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Old 09-07-2010, 02:55 PM   #26
vitruvian
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: Blunt Trauma and Skulls

Quote:
Originally Posted by Langy View Post
Yeah, but worn armor isn't flexible at all unless it's specified as being flexible.

One of the problems is that non-flexible armor doesn't protect completely against blunt trauma in real life, so it shouldn't provide complete protection in GURPS. A further problem is that innate, non-flexible DR also wouldn't provide any greater blunt-trauma protection against falls than non-innate non-flexible DR in real life. That's because the 'blunt trauma' damage from a fall is caused by your squishy insides being all jostled around, and a hard plate of armor would not protect against that at all, since it'd be the same as just falling flat on hard pavement.
Plenty of innate DR could best be defined as your whole body being tougher, though, not just your skin. Once you get into levels of innate DR high enough for blunt trauma to even matter (i.e., DR 5+), you're not talking armadillo plates or rhino hide or even turtle shells any longer, you're talking about dragons, or golems made of stone or metal, or supers like Luke Cage and Superman, who are tough through and through. Shoot, if it was just a matter of preventing penetration, it wouldn't help against Crushing at all, and would just prevent wounding modifiers from other damage types, rather than actually subtracting from damage.

Bottom line, though, the Damage Resistance Advantage, when bought by a character, is just not defined as flexible to anything unless it actually takes the Flexible limitation. Just as important to character creation as only getting what you pay for is getting everything that you pay for.

Armor that you buy with $ and wear can have it's stats defined more realistically without impacting this principle, since it's not actually a part of the character (unless bought as Sig Gear, and even then the cost is based on $ price rather than utility).
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