Electricity damage
- Thread starter apoc527
- Start date
vertigo25 said:
LOL!!! :lol: :lol:
I'm sorry I couldn't be more help. Looking through the rule book I don't see anything for being struck by a lightning bolt either. Off the top of my head I'd say use the stats of a PGMP (12d6) and I guess don't apply armor unless the character is wearing battle dress.
For just being shocked by sticking your finger where it shouldn't be while fooling around with live electrical wires, something like 1d6/round x Z, where Z is the amount of energy going through the wires, assuming it's enough to actually harm the person. I'm no electrical engineer but I'm guessing 120 V (the plugs in the wall at home... at least in the USA) isn't gonna feel nearly as bad as 110 kV (like sticking your hand into the power lines of a spacecraft maybe?)
Actually wall sockets kill people all the time.
I'm not exactly sure what kind of a mechanic you could use for this, but it's interesting.
One of the effects of getting electrocuted is muscle tensioning. So even with lower powered shocks there can be a risk of serious injury or death because the person may not be physically able to break free from what is electrocuting them.
Maybe in those cases you could even have a an endurance or strength check to see if you could pull free (if you wanted to add a bit of extra peril to a situation).
I'm not exactly sure what kind of a mechanic you could use for this, but it's interesting.
One of the effects of getting electrocuted is muscle tensioning. So even with lower powered shocks there can be a risk of serious injury or death because the person may not be physically able to break free from what is electrocuting them.
Maybe in those cases you could even have a an endurance or strength check to see if you could pull free (if you wanted to add a bit of extra peril to a situation).
No doubt about it. Electricity is dangerous and not something to be played around with. When I say 120 V is less dangerous than 110 kV, I don't mean to imply that it's just a little shock. I would imagine 110 kV would be enough d6 than unless you rolled all 1s, it would be pretty much a death sentence.
I guess, doing a little research on the internets, electric shock hazards are subjective to a lot of different situations. The site that explained it to me the best is http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/shock.html if you wanted to read it too.
But still, electricity is dangerous! Whatever route you take in ruling on this should be a serious one.
I guess, doing a little research on the internets, electric shock hazards are subjective to a lot of different situations. The site that explained it to me the best is http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/shock.html if you wanted to read it too.
But still, electricity is dangerous! Whatever route you take in ruling on this should be a serious one.
vertigo25 said:
Pyromancer
Mongoose
Voltage hurts, but only current makes you small, black and stinky. 
An ordinary electric fence has 10.000V, and doesn't do any harm.
An ordinary electric fence has 10.000V, and doesn't do any harm.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
Pyromancer said:Voltage hurts, but only current makes you small, black and stinky.
An ordinary electric fence has 10.000V, and doesn't do any harm.
Depends on what body part takes the shock...
But that's true of electricity in general. How much of the body is involved in getting the charge from entrance to exit plays a big part in the severity of injury.
The easiest way to handle electricity's highly variable lethality at nearly any level, at least vs living targets, is to set a general lethality level in dice and pips. An electric fence will likely do a d2 or similar, while a wall socket will have a periodic 1d6, a high power line a periodic 2d6 or 3d6, and a lightning strike will be gradiated based on distance from a pip to 4 or 5d6, but will be a single occurance.
"Those don't look so bad" you think. Not if they were normal damage, no. These damages are applied to *each* physical stat fully, however. Even a brief wall socket jolt will leave someone shocky, which will affect their musculature and coordination, and will cause dehydration. As such, roll the damage separately against each physical attribute.
alexhawman
Mongoose
From a game mechanic point of view, I would use a few of the following:
Appliance power (dish washer / toaster): average end check or 1d3 dmg
High Voltage low amp (engine distributer/ electric prod): difficult end or stun failed effect rounds + 1 point damage
Very high voltage low amp (lightning): 3d6+ Formidable end or stun failed effect rounds
High Voltage high amps (overhead power line): 8d6 + formidable end or stun effect rounds (adjust between 4d6 and 12d6 depending on power grid)
Appliance power (dish washer / toaster): average end check or 1d3 dmg
High Voltage low amp (engine distributer/ electric prod): difficult end or stun failed effect rounds + 1 point damage
Very high voltage low amp (lightning): 3d6+ Formidable end or stun failed effect rounds
High Voltage high amps (overhead power line): 8d6 + formidable end or stun effect rounds (adjust between 4d6 and 12d6 depending on power grid)
If you want to be completely realistic, electricity damage is quite tricky. There are a lot of different factors - whether or not it's Alternating Current (AC), Direct Current (DC), what the voltage is, what the current is, your electrical impedance/resistance at the time of the shock and the path it takes through your body.
For example, a 9Vdc battery applied directly to your heart muscle is potentially more dangerous than 220V running from your pinkie to your thumb on the same hand.
