"Realistic" gun damage

[Brother Jim]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Just FYI: the sabot is the part that falls away from the actual projectile, not the part that hits the target.

[megaplayboy]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Just FYI: the sabot is the part that falls away from the actual projectile' date=' not the part that hits the target.[/quote']

 

since "sabot" means "boot", that makes sense. Thank you for pointing that out.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Another note about using optional rules for realism, which kinda ties in with the Guns, Guns, Guns discussion above, is the optional 5th Edition standard "Roll under half needed to-hit for Max Damage" Critical Hit rules. When combined with the rest of the Optional rules mentioned already, it changes the core assumptions in HERO significantly, and thus results in radically altered gameplay experience. It plays a lot like some of the harsher realistic combat games of Yore, like Morow Project or the Tri-Tac system. You start thinking of weapons in terms of max damage, not average damage, which IME actually makes it easier to benchmark campaign standards.

 

It might be worth foolin' around with. I've liked the results I've gotten from playing this way, but YMMV

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Another note about using optional rules for realism' date=' which kinda ties in with the [i']Guns, Guns, Guns[/i] discussion above, is the optional 5th Edition standard "Roll under half needed to-hit for Max Damage" Critical Hit rules. When combined with the rest of the Optional rules mentioned already, it changes the core assumptions in HERO significantly, and thus results in radically altered gameplay experience. It plays a lot like some of the harsher realistic combat games of Yore, like Morow Project or the Tri-Tac system. You start thinking of weapons in terms of max damage, not average damage, which IME actually makes it easier to benchmark campaign standards.

 

It might be worth foolin' around with. I've liked the results I've gotten from playing this way, but YMMV

 

I have been playing with Critical Hits since back in the 4th edition days and between those optional rules and the Impairing/Disabling rules, they are the reason I am flabergasted any time someone says HERO isn't deadly enough. Critical Hits makes the combat system VERY deadly. And it makes skill-based characters very, very effective combatants. Expert vs unskilled combats are fast and ugly affairs with those rules in play.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

I have been playing with Critical Hits since back in the 4th edition days and between those optional rules and the Impairing/Disabling rules' date=' they are the reason I am flabergasted any time someone says HERO isn't deadly enough. Critical Hits makes the combat system [b']VERY[/b] deadly. And it makes skill-based characters very, very effective combatants. Expert vs unskilled combats are fast and ugly affairs with those rules in play.

 

Exactly. In fact, I've found it shaves a lot of the time load you gain from using other optional combat rules, because a LOT of combats are so mean that you don't end up having to worry about the options much except on the PC's, which mostly can be managed by the players.

Roll-under-half Criticals are also an amazing way of encouraging players to take realistic defensive measures.

Fear and Loathing in the HERO system, baby.

[Markdoc]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

To answer mhd's question, the damage spread on Hero looks small compared to GURPS, But that's a little misleading, because what you are really interested in is the ratio of damage to defences: and in a modern game, the spread of defences in Hero is also low compared to GURPS. That means a 2d6+1 round is actually more threatening than it looks: even with normal ballistic protection, there's a decent chance you will take BOD and you will almost always take STUN. Without ballistic armour, 1 or 2 hits will likely take out most human targets. This is not far from the effect we probbaly want, so spread is not such an issue, IMO.

 

With regard to modern weapons vs black powder, the differences are not as great as one might think when it comes to raw killing power - at close range, a .58 minie ball will kill you just as dead as a .5 hi-power. The latter will go right through you ... and so will the former. The difference is that modern weapons are far more rapid to fire and reload, more accurate and tend to have much higher velocity bullets (meaning that the .5 hi-power will still go through you at 200 metres, whereas the minie ball won't). At close range modern ballistic armour will stop the minie ball dead, whereas modern ammo has a chance of penetration.

 

Rather than increasing the damage of modern weapons, then (which is going to significantly increase PC mortality at the heroic level), I'd simply make two changes:

older firearms already have significant loading times, which put them at a major disadvantage. To that, I'd reflect their slower, high momentum slugs by doubling all range modifiers and giving them "reduced penetration". Against unarmoured targets they will thus still be deadly, but against modern body armour, they'll be largely useless. And they'll be handily outranged by modern weapons, which should also be the case.

