Firearms, joules and damage dice

[Atgxtg]

6 hours ago, Matt_E said:

I am reminded of the ongoing scene in "Reservoir Dogs", where the hero is slowly, slowly bleeding out from a shot to the gut. Even if it's not totally realistic, it makes for good drama. :-)

It's not all that unrealistic either. In some cases, a person could bleed to death slowly, over days, or even not bleed to death at all. Then there would be the problems of the wound going septic and something like gangrene setting in. 

[Questbird]

6 hours ago, SDLeary said:

The nature of firearms is such that it essentially rendered ancient armor obsolete, or at least made it so difficult to make an effective armor that weight of armor becomes a serious issue. This was done because of the force applied by the projectile would punch right thru, with enough retained force (yes, I know I'm not using the accurate terms here) to still cause serious injury. In order to deal with this, I think we need to revive an idea that we'e floated on these forums before: Penetration Value. Whether this would be a class/class number, or simply a number of armor points that the projectile ignored, I'm not sure of the right answer at the moment.

We should probably take that to another thread though if we want to talk about that. In fact, we might want to do that anyway as we have strayed quite a bit from the original topic.

 

Swords of Cydoria, which is admittedly a pulpy swords and blasters game rather than a realistic firearm simulation, simply halves the rating of armour vs. firearms. It makes armour ineffective and makes the weapon damage for firearms more important.

[SDLeary]

2 hours ago, Questbird said:

Swords of Cydoria, which is admittedly a pulpy swords and blasters game rather than a realistic firearm simulation, simply halves the rating of armour vs. firearms. It makes armour ineffective and makes the weapon damage for firearms more important.

This is a simple solution for the current range of firearms damage, but it still leaves firearms too powerful against unarmored characters. 

And I think simulation is probably the wrong term. I'm not actually trying to model firearms, as much as I'm trying to provide more accurate terminal results. So I guess you could say I'm more modeling the effects of firearms on their targets rather than firearms themselves. 

For example, I have no trouble eyeballing firearms damage. I do think that Sandy's groundwork and the OPs formula does set things too high though.  

SDLeary

Edited November 22, 2016 by SDLeary

[Questbird]

On 11/18/2016 at 2:29 PM, SDLeary said:

I think in order to normalize the list closer to real world observation, the d12 has to be revived, and all adds removed.  

 

This seems like another simple fix. I mean that in a good way. To summarise:

1.) Increase the variability in gunshot damage to allow for grazes and clean punctures as well as lethal shots.

2.) Make armour worthless (or half worthless as in Swords of Cydoria) vs. firearms.

3.) If you take any damage, make a CONx5 roll to avoid bleeding 1hp per hour/minute/combat round depending on normal/special/critical success until staunched by a successful First Aid roll (perhaps difficult if self-applied).

[Thot]

6 hours ago, Questbird said:

Swords of Cydoria, which is admittedly a pulpy swords and blasters game rather than a realistic firearm simulation, simply halves the rating of armour vs. firearms. It makes armour ineffective and makes the weapon damage for firearms more important.

Ahem. This is also BRP's approach.

[Questbird]

Just now, Thot said:

Ahem. This is also BRP's approach.

Well, this is a BRP thread. 

[Atgxtg]

15 hours ago, SDLeary said:

This is a simple solution for the current range of firearms damage, but it still leaves firearms too powerful against unarmored characters. 

Somewhat, but then again we have to consider firearms compared to other weapons. I don't think that a typical hit from a sword is going to do much more damage than a bullet from a .45. It just inflicts the damage differently.

[SDLeary]

5 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Somewhat, but then again we have to consider firearms compared to other weapons. I don't think that a typical hit from a sword is going to do much more damage than a bullet from a .45. It just inflicts the damage differently.

If its a rapier or epee then I can agree. Most swords though probably have a higher chance of encountering an artery in the limb areas, and if thrusting will have a larger entrance wound (and an increased chance of cutting an artery), though admittedly not the expanding wound channel of a bullet. 

