Passenger Damage

[BillMiester]

I've looked through several resource manuals and can't find anything that describes how passengers inside a vehicle take damage. Once damage gets past the vehicle defense and does damage to the vehicle itself, what is the effect on the passengers? As far as I can tell, they just fall out of the thing unharmed once the vehicle is "killed". That can't be right.

[unclevlad]

A fairly simple rule might be that any damage past the Def of the vehicle, is applied to all occupants of the vehicle.  Safety features can be incorporated with, say, applying 50% damage reduction to the occupants, or applying some dice of damage negation.  Depends on the system.  Air bag is probably damage negation, BODY only.

 

Persons ejected from the car, still take that damage...PLUS damage from scraping the pavement, using the Knockback rules.  Apply KB Resistance OR double, triple, even quadruple KB...think train running through a passenger vehicle for the latter.  

 

But it's hard to describe this in general, as the specifics matter.  Train vs. car is obviously the EXTREME extreme, but 18-wheeler vs. 4 door sedan...ain't pretty.  Big truck, say F350, versus a 2-seat sports car...not pretty.  What are the speeds?  There was a day when our workday was ended, indirectly, due to an accident...when a Mazda Miata was totally oblivious to a road block, and, I understand, literally plowed into the back of an unmoving 18-wheeler.  Remember driver's ed pics????  Yeah....  The rules just wouldn't readily cover this;  it's not even just a Move Through, it's worse.  It's an inelastic Move Through...the Miata will crumple but continue to move forward.  What is the orientation?  2 cars hitting head-on at 30 is really bad, because the overall closing velo is high and because the collision becomes completely inelastic.  A car t-boning another car...where?  Passenger side door...driver's side people will take MUCH less damage.  Getting clipped off-center tends to not be AS bad, altho neck and spine injuries from the lateral movement might be more common.

 

 

[Greywind]

I would say it would depends upon the nature of the damage. A bullet that breaches isn't going to hit everyone.

[BillMiester]

Agreed - very situational. A tommy gun spraying a minivan won't only hit the groceries in the back. As background, we had just finished a game and started the traditional bourbon and BS before we scattered back to real life and the question arose because the 12' mechs they just fought off were built as vehicles. The guys inside were damage free even though the mechs were trashed. One of the players was an iron man clone, not built as a vehicle, and he took some bruising. So - the application of damage to passengers came up and we had to have a second round. Never came up with an answer. I'm leaning towards a hit location (inside the torso) sharing of damage that gets past the PD, but open to other suggestions.

[dsatow]

This is just how I would do it in a cinematic(action movie) or comic book style way and is not based on anything close to real life.

 

I would probably judge that the Body past the defense of the vehicle would be applied to the passengers unless the attacker is specifically targeting the vehicle and not the passengers.  If the attacker is specifically targeting the passengers (note that they must be able to see the passenger otherwise its a blind targeting), then the attack also needs to hit the target who is probably strapped in and at 0 or 1/2 DCV.  If they aren't targeting the passengers, then I'd roll 3d6 on the amount of Body past defenses or less.  If the passenger get less than or equal to the Body done, they are hit.  They will take the Body past defense (the vehicle will still take the same amount of Body) times 2 for stun on a killing attack and times 3 for stun on a normal attack.  The damage done would be considered general damage unless the attacker is specifically targeting the passenger.  If you want the passengers hit more, you could add the body past defense to 3, 5, or 8.  Each number will make the likelihood of being hit higher.

 

Example: Guido and Luigi take out their machine guns and riddle the car that Lucky Lucille and Charles (the driver)are in.  The two gun men hit the Car 3 times for 7 Body, 4 Body, and 11 Body.  The car has 3 Def and takes 4 Body, 1 Body, and 8 Body respectively.

Since the 1 Body is so low, it doesn't hit any of the passengers.  Lucille rolls a 11 and a 13 respectively and isn't hit.  Charles rolls a 14 and a 6 respectively.  Charles takes 8 Body and 16 Stun and gets stunned.  On Charles' phase he gets unstunned but the car needs to turn on the road and Lucille doesn't have combat driving.  She tries to take control of the car with an 8- and penalties and fails miserably.  The car crashes into a concrete median.  This turns into 12d6 normal damage for 13 Body.  The GM reasons that wearing safety belts adds 2 to the roll.  On an effective 8 or less, each passenger will take 10 Body and 30 stun normal.  Charles again fails his roll and is completely unconscious.  Things don't look good for Chuck and Lucy.

 

[Spence]

On 7/15/2020 at 5:11 PM, BillMiester said:

I've looked through several resource manuals and can't find anything that describes how passengers inside a vehicle take damage. Once damage gets past the vehicle defense and does damage to the vehicle itself, what is the effect on the passengers? As far as I can tell, they just fall out of the thing unharmed once the vehicle is "killed". That can't be right.

 

The closest you will find in a Hero rulebook is the Crew Casualties section that begins on page 175 of the Ultimate Vehicle.  The last version of the Ultimate Vehicle was for 5th Edition, but it still works for Hero.  Not so much changed that you cannot use it.

[BillMiester]

I'll have to check past versions then and see what I can find. We kind of skipped over 5th edition while we all went on a life induced game hiatus - back now and delving into 6th edition. Pretty sure I have the 4th edition and earlier versions to look through.

[LoneWolf]

For the most part if the vehicle is the target of the attack the damage is not going to affect the passengers.  On the other hand destroying the vehicle may cause it to crash and that might damage the passengers.  If I shoot the engine of a car traveling at 50 mph the bullet is not likely to hit the driver of the car.  But since the car is no longer able to be controlled by the drive it will probably crash.  I would treat that as a move through based on the velocity of the vehicle.  Things like wearing seatbelts and airbags may reduce this damage.  

 

If the attack was an area of effect and it was able to penetrate the defenses and body of the vehicle the passengers would take any remaining damage.  This is the same thing as if the characters where behind a wall.

 

Now if the attack was targeting the passengers instead of the vehicle that is a different story.  In that case the character takes the damage from the attack minus the Def and Body of the vehicle.  

 

Depending on the nature of the vehicle it may cause other damage when it is destroyed.  For example a modern vehicle with a combustible fuel source may explode when destroyed.  On the other hand a small unpowered sail boat is just going to sink.  In the first case the characters would take damage from the explosion, in the second case about all that is going to happen is they get wet and have to swim to get away.  In any case that damage is completely separate from the damage that destroyed the vehicle.