Ripping Out Someone's Heart

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

x1 damage is enough to penetrate the armor and penetrate the skin, allowing for the delivery of drugs and poisons but not enough to do measurable damage. The question is about either breaking through the pectoral muscles and ribcage or penetrating far enough through the abdomen to reach the heart - either of which will take a lot more than x1 damage.

Actually, the problem here is crushing damage -- crushing damage is basically non-penetrating and shouldn't be allowed to deliver a followup attack unless you grossly exceed the target's DR (figure something like a (0.1) divisor). Against a piercing or impaling attack, blowing through the ribcage is not especially hard, my best estimate is that normal flesh is around DR 0.75 per inch and bone is around DR 7 per inch (the skull is about 1/4" thick, so this checks out); a human rib should be around DR 3 if you hit it solidly but the average for the ribcage is around DR 1. Overall around 2d of piercing or impaling damage should be enough to get behind the heart -- but that's basically the one finger poke, so multiply it by five to get all the fingers in, and probably double it again to get the palm through.

So, 20d crushing. Sounds plausible.