Survivable Guns Realism
 

The Survivable Guns article is clearly written to make guns, well, survivable and it mentions being for cinematic campaigns. On the other hand it also questions the lethality of GURPS firearms.

So what do you think about Survivable Guns from a realism perspective?

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

It's a big question. The problem is when you have automatic results from a system. When it comes to gun shot wounds there aren't many scenarios that have an automatic result (and even then it's more a really, really likely end result).

Personally I think the standard rules in combination with HT over penetration rules for torsos are fine.

(although there is the question about damage mods and max damage)

Which ultimately makes a single round no where vital* pretty survivable in the long term, but multiple rounds will take you out** pretty quick. As will bleeding if left untreated from less powerful rounds or very dangerous from large powerful rounds even with first aid.

Were you hit makes more difference than what your hit with (within a certain range obviously). But in RL how your body reacts to being hit is also a major factor, and in GURPS that's a matter of HT rolls to stay upright, concious and alive.

People survive getting shot all the time, but people also don't. Which I admit isn't much of an answer, but I think GURPS RAW does a pretty good job of giving this range of results with a healthy gloss of verisimilitude.

*in a broader sense than RAW but obliviously including vitals.

**take out not necessarily meaning instantly dead, but can often lead to being dead pretty quick.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

I have found hightech (And generally TL9 guns) are pretty survivable. Had a dog survive a bunch of shots last night taking 3d6+1 pi+ gunfire.

I think it becomes cinematic where you take a bullet and just shrug like nothing happened.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

...How? About 4 should have hard-killed it unless it's a really huge dog.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Dog with 9 HP. Takes 54 damage to outright kill. That's a lot of HP in consideration. And a 3d6+1 pi+ weapon has 16 damage average for wounding. However, people roll random for damage, so one shot could be 6 damage, another could be 29.

Damage rolls weren't all that high, recoil makes a lot of bullets miss, the ones that hit dropped it down to -4xHP and it was still up and kicking.

To quote my players "DIE DOG DIE!"

It ended up failing HT roll to remain conscious, but nobody outright killed it. And 3d6+1 pi+ is a pretty big gun.


Point being, with even a little body armor, bullets become nothing. It's easy enough to get 8 DR against bullets, which turns gunshots to piddily damage in a firefight, but getting riddled with them sucks.

Not sure I like the idea myself that bullets aren't scary to players. Anytime someone might go "I'll just take the shot" something is wrong. To quote a source book from GURPS, "Best defense against gunfire is not being in the way of the bullet."

That's just my feeling on the matter.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

I've had good success with adding an armor divisor and halving gun damage (including pistols), at least if you're using hit locations and some form of bleeding. Random hit locations make gun combat a lot more survivable, and halving damage prevents even pistols from almost always crippling limbs. But even 1d to the vitals still almost always results in people falling over when hit there and rapidly bleeding to death, barring 1st world EMTs and hospitals nearby.

Anyway, I like that getting shot is more immediately survivable, unless you get hit somewhere important, but still does pretty severe damage and tends to make you bleed a whole bunch. Tends to fit my sense of reality better.

Oh, I also use armor as dice, so you will pretty much have to crit and get lucky trying to shoot through body armor that is rated to stop your weapon, as opposed to just rolling high on damage.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Realistically, weapons have:

• Lower variance in penetration than GURPS implies; what variance there is mostly comes from different strike angles and the target's armor being different at different locations.
• Higher variance in lethality than GURPS implies; there should be a fairly substantial chance that a 7.62 round (7d) blows through without doing more than tissue damage, and that a .22LR (1d+1 pi-) inflicts a mortal wound.
• Extremely unreliable about incapacitation, particularly with less than lethal damage.
• Less cumulative effect. In GURPS, if one hit has a meaningful chance to kill, three hits is an automatic kill. To some degree this could be covered by variance in lethality.

However, that combination of traits doesn't really result in survivable guns; if anything, it would probably increase the odds of PC death.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

This is something I've toyed with, but not to the point of serious playtesting. What it takes is a system where each injury is its own "wound", with a severity based on the damage inflicted. The consequences of injury are based on the worst wound received, rather than an accumulation of damage (though blood loss and shock should still have cumulative effects). L.W. Camp has an interesting houserule along these lines on his GURPS page.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Not necessarily; it's also possible to just use extremely high variability in damage, a la Phoenix Command (where the range in damage from being hit by a pistol is something like 5-1,000). I briefly get into this in my article on wound size modifiers, basic idea is that you add 1d-4 to effective wound size, which means a pi attack doing 10 penetrating damage would have a chance to do 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, or 20 injury.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Hmm. I'd prefer to handle such damage variability through hit location (such as a Torso shot's 1/6 chance of hitting the Vitals, or 1/6 chance of hitting the Skull through the Face). To each their own though.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

lwcamp has his own take on that concept, which basically comes down to - turn xd+y to 1d*x+y for damage, SM 0 experiences blowthrough at 2x whatever is rolled (SM -1 at 1.5x, SM -2 at x, SM +2 at 5x, etc). So, with GodBeastX's situation, let's assume the dog is around SM -1. The pistol would be 1d*3+1 pi+1, and each shot has an equal chance of doing 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, or 19 damage. Blowthrough being 1.5x means these would actually be 2, 3.5, 5, 6.5, 8, or 9.5 damage, for 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, or 19 injury (bullet is effectively pi+2 against target). I've experimented some with his wounding system, and will probably start playing with this bit soon as well.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Half damage, double the armor divisors really does work pretty well. You *can* still die from a single shot that doesn't hit the brain or vitals - a high damage roll from a rifle shot will still take not too tough humans to -1 x HT occasionally - but it does a good job of ensuring most people shot once somewhere less vital will live if they get any medical care at all.

It's such a simple change that almost fixes so many complaints - including those about the implausible effectiveness of low tech missiles if you extend it to arrows and sling bullets - that I don't know why it isn't a more popular rule.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Or you can just halve damage and high tech armor DR, and give bullets an extra level of armor piercing against low tech armors (or extrapolate this to a general AP bonus for higher tech weapons against lower tech armors).

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

You.... Could. But why would you use a more complicated solution than is necessary?

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Halving damage works poorly for weapons which already do less than two dice, because 1d with bonuses or penalties only allows so much variability. This is a problem for both muscle-powered projectiles and handguns. The basic idea of a 5d rifle becoming a 2d+2 (2) rifle sounds good but I'm not sure if it should be extended to all projectiles.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Yeah, and even if the rifle doesn't outright kill you, you are almost certainly prone on the ground, stunned, rolling for unconsciousness every turn, and bleeding to death rapidly.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Guns only. Not all projectiles. The only handguns that aren't 2d are things like .22s, which I'm fine with requiring a fair amount of hits to kill someone with.

Ah, my mistake. Missed malloyd suggesting applying it to everything. Yeah, I wouldn't use it for anything that wasn't a small high speed penetrator like a bullet.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Some people would like to reduce the effectiveness of modern armor against melee threats too.

Personally I'd do that separately - just give modern armors a split DR - rather than complicate bullets like that - if only to avoid the nasty issue of how are you going to decide what's a "low tech armor" against which they get a bonus.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Modern armor already has split DR

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Right, but like the Assault Vest is 12/5* (no plates), with the 12 being good against cutting and piercing. Now, I'm not certain, but I think it's not as good at stopping two handed swords and sling bullets as it is bullets. Or as good as heavy plate, you know?

I dunno, I guess I can see it. I just think it's kind of an edge case and I don't know if I'd tweak with rules to fix something that probably comes up fairly rarely in play.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

I'd argue the over penetration rules from HT gives you that anyway.

If you use bleeding the most a rifle bullet to the torso will be 1xHP damage (i.e putting you at 0 HP), and if you don't use bleeding the max is 2xHP (i.e putting you at -1xHP).

