Deadman

On 7/3/2018 at 8:57 AM, RDU Neil said:

You are totally in line with what I was thinking, as I want PDWs to be effectively better than traditional SMGs (since all literature points to PDWs replacing SMGs for military applications, while close quarters and police stick with traditional SMG pistol rounds, because they don't want over penetration for the types of uses.)

 

Cool.

 

Now I have to look at PDWs and SMGs (and other autofire weapons) to balance realism and game play with autofire. Hero RAW doesn't allow autofire to be as effective/beneficial as it can be, because it is very unbalanced to have multiple attacks. At a more "realistic" level, I want some of that realism... the danger of facing automatic weapons, the desire to use them... which reflects real world firearms use. (Yes, autofire can be misused and waste a ton of ammo, but again, there is a reason that "more lead down range" is generally a good tactic.)

If you want Autofire to be more effective you can change it to Another Shot hitting for each 1 under the attack roll.  However this makes it very powerful so I would take care with it.  I would also suggest the following Advantage guidelines if you do so.  For a 2-shot AF it is a +1/2 Advantage, 3-shot AF is a +3/4 Advantage, 5-shot AF is a +1 Advantage and it is +1/2 for each doubling thereafter.

That would probably make it more effective (certainly more deadly) but as for real life it is something of a mixed bag.  I have shot many automatic weapons during my time in the military and in my experience handheld automatic weapons have something of a diminishing return.  Keeping an automatic weapon trained on a target is not an easy task due to recoil.  This makes sighting difficult as well.  If it were me I would institute a doubling of Range Mods on Automatic Weapons that are not mounted.  This is one of the reasons that the military instituted the 3-round burst on the M16A2 (another being ammunition conservation).  Personally speaking I am able to put all three rounds of a burst in a 3 inch pattern at 25 meters with an optic (I was using an EOTech 512 at the time).  the rounds rise a bit with each shot but it was about 3 inches from the center of the first to the center of the third.  Of course this is range conditions and not during actual battle.  Other than actual trained burst fire you have what is called "Spray and Pray".  That is when the shooter opens up on an area with fully automatic weapon fire.  This is very inaccurate generally speaking (but not nearly as bad as the RAW would suggest).  Trained machinegunners are taught to walk the fire into a target (tracer rounds are very helpful for this).

Now mounted automatic weapons can be extremely accurate and sustained fire could be devastating.  Even the bipod on the M249 SAW can allow a gunner to demolish a silhouette (or presumably a person) with many shots. 

If you decide to use it let us know how it goes.

I thought I would re-share some of the "drawings" that I am most proud of.  These either took an exorbitant amount of time, were particularly creative or just frickin' looked cool.

Thanks Cpt. but the kudos truly go to Jeff Hebert's Heromachine.  (Oh, now I get it.  I thought you were talking about my Superhuman ability to create characters

You know that I never realized before now that his costume actually makes a shamrock out of the belt, chest piece and head.

Here is a version of Shamrock I just whipped up.  I tried to stay true to the art in Classic Enemies.

On 7/4/2018 at 10:31 PM, archer said:

Fortress, the womanizing, size-shifting brick?

 

Is the womanizing power written up as a ranged transform? Or does he have to touch the victim?

Neither, it was done as a VPP for Contacts, Favors and Followers.  Called incidentally his "Little Black Book".

19 hours ago, RDU Neil said:

Hey there... wondering about your take on PDW ammunition, how to effectively represent it in game... as well as the actual availability of it in the real world.

 

Specifically...

 

FN 5.7x28mm

HK 4.6x30mm

6.5x25mm CBJ (seems impressive but really expensive and rare, especially the sabot round)

5.56x30mm MINSAS

etc.

 

Also... the effectiveness of "armor piercing" versions of standard pistol rounds... 9mm, .45ACP, etc. Do you think these should be full armor piercing (subtract the full body of damage rolled from non-hardened defenses) or light AP (subtract half the damage rolled from non-hardened armor).

