Diffuse/Shadow Form and cover DR.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Plane

If you have 10 HP and 2 DR your cover DR is 12, I think. I like the injury cap being the cover cap, just can't find it in book.

It should be 14, provided they aren't using AP rounds (DR in + flesh HP + DR out, unless you're "thin"). "Injury" doesn't generally play into that.

You use less HP for Unliving and Homogeneous because those types should have more HP for their weight (double for unliving and quadruple for homogeneous, as per the index) respectively. Diffuse shares the same modifier as homogeneous, so I'd treat it as 1/4, though I can't recall the last time overpenetration actually came up. Most "shields" try to have enough DR that they don't leak damage through...

Also, if you adjust HP for weight making air and fire weigh little with water and earth being much heavier, then you get reasonable results. If you keep them all roughly equal, you'll need to adjust the size/density of each elemental for it to work out.

[Plane]

The strange situation about Body of Water is I wouldn't necessarily expect them to have DR against Burning Attack like Body of Fire does, but even though fire could easily harm them (evaporate) you'd expect that to put out the flames...

Though perhaps a steam cloud coming out the back end would still be a kind of Burning Attack?

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Plane

The strange situation about Body of Water is I wouldn't necessarily expect them to have DR against Burning Attack like Body of Fire does, but even though fire could easily harm them (evaporate) you'd expect that to put out the flames...

Though perhaps a steam cloud coming out the back end would still be a kind of Burning Attack?

It's easy to explain/rationalize what is in the template, or you can adjust or create a new template to fit what elementals are like in your game world.

Note that if you treat Diffuse like Homogeneous, the Body of Water doesn't offer much protection from any attack. It doesn't have any DR, and the HP would only could 1/4 as DR for the target behind. Body of Earth starts with DR2, so it would be 1/4 HP (which I believe rounds down) + 2 x 2DR for 6 cover DR vs Water's 2.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by naloth

Note that if you treat Diffuse like Homogeneous, the Body of Water doesn't offer much protection from any attack. It doesn't have any DR, and the HP would only could 1/4 as DR for the target behind. Body of Earth starts with DR2, so it would be 1/4 HP (which I believe rounds down) + 2 x 2DR for 6 cover DR vs Water's 2.

Depending on the attack, Body of Water should give more cover... for instance against bullets.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Depending on the attack, Body of Water should give more cover... for instance against bullets.

More cover in general, more to only certain attacks, more cover relative to Body of Earth, or move cover relative to its HP? It's easy to either justify more HP as a 125-216 lbs for Diffuse comes out to HP 40-48.

[Plane]

Isn't 2xDR for suits of armor that have a distinct front and back?

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Plane

Isn't 2xDR for suits of armor that have a distinct front and back?

Grey? Gray? from the example adds his DR from both sides since he's not "thin."

Keep in mind that AP also works against the effective cover DR, not just actual DR.

A guy with DR10 on both sides and 20 HP (no IT), provides 40 cover DR, but an AP/2 attack will only count it as 20 DR. AP/10 would count it as 4 DR meaning it could end up doing similar damage to the target behind. Moral of that is you're not helping much by blocking AP rounds. Injury inflicted is not what reduces the attack.

[Plane]

Injury inflicted seems to correlate with the baseline DR you get from your HP though, at least for Unliving/Homogenous.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Plane

Injury inflicted seems to correlate with the baseline DR you get from your HP though, at least for Unliving/Homogenous.

What I meant was that the injury that the first target takes isn't related to what cover that target provides for the next in the line.

Example: Wallman has DR10, HP10. He's directly in front of unarmored a Vic taking bullets for him.

Wallman gets shot by a 5d+2 pi rifle, that ends up doing a total of 18 damage on a shot. Wallman provides cover DR 30 (DR + HP + DR), so Vic is perfectly safe, even though Wallman takes 8 injury.

The next gunman is a sniper using a 13d (2) pi+ .50 cal rifle. It rolls 46 damage. Wallman takes 36 pi+ (probably further multiplied by hitting vitals or the head) and Vic takes 46-15 (cover DR 30/2 for AP/2), or 31 pi+ damage, which could randomly hit a vital as well.

If Wallman had IT of some kind, he should take even less injury but that might work against Vic. IT would reduce the amount of HP that counts toward cover DR, so if Wallman doesn't buy proportionally more HP Vic would suffer even more damage.

[Hide]

Well, the main reason I would not give a diffuse object any cover DR relies on the fact it lacks the cohesion to stop damage. After getting hit, a diffuse object either splits in the middle of the air or envelopes the object dealing the damage.

It does not matter if it is bees, water, air, dust, shadow, etc. As long as it is diffuse, an object lacks effective cover DR. My interpretation is that having “injury tolerance diffuse” means you have an injury modifier and not a DR modifier or enhancement (cover DR included). Obviously, at this point there could be confusion because some injury modifiers and some cover DR types share the same name.

Thus, cover DR might apply to objects with homogenous or solid injury modifier but it does not mean that there is “diffuse cover DR” because there is a “diffuse injury modifier”.

I finally found an example with this notion.
GURPS Low tech p. 59 introduces the description of the NET:

“(…) It offers a Block defense of (skill/2) + 3, but provides no DB – and as it’s Diffuse (p. B380), it will only stop 1-2 points of damage if used to block (…)”