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Old 06-23-2013, 04:18 PM   #1
Orochi-art
 
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Default Another batch of questions about realistic damage

This was planned originally as a private message for DouglasCole in an attempt to further satisfy my curiosity about realistic damage. While I was typing all the little things that interest me this became quite long. So now we have a new thread. Also I think more people read this and show their point of view I have more material to work with.

#1:A realistic scale has thrust as ST/20, and swing as ST/10.
So it is ST 10 thrust 1d-3 (1d3, 1d/2), swing 1d?

#2: What approach should be used for thrown weapons (spears, javelins, axes)? RESCALING MELEE WEAPONS or pyramid article for realistic rescaling of bows? I think it should be rescaling melee weapons method but I’m not 100% sure.

#3: Low Tech Armor and gunpowder rifles (of doom and utter despair)
To me low-tech rifles seem extremely powerful. It could be that way from long exposure to brainwashing “rules how things work” our media is doing altering my perception drastically.

Thickest manufactured piece of plate armor in Low Tech is DR 14. I will use DR 10 and DR 14 for examples.

Quote:
Musket does 4d+2 pi++ up to 119 yards of distance. Average dice roll is 16 (14+2). Against DR 10 plate armor, at 119 yards distance, this gives a 12
points of injury. Against DR 14; 4 points of injury. While a maximum dice roll would produce a 24 point injury vs a DR 14 plate armor.
Quote:
Average basic damage for a musket is 16. This also allows it to overpenetrate people with HP 15 and less. And with maximum dice roll producing 26 basic damage bullet can travel through 2 ST 10 persons and into a 3rd one?
Quote:
Average human has 10 hit points.

Person A takes 26 basic damage pi++. (Also Person A suffers 52 points on injury.)

Person A body provides 10 points of DR for person B. Person B suffers 26-10= 16 points of basic damage pi++ (32 points of injury.)

Person B provides 10 DR to person C. Person C suffers 16-10= 6 points of basic damage pi++. He suffers 12 points of injury.
Without armor and with maximum roll there is some really horrifying sites to see.

#4 Realistic damage idea
While reading Basic Damage too High? and Rejiggering Muscle-Powered Weapon Damage threads I came with an idea. I started with using DouglasCole’s approach.
Quote:
ST 10 HP10, swing 1d6, thrust 1d-3
ST 20 HP 20, swing 2d6, thrust 1d
Battle between two ST 10 opponents. Each basic swing damage roll does between 1-6 points of damage. Minimum 10% hit point damage, and maximum 60%

Battle between two ST 20 opponents. Each basic swing damage roll does between 2-12 points of damage. Likewise we see that minimum damage is 10% and maximum 60%.

Bigger (and/or stronger) creatures have higher strength and with that bigger damage output. To represent this they use more dices. This creates a bell curve „problem“. While minimum and maximum damage does not increase or decrease probability suffers.

Quote:
1d6 ST 10 character has 1-in-6 chance (or 16.67%) to roll maximum or minimum damage output.
2d6 ST 20 character has a 2.78% to roll maximum or minimum damage output.
3d6 ST 30 character has a 0.46% chance to roll maximum or minimum damage output.
ST 10 character has a greater chance to use his full spectrum for damage output.

I came to an idea instead of using multiple dices to use multiplication by (ST/10).

Quote:
ST 10 swing 1d, thrust 1d-3
ST 20 swing 1dx2, thrust (1d-3) x 2
ST 30 swing 1dx3, thrust (1d-3) x 3
#5:While reading RESCALING MELEE WEAPONS I tried an approach to differentiate damage for strength scores that are in the middle.

Using ST 10 as a base we come to solution that ST 20 is 2 times as strong (2.0) With that ST 15 person is 1.5 times as strong as ST 10 person.

ST 10 swing 1d avg. 3.5 minimum 1, maximum 6
ST 20 swing 2d avg. 7 minimum 2, maximum 12

Problem is: How to solve ST 15 swing damage? Now using Cole's table If we use 1.5 we come to avg. damage of 5.25.

Quote:
ST 10 swing 1d avg. 3.5 minimum 1, maximum 6
ST 15 swing avg. 5.25 minimum 1.5, maximum 9
ST 20 swing 2d avg. 7 minimum 2, maximum 12
I tried to solve with in two ways.
Quote:
1d+3
2d-3
Both have problems. First one has bigger minimum than ST 20. Second solution has a good chance to roll the same minimum as ST 10.

No satisfactory solution. Actually it is no wonder. If guys with academic degree in physics, who have bigger understanding, have problems solving this it is far-fetched to think I would find a good solution.
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Old 06-23-2013, 04:50 PM   #2
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Default Re: Another batch of questions about realistic damage

Quote:
Originally Posted by Orochi-art View Post
#3: Low Tech Armor and gunpowder rifles (of doom and utter despair)

Musket does 4d+2 pi++ up to 119 yards of distance. Average dice roll is 16 (14+2). Against DR 10 plate armor, at 119 yards distance, this gives a 12
points of injury. Against DR 14; 4 points of injury. While a maximum dice roll would produce a 24 point injury vs a DR 14 plate armor.

