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Grynning
2008-01-15, 04:20 AM
Something SurlySeraph said in another thread got me thinking about something that's bothered me for a long time about modern RPG's. Almost every modern-era based RPG out there does a terrible job of portraying firearms realistically, or even "cinematically." Usually they do less damage than they should (sometimes much less), are limited to very short range, and provide no significant advantage over bows, swords, and other archaic weapons that they replaced. I've especially noticed this in my current WOD campaign, but it also crops up in d20 modern, Mutants and Masterminds (but that system makes NO claims of realism), and especially Palladium, despite their efforts to research real firearms and provide cool descriptions and pictures. The only game that guns have actually proved useful in is my Call of Cthulu game, but I think that has more to do with the fact that people in that game are very frail compared to "adventurers" from other games.
Now I know that A) RPG's are rarely written by people who are experienced with firearms and B) realistic lethality would make tabletop RPG's extremely frustrating, as PC's would die or be crippled much more often. But it seems like a bit more effort could be placed into portraying the weapons that largely define modern combat, especially for games that claim to draw from real-life sources for their information.
Anyways, has anyone ever found a modern-era RPG that handled guns well? thanks, Gryn

Baxbart
2008-01-15, 04:25 AM
Now I know that A) RPG's are rarely written by people who are experienced with firearms and B) realistic lethality would make tabletop RPG's extremely frustrating, as PC's would die or be crippled much more often. But it seems like a bit more effort could be placed into portraying the weapons that largely define modern combat, especially for games that claim to draw from real-life sources for their information.
Anyways, has anyone ever found a modern-era RPG that handled guns well? thanks, Gryn

GURPS will cover you there. Get shot, and you're pretty much going to die, or bleed to death... or get infected by something unpleasant and wither away over several agonising days.... (This might be why I never play any modern GURPS games unless I'm allowed to wear lots of body armour).

d20 on the other hand is (usually) about cinematics and heroes... understandably the mechanics aren't really cut out to deal with lethal weapons that propel small pieces of metal at hundreds of feet per second.

I'd recommend going with something like GURPS. Its a bit of a pain to learn at first, but its definitely one of the most detailed and 'realistic' games out there - as I'm sure others will agree.

Talic
2008-01-15, 04:47 AM
Let's assume the average human in D&D doesn't exceed 2nd level, and has a con mod of +0.

That means, on average, a warrior will have 9hp, and a commoner will have 5.

A well aimed bowshot that strikes a sensitive spot will likely kill him. For the commoner, an average shot may.

Same applies to guns.

At levels where the equality of firearms vs bows has a real world correlation, they ARE equal in terms of damage. Lethal.

Bows have the advantage of silence, whereas guns have range, speed, and ease of firing. That's where the real advantages come into play.

Verruckt
2008-01-15, 05:03 AM
Let's assume the average human in D&D doesn't exceed 2nd level, and has a con mod of +0.

That means, on average, a warrior will have 9hp, and a commoner will have 5.

A well aimed bowshot that strikes a sensitive spot will likely kill him. For the commoner, an average shot may.

Same applies to guns.

At levels where the equality of firearms vs bows has a real world correlation, they ARE equal in terms of damage. Lethal.

Bows have the advantage of silence, whereas guns have range, speed, and ease of firing. That's where the real advantages come into play.

Guns have the advantage of killing people without a well aimed shot. A .50 Cal rifle takes off limbs outside of Princess Mononoke I have yet to see a bow do that. Realistic bows never penetrate to the degree that bullets can and do, nor are they capable of creating exit wounds several times the size of the entry wound.

A well aimed bow shot can kill a 9 hp warrior, a well aimed gun shot should be able to drop a 76 hp rhino in one shot, but it can't. Even with a critical hit for max damage with a 2d12 20mm Cannon that rhino keeps on moving.

Grynning
2008-01-15, 05:03 AM
The problem with Talic's argument is that firearms are extremely lethal, much more so than melee weapons and much harder to avoid than arrows. Many game systems explain the wealth of hit points and AC at higher levels to experience at dodging blows, being able to "roll" with impacts, etc. as well as overall physical toughness. This serves well when describing how a person in a melee battle is able to survive multiple "hits" from axes, swords, etc. But guns don't discriminate between a tough guy who's been around the world fighting evil and a normal guy on the street - one bullet has the potential to kill, its simply not possible for a human to in any way mitigate the consequences of being shot once it happens. Body armor helps against some weapons (though most rifles will penetrate it rather easily), but you simply can't be "tough" enough to not die from a bullet wound.
The only effective means of defense against gunfire is using cover and avoiding your enemies' lines of fire, which can only be accomplished through training. Even some cover is not effective, as the kinetic energy of many bullets will smash right through a lot of barriers that would stop an arrow or slower projectile (such as a shield or a plaster wall). Even the shrapnel from a bullet impact on nearby wood or concrete can kill you.
Once again, I don't want COMPLETELY realistic firearms in tabletop games, my point is simply that most games do not truly convey how effective they are as weapons and why they have almost completely replaced other personal weaponry in the modern world.

Edit: As an example, in d20 modern, a hit with a longsword swung by a really strong person has the same chance of hitting and killing a person (+5 to hit with 1d8+5 damage) than a .45 fired with same bonus at close range (+5 to hit with 2D6 damage). Both of these are assuming no special conditions or training beyond proficiency with the weapon. Now, if longswords and .45's were equally effective in real life, people would probably still use the swords to fight with, at least with equal frequency as the guns. They don't, obviously.
A fix for this may be to apply serious penalties to AC versus guns when you don't have cover, and to give guns a much higher critical strike range than melee weapons, at least for d20 games.

Sebastian
2008-01-15, 05:12 AM
In D20 Moden bows make 1 dice of damage, guns 2, it may don't look much but with the damage thresold rule of D20 modern it can count a lot. Beside IMO the real advantage of guns over arrow should not be in damage (to have a piece of wood stck in your body* should be as much damaging if not more than having a little piece of metal in it;) ) but in range, ease of aim, practicality (a gun is easier to bring around than a bow and arrows) and rate of fire.

*speaking of which somebody know of a system that handle bows realistically? Because when you are hit with an arrow it is suppoesd to remain in the wound, and someone had to pull it out, and pull it out should be a mess, and almost be as much as painful then when it entered. and yet I've to find even a single system that handle or even consider to handle that part of the thing.

Grynning
2008-01-15, 05:31 AM
Just to dispel some misconceptions people seem to have regarding the "arrow versus gun" argument above - a bullet doesn't kill you because it's a "little piece of metal" in your body. It kills you because that little piece of metal is carrying a tremendous amount of force when it impacts. Arrows may be bigger, but kinetic energy is a function of mass AND velocity, and they simply can't compete with a bullet in the velocity department. Also, an arrow's larger size and design limits its ability to penetrate through hard targets. Bullets don't have that problem. Remember, firearms are what made metal armor obsolete.
Not to say that arrows aren't extremely lethal, they are, but weighed versus guns, the gun is far superior in almost every respect.

Baxbart
2008-01-15, 05:34 AM
Indeed... blunt trauma can kill you through a vest (which is also reflected in GURPS :P) even if the kevlar stops the actual bullet. Its not hard to work out that even a small mass carries a massive amount of energy (that is transferred to you) at several hundred fps.

toysailor
2008-01-15, 06:03 AM
Honestly, damage from other sorts of weapons aren't terribly realistic either. If I roll maximum damage on a longsword for example - 8 - it should be indicative of a terrible wound. The maximum amount of carnage a 3ft blade can cause, if we want to be "realistic" about it, should be along the lines of a complete disembowelment. What about "Fireballs"? Shouldn't a great searing orb of preternatural fire cause some fatal first-degree burns, or even outright melt faces off?

Granted, the small-entry-big-exit impact of firearms like 5.56 rounds should be an insta-kill. Similarly, mortal men shouldn't be able to survive more than a single evisceration.

It all boils down to artistic license when deciding how many bullets can "graze harmlessly past" our plucky hero. It wouldn't be as fun if John McClane died shooting through himself to get the bad guy.

Grynning
2008-01-15, 06:09 AM
You are correct, any kind of combat in most RPG's is pretty safe compared to real life. Although fireballs are still pretty lethal compared to melee weapons (since they actually scale with level).

P.S. - I think you meant fatal third degree burns.

toysailor
2008-01-15, 06:33 AM
lol yea I get carried away with alliteration very easily.

Anyway, when I first started out DMing, the "realistic combat wounds" thing did bug me alot. I tried introducing different house rules on weapon damage, "bleeding" effects and even tried stuff like doing away with HP gains on level up. All I got were groups of frustrated players who kept dying and didn't really feel too heroic despite being "experienced adventurers from the harsh Northern winterlands".

So when we go back to the traditional rules, archaic weapon wounds could be accounted for with some descriptors. High AC = armour deflects most of the impact. High DEX = "through some fancy footwork, wily weaving and dastardy dodging, the rascally rogue turned what would have been a terrible belly-wound into a harmless nick on the arm".

Unfortunately, we can't keep that sort of thing up for firearms since one can only dodge that many bullets (unless of course, you are playing one particular Mister Anderson). It that sense, I agree with you that its really hard to keep firearms realistic in a RPG.

caden_varn
2008-01-15, 07:03 AM
The reason that early firearms took over from bows had more to do with ease of use than effectiveness. English longbowmen trained from a very early age, and there were laws requiring men of military age to practise daily. The strength needed to use the weapon effectively meant the upper body was so over-developed as to be deformed. In comparison, muskets were fairly easy to train men to use, and they did not need to be particularly strong. This made it easier to raise armies.

Back to the original question, I would personally not use d20 in a modern setting for that very reason. I think skill-based systems tend to get the lethality of guns better than level-based ones. If you want a good lethal system, the old version of Twilight 2000 (the percentile based one) worked well. Never played the d10 version, so I dunno what it was like.

Grynning
2008-01-15, 07:06 AM
I tend to believe it was ease of use combined with effectiveness, but anyways...
I'm unfamiliar with Twilight 2000. Is that a cyber-punk setting? and who published it?

kamikasei
2008-01-15, 07:20 AM
So when we go back to the traditional rules, archaic weapon wounds could be accounted for with some descriptors. High AC = armour deflects most of the impact. High DEX = "through some fancy footwork, wily weaving and dastardy dodging, the rascally rogue turned what would have been a terrible belly-wound into a harmless nick on the arm".

See, I would describe a miss that results from high DEX to AC as being a clear miss. A hit, if it doesn't do significant harm relative to your baseline HP, is what I'd class as "turning it into a harmless graze". It's certainly possible to survive multiple bullet wounds if the extent of the wound is a scratch or graze. "Aw man, bleedin' from the leg! ...It stings, but it makes me feel kinda cool."

Similarly for the issue of the 8 damage on a longsword - that's without rolling a critical, so it's automatically not the worst hit you could have gotten in. Further, if it doesn't knock someone into negatives or kill them outright, obviously it wasn't a gut-spilling evisceration of a strike. When someone has 100 hp vs 10, the same 4 damage will not represent the same wounds.

Jack_Simth
2008-01-15, 07:24 AM
(unless of course, you are playing one particular Mister Anderson)
"[His] name is Neo"

Seriously, though, make guns a touch attack and two fort saves. First for death, second for half of Xd6 (based on the weapon) damage (must pass both independently). Touch attack illustrates how bullets tend to go through most obstacles. Death illustrates bullet's lethality, Xd6 damage demo's massive injuries.

