"Realistic" gun damage

[Markdoc]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

HSEG 50. I think we all agree it's unrealistic. We're trying to figure out the best solution.

 

Ah. I have the 5th edition Equipment guide, so I'd never seen this.

In that case, I propose a really simple - and yet strangely necessary - solution. Rewrite the black powder weapon damages because they are simply way out of whack with everything else in the system. In reality, having a big, relatively slow .7 ball is no more damaging (actually somewhat less) than a 9 mm round that has a much higher velocity. Momentum is nice, but it only carries you so far. If you drop black powder weapons by 6DC, you should get something that's reasonable all round.

 

cheers, Mark

[Vondy]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

The optional rules are great for running a game by raw. But I've seen a simpler solution.

 

I usually try to answer questions like these according to RAW because, when I don't, people give me grief about "house rules" and then drone on like Charlie Brown's teacher about the perfect immutable glory of RAW, or why I shouldn't propose unofficial solutions....

[mhd]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

In that case, I propose a really simple - and yet strangely necessary - solution. Rewrite the black powder weapon damages because they are simply way out of whack with everything else in the system.

 

That's what I intend to do for this campaign. Find some decent enough base line and scale back my black powder-equivalent weapons from that. And while I'm at it, take down longbows a few notches, too.

 

As I'm not playing a modern age game with a somewhat tactical bent, I can leave contemporary pistols and rifles alone for a while

[Vondy]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

To pick up on a few points made by others and a few thoughts of my own:

1. Critical hits are very nasty to PCs. I really struggle to get players to accept this, but the simple truth is that there are an infinite number of baddies and only a limited supply of heroes in any given game AND the villains will probably get off more shots over the course of a game than the heroes, so unless you are playing something really dark and cyberpunky, you probably don’t want to increase the chance that a lucky roll can one shot a target. In Hero, the critical system is the damage roll, and that can be nasty enough, especially if combined with the hit locations chart.

2. If people are walking out of gun battles having spent some time unconscious but not really hurt badly, then you probably have your resistant defences dialled up way too high, or you are playing a very cinematic game.

3. The somewhat exponential nature of Hero damage causes issues. The baseline could be taken from the Growth and Density increase powers: Growth adds 3 Body per doubling of height (i.e. per 8x mass i.e. +1 Body for double mass) whereas D.I. adds 1 pd and ed per doubling of mass. Given that a starting character can have quite a lot of extra Body (which has implications for disabling and so on), we can get a bit of a disconnect. If you want more realism, consider limiting what characters can spend on Body and Stun, or even fixing it.

4. If you want a realistic game and you want firearms involved and they are going to be used, expect to have lots of realistic downtime.

5. Looking at the weapons table at 6.2.208, well, first of all I can not believe we are still using Xd6-1 instead of 1/2d6, but that is a point to be discussed elsewhere. Small arms fire damage ranges from 2DCs to 8DCs. Modern armour ranges from 6 to 11 Defence. Obviously we then have specialist ammo, like AP rounds, but let us leave that aside for the moment. That gives us a damage spread of 5 to 15 Body (with handguns having a range of 5 to 13 Body damage). Here is an interesting video:

That vest was stopping 1 ½ and 2d6-1 rounds. I imagine it would hurt if you got hit wearing it, and you would probably have some nasty bruising, maybe a broken rib, but most of the damage you take would be stun, with little or no Body getting through. Even if you took a dozen rounds, unless the vest’s integrity went, you would be likely to survive. That contradicts what I said earlier about defences being too high – but bear in mind most defences of this nature are sectional: they cover the centre of mass where a lot of your life support system is. Most characters will not – or should not – be using full body armour – and a couple of limb hits can kill – as can a shot to the neck or head.

 

You are aware that people have been known to die from impact damage from bullets (even handgun bullets) that don't penetrate vests, right? Its uncommon with handguns, but not as rare as you think. And cracked ribs are fairly common, which I'd call body damage. Internal bleeding, organ damage, or a broken rib puncturing a lung and causing you to drown in your blood are also possible outcomes, even when the vest does its job and stops bullet penetration.

 

And soldiers in the field hit with 7.62 millimeter rounds - even when wearing ballistic plates - frequently end up being rushed to the doctor to ensure they aren't going to bleed to death internally despite being up and moving after the event.

 

You are much more likely to survive being shot with "mere" bruising, though even that can lead to a loss of some function for hours, or even a day or so, which is not very well represented by stun (which recovers very fast). Normally, being hit in the vest means you'll survive with some aches and pains, and you should be able to "shrug it off" after several minutes.

