Firearm Muzzle Energy

[Kevin Rose]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

Because it is a readily available measuring method to compare differant bullets and it is not convieniant for most people to go out and conduct live fire trials on living subjects. Since there is no real reliable way to measure bullet effectiveness its as good as any other. I think you know the bowling ball, 2x4 analogies are bogus anyway, like most things its how you use it.

 

If you want to stick to useless but easily measured values that it certainly your option. I'd suggest that gun weight is even easier to find and measure, and has about the same correlation to effectiveness.

 

Killing the opponent is not the typical objective of bullet buyers, it’s stopping the opponent from doing whatever made you shoot at him. The opponent dying from a bullet wound two weeks after he beat you to death with his bare hands isn’t the ideal outcome. So what I’m saying is based on the idea that you want to stop this guy right now from doing something bad.

 

Muzzle energy is predominantly determined by velocity. The most significant velocity effect on a human is a larger temporary wound cavity. Temporary wound cavities are not correlated with any combat significant effect unless the cavity:

 

1) is huge compared to the target size (for example, very high velocity varmint bullets blowing up small critters),

2) strikes a confined area like the head.

 

If they disrupt the kidneys, liver, spleen, pancreas - the few organs that are susceptible to this - it may well kill the target, but it's likely to take hours or days. And this isn’t too useful when he's shooting at you now.

 

In particular, pistol class bullets do not produce significant effects from temporary cavities. Rifles can, but you need impact velocities at over several thousand FPS with a good sized bullet to get the tearing and shredding effect that do useful things.

 

Until you reach cannon round size and velocities, a through and through peripheral hit on a determined opponent won't do anything useful. If a bullet hits "the good stuff" the caliber is pretty unimportant. A CNS hit with a .22 or a .458 will both drop the guy right now. The likelihood of striking major blood vessels is really pretty much the same between a 9mm bullet and a 17mm bullet per MacPherson. Arteries are can be blown out by a small bullet or a large bullet, they are not that tough. If you strike a major blood vessel the guy should drop in short order. (Except when he doesn't, like Michael Platt didn’t that day in Miami.) These effects are determined by bullet placement, not caliber.

 

If you assume that the bullet doesn't hit anything particularly exciting it appears that the predominate incapacitation mechanism is the permanent wound cavity. Essentially, how big a hole does the bullet drill into the target and hence how much tissue is destroyed by the bullet. Velocity doesn't really matter except that the bullet has to be able to penetrate any barriers and still penetrate deep into the target. Wide, shallow wounds are not very effective in forcing someone to stop attacking. Bullets that sail right thought the target don't add anything.

 

What you are doing, as a shooting instructor once said, is “depressurizing their circulatory systemâ€. You put enough bullets in them the blood loss and shock, broken bones and other bad things that this causes will eventually cause them to go down.

 

So, fundamentally, it's the actual bullet diameter inside the target and how much tissue it crushes that determines how effective the bullet is. Not the velocity or the energy. But bullet placement is even more important.

[Toadmaster]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

Well first of all, since you disapprove of muzzle energy so much can you suggest another readily available measurement applicable to use in a game. So far you have dismissed an industry standard measurement and one of the most well known studies of actual shootings. Whats left?

 

You mention the relationship of velocity to penetration, damage in HERO most closely relates to penetration followed by effect on living tissue. This is one reason I relate muzzle energy to damage. I find Stun mod relates to putting the target down or "knock down" better, for stun mod I place far more importance on caliber and bullet weight, velocity plays a much smaller role primarily becoming important in weapons with lighter bullets at high speed (rifles mostly).

 

So my method uses muzzle energy for damage, bullet weight, caliber and a minor part for velocity for StunX. This works well to get low penetration high stun weapons like the .455 Webley (1d6 +2 StunX) and moderate penetration low stun weapons like the 9mm (1d6+1 +0 Stun).

 

Again as I've mentioned a few times I'm using this for a game, if I were picking a weapon for actual defensive use I consider much more than energy.

