Help a noobie understand critical hits

[Colonel__Klink]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

If you're the GM you do not throw heavily armored foes at lightly armed PCs, unless you want them to run away, surrender, TPK, or get very creative in taking the foe down.

If I had to face a heavily armored foe who I couldn't just outmaneuver (heavy armor usually means slower), I'd hope my skill was high enough to suck up the penalties of chinks, eye shots, or hitting lighter armored areas. Or hoping that as a group we could swarm and grapple them into submission or to line up a careful stab/coup d'grace into the eye slots.



That's also a vamp with no Fortitude, average HT, not wearing armor, and just chilling out waiting to get tagged by a sniper.

Even in White Wolf's VtM that's what happens in that situation, dumb weak vamp gets snipered, dumb weak vamp goes down.

TBH, I wanted to knwo if there were a lot of options for heavy armor. Knowing that it's a very dark situation... Well that's good. It's something to throw in sparingly. It's a horror scene to players, a overwhelming challenge. A different sort of a boss! It's kind of cool to think about, and I'm grateful ya folks cleared that up so I understand what I'm working with there.

And no, I'm not interested in playing a game where one dice roll means the story is over and we all go home. Sorry no. No, it's not plausible for them to be walking around with 40lbs of armor as vampires under the masquerade all the time. When they are on a raid? sure. but daily when the confrontation with farmer john could happen? No.

Btw, the example was a 14HT character. that's 40 points!

This is something that I'm new to. Everywhere I read the average character has 9-13 HP. Is it normal for players to dump into HP and have more like 30?

[Donny Brook]

Rather than redoing weapon damage, it would probably be easier to give vampires more Hit Points or some inherent DR up to the level you prefer them to have.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

So that makes me wonder, is that 16 effective skill their skill on the character sheet or the effective skill AFTER modifiers such as distance, character speed, cover ect?

As was said earlier, "effective skill" is the skill after all modifiers. The skill value calculated from the character's attribute and Character Points spent on that skill, written on the character sheet, is called "base skill". See Campaigns, page 344, "Base Skill vs Effective Skill".

How do you allow a chance of victory if the character is using a 1d6 weapon and the enemy has an armor with a DR of 7? Is it entirely critical hits?

That's one way. There are a number of double or triple damage results on the critical hit tables.

While we're talking about critical results, let me point out that ALL critical hits means that the target doesn't get to roll an active defense. This result isn't listed on any of the individual table entries because it's always the case. See Campaigns p556 -- the last line in the paragraph under "Critical Hits".

But tactics matter a lot in GURPS combat. It's not just repeatedly rolling to hit and hoping to roll damage.

A fighter with such a light weapon facing an enemy in such heavy armor would probably try to hit weak areas. In GURPS terms, see the rules for hit location. If you can't stab through his plate armor breastplate, try stabbing the hands with only leather gloves. Or stab through the helmet visor. Or just target the generic "chinks in armor" location (Campaigns p400). All armor that humans can carry and move about in has weak spots and places that aren't well covered. -8 to hit, but you halve DR.

Or step into close combat and grapple the tank. You're probably overmatched -- the low damage in the question suggests low ST, and running away might be the better option -- but close combat might be a better choice than hoping to get lucky before a heavily armored, strong, well-armed opponent does some major damage to you. If the enemy armor isn't rigid, then the Arm Lock / Wrench Limb / Neck Snap Techniques might let you hurt the enemy. Or you could try to pin your opponent -- in which case they're largely unable to act, whereas you can get one hand free to stab your "helpless" opponent. (Note that Campaigns p423 has a rule for dealing instant death to "helpless" or "unconscious" opponents.)

(It's generally a good idea for GURPS combatants to learn an unarmed combat skill, even Brawling, and to carry a close combat weapon.)

[Colonel__Klink]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Rather than redoing weapon damage, it would probably be easier to give vampires more Hit Points or some inherent DR up to the level you prefer them to have.

TBH there's to be a mix of cyborgs, vampires and mages in the setting... it's interesting. But the point wasn't that vampires won't work. it's to show how even a supernatural creature with 100 points in powers will effectively be knocked out of the fight with one lucky hit from the farmer and one bad dodge dice roll. Just one. A human player with a tactical vest (8 dr) that he can conceal would be in very similar straits with no hope of healing. Knocked into negative hp, defensive rolls halved ect.

The game models swords very well... guns not so much!

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

This is something that I'm new to. Everywhere I read the average character has 9-13 HP. Is it normal for players to dump into HP and have more like 30?

In 20+ years of regular gaming, I've seen a handful of high powered PCs with HPs of 30+, a dozen or more with HP 20 or so, and a hundred or more with HP 8-14.