You don't get the crippling effects, but then, D&D doesn't model those anyway.

axraelshelm
2008-01-15, 07:26 AM
dragonstar done a very good job at firearms the power is right, it will hurt if you get shot but at low level you cant realy afford the bigger guns so you have that to look forward to then after the enchantment you can place on them guns becomes very powerful indeed

toysailor
2008-01-15, 07:36 AM
Similarly for the issue of the 8 damage on a longsword - that's without rolling a critical, so it's automatically not the worst hit you could have gotten in. Further, if it doesn't knock someone into negatives or kill them outright, obviously it wasn't a gut-spilling evisceration of a strike. When someone has 100 hp vs 10, the same 4 damage will not represent the same wounds.

I see what you mean - I think it was the 2nd ed PHB that mentioned higher hit points equate to battle survivability. An experienced fighter with tonnes of HP isn't necessarily tougher but he simply knows how to react when taking damage so that the worst of it is mitigated.

Nonetheless, its still a splinter in my foot because I can't get by the fact that the same 8 points of damage, which would have been evisceration to the 0-lvl peasant NPC, would only be a flesh wound to the lvl 10 fighter even if both characters aren't aware of the incoming-hit (i.e. all the experience counts for nought if someone is blindsided by a dagger thrust to the neck or something).

The 3rd ed tried to refine the rules by having coup de graces on prone targets. Still, one can make the case that the higher Fortitude saving throw against the coup de grace of the fighter would be unrealistic since, assuming similar constitution scores, his neck would be as tough as the peasant's neck to behead if both characters are held securely in place.

So after spending some time juggling with this issue, I thought that it would be meaningless to try to make things "realistic" to the point that it just makes the story dreary and boring to play out.

I can see where you guys are coming from though.

Neon Knight
2008-01-15, 07:39 AM
Don't forget that HP is a massive abstraction, representing a dozen different things such as physical toughness, luck, ability to dodge, etc. Just consider a bullet that hits but doesn't do enough damage to kill or incapacitate a close call miss or ricochet.

Also don't forget that modern body armor like the Army's Interceptor can supposedly take some upper level rifle rounds like the 7.62x51 NATO (albeit with plate inserts) and keep the guy behind the vest alive, if sorely bruised and wishing badly for some painkillers.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the effectiveness of modern weapons is actually somewhat debatable and controversial. Some will tell you the 5.56mm NATO is a lethal round, and others will describe it as inadequate and will tell you that a bigger, if slower moving round (Like the AK-47's 7.62x39mm) or a simple bigger, more powerful round (like the .30-06 or the 7.62x51 NATO mentioned earlier) is preferable.

Some think the 9mm is a perfect round for pistols and SMGs. Others think the larger .45 ACP is better and that the 9mm is inadequate.

Also, another thing to keep in mind that muskets did not cause armor to go away. The style of mass armies, cannons deployed as field artillery, and other factors were more likely causes. High end plate like the famous plate of Milan could stop musket rounds and keep the man behind alive, and supposedly effective body armor was worn up to the civil war, although it had to be purchased with a soldier's own funds and most people didn't have that sort of money.

I'd be willing to wager you could find moderately effective body armor right up until they perfected smokeless gunpowder, which has nearly 3 times the power of black powder with many other benefits.

Grynning
2008-01-15, 07:51 AM
While I am aware of the many debates within the firearm owning/using community over the effectiveness of various calibres and rounds, I imagine that most anyone would agree that firearms are, on the whole, effective and lethal weapons. The fact that there are many and varied opinions on which firearms are the best for particular situations does not negate their universal acceptance as the best personal weapon available. The one piece of advise regarding a fight I've heard echoed by law enforcement, military personnel and Guns & Ammo writers alike is this: Have a gun. Doesn't matter what kind of gun, just have a working firearm to defend yourself with.

I doubt that metal armor was seriously effective against musket and rifle fire for as long as you describe. I admit I have limited experience with black-powder weapons or muskets, but from what I have read it would seem that they negated armor fairly effectively. Crossbows and arbalests were able to penetrate breastplates and kill the man underneath, and as we've pointed out, bullet>bow or crossbow bolt. Any metal armor that could stop a bullet or even a musket ball would have been highly impractical, which is why nobody wore it past the late Renaissance.

Voyager_I
2008-01-15, 07:58 AM
Remember, this is a game where a five-foot sword weilded by the strongest man in the world does 2d6+6 damage. Damage is somewhat...scaled down.


Many game systems explain the wealth of hit points and AC at higher levels to experience at dodging blows, being able to "roll" with impacts, etc. as well as overall physical toughness. This serves well when describing how a person in a melee battle is able to survive multiple "hits" from axes, swords, etc. But guns don't discriminate between a tough guy who's been around the world fighting evil and a normal guy on the street - one bullet has the potential to kill, its simply not possible for a human to in any way mitigate the consequences of being shot once it happens.

Where does this come from? Unless we have several centuries of hypochondriacs with the ability to spontaneously generate small pieces of lead in various body parts, I was under the impression that people have been surviving getting shot for almost as long as we've been shooting each other.

Also, the potency of guns varies greatly with the time period. Archaic firearms were effective, but not necessarily better than bows. People tend to overestimate the power of both armor and firearms. Armor did not make you immune to clouds of arrows, and early firearms did not blow through plate like tinfoil. They lost power quickly over distance, and even at close range thickened suits of three-quarters and half-plate offered respectable protection. One shot from either could take you out of a battle, and trained archers had a much higher rate of fire. Guns, on the other hand, required much less experience to use effectively, especially given that aiming could be something of a moot point (the old saying was that killing one man required firing his weight in lead).

Lastly, while it's true that you can't dodge a bullet, that doesn't mean you can't be quick enough to hit the floor as soon as you see someone aiming at you.

I've been working on rules for Thirty Years War (1618-1648) era firearms, over here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66033).

Grynning
2008-01-15, 08:05 AM
Of course people can survive being shot, sometimes several times if there are no major organs or arteries hit. But it is more a matter of luck than anything else. Either way, though, in some RPG's you can get shot and the bullet has NO chance at all to kill you (as an earlier poster pointed out with the example of the 2D12 x2 crit of the 20mm cannon. That's not enough to kill a 10th level PC, even if you roll max damage. A 20 FREAKIN MM CANNON!)
Once again, my point is that guns in RPG's are not much more effective than bows and swords, which is more than a bit silly. I believe that games that incorporate guns should either have special rules for them or up their damage and to-hit bonuses to sufficiently reflect the advantages they offer.
Thanks for the link, I will read that over. Interesting project.

DeathQuaker
2008-01-15, 08:19 AM
Edit: As an example, in d20 modern, a hit with a longsword swung by a really strong person has the same chance of hitting and killing a person (+5 to hit with 1d8+5 damage) than a .45 fired with same bonus at close range (+5 to hit with 2D6 damage). Both of these are assuming no special conditions or training beyond proficiency with the weapon. Now, if longswords and .45's were equally effective in real life, people would probably still use the swords to fight with, at least with equal frequency as the guns. They don't, obviously.

If someone hits you with a longsword, they'll probably kill you, or hurt you pretty badly. Longswords are pretty freaking deadly weapons. The reason guns are more "effective" than swords is the damage done at range, and that they will pierce the kind of armor that once deflected (somewhat) a sword's swing (i.e., chain or plate). But modern armors are now also absorbing certain bullet strikes pretty well too.
(Pretty soon, we'll be back to fisticuffs. :smallwink: )

When looking at the gun rules in d20 Modern, a lot of times people forget the massive damage rules: that .45, if it does more than 10 damage, which is within its 2d6 damage range, is likely to kill the average human being in one shot (since the average human being's COnstitution is 10), regardless of how many hit points that person has (the Con 10 person doesn't have a good chance to make his save vs massive damage either).

That it takes more to kill a guy with a high Constitution is reflective of the "heroic" level of cinematics that the game tries to enforce.

kamikasei
2008-01-15, 08:23 AM
I see what you mean - I think it was the 2nd ed PHB that mentioned higher hit points equate to battle survivability. An experienced fighter with tonnes of HP isn't necessarily tougher but he simply knows how to react when taking damage so that the worst of it is mitigated.

Yup; there's a similar statement somewhere in, I believe, the PHB, though I don't think it's given more than a passing mention. Of course, it leads to believability issues when applied universally - there are some ways of taking damage that you just can't compensate for. Falling from a height, for example, should be just as damaging for everyone (relative to their survivability, not to the actual dice of damage), excepting special abilities to let you reduce/eliminate damage if you can roll or breakfall; you should not be able to jump off a cliff, do nothing to mitigate the fall, and reason that, well, it's max 20d6 and you've more than 120 hp, so...


Nonetheless, its still a splinter in my foot because I can't get by the fact that the same 8 points of damage, which would have been evisceration to the 0-lvl peasant NPC, would only be a flesh wound to the lvl 10 fighter even if both characters aren't aware of the incoming-hit (i.e. all the experience counts for nought if someone is blindsided by a dagger thrust to the neck or something).

Isn't this the sort of thing that wound/vitality points are supposed to represent, though? I could definitely see an argument for having flat-footed strikes going right to wound points, though that might be a bit overpowered. But I thought D20 Modern used that system, so shouldn't it be considerably easier to patch up the firearms issue thereby? Perhaps guns always deal wound damage to a flat-footed opponent, while opponents able to dodge who take damage that doesn't kill them are assumed to have, indeed, almost entirely dodged. Perhaps guns should make a touch attack and armor either converts the damage to vitality points or applies DR (so you may not have been killed, but your ribs are still broken). And so on... point being, the standard D&D 3.5 HP system shouldn't have to account for firearms entirely.

Crazy Scot
2008-01-15, 08:24 AM
I know this forum is mostly for D20 and D&D games, but since IMO they don't cover this topic too well I would recommend something else. If you wish to go for a more 'realistic' firearms game I would probably recommend Shadowrun.

Shadowrun is a futuristic d6 game that doesn't work with character levels, but with each 'job' you complete you get a little experience that you can use to improve yourself, your skills and such. Your health is two-fold (lethal and non-lethal, with 10 "boxes" of each) and when you run out of non-lethal it overflows into the lethal category. When you run out of lethal, you are down. One of your main attributes is your "Body" which determines how resilient you are, and you get some 'overflow' boxes of damage equal to your "Body", and when those are up, you are dead. This throws the hit point system of D&D out of the window, and makes everyone fairly equally susceptible to weapons (including firearms) depending upon how strong in body you are. If you have invested your experience into increasing your "Body", though, you are better at shruging off damage than others.

Weapon damage is also variable of course, and do more or less damage than others. If I remember correctly, the damage categories are: Light (1 box of damage), Moderate (3 boxes), Serious (6 boxes) and Deadly (10 boxes). Thus, if a weapon's attack code was 4M it would do Moderate damage as a base. The attacker rolls a number of d6s equal to the number of ranks of their skill in the relative weapon against a base target number of 4 or higher based on range, plus other situational modifiers. For every two successes the attacker rolls, they increase the damage category by one (for example: from Moderate to Serious). The defender would roll a number of dice equal to their Body against a target number given with the weapon (the damage code I gave above was 4M, thus the target number would be 4). If you are wearing bulletproof armor, it can reduce the target number by more. For every two successes that the defender rolls, they reduce the damage dealt by one category (for example: from Moderate to Light). If the defender gets enough successes to reduce the damage below light, they don't take any damage.