 

 

I don't mean to be argumentive but I'd be interested in an alternative vs ME is worthless.

 

I think we had a similar debate over on the old boards which I actually found quite interesting even if we didn't see eye to eye. Although I've pretty well set for my system of determinig HERO gun effectiveness it never hurts to hear other ideas.

 

I've copied my system from another post to give you some idea of what I'm using, comments are welcome.

 

 

Damage = ME (joules) base 100J> = 1DC, each doubling adds a DC (200 J = DC2, 400J = DC 3 etc) this works out very close to the original Hero stats.

 

StunMod = bullet weight (grams) x caliber (mm) + (Vel(m)/20)

 

99> = +0 stnmod

100-199 = +1 stnmod

200-399 = 2 stnmod

 

etc

 

From my reading it seems two things determine a bullets stopping power, high velocity and a big heavy bullet, in pistols most of the "man-stoppers" are big bores but the velocity portion allows medium bore high velocity cartridges like the .357 Magnum to get that +1. Similarly lighter bullets at high velocity in rifles (such as the 7.62mm NATO) also get that +1.

 

 

I also add piercing and rmod based on the cartridge in addition to rmod based on the gun. Velocity is important to armor penetration (I based this fact on formulas for figuring cannon armor penetration). Since the damage combines tissue damage and penetration piercing gives a little bonus to high velocity rounds without adding to the lethality of it. This is handy for rounds like the 5.7mm FN which have good penetration but questionable effect on tissue (small hole in and out).

 

Piercing

velocity

0-299 m/s = +0

300-599 m/s = +1

600-1199 m/s = +2

1200-2499 m/s = +3

 

etc

 

Rmod

velocity

0-249 m/s = -1 Rmod

250-499 m/s = +0 Rmod

500-1000 m/s = +1 Rmod

1000-2000 m/s = +2 Rmod

 

Again velocity is important, the faster a bullet the flatter the trajectory, so a fast bullet is easier to aim.

 

 

The overall formulas tend to favor velocity over bullet weight but because the stun mod is so heavily weighted towards big bullets I think it balances out. The .45 is still one of the best "man stoppers" in the service handgun catagory but it does not totally overshadow the 9mm Parabellum (the .45 is better but you can get more 9mm cartridges into a magazine which tends to be the real argument as well). The problem I found with many formulas I tried is they tended to seriously either favor heavy bullets or fast bullets, I think this one is balanced. I generally look at 9mm vs .45 and 5.56mm vs 7.62mm when playing around with damage formulas, there are valid arguments on each side and all have seen extensive real world use, if they all still have a reason to exist but also still have advantages over each other then I feel like I have a workable system.

[Legendsmiths]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

I've found that assessing "accurate" damage correlation between DC and any amount of gun statistics is difficult at best. GURPS does a pretty good job of representing this on many levels, but also presents a fairly lethal system for handling it.

 

This is what I've found works for me. Most weapons can be classified in this manner such that for a cinematic game it provides enough realism yet is easy to manage.

 

Pistol Rounds

tiny (5-6mm, .22) 1/2d6

v small (7-8mm,) 1d6-1

small (9mm, .38) 1d6

medium (.41, 10mm) 1d6+1

large (.45, 11mm) 1 1/2d6, +1 STUN

v large (.44 mag, .50, 12mm) 2d6, +1 STUN

 

high velocity (e.g. 9mm para, 357 mag) +1 DC

 

Rifle Rounds

All rounds are AP due to velocity

v small (3.5-5mm) 1 1/2d6

small (4.5-6.5mm, .223) 2d6

medium (6.5-8.5mm, .308, 30-06) 2d6+1, +1 STUN

large (8.5mm-10.5mm, .44, .45) 2 1/2d6, +1 STUN

v large (10.5-12.5mm, .50) 3d6, +1 STUN

huge (14.5mm) 3d6+1, +1 STUN

 

All "bullet proof" armor (Threat III & IV) provide one level of hardening. This means that a second chance vest (rPD 6 or 7) vs. a Rifle is still going to allow someone to die. However, a level II vest (DEF 8) is still going to offer good protection, since it's hardened, and if it has the inserts (+3 DEF) be effectively bullet proof vs. most rifle rounds.

