holding, i think it was if they used a handheld tool they got advantage with it. And then we had one more player who was a turtle person. As long as they were in their shell they got a ton of defense buffs. So, we had player 2 hold player 3 while they both climbed onto player 1. We then proceeded to use player 3 as a battering ram against a magical door that we couldnt figure out how to open. After rolls went through, we ended uo blowing the door down so violently that is killed most of the spawn in the next room

[–] riwo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

theyd also need something to protect them from the friction and resulting heat of air brushing by at terminal velocity tho, i assume?

oh no wait, im making it too realistic

[–] Afaithfulnihilist@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 2 months ago (13 children)

Terminal velocity for a human is not fast enough to cause air to heat up. You'd probably get frostburn instead.

[–] usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you're jumping from a space station then you'd be traveling at orbital velocity when hitting the atmosphere which is plenty fast enough to generate heat.

[–] dev_null@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Unless the space station is not orbiting. Maybe it's a mobile one like the Desthstar.

[–] chuckleslord@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago (5 children)

... the death star orbits. The timer for the rebels to blow it up in a New Hope was how long its orbit would take to clear the moon in its path to the rebel base. The battle of endor was fought over the new death star in orbit over the moon.

Yes, the death star is capable of warp, but that just puts it into orbit over different things.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 months ago

It can orbit. It doesn't have to. It's capable of moving between systems, it's not confined to a single gravity well.

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[–] kichae@wanderingadventure.party 4 points 2 months ago

Heating on reentry is actually due to compressing the air in front of you, not friction. Falling from orbitall height will absolutely cause you to heat up the air in front of you, even as the air paassing you by is doing you no harm.

Though, if you smash into the atmosphere at orbital speeds, it's probably going to do you some harm as it tries to force you back down to TV.

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[–] Gutek8134@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

Alternatively, invest 18 levels into monk and get no damage in 99,51% of cases

https://anydice.com/program/40317

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[–] Jeeve65@ttrpg.network 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Applying real world logic to game rules never works out.

Also, you forget to take into account the weapon's mass, form, structural integrity, the commoner's reaction time, probability to fumble, the force of the wind, and probably a few dozen other factors that have an effect in the real world.

Just don't. It's a game.

[–] Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I was just making a joke. Lighten up.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If you can manage to get someone into freefall I'd allow it. But no, equal opposite forces doesn't mean you roll dice the same lol. Your sword does not take damage when you attack with it.

[+] ThisIsAManWhoKnowsHowToGling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 39 points 2 months ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

[deleted]

[–] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 49 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

That is simply not true. All you have to do is design your projectile in shape, construction and materials so the kinetic energy gets properly used to have the desired effect on the target.

A tiny 40 grain .204 Ruger bullet with the insane muzzle velocity of 4100 fps will absolutely explode a watermelon if you use a rapidly expanding projectile such as a ballistic tipped varmint round. If you use the same against a reactive steel target that was only rated for rimfire, it will melt a clean hole through it without even noticeably moving it. And if you use it against a bull moose, it will absolutely destroy a large amount of surface tissue but not achieve enough penetration to reach the internal organs for a clean kill.

It isn't a simple problem, the are many different types of dynamics that you can encounter depending on the nature of the projectile, velocity and target.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

This is simply true, you do lose potential energy transfer if the bullet exits, that's how it can exit, that's just not usually the point of a bullet, and generally speaking making exit wounds is considered a positive.

Now if you want to design a bullet that explodes inside a wound causing mass trauma and an incredibly difficult surgery to repair it is a problem, but surely no one would ever deliberately design a weapon to do that! /S

Fun Fact: the .50 cal MGs the Soviets supplied to the Vietnamese during the American invasion usually had enough penetrative power to go through the M113 APC's aluminum hull...

Once. And then it would bounce around inside.

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[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 months ago (6 children)

I get the feeling the 4 million grain Revolving Peasant Gun with the velocity of 1% the speed of light will have the desired effect on any target.

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[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There's a lot of factors, shape speed and deformation are all factors. Penetration and energy transfer are also at odds with each other in general. Gun manufacturers have this problem because speed is more or less capped by a practical barrel length, a rail gun can (theoretically) achieve enough speed that either factors start to become less relevant.

