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Old 07-27-2011, 03:15 PM   #11
PK
 
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Default Re: DR and Blunt Trauma..?

Is that really any different than the disparity in such a damage roll?

The example being thrown around at the moment is 100 crushing damage vs 101 damage. So that's, what, probably something like a 28d attack? And it's being used against flexible DR 100 armor.

First, consider that these are all likely example of how much injury that wrecking ball (or whatever) might do; I'll use a +/-30 spread off the DR 100, in steps of 5:

70 damage -> blunt trauma = 14 injury
75 damage -> blunt trauma = 15 injury
80 damage -> blunt trauma = 16 injury
85 damage -> blunt trauma = 17 injury
90 damage -> blunt trauma = 18 injury
95 damage -> blunt trauma = 19 injury
100 damage -> blunt trauma = 20 injury
105 damage - DR 100 = 5 injury
110 damage - DR 100 = 10 injury
115 damage - DR 100 = 15 injury
120 damage - DR 100 = 20 injury
125 damage - DR 100 = 25 injury
130 damage - DR 100 = 30 injury

The jump at 105 damage may seem odd when viewed like that. But let's rearrange the spread to ask the important question: How hurt is the poor guy who got hit? Here are the possible results:

5 injury
10 injury
14 injury
15 injury (two ways)
16 injury
17 injury
18 injury
19 injury
20 injury (two ways)
25 injury
30 injury

That's the actual spread of results, from an after-the-fact perspective. And in GURPS, combat really has to be described after the fact; it's not "real-time narrative." For example, look at the 15 injury up there. There are two ways it could happen -- either the damage roll is "low" and it does blunt trauma, or it's high and penetrates. But either way, the answer to, "How badly does it hurt?" is, "Ned loses 15 HP from the ball slamming into him."
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Old 07-27-2011, 03:28 PM   #12
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Default Re: DR and Blunt Trauma..?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty View Post
That's the actual spread of results, from an after-the-fact perspective. And in GURPS, combat really has to be described after the fact; it's not "real-time narrative." For example, look at the 15 injury up there. There are two ways it could happen -- either the damage roll is "low" and it does blunt trauma, or it's high and penetrates. But either way, the answer to, "How badly does it hurt?" is, "Ned loses 15 HP from the ball slamming into him."
Personally, my question would be "what would actually happen if you hit someone wearing flexible armor just hard enough to penetrate? Would you get the same amount of impact trauma as if it hadn't penetrated? Less? How does it actually work?

Then I would make rules that mimic that. Personally the "only look at the end results of the rules" seems like a step down the slippery slope to D&D-esque six second rounds with some abstract numbers of attacks occurring and HP not actually being physical damage but also protagonist luck and who knows what else. One of the reasons I like GURPS is it's focus on actual concrete events. Sure, you can't get too myopic and focused on things, but at the same time you don't want TOO much abstraction.

I don't see any real good reason to keep things the way they are with BFT disappearing once a weapon penetrates. There might be a way to justify it if you step back, squint, etc. But I don't see a good reason NOT to house-rule it. Especial due to the fact that a slightly less powerful ball that penetrates less might actually have a statistically higher chance of doing damage to someone, which seems weird.
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Old 07-27-2011, 03:28 PM   #13
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Default Re: DR and Blunt Trauma..?

Taken from here.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
In real life, the energy that penetrates armor does not increase monotonically with the energy incident upon the armor. You have a critical point where you shift from elastic to inelastic deformation of the armor. Blunt trauma is due to elastic deformation; actual DR penetration is due to tearing. When you shift from one regime to the other, the "lost" damage is still there, but it's destroying the armor instead of the person inside it.
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Old 07-27-2011, 03:37 PM   #14
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Default Re: DR and Blunt Trauma..?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hannes665 View Post
Taken from here.
Meh, seems like that would just mean that you don't keep taking BFT for every five or ten points of damage due to your armor whacking you, but once it's penetrated you take damage from the bit that penetrates. But that doesn't mean your armor stops whacking you due to something hitting it hard enough to penetrate.

I mean I KNOW it doesn't go entirely away. I don't know how fast it goes away, and whether a better gamable abstraction would be for it to all go away, or all stay, or what. My suspicion is stay, just because it seems simpler to have the same rule with no exceptions instead of "x happens unless y, then z happens."
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Old 07-27-2011, 05:59 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hannes665 View Post
Taken from here.
Kind of has a problem of being untrue; if flexible armor fails (is penetrated) the total energy it absorbs is likely to go down, because the usual failure case is an impact that's too fast for the flexible armor to transmit the force away, and therefore far less armor is involved in the successful penetration than the failed (I'm not even sure what penetration with a crushing attack vs flexible armor is supposed to mean; you can crush someone like a grape without actually penetrating the armor).
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Old 07-27-2011, 08:40 PM   #16
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Default Re: DR and Blunt Trauma..?

Quote:
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Taken from here.
Isn't that the whole idea behind crumple zones in modern automobiles?
Destroy the car not the people inside.
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Old 07-27-2011, 08:45 PM   #17
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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
(I'm not even sure what penetration with a crushing attack vs flexible armor is supposed to mean; you can crush someone like a grape without actually penetrating the armor).
Yeah, the first rule is not reality anyway -- the first rule is "how does this rule work?" From there you can have a discussion about reality: "what's it represent?" But far too often people assume the only possible reading of the rule is their own, and they want to change it as a result of their interpretation of reality. That's two screens through which a design change must pass; the other two are going back the other direction ("what really happens?" and "how should the rule be changed to interpret that?"). Obviously, there are multiple places for problems to creep up in the process.
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Old 07-27-2011, 08:49 PM   #18
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Default Re: DR and Blunt Trauma..?

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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
(I'm not even sure what penetration with a crushing attack vs flexible armor is supposed to mean; you can crush someone like a grape without actually penetrating the armor).
Kromm's response in that thread was that crushing damage that penetrates DR is supposed to represent the armor deforming enough to actually injure you. So if you take HP x 11 damage from a crushing attack through armor, that WOULD be you getting crushed like a grape.
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Old 07-27-2011, 08:54 PM   #19
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Default Re: DR and Blunt Trauma..?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk View Post
Kromm's response in that thread was that crushing damage that penetrates DR is supposed to represent the armor deforming enough to actually injure you. So if you take HP x 11 damage from a crushing attack through armor, that WOULD be you getting crushed like a grape.
That's what nonpenetrating damage means too.
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Old 07-27-2011, 08:56 PM   #20
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That's what nonpenetrating damage means too.
His explanation was that it was permanently deformed, rather than flexing enough to transmit the force to you, IIRC. Go read the thread. His arguments, not mine.
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