Are tanks really that tough?

[zslane]

Most of the real-world differences between similar-calibre weapons would manifest as OCV mods or RMods or slower/faster reloading times, different number of charges, different Breakdown thresholds, etc. All of these are things that tend to have nominal impact in superhero/cinematic games, but would probably play a large role in more realism-driven heroic level games. In those kinds of games, a difference of +1 to OCV or an extra Phase of reloading time can make a big difference, and so specifying weapons to that level makes sense.

 

But driving up damage output to questionable levels just to make a .45 different from a 9mm strikes me as a fool's errand. In theory, the difference between 2D6 RKA and 2D6+1 RKA is a doubling of the energy delivered for damage. There's just not enough granularity in the HERO damage model to produce super fine distinctions between weapons.

[Lucius]

I think the problem with military equipment in the game is that you had a guy who loved his guns write them up.  Each one had to have something to differentiate it from the one before, so you got some stat inflation.  You couldn't have 1D6+1 RKA "pistol" anymore, you had to have a .38 differentiated from a .45, which had to also be different from a 9mm, etc.  That makes sense if you're playing Gun Store Hero, but those distinctions aren't really important if you are playing basically anything else.  A level of specificity was applied to firearms and military equipment that wasn't applied to anything else.  They were balanced against one another, but not against anything else in the game world.

That strikes me as very insightful. Certainly when I read Dark Champions I wondered if anyone, any gamer at all, really needed that many pages worth of minutia about guns and ammunition.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary notes that Monster Hunter International talks about modifications for weapons that gain one half point of OCV...

[gewing]

That strikes me as very insightful. Certainly when I read Dark Champions I wondered I wondered if anyone, any gamer at all, really needed that many pages worth of minutia about guns and ammunition.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary notes that Monster Hunter International talks about modifications for weapons that gain one half point of OCV...

Yes.  

 

There should be some differences.  For instance, a .44 magnum generates around 2 times the energy of most .45 or 9mm loads, often a bit more.  

 

A .45, IMO should have a different effect than a 9mm.  Deciding how to do it, however...   2d6-1 is NOT imo the way to do so.   I thought the +1 stun was reasonable.   Though technically the .45 should be slightly worse against armor.  

[Christopher R Taylor]

When I built the weapon list for my Fantasy Hero game I did a lot of little tweaking on weapons to make them stand out but the raw base stats are often quite similar or the same. A 1 1/2d6 HKA with 12 strength min is that whether its an axe or a mace.  But if you put penetration on one or give it a different size, or make it slightly tougher, etc it can begin to stand out in an interesting way.  In some games that's fine.  I'd never care about that in a spy game or an old west game.  But weapons are pretty important to characters in Fantasy settings.

[gewing]

When I built the weapon list for my Fantasy Hero game I did a lot of little tweaking on weapons to make them stand out but the raw base stats are often quite similar or the same. A 1 1/2d6 HKA with 12 strength min is that whether its an axe or a mace.  But if you put penetration on one or give it a different size, or make it slightly tougher, etc it can begin to stand out in an interesting way.  In some games that's fine.  I'd never care about that in a spy game or an old west game.  But weapons are pretty important to characters in Fantasy settings.

I always felt the naginata had too high a str min.  IIRC 15...   I suspect the average Japanese woman of the Samurai Class was not over 100 lbs...

[L. Marcus]

The naginata evolved over time -- it started out as a means of killing horses and ended up as a domestic defense weapon. The STR Min 15 version I can see as the old school version, while the newer version has a STR Min of, say, 10 and drops a couple of Damage Classes.

[NuSoardGraphite]

That strikes me as very insightful. Certainly when I read Dark Champions I wondered I wondered if anyone, any gamer at all, really needed that many pages worth of minutia about guns and ammunition.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary notes that Monster Hunter International talks about modifications for weapons that gain one half point of OCV...