 

cheers, Mark

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

If you use the optional damage rules like hit locations' date=' bleeding, and disabling firearms damage becomes more "grizzly" and somewhat more "realistic." I find the default rules work well for cinematic and superhero games, whereas the options work better for "grittier" heroic games.[/quote']

 

The optional rules are great for running a game by raw. But I've seen a simpler solution. Aaron Allston suggests (in Ninja Hero 4th) to keep the DC the same and just double the hit location modifiers. So arms now do x1 body instead of x1/2, chest does x2, and head does x4 body! (Now I don't have experience with it, just something I read and thought I'd pass on for consideration.)

[Christopher]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

The optional rules are great for running a game by raw. But I've seen a simpler solution. Aaron Allston suggests (in Ninja Hero 4th) to keep the DC the same and just double the hit location modifiers. So arms now do x1 body instead of x1/2' date=' chest does x2, and head does x4 body! (Now I don't have experience with it, just something I read and thought I'd pass on for consideration.)[/quote']

So you effectively double the Damage Output and the Defenses, but leave Body the same.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

To answer mhd's question' date=' the damage spread on Hero looks small compared to GURPS, But that's a little misleading, because what you are really interested in is [b']the ratio of damage to defences[/b]: and in a modern game, the spread of defences in Hero is also low compared to GURPS. That means a 2d6+1 round is actually more threatening than it looks: even with normal ballistic protection, there's a decent chance you will take BOD and you will almost always take STUN. Without ballistic armour, 1 or 2 hits will likely take out most human targets. This is not far from the effect we probbaly want, so spread is not such an issue, IMO.

 

Exactly. One needs to take into consideration their major mechanical differences.

 

1: while the Body to HT ratio seems to be similar, GURPS is misleading in the fact that it takes far more damage to kill a character than this indicates. Health can go into the multiple negative levels. A character who is HT 10 can survive via successful health rolls as low as -50 HT! A Hero character with a Body 10 is very very dead at -10.

 

2: as mentioned above, defence levels in GURPS and Hero are also fairly different. Ultra tech armor in Hero (in a herioc level space opera game lets say) may go as high as 12i defense for personal body armor. GURPS goes as high as 20, perhaps higher. Powered armor in Hero tends to top out around 20 your defense. In GURPS, the DR of powered armor can be as high as 100, possibly more! Weapons need an appropriare boost in performance in order to compete.

 

3: Vehicles are treated very differently between the two systems. The Body and Defense characteristics in Hero assume an exponential progression with each point of Body representing a doubling of toughness and each 2 points of defense a doubling of protection. Not so in GURPS, where both damage and defense follow a purely linear model, which is why a Tank in Hero has a Body of 25-30 but in GURPS that same tank would have a HT of 1000 and a DR of about 500 or thereabouts.

[L. Marcus]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

That was true of GURPS third edition, but fourth has gone exponential, although with a much flatter curve than Hero.

[mhd]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

To answer mhd's question' date=' the damage spread on Hero looks small compared to GURPS, But that's a little misleading, because what you are really interested in is [b']the ratio of damage to defences[/b]

 

Yes, I've remarked about that in post #11. This goes a long way to justify the spread, although I still think that the "placement" of each weapon within that range of looks a bit odd.

 

With regard to modern weapons vs black powder' date=' the differences are not as great as one might think when it comes to raw killing power - at close range, a .58 minie ball will kill you just as dead as a .5 hi-power. [/quote']

 

I've got no problems with the deadliness of guns, and yes, after a certain stage it's just a degree of overkill anyways. But still, 4d6-1 for the Brown Bess? I've got no problems with the pure damage of muskets not being that far behind modern hunting rifles, but ahead of BFG sniper rifles? (Or, well, even ahead of the Enfield?)

 

Like I mentioned above, given the design parameters of HERO and all the interesting suggestions of this thread, a 1d6 - 4d6 range of damages for most normal weaponry doesn't look as odd to me now that it did at the start of this thread. And I have little to no need of additional damage rules to increase the raw deadliness of guns, that's never been an issue to me (given my slightly cinematic disposition). If I'd spend the time to bring more "realism" into my firearms house rules, it would be all about finding new homes for the various guns on this 1d6/4d6 range, probably favoring rifles a bit more over magnums.

