Thanks to Hollywood and CNN I'm thoroughly up on what a bullet wound can look like. Thanks to college experience, I'm also aware of what laser burns look like. But a blaster is basically plasma yes? I don't have any idea of what that would look like.

Certainly there would be a burn component, presumably messy since the blaster "bolt" can spread on impact. There is also apparently kinetic energy, since we see people getting knocked back and spun around by blaster bolts. Kinetic energy indicates a potential for flesh penetration. Lastly, the bolts sometimes seem to explode when they hit something solid, like a camera or sensor.

I have a murder mystery sub-session that may come up soon, and I'd like a bit of verisimilitude in the wound descriptions.

Probably like white phosphorus with a blunt trauma effect I'd imagine.

Blaster are some kinda of weird laser particle beam hybrid... I have no idea what that means....

Now... in regard to the movies, I think Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are the most telling when it comes to a close up of a blaster would. In the shootout with Luke and the Stormtroopers/Boba upon his arrival at Bespin, we see impacts up close on the wall next to Luke. And in Jedi we see Luke's hand take a hit.The points I notice are A) They aren't very deep, B) They are pretty big around, and C) they are burning, a couple are actually on fire. This would suggest that Blasters provide a physical impact (but not that much) plenty of heat, and are really quite good at transferring all the energy of the bolt to target without much penetration (important to a space faring society). As a result blaster bolt impacts on flesh would likely be pretty nasty (so the typical crit of 3 makes sense) but not very deep, and involves lots of 3rd degree burns. Taking a look at Luke's hand, that's about what we get. It's big around (say about he size of a half dollar, which is pretty big if you assume an actual blaster bolt is roughly the same caliber as say a 9mm bullet) and leaves plenty of char, but doesn't go deep enough to actually cause the hand to stop working.

Good enough?

Blaster are some kinda of weird laser particle beam hybrid... I have no idea what that means....

Now... in regard to the movies, I think Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are the most telling when it comes to a close up of a blaster would. In the shootout with Luke and the Stormtroopers/Boba upon his arrival at Bespin, we see impacts up close on the wall next to Luke. And in Jedi we see Luke's hand take a hit.The points I notice are A) They aren't very deep, B) They are pretty big around, and C) they are burning, a couple are actually on fire. This would suggest that Blasters provide a physical impact (but not that much) plenty of heat, and are really quite good at transferring all the energy of the bolt to target without much penetration (important to a space faring society). As a result blaster bolt impacts on flesh would likely be pretty nasty (so the typical crit of 3 makes sense) but not very deep, and involves lots of 3rd degree burns. Taking a look at Luke's hand, that's about what we get. It's big around (say about he size of a half dollar, which is pretty big if you assume an actual blaster bolt is roughly the same caliber as say a 9mm bullet) and leaves plenty of char, but doesn't go deep enough to actually cause the hand to stop working.

Good enough?

And in flesh I imagine about the same depth as the walls on Bespin. Which is about an inch or so. but I imagine the burn damage would go down 3 to 5 inches. which would be very lethal. Now armor would likely mean the damage would spend all the depth on the armor but the burn would still go down a couple inches.

A little Anatomy Lesson. On most of your torso you have 2 inches or so of muscle and fat. 4 inches is hitting organs and 6 inches is likely to be fatal without Medical attention. So a burn that goes a 2 hemisphere would hurt a lot likely knocking most people unconscious. A 5 inch sphere of burnt stuff would likely be very fatal to most people.

Well we never see sprays of blood in the films / cartoons, but at the same time we can assume that surface damage alone would not kill someone. So either there's some sort of system shock component (e.g. like a taser that stops your heart) which I don't think is the case, or the wounds are deeper but not prone to bleeding. Ergo my guess would be a burnt cavity in the body and the heat was so intense that it is largely cauterized instantly. Of course there will be some liquid from leakage of blood and plasma (the bodily fluid kind) so the wound may be wet, a little bloody, but mostly I would expect a blackened crater of fused bone, muscle / organs, and fat, the tissue almost entirely sizzled away from the heat of the bolt.

I would imagine barbeques are a no go area for combat veterans with PTSD... "that smell..."

There seems to be quite the energy transfer when blasters hit inanimate objects as shown during the explosions from Han's shots on Tatooine and the holes in the walls of Cloud City. I guess blaster wounds are not pretty, part holes blown in tissue, part burned tissue or even still burning.

The wounds would look horrific burns at the impact and burns around the wound. The image below would be classed as a minor hit from a blaster.

I imagine that the closest we could get right now is the wound from a small explosion going off at skin level.

Mishandled fireworks comes to mind.

