Help a noobie understand critical hits

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by Varyon

A 5.56mm rifle bullet to the ribcage is more likely to kill than an axe. That axe is going to bruise your vital organs, possibly even perforate them. The bullet shards are going to shred your vital organs. You're not terribly likely to survive either (if the axe hit hard enough to split the bones anyway; you need a strong attacker and/or a good hit to do more than crack them), but the bullet is much more likely to kill you. If that's where it hits, that is - those cases of people being relatively unaffected from being shot typically involve hits elsewhere (or involve people who are actually in the process of dying but don't realize it; GURPS doesn't model this very well, admittedly).

Exactly right. Also depends on the type of bullet - is it designed to expand in the target or not? Most of the "clean through" wounds would not be from hollow point rounds, for example.

I think movies have exaggerated the damage from melee weapons and lessen that of bullets.