 

This has worked really well for me. If you are using DC, just add AP to all rifles and hardened to level III/IV armor. Done.

[Kevin Rose]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

I'll believe Dr. Martin L. Fackler, Colonel, U.S.A, one of the foremost experts in wound ballistics research, over a couple of guys who collect squirrelly data to write books touting the bullets that their friends’ companies sell. See the Letterman Army Institute of Research's Institute Report No. 239 from 1987 "WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WOUND BALLISTICS LITERATURE, AND WHY" http://www.rkba.org/research/fackler/wrong.html.

 

Essentially all pistol bullets suck. They just do not do enough damage to reliably drop someone unless you get a central nervous system hit. Even when they do incapacitate someone, they are not nearly as fast as typically shown in the media. Hero has issues with how it does damage because of the superhoro basis. My personal approach is that bullets that tend to kill people reliably should do enough damage to do so, so .50 BMG at 4D6 or more seems reasonable. You could probably model all pistols as D3 (or worse) for everything from .32s to .45s and be roughly accurate. Single hits don't typically stop attacks in any caliber unless you get a central nervous system hit or convince the guy that he doesn't want to fight to to the death.

 

For example, I was reading through the most recent FBI Law Enforcement Officers Killed report on the FBI site. One guy got shot 12 times and recovered to stand trial. Last night a judge nearby got in shootout in his yard with a nutcase. Shot the guy 3 times in the stomach and twice in the chest with his 6 shot revolver, then ran into the house. The nut emptied his revolver at the judge and then reloaded before collapsing and dying. An ex-nypd detective talked about shooting a thug 11 times with a 9mm (during which the thug shot the detectives partner) before he collapsed, then getting indicted for it by the DA who'd watched too much TV. These are all people not wearing armor.

 

 

Hit location is probably the most important element. If can get a bullet into the "brain-housing group" the fight is over. You sever the guys spine, the fight is over. You bruise the spinal cord and the fights over (he might be fine a few hours later, or not, but the fight is over.) This is the drop like a puppet with the strings cut effect. Typically anyhow, as I have been told of a guy who got half his brain removed by a police sniper with a .308 and still shot two cops before he went down.

 

Motivation, aggressiveness and willingness to drive on is next. People have been killed by totally survivable wounds because they decided they were going to die, others have continued on after getting horrible wounds. I've heard of VC sappers continuing to fight after taking a burst of M-60 that blew an arm off. Lots of bad guys decide when the fight goes to guns that they are not going there. An ICE inspector mentioned that every time he has made an aggressive presentation on a bad guy that the bad guy decided that he didn't want to play that game. Even more decide that when they get hit that they really don't want to get killed and surrender. Some fight to the bitter end and keep operating effectively with fatal wounds. Platt took a fatal wound in the first few seconds of his shootout and still went on for 4 minutes shooting 5 FBI agents, collecting 11 wounds before he got shot in the spine and died. In Hero, EGO should be far more important that it is typically shown.

 

After that, it's more hit location. Hitting major blood vessels or the heart will take someone down fast. But it's not instant; it takes several seconds to knock you unconscious if you don't choose to drop out of the fight. More than one cop has drawn and shot a dirtbag dead after being fatally shot through the heart by surprise. As Michael Platt demonstrated in the 4 minutes after getting a hit from Dove that severed his brachial arteries and veins and damaged the main blood vessels of and collapsed his left lung, some people are hard to stop. Again, it’s EGO.

 

Past this the effects seems to be cumulative damage. Large holes in a person do more damage than little holes. Whether you drill them with a pistol or an electric drill, 7/8th inch holes placed essentially at random through someone’s torso have a better chance of hitting something important than 1/4 inch holes. Enough holes will stop anyone. Eventually. (People have killed attacking grizzlies with .40s and 9s, though it takes a lot of holes and isn't typically recommended.) I have seen autopsy pictures of a guy who took over thirty FMJ 9mm rounds, it looks in the poor B&W picture like he had a case of big measles.

