How much is 8 cubic feet?
Ron Clark
frequently. Detonate effects up to 8 cubic feet. My question is how
can you determine the volume of something like a skeleton, zombie,
golem, etc.......
I have tried a few methods, but have come up with nothing.
Any help will be appreciated.
Ron
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Standard disclamer applies. These thoughts are my own and may not
represent those of the university.
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Marc Evensen
>In my current campaign I have a psionicst that used detonate fairly
>frequently. Detonate effects up to 8 cubic feet. My question is how
>can you determine the volume of something like a skeleton, zombie,
>golem, etc.......
>
>I have tried a few methods, but have come up with nothing.
>
>Any help will be appreciated.
A good approximation is that 8 cubic feet = 6 x 1.3 x 1 feet.
Now, for a human body:
6 feet is a good rough height
1 foot is a good rough depth
1.3 feet is about half a person's width.
This gives us about 1/2 a person for 8 cubic feet.
A skeleton is much less than this, being only bones.
A zombie is roughly twice this.
A golem would depend on the type.
-- Marc
Marc Evensen
E-mail: eam...@orion.oac.uci.edu
"Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered,
those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid.
Thus the wise win before the fight, while the ignorant fight to win."
Michael J. Kletch
foot. A zombie's chest might be 2 cubic feet. Just try to figure it
out in groups of one cubic foot. Also figure that the inside of a small
college-dorm refrigerator is 2.5 cubic feet for the cube shaped ones and
about 5 cubic feet for the taller ones. A full size ref. is at least
double or 2.5 times the larger of the previous two. That's insize
volume, not the size of the outer 'box'.
============================================================
Fletch! was here. The Phantom in Resnik
mk...@andrew.cmu.edu CMU - it hurts.
============================================================
Tim Spock Larson
>In article <1993Sep12 (Ron Clark) writes:
>
>>In my current campaign I have a psionicst that used detonate fairly
>>frequently. Detonate effects up to 8 cubic feet. My question is how
>>can you determine the volume of something like a skeleton, zombie,
>>golem, etc.......
>>
>>I have tried a few methods, but have come up with nothing.
>>
>>Any help will be appreciated.
>A good approximation is that 8 cubic feet = 6 x 1.3 x 1 feet.
>Now, for a human body:
>6 feet is a good rough height
>1 foot is a good rough depth
>1.3 feet is about half a person's width.
>This gives us about 1/2 a person for 8 cubic feet.
>A skeleton is much less than this, being only bones.
>A zombie is roughly twice this.
>A golem would depend on the type.
You don't actually allow a psi with detonate to SHAPE the volume they
want detonated with that precision, do you?
"Oh, I want to follow their exact outline to within a micron. I should be
able to disint their total body mass if I do."
I mean, holy cow! Eight cubic feet is meant to mean a 2'x2'x2' cube,
or am I mistaken? If you had a nice DM, 1'x1'x8' or 1'x2'x4' might
be allowable, but trying to calculate how much volume something
would occupy if you were to squish it into the most compact shape
possible is a trifle absurd. Some nice stacking of 1'x1'x1' cubes (no
fractional blocks) is the furthest I, as a DM, would allow.
Sea Wasp
>In article <eamg06...@orion.oac.uci.edu> eam...@orion.oac.uci.edu (Marc Evensen) writes:
>>In article <1993Sep12 (Ron Clark) writes:
>>>In my current campaign I have a psionicst that used detonate fairly
>>>frequently. Detonate effects up to 8 cubic feet. My question is how
>>>can you determine the volume of something like a skeleton, zombie,
>You don't actually allow a psi with detonate to SHAPE the volume they
>want detonated with that precision, do you?
>"Oh, I want to follow their exact outline to within a micron. I should be
>able to disint their total body mass if I do."
Yes, of course you do. It's not like you're doing the shaping. You
choose object X and say, "Explode." 8 cubic feet of object x explodes, or
less if object X doesn't HAVE 8 cubic feet of substance. It's like lighting
a pile of gunpowder. ONLY the gunpowder burns, not because you are trying
to decide what burns, but because that substance is the stuff you chose
to burn and it (presumably) is on a non burning surface. The "Detonation
limit" is determined, if you want some kind of BS science explanation, but
the molecular/atomic cohesion which determines the actual surface of the
object in question.