There were several of us on the message boards who promptly ignored Dark Champions and wrote up our own stuff.  We often collaborated on a lot of it.  When it boils down to it, pistols tend to range between 1D6 and 2D6.  Its actually pretty good.  You get "light", "Medium", "Heavy", and "Extra Heavy" damage models.  I personally think that's plenty of granularity giving you the ability to simulate something as light as a .22 Saturday Night Special or a large as a .50 Desert Eagle.

 

When used with Impairing/Disabling rules and Hit-locations, a .50 Desert Eagle is a pretty devastating weapon (7 body average damage, will almost always do an Impairing wound at the least.  Such a shot to the Head or Vitals is Disabling to all but the toughest opponents)

[NuSoardGraphite]

Yes.  

 

There should be some differences.  For instance, a .44 magnum generates around 2 times the energy of most .45 or 9mm loads, often a bit more.  

 

A .45, IMO should have a different effect than a 9mm.  Deciding how to do it, however...   2d6-1 is NOT imo the way to do so.   I thought the +1 stun was reasonable.   Though technically the .45 should be slightly worse against armor.  

I utilize a KE damage model.

 

up to 100j = 1DC

101-200j = 2DC

201-400j = 3DC

800j = 4DC

1600j = 5DC

3200j = 6DC

6400j = 7DC

12500j = 8DC

25kj = 9DC

etc...

 

A .38 Special is about 420 joules so comes in at 1D6+1k

A 9mm Luger is 470 joules, so still 4DC 1D6+1k.  As is .45ACP, .40 S&W and .357 Magnum.  Though the .357 Mag is at the top of the 4DC scale, so I might give it +1 Stun multiplier.

.44 Magnum jumps to 1400 joules!  So it is 5DC.

The .50AE and .454 Casul jump to 2000 and 2,600 joules respectively, so they are 6DC weapons.

 

You can carry this as far up as you want to.  The M1 Abrams 256 Rheinmetal (L55 version) has a muzzle energy of about 13 megajoules.  That's 19DC or 6D6+1K damage.  I would also rate the APFSDSDU rounds as Double AP.

 

To add, the KE of a 16" naval gun is around 412 megajoules.  That's 24DC or 8D6k.

 

You scale the armor to these damage models and things work out pretty well for military battles.

[procyon]

Which due to the unusual amount of downtime tonight, I can pull up and put a part of it here...

 

90 ft-lb (.22 Short, .22 LR handgun, .25 ACP)  1/2d6K

 

120 ft-lb (.22LR, .32ACP) 1d6-1K

 

180 ft-lb (.38 Spl, .380ACP, 9mm Mak, 8mm Nambu) 1d6K

 

375 ft-lb (9mm Para, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, .45 LC) 1d6+1K

 

750 ft-lb (.22 Hornet, .357 Mag, .30 Carbine, .41 Mag) 1 1/2d6K*

 

1200 ft-lb (.223/5.56, .44Mag, ) 2d6-1K**

 

1500 ft-lb (.454 Cas, .50 AE, .243Win, .30-30 Win, .308 Win, .45-70) 2d6K***

 

3000 ft-lb (.30-06, 8mm Mauser ) 2d6+1K

 

6000 ft-lb (.460 W Mag, .600 Nitro) 2 1/2d6K

 

12000 ft-lb (.50 BMG, 12.7x108) 3d6K

 

25000 ft-lb (14.5x114) 3d6+1K

 

50000 ft-lb (20x110) 3 1/2d6K

 

 

* .410 shotgun

 

** 20 ga shotgun

 

*** 12 ga shotgun

 

Standard for birdshot damage.  Buckshot get +2DC vs RR.  Slugs get +2DC vs RR and no RP.

Which means that most shotshells with buckshot have the same damage at range as the standard rules, without making them (essentially) close range elephant guns.

 

The ft-lb marks are general amounts.  A round very close may get bumped up, but the amounts are for the most part the minimum to get that level of damage.  Each DC represents a doubling of the amount of energy in the round (approx).

