Finer granularity for small calibers?

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The best options seem to be a Colt Government, with ammunition readily available in the Americas, but patchy in much of the rest of the world, or a Luger P08, if you can get it gunsmithed to raise its reliability.

Late in the 30s there is also the Browning HP. Most of these are harder to conceal than the vest-pocket pistols and carry less shots than some big .32 pistols.

Today the world is flooded with cartridges in NATO and Russian military calibres, pistols that can take stronger rounds are widely available, ownership of cheap small-calibre handguns is often restricted, and gun culture stresses MAWR POWR.

[Polydamas]

Also, if you check the period civilian arsenals in Hans-Christian Vortisch' blog, you see that the US people who frequently used firearms against other humans carried the kinds of guns that the GURPS rules reward https://shootingdiceblog.wordpress.c...gangster-gats/ There are a lot of Colt Governments and Lugers, revolvers in .38, and long guns. The .32s and .25s and .22s made good backup and concealed guns.

In other places you might see more Mauser C96 or big revolvers.

[Calvin]

I am working on some macros for a VTT game and I would also like to have finer granularity for wound modifiers, but my focus is a little different. I'm concerned more about the breakpoints between wound modifiers, than the range in the middle.

Lets use Icelander's numbers for example, using a selection of autoloading pistols and assuming unarmoured targets.

Ruger Standard MK1 .22lr does 1d+1 with a 0.5 multiplier. This works out to 1 to 3.5 wounding, with an average of 2.25.

Lorcin L-25, .25 ACP does 1d with a 0.5 multiplier. This works out to 0.5 to 3 wounding with an average of 1.75.

Walther PPK, .32 ACP does 2d-1 with a 0.7 multiplier. This works out to 0.7 to 7.7 wounding, with an average of 3.5.

So among the concealable pistols, those you'd expect to cause more wounding already do so, due to their higher damage figures. It's not a huge amount more, but it feels about right.

On the other hand, the breakpoint between 9mm and .40 is almost the opposite problem. There's a sudden jump in wounding where there probably should be one. Most 9x19mm pistols do 2d+2 pi, while the .40 calibre pistols do the same or nearly the same damage (2d+2 or 2d+1) but make the jump to pi+, and so have 50% higher wounding.

What I'm trying to do, and admittedly this is really only reasonable on a VTT, is get a weapon specific wound multiplier based on projectile diameter and velocity. It even sorta works.

As for players picking large frame revolvers and bigger automatics over small vest pistols, that seems completely sensible. If you're expecting to use a pistol in a proper firefight you'll want something like a modern service pistol. The sort of thing you see in pulp guns, etc, are little pocket pistols. The sort of thing you carry every day, not the sort of thing you'd carry to a battlefield.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Makes sense. Most use of .32 pistols has been for deterrence or threatening applications (Civilian pocket pistols, officers' symbols of rank) where killing causes more difficulties than wounding.

IIRC - it might even have been from an Ian Hogg book - there was, in the interwar era at least, a distressing tendency for officer's pistols to be selected more for their effect on the fit of a dress uniform than on an human target.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Late in the 30s there is also the Browning HP. Most of these are harder to conceal than the vest-pocket pistols and carry less shots than some big .32 pistols.

Today the world is flooded with cartridges in NATO and Russian military calibres, pistols that can take stronger rounds are widely available, ownership of cheap small-calibre handguns is often restricted, and gun culture stresses MAWR POWR.

Weirdly, there are also places - mostly in Europe IIRC, where certain calibres of ammunition (presumably specific loadings) are considered "too good for civilians" and only permitted for government use.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The best options seem to be a Colt Government, with ammunition readily available in the Americas, but patchy in much of the rest of the world, or a Luger P08, if you can get it gunsmithed to raise its reliability.

Yeah. From 1935 you might get a Browning High-Power. From 1931 a Walther PP in .380 ACP will also do pi damage. The other choices are all revolvers, and most of them aren't small either. A pocket .38 is probably the best bet for a compact pistol with decent damage.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The 7.63 x 25mm Mauser round is the notable exception. At 3D-1 in Gurps the change takes it from (9.5) x (.5) round down to 4 to 6.65 round down to 6.

It's actually 2d+2 pi- from a pistol and 3d pi- from a SMG. Thus it needs at least a 0.67 (2/3rds) WM to average a major wound when used in a pistol. As it happens a x2/3 WM nicely mirrors the x3/2 WM of pi+.

It's actually the round I think is most poorly served by the breakpoints and the x0.5 WM of pi-.

The one thing that would possibly be affected by this change in a way that matters is the value of pi- Innate Attacks.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Rupert

The one thing that would possibly be affected by this change in a way that matters is the value of pi- Innate Attacks.

If you're paying normal pi- price, it's 0.5 wounding modifier. If you want to allow buying WM 0.7, thr pricing is modway between pi- and pi.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Calvin

I am working on some macros for a VTT game and I would also like to have finer granularity for wound modifiers, but my focus is a little different. I'm concerned more about the breakpoints between wound modifiers, than the range in the middle.

Lets use Icelander's numbers for example, using a selection of autoloading pistols and assuming unarmoured targets.

Ruger Standard MK1 .22lr does 1d+1 with a 0.5 multiplier. This works out to 1 to 3.5 wounding, with an average of 2.25.

Lorcin L-25, .25 ACP does 1d with a 0.5 multiplier. This works out to 0.5 to 3 wounding with an average of 1.75.

Walther PPK, .32 ACP does 2d-1 with a 0.7 multiplier. This works out to 0.7 to 7.7 wounding, with an average of 3.5.

So among the concealable pistols, those you'd expect to cause more wounding already do so, due to their higher damage figures. It's not a huge amount more, but it feels about right.

On the other hand, the breakpoint between 9mm and .40 is almost the opposite problem. There's a sudden jump in wounding where there probably should be one. Most 9x19mm pistols do 2d+2 pi, while the .40 calibre pistols do the same or nearly the same damage (2d+2 or 2d+1) but make the jump to pi+, and so have 50% higher wounding.

If you're distinguishing between .25 ACP wounding, .32 ACP and .380 ACP, you also need to realize that ball ammo in .40 S&W is not pi+ for a x1.5 wounding modifier. Realistically, more like x1.2.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

IIRC - it might even have been from an Ian Hogg book - there was, in the interwar era at least, a distressing tendency for officer's pistols to be selected more for their effect on the fit of a dress uniform than on an human target.

Weirdly, there are also places - mostly in Europe IIRC, where certain calibres of ammunition (presumably specific loadings) are considered "too good for civilians" and only permitted for government use.

could well be, I just know that in the old country they banned most .32 and .25 calibre handguns at some point.

By the last year of the war, Canadian army officers returning from combat were complaining that their Browning HPs were useless. But it would be a while before most armies were issuing officers with a light long gun like the US M1 carbine or a Colt M4 carbine.

[Calvin]

Originally Posted by Icelander

If you're distinguishing between .25 ACP wounding, .32 ACP and .380 ACP, you also need to realize that ball ammo in .40 S&W is not pi+ for a x1.5 wounding modifier. Realistically, more like x1.2.

Yeah, since it's VTT I am (in theory) taking damage and calibre and calculating wound multiplier on the fly. With the version I have now .40S&W comes out to 1.22 while different loadings of 9mm come out between 0.92 and 1.01. So you get a smooth scale all the way through from 0.5 (or less) all the way up to the monster hunter wounding modifiers like 2.5+