Sectional Armor Values (Excel)

[Zanthis]

Since someone mentioned it in the Find Weakness thread and that thread has grown quite huge, I'll post this file here. It is an Excel spreadsheet (two versions, one in 2003 and one in 5.0/95) for use with Section Armor. If you have a power that covers certain hit locations, this table will help you determine what activation roll it is equivalent to as well as what limitation value best suits the power. This limitation value may be different than those shown in FRED 334 since rather than finding the best activation roll (which requires some fudging) and then the best limitation value for that activation roll (which also requires fudging) it goes straight to a limitation value, resulting in only one "rounding" error.

 

The files also contain general odds of rolling given numbers on 3d6 and odds of hitting specific locations.

 

If you have any questions, feel free to post 'em.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Sectional Armor Values (Excel)

 

Since someone mentioned it in the Find Weakness thread and that thread has grown quite huge, I'll post this file here. It is an Excel spreadsheet (two versions, one in 2003 and one in 5.0/95) for use with Section Armor. If you have a power that covers certain hit locations, this table will help you determine what activation roll it is equivalent to as well as what limitation value best suits the power. This limitation value may be different than those shown in FRED 334 since rather than finding the best activation roll (which requires some fudging) and then the best limitation value for that activation roll (which also requires fudging) it goes straight to a limitation value, resulting in only one "rounding" error.

 

The files also contain general odds of rolling given numbers on 3d6 and odds of hitting specific locations.

 

If you have any questions, feel free to post 'em.

Awesome, thanks Zanthis!

[Guest Kolava]

Re: Sectional Armor Values (Excel)

 

I like scattering armor in strange places, and was hoping someone would come out with something like this. Great job.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Sectional Armor Values (Excel)

 

Wow, cool. I only have one problem with it. It doesn't follow the rules. It seems to properly calculate an appropriate activation roll, but not the correct Limitation value for it. For example, it told me that an 8- is a -3 or -3 1/2 and an 11- is -3/4.

[Zanthis]

Re: Sectional Armor Values (Excel)

 

That's because the limitations for Activation rolls in FRED aren't entirely correct from a statistical standpoint. Let's look at 8- which is a -2 limitation according to FRED. That means 30 Real Points of PD equals 90 PD with an Activation roll of 8 or less. Compare to someone without any activation roll, they'll have 30 PD. So we now have:

• 90 PD only on an 8 or less
  
• 30 PD all the time
  

That means the 90 PD is three times as effective as the 30 PD. To balance out, the 8 or less activation roll should only succeed one in three times. So out of 99 hits, the 90 PD will block 33 of them (90 * 33 = 2970) and the 30 PD will block all 99 (30 * 99 = 2970). So what are the odds of rolling less than or equal to 8? 25.93%!

 

That's right, 8- really should be a -3 limitation given the numbers. And that's why a few activation rolls don't match up right. Either stick to the book's values when using activation rolls or you can use the closer values frlom this table.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Sectional Armor Values (Excel)

 

Ah, that makes sense.

 

I'll stick with the book values though. I think they are based with an 11- as a baseline. It's treated as "average" (50%) every though it's closer to 60+%, and gets a -1. I kinda like this logic, even if it doesn't work out mathematically.

[Zanthis]

Re: Sectional Armor Values (Excel)

 

I'd recommend sticking with the Activation values in the book, just so everyone in the game is on the same page. Keep in mind when using sectional armor, that while this spreadsheet gives you the statistically correct the player is still getting protection. So even though just protecting the head (3-5) gives something close to a -10 limitation, you may want to cap it at a lower level (say -2 or -3) simply because of placed shots. Otherwise, for a scant 3 points you could protect your head with 11rPD/11rED! Even though the head isn't hit that often naturally, placed shots against the head could be fairly common and this huge a limitation encourages abuse.