07-18-2013, 12:29 PM | #11 |
Join Date: Jan 2010
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Re: IT:DR (Armored Flesh)
Ah, just skipped the later parts to be honest. Sorry.
I still think "round down" is insufficient to represent the way a mass of hard material behaves. I can't do any damage to a block of steel with my fists, okay that's solved by rounding down fair enough, but a one meter cube would probably ignore a rifle bullet too. That requires IT:DR 18 in order to work. If we're trying to get behavior kind of like GURPS RAW then a one meter steel cube can withstand an APFSDSDU round without taking any damage. IT:DR 1387 (round down) strikes me as a strange way to represent that resilience. A weapon twice as powerful (four times the energy) would then do one or two points of damage. Little Boy (the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima) wouldn't even reduce it to 0HP, barely a noticeable amount of damage. Remember, objects in 4e get to survive down to -HP just like characters. (Yes I have a bad habit of editing after I post, so, uh, yeah.) Last edited by lexington; 07-18-2013 at 12:34 PM. |
07-18-2013, 12:57 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: IT:DR (Armored Flesh)
No problem.
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RHA steel should only always have IT:DR 54 or so. A 1 meter cube of steel would give 2756 DR. How much damage is that APFSDSDU round doing? Even if doesn't punch all the way through, I'd imagine something like that to at least cause some damage to the cube. |
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07-18-2013, 01:02 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: South Dakota, USA
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Re: IT:DR (Armored Flesh)
Varyon, I am not seeing the problem with the normal rules. As I read your responses, it seems like you can't get the rules to model what you are looking for... because you're expressly avoiding the rules that you need to be using.
HP and DR are abstractions and you need to to model what is happening as closely as possible the RAW before turning to something homebrewed; you're getting "weird" results because you aren't modeling what is; a block of steel is not "steel HP" wrapped in "steel armor"; the DR of a block of steel represents the difficulty of damaging the steel itself. If you put more than a superficial scratch, dent, or ding into the steel you should be dropping its HP. If we had a block of fleshlike material, there is no DR. If a being is composed of fleshlike material (but not that of a standard biology) so that a pin still pricks him but an arrow doesn't appear to penetrate too far or cause him serious injury, it means he's got an incredible amount of HP. At least, I thought it did. >.>
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My GURPS Fourth Edition library consists of Basic Set: Characters, Basic Set: Campaigns, Martial Arts, Powers, Powers: Enhanced Senses, Power-Ups 1: Imbuements, Power-Ups 2: Perks, Power-Ups 3: Talents, Power-Ups 4: Enhancements, Power-Ups 6: Quirks, Power-Ups 8: Limitations, Powers, Social Engineering, Supers, Template Toolkit 1: Characters, Template Toolkit 2: Races, one issue of Pyramid (3/83) a.k.a. Alternate GURPS IV, GURPS Classic Rogues, and GURPS Classic Warriors. Most of which was provided through the generosity of others. Thanks! :) |
07-18-2013, 01:36 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Re: IT:DR (Armored Flesh)
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DR gives you a shell of protection - often an eggshell syndrome at high TLs where you have lots of DR and any attack that can reasonably penetrate hundreds/thousands of DR by a few percentage points will completely wipe away a dozen or two HP in a single hit. Last, if you're using point values IT:DR scales (much like SuperST was introduced to scale ST) where DR doesn't. Using straight DR just gives you absurdly high point values that doesn't accurately represent it's usefulness. |
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07-18-2013, 02:07 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: IT:DR (Armored Flesh)
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Let's scale down my old example to a one-inch cube, which gives cover DR of 70. What would the stats of this cube be by GURPS RAW? HP is easy enough - it's eight times the cube root of the cube's weight in lb (a 1 inch cube weighs 0.28 lb, for HP=5). As a homogenous object, we know only 1/4 of this value is used for cover, so it's just 1. This means the additional DR 69 must be possessed by the cube itself. I don't think GURPS ever outright states if natural DR is assessed twice or only once for determining how much cover something gives, so we'll calculate doing both. Let's shoot this chunk of metal with a pi bullet. We'll start assuming DR 34.5, assessed twice. Up to 10d, our bullet simply bounces off, causing nothing more than a cosmetic scratch. At 11d, the bullet punches into the cube (3.5 damage, for 1 injury) but can't get through. At 12d it gets a little further (5 damage - the blowthrough limit), but doesn't really cause any more damage (still 1 injury). At 13d-19d, it doesn't get any further whatsoever. Finally, at 20d, it just barely punches through (without enough energy remaining to cause damage), and after this it punches through reliably. If we ignore the blowthrough cap, then starting at 11d the cube continuously takes damage. At 20d, it takes 35 damage, for 11 injury (pi is 1/3 for homogenous, right?), meaning it risks destruction at this point. Next we'll look at DR 69, assessed once. Up to 19d, nothing happens. At 20d, the bullet just barely punches through (1 damage, for 1 injury). After this, it punches through reliably. Now, let's give IT:DR 54 a shot, using lwcamp's injury houserules (and allowing for fractional damage, which is unfortunately necessary here on account of such a small chunk of matter). Up through 4d, we again see