 

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Personal Defense Weapons are in many cases shortened versions of Rifles or Carbines.  Some PDWs use the full sized rifle cartridge while others, like the ones that you mention have shorter rounds designed specifically for the weapon.  In the cases that you present the Muzzle Velocity is somewhat slower than the full rifle cartridge.  I would suggest putting the actual numbers into the formula and getting a Damage from there.  Due to the shape of most of the bullets and the relative high muzzle velocities I would say that they would act as rifle rounds.  After a lot of thought I am starting to lean toward using Semi Armor Piercing to represent rifles (rather than my stated adjustment of Body Armor).  It just seems to be cleaner and could easily be bought in the weapon itself.

For example here are some of the damages for the cartridges that you have up there.  I again use the FMJ numbers if possible.

FN 5.7x28mm - 1d6+1 Semi AP

HK 4.6x30mm - 1d6+d2 Semi AP

6.5x25mm CBJ - 1d6+d2 Full AP (depending on the actual round)

5.56x30mm MINSAS - 1 1/2d6 Semi AP

Actual availability varies widely but as you can probably imagine the full rifle cartridges are more readily available.  I wouldn't think that most of the others are available at your generic gun store.  You might want to assign an availability roll to each of them (the 6.5x25mm might have a 5-).  With some preparation they would be fine but are unlikely to find their ammo on others (another reason to stick with standard ammo).

As for Armor Piercing on pistol rounds, it would be full Armor Piercing but the DC may be a step lower.

Just my $.02,

T

I haven't put anything up in a while so I thought I would share a few more 4e favorites.

Icicle, Ogre, Half-Jack and Rainbow Archer

Okay I actually said that I would delve into Hard Body Armor.

In the Hero System there are essentially two ways for a character to buy personal Resistant Defenses.  The first is Resistant Protection and the second is the Resistant Advantage on native defenses.  Both of these options would essentially work the same way.  The Resistant Defense would protect vs. the BODY and STUN of the attack.  This means that if a character with 5 PD purchased an 8 PD/ED bullet resistant vest with Resistant Protection and was hit by an RKA that did 10 BODY and 30 STUN he would take 2 BODY and 17 STUN.  This takes into account that he gets his natural PD against the STUN because he has some Resistant Defenses.

In my opinion this represents Soft Body Armor rather well since the armor does not completely remove the energy of the bullet.  This means that some of the force still gets through in the form of STUN.  However, Hard Body Armor is a different animal altogether.  It does a far better job of absorbing the energy of the round because it spreads it over the entire area of the plate.  For this reason I would like to suggest using a different power to represent Hard Body Armor, Barrier.

The way that Barrier works is if attack does not fully penetrate the BODY of the Barrier no STUN is transferred to the other side.  Because of the rules regarding Barrier it will take some massaging to make it work but I think that it is worthwhile.

Here is how I would construct Level IV Ceramic Hard Trauma Plates.  Level III plates would not have Hardened. Steel plates would not be Ablative and may have Normal Mass making them more encumbering.

14CP - Trauma Plates - Level IV Ceramic:  Barrier 8 PD/8 ED, 2 BODY (up to 1m long, 1m tall, and 1/2m thick), BODY House Rule, Personal Defense (+0), Hardened (+1/4), Persistent (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (62 Active Points); Sectional Defenses (Covers Locations 10-12; 36.57%) (-1), OIF (-1/2), Ablative BODY Only (-1/2), Requires A Roll (11- roll; -1/2), Half Mass (-1/2), Real Armor (-1/4) 

A couple of notes regarding my build.  In my campaigns I have found that Barrier is not very balanced so I have instituted a couple of House Rules regarding it.  The first is that I double the cost of BODY.  This can be seen in the Custom Adder that I placed on the build "BODY House Rule".  The second is that the BODY cannot be bought to more than twice the Highest Defense.  This has no bearing on this build but I thought I would bring it up.  These House Rules help to balance Barrier at least from my perspective.  As you can see the cost is relatively high.  This is due primarily to the Advantages necessary to make it work (i.e. Persistant and Reduced Endurance).  I also include a +0 Advantage/Limitation on the build, "Personal Defense".  This Advantage/Limitation represents the fact that it doesn't cover the whole area, doesn't have to be bypassed by Indirect and the character can attack without penalty as well.  Since it has as many drawbacks as benefits I felt it is +0.