 

But the vest doing its job doesn't mean you'll survive. Its still possible for it to stop the bullet and not save you.

[Christopher]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

I usually try to answer questions like these according to RAW because' date=' when I don't, people give me grief about "house rules" and then drone on like Charlie Brown's teacher about the perfect immutable glory of RAW, or why I shouldn't propose unofficial solutions....[/quote']

The optional Rules in the cors books are RAW. And they are explicitly noted to be used for these scenarios.

[Vondy]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

The optional Rules in the cors books are RAW. And they are explicitly noted to be used for these scenarios.

 

Yes, and...?

[phoenix240]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Absolutely. I was considering a post about 'critical hits' being done by ignoring armour rather than increasing damage. The problem to an extent is the spread of damage, but when you are not hitting a homogeneous target that is probably inevitable. Armour does complicate matters because it WILL stop certain bullets. To that extent it may be that it would be better represented in another way, perhaps using standard Body damage for bullets that hit armour, and the random range for those that do not.

 

Another issue with Hero and realism is that there are only two types of damage: Stun goes away very quickly, Body goes away very slowly and is cumulatively fatal. It may be that an intermediate damage type that causes longer term injury that is non-fatal and heals in hours or days rather than weeks or months might be appropriate, but that slows play down a lot.

 

I suspect that a sniper at leisure can aim for cracks in cover but in most situations even expert gun men probably can not 'aim for the gap' when they themselves are under fire and the target is not stationary. That is why machine guns are useful; you get several shots to be on-target, or plain lucky.

 

Maybe something like Long Term Stun, a certain small amount of Stun damage that takes longer to recover?

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

I usually try to answer questions like these according to RAW because' date=' when I don't, people give me grief about "house rules" and then drone on like Charlie Brown's teacher about the perfect immutable glory of RAW, or why I shouldn't propose unofficial solutions....[/quote']

 

I see your point (btw I used your post as a sample of what was said previously and it was smaller.) And strangley, I don't consider it a House rule when the suggestion is in a rulebook. It is more of an optional rule.

(Or maybe an optional optional rule)

[Sean Waters]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Momentum, momentum, momentum...that is the trouble with a pure energy transfer model of damage. A 9mm bullet weighs, what? Around 8g and moves at around moves at 400 m/s, or a bit less, so we have 400x0.008=3.2kgm/s. That would be the same as 3.2 kg moving at 1 metre per second, which is not going to kill anyone.

 

Well, I say it is not going to kill anyone, stick a point on it and it might. Of course a 9mm parabola is not a point, and you can get hit with that and it is not going to kill you.

 

Penetration depth matters and how much fleshy stuff the bullet functionally destroys matters because the first one tells you if it can get to an important bit and the second one tells you how close you have to be to something important to count as a kill shot. Other stuff too, but that is probably what matters most. A .7 ball (assuming it is made of lead and is a sphere) will weigh in around 33g, if I've added that all up right. That is over 4 times the mass of a 9mm PB and it is certainly going to be more than 1/4 of the velocity of a 9mm round from a pistol, but as we have established that momentum is not everything.

 

I imagine there is a minimum velocity something has to be going at to go through skin and flesh, and some sort of pressure formula. You probably won't get two people to agree on what the calculations are though.

 

Hmm. Black powder weapons can have muzzle velocities up to around 1200 feet per second or around 365 m/s, close to 9mm pistol bullet velocities. There's your damage differential: 4 times the mass and twice the diameter (.7 inches is 17.78mm) and a similar velocity to a modern pistol round. That puppy probably could mess you up.

 

Looking at good ol' WP, the Brown Bess was 0.71inches , which is 18 mm. Looking at this page: http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_brown_bess.html it claims that the damn thing could get through 3/8 of an inches of iron or 5 inches of oak at 30 yards. This really was a cannon. It says it was a once ounce lead ball, which is 28g. I was close enough.

 

By this point I've forgotten what I was going to say, but, hey, we're all having fun, aren't we?

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

I'll poke around my books and see if Im can dig up my copy of Elizabethan Military Science. It has a good set of benchmark performance expectations for period muzzleloaders as written by veteran contemporary commanders, so they should reflect fairly realistic expectations of what various early/midperiod BP guns can do.

 

Incidentally, the Brown Bess, whilst verra common in it's day, reflects a later period than most Fantasy age firearms (which usually hover around 15th-early 17thC tech levels)

[Sean Waters]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

You are aware that people have been known to die from impact damage from bullets (even handgun bullets) that don't penetrate vests' date=' right? Its uncommon [i']with handguns[/i], but not as rare as you think. And cracked ribs are fairly common, which I'd call body damage. Internal bleeding, organ damage, or a broken rib puncturing a lung and causing you to drown in your blood are also possible outcomes, even when the vest does its job and stops bullet penetration.

