Quote:
Originally Posted by safisher
One of the fundamental problems in RPGs in general is that damage is generally treated in an unrealistic way. We all know that in D&D the Hit Point is silly -- the house cat and all that. But even in GURPS damage is not scaled very well in regards to how armor is treated. This certainly because DR and it's metrics were pinned down in later books.
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Yep this is certainly true, and is true for the effect on wounding past armour as well. GURPS is better than most but ultimately is designed to be a fun game to play not a wound simulator.
Quote:
Originally Posted by safisher
If using bleeding rules, a one hit point cutting attack causes bleeding, which can kill you. With HT 10, this probably won't happen, but a few failures and successes, and a critical failure can put you in bad shape in a few minutes.
If you use the Severe Bleeding rules in Martial Arts, a single one hit point cutting attack to the neck is HT-2 every 30 seconds. An average knife slash to the throat in this case can be fatal, even if the target is wearing proper armor.
In other words, in GURPS, a one point wound is severe! It's a potentially life threatening situation, regardless, considering the HT rolls for infection. There are no inconsequential combat wounds in GURPS.
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I'd say there are too many variables within the system to say a one point wound is severe, as you point out not all one point wounds are equal. A one point bleeding wound to a vein/artery in the neck with the MA realistic injury rules is rather more concerning than a 1 point crushing wound that's not bleeding.
This variation in immediate and possible long term effects is one of the things that GURPS get's right IMO.
If nothing else while all one point wounds could conceivably be life threatening (if you use the specific rules and have the right combination of rolls). A first aid roll can have them disappear pretty quickly as well. Of course depending on where they are that might not be true!
Also an average knife slash to an armoured neck? It's going to depend on what's average. A long knife in ST10 hands will be doing 1d-1 cut so an average of 2.5 damage. Most neck armour will happily protect against that without even needing edge protection (and it's the bleeding on that location which is the potential killer).
However as I footnoted in my post, what counts as "inconsequential" is it's own discussion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by safisher
Every attack is potentially deadly, and the armor rules, no matter how correct the mm measurements and pounds per square feet folks try to get it, fail to consider the outcomes of the intersection between defense and wounding and fatality.
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I certainly agree that every attack has the potential to be life threatening, but a realistic treatment of armour (and a whole lot of other factors) will impact on those chances. IME it's that intersection and balance that the folks are after.
Take that knife slash example. Against an unarmoured neck and it gets nasty pretty quickly even though the initial attack isn't huge damage. But put some armour on that neck and the risk drops markedly.
Ultimately there's a reason why the high value targets namely skull and vitals were armoured first if possible. Neck's a bit of a fringe one, armouring it is harder than those two but getting hit there is also harder.