Taking STUN from Killing Damage

[jml]

One of my players asked me why wearing armor allows you to use your Normal Defenses when protecting against STUN damage. I don't really know the answer. By "why" what he meant was "how does this simulate dramatic reality?"

 

Why does wearing armor allow you to use your Normal Defenses when protecting against STUN damage?

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Taking STUN from Killing Damage

 

Mechanically speaking, If you only used Resistant Defense to protect against the STUN of killing attacks (which can get fairly significant, even on low body attacks) then players would be getting Stunned and K.O.ed far too quickly.

 

Dramatically speaking, it simulates the ability of armor to disperse the damage along a wider area, allowing your natural defenses a chance to soak damage as well. A perfect example would be a Bullet Proof Vest. Without the vest, getting shot would most definately stun you, if not K.O. you provided you lived through it. However, with a Bullet-proof vest, not only are you likely to survive, but probably won't be K.O.ed (but Stun is still a possibility) so in order to simulate this kind of effect, natural defenses get to stack with Resistant defenses for purposes of resisting Stun damage.

[Dr. MID-Nite]

Re: Taking STUN from Killing Damage

 

Mechanically speaking, If you only used Resistant Defense to protect against the STUN of killing attacks (which can get fairly significant, even on low body attacks) then players would be getting Stunned and K.O.ed far too quickly.

 

Dramatically speaking, it simulates the ability of armor to disperse the damage along a wider area, allowing your natural defenses a chance to soak damage as well. A perfect example would be a Bullet Proof Vest. Without the vest, getting shot would most definately stun you, if not K.O. you provided you lived through it. However, with a Bullet-proof vest, not only are you likely to survive, but probably won't be K.O.ed (but Stun is still a possibility) so in order to simulate this kind of effect, natural defenses get to stack with Resistant defenses for purposes of resisting Stun damage.

 

Yeah...what he said....

[Guyon]

Re: Taking STUN from Killing Damage

 

GREAT answer NuSoardGraphite, that questions always bothered me too.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Taking STUN from Killing Damage

 

Another way to look at it is by thinking of Resistant Defenses working to transform Killing damage into Normal damage, and having it only work on the STUN. How? Because of what NuSoard said about dispersal of energy and stuff, maybe.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Taking STUN from Killing Damage

 

In a nutshell, it's because Killing Attacks do too much stun damage. If only resistant defenses counted vs. the stun from KAs, then they would be completely unbalanced.

 

Even with non-resistant defenses added to resistant defenses for countering the stun of KAs, it is a subject for debate whether KAs (as written in the main rules) are balanced.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Taking STUN from Killing Damage

 

In a nutshell, it's because Killing Attacks do too much stun damage. If only resistant defenses counted vs. the stun from KAs, then they would be completely unbalanced.

 

Even with non-resistant defenses added to resistant defenses for countering the stun of KAs, it is a subject for debate whether KAs (as written in the main rules) are balanced.

 

Now, if we changed the rules so only rDEF defends against KA Stun and lowered the Stun multiple, perhaps to a range of 1-3 (maybe even 1,1,1,2,2,3), would we perhaps have a fix for both these issues?

 

My 2d6 KA does 2-12 BOD, average 7. It would do 6-36 STUN, average 14 (11 2/3 with the reduced average approach). A 6d6 normal attack would do 0-12 BOD, average 6, and 6-36 Stun, average 21.

 

We may have something here. The KA and normal attack would have the same minima and maxima, with different averages and different volatility.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Taking STUN from Killing Damage

 

Always made sense to me.

 

You put a kevlar vest on a 90 lb weakling and another one on Captain America.

 

You shoot both guys with a .45.

 

90lb weakling is KTFO. Cap is merely bruised.

 

Vest stops the penetration in both cases, but the guy that is tougher and healthier is going to handle impact trauma a lot better.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Taking STUN from Killing Damage

 

To rationalize this, I always think of a knight in full plate armor getting mobbed by a bunch of people with swords. Even if they don't wind up cutting him, they are likely to rattle him around in his armor so much that he gets bruised and disoriented. Should natural defenses apply to that kind of damage? Yep, yep, yep.

 

BTW, everyone who hasn't should (first be shot and then) read, "The Once and Future King." It is full of knights being bruised, winded, exhausted, etc., while fighting in their armor, even when blows aren't mighty enough to actually pierce their armor.