Vehicle Damage And Body

[GeekySpaz]

Is it just me or are vehicles in HERO a bit too delicate relative to their real world counterparts?

 

A typical car has def 3 body 13-14. Meaning that 3 or 4 shots from a 5.56mm assault rifle (RKA 2d6) would destroy the car (BODY depleted means vehicle is falls apart according to the rules). Three or four shots from an m-16 will not make a car fall apart. If one of the shots is lucky enough to damage a critical part of the engine then it may stop working or if a tire is hit the car's mobility is reduced but 3-4 shots couldn't possibly make the car fall to pieces. Or am I crazy (why do I open myself up with questions like that, here come the responses telling me how crazy I am).

 

Where I really notice this is with the writeups for large age of sail warships in TUV and the vehicle sourcebook. Most writeups that I've seen give ships def 4-6 and BODY in the low to mid twenties. The ships carry 20-30+ cannons on each side doing 3d6 each. So the way I figure it a ship as written could survive 6 cannon hits before being reduced to driftwood. Now I've never seen two 17th century ships trading broadsides first hand but from what I've seen in movies (hey dramatic realism, that's what we're trying to simulate, right?) these types of ships could trade 2-3 broadsides before suffering enough damaged to be crippled (meaning that the ship is dead in the water, the hull is still intact meaning some BODY remains).

 

Now naturally if I'm not totally off base here the solution to my problem is quite obvious. I just modify these writeups accordingly and give them more body and increase costs accordingly but before doing that I just want an idea if I'm totally off base on this or if I have a point.

[Fearghus]

Re: Vehicle Damage And Body

 

Ya know I have often considered this as well. I am not sure how to fix this though a player of mine suggested just juicing the numbers up to more durable levels. Perhaps splitting the vehicle up into hit locations would be more accurate. after all 13-14 body to a tire should destroy it, or 13-14 body to the engine should destroy it but it would have a much higher DEF than the tires simply because it is contained within the metal body of the car.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Vehicle Damage And Body

 

The Limitation "real weapon" and "beam" on your m-16 address this.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Vehicle Damage And Body

 

I've always exaggerated defenses and BODY for vehicles, large creatures, etc. above and beyond what is "recommended" by the books.

 

Another thing I always considered is that, many times, a vehicle is disabled long before it reaches 0 BODY - kind of impairment / wounding / disabling rules. A Jet Fighter might have 12 DEF and 30 BODY, but it is leaving the sky quickly if it takes any serious damage.

 

In the instance of a car, most of the bullets that hit a car are going to go right through it, and really do no damage of consequence. Holes in the panelling, upholstery, etc. - cosmetic damage. But one good shot to the right place? Also, consider the type of attack. A 2d6 RKA M-16 will take out a car if you shoot it enough or in the right places, but a 2d6 RKA thrown boulder should probably be more effective (which may already be modeled in by adding DC's from extra STR.)

 

This is just one of those instances where I kind of use common sense and "reasoning from effect" more than the rules as written. And, again, I usually give vehicles more BODY than the books do, but then have them disabled or on fire long before they get to zero BODY. Also, they aren't "falling apart" until "dead." So a BODY 20 vehicle isn't falling to pieces until -20 BODY.

 

My Sci-Fi game had ships with up to 30 DEF and 30 to 50 BODY, and through ablative or limited defenses, and my take on disabling rules with vehicles, ships were fairly durable but still a bit scary to be in during a fire fight

[prestidigitator]

Re: Vehicle Damage And Body

 

The Limitation "real weapon" and "beam" on your m-16 address this.

 

Do they? That might be true of walls and buildings, but vehicles have a character sheet and a definite set of rules. When a vehicle takes Body damage, it's supposed to lose functionality. Are you going to change that because of Real Weapon or Beam? When it takes all of its Body, it's supposed to stop functioning completely. Are you going to change that because of Real Weapon or Beam? If you do decide to change those mechanics because of the limitations, why not do so for characters as well? Or perhaps just automatons and oddly constructed aliens if we're going to get into the "squishy and bleeds" argument.

