Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

[Christopher]

Settings and sourcebooks that span over multiple "ages" of human development usually have a problem with Weapon and Armor values.

On the one hand you need to mimik the ability of better weapons to "penetrate" earlier armor. A common way to do this "armsrace" is to apply Armor Piercing or Penetrating on the Weapons, then built the next generation Armor with apropirate amounts of Impenetrable and Hardened.

This quickly leads to escalating amounts of active points and Real Point costs. While most of these games also use a "free equipment" rule things like Resource Pools and the durability of Foci can make the active points and real cost relevant. The same a "finding prices" for items.

Or you end up with a Modern Heavy-MG doing almost the same damage as the best musket.

 

Now I recently remembered that Warhammer 40k P&P RPG (Dark Heresy and to a lesser degree Rogue Trader) had to deal with a similar situation:

There are some worlds that are technologically in the middle age or even a early stone/metal age and there are worlds who have "up to date" weapons like Plasma Guns and Modern (monofilament) Swords competing with Armaplast Protection.

Their solution is surprisingly simple:

Both medival Platemail and Modern Armaplast Armor has exactly the same armor vaule if it covers the same regions of the body.

The same way a Medival Sword and a Modern Mono(filament) Sword have exactly the same damage value (the mono sword has a little more armor penetration, but ignore that for now).

The difference between the two items is a single, small tag: Primitive.

 

The medival Sword and Armor have it.

The modern Sword and Armor have it not.

As long as both attack and armor have the tag or lack it, nothing special happens.

When the attacks is Primitive, but the armor is not, armor protection is doubeled.

When the attack is Modern but the armor is Primitve, protection is halved.

 

There is even somethign similar in in 6E2, a sugestion of how to deal with the semingly to high damage and armor values of "normals" when confronting Superhumans. Several sugestion are to weaken "Real Weapon" attacks when they meet "unreal Characters" and thier defenses, and reduce armor of "real armor" when hit by a "unreal attack".

It's the same problem, in a different Scenario.

 

My proposed HERO adaption is the following:

- Every weapon and protection (both worn by humans, natural armor and vehicles) has a "Tier" or "level".

- If attack and protection are of different level the defenses effectiveness get's modified - for every tier difference, it get's doubeled or halved.

- Any weapon attack and armor is supposed to be on the "top Tier" unless noted otherwise. (Unarmed attacks might be the lowest tier by default, unless there is some HA or KA-Power to "convert" the STR to a higher tier attack. Combat Luck would be always the highest Tier possible for humans. "Tough skin" might be totally useless against modern weapons because it is on the same tier "Leather armor".)

- Every time a weapon or attack is on a Tier lower than "the best", it get's a limitation. Thus the armsrace stops to be a "piling adavantages up". It's applying Limitations if you choose to go lower.

- Armor Piercing and Penetrating cease to be used under this rule. Armor Piercing is nothing more than having a higher tier (see below for consideration about different levels between weapon and armor). Penetrating simply means there are two or more tiers difference (armor beomes next to useless). Penetrating from RAW would be problematic under this approach, unless a good tier can block it like Impenetrable.

- There will be a maximum damage and maximum armor value. The maximum damage will be high enough to instantly kill a unportected normal (the classical 10 Body, 2 PD/ED) and the best armor value will be so high that it will block all but the best Rolls (Hit lcoations may become important for this). Usually however highest armor and highest weapon tier possible for a character or vehicle will differ in any scenario with weapons usually having the upper hand by 1 tier.

Bigger/more moderns things will not do higher more damage. They will more likely have a higher tier. A tank has not more armor (or Body) than a human. But since this armor is on a totally different tier it can apply multiple times that against handfire weapons. But propably less than full against AT-Weapons.

 

Examples:

For a long time humanity had a "Armsrace" between Muscle Powered Weapons (Bows, Swords, Hammers, Crossbows) on the one hand and "Metal Armor" on the other. This race stopped once armor (full platemail) got soo good at afforable prices and muscle powered weapons had reached thier "top" for that time. Weapons had perhaps 0 too 1 tiers in advance of armors at that point.

Then came blackpowder weapons wich started at having 1 Tier more than Armors of thier time but only needed a piece of metal instead of a difficult to manufacture crosbow bolt or arrow - and they quickly got better. They were "ranged only" and started with abismal reload times (you have to take limitations if you want to have a highest Tier Weapons afordable) but with a good position that meant they simply overpowered any armor of the middle age. There are reports of armor that was effective against Firearms during the "Wild west" and "American Civil War" periods, but those were expensive and sparsely used.