In fantasy/pseudo-medieval settings, anyone who expects to be in combat tries to have at least DR 1, and many serious combatants have DR 6 or more. But more than DR and HP, the primary solution to avoiding injury in combat was good defenses: a high weapon skill for a good Parry, a medium shield and high shield skill for a good Block and bonus defenses, and often a high Basic Speed and minimal armor for a good Dodge. Often those defenses were layered with a powerful offense, so that enemies died before they got multiple attempts to get through those defenses, penetrate armor, and cause injury. But I saw a lot more swashbucklers in light armor with HP 11-13, dodging and retreating, than I saw heavily armored warriors with HP 30 who took hits.

Another thing to keep in mind is being at 0 HP doesn't mean you're dead. It just means you have to roll HT every round or fall unconscious. With HT 13, it's pretty reasonable to stay on your feet for 4-5 rounds after hitting 0 HP, and a lot of combats are over in 4 rounds. You don't even risk dying until you hit -1xHP, and I've seen hundreds of combats where a dozen or more combatants (on either side) fell unconscious but no one died.

HT 14 is 40 CP, but that might be less than 1/6th your point budget - a lot of campaigns start at 250 CP or more, and HT 14 has a lot of use for a frontline warrior.

[Inky]

Don't the vampires have Injury Tolerance (Unliving), since VtM vampires have partial resistance to bullets due to not really having vital organs? (Possibly, I haven't got the GURPS VtM book, but I've got the actual VtM book).

Apparently, Injury Tolerance (Unliving) is pretty standard for undead creatures in GURPS (the example vampire build in Basic Set has it) and it divides piercing damage by 3, so those 26, 24 and 26 damage shots would turn into 8 damage each, not even quite at Reeling for a 13 HP character - Farmer John would have to do 39 damage with his rifle, which would need more than one shot with a 7d rifle, before Dracula Jr would even be making consciousness checks, so that looks more like a fair fight.

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

This is something that I'm new to. Everywhere I read the average character has 9-13 HP. Is it normal for players to dump into HP and have more like 30?

It seems like, no, not usually, having 30 HP is usually considered an exotic trait only allowed for monsters or huge creatures rather than humans (though some tables might do that), and from the number of people that ask similar questions this is a big difference in tactics compared to D&D and some other games where it's about whittling down your opponent's HP and stronger characters usually have more HP - in GURPS, it's more about how often you get hit at all versus how often you can hit your opponent. It seems like, GURPS combats often involve the fighters dancing around each other for several turns before one of them manages to land a blow, but when they do, if they're both human-ish, it's probably serious.

[Inky]

It seems like, you've got a point about a human in a tactical vest, though - as far as I can see, for a normal human 18 piercing (after subtracting 8 DR) means 18 piercing, so while not quite in death check territory they'd be unconscious pretty soon and the enemy could finish them off - the lesson there seems to be don't go into combats like that alone even with a tactical vest, if the other PCs are there they stand a chance of defeating the enemy before that happens and rescuing the unconscious PC.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

A human player with a tactical vest (8 dr) that he can conceal would be in very similar straits with no hope of healing. Knocked into negative hp, defensive rolls halved ect.

The game models swords very well... guns not so much!

A concealable, "bullet proof" tactical vest is most resistant to 9mm pistol bullets, and if the normal human is shoot with a 9mm pistol for 2d+2 pi damage per shot (averaging 9 damage and 1 point of injury past DR), he'll do okay. That vest is not remotely useful for slowing down a 7.62mm rifle bullet, which is much faster, heavier, and more damaging than the pistol bullet. The game is more or less correctly modeling what happens with guns.

Don't get shot in the chest by rifles unless you're wearing ceramic plate in your interceptor vest.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

TBH there's to be a mix of cyborgs, vampires and mages in the setting... it's interesting. But the point wasn't that vampires won't work. it's to show how even a supernatural creature with 100 points in powers will effectively be knocked out of the fight with one lucky hit from the farmer and one bad dodge dice roll. Just one. A human player with a tactical vest (8 dr) that he can conceal would be in very similar straits with no hope of healing. Knocked into negative hp, defensive rolls halved ect.

The game models swords very well... guns not so much!

I'm not seeing the problem. Lots of things die when they get shot. It's sort of the point.

[Colonel__Klink]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I'm not seeing the problem. Lots of things die when they get shot. It's sort of the point.

Yeah without having a excessively long page illustrating my concern.

That exactly is my point, this is a *GAME.* Ok, I spend six months designing a campaign setting, and all that. The players pour their hearts into characters and spend an hour generating them balancing them to their story well.

We start playing. One hour in is the first combat encounter. "bang." Their character is dead. It's over.

Well guys... it was a nice campaign. Anyone want to play something else?