Slam Damage

[DouglasCole]

Looking at slams for a moment.

First, you REALLY have to work hard to eke out more than 1d slam damage. For a normal human of 8-15HP, you'll need to be at Move 7+ to even THINK about getting a full 1d damage without AoA (Strong).

So, assuming one DOES do All-Out Attack (Strong), you get a range of 1d-1 to 1d+2 for all but someone who's HP 15 and Move 10 (!).

For the case of 1d-1, if you roll a 1, you do zero damage, right? Slam damage isn't one of the cases where you automatically get a 1.

Also, that All-Out Attack (Strong) in the human range is a MASSIVE boost to slam that the defender doesn't get. It's +2 or +1/die, which will be +2 in nearly all "regular human" cases.

Has anyone run games with lots of slams (Bruno the minotaur, I'm looking at you) in which the various permutations of this have been worked through in-game. I don't have a feel for if this feels believable or not.

[vierasmarius]

An average ST 10, Move 5 human will do the same damage with a slam as with a kick or trained punch. A ST 20, Move 5 character does half as much damage with a slam as with a kick. Clearly, there are scaling problems, or at least inconsistencies, when comparing normal muscle damage and Slams. Not to mention the mechanic of comparing the two damage rolls to determine who gets knocked over. I'd much prefer a unified system based on the normal Knockback or Knockdown rules, with a bonus for higher-speed slams instead of basing damage directly on speed.

[Mailanka]

Yeah, I've had similar problems with it for awhile. Plus slams don't seem to get any bonus from things like the character being in lots of armor, despite the fact that the same person moving at the same speed but with lots of added weight (potentially hundreds of pounds, in the case of power armor) doesn't seem to do any additional damage RAW.

I suppose the reason damage doesn't scale with ST as much as punch or kick is to reflect the fact that speed has more of an impact on slams than damage, and it keeps falling damage and car crashes from being too instantly lethal, but still, I'm often left with a "why bother?" when it comes to slam-tactics.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

An average ST 10, Move 5 human will do the same damage with a slam as with a kick or trained punch. A ST 20, Move 5 character does half as much damage with a slam as with a kick.

One issue here is that while it's referred to as "slam damage," as near as I can tell, it's not really "damage." It's neither penetration nor injury, I don't think. It's really "effect points."

Though they do call it crushing damage in the rules, but if so, it's not mutually applied, DR doesn't hold, etc.

Still, a 150lb dude running at you at 10mph is going to hurt, so equating this to a punch, as ACTUAL INJURY, might not be too far wrong an approach. We'll see. Only issue I see there is that it required 8pts of damage (like a swung mace) to do one hex of knockback, but 8pts of damage is a stove-in chest and multiple broken ribs. It doesn't take that much trauma to slam someone back a hex or two. So some sort of injury reduction would have to apply.

Clearly, there are scaling problems, or at least inconsistencies, when comparing normal muscle damage and Slams. Not to mention the mechanic of comparing the two damage rolls to determine who gets knocked over. I'd much prefer a unified system based on the normal Knockback or Knockdown rules, with a bonus for higher-speed slams instead of basing damage directly on speed.

As a quick hack, try

Sqrt (ST x Speed x 5) as the effective ST of the attack, and look up that on the thrust table on p. B16.

[Anthony]

Much of the issue is that ST scaling is off; ST 20 should do 2x the damage of ST 10, not 3.5x.

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

One issue here is that while it's referred to as "slam damage," as near as I can tell, it's not really "damage." It's neither penetration nor injury, I don't think. It's really "effect points."

Though they do call it crushing damage in the rules, but if so, it's not mutually applied, DR doesn't hold, etc.

Wrong on all these points. It's damage, each object in the collision indeed inflicts real crushing damage going to HP on the other.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

Wrong on all these points. It's damage, each object in the collision indeed inflicts real crushing damage going to HP on the other.

True enough. Missed that, somehow.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Has anyone run games with lots of slams (Bruno the minotaur, I'm looking at you) in which the various permutations of this have been worked through in-game. I don't have a feel for if this feels believable or not.

I'm afraid I can't comment on the RAW slams as Mark uses his own house rules for slams.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I'm afraid I can't comment on the RAW slams as Mark uses his own house rules for slams.

Which are? the house rules say as much or more about RAW than RAW.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I'm afraid I can't comment on the RAW slams as Mark uses his own house rules for slams.

FWIW my house rules on slams:

For every 2 points by which a slam succeeds, the damage the attacker takes is reduced by 1.

I don't mess with the amount of damage people do, but I do make it so that if someone blindsides someone else it's a lot more likely that they can drop them without taking any damage themselves.