Now we have reached the point where we have bulletproof west. And man portable Anti-tank weapons. Early antitank weapons might actually be mitigated by a most modern personal armor (possibly only one tier more advanced), but WWII AT weapons do almost nothing against modern tanks, while modern Rifles could propaby shoot through the Armor of early tanks with little effort.

When your best manportable armor is effective against the best man protable weapon, you need either better tanks or better manportable weapons.

 

The end of Firearms (or genereally "Gas expansion" weapons) is forseeable. The energy you can transmit by rapid expansion of gas is limited to whatever speed sound has in that gas.

So the "next level" of weaponry on earth will propably be railguns or lasers. Those (or whatever else we use) will be "Shipportable" long before they become "Tank portable" or Artillery Weapons, wich will again be long before they become helocopter/flier-portable or even man-protable.

And the point at wich lasers/Railguns become man-protable, they won't do anything against tanks or ships anymore (because their armor is yet another step farther, to keep track of the current Anti-Tank weapons and anti-ship weapons).

But even the best manprotable Railgun won't do much more damage to a unprotected human body than the best man portable bow does. There will be special ammuntion that has better armor-penetration (i.e. Amunition that that increse the attack by one Tier) and there will be ammunition that does more damage agaisnt a unprotected target, but is weaker agaisnt armor. But no matter how fast you let something travel, there is only so much matter it can affect with a single "shoot".

 

Downsides of this approach:

You need to determine the highest tier in advance. So you need to figure out "who's the biggest fish and what is his best weapon" (a weapon that even he/she/it can't fire without limits). Armor is proably two Tiers Lower (even the designer has no idea how to protect against it).

One Powerlevel or Techlevel will propably include multiple Tiers. There is a big difference between modern tank armor and bulletproof west, but both are built on the same techlevel. As well as weapons 1-2 Tiers above the respective armor.

You also need to pick the amount of Tiers. But this doesn't has to be many. As both damage and protection have a absolute limit (pick as you see fit), even two Tiers difference will etiher make armor almost useless or practically unbreakable.

 

 

Here are a few more examples in SciFi Settings of this "Armsrace":

In Stargate the best Weapon are Ancient Drones. No shield, not even those of the asuras replicators (wich used Ancient Ships) protected against them. But they have limited ammunition.

Close second are propably Ori Mainguns and the latest Asgard Beam Weapons (Ori Weapons are a "single big" thing, asgard beamers are multiple small shoots). And whatever the Wraith Superhiveship fired. Less penetration power (shields aren't totally penetrated) than a drone, but reuseable.

There are still other "dangerous" things: Carter blew up a Star. McCay once did the same with 5/6 of a Solar system. And later 2/3 of the pegasus galaxy. The Antimater-Vortex of the Supergate was enough to destroy a Ori-Mothership. And they once found a ZPM that was sabotaged, so it could explode with enough force to destroy the entire Sol-System. Not to mention that Naquadah asteriod the Goa'ulds once threw against earth (in hopes they would ignite it with a nuclear bomb and blow themself up trying to prevent armageddon). But those were all "one of a kind" weapons, that would be hard to re-use (as you can only find ZPM's and not riging them to explode is a lot more usefull).

 

Andromeda:

The biggest ship-portable, reuseable weapons is a Point Singularity Projector. It fires minature black holes. No defense other than "don't be there". And one bigger is a black hole bomb, able to crack a planet when it not "detotanted" properly, but not reuseable.

Novabombs are even more powerfull, but they are not resuable and need a OIF (Star of Opportunity) to use... And it mostly failed against the Worldship and it's sun.

And there was whatever Harper built to blow up the magog worldship (they had to use a incomplete version for something else).

And of course whatever Trance did to the magog-worldship...

 

Star Trek:

Best Armor is Solid Neutrinium - what the Planet Killers hulls are made of. It is uncertain how effective it's antiproton beam would be against "itself", but afaik it had a pretty long recharge and even the Constitution Enterprise survived a direct hit with shields up. So it was propably a low Tier Version of this weapon type, maybe even lower than it's own armor.

And even with a big unprotected hole in the fornt they needed to crash a ship into it to destroy it (In Star Trek Online his brother takes a shuttle and several special torpedoes in the maw before it goes down).

