Realistic Human DR

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

One problem with realistically modeling human (and animal) damage tolerance is that in real life, it's all over the place. There are so many factors in play that lots of outcomes are possible. People are fragile. That's a fact of life. Yet they sometimes survive, relatively intact and unhurt, the most amazing things that really, logically, should have crippled or killed them. At the same time, relatively minor impacts and injuries are sometimes known to be crippling or lethal if things go badly. You can find examples of all sorts of things from real life.

To reinforce that, some informed people think that GURPS armour performance is too unpredictable, but I don't know anyone who thinks that the wounding rules are unrealistically unpredictable. Life is full of cases like the person who died from one punch or the person who was shot in the head with a .22 and the bullet was channelled between scalp and skull rather than inflicting a traumatic brain injury.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

To reinforce that, some informed people think that GURPS armour performance is too unpredictable, but I don't know anyone who thinks that the wounding rules are unrealistically unpredictable.

GURPS performance against armor is simultaneously too predictable and too unpredictable. Whether an attack penetrates a given thickness of armor plate is pretty predictable. How much armor plate is actually in front of an attack is not.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Anthony

GURPS performance against armor is simultaneously too predictable and too unpredictable. Whether an attack penetrates a given thickness of armor plate is pretty predictable. How much armor plate is actually in front of an attack is not.

Base HP damage isn't just raw kinetic energy, it's also the exact angle and location where that energy is delivered, relative motion of attacker and defender, and a bunch of other little things. A low dice roll for damage means a glancing blow or a blow which strikes the thickest part of DR at an unfavorable angle. A high roll means a "partial critical hit" which strikes armor in a weak spot or at just the right angle to penetrate.

Realistically, unless the attack is truly massive, armor is going to turn impaling, cutting, or piercing damage into crushing damage. There's an option to do just that in one of the GURPS Low Tech books.

Even more realistically, damage for various weapons should be given an averaged HP dice value with +/-10-20% above or below that. That's easily modeled by rolling 1d instead of the usual damage dice, with 1: -20%, 2: -10%, 3-4 no modifier, 5: +10%, 6: +20%.

I'm not sure your average player would tolerate not being able to roll dice for damage, however! Roll to hit/dmg. is one of the oldest and most satisfying RPG mechanics there is.