With this build any attack lower than 10 BODY would be bounced entirely (though they may take knockdown if you use it).  If an attack managed to penetrate you would subtract 10 points from the STUN total (BODY + DEF of the Barrier).

So let's put this all together...

Jim, a SWAT officer for HCPD, gets hit in the Chest by a Sniper using a .50 Barrett sniper rifle!  OUCH!!  Luckily Jim is wearing a Level IIIA vest with an additional Level IV Trauma Plate.  Jim's player rolls the Activation for his vest and makes the 13- roll.  Next he rolls the Activation for his Trauma Plate and gets a 9!  The bullet hit the Trauma Plate.  The attack does 13 BODY and 39 STUN (it has a +1 STUN Multiplier bonus).  Jim applies his Trauma Plate Defense first.  The attack pierces the Plate letting 3 BODY through.  Wow, that could have been so much worse.  Next he applies his Level IIIA Soft Body Armor.  The Soft Body Armor only gets half of its 9 DEF vs. the massive rifle round which comes to 5 DEF.  This is enough to stop the round from penetrating but 24 STUN still gets through.  Finally Jim subtracts his natural PD of 5 from the attack (since he has Resistant Defenses) for a total of 19 STUN taken.  3d6 are rolled resulting in 11 and when compared with the BODY Jim is knocked down.  The attack Stuns Jim and knocks him on his butt.  However, he takes no BODY from the attack.  His vest was compromised and against any further attacks he would have an Activation roll of 10- on the Trauma Plate.  Then there is the problem of him being Stunned and Prone while the attacker is still there....

I know, I know....guy gets hit by a .50 BMG round and not only survives but takes no BODY...B.S.!  Remember, this is a game and as realistic as I want it to be it isn't going to be perfect.  Let's just say that it was Cinematic, okay?

T

Here are my thoughts on Handgun Rounds.  The only one that differs significantly from Dark Champions is .45 ACP (which in my estimation is far overstated in the book).  This gives a really good starting range for Ammunition and can be adjusted from there.  As you can see I have not applied any Limitations so this is just the Base for each caliber mentioned.

13CP - .22 Long Rifle - 40gr Solid:  Killing Attack - Ranged 1d4 (Ammo Adjustment)

14CP - .25 ACP - 50gr FMJ:  Killing Attack - Ranged 1d6-1 (Ammo Adjustment)

15CP - .380 ACP - 90gr FMJ:  Killing Attack - Ranged 1d6

20CP - 9x19mm Parabellum - 124gr FMJ:  Killing Attack - Ranged 1d6+1

20CP - .38 Special - 147gr FMJ:  Killing Attack - Ranged 1d6+1

23CP - .40 S&W - 165gr FMJ:  Killing Attack - Ranged 1d6+d2 (Ammo Adjustment)

25CP - .45 ACP - 230gr FMJ:  Killing Attack - Ranged 1d6+1, +1 Increased STUN Multiplier (+1/4) (25 Active Points)

25CP - 10mm Auto - 180gr FMJ:  Killing Attack - Ranged 1 1/2d6

28CP - .357 Magnum - 125gr FMJ:  Killing Attack - Ranged 1d6+d4 (Ammo Adjustment)

36CP - .44 Magnum - 245gr FMJ:  Killing Attack - Ranged 2d6-1 (Ammo Adjustment), +1 Increased STUN Multiplier (+1/4) (36 Active Points)

37CP - .50 Action Express - 300gr FMJ:   2d6, +1 Increased STUN Multiplier (+1/4) (37 Active Points)

See my first post if you are having problems with the Damages.

T

Now I promised that I would do my next installment on Body Armor....

Modern Body Armor is difficult to realistically simulate in the Hero System.  Modern Body Armor essentially comes in two types; Soft and Hard.  Soft Body Armor is constructed using very strong fibers which are woven together into a vest or other garment.  I don't want to reinvent the wheel here so instead I am including the Armor Chart from 5e Dark Champions with some expansion.

So how does this all work?

