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Old 03-07-2024, 07:17 PM   #1
Anthony
 
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Default Is impaling damage wrongly designed?

Impaling attacks in GURPS have very high wounding relative to their penetration. This seems... backwards. Realistically, impaling weapons excel at getting through armor and have extremely variable wounding; their big weakness is actually that it's hard to land a hit, because the difference between an effective attack and a miss is relatively small, unless you do something like use a trident.
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Old 03-07-2024, 07:24 PM   #2
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Default Re: Is impaling damage wrongly designed?

I have thought so since I first read Man To Man. Doubling damage after armour doubles the net effect of armour, and halving halves it. So GURPS damage system makes impaling weapons über but makes armour very effective against them, and the reverse for crushing. Which seems to me to be back-to-front. That's why I have only ever attempted to use GURPS for campaigns in settings where firearms (and lasers) predominate, and look upon the extravagant superstructure of armour divisors, hardened armour, split armour ratings, wounding multipliers etc. with a particularly bemused eye.
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Old 03-07-2024, 07:31 PM   #3
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Default Re: Is impaling damage wrongly designed?

I've never played this rule in a game, because it's a complication and I don't care that much, but I'd suggest that impaling hits only do x2 injury if the damage past DR is more than HP/3. That would let you have small pokes that barely injured a person, to represent hits that don't get past the ribs and defensive wounds, and then a jump to much more traumatizing penetrations that get past the ribs and hit important organs.

Average injury to a ST 10 unarmored from a 1d impaling attack would go from 7 to 6, but the spread would larger.

It doesn't address the issue that impaling attacks should be better at penetrating armor, but no one that I know about has come with a better solution for that.
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Old 03-07-2024, 08:27 PM   #4
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Default Re: Is impaling damage wrongly designed?

Quote:
Originally Posted by mlangsdorf View Post
It doesn't address the issue that impaling attacks should be better at penetrating armor, but no one that I know about has come with a better solution for that.
It's easy to fix. Remove the x2 wounding and increase base damage.
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Old 03-07-2024, 08:39 PM   #5
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Default Re: Is impaling damage wrongly designed?

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Originally Posted by mlangsdorf View Post
I've never played this rule in a game, because it's a complication and I don't care that much, but I'd suggest that impaling hits only do x2 injury if the damage past DR is more than HP/3. That would let you have small pokes that barely injured a person, to represent hits that don't get past the ribs and defensive wounds, and then a jump to much more traumatizing penetrations that get past the ribs and hit important organs.

Average injury to a ST 10 unarmored from a 1d impaling attack would go from 7 to 6, but the spread would larger.

It doesn't address the issue that impaling attacks should be better at penetrating armor, but no one that I know about has come with a better solution for that.
One idea would be to give all armors - not just unlayered textiles - reduced DR against impaling attacks. Maybe say DR only protects at 80%, round down? This would stack with the -1 for unlayered textiles. At low TL's, that typically just means -1 DR (-2 if DR 6-10, -3 if DR 11-15, etc, but you typically won't go much beyond the first or second at low TL's).

I like the idea of making weak shallow stabs a thing, although "more than HP/3" seems a bit high - I'd be more inclined to go with "more than HP/5 (20% HP)." You'd also need to exceed this to get the x3 multiplier for Vitals. This should probably apply to both imp and pi, possibly with pi causing half injury if it fails to go deep enough (so imp and pi++ match).

If you want to represent the possibility of failing to hit anything important, lwcamps suggested an interesting rule for that - a variable blowthrough cap. You can see it here, although characters with high or low HP for their SM should probably adjust this. Personally, I'm tempted to use a modified version of it:

Roll 1d. Starting at the end, a 6 caps damage at 20% HP (not quite enough to get imp's WM), a 5 caps it at 50%, a 4 caps it at 100%, a 3 caps it at 150%, a 2 caps it at 200%, and a 1 has a special effect - hit to Vitals, Joint, Eye, etc (as is typical for the hit location).
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Old 03-07-2024, 08:57 PM   #6
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Default Re: Is impaling damage wrongly designed?

It seems to me that the simplest change might be to make all Impaling attacks into (normal) Piercing attacks, possibly with an Armor Divisor of (2), or possibly only having the Armor Divisor against Flexible armors. If using the Armor Divisor, it might be best to make Mail (and other similar) armor no longer have a different value against Impaling attacks.
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Old 03-07-2024, 09:02 PM   #7
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Is impaling damage wrongly designed?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
It's easy to fix. Remove the x2 wounding and increase base damage.
No, re-doing the damage of all weapons (because non-Imp weapons need to be fair in comparison) and then re-doing all low tech armor (because how well armor stops different types of damage is relevant too) is not an easy fix.

You'd probably have a different game by the time you were through.

Restoring the 3e weakness of chain v. Imp (while keeping the 4e added weakness v. Cr) might be as close as you can come to a simple fix.
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Old 03-07-2024, 11:38 PM   #8
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Default Re: Is impaling damage wrongly designed?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
Impaling attacks in GURPS have very high wounding relative to their penetration. This seems... backwards. Realistically, impaling weapons excel at getting through armor and have extremely variable wounding; their big weakness is actually that it's hard to land a hit, because the difference between an effective attack and a miss is relatively small, unless you do something like use a trident.
I am not an expert but it seems appropriate to me.
Impaling weapons are typically pointed and narrow and will slide off rigid armor, wasting a lot of the force of impact. If they penetrate they tend to go deep and are likely to hit an internal organ rather than just cut skin, muscle, and fatty tissue. Note that targets like limbs where you don't have major organs Impaling only gets a *1 multiplier.
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Old 03-08-2024, 01:34 AM   #9
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Default Re: Is impaling damage wrongly designed?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Restoring the 3e weakness of chain v. Imp (while keeping the 4e added weakness v. Cr) might be as close as you can come to a simple fix.
That would be easiest done by reducing mail's base DR and giving it +50% vs cutting (or double, or whatever).

As for impaling, remember that it doesn't get doubled damage when hitting limbs and extremities, so it has some slight 'does little damage to non-vital spots' effect. If one was to use the random Vitals hits rule, making Impaling (and large/huge piercing) do only x1 damage on Torso hits might not be too terrible, given that one in six of those hits will be getting x3 damage (using random Vitals hits without reducing Impaling and Piercing damage is buffing those damage types, which doesn't seem to be something much discussed).
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Old 03-08-2024, 07:30 AM   #10
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Default Re: Is impaling damage wrongly designed?

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Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
That would be easiest done by reducing mail's base DR and giving it +50% vs cutting (or double, or whatever).

).
Before and after the / DR would be most in tune with usage in the rest of the system.

Muscle-powered Impaling already does less damage because with a few exceptions it's all Thrust.

<shrug>It's a combat system that's proven workable if never perfect for coming on 38 years and I'm not feeling the need to make mass revisions.
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