Damage Cap for Realistic Weapons

[gilgamesh]

All,

 

I remember reading a rule a while back about "capping" damage, especially in realistic games, at 2x the base weapons damage.  To simulate that no matter how strong you are, you can't more than double the damage due to weight and size of the weapon limitations.  

 

Does anyone else remember where this is from?

[Ninja-Bear]

Why yes. (In fact there’s another thread talking about it.) it’s an old rule introduced in 2ed I think but has been around since I got into it in 4th. 6th now lets it be an optional rule though encouraged for “realistic”/Heroic rules, especially if the weapon has the real weapon modifier on it. Without it, an ogre lets say with 30 STR and picks up a sword for 1D6K with STR min 10 will do 2D6+1k (+4DC). The same sword in Giants hand which say 50 STR does 4DK+1 (+8 DC). With the rule, the swords maxes out at 2D6K.

[gilgamesh]

Thanks, Ninja.

[massey]

Just keep in mind that "realism" is a difficult goal, and subject to a lot of interpretation.  Characters in HERO have a lot of Body, and can buy it up even higher.  A guy with a 20 Body may not be realistic at all when you consider how many gunshots/sword stabs he can survive without medical treatment.  Sometimes it should be appropriate cinematically for a weapon to do much more damage than base x2.

 

 

[gilgamesh]

Yes, I typically limit it to 12-15 in my games.  

[Ninja-Bear]

Well on the flip side, Hero damage is intentionally does less damage as default cause it’s Cinematic by design.

[Sean Waters]

If we are talking realistic weapons then we are probably looking at a Heroic game and there are rules that allow for quite realistic damage, such as hit locations, disabling and bleeding rules.  Quite often gunshot or stab woulds are not instantly fatal but do kill because of bloodloss.  A bullet to the head is worth two to the chest (or something like that).

 

Massey points out that realism is a movable feast (I paraphrase), but most people would agree that a normal being shot or stabbed should have serious consequences, barring body armour.  On the flip-side, as Ninja-Bear points out, you don't want to have to rest up for a week every time there's a gunfight (I paraphrase).

 

The trick is to make the players feel their characters are genuinely threatened without requiring new character sheets every combat.  Unless, you know, they like that sort of thing.

[Zeropoint]

No one actually wants realistic damage results. Truly realistic damage wouldn't make dramatic sense. Phineas Gage took a six foot tamping rod through his brain and lived. More than one soldier has been shot through the heart and recovered fully. On the other hand, people have died from shock after getting hit with a bullet that didn't penetrate into their thoracic cavity, people die from simple slips and falls on a routine basis, and sometimes people die of an aneurysm with no warning at all. All the crazy medical stories you've ever heard are 100% realistic, because they're actually real, but players would feel cheated if they happened in their games.

 

"Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t." -- Mark Twain

[ScottishFox]

On 1/31/2020 at 2:04 PM, massey said:

Just keep in mind that "realism" is a difficult goal, and subject to a lot of interpretation.  Characters in HERO have a lot of Body, and can buy it up even higher.  A guy with a 20 Body may not be realistic at all when you consider how many gunshots/sword stabs he can survive without medical treatment.  Sometimes it should be appropriate cinematically for a weapon to do much more damage than base x2.

 

 

 

And yet with a battleaxe and a hit to the head or vitals a moderately athletic fellow (STR 15) can flatten him with a single 24 BOD wound that does 48-60 STUN.

[ScottishFox]

10 hours ago, Zeropoint said:

No one actually wants realistic damage results. Truly realistic damage wouldn't make dramatic sense. Phineas Gage took a six foot tamping rod through his brain and lived. More than one soldier has been shot through the heart and recovered fully. On the other hand, people have died from shock after getting hit with a bullet that didn't penetrate into their thoracic cavity, people die from simple slips and falls on a routine basis, and sometimes people die of an aneurysm with no warning at all. All the crazy medical stories you've ever heard are 100% realistic, because they're actually real, but players would feel cheated if they happened in their games.

 

"Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t." -- Mark Twain

 

A long time ago I saw this absolute bear of a man on a police heroes show.  He took 3 shots into the guy from a .38 and still managed to chase the crook down, subdue, and cuff him before being taken to the hospital for emergency surgery.

[mallet]

Sometimes it honestly feels like that in real life it all comes down to three things: base physical health, mental strength and luck. 

 

The base physical health plays a part in circulation, heart strength, etc... and helps prevent some of the secondary effects of injuries that kill people like shock, heart failure, rapid blood loss, clots, infection, etc...

The mental strength helps vs shock, panic, and fear. All of which can cause things like rapid blood loss, heart failure, etc...

And Luck, is just well, luck. A bullet 1" to the left and it is a kill shot, rather then a quick surgery and an over night stay in the hospital followed by meds to prevent infection. 

 

Most games do not work out damage in that way. Too many details and rolls needed. (Phoenix Command did an amazing job of taking care of the "luck" factor with their insanely detailed damage charts which also included how deep a bullet would go into the body and if it hit anything major. But anyone who has played that game (or especially Gm'd it knows how long combat took)).  

 

Body, Hit Points, etc... Allow for a generalization of all of those factors folded into one stat. Body and Hit Points can be seen as an over all mix of physical health, luck and mental strength to avoid dying from injuries while still being fun to play. 

 

Real Life damage is devastating to the body. Just watch an episode of Forged in Fire where they test a sword on a ballistic gel body and see how just one sword strike on an unarmored body (by a skilled, but not super strong attacker) can almost cut a person in half and would certainly kill with one blow. Not many people want to play a game that is that realistic. So in this case one could almost argue that allowing a weapon to do more then 2x damage would be more realistic and not less realistic. A sword strike by either a skilled fighter or a strong one, should be able to kill an unarmored person with a single solid hit to the chest.