First off I determine the Sectional Coverage.  This means I assign a percentage to each Hit Location and assign a Limitation based on  that.  For example if someone were wearing a standard vest it would cover at least a portion of Hit Locations 9-12 (Shoulders through Stomach).  Given those percentages I come up with the Limitation value.  In this case it would be 48.14% coverage or a -3/4 Limitation.  Personally I have a chart for this which I can post if you like.  Next I, more or less, determine the effective coverage of those locations.  In this case I determine that it covers roughly 80% of the protected areas for an additional -1/2 Limitation.  Then I apply those Limitations to Resistant Protection along with  Focus, Mass, Mobility and Real Armor Limitations to determine a cost.

A standard New Generation Kevlar Vest would look like this.

Kevlar Vest (KM2) - Level II:  Resistant Protection (8 PD/8 ED) (24 Active Points); Sectional Defense: Covers Hit Locations 9-12 48.14% (-3/4), Requires A Roll (13- roll; Must be made each Phase/use; -1/2), OIF (-1/2), Side Effects: -1 DCV/DEX Rolls, -2m Movement, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (-1/2), Half Mass (-1/2), Real Armor (-1/4)  Cost: 6CP

That's right, for the low, low price of 6 character points you are covered....  Well if you get hit in the Chest, Shoulder or Stomach...and roll a 13 or less.

Now a couple of things should be mentioned.  First, I am recommending an automatic limitation which comes with Real Armor.  Soft Body Armor only provides half of its Defense vs. Rifle rounds.  Second, you can see that I have added a Minor Side Effect.  Realistically Body Armor slows you down.  So to show that I have included a small penalty to the wearer.  This is to represent the bulk and weight of the armor.  While you don't need to do this it really does help keep your PCs from becoming walking Tanks.

That is it for now.  I will get into Hard Body Armor next...

T

53 minutes ago, Surrealone said:

 

I would actually argue that rifle rounds should be Penetrating, not Armor Piercing -- such that they ALWAYS do some BODY unless used against an Impenetrable target.  My thinking here is that it's Killing Damage we're talking about … so the point is doing BODY, not STUN … and a ballistic plate (within a plate carrier) would seem to represent the addition of an Impenetrable component to otherwise soft body armor.

 

I feel this is a simple and clean way to do rifle rounds -- because I don't see them as doing more STUN than pistol rounds … and with Armor Piercing they'd do more STUN.  Another option would be to do some kind of Armor Piercing that applies only to BODY … but that's close enough to Impenetrable that I just don't think the wheel needs to be reinvented.

While I can see some validity in this I would steer away from it as it would then require you to make all Walls, Vehicles and such that are too thick for a rifle round to penetrate, Impenetrable.  My feeling is that by staying with the prescribed body armor and incorporating the imposed limitation on Soft Body armor they will do some BODY on the majority of rolls.  While perhaps not entirely realistic it is in line with the feel of the game.

I tend to disagree.  Rifle rounds will do much more STUN than pistol rounds just based on their greater energy.  I also think that if something actually penetrates it would be more painful (i.e. more STUN) than something that doesn't.  In some cases (low STUN Multiplier rolls) you could get a through and through.  While on others you may hit something really important (bones, organs and such).  I guess RDU can get a better sense of this by playing it out.

3 hours ago, RDU Neil said:

It is the Soviet x39, which is more around 2100 joules, so not the full 7.62x51 NATO. In that case, it still isn't making the grade, but not as far off... only that AAC is more consistently at the 1800 joules range than standard 5.56 which tends to be 1750 or so.

 

And now I'm trying to figure out how realistically effective the steel core of the 7.62 Soviet is at making the round AP, or is it just increasing damage via fragmentation. Any thoughts on that?

My take on the .300 AAC Blackout is that there isn't really enough distinction to matter.  True, it has a heavier bullet with 125gr but the velocity is somewhat lower than a 5.56x45 (2215 fps vs. 2800 fps).  This results in a similar energy output (1840 for the Blackout, 1889 for the 5.56).  Now if you are talking about the Lehigh Defense round, it is much lighter at 78gr but much faster at 2800 fps.  Ultimately it ends up with about the same energy (1841 joules).  I would say that they both do the same damage (2d6k) and given the stopping power you may want to add +1 Stun Multiplier to it (the 5.56 has this to represent the tumbling aspect).