 

Ok, sorry for the multiple edits.

Also, some handgun rounds - when used in a rifle - will get moved down the chart one DC.  Like .357 Mag &.44 Mag rifles.  For them, longer barrels help.  But rounds like the 9mm, not so much.

Sounds a bit like ours that I posted over on the WWII weapons thread over on Dark Champions section.

They say that great minds run in the same channels.  Or fools think alike...

[Ndreare]

But killing damage versus living beings has a lot more to do with intangibles such as penetration and what the round does once it is in you.

 

The same force that allows that .45 ACP to punch a whole through a 2x4 will barely move your hand when firing it. The reason is the area the round distributes the energy over is miniscule less than a quarter of a square inch. While the grip in my hand distributes an equal and opposite force over three square inches.

 

Raw calculated force is simply not enough to represent what a round will do in real life or in fiction.

 

Some rounds have tons of penetrating potential because of deliberate armor piercing design and will blow right through your shoulder, while a hollow point or hydra shok will deliberately expand making even a .22 lethal.

 

I think if you simply go by joules, Newtons or got pounds you are missing out on do much.

[Ndreare]

Edited because my phone sucks.

[Ninja-Bear]

The bigger problem is really how the human body reacts to damage. People have been known to survive falls from three stories high and also die from falling on a treadmill. I read an article awhile ago where a doctor states that there are only two locations where getting shot is an instant kill. One is shooting the Aorta at the heart. The second I can't remeber. Other than that you can't guareentee that a shot person will stay down. And drugs don't have to be involved either, its the will thst can keep people attacking.

[Ninja-Bear]

This may be true, in the general sense. However that doesn't mean that the Hero standard is to have a separate writeup for everything in the world for each genre. Just because you might have to change something for one particular game, doesn't mean that you should have to change tank writeups for a supers game.

 

I mean, I have at least a dozen different versions of Superman on my computer. Each one follows a different design philosophy, a separate attempt to represent the character in a new way, or squeeze him into a particular point total. The power levels are all over the place, from animated series to Pre-Crisis butt-kicker. So obviously it's possible to represent things in many different ways in this game. I'm not going to tell someone that they can't adjust something for their campaign -- that's the whole point of the Hero system.

 

I think the problem with military equipment in the game is that you had a guy who loved his guns write them up. Each one had to have something to differentiate it from the one before, so you got some stat inflation. You couldn't have 1D6+1 RKA "pistol" anymore, you had to have a .38 differentiated from a .45, which had to also be different from a 9mm, etc. That makes sense if you're playing Gun Store Hero, but those distinctions aren't really important if you are playing basically anything else. A level of specificity was applied to firearms and military equipment that wasn't applied to anything else. They were balanced against one another, but not against anything else in the game world.

Actually Massey why noy have seperate write ups for tanks? Or at least custom disadvantages to enable tanks to be easier affected by super powers. We already have seperate write ups for weapons in heroic and superheroic games.

[Christopher R Taylor]

We already have seperate write ups for weapons in heroic and superheroic games. 

We do?  I see the same writeups in both.  The only difference is in the cost, since heroic uses strength minima etc.

 

One is shooting the Aorta at the heart. The second I can't remeber. 

 

Apricot, little spot at the base of your brain and spinal cord.  Snipers try for it because it not only kills, but it is such a total shut down of the nervous system, there's not even a twitch to pull a trigger, supposedly.  But you're right, the human body can be either amazingly durable or stupidly easy to kill.  People die from being punched and survive falling out of airplanes.

[pinecone]

Terminal velocity for what?  A 70-ton Abrams will have a higher terminal velocity than a sack of meat.

No it won't ...teminal velocity of anything is the same. The kinetic energy will be differant because the mass is differant.

[Chris Goodwin]

No it won't ...teminal velocity of anything is the same. The kinetic energy will be differant because the mass is differant.