Best weaponry is propably antiproton. In Star Trek online the "strognest/most advanced" groups (Species 8472 and the Inconians) use AntiProton weaponry, but at different levels of miniaturisation and power. Aside from the player, of course...

[Martin2]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

Is this not just a bit too complicated?

 

Why not just have GM control and they ballance the game effect in their specific game.

 

If they have want to have a PC dressed in 1500AD Full plate armour and another in 5000 AD powered armour the GM goes through and gives an active limit and advantage limit for each?

 

If it was a super hero game they could have the same active limits as in comic book fashion they all seem to have the same effect.

[Greywind]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

I would do it simply by applying magic handwavium and calling it good. There's a point where too much accounting is detrimental to the sanity of the GM.

[Erkenfresh]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

Why not just have every tier up add 3 DC and 3 or 4 DEF? It's a lot simpler I would think.

[Markdoc]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

I've got a really simple solution that has always worked well for me. It's got only 2 steps.

1. Don't get hung up on active points

2. Happy gaming!

 

There is no reason at all to insist that all powers must fit into a 60-90 AP box. And that's the cause of the problem you outline, not the way the rules work.

 

cheers, Mark

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

I've got a really simple solution that has always worked well for me. It's got only 2 steps.

1. Don't get hung up on active points

2. Happy gaming!

 

There is no reason at all to insist that all powers must fit into a 60-90 AP box. And that's the cause of the problem you outline, not the way the rules work.

 

cheers, Mark

 

1) Must spread rep.

 

2) My thinking exactly.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

I think there is some validity to the point that modern weapons and armor are more effective than their more primative analogs. However, I think this is more reflected in the limitations on the equipment rather than the damage potential.

 

For example, a musket ball will kill nearly as effectively as a modern bullet, but loading and firing a musket is much more time consuming, and it is far more likely to jam or be rendered useless by environmental conditions or random accidents. Plate mail armor provides great protection, but it is incredibly heavy. Modern Kevlar isn't exactly weightless, but its weight-to-defense ratio is much better. If you want modern or futuristic gear to outshine their predecessors, strictly enforce "Real Weapon/Armor" and Encumbrance rules that make older gear less desirable.

 

To the extent you want to make modern weapons more lethal, just add a DC or two, Armor Piercing, or even Piercing Points if you use them. Dark Champions has all sorts of bullet/gun tweaks to represent that kind of stuff. For futuristic weapons, you might take that another step depending on how far advanced the technology is. That might not perfectly reflect reality, but no game mechanics can, so you have to balance complexity with playability.

[Laundry Knight]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

GURPS used to have something about differing TL levels. I no longer remember the specifics, but perhaps, it can be used in determining advantages and disadvantages, say the root TL is +0 and is made positive or negative depending on the radiation and apply the tech difference in skill contests, defense, and offense rolls as appropriate.

[gojira]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

Yeah, if it's rare or doesn't affect the players much, just make it a background-slash-campaign rule.

 

If it happens a lot (the players are a mixed band of primitive and futuristic characters, and likewise their opponents are too), then just build the weapons and armor that way.

 

Future armor has: 6/6 rPd/rEd, only vs. primitive weapons.

 

Future weapons have: Armor Piercing, only vs. primitive armor.

 

Pretty much done.

[Tasha]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

1) Must spread rep.

 

2) My thinking exactly.

 

Got him

[Tasha]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

One way to create differentiation between "Tech Levels" is to use some of 6e's Damage Negation for the armors of the Higher Tech.

 

ie Plate Armor would have 0 damage negation

Kevlar body armor would have -2d6 Damage Negation

Mandalorian Armor might have -4d6 Damage Negation.

 

What I would do for weapons is assuming that the weapons that people are using are at max tech level. When they face late 20th century armor, those weapons would do +2DC, and against 18th century and older armor they would gain +4DC. I wouldn't add this to the cost of the gun, it would be a campaign houserule. Also it could answer one of the questions that some people have about Star Trek and Star Wars weapons (ie Why don't people still use firearms (ie 20th-21st century projectile weapons). The answer is that they don't have the penetrating power against modern armor. You could "get around" this by ruling that SciFi firearms use better propellants, and bullet materials with stronger alloys in the barrels. Which allow for better armor penetration without doing much more physical damage.

 

I KNOW that this isn't really "realistic", but I think it fits a more narrativist model for why early weapons aren't used as often. and also why people use the newest armor.