The benefit of this is it puts an upper cap on damage but keeps the variation of effects by round types below that (7.62 will almost always hit the limit, a 9mm much less often).

In fact given HP caps on Limbs, the only places you don't get capped damage is the vitals, neck, face and skull and most some of those have their own multipliers as well.

I think this has a much greater effect on the effects of gun shot wounds (especially the higher damage ones, but x3 and x4 location multipliers certainly increases the effect of small rounds as well) than the actually dice rolled. It's the higher damage rounds that are most effected by the halving as well.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

In general I agree, but ballistic cloth is hard to cut (lets face it everything worthy of DR is hard to cut). Its also flexible so if you are wacking away with a 2 handed sword you might be getting some blunt trauma in there.

One thing with high tech armour it tends to cover less locations, and is less designed to cover chicks that might be targeted in melee than Plate so going for unarmoured locations in melee at TL8 might be more viable than say vs TL4 plate.

If nothing else high quality melee weapons become much cheaper and more available at Higher TLs so that DR5 vs imp is less effective in general at TL8 against TL8 melee weapons than it would be in TL4 against TL4 Melee weapons.

As you say it's all pretty fringe though, but I think a high quality fire axe with its pick end will make a nasty hole in a DR5 assault vest and the chap wearing it.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Yup.

However, by the time you've gotten to pickaxe range, a modern military unit will have sent an awful lot of ballistic lead in your direction, and possibly a few artillery strikes as well. Modern infantry isn't about one-on-one badassery; it's all about the team. Individual humans are nasty; collective humans are spectacularly lethal.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Oh absolutely as Crakkerjakk said this is all pretty fringe stuff.

In military terms even the few uses of actually melee weapons recently probably still don't involve melee weapons against armour.

I'm thinking WW2 and Korea had a few organised uses of melee weapons, but little armour.

Vietnam had more close range engagement and so use of melee weapons was probably more likely, but again little armour.

(tunnel fighting being a possible example)

Bayonet charges are still occasionally used, but again recent examples (the oft quoted chaps in the Falklands and Afghanistan) are probably using them against chaps with no armour.

Oddly I think you probably more likely to see it in policing, were engagement ranges are rather less, police are less reliant on artillery, and facing rather more eclectically equipped opponents.

If nothing else there's a reason why riot police still use shields, helmets and horseback, their fights are potentially more old school!

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

For me, it's less about straight up one-shot survivability and more about the frequency of limb crippling and a difficulty to survive multiple hits. Any average pistol will cripple an average person's limb on most hits, and having someone survive getting shot repeatedly with a pistol requires a LOT of lucky rolls. Half damage with an armor divisor fits my gut feeling for how effective pistols are (if you're not managing to hit the vitals or skull), while still retaining firearms as really damn dangerous, since even a regular semiauto pistol can be doing 3d pi+ a turn (if you hit with all three rounds).

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

This could be fixed by moving frag damage from cutting to piercing (with some even at P-, grenade fragments are very small). The 2D wound from a hand grenade doesn't really look much like the 2D from a broadsword.

There is the problem that Gurps probably underestimates the average number of hits from fragmentation weapons. Still if fragmentation becomes P then vests can have their full DR v. P only.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

True, but I don't have major problem with not being able to use you arm once it's shot (you can still get a low roll and not be crippled but I agree it not likely)


Well that depends are we talking about all of them in the torso? Say 3x 9mm 2d6+2 ve 9x3 = 27 points, that's -17 for a ST10 torso, so rolling to stay upright every sec and one roll not to die (although bleeding will probably get you to your next death roll pretty quick).

But that's 3 rounds in the torso, that seems OK to me.

there are lots of variables here, do you use random locations? That might mean a unlucky hit in the head, but it more likely to mean hits to the limbs that will cap each wound at 6HPs (but will cripple each one).

The over penetration cap limits larger rounds more than smaller ones. Which helps here.

Assuming rcl of 2 that's a MOS of 4 a pretty good shot (if it's rcl 3 its MOS 6)

and even then 3x 1d6 Pi+ is 3x4 = 12 points damage against an un-armoured target. Don't get me wrong it will end the fight once he fails a HT roll to stay upright but only if you get all three.

Half damage on a 9mm is 1d6+1 Pi so 4.5 pts that's going to take 3 rounds to the torso before there's risk of dropping from dropping from shock. It will take 7 before there's even a risk of dying from anything other than medium term bleeding (7 seems a lot to me)

Only a roll of 5-6 will cripple a ST10 limb (weirdly a .45 will need to roll a 6 to do so because it loses the Pi+ mod)

the .45 at 1d6 Pi+ will do on average 5pts per round (once you half basic you get odd rounding issues).

going smaller and James Bond's in trouble*, his Walther PPK is doing (2d-1)/2 Pi-

so that's an average of 1pt per round, you could empty an entire clip and only get a ST10 target to less than 1/3 hp if you hit with every bullet.

Obviously you hoping for vitals hit on a 1 in 6 here. But even then you could take a round to the heart and still be in positive HP.

Going larger it become pretty irrelevant as the location limit kicks in anyway

a 7.62 at 7d is 21pts but that's capped at 10 on a ST10 torso (if your using bleeding).

If you halve it it's 10.5 which again is capped at 10 on the same torso. If you don't apply the torso cap, its still 10 pts of damage.

Against the vitals it will make a difference in theory (21x3 = 63, 10.5x3 = 31.5), but in reality that's the difference between automatically dead and making multiple stay alive rolls. Don't get me wrong that's a difference in terms of long term prognosis but in terms of staying in the fight not really (you're rolling at HT-2 every sec to stay concious, better hope they take prisoners).


Ultimately because you're halving stuff you'll get odd results I think with anything involving multipliers.

TBH if your main concern is crippling limbs with pistol rounds, maybe apply a limb damage mod Pi wounds of x0.5 when determining if the limb's crippled.

That way a 9mm doing 2d+2 Pi vs. a ST10 arm will need to roll a 10+ (10+2)*1*0.5 = 6 to cripple it

A .45 doing 2d Pi+ will need to roll 8+ (8)*1.5*0.5 = 6,

but a 5.56mm doing 4d+2 10+ (10+2)*1*0.5 = 6 if you use the halving rule on this 5.56mm you'd need to roll 5+ (5+1) to cripple which would be the same

You point about vitals and skull hits also gets odd with this rule

A .45 to the skull will be doing 1d (avg 3.5) -DR1 = 2.5 = 10pts so it will take 2 .45 rounds to the brain before dying is an immediate concern?

*although one could argue he should use a bigger round of course!

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

That last seems a very, very big qualification, seeing as any semiauto pistol is at least rcl 2. You're not going to be doing that reliably unless your effective skill is around 17 (and your target isn't dodging). Does anybody but a cinematic action hero tend to shoot a handgun like that?

(Maybe a top-tier hostage-rescue type who, for some reason, is not using a longarm?)

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Tom, I'm not going to dig through a 20 paragraph post to find your point.

Look at what it takes to reliably do 3d as a melee combatant. Besides, MoS 4 is a bit high, but not really that high. I think it firmly establishes guns as "dangerous as hell for very little investment, but not automatic fight enders" which is where pistols should be, IMO. And swap it out for a semi auto rifle or shotgun loaded with 00 buck and you tend to rapidly get to "get hit more than once (unarmored) and the fight is over."

Basically, I think that pistol fights should end with a lot of holes poked in people that are bleeding heavily, but no automatic incapacitation or death unless you manage to hit the vitals or brain. This tends to be borne out by real world shooting statistics, IME. And halving damage for firearms while giving them an armor divisor is an easy and simple way to achieve that.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

OK, but there's more than one (there normally is).