BTW, to the person who said 8 cubic feet roughly equalled
a person: not close. Most of that area is not mass-filled. you took
all maximum dimensions. Take something closer to 3/4 cubic foot per leg,
3/16 cubic foot per arm, and maybe 1-2 for the head and body (remember,
a lot of the chest/abdomen has empty space in it). Total of maybe 3-4
cubic feet.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Ron Clark
stuff deleted.....
>You don't actually allow a psi with detonate to SHAPE the volume they
>want detonated with that precision, do you?
Actually the detonate power uses the latent energies within the object
being detonated, therefore the psi does not actually shape the volume to
be detonated.
>"Oh, I want to follow their exact outline to within a micron. I should be
>able to disint their total body mass if I do."
>I mean, holy cow! Eight cubic feet is meant to mean a 2'x2'x2' cube,
>or am I mistaken? If you had a nice DM, 1'x1'x8' or 1'x2'x4' might
>be allowable, but trying to calculate how much volume something
>would occupy if you were to squish it into the most compact shape
>possible is a trifle absurd. Some nice stacking of 1'x1'x1' cubes (no
>fractional blocks) is the furthest I, as a DM, would allow.
The psionics book gives an example of a portion of a wall being blown
out, if the wall is 10 in. thick, an opening is roughly a 3 foot
square. So the detonate power affects up to 8 cubic feet regardless of
shape or size.
>Tim
>TEL...@acad.drake.edu
It appears that you have not read on psionic powers.
Ron
Tim Spock Larson
>It appears that you have not read on psionic powers.
Wrong. I just tend to ignore rules that don't make sense or are over-
powering, as most people do.
>
>Ron
hans dykstra
> In article <1993Sep13.0...@dunix.drake.edu> tel...@dunix.drake.edu
(Tim "Spock" Larson) writes:
> >In article <eamg06...@orion.oac.uci.edu> eam...@orion.oac.uci.edu
(Marc Evensen) writes:
> >>In article <1993Sep12 (Ron Clark) writes:
> >>>In my current campaign I have a psionicst that used detonate fairly
> >>>frequently. Detonate effects up to 8 cubic feet. My question is how
> >>>can you determine the volume of something like a skeleton, zombie,
>
> BTW, to the person who said 8 cubic feet roughly equalled
> a person: not close. Most of that area is not mass-filled. you took
> all maximum dimensions. Take something closer to 3/4 cubic foot per leg,
> 3/16 cubic foot per arm, and maybe 1-2 for the head and body (remember,
> a lot of the chest/abdomen has empty space in it). Total of maybe 3-4
> cubic feet.
>
Actually, for fleshy things like zombies, you can use mass pretty
effectively as a substitute for volume. Flesh is mostly water, so
you can approximate the density by 1 g/cu.cm. If you work out the
conversions, you find that 8 cu.ft. of water weighs in at around
300 kg or so, around 650 lbs. So a single zombie would not be even
close to 8 cu.ft.
A reasonable conversion is 1 cu.ft. equals around 80 lbs. for most
substances. You don't really need to be much closer than that
anyway. And for irregularly shaped objects, mass is often easier
to use than volume.
hmd
Ron Clark
.....stuff deleted....
>Actually, for fleshy things like zombies, you can use mass pretty
>effectively as a substitute for volume. Flesh is mostly water, so
>you can approximate the density by 1 g/cu.cm. If you work out the
>conversions, you find that 8 cu.ft. of water weighs in at around
>300 kg or so, around 650 lbs. So a single zombie would not be even
>close to 8 cu.ft.
>
>A reasonable conversion is 1 cu.ft. equals around 80 lbs. for most
>substances. You don't really need to be much closer than that
>anyway. And for irregularly shaped objects, mass is often easier
>to use than volume.
>
>hmd
This sounds like a decent idea, but the monster manual does not list
weights for all of the monsters, in this case undead and golems, and if
it does it is usually stone, iron, or someting like that.
In using your conversion, a 12 foot tall iron golem would be 62.5 cubic
feet.
So how much does a cubic foot of iron or stone weigh?
Ron
AE
>...
> Eight cubic feet is meant to mean a 2'x2'x2' cube,
> or am I mistaken? If you had a nice DM, 1'x1'x8' or 1'x2'x4' might
Why not a sphere? A sphere containing 8 cubic feet would have a
radius of, let me see, almost 1ft and 3 inches.