 

This is where bullet type becomes critical. Good modern 9mms expand well, like .40s and .45s, but not as effectively. Federal LE Wounds Ballistic Workshop notes at http://le.atk.com/Interior.asp?section=1&page=pages/federal/downloads.asp show that top quality .45 and .40 get about the same expansion (.9 inch), with the heavy 9mm round penetrating significantly better than the light, fast 9mm while both expanding to .6 inch.

 

Stable FMJ bullets do far less damage than the same round that expands. Real body armor is really hard to model in hero without either hacking up the system a lot or going to complex disads like points of piercing, reduced penetration, etc.

 

Anyway, it’s getting really late. If you haven’t looked at a bunch of bullet tracks, you should do so. It’s pretty obvious what is more effective and why. Look at the Emergency War Surgery Manual’s selection http://www.vnh.org/EWSurg/ch02/02Projectiles.html

 

To see just how much bullet type matters when you get serious velocity see

7.62mm FMJ http://www.vnh.org/EWSurg/Figures/Fig07.html

7.62mm soft point http://www.vnh.org/EWSurg/Figures/Fig11.html

5.56mm FMJ http://www.vnh.org/EWSurg/Figures/Fig12.html

Compare these to the pistol profiles.

 

There are a few extra cross-sections here, at the bottom of the page: http://www.firearmstactical.com/wound.htm I’ve seen some more, like the 5.7mm one, but it doesn’t seem to be easy to find on the web.

[Legendsmiths]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

I agree with most of your points. What I'm saying is that HERO is not necessarily the game for this type of realistic model. HERO is about cinematic action, including where people take knockback from pistol rounds.

 

Having played Time Lords (BTRC - Guns, Guns, Guns), Phoenix Command, GURPS, and others, I can honestly say that GURPS does the best job of balancing realistic gunplay with playability. It accurately models the fact that 9mm have slightly better penetration than .45 but that a .45 does more damage, without introducing an Armor Piercing effect (i.e. so you can have AP rounds for both calibers).

 

It's fun, it's neat... but it's not cinematic.

 

Now, I generally don't go for things like KB for guns, but I think HERO does a pretty good job of providing an impression of reality while balancing heroic action and playability. Using the damage mod I suggested above (basically use DC with rifles doing AP and heavy armor having Hardened) you end up with something that approximates reality, provides granularity, and still feels like gunplay.

 

HERO provides a smooth exponential progression of effective power that is a pretty good mirror of nature (at times). When it doesn't match up perfectly, I feel it still matches up symbolically, and does what it was meant to do.

[Kevin Rose]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

I agree with most of your points. What I'm saying is that HERO is not necessarily the game for this type of realistic model. HERO is about cinematic action, including where people take knockback from pistol rounds.

 

Yeah, it's both a virtue and a flaw. The problem I have is that I like Hero generally, it just doesn't do real guns very well at all without lots of work in one form or another. If I'm going to run a realistic game I want to run vaguely realistic combat. It's too bad that Steve put so many pages into the worthless tables and not much into really thinking about the issues and how to fix it.

 

In terms of trying to fix it, I also feel that if people want to try to model the reality (vs movies) of gunfights they need understand how science thinks things work vs tales that a couple of gun writers say they have collected and like to pretend are scientific. Trying to use the data the gun writers say is important is like ancient astronomers using the Ptolemaic model of the sun and planets rotating around the earth to understand the solar system. It seemed reasonable, was useful for predictions, and as a result people spent years perfecting their nested levels of epicycles. It turns out that there are no epicycles and the actual motion of the planets is around the sun, which is pretty much the case with wound ballistics today.

[Legendsmiths]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

I guess my point is that I'm not sure it can be "fixed" or even if it is broken. As for the composition of DC, I think it suits a particular style of play, and does so very well, but may not be the solution you are looking for.