[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 6 points 2 months ago

Somewhat pedantical quibble, really just because I find it interesting: It's not exactly limited by barrel length. We can make faster burning, higher powered propellants, which you can get the full energy out of with a shorter barrel. The reason we don't is because that means you have a higher pressure inside the chamber and, even if your gun doesn't explode, you face more erosion from use. Your metallurgy ends up being the limiting factor, as it's all about how strong you can make your chamber. I just think it's cool because guns are a great example of how inter-related technologies are and how everything depends on everything else. Take a design for a machinegun back to the Napoleonic era and it will be worthless because without smokeless powder it will jam and clog after a couple rounds. Take back a formula for smokeless powder and it will be worthless because you don't know how to make brass cartridges. Try to make brass cartridges and you'll find you lack the precision tooling, and so on.

[–] yermaw@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Pure theory, likely never ever going to be real, but could a bullet move so fast that it goes through someone without even damaging them?

[–] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 24 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

No, but if it travels fast enough it would disintegrate and you could argue the resulting plasma blast would be what actually damages the target.

Relevant XKCD (in video form).

[–] CobblerScholar@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Any matter going through you with that much mass is going to cause damage no matter how fast it goes. Billions of particles called neutrinos are moving through you right now as you read this but they are around 100,000,000,000,000x less massive than a hydrogen atom

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[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 28 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The peasant railgun is kinda weird tbh.

It first uses game rules ignoring physics (using the ready action to pass the object super fast along the line of peasants), to then flip and ignore game rules while using physics (not applying the rules for throwing an object but instead claiming that physics "realism" demands that the object keeps its speed and does damage according to the speed, not according to game rules).

Fun meme, but really doesn't make sense in game.

[–] WraithGear@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

which is why the dm is able to stop them in their tracks by enforcing the game rule about not calculating speed for damage

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I think it's totally valid to run a realistic game where realism takes precedence over game rules, but then the "passing of the object" part fails.

It's also totally valid to run RAW game, but then it fails like you said.

So no matter what game you run, the railgun makes no sense.

What would make sense with a RAW game is to use the railgun for fast travel/fast transport, but then again for it to give a decent advantage, you need thousands or millions of peasants who willingly cooperate, which also won't really work in most games.

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[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 27 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The obvious use of the peasant railgun is instant delivery. Gonna start my new enterprise, pFood, coming at you within 1 turn or your money back!

[–] Archpawn@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

It even works with people. They can carry up to 150 pounds if you have them move 30 feet before passing it to the next guy or 300 pounds if they're moving 5 feet. I call it the peasant railway.

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[–] milkisklim@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I want to play a game where there is an NPC roving band of guerrilla peasants that in times of crisis form a rail gun militia. Dragons? Rail gun. Tax Administrator? Rail gun. Cathy's Baby Shower? Also believe it or not, rail gun.

[–] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

Cathy's Baby Shower? Also believe it or not, rail gun.

Handing out gifts at the speed of sound.

[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

See what you do is, you put the peasants in a circle and have them pass a magnet to eachother. Put a coil of wire in the middle and you've got infinite free energy!

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Each peasent can only pass the magnet once every 6s, as they can only do so on their turn.

Also, this is a universe with magic in it. A level 0 sorcerer can endlessly cast the cantrip "shape water" to move a turbine for infinite free energy. For less work (but more training) the level 2 spell "Heat Metal" can be cast on a boiler.

[–] bountygiver@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Fucking in a world of magic you still make electricity by boiling water?

[–] Honytawk@feddit.nl 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

You say that as if nuclear energy isn't also just boiling water

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[–] Hupf@feddit.org 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

That's just slave labour with extra steps (magnets)

[–] Honytawk@feddit.nl 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Peasants, how do they work?

[–] SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

Often and for little pay.

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[–] Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 months ago

[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 5 points 2 months ago

The peasant railgun and the squirrel chain are effective in 2 conditions:

Each one with above average strength contributes a +1 "helper" bonus. You're not concerned with how fast it gets to a place, but that with everyone helping, you can get it around the world and back again - and everyone helped.
You're not concerned with the damage - only how it gets there. So if you can get a Hands Across America thing happening, you can pass messages in a single round.

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