 

This does the trick without having the armor have to reach 12-18Def and weapons can stay in the 6-9DC range. Which feels best for Heroic games.

 

BTW I am not wedded to those values. I chose them because I felt that they gave enough differentiation without being excessive.

[Greywind]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

Weapons advancement isn't always "more powerful" either. In a lot of cases it was "ease of use" which prompted change.

[Tasha]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

Weapons advancement isn't always "more powerful" either. In a lot of cases it was "ease of use" which prompted change.

 

Yes I do realize that. Sometimes it comes down to how heavy something is. Other times it was how easy it was to train troops how to use the weapon. I just noticed that the Weapons charts vs the Armor charts get kind of crazy once you hit Star Hero tech levels. I can see wanting to get the dice vs Def vs Con down to reasonable levels.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

Got him

 

Thanx heaps.

[brionl]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

I've got a really simple solution that has always worked well for me. It's got only 2 steps.

1. Don't get hung up on active points

2. Happy gaming!

 

There is no reason at all to insist that all powers must fit into a 60-90 AP box. And that's the cause of the problem you outline, not the way the rules work.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Well, it is a little annoying to be rolling 30 dice every time you shoot somebody with your hyper-warp derringer, and then subtracting 90 pts of rDef for their force field.

[Tom Carman]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

Yeah, if it's rare or doesn't affect the players much, just make it a background-slash-campaign rule.

 

If it happens a lot (the players are a mixed band of primitive and futuristic characters, and likewise their opponents are too), then just build the weapons and armor that way.

 

Future armor has: 6/6 rPd/rEd, only vs. primitive weapons.

 

Future weapons have: Armor Piercing, only vs. primitive armor.

 

Pretty much done.

 

The "AP vs. primitive armor" is a good one. But for future armor vs. primitive weapons I would consider, not more defense, but converting a KA to Normal damage. The Body won't get through, but it still delivers a mule-kick of kinetic energy for Stun. As for those "primitive" rocks, clubs and maces, your fancy advanced armor may not be much more protective unless it can do something useful about that raw kinetic force. How good is Kevlar against a club?

[gojira]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

Well, the point is the OP posted that was how he wanted it to work, or at least that's how the other game system he cited handled it. I agree that there might be more issue that could realistically be modeled. But there's also playability to consider, and a simple system that says "all primitive armors work this way" has advantages. Realism isn't always all it's cracked up to be.

[Markdoc]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

The "AP vs. primitive armor" is a good one. But for future armor vs. primitive weapons I would consider' date=' not more defense, but converting a KA to Normal damage. The Body won't get through, but it still delivers a mule-kick of kinetic energy for Stun. As for those "primitive" rocks, clubs and maces, your fancy advanced armor may not be much more protective unless it can do something useful about that raw kinetic force. How good [i']is[/i] Kevlar against a club?

 

Kevlar's about as good as old-fashioned padded armour against a club, and much less effective (even with trauma plates) than 1500's field harness

 

This is the problem - kinetic energy isn't a really good indicator of lethality or effect. Modern firearms actually often deliver less kinetic energy than older firearms, but in a high-penetrating, more lethal form.

 

The truth is, though, that Hero doesn't do a great job of simulating real world wounding physics. Better than a lot of games, but still not great. The reason for that is that lethality is not really terribly related to calibre, kinetic energy or any of that stuff, but almost exclusively to wound placement. A small wound somewhere important will kill you a lot faster and more reliably than a big wound to somewhere less important.

 

What we're talking about here, is the perceived effect of weapons in the game. In a heroic game, it's one thing for a knight in plate armour to run into a hail of arrows: in real life, he had a pretty good chance of coming through alive. It hurts the game if he can safely run into a hail of machine gun fire, though. Going the other direction, it's perfectly OK for Ewoks to threaten each other with their tiny widdle awwows, but it just stimulates derision and laughter, when they take down elite armoured stormtroopers with them. The precise mechanism of wounding isn't the issue here: it's ... call it cinematic verisimilitude.

 

In a superheroic game, it doesn't really matter: we don't balk at a guy going up against an armoured suit with his bare hands or a bow.

 

cheers, Mark

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

Wow. This reminds me of my old posts. *wipes away a tear*

 

Hang on. Playing fetch with the cat.