But to summerise:


1). Not sure getting crippled by a shot to the arm is wrong

2). Not sure getting shot three times in the torso isn't a reasonable risk of death, but it's still not the 'lots of lucky rolls' you cite (there are as ever lots of variables)

3). Things like random hit locations will make a big difference to what your citing.

4). Halving the basic damage gets you weird results in many cases.

5). The penetration cap give the same results as halving damage in many cases without the weird results.

6). If you really don't like crippled limbs from Pi wounds, change how Pi wounds cripple limbs.

Simple's

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Good example of what I was talking about 00 buck is (1d6+1)/2 Pi using this system so what 2pts a hit?

Going at 3x9 Rof is what +4 to hit and at Rcl1 you'll get more hits but you'll need a lot or a lucky hit to a vital.

Sorry to pick out one thing, but I have a bad habit of writing long posts ;-)

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

The problem is that it's currently pretty much automatic, while in reality (and particularly in fiction) people can and have continued functioning. Some of the issue may well be the fact that GURPS uses automatic crippling thresholds. I've said it before, but crippling should typically allow an HT roll to avoid (success by 5+ avoids crippling, success is temporary, failure is lasting, critical failure is permanent, and really bad wounds impose a penalty to the check).

Getting shot three times in the Torso without hitting the Vitals should a) risk knocking you down/out by shock and pain (pretty much an instant effect), and b) risk bleeding to death. As it stands, getting shot three times in the Torso without hitting the Vitals is going to slow you down markedly, almost certainly render you unconscious within a few seconds, and possibly kill you outright.

If talking about three shots to the Torso that don't hit the Vitals, random hit locations don't matter, because we've already established where the bullets are hitting.

Tiny bullets are nearly useless in the short term unless they hit something rather important, or incapacitate the target solely through psychological effects (ohcrapIjustgotshot!).

Depends on how you're implementing it, and it still probably causes an excessive amount of bleeding. Also, a bullet that goes all the way through the torso without hitting anything important isn't going to impede a combatant (outside of bleeding) beyond the initial shock, while in GURPS it will render them incapable of action within seconds.
Of course, halving damage doesn't really address this problem (I assume the blowthrough caps are still the same).

Now here's a good idea. Pi+, Pi++, and Imp already don't get their increased wounding against limbs. The concept of, say, halving the wounding modifier of any Pi attack (so pi- is 1/4, pi is 1/2, etc) against limbs makes some deal of sense.

EDIT:+5, actually. A shot that would have just-hit with a slug (MoS 0) will instead hit with 6 pellets (MoS 5), which even with damaged halved is going to incapacitate an HP 12 person. Without damage halved, those 6 pellets - none of which have hit a vital location, mind you - have a decent chance of killing the target outright.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Thank you, I do appreciate it. Getting crippled by a shot to the arm isn't wrong, but the frequency with even lower power firearms doesn't seem right to me. If you get shot three times in the torso, unless they hit the vitals, you should be in danger of bleeding to death but not incapacitated, generally. Handguns are just not that effective. Random hit locations do make a big difference, but the most common hit locations are still torso and limbs. As for the weird results, I agree that you need to get shot a LOT in nonvital areas with a pi- hangun round to be in danger of immediate incapacitation as opposed to bleeding to death later. James Bond uses a PPK because he's an excellent shot and it's super concealable, not because it's so effective a man stopper (though he'd probably be carrying JHP, not ball ammo like most people who know what they're doing).

Well, I'd just call that 1d-1 per pellet (4.5 avg dam halved, roughly equivalent). And as you note, rcl 1, plus it's a long arm so if you aim.... One shell would severely ruin your day. Three from a semiauto would really really ruin your day, most likely. And if you're hitting the torso and rolling 1d6 to see if you hit the vitals on a bunch of those....

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

I agree automatic effects are seldom good (or even realistic) but I think "and particularly in fiction" is rather telling.

Also it's not actually all that automatic

Take the .45 against a ST10 Arm it need to roll a 6+ now that less than an average roll but its not an automatic roll (28% of it not happening)

the 9mm is more a certainty though.



No sure those are all that different. Shock can kill after all. To be honest I'm going to see the survival rates of being shot three times in the torso without hitting a vitals organ before I start believing its just a matter of bleeding to death.


No I'm talking about just getting shot three times, then it makes difference. Each limb wound will be capped at 6 pts, if they are low rolls and your already at heavily wounded and your using last wounds then they won't count etc. etc.


That's fine but Pi- already does this, I think James Bond having to empty his clip into his target to get him to less than 1/3HP is over stating it.

I think you'll need to back that up especially as beyond the initial shock can mean a lot of different things in RL (i.e it coudl be just a shock penalty in GURPS terms, but it could also mean failing that HT check to stay upright)


Well it would in the case of pistol rounds, but won't for rifle rounds



I was using the already RAW adjustment to damage types to justify it in my head I admit.

If nothing else it will restrict auto crippling, but I like your HT roll idea as well

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

It might go back to Anthony's increased variability of wounding but even with RAW it requires a good damage roll on Critical Hit to the Vitals with a damage multiplier on the table (very rare) to kill an average man with a .22/.25.

I know of a case where a SWAT guy died from a single hit from a .25 ACP. It went through the arm hole in his tac vest and dropped him in no more than a second. You need the Vitals hit and a decent damage roll just to get the possibility of a failed Consciousness Roll.

Skull hits can be even worse for P- guns because of the Skull's DR2 (which probably shouldn't apply to anything but Cr damage type). I know P- hits to the brain are sometimes survivable but there are a lot of people who have been killed by them too.

So no halving for small caliber guns. It really looks like it's only full power 7D rifles and maybe 5D carbines that see really excessive wounding and we have a modified blowthrough rule in HT to cover them.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

It is for rifle-class weapons. To cripple someone's arm with a bullet you basically need to either hit and break the bone, or you need to sever a nerve or tendon; most hits to muscle will only impair function. With a rifle that's should be around 1 in 3, since most rifles will shatter bone if they hit it, with a pistol it's less, since pistol rounds have a pretty fair chance to deflect off of bone.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

A single shot to the vitals with a crit that increases damage will accomplish that. And no, .22 LR have a history of bouncing off (well, ricocheting off of and then messily blowing out the back of the scalp) people's skulls. Though do remember all bullets are getting AD (2) in this proposal.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

[QUOTE=Crakkerjakk;1764437, .22 LR have a history of bouncing off (well, ricocheting off of and then messily blowing out the back of the scalp) people's skulls.[/QUOTE]

_Sometimes_. They also have a history of killing people stone cold dead with a bullet to the brain sometimes.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Close in, or through the eye. At range they do tend to deflect a lot. And a max damage roll to the skull or eye will pretty effectively drop someone and make them rapidly bleed to death, with very little chance of surgical intervention due to it being a wound to the brain.

Anyway, I'll admit that you start to lose some edge cases with this system with very small rounds with not much powder, but it's pretty rare that I see these used in my games. It fixes actual problems I've seen in my games for the vast majority of weapon types actually used, and it's still pretty close for the smaller weapons, so meh.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

In GURPS, .22 and .25 is more likely to penetrate the skull and immediately incapacitate the target than it is to bounce off the skull. While it's unlikely to kill instantly, there's a good chance of inflicting a fatal wound via bleeding.

Though for more realistic results, we should probably have hits that fail to penetrate the skull instead count as face hits, so the person will still take 1-2 points of damage.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

There are lots of fights with modern weaponry in my secret-agents campaign (see .sig). What keeps the PCs alive is:

1. Crappy odds of being hit.
2. Random hit locations for practically all automatic weapons and fragments.
3. Body armor.
4. Campaign-mandated Luck.
5. A good medic.

