Fat as DR

[AlexanderHowl]

IRL, there are a number of reasons for warriors to have substantial body fat, as it protects vital organs and muscles from crushing blows and slashing blades. One way to realistically represent this is through the HP rules in Martial Arts. Another way to realistically represent it though would be to allow characters to buy DR (Semi-Ablative, -20%; Tough Skin, -40%) [2 CP/level]. Skinny characters would not be able to purchase it, Average people could purchase one level, Overweight people two levels, Fat people three levels, and Very Fat people four levels. What do you think?

[Polydamas]

Are you sure? Fat is easy to cut.

Some unarmed sports encourage extra weight, because they are limited to weapons and strikes which make it hard to injure their targets, or because they have to move their opponents and there are no weight classes. Those are not relevant to typical fights in an adventure story, where characters are usually either serious about hurting their opponents and use weapons that are much harder than flesh and bone, or trying to grapple and take control of opponents.

I think that GURPS Martial Arts offers a way for boxers etc. to buy limited DR against crushing.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Average people could purchase one level, Overweight people two levels, Fat people three levels, and Very Fat people four levels. What do you think?

I think you're extremely optimistic about the DR from moderate levels of fat. Enough fat would give a little DR, but it would be enough to limit the plausibility of being Fit, and the cheap +1 to HT rolls for Fit is very worthwhile.

[Rupert]

In my experience skinning pigs, fat provides no effective resistance to cutting at all. As someone who's carrying a fair bit of fat, I'm sceptical it's giving me any protection, though it does give a minor shift of my comfort range to lower temperatures (and I suspect it's taking more off the high end than it's giving at the low end).

[Donny Brook]

Somewhere on this forum is a very brief discussion where Dan Howard mentions how you would scale armor DR if you were to assign DR1 to one inch of flesh.

Edit: Here it is -- http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...9&postcount=65

[Bruno]

Mythbusters did testing with muscle and with fat. Both tissues basically didn't do anything at all. Your best hope is that you're being shot at with hollow point bullets, and you're so fat that the bullet has a chance to tumble in your fat layers before getting close to vital organs. That's not "overweight" - that's Very Fat indeed - and even then that's not a DR effect, that's just being so fat that you can justify a penalty to find your vital organs. [1]

Cinematically, I could see Fat or Very Fat justifying 1 or 2 DR for Crushing Only with the Tough Skin limitation, total cost 1/level. But only to a max of 2, and I would require an Unusual Training perk for each level. Overweight is definitely not enough to handwave it.

Realistically, someone with Overweight, Fat, or Very Fat could buy Extra HP with very little need for justification.

Side Note: Whale blubber is quite helpful, but it's not "fat". It's quite hard for a "soft" tissue, sort of like an eraser; it's full of collagen, the bodies structural material, unlike human fat. It's also got fat cells, but it's not "fat" at all. It's part of a whales pressure-resisting armor for deep diving, as well as thermal insulation, and armor against predators, prey (for hunting species), parasites, and fighting in-species.

[1] We adopted a cat who was so fat the vet "lost" his kidneys. Per his blood-work he clearly had working kidneys, but they couldn't be found on X-Ray. After dieting as much as we could manage with He Of The Very Round Tummy, we could find one of the kidneys, but it was ball-shaped from visceral fat. We never did get photographic evidence that there was a second one in there somewhere in the chub, although the vet remained convinced there was a second one.

[Flyndaran]

Thick fat is certainly at least as protective as wolf fur which gives DR 1.

[Icelander]

Having a substantial fat layer does make it easier to cause visually dramatic wounds that are not debilitating, for example for gladiators. So it's useful for entertainers.

This does not mean that fat is useful as protection from bullets. Basically, even .22 LR has more than enough penetration to pose a realistic threat to human life, but that doesn't guarantee instant incapitation.

Pistol bullets may occasionally hit at an angle and be insufficient to penetrate the epidermis, fat and human muscle well enough to reach a lethal depth of organs. It's just a pretty unreliable bet as your only protection.

As for real military arms, like rifles or muskets, fat is basically irrelevant. Common military weapons will penetrate through a normal person with a breastplate just as well as a fat person. Just like wearing archaic armour, fat doesn't grant enough of a benefit against any kind of useful firearm to matter.

GURPS is pretty realistic in this regard.

[Lohengrin]

GURPS Space rates blubber from DR 2 (dolphins) to DR 4 (Whales). Seems like human fat could be one of the justifications for DR 1 with Tough Skin you are allowed with Special Exercises perk, but hardly more.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Mythbusters did testing with muscle and with fat. Both tissues basically didn't do anything at all.

What variety of attack types though? How do you measure an injury?

At best I think maybe DR 1 (tough skin -40% crushing only -40%) [1] for either.