As to how many cubic feet a person is:
Average male : 170lb (77kg), density 0.96 say,
which gives about 80 litres or 2.8 cubic feet.
Alanzar, Fool of the Weights and Measures
Marin Gjaja
Well, for reference (from Halliday and Resnick),
1ft^3 = 28.32 liters
Since a liter of water has a mass of 1 kg, and since one 1 kg = 2.205 lbs
here on earth, assuming that the gravitational force on your world is the same
as here on earth, 1 ft^3 of water will weigh 62.45 lbs.
So, in order to determine how much flesh you can detonate, one way would be to
guess the density of flesh, probably around 0.95 (less than water), and go by
weight to determine how much is detonated.
8 * 28.32 * 2.205 * density = weight of stuff to be detonated.
Using 0.95 as density for living tissue, you come up with:
474.95 lbs to be detonated
As others have or will probably mention, this does not help you if they are
golems, undead, etc. for things of which you don't know the weight. But, if you
can approximate a weight and can guess a density, you can determine whether
a creature could be detonated. Some density tables might help.
-marin
hans dykstra
> In article <2727jr$e...@nic.umass.edu> ABP...@UCSVAX.UCS.UMASS.EDU (hans dykstra) writes:
> .....stuff deleted....
> >A reasonable conversion is 1 cu.ft. equals around 80 lbs. for most
> >substances. You don't really need to be much closer than that
> >anyway. And for irregularly shaped objects, mass is often easier
> >to use than volume.
> >
> >hmd
>
> This sounds like a decent idea, but the monster manual does not list
> weights for all of the monsters, in this case undead and golems, and if
> it does it is usually stone, iron, or someting like that.
>
> In using your conversion, a 12 foot tall iron golem would be 62.5 cubic
> feet.
>
> So how much does a cubic foot of iron or stone weigh?
Well, to find this out you need to know the specific gravity of the
substance in question. This is just how much denser that substance
is than water. A quick glance at the Britannica under "copper" finds
a specific gravity of around 9. Most stone will be less than that,
maybe around 5-6.
So, just as a rule of thumb, we get:
Water: 1 cu.ft. = 80 lbs.
Metal: 1 cu.ft. = 700 lbs.
Stone: 1 cu.ft. = 400 lbs.
Mind you, I didn't use a calculator on this, and I've been making some
pretty hairy approximations, but for a rule of thumb, you don't need that
much accuracy.
For other substances, you can usually tell by comparing whether it floats
or not. Human beings just barely float, so their density is very close to
that of water. Cork floats pretty high, so its density is probably half
that of water. Wood is in between, maybe 3/4. Use these as a general
guide, in order to make a quick decision and not spend hours haggling
over the details.
---
hmd
hans dykstra
> > So how much does a cubic foot of iron or stone weigh?
>
> Well, to find this out you need to know the specific gravity of the
> substance in question. This is just how much denser that substance
> is than water. A quick glance at the Britannica under "copper" finds
> a specific gravity of around 9. Most stone will be less than that,
> maybe around 5-6.
>
> So, just as a rule of thumb, we get:
> Water: 1 cu.ft. = 80 lbs.
> Metal: 1 cu.ft. = 700 lbs.
> Stone: 1 cu.ft. = 400 lbs.
>
Ok, following up my own post, I see that some folks who actually had
calculators around did some more accurate calculations, to find that
1 cu.ft. of water comes in closer to 60 lbs. That gives around 550 lbs.
for metal and 300 lbs. for stone.
---
hmd
Ulrich Grepel
> In article <1993Sep13.0...@dunix.drake.edu> tel...@dunix.drake.edu
(Tim "Spock" Larson) writes:
> >In article <eamg06...@orion.oac.uci.edu> eam...@orion.oac.uci.edu (Marc
Evensen) writes:
> >>In article <1993Sep12 (Ron Clark) writes:
> >>>In my current campaign I have a psionicst that used detonate fairly
> >>>frequently. Detonate effects up to 8 cubic feet. My question is how
> >>>can you determine the volume of something like a skeleton, zombie,
>
> >You don't actually allow a psi with detonate to SHAPE the volume they
> >want detonated with that precision, do you?
> >"Oh, I want to follow their exact outline to within a micron. I should be
> >able to disint their total body mass if I do."
Oh yes, then I'd go and compress it to the density of a neutron star. All that
empty space inbetween the atoms is really unneccessary...
