jameson (ST) Posted January 17, 2011 Share Posted January 17, 2011 Inspiration Strikes!Intro.So in New England, in the winter, we have 4 primary risks to life and limb; snow, ice, bad drivers, and static electricity. Alright, perhaps I'm exaggerating, but cold dry air does tend to make for some fantastically painful electric shocks, usually when you least expect it. Electricity is pretty fun stuff when you aren't rendering a limb numb. Some of it can even be used in an RPG...[end_news_blurb]Issue #4: It's Electric! Despite my opening, I'm not going to advocate annoying players with tiny meaningless jolts of electricity ... even though that would help many a table top game stay on topic. No, I swear. In a modern game, ion and particle beam technology, even plasma, are all aspects of electrical theory. Plasma is electrically charged and responds to magnetic fields. particle beams are directed and accelerated by use of intense magnetic fields (never mind the electric power needed to isolate them). Nikola Tesla intended to show the wireless transmission of electricity, famously demonstrated with a lightbulb of his design powered without wires or fixture. Generation of power is huge nowadays, huge enough that in a game set in the near future, like Shadowrun, you could have an entire run based around the theft of a prototype or plans for some kind of fusion reactor or a high efficiency solar panel. In a modern day supers game an electrical themed villain could be running a series of heists to get the components he needs to build an electrical weapon or maybe a powered suit. Alternately he could be misunderstood, with a "the end justifies the means" philosophy, who is stealing these things to prove his theory is right for the betterment of the people. Of course, he's misunderstood and foiled by the heroes and eventually goes mad (as all good evil scientists do) and becomes a recurring villain. On the fnatasy side of things, lightning bolts are such a common offensive tool for mages that one would think Zeus was getting a cut of the profits. Wizards and mad scientists seem to love electricity to such a degree you wonder if it has some kind of addictive quality.Next time a player zaps a knight in plate armor, or an iron golem with a lightening bolt have the target suddenly become magnetically charged. Small weapons become stuck to it, or even attracted towards it from afar. A 1 ton iron golem with even a moderate magnetic field could probably grapple a paladin as a free action simply by way of adhereing to him. If you game is a little less silly and a little more serious it's reasonable that that attack would cascade through the knight's armor and into the ground without affecting the man within. A Faraday cage in medieval application essentially. A golem, being an unliving construct, would likewise have nothing to fear from a few thousand amps and volts passing through its conductive body and into the ground. Sure it's not "fantastic" but it might get the wizard to explore a new spell or two.Electricity is just half of the Electromagnetic effect though. What about the other end; magnetism. What effect would a magnetic attack have on a metal armored foe have? Spinning a magnet around a chunk of metal is how we use turbines to generate electricity; could a magnetic attack possibly generate additional electrical damage or effects?It's now understood that our ancestors probably had a better grasp on electrity and magnetism than we give them credit for. Archeaological evidence has implied that electroplating was possibly used by the Parthians, while the Greeks had demonstrated knowledge of static electricity by 600 BC. Is it unreasonable for a fantasy age inventor to have an electrical device or two? The ancient Egyptians maybe had invented the lightbulb a few years ahead of Edison. The Dendra Light-bulb is conjecture based on hieroglyphs found inside some tombs, and the fact that it would be rather dark inside those pyramids and underground crypts. Granted, torches could have lit the rooms just fine, but some people take those carvings as evidence of something more.Next time you turn on a light give a moment to think of just how extraordinary that item and what powers it is. Try and think about how our forefathers would have seen it, and give thought to how maybe electricity could spice up a game of yours.,,Previously On Inspiration Strikes! Issue #1: The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas ...Issue #2: I'm Sick of This! Issue #3: Making Your Own Inspiration Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stargaizer Posted January 17, 2011 Share Posted January 17, 2011 The thing with the torches in the pyramids is that there is no soot on the ceilings (which, if you've ever used an oil lamp in a blackout, or even just a fireplace you know all about soot). Secondly, some ancient Egyptian artifacts aren't solid gold, but instead have a thin layer of gold on their surface, aka electroplating. There's not a whole lot of info out there, and some of it is a little dubious, but it's still worth a look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin OOC Posted January 17, 2011 Share Posted January 17, 2011 Actually had a DM do that before... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stargaizer Posted January 17, 2011 Share Posted January 17, 2011 On a gaming note, I remember one D&D Eberron 3.5 game where all the PC's were pirates. We were on the ship in the middle of the ocean and were attacked by a group of merfolk. Now, our ship was equipped with a lightning and a fire ballista. All of us were engineers of one color or another, so we shot the lightning ballista straight down at the water. Since it's salt water, it's a good conductor, and all of the merfolk took a portion of the damage (very effective by our DM's ruling), as did our Paladin who was in full plate mail, who thought he was Poseidon and was trying to exert his authority over them.Oh the fun we had. Good times, good times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jameson (ST) Posted January 17, 2011 Author Share Posted January 17, 2011 That's awesome SG! So great to see not only the players but the GM acknowledging that stuff like that can happen, and then making it so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MegaGirl Posted January 17, 2011 Share Posted January 17, 2011 Yes... GMs... 2nd Edition Kuo-toas in a flooded Neverwinter = BAD! Bastards were nearly immune to lightning and were able to Call Lighnting which did more damage the more of them there were. Ah, fun times...Glad I was a nearly naked priestess of Eilistraee that almost always had a slew of protective spells to call upon... and Magic Resistance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tora Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 In 3.5 DnD there actually is a rule that specifically covers lightning bolts in water and yes it becomes a huge area affect. Also some things like shocker lizards do channel more damage the more of them there are. It wasn't clever DM fiat, it's in the rules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stargaizer Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 Well, we thought that we were doing something new and interesting, since none of us knew that rule (including the DM)... so when we did it, it was a DM fiat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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