OOTS #955 - The Discussion Thread

[Mike Havran]

Actually, V and Blackwing were flying in higher altitude than the ship. If that was a natural lightning, it should have hit them, instead of the ship. If V is clever enough she could figure out that somebody targeted the ship on purpose after former Master Thundershield started with appeasing his god.

[Sir_Leorik]

That required some.... lightning fast reflexes.

Elves do get a +2 bonus to Dexterity.

EDIT: Also, the fact that V could tell that Blackwing wanted V sitting on his shoulder was hilarious. Looks like that Empathic Link is more efficient these days.

[Lord Of Mantas]

Aww, c'mon Varsuuvius. Let Blackwing have this one thing.

[Metahuman1]

V: Just humor the bird, no one will know.

Thor: GET YOUR **** IN GEAR AND JUST FREAKING THROW MORE LIGHTING FORM MORE DIRECTIONS THEN THEY CAN COUNTER ALREADY, ALL AT ONCE!!!!!!!!!

I hate this subplot, I just want it over!

[multilis]

Half the speed of light is not nearly the speed of light. One (of the many) cool things about math is that the bigger the numbers get, the bigger difference fractions make. if you travel half a billion light years and your friend travels a billion light years, you guys are HOLY CRAP seriously you literally cannot actually conceptualize this distance REALLY far apart. Not "nearly as far as your friend traveled."

Half the speed of light is incorrect number as far as I can tell. Real number is a complicated range starting from nearly speed of light.

Any number close to speed of light is effectively the same in short distance from human speed reflexes, takes fancy experiment tricks to tell a difference with normal human reflexes.

[SteveDJ]

Lightning travels at 93,000 miles/second. Light travels at 186,000 miles/second. Lightning is electricity, not light. It travels at the speed of lightning. Literally. Even if it is a god throwing it.

Sorry, no. Lightning travels at 3,700 miles per second.

[Rogar Demonblud]

93,000/186,000=1/2. So yes, half the speed of light. Of course, it gets hinky when you add air resistance, which radically affects electrons but not photons.

[Varidan]

While Belkar may be sabotaging himself, remember Durkon's final request was not to kill his friends. So it all depends on how true to his word the HPoH is...

Besides, how much of a threat is Belkar to him, really?

Also, if V doesnt already have suspicions, she will after blocking several lightning strikes aimed at the Mechane. The others may not see then since they are busy arguing with Belkar or trying to get the ship running. I still expect Durkula to be around for quite awhile longer tho.

[multilis]

Sorry, no. Lightning travels at 3,700 miles per second.

there is difference between a bridge forming and the main energy flowing after the bridge is formed... when the bridge forms, much less energy is travelling, once it is solid bridge, it gets better and better at conducting electricity.

Thinking about it, V's method would not work in real life... by the time the lightning was visible there would be solid bridge, even if V had reflexes "at speed of light", having a now solid conductor of plasma on both sides of the wall for miles and only a matter of hundred feet to climb around barrier, compared to miles to string a new plasma line, the remaining (majority) electrical charge would follow the existing path like a miles long lightning rod and simply go shortest distance around the force wall.

[SimonMoon6]

Sadly, even Polymorph Any Object is restricted to max 15 HD creatures, and a Roc has 18 hit dice.

And even if it wasn't so limited, there's the HD <= level cap, meaning that V would have to be 18th level... which he might be, but that would mean he could be throwing 9th level spells around, when the highest level spells I recall him using are Prismatic Spray and Forcecage (both of which are 7th level, so V is at least 13th level).

[SteveDJ]

When I first read this, I read "roc" as "rock" and had this brief vision of V using it to block the lightning, and then watch as it plummets to the ground.

[ellindsey]

The important speed is not how fast current is flowing along the main discharge channel once the lightning has fully formed. That will be fast, although still not at the speed of light. The important speed is the speed at which the initial stepped leader that makes the channel for the main charge is forming. The stepped leader is slow enough that you can see it forming bit by bit on high-speed cameras, a mere speed of a few hundred miles per hour. If V blocks the stepped leader from reaching the ship, the main discharge won't hit it.

[Bulldog Psion]

We're assuming here that OotS lightning works just like ours. From the looks of it, it doesn't -- it's more like an energy weapon bolt that dissipates if blocked, rather than just flowing around the obstacle and continuing on its merry way to the ground.

[Doug Lampert]

Half the speed of light is incorrect number as far as I can tell. Real number is a complicated range starting from nearly speed of light.