 

Options are presented in DC, and I think overall it does a very good job of representing a more realistic model of gunplay than the base rules, but at the same time is still realistic.

 

Your comments above indicate that it is all about hit location, as well as the expansion of the bullet. I agree. There are a number of options presented in DC that represent this. I got my idea of making rifles AP from the sidebar that said to give pistols reduced pen. That was counter intuitive to me, as it didn't solve the problem of a 5.56 round punching through a second-chance vest, something I think AP handles well.

 

Another option is to allow hit location shift based on the success of the shot. The option presented is 1 for 1, which in play ended up being too much, but making it 1 for 2 (shift 1 pt of location roll for 2 success), combined also with placed shots, works very well. In my game all gunshots are Body Shots (2d6+4) to represent a typical focus on center-mass of the target. Success by 4 would then allow you to shift it 2 location points. Since your average roll of a Body Shot is 11, that shifts it to the vitals. However, just blazing away, or autofire, is going to result in random shots that may not kill someone at all. It might be difficult to model the 12 bullet wounds, unless many of them were to the arms and legs, but you could conceivably get to half that many. I would also put forward that these are not common occurrences - not entirely rare either - but people get killed by gunshots all the time. Sure, a 9mm to the shoulder won't kill you, and it may not even break your collar bone (represented by an impairing wound, > than BODY/2), but to the vitals or head it most likely will.

 

Having run years of GURPS combat missions involving firearms, and having exceedingly fun battles, I prefer the less realistic system presented by HERO because it is less hard on the heroes, which have to endure far more combat than any NPC, and yet is still a fair representation of the issues.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

I do agree that Hero System is not built to simulate "realistic" gun combat and damage... but it does approximate it for "feel" I'd say about 75% of the time. This can create the desire in some (in me at times) to try to further refine the system to cover the 25% of the time it plays out like "Eh... that's not right!"

 

To me, the "feel" is more important than any kind of formula based on mathematics. That feel, in a "realistic" game is hard to pull off for two reasons (in Hero)...

 

One... people should realistically be fearful, or at least hesitant, to get shot at, let alone actually take a bullet, no matter how small. To simulate this in a game, that means that guns have to do enough damage to really "f-up" a character with one or two shots. If not, then you get the D&D feel of "Hey, I have 89 hit points, and a sword only does 1-8, so I just wade into combat!" That doesn't seem to be what anyone wants to simulate in Hero (or at least not on this thread.)

 

On the other hand, making the damage "significantly dangerous" to a character often leads to a generalization of damage (Hero's strong point, and weak point, as a system is generalizing damage... strong for a supers style campaign, but shows it's weaknesses in a low level "realistic" campaign.) You can have things like a pistol doing too much damage (on average) and a rifle doing too little damage (on average.)

 

This is simply a thin line to walk, and there is no right way to do it. In a game where combat is foremost and lethal, an accurate representation of this would have all characters carrying long guns of some kind, because they are much more efficient and effective and killing the enemy. Game mechanics that reflected this would push players toward totally ignoring the pistol charts, and everyone taking a FAMAS or 7.62 carbine, or whatever.

 

Based on what I've read above, in this thread, the amount of variables that come into a "how effective is one bullet compared to another" simply can't be handled in a generic way. A force ranking doesn't really do anything... and creating a ton of tiny power advantages and limitations on each round is simply too complex to be fun (IMO).

 

To this, the Hit Location chart helps provide some better feel... so you have two steps. One: Hit, roll where it hit. Two, roll generic damage within a small spread (1d6-3d6 for guns basically) and multiply based on hit location.

 

Not bad, really. Like I said, 75% effective for a GAME in most cases.

 

Can we find a simple "third step" that might get a little closer to simulating realism. A SIMPLE "third step" I'd re-emphasize.

 

Maybe this: After steps one & two, roll a single d6.

 

1-2, Flesh Wound... damage done is reduced to 1 Body and 1 Stun, and round passes through without reducing it's damage. Blow Through.

 

3-4, Damage as normal. No mod.