 

I agree with the OP. This is a hard place to make a change without drawing a pretty arbitrary line. Maybe the key is in how we construct a vehicle. Perhaps they should have super high defenses with partial coverage, and that do not protect the occupants. That's to simulate that if you don't hit a rather vulnerable part (put a leaky hole in the fuel tank, hit the engine, hit a tire), the vehicle may get a hole in it (potential for hitting an occupant), but the vehicle itself doesn't take Body damage.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Vehicle Damage And Body

 

I will apply my Common Sense.

 

Shoot the door? Not disabling the vehicle.

Shoot the engine? Disabling the vehicle.

 

It really is that simple.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Vehicle Damage And Body

 

I'm thinking maybe

 

+10 PD/+10 ED; Activation: 12- (-3/4); Doesn't Protect Passengers (-1/2) [30 active, 13 real]

 

If the attack is so big that it does Body even when the defense kicks in, we can just figure it's done enough structural damage to have some effect anyway (or penetrates all the way through the main body of the vehicle and still hits some vital component).

[ghost-angel]

Re: Vehicle Damage And Body

 

In all seriousness the Beam, Real Weapon and standard SFX Interaction suggestions and rules all nicely cover shooting parts of cars, walls, doors, aircraft carriers and Arquillian Battle Cruisers with various normal guns.

 

Beam: makes little tiny holes

Real Weapon: acts like an actual M-16 might when shooting a car

SFX Interaction: Car Door vs M-16 rounds = little loss to vehicle capability to operate beyond any troubles you might have closing the door afterwards.

 

If you're playing in a game and need to figure out if you hit something vital (engine, gas tank, dashboard full of computers than control the engine, the driver, tires) then I suggest the following instead of something non-vital (door, windows, sideview mirror, tail lights, spoiler, trunk, upholstery, cup holder)

Hit Locations

Activation Roll to determine likely hood of hitting vital part of vehicle (chances are, it's probably pretty low. 9-10 or less maybe. . .depends on the car I suppose)

Hollywood Rules (any gun shot is likely to cause the car to explode - regardless of Body done)

 

there are actually some suggestions in The Ultimate Base on how to handle things like this you could easily apply to Vehicles (large or small) as well as Bases. They're a little more complicated, but do an excellent job of separating the parts from the whole when dealing damage on a scale smaller than the Base/Vehicle on hand.

[Rapier]

Re: Vehicle Damage And Body

 

Firstly, you have to look at what the numbers mean on a normal basis.

 

My Hero's name is Larry. He has 10 BODY. If Larry takes 20 BODY in damage he is dead and no longer functions, but his corpse still exists. You can still lug it around or kick it if you wanted to.

 

Part of the design for robots, automatons and machines is the concept around where them taking BODY can damage them in such a way that some of their abilities no longer function. This isn't too far from how people take damage. You get shot and maybe your liver doesn't work anymore. The difference being that the human body is capable of continuing to operate (for a time) even if some of it's systems are grievously injured.

 

Vehicles aren't any different. If you shoot at a car, maybe you hit the stereo and it can no longer receive radio. If you hit the engine, maybe it can no longer move under it's own power.

 

Regardless, simply taking something to 0 BODY or even -BODY does not make it disappear. The wreckage (be it vehicular or corpses) still remain. I think (and it's been a while since I looked them up) that the rule is that at 0 BODY the vehicle can't continue to operate until repaired and at -BODY it can no longer operate nor can it be repaired.

 

Now to get to kind of the 'between the lines' bits: vehicles (and even robots and/or automatons) should use Hit Locations. Without some kind of Hit Location the vehicular combat concept breaks down pretty quickly. You can shoot a car in the passenger compartment a couple of times and the engine dies? I don't think it stretches (too far) the bounds of the system to even say that certain areas of the car take no BODY (the BODY score of the vehicle) or perhaps that vehicle has multiple BODY scores. Maybe it would be better if some areas of the vehicle were built as Ablative Focused Resistant Protection instead. BODY is a mechanic we use to model something's ability to continue to operate as it was intended. If you shoot out the windows of the car, should it actually take BODY? This is where dramatic license and SFX come into play.