 

Where was I? Oh, right. This is all way over complicated. A few points were made here, mostly by Mark, but I'll summarize:

 

* You want all weapons to be in the 60-90 range. This isn't even necessarily a representation of the dice, this can be advantages, additional advantages from 5Es Dark Champions (Piercing) and heaven knows what else. One of the things I keep asking is that we stop being afraid of "power creep." Use the numbers and effects that make sense.

 

* Still, I see your point. However, this is way, way too much book-keeping.

 

So here's a simple solution: Do what the movies do. HERO is supposed to simulate genre fiction. If you have someone wearing standard armor, and they get nailed with a plasma round, or a maser, or a PPC, then just tell 'em their hosed. If you have armies clashing, illustrate it. At best, the Primitive (-1/2) limitation is your best bet, or more simply: Primitive (-1/4, slightly lower tech level), (-1/2, significantly lower tech) and of course (-1, blatantly inferior tech). Now you've covered the major bands without all that messy hassle and they can mean what you like.

 

Like my cohorts, I have to advise against getting more complex than that -- and I'm guilty of unnecessarily complex builds.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

Sidenote: I'mma hit you, GW. So hard.

[brionl]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

Fantasy Flight Games are actually the ones who do the Warhammer 40K RPGs. And they don't get all complicated. An item is either primitive, or not.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

Achieving market penetration

 

One of the issues with Hero is that it does not naturally differentiate between the ability to penetrate defences and the ability to damage a target. A knife, used to slash, for instance, is relatively easy to stop with some sort of armour: it can not cut through and it does not have the weight to bash it in. Same blade used to stab may have a better chance as it concentrates the force on a point, but, if it does get through the armour, the chances are that it will not stab so deep and so probably will not do so much damage.

 

There is then the issue that not all defences interact with attacks in the same way. Some are simply more effective than others.

 

Right. First one.

 

Hero does not naturally differentiate, but it can be made to.

 

If, instead of buying a 2d6 RKA, I buy a 1d6 RKA (only to penetrate defences) and a 1d6 RKA (only to damage target), I’ve got an attack that can penetrate 1-6 points of armour (or 3 points, using Standard Effect) and do 1d6 to the target, if it penetrates armour (nothing if it does not). If the target has no armour, it does 1d6, if it has insufficient armour to stop the attack, it does 1d6, if it has sufficient armour to stop the attack, it does nothing.

 

Cool. Not enough, but a good start.

 

Right, Limitation Values: I would say that we are looking at -1 to -2 for ‘Only For Penetration’ and -1/2 to -1 for ‘Only for Damage’. The exact figures will be a bit campaign dependent, but let us assume that penetration is -2 and damage is -1/2. Why? Penetration dice can not hurt anyone, they are only for getting through armour, and they are only effective if there is armour to get through. Damage is always useful – IF you can get through armour or attack an unarmoured target (or part of a target). For the right campaign, I might even re-cost Penetration dice as 5/1d6 and Damage dice as 10/1d6.

 

Bear in mind you can STILL buy unmodified killing dice at 15/1d6.

 

So, you could have a weapon that is built with 1d6 Killing (15), 1d6 Penetration (5) for a total of 20 points (20 or 30 active, depending on whether you use limitations or recosted values.

 

This works like a stabbing knife: pretty good at getting through armour (1-6 or 3), doing 1d6 killing if it penetrates – BUT, because the base Killing Attack is not limited, it can add to the penetration dice (thereby reducing damage).

 

You could build a slashing knife as 1 point of standard effect penetration (2 points), ½ d6 Killing (10 points) and 1d6 damage (10). It can penetrate 1-4 points of armour, and do up to 9 killing against an unarmoured target.

 

The point of this is that you can then have armour thresholds: an arrow might do as much or more damage to an unarmoured target as a modern bullet, but the arrow is more easily stopped by modern armour.

 

As to defences, well, the traditional Hero approach is a bit, er, not very generous in some game types: ‘Only v Arrows’ is a -1/2 limitation, which is OK in a game where 2/3 of the projectiles aimed at you are arrows, but not so good in a modern game. Of course this is a translation problem and so probably not universally solvable, but we can try and at least build a framework.