 

And yes, for black powder weapons penetration is a good help, although this might put me in the weird situation of giving them both armor piercing vs. medieval weaponry (esp. compared to longbows), and reduced penetration against anything else. But, well, them's the breaks…

[Christopher]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

I've got no problems with the deadliness of guns' date=' and yes, after a certain stage it's just a degree of overkill anyways. But still, 4d6-1 for the Brown Bess?[/quote']

That is going to make 13 average Body. So a averga hit in a x1 Hit Location will impair you and means you require immediate medical assistance to not die from bleeding.

And if you go much higher, you might end up at the point where a Sniper Rifle can kill a tank (so you have to limit to not work that way).

[Ragitsu]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Exactly. One needs to take into consideration their major mechanical differences.

 

1: while the Body to HT ratio seems to be similar, GURPS is misleading in the fact that it takes far more damage to kill a character than this indicates. Health can go into the multiple negative levels. A character who is HT 10 can survive via successful health rolls as low as -50 HT! A Hero character with a Body 10 is very very dead at -10.

 

It's actually difficult for an HP 10 / HT 10 character to survive all the way down to -5xHP, especially when you factor in bleeding, Hit Location, and penalized HT rolls. Also, it is easy to get down there: a single 7.62 NATO shot does 24.5 damage, and heaven help if that or even 5.56 NATO (17.5 x 3) hits the Vitals.

[Markdoc]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

I've got no problems with the deadliness of guns' date=' and yes, after a certain stage it's just a degree of overkill anyways. But still, 4d6-1 for the Brown Bess? I've got no problems with the pure damage of muskets not being that far behind modern hunting rifles, but ahead of BFG sniper rifles? (Or, well, even ahead of the Enfield?)[/quote']

 

Wait, what? Where does a Brown Bess doing 4d6-1 come from? Because I agree, that's ludicrous.

 

cheers, Mark

[IndianaJoe3]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Wait' date=' what? Where does a Brown Bess doing 4d6-1 come from? Because I agree, that's ludicrous.[/quote']

 

HSEG 50. I think we all agree it's unrealistic. We're trying to figure out the best solution.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

I've got no problems with the deadliness of guns, and yes, after a certain stage it's just a degree of overkill anyways. But still, 4d6-1 for the Brown Bess? I've got no problems with the pure damage of muskets not being that far behind modern hunting rifles, but ahead of BFG sniper rifles? (Or, well, even ahead of the Enfield?)

 

The Muzzle Velocity and thus, KE of such a projectile will vary depending on how much powder is used to accelerate the projectile, but on average it could hit about 1000fps, which with the average 545 grain .715 caliber ball used for the Bess comes out to 1640 Joules of energy (or 1209.6 ft/lbs) which by my KE to DC conversion process, I determine to be around 6 Damage Classes or 2D6K damage. I wouldn't hesitate to add +1 Stun multiplier or even +2 for the sheer size of the ball. 4D6-1? Where the heck were they getting this level of damage from? Are they trying to say that this weapon does the same damage as a 20mm Anti-material Rifle? No way in hell. The Brown Bess achieves less than 1/3 the muzzle velocity of modern 20mm weaponry and about 1/32 the Kinetic Energy. 4D6-1k is WAAAAAAAY too much. That's the problem when designing weapon damage based purely on size/mass of the round. You end up with some odd results.

 

Of course, basing the weapon damage purely on Kinetic Energy also can yield less than desirable results but IMO it's more accurate than a purely caliber based damage system.

 

Like I mentioned above, given the design parameters of HERO and all the interesting suggestions of this thread, a 1d6 - 4d6 range of damages for most normal weaponry doesn't look as odd to me now that it did at the start of this thread. And I have little to no need of additional damage rules to increase the raw deadliness of guns, that's never been an issue to me (given my slightly cinematic disposition). If I'd spend the time to bring more "realism" into my firearms house rules, it would be all about finding new homes for the various guns on this 1d6/4d6 range, probably favoring rifles a bit more over magnums.

 

The spread is pretty decent. Guns will run all the way from 2DC (smallest .22 weapons) to 12DC (heaviest 20mm-30mm quasi-cannon weapons) before giving way to the truly heavy weapons. It may not seem like it, but 12DC (4D6k) is a lot of damage. The average damage of which can instantly kill most unarmored humans instantly with just a X1 damage result from the Hit location chart. (never mind if the Vitals or Head is hit). A critical hit by such a weapon yields such grievous damage that it will essentially chop the target in half. Even the toughest of humans (20 Body) will be killed by such a result. If one is hit by more than 1 shot from an Autofire weapon of that magnitude, faggetaboudit!