 

Terminal velocity is based on density.  The terminal velocity of a feather is a lot less than the terminal velocity of an Abrams.

[Ndreare]

We are not in a vacuum. Only in a vacuum will acceleration be 32 feet per second per second.

We have to deal with air resistance. Terminal velocity will be when the air resistance preventing acceleration equals 1G. That will be determined by mass relative to resistance.

 

Do yourself a favor grab a balloon filed with air and a rock and drop them both off of your roof. Which one accelerates faster?

[Ninja-Bear]

We do? I see the same writeups in both. The only difference is in the cost, since heroic uses strength minima etc.

 

 

Apricot, little spot at the base of your brain and spinal cord. Snipers try for it because it not only kills, but it is such a total shut down of the nervous system, there's not even a twitch to pull a trigger, supposedly. But you're right, the human body can be either amazingly durable or stupidly easy to kill. People die from being punched and survive falling out of airplanes.

Depending on the edition yes sir!

Champions 4th has different write ups listing as superheroic or heroic and ninja hero 4th too. I know where you are going with the point that the base damage is the same however there are still problems using one build in another. To wit actually the sai is problematic to use from heroic to superheroic. The build is HA with the ranged advantaged which is legal as of fifth edition ONLY for heroic games however it is an illegal build for superheroic builds. Also as you stated heroic builds usually have toggles pulled such as STR min. and as we know this affects point costs which means unless your superheroic is using the same rules, the points not relevant and one must refigure the point costs. Is it insurmountable? Of course not. But to say that builds are universal across genres is not true unless you sit down and write it up with all the toggles the same for all genres and that would probably only work in ypur own game world. Btw I have no problem adjusting things for a specific genre. The more we discuss this the more im confussed as to why with the nature of Hero System as to think that equipmemt should be universal across genres. To me it makes less an and less sense.

[Ninja-Bear]

We do? I see the same writeups in both. The only difference is in the cost, since heroic uses strength minima etc.

 

 

Apricot, little spot at the base of your brain and spinal cord. Snipers try for it because it not only kills, but it is such a total shut down of the nervous system, there's not even a twitch to pull a trigger, supposedly. But you're right, the human body can be either amazingly durable or stupidly easy to kill. People die from being punched and survive falling out of airplanes.

Depending on the edition yes sir!

Champions 4th has different write ups listing as superheroic or heroic and ninja hero 4th too. I know where you are going with the point that the base damage is the same however there are still problems using one build in another. To wit actually the sai is problematic to use from heroic to superheroic. The build is HA with the ranged advantaged which is legal as of fifth edition ONLY for heroic games however it is an illegal build for superheroic builds. Also as you stated heroic builds usually have toggles pulled such as STR min. and as we know this affects point costs which means unless your superheroic is using the same rules, the points not relevant and one must refigure the point costs. Is it insurmountable? Of course not. But to say that builds are universal across genres is not true unless you sit down and write it up with all the toggles the same for all genres and that would probably only work in ypur own game world. Btw I have no problem adjusting things for a specific genre. The more we discuss this the more im confussed as to why with the nature of Hero System as to think that equipmemt should be universal across genres. To me it makes less an and less sense.

[Ninja-Bear]

We do? I see the same writeups in both. The only difference is in the cost, since heroic uses strength minima etc.

 

 

Apricot, little spot at the base of your brain and spinal cord. Snipers try for it because it not only kills, but it is such a total shut down of the nervous system, there's not even a twitch to pull a trigger, supposedly. But you're right, the human body can be either amazingly durable or stupidly easy to kill. People die from being punched and survive falling out of airplanes.

Depending on the edition yes sir!