I know that this is a huge leap out into the unknown for most gamers as it is a completely different way of handling health and gaming, but of the different systems that I have played, this is the most 'realistic' that I have come across for firearms.

kamikasei
2008-01-15, 08:29 AM
But modern armors are now also absorbing certain bullet strikes pretty well too.
(Pretty soon, we'll be back to fisticuffs. :smallwink: )

The slow blade penetrates the shield. :smallwink:

Grynning
2008-01-15, 08:36 AM
I've heard good stuff about Shadowrun, it sounds similar to the White Wolf D10 system or the old West End d6 Star Wars rules (which I liked). I do tend to think that systems not based on hit points would work best for modern combat, or systems with limited hit points at least. However, some hit-point-less systems still suffer from severely underpowered firearms.
As much as a lot of people don't like it, the d20 vitality/wound points system is fairly realistic for resolving gunfire. Crits go straight to Wound points, which don't go up with level except via Con increases, so one bullet can end a fight. I think someone asked earlier if this is the default system for d20 modern, IIRC I do not believe it is, or at least every d20 modern game I've played in has not used it.

Ossian
2008-01-15, 08:42 AM
Off the top of my head, Iìd quote a few lines from the Talsorian Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. manual. That is, sometimes a small bullet in your foot will make you pass out and away, and other times the grunt will take 10 .32 shots before he goes down (the body eventually manages to tell the brain "Hey boss!You're dead. Go down and stay down"). Tissue damage, shock, pain and hemorrage are all factors.

So, my two cents are as follows:

Use the cyberpunk 2020 damage scale. It starts with knifes and clubns doing the good old 1d6, and swords at 1d8/2d6 (so, you should be familiar with that) and goes up and above
Small bullet? 1d6
Medium bullet 9mm? 2d6
Heavy bullet (10mm)?3d6
Very heavy bullet (11 or 12mm)?4d6

5.56? 5d6
7.62? 6d6 to 7d6
12.7x99? 7d6
Barret or other sniper weapon with impoverished uranium slugs? 4d10 - 6d10
Anti vehicle 14,7 shot? 7d10
It went up to a sweet 7d10 for each .30 browning vehicle mounted machinegun slug.

Increase threat range by 1. or make them all x3 (5.56 goes from 15 to 90 HP...urgh)

Give a +1 to all confirmation rolls per category (small .22 is +1 and browning is +10 by that rational. i.e. IF i hit you, it's most likely a crit, that is, one limb off!)

For firearms always use the DR variant from unearted arcana (that is, a AC 4 armor becomes a AC 2 and DR 2 armor, less effective when it comes to avoid being hit, but takes part of the momentum away)

Most important: confirmed CRITS by firearms always force you to pass a massive damage test (again, see unearthed arcana for details, it's on the d20srd.org).

For close combat firefights where people just squeeze triggers and hope, DODGE bonuses are denied unless the character is Fighting defensively or using Total defense. (choose one, either you and get shot at, or you don't shoot and perhaps avoid the bullets).

If your attack was not readied, you provoke an attack of opportunity from whoever was aiming in your direction (not necessarily at you).

If you add autofire, is that lethal enough?
O.:smallbiggrin:

random11
2008-01-15, 09:21 AM
Edit: As an example, in d20 modern, a hit with a longsword swung by a really strong person has the same chance of hitting and killing a person (+5 to hit with 1d8+5 damage) than a .45 fired with same bonus at close range (+5 to hit with 2D6 damage). Both of these are assuming no special conditions or training beyond proficiency with the weapon. Now, if longswords and .45's were equally effective in real life, people would probably still use the swords to fight with, at least with equal frequency as the guns. They don't, obviously.
A fix for this may be to apply serious penalties to AC versus guns when you don't have cover, and to give guns a much higher critical strike range than melee weapons, at least for d20 games.

The effectiveness of firearms is not so much in damage as it is in simplicity.

It requires certain skill to use a sword. If you are facing a skilled swordman, his fighting skills effects your chances of hitting him. So the basic goal is to become more skilled than the one in front of you in order to have a chance to defeat him (in game terms: levels)
Magic also has limitations of levels, according to the rules of most RPG games, the spells will become stronger with the character's level.

Firearms are a problem.
Their main advantage in real life is to allow complete rookies to do lethal damage with almost no training at all. Trained snipers can hit a coin from long distance, but to hit a regular target from average range hardly requires anything.
Also, since bullets are too fast to dodge (except in Hollywood), the skill of the opponent is almost meaningless.

Skills of advanced soldiers do not involve tricks that help you dodge bullets, but ways to avoid being shot at (camouflage, sneak...), so in a full scale combat that is so common in RPG games, the advanced soldier is not more effective than the guy standing next to him.

Valairn
2008-01-15, 09:24 AM
I tend to believe it was ease of use combined with effectiveness, but anyways...
I'm unfamiliar with Twilight 2000. Is that a cyber-punk setting? and who published it?

Firearms were not as useful as you might think at least at first. In fact they were so inaccurate that for a great deal of time after their invention, bows were still the preferred weapon, because you could actually hit what you were aiming at. Early firearms also suffered from power issues, unreliable mechanics, a reloading action that required a great deal more attention than a bow. In addition to this, a bow could fire a great deal many more arrows than a gun could shoot its "bullets." The English Longbow was an extremely effective weapon, and other bows were as well, to the point that archers were not phased out for a great deal of time after firearms were invented.

Firearms also required very very special care and attention, if it rained at any time during the march to the battle, most firearms would have been rendered completely useless, while a bow would not. Also guns backfired A LOT for a long time, in fact guns had a fairly regular backfire rate until the 1800's.

The reason the gun took over as the preffered weapon was for three primary reasons.

One, it was much easier to train someone to load a gun and fire it, and it did not require the lifetime of effort that a Longbow or regular bow required.

Two, significant improvements in the manufacturing of rifles and cannons created a situation where they were accurate "enough" (they still couldn't hit the broadside of a barn(exaggeration)) to be a weapon on a European battlefield. I make a specification of European because the Europeans had a number of religious and traditional reason for engaging in battle by lining up in straight lines and making big fat targets of themselves, because it was "honorable."

Third, there were a number of commanders who came up with rather ingenious tactics(especially at the time), that used the firearms strengths rather than expecting them to perform like bows, for instance one commander I know of used riflemen in conjunction with pikemen to kill heavily armored knights, they used the pikemen in order to create situation where the riflemen could close on their targets and get within an almost pointblank distance to reduce miss chances, and guarantee armor penetration.

Firearms were very very poor weapons for a very long time, and the difficulties that surrounded them made them difficult weapons to even get on the battlefield, much less use them effectively.

sikyon
2008-01-15, 09:27 AM
Indeed... blunt trauma can kill you through a vest (which is also reflected in GURPS :P) even if the kevlar stops the actual bullet. Its not hard to work out that even a small mass carries a massive amount of energy (that is transferred to you) at several hundred fps.

No, it cannot. What happens is that the kevlar vest stops the bullet after the vest pushes back into your body a number of inches. This will kill you.

A bullet does not carry that much kinetic energy. It has a very small mass, and while it may be traveling at high speeds, it is still a small amount of energy. Studies have shown that stuff like hydrostatic shock contribute little to a bullet's effectiveness.

Bullets kill through blood loss. Unless you get hit in the spine or the brain, you will die by bleeding out.

Arrows are more lethal against unarmored targets. Consider the size of the wound. BTW, arrows kill in a similar fashion. Through blood loss.

Now the main advantage a bullet has is that it can penetrate armor far more effectively. I'm talking muskets here. Modern firearms obviously have logistical advantages, accuracy, range, and penetration power.

HOWEVER:

If I could be hit by either a sword or shot with a gun, I would choose the gun. A sword will inflict more damage than a gun.. Especially in the hands of that huge Str 18 guy running around. It will take off a normal person's limbs with a solid hit. In contrast, a gunshot will cause them to bleed out but they can easily remain in fighting condition, as long as they can push past the pain.

And yes, a solid gunshot wound to the head will kill you. So will being decapitated.

You are not just "tough" if you are a hero. You are literally heroic. You can shrug off ordinary wounds, no matter if they are from a gun or a sword.

Grynning
2008-01-15, 09:40 AM
This has been somewhat sidetracked into a discussion on early firearms. Yes, I am quite well aware that firearms took time to develop into truly devastating weapons (although I maintain that many posters are downplaying the significant impact they made on the battlefield). Regardless, they are devastating weapons NOW and have supplanted other armaments almost completely. You don't bring obsolete weapons to gunfights and expect to live through them in the modern world, but many RPG's seem to support players doing just that, as the guns and the ancient weapons are pretty much equal, and the advantages of firearms are negated by game mechanics. In D20 modern a sword-wielding or even an unarmed character can charge through a hail of bullets and get HIT several times, and still survive and even win the fight. That is simply so out of line with reality that I feel the game needs major changes to the rules to be playable, and I have noticed a similar trend in other "Modern" era RPG's, and I am wondering if there have been any that treated firearms as the best weapons available rather than bows with a paint job.

Edit: In response to Silkyon - I disagree completely that arrows are more lethal than bullets. It's far easier to take a deer with a rifle than a bow, as you can fire through the shoulder blade to hit the heart. Similarly, a bullet causes a much larger wound channel overall because of it's higher energy and penetration, making the death from blood loss QUICKER.

sikyon
2008-01-15, 09:45 AM
In D20 modern a sword-wielding or even an unarmed character can charge through a hail of bullets and get HIT several times, and still survive and even win the fight. That is simply so out of line with reality that I feel the game needs major changes to the rules to be playable, and I have noticed a similar trend in other "Modern" era RPG's, and I am wondering if there have been any that treated firearms as the best weapons available rather than bows with a paint job.

Can that same character survive a hail of sword strikes and get HIT several times as well?

If so, then the system is consistent.

If a critical from a sword can't kill it, a critical from a gun can't kill it.

Project_Mayhem
2008-01-15, 09:49 AM
You are not just "tough" if you are a hero. You are literally heroic

That is a point - I believe no real person is meant to be much higher than lv 2 or 3? When you get around lv 10 or whatnot in D20 modern, you start being on par with Sin City's Marv, or someone.

Valairn
2008-01-15, 09:49 AM
Of course that fails to take into account that DnD is a game, made to represent Medieval combat, and firearms were included as a side note with balance in mind, rather than as a realistic representation of it. Well designed games will often times disagree with reality, for instance swinging a great axe 4 times in 6 seconds.... Firearms are hardly the worst offenders against reality, combat expertise for instance on a Dex 18 character can make 5 AoO's per round as well as their normal attack progression, which is just obscene, no one can swing a sword and do damage with it upwards of 10 times in 6 seconds.

DnD is a great game, it is a very very poor representation of reality, but that I think is why DnD works, because it doesn't represent reality it is actually a better way of telling "heroic" stories, which is the whole point anyway. If you want a gritty realistic game, their other "better" systems to represent that in.


Can that same character survive a hail of sword strikes and get HIT several times as well?

If so, then the system is consistent.

If a critical from a sword can't kill it, a critical from a gun can't kill it.

That pretty much sums it up.

Grynning
2008-01-15, 09:50 AM
As I stated in my original post, it is stated in most systems that hit points are an abstraction of several factors, generally involving deflecting and avoiding blows to make them less than lethal in addition to physical toughness. That's simply not possible to do against a bullet, therefore, they are more lethal than the sword.
And again, we are not really discussing D&D. I meant for this to be a discussion on modern-era games that include firearms as part of their repertoire by design. D20 Modern happens to be the one that most people here are familiar with, so it is being used as an example. Even a lot of those "gritty" settings people keep mentioning don't handle guns at all realistically, and still make melee more viable than it should be.

Sleet
2008-01-15, 09:59 AM
(resists urge to post on guns and armor obsolescence...)

