Stats of a planet

[Bartmanhomer]

30 is what I call mid epic: at that level you already ran out of monsters of appropriate cr for challenging the players and have to either create new monsters or use hordes or start making the players fight gods.

Ok. But there's still monster above 30+ CR.

[noob]

Ok. But there's still monster above 30+ CR.

That are either exactly as strong as lower cr monsters or weaker.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I thought a planet would have at least a million or a billion hit points.

I think this question falls pretty squarely into the "who knows?" category.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Pretty sure Rockburst can only affect a 20' burst.

It affects an object within a 20' burst. If you shatter a Gargantuan clay golem but only hit half of its spaces, the golem still takes full damage (save willing, of course). If part of the planet is within that 20' burst, you should affect the whole planet, since the spell affects one object within the burst, and a solid planet is one object. Or you could affect one solid tectonic plate if the planet is set up as such.

[ColorBlindNinja]

It affects an object within a 20' burst. If you shatter a Gargantuan clay golem but only hit half of its spaces, the golem still takes full damage (save willing, of course). If part of the planet is within that 20' burst, you should affect the whole planet, since the spell affects one object within the 20', and a solid planet is one object. Or you could affect one solid tectonic plate if the planet is set up as such.

Isn't there some rule that states that a spell can't affect anything outside of its range?

Which in the case of Rockburst is Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level).

[Calthropstu]

Isn't there some rule that states that a spell can't affect anything outside of its range?

Which in the case of Rockburst is Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level).

If you're standing on the planet, pretty sure it's within 100 feet of you.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Isn't there some rule that states that a spell can't affect anything outside of its range?

Which in the case of Rockburst is Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level).

It affects any target within its area, even if part of the target is outside of the area, unless the size of the object is limited. In this case, it's a minimum of 8 cubic ft for the object affected.

[ColorBlindNinja]

If you're standing on the planet, pretty sure it's within 100 feet of you.

Which should only affect 100 feet of the planet?

It affects any target within its area, even if part of the target is outside of the area, unless the size of the object is limited. In this case, it's a minimum of 8 cubic ft for the object affected.

Does a planet qualify as a single object?

[Calthropstu]

Which should only affect 100 feet of the planet?

I didn't know the earth had 100 feet. Does that make it a centipede?

[ColorBlindNinja]

I didn't know the earth had 100 feet. Does that make it a centipede?

Don't be pedantic, you know exactly what I meant.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Does a planet qualify as a single object?

Depends on the planet (as a gaseous or liquid planet isn't actually an object, per se), but I'd say yes, in the same vein as a padlock is one object despite being made of component parts or a brick wall is one object made out of lots of smaller bricks.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Depends on the planet (as a gaseous or liquid planet isn't actually an object, per se),

Well, Rockburst doesn't work on liquid or gaseous planets anyway.

but I'd say yes, in the same vein as a padlock is one object despite being made of component parts or a brick wall is one object made out of lots of smaller bricks.

Seems logical enough.

[Calthropstu]

Don't be pedantic, you know exactly what I meant.

Relax, I was making a joke. Guess I should have made it blue.

Honestly, I doubt anyone has tried to tackle this within the rules. The only time I've seen it come up was with the void dragons in planescape back in 2e where there was no damage involved... just a dragon sucking up a planet into a sphere of annihilation. So hp was never calculated.

[Troacctid]

Reference please? I looked around a bit but couldn't find it.

RC 106, "Hit Points."

[Bartmanhomer]

I didn't know the earth had 100 feet. Does that make it a centipede?

It's doesn't. The Planet Earth is bigger than 100 feet.

[BowStreetRunner]

RC 106, "Hit Points."

Got it. And since the OP has now specified PF, I verified the same thing here.

[Sutehp]

I can't speak to the statistics angle of this conversation (I'm new to the d20 system), but one thing that I'll mention that may be tangentially relevant is that in the Pathfinder RPG (which as you all know uses the d20 system), one of the setting quirks is that the planet Golarion (the world where Pathfinder takes place) is actually a prison for a qlippoth lord named Rovagug. I don't know the details but apparently Rovagug had destroyed numerous worlds before arriving on Golarion and was such a massive threat that all the good AND evil gods on Golarion had to pull an Enemy Mine in order to imprison Rovagug inside Golarion (essentially using the entire planet as a prison) just to stop him. This bit of flavor text might be useful in determining just how tough an Earth-sized planet should be (In terms of basic planetary factors like size, atmosphere and such, Golarion is basically Earth but with differently shaped continents).

[Mordaedil]

How many times do you have to cast a maximized empowered Vengeful Gaze of God to break the planet in half?

Even though wiping out the Earth is simple enough by casting Ice Age once.

[Eldan]

One should also consider that most of the planet is not rock, but either lava or iron, which is considerably harder and tougher.

[Malphegor]

One should also consider that most of the planet is not rock, but either lava or iron, which is considerably harder and tougher.

Honestly for the iron just slap some polymorphed halflings who are in the form of rust monsters. Halfing appetite+rust monster capacity to eat iron.

Just need something to deal with the lava, which afaik is generally ruled as 'far too much fire damage for most normal parties'

[Castilonium]

No, Planets are living, not objects. All native living beings are its cells, if you will, so every player character is just a single cell and part of the greater whole.

Not even close.

The total biomass on earth about 5x10^11 tonnes. The total mass of the earth is about 2x10^21 tonnes. So only 0.000000002% of the earth's mass is organic. Also, only 0.05% is water.

A damp rock with moss growing on it has more biomass and water than the earth would if scaled down. The rock itself isn't alive.

[ericgrau]

Obviously, a planet is an object.

What should we set the break dc to, what is the weight, and how many hitpoints should an earth sized planet have.

