Total Noobie TL7-8 Combat Help

[Colonel__Klink]

Hello folks! I'm so glad I found this forum because I'm trying to put together a high tech campaign but I'm having a very hard time understanding combat rules and I was hoping someone could help explain a few things for me.

In my campaign I was working on combining cyberpunk, Eldrich horror and vampires but everything came to a halt when I saw that a AK47 doing 5d+1 damage. On paper it doesn't matter if my players dumped a hundred points into hp, there is no possible way to survive battles with weapons like that. This is something I couldn't get, every TL6+ campaign would inherently have to be a one shot suicide mission session. I was seriously looking at throwing out all the weapons, all their stats all of it and writing fresh. "AK47 1d+2 damage. ROF 10" ect.

Then I started looking in the combat rules in 4th edition basic set book two and I saw the following blurb:

"The armor-piercing rifle bullet – a
7d(2) pi- attack – hits him in the chest!
The bullet’s basic damage is 20 points.
Gray’s DR 8 ballistic vest stops only 4
points due to the armor divisor of (2).
Gray takes 16 points of penetrating
damage. Halved for small piercing,
this inflicts an 8 HP wound. "

Where in the world does it say that guns do half damage due to special rules for "small piercing"? If it does half damage why not list AK47 as 2d instead of 5d? This is a bit of hope because 8 damage is potentially survivable if I council my players to spend points on HP.

Does anyone have some advice how to run a TL6+ campaign with guns with fairly simple rules that players can actually enjoy shootouts and not get wiped out every single game? Thank you in advance. My hope is high because I see folks posting "advantage of the day" ect on here and really know their stuff!

[Polydamas]

GURPS is based on the real world, and in the real world, if you get shot with a military rifle at close quarters, you are almost certainly out of the fight. So in GURPS like the real world, smart fighters avoid getting shot by intimidation, ambushes, concealment, cover, suppression fire, and distance management (keeping closer or farther than the optimal range for the other guys' weapons). GURPS Tactical Shooting has some specific suggestions.

Wounding modifiers for each damage type are on page 379 of the Basic Set

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

Where in the world does it say that guns do half damage due to special rules for "small piercing"? If it does half damage why not list AK47 as 2d instead of 5d?

It's not that "guns do 1/2 damge" it's that armor piercing ammo does small piercing damage but also halves DR. Check out Characters p.279 for diffrent ammo types.

Also, as Polydamas said guns in GURPS are deadly (just like in the real world). If you want to live do what real world soldiers do to survive:
1) Use good tactics: Crouch (gives -2 to be hit), use cover, use cocealment, don't run out into the open.
2) Use body armor. Against a military grade rifle like an AK-47 you'll need an tactical vest (DR:12/5) with trauma plates (+DR:23) (both on p.284) that will give you DR:35 on the torso. The AK average damage is 18 so you should be fine. Against AP ammo it should stop half of all damage and whatever gets through will be minimal.

Even with out the trauma plates it will reduce the damage from 18 per hit to only 6 but if your hit multiple times you are still in trouble with out instant healing.

In short: be smart= stay alive, be foolish= fast death.

[FrackingBiscuit]

The rundown on common damage types can be found on page 269 of Basic Set Characters.

It's important to remember that there's a difference between the basic damage of an attack and the injury it inflicts. The small piercing damage type effect the injury an attack inflicts, not the basic damage it rolls. Generally, armor-piercing ammunition adds an armor divisor of (2) and reduces piercing damage by one step, ie piercing (the damage type of most rifles) becomes small piercing. This means that AP ammo is better at penetrating armor, but worse at actually inflicting injury, which is actually fairly accurate to real life.

Something to keep in mind about the example you mentioned: it's explaining the optional overpenetration rules, and so has a lightly-armored person getting shot with a powerful armor-piercing attack that blows through them and hits someone behind them. So if you find the example alarming, don't worry: even in a gun-heavy game, this shouldn't be the norm. People will probably be wearing heavier armor with much higher DR like the example Tinman gave, and most people will be shooting regular ammo instead of AP. Assault rifles typically do less damage as well, usually somewhere between 4d and 5d. And ultimately, the way to survive gunfire is to not get shot.