I think most RPGs don't handle guns "realistically" because to many gamers one-shot-one-kill just isn't fun. Gunfights are arbitrary, random, and lethal; realistically, surviving RPG firearms combat should have little to do with your character's skill and a lot to do with dumb luck. That's not fun.

Firefights where survival does depend on your character's skill involve a whole lot of "Spend fifteen rounds hiding behind cover, pop up and fire a few shots of harassing fire, spend another five rounds moving to new cover..." That's not fun, either.

sikyon
2008-01-15, 10:00 AM
As I stated in my original post, it is stated in most systems that hit points are an abstraction of several factors, generally involving deflecting and avoiding blows to make them less than lethal in addition to physical toughness. That's simply not possible to do against a bullet, therefore, they are more lethal than the sword.
And again, we are not really discussing D&D. I meant for this to be a discussion on modern-era games that include firearms as part of their repertoire by design. D20 Modern happens to be the one that most people here are familiar with, so it is being used as an example.

Again, you are missing the point. It's not really "deflecting and avoiding". It's more like your "hero meter". As long as your "hero meter" is >0, you are fine. Do you think that it's possible to "deflect and avoid" some wizard shooting a bolt of lightning at you? No. You are confusing what hitpoints are. They are literally just hit points. They are not an abstraction of damage, they are not an abstraction of anything. They are just, freaking, hitpoints. Real life does not include anything like hitpoints.

Also, the original post mentioned that Call of Culuthu was the most realistic system, because the people in it die easy. That's exactly right. In real life, people die easy. That's why guns are so effective.

Yahzi
2008-01-15, 10:04 AM
If I could be hit by either a sword or shot with a gun, I would choose the gun. A sword will inflict more damage than a gun..
A .357 magnum has a 95% kill ratio. That mean a largish pistol round kills 95% of the people it hits in the torso on an average day.

No sword has that kind of lethality.

The problem with d20 and guns is not really the damage curve - a sword doing 1d8 and a gun doing 2d8 is fine for people with d4 hitpoints. The problem is that mechanic of increasing hitpoints by an entire die per level.

In Gurps, you start with 10 hps, and you finish with 18 if you're the toughest tough guy the universe has ever seen. In D&D you start with 4, and finish with 200.

No gun mechanic can ever make that spread make sense.

Grynning
2008-01-15, 10:08 AM
I'm not saying every shot should insta-kill a character, but every shot should have a chance to. The fact that hit point totals in D20 modern make it so characters can survive hits from anti-tank weaponry at high levels is beyond the scope of even the Hollywood films the game is inspired by. And again, bullets don't care about the physical strength, health, or agility of the people they hit - they are pretty much equally effective against all (unarmored) humans. That's hard to represent in a game, I know, but my point is simply that firearms should be much better weapons than they are in the majority of table-top RPG's (or even some video-game RPG's, come to think of it).

Edit: I think Yahzi just hit it on the head.

vrellum
2008-01-15, 10:11 AM
Have guns do con damage, maybe in addition to other damage. Allow armor to mitigate the con damage. In d20, con doesn't go up much so its easier to scale the damage of the gun.

Valairn
2008-01-15, 10:16 AM
A .357 magnum has a 95% kill ratio. That mean a largish pistol round kills 95% of the people it hits in the torso on an average day.

No sword has that kind of lethality.

The problem with d20 and guns is not really the damage curve - a sword doing 1d8 and a gun doing 2d8 is fine for people with d4 hitpoints. The problem is that mechanic of increasing hitpoints by an entire die per level.

In Gurps, you start with 10 hps, and you finish with 18 if you're the toughest tough guy the universe has ever seen. In D&D you start with 4, and finish with 200.

No gun mechanic can ever make that spread make sense.


Of course DnD has no verisimilitude as far as realism is concerned to begin with, so the fact that guns are not represented realistically is really not the issue. DnD doesn't represent guns accurately because it doesn't really represent anything accurately. But that's fine because in real life, people can't shape shift into a dragon.

Grynning
2008-01-15, 10:16 AM
You are confusing what hitpoints are. They are literally just hit points. They are not an abstraction of damage, they are not an abstraction of anything. They are just, freaking, hitpoints. Real life does not include anything like hitpoints.

If hit points aren't an abstraction of anything, why do fighters with high Con scores have more than Wizards? They're obviously meant to represent the persons health and vitality, or they wouldn't be based on physical ability. Also, by your argument, how do you explain getting HIT? The game uses the terms "hit" and "damage". That means the weapon impacts on your body and well, damages it. You can't say that all the times you get whacked in combat are just near misses that do nothing to you.

Edit: Again, Valairn, we are not talking about D&D. We are discussing modern RPG's, at this point D20 modern in particular. Magic and such have nothing to do with this.

sikyon
2008-01-15, 10:18 AM
A .357 magnum has a 95% kill ratio. That mean a largish pistol round kills 95% of the people it hits in the torso on an average day.

No sword has that kind of lethality.

You're going to tell me that if I put a sword through your chest, twist and pull out you won't bleed to death? Because that's how any bullet round will kill you. You don't get treated in time. If you get shot in the torso with a 0.357 magnum in a hospital, and it doesn't blow apart your heart, you'll probably survive. If you get immediate medical attention, most wounds are treatable. If not, many wounds are fatal.

Furthermore, this makes the .357 magnum a terrible weapon in a war. In war, the object is to wound your opponent so that he can no longer fight, but not kill him, because this causes more damage to the opposing side than just having a dead solider.



I'm not saying every shot should insta-kill a character, but every shot should have a chance to. The fact that hit point totals in D20 modern make it so characters can survive hits from anti-tank weaponry at high levels is beyond the scope of even the Hollywood films the game is inspired by. And again, bullets don't care about the physical strength, health, or agility of the people they hit - they are pretty much equally effective against all (unarmored) humans. That's hard to represent in a game, I know, but my point is simply that firearms should be much better weapons than they are in the majority of table-top RPG's (or even some video-game RPG's, come to think of it).


Bullets do care about physical health and agility. Physical health allows you to push past the basic bullet wound, that only causes a bleed. Agility allows you to move quickly most of the time and dodge the aim of your attacker. Not dodge the bullet, but make it difficult for the person aiming to hit you.

Furthermore, if a bullet has a chance to instant kill anyone, a sword or an arrow should too. A sword can take off limbs with a good sweep, or decapitate someone or pierce their heart. Bullets can do the same things, but with smaller wound channels.

SilentNight
2008-01-15, 10:19 AM
Try looking at the Black Powder Mage core class right here on GiTP. It's fairly balanced and can stand up to a melee fighter pretty easily.

Valairn
2008-01-15, 10:21 AM
If hit points aren't an abstraction of anything, why do fighters with high Con scores have more than Wizards? They're obviously meant to represent the persons health and vitality, or they wouldn't be based on physical ability. Also, by your argument, how do you explain getting HIT? The game uses the terms "hit" and "damage". That means the weapon impacts on your body and well, damages it. You can't say that all the times you get whacked in combat are just near misses that do nothing to you.

Edit: Again, Valairn, we are not talking about D&D. We are discussing modern RPG's, at this point D20 modern in particular. Magic and such have nothing to do with this.

Its easy, because in DnD anyone above level 2 is verging on super genius/amazing combatant or whatever. By level 6 we are talking pretty much demi-god level as far as what that character can accomplish compared to the standard human. By level 11, we have shifted so far away from reality, comparisons to it don't even make sense, and by level 20 we have people that can shapeshift into dragons, stop time, dodge fire in an enclosed space, resist the effects of a meteors falling on them, and otherwise do completely silly crap. But that's the whole point of DnD, its magic and its a game. It isn't meant to be accurate to reality, and that is a GOOD thing.

EDIT: Didn't notice your edit, but D20 mechanics are actually DnD mechanics, and are built from the same system, I think the comparisons apply in this regard. As far as RPG's are concerned, most of them are designed around heroic story telling, and the same silliness has a tendency to apply as well.

sikyon
2008-01-15, 10:22 AM
If hit points aren't an abstraction of anything, why do fighters with high Con scores have more than Wizards? They're obviously meant to represent the persons health and vitality, or they wouldn't be based on physical ability. Also, by your argument, how do you explain getting HIT? The game uses the terms "hit" and "damage". That means the weapon impacts on your body and well, damages it. You can't say that all the times you get whacked in combat are just near misses that do nothing to you.

Edit: Again, Valairn, we are not talking about D&D. We are discussing modern RPG's, at this point D20 modern in particular. Magic and such have nothing to do with this.

Sorry, Hit points are an abstraction of health and vitality. But when you have 1 hit point, you're really not any less healthy than when you have 100 hit points. You function exactly the same. So unless you are playing with a system where having 1 hit points out of 100 means that you only do 1/100 of the damage normally or something like that, then they really are not accurate.

I reiterate, getting hit with a sword is more damaging than getting hit with a bullet. Just think about the sizes of the two weapons, and the wounds the two will create. A sword will cause a larger wound than a bullet.

Grynning
2008-01-15, 10:29 AM
So, Silkyon, by what you're saying, you have a better, or at least equal, chance of surviving a fight with someone who has 6 shots in a revolver than someone holding a sword? That's...somewhat foolish...
And "push past a bullet wound that only causes a bleed?" Are you serious? Adrenaline and PCP can do that, but I'm sorry, high Con score or not, a bullet wound is a serious injury, and the physical shape you are in does not have that much effect on your chances of surviving one.
I apologize for sounding snarky, but this kind of thinking seems to be at the root of the problem I see with the portrayal of firearms in games.

Edit: Yes, a sword will cause a larger wound than a bullet (well, than a small calibre bullet) if it lands accurately. However, what I was saying earlier is that the only explanation for high hit points that allow you to survive melee is the improvement of your fighting skills to turn aside lethal blows and take the beatings of a melee fight. It is much easier to land a lethal shot with a bullet, and a bullet negates any advantage a fighter has over a commoner (to use D&D terms).

sikyon
2008-01-15, 10:34 AM
So, Silkyon, by what you're saying, you have a better, or at least equal, chance of surviving a fight with someone who has 6 shots in a revolver than someone holding a sword? That's...somewhat foolish...
And "push past a bullet wound that only causes a bleed?" Are you serious? Adrenaline and PCP can do that, but I'm sorry, high Con score or not, a bullet wound is a serious injury, and the physical shape you are in does not have that much effect on your chances of surviving one.
I apologize for sounding snarky, but this kind of thinking seems to be at the root of the problem I see with the portrayal of firearms in games.

No, what you are seeing is the portrayal of firearms in movies. "1 shot, oh no, I'm dead." Bullets don't work that way. They kill through blood loss, nothing more. Most soilders hit by rounds can't fight anymore because it's damn painful, but they don't die either. Bullets don't shock you into unconsciousness unless you let them, bullets don't knock you down unless you imagine that they do, and bullets don't kill you in one hit unless they smack your head.

And yes, I would rather have a sword than a 6 round revolver in a fight if I were higher than level 5. Because at level 5, if both of us had swords, I could let him chop me a few times and I'd probably still be alive and fighting. But comparatively speaking 6 rounds into me would probably do less damage than being gutted by a sword.

But if I'm at level 1, what's important isn't even the damage that revolver does. It's the fact that I get first shot with it. First shot wins in real life. If I had to pick either a sword, but I could swing first, or a revolver, but I shoot second, then I would absolutely pick the sword.

