Quote:
Originally Posted by ak_aramis
Ty Beard had a high-tech adaptation and traveller crossover.
ISTR Ty hangs out here.
|
I do now :) Hey Wil; how have you been?
My sci-fi rules were designed explicitly to avoid the problem of equating penetration and damage (which leads to poorly armored characters typically being killed outright when hit by a modern weapon).
Basically, high tech weapons do a certain number of dice damage. High tech armor reduces each die by the armor’s rating. But it acts normally against Melee weapons. For instance, a heavy pistol does 2D damage. Heavy ballistic cloth armor stops 3 points of damage. It will reduce each die by 3 (but only to zero). Against melee weapons, it stops 3 points of armor. Primitive thrown/missile weapons doing 1 die or less damage are treated like melee weapons. Missile/Thrown weapons are treated like guns, with bonuses treated as a separate die. So the cloth armor would affect a longbow doing 1d+2 by stopping the +2 entirely and reducing the die by three. The armor would affect an Arquebuss (3D+3 damage) by stopping the +3 entirely and reducing each die by three points.
If you don’t like subtracting from each die, an easy way to handle hi-tech armor is to treat a 6 as no damage for 1 point hi tech armor, 5-6 for 2 point high tech armor, 4-6 for 3 point high tech armor, etc.
This system also allowed melee weapons to be reasonably effective against high tech armor...if you got close enough.
I’m not sure that this system is wildly realistic, but it was a reasonable approximation for 1982. And it played very fast, once you got used to it.