GURPS is a bit more simulationist when it comes to guns than some games, so guns are generally pretty lethal. Which is realistic - getting shot in the chest with an AK-47 while wearing nothing but a little ballistic fiber vest is going to kill you pretty easily. That said, there are a few ways to reign in guns if they're too lethal for your tastes.

One common change to make guns more survivable is to cut all gun damage in half while adding a default (2) armor divisor. This makes guns just as good at penetrating armor, but only half as lethal. In this case, AP ammo would become a (4) armor divisor.

Another way to both make armor protection more regular and streamline dice rolling is to convert armor DR to dice. Take the DR of the armor and divide by 3.5 to get DR in dice, with decimals optionally becoming adds. Rather than rolling basic damage and then subtracting DR from the result, the DR is subtracted from how many dice the attacker rolls.

The result is that if an armor can stop the average damage that an attack inflicts, it will always stop that attack complete. For instance, a good ballistic vest with trauma plates like Tinman suggested will have DR 35. A gun that deals 7d damage can roll as high as 42, meaning some attacks can punch through this. With armor as dice, the vest becomes DR 10d, meaning a 7d attack can never get through it. AP ammo will cut the DR to 5d, so the attacker would only roll 2d damage and then halve the result for small piercing damage, meaning it inflicts only 3 or 4 injury on average.

[Colonel__Klink]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

GURPS is based on the real world, and in the real world, if you get shot with a military rifle at close quarters, you are almost certainly out of the fight. So in GURPS like the real world, smart fighters avoid getting shot by intimidation, ambushes, concealment, cover, suppression fire, and distance management (keeping closer or farther than the optimal range for the other guys' weapons). GURPS Tactical Shooting has some specific suggestions.

Wounding modifiers for each damage type are on page 379 of the Basic Set

Honestly I don't want to get in a silly argument over that "well actually it's modeled after the real world" (there are literal vampires, dragons ect in the game.) We will wind up in the weeds arguing about wounds and ballistics. Why for example pistols (2d+2 weapons in game) generally are pushing for larger magazine sizes for a reason, and it's not because the designers envision mowing down an entire room, it's got to do with being able to successfully eliminate a target within the magazine capacity (hint, rifles like the the M16 and the AK74 were designed for rapid close quarters follow up shots for the same exact reason with the new army sig replacement for the m16 sacrificing a little of that for armor penetration.)

What I guess I'm looking for is a pretty simple breakdown. Is it a general rule that firearms do half damage? IE a 2d+2 pistol really a 1d+1? What is the average HP range of successful combat characters in a TL7+ campaign? Outside of the AP round mentioned in the book blurb above do I generally count the full DR of body armor or is it halved always?

Do any of you play with special rules to make the game more "cinematic" and forgiving? How do you handle automatic firearms? The core rules indicate that spitting out a large volume of bullets would give a bonus to hit (tbh it's.... kind of the opposite if we want to be realistic. Full automatic shoulder fire is an experts tool.) How do you balance this with the extreme volumes of damage so your players don't die in one enemy attack. Sure they dodged three that battle but that doesn't matter much if one hit is all that's needed to end the entire game.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

Does anyone have some advice how to run a TL6+ campaign with guns with fairly simple rules that players can actually enjoy shootouts and not get wiped out every single game? Thank you in advance. My hope is high because I see folks posting "advantage of the day" etc., on here and really know their stuff!

Welcome!

As others have said, GURPS firearm combat at TL6+ requires a lot of use of stealth, cover, and tactics in general to be survivable. Standing up in the open and blazing away works about as well as massed infantry attacks against trench lines in WWI - you get slaughtered. Shooting while your opponents are surprised is a very good idea.

There's also a concept that some gamers get from fantasy games, that melee combat should be competitive with firearms. It isn't. The uses for melee weapons at TL6+ are subduing opponents, police-style, and stabbing opponents who aren't aware of you because it's quieter than shooting. The latter requires being extremely good at stealth if you want to get away with it often.

[Colonel__Klink]

Originally Posted by FrackingBiscuit

The rundown on common damage types can be found on page 269 of Basic Set Characters.

It's important to remember that there's a difference between the basic damage of an attack and the injury it inflicts. The small piercing damage type effect the injury an attack inflicts, not the basic damage it rolls. Generally, armor-piercing ammunition adds an armor divisor of (2) and reduces piercing damage by one step, ie piercing (the damage type of most rifles) becomes small piercing. This means that AP ammo is better at penetrating armor, but worse at actually inflicting injury, which is actually fairly accurate to real life.

