Armor, damage conversion and stun

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Here's an idea I've had that I mentioned on the gurps forum before the Sensitivity Squad (SS) started in on me, but maybe it'll work here due to hero's system.

 

I've always had a thing about rigid armor and impact in most games. Basically, if you're wearinf armor and get hit by a large impact attack, like, say a warhammer, the armor usually just reduces the damage you take in the game and that's that.

 

Well, in reality a simple rigid plate may reduce the damage you take somewhat from a hard impact, but you'll still get knmocked bck, down, etc because the kinetic energy of he impact comes thru anyway.

 

Most good suits of rigid armor had a padded, quilted layer under the plating to cushion the blow and reduce damage even further.

 

Now, in gurps there was a minor effort at addressing this 'blunt trauma' issue but it only involved flexible armor, like kevlar vests.

 

it still didn't cover the issue of impact coming thru rigid armor. Ask a cop who's been shot while wearing his vest, he'll tell you it's still a serious impact.

 

So, now that I'm looking into here. I think I may finally have a solution to this issue. Please let me know what you think of it:

 

If you get hit with a massive blow, armor may stop it penetrating amnd spread it out over an area to reduce lethality, but the energy is still there.

 

So I was thinking about a system where armor can convert damage into stun damage, it doesn't make the kinetic energy disappear, but it disippates it and stops it penetrating, so in effect it lowers it to stun damage.

 

Armor could be rated in how well it stops things penetrating, like the breastplate on a medival suit of armor, and also rated in how wel it stops stun damage, as in the effectiveness of the padded layer under the breast plate.

 

So, so give an example, sir phartalotte gets timewarped to the modern world and confronted by a punk with a .32. Not recognizing the little metal thing as a threat, sir phartalotte moves to thrash the scoundrel as he acosts a young woman.

 

The punk fires on sir phartalotte, and due to the strength of his breastplate none of the rounds penetrate, but the impacts are still enough to have an effect on the good knight, doing maybe stun damage.

 

As a certified game mecanic, I thing this bit about armor basically converting one type of damage to another rather than just stopping it would be realistic. Gurps never hadled it due to a general disdain for the concept of 'stun' type damage, but I wondered if hero could do this.....

[schir1964]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

Conversion: Not officially.

 

Some think that the Stun of Killing Attacks simulates this to some degree. No body gets through but stun does.

 

But you simply take the Damage Class of the attack and simply treat it as Normal Damage or Stun Only Damage and possibly get the effect you want.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[ghost-angel]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

We've actually gone over this exact concept... I just can't find which Killing Attack thread it's in.

 

...In other news, this kind of already happens. Killing Attacks have a tendancy to due a stupid amount of STUN (refered not so lovingly as The STUN Lotto), or almost no STUN at all.

 

One method of control on a game regarding Damage, Armor and all that is to put a few controls in place:

1) Control Armor Levels, don't let people get very high rDEF.

2) Go with a flat STUN Multiple (STUNx), thus you have a relatively predictable amount of STUN occuring per attack.

3) Control offensive capability in the game, so you know how your Amor and Attack levels compare.

 

I'm sure someone will find the exact thread where converting Killing BODY to STUN is.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

a note: You'll never get something like that "Official."

 

But no one around here will begrudge a gamer a House Rule - heck, a bunch of us will help you make it while vowing to never go near it ourselves.

 

We believe that what works for one, doesn't always work for another.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

Conversion: Not officially.

 

Some think that the Stun of Killing Attacks simulates this to some degree. No body gets through but stun does.

 

But you simply take the Damage Class of the attack and simply treat it as Normal Damage or Stun Only Damage and possibly get the effect you want.

 

- Christopher Mullins

 

The first option sounds good.

[tgrandjean]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

Also pointing out that Hero does have the mechanics for knockdown from attacks; called predictably: knockdown. (Superheroic games use knockback to simulate them flying all over the landscape like tenpins).

I'm not going to bother looking it up, but basically you compare the BODY damage the attack does (before armor and such) and the BODY of the character in question (leaving off questions of knockback resistance and such). If the attack does more damage than the BODY of the character, they need to make a DEX roll to stay on their feet. More than double, they will be knocked down and possibly back.