Edit: In response to your edit, I say that hit points are not an abstraction of how much health you have left, because you suffer no ill concequences to your own abilities when you are "heavily wounded". Therefore, they are more like an abstraction of your "heroic meter". When you have 100 HP compared to a 5 HP person, it's like you have all the vitality of a whale packed into your personal frame. A couple of bullets won't kill a whale, and a couple of sword strikes won't do that either.

Grynning
2008-01-15, 10:42 AM
1 shot does not equal "oh no, I'm dead" every time, you are correct. However, the probability of death from a bullet wound to the torso is most likely greater than that of a sword cut or thrust. Why? With the sword there is more margin for error, because the sword is entirely controlled by the person swinging it, and depends greatly on their skill at wielding it to be lethal. Firearms, every hit to center mass (which most competent shooters could deliver at, say, 5 yards, or even closer in the "gun vs. sword scenario" - guns don't need room to swing, you can shoot someone closer than you can hit them with a sword) has a similar probability to kill.
Again, there is a reason that even the skilled warriors of today use guns - they are the best weapon for the job. Otherwise our Special Forces guys would all use Greatswords with the Power Attack feat, by your logic.

Yahzi
2008-01-15, 10:46 AM
You're going to tell me that if I put a sword through your chest, twist and pull out you won't bleed to death? Because that's how any bullet round will kill you. You don't get treated in time. If you get shot in the torso with a 0.357 magnum in a hospital, and it doesn't blow apart your heart, you'll probably survive. If you get immediate medical attention, most wounds are treatable.
See, this is the part you don't understand.

The short answer is "no." Many wounds are fatal regardless of whether you got shot in the foyer of the Mayo clinic.

The second problem is you're comparing an excellent sword-stroke with an average gun-shot.


Furthermore, this makes the .357 magnum a terrible weapon in a war.
Can you name any modern armies that use this round?

Instead, most use the 5.56mm, which is several times more powerful than the .357. Because as much as it is nice to wound the enemy, you really want them to stop shooting at you right now.

Also, a mechanic D&D simply ignores in favor of simplicity, is that all ranged weapons lose power with distance. A 12-gauge shotgun at 10 feet will almost certainly kill you, while the same round at 100 feet may fail to do any significant damage.


Bullets can do the same things, but with smaller wound channels.
As others have pointed out, no. The wound channel from a hollow-point .357 round is much, much worse than the wound channel from a sword.

Yahzi
2008-01-15, 10:50 AM
I reiterate, getting hit with a sword is more damaging than getting hit with a bullet. Just think about the sizes of the two weapons, and the wounds the two will create. A sword will cause a larger wound than a bullet.
No, it won't.

Just think about the energy involved in the two attacks. A .357 will crack an engine block. Good luck doing that with a sledgehammer, let alone a sword.

For your edification, I present the following formula: F = 1/2MA(2). That is, Force = one-half of mass times the velocity of that mass squared. Double the size of your weapon, double the power of its attack. Double the speed of your weapon, quadruple the power of its attack.

Physics FTW! :smallbiggrin:

sikyon
2008-01-15, 10:51 AM
Again, there is a reason that even the skilled warriors of today use guns - they are the best weapon for the job. Otherwise our Special Forces guys would all use Greatswords with the Power Attack feat, by your logic.

They use guns because of range, accuracy and armor penetration. That's it. Guns can shoot far, guns are accurate when they shoot far, and they can get through armor when they shoot far. Special forces would use greatswords with power attack if they had 50 HP. But like the rest of us, they only have about 5 so first hit wins. That's why guns win. First hit wins in real life. But D20 isn't real life.



The short answer is "no." Many wounds are fatal regardless of whether you got shot in the foyer of the Mayo clinic.

Many wounds are fatal, sure. But not most.



The second problem is you're comparing an excellent sword-stroke with an average gun-shot.


No I'm not. I'm comparing a good sword-stroke with a good gun-shot. Torso hits are good hits. Limb hits are more average. Head hits are critical.



Instead, most use the 5.56mm, which is several times more powerful than the .357. Because as much as it is nice to wound the enemy, you really want them to stop shooting at you right now.

Uhhh no. 5.56mm is used because of the armor penetration properties. Furthermore, it does wound as well, instead of kill. And yes, if you wound your opponent they will stop shooting. You don't need to kill an average person to stop them from shooting at you, you just have to wound them. Pain/blood loss will do the rest.



As others have pointed out, no. The wound channel from a hollow-point .357 round is much, much worse than the wound channel from a sword.

Evidence please. I find this hard to believe given the size of the respective weapons.

Cybren
2008-01-15, 10:52 AM
Guns are also not quite as lethal as people make them out to be (And, on that matter, GURPS is not quite as lethal as people make it out to be).

High level play in d20 games is not meant to be realistic. For that matter, low level play isn't either. I'm given to understand Aces and Eights has some nice firearms rules, but i've never read it.

Indon
2008-01-15, 10:54 AM
A .357 magnum has a 95% kill ratio. That mean a largish pistol round kills 95% of the people it hits in the torso on an average day.

No sword has that kind of lethality.

The problem with d20 and guns is not really the damage curve - a sword doing 1d8 and a gun doing 2d8 is fine for people with d4 hitpoints. The problem is that mechanic of increasing hitpoints by an entire die per level.

As you point out, hit points are the problem. A 2d6 weapon is going to be lethal for most normal people, while a 1d6 weapon in the hands of an average person, while dangerous, is not immediate doom if you're wounded.

Of course, there's something else to bear in mind:

-D&D melee weapon users are disproportionately strong in relation to, well, real people.

Your strength determines your light load - the amount of weight you can carry essentially without effort or hindrance. For a character with 10 strength, that's something like 25 pounds if I recall - about the size of a heavy backpack. For a character with 20 strength, this is about 100 pounds (every +10 strength is a times 4 multiplier for weight capacity).

A half-orc can start the game capable of carrying 100 pounds like you carry a grocery bag. He can carry 200 pounds like you would carry a TV. He can move your car like you can move your couch.

He's going to deal more damage than a gun with just about anything. In fact, he may well deal more damage with a magnum by pistol-whipping you with it than by actually shooting you (though realistically, he'll break the gun).

So another big factor is that people with swords in the D&D universe are basically all He-Man power-lifters. These people simply have less need for ranged weapons than normal people do.

Grynning
2008-01-15, 11:01 AM
As Yahzi points out in his physics example above, even someone with the incredible strength you describe cannot match the energy carried by a bullet. The strongest character in D&D cannot apply several hundred joules of force to a concentrated area like a rifle or even a pistol round can. This discussion, in a way, is supporting my point, in that RPG's are based on gross misconceptions about firearms, physics, and weaponry.

Sticking with the example of the .357: a typical load:
Bullet weight:158 gr (10.2 g) JSP
Velocity: 1,240 ft/s (380 m/s)
Energy: 539 ft·lbf (731 J)

Kioran
2008-01-15, 11:09 AM
Swords are appalingly effective against unarmored targets, probably moreso than most bullets. With bullets you have a wide variety of effects, depending entirely on the bullet in question:

a) small calibre pistol bullets (0.22 inch, 7.63*17mm, perhaps 9*19mm Parabellum): These are painful, and can kill people, but usually do not unless they hit luckily or the wounds are not treated. Numerous people have survived being shot with these, and yes, they are less effective than sword strikes by an able swordfighter. They do pack somewhere between 250 and 500 Joules of energy, which is, in most cases, still more than a bow does btw.

b) large calibre Pistol rounds (0.357 or 0.44 Magnum, 0.45 ACP, 0.50 AE and similiar, or the Mauser C96s 9mmx29mm). Very popular in the U.S., moreso than anywhere else in the world, and quite lethal at short range against unarmored targets. In your normal gunfight, these things kill. Being hit with these is about as bad as getting hit by a sword. Survivable, but rarely so, and requires medical attention. They do rip such fierce wounds because they travel at low speeds and are soft, thus deforming quite a lot before exiting, using a high percentage of their energy to pulp the target. However, that is also the reason they do rarely penetrate powerful body armor, despite having twice the energy of smaller pistol rounds

c) small calibre Rifle rounds (5.56*45mm NATO, 5.45*39mm for example). Despite carrying even more energy than any pistol round (Yeah Pistols, suck it! That is the difference between a V0 of 350m/s and 850 m/s), they are actually less threatening. The bullets of an M16 splinter on impact at under 50 meters, the russian one tips over and spins in the wound if it hits unluckily. Still, both could just penetrate the target, blowing through with most of their energy. Deadly, but not so much so.....

d) large Calibre Rifles (7.62*51mm NATO, 7.92*57mm IS). Holy moly. More than 3000 Joules, several times more than a bow. They are also highly deadly. Don´t get hit by them. They were not put out of service becuase they were to ineffective, quite to the contrary - their introduction was meant to compensate for poorer training of the soldiers during the Vietnam War, including the south viatnamese allies. The old, high calibre rounds are lot more dangerous and lethal - they were the bullets of WW1.

Bullets and rifles have been getting less deadly since then, if compared by single shots. What has made them more dangerous is automatic fire.....

Which brings me to the advantage of firearms - they are at least as deadly as archaic weapons especially considering autofire, but require less training. Plus, there´s higher calibre weapons. Barret? Nahhh..... Get hit by the Tankgewehr (http://www.whq-forum.de/cms/413.0.html) and it´s over. Okay, the text is german, but take a look at the pictures and the bullets......this thing kills very reliably......

Sleet
2008-01-15, 11:13 AM
For your edification, I present the following formula: F = 1/2MA(2). ...
Physics FTW! :smallbiggrin:

That's kinetic energy, not force. Just to be pedantic.

Storm Bringer
2008-01-15, 11:16 AM
back to the Op question ("where can i find a combat system closer to reality?"), I'd second the guy a few posts back who said that Cyberpunk 2020's combat system was leathal, but not impossibly so (i.e. a single bullet CAN kill, but is not certian to). I no longer my copy of the game with me, but it'd adapt to a modern setting pretty well (you'd just cut out all the microwaves guns and cyberware, and bingo!)

Grynning
2008-01-15, 11:16 AM
Kioran's assessment is fairly accurate, and I generally agree with the scale he sets forth.
Now, compare this to the fact that high-calibre rifles in D&D do a measly 2d10 damage, and have no particular ability to penetrate cover or armor, and you begin to see my issue.

sikyon
2008-01-15, 11:17 AM
As Yahzi points out in his physics example above, even someone with the incredible strength you describe cannot match the energy carried by a bullet. The strongest character in D&D cannot apply several hundred joules of force to a concentrated area like a rifle or even a pistol round can. This discussion, in a way, is supporting my point, in that RPG's are based on gross misconceptions about firearms, physics, and weaponry.

Sticking with the example of the .357: a typical load:
Bullet weight:158 gr (10.2 g) JSP
Velocity: 1,240 ft/s (380 m/s)
Energy: 539 ft·lbf (731 J)

Energy doesn't matter when we are talking about people. It matters when we are talking about large objects such as doors that we want to break apart, but again you are missing the point when you keep talking about energy. Bullets do not kill by transferring energy to their target. Bullets kill by punching a hole in their target and letting their target bleed to death. The size of hole is what matters. That is all.



Which brings me to the advantage of firearms - they are at least as deadly as archaic weapons especially considering autofire, but require less training. Plus, there´s higher calibre weapons. Barret? Nahhh..... Get hit by the Tankgewehr (http://www.whq-forum.de/cms/413.0.html) and it´s over. Okay, the text is german, but take a look at the pictures and the bullets......this thing kills very reliably......

Yes, firearms are at least as deadly as a sword when you factor in automatic weapons, with moderate automatic weapon training. Note that in most combat situations though, automatic fire is strongly discouraged in regular troops because it requires lots of training to not just be wasting amunition.