 

If you characters are going to constantly be engaging in vehicular combat, you should spend the time to draw up Hit Location charts and possibly distribute BODY to certain areas of the vehicle. If this is going to only occassionally be something that occurs, use your dramatic sense and tell the players that they need to tell you what they are aiming at and adjust the damage from there.

 

As much as it pains me to admit, Hero isn't good at everything. Mass Combat is better handled with a system designed just for it. Vehicular combat is better handled with a system designed for that. Personally, I prefer the way the space-miniatures game Silent Death handles vehicle damage. Each vehicle facing has a certain amount of damage it can take and loses functions located in that facing depending on how much damage is done. I don't think it would take too much effort to fit such a concept into Hero. It would take a bit of work, and probably wouldn't be easy, but the Hero Toolkit building blocks are very powerful and I think they might be able to be adapted to such a use.

[GeekySpaz]

Re: Vehicle Damage And Body

 

Regardless, simply taking something to 0 BODY or even -BODY does not make it disappear. The wreckage (be it vehicular or corpses) still remain. I think (and it's been a while since I looked them up) that the rule is that at 0 BODY the vehicle can't continue to operate until repaired and at -BODY it can no longer operate nor can it be repaired.

 

According to the vehicle rules in chapter 7 of 6E2 when a vehicle has lost all of its body it falls apart or blows up (GM's choice).

[GeekySpaz]

Re: Vehicle Damage And Body

 

Though as a house rule I might actually prefer your interpretation.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Vehicle Damage And Body

 

According to the vehicle rules in chapter 7 of 6E2 when a vehicle has lost all of its body it falls apart or blows up (GM's choice).

 

Though as a house rule I might actually prefer your interpretation.

 

I prefer an alternative interpretation for a couple of reasons. First, as already seen in this thread, verisimilitude. The car doesn't just vanish if it's damaged. And there must be some point between "undrivable" and "disintigrated".

 

Second, consistency. A living target is alive at positive BOD, bleeding to death but still alive (and can be stabilized) at negative BOD, but deadly when negative BOD reaches their starting BOD score. For consistency, those same levels should mean something to non-living targets. We're consistent at positive BOD. Perhaps negative BOD should mean the machine is still capable of operation, but is sputtering down (sparks are flying; the engine is on fire) such that it loses 1 BOD per PS12, just like a living target. Once BOD reaches negative BOD equal to its starting BOD, the machine is damaged to the point it cannot operate. Actual destruction occurs at the same level it would for a living target - disintigration is the same for a corpse and a car.

 

I like the idea of specific vehicle hit locations. Now let's take that one step further - apply the impairing and disabling rules to vehicles as well. An impairing wound to the engine slows the vehicle, perhaps, or makes it hard to start. A disabling wound? That's it - it doesn't run any more.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Vehicle Damage And Body

 

One reason I like partial coverage Defenses is that not all vehicles are created equal. It's pretty difficult to damage an airplane or many spacecraft anywhere and not affect performance. And if that's not enough for you, consider a blimp or balloon. Some oddball vehicles might even be "living creatures", and it might make sense that damaging them anywhere would contribute to overall destruction. Big hulky land vehicles with tons of extra non-critical structure are in many ways pretty durable, despite and/or because of their simplicity.

[Rapier]

Re: Vehicle Damage And Body

 

To add clarity, these are two ships from Silent Death.

 

The one is a very small single person fighter craft. It only has the one damage track (eg BODY score).

 

The other (I just did a quick scan for explanation so about an inch near the binding is cut off) is a large multi-man craft that has a different damage track for each facing.

 

The little symbols in the boxes mean different things (eg loss of movement rate, loss of armour, loss of weapons, critical hits).

 

I know that a lot of this is represented in Hero by the Partial Coverage limitations for armour, but I think that the current layout for the character sheets aren't as intuitive and easily understood. They take a lot more envisioning that might be desirable.