Should Plate Armor be Harder to Penetrate?

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

AoA does provide +2 or +1/die, whichever is better, as per MA. The damage bonuses of Super Throw, Weapon Master etc. work similarly.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

For the record, that's per the Basic Set.

Whoops. Shows how long it is since I've actually GURPed.

I'd always thought it a good idea for weapon base damage too, though. A sw+2 sword would then be a sw+2/die sword, but that could raise problems with too many adds.

[Ji ji]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

I think Kromm had considered changing the way that thrust and swing scale once they get wonky at higher levels, but didn't get around to it. I don't think there was ever any intention of messing with the table at the ranges we use in normal play.

Kromm told many years ago that ST and damage should be reworked, but it was not so evident during the development of 4th edition. There were other priorities.

Originally Posted by GODSLAYER

So I've been chatting with a few guys in a Games Design channel lately, and one of their issues with GURPS is that they feel that, historically, armor was much harder to penetrate than what the current rules represent.

I've heard this argument before. That melee weapons might have been effective vs. cheaper armor, but that vs. hardened steel plate you weren't going to have much luck getting through it.

I found an old thread on the topic here.

I'm wondering what your opinions are on it?

My opinion is that it’s a very big issue if your game is focused on combat and realistic simulation and there are many people/monsters going around with armour.

A simple fix is doubling DR, a solution proposed by many here. Years ago I did a lot of job to rescale armour DR on hard data and ended up with numbers between x1.5 and x2.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by mhd

Can we scale ST differently (with enough room to differentiate human-level chars) and leave DR/gun damage unmodified?

DX, IQ, and HT are all fine not going above 15 for ordinary characters; not sure why ST needs to be any different.

[Ji ji]

I think ST is different because its value directly relates with real-world measurements, while the others’ value is an abstraction with arbitrary average and SD - they works like the IQ scales.

EDIT: ok, now I understand better your point. I agree.

I think the problem is the holy Trimurti of: normal value range, marginal gain on Dmg for any single ST point bought, and keeping the current magnitudo for damage. It’s near impossible to solve the issue without sacrificing one.

[mhd]

Originally Posted by Anthony

DX, IQ, and HT are all fine not going above 15 for ordinary characters; not sure why ST needs to be any different.

Even at 15 it fails the basic premise of the thread, as you're still able to cut through plate -- even without a Lakota katana.

But going back to the differentation makes me think whether that's really all that important. I mean, early D&D players got along with 1d6 for everything and the occasional bonus for strength. Made magic weapons more important. So if we "correct" the damage and thus get samey values for the human spread (whether that goes to 15, 20 or 11), it might not matter as much as we might think. There's always HP and BL…

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by mhd

..

But going back to the differentation makes me think whether that's really all that important. I mean, early D&D players got along with 1d6 for everything and the occasional bonus for strength. Made magic weapons more important. So if we "correct" the damage and thus get samey values for the human spread (whether that goes to 15, 20 or 11), it might not matter as much as we might think. There's always HP and BL…

I agree with your basic point (see my earlier responses to vicky_molokh), an I can think of lots of RPGs that dont have different raneg fo st based damage for all range fo ST's.

But if you keep one aspect of ST static (or flattened) but others not you can end up with odd combinations.

E.g if we flatten the ST based damage but keep HP progression as it is you can end up with HP out stripping damage and bigger stronger people having a harder time hurting each other as compared to weaker less robust people.


Going with the D&D example you gave (although I'll use AD&D because it's the one I know) A 1st level fighter might on a good build be be swinging a long sword at 1d8+3 damage, at another level 1 fighter with 10-12 hps.


Add a few levels and the HPs will drastically outstrip the damage.

Now that an extreme example, but it's something to be aware of even in less extreme cases. Also systems like GURPS that don't just derive injury from ST mitigate this my having other steps involved in determining injury effect it. (damage type, bigger stronger people using bigger more damaging weapons etc).


I have to say every time this subject comes up, I'm more convinced that the solution here is best applied to the specific problem*, and that's how easily hand held melee weapons beat DR. So to me the more specific you make the solution the less unintended consequences of that solution you face. So I'd adjust DR, or for an even more specific fix give fractional AD to such weapons that might well do fine damaging flesh but don't do as well getting past armour.




*of course if you think there are other problems as well (e.g hand held weapons doing too much damage against bare flesh), than a wider solution works too!

[mhd]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

But if you keep one aspect of ST static (or flattened) but others not you can end up with odd combinations.

E.g if we flatten the ST based damage but keep HP progression as it is you can end up with HP out stripping damage and bigger stronger people having a harder time hurting each other as compared to weaker less robust people.