 

... Somebody might want to chip in as I don't have the book in front of me and use Knockback more often.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

In the main, I was looking for rules that would reflect armor stopping an attack penetrating, I.E. doing fatal damage BUT allowing the impact to translate thru the armor as kinetic energy and still knock someone half silly or leave them stunned, like a cop who's been shot while wearing a vest: he's Ok but still stunned by the impact.

 

it seems like hero already does something close enough to that to make it acceptable.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

In my opinion, Hero already does as you ask through the mechanics of STUN and BODY. One thing to keep in mind though is that Hero is a universally malleable system, and the mechanics can represent/simulate several thing, some of them at the same time, some of them at different times depending on the exact mechanics involved and the situation they're used in.

 

STUN for example, is commonly accepted as a character's level of consciousness. A character with positive STUN is awake and aware and capable of action. A character with 0 to -10 STUN is still conscious and more or less aware, but unable to act and is otherwise completely helpless. A character with less than -10 STUN is unconscious. That's all well and good, but what a sudden loss of STUN can mean several things. One attack might cause pain, and enough of that can cause a character to pass out. Another attack might make the character drowsy, perhaps drowsy enough to fall asleep. Yet another attack might cause intense euphoria in the target incapacitating him through unimaginable extacy. What's more, each of these effects can easily all be an Energy Blast vs Physical Defense (the respective BODY loss for each could be physical trama, narcoleptic entropy and brain hemoraging due to endorphine overload, repectively).

 

What this means to your question is that when an attack hits a character, there may or may not be any "energy" that's transfered to the target through an impact. There may not even be an impact! Yet there are default mechanics that apply to default attacks and tend to represent the default assumptions concerning impatact (such as Knockdown/Knockback, loss of STUN and BODY, etc.) What's important to keep in mind is that a slight change in the special effects (the physical appearance and the physics) behind the game mechanic of the attack and the target might require a slightly different explination about why these resulting mechanic occur.

 

I suppose the point of what I'm saying is that, yes, Hero System does what you say, but it's important to assume the this parallel between the game mechanics and physics is the only valid parallel for those mechanics.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

Few things of note.

 

1) As everyone noted, there's STUN and BODY. As we discussed in an earlier thread, a trained cop will have more PD and thus absorb STUN better than a normal. So it goes.

 

2) There are rules for Knockdown, but I don't know them. Knockback is a purely superheroic mechanic, unless you have a weapon or ability with the advantage "Does knockback" you won't see it in a heroic setting as we're discussing here. You do have Knockdown, though, and it happens frequently.

 

3) You may purchase some weapons with low Killing Damage Classes (DCs) but buy up the STUN multiplier. This would work well for shotgun gel rounds (unless you bought them as an Energy Blast, but I buy damn near everything as Killing Damage). EBs are for superheroic games; RKAs are used in gritty sci-fi. Even a gel-round can crack some ribs.

 

4) There are also rules for Impairment and Disabling of limbs/body parts. Those also simulate excessive, non-lethal damage nicely.

 

I cannot recommend STUN lotto - not for gritty games, you'll go insane trying to figure out why in the first scene half your units are unconcious. There are many rules for making things grittier; going with a flat 3x STUN multiplier is a clean, basic way to do it, then peoples rPD and personal PD will reduce some of the STUN, but not guarantee they won't get the snot knocked out of them.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

Ok, so we have the case of sir phartalotte being shot with a pistol that does not pierce his armor, I.E. does no serious, body, damage BUT can still inflict some stun damage to reflect the impact being felt, and causing some disruption, thru the armor as kinetic energy.

 

 

 

That's pretty much what I wanted, and hero already does it.

 

 

Gurps wouldn't do this, despite being quite realistic. So hero is pulling ahead of gurps. Dammit, I wish I'd gotten into hero, but was put off by it's 'comic' reputation. Oh well......