 

And soldiers in the field hit with 7.62 millimeter rounds - even when wearing ballistic plates - frequently end up being rushed to the doctor to ensure they aren't going to bleed to death internally despite being up and moving after the event.

 

You are much more likely to survive being shot with "mere" bruising, though even that can lead to a loss of some function for hours, or even a day or so, which is not very well represented by stun (which recovers very fast). Normally, being hit in the vest means you'll survive with some aches and pains, and you should be able to "shrug it off" after several minutes.

 

But the vest doing its job doesn't mean you'll survive. Its still possible for it to stop the bullet and not save you.

 

People have managed to die from falling over, but, unless you can point me at numbers, I'm pretty sure that the number of people who die from getting shot and the bullet not penetrating their vest is low. The thing is I could crack all your ribs, it would hurt like hell and it would take quite a lot of time to get better, but it is very unlikely that it would be fatal. That is only a bit of how Body works. Hero does that middle ground of 'bruises and minor breaks' with disabling, but that is all Body related anyway, so that does not help.

 

I'm not sure there is an easy answer, in Hero or any other system. On the one hand you want realism, on the other you want a playable game. We can argue about this all night long, but until you all line up against the wall and let me shoot you, we are not going to learn anything.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

 

Looking at good ol' WP, the Brown Bess was 0.71inches , which is 18 mm. Looking at this page: http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_brown_bess.html it claims that the damn thing could get through 3/8 of an inches of iron or 5 inches of oak at 30 yards. This really was a cannon.

 

Just so. Early naming conventions had cannon classes named for birds of prey. the Falconet was the smallest field piece, but the Musquet was the smallest weapon named according to the convention... period tacticians consider muskets support weapons, and expected them to be able to punch "proof" armors up to a around 30 paces, IIRC.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

I'm not sure there is an easy answer' date=' in Hero or any other system. On the one hand you want realism, on the other you want a playable game. We can argue about this all night long, but until you all line up against the wall and let me shoot you, we are not going to learn anything.[/quote']

 

And that's my new sig.

[Sean Waters]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

And that's my new sig.

 

You're welcome

[mhd]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Incidentally' date=' the Brown Bess, whilst verra common in it's day, reflects a later period than most Fantasy age firearms (which usually hover around 15th-early 17thC tech levels)[/quote']

 

Well, most fantasy settings seem to avoid firearms like the plague, even if the rest of the setting is basically rapier-wielding Renaissance in some parts.

 

For what it's worth, I'm actually ahead of the Brown Bess for my considerations, as the setting I'm converting has weird alchemical gunpowder used in breech-loading rifles. So something like the Dreyse or Chassepot. Pretty efficient action, and the military just seems go from balls to minie-like rounds at the moment (I do have to retcon the powder usage, though, as they're giving 50 grams per rifle shot, which seems excessively high).

 

There's still a lot of plate going round, some of which is probably done to armour of proof levels. And you don't find a lot of historical data for Napoleonic weaponry and its armor piercing performance…

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Well, most fantasy settings seem to avoid firearms like the plague, even if the rest of the setting is basically rapier-wielding Renaissance in some parts.

 

For what it's worth, I'm actually ahead of the Brown Bess for my considerations, as the setting I'm converting has weird alchemical gunpowder used in breech-loading rifles. So something like the Dreyse or Chassepot. Pretty efficient action, and the military just seems go from balls to minie-like rounds at the moment (I do have to retcon the powder usage, though, as they're giving 50 grams per rifle shot, which seems excessively high).

 

There's still a lot of plate going round, some of which is probably done to armour of proof levels. And you don't find a lot of historical data for Napoleonic weaponry and its armor piercing performance…

 

50 Grams is insane. 50 Grains is closer to a proper powder charge, tho a bit light for a long arm.

Yeah, most fantasy games don't get up to the tech level you're at, because once you get to breach loaders and minie balls, you get effective rifled guns, and then all other weapons technology begins to fall by the wayside, until you start messing with better explosives.

[Vondy]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

People have managed to die from falling over

 

Which is a straw man and reductio ad ridiculum.

 

but' date=' unless you can point me at numbers, I'm pretty sure that the number of people who die from getting shot and the bullet not penetrating their vest is low.[/quote']

 

I used the terms "uncommon" and "much more likely to survive being shot with mere bruising" in my post, so I'm not sure what point you are nitpicking by saying the number of people shot with a bullet not penetrating their vest is "low."