Edit:


Kioran's assessment is fairly accurate, and I generally agree with the scale he sets forth.
Now, compare this to the fact that high-calibre rifles in D&D do a measly 2d10 damage, and have no particular ability to penetrate cover or armor, and you begin to see my issue.

Measly 2d10 damage? That's 2x the damage of a bastard sword. That's HUGE. MASSIVE amount of damage.

But yeah, armor penetration seems to be poorly represented.

Prophaniti
2008-01-15, 11:21 AM
I enjoyed reading this thread. Everyone contradicting everyone and such, very entertaining on a dreary day at work. Thank you all.:smallbiggrin:

As far as the OP goes... IMO the problem with representing firearms realistically is that you have to find a system that represents the amount of damage a person can take realistically. d20 certainly does not, once you level a few times. The leveling system itself is to blame here, not the stats for typical firearms. I like what I hear about GURPs as far as this goes, but I've never played it myself, so I don't know. I've never found a system that handles firearms in what I would call a 'realistic' fashion, and I doubt I ever will. If you feel firearms are not deadly enough in the system you use, a few houserules will fix that quickly, provided your players will stand for it.

As far as the 'comparative lethality' of firearms vs archaic weapons, my 2cp: The rise of firearms to prominence has less to do with enhanced lethality and more to do with ease of use and training. A gun has a simple 'point and click' interface, while the use of a sword or bow requires a great investment of time and energy to become effective. In the days of single-shot firearms melee weapons were still practical, and indeed preferred by some. It is not the bullets deadliness that made swords obsolete, but the point when a man with a gun could put out multiple shots in a minute, making it nigh impossible to close to sword range without being hit. If a fight were to start with the combatants close to each other, the swordsman still has a decent chance of winning. That is, if he's taken the time and effort to learn how to properly fight with a sword, whereas the gunman needs little to no training at all to have a decent chance of winning.

Indon
2008-01-15, 11:23 AM
This discussion, in a way, is supporting my point, in that RPG's are based on gross misconceptions about firearms, physics, and weaponry.

Death isn't caused by raw force, but, among many other factors, by the actual amount of force that is applied to cause a wound. After poking a small hole through the body, a 5.56 NATO round will leave the body and do no more damage (barring a ricochet off a bone, which causes significant complications in treatment). Meanwhile, a sword will keep cutting until it runs out of force, allowing 100% of its' energy to be applied. It is as a result more likely to sever arteries, crush bones, and damage organs, unless it's being used to cause small piercing wounds like one would expect from a light fencing sword.

Also, Yahzi is wrong. The Joule is not a measurement of force, but of work applied.

Edit: I misread.

Valairn
2008-01-15, 11:35 AM
Energy doesn't matter when we are talking about people. It matters when we are talking about large objects such as doors that we want to break apart, but again you are missing the point when you keep talking about energy. Bullets do not kill by transferring energy to their target. Bullets kill by punching a hole in their target and letting their target bleed to death. The size of hole is what matters. That is all.



Yes, firearms are at least as deadly as a sword when you factor in automatic weapons, with moderate automatic weapon training. Note that in most combat situations though, automatic fire is strongly discouraged in regular troops because it requires lots of training to not just be wasting amunition.

Edit:



Measly 2d10 damage? That's 2x the damage of a bastard sword. That's HUGE. MASSIVE amount of damage.

But yeah, armor penetration seems to be poorly represented.


This is partially inaccurate. A good amount of bullet wounds kill on impact because your body goes into shock so suddenly your heart stops. This is related to head trauma as well, because often times the penetration of the brain with a bullet would not guarantee the death of the target since the brain can actually survive quite a bit of trauma and do just fine(you'd be quite surprised), what happens is, the bullet wound cause your body to go into shock, once again causing your heart to stop.

There has been quite a lot of success at administering CPR to bullet wound victims, because the damage itself isn't bad enough to actually kill the person from bleeding or organ damage. The key ingredient is your body going into shock, its a very very important ingredient to bullet wounds, the body does not handle changes of state to that extreme of a level easily. Its the same reason people can literally die of fright, the heart just can't take the shock.

sikyon
2008-01-15, 11:35 AM
Death isn't caused by raw force, but, among many other factors, by the actual amount of force that is applied to cause a wound. After poking a small hole through the body, a 5.56 NATO round will leave the body and do no more damage (barring a ricochet off a bone, which causes significant complications in treatment). Meanwhile, a sword will keep cutting until it runs out of force, allowing 100% of its' energy to be applied. It is as a result more likely to sever arteries, crush bones, and damage organs, unless it's being used to cause small piercing wounds like one would expect from a light fencing sword.

Also, Yahzi is wrong. The Joule is not a measurement of force, but of work applied.

Edit: I misread.

Actually, many rounds won't leave the body and will stop inside. But that's besides the point, because you just need to consider the size of the hole. bullet will punch out a hole in you: yikes, you're gonna bleed. But a sword is going to cut out a larger circumference, which is what is important: It can therefore affect more arteries and organs.

It's kinda like... choosing to either put an apple through your body or put a peice of paper, long side first, through your body. That apples going to leave a giant gaping hole but the paper will cut half your body up.

Kioran
2008-01-15, 11:38 AM
Energy doesn't matter when we are talking about people. It matters when we are talking about large objects such as doors that we want to break apart, but again you are missing the point when you keep talking about energy. Bullets do not kill by transferring energy to their target. Bullets kill by punching a hole in their target and letting their target bleed to death. The size of hole is what matters. That is all.

Incorrect. Energy does matter. People have survived weak sword blows or badly placed bullets because they were incapable of breaking ribs (one Curtis Jackson, a.k.a. half a dollar, comes to mind). Energy does matter. More Energy makes it possible to break bones or penetrate. Of course, the amount of mushrooming a bullet does makes a difference in the aomunt of energy actually deforming the target. There was a U.S. Marine (one of the few to actually be wounded or killed by enemy regulars) who was hit by a Tank, and survived because the tank fired a penetrator that blew straight through. So energy is not everything. But the amount of energy imparted on the target is.



Yes, firearms are at least as deadly as a sword when you factor in automatic weapons, with moderate automatic weapon training. Note that in most combat situations though, automatic fire is strongly discouraged in regular troops because it requires lots of training to not just be wasting amunition.

At longer range or targets in cover it is certainly true. Unless you´re well trained, you´re not going to hit anything after the second shot. That´s why they introduced the three-shot burst setting in the M16, because people were firing wildly, hitting jack. But in close quarters? Rip it up and let em have it. This weapon (http://www.whq-forum.de/cms/608.0.html) was one of the most feared weapons in trench warfare furing WW1 - for a reason.

sikyon
2008-01-15, 11:42 AM
This is partially inaccurate. A good amount of bullet wounds kill on impact because your body goes into shock so suddenly your heart stops. This is related to head trauma as well, because often times the penetration of the brain with a bullet would not guarantee the death of the target since the brain can actually survive quite a bit of trauma and do just fine, what happens is, the bullet wound cause your body to go into shock, once again causing your heart to stop.

There has been quite a lot of success at administering CPR to bullet wound victims, because the damage itself isn't bad enough to actually kill the person from bleeding or organ damage. The key ingredient is your body going into shock, its a very very important ingredient to bullet wounds, the body does not handle changes of state to that extreme of a level easily. Its the same reason people can literally die of fright, the heart just can't take the shock.

Unless you are mentally prepared for the wound or have the strength of mind to push past it. Shock from bullet wounds is highly variable. It is unreliable, and there is no physical guarantee on it.

I also find no evidence that cardiogenic shock can result from impact to anywhere other than the heart, unless you have a heart attack from the shock. While possible, doubtful in healthy young adults.


This is related to head trauma as well, because often times the penetration of the brain with a bullet would not guarantee the death of the target since the brain can actually survive quite a bit of trauma and do just fine, what happens is, the bullet wound cause your body to go into shock, once again causing your heart to stop.

Statistics please. As far as I know, a bullet going into your central nervous system will instantly cause it to shut down. You immediatly fall unconcious. You don't immediatly fall unconcious if your heart stops.

sikyon
2008-01-15, 11:46 AM
Incorrect. Energy does matter. People have survived weak sword blows or badly placed bullets because they were incapable of breaking ribs (one Curtis Jackson, a.k.a. half a dollar, comes to mind). Energy does matter. More Energy makes it possible to break bones or penetrate. Of course, the amount of mushrooming a bullet does makes a difference in the aomunt of energy actually deforming the target. There was a U.S. Marine (one of the few to actually be wounded or killed by enemy regulars) who was hit by a Tank, and survived because the tank fired a penetrator that blew straight through. So energy is not everything. But the amount of energy imparted on the target is.


Do you even realize what you are saying? You are saying that energy does matter because with more energy you can make a bigger wound channel.

You are really arguing my point, that wound channel is the only thing that matters.

Imparted energy, the energy that the target actually absorbs in terms of momentum, is inconcequential. The energy that is used to break bonds in the target is not inconcequential, but this energy and the total energy are not related by a linear scaling.




At longer range or targets in cover it is certainly true. Unless you´re well trained, you´re not going to hit anything after the second shot. That´s why they introduced the three-shot burst setting in the M16, because people were firing wildly, hitting jack. But in close quarters? Rip it up and let em have it. This weapon (http://www.whq-forum.de/cms/608.0.html) was one of the most feared weapons in trench warfare furing WW1 - for a reason.

I was under the impression that the trench shotgun was better.

Edit: And bunker clearing flamethrower

Kioran
2008-01-15, 12:02 PM
Do you even realize what you are saying? You are saying that energy does matter because with more energy you can make a bigger wound channel.

You are really arguing my point, that wound channel is the only thing that matters.

Imparted energy, the energy that the target actually absorbs in terms of momentum, is inconcequential. The energy that is used to break bonds in the target is not inconcequential, but this energy and the total energy are not related by a linear scaling.

Yes, but the total amount of energy has some influence on the total amount of energy. The reason why a certain mister Jackson still lives is the reason that while most of the bullets imparted their entire energy, this energy was in most cases insufficient to penetrate his chest cavity.
But yes, the actual energy imparted matters, both for the wound canal and secondary trauma


I was under the impression that the trench shotgun was better.

Edit: And bunker clearing flamethrower

You are quite mistaken. The Flamethrowers didn´t even come up in larger scales till WW2, becuase they were to cumbersome, heavy and conspicuous to use them succesfully on a larger scale, despite being quite effective in some instance.
The MP18 was very effective, terrible enough that the Entente actually forbade Research, Development and use of automatic weapons in Germany in the treaty of Versailles.

Valairn
2008-01-15, 12:14 PM
Unless you are mentally prepared for the wound or have the strength of mind to push past it. Shock from bullet wounds is highly variable. It is unreliable, and there is no physical guarantee on it.

I never said anything to the contrary.


I also find no evidence that cardiogenic shock can result from impact to anywhere other than the heart, unless you have a heart attack from the shock. While possible, doubtful in healthy young adults.

Statistics please. As far as I know, a bullet going into your central nervous system will instantly cause it to shut down. You immediatly fall unconcious. You don't immediatly fall unconcious if your heart stops.

In most cases you do not fall "unconcious," you fall down because you have just experienced brain death. If your heart stops, you have a very short time period before you fall unconscious, if your blood vessels constrict from stress, caused by trauma, you will probably pass out, and then die very quickly from brain death.