 

5-6, Critical Hit... Total damage multiplied by 1.5 (Both Stun and Body, which have already gone through the hit location multiple)

 

What this allows is this third step to have all the "crunch detail" applied to it.

 

Example: If a GM wishes, they can modify the Third Step Die, based on calliber. A .22 has 1-3 Flesh Wound Chance, 4-5 Normal, and only a 6 is Critical. Maybe a .22 has 1-3 Flesh Wound, 4-6 Normal, and no chance for that extra critical.

 

A .45 might have 1 Flesh Wound, 2-4 Normal, 5-6 Critical... whatever. The gun geeks can argue at this point... but essentially it is a simple system that allows for some consideration of size and velocity in one simple roll. Again, not perfect, but might add some "realism" without requiring an in depth knowledge of ballistics and anatomy.

 

You might even allow armor to effect this Third Step Die, with certain levels of armor reducing the critical number, etc.

 

Just an idea off the top of my head.

[Kevin Rose]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

This is simply a thin line to walk, and there is no right way to do it. In a game where combat is foremost and lethal, an accurate representation of this would have all characters carrying long guns of some kind, because they are much more efficient and effective and killing the enemy. Game mechanics that reflected this would push players toward totally ignoring the pistol charts, and everyone taking a FAMAS or 7.62 carbine, or whatever.

 

Well, yes. Nobody with a clue voluntarily brings a pistol to a gunfight. They bring a carbine or a shotgun if they show up. It's even cleverer to do something else that day.

 

1-2, Flesh Wound... damage done is reduced to 1 Body and 1 Stun, and round passes through without reducing it's damage. Blow Through.

 

3-4, Damage as normal. No mod.

 

5-6, Critical Hit... Total damage multiplied by 1.5 (Both Stun and Body, which have already gone through the hit location multiple) . . .

 

I have been thinking about this more and decided to see how something like that worked. At the same time I'd keep base damage from pistols low due to the fact that the vast majority of people who get shot once with a pistol survive, most with no significant effects once they get out of the hospital. You either have to be unlucky or the guy shooting you has to be good to get killed with a single pistol bullet.

 

I'd use pistols as D3, with shifts based on a random factor, location and by how much you made the attack roll. Rifles as maybe 2D6, shotguns as 4D6 (with lots of limitations), HMGs as 4D6 and cannons starting at 5D6.

 

The issue with armor is that people who are wearing the appropriate body armor take effectively no damage from bullets that it can stop and gain almost no useful effect (I've seen arguments that it actually increases the severity of the wound based on statistics from Vietnam) from wearing armor that won't stop the bullet. That messes with hero in a major way.

[Havyk]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

The way I dealt with 'blow through' damage is as follows. A normal handgun/assult rifle cartridge is designed to flatten inside a soft target (human), so I treat it as normal. What I change is how rounds designed to penetrate kevlar vests work. An Armor Piercing round will go completely through a soft target, so against an unarmored target such as a person, I say the round does Penetrating damage (as per the advantage), no more (but could possibly hit a target behind him). Making it unlikely you will kill a normal person with an AP round unless you hit a vital organ.

ie. An assult riffle firing a FMJ round will do 2d6 killing damge. Firing a Armor Piercing round will do the same if the target is weraing a vest, but if not will do only about 2 killing damage.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

I have been thinking about this more and decided to see how something like that worked. At the same time I'd keep base damage from pistols low due to the fact that the vast majority of people who get shot once with a pistol survive, most with no significant effects once they get out of the hospital. You either have to be unlucky or the guy shooting you has to be good to get killed with a single pistol bullet.

 

I'd use pistols as D3, with shifts based on a random factor, location and by how much you made the attack roll. Rifles as maybe 2D6, shotguns as 4D6 (with lots of limitations), HMGs as 4D6 and cannons starting at 5D6.

 

I agree, pistols would still need to be lower damage... and likely you could do something like

 

1-2 Blow Through

3-5 Normal

6 Critical

 

For all pistols (based on my rough idea above). This, with low damage to start, would certainly encourage putting multiple shots into a person to get good effect.