 

The thing is I could crack all your ribs' date=' it would hurt like hell and it would take quite a lot of time to get better, but it is very unlikely that it would be fatal.[/quote']

 

Why reduce what I wrote to fatal injuries? That's cherry picking. I also mentioned injuries like cracked ribs, organ damage, internal bleeding, or temporarily impairing bruising that could take hours or days to recover from without being fatal. All of those are body damage. And that was the point, just because a vest stops a bullet doesn't mean the only damage left is stun.

 

We can argue about this all night long' date=' but until you all line up against the wall and let me shoot you, we are not going to learn anything.[/quote']

 

Reductio ad absurdum. Such studies do exist.

 

We could therefore also look up statistics and try to model frequency. The most recent studies of properly rated bullet proof vest for the handgun round in question show a 95% survivability rate with only 10% of those shot requiring surgery.

 

However, surgery is for serious injury and does not tell us the incidence of moderate injury - like broken ribs or days of reduced performance from deep contusions or hemotoma - which don't require surgery. Studies on moderate injuries describe then as "frequent," with the rate of 15-20% of those shot while wearing a bullet-proof vest suffering so.

 

In other words, wearing a vest, you have a 1:20 chance of being killed, a 1:10 chance of needing surgery (not always for penetration), and an overall 1:4 chance of injury - ergo, body damage.

[mhd]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

50 Grams is insane. 50 Grains is closer to a proper powder charge' date=' tho a bit light for a long arm.[/quote']

One source I have says that you get 8 shots from a "rifler's pound", so unless that's not really a proper pound, this means 2 oz. per round. I'll definitely reduce that for my campaign to more sane standards.

 

Yeah' date=' most fantasy games don't get up to the tech level you're at, because once you get to breach loaders and minie balls, you get effective rifled guns, and then all other weapons technology begins to fall by the wayside, until you start messing with better explosives.[/quote']

 

Yeah, that's something I have to consider for my campaign, especially given that with breech-loaders there's little to no difference in the rate of fire between a gun and a longbow, at least for HERO purposes. But hey, if planetary romance sci-fi can combine lasers and swords, nevermind standard high fantasy fare with its wizards, I shouldn't be afraid of a little gunplay. It'll dominate the battle grounds, but for your typical swasbuckling adventure (esp. within cities), melee will probably still reign supreme, either for noise reasons or because reloading while people try to decapitate you is a lot of pressure to deal with.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

One source I have says that you get 8 shots from a "rifler's pound", so unless that's not really a proper pound, this means 2 oz. per round. I'll definitely reduce that for my campaign to more sane standards.

 

That doesn't sound right, yeah. I could, maybe, see 8 shots to the pound with premeasured charges including the ball, but just the powder? No way. I've gotten more shots than that out of a pound of powder using a cannon. A signal cannon firing blanks, mind, but still....

[Christopher]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

The most recent studies of properly rated bullet proof vest for the handgun round in question show a 95% survivability rate with only 10% of those shot requiring surgery.

 

However, surgery is for serious injury and does not tell us the incidence of moderate injury - like broken ribs or days of reduced performance from deep contusions or hemotoma - which don't require surgery. Studies on moderate injuries describe then as "frequent," with the rate of 15-20% of those shot while wearing a bullet-proof vest suffering so.

 

In other words, wearing a vest, you have a 1:20 chance of being killed, a 1:10 chance of needing surgery (not always for penetration), and an overall 1:4 chance of injury - ergo, body damage.

Show us thsoe studies, don't just tell.

Also, did they include cases in wich the Protection was "missed"?

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Couple of points I'd like to point out. First for kineetic energy and bulletproof vests, Iirc, shotgus at closre range can still kill you through the vest. The shot woun't reach you but the transference of energy will. Oh and speaking about kinetic energy, I remember an interesting story a couple of years ago. A big game hunter was suing an ammonition maker. Apparently the Hunter used an elephant round on a lion. The round was designed to impact the elephant, it actually did less damage to the lion cause it went right through it.

 

Second, its been mentioned before about caliber and how it seems to affect people differently in kill results. One thing that Hero doesn't normally take into account is the psylogical aspect of getting hit. Military has been studying since WWI why one soldier gets hit several times and keeps going while another soldier gets barely hit and dies from shock. I mention this solely because in the real world, this is a variable to be considered, but probally not for a game. I.e. for game purposes, bigger the round the dealier.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

For rounds passing straight through the target, that is the very definition of a low damage roll. Passed straight through without hitting anything vital. Hit the brain, heart, lungs or anything else that lion needs to survive and you will have one dead lion on your hands.