Between plausible skill levels (default for ordinary people, 10-12 for most trained ones, and 13-14 for elite NPCs) and believable shooting conditions (range, concealment, lighting, etc.), most hits are random bad luck. When hits do occur, a good many strike arms, legs, hands, or feet (nasty but nonlethal). Vests and – on strike missions – helmets greatly mitigate the effects of hits to the torso or head. Luck can make long-odds hits miss, move sure-fire hits to less-serious hit locations (preferably heavy torso armor, but even an unarmored limb is better than the face). And the medic can treat the minor blunt trauma from hits to armor, and ensure that limb hits don't turn PCs into lifelong cripples.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

I've imposed a random hit location ruling unless you take a turn to aim. Does this seem like bad practice?

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

It may be realistic . . . it's hard to say, because some excellent shooters really do seem able to call all their shots. It might be best to rule something like "For unaimed fire, apply hit location modifiers to skill at the very end. If they take effective skill below 10, ignore them and call the shot random instead." That will privilege high-skill PCs over low-skill mooks, and I'd playtest it before calling it a good option.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

I've been trying to research the matter, and it seems that most people aim while shooting in 1 second windows, which is contrary to GURPS methodology. When people are doing accurate gunshots, whether moving or otherwise, they are following the aim maneuver's ruling of steps, getting scope bonuses, and using two hands to brace pistols, but they tend to be firing every second with at most 2 seconds.

However, I do notice they take time for the initial aiming, but the attack doesn't lose aim once it's established.

So to summarize my thoughts, I feel like Aim bonus should just be sticky until you do something other than an aimed attack. Though I do notice they try to keep from firing too many bullets for recoil to mess up their aim.

And mostly I meant (On my previous post) automatic torso hits. I feel like "I shoot the torso" automatically constantly without taking action to focus on the torso is kinda lucky from what I'm watching.

That being said, I am not a firearms expert, just trying to figure out what feels right for this campaign I'm running.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Check.... Follow up shots in Tactical Shooting I think? You get half acc for shots on the same target after you've sighted in on a target.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

That houserule seems like too much work, and too different from the original game mechanics.

If I were to do something similar, I'd keep the mechanics as similar as possible. Probably something like this:

When figuring out damage, figure out the 'Accumulated Damage' and the 'Single Strike Damage' separately. Single Strike Damage does the normal things it can do - cripple limbs, cause a major wound, kill, etc, all based on the normal limits. Accumulated Damage can kill or do anything else accumulated wounds do - but rather than just subtracting Single Strike Damage from Accumulated Damage one-by-one, accumulated wounds take (One Fifth of the lesser of Current Accumulated Damage and Single Strike Damage) + (Greater of Current Accumulated Damage and Single Strike Damage). Round down at the 'one fifth' stage (or maybe round up; not sure which).

Example:

A man with 14 HP is walking down the street when he is shot for 2d pi damage. This does 7 HP of injury, giving him 7 HP of accumulated wounds. This isn't yet a Major Wound. He is then shot again, this time by an SMG. He is hit four times for 3d pi- damage each. These do 8, 4, 5, and 3 damage. The 8 injury wound is a Major Wound, and his new accumulated total is 8 + 7/5 + 5/5 + 4/5 + 3/5, rounding down at each division stage to get a wound total of 8+1+1=10.

(Alternatively, round up at the division stages to get 8+2+1+1+1=13). He's not quite at negative HP even though he's taken wounds of 7, 8, 4, 5, and 3 injury.

There's no need to keep track of individual wounds in this system, just the running total. It works in all other ways like normal wounding.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

One thing I wanted to add regarding the effects of three rounds to the torso point.

We've been dealing with strict average expectations, average damage, average stats. In such an instance three 9mm rounds to the torso will automatically kill (miss a Death roll by 3+) a ST10, HT10 target 25.9% of the time. It will put them at mortal status (missing a death roll by 1 or 2) 24.1% of the time, and not put them in danger of immediate death 50% of the time (making the roll).

Obviously bleeding complicates that, and its not going to take too long to lose another 3hps and trigger another death roll when rolling bleeding at -5 on 60 second intervals.


Now obviously there will be cases of people shot three time in the torso with 9mm and making it. Some of that will be variation in damage rolls, but there's a big variable to consider the stats in question.

Now as a filthy stats normaliser I'm not going to play that card particularly hard, but the way GURPs works a point of two on those stats makes a massive difference

same set up but with ST11 and HT11

27 pts is still a over -1xhp so its death roll but this time it's:

Automatic kill 16.2%
Mortal 21.3%
Makes the roll 62.5%

and it doubles the bleeding time until the next death roll


same set up but with ST12 and HT12

27 pts is still a over -1xhp so its death roll but this time it's:

Automatic kill 9.3%
Mortal 16.7%
Makes the roll 74.7%

and it triple the bleeding time until the next death roll

So while I'm not going to claim everyone who survived 3 rounds to the torso is ST/HT12 (and I don't need to ST/HT10 can do it) a higher then average stat will help a lot.

Leaving aside RL for the moment, for those who are thinking 3x 9mm round is too lethal RAW, how often are the PCs closer to ST/HT 12 than ST/HT10?

And of course going the other way using the halving method it will take on average 6x 9mm round to the torso (or 2x to the heart) to risk a death save on a ST/HT12 target and it will be:

Automatic kill 9.3%
Mortal 16.7%
Makes the roll 74.7%


A big enough chunk of muscle being removed will stop function.

But I agree I dislike anything that's automatic. However even the halving damage will still pretty much automatically get a crippling result with rifle calibre rounds.

So TBH if part of the justification of this is to reduce crippled limbs form rifle rounds it's not a very good one, and I think solutions to specific problems are better off being specific to the problem themselves.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Sure, but small arms are not generally going to take out that much flesh (arguably blowthrough on limbs should be done before wound modifiers, but then you get into pi- being completely incapable of crippling a limb, which is wrong).

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

If you mean small arms as in pistol calibre stuff than I'd pretty much agree, if you mean bigger rifle stuff I'd disagree I've seen pictures of a 7.62 wound to a leg where the keyhole effect sliced an oval of flesh from the thigh that was a big chunk. (Think small shark bite size chunk missing).

I don't even necessarily mind Pi- having hard time crippling limbs, you can have accumulated wounds and crippling joints and extremities is a lower threshold.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Thanks! That's exactly it!

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

One thing occurs to me. It seems to me that part of the issue that halving damage seems to be about is how quickly you are incapacitated.

I dislike messing with the damage because you get odd results, but how about messing with the thresholds, since it's these that actually knock you unconscious or kill you?

You could have say HT+2 to stay concious at 0 hp, and you only test once every HT seconds. You'd still fall over eventually and relatively quickly but it won't be as brutal as it is now. As usual each multiple of HP lost will penalise the HT roll by -1. I think if you imposed the partial wounds rules and negative effects from MA* it would work well here. You'll stay up right for long enough for the negative effects of the your wounds to impair you!

Too lenient? don't give the +2 bonus to HT, just change the cycle.

Dying to quick? don't make it -1xHP, -2xHP, -3xHP, -4xHP for death rolls, make it -2xHP and -4xHP for death rolls (you still die with no roll at -5xHP).

Ultimately the numbers rolled don't change but at what point bad things happen does.

Oh and you'd to use the bleeding rules

It would seem a simpler and cleaner way of getting the desired results?

*you'd need one for the head, I'd suggest the same as the Torso but the penalty on DX applies to IQ as well!

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Tomsdad, I'm talking about people like Curtis Jackson (aka 50 Cent) who get shot nine times (and he wasn't big till after he recovered from this, it was a consequence of his physical therapy) with a 9mm and survived. A guy in NC was shot 20 times with a .22 and stayed conscious the entire time.

