In other words, go gaseous (in part, though the carbon doesn't so much as melt). The fact that some bonds get broken is incidental.

~J

To rephrase something I saw on Buffy once:

Fire pretty, tree flammible.

You mean some characters go on runs without thermite? In my playing group (especially my wife), it's SOP.

Well, thermite bars are out of reach at character generation (SR4). I always want some .

btw: I can't figure out what SOP means...

Standing (or Standard) Operating Procedure.

I am teh slow.

~J

Thanks. There is always more to learn .

I can't remember if it has come up before, what skill do you need for applying thermite?

It's not an explosive, but it's most likely still demolitions, is it not?

Sorry Butterblume, I should have put the full text as well as the acronym. I always use Demolitions as the apropriate skill.

Oh, no, it's quite appropriate to use acronyms or standard abbreviations. That's what they're there for.
Most of the times, its pretty easy to figure them out, with a simple web search. This time, I apparently overlooked the first entry on wikipedia .

Demolitions seems to me to be the right Skill to use for Thermite.

Pretty much Demolitions is the catch all for anything that goes boom, and any arson that is beyond either chucking some incindiary grenades around or soaking something with gas and setting it ablaze.

Thats actually how it seems to be with at least, so far, all the 'modern' RPGs I've ever played as well.

"Scattering" thermite so that it's not as big of a threat can be accomplished with something like a pushbroom, if you don't care about ever being able to use it again after the first couple of sweeps. Thermite doen't "burn" in the combustion-reaction kind of way at all... it's just an incredibly hot liquid metal. If you manage to scatter the unreacted fuel, you may be able to prevent whatever they were trying to accomplish by having put it there in the first place (say, preventing a safe from getting cut into by the thermite), but you aren't necessarily going to "put out" the thermite... you may only scatter it so that it's not effective. The big trick is going to be avoiding getting yourself spattered with the stuff in the process, especially if the reaction vessel is constructed in such a way that the thermite is spraying around some.

Thermite will go through wood in incredibly short order. It'll also go through carpeting and that silvery fire-retardant stuff that fire-resistant suits are usually made out of in incredibly short order, because it's not fire. I managed to put a pretty impressive hole in my old high school demonstrating this stuff, and the floorboards looked like someone had taken a shotgun to them.

For the record, magnesium is the classic thermite trigger, but potassium permangenate + glucose works too.

First floor, I hope?

Once a chemistry teacher made me strike phosphorous in a mortar and pestle and it burned my hand. It was comical.

Reminds me of back in grade 9. One of our chemistry teachers took some stuff that reacted rather badly with water and dumped a small chunk in a petri dish. I'd never seen anything so small make such a large bang before.

I cant for the life of me remember what the hell the stuff is called, but it's generally stored in kerosene or some similar liquid.

God it was such a great year. Our chem teacher was such a pyro made all sorts of things burn/explode

Anything along the left edge of the periodic table (Hydrogen excepted) generally does that.

~J

Yeah. Was just so long ago I dont remember what it was.

Ahhh man I miss those days. Like when we had one iddiot almost blow out the whole new science wing cause the jack ass turned on all the gas valves. Fortunately some one noticed before it got sparked off and shut off the central tap and aired it out.

Well on the subject of greek fire, have historians ever actually -really- figgured out what it was? Last I'd heard there were only theories as to various things it could have been.

Not that I know of. Iknow it was supposed to catch fire when it hit water, not manythings do that. I think K and NA were ruled out, and it was supposed to be complex. Couldn't tell you, I'm more of a rocket/cybernetic guy.

Though if they had magnesium, ignighted it, that coming into contact with water WOULD blow. Big. It splits the water down to it's base elements. Oxygen+Hydrogen+lots of heat=.......

I'm not so sure that it comming into contact with water made it explode, as I understand it simply spread it around, sort of like oil on water. Except full of burning stuff that.. burned.

Olive oil, duh.

The anger that is later used in Dikote™ furnaces.

~J

Ohhh thats a nice one. Heh. Man, there are things I do so miss about science class. Too bad doing half that stuff these days would get the teacher fired.

Nah, the most reliable way to destroy an enemy is Chuck Norris.

But by the 2050's-2070's Chuck Norris would be dead!

So really you'd be only left with adepts following the 'Way of Chuck Norris'

Lies!
Chuck Norris will never die!

You forgot mister Rogers.

Mr. Rogers is dead. Has been since 2003.

I'm aware of that. It was a referance to "The ulitimate showdown of ultimate destiny ".