Something to keep in mind about the example you mentioned: it's explaining the optional overpenetration rules, and so has a lightly-armored person getting shot with a powerful armor-piercing attack that blows through them and hits someone behind them. So if you find the example alarming, don't worry: even in a gun-heavy game, this shouldn't be the norm. People will probably be wearing heavier armor with much higher DR like the example Tinman gave, and most people will be shooting regular ammo instead of AP. Assault rifles typically do less damage as well, usually somewhere between 4d and 5d. And ultimately, the way to survive gunfire is to not get shot.

GURPS is a bit more simulationist when it comes to guns than some games, so guns are generally pretty lethal. Which is realistic - getting shot in the chest with an AK-47 while wearing nothing but a little ballistic fiber vest is going to kill you pretty easily. That said, there are a few ways to reign in guns if they're too lethal for your tastes.

One common change to make guns more survivable is to cut all gun damage in half while adding a default (2) armor divisor. This makes guns just as good at penetrating armor, but only half as lethal. In this case, AP ammo would become a (4) armor divisor.

Another way to both make armor protection more regular and streamline dice rolling is to convert armor DR to dice. Take the DR of the armor and divide by 3.5 to get DR in dice, with decimals optionally becoming adds. Rather than rolling basic damage and then subtracting DR from the result, the DR is subtracted from how many dice the attacker rolls.

The result is that if an armor can stop the average damage that an attack inflicts, it will always stop that attack complete. For instance, a good ballistic vest with trauma plates like Tinman suggested will have DR 35. A gun that deals 7d damage can roll as high as 42, meaning some attacks can punch through this. With armor as dice, the vest becomes DR 10d, meaning a 7d attack can never get through it. AP ammo will cut the DR to 5d, so the attacker would only roll 2d damage and then halve the result for small piercing damage, meaning it inflicts only 3 or 4 injury on average.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'm going to have to sit and mull over it and see if there's ways to simplify it down a tad.

I do love some of the simulationist aspects of gurps, though I am running cinematic campaign (it's cyberpunk, style over substance) now and the important thing is that the game be able to keep rolling and be fun. It's not fun where even the hardiest warriors just get one shot killed (swords aren't treated this way btw for some odd reason.)

I think one of the things I'm going to have to do is really mull over body armor in the setting and possibly make it fashion like the cyberpunk 2077 video game in my setting. DR seems to be one of the most important aspects here to make it so players don't routinely get OHK and tpk by two thugs with pistols getting the first turn in combat.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

What I guess I'm looking for is a pretty simple breakdown. Is it a general rule that firearms do half damage? IE a 2d+2 pistol really a 1d+1?

No, it isn't. That 2d+2 pistol does 2d+2 with basic ball ammunition. If you use hollow-point, it does 3d+3; if you use armour-piercing it does 1d+1. Yes, ammunition type makes a big difference.

What is the average HP range of successful combat characters in a TL7+ campaign?

In my experience, 11 to 14 HP, occasionally up to 16. There's a fundamental difference from D&D family games. If you're taking HP damage at all, you're probably loosing the fight. You should not expect to be soaking up damage, but avoiding it.

Outside of the AP round mentioned in the book blurb above do I generally count the full DR of body armor or is it halved always?

Full DR vs ball rounds, halved vs AP, doubled vs hollow-point.

Do any of you play with special rules to make the game more "cinematic" and forgiving?

Not personally. The most widely used rules for that are in "Survivable Guns" by David Pulver in issue 44 of volume 3 of Pyramid magazine, available in PDF.

[Pursuivant]

Another thing that helps PCs survive is the fact that many shooters will be using default skill and even trained shooters take serious penalties for range, target speed and size, and other penalties such as darkness and target cover and concealment.

This means that, just like in real life, most bullets fired in combat don't hit their targets.

As a GM, you can do a great deal to influence just how lethal high tech combat actually is, especially in a campaign with science fiction and fantasy elements.

* Introduce high powered pistols and semi-auto/automatic long arms only when you want to ramp up the threat level.

* Give PCs lots of opportunities to get the first shot while not being ambushed themselves.