According to Wookieepedia:
Blaster bolts themselves carried no heat. On impact, however, their displacement of matter produced kinetic energy that causes heat: the atmosphere was displaced by the bolt's passage (causing the blaster's iconic sound^%5B4%5D); materials struck by bolts tended to deform and fuse; and liquids inside organic bodies instantly changed state to steam, expanding and doing terrible damage to surrounding tissue.^%5B5%5D Consequently, bolts usually dissipated in a small, but violent, explosion of extreme heat and force upon contact with an unshielded surface, sometimes leaving blast points. Weapons such as Han Solo's DL-44 heavy blaster pistol and the E-11 blaster riflecould cause incredible destruction, and had the power to blow large chunks from stone walls and smaller holes and pockmarks out of durasteel bulkheads, as seen in Han Solo and Luke Skywalker's raid on Detention Block AA-23 in 0 BBY.^%5B6%5D

So, that would indicate to me, that it would basically be similar to fireworks going off on your bare skin.

Blaster are some kinda of weird laser particle beam hybrid... I have no idea what that means....

Now... in regard to the movies, I think Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are the most telling when it comes to a close up of a blaster would. In the shootout with Luke and the Stormtroopers/Boba upon his arrival at Bespin, we see impacts up close on the wall next to Luke. And in Jedi we see Luke's hand take a hit.The points I notice are A) They aren't very deep, B) They are pretty big around, and C) they are burning, a couple are actually on fire. This would suggest that Blasters provide a physical impact (but not that much) plenty of heat, and are really quite good at transferring all the energy of the bolt to target without much penetration (important to a space faring society). As a result blaster bolt impacts on flesh would likely be pretty nasty (so the typical crit of 3 makes sense) but not very deep, and involves lots of 3rd degree burns. Taking a look at Luke's hand, that's about what we get. It's big around (say about he size of a half dollar, which is pretty big if you assume an actual blaster bolt is roughly the same caliber as say a 9mm bullet) and leaves plenty of char, but doesn't go deep enough to actually cause the hand to stop working.

Good enough?

And in flesh I imagine about the same depth as the walls on Bespin. Which is about an inch or so. but I imagine the burn damage would go down 3 to 5 inches. which would be very lethal. Now armor would likely mean the damage would spend all the depth on the armor but the burn would still go down a couple inches.

A little Anatomy Lesson. On most of your torso you have 2 inches or so of muscle and fat. 4 inches is hitting organs and 6 inches is likely to be fatal without Medical attention. So a burn that goes a 2 hemisphere would hurt a lot likely knocking most people unconscious. A 5 inch sphere of burnt stuff would likely be very fatal to most people.

Just perspective: The Bespin walls were hit by at least Blaster carbines/rifles. Fett's may have been modded as well. I suspect the penetrative power would vary by the power of the weapon in question, with lighter pistols having little, and heavy rifles having more.

Still a couple inches is nasty while still being a little less likely to punch through a starship's pressure hull.

I imagine that the closest we could get right now is the wound from a small explosion going off at skin level.

Mishandled fireworks comes to mind.

According to Wookieepedia:

Blaster bolts themselves carried no heat. On impact, however, their displacement of matter produced kinetic energy that causes heat: the atmosphere was displaced by the bolt's passage (causing the blaster's iconic sound^%5B4%5D); materials struck by bolts tended to deform and fuse; and liquids inside organic bodies instantly changed state to steam, expanding and doing terrible damage to surrounding tissue.^%5B5%5D Consequently, bolts usually dissipated in a small, but violent, explosion of extreme heat and force upon contact with an unshielded surface, sometimes leaving blast points. Weapons such as Han Solo's DL-44 heavy blaster pistol and the E-11 blaster riflecould cause incredible destruction, and had the power to blow large chunks from stone walls and smaller holes and pockmarks out of durasteel bulkheads, as seen in Han Solo and Luke Skywalker's raid on Detention Block AA-23 in 0 BBY.^%5B6%5D

So, that would indicate to me, that it would basically be similar to fireworks going off on your bare skin.

I always take Wookieepedia with a grain of salt, they tend to make too broad assumptions and treat everything like it's the best everything ever.. That said... that's not too bad of a basic interpretation, and the firework comparison is pretty good.

I always take Wookieepedia with a grain of salt, they tend to make too broad assumptions and treat everything like it's the best everything ever.. That said... that's not too bad of a basic interpretation, and the firework comparison is pretty good.

Well, that's mostly due to the source material... The EU stories tend to blow everything out of proportion and Mary-sue every character...

Judging from the movies, though, I don't think they're very far off.

I think of Han's shots in the landing bay as hitting something in the wall, fuel pipes etc, similarly other targets like the cameras. His shots in the landing bay would mean he would've blown himself to pieces shooting Greedo under the table if the shot was the sole source of the effect.

