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Old 09-22-2022, 09:36 AM   #31
Rupert
 
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Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

I think GURPS is probably a little generous when it comes to mid-range falls (and perhaps a bit punitive when it comes to small falls) - that 10 story fall onto hard concrete would do 5d damage to the average person, which is unlikely to kill them unless they hit head-first. It'll almost certainly destroy any limbs or extremities that hit first, but as there's no mechanism to transfer damage to the head, it takes 20+ points of damage to force a death check if the initial hit location isn't the skull.

Heck, if they land flat (i.e. locations 9-11 are 'hit') they'll 'only' be having to worry about conciousness, and in a few days they'll be walking around, and in a few more, they'll be a full-speed, etc.

While do just get up from great falls and walk away every so often, in most cases that's a serendipitous event (they land on something soft and sloped, etc.) rather than being really tough or lucky in how they land (rather than what they land on).
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Old 09-22-2022, 10:10 AM   #32
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Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

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Heck, if they land flat (i.e. locations 9-11 are 'hit') they'll 'only' be having to worry about conciousness, and in a few days they'll be walking around, and in a few more, they'll be a full-speed, etc.
5d averages out to 17.5 HP of Injury, which takes a bit over a month to fully recover from if simply resting (HT 10 means 1 HP restored every two days, so on average 15 days to get back up to 0 HP, 8 more days - total 23 - to get above 1/3rd HP, and +12 days - total 35 - to get back to full HP; I'd call each of those more than "a few days"). Medical care will speed this up markedly, however, likely to a rather cinematic extent - at TL 8, first aid will reduce the Injury by 1d (average 3.5), and the physician gets a daily roll to restore 1 HP; with a caretaker with Physician 12, that's roughly +0.75 HP recovered per day. So, first aid followed by care by a competent physician reduces the original Injury to 14 HP, and the character recovers an average of around 1.25 HP each day - that would fall under the "few days" you suggested (slightly over 3 days to reach 0 HP, 3 more days - total 6 - to get above 1/3rd HP, and finally slightly over 5 more days - total 11 - to get to full HP.

GURPS likely is a bit off with this, of course - too harsh for low-velocity collisions, too lenient for some of the high-velocity ones. For example, a spread-eagle terminal velocity (Move 60) fall into water would deal only 6d cr, averaging 21 Injury. Against an average person, that's only a ~26% chance of instant death (fail Death Check by 3+), meaning immediate medical attention (including getting you out of the water before you drown) has a pretty good chance of saving you... when in reality a fall like that is likely to kill more-or-less instantly. But it's a decent-enough gameable approximation.
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Old 09-22-2022, 04:20 PM   #33
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Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

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I think GURPS is probably a little generous when it comes to mid-range falls (and perhaps a bit punitive when it comes to small falls)
Add Bleeding and some of the optional injury rules and even mid-range falls can be nasty.
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Old 09-23-2022, 12:07 AM   #34
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I think GURPS is probably a little generous when it comes to mid-range falls
A few years back, I saw a doctor claim that roughly 16 yards is the LD50 scenario for a fall - i.e., it's the height at which 50% of falls are fatal.

Making a bunch of assumptions about details not given in the doc's brief comment, and mapping that to game rules to the the extent possible, yields the (arguable) conclusion that GURPS should roughly double its damage for this particular fall. (That's if the game wants to be brutally realistic - and I'm not saying it needs to aim for that.)

Mildly interesting stuff for the simulation crowd. You can see all the details here.
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Old 09-23-2022, 01:24 AM   #35
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Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

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A few years back, I saw a doctor claim that roughly 16 yards is the LD50 scenario for a fall - i.e., it's the height at which 50% of falls are fatal.

Making a bunch of assumptions about details not given in the doc's brief comment, and mapping that to game rules to the the extent possible, yields the (arguable) conclusion that GURPS should roughly double its damage for this particular fall. (That's if the game wants to be brutally realistic - and I'm not saying it needs to aim for that.)