* Don't give low level NPCs optimum firepower or high Guns skill levels. Have them open fire at ranges that guarantee that most bullets miss.

* Give PCs plenty of hard cover which will stop bullets (e.g., parking garages with concrete support pillars, dockyard facilities filled with steel shipping containers filled with goods that will stop bullets, parking lots filled with cars, forests with big rocks, dirt ridges, and mature trees).

* Allow relatively cheap and easy access to high quality body armor, as well as ultratech and supernatural gear which reduces damage from gunshot wounds.

* Allow cheap and easy access to ultratech/fantasy healing technology.

* Make sure that PLAYERS understand just how lethal GURPS gun combat can be. Make sure they buy and use good quality body armor.

* In a cinematic "monster hunters" style campaign, use all the cinematic rules you can to minimize damage from gunshot wounds.

* Possibly allow players to use "Impulse Points" to buy dice rerolls for "to hit" and damage. Some players hate the idea, but some sort of "fate point" mechanic is a great way to keep a bad dice roll from spoiling the game.

* On the other side of the coin, remember that many monsters have various forms of Injury Tolerance which make them much less vulnerable to bullet damage. It's also fair for "boss" villains and sub-bosses to wear armor, use supernatural defenses against bullets, and use firearms themselves.

[Colonel__Klink]

Originally Posted by Tinman

It's not that "guns do 1/2 damge" it's that armor piercing ammo does small piercing damage but also halves DR. Check out Characters p.279 for diffrent ammo types.

Also, as Polydamas said guns in GURPS are deadly (just like in the real world). If you want to live do what real world soldiers do to survive:
1) Use good tactics: Crouch (gives -2 to be hit), use cover, use cocealment, don't run out into the open.
2) Use body armor. Against a military grade rifle like an AK-47 you'll need an tactical vest (DR:12/5) with trauma plates (+DR:23) (both on p.284) that will give you DR:35 on the torso. The AK average damage is 18 so you should be fine. Against AP ammo it should stop half of all damage and whatever gets through will be minimal.

Even with out the trauma plates it will reduce the damage from 18 per hit to only 6 but if your hit multiple times you are still in trouble with out instant healing.

In short: be smart= stay alive, be foolish= fast death.

Thanks for clarifying so much about that because it was frankly quite confusing and I was looking for any ray of light because the rules as written just appear to be utterly damning. So I'm trying to figure out how to make a campaign fun to play with plenty of action.

An example is from what I can gather from cover it's a -2 to hit. I have the enemy NPC named mook. He's flat 10s and has 1/2 point in handguns (1/2 points are still a thing in 4th edition right?) So that means he normally would have to roll a 10 or lower to hit or a 8 or lower to hit our player character in cover.

with a dice range of 15 (3-18) that gives him a 53% change of hitting the player character and due to the sheer damage of weapons involved he has a 53% chance of ending the campaign every single turn. That is just.... utterly unworkable.

But wait! The character gets to dodge right? Even though they are in cover? So suppose the PC is fairly above average with a DX and FT of 12 each. That means that they have a defense of 9 or a 60% chance of surviving a game ending shot, one that happens 50% of the time when the enemy attacks... But suppose our character is quite spry, abnormally spry with 14 and 14. That pushes it up to 10 dodge, meaning their chance to survive is a mere 66%

By the numbers even with the cover mechanics recommended there's just... no way to work the game with the damage as it is or the characters being decked in full armor like a swat team. Suppose my characters are crouched and hiding behind cover, that reduces the enemy chances to 40%. That's a 2/5 chance that the player is frantically rolling to not be out of the game every time the enemy attacks.

So you understand me when I feel like I'm missing something. There's got to be something I can give the players to make this... more fun.

added: I apologize I believe I got the chances wrong. Dice range 3-18. Therefore 8 or lower to hit but it's really a range of 3-8 to succeed. That means a 1-5 range on a total dice range of 1-15 meaning a 33% chance to hit. The player character would have similar hobbles to dodge. 9 defense but due to 3 being the lowest roll the range of success is actually 1-6 out of a total possible range of 1-15. Meaning the PC has a mere 40% chance to dodge the incoming successful attack.... Again one that will end the game right then and there if it lands.

The chance of instant death are flat out too high. I can reduce accuracy, but the risk is still there. What needs to go away is the constant threat of instant death.