 

 

 

I like some of the writers for gurps, like Punch, Pulver and some others, but I'm beginning to think they're working for the wrong outfit.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

GURPS has had some extremely talented writers, agreed. But in my opinion they needed them to sell their limited even though it was labled universal game. When it comes to the rules, only the rule's designer, and how the rules are designed, that matters. It helps if the author is great with words and can write to confince the reader of the game's value, but it doesn't change the value of the rules. Just my thoughts on this.

 

Oh, and help spread the word that Hero isn't a superhero game, but just a game that does every genre, including supers. It was hoped that the new 5th Edition image would help to quell some of the myths, but unfortunately it seems they haven't weakened any.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

Here's the straight dope:

 

I don't know RPG writers. In fact, I generally ignore them. I've learned over many years to divorce the author from the work, because once the editing and layout is done, most books ended up looking the same to me. There are two exceptions to this rule.

 

1) Kevin Siembieda. The man can't put a book together to save his life, but RIFTS makes money, I'll give him that.

 

2) Steven S. Long, Hero System Line Developer. You can check out my various quotes on the topic, but Steve's favorite was: "When I buy a book by Steve Long, I know it doesn't suck." And that's the cold hard truth.

 

GURPS is an everyman RPG and it does some things well. I played it, and I didn't like it. HERO is almost NO RPG - it's simply a rules set to which you can apply the template of any genre, any game, any concept and work within the rules set to achieve what you want. The core material written, such as Star Hero and Fantasy Hero, is fantastic. The only sourcebooks which I'm told come close to competing are GURPS, and with HERO, you're getting what's fondly called the "Steve Long treatment" AND HERO specific material.

 

Steve likes to write. Steve likes to write more than anyone I've ever known, and I only know him through emails and this board. The stuff he produces is excellent. If you want to do gritty sci-fi, I have these recommendations for you:

 

- Buy Fifth Ed. Revised

- Buy a copy of Dark Champions, as it's RIGHT up your alley

- If you want 'deep space' then buy a copy of Star Hero.

 

For B list/not quite as essential purchases:

 

Combat Handbook

Ultimate Martial Artist (although I consider this an A list title, and you may as well, considering it tells you how to build every martial art under the sun, and invent your own).

 

I have way more books than these, I've read 85% of them, and there are only a couple I didn't get into. The ones I didn't get into? Not written by Steve Long.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

Oh, and The Ultimate Vehicle is also a must-buy for you. I didn't think I'd like it at first, but it's been indispensible in my HALO conversion.

[Frenchman]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

I use the knockdown (as opposed to knockback) rules every time I game, since we are playing fantasy. The rules are basically the same as knockback (BODY of attack subtract 2d6) but you can only knock them down in their own hex.

 

Schwartwald - you found the right system. I was introduced to GURPs at the same time I was introduced to HERO - each system with a different group - and I was playing D&D with my current group at the time, as well.

 

All three groups now play HERO

[Dust Raven]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

2) Steven S. Long, Hero System Line Developer. You can check out my various quotes on the topic, but Steve's favorite was: "When I buy a book by Steve Long, I know it doesn't suck." And that's the cold hard truth.

 

Interestingly enough, Steve Long as also written for GURPS, or at least for SJG.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

You know, there needs to be a *S*E*R*I*O*U*S* effort made to get the word out that hero is *N*O*T* just a superhero genre game. I mean really, if it's half as good as it's looking to be, then hero players and the company itself need to make some efforts to bust the supers stereotype.

 

I'm trying to think of ways to do it, as a writer and as someone who's written for games.

 

One thing I would do would be to do new artwork on the site and get rid of most of the character pics that change on the left hand of the screen since most of them look 'superhero-y" and replace them with some darker, grittier figures, like very menacing looking thugs, cyberpunks, characters that look like hardcore spacers from Outland or traveller, etc.

 

This requires some thought, but I will try to come up with ways to bust the supers stigma on the hero system. One idea might be to lable it THS someday.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

That's actually a very good idea. The format I use to view the boards omits the sidebar with the pictures, so I don't know what's currently showing, but back before I made it go away most of the character were color illustration of characters found in Champions and CKC. Tossing in some color illustrations of characters from the Fantsy Hero and Star Hero books not only would keep the site from having the superhero feel, but also liven up the scenery and add some varity to the site.