My thoughts on the new 7.62x39 BP round is that the steel core would give it at least Semi-Armor Piercing.  If you are using Semi Armor Piercing for all rifles bump it to Full Armor Piercing.  Other than that the ballistics of the original rounds would suggest perhaps a slight bump in DC (perhaps making the initial damage 2d6+1k). 

Unfortunately the answer isn't so easy.  Generally speaking rifles have higher velocity rounds but not always.  There are several High Velocity handgun rounds out there.  The distinction also takes into account the shape of the bullet, rifling and other factors.  Rather than try to apply some sort of cap on the velocity of handgun rounds I would just suggest going to Wikipedia for an overview.  Keep in mind that this list, while long, isn't even close to all encompassing.  The other thing to keep in mind is that there are pistols which fire rifle rounds and vice-versa.  That is why I don't worry about the weapon but go by the round for the distinction.

As for whether or not multiple rounds fired from the same rifle have different velocities...absolutely.  When a bullet is manufactured an effort is made to keep everything the same.  The reality is that not everything is always equal.  Now I doubt that the differences are entirely significant but they are there.  It could be caused by the propellant, primer, seating of the bullet in the casing or a number of other factors.

Regards,

Tom

1 hour ago, RDU Neil said:

I can see this, but as you stated in your own post, that makes AP Rifle rounds even more effective, as armor hardened with plates would have to be much higher in DEF. Granted, my way limits the ability to have "rifle rounds, light AP rifle rounds, full AP rifle rounds" etc.

 

So what would you rule is a kind of "light AP rifle round" compared to a normal rifle round and/or a full AP rifle round?  (Also, when you state "high velocity rifle round" you are basically saying that any long gun is high velocity compared to pistols, right? Or is it another category... rifle round, high velocity rifle round, light AP rifle round, high velocity light AP rifle round, etc.?? The latter seems WAY too confusing.

I would say that Reversed Ogive (THV) Rounds would be Semi-Armor Piercing, which I would say is a +1/4 Advantage.  Full Armor Piercing would be your Hardened Core Rounds designed specifically to pierce armor and would be a +1/2 Advantage.   As you mentioned Armor Piercing would pierce through the amount of defense dictated by the Damage Classes of the attack.  So a .22lr AP round really isn't of that much use as it would pierce only 2 points of resistant defense.  This is probably why most AP ammo are rifle rounds.

I am not saying that ANY long gun is a rifle or has high velocity.  I am basing this on the round itself.  As an example there are Lever Action Rifles out there that fire .45 Colt ammuntion out there which would be treated as handgun ammo.  Similarly most submachine guns fire handgun ammo (the M231 notwithstanding which fires 5.56mm).  So it is all based on the round not the firearm at all.  You also cannot define it strictly by Caliber.  .50 Action Express is a very different round than .50 BMG (the former being a very large handgun round and the latter being used in Sniper Rifles and Machineguns).  This is why I have to go back to the actual Energy delivered by that Round.  Thanks to the wonder of the internet all of this information is right at our fingertips.

Before some Smart Aleck decides to chime in with the fact that barrel length does affect muzzle velocity.  I will say that in the grand scheme of things it isn't enough to make that big of a difference.  I have heard a 25-75 fps per inch estimation over or under 22" depending on caliber.  Now this may seem like a lot but keep in mind that two "identical" barrels can easily vary by 100 fps.  Take a 230gr .45 ACP Round.  When fired from an M1911 the muzzle velocity is 830 fps.  When fired from the M1A1 Thompson Submachinegun the muzzle velocity increases to 950 fps.  If we plug this into our previous calculations we see that the difference is ~150 joules (477 vs. 625).  While this seems significant they both fit in the 4-5 DC range so while you could increase the damage slightly if fired from a long gun, I wouldn't bother with it.

I suppose you could put a small Aid on longer barrel weapons or add a Limitation to the round.  But even by my uber-realistic way of thinking this is more trouble than it is worth.

T

11 minutes ago, RDU Neil said:

I don't enjoy math and all the calculations and Joules and such, so I stay away from all that.

