Actual Impaling Question

[Koningkrush]

I suppose that is another way of looking at it that I hadn't thought of (and easier). You could completely go without caps, and assume high amounts of damage don't necessarily mean more destroyed tissue, but more important destroyed tissue.

Another problem though is that shouldn't a bullet that does more than 1xHP in damage (which means it went through your body) guarantee a vitals hit? I really can't think of a part of your torso where there is absolutely nothing important.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Koningkrush

I suppose that is another way of looking at it that I hadn't thought of (and easier). You could completely go without caps, and assume high amounts of damage don't necessarily mean more destroyed tissue, but more important destroyed tissue.

But then, somehow, a faster bullet always hits somewhere more important.

Originally Posted by Koningkrush

Another problem though is that shouldn't a bullet that does more than 1xHP in damage (which means it went through your body) guarantee a vitals hit? I really can't think of a part of your torso where there is absolutely nothing important.

Vitals don't include every part of your body that you'll regret having damaged.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Koningkrush

I suppose that is another way of looking at it that I hadn't thought of (and easier). You could completely go without caps, and assume high amounts of damage don't necessarily mean more destroyed tissue, but more important destroyed tissue.

Another problem though is that shouldn't a bullet that does more than 1xHP in damage (which means it went through your body) guarantee a vitals hit? I really can't think of a part of your torso where there is absolutely nothing important.

In terms of you dying instantly (as opposed to dying eventuality) almost all of is "not important"


Now you have stuff that will impair function pretty much immediately. E.g a punctured lung or bleed into you trachea will mess with your overall breathing quickly.

A hole in you heart will likely instantly mess with your circulatory system.

A hole in a major blood vessel will also quickly effect what it leads to (and the immediate effects fo thet will depend on what it is), and then the whole thing as you "lose pressure" in the system (think of it like central heating)


You have system shock which is is a bit of a nebulous concept, and has lots of variables (but basically isn't cleanly and linearly expressed by just wound size) but inter links with circulation so much it's hard to actually separate them.

You have things in your torso that will leak very unpleasant stuff into you and that will cause complications later, but that is long term. Also leaking into you can mean pooling in your abdominal cavity or pooling underneath you as it leaks out the new holes in you body, as well as getting into tissues you don't want it in.

You have mechanical damage that is breaking things that are used to do ongoing stuff. That can have immediate effects. For example if you break enough ribs you might get a "flail chest" that will inhibit breathing. Holes in the diaphragm will also do this.

Some organs have lots of blood vessels in them and so will bleed worse than other bits.

But think about it like this, while you torso has little in it that you can live without long term, it has quite a lot in it that it can live without short term.

Think about what keeps you alive second by second, then minute by minute, then hour by hour, then day by day.


Then we have stuff like structural muscle (the stuff that keeps us upright and helps walking, balance etc), that can get holes in it with little immediate danger, and negative effects are degradation of ability to function as a whole, rather than an immediate overwhelming loss of function.

We have for want of a better term packing and cushioning material, fats, connective tissue and the like.

Limbs are more mechanical in nature and have less spare space in them (you break a joint, or tear a big enough chunk of extensor muscle out, you can't flex that joint) Of course they have blood vessels too.

You get stories of people getting shot through the love handles with rifles and they walk around with it. (and well some of us have larger love handles than others ;-0 )




Remember there is only one cause of death and that's the brain dying of oxygen starvation

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

But then, somehow, a faster bullet always hits somewhere more important.

Yep that's another point.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Vitals don't include every part of your body that you'll regret having damaged.

Yep

[Patinho Amarelo]

Originally Posted by Koningkrush

..So the rules basically say after 1xHP damage (if using bleeding rules), the weapon/projectile has gone through the body and stops inflicting injury...

Sorry. Where in the book say that? I look and didn´t find anything.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Koningkrush

What are the rules for actual impaling?

For actual impaling:
Roll Carpentry, Engineering (Combat), Traps or probably Animal Handling or Farming to surround something with a fence of spikes. Roll Heraldry to correctly impale arms.
:)

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Originally Posted by Rupert

3e had that, mostly, and it had some odd effects. For example, this means that a 7.62x51mm NATO APHC bullet doing 7d pi- would only ever do 10 x 0.5 = 5HP damage to a 10-HP target.

I may have misunderstood this rule but I always applied the AP damage modifier before limiting the damage done to the victim by blow-through. So a 7d 7.62 NATO AP round would do to an unarmored target an average of 7 x 3.5 or 24.5 points of damage, halved to 12.25 (call it 12) which still nicely disables most humans.

Back in 3e my rules was 'damage is capped at HP, injury at HP or HP x wound modifier, whichever is higher' to avoid this. It still makes .45 ACP ball noticeably more effective than 9x19mm ball rather than slightly, which is a bit annoying.

Anecdotally, it is. While the 9mm Parabellum has more energy, the .45, with its bigger bullet, tends to dump more of its energy into the victim, er, target. Certainly seems to have more stopping power.

12.7 x 99mm and up will literally tear a human torso apart with just single shots in ways impossible for a Human to survive .
[From Mr. Frost, p. 2]

GURPS WW II tried to address this by saying that the blow-through rules did NOT apply to 12.7x99 rounds -- created the odd situation where a .50 cal. Vickers MG round would do fairly standard damage while the 12.7x99, w. same diameter bullet and about 30 percent more energy, would do c. 4 times the damage.

There is at least one real case -- on Tarawa in Nov. 1943, a USN fighter aircraft accidentally strafed a Marine platoon in a friendly fire incident. The gyrenes had hit the dirt but one man was hit and the 12.7x99 round went through the body diagonally from (IIRC) right shoulder to left hip, exiting thereon.

The unfortunate fellow did not explode or die on the spot but did bleed to death in from 1-2 minutes despite the best efforts of a corpsman. So that's probably a pretty good description of what happens.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

Do the rules distinguish between single-prone (like a spear or lance) weapons and multi-prong (say a military fork or a trident) thrusting/impalement weapons in terms of which would more realistically go all the way through?

Single-prong should usually be the only ones that do it. The connecting base of forks/tridents would push up against the chest and halt the thrust.

Although the ends of these tend to be pretty long in respect to humans so this might only come up with giants or with tiny tridents wielded by gnomes.

I don't think the rules do, but I would. I think I'd just rule that 3x the points means 3x the over penetration threshold.


but if you really get me thinking about that I might well increase DR as well as three prongs have to get pierce any armour in three places as well (EDIT: actually that's what the AD0.5 is about looking at the listing so never mind!)

[Lucian]

It may be unrealistic and simplistic, and may only work in my fantasy campaigns because weapons are all basically pointy things.

But I always just assumed an actual impaling on a body or vitals attack that results in 3 quarters total hp or more.

Usually this results in death so it's really just flavor description.

On npcs they are considered on the floor and dying at 0 hp only bosses get the same rolls as players.