 

Might want to post this idea on the company questions board.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

Here's the straight dope:

 

I don't know RPG writers. In fact, I generally ignore them. I've learned over many years to divorce the author from the work, because once the editing and layout is done, most books ended up looking the same to me. There are two exceptions to this rule.

 

1) Kevin Siembieda. The man can't put a book together to save his life, but RIFTS makes money, I'll give him that.

 

2) Steven S. Long, Hero System Line Developer. You can check out my various quotes on the topic, but Steve's favorite was: "When I buy a book by Steve Long, I know it doesn't suck." And that's the cold hard truth.

 

GURPS is an everyman RPG and it does some things well. I played it, and I didn't like it. HERO is almost NO RPG - it's simply a rules set to which you can apply the template of any genre, any game, any concept and work within the rules set to achieve what you want. The core material written, such as Star Hero and Fantasy Hero, is fantastic. The only sourcebooks which I'm told come close to competing are GURPS, and with HERO, you're getting what's fondly called the "Steve Long treatment" AND HERO specific material.

 

Steve likes to write. Steve likes to write more than anyone I've ever known, and I only know him through emails and this board. The stuff he produces is excellent. If you want to do gritty sci-fi, I have these recommendations for you:

 

- Buy Fifth Ed. Revised

- Buy a copy of Dark Champions, as it's RIGHT up your alley

- If you want 'deep space' then buy a copy of Star Hero.

 

For B list/not quite as essential purchases:

 

Combat Handbook

Ultimate Martial Artist (although I consider this an A list title, and you may as well, considering it tells you how to build every martial art under the sun, and invent your own).

 

I have way more books than these, I've read 85% of them, and there are only a couple I didn't get into. The ones I didn't get into? Not written by Steve Long.

 

 

 

Well, thanks for the advice. As is I might be getting a 5e non revised book soon.

 

As for stuff I want but don't know when/if I'll be ablke to get them, star hero is a must for me, the vehicle book would be good for me too, (Can i build the Lexx with it? ) and the combat book would be nice. Don't know why i'd need dark champions.....

 

 

 

Well, we'll see what I can/do get as time goes by.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

One thing to keep in mind is that just because a piece of body armor stops the bullet doesn't mean it stops the BODY.

 

For instance, a cop is wearing a Kevlar vest which grants him 5 rPD/5 rED to his torso. He takes a hit from a 9mm pistol (1d6+1 K). The attacker gets a fairly good roll (5) and does 6 BODY. The roll for the Stun Multiplier is likewise above average (another 5. Subtract 1, for a final multiplier of 4).

 

Before defenses, that's 6 Body and 24 Stun. Since the cop has Resistant Defense against this attack, he gets to apply his personal PD (let's assume it's 3 PD)

 

After defenses, the cop takes 1 Body and 15 Stun. That's probably more Stun than he has CON, so he's Stunned.

 

Inside the game world, the cop collapses, and his partner has to deal with the assailant. When the paramedics arrive, they discover that the bullet is flattened against the last layer of the vest, the cop has two broken ribs, and a bruise that covers the entire right side of his torso.

 

But hey, he's alive.

[Brother Jim]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

This is from the "Our Products" section of the website.

 

And I agree that this would probably be right up your alley. Despite its name, it's not a "super hero" book, not by a long shot. But like everything else HERO it can be used that way.

 

 

Dark Champions: Hero’s fifth genre book, Dark Champions looks at the modern-day action-adventure genre — everything from vigilante crimefighting, to espionage, to technothrillers, to special forces, to cops and robbers. Filled with character creation guidelines, example gear and weapons, GMing advice, and information about subjects like forensics, the underworld, the illegal drug trade, and criminal psychology, it’s an ideal resources for any game set in the modern day.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

Just as a note re the original question of the thread: Schwarzwald, you've probably already come across the concept of Power Modifiers, which change the way that Powers are constructed and costed in the game. One of these is Power Limitations, which restrict the utility of Powers in predefined ways, lowering the Character Point cost for buying them (since in HERO you pay for what you get, and vice versa).