 

The issue with armor is that people who are wearing the appropriate body armor take effectively no damage from bullets that it can stop and gain almost no useful effect (I've seen arguments that it actually increases the severity of the wound based on statistics from Vietnam) from wearing armor that won't stop the bullet. That messes with hero in a major way.

 

Oh yeah.. the "all or nothing" concept is simply not handled by Hero at all. It is something to just accept if you are going to play the game.

 

My feeling though, is if you keep individual bullet damage low, then you can have armor at lower "realistic" levels for second chance vests, and the like. Larger rounds (rifle and above) will then, for all intents and purposes, effectively tear through the armor.

 

All of this is of course, assuming you are playing a "heroic level" game where players don't pay for equipments/guns with character points. Then you can have guns operate however feels right for your campaign. What gets untenable is having a player designs a 3d6 RKA and definining it as their 9mm Beretta... which is just a special effect for a power they pay points for. That is extreme, but the concept is the same. In a "points for equipment" campaign... you just have to go with the "generic damage" concept and live with the inconsistencies to real life. You'll be happy 60-75% of the time, and I doubt any other system would ever do better in such an open way.

 

The problem with Hero is that it approaches perfection in so many ways, we (many of us) feel compelled to try and push it farther, failing to realize that there is NO "perfect system" and never will be.

 

It's a fun intellectual exercise, though... that's for sure.

[Toadmaster]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

If you want to put most of the effect into hit location you could always modify the method Behind Enemy Lines used. All hits roll on the damage table (a 2d6 roll ranging from scratch to instantly killed), this roll is modified by the weapon so a large caliber pistol has a little better chance of stopping or killing the target a rifle much better but any weapon has the chance to kill or cause minimal damage depending on the roll. A Stamina stat is also used to allow multiple lesser wounds to eventually take their toll.

 

Delta Force uses a similar system but is a bit more detailed (3d6) and also includes a modifier for hit location (BEL doesn't use hit locations).

 

I don't know how you would do this with HERO (or really even why, it doesn't fit well) but I actually think it is one of the better attempts at handling combat in a game, its quick, avoids the "I have 40 HP and a .45 only does a d6" mentality and reflects the real world freak occurances of 1 shot stops with a .22 or the 30 hits from a 9mm but still keeps coming. It also provides that hit location is very important, that most of the time a bigger weapon will be more effective and if you treat that pipsqueek .25 as a joke you probably won't do it twice. Both show up on ebay fairly often and worth a look if you are interested in a "gritty, realistic" style game.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

One way to do this in Hero might be to have the lowest modifier (whether it's a 0 or some negative number) count as DC1, and each step up as counting as another DC.

 

I haven't seen Behind Enemy Lines, but this idea seems like at least a good starting point to adapt its damage system.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

If you want to put most of the effect into hit location you could always modify the method Behind Enemy Lines used. All hits roll on the damage table (a 2d6 roll ranging from scratch to instantly killed), this roll is modified by the weapon so a large caliber pistol has a little better chance of stopping or killing the target a rifle much better but any weapon has the chance to kill or cause minimal damage depending on the roll. A Stamina stat is also used to allow multiple lesser wounds to eventually take their toll.

 

Delta Force uses a similar system but is a bit more detailed (3d6) and also includes a modifier for hit location (BEL doesn't use hit locations).

 

I don't know how you would do this with HERO (or really even why, it doesn't fit well) but I actually think it is one of the better attempts at handling combat in a game, its quick, avoids the "I have 40 HP and a .45 only does a d6" mentality and reflects the real world freak occurances of 1 shot stops with a .22 or the 30 hits from a 9mm but still keeps coming. It also provides that hit location is very important, that most of the time a bigger weapon will be more effective and if you treat that pipsqueek .25 as a joke you probably won't do it twice. Both show up on ebay fairly often and worth a look if you are interested in a "gritty, realistic" style game.