I think all this is typically done per 10 foot square, for good reason. Lumping larger sections together for single hit destruction from a mega attack is outside of the scope of the rules, but you could totally speculate. The question then I think is once you get enough damage to destroy a 10 foot square/cube, how much extra damage does it take to destroy surrounding cubes? Probably some amount more than destroying them directly from closer up. At least until you get deep into the planet, then the energy is probably conserved better from being surrounded by cubes. So... most of the planet actually. You may be able to solve for 1 cube then multiply to extend it to the whole planet, and job done.

Here are the breaking rules: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploratio...ingAndEntering

Hardness and HP should be simple enough. Extrapolating str DC could be a bit harder, but there's probably some sort of pattern.

If an item has lost half or more of its hit points, the DC to break it drops by 2.

Maybe add 2 to the str DC per double HP? So DC = constant1 + log(HP/constant2)/log(2) * 2. Unless you find another pattern.

You probably apply hardness more than once. As a guess you could apply it once per 10 foot cube.

I leave the details as an exercise for the super bored.

[Elkad]

The diameter of Earth is 12,742 km = 12,742,000 m = 1,274,200,000 cm = ~501,653,543 in
That's a casual 7,5 billion hitpoints and a break DC of 1 billion. and a whopping 8 hardness

This is close enough for me.

A 1 mile diameter iron asteroid (at 1d6/50lbs) is 1.4billion d6 of damage, assuming I entered my Wolphram query correctly. 5 billion damage.
Better use two.

Of course in a vacuum, falling speed should be uncapped. So the 20d6 limit (at 180'/s or 1/30th of a mile/second) should be more like 4200d6 for going 7 miles/second (minimum velocity for something falling to earth from space). But that disappears into the noise, so we might as well ignore it. Even at 300+miles/second, it's not enough extra to matter, maybe 200,000d6

[MaxiDuRaritry]

This is close enough for me.

A 1 mile diameter iron asteroid (at 1d6/50lbs) is 1.4billion d6 of damage, assuming I entered my Wolphram query correctly. 5 billion damage.
Better use two.

Of course in a vacuum, falling speed should be uncapped. So the 20d6 limit (at 180'/s or 1/30th of a mile/second) should be more like 4200d6 for going 7 miles/second (minimum velocity for something falling to earth from space). But that disappears into the noise, so we might as well ignore it. Even at 300+miles/second, it's not enough extra to matter, maybe 200,000d6

Well, the 20d6 is for an object falling at terminal velocity. An object can be hurled downward at far faster speeds than that, and if it's traveling fast enough and is dense enough, air resistance won't slow it down appreciably, meaning the terminal velocity limit is a non-issue.

Plus, something weighing thousands or millions of tons should deal significantly more than 20d6 damage anyway.

[zfs]

A damp rock with moss growing on it has more biomass and water than the earth would if scaled down. The rock itself isn't alive.

In reality, sure. But in D&D, just about everything at least has an animus or spirit - hence why there are spells that let you speak with stones, earth, water, etc.

[Resileaf]

I'll mention again that there is a difference between destroying the planet and making it uninhabitable. Destroying all life on the planet is easy. Destroying the entire planet is nigh impossible. A mile-long asteroid would wipe out all life on the planet, but it wouldn't destroy it. It would still be in one piece, just bereft of life.

When I think destroy the planet, I think break it into pieces. Shatter the whole rock into dust. To do that, you probably need something as big as the planet itself, or nearly so.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I'll mention again that there is a difference between destroying the planet and making it uninhabitable. Destroying all life on the planet is easy. Destroying the entire planet is nigh impossible. A mile-long asteroid would wipe out all life on the planet, but it wouldn't destroy it. It would still be in one piece, just bereft of life.

When I think destroy the planet, I think break it into pieces. Shatter the whole rock into dust. To do that, you probably need something as big as the planet itself, or nearly so.

Does Pathfinder have Epic Spellcasting like in D&D 3.5?

Because if you abuse mitigation enough, you can make an epic spell that can destroy a planet.

[Sutehp]

I'll mention again that there is a difference between destroying the planet and making it uninhabitable. Destroying all life on the planet is easy. Destroying the entire planet is nigh impossible. A mile-long asteroid would wipe out all life on the planet, but it wouldn't destroy it. It would still be in one piece, just bereft of life.

When I think destroy the planet, I think break it into pieces. Shatter the whole rock into dust. To do that, you probably need something as big as the planet itself, or nearly so.

This. Earth itself has gone through no less than five extinction events in the last 600 million years, including the K-T Extinction (AKA the Cretaceous-tertiary event) that wiped out the dinosaurs 65.5 million years ago. Hell, the K-T event wasn't even the biggest/worst of the five; that title would go to Permian-Triassic Event, which wiped out no less than 95% of all surface life on Earth at the time. Scientists nicknamed that event the "Great Dying" for a reason.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

This. Earth itself has gone through no less than five extinction events in the last 600 million years, including the K-T Extinction (AKA the Cretaceous-tertiary event) that wiped out the dinosaurs 65.5 million years ago. Hell, the K-T event wasn't even the biggest/worst of the five; that title would go to Permian-Triassic Event, which wiped out no less than 95% of all surface life on Earth at the time. Scientists nicknamed that event the "Great Dying" for a reason.

According to Wikipedia (the most accurate source on Earth, obviously), it was ~70% of all terrestrial life and ~96% of all aquatic life.

That's kind of terrifying. Bad for life in general, but good for us, since we'd likely wouldn't exist without it.

[HouseRules]

What ever is in the core of Earth is sufficient to produce Uranium.

In other words, are there too many scientist are dreaming about planets are not nuclear reacting in their core?