Champions 4th has different write ups listing as superheroic or heroic and ninja hero 4th too. I know where you are going with the point that the base damage is the same however there are still problems using one build in another. To wit actually the sai is problematic to use from heroic to superheroic. The build is HA with the ranged advantaged which is legal as of fifth edition ONLY for heroic games however it is an illegal build for superheroic builds. Also as you stated heroic builds usually have toggles pulled such as STR min. and as we know this affects point costs which means unless your superheroic is using the same rules, the points not relevant and one must refigure the point costs. Is it insurmountable? Of course not. But to say that builds are universal across genres is not true unless you sit down and write it up with all the toggles the same for all genres and that would probably only work in ypur own game world. Btw I have no problem adjusting things for a specific genre. The more we discuss this the more im confussed as to why with the nature of Hero System as to think that equipmemt should be universal across genres. To me it makes less an and less sense.

[procyon]

But killing damage versus living beings has a lot more to do with intangibles such as penetration and what the round does once it is in you.

 

The same force that allows that .45 ACP to punch a whole through a 2x4 will barely move your hand when firing it. The reason is the area the round distributes the energy over is miniscule less than a quarter of a square inch. While the grip in my hand distributes an equal and opposite force over three square inches.

 

Raw calculated force is simply not enough to represent what a round will do in real life or in fiction.

 

Some rounds have tons of penetrating potential because of deliberate armor piercing design and will blow right through your shoulder, while a hollow point or hydra shok will deliberately expand making even a .22 lethal.

 

I think if you simply go by joules, Newtons or got pounds you are missing out on do much.

Hydra-Shok is just a brand of hollow points (HP).  Federal makes them.

And they never made any in .22 cal.  But there are lots of .22 HP's.  In .22LR, they don't tend to expand in living tissue.

But a .22 doesn't need to expand to be lethal.  It just needs to end up in something vital.

 

And modeling any real world weapon in a game is going to have issues.

Is the hole from a wide bladed butcher knife any less lethal than the hole poked in someone by a spearhead?  Most games will have the spear doing more damage, even though the wounds would be nearly identical.

 

But the amount of energy that the round expends is a decent benchmark for the damage it does.  Is it perfect - no.

But a high energy round, with all else equal, has the potential to do more work (energy is the potential to do work) on a target (ie, injure it) than a low energy round.  Will it create more injury - maybe. But that is what random rolls help with.

A .22LR might create a more lethal wound than a 5.56mm, the projectiles have the same diameter but the 5.56 having about 10x the energy (ie, in game the .22LR gets a max damage roll vs the 5.56 rolls minimum...).  But in general the 5.56 is going to create much more trauma.

 

The higher energy round, all else equal, will also have better capability to penetrate barriers.

So a .357 HP isn't going to punch through the same amount of material as a .50 BMG HP (and yes, there are 50 cal HP rounds...).

 

So is energy, as the defining quantity for damage of bullets, ideal?  No.

But it is easily measured.  Is a standard quantity.  And can give a benchmark for game use.

If you wanted to base your DC's of damage on penetration in a standardized medium, or on the total volume of the wound channel created in said medium - that would also be a valid way of addressing it.  It is just easier for me to come up with the energy of a round than to track down pentration test results.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Depending on the edition yes sir!

Champions 4th has different write ups listing as superheroic or heroic and ninja hero 4th too. I know where you are going with the point that the base damage is the same however there are still problems using one build in another. To wit actually the sai is problematic to use from heroic to superheroic. The build is HA with the ranged advantaged which is legal as of fifth edition ONLY for heroic games however it is an illegal build for superheroic builds.

That can easily be ignored. IMO, the book shouldnt be telling us what is legal and not legal. Especially because of its nature as a tool kit. The legality of various builds should be left up to each individual GMs for each individual campaign.

 

Also as you stated heroic builds usually have toggles pulled such as STR min. and as we know this affects point costs which means unless your superheroic is using the same rules, the points not relevant and one must refigure the point costs. Is it insurmountable? Of course not. But to say that builds are universal across genres is not true unless you sit down and write it up with all the toggles the same for all genres and that would probably only work in ypur own game world.

This is the secret. You adjust it to work best in your campaign for your groups play style. Thats the best part of Hero is that you can do this.