 

But on AP, I don't even know what the current RAW is, as I've always had the house rule that AP means "subtract Body rolled from non-hardened defense before applying"

Pretty simple. To make it a bit more crunchier (and I think you were on the thread I had about this), to address the "rifles penetrate better than pistols" piece, I simply made all long guns "Light AP" by default, meaning "subtract 1/2 Body rolled from non-hardened defense before applying"

 

In playtest, this worked really well. Guns vs. Level IIa body armor, plates adding +3 and making the whole amount "hardened" (how I interpret it anyway). Pistol shots often absorbed with a little stun getting through... no stun is transmitted if hardened armor in not penetrated. Light AP on .300 AAC Blackout vs. Level IIa meant an average roll of 8 body, -4 to 7 rPD, take 5 body... felt really good. Bullet penetrated, but not immediately lethal, where pistol rounds were stopped. High roll on 2d6+1 would mean all or nearly all of the armor was negated, and you'd get that occasional lethal blow through... but if round hit plate coverage, it was generally stopped cold, barring an exceptionally high roll.

 

Then you can get into the rounds being actually AP... subtracting FULL body rolled vs. armor, and that gets really lethal, very quickly, and plates are really important, but that also seems to word. (I generally follow the rule of "damage of standard round turned AP is now -1 DC... so .300 AAC would be 2d6AP, instead of 2d6+1 Light AP)

 

Somewhat crunchier, and plays very well, but not as specifically built to reflect actual ammunition tested velocities and such.

I hear you.  I am not a math wiz either.  However, I am laying the groundwork for what is to come.  See below for details.

I remember your thread and that is one of the reasons that I wanted to address this.  I did not include the "light armor piercing" because I am saving that for specific ammunition.  I felt that if it were stated as a function of Soft Body Armor it would  serve as a "House Rule" which could carry throughout the genre.

13 minutes ago, RDU Neil said:

As for your break out... which did not quote well here... I would never implement this level of detail in a game where you had to point buy your attacks. Those games are super games and such realism seems out of place to me... but in a Heroic level, more realistically based game, if someone wanted to go through every firearm in the book, and make charts of damage differences based on ammunition loads... I'd think about using that as reference... even though I doubt my game and players would be arguing about which ammunition types they were able to get.

What I plan on doing is exactly what you have eluded to.  Creating charts for various ammunition.  I am a bit of a nut for realism and I think that if players in DC games were presented with the various ammunition they could buy it would make it easier for everyone.  That is exactly why I needed the granular detail in the first post.  We'll see how far I get with it.

In the next post I will delve into Armor and how it works vs. firearms.

T

Just a quick FYI for all who didn't already know.  A bullet's mass is measured in Grains which is what the "gr" stands for in the example above.  Each grain equals about .065 Grams. 

As Zeropoint pointed out the Energy is equal to the Mass multiplied by the Velocity squared (for Joules the Mass must be in kilograms while the velocity is in meters per second) times 1/2.  This means that the Velocity of an object has a larger factor on its energy.  A baseball (.145kg) moving at 50mph (22.352 m/s) and hitting an object would have approximately 36 Joules of energy (~1d6).  If that baseball were moving at 1000mph (447.04 m/s) it would have approximately 14,500 Joules of energy (6d6).  Using these calculations we can easily determine that a 100mph fastball from a pitcher would have about 145 Joules and do about 2 1/2d6 of normal damage so you can see that doubling the Velocity essentially quadrupled its energy.  On the other hand if we doubled the mass of the baseball (.29kg) and kept it moving at 50mph it would have about 72 Joules of energy (~1 1/2d6).  This shows that the mass, when doubled, only doubles the energy.

T

Now on to the next point.  How to address the relative lack of penetration of Handgun Rounds when compared with Rifle Rounds.  My first thought was to adjust Armor Piercing and add it to Rifle Rounds.  While I will probably do this anyway since I don't think that Armor Piercing adequately represents what it does.  Meaning that I think that AP should be based on the attack rather than the Target's Defense.  But I digress, on to the subject at hand.

There are currently six levels of Body Armor (I, IIA, II, IIIA, III and IV) though technically Level I is no longer part of the standard.  The first 4 levels are available in Soft Body Armor as follows.