 

Really like the sound of this for Heroic level... "realistic" type games. Might be somewhat adaptable to Hero. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try to round up a copy.

[Toadmaster]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

Really like the sound of this for Heroic level... "realistic" type games. Might be somewhat adaptable to Hero. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try to round up a copy.

 

Just be careful that you get a complete set (all three books) occasionally I see people selling the books individually (each for the price the whole set usually goes for). Behind Enemy Lines is set in WW2, Delta Force is kind of like Advanced Behind Enemy Lines, since it uses many of the same concepts but is much more detailed, it is also based around modern counter terror campaigns. I found copies of both on Ebay for $10-20, occasionally less sometimes more. Both came in a box which makes that worth more than just the books. Behind Enemy Lines came out in 2 versions, you will want FASA's version.

 

Both games can use a some tweaking but are great for ideas and very differant from other games. Besides the effects of a hit there are also good rules for spotting, suppression fire and some good basic ideas for scenarios.

 

Behind Enemy Lines

Book 1 Character Generation, Book 2 Event Tables, Book 3 Missions

 

Delta Force

Book 1 Rules of Play, Book 2 Warbook, Book 3 Scenarios

[RDU Neil]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

Just be careful that you get a complete set (all three books) occasionally I see people selling the books individually (each for the price the whole set usually goes for). Behind Enemy Lines is set in WW2, Delta Force is kind of like Advanced Behind Enemy Lines, since it uses many of the same concepts but is much more detailed, it is also based around modern counter terror campaigns. I found copies of both on Ebay for $10-20, occasionally less sometimes more. Both came in a box which makes that worth more than just the books. Behind Enemy Lines came out in 2 versions, you will want FASA's version.

 

Both games can use a some tweaking but are great for ideas and very differant from other games. Besides the effects of a hit there are also good rules for spotting, suppression fire and some good basic ideas for scenarios.

 

Behind Enemy Lines

Book 1 Character Generation, Book 2 Event Tables, Book 3 Missions

 

Delta Force

Book 1 Rules of Play, Book 2 Warbook, Book 3 Scenarios

 

 

Thanks muchly. (I tried giving you rep, but it said I have to "spread it around." Damn computer...)

[gewing]

Re: Firearm Muzzle Energy

 

just catching up with the thread:

 

.41 magnum is FAR more powerful than .45 acp, or even 10mm.

 

 

I've found that assessing "accurate" damage correlation between DC and any amount of gun statistics is difficult at best. GURPS does a pretty good job of representing this on many levels, but also presents a fairly lethal system for handling it.

 

This is what I've found works for me. Most weapons can be classified in this manner such that for a cinematic game it provides enough realism yet is easy to manage.

 

Pistol Rounds

tiny (5-6mm, .22) 1/2d6

v small (7-8mm,) 1d6-1

small (9mm, .38) 1d6

medium (.41, 10mm) 1d6+1

large (.45, 11mm) 1 1/2d6, +1 STUN

v large (.44 mag, .50, 12mm) 2d6, +1 STUN

 

high velocity (e.g. 9mm para, 357 mag) +1 DC

 

Rifle Rounds

All rounds are AP due to velocity

v small (3.5-5mm) 1 1/2d6

small (4.5-6.5mm, .223) 2d6

medium (6.5-8.5mm, .308, 30-06) 2d6+1, +1 STUN

large (8.5mm-10.5mm, .44, .45) 2 1/2d6, +1 STUN

v large (10.5-12.5mm, .50) 3d6, +1 STUN

huge (14.5mm) 3d6+1, +1 STUN

 

All "bullet proof" armor (Threat III & IV) provide one level of hardening. This means that a second chance vest (rPD 6 or 7) vs. a Rifle is still going to allow someone to die. However, a level II vest (DEF 8) is still going to offer good protection, since it's hardened, and if it has the inserts (+3 DEF) be effectively bullet proof vs. most rifle rounds.

 

This has worked really well for me. If you are using DC, just add AP to all rifles and hardened to level III/IV armor. Done.