Basically, statistics I've seen is gunshots are survivable 95% of the time if you can get someone to the hospital with their heart still beating. Generally, people hit in the vitals or head don't manage to get to the hospital. But roughly 80% of your torso is filled with stuff that isn't "vitals."

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

And those shots included one through his thumb, arm, both his legs and his hip. (also chest and cheek).

do you have an actual list of where the nine bullets hit him?

The point I made about random locations would seem to hold?


OK but .22 (assuming pistol) is 1d+1 Pi- so 2pt wounds. So where was he shot? don't forget that if your using last wounds any of those shots to his limbs after he's dropped to less than 1/3HP will not count

I can't find that story (he obviously not as famous as .50 cent) but remember if he's wearing biker leathers that will stop a large chunk of that damage

Also it probably doesn't need to be said but these are news stories, news stories tend to be about exceptional things not everyday things.

If there are more case files that read 'man shot dead' than these stories are they proven wrong, or just proven anecdotal rather than statistically significant.

Basically extreme stuff does happen, but so do critical successes and ones on damage rolls

Yes but how many gun shots? Are you suggesting that the above stories are the norm or the exception?

Run the numbers on GURPS for a 9mm wound in various locations, I'm pretty sure you'd get a pretty close to a 95% survival rate for those who make it to hospital with a beating heart. More importantly I'm pretty sure they have a pretty good chance of getting there as well.

Also once in hospital they're being treated, your point seems to be more about the rules for emergency aid wound treatment in GURPS?


And I'm guessing of you run the numbers on those wounds in GURPS it will look pretty close to that as well.

Well Vital is a relative term, and not all GURPS vitals are equally vital (i'd choose two bullets to my lung over one to my heart any day of the week).

While I'll agree there's stuff that can take a bullet and not put you in immediate danger, there is only so much of that, there is also a accumulative effect of wounds on the system. Its complicated of course but its basically not good to get shot in the torso, but yes some places in the torso are worse than others to get shot in.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Wikipedia lists seven: hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest, face; I suspect the unlisted ones were additional hits to the legs, as I saw stories about 'multiple' hits to the legs. In GURPS, the hits to face and chest would not blow through, the hips I think are classed as torso and also wouldn't blow through, the hands blow through at hp/3, the rest at hp/2. If we assume 10 HP, the average damage is 55 points.
GURPS doesn't really have sufficiently random locations.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

I think you need to reread the thread.

No mention of bike leathers is in the story. He was shot in the chest, groin, abdomen, and extremeties. Two bullets were within inches of his heart, one entered his groin and exited through his rectum.

I'm suggesting that the stock rules are overly harsh for both pistols and rifles if you're using hit locations and bleeding, even with the blowthrough rules from HT. And that "more shots = harder to survive" is true, but not as extreme as the stock rules make it.

"Vitals" as defined by a former military surgeon, aka "places that if shot you are unlikely to survive the ambulance ride."

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

I think it's okay so long as you're using variable damage to represent "somewhere especially important within this broader hit location category."

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

That just winds up with excessively random penetration and insufficiently random wounding. There are systems that work out okay by using hit locations, but they involve dozens of hit locations and enormous damage variability between different locations.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Eh, I'm happy with using Armor as Dice to fix penetration and existing locations, crits, and halved firearm damage (with AD(2)). It's not perfect, but it's close enough for gub'mint work, IME.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Which is a lot no doubt, but a one or two lucky low damage hits on the legs and they stop counting from the total etc,

My problem is by halving damage its not just turning 55 into 27, the last wounds rule will negate any hits to any limb as well.

so say its 4.5 damage per wound and 10HP we have

1x torso = 4.5 wound
1x face = 4.5 wound at this point he's less than 1/3 HP
1x hand = 3 wound will count as it cripples
1x arm = 4.5 wound won't count doesn't cripple
1x left leg = 4.5 wound won't doesn't cripple
2x right leg = 2x 4.5 wounds neither will count doesn't cripple

Total damage take in regards to conciousness checks and death saves = 12

Now if you use accumulated wounds those last two leg wounds will sum to 6 and count because together they cripple but it still leaves you at 18

The extraordinary becomes common place and that's my issue with this fix. When you base an assumptions of what's likely on extraordinary examples not only do extraordinary results become to likely, but average results become unlikely.


EDIT: also its not 55 it would be

1x torso = 9 wound
1x face = 9 wound (given this one popped a cheek and hurt his tongue I'm guessing it was low roll)
1x hand = 3 wound
1x arm = 6 wound
1x left leg = 6 wound
2x right leg = 2x 6 wounds but only one will count as damage over doesn't count

so a total of 39 don't get me wrong quite a total still but not 55.

Also as to him being ST/HT10 and regarding Crakkerjack's point about him only getting big after the event.

Well he did compete in boxing at the junior olympics prior to this event, he's evidently approx 6'. So while I wouldn't claim ST/HT14 or anything daft, I don't think a point or two over teh human average is that unlikely

Not sure what you mean, do you want more locations or more randomness, or both?

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

I think that the current system is a tolerable compromise in any campaign where most combat does not involve modern firearms and modern body armour. The use case for which GURPS damage was designed was something like a ST 11 man with a broadsword (equal chance of anything from 3 to 8 base damage) striking hand-made metal armour with variable thickness, shape, metal quality, etc. I think that is plenty random enough wounding, although penetration is too unpredictable.

A really detailed hit location system for bullets would face the problem that cutting weapons could strike three or four hit locations at once, and more detailed penetration models tend to involve more complicated math eg. square roots. I have not seen a solution which works well for both muscle-powered weapons and bullets, is more realistic in penetration or wounding, and requires no more math and no more rolls.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Yes that's the thread we're in, what's your point? (unless you saying but of you use hit locations gun shots are more survivable in RAW, then yes I'd agree since you posted that in response to me saying that, only you've also been arguing that multiple guns shots are too dangerous in RAW and require this half damage tweak)


“How you can get that many bullets in the chest, the groin, the abdomen and extremities and not have a lethal injury is pretty remarkable,” said Dr. Phillip Shadduck, the general surgeon at Durham Regional Hospital who operated on Mr. Vaughan. “He was very fortunate.”

Does a remarkable event sound like one we should be basing our expectations of likely outcome on?

Amazing things happen, people have survived falling out of planes, and being hit by buses at 70mph does that make GURPS falling and crashing rules too harsh?


More over he was shot roughly 20 times now I don't know what that means, or how many bullets hit him but let's say its 20.

Now given that he was hit all over I'think it reasonable to assume random locations here. So lets see how that shakes out on 20 hits.

Torso (chest and abdomen) = 35.5% of total chances so that's 7 hits
Legs, arms, hand and feet (i.e extremities) = 56.9% 11 hits

Now he didn't get hit on the face, neck or head (6.5%) so lets make that 8 to the torso and 12 to the rest.

Now by RAW that's what 2pt hits 8 to the torso will be 16 total damage. He obviously lucked out and didn't roll and 1's to see if vitals were hit, that would seem to match the report!

And by final wounds none of the extremities will count (unless you use accumulated wounds and he get 3 in one location).

So to me the truly remarkable thing when compared to RAW is that he stayed concious. But again if the issue with RAW is how quickly to fall over then again solve that problem, a specific solution to specific problem will be better than general solution to a specific problem.

Now if you apply the halving damage those wounds becomes 1pt and he's dropped to less than 1/3HP (enough to mean the extremities don't count) but he's actually in no danger of falling unconscious which doesn't seem to fit the the story of him try to do that.

And the thing is not only does RAW seem to handle multiple hits from small (pi-) rounds well, the halving effect solution has less effect (in terms of total damage not received and thus reaching the thresholds where things possibly happen).