Like a lot of things in RPGs, it's probably best to just abstract it, and wing it depending on what feels right for the situation. If it's a weapon, pick an appropriate "normal" weapon, and use it's stats.
Otherwise, use a sliding scale of damage depending on circumstances. The more potential for being deadly should be balanced somewhat by the character's experienced with such equipment. FREX, working on a power plant is potentially deadly - with all that juice running around, it only takes one small slip to find out - so damage for it would probably be on the order of 5, 10, 20 or even 50+d6. However, an experienced engineer is usually (but not always) going to handle himself more appropriately around the equipment, and I would reduce the amount of damage dice based on the PCs skill with such equipment.
For example, a 9Vdc battery applied directly to your heart muscle is potentially more dangerous than 220V running from your pinkie to your thumb on the same hand.
Like a lot of things in RPGs, it's probably best to just abstract it, and wing it depending on what feels right for the situation. If it's a weapon, pick an appropriate "normal" weapon, and use it's stats.
Otherwise, use a sliding scale of damage depending on circumstances. The more potential for being deadly should be balanced somewhat by the character's experienced with such equipment. FREX, working on a power plant is potentially deadly - with all that juice running around, it only takes one small slip to find out - so damage for it would probably be on the order of 5, 10, 20 or even 50+d6. However, an experienced engineer is usually (but not always) going to handle himself more appropriately around the equipment, and I would reduce the amount of damage dice based on the PCs skill with such equipment.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
Beware of overthinking this, however.
Its a game. Determine the severity, roll the dice, move on. None of those steps should take very long.
From a Refs point of view, this is easily rendered to "warning", "possibly enough to flatten you", "good chance to kill", "should kill", and "will kill". The dice will play the role of capricious fate.
Play the game.
Its a game. Determine the severity, roll the dice, move on. None of those steps should take very long.
From a Refs point of view, this is easily rendered to "warning", "possibly enough to flatten you", "good chance to kill", "should kill", and "will kill". The dice will play the role of capricious fate.
Play the game.
Good point.GypsyComet said:
In my experience in previous Traveller games, I've found those who are the most experienced with electricity are the least likely to argue about any damage it does. Then again, I was GMing for a bunch of Navy Electronic's Technicians - the damage didn't so much matter as the interesting RP descriptions that came up - "Oh crap, I didn't notice that water on the floor! No wonder I got shocked so bad." With so many ETs playing, the descriptions of equipment damages and effects were a large part of the fun.
That's another bonus about describing electricity damage. There are so many variables, you can pretty much take any die result for damage and "justify" it. If a character miraculously survives a high voltage shock from a ships defective power plant, it's not that the voltage wasn't lethal, it's just that it went in his hand and out his elbow, and the resulting muscle spasm "kicked" him away before it had any chance to damage his heart.* And if a character is somehow killed by a low voltage control console, it's because he had both hands on the panel and the voltage passed through his heart.
Basically, wing it, don't over think it, and if someone qestions you on it, as long as you have a basic understanding of the various factors involved, you should be able to come up with a reasonable explaination for any result the dice give you.
* I've literally had that happen to me. I took 385 Vdc up my arm left arm down to my left foot, the resulting muscle spasm managed to free me from the voltage - I was thrown across a corridor. I suffered no major effects, save a deliberate carefulness to not assume a given component isn't dangerous just because it's not supposed to be - the circuit in question was only supposed to have about 90 Vdc, and the connector I grabbed was supposed to be grounded.
alexhawman
Mongoose
Good thing you made your End check
LOL. Yeah, good thing. I think it was mainly luck and circumstance that I survived though. Don't remember the current specifically as it was so long ago, but it was determined during the investigation afterwards that it was sufficient to kill me. What really saved me is the position I was in - I was sitting on a low stool, hunched over trying to look up into the equipment I was working on. The tendancy of muscles to attempt to contract upon the application of direct current caused my legs to straighten out suddenly, which propelled me backwards off the stool, disconnecting me from the circuit and slamming me into the far wall about 6-8 feet away.alexhawman said:
Other than the bump on my head, the worst part of the whole experience was enduring the Navy's investigation of the incident afterwards. Thankfully, I wasn't found to be at fault, though I did get a good lecture from my chief because my safety observer wasn't within the required distance of me. Other than that, I think he figured that the experience alone taught me enough to not do it again. Which it did, because as a result of my new found obsessiveness about measuring before touching, I ran across another potential deadly issue a few months later - a certain vendor's parts had a manufacturing defect that could allow them to bleed high voltage to a metal control knob - touch that knob and a grounded one at the same time, and 'zap', you're dead. That one was a fun one to write up, because it resulted in a Navy wide safety bulletin and emergency retrofit, and tons of time filling out reports and answering questions from the various brass in charge above me as they investigated.