 

And yes, for black powder weapons penetration is a good help, although this might put me in the weird situation of giving them both armor piercing vs. medieval weaponry (esp. compared to longbows), and reduced penetration against anything else. But, well, them's the breaks…

 

Just use a house rule that Ancient armor is 1/2 protection from ballistic weaponry. And that modern armor is 1/2 protection from piercing and slashing melee weapons. I think that's what most of us do in any case.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

HSEG 50. I think we all agree it's unrealistic. We're trying to figure out the best solution.

 

What make that extra funny, in my eyes, is to take that number and compare it to the HSVG 5th Black Powder cannons, and find that said musket does WAY more damage than a 12 pounder (I take exception with the 5th Ed VG cannons, obviously)

[Vondy]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

But still' date=' 4d6-1 for the Brown Bess?[/quote']

 

Most games have something totally out of whack.

 

In Harn, it is the infamous "war ferret." In one of the previous Hero Bestiary books (I want to say 5th, but it may have been 4th) a diving falcon's move-by with its talons did 5d6+1 HKA!

 

Vorpal Talons....

 

A brown bess should probably do no more than a big game rifle (2s6+1 to 3d6-1) with reduced range and a painful reload time.

[Christopher]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Wait, what? Where does a Brown Bess doing 4d6-1 come from? Because I agree, that's ludicrous.

 

cheers, Mark

 

HSEG 50. I think we all agree it's unrealistic. We're trying to figure out the best solution.

Could just be a writing error, and they actually meant 2d6-1?

[IndianaJoe3]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Could just be a writing error' date=' and they actually meant 2d6-1?[/quote']

 

No, all of the early firearms have similar values. The matchlock pistol does 4d6-1! Yeah, it's .70 calibre, but it shouldn't do more damage than a .50 Barett.

[Christopher]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

No' date=' all of the early firearms have similar values. The matchlock pistol does 4d6-1! Yeah, it's .70 calibre, but it shouldn't do more damage than a .50 Barett.[/quote']

What about the contemporary armors? Could it be that whoever wrote them up choose those high values to simulate them being "Amor Piercing" againt thier times/medieval armor?

[Sean Waters]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

To pick up on a few points made by others and a few thoughts of my own:

1. Critical hits are very nasty to PCs. I really struggle to get players to accept this, but the simple truth is that there are an infinite number of baddies and only a limited supply of heroes in any given game AND the villains will probably get off more shots over the course of a game than the heroes, so unless you are playing something really dark and cyberpunky, you probably don’t want to increase the chance that a lucky roll can one shot a target. In Hero, the critical system is the damage roll, and that can be nasty enough, especially if combined with the hit locations chart.

2. If people are walking out of gun battles having spent some time unconscious but not really hurt badly, then you probably have your resistant defences dialled up way too high, or you are playing a very cinematic game.

3. The somewhat exponential nature of Hero damage causes issues. The baseline could be taken from the Growth and Density increase powers: Growth adds 3 Body per doubling of height (i.e. per 8x mass i.e. +1 Body for double mass) whereas D.I. adds 1 pd and ed per doubling of mass. Given that a starting character can have quite a lot of extra Body (which has implications for disabling and so on), we can get a bit of a disconnect. If you want more realism, consider limiting what characters can spend on Body and Stun, or even fixing it.

4. If you want a realistic game and you want firearms involved and they are going to be used, expect to have lots of realistic downtime.

5. Looking at the weapons table at 6.2.208, well, first of all I can not believe we are still using Xd6-1 instead of 1/2d6, but that is a point to be discussed elsewhere. Small arms fire damage ranges from 2DCs to 8DCs. Modern armour ranges from 6 to 11 Defence. Obviously we then have specialist ammo, like AP rounds, but let us leave that aside for the moment. That gives us a damage spread of 5 to 15 Body (with handguns having a range of 5 to 13 Body damage). Here is an interesting video:

That vest was stopping 1 ½ and 2d6-1 rounds. I imagine it would hurt if you got hit wearing it, and you would probably have some nasty bruising, maybe a broken rib, but most of the damage you take would be stun, with little or no Body getting through. Even if you took a dozen rounds, unless the vest’s integrity went, you would be likely to survive. That contradicts what I said earlier about defences being too high – but bear in mind most defences of this nature are sectional: they cover the centre of mass where a lot of your life support system is. Most characters will not – or should not – be using full body armour – and a couple of limb hits can kill – as can a shot to the neck or head.

