The Ultimate Weapons of DnD (And what would happen if they were used on eachother)

Ever wonder what would happen if the projectiles from two Peasant Railguns collided? Or maybe you just wanna know what a Peasant Railgun even is? Well, whatever it is, this is the thread for you!

Okay, I've got a question that needs answering from a qualified physicist: What would happen if the projectiles from two Peasant Railguns collided midair?

1. The Peasant Railgun is famously a joke thought experiment and has no mechanical work under RAW, thus does either (a) nothing of the rules are properly applied or (b) whatever the DM says it does without limit, since the rules have gone out the window.  Therefore, this is not an overly interesting topic for a poll - the answer is either a finite “no” or “guess it depends on your table.”  There is no real room for discussion.

2. When making a thread on a D&D forum, common courtesy is to make the thread about D&D.  “Would this D&D joke beat some entirely different IP” is the forum equivalent of asking “Could a Kamehameha Wave kill Dorian Gray?” at a manga convention.  You can reasonably expect a significant will know the first part of the question, but, while some might be familiar with 19th century literature, it might not be the most relevant topic to most attendees… and is not a particularly useful comparison in the first place.

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

1. The Peasant Railgun is famously a joke thought experiment and has no mechanical work under RAW, thus does either (a) nothing of the rules are properly applied or (b) whatever the DM says it does without limit, since the rules have gone out the window.  Therefore, this is not an overly interesting topic for a poll - the answer is either a finite “no” or “guess it depends on your table.”  There is no real room for discussion.

2. When making a thread on a D&D forum, common courtesy is to make the thread about D&D.  “Would this D&D joke beat some entirely different IP” is the forum equivalent of asking “Could a Kamehameha Wave kill Dorian Gray?” at a manga convention.  You can reasonably expect a significant will know the first part of the question, but, while some might be familiar with 19th century literature, it might not be the most relevant topic to most attendees… and is not a particularly useful comparison in the first place.

 Sorry, I'll make sure to tell everyone what SCP-682 is.

SCP-682 is, in it's base form, a vaguely reptilian creature. It has the ability to regenerate from as little as a heavily damaged concept. It also adapts at an alarming rate to nearly anything and isn't limited by biological, mechanical, or even conceptual restraints. It can evolve into non-biological forms. If a god tried to erase it, it would still exist, exactly the same, and continue killing things.

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

1. The Peasant Railgun is famously a joke thought experiment and has no mechanical work under RAW, thus does either (a) nothing of the rules are properly applied or (b) whatever the DM says it does without limit, since the rules have gone out the window.  Therefore, this is not an overly interesting topic for a poll - the answer is either a finite “no” or “guess it depends on your table.”  There is no real room for discussion.

2. When making a thread on a D&D forum, common courtesy is to make the thread about D&D.  “Would this D&D joke beat some entirely different IP” is the forum equivalent of asking “Could a Kamehameha Wave kill Dorian Gray?” at a manga convention.  You can reasonably expect a significant will know the first part of the question, but, while some might be familiar with 19th century literature, it might not be the most relevant topic to most attendees… and is not a particularly useful comparison in the first place.

 Good advice as always. But being an old school anime nerd and having a liberal arts degree absolutely steeped in literature, now you've got me laughing and contemplating the specifics of a mental image of Dorian Gray getting hit full on with a Kamehameha. Well done.

Back to the topic at hanad, I'll add that hypotheticals like this one fall along the same vein as "what's better, an unbreakable shield or a spear that can pierce anything" or "what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object" because they are ultimately pointless and often invoked purely to cause arguments. In both of those cases, the two can't exist in the same universe - a universe that would allow the existence of one precludes the existence of the other. In this particular case, as Caerwyn pointed out, the hypothetical is about an undefined joke weapon versus I guess some kind of creepypasta.

Goose, maybe if you had homebrew creations to render either of these things viable within the framework of D&D 5E/5.5E that might give folks something to hypothesize about. 

Quote from ApplePaladin >>

 Back to the topic at hanad, I'll add that hypotheticals like this one fall along the same vein as "what's better, an unbreakable shield or a spear that can pierce anything" or "what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object" because they are ultimately pointless and often invoked purely to cause arguments. In both of those cases, the two can't exist in the same universe - a universe that would allow the existence of one precludes the existence of the other. In this particular case, as Caerwyn pointed out, the hypothetical is about an undefined joke weapon versus I guess some kind of creepypasta.

 The SCP Foundation is more than a creepypasta. It has become a franchise with many books, branded items such as waterbottles and handbags, and even official games. It even has DnD homebrew content dedicated to it (which composes the large majority of my homebrew content, be it public or private. Even my avatar icon is their logo. They are more than a creepypasta.

The peasant railgun, as it does no damage, cannot kill SCP-682. Base SCP-682 would not be particularly difficult to destroy by D&D standards, but its indestructibility is greatly increased by the experiment log, presumably because "and then they destroyed it" isn't an interesting SCP story.

Iet's use real physics to figure out how much damage it would deal.

Quote from Goosetifer13 >>

Iet's use real physics to figure out how much damage it would deal.

 
Real world physics are completely useless in D&D calculations and not consistent enough with the real world to provide meaningful calculations.  Formula like KE = 1/mv^2 simply do not translate to any meaningful numbers when dealing with math designed for gameplay purposes, rather than realism.

Illustrations of this can be found throughout the game, from how comparatively little the delta in damage (and thus energy delivered by) between a slingshot and a rife.. how players can all put out more damage than a stick of dynamite… to the fact that physics itself breaks down (you don’t accelerate when falling - you always fall the same rate, regardless of environmental factors).

There is no consistency because consistency leads to bad game design and certain actions being drastically out of proportion with others.

I used my illustration above for a reason. Goku has extensive power tracking in his canon - their internal power level system is a bit chaotic, but it canonically is a scaling system built for that world, akin to damage in D&D.  We have no idea what that system correlates to in the real world, but within the world of Dragonball we can say an attack from someone with 5,000 power is weaker than someone with a power level over 9,000.  But what does that mean when comparing to other properties?  I don’t know.  It is an arbitrary and meaningless comparison since the numbers are arbitrary and meaningless outside of their specific universe.  Without that data point, there can be no reasonable calculation of how many joules of energy a power level correlates to.

Same goes for your regeneration question - again, why I chose the example I did.  Mr. Gray’s exact mechanism for his health is never fully explained - he simply does not take effects of age or wounds and the picture does.  That’s the purpose of the picture in the story - to give him immortality, and it simply always works.  Likewise, your monster seems to have a healing factor best destined as “completely arbitrary for whatever fanfiction it is appearing in.”  When the ability is “it always does what the story needs” there’s no way to translate that into anything quantifiable outside of the confines of the story itself.