As a DM, I say fair play to your wizard. They are a genius, just let him use the nuke. It will also kill the whole party, so just let them make new characters. You'll just be resented if you hard block them from doing something actually really cool.
As a DM, I say fair play to your wizard. They are a genius, just let him use the nuke. It will also kill the whole party, so just let them make new characters. You'll just be resented if you hard block them from doing something actually really cool.
Honestly, I come down on the other side of this. As much as some people like to try and finesse modern science and magic to make massive explosions, it can be very disruptive to a table in practice and generally requires a "they're a savant that somehow figured out a scientific principle that modern science only pieced together in the last 50-100 years" handwave to explain how the character even came up with the idea. There's rules for explosives in the DMG, which themselves are under the "if the DM allows it" caveat. Anything further, in my opinion, is something that falls under the heading of "plot device", not feature implementation. You can always ask, but the DM should not feel pressured to cave simply because the player think it would be really cool.
Hazardous material should be hazardous. Without containment fields or structures(poison, sickness, disease or other damage types should probably harm everything in range, say 3-10 miles)just from making it. It just cannot lay on the ground. Perhaps, a time limit to make mixture before material decays. Probably should not use hands(instead use one or multiple of following... mage hand, bigby's hand or telekinetic powers). As always, funds can also deter over-making.
I am DMing game with a transmutation wiz. He had the great idea to make magical bombs by using alchemy to make elements that combust on contact (I thought this was a great character idea). In his research, he found that the element francium combusts on contact with water. So he cast the spells, "create/destroy water" and "create". Creating 5 cubic feet of water and the same amount of francium. I looked up how large of an explosion this would be, and it's about the size of a nuke. Does anyone have any advice?
I should say I don't know how big this explosion would actually be. It wont be as simple as just throwing it in water to get the maximum explosion. There will be limits like the availability of oxygen and the contact surface with the water. The explosion will also likely scatter the metal which will burn up in the air like small flares. It's also possible the temperature will get high enough to just vaporize the metal which has an evaporation point much low than the burning temperature of hydrogen in air. I think most of the metal would end up just burning up rather than reacting with water.
As a DM, I say fair play to your wizard. They are a genius, just let him use the nuke. It will also kill the whole party, so just let them make new characters. You'll just be resented if you hard block them from doing something actually really cool.
Honestly, I come down on the other side of this. As much as some people like to try and finesse modern science and magic to make massive explosions, it can be very disruptive to a table in practice and generally requires a "they're a savant that somehow figured out a scientific principle that modern science only pieced together in the last 50-100 years" handwave to explain how the character even came up with the idea. There's rules for explosives in the DMG, which themselves are under the "if the DM allows it" caveat. Anything further, in my opinion, is something that falls under the heading of "plot device", not feature implementation. You can always ask, but the DM should not feel pressured to cave simply because the player think it would be really cool.
Hazardous material should be hazardous. Without containment fields or structures(poison, sickness, disease or other damage types should probably harm everything in range, say 3-10 miles)just from making it. It just cannot lay on the ground. Perhaps, a time limit to make mixture before material decays. Probably should not use hands(instead use one or multiple of following... mage hand, bigby's hand or telekinetic powers). As always, funds can also deter over-making.
I should say I don't know how big this explosion would actually be. It wont be as simple as just throwing it in water to get the maximum explosion. There will be limits like the availability of oxygen and the contact surface with the water. The explosion will also likely scatter the metal which will burn up in the air like small flares. It's also possible the temperature will get high enough to just vaporize the metal which has an evaporation point much low than the burning temperature of hydrogen in air. I think most of the metal would end up just burning up rather than reacting with water.
The God's should intervene