Any number close to speed of light is effectively the same in short distance from human speed reflexes, takes fancy experiment tricks to tell a difference with normal human reflexes.

Lightning is, as others have pointed out, slow enough to see moving with a high speed camera, looking on the Internet I get variable speeds, one reference claims about 3,700 miles per second.

Wikipedia gives a range with an average of 4.4×10^5 m/s, which is only 273 miles per second.

I do see a reference on another site that claims "However, the speed is normally no more than half the speed of light, usually substantially less." and "Per the MEDICAL MYSTERIES LIGHTNING STRIKES video put out by the Discovery Channel (2000 Publication), it states that lightning travels at a rate of 60,000 miles a second."

So two out of three sources give 3-4 orders of magnitude slower than light, and one gives a noticeable fraction of the speed of light, but even it claims "usually substantially less" than half the speed of light.

Too fast to react, except in D&D land where a readied action is effectively instantaneous and goes off BEFORE the action that triggers it.

Edited to add: ellindsey is almost certainly correct above in the claim that the "nearly the speed of light" is the CURRENT FLOW speed within the ionized channel after the lightning has propagated, while the much much slower speeds given are the propagation of the strike. The slower speed is the relevant one, and is only a few hundred or thousand miles per second.

[Peelee]

Half the speed of light is incorrect number as far as I can tell. Real number is a complicated range starting from nearly speed of light.

Any number close to speed of light is effectively the same in short distance from human speed reflexes, takes fancy experiment tricks to tell a difference with normal human reflexes.

True. I'll concede the point.

The important speed is not how fast current is flowing along the main discharge channel once the lightning has fully formed. That will be fast, although still not at the speed of light. The important speed is the speed at which the initial stepped leader that makes the channel for the main charge is forming. The stepped leader is slow enough that you can see it forming bit by bit on high-speed cameras, a mere speed of a few hundred miles per hour. If V blocks the stepped leader from reaching the ship, the main discharge won't hit it.

That's what a quick and dirty Google about lightning gets me. You're right.

[Kish]

While Belkar may be sabotaging himself, remember Durkon's final request was not to kill his friends. So it all depends on how true to his word the HPoH is...

Huh? Durkon's final request was addressed to Malack. The High Priest of Hel wasn't there and manifestly doesn't care in the least what Durkon wants about anything.

[David Argall]

I like how V is taking great pains to protect the rest of the crew; she's had a lot of character development since two arcs ago.

[Small note: Just noticed I said she instead of they; not sure what makes me think V is a lady elf, but yes.]

Now that is different from me. I have been thinking that the new art gives V a distinctly male appearance. I am not sure what it is, but somehow the new V clearly says "male" while the old was much more indefinite.

[137beth]

Huh? Durkon's final request was addressed to Malack. The High Priest of Hel wasn't there and manifestly doesn't care in the least what Durkon wants about anything.

High Priest of Hel also pretty clearly doesn't care what Malack thought either, so any requests Durkon made to Malack are worthless as far as HPoH is concerned.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Awww, go on V, be a sport, pretend to be Blackwing's familiar, just for a few minutes.

Presumably Blackwing's able to sense the forming lightning in a similar way to birds being able to find thermals.

[DaggerPen]

Welp, that answers that question. It was a good shot, Thor.

And I will be very sad if we don't get to see at least a background shot of electrified gargantuan roc Blackwing.

[Barak]

V. is usually a lot more logical and intelligent than this. The protection from lightning/Rocwing idea is a far better lightning shield than the instantaneous unanchored wall of force cast at just the right spot by "looking at it." (It would make for a funnier strip, too.)

Why would his/her second plan be forcecage?

People have said it before, but if someone came up with this plan in a game I was DM'ing, I'd be like, "um... no." Or rather, "you can try it - you'll fail, but you can try it."

[Trixie]

I don't know the specifics of how a forcewall is supposed to work in terms of physics, but I'm doubtful as to the effectiveness of that blocking strategy.

It would not work. At all. When lightning strikes somewhere, it's because there already exists a patch of ionized air between cloud and a target. Assuming V can shout 'wall of force' in 0.0001 seconds it takes for main patch to emerge, what we would see is either lighting punching straight through the wall, or, assuming it's infinitely resistant, another most likely result would be forced ionization of relatively short path between cut parts or lighting skipping to other, closest ionized path centred either on V or on the ship

What V should have done was to summon wall of iron positioned vertically between cloud and earth. Or summon big mass of metal in the cloud to short circuit it (any number of monsters could serve for that). Or simply use any sort of lightning spell to forcibly ionize more air between cloud and the ground to diver lightnings away from the ship. Or...