If we are going to ignore armor (or have it) with bullets, and keep things at full with Melee, then the only real issue with Melee is the adds. Minimize or eliminate those, and I think Melee is good.

SDLeary

EDIT: Oh... and moving great sword back to 1d12

Edited November 22, 2016 by SDLeary

[Questbird]

37 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

If its a rapier or epee then I can agree. Most swords though probably have a higher chance of encountering an artery in the limb areas, and if thrusting will have a larger entrance wound (and an increased chance of cutting an artery), though admittedly not the expanding wound channel of a bullet. 

If we are going to ignore armor (or have it) with bullets, and keep things at full with Melee, then the only real issue with Melee is the adds. Minimize or eliminate those, and I think Melee is good.

SDLeary

EDIT: Oh... and moving great sword back to 1d12

So you have an issue with the pluses on damage dice for all weapons? Why are they such a problem? I can see that with bullet wounds it's possible to have light or heavy wounds. But melee weapons ARE stopped by armour, so is their damage still a problem with the adds?

Edited November 22, 2016 by Questbird

[SDLeary]

5 hours ago, Questbird said:

So you have an issue with the pluses on damage dice for all weapons? Why are they such a problem? I can see that with bullet wounds it's possible to have light or heavy wounds. But melee weapons ARE stopped by armour, so is their damage still a problem with the adds?

Mainly because like firearms, Melee weapons, and archaic missile weapons can graze.

A broadsword at min does 2-3 points of damage. Considering thats 1/6 to 1/4 the HP of the average character, thats not really a graze. Lowering that minimum to 1 or two (two assuming a damage bonus) shouldn't adversely affect interaction with armor that much (depending on which armor values we choose).

SDLeary

[Thot]

But isn't a grace as such below the detail resolution of BRP anyway? In other words, not even 1 point of damage would be low enough to represent a graze.

 

I'd rather depict grazes and superficial wounds by saying "if the attacker rolls 1-5 above his to-hit chance, it is a grace. No actual damage, but it hurts a bit and might infect".

[Atgxtg]

14 hours ago, Questbird said:

So you have an issue with the pluses on damage dice for all weapons? Why are they such a problem? I can see that with bullet wounds it's possible to have light or heavy wounds. But melee weapons ARE stopped by armour, so is their damage still a problem with the adds?

Because every melee weapon should be able to inflict a 1 point wound. And it gets worse if you use hit locations. A minimum damage dagger hit from an average man will disable an arm for any unarmored person with 15 hit points or less. 

[Questbird]

10 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Because every melee weapon should be able to inflict a 1 point wound. And it gets worse if you use hit locations. A minimum damage dagger hit from an average man will disable an arm for any unarmored person with 15 hit points or less. 

Hmm. I don't use hit locations so this is not a problem for me. However I see your point (so to speak).

The main problem is that any change which overrides published damage ratings for weapons becomes a royal pain to use in play, when you want to quickly look something up.

[SDLeary]

20 hours ago, Thot said:

But isn't a grace as such below the detail resolution of BRP anyway? In other words, not even 1 point of damage would be low enough to represent a graze.

 

I'd rather depict grazes and superficial wounds by saying "if the attacker rolls 1-5 above his to-hit chance, it is a grace. No actual damage, but it hurts a bit and might infect".

I'm using graze, but you could easily call it a superficial wound, as it is more severe than a paper cut or rug burn.

Any human scale weapon, and any human scale non explosive missile weapon should be able to inflict a single point of damage at a minimum. In terms of missile weapons, once we get to larger caliber items, like .50 BMG, the base threshold should probably be raised to 2.

All of this is just opinion of course, but I do see an issue with weapons that can leave an area useless, if using Locations, with the lowest possible damage rolls.

*cough* Kukri

SDLeary

 

[SDLeary]

2 hours ago, Questbird said:

Hmm. I don't use hit locations so this is not a problem for me. However I see your point (so to speak).