 

What you perhaps need to consider is a more ‘meta’ approach to damage. Damage can be primarily caused by (not an exclusive list, and only covering physical attacks):

 

1. Momentum (crushing): clubs, fists

2. Momentum (penetration/point penetration): stabbing blades, arrows,

3. Slashing/cutting: slashing blades, claws

4. High velocity: bullets

5. Direct force (bending, rending): very strong opponent/some martial art maneouves

 

So each one that does not apply, you take a -1/4 limitation. Kevlar with padding is good against bullets and crushing damage, so 3 of the categories do not apply, and you take a -3/4. Bear in mind that you do not have to take the limitation on the WHOLE defence value. You might decide that a padded Kevlar vest will provide SOME protection against all attacks, and buy one or 2 points of rPD without any limit. It is pretty good against crushing momentum attacks and bullets, so you buy another 5 rPD limited to only those categories (-3/4) and it is best against bullets so you take another 3 rPD at -1, as only one category applies..

 

There’s other bells and whistles, but that is a reasonable framework, for a given campaign, for differentiating between different weapon and defence types.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

For a simpler approach, you could use 'Real Weapon', which gives you -1/4, and expand it by adding 'Real Primitive Weapon' for -1/2 (or more). Primitive weapons have a campaign defined effect on more advanced defences (often, but not always, being less effective).

[psyber624]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

There is also the "Piercing" power from APG which is added to an attack to allow it to ignore certain amounts of defense. Does your whole "limited vs armor" and "limited damage only" thing a bit neater and RAW-Expanded.

[Markdoc]

Re: Tiered Equipment or "How to fit Arrows and Antimarter in 60-90 AP"

 

Achieving market penetration

 

One of the issues with Hero is that it does not naturally differentiate between the ability to penetrate defences and the ability to damage a target. A knife, used to slash, for instance, is relatively easy to stop with some sort of armour: it can not cut through and it does not have the weight to bash it in. Same blade used to stab may have a better chance as it concentrates the force on a point, but, if it does get through the armour, the chances are that it will not stab so deep and so probably will not do so much damage.

 

There is then the issue that not all defences interact with attacks in the same way. Some are simply more effective than others.

 

Right. First one.

 

Hero does not naturally differentiate, but it can be made to.

 

If, instead of buying a 2d6 RKA, I buy a 1d6 RKA (only to penetrate defences) and a 1d6 RKA (only to damage target), I’ve got an attack that can penetrate 1-6 points of armour (or 3 points, using Standard Effect) and do 1d6 to the target, if it penetrates armour (nothing if it does not). If the target has no armour, it does 1d6, if it has insufficient armour to stop the attack, it does 1d6, if it has sufficient armour to stop the attack, it does nothing.

 

Cool. Not enough, but a good start.

 

Right, Limitation Values: I would say that we are looking at -1 to -2 for ‘Only For Penetration’ and -1/2 to -1 for ‘Only for Damage’. The exact figures will be a bit campaign dependent, but let us assume that penetration is -2 and damage is -1/2. Why? Penetration dice can not hurt anyone, they are only for getting through armour, and they are only effective if there is armour to get through. Damage is always useful – IF you can get through armour or attack an unarmoured target (or part of a target). For the right campaign, I might even re-cost Penetration dice as 5/1d6 and Damage dice as 10/1d6.

 

Bear in mind you can STILL buy unmodified killing dice at 15/1d6.

 

So, you could have a weapon that is built with 1d6 Killing (15), 1d6 Penetration (5) for a total of 20 points (20 or 30 active, depending on whether you use limitations or recosted values.

 

This works like a stabbing knife: pretty good at getting through armour (1-6 or 3), doing 1d6 killing if it penetrates – BUT, because the base Killing Attack is not limited, it can add to the penetration dice (thereby reducing damage).

 

You could build a slashing knife as 1 point of standard effect penetration (2 points), ½ d6 Killing (10 points) and 1d6 damage (10). It can penetrate 1-4 points of armour, and do up to 9 killing against an unarmoured target.

 

The point of this is that you can then have armour thresholds: an arrow might do as much or more damage to an unarmoured target as a modern bullet, but the arrow is more easily stopped by modern armour.

 

As to defences, well, the traditional Hero approach is a bit, er, not very generous in some game types: ‘Only v Arrows’ is a -1/2 limitation, which is OK in a game where 2/3 of the projectiles aimed at you are arrows, but not so good in a modern game. Of course this is a translation problem and so probably not universally solvable, but we can try and at least build a framework.

