Adapting The Morrow Project to GURPS

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

However, that DR 8 versus cutting has never set well with me*, so personally I'd call it DR 8/4 (Piercing/Everything).

* Mostly because a swung axe should still be crushing bones as easily as a baseball bat or mace, but GURPS has always had kevlar as being super capable of stopping 'larger' cutting damages as well as knife slashes.

Low Tech has an optional rule (I believe called Blunt Trauma and Edged Weapons, but on the forums it often gets referred to as Edge Protection) where cutting damage that doesn't exceed DR by more than twice gets changed to crushing - if you're wearing DR 5 Plate and get hit with an axe for 7 damage, you take 2 crushing rather than 2 cutting. There's some debate on how this should be handled for split DR's (such as mail, which has -2 DR against Crushing) - the option that might work well for you is the one where armor with split DR, such that they provide less protection against crushing, should treat cutting damage that doesn't exceed twice the cutting DR as being crushing, including against the lower crushing DR. In the case of DR 8/4, that means any cutting damage below 17 gets reduced to crushing, but only has to deal with DR 4. That will generally result in an axe having comparable performance to a mace of equal weight against kevlar, rather than being markedly better (as having Kevlar's higher DR only apply against piercing would do) or markedly worse (as just using the cutting DR would do).

[hal]

I picked up all of David Pulver's articles for building armor from TL 0 on up to Ultra-tech levels. They were "EIDETIC MEMORY" articles in three different Pyramid issues:


The upshot is - the magazines are:

Feb 2013 3/52
Nov 2015 3/85
Oct 2016 3/96

Each issue follows the same basic rules where if you know the areas being covered for a 150 lb adult individual, you multiply the material weight per square foot of area covered, multiply the weight by cost factor for the material, and presto, you're done.

The material types include:


TL 6 Hard Steel
TL 6 High-Strength Steel
TL 6 Rubber
TL 7 Ballistic Resin
TL 7 Basic Ceramic
TL 7 Elastic Polymer
TL 7 Fiberglass
TL 7 High-Strength Aluminum
TL 7 Nomex
TL 7 Nylon
TL 7 Plastic
TL 7 Polycarbonate
TL 7 Titanium Alloy
TL 8 Ballistic Polymer
TL 8 Basic Ceramic
TL 8 Elastic Polymer
TL 8 Fiberglass
TL 8 High-Strength Aluminum
TL 8 Improved Ballistic Polymer
TL 8 Improved Ceramic
TL 8 Improved Kevlar
TL 8 Improved Nomex
TL 8 Kevlar
TL 8 Laminated Polycarbonate
TL 8 Nomex
TL 8 Nylon
TL 8 Polycarbonate
TL 8 Polymer Composite
TL 8 Titanium Alloy
TL 8 Titanium Composite
TL 8 Ultra-Strength Steel
TL 9 Arachnoweave
TL 9 Ballistic Polymer
TL 9 Basic Nanoweave
TL 9 Ceramic Nanocomposite
TL 9 Improved Ballistic Polymer
TL 9 Improved Ceramic
TL 9 Improved Kevlar
TL 9 Kevlar
TL 9 Laminated Polycarbonate
TL 9 Laser-Ablative Polymer
TL 9 Magnetic Liquid Armor
TL 9 Polymer Composite
TL 9 Polymer Nanocomposite
TL 9 STF Liquid Armor
TL 9 Titanium Composite
TL 9 Titanium Nanocomposite
TL 9 Ultra-Strength Steel
TL 10 Arachnoweave
TL 10 Basic Nanoweave
TL 10 Ceramic Nanocomposite
TL 10 Laser-Ablative Polymer
TL 10 Magnetic Liquid Armor
TL 10 Polymer Nanocomposite
TL 10 STF Liquid Armor
TL 10 Titanium Nanocomposite

Note: Any armor material colored in blue has the following limitation:

The full DR only applies against piercing and cutting damage. Divide DR (and DR/in) against other damage types by four

Ultimately - you can build ANY armor that you want, from armored gloves, to helmets, to full suits, to even sealed suits with air tanks and the like. Those three articles are by far, tops on my list of favorite Pyramid articles. I did leave out the low tech materials largely because I have other rules for those, but they work VERY well for building armors for Low tech as well.

In the end - it largely depends upon what it is you want to do with this. For my own Cyberpunk campaign, I created (via these rules) - a "Duster" armored coat. Why? If you pay a certain cost factor to make the armor look like fabric (such as John Wick's three piece suit that was resistant to bullets) - as long as your percentage of max DR was not over a certain level, your armor can look like ordinary clothing - aka FASHIONABLE clothing. For a lesser price, but still more than the utility cost, it can look like ordinary clothing.

So, a duster coat, covering the Shoulders, the arms, the torso, the waist, the abdomen, the upper legs down to the Knees - and you have a piece of armor as described in GURPS terms that is useful.

Looking at Morrow Project 4th edition, Resistweave is rated with a Ballistic value of 7, and non-ballistic value of 4 - effectively, it looks to about about HALF that of its Ballistic value.