Obviously if a couple of those torso rounds had hit a vital then it might well have been a different story, but that's true for both systems as well.

You just restated your position, you didn't answer any of my points regarding what you had said in your last post.

I understand your position you don't need to repeat it, but if you could address my responses to your earlier supporting points even if it's "that bit is wrong TD because ........"

OK and what does that mean for this conversation? I'll note that if the assumption is 20% of the torso is such that the 1 in 6 rule is pretty accurate.

EDIT: OK look I know you don't like long posts, but the thing is what you asserting has lot's of repercussions and factors, repercussions and factors worth expanding on if they are to be discussed.

If you want to discuss this I'm happy to. But I will bring up what I think are relevant points and detail them, but you don't owe me anything here, so if you don't want to discuss it that's fine too.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Oh and what did anyone think about reducing my suggestions regarding the threasholds?

(I may start a new thread on that)

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

On Mr. Vaughan: Average damage from a typical .22 rifle is 5.5, for average injury of 2.75, not 2. So, the presumed 8 head/torso shots (he was hit at least once in the Face, in the right cheek) would have resulted in an average of 22 injury. We also "know" that one of the shots to the legs - and as it was the first hit, Last Wounds wouldn't apply - was a Major Wound (we'll assume Vaughan had HP 10), as it crippled his leg, so that means 6 injury (a critical hit, as otherwise a .22 can't cripple a leg, regardless of if you're halving damage or not) on top of his torso wounds. Even with rather low rolls on the torso hits, he's nearly guaranteed to get into the realm of a death check. However, from the article, the doctor doesn't seem surprised he survived getting shot in the specific locations he was hit, but is instead surprised he didn't get shot anywhere important (Vitals, Arteries/Veins, etc).

Interestingly, that 80% figure (of places you can get hit and not die) from the article roughly corresponds to a roll of 1 on 1d6.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

My point is that when I have already posted that using random hit locations helps with survivability but still feel the need to take some additional steps to increase survivability vs guns to the point where it feels right to me, you coming in later and being like "but have you thought about the effect of random hit locations?" comes off like you aren't actually paying attention to what I'm saying or are arguing in bad faith (trying to score cheap gotcha points that it should be clear I already considered) and disincentivizes me taking the time to respond to you.

My argument would be that what is remarkable is that he got hit that many times without getting hit in the vitals, and that is what translates to a (usually) lethal injury.


I am not going to go into the weeds when you make long rambling posts that use GURPS rules to fill in the gaps of real world events. Using the GURPS random hit location tables to figure out where someone was actually shot how many times has NO justification. It's just you pulling numbers out of thin air. It adds no merit to " where was this guy actually shot, how many times, and does GURPS match that close enough to be a gamable abstraction?". That should be transparently obvious to you. I don't think you should have any expectation that anyone is going to respond to that flawed an argument, especially in any detail.

It means that hits not to the vitals tend to be moderately survivable, especially with modern medicine. Hence the need to reduce firearms damage.

If you feel strongly otherwise, go nuts. Everyone can run their own game however they see fit. What I'm saying is that for me, so long as you're using hit locations and bleeding, halving firearm damage and giving them AD (2) results in more believable outcomes. Especially paired with Armor as Dice. I strongly prefer a single blanket change to a bunch of exception based changes as it puts a lot less burden on limited player memory to keep track of.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

His leg may not have been crippled, he may just have failed a fright check when he got shot. That's how I'd model a lot of "Oh god I've been shot!" reactions that don't actually cripple anyone but result in people falling over.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Sorry but since I've shown that RAW can give you the results that you seem to be claiming are proof that RAW needs to be tweaked, and you seem determined to ignore that, I'm not sure it's me arguing in bad faith.

You getting defensive about and not addressing the point doesn't help either.

Oh ant not paying attestation? I mentioned it in the very section you just quoted.


That's certainly true, but has no bearing on why RAW needs to be tweaked in this way.


Sorry it's not weeds, it me showing you RAW can match the extreme event you holding up as example of what RAW can't match?

If you don't want to discuss this with proper comparisons that's fine, but if you can't defend your assertions don't make them. (or at least don't expect them to be taken at face value when they can be so easily refuted by 'weeds').

You always make this snide little asides about by long rambling posts as this that some how removes them from the conversation, it doesn't it just means you haven't answered the points in them.

And mate what I summarised the points earlier you still didn't respond to them, so you don't address them when I summarise, you don't address them when I explain them, there's pattern here and it's not mine

And yes I write long posts, but that's because I feel it's polite to back up what I'm saying, not just assert and run. Now you might feel this is a bad thing, or one you shouldn't have to address.

Why not? It said he was shot multiple times in the torso and extremities, unless you saying the locations are now weighted wrong, they appear to show that. Oh look RAW seems to match your example that supposedly breaks it.

And on top of that you yourself have said you used the random locations rules so I assume you use them if you had this happen at your table!

It's transparently obvious you don't want to address the points, again why is using the random locations table to judge where 20 shots hit so far fetched here, especially as it yet again gave us results that matched the report?

And yet RAW has matched your examples even though there were notable extremely unlikely ones, a point you still haven't addressed. So hence it has not been shown.

That's fine, and an obvious precondition of this discussion. we all do what's best for our own tables of course. Its just don't be surprised that when you make you points about why you make your choices, and other say hang on your points do't necessarily follow

What are this multiple exception based changes you mention, so far there's been a mention of not having automatic crippling or adjusting the damage mods on limbs (something that already happens), or possibly delaying when you take conciousness and death rolls?

You want a blanket change to make multiple gun shots more survival in you games. That's fine no one here i gainsaying that, what I'm arguing against is you saying I want that because it's realistic. Because well it hasn't been shown to be in this specific instance, and because blanket changes tends not to be realistic in general.

However that said the thresholds solution would seem to do that, and be simple.

One last thing just to make the point about how extreme the examples your using to support your assertion of what should be an average result for GURPS

The average number of gun shots for pistols:

Although a higher percentage of pistol victims sustained multiple wounds (24.3% to 20% for pistol and revolver victims, respectively), the average number of wounds for pistol victims (1.44) was actually lower than that for revolver victims (1.50).

I'd guess its more for FA weapons but those stat are harder to get for obvious reasons.

So no sorry .50 cent getting it 7x or you chap getting hit 20x is just not that relevant to the point your making beyond it being theoretically possible to achieve in the system (and it is).

You run the figures for having a 80% survival rate on 1.5 pistol calibre GSW's once in ER.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

And that's all fine because 'realm of death check' doesn't mean he'd automatically die in GURPS.

Again I'll ask the same question.

This is an exceptional case do you agree?

As an exceptional case should be be using as the basis of average results?

Rather should it be seen as what it actually is, an exceptional case that demonstrates what is possible but not likely?

This is the definition of exceptional, not a likely result.

If so all GURPS RAW need to do in order to be realistic is to have it possible outcome (not likely, not on average, but just possible).

There are several ways GURPS RAW can do this,

Low rolls on damage (especially on the important hits)

Not hitting Vitals (as apparently happened in this case)

Victim making his death rolls,

This is why you don't use anecdotes to extrapolate wider results, but even more importantly is why you don't use 'Made the news because explicitly because it was exceptional' anecdotes to extrapolate expected results from.

People have survived falling out of planes. They made the news about it, they show up 'you'd never believe it could happen articles' much like the cited one here about this chap surviving 20 shots. But does that mean we should recalibrate GURPS falling damage to mean the average result is to survive falling out of planes?

Actually the doctor said:

“How you can get that many bullets in the chest, the groin, the abdomen and extremities and not have a lethal injury is pretty remarkable,”

That just means they are amazed he didn't suffer a lethal injury (ie. he didn't die). I agree that the lack of hits to the vitals is big factor here and they also mention he was lucky in that regards, but it's not he only one.