Most of this is caused by automatic responses in your nervous system and are entirely outside of the realm of your mental preparation. The human body is not designed to experience trauma like this, it does not respond well, and normally kills itself, before blood loss can ever do the job.

sikyon
2008-01-15, 12:19 PM
Yes, but the total amount of energy has some influence on the total amount of energy. The reason why a certain mister Jackson still lives is the reason that while most of the bullets imparted their entire energy, this energy was in most cases insufficient to penetrate his chest cavity.
But yes, the actual energy imparted matters, both for the wound canal and secondary trauma

Yes, relatively speaking you can scale damage from the same bullet with different energies. But even that is not a linear relationship. So it's really very difficult to simply talk in terms of energy here, and it's very impresice. You need to be able to relate total energy to effectivly imparted energy. This is why I talk about wound channels and sizes: It's both eaisier to measure, and in the end wound channel is the effectivly imparted energy.



You are quite mistaken. The Flamethrowers didn´t even come up in larger scales till WW2, becuase they were to cumbersome, heavy and conspicuous to use them succesfully on a larger scale, despite being quite effective in some instance.
The MP18 was very effective, terrible enough that the Entente actually forbade Research, Development and use of automatic weapons in Germany in the treaty of Versailles.

Whoops thought you said world war 2. Anyhow, I doubt that the MP18 was the reason that Germany was banned from automatic weapons. I mean really.

Edit: Machine guns anyone?

Indon
2008-01-15, 12:22 PM
A good amount of bullet wounds kill on impact because your body goes into shock so suddenly your heart stops.

Which, I do believe would be reflected by the massive damage save (which is, admittedly, more realistic in D20 Modern than in D&D, since in D&D the massive damage save is 50 by default).

Valairn
2008-01-15, 12:28 PM
To return to the OP's question. I don't think DnD is a good system for realism, I'd look at GURPS, it does a fairly decent job of it, and it can be tailored regardless.

Kioran
2008-01-15, 12:39 PM
To return to the OP's question. I don't think DnD is a good system for realism, I'd look at GURPS, it does a fairly decent job of it, and it can be tailored regardless.

Basic GURPS doesn´t do it all to well and has a HUGE bias towards U.S. Weapons, but with some tweaking or the right sourcebooks, it can be quite accurate. I second GURPS for more realistic firearms.

Swordguy
2008-01-15, 12:42 PM
To the OP: Look at what melee weapons do to people in Rolemaster. Seriously, look at the critical charts. They are an EXTREMELY good representation of what melee weapons will do to a person. The hell with the fact that people think the system is too complex - the charts alone are worth it as a reference.

Now, take the lethality and wounding effects you see in those charts and look for a game that does something similar with firearms. Advanced Squad Leader comes to mind, but for the sheer lethality, I'd go with (in no particular order) Cyberpunk 2020, Twilight 2000, Call of Cthulhu, or Shadowrun. Shadowrun, specifically, I rather enjoy, though it does get broken at the top end of the scale (someone building a Troll "Tank" can take cannon fire at point-blank range and shrug it off - but you have to build a character specifically to do that).

Anything with a miscellaneous "damage point pool" and nothing else for tracking damage will by default handle damage to the human body very poorly.

And the level of misconceptions and ignorance in here about the effects of melee, primitive ranged, and modern ranged weapons is appalling. I suggest a read through the Real World Weapons & Armor thread for everyone involved.

MCerberus
2008-01-15, 12:46 PM
DnD doesn't show weapons in a realistic manner. It isn't trying to. By level 3, you are essentially an action hero, and by level 5 you are death incarnate. DnD isn't about having your barbarian super-human having his arm cut off by a kobold and dying of shock, it's about eating a full attack from a dragon and saying "that all you got?" High fantasy and realistically lethal firearms do not mesh so well.

I agree that you'll have to look elsewhere to get realistic firearms... because there were never intended to be realistic.

RagnaroksChosen
2008-01-15, 12:49 PM
TO the Original Poster:

So i can understand where your coming from as most modern day rpgs do not have acururate rules for guns at first glance. Some do some don't.

As far as d20 modern. 1 sounds like ur not playing using RAW.Seing as the system uses vitality system which is a great representation of what your talking about. Vitality is your neer misses which is what most dmg does (those omg i just dodged a bullet times or how stormtroopers in starwars never seem to hit). 2 theres the mass damage rules. although i don't use these usualy you might want to think about it becuase it makes the game ten times more leathal.

Another great game for realistic style (highly leathal) is WOD (world of darkness) they have some realy leathal rules for Guns (pardon the pun for you WOD fans). Although u have to remember that shooting at a Lycan or Vamp isn't the same as shooting at a human(which die way to easy to gun shots).


Sounds like you should try to find more realistic style games to rp with as high fantasy games tend to break how things work in Real life.

Also just out of curiousity what RP settings/Rules do you tipicaly plaY?


Please pardon grammer/spelling in this my keyboard at work is jacked atm.

jjpickar
2008-01-15, 01:06 PM
In Re firearm versus sword damage: Both will kill or maim you fairly quickly. What guns great is that you can kill or maim a target at a great distance where there is less possibility of harm to ones self and are much easier to use than archaic bows and arrows.

As for the system, the short answer is best. Realistic combat is no fun. People die and get permanently crippled in a random and terrible way. RPG combat is fun because you play heroes that hardly ever get hurt and thrash monsters with ease. Even when a hero is wounded or killed all they have to do is get healing or resurrection spells. This is similar to literature or film where heroes have plot protection and fare similarly.

Voyager_I
2008-01-15, 01:22 PM
Sworguy FTW

Honestly, I think we're all missing the forest for the trees here. Nothing is as lethal as it should be once you start accumulating large amounts of magical "health". Wizards don't get very much of this, because they use their wondrous hero powers for other things. Since fighters don't so much fancy stuff, they got lots of them. Actually, it doesn't matter how you want to explain it. Hit points are there to make the game work, and some people have more or less than others for the same reason. You can argue about what that "represents" as much as you want, but you'll mostly just be chasing each other in circles of semantics.

As it stands, a critical hit from anything won't generally end a fight in one shot. You complain about how you can't shoot someone in the head or the heart for an instant kill. Meanwhile, you turn a blind eye to the fact that the same restriction applies to, say, an arrow in the eye or a knife in the throat. Heck, without a magical enchantment equivalent to a +5 bonus, you can't even decapitate someone with a sword.

The key thing here is that this is intentional. In D&D, players don't want to be killed in one attack by the bad guy; they're supposed to survive the whole campaign. Likewise, most encounters aren't going to be very interesting if the baddies realistically go down after half a dozen people unload on them (or pincushion them with arrows, or deliver blows that should easily shatter bones, sever limbs, and send them into shock).

If you want everything to be appropriately lethal, either don't play above 2nd Level, or find a less forgiving RPG

vrellum
2008-01-15, 01:40 PM
No, what you are seeing is the portrayal of firearms in movies. "1 shot, oh no, I'm dead." Bullets don't work that way. They kill through blood loss, nothing more. Most soilders hit by rounds can't fight anymore because it's damn painful, but they don't die either. Bullets don't shock you into unconsciousness unless you let them, bullets don't knock you down unless you imagine that they do, and bullets don't kill you in one hit unless they smack your head.

And yes, I would rather have a sword than a 6 round revolver in a fight if I were higher than level 5. Because at level 5, if both of us had swords, I could let him chop me a few times and I'd probably still be alive and fighting. But comparatively speaking 6 rounds into me would probably do less damage than being gutted by a sword.

But if I'm at level 1, what's important isn't even the damage that revolver does. It's the fact that I get first shot with it. First shot wins in real life. If I had to pick either a sword, but I could swing first, or a revolver, but I shoot second, then I would absolutely pick the sword.

Edit: In response to your edit, I say that hit points are not an abstraction of how much health you have left, because you suffer no ill concequences to your own abilities when you are "heavily wounded". Therefore, they are more like an abstraction of your "heroic meter". When you have 100 HP compared to a 5 HP person, it's like you have all the vitality of a whale packed into your personal frame. A couple of bullets won't kill a whale, and a couple of sword strikes won't do that either.

Saying that bullets kill because they cause the victim to bleed out is not true. Bullets crush and tear their way through the body. Getting shot is in many ways like getting hit with a smaller hammer really, really hard. The impact can knock the target unconscious and put them into shock so they die much quicker than if blood loss was the sole reason for lethality. Bleeding plays an important role in some cases, particularly hits to the extremities, but often times, bleeding is not cause of death.

wumpus
2008-01-15, 07:38 PM
One other thing to mention in all of this. You could almost certainly not expect to hit anything you tried to aim at with a military issue gun prior to the mid-19th century. Neapolionic tactics were there for a reason, smoothbore muskets could were just as likely to hit a guy standing 20' away as the intended target (flame away, smoothbore blackpowder hunters, I've never tried it myself).

I'd probably have to model it as -8 to hit, no-BAB, ranged touch attack (note that 1ed balistas had similar rules (all targets were AC10).

RyanM
2008-01-15, 09:37 PM
I mostly skipped past page #3. But from what I read on page 2, I gotta side with Sikyon on this. Energy is, frankly, poop. At less than 1,000 ft-lbs energy, it's totally useless. The only wounding mechanism is blood loss, and the wound will not be much larger than the diameter of the expanded bullet. About .75 caliber, tops, for a pistol.

Here's the actual size of the wound made by the vaunted .357 magnum, with softpoint ammo (which, by the way, won't come close to even scratching an engine block). http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/357%20Magnum.jpg

Source: Martin L. Fackler, M.D.

On the other hand, here's a .308 hunting softpoint. http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/308%20Winchester.jpg

You get hit in the chest with one of those, and your heart and lungs are gone. Pistols are pistols. Rifles are rifles. The sole purpose of a pistol is to fight your way to a rifle.

I also highly recommend reading http://www.firearmstactical.com/hwfe.htm

IIRC, the writers of Cyberpunk 2020 read a lot of the FBI's material when writing their game.

But anyway, in general, yes, a sword or arrow definitely will make a larger hole than a handgun bullet. However, a bladed weapon cuts through tissue, while a bullet crushes tissue, thus destroying more actual tissue for a given diameter hole. In general, a service caliber handgun (9mm and larger) will be about on par with a modern bow and arrow, if not slightly better. Rifles, however, are a class unto themself. Realisticaly represented rifles are a complete game-killer.

Pistol bullets do no blunt trauma damage, or any kind of remote "shocking" effect or knock people out or any such bullpoop. High-powered rifles will, but once again, the threshold is approximately 1,000 ft-lbs transferred in 12" (assuming you're shooting something human-sized). And it's not even a reliable mechanism until the energy is up to more like 2,000 ft-lbs in 12".

So...
Below 1000 ft-lbs transferred in 12", energy transfer does zilch.
Between 1000 and 2000 ft-lbs in 12", energy transfer is marginal.
Above 2000 ft-lbs in 12", energy transfer is an effective means of both wounding (tissue gets torn and stretched and pulverized) and causing unconsciousness (the blunt trauma strikes the spinal cord, and may also get transferred to the brain via the arteries).

Oh, also, Evan Marshall and Ed Sanow are full of poop. Several professional statisticians believe their data is totally fabricated. Even if it is not, the methodology is totally flawed. All shooting incidents in which the person was hit more than once are discarded. Thus, the "one shot stop" percentage is the percent of incidents in which the subject was shot only once, where they then stopped. And, you know, duh. If you only shoot someone once, it's because they stopped (or because you missed or something). Thus, all their percentages are unrealistically high.