Elsewhere in MP 4e, we have it rated against actual armor values (IIA) which by its own standards on the same page, lists it as

"armor is effective against 9mm rounds and .40 S&W FMJ (i.e. medium pistols)."

Here is the rub however: In MP 4e, IIA armor is rated at Ballistic Armor Value (AV) of 10, Non Ballistic AV of 1. Resistweave is rated as being less capable than Armor level IIA by about 30% less, but is 400% better than level IIA armor against non-ballistic weapons.

Level II Armor protects against a .357 Magnum. Level II armor has a Ballistic AV of 12, which makes the Resistweave armor definitely less capable.

In GURPS CLASSIC COPS, level IIA armor is listed as DR 8. Level II armor is listed as DR 10. I've not been able to see comparable "Descriptions of Armor type" DR listed ratings in any 4e books, but were I to compare/contrast weapon damage for specific guns in 3e versus their 4e counterparts, you could probably get a feel for what would be type IIA armor and Type II armor in GURPS 4e

If you use DR .7 x 8, it would appear that the proper DR for Reistweave is likely in the vicinity of about DR 6 (5.6 rounded up). DR of 6/4 would either be DR 1 or DR 2 depending on whether you round up or round down regards to dividing Ballistic DR by 4 for the non-ballistic DR.

Resistweave coveralls are 1.7 kg in weight or about 3.74 lbs overall. It would seem to cover the Shoulders, Torso, Abdomen, legs, and Arms. Were I to use Arachnoweave armor material, I can get you a DR 6 Coverall that covers 85% of the body (ie, doesn't cover the neck, head, or feet) at 3.3 lbs and $4,000 (actual calculated value was $3,960.75). Since the description states that it can utilize a zip on hood, assuming it doesn't cover the face, it would add on an additional $200 in price and cover the skull and neck (but not the face) for an additional .2 lbs (bringing the whole thing up to 3.5 lbs).

If you want more help, let me know - click on my name in the left panel and select "send email to hal".

:)

[hal]

I almost forgot...

David's rules also take into account the fact that not everyone is going to weigh 150 lbs. The rules permit you calculate the armor costs and weights based on a formula involving the weight of the wearer.

When I used my spreadsheet, I forgot to set the weight back to the default 150 lbs. The spreadsheet was calculating stats based on a person who weighed about 210 lbs.

For a 150 lb person, the armor with a DR 6 would weigh 2.8 lbs, and cost $3,300. For a woman who weighed say, 110 lbs - it would cost $2,700 and weigh 2.3 lbs.

Sorry!

[HANS]

Again, the official stats for the Rheinmetall Rh202 and its ammunition are in Pyramid 3/53. The single-feed version in there is the one used in The Morrow Project. That article also details the V-150 Commando, and it even has a boxed text how to convert it into the version in The Morrow Project.
Practically all the other arms, ammunition, explosives, and other equipment are in High-Tech, except for the Stoner weapons, which are in SEALs in Vietnam. The SK-5 hovercraft, by the way, can also be found in SEALs in Vietnam.
In the original The Morrow Project, the protection level of resistweave is specified. It equals DR 14/5 in GURPS.

Cheers

HANS

[midnight77]

Originally Posted by HANS

Again, the official stats for the Rheinmetall Rh202 and its ammunition are in Pyramid 3/53. The single-feed version in there is the one used in The Morrow Project. That article also details the V-150 Commando, and it even has a boxed text how to convert it into the version in The Morrow Project.
Practically all the other arms, ammunition, explosives, and other equipment are in High-Tech, except for the Stoner weapons, which are in SEALs in Vietnam. The SK-5 hovercraft, by the way, can also be found in SEALs in Vietnam.
In the original The Morrow Project, the protection level of resistweave is specified. It equals DR 14/5 in GURPS.

Cheers

HANS

Thank you very much!

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Low Tech has an optional rule (I believe called Blunt Trauma and Edged Weapons, but on the forums it often gets referred to as Edge Protection)...

I know, that just always feels fiddly to me. I'd rather just change what the DR is listed as being good against rather than have a secondary rule everyone has to try to remember.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Flexible HT/UT armor is so good against Cutting so it will stop fragments efficiently. However, 4e probably does fragmentation wrong and this makes such armor unrealistically effective v. machetes.

If (as a simple fix) you change Fragmentation damage from Cutting to Piercing you can change the armors in question to Piercing/Everything else.

Now that just might fix my problems. Switching fragmentation to pi+ (and removing 'cutting' protection from most "bulletproof" armors) might just solve that problem completely. Thanks!

[hal]

Point of Reference:

Glock 27 .40 S&W in 3e does 2d6 damage
Glock 27 .40 S&W in 4e does 2d6+1 Pi+

Glock 26 9mm Parabellum does 2d6+1 in 3e
Glock 26 9mm Parabellum does 2d6+1 pi in 4e

As you can see, the damages for the pistols are more or less comparable. So the DR values given in GURPS COPS (or GURPS CLASSIC COPS if you buy it as a PDF) should be sufficient for your needs for Level IIA and Level II armor types.