The main problem is that any change which overrides published damage ratings for weapons becomes a royal pain to use in play, when you want to quickly look something up.

Differing weapon damages is nothing new though. Short spear went from 1d6+1 in RQ2 to 1d8+1 in RQ3; likewise Long spear went from 1d8+1 to 1d10+1. And those are just the two that I remember. I'm sure there are others that changed.

SDLeary

[Questbird]

59 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

Differing weapon damages is nothing new though. Short spear went from 1d6+1 in RQ2 to 1d8+1 in RQ3; likewise Long spear went from 1d8+1 to 1d10+1. And those are just the two that I remember. I'm sure there are others that changed.

 

The problem is not that they change, it's that the published sources -- which players and GMs use during the game -- don't. I guess you could print out a revised datasheet or something to overcome that though.

[g33k]

I like 1 pt for a "graze", if you implement this...

Doesn't really matter if it's a battle-axe-and-a-half wielded by a great troll, or a 50mm shell from an anti-materiel sniper:  if it just "grazed" (broke skin, bleeding freely, but no contact or impact on muscle or bone)... there really isn't any justification for any graze (even from a devastatingly-huge weapon) to do any more damage than a graze from e.g. a sgian-dubh.

 

[Atgxtg]

On 11/26/2016 at 3:41 PM, g33k said:

I like 1 pt for a "graze", if you implement this...

Doesn't really matter if it's a battle-axe-and-a-half wielded by a great troll, or a 50mm shell from an anti-materiel sniper:  if it just "grazed" (broke skin, bleeding freely, but no contact or impact on muscle or bone)... there really isn't any justification for any graze (even from a devastatingly-huge weapon) to do any more damage than a graze from e.g. a sgian-dubh.

 

Actually there is. A "graze" from a 120mm tank round could tear off more skin and cause more bleeding than one from a 9mm pistol round. But it's probably not all that significant in game terms. Odds are even if someone was only grazed by a tank gun round, they'd probably be close enough to the tanks target to go up in the secondary explosion anyway.

 

I can see using a new datasheet with weapon damages. As SDLeary has already pointed out, it's not like this would be the first time. Especially for firearms. I think the damage for for some firearms has already been changed three or four times over the years in various pre-BRP RPGs.

The question more along the lines of what values will we be happy with? What we need is some sort of consensus of about what damage vales we want for some benchmark weapons, and then we can ft the curve to get values for other weapons.

We also have to keep in mind how the new damages will relate to armor and vehicles. We need to make sure that round will be able to penetrate what they should, and not penetrate what they shouldn't. 

[SDLeary]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

The question more along the lines of what values will we be happy with? What we need is some sort of consensus of about what damage vales we want for some benchmark weapons, and then we can ft the curve to get values for other weapons.

I'm not opposed to adds, either flat adds or multiple dice, but the way they are applied now, things are just too off. In any event, if d12 is used, then we do have to worry about adds in anything above that. In my own estimation, I would say that break point should probably be around .50cal, anything below that should rely on a single die.

I would suggest that adds be additional dice rather than flat, as the latter can get seriously ridiculous.

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

We also have to keep in mind how the new damages will relate to armor and vehicles. We need to make sure that round will be able to penetrate what they should, and not penetrate what they shouldn't. 

This, of course, is the real trick. A "rifle" round (Spitzer) will "generally" do less damage that the equivalent round nosed slug, but will penetrate barriers better while retaining damaging energy. Do we introduce Penetration Value as a new weapon stat? Is this based on a number of points of damage ignored (independent of damage value of the weapon), or is it more a level thing (firearms ignore archaic armor, or a portion thereof)?

Personally, I'm more inclined to the former rather than the latter.

SDLeary

[MJ Sadique]

On 24/11/2016 at 3:43 AM, SDLeary said:

Differing weapon damages is nothing new though. Short spear went from 1d6+1 in RQ2 to 1d8+1 in RQ3; likewise Long spear went from 1d8+1 to 1d10+1. And those are just the two that I remember. I'm sure there are others that changed.

