Hit Points...to be, or not to be?

[RyanW]

I think what is truly wrong with HP is that in some systems, which shall remain nameless, only the last one matters. GURPS does a good job of averting this, overall.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Varyon

A normal human who swallows a TL 9 HEC thimble grenade should die when it explodes, but could take as little as 12 HP Injury from it

I agree with the point you're making, but to be unnecessarily nitpicky I'm pretty sure that when someone swallows a grenade they always take maximum damage from it and triple that for vitals (I'm assuming Basic 415 means to combine the rules for Contact and Internal, otherwise you somehow take less damage for eating a grenade than landing on it).

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by RyanW

I think what is truly wrong with HP is that in some systems, which shall remain nameless, only the last one matters. GURPS does a good job of averting this, overall.

Agreed. And even then in the 'unnamed system' you can be one second away from dead-as-a-doornail and then have a low level spell get you instantly back on your feet and into the fight in a single turn.

GURPS also has enough dials to turn if you want injury to be really nasty. Bleeding. Infections. Organ damage...

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I agree with the point you're making, but to be unnecessarily nitpicky I'm pretty sure that when someone swallows a grenade they always take maximum damage from it and triple that for vitals (I'm assuming Basic 415 means to combine the rules for Contact and Internal, otherwise you somehow take less damage for eating a grenade than landing on it).

I don't, because 'contact' seems to mean something different from 'was hit by', and a hit to the vitals, even an internal one, might mean a perfect hit or it might not.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Suppose you shoot someone in the neck with a large cannon, or slash them with a lightsaber. It would be absurd if it was literally impossible for their head to come off because you didn't specifically target the spine.

I argued that the 1 in 6 chance of hitting the spine during rear attacks could be applied for frontal attacks that overpenetrate the HP of the throat.

A large cannon which hits the neck might just rip off the flesh along the side of it when it's not hitting central enough to hit the spine. Or maybe non-central hits push the neck/person off to the side as it rips off flesh.

Regarding force swords, is there even a damage distinction for that comparing thrusts to swings for TB burn?

[thrash]

Originally Posted by thrash

Robert O'Connor, who is a medical doctor, wrote a series of posts for the Traveller Mailing List in the early 2000's, with the expressed intent of doing away with hit points. His solution was to combine hit location and weapons damage (reduced or altered by armor) to arrive at a qualitative assessment of wound severity:

I am reminded that The Morrow Project has a super-detailed wounding system. It does use hit points of a sort (divided into structure points and blood points), but the odds for major injury results (death, decapitation, unconsciousness, etc.) are based on the damage done, not the structure points of the hit location.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Rupert

I don't, because 'contact' seems to mean something different from 'was hit by', and a hit to the vitals, even an internal one, might mean a perfect hit or it might not.

I guess I don't know the difference between "I'm entirely on top of a grenade, with my flesh pushing against it into the ground" and "I swallowed a grenade, with my flesh pushing against it into my flesh". Due to how explosives work, I can't ever see the latter being less destructive than the former.

Note that's particularly with swallowing. A follow-up grenade might be able to get under the skin but no necessarily be completely surrounded with your body, letting much of the explosion outward, which would result in the possibility of a low roll.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I guess I don't know the difference between "I'm entirely on top of a grenade, with my flesh pushing against it into the ground" and "I swallowed a grenade, with my flesh pushing against it into my flesh". Due to how explosives work, I can't ever see the latter being less destructive than the former.

So make the maximum normal damage a floor on how much the damage roll can do. I don't think 'three times maximum damage' is intended or a good idea.

Another question for internal explosion is "how many fragment hits do they cause?"

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I guess I don't know the difference between "I'm entirely on top of a grenade, with my flesh pushing against it into the ground" and "I swallowed a grenade, with my flesh pushing against it into my flesh". Due to how explosives work, I can't ever see the latter being less destructive than the former.

Note that's particularly with swallowing. A follow-up grenade might be able to get under the skin but no necessarily be completely surrounded with your body, letting much of the explosion outward, which would result in the possibility of a low roll.

I'm pretty certain there have been previous rulings by Kromm that the "maximum damage from contact" doesn't apply in the case of internal explosions, but I can't find them. I've seen some suggestions that it should be a case where an internal explosion is instead "triple Injury or maximum damage, whichever is higher," which I could certainly get behind. Do note the chances of Injury less than what you'd get with a contact explosion is really quite low - if you were to roll a 2 on every die, you'd be equal to a contact explosion, so to be less you have to roll lower than that.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I've seen some suggestions that it should be a case where an internal explosion is instead "triple Injury or maximum damage, whichever is higher," which I could certainly get behind. Do note the chances of Injury less than what you'd get with a contact explosion is really quite low - if you were to roll a 2 on every die, you'd be equal to a contact explosion, so to be less you have to roll lower than that.

Originally Posted by Rupert

So make the maximum normal damage a floor on how much the damage roll can do.

These do make perfect sense. It's still odd, and is now making me question if taking maximum damage from dropping on an explosive actually makes sense.

Originally Posted by Rupert

Another question for internal explosion is "how many fragment hits do they cause?"

This is largely why I was thinking triple maximum. Those fragments have exactly one direction they can go and that is through you. Maybe the explosion merely does triple damage (for hitting vitals) but fragmentation does triple maximum due to tearing through you(r vitals) and to emulate every possible fragment being guaranteed to hit you. With No Vitals, that means regular explosion and maximum fragmentation damage, which my gut says feels right but I'm not confident about.