Mildly interesting stuff for the simulation crowd. You can see all the details here.
I sympathize with the comment about movies. I went with C to the second Bond film that had Daniel Craig (the first time I had seen him), and the opening combat scene had him and his foe fighting in a building under repair (a church, I think) and falling repeatedly onto scaffolding at different levels. And as I watched him slam into those hard surfaces, undamaged, suddenly in my brain he turned into a toon. I couldn't take any of his travails in the rest of the movie seriously; you can't hurt a toon. And that left me with an aversion to Craig as an actor, which was only reinforced by seeing him and Rooney Mara in the American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
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Old 09-23-2022, 05:22 AM   #36
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In regards to the original question,

I would say if the blunt trauma would equal or exceed HP, treat the attack as impaling, and apply blow through[HighTech pg162](for a 10HP person, this is 50 points of blunt damage, to get 10 points of blunt trauma - nearly enough to kill outright anyways) and over penetration, if this would make sense(a very powerful(animated gore) fist, or a bollard from a liveleak video would count. A truck probably wouldn't). A shot to the heart(vitals) will still donut a person.
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Old 09-23-2022, 08:44 AM   #37
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Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

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5d averages out to 17.5 HP of Injury, which takes a bit over a month to fully recover from if simply resting (HT 10 means 1 HP restored every two days, so on average 15 days to get back up to 0 HP, 8 more days - total 23 - to get above 1/3rd HP, and +12 days - total 35 - to get back to full HP; I'd call each of those more than "a few days"). Medical care will speed this up markedly, however, likely to a rather cinematic extent - at TL 8, first aid will reduce the Injury by 1d (average 3.5), and the physician gets a daily roll to restore 1 HP; with a caretaker with Physician 12, that's roughly +0.75 HP recovered per day. So, first aid followed by care by a competent physician reduces the original Injury to 14 HP, and the character recovers an average of around 1.25 HP each day - that would fall under the "few days" you suggested (slightly over 3 days to reach 0 HP, 3 more days - total 6 - to get above 1/3rd HP, and finally slightly over 5 more days - total 11 - to get to full HP.
I thought it fair to assume medical care until they were at positive hit points, at the least, and likely until they're at over 1/2 move. Also, remember that being under the care of a skilled professional gives +1 to the patient's own HT rolls to heal, so they're healing more like ~1.375 HP/day.
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Old 09-23-2022, 06:05 PM   #38
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Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

It occurs to me that THE big killer in falls is cerebrospinal injuries.

Because GURPS only assigns a small chance of getting a head or neck hit and Basic GURPS ignores the spinal cord location, that makes falls much less lethal than they should be.

If you use a simplified Hit Location table based on "The Rule of 9s" which maps out body parts by surface area, you can use 1d to simulate general hit location for falls and area attacks:

1 Head/Neck
2 Arms/Hands
3-4 Torso/Groin/Vitals
5-6 Legs/Feet

That gives a much more generous 1-in-6 chance of getting a head/neck hit with concurrent damage multipliers.

If you allow area or falling damage to the torso which exceeds HP to affect the Vitals, that gives you another big chance of getting a lethal hit from a mid-ranged fall. That models the other big killer from fall injuries - ruptured/lacerated organs.
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Old 09-23-2022, 06:11 PM   #39
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Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

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Originally Posted by dagothdoom View Post
I would say if the blunt trauma would equal or exceed HP, treat the attack as impaling, and apply blow through.
Assuming that overall damage was sufficient to penetrate DR, this is a pretty good rule.

For rigid DR, divide total HP damage by 6 to determine if a blow overpenetrates.
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Old 09-24-2022, 12:41 AM   #40
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Default Re: Punching someone into a "Fine Red Mist"

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It occurs to me that THE big killer in falls is cerebrospinal injuries.
Apparently the most common causes are subarachnoid hemorrhage and subdural hematoma.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...%20of%20trauma.
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