RQII and RQIII are basically speaking two differents games... not the same damage, nor the same armor and not the same scale of play (RQII Chaosim is ideal for Antic-perdiod, RQIII Avalon is more a early-Medieval oriented system).

On 26/11/2016 at 9:41 PM, g33k said:

I like 1 pt for a "graze", if you implement this...

7 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

A "graze" from a 120mm tank round could tear off more skin and cause more bleeding than one from a 9mm pistol round. But it's probably not all that significant in game terms. Odds are even if someone was only grazed by a tank gun round, they'd probably be close enough to the tanks target to go up in the secondary explosion anyway.

A "Graze" causing 1pt damage is overkilling : 3 pts damage which render your arm useless is "a severe wound", 2 pts damage is a medium wound, 1pt damage is a light wound. With twelve light : you DIE ! With 12 grazes of 1PV, you can die (of laugh). A simple graze should/could be a 1/10 to a 1/100 of the weapon damage which give realistic effect :

-A D4+2 Dagger can do 6 pts at max and a tenth make 0 damage for a graze-cut. (no wound)
-a 10mm gun (v7 Cthulhu give 1D10) should at max make 10 pts damage and a 1Pt damage graze in best/worst case. (light wound)
-a 120mm canon can pierce 720mm of steel. Medieval armor was 1-4 mm of steel (around 1D6 PA per mm), with 3,5 PA per mm it make 720*3,5*1/100 = 25 pts. A graze from Atgxtg 120mm canon will overkill you 2 times with a standard 12HP human (an overkill wound).

A graze should be more like a punishing whip (not the battle whip with 1D4 Damage in RQIII) causing some bleeding and hurting (with 1% to 1D10% malus of pain) without any real wound which can endanger a life. In basic, the life points division cannot simulate anything lesser than a light wound (swiss knive size), You could only use fatigue point or malus percentile or malus dice (Cthulhu v7).

[g33k]

Cue Black Knight:  "It's Just a Flesh Wound!!!"

More seriously, one could indeed argue that "minor wounds" are simply not worth treating with a "hit point" mechanic; "death of a thousand paper cuts" is a known problem with some RPG mechanics.

The problem with penalty mechanics, I think, is two-fold:  one is the risk of "death spiral" mechanics, where minor penalties make the character slightly less-effective, earning larger penalties & being much-less-effective, etc.  The other is even more key, to me:  why would a "minor wound" (no HP's of damage) cause a greater penalty than a substantive multi-HP wound?

In this context, I rather like the Ars Magica 5e system:  you can take an essentially unlimited number of minor/moderate/major injuries (but take cumulative -1/-3/-5 penalties (on a d10 + stat + skill) from ALL the wounds combined); a few of these injuries into a combat, and you are not only less-effective you become MUCH more likely to sustain more wounds, and wounds tend to be worse.  There are also "incapacitating" injuries (where you can't really take any meaningful action any more), and a "deadly" injury (yeah, you know what THAT is); while possible early-on in combat (especially facing a Cave Troll with a battle axe, or the like), incapacitation/death get more likely as the fighters begin operating under injury penalties...  A given injury CAN get worse, either by over-exertion in the field or bad medical care, or just bad luck (bad dice!). Long term, there is the risk (in healing) of not fully healing: a scar, a limp, a bad eye, etc...

There is no single "hit point" pool that you draw down from, just the injuries, and their impact on what you can do; it's very much a "death spiral" mechanic -- unapologetically so!  I am ambivalent about that, as there's a very real risk of players sliding into "I just can't do anything anymore... every roll is just more unFun than the last!"

It's not a perfect system (even aside from my ambivalence about DeathSpirals)... there is (for example) no substantial attention given to ideas like "cumulative blood loss" (leading to death), or a non-disabling but deadly gut-wound, nor other "slow effect" injuries.