 

Well, this system includes a delightful little concept called "Custom Limitations." If you can't find what you want to define a particular Power construct under the standard list of Limitations, you define a Custom Lim, assign an appropriate value to it, and apply it to your construct.

 

For example, if you wanted a character to have Armor that only stopped the Body (bleeding and killing) damage of an attack, but not the Stun (pain-and-unconsciousness) damage, you could Limit it to stop Stun- or Body-Damage Only (probably -1, since that's roughly half of the effectiveness of an attack). So, Armor Limited to Body Only would prevent a bullet, blade etc. from penetrating, but still allow all the painfulness of the impact to be felt by the wearer.

[Lucius]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

This is from the "Our Products" section of the website.

 

And I agree that this would probably be right up your alley. Despite its name, it's not a "super hero" book, not by a long shot. But like everything else HERO it can be used that way.

 

 

Dark Champions: Hero’s fifth genre book, Dark Champions looks at the modern-day action-adventure genre — everything from vigilante crimefighting, to espionage, to technothrillers, to special forces, to cops and robbers. Filled with character creation guidelines, example gear and weapons, GMing advice, and information about subjects like forensics, the underworld, the illegal drug trade, and criminal psychology, it’s an ideal resources for any game set in the modern day.

 

If that's the case, WHY DID THEY CALL IT "DARK CHAMPIONS?

 

If in fact it's basically the "modern day action-adventure" counterpart of Star Hero or Fantasy Hero, why saddle it with a version of the name for the superhero product? Do you realize I'm a Hero FAN, I've been haunting this website for months....and even when I asked "Hey, what is Dark Champions anyway?" the answers I got still left me with a fuzzy impression it was for "street level superheroes?"

 

If I'm confused, what do you think people with no experience with Hero who are just sort of looking it over are going to be?

 

Schwarzwald is right. And I was right before when I accused DOJ of too much "comic book thinking." It's almost like they don't WANT to draw fans who aren't into comic book superheroics. Which is really weird, since they produce PRODUCT that's great for other things, but they aren't MARKETING it that way...

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary is shaking both heads

[prestidigitator]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

I think building some Damage Resistence into the armor is a great way to effectively, "convert Killing Damage into Normal Damage," as is so often suggested. Remember that you can also/instead build in Non-Resistant PD/ED, or even Resistant PD/ED with something like Body Only (-1/2) for the opposite end of the spectrum. These all serve to give a very large variety of options for building any kind of protection you think is realistic or desirable for the setting.

 

I just had an idea on the Knockback topic, though. It seems that the more an attack actually injures the target, the less Knockback that should be done. The more that is kept from doing damage to the target's body, the more the target should be knocked back. So how about (maybe as an optional rule) basing Knockback on just the Body blocked by defenses instead of on the total Body rolled on the attack? This could eliminate the current mechanical difference between the Knockback of Killing and Normal Attacks, and could possibly even take care of the difference between heroic and superheroic games because in a superheroic games the characters' defenses are likely to be blocking a lot of damage, but DEF levels are likely to be rather low in most heroic games. There could be a form of the Increased Knockback Advantage that changes the calculation into the current mechanics (bases Knockback on the attack's total Body instead of the amount of blocked Body). Thoughts?

 

EDIT: Reordered phrase for better emphasis.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

The name Dark Champions always bugged me as well, and it honestly wasn't until 5th edition's version of the book that I realized it was for normal, modern day cops and robbers or military action (but also includes the viginalte types, like the Punisher and the earlier Batman when there were few, if any, superpowers involved). I think the name is a hand-me-down from previous editions and just wasn't changed for the same reason Champions is still used for the superhero line (that, and Super Hero sounds wrong for some reason). Dark Champions could easily have been called Street Hero or Modern Hero or something like that and still sounded cool enough to pick up, but not comic-booky enough to be automatically associated with Hero Systems superhero line of books.

[Lucius]

Re: Armor, damage conversion and stun

 

Okay, exactly how long as Dark Champions, by that name, in some form or other, existed?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Invisible Palindromedary Effects