Appropriate Advantages for Supernatural WWII Commandos

[Anders Gabrielsson]

(For those who want to skip the wall of text the key facts are in the last two paragraphs.)

I'm playing in a Weird War II game centered on British supernatural creatures doing commando raids against superscience/magic German forces. Until now we've been using Savage Worlds but increasing dissatisfaction with the system has made us look at alternatives. We've done a very brief playtest of Twilight 2013 which is centered around doing modern firefights right (and seems to do a great job of that), but using that would require a lot of work to get the supernatural powers to fit well.

Another alternative is GURPS, for which I'm setting up a test-run. I'm familiar with the system but I haven't played it for a long time so my active knowledge of the latest edition is not very good. Specifically, I'm looking for advice on achieving the right level of damage tolerance for our protagonists.

Under the Savage Worlds system our characters have (barring unlucky crits by our opponents) been pretty much immune to pistol and SMG fire, and rifles, light machine guns and handgrenades have been moderately dangerous - charging a machinegun nest from long range would not work, but risking a burst of LMG fire before getting close enough to take out the enemy team is clearly an alternative. The most durable character has used dropping a grenade at his feet as a reasonable tactic when in melee with multiple opponents.

Most fights use regular weapons, both for us and the enemy, though often upgraded with magic or supertech and complemented with various supernatural abilities.

My main question is how to achieve the right level of durability with regards to WWII era weapons. Preferably the step from completely unharmed to non-functional should not be too short, but neither should it be possible to ignore enemy fire with impunity.

So far I'm looking at a substantial amount of DR (20?), a bunch of extra HP (10? 20? more?) and a few levels of Hard to Kill (5?) to allow someone who gets knocked out a better chance to survive. However, I'm sure there are other abilities that can be used to similar or better effect and that's where I need your help! (If we do pick GURPS our characters will probably use different methods to soak up bullets, but for this test run I would prefer to have a common set of abilities to keep rules explanations to a minimum.)

[Leynok]

Unkillable 1 will make it so you need -HP x10 to die, if thats to extreme, just stick with hard to kill and a lot of HP.
Damage reduction will divide all injury instead of taking a point off for each level.

[Figleaf23]

One of my go-tos for this kind of challenge is Ablative or Semi-ablative DR.

[Proteus]

I thoroughly recommend Injury Tolerance (Homogenous) [40] or Injury Tolerance (Unliving) [20] from Characters pp. 60-61. Both reduce damage from piercing attacks (aka bullets) and impaling attacks, which means that they encourage cutting attacks, such as with swords.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Proteus

I thoroughly recommend Injury Tolerance (Homogenous) [40] or Injury Tolerance (Unliving) [20] from Characters pp. 60-61. Both reduce damage from piercing attacks (aka bullets) and impaling attacks, which means that they encourage cutting attacks, such as with swords.

They encourage everything but Pi and Imp, which is all to the good if you like explosions, flamethrowers, fisticuffs, etc.

[David Johnston2]

I think that you may be asking the wrong question. Do the characters actually possess super-powered protection against damage or are they just really lucky and awesome?

I'd suggest that where you should start is with page B417. Pay close attention to "Cinematic Explosions", "Flesh Wounds" and "TV Action Violence"

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Anders Gabrielsson

I'm playing in a Weird War II game centered on British supernatural creatures doing commando raids against superscience/magic German forces.

What kinds of creatures?

So far I'm looking at a substantial amount of DR (20?), a bunch of extra HP (10? 20? more?) and a few levels of Hard to Kill (5?) to allow someone who gets knocked out a better chance to survive.

That approach has scaling problems. Combining some basic DR with something from damage reduction, injury tolerance, and ablative DR is likely to work better, although you'll have to run through a few examples to get the best fit for your needs.

In the weird WWII campaign I play in, we recently started running into Germans with technomagic equipment that gave them DR20 or thereabouts, plus super-strength, flight and ego problems. DR20 will make you immune to pistols and SMGs, and takes all the sting out of rifle and LMG fire, or grenades that aren't right next to you. Our response was to get bigger guns: a couple of large-calibre hunting rifles, plus using the anti-tank rifles that most European armies had in quantity (British Boys MkI, German Panzerbüchse 39, Soviet PTRS-41, etc) but stopped using once tanks got too tough. Those will readily kill someone who has DR20, and once word gets around that they're useful again, they'll start showing up.

[Randyman]

I'd also recommend the GURPS Monster Hunters series and the accompanying Pyramid #3-31; the latter includes information on Pulp Hunters, which is, of course, the immediate predecessor era to WWII.

[Anders Gabrielsson]

Thanks for all the responses! Lots of useful tips here, and many good points.

Some specific notes:

* Unkillable will probably fit some of the characters but not all. I'll keep it in mind for the future if we pick GURPS, but for this test I don't think it's appropriate.

* Injury Tolerance of some kind looks good; probably straight-up Damage Reduction for the test but I know other forms will be great for some of the characters.

* Semi-ablative DR looks like a good option mechanically, but I'm not sure how to sell it in the fiction in this case.

* The characters are physically tougher than humans, not just lucky (though they are lucky too - Luck will definitely be in there in some form).

* Our current characters are a redcap, a bugswarm creature, a shadow-teleporting vampire and a city elemental.

* Good point about the scaling. Savage Worlds is more forgiving there with a flatter increase in weapon damage.

* I have most (up to #4, I think?) of the Monster Hunters books; I didn't remember them bringing up PC resistance to guns much but I'll have another look.

[Randyman]

Originally Posted by Anders Gabrielsson

Thanks for all the responses! Lots of useful tips here, and many good points.

Some specific notes:

* Unkillable will probably fit some of the characters but not all. I'll keep it in mind for the future if we pick GURPS, but for this test I don't think it's appropriate.

* Injury Tolerance of some kind looks good; probably straight-up Damage Reduction for the test but I know other forms will be great for some of the characters.

* Semi-ablative DR looks like a good option mechanically, but I'm not sure how to sell it in the fiction in this case.

* The characters are physically tougher than humans, not just lucky (though they are lucky too - Luck will definitely be in there in some form).

* Our current characters are a redcap, a bugswarm creature, a shadow-teleporting vampire and a city elemental.

* Good point about the scaling. Savage Worlds is more forgiving there with a flatter increase in weapon damage.

* I have most (up to #4, I think?) of the Monster Hunters books; I didn't remember them bringing up PC resistance to guns much but I'll have another look.

IIRC, Monster Hunters uses Injury Tolerance for some of the Inhuman racial templates to address resistance to various types of damage. In that same vein, Pyramid #3-45 has a couple of articles on using the Fae in Monster Hunters, as well as Inhuman racial templates for ghosts and mummies as Hunters. I really think that Monster Hunters is a good fit for what you are doing, even if the theme and/or tone of your game is different.