I think we'd be pretty okay on the "people" scale, as we're still within the margin of error of ST/HP deviation, trained damage, luck on HT rolls etc.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Going with the D&D exemple you gave (although I'll use AD&D because it's the one I know) A 1st level fighter might on good build be be swinging a long sword at 1d8+3 damage, at another level 1 fighter with 10-12 hps.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to compare each games damage model, I was just entertaining the thought that players might not be as insistent that ever ST point changes damage as we might think, using said early era and its OSR reanimators as an example. One might very well use the same franchise to argue against that, given that later editions introduced all the platonic solids for damage -- with AD&D even differentiating between 2d4 and 1d8…

As GURPS is generally less about deriving values but using them directly (especially for skill rolls), players might complain earlier. I've noticed a bit of that when I was using Half-Stat Defaults.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I have to say every time this subject comes up, I'm more convinced that the solution here is best applied to the specific problem

I think the big issue that makes people desire a unified field theory of smashin' stuff is that a few moving parts of the whole shebang actually have real world connections (BL, gun dmg, DR) whereas others don't. That makes it too tempting to have a proper "physics engine" that's consistent for everything, instead of just adjusting game values at the relevant paint point.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by mhd

I think we'd be pretty okay on the "people" scale, as we're still within the margin of error of ST/HP deviation, trained damage, luck on HT rolls etc.

True

Originally Posted by mhd

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to compare each games damage model, I was just entertaining the thought that players might not be as insistent that ever ST point changes damage as we might think, using said early era and its OSR reanimators as an example. One might very well use the same franchise to argue against that, given that later editions introduced all the platonic solids for damage -- with AD&D even differentiating between 2d4 and 1d8…

Yep I agree (I just thought I'd use the same example)

Originally Posted by mhd

As GURPS is generally less about deriving values but using them directly (especially for skill rolls), players might complain earlier. I've noticed a bit of that when I was using Half-Stat Defaults.

Although ST based skill rolls aren't that common, I guess?

Originally Posted by mhd

I think the big issue that makes people desire a unified field theory of smashin' stuff is that a few moving parts of the whole shebang actually have real world connections (BL, gun dmg, DR) whereas others don't. That makes it too tempting to have a proper "physics engine" that's consistent for everything, instead of just adjusting game values at the relevant paint point.

I agree, and I can see the desire that drives it but it leads to some odd places at times when we try and make range of different things conform to it.

As an example. A point that occasionally comes up (tangentially related to this thread's topic) is that because a reasonable .22lr out of a pistol has what 180-200j ish ME and is 1d+1 damage in GURPS terms therefore any hand held melee weapons (which would struggle to reach 200j) let alone human punches therefore can't possibly do close to that damage in the system.

Thing is while the calibration of Damage in GURPS partly derived from the ability of a bullets Ke to get past RHA is damn well thought out (ceratinaly and by RPG standards). It get's less and less relevant the more you move away from relatively tiny and very fast bullets getting through RHA and more towards relatively large and slow weapons interacting with flesh and protective layers.

So while no I don't imagine someone with an axe let alone a mace, or their fist can penetrate through sheet metal like a reasonably decent .22lr can, that doesn't mean I feel you should reduce handheld weapon or even hand damage solely based on that


They're just too different to really directly compare. Thing is the system partly recognizes this by giving .22Lr pi- and and sword or axe Cut* injury mods which ,means each penetrating point of damage with Cutis 3x more injurious compared to Pi-. (as well as Split DR for HT armour types)


But recognising that difference works in both directions! I'm happy to adjust DR (or AD) to take into account the difference in how these different things do against DR.




*TBF if you did what to more closely match the bullet energy penetration system (EDIT: Something I realise you already touched on in this thread, sorry). You could significantly revise down the damage of handheld weapons but increase the Injury multiplier. But I think you'll get into difficulties with granularity and multiplication.

[Rasna]

Personally I use my own method, which works very well in terms of strict realism but it makes the things more complicate.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=149824

Basically, each class of weapons has his own damage divisor. Most of swords get a (0.5) divisor for cutting attacks and a (0.66) divisor for impaling attacks against metallic armor. The effective DR of a Fine Mail hauberk (DR 4*, DR 2* vs. crushing) becomes DR 8* against sword cuts and DR 6* against sword and spear thusts. The effective DR of a Medium Plate cuirass (DR 6) becomes DR 12 against sword cuts and DR 9 against sword and spear thusts.

[Sam Baughn]

Originally Posted by Ji ji

I think the problem is the holy Trimurti of: normal value range, marginal gain on Dmg for any single ST point bought, and keeping the current magnitudo for damage. It’s near impossible to solve the issue without sacrificing one.

One solution I found when I was trying to cook up some house rules for ST was to increase either swing or thrust at each level, not both. That way every level of ST offered more damage, but you could have as little as half the increase seen in the current rules for the same range of scores.