[Pyramid #3-44] Survivable Guns

[jacobmuller]

If the reduced damage is more realistic, would a quick and dirty retcon be that anything >4mm but <8mm rated as pi due to velocity should have been pi- after all?

[gilbertocarlos]

There is a difference between pi/2 and pi-, lets say a damage of 14 in average joe, if it is pi/2, I do 7 damage, if it's pi-, I do his HP at maximum, so, 10, 10/2=5

So, if it's pi/2, I can do up to HP damage, if it's pi- I can do up to HP/2 damage.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

If the reduced damage is more realistic, would a quick and dirty retcon be that anything >4mm but <8mm rated as pi due to velocity should have been pi- after all?

I'll have to reread what David wrote, but I don't know that it's more realistic; what it does, though is preserve the raw penetration values while making wounds more survivable.

You can get similar results by capping base damage after penetration by implementing a version of a blow-through rule in your games.

I don't know that I'd go too far down the realism/unrealism pathway here. If you want a 6.8x43mm bullet to do 3d(2) pi instead of 6d pi, this probably won't break anything.

One of the things I DO like about it is that without any funky gymnastics, it means a heavy duty sniper rifle will vary from about 3d+2 (2) to 6d (2), both of which are nasty enough to KO a typical guy with a shot to the torso; the second is enough to kill instantly with the same shot.

You will have a much-reduced tendency for "extreme dismemberment" of course, since base damage and injury are lower. Not necessarily a bad thing.

[Anthony]

Realistically, it should probably be something like:

Wounding Multiplier
Roll 1d; add +2 for Pi++, +1 for Pi+, -2 for Pi-. This determines wounding mod:
0 or lower: divide penetrating damage by 5
1-2: divide penetrating damage by 2
3-4: normal damage
5-6: multiply penetrating damage by 2
7: multiply penetrating damage by 3
8: multiply penetrating damage by 4

[jacobmuller]

Yeah, daft question - I don't know where my head was when I posted it and I was glad to see it being lost in the rush of more reasonable queries.

Aside from that, @gilbertocarlos: are you referring to the optional wounding rules from High Tech pg162 Body Hits: if using Bleeding, injury can't exceed HP?
Wouldn't 2d(2) pi, or as you put it pi/2, and 4d pi- have the same wounding effect due to the limit being based on injury? (unless you hit the Vitals).

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

Aside from that, @gilbertocarlos: are you referring to the optional wounding rules from High Tech pg162 Body Hits: if using Bleeding, injury can't exceed HP?
Wouldn't 2d(2) pi, or as you put it pi/2, and 4d pi- have the same wounding effect due to the limit being based on injury? (unless you hit the Vitals).

Actually, that reminds me of another important point. Wounding modifier for hit location overrides what modifier the injury type would normally apply to the torso. Thus:

Against torso:

4d pi- is (4d-DR)/2 - Average 7-DR/2
2d(2) pi is (2d-DR/2) - Average 7-DR/2

Roughly speaking, equivalent.

Against vitals:

4d pi- is (4d-DR)*3 - Average 42-DR*3
2d(2) pi is (2d-DR/2)*3 - Average 21-DR*1.5

Very much not equivalent.

If you went with the "small caliber weapons are pi- regardless of projectile velocity" rule, it would not effect vitals hits in the least. That may suit your needs, if you want to make regular wounds more survivable but leave vitals hits terrifyingly deadly, but just be aware of the effect.

[gilbertocarlos]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

@gilbertocarlos: are you referring to the optional wounding rules from High Tech pg162 Body Hits: if using Bleeding, injury can't exceed HP?
Wouldn't 2d(2) pi, or as you put it pi/2, and 4d pi- have the same wounding effect due to the limit being based on injury? (unless you hit the Vitals).

No, of course not, the damage is at max HP before you multiply. So, a 9mm would do at most HP damage, but a shotgun blast at close range can do double HP damage, while a 5.7X28mm would do at most half HP damage, you can see that in the example.

The main reasons are: A 5.7 have very good penetration, but do low damage, while a .45 have a worse penetration, but can do a much more serious wound.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

No, of course not, the damage is at max HP before you multiply. So, a 9mm would do at most HP damage, but a shotgun blast at close range can do double HP damage, while a 5.7X28mm would do at most half HP damage, you can see that in the example.

The main reasons are: A 5.7 have very good penetration, but do low damage, while a .45 have a worse penetration, but can do a much more serious wound.

That's not actually what the rule says - instead, it says that injury is capped at HP, not penetrating damage. Injury is what you get after accounting for wound modifiers.

I do agree that it should be 'penetrating damage is capped at 1xHP', though.

[David L Pulver]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

If the reduced damage is more realistic, would a quick and dirty retcon be that anything >4mm but <8mm rated as pi due to velocity should have been pi- after all?

You could do that, though if you end up using AP ammunition or the like which still converts pi to pi- you'd have to figure out a different way to handle it (halve again?) There may be some issues as well that I haven't considered. But as a quick-and-dirty option, it may work.

The reduced damage isn't so much "more realistic" as differently realistic.

Its primary goal was to reduce fatalities among characters while preserving the realism of penetration calculations.

It is *perhaps* more realistic in reducing non-vital torso hit fatalities.

It is probably more elegant to do it by reducing damage (or going to pi-, if you prefer) as this obviates the need for additional layers of things like "blow through" rules (as in 3e) which add further complexity and problematic special case issues. (E.g., the 3e blow through rules which based it on HP essentially made HP meaningless at a certain level: the more HP you had the more damage you took, etc. Probably better to set that on SM if go there.) The HT blow-through type rule is better, but still problematic.

It is also arguably more elegant to roll fewer dice especially when you may be scoring multiple hits from automatic weapon. Moreover, the very high raw dice totals assigned to guns are a bit of a system aberration compared to the smaller totals assigned to melee attacks. Of course, it's also cleaner to not have armor divisors so it's a bit of a wash here.

(A side effect is that if using the system to build gun-like powers with points it will be slightly cheaper to emulate guns.)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by David L Pulver

Of course, it's also cleaner to not have armor divisors so it's a bit of a wash here.

Armor divisors and wounding multipliers are roughly equally clean; it would be nice to have only one, though.