> BTW, to the person who said 8 cubic feet roughly equalled
> a person: not close. Most of that area is not mass-filled. you took
> all maximum dimensions. Take something closer to 3/4 cubic foot per leg,
> 3/16 cubic foot per arm, and maybe 1-2 for the head and body (remember,
> a lot of the chest/abdomen has empty space in it). Total of maybe 3-4
> cubic feet.
Well, it's not that difficult: an average human weighs about 75 kg. That's
about 75 liters of water. Now how many cubic feet are 75 liters? (I knew
that there was an advantage in decimal systems...) Well, a bit less than three.
There you are. Check the ability to swim/drown and weigh it.
Bye,
Uli
Greg Gershowitz
>(Tim "Spock" Larson) writes:
>>...
>> Eight cubic feet is meant to mean a 2'x2'x2' cube,
>> or am I mistaken? If you had a nice DM, 1'x1'x8' or 1'x2'x4' might
>>...
That's a cube, alright. However cubic feet is a measure of volume,
regardless of shape (see below). Think of cubic litres. You can have
8 cubic litres of water in any shape you want.
>Why not a sphere? A sphere containing 8 cubic feet would have a
>radius of, let me see, almost 1ft and 3 inches.
You could, but do you want to do the math? I think if the spell
had meant sphere it would have said so. When I see a volume
description saying cubic, I take it to mean some rectangular border
shape. (Understand? Me neither.)
>As to how many cubic feet a person is:
>Average male : 170lb (77kg), density 0.96 say,
>which gives about 80 litres or 2.8 cubic feet.
That's if you pulverized him. Go for it this way (someone else
posted this, too). A man 6 feet tall would be:
6 (height) x 1 (depth) x 1.5 (breadth) [depth and breadth are a
probably a little large]
= 9 cubic feet
Note that this is without armor. My suggestion is to use
Finagle's constant and let the spell work.
-Greg G
--
"No matter who you are, no matter what you look like, deep down in
the gunny sack of your soul, in the top drawer, in the back, on the
bottom, we all have a pair of pants with a pocket full of kryptonite."
"When God belches, it sounds OK" - Spin Doctors, Jones Beach, 7/9/93
as...@acad2.alaska.edu
> frequently. Detonate effects up to 8 cubic feet. My question is how
> can you determine the volume of something like a skeleton, zombie,
> golem, etc.......
>
has a set damage to non-living monsters, might I suggest to not worry
about how much of the thing you destroy? Instead, roll the damage,
and determine how much of this damage is in relation to the creature's
hit points?
Ex: A psionicist uses detonate (successfully) on a skeleton with 6 hit
points. The damage rolled is 4. Thus, 4/6 of the skeleton (or 2/3) is
detonated. This probably means everything except an arm, leg, pelvic
girdle, and enough spine to attach it all (a sort of silly thought).
----- Scott
-----
Timothy Little
>In article <2727jr$e...@nic.umass.edu> ABP...@UCSVAX.UCS.UMASS.EDU (hans dykstra) writes:
>.....stuff deleted....
>>Actually, for fleshy things like zombies, you can use mass pretty
>>effectively as a substitute for volume. Flesh is mostly water, so
>>you can approximate the density by 1 g/cu.cm. If you work out the
>>conversions, you find that 8 cu.ft. of water weighs in at around
>>300 kg or so, around 650 lbs.
Closer to 230 kg, or 500 lb. In fact, *very* close to 500 lb.
>> So a single zombie would not be even close to 8 cu.ft.
>>
>>A reasonable conversion is 1 cu.ft. equals around 80 lbs. for most
>>substances.
1 cu. ft. is more like 60 lb.
Really, this only applies to water or flesh. Stone is about 4 times
heavier, and metal around 8 times heavier.
>> You don't really need to be much closer than that
>>anyway. And for irregularly shaped objects, mass is often easier
>>to use than volume.
>
>This sounds like a decent idea, but the monster manual does not list
>weights for all of the monsters, in this case undead and golems, and if
>it does it is usually stone, iron, or someting like that.
If they're the same shape as humans, you can use the height to work
out the volume. If a 6' person has a volume of about 3 cu.ft.,
then a giant twice as tall has a volume 8 times larger - around 24
cu.ft. Simple formula: Volume = height^3 / 70.
Skeletons are more problematic, since they have very little substance.
I'd guess about about 1/10th or so of the volume of a living creature.
--
Tim Little