Given the damage that I posted previously the listed amounts will shut down all but the highest rolls and it is fairly easy to assume that the BODY damage that gets through is due to tissue trauma and internal organ damage.  The GM should adjudicate that the round doesn't actually penetrate.

The real problem becomes what to do about Rifle rounds which are much more effective against Soft Body Armor.  More so than the little BODY damage that would get through would indicate.  For this reason I think that as part of the Real Armor Limitation it should reflect that Soft Body Armor only has half of its stated value against High Velocity Rifle Rounds.  This could also be represented by an additional Limitation but my feeling is that it is unwarranted.  If the Rifle Round has Armor Piercing it would go against the modified Defense of the Armor.  Of course doing things this way would also mean that Hard Body Armor would need to be bought to a level that could stop the Rifle Rounds outright.  As I mentioned in another thread Hard Body Armor should be bought using Barrier rules which means that if none of the BODY gets through then no STUN is taken.  We'll go into that on my next post...

T

1 hour ago, Surrealone said:

Does it makes sense?  Yes
Does it do what you are setting out to do (giving further distinction to Killing Damage)? Yes

 

And now the question you didn't ask that should probably also be asked and answered:
Does it do what you are setting out to do (giving further distinction to Killing Damage) with enough material/meaningful distinction to warrant bothering?  No

I think that question was addressed with the statement "I know that this isn't really necessary".  Surrealone, you of anyone should know that I tweak things just because that is what I do.  Makes me feel better to have some pseudo-scientific way of explaining it.

I have been doing some thinking on Guns and Ammunition lately.  I've always liked the Dark Champions genre as I am something of a realism nut.  I did some deep digging into the Hero System Firearms damage tables (in Dark Champions 5e incidentally).  What I found was a more or less true correlation of Muzzle Energy to Damage Classes.  Each Damage Class is supposed to represent double the Energy (in Joules) of the previous.  This is fairly well represented in the table (with the occasional stray).  I was thinking of a way to further break down Damage to add some flavor to Firearms Damage Classes.  First I guess I should share my findings.

Now honestly the chart above does a passable job for the most part.  However, it is my opinion that the DCs could be broken down even more to differentiate damage.  According to the chart a 9mm and a .45 ACP round would do the same damage (though I guess you could make an argument for the .45 getting a +1 Stun Multiple and the 9mm not).  What I am proposing is really getting into the minutia of the issue but it will help define things a bit better IMHO.

The standard breakdown for Killing Damage is well known among this community 5 Points for 1 Pip, 10 Points for 1/2d6, 15 Points for 1d6.  Easy peasy right?  Well here is what I am proposing.

How this works should be pretty evident.  If you wanted to buy Double Tap 230gr .45 ACP ammunition (which has 639 J of Energy) you could call that a 23 Point RKA meaning a 1d6+d2 attack (it isn't actually adding 2 points to the damage but 1-2, it's just easier to annotate that way).  You would then apply all of your Limitations and Advantages.  In that vein, Remington 240gr Steel Jacketed Hollow Points in .44 Magnum (1,005 J of Energy) would be a 1d6+d4  (28 Points) due to the lower Energy of that specific ammunition. 

Now, before you say it...I know that this isn't really necessary.  My question is does it make sense and does it do what I am setting out to do (giving further distinction to Killing Damage)?

Next up I will tackle the Handgun/Rifle penetration argument.

T

I didn't read all of the replies so if my idea mirrors anyone else it is unintentional.  Why not use AoE: Line?  You could then make it Non-Selective which would show that you have to make an actual attack roll on each person that it hits.  With Indirect this would mean that you could start the line anywhere and have it go in any direction.  You could also incorporate Explosion to show that the first character loses velocity over the course of his travel.  A Limited Power Limitation could state that if the first character takes no Knockback (or not enough to reach the next in the line) that there is no damage.

My $.02,

I really like the premise of this and was looking at the Kickstarter yesterday.  Is there a reason that you aren't going to do Hero System conversions as others have done?  Even as a stretch goal it might garner you more supporters (including myself).  It sounds like it started as a Hero System campaign so I assume that you have the write-ups mostly done.