But the ArM5e mechanic gives a conceptual framework of "injuries as limits to action" rather than the videogame-like "health-meter" effect of strictly HP-based mechanics.  It clearly works well with a "penalty" mechanic like MJSadique suggests above.

Occasionally, I have considered producing a fusion of RQ2/BRP "Hit Location" mechanics with ArM5 "Injuries" system...

 

[Atgxtg]

 

4 hours ago, MJ Sadique said:

A "Graze" causing 1pt damage is overkilling : 3 pts damage which render your arm useless is "a severe wound", 2 pts damage is a medium wound, 1pt damage is a light wound. With twelve light : you DIE ! With 12 grazes of 1PV, you can die (of laugh). A simple graze should/could be a 1/10 to a 1/100 of the weapon damage which give realistic effect :

It depends on how literal you mean by "graze". For example, it's possible for some bullets to crease the skull, doing little relative damage but not penetrating too deeply. Likewise it's also possible for a .50 cal round to just take off a pinkie. 

What might help here would be some sort of Stun/Shock roll that the character must make when injured to continue acting. A Willpower roll for example. A "0 point" graze could do do no damage but still trigger the Stun/Shock roll. We could even determine the difficulty of the Stun/Shock roll by the damage taken. No damage would require an easy roll, some damage a normal roll, and a major wound (or location disabling) wound could require a difficult roll. 

And the nice thing about a Stun/Shock roll is that it (and by extension "grazes") could be an optional rule.

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, SDLeary said:

I'm not opposed to adds, either flat adds or multiple dice, but the way they are applied now, things are just too off. In any event, if d12 is used, then we do have to worry about adds in anything above that. In my own estimation, I would say that break point should probably be around .50cal, anything below that should rely on a single die.

I'd say the break point should probably be a little lower. Probably just past the 7.62mm. Big game ("elephant") guns seem about right to me. 

4 hours ago, SDLeary said:

I would suggest that adds be additional dice rather than flat, as the latter can get seriously ridiculous.

I agree, although I could see using a flat +1. 

Although...a huge add might be a better way to handle heavy weapons, since it would give a more consistent damage total for aromr penetrating purposes. Lets face it, no normal person is going to survive a hit from a LAW rocket or such. 

4 hours ago, SDLeary said:

This, of course, is the real trick. A "rifle" round (Spitzer) will "generally" do less damage that the equivalent round nosed slug, but will penetrate barriers better while retaining damaging energy. Do we introduce Penetration Value as a new weapon stat? Is this based on a number of points of damage ignored (independent of damage value of the weapon), or is it more a level thing (firearms ignore archaic armor, or a portion thereof)?

Personally, I'm more inclined to the former rather than the latter.

SDLeary

Yeah. I was thinking that maybe the weapon ignores armor points equal to the lower of the damage roll or PEN value. That way armor might be able to deflect a marginal hit. But it's still a bit tricky. I could see some of the small caliber "penetrator" rounds not working out. Or perhaps would could up the damage die for weapons with good AP but then apply a penalty to the final damage. Something like bumping a weapon that does 1d6 up to 1d8, but subtracting 2 from the final damage score. 

Once we figure out what we want the damages to be, we should probably assign ballistic armor AP scores based on real world info (i.e.  NIJ ratings or some such) on just what rounds they are supposed to stop. 

[Atgxtg]

So can we agree on desired damages for various benchmark calibers?

For example, .22LR, 9mm Parabellum, .45 ACP, .357M, .10mm, .44M, 5.56mm, 7.62 NATO, .50BMG to get the ball rolling. 

[SDLeary]

5 hours ago, MJ Sadique said:

RQII and RQIII are basically speaking two differents games... not the same damage, nor the same armor and not the same scale of play (RQII Chaosim is ideal for Antic-perdiod, RQIII Avalon is more a early-Medieval oriented system).

No, that wasn't the reason. Ostensibly it was due to the change in the figuring of SIZ and  the resulting increase in HP. It was odd that it didn't factor to all weapons though.

SDLeary