I think of Han's shots in the landing bay as hitting something in the wall, fuel pipes etc, similarly other targets like the cameras. His shots in the landing bay would mean he would've blown himself to pieces shooting Greedo under the table if the shot was the sole source of the effect.

Han's shot actually went through Greebo: there is smoke coming out of the back of the dead Rodian afterwards. When Han hits, there is also a big flash/explosion obscuring the whole screen and lots of smoke.

Han fires a couple of shots at different areas in the hangar, all having pretty much the same effect.

The wounds would look horrific burns at the impact and burns around the wound. The image below would be classed as a minor hit from a blaster.

This. Look how far the damage goes beyond the impact point.

I think of Han's shots in the landing bay as hitting something in the wall, fuel pipes etc, similarly other targets like the cameras. His shots in the landing bay would mean he would've blown himself to pieces shooting Greedo under the table if the shot was the sole source of the effect.

Han's shot actually went through Greebo: there is smoke coming out of the back of the dead Rodian afterwards. When Han hits, there is also a big flash/explosion obscuring the whole screen and lots of smoke.

Han fires a couple of shots at different areas in the hangar, all having pretty much the same effect.

There's a hole in Greedo, there's tombstones sized cunks of masony flying out of the landing bay wall. Pretty different level of effect.

I think of Han's shots in the landing bay as hitting something in the wall, fuel pipes etc, similarly other targets like the cameras. His shots in the landing bay would mean he would've blown himself to pieces shooting Greedo under the table if the shot was the sole source of the effect.

Han's shot actually went through Greebo: there is smoke coming out of the back of the dead Rodian afterwards. When Han hits, there is also a big flash/explosion obscuring the whole screen and lots of smoke.

Han fires a couple of shots at different areas in the hangar, all having pretty much the same effect.

There's a hole in Greedo, there's tombstones sized cunks of masony flying out of the landing bay wall. Pretty different level of effect.

But then, that structure is largely made up of what looks like clay... very brittle when it comes to explosions, which blaster bolts kinda cause.

From the description on wookieepedia, I'd also speculate that the effects vary wildly depending on the material it impacts.

Don't look at the bolt as "an explosive fired from a weapon" that explodes in a certain way no matter the target (like a modern grenade launcher).

It's more of an "effect" fired from a weapon that interacts with the target differently depending on its compsition.

I think of Han's shots in the landing bay as hitting something in the wall, fuel pipes etc, similarly other targets like the cameras. His shots in the landing bay would mean he would've blown himself to pieces shooting Greedo under the table if the shot was the sole source of the effect.

Han's shot actually went through Greebo: there is smoke coming out of the back of the dead Rodian afterwards. When Han hits, there is also a big flash/explosion obscuring the whole screen and lots of smoke.

Han fires a couple of shots at different areas in the hangar, all having pretty much the same effect.

There's a hole in Greedo, there's tombstones sized cunks of masony flying out of the landing bay wall. Pretty different level of effect.

Maybe re-watch the scenes? The explosions on impact in both instances are rather close in terms of radius / fire / sparks / smoke. Han's blaster blows debris out of the walls, but only one bigger piece falls down at his last shot, the rest is much smaller, certainly not tombstone-sized. Your point that Han's shot at Greebo would have been rather dangerous to himself is actually true, as the explosion when he hits Greebo is very close to him and quite big. One second Greebo fills the frame, the next there is this explosion totally obscuring him.

And when you take a look in the scene which the Falcon leaving the hangar, you can see the mark from Han's last shot above the hangar doors and the damage to the structure is actually not that big, more like the usual scorch marks.

I think of Han's shots in the landing bay as hitting something in the wall, fuel pipes etc, similarly other targets like the cameras. His shots in the landing bay would mean he would've blown himself to pieces shooting Greedo under the table if the shot was the sole source of the effect.

Han's shot actually went through Greebo: there is smoke coming out of the back of the dead Rodian afterwards. When Han hits, there is also a big flash/explosion obscuring the whole screen and lots of smoke.

Han fires a couple of shots at different areas in the hangar, all having pretty much the same effect.

There's a hole in Greedo, there's tombstones sized cunks of masony flying out of the landing bay wall. Pretty different level of effect.

Maybe re-watch the scenes? The explosions on impact in both instances are rather close in terms of radius / fire / sparks / smoke. Han's blaster blows debris out of the walls, but only one bigger piece falls down at his last shot, the rest is much smaller, certainly not tombstone-sized. Your point that Han's shot at Greebo would have been rather dangerous to himself is actually true, as the explosion when he hits Greebo is very close to him and quite big. One second Greebo fills the frame, the next there is this explosion totally obscuring him.