That fine, and I agree with that in regards to getting hot in the vitals makes you a much less likely to get to a treatment, and B much harder to treat.

That's not the same as saying getting hit 20x but not in the vitals means on average you'll live.

Again it's the same problem again of using an exceptional case to drive what should be a reasonable expectation.


TBH I think the fact the the average number of GSW seems to be much lower than 20 (as per the link I gave above is 1.5 for pistols) is much more important factor here.

And 1.5 pistol calibre GSWs are much more survivable in GURPS (unless they hit the vitals of course) especially if you use the random locations.

So in summary if someone is saying I got shot 20x and died in the session last night, bah GURPS is unrealistic. (and if they aren't saying that that why are they throwing this exceptional case around)

I'd say no getting shot 20x and living is an unrealistic expectation (although not impossible either in RL or GURPS), GURPS does fine when dealing with realistic situations such as getting shot once or twice.

Incidentally that average of 1.5 also manes the earlier suggestions of SA shots that hit with every round that will mitigate the halving damage tweaks issues, ate themselves probably not that realistic.

And so if you want GURPS to allow for your guns fight to involve hitting with all three rounds and people reasonably expecting survive lots of GSWs so long as they are not vital that's fine, but that's not RL it's cinematic. And that's fine too, but can we stop with the assertion that its realistic and just accept its cinematic.

And oh look lets read the original article:

Pyramid 3/44 pg36:

"Here is a variant for campaigns
that might prefer realistic equipment but more cinematic
in its preferred mode of play".

And oh look in the first paragraph its made clear that its an issue of rifle bullets being so damaging in that is the problem in terms of raw damage of rifle bullets. And all the revised stats given are for rifle rounds not pistols rounds.

But hang I hear you say doesn't over penetration reduce the effect of such rounds on any thing other than vitals and the head, why yes, yes it does.

whew!

Right that all said, I will admit that GURPS RAW is overly harsh in regards to stay upright at 0hps on a second by second basis. But I've already addressed that.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Right just because that was a long post (and we don't want to get lost in the weeds) I'm going to repost this since it's actually from and about the article in question:

Pyramid 3/44 pg36:

"Here is a variant for campaigns
that might prefer realistic equipment but more cinematic
in its preferred mode of play".

And oh look is the first paragraph its made clear that its an issue of rifle bullets being so damaging that is the potential problem. And accordingly all the revised stats given are for rifle rounds not pistols rounds.

But hang I hear you say doesn't over penetration reduce the effect of such rounds on any thing other than vitals and the head, why yes, yes it does. (although if you do both you'll get even more survivable rifle rounds of course)

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

yeah good point, again the danger of extrapolating too much from a single instance.

He pulled himself up later but again we don't know if he did with no legs at all (both being GURPS level crippled, or just ones with bullets in). Move over if you using accumulated wounds he might have ended up with crippled limbs but it would have taken more than one round to do so removing more round from the total amount of damage taken total).

TBH without an actually list of what rounds went where we are having to rely on some assumptions, the trick is to make them as reasonable as possible.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Don't do it again.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

sir yes sir ;-)!


(and yes If I'm coming across as a bit prickly in these last few posts it's because I don't find snide comments about my talking about the issues in detail a reasonable replacement for actually discussing the points raised, especially as some of the points were initially introduced by those passing snide comments).

But you take my point the article was not only aimed at cinematic play (you said so as much in the OP), but aimed at rifle bullets and not Pistol calibre ones.

"Guns firing relatively low velocity projectiles (under approximately
1,800’ per second) have their dice of damage unchanged.
This applies to pistols, shotguns, muskets, and submachine
guns, with the exception of a few oddities firing very high-velocity
projectiles like the 4.6mm PDW"

I'll note that the odd results of this tweak mentioned earlier tend to come in at the lower end of the spectrum of gun shots, which is precisely the area where that original article doesn't apply.

So any stretching of it to cover all GSW is entirely down to those who choose to do so, and they seem to do so based on either:

1. Exceptional cases that are reported as exceptional cases being treated as average results

2. Possibly not using all the rules in RAW that already mitigate the effects of multiple wounds and GSW in general.

3. The assumption that everyone is hitting with every round fired (itself more a cinematic assumption than a realistic one)

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

The article certainly calls itself cinematic. I'm not sure how much of that was modesty (one of the reasons for this thread). It's uncontestable that the article itself only applies to firearms of a certain velocity.

I don't think anyone is actually presenting these newsworthy cases as average and It's worth noting that in context of Survivable Guns we really don't care how many shots were fired, only which ones hit.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Well its possible that Mr Pulver was shy about saying 'I think this is realistic', but decided to write the opposite I guess. but then:

The above bashfulness would only apply to rifles. Unless when writing an article about a cinematic approach to rifle rounds, he was actually writing an article about realistic pistol rounds in disguise?

It was a very good disguise if he was?

Then why are they being given as illustrative examples?

What are they illustrating, the exceptional? If so what is their relevance to to a discussion of what's a reasonable expectation of outcome in a system.

As I said to be 'realistic' when portraying RL exceptional results, a system only has to have them as possible, not as probable or expected. The corollary being if the system on average doesn't give us those exceptional RL results that doesn't make it unrealistically harsh, it just means it recognises such results would be exceptional and not average


True, but its been argued in this thread that guns will still be realistically dangerous under this system because you still be reliably hitting with all 3 in a ROF3 SA attack. I.e to get a realistic finish you need a cinematic start.

However as you say its the number of hits that matter. Which is another reason why when the average number of GSW from attacks involving semi autos and revolvers is apparently 1.5, instances of people getting shot seven or twenty times becomes even less relevant to the discussion especially when we're talking about overall RL average chances of survival of being shot.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Tomsdad, your posts are occasionally painful to read due to their long-winded and rambling nature. Don't get too upset when people don't want to read all the way through them and don't respond to every single sentence.

It's exceptional in that he didn't get hit in the Vitals.

Read earlier in the article, when someone who was shot only 4 times is described as having two lethal injuries. "Lethal injury," in the medical community as I understand it, refers to an injury that is nearly guaranteed to kill (that is, a shot to the Vitals, Skull, etc), not to an injury that happened to kill somebody. Otherwise, we're saying that the guy died twice.

The reason people die from gunshot wounds is typically due to getting hit somewhere important, or from complications of getting hit (bleeding out, shock - more appropriately covered by a Fright Check than a damage roll, infection, and so forth). I have absolutely no problem with a character getting hit 20x and immediately surviving, so long as they don't get hit in the Skull/Arteries/Vitals. They typically will get hit in one of these at some point, of course, but if they luck out and don't they're likely to keep on ticking (so long as the complications don't get them).

Sindri referenced this - that the article explicitly called itself out as likely cinematic - in the very first post in this thread. The whole point is to determine how accurate this statement was, so why are you bringing it up as "evidence?"

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

I'm not defensive, I am annoyed. If you want to communicate with others, it is on you to make sure that you make your point in a concise and clear manner if you want those others to respond to you. You generally refuse to do so. That's fine. But I don't have to engage with you.

I don't have a problem with the points you are making. I have a problem with how you choose to make them.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

I'd settle for them just responding to one or two. Notice some manage to do this, other don't ever seem to.

I also notice that some manage to keep responding to the same points but not others.

I also notice that this is a compliant I only ever seem to get from those disagreeing with me (and even then not many of those).

Yes I write long posts, because I attempt to support what I'm saying, I'm sorry I do not see this as a bad thing. Yes I tackle several points at once, because well things are often complicated and they often interrelate, ignoring that won't lead to a very good result.