[Kish]

Whatever plan anyone might invent for Vaarsuvius, it shouldn't include Wall of Iron, or any other Conjuration or Necromancy spell.

[foobar1969]

V. is usually a lot more logical and intelligent than this. The protection from lightning/Rocwing idea is a far better lightning shield than the instantaneous unanchored wall of force cast at just the right spot by "looking at it."

V knows that, but s/he has developed empathy for her trusted companion, and would rather attempt other options before ordering Blackwing to take a bullet.

People have said it before, but if someone came up with this plan in a game I was DM'ing, I'd be like, "um... no." Or rather, "you can try it - you'll fail, but you can try it."

http://dungeonsmaster.com/2010/01/ei...u-a-better-dm/

[multilis]

Protection from lightning may not work for same reason that lightning rod didn't work... lightning can go around a big bird, object trying to block does not move that fast.

Thinking about it real life physics does not apply to OOTS... lightning is caused by magic and can dodge a lightning pole, the force cage is magic, Roy can hold a rope (that 2 others can't) when in real life physics his body isn't heavy enough to have traction even if he is strong enough.

Extra mass can be created or got rid of with magic, when real life e=mc2, probably much easier to make a thermo-nuclear bomb. For DnD to work in "real life" would probably require real life to really be something like a computer simulation and magic is hacking the simulation to allow things not allowed by regular rules..

OOTS is a fake world created by "gods" creating rules.

[Heksefatter]

I think V realizes that "Durkon" has changed so fundamentally that it would be inaccurate to still call him that, regardless of whether or not it's still technically Durkon in control. S/he did witness him uncharacteristically freak out about the staff.

You are probably right. I just couldn't help thinking.

[Trixie]

93,000/186,000=1/2. So yes, half the speed of light. Of course, it gets hinky when you add air resistance, which radically affects electrons but not photons.

Um, yes it does. Light slows a lot in different environments:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractive_index

Wikipedia gives a range with an average of 4.4×10^5 m/s, which is only 273 miles per second.

Too fast to react, except in D&D land where a readied action is effectively instantaneous and goes off BEFORE the action that triggers it.

I beg you pardon? "Only" 273 miles per second is actually "only" 50x than escape velocity, more than the fastest rockets ever built. The things that could travel from USA to Europe in seconds.

Anyone possessing reflexes like that would be able to catch arrows from the air because they would be standing still for him/her. Seriously, they move only five orders of magnitude slower. Ask your DM what response you'd get to 'I ready action to catch his arrow as soon as he fires it' and it would be trivial next to lightning catching.

[Cavenskull]

there is difference between a bridge forming and the main energy flowing after the bridge is formed... when the bridge forms, much less energy is travelling, once it is solid bridge, it gets better and better at conducting electricity.

Thinking about it, V's method would not work in real life... by the time the lightning was visible there would be solid bridge, even if V had reflexes "at speed of light", having a now solid conductor of plasma on both sides of the wall for miles and only a matter of hundred feet to climb around barrier, compared to miles to string a new plasma line, the remaining (majority) electrical charge would follow the existing path like a miles long lightning rod and simply go shortest distance around the force wall.

You're wrong. I just tested this in real life, and I can confirm that it is impossible for lightning to maneuver around a force wall.

[Moebius]

I'm thinking the storm will escalate, V will have to polymorph Black wing resulting in a giant stone bird, and the title of the next panel will be "ROC me like a hurricane"

I'm expecting "V will, V will Roc you," myself.

[Zombimode]

It would not work. At all. When lightning strikes somewhere, it's because there already exists a patch of ionized air between cloud and a target. Assuming V can shout 'wall of force' in 0.0001 seconds it takes for main patch to emerge, what we would see is either lighting punching straight through the wall, or, assuming it's infinitely resistant, another most likely result would be forced ionization of relatively short path between cut parts or lighting skipping to other, closest ionized path centred either on V or on the ship

Really, guys. A Wall of Force stops a Lightning Bolt or any other "line of electricity" type of spell or effect. No "flowing around" or some other fancy stuff, just stopping it. No lightning of any strength could punch through a Wall of Force. The strongest naturally occurring lightning strike deals 10W8 points of damage. It would break through a barrier if it would deal enough damage to break the barrier. Since a Wall of Force can not be broken or destroyed by damage, it is impossible for any lightning to break through it.

The "good reflexes" part is just how readied actions work in D&D.