And when you take a look in the scene which the Falcon leaving the hangar, you can see the mark from Han's last shot above the hangar doors and the damage to the structure is actually not that big, more like the usual scorch marks.

The problem with rewatching the scenes and working out the weapons from there is that a) the weapons in question don't exist and b) the effects on screen were based on what the director wanted vs the safety of the people on set and not designed for any consistency beyond "that looks good." So, a bigger explosion can be done to a prop than could be safely set off against a human actor. So, lots of smoke and sparks doesn't really mean it was a big explosion off of Greedo, but that sparks and smoke were safer to set off in large amounts near the actors versus the squibs that were used in the hanger scene. On top of that, stuff falling down or whatnot depends on the material the set builders placed around the squibs.

I think of Han's shots in the landing bay as hitting something in the wall, fuel pipes etc, similarly other targets like the cameras. His shots in the landing bay would mean he would've blown himself to pieces shooting Greedo under the table if the shot was the sole source of the effect.

Han's shot actually went through Greebo: there is smoke coming out of the back of the dead Rodian afterwards. When Han hits, there is also a big flash/explosion obscuring the whole screen and lots of smoke.

Han fires a couple of shots at different areas in the hangar, all having pretty much the same effect.

There's a hole in Greedo, there's tombstones sized cunks of masony flying out of the landing bay wall. Pretty different level of effect.

But then, that structure is largely made up of what looks like clay... very brittle when it comes to explosions, which blaster bolts kinda cause.

From the description on wookieepedia, I'd also speculate that the effects vary wildly depending on the material it impacts.

Don't look at the bolt as "an explosive fired from a weapon" that explodes in a certain way no matter the target (like a modern grenade launcher).

It's more of an "effect" fired from a weapon that interacts with the target differently depending on its compsition.

Clay can have a high moisture content. I don't actually recall the scene so I can't say if this would fit, but if it were clay with a high moisture content that went from cool to super-hot in a moment, I imagine you could have something of a spray of it coming out.

I doubt very much a building made for ships to take off and land in would be constructed of clay. If the effects of Hans shots were the sole source of destructiveness, Greedo would have been blown to fragments.

It looks like whatever you want it to look like in your game:) Or you can have the player of the first character who sees the blaster wound come up with and describe what it looks like!

I doubt very much a building made for ships to take off and land in would be constructed of clay. If the effects of Hans shots were the sole source of destructiveness, Greedo would have been blown to fragments.

It depends on the details... An old rocket test facility near my office is made from a special kind of concrete. It looks the same as ordinary concrete, but if the fuel inside were to have exploded the buildings were built to disintegrate into pebbles so as not to rain huge chunks of concrete on the rest of the complex.

Tatooine's docking bay may have been made with a similar concern. They are designed as pits and made from friable concrete (or it's outer space equivalent) so if a starship blows the damage will be minimized. Odd initially when you think of things like Coruscant's floating platforms, but remember that unlike more civilized worlds Tatooine doesn't have the systems in place to really control who or what touches down. So a little extra protection from the junkers that's covered in animal parts and leaking midichlorians from the hyperdrive might not be a bad idea....

Also in jedi, Leia takes a hit to the arm. While painful for a period of time, she doesn't seem to have any lasting effects? Though we never actually see the wound itself, but during the end she gives Luke a big ol hug like nothing happened. (Though, this is possibly more story-based heroic healing rather than anything based on how this might actually effect people).

Also in jedi, Leia takes a hit to the arm. While painful for a period of time, she doesn't seem to have any lasting effects? Though we never actually see the wound itself, but during the end she gives Luke a big ol hug like nothing happened. (Though, this is possibly more story-based heroic healing rather than anything based on how this might actually effect people).

We also don't see if one of the Rebel medics slapped a salve on it that might numb the pain and start healing the wound.

I doubt very much a building made for ships to take off and land in would be constructed of clay. If the effects of Hans shots were the sole source of destructiveness, Greedo would have been blown to fragments.

Accumulated fuel residue from a poorly maintained space port frequented by hand-me-down spaceships? Walls could be grimy with the stuff, cleaned only by the occasional blaster fight or worker who smokes.

Which scene are we talking about, anyway?

I doubt very much a building made for ships to take off and land in would be constructed of clay. If the effects of Hans shots were the sole source of destructiveness, Greedo would have been blown to fragments.

Why wouldn't they be made out of clay?

We're not talking about present-day rocket launches here... ships use repulsors to take-off and land. There's no heat generated, pretty much. They could (and have in the EU) land in wooden structures just as easily.

And no, greedo wouldn't have been blown to fragments. He'd have a hole right through him, which he appeared to have in the movie.