From: PCHEM14@Zeus.unomaha.edu (FALL88)
Subject: Re: Hero System damage
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 19:21:05 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.11

In <1992Aug18.223255.5461@cco.caltech.edu> trip@cco.caltech.edu writes:

> PCHEM14@Zeus.unomaha.edu (FALL88) writes:
> 
> >Since weapon damage is world background, the tank defense/offense may
> >vary depending on whether you want supers to be able to confront tanks
> >directly or whether tanks are so potent that this is not possible.  At
> >20 DEF, a high point super may be able to confront it directly in a
> >brick-esque comic style.  At DEF 50, you'd have to be playing
> >characters way out of the intended realm of the game to confront it in
> >such a manner.  So it changes what supers are in the game world.
> 
> Verily. That's why they made the numbers so small: to have paranormals
> competitive with the military while keeping them on a scale related to
> normal humans. The numbers in the book are for the genre where
> paranormals routinely demolish buildings and rend tanks tread from
> tread. If you want a more 'realistic' game (as is appropriate for many
> of the heroic-level games), heavy weapons and armor need to be vastly
> upgraded. Multiplying the Def of all inanimate objects by 2 or 3
> wouldn't be out of line either.

Well, in the Heroic genre we definitely don't want people ripping up tanks,
but do we need DEF 50 to do that, or is 25-30 sufficient?  How much damage
can a Heroic level character do, anyway?

> >In a game where, say, 'Superman' has a resistant PD of 40, tanks
> >obviously don't have a 50, or even 40.  More like 25-30, if that.
> >Otherwise, we change what 'Superman' is.
> 
> Irrelevant aside:  I wouldn't assign Superman a PD, actually. I've
> always thought 'Invulnerability (tm)' should be bought as Desolid.
> Sure, you have to buy a lot of your other powers Affects Solid, but
> just writing bigger and bigger numbers on your character sheet always
> seems kind of tacky. ("I'm invulnerable: I have 42 PD & ED!" "Oh yah?
> Well, I'm more invulnerable than you because I have 97 PD & ED!")

I suppose.  It does create an absolute value, but I find it much more
game playable (assuming Superman as a PC) to just buy PD/ED up to high
brick-like levels.  After all, he is a brick/energy projector/speedster
(anything else?).

> >As to the implications of expanding the damage to tank guns being able
> >to damage 50 DEF tanks, this sounds like 16d6 killing attacks.  Pretty
> >hefty, leaves lots of space for handguns.  How much do we really want
> >stuff like that to do though?
> 
> Anyone who is at all on the same scale as human beings who is hit by a
> tank gun is going to be gone. 16d6 RKA => 56 Body average, which takes
> a normal to -30. This is a fair approximation of vaporized.

Well, yeah.  But I kinda think taking a normal to -15 or so is pretty
vaporized too.  And a few less dice will allow for a godsend low roll
simulating a 'lucky' hit that merely grazes, etc.  16d6 vs 8 BOD normal
(the stated average, I believe.  Heros are built on a base of 10 for
simplicity and to show that they are slightly better to start) equals
no possible survival even on a grazing shot...

> >Depends on your game, especially your house rules on how damage is
> >applied.  I choose to stick to an old 'sudden death' house rule, saying
> >that any attack that scores your BODY in a single hit kills you
> >outright. [...] If you use the existing .44 magnum (2d6 K, +1 stun x),
> >then you'll score an instant kill 42% of the time.  Make it so much as
> >2d6+1, and you expand it to 58%.  Anything past that is starting to get
> >to be simply too vicious, even by 'real world' type standards.
> 
> That's already too vicious. My understanding is that only about 20% of
> people shot with small arms actually croak, and most of them probably
> don't die instantly.

20% is for all firearms.  Remember this value, 42%, is for the class of
very heavy pistols only.  I don't know if I unearthed the data on .44 magnum
wounds if it would match this value, but it will be higher than 20%.  As
to the instand vs bleed to death, I have periodically worked on modifying
the sudden death rule to allow someone to be put into the position of bleeding
to death without being killed outright.  Currently, sudden death is 1.25 times
BODY, making it 10 BODY for a 8 BODY individual.  The total fatal wounds (42%)
doesn't change, but it allows some to bleed to death.  Again, how 'realistic'
is this?  I don't know, I only know that it should be more than 20% since we
are modeling a .44 magnum and not 'all firearms.'

> >However, if you don't have such a rule, or consider 10 BODY to be
> >average, or both, it gets more difficult.  With 10 BODY average people
> >and no sudden death rule, it becomes impossible to kill a normal with a
> >single shot from a .44 magnum without resorting to hit location rules
> >(which does not really help, because it just says you can't kill
> >someone with a shot to the chest).
> 
> Someone at 0 Body is mortally wounded, remember, and will die if not
> given medical attention PDQ. If you have rules for bleeding at positive
> Body (don't use the ones in the book; they suck), it's even easier.

Granted, you can bleed at positive BODY, but, believe it or not, I'm trying
to figure out simpler models for bleeding and death, not more complex ones.
That is one of the reasons why mutating the sudden death rules as above
bothers me.

> Note also that 'chest' is considered to be the miscellaneous muscle and
> lungs and whatnot. The heart is 'vitals'. This works fairly well: a
> shot through the lungs or diaphragm isn't going to be instantly fatal,
> but may do you in through blood loss, respiratory failure, or infection
> later.

Point well taken.  It could well work that way.  After all, Hero is the game
of special effect...

-james