no damage (less than 1/16 HP). At 5d, we have .32 damage - a Scratch (bullet managed to make a dent). This is still the case from 6d to 9d, but at 10d we upgrade to a Minor Wound (got a bit further). We hit the blowthrough limit (1.25) at 20d, just as we blow through (for what is still a Minor Wound). So, we end up with a bit more natural of a stepwise progression. I should note here that the injury houserules are pretty much mandatory, as otherwise this chunk of steel is either extremely vulnerable (taking 1 point per hit without Round Down) or extremely resilient (requiring 16d to actually take any damage with Round Down). EDIT: We can get an even smoother progression if we extend out lwcamp's injury rule to allow for single hits to give multiple "wounds." That is, you could have a single hit function as multiple Scratches if it's closer to the middle of the Scratch range. So, injury up to 1/8 (=10/80) HP is normally a Scratch - now we'll say this is 5 Scratches. Injury up to 9/80 HP is 4 Scratches, 8/80 is 3 Scratches, 7/80 is 2 Scratches, and 6/80 (but more than 5/80=1/16) is 1 Scratch. Obviously, using such rules in play requires having a chart for the character to determine each "injury threshold," but that's a good idea in general with lwcamp's house rule. Last edited by Varyon; 07-18-2013 at 02:19 PM. |
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07-18-2013, 03:07 PM | #16 | ||
Join Date: Jan 2010
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Re: IT:DR (Armored Flesh)
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A weak person cannot lift 100 pounds. A moderately strong person struggles to lift 100 pounds. A very strong person can easily lift 100 pounds. A weak bullet cannot do any damage. A more powerful bullet struggles to do damage. A very powerful bullet easily does damage. Quote:
Last edited by lexington; 07-18-2013 at 03:10 PM. |
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07-18-2013, 03:43 PM | #17 |
Join Date: Oct 2005
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Re: IT:DR (Armored Flesh)
You appear to be DRAMATICALLY misunderstanding the way GURPS DR is assigned to objects. The one-inch steel cube does not have DR 69. The one-meter block does not get the benefit of DR 2520 for itself. Not even close. You can't back-calculate from the simple, approximate cover DR equation. The primary source of resilience for large homogeneous chunks of stuff is their HP. They have some DR, but drastically less you seem to be assuming.
You're operating from a drastically incorrect baseline, and it seems to me that the results your getting are making objects absurdly resilient. 6dx3 is a pound and half of TNT; 6dx100 is 2500 pounds of TNT, more than a ton. |
07-18-2013, 04:07 PM | #18 | |||
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: South Dakota, USA
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Re: IT:DR (Armored Flesh)
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The important thing to remember is that these are ultimately abstracts because legitimately calculating how much energy is being exerted by a guy swinging a sword at you, exactly where he should hit, and exactly how the energy will transfer from the blade to your armor (if being worn) and flesh (or whatever constitutes you) is complicated... even before we consider that your body isn't homogenous. It also sounds like the relationship here is being inverted; a certain mass usually indicates a certain amount of HP; as a complete abstraction, HP scores are assigned based on reality checking (when applicable) or creator intent (with regards to function in the setting) when that isn't an option. Quote:
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For example, Extra Hit Points cost 5 points per level under the 3e rules. They didn't prove worth that, so in 4e they now only cost 2 points per level (I think-no book handy). It made a lot more sense to do that than to come up with some new mechanic that was priced more fairly.
__________________
My GURPS Fourth Edition library consists of Basic Set: Characters, Basic Set: Campaigns, Martial Arts, Powers, Powers: Enhanced Senses, Power-Ups 1: Imbuements, Power-Ups 2: Perks, Power-Ups 3: Talents, Power-Ups 4: Enhancements, Power-Ups 6: Quirks, Power-Ups 8: Limitations, Powers, Social Engineering, Supers, Template Toolkit 1: Characters, Template Toolkit 2: Races, one issue of Pyramid (3/83) a.k.a. Alternate GURPS IV, GURPS Classic Rogues, and GURPS Classic Warriors. Most of which was provided through the generosity of others. Thanks! :) |
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07-18-2013, 04:27 PM | #19 | |
Join Date: Jan 2010
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Re: IT:DR (Armored Flesh)
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We know that a 1 inch plate of steel covering ten square feet (that's one meter on each side) gets DR56 and HP60. When you double the thickness DR doubles. When you halve the thickness DR goes down by half (this is true down to 1/8" so it seems to be the canonical progression). HP has a canonical progression based on mass which is easy to get. A one meter cube would then get DR2205 and HP202. The vast majority of its durability is represented by DR. I think the issue is that "fails to penetrate DR" does not mean "bounces off" it just means "does not threaten the structural integrity of the object". |
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07-18-2013, 05:10 PM | #20 | |
Join Date: Oct 2005
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Re: IT:DR (Armored Flesh)
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Actually, I'm pretty sure that attacking anything but a lump of flesh (and probably a more-or-less human-dimensioned lump of flesh) is outside the design case. The frigate and the muskets come to mind. |
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damage reduction, injury tolerance |
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