But I digress - I've been dealing with electricity in some form or another my entire adult life, I've got tons of stories about it - fortunately, most of them happened to someone else.
As I recall from my training in the Navy, its the current running through your body that kills you, not the current capacity of the equipment that bites you. Otherwise, a 12vdc car battery that can pump out over 650amps would be far scarier than a 125vac with a 15 amp breaker.
Given the relatively low resistance of the human body, it doesn't take much to zap the deadly current through you ( measured in milliamps ). It greatly depends on the current path through the body too. Through the heart equals dead pretty much. Through the skin between your thumb and fingers it just hurts like hell. I have first hand experience about that ( A series of Caps the size of 2 litre soda bottles discharged through my hand like that....#%#%$#% Chief turned a tagged out circuit on then off again...charging the caps again...##$%#$% bastard!! )
With more power, a huge bunch of damage comes from the flash over ( pretty much getting shot with a plasma gun ). Flash over is pretty hot and explosive.... it can explosively open a cabinet door hard enough to eff you up pretty bad even if you don't get bit. And then there's the flying molten metal/etc.
Overall, I'd probably figure damage based on a fraction of the total power ( amps times volts ) for burns and shock and stuff like from a plasma gun. If its just a shock from touching live gear, I'd use a fraction of the voltage. That'd assume a body has a constant resistance and that 10 milliamps=dead.
oh yeah...
Considering the power output of a typical starship power plant ( 70 Mw or so? ) you can just imagine how high the voltages and current capacities are in the engine room! It'd make ordinary high tension lines look weak!
Given the relatively low resistance of the human body, it doesn't take much to zap the deadly current through you ( measured in milliamps ). It greatly depends on the current path through the body too. Through the heart equals dead pretty much. Through the skin between your thumb and fingers it just hurts like hell. I have first hand experience about that ( A series of Caps the size of 2 litre soda bottles discharged through my hand like that....#%#%$#% Chief turned a tagged out circuit on then off again...charging the caps again...##$%#$% bastard!! )
With more power, a huge bunch of damage comes from the flash over ( pretty much getting shot with a plasma gun ). Flash over is pretty hot and explosive.... it can explosively open a cabinet door hard enough to eff you up pretty bad even if you don't get bit. And then there's the flying molten metal/etc.
Overall, I'd probably figure damage based on a fraction of the total power ( amps times volts ) for burns and shock and stuff like from a plasma gun. If its just a shock from touching live gear, I'd use a fraction of the voltage. That'd assume a body has a constant resistance and that 10 milliamps=dead.
oh yeah...
Considering the power output of a typical starship power plant ( 70 Mw or so? ) you can just imagine how high the voltages and current capacities are in the engine room! It'd make ordinary high tension lines look weak!
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
Ishmael said:
The specific numbers depend on edition, but 70MW is a good number for a Free Trader. Under MegaTraveller, a Free Trader powerplant would have ten to twenty times that, since each beam laser (of which it could potentially have six) pulled 250MW...
Was I posted with you? That happened at least twice at one of my shore commands.Ishmael said:
Don't forget the flash blinding it can cause, too - even if you don't take the shock directly. Accidently shorting the legs of a high voltage circuit together with a piece of metal (or a multimeter set to Amps when you're trying to measure Voltage) can create a really bright flash.
Yep. Something tells me the number one reason for accidental death and dismemberment among starship engineers - particularly in experienced or cocky ones - is electrocution.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
Ishmael said:
The havok that would cause in the incredibly safety conscious company I work for would be spectacular to watch, unless you happened to be the dolt who violated a Tag Out... :x
GypsyComet said:
That kind of stuff causes havoc in the USN, too. So much in fact that if no one is hurt enough to require medical, it's often not reported.
We had an incident where we were tearing out a 40Kw transmitter on 440V circuit. The circuit got tagged out by the ET1, and seconded by the Chief in charge. All 7 of us ETs (including the ET1 and the Chief) were working on it, taking various drawers and pieces out of this huge machine and toting them off to the loading dock. When we got to the point to cut the actual 4 or 6 gauge wires for the 440v from their terminal block, a hole was blown in the bolt cutter, because the circuit was still live. Thank god the ET3 who had been handling the bolt cutters had been wearing high voltage gloves because he had just finished handling some large caps.
Anyway, what we discovered was that the transmitter next to the one we were taking out had been tagged out not the one we were working on - none of the seven of us noticed anything was wrong, and it's only sheer luck no one got hurt. Despite the serious lapse in safety protocols, the incident went completely unreported because all seven of us involved would have been crucified. As we were also the only seven to know what had actually happened, there was no way it was getting out.