I don't even get upset about it if it's pointed out, what's annoying is when it seems to be tactic to avoid the answering the point. You have to member I have many, many more internet discussion where this is apparently not a hindrance, than I do where it is.

I'm not even sure why this has turned into being about me, it would seem to be a distraction.

That is exceptional, but its not the only exceptional thing here.

However if you saying you can only get killed quickly by getting hit in the vitals or die from intermediate bleeding (i.e GURPS scale bleeding) that is incorrect.

No a lethal injury is one that kills you, yes some locations are far more likely to lead to this outcome, but if you are shot in the arm and the shock kills you, that is a lethal injury. However getting shot in the arm is in abstract far less likely to be a lethal injury then one in the heart.

In the instance of "2 lethal injuries" it is of the injuries that he received either one of these would have been enough to kill him. So its not he died twice it's even if he had received only one then he would still have died.

Or put this way are you saying that an injury that killed a person but was not in one of those areas you describe as 'lethal' not a lethal injury?

Similarly if got shot in what you describe as a lethal location, but didn't die, would you have received a lethal injury?

i.e Lethality is the end result here.

You may be thinking of complications, as in complication arising from specific things, but that tends to be a longer term issue and tends to be a secondary effect not primary one. So for example dying of infection from a gun shot wound would be a complication of that wound (the wound was not infected at the time of injury, infection is not the primary damage) bleeding tends not to be complication unless it's very long term* because it is a direct consequence of physical action of the bullet.

*i.e slow bleed, classically continuing after treatment of the wounds has been completed.

Now look that was a fairly long response to your point, drawing on several things. But they are related to your point and what I think is driving it. I hope this is not too rambling?

Typically yes, but there is another big factor shock, shock as in shock to the body that stops the heart pumping not shock in GURPS terms. Now shock is complicated and involved lots of feed back loops but there is an accumulated increase with increased trauma. Failing a death save partly takes this physical shock into account.


Now I also don't have a problem with someone getting shot 20x, not getting hit somewhere vital and immediately surviving, as it obviously can happen. But here's the thing it can happen in GURPS RAW as is, my issue is the complaint seems to be it doesn't happen on average. and that is a very different thing based on very different assumptions about what an exceptional incident tells us about what is a realistic average result.

Remember a HT10 person making his first death roll is only instantly dead what 25% of the time.

Now again quite long post but again IMO all relevant.

You didn't post the bit about rifle and pistol rounds.

And yes in my reply to Sidri I also pointed the what was said in the first post

I brought it up because from the way the article is being later referenced It would appear that people have forgotten what it actually says vis a vis cinematic vs. realistic and rifle vs. pistol rounds.

and they are stretching it to cover all GSW is entirely down to those who choose to do so, and they seem to do so based on either:

1. Exceptional cases that are reported as exceptional cases being treated as average results

2. Possibly not using all the rules in RAW that already mitigate the effects of multiple wounds and GSW in general.

3. The assumption that everyone is hitting with every round fired (itself more a cinematic assumption than a realistic one)

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Sorry I listed it out nicely, you even thanked me, and yet you still didn't address the points.

No I can't win here

I list it simply and you don't reply

I support my points and you don't like that

You then say your annoyed, and this means what you don't have to respond because you're annoyed.

This is an Internet discussion on a RPG site. You never have to respond, you don't have to make up excuses.

You say you don't have problem with my points, but you still don't respond to them.

I can't do all the work for you here. You don't owe me anything, but I don't owe you anything either.

Have the conversion or don't but if you don't want to don't lay the blame at my feet its your choice.

I post about a lot of different things in a lot of different places, and yes I write long posts and try to qualify and support what I say. And yet the times this has been seen as an issue is quite frankly mainly been you.

Now I'm not saying I'm always 100% crystal clear and erudite. But that's none of us. TBH I'll start to take criticism from you regarding my posting style the moment you actually make an honest attempt to discuss things.

Because I'm not here to entice you to deign to discuss with me, neither is it up to me to find the magically combination of words and phrases that will unlock your secrets.

My posting style may have issues, but at least i'll defend my points you seem to think just being rude and dismissive will do that for you.

You don't like my posting style then fine as you say don't respond.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Crakkerjakk simply explained why he had no interest in responding to your post. You have the choice of a) cleaning up your posts (assume you were submitting them to a professor to be graded if that helps), b) accepting that when you have long rambling posts some people are going to mostly disregard them rather than trying to navigate through them, or c) continuing to complain that people aren't properly responding to you. I'm really hoping you go for (a), but I'd be content with (b).

I consider it to be the deciding factor. From the article, I think the doctors do as well (that whole 80% figure again). You clearly disagree.

If they were shot a single time and died, it probably would be called a lethal injury, although the coroner's report would probably list cause of death as something akin to "shock-induced cardiac arrest from a gunshot wound to the abdomen." If they were shot multiple times, cause of death would probably be listed similarly - but nobody would call any of the wounds a lethal injury.

The medical (and news) report would probably note the injury as potentially-lethal, should-have-been-lethal, or something similar.

That's exactly my point - when people die from wounds to non-vital locations, it's usually the result of complications, which take a good deal of time - meaning the person should (barring other issues) continue functioning just fine.

I explicitly mentioned shock, and noted it is more appropriately handled by some sort of Fright Check than with the current GURPS wounding system. However, a quick bit of research indicates I was somewhat mistaken - while there is an emotional state of shock, the medical one is simply the lack of proper oxygen flow. Hypovolemic shock is an effect of bleeding (particularly from Burn injuries) and/or some dehydration events; cardiogenic shock is an effect of cardiac damage (injuries to the Vitals), heart conditions, and/or extreme cases of the Bends; obstructive shock is due to blocked blood flow (probably an unlikely effect of injury, and easily abstracted into Bleeding). Distributive shock is the most broad - sepsis can be due to infection or damage to the kidneys (injury to the Vitals), anaphylatic shock is an allergic reaction, neurogenic shock is due to injury of the CNS (injury to the Skull or Spine), and adrenal crisis is a cortisol deficiency (due to abnormal adrenal function). It also appears to be capable of occurring due to "trauma," but a quick search doesn't reveal if simple generic trauma (that is, injuries to non-vital locations) is capable of causing it, or what sort of frequency it experiences. All but (possibly) the last bit are either inconsequential to this discussion or already covered by GURPS rules with the proposed half damage effect.

Because I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, either the rule is realistic for both, or it's realistic for neither. GURPS firearm damage is based on a) penetration of the rounds in RHA steel, b) round composition (AP or not), and c) caliber size (what category of pi it falls into). The only change these experience in the transition from pistol to rifle velocities is that the latter is more likely to cause tumbling in flesh, hence some rifle rounds being treated as one category larger than they really are.

I also didn't post the bit where you put words in my mouth about the overpenetration rules. For reference, no, those don't currently fix the problem, because a 9mm going all the way through the Torso without hitting anything important is still a nearly-instantly incapacitating wound (drops HP to 0), two such events cause serious risk of death (-HP), and 6 such events will kill the target outright (-5xHP). I think lwcamp's variant - with variable blowthrough caps - does a better job, and may well eliminate the need for the Survivable Guns rules. It almost certainly does when paired with his wounding system, but all that's a good deal more complicated than "half firearm damage, give firearms AD (2)."

I don't recall anyone making any sort of claim about the article calling itself realistic.

I don't care if the 6 fully-penetrating (that is, going all the way through the Torso) 9mm bullets I mention above are fired over the course of 1 round or 100, if they don't hit anything vital they shouldn't automatically kill the target. I think the others are of a similar mind - it's not so much that you can kill a target in a single round, but that you require so few bullets to do so.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Treating for physiological shock is a basic component of first aid, both specifically in GURPS and as I understand it in general.

Re: Survivable Guns Realism
 

Guess not.