[Vondy]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Show us thsoe studies' date=' don't just tell.[/quote']

 

I'm not your research assistant.

 

Also' date=' did they include cases in wich the Protection was "missed"?[/quote']

 

The answer to that has already been provided.

[Christopher]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

I'm not your research assistant.

You claim "studies say", without any point to where theses studies are, when they were made and what exactly the question was.

You can't claim to have proof for X, then don't provide that proof for reviev.

[Sean Waters]

Re: "Realistic" gun damage

 

Which is a straw man and reductio ad ridiculum.

 

Something that is statistically unlikely is not a good basis for coming up with a system for simulating something. The point I'm making is simply that: people die for all sorts of silly and coincidental reasons, but as you acknowledge, most bullet proof vest hits result in the target not taking significant life threatening damage. I'm sorry you saw my point as a personal attack.

 

 

 

I used the terms "uncommon" and "much more likely to survive being shot with mere bruising" in my post' date=' so I'm not sure what point you are nitpicking by saying the number of people shot with a bullet not penetrating their vest is "low."[/quote']

 

Did you get out of bed the wrong side this morning? We are just talking and I'm making a point, as I've explained above.

 

 

 

Why reduce what I wrote to fatal injuries? That's cherry picking. I also mentioned injuries like cracked ribs' date=' organ damage, internal bleeding, or temporarily impairing bruising that could take hours or days to recover from without being fatal. All of those are body damage. And that was the point, just because a vest stops a bullet doesn't mean the only damage left is stun.[/quote']

 

If you'd bothered to read the short post and take on the point I was making, it is this: Body damage in Hero IS fatal, at least cumulatively. Bruising and even broken bones are not fatal, at least they are not fatal. I've seen people beaten literally black and blue and they have survived the experience, although somewhat reluctantly until they got painkillers. Yes, internal bleeding and organ damage can be fatal, but, again, Hero Body damage is instant: internal bleeding can take anywhere between minutes and days to kill you and is covered under separate bleeding rules anyway. Hero does not have a 'middle ground' of long term but non-fatal injury, and all I was saying is that 'realism' might call for that but 'playability' shouts it down.

 

 

 

Reductio ad absurdum. Such studies do exist.

 

We could therefore also look up statistics and try to model frequency. The most recent studies of properly rated bullet proof vest for the handgun round in question show a 95% survivability rate with only 10% of those shot requiring surgery.

 

However, surgery is for serious injury and does not tell us the incidence of moderate injury - like broken ribs or days of reduced performance from deep contusions or hemotoma - which don't require surgery. Studies on moderate injuries describe then as "frequent," with the rate of 15-20% of those shot while wearing a bullet-proof vest suffering so.

 

In other words, wearing a vest, you have a 1:20 chance of being killed, a 1:10 chance of needing surgery (not always for penetration), and an overall 1:4 chance of injury - ergo, body damage.

 

Again with the latin. I was making a joke, for pity's sakes, not commenting on you or your argument, which, incidentally, I'm not really arguing with.

 

Look, let us take another example. I nail your hands to a plank (just to be clear, i'm not actually going to do this...) - have you taken Body damage? Probably: there is long term damage that will not heal in a minute, so in Hero it either has to be Stun or Body, long term heal = body. Then I take a hammer and, individually smash each finger and your thumbs. Again, Body damage, so you've taken at least 12 Body. Are you likely to die as a result? Probably not. The Hero Body damage model does not work 'realistically' when we are talking about 'minor/moderate injuries'.

 

I'm also saying I do not think that there is an easy way around this because, although it would not be difficult to simulate (say every full 5 Stun through defences causes a point of 'long term stun' that heals at REC per week or per day. 'LTS' reduces available Stun and if all your Stun is LTS, then you start taking Body), but it is not part of the system, requires house rules and reduces game speed and playability.

 

What we need to ask is whether we can easily simulate the overall effect, which is that you get hit by a bullet and it hits your appropriately rated bullet proof vest, chances are that it is not going to kill you. A modern BPV is a 6 DEF vest in Hero: 1d6 bullets can not kill you, 1 1/2 d6 bullets cause Body somewhere between 30 and 40% of the time and 2d6 bullets cause it over half the time. Whether that is penetration or not is not that important...well, it is: if a bullet penetrates it is far more likely to kill than if it does not, but let us stick with the premise...those figures do not matchj up with your quoted statistics.

 

Again, not a criticism of you, in any way, this is a discussion about 'realsitic' gun damage, so we are just thrashing out the details.