Nukes

[BumblingBear]

Why?

To me it is more a situation like "there is a nuke about to blow up in 20 minutes. You better find a way to get out of here asap or you are going to blow up with it". I for one would be pretty disappointed if someone in the centre of the explosion would survive, just because he could stack a ton of fate points against an attack of a certain number. I would have no problem with a cool invoke for effect, but just number crunching for a nuke seems kind of silly.

I agree with this.

Surviving a modern nuke is silly. 


Also, I disagree with the OP that nukes are not plot devices.

Why?  Because in reality, if someone were to use a nuke to kill a shagnasty or something, they will be killing innocent people too.  PLUS, and most importantly, whatever country that was in would probably consider it to be an attack and counterattack.

Nuclear armaggedddon is definitely plot device territory.

[Sanctaphrax]

That's not actually using a nuke. That's just using a timer, with a nuke as the end condition.

And you can do anything with enough Fate Points. Seriously, a Pure Mortal can kill the entire Senior Council with enough Fate Points. Fate Points are like the power of Plot, bent to the service of a character. If they can't save you from a nuke, there's a serious problem.

[UmbraLux]

And you can do anything with enough Fate Points. Seriously, a Pure Mortal can kill the entire Senior Council with enough Fate Points. Fate Points are like the power of Plot, bent to the service of a character. If they can't save you from a nuke, there's a serious problem.

To each their own but, in my book, surviving a nuke means getting away from it or preventing the explosion.  Not toughing it out.

[Sanctaphrax]

How about having your skin melted off (extreme conseqence) without dying?

I think that's what happened to a lot of real-life nuke survivors.

Neither of the nukes used so far killed everyone. Newer, better, nukes might have higher numbers making survival less likely, but even then survival would be possible if you were far enough away and tough enough and protected well enough.

[Tedronai]

Sounds like a concession to me.

[Richard_Chilton]

Actually, the airburst was 580 meters off the ground for Hiroshima. People at ground zero were 580 meters from the bomb. Some of them did survive, if barely.

Just to translate, 580 meters = 1902.4 feet

So the "0 - 1000          93.0%" figure is actually something like "1902 - 2902 from the blast produced 93% mortality".  Which is the same as saying there were survivors half a mile away from the blast point.

Based on the science, I'd say that anything in the same zone of bomb would not exist after the blast - except as radioactive dust.  When "Other            10%" includes "being converted to a shadow on a building" assigning stress levels just doesn't work.  If the piece of land you're standing on becomes part of a glass crater your chances for survival are zero.

Now for the one time nukes were mentioned in the books:
Morgan, a man who made a life out of killing magical threats, wouldn't have just said "Well, that nuke probably killed a semi-divine creature.  Yes, it's of the status of maybe an angel or minor god, but I'll just assume that it was taken out because I'm known for assuming that things always work out for the best."  No, Morgan strikes me as the type who would have checked the results in great detail.  Even if somehow he had forgotten to, the Merlin would have poured the council's resources into finding out if that thing was dead or not.

Why? Because knowledge is power and the current Merlin strikes me as someone who would want to know how to kill semi-divine things.  I wouldn't be surprised if in the DV those missing nukes aren't where people think they are (they are in riverbeds in the real world) but in the hands of the White Council serving as their god killer weapons.

Which is more or less my reasoning for Morgan being right when he said the nuke killed one of them.  Looking at the stats in Our World, instant death for that thing would mean instant death for most godlings.

Richard

[Tsunami]

I disagree completely with everyone saying that nukes should be a plot device.

What does that even mean? Do you tell your players that they die, no defence possible?

If you want to use nukes in your game, you need to assign numbers of some kind.

Honestly, if it goes so far that i drop a nuke on my players, it's for one of two reasons

1) I want to make a really scary situation, where they for some reason survive a nuclear blast. Be it that they are in a bunker, that they escape into the nevernever at the last second, or some other plot point that let's them live to fight another day.

or

2) I want them dead.

Neither of the two situations has any need for numbers on how damaging the explosion actually is.

Now if this were a Superhero Game the situation would be different, but in DFRPG... Being hit by a Nuke means death, plain and simple.

That's how i'd handle nukes.
But then again any of my games would have to be seriously off the rails to get to a point where nukes come into play.

So if other people's games need values for nukes... have fun... i see no need for them.

[Sanctaphrax]

Well, you can use DFRPG to play a superhero level game.

So some people could actually use these numbers.

Heck, Bergelmir would have a decent shot at surviving a small nuke if his catch was something else.

Anyway, a large nuke could certainly kill a skinwalker. As long as it didn't have Modular Abilities set to above-Mythic Toughness.

But since you mention it, there should probably be extra accuracy and weapon rating if the bomb goes off within a really small distance of you. I still wouldn't make it infinite, though, since it's just an enormous amount of mundane force. I'd just use numbers so high that nothing could realistically survive without Physical Immunity.

[BumblingBear]

Oooh I've been inspired by this talk of nukes being plot devices.

What about an enchanted sword in a game or a lightsaber or something that spells instant death if it makes contact?

Like... a soul sucking sword or something.

That would be intense!  I just don't know whether my players would like it or hate it.  Probably hate it... but then again most of them want to play a new character now that they know the system better.

What better way to kill off a character than be killed by a Jedi? 

[EldritchFire]

I disagree completely with everyone saying that nukes should be a plot device.

What does that even mean? Do you tell your players that they die, no defence possible?

If you want to use nukes in your game, you need to assign numbers of some kind.

I am reminded of a quote: "If it has stats, we can kill it!"

If you want your players to have a chance at survival, give it numbers. If not, don't. Neither is right, neither is wrong. One may be more right for your group than the other.

-EF

[ways and means]

If I remeber correctly when morgan talked about nuking the skinwalker he said that he was 'almost certain' he got it.

[Sanctaphrax]

I object on a philosophical basis to statlessness. I'd rather use arbitrarily high numbers.

So BumblingBear's enchanted sword would just be weapon 45 or so in a game run by me.

[BumblingBear]

I object on a philosophical basis to statlessness. I'd rather use arbitrarily high numbers.

So BumblingBear's enchanted sword would just be weapon 45 or so in a game run by me.

See, the thing is I think my players would accept a plot device weapon (especially if they could get ahold of it) but really don't like big numbers.

In an earlier game, I had a completed ritual release a 4 shift attack, 20 shift weapon blast.  My players hated it even though they easily cleared the attack and could have used fate points if they had rolled negative.

The huge attack out of nowhere just sat wrong with them.

[Sanctaphrax]

How odd. Infinity is considerably larger than 45.

But you do whatever keeps your players happy.

[Ala Alba]

How odd. Infinity is considerably larger than 45.

Woah, careful there. I could make a decent argument that that is not necessarily the case...  

No one ever said anything about a weapon: "Infinity" anyway. A plot device weapon that kills you no matter what doesn't even need a weapon rating-- the result is just what you say it is, no more, no less. That is to say: unavoidable death.