 

What you perhaps need to consider is a more ‘meta’ approach to damage. Damage can be primarily caused by (not an exclusive list, and only covering physical attacks):

 

1. Momentum (crushing): clubs, fists

2. Momentum (penetration/point penetration): stabbing blades, arrows,

3. Slashing/cutting: slashing blades, claws

4. High velocity: bullets

5. Direct force (bending, rending): very strong opponent/some martial art maneouves

 

So each one that does not apply, you take a -1/4 limitation. Kevlar with padding is good against bullets and crushing damage, so 3 of the categories do not apply, and you take a -3/4. Bear in mind that you do not have to take the limitation on the WHOLE defence value. You might decide that a padded Kevlar vest will provide SOME protection against all attacks, and buy one or 2 points of rPD without any limit. It is pretty good against crushing momentum attacks and bullets, so you buy another 5 rPD limited to only those categories (-3/4) and it is best against bullets so you take another 3 rPD at -1, as only one category applies..

 

There’s other bells and whistles, but that is a reasonable framework, for a given campaign, for differentiating between different weapon and defence types.

 

 

I believe I've mentioned in the past that this is similar to how we've done "very stabby" weapons. The costing was quite different, however: -3/4 gets you "Reduced stun -3" and -1/4 get you "only to negate defences". That last bit doesn't sound like much, but in a game where most serious targets can be expected to have resistant defences, it doesn't lose you too much, because a lot of damage is simply expended overcoming defences. We've also usually tossed on "standard effect" so that 7 points just lets you ignore 3 points of DEF and 15, ignore 6, etc. It makes combat faster than rolling two sets of dice and then trying to work out damage and how much armour you ignore for every hit.

 

A typical example:

 

Try a 2d6 killing attack (30AP):

vs Plate armour (r8 PD backed up by 4 PD). Average roll is BOD 7/ 14 STUN, doing no BOD and 2 STUN, after defences. 'Tis but a scratch. High roll is 12 BOD/36 STUN, doing 4 BOD and 24 STUN - a wounding KO against a normal target

Vs Chain mail, (r6 PD backed up by 4 PD). Average roll is BOD 7/ 14 STUN, doing 1 BOD and 4 STUN, after defences. 'Tis also but a scratch. High roll is 12 BOD/36 STUN, doing 6 BOD and 26 STUN - a KO against a normal target.

Vs a sturdy peasant in his best shirt (4PD). Average roll is BOD 7/ 14 STUN, doing 7 BOD and 14 STUN, after defences. OooH! That's gotta smart! High roll is 12 BOD/36 STUN, doing 12 BOD and 36 STUN - the target is down and dying.

 

Now try the same approach using a 1d6 killing + 2d6 "stabby" dice - which costs the same, before other limitations. This attack simply ignores 6 DEF of armour.

 

vs Plate armour (r8 PD backed up by 4 PD). Average roll is BOD 3/6 STUN, doing 1 BOD and no STUN, after defences. 'Tis but a scratch. High roll is 6 BOD/18 STUN, doing 4 BOD and 12 STUN - a significant wound, but the target is still up

Vs Chain mail, (r6 PD backed up by 4 PD). Average roll is BOD 3/ 6 STUN, doing 3 BOD and 2 STUN, after defences. 'Tis a bit more than a scratch. High roll is 6 BOD/18 STUN, doing 6 BOD and 8 STUN - a nasty wound, but the target is still up.

Vs a sturdy peasant in his best shirt (4PD). Average roll is BOD 3/ 6 STUN, doing 3 BOD and 6 STUN, after defences. Tis a bit more than a scratch High roll is 6 BOD/18 STUN, doing 6 BOD and 18 STUN - a nasty wound, and the target is stunned.

 

With this approach, weapons tend to do more BOD against armoured targets - but virtually always do less STUN - than regular killing attacks. They are also more consistent at doing BOD. On the other hand, they just ping off very heavily armoured targets and do less damage to unarmored or lightly armoured targets. You can "tune2 different types of attack, by varying the number of penetrating to damage dice and also by buying up (or down) the stun modifier, to get weapons that are good at penetrating armour, weapons that are good at putting STUN through armour and weapons that are more or less dangerous to armored targets

 

If we used your numbers, that 2d6 attack (30 points) could be bought as 2d6 (does damage only: 20 points) and 2d6 penetration (10 points), which on average rolls would do 7 BOD to anybody in Chain or less, and on a slightly better than average roll would do 7 BOD to the guy in plate ... and it does the same STUN. It's significantly superior to the standard KA, suggesting to me that while the concept is sound, the numbers are way off.

 

Having said that though, after experimenting with this approach, I mostly abandoned it as adding more complexity than it was worth

 

cheers, Mark