Average basic damage for a musket is 16. This also allows it to overpenetrate people with HP 15 and less. And with maximum dice roll producing 26 basic damage bullet can travel through 2 ST 10 persons and into a 3rd one?

Without armor and with maximum roll there is some really horrifying sites to see.
I have to admit, you've hit on a pet peeve of mine here. Ignore the damage maximum. It's basically a critical hit, and has little bearing on what you'll actually see in play. (For added realism, treat Armor as Dice, in which DR 10 blocks 3d and DR 14 blocks 4d.) So what you're actually looking at is a musket ball which inflicts a lethal injury (32 HP) on an unarmored target, an incapacitating wound (12 HP) on an armored target, and a light wound on the most heavily armored (they might not even be slowed down). Those results seem fine to me.

If you still think bullet damage is too high, you can use the Body Hits optional rule from HT, capping piercing injury to the torso at HP. High-damage bullet hits will still be deadly, but it'll be because of bleeding, not the initial injury.

Last edited by vierasmarius; 06-23-2013 at 04:54 PM.
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Old 06-23-2013, 05:21 PM   #3
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Default Re: Another batch of questions about realistic damage

Quote:
Originally Posted by Orochi-art View Post
No satisfactory solution. Actually it is no wonder. If guys with academic degree in physics, who have bigger understanding, have problems solving this it is far-fetched to think I would find a good solution.
Are you willing to use a computer? You can always use the equivalent of a RAND() function to get a flat distribution of damage from the min to the max if that's what you're looking for. Your 2d or 3d x ST/10 is a good solution too.

I did write up a few options for the penetration vs. armor questions in the first Alternate GURPS Pyramid, called "Armor Revisited." It contains the "Armor as Dice" option as well as a few others.

I also started a few comment threads on my blog, including

http://gamingballistic.blogspot.com/...ry-part-1.html

http://gamingballistic.blogspot.com/...ry-part-2.html

http://gamingballistic.blogspot.com/...dissected.html
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Old 06-24-2013, 01:13 AM   #4
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Default Re: Another batch of questions about realistic damage

I'm not a PHD on Physics, but I play one on TV. Actually, I'll be an engineering in a couple of years, have a very good relationship with math and physics, and I've always been known as the Science/Math/Nerd/Smart guy.

I've made my own system for damage, kinda of based on douglas cole system.
The problem is that it's all on portuguese. But, the basic is:

NO MORE SW/THR DAMAGE
There's no Sw/Thr, every weapon instead has a multiplier, multiply it by ST/10 and done, it's your damage in dice, frex, a mace got damage *1.8, so someone with ST11 does 1.98d of damage, rounded to 2d.

Instead of cutting doing *1.5, impaling *2 etc... EVERY DAMAGE TYPE IS *1.
Ok, what about penetration? It is simple, remember pi damage? with those plus and minuses? Yeah, like that, except that it follow the size/range table, so, you could get "+++" for triple damage, and "-" is *0.7, not *0.5, for 0.5 you have "--". You could even have "++++++" for a *10 multiplier(If such a weapon exists), interestingly, this makes most AD useless.

Example:
A broadsword cut is very damaging, but it's penetrating ability is low, while with a thrust you have some hope, so, the stats for it are:
*1 cut ++
Or *1.5 imp(It is a thrusting broadsword, not the crushing silliness)
Someone with ST13 and a sword could do 1d+1 cut ++ damage, or 2d imp.

Now let's see what happens against 4 enemies, one with DR0, one with DR2, DR4 and DR6:
*Against someone of DR0, the cutting damage averages on 9, the impaling averages on 7, so, against someone with no armor, you should swing.

*Against someone of DR2, the cutting damage averages on 5, the impaling averages on 5, so, against someone with DR2, it evens out.

*Against someone of DR4 the thing changes, the average damage of a cut is 2, the average of impaling is 3.16, impaling seems like a better option.

*Against someone of DR6 cutting averages on 0.333, while imp averages on 1.555, impaling seems like the only option.

For the most common weapons, the damages are:
Broadsword: *1 Cut ++ or *1.5 Imp
Axe: *1.5 Cut +
Spear: *1.5 Imp
Spear(2 hands) *2 Imp
Bow: *1 Imp or *0.7 Imp++(For hunting arrows)
Most polearms: *2 Imp(for a thrust), or, for swings: *2 cut+, *2.5 cr, *3 imp. Exception: Naginatas/Bardiches are made for slicing, not hacking, their damage is *1.6 cut++

If you want, I can translate all of it.

Last edited by gilbertocarlos; 06-24-2013 at 01:17 AM.
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Old 06-24-2013, 07:47 AM   #5
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Default Re: Another batch of questions about realistic damage

I'm pretty sure a full-scale musket doing utterly terrible things to what it hits is working as designed. Remember what a musket is. It's a 21 pound, .80 caliber personal cannon. Getting shot by that thing is a very poor life choice and likely to be terminal if it doesn't hit somewhere resulting in only minor damage, like blowing your arm off.