[megaplayboy]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

To pick up on a few points made by others and a few thoughts of my own:

1. Critical hits are very nasty to PCs. I really struggle to get players to accept this, but the simple truth is that there are an infinite number of baddies and only a limited supply of heroes in any given game AND the villains will probably get off more shots over the course of a game than the heroes, so unless you are playing something really dark and cyberpunky, you probably don’t want to increase the chance that a lucky roll can one shot a target. In Hero, the critical system is the damage roll, and that can be nasty enough, especially if combined with the hit locations chart.

2. If people are walking out of gun battles having spent some time unconscious but not really hurt badly, then you probably have your resistant defences dialled up way too high, or you are playing a very cinematic game.

3. The somewhat exponential nature of Hero damage causes issues. The baseline could be taken from the Growth and Density increase powers: Growth adds 3 Body per doubling of height (i.e. per 8x mass i.e. +1 Body for double mass) whereas D.I. adds 1 pd and ed per doubling of mass. Given that a starting character can have quite a lot of extra Body (which has implications for disabling and so on), we can get a bit of a disconnect. If you want more realism, consider limiting what characters can spend on Body and Stun, or even fixing it.

4. If you want a realistic game and you want firearms involved and they are going to be used, expect to have lots of realistic downtime.

5. Looking at the weapons table at 6.2.208, well, first of all I can not believe we are still using Xd6-1 instead of 1/2d6, but that is a point to be discussed elsewhere. Small arms fire damage ranges from 2DCs to 8DCs. Modern armour ranges from 6 to 11 Defence. Obviously we then have specialist ammo, like AP rounds, but let us leave that aside for the moment. That gives us a damage spread of 5 to 15 Body (with handguns having a range of 5 to 13 Body damage). Here is an interesting video:

That vest was stopping 1 ½ and 2d6-1 rounds. I imagine it would hurt if you got hit wearing it, and you would probably have some nasty bruising, maybe a broken rib, but most of the damage you take would be stun, with little or no Body getting through. Even if you took a dozen rounds, unless the vest’s integrity went, you would be likely to survive. That contradicts what I said earlier about defences being too high – but bear in mind most defences of this nature are sectional: they cover the centre of mass where a lot of your life support system is. Most characters will not – or should not – be using full body armour – and a couple of limb hits can kill – as can a shot to the neck or head.

 

Sometimes shots go into the gaps in the armor--down into the neck/shoulder when shot from above, into the armpit from the side, etc. These are probably available as "called shots" for highly trained marksman/sniper types. If you want limb hits to be more lethal, just put in some sort of randomizer for arterial hits--if you get hit in an artery, then you immediately go to the highest level on the bleeding chart.

[Sean Waters]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Absolutely. I was considering a post about 'critical hits' being done by ignoring armour rather than increasing damage. The problem to an extent is the spread of damage, but when you are not hitting a homogeneous target that is probably inevitable. Armour does complicate matters because it WILL stop certain bullets. To that extent it may be that it would be better represented in another way, perhaps using standard Body damage for bullets that hit armour, and the random range for those that do not.

 

Another issue with Hero and realism is that there are only two types of damage: Stun goes away very quickly, Body goes away very slowly and is cumulatively fatal. It may be that an intermediate damage type that causes longer term injury that is non-fatal and heals in hours or days rather than weeks or months might be appropriate, but that slows play down a lot.

 

I suspect that a sniper at leisure can aim for cracks in cover but in most situations even expert gun men probably can not 'aim for the gap' when they themselves are under fire and the target is not stationary. That is why machine guns are useful; you get several shots to be on-target, or plain lucky.

[megaplayboy]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

I suppose you could have limited Damage Negation, which only works vs. Body, and doesn't work vs. attacks with more DC than the levels of negation. That, on top of regular armor. You'd wind up with body armor that's nearly 100% effective against bullets below a certain caliber, then of only moderate effectiveness against more powerful rounds.