 

Btw I have no problem adjusting things for a specific genre. The more we discuss this the more im confussed as to why with the nature of Hero System as to think that equipmemt should be universal across genres. To me it makes less an and less sense.

I personally prefer equipment to be universal across genres. But thats just my personal preferrence. I will adjust the starting points, the active point limits etc as necessary to get the proper scale, rather than adhereing to the limits as dictated by the book, limits to which the published characters never adhere to anyway.

 

This way there is little question as to the benchmarks one must meet to acomplish one feat or another with your character. It also makes it easier for me to impose limits on characters based on thee needs of my campaign if everything is consistent and I only have to fammiliarize myself with one set of statistics.

[NuSoardGraphite]

But killing damage versus living beings has a lot more to do with intangibles such as penetration and what the round does once it is in you.

 

The same force that allows that .45 ACP to punch a whole through a 2x4 will barely move your hand when firing it. The reason is the area the round distributes the energy over is miniscule less than a quarter of a square inch. While the grip in my hand distributes an equal and opposite force over three square inches.

 

Raw calculated force is simply not enough to represent what a round will do in real life or in fiction.

 

Some rounds have tons of penetrating potential because of deliberate armor piercing design and will blow right through your shoulder, while a hollow point or hydra shok will deliberately expand making even a .22 lethal.

 

I think if you simply go by joules, Newtons or got pounds you are missing out on do much.

You have some very good points there. However I think you are approaching the problem from the wrong direction.

 

The KE damage model is based on the energy of the round causing damage. That is as straight forward as you can be. The rest of the equation is how the flesh is reacting to that energy. You are trying to put that on the damaage delivery medium and not the object being damaged.

 

I place that onus on the object being damaged, and thus I always use Hit Locations and often employ Impairing/Disabling and Bleeding rules.

 

Lets say we take a .50 Desert Eagle and shoot an unarmored man in the chest locstion. The man has 10 body and takes 7 body damage and 28 stun damage (modified by his PD of 4 down to 24 stun).

 

This is an Impairing wound. As the GM I will determine:

The round penetrated the right lung, causing it to collapse. The character is at -3 to all actions due to pain and difficulty breathing. They have lost thier Post Segment 12 Recovery till the wound is healed. (They must use a phase to recover). They are bleeding externally and internally taking 2d6 per Turn. They are stunned due to the effects of hydrostatic shock and the shock of having a lung punctured. They are barely conscious.

 

This is how I account for the effects of a round hitting the target. I only ever need to account for the KE because that dictates hownthe round interacts when it impacts materials. All the other specifics are handled by hit location and wound effects or equipment breakdown effects. (Body damage vs a Focus or Vehicle)

 

You only need to determine the body damage, then translate the game mechanics into dramatic effects to give the players a visual image of what happened when they shot the enemy. (Or when their characters are wounded)

[NuSoardGraphite]

As an extention to my post. About Hollow Point rounds. That is something th round is designed to do (expand to damage more flesh) so at that point, I will adjust the damage delivery medium. In the case of a Hollow point round, it gets +1 DC, but is Reduced Penetrating. Does extra damage to flesh, but shite against armor.

 

For AP I do something similar. -1DC to damage, but adds the AP advantage. But as far as the round "tumbling" or passing through the target completely, or fragmenting within the target, that is all determined by the damage roll. A low roll means it blew through without hitting anything vital. A medium damage roll means the round tumbled causing a larger wound. A high damage roll indicates the round shattered hitting a bone and deposited fragmente in multiple vital organs.

 

The possibilities are endless.

[Ndreare]

procyon: I am not sure you read my post correctly. Or perhaps I am not reading yours correctly.

 

NuSoardGraphite: you make some really good points, perhaps that is a better way of doing it. I will have to try it to be sure. Our games already tend to have a high lethality so I wonder if that would just be one step too far and my players will go mad and physically attack me. Who knows?