Most infantry 'muskets' are not muskets. They're calvers or fusils. (Or earlier, arquebuses.)

I would note that in addition to max damage being largely irrelevant (the chance of rolling 24 on 4d is .08%), wounding from piercing is capped if you use the Body Hits rule in High Tech.
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Old 06-24-2013, 08:40 AM   #6
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Default Re: Another batch of questions about realistic damage

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
I'm pretty sure a full-scale musket doing utterly terrible things to what it hits is working as designed. Remember what a musket is. It's a 21 pound, .80 caliber personal cannon. Getting shot by that thing is a very poor life choice and likely to be terminal if it doesn't hit somewhere resulting in only minor damage, like blowing your arm off.

Most infantry 'muskets' are not muskets. They're calvers or fusils. (Or earlier, arquebuses.)
Even then, the injuries inflicted during the American civil war by black powder weaponry were horrific. Modern weapons don't use as big projectiles because it's just plain not needed - so why over-engineer your weapon? YOu just end up with more expensive ammunition, heavier ammunition, heavier and more expensive guns, and more disastrous outcomes when something goes horribly wrong.

Old guns used big projectiles for a few reasons. They evolved from cannon and were being compared with sling stones and crossbow bolts, so it's not like people were thinking about how dangerous very small projectiles might be (at the time anyways). It's one of those "aha" ideas that's simple in hindsight but represents a big shift in thought.

Putting aside cognitive blocks from cultural factors, TL4 and early TL5 metalworking skills would have been sorely taxed by the challenge of making small diameter barrels. I'm sure it's humanly possible, but it would be expensive; alternately, it would be prone to failure, which is a bad thing to combine with black powder's inherent user-unfriendlyness. Nothing like accidentally overcharging a weapon to really test how good those barrel welds are :P
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Old 06-24-2013, 09:18 AM   #7
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Default Re: Another batch of questions about realistic damage

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
Even then, the injuries inflicted during the American civil war by black powder weaponry were horrific. Modern weapons don't use as big projectiles because it's just plain not needed - so why over-engineer your weapon? YOu just end up with more expensive ammunition, heavier ammunition, heavier and more expensive guns, and more disastrous outcomes when something goes horribly wrong.
Those would also be TL5 (?) rifle-muskets...I don't have High Tech with me so I'm not sure whether there's any notable damage difference.

Even the ordinary infantry muskets tend to approximately 3d, pi+ or pi++. Which is plenty horrible on soft targets...actually, pretty much at the limit of stopping power by Body Hits even if you houserule wound channel to factor in to the damage cap. But light enough that a feasible breastplate can stop them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
Old guns used big projectiles for a few reasons. They evolved from cannon and were being compared with sling stones and crossbow bolts, so it's not like people were thinking about how dangerous very small projectiles might be (at the time anyways). It's one of those "aha" ideas that's simple in hindsight but represents a big shift in thought.

Putting aside cognitive blocks from cultural factors, TL4 and early TL5 metalworking skills would have been sorely taxed by the challenge of making small diameter barrels. I'm sure it's humanly possible, but it would be expensive; alternately, it would be prone to failure, which is a bad thing to combine with black powder's inherent user-unfriendlyness. Nothing like accidentally overcharging a weapon to really test how good those barrel welds are :P
Modern small-caliber ammo has been significantly influenced by the desire for more portable rounds for automatic and semiautomatic weapons, too. Though even late black-powder cartridges were much much smaller than the .60 caliber that the LT guns hover around.

I don't know whether the smaller modern cartridges, like 5.56mm, would be effective with black powder. I suspect you'd have trouble getting the velocity they need to work. They also might not be so good with spherical shot...round shot should suffer more from air resistance, but less so at larger sizes.
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Old 06-24-2013, 10:20 AM   #8
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Default Re: Another batch of questions about realistic damage

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Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos View Post
[Snip]
If you want, I can translate all of it.
I want. This is something that is relevant to my interests. If you don't want to muck up the forums too much, shoot me a PM and I'll fork over my e-mail address or something.
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Old 06-24-2013, 10:48 AM   #9
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Default Re: Another batch of questions about realistic damage

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
I don't know whether the smaller modern cartridges, like 5.56mm, would be effective with black powder.
You won't get anything like the velocity you can get from smokeless powder, and muzzle fouling would probably be a major issue; black powder leaves a whole lot of crud behind after it detonates.
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Old 06-24-2013, 11:22 AM   #10
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Default Re: Another batch of questions about realistic damage

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Though even late black-powder cartridges were much much smaller than the .60 caliber that the LT guns hover around.
Not all that much. Even to the end of TL5, many armies were still using rifles of around .58 caliber. Right at the end, .45 caliber became common, and .30 caliber pretty much marks the beginning of TL6.
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