I am looking for someone to both play and GM in a Dark Champions campaign.  If I find the right person I would like to run a concurrent game with that person GMing my character while I GM his.  I don't want a group, this would be two solo adventures and we would trade off.  I am basing the campaign in Hudson City and while I want to use the 6th Ed. rules I also have a bunch of alternate rules and things I would like to incorporate along with that person's input.

Some of you may be familiar with my Hudson City Chaos Campaign from way back.  I have tons of characters, information and work done on this and would like to put them to use.  It is a High Powered Heroic game set in a highly Cinematic setting.  Characters do not have actual "Super Powers" but some Non-Powered Powers will be allowed.

If you have GMing experience and are interested in doing a VTT/Google Hangout game once a week or so, PM me and we will see if we can work something out.

You can check out my old site at http://www.deadmansdomain.com/campaigns.htm to get an idea of what I have in mind but keep in mind that it has not been updated for 6E.

I use MapTool for the VTT and Google Hangouts for Verbal Communication.  I have run several successful campaigns in this manner and it should work even better with only two people.

Thanks,

Tom

I may be a little late to the party here but my take on this would to construct Trauma Plates a little different than Soft Body Armor.  You see Soft Body Armor prevents penetration of the bullet but does not completely remove the Kinetic Energy.  As a result it actually makes perfect sense that Stun Damage gets through as there will be significant trauma to the tissue and perhaps organs beneath the armor.  This means that creating Soft Body Armor using Resistant Protection works.  On the other hand if using hard trauma plates (either ceramic or steel) the Kinetic Energy is effectively stopped if the round does not penetrate the plate (well realistically it isn't completely stopped but the chance of internal injury is far less).

I would suggest creating Trauma Plates using Barrier instead of Resistant Protection.  This way if the BODY damage does not get past the DEF/BODY of the plate it will do no STUN either.  This requires a bit of hand-waving with regard to RAW interpretation of Barrier.  Since it isn't really a full coverage Barrier shooting through it isn't required for example.

I have also incorporated a Sectional Defense Limitation in addition to Requires A Roll.  This means that when I create a Bullet Resistant Vest it would cover specific areas but since it doesn't fully cover them it also requires a roll to determine if the shot hit an area that wasn't covered within that area. 

Here is a quick example of my write up of a Level IV Ceramic Trauma Plate using Barrier.

Of course your mileage may vary...

Tom

Hello All,

I know that I should have probably put this in the Player Finder but since it is specifically for Dark Champions I figured I would put it here first.

I am looking for someone to both play and GM in a Dark Champions campaign.  If I find the right person I would like to run a concurrent game with that person GMing my character while I GM his.  I don't want a group, this would be two solo adventures and we would trade off.  I am basing the campaign in Hudson City and while I want to use the 6th Ed. rules I also have a bunch of alternate rules and things I would like to incorporate along with that person's input.

Some of you may be familiar with my Hudson City Chaos Campaign from way back.  I have tons of characters, information and work done on this and would like to put them to use.  It is a High Powered Heroic game set in a highly Cinematic setting.  Characters do not have actual "Super Powers" but some Non-Powered Powers will be allowed.

If you have GMing experience and are interested in doing a VTT/Google Hangout game once a week or so, PM me and we will see if we can work something out.

You can check out my old site at http://www.deadmansdomain.com/campaigns.htm to get an idea of what I have in mind but keep in mind that it has not been updated for 6E.

I use MapTool for the VTT and Google Hangouts for Verbal Communication.  I have run several successful campaigns in this manner and it should work even better with only two people.

Thanks,

Tom

Hi Again Dan,

I am working on a new Rules Template and want to add a fixed skill to the list.  The skill is Defensive Attack from the Advanced Players Guide.  I tried to copy Rapid Attack and just change the name but it doesn't show up on the Skill list.  I assume this is because it needs to be put in the Skill Container with an XMLID.  When I try to do that it is asking me for a CHARACTERISTIC_CHOICE.  I read through the HD_DOC and it reinforces that sentiment.  Is there any way for me to create a fixed skill and have it show up on the list?

TIA,

Deadman