According to actual medical professionals, about 40% of handgun shooting incidents, regardless of caliber, result in the so-called "one shot stop." Either the bullet struck the brain or upper spine, or the guy went "holy crap, I've been shot!" and fainted or was otherwise psychologically incapacitated. The rest of the time, it's blood loss, which takes about 10 seconds minimum. And that's where caliber comes into play. Bigger hole means faster blood loss.

Here's another good one from the FBI. http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/2004/oct2004/oct04leb.htm#page_15

Panda-s1
2008-01-16, 12:11 AM
Ptolus actually addresses the issue of their firearms not doing a whole lot of damage, and their justification was the x3 crit damage. They also pointed out the fact that longbows also have a x3 crit damage. Longbows are pretty lethal, and there are stories of knights who were impaled by a longbow arrow that went all the way into the horse; just imagine a floppy looking knight in fullplate stuck sitting on a flailing horse. Longbows may not have the same lethality of firearms, but they sure come pretty close.

In any case remember that d20 Modern has a massive damage threshold equal to your Con score. Or you could probably say the threshold is 5+Con modifier, but lower the Fort DC to 10 or something like that. That means rifle bullets are more likely to take down even the toughest of opponents, and the weaklings are can't even take a hit from a dagger.

vrellum
2008-01-16, 12:57 AM
I mostly skipped past page #3. But from what I read on page 2, I gotta side with Sikyon on this. Energy is, frankly, poop. At less than 1,000 ft-lbs energy, it's totally useless. The only wounding mechanism is blood loss, and the wound will not be much larger than the diameter of the expanded bullet. About .75 caliber, tops, for a pistol.

Here's the actual size of the wound made by the vaunted .357 magnum, with softpoint ammo (which, by the way, won't come close to even scratching an engine block). http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/357%20Magnum.jpg

Source: Martin L. Fackler, M.D.

On the other hand, here's a .308 hunting softpoint. http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/308%20Winchester.jpg

You get hit in the chest with one of those, and your heart and lungs are gone. Pistols are pistols. Rifles are rifles. The sole purpose of a pistol is to fight your way to a rifle.

I also highly recommend reading http://www.firearmstactical.com/hwfe.htm

IIRC, the writers of Cyberpunk 2020 read a lot of the FBI's material when writing their game.

But anyway, in general, yes, a sword or arrow definitely will make a larger hole than a handgun bullet. However, a bladed weapon cuts through tissue, while a bullet crushes tissue, thus destroying more actual tissue for a given diameter hole. In general, a service caliber handgun (9mm and larger) will be about on par with a modern bow and arrow, if not slightly better. Rifles, however, are a class unto themself. Realisticaly represented rifles are a complete game-killer.

Pistol bullets do no blunt trauma damage, or any kind of remote "shocking" effect or knock people out or any such bullpoop. High-powered rifles will, but once again, the threshold is approximately 1,000 ft-lbs transferred in 12" (assuming you're shooting something human-sized). And it's not even a reliable mechanism until the energy is up to more like 2,000 ft-lbs in 12".

So...
Below 1000 ft-lbs transferred in 12", energy transfer does zilch.
Between 1000 and 2000 ft-lbs in 12", energy transfer is marginal.
Above 2000 ft-lbs in 12", energy transfer is an effective means of both wounding (tissue gets torn and stretched and pulverized) and causing unconsciousness (the blunt trauma strikes the spinal cord, and may also get transferred to the brain via the arteries).

Oh, also, Evan Marshall and Ed Sanow are full of poop. Several professional statisticians believe their data is totally fabricated. Even if it is not, the methodology is totally flawed. All shooting incidents in which the person was hit more than once are discarded. Thus, the "one shot stop" percentage is the percent of incidents in which the subject was shot only once, where they then stopped. And, you know, duh. If you only shoot someone once, it's because they stopped (or because you missed or something). Thus, all their percentages are unrealistically high.

According to actual medical professionals, about 40% of handgun shooting incidents, regardless of caliber, result in the so-called "one shot stop." Either the bullet struck the brain or upper spine, or the guy went "holy crap, I've been shot!" and fainted or was otherwise psychologically incapacitated. The rest of the time, it's blood loss, which takes about 10 seconds minimum. And that's where caliber comes into play. Bigger hole means faster blood loss.

Here's another good one from the FBI. http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/2004/oct2004/oct04leb.htm#page_15

Yes pistols are junk, compared to rifles. Even small caliber rifles typically outperform large caliber pistols. I should have been clear that I was referring to rifles in my comments. Specifically, high-power, centerfire rifles with bullets that are designed to mushroom or tumble. It's my bias I suppose because I use guns for hunting and why you would ever use a pistol to shoot something you wanted to kill (and why else would you shoot something living?) is beyond me.

Still pistols are better weapons than bows because:
they are more accurate
you can fire them much faster
they are much faster to aim
they are much easier to carry
they are much easier to learn how to use
even slow-poke pistol bullets are traveling so fast that they can't be dodged
and there's probably some reasons that I missed

Rifles OTOH are lethal (as you admitted). Bows and other archaic weapons do not compare, neither do pistols and it sometimes irks me to see the pistols and rifles statted out so near to equal in many rpgs. Large caliber rifles are capable of dropping elephants with one shot (granted shot placement is important and I've read some scary stories about cape buffalo...) Rifles are extremely accurate (compared to bows, for instance) and the bullet travels so fast that it can't be dodge or intentially deflected. Its absurd that a really strong person firing a recurve bow averages more damage and hits as often as a similarly trained (and statted) person firing a modern rifle.

interesting links. Here's another one. Its not exactly peer-reviewed, but its pretty interesting

http://www.theboxotruth.com/

Lord Tataraus
2008-01-16, 01:02 AM
WARNING! This post is not a continuation of this massive thread derailment, but rather answer to the OP's question.

As two others have mentioned before, I would suggest Cyberpunk 2020. It is a great system and very easy and fun. It's combat is mostly realistic, though I do add rules for positioning (such as kneeling, squatting, crawling, etc.) and AoOs. The way health and damage works, one hit with most weapons will kill you or at least put you in shock as you bleed to death. Of course you have cybernetics to back you up, but they only go so far. Combat is short and extremely lethal, usually coming down to who shoots first and/or who can get cover until they get off a lucky pot shot. Though, I will say that the core book is severely lacking in weapons (it only has generic weapons), but the Chrome books are the most amazing splatbooks I've ever seen for any system, though never let a starting player get a SAM launcher with a ramjet rifle as a sidearm :smallbiggrin:

Also, they guy that wants to go ninja with a katana will die in the first fight. The combat system is not nice to those who like running into the fray or surprising guys with SMGs.

You may now continue you off topic discussion. Sorry for the interruption.

Doomsy
2008-01-16, 03:49 AM
SR is pretty good from my experience, but then again, the SR combat system leaves some odd quirks of its own besides having a rather complicated (IMHO) setup.

To be honest, no system ever does combat realistically or spectacularly well. Hell. I haven't seen a system that could handle parrying in combat well without making everything a hell of a lot more complicated. It's more a matter of finding which one unrealistically suits your fancy the most.

Yami
2008-01-16, 08:17 AM
I dunno about cyberpunk or shadowrun....

I mean, last I remeber about Cyberpunk was running up to guys with guys and tearing them to peices in melee, but then that might not have been the 2020 version.

As for shadowrun, I mostly remeber half of the party being pretty much impervious to anything but a full round burst from an angry troll with an AK-47, while the decker ran around getting shot up all over the place.

Me, I go Mechwarrior. Maybe not realistic as you might like, but it works for us. For example, you can get some nice armour that, for the most part, does very little against a rifle, but could save you from some of the lesser pistols. I think. Oddly enough, I'm not too much of a fan of thier hand to hand combat system, but then I suppose we can't have it all.

sikyon
2008-01-16, 09:34 AM
I think the main problem people are having here is that guns are not as lethal as they are in real life.

But guns arn't lethal in real life because they have some sort of magical ability to stop opponents dead in their tracks, or do more damage than being stabbed with a sword.

Guns are lethal because a single good hit kills people in real life, like a good sword hit.

But in a universe where adventurers can take multiple stab wounds and keep on trucking, Guns lose their edge. They have range and get to shoot first, but other than that they really get no real bonus. And furthermore, they suffer from the drawback of crossbows: In a world where adventures are littarly He-Man, a sword being swung from that guy is going to hurt alot more than even a high caliber rifle round. To your average person, the single sword stroke from the STR 20 dude will easily cleave through limbs.

How effective do you think a gun would be against a dragon? I'm willing to bet "not very." Now, how effective do you think it will be against the shirtless guy who single-handedly downed the dragon? "Not really."

Stop thinking that PC's have vital organs, or suffer from blood loss, or can even be hit in any vital areas, or even go into shock. High hit points means that is literally untrue. They are blocks of sheer power.

Kioran
2008-01-16, 10:36 AM
I think the main problem people are having here is that guns are not as lethal as they are in real life.

But guns arn't lethal in real life because they have some sort of magical ability to stop opponents dead in their tracks, or do more damage than being stabbed with a sword.

Guns are lethal because a single good hit kills people in real life, like a good sword hit.

But in a universe where adventurers can take multiple stab wounds and keep on trucking, Guns lose their edge. They have range and get to shoot first, but other than that they really get no real bonus. And furthermore, they suffer from the drawback of crossbows: In a world where adventures are littarly He-Man, a sword being swung from that guy is going to hurt alot more than even a high caliber rifle round. To your average person, the single sword stroke from the STR 20 dude will easily cleave through limbs.

How effective do you think a gun would be against a dragon? I'm willing to bet "not very." Now, how effective do you think it will be against the shirtless guy who single-handedly downed the dragon? "Not really."

Stop thinking that PC's have vital organs, or suffer from blood loss, or can even be hit in any vital areas, or even go into shock. High hit points means that is literally untrue. They are blocks of sheer power.

You do realize that such a PC could also wield a bigger gun, like for example that "Tankgewehr" or a 12,7mm Machine gun? Guns are appalingly effective, even in a world of he-man like adventurers. A realistic depiction of a gun should be that of a superior weapon. An automatic pistol is more scary than most swords, and if He-man wields a sword with more effect, He-man could fire an assault rifle from the hip, so that´s not valis reasoning.

The main reason why guns aren´t depicted realisitcally is because it´d be boring to many. Consider the realistic depiction of guided weaponry, it´d be utterly depressing.
Gulf War I is a good example why: The U.S. weapons were, on a mechanical lvl, not far superior, nor was their armor. U.S. troops were, in some cases, barely trained (3 months Bootcamp + 1 month additional training and of they go), there regulars not to much better than the Iraqi, and Special Forces to rare to have a severe impact on the balance. Yet that "war" was a slaughter so one-sided that calling it a "war" instead of a conflict would imply too much Iraqi resistance.
The main difference? U.S. superiority on Recon and guided weapons. To this day, U.S. strategy relies on finding an enemy and killing them from afar in relative safety. Under these circumstances, the amount of training for the individual soldiers becomes even less of an issue (except for Spec. Ops or partisans, which operate very similiarly).

Such a scenario with the PCs in it would be massively depressing. That´s why RPGs don´t simulate it.

Jayabalard
2008-01-16, 10:43 AM
GURPS will cover you there. Get shot, and you're pretty much going to die, or bleed to death... or get infected by something unpleasant and wither away over several agonising days.... (This might be why I never play any modern GURPS games unless I'm allowed to wear lots of body armour).

d20 on the other hand is (usually) about cinematics and heroes... understandably the mechanics aren't really cut out to deal with lethal weapons that propel small pieces of metal at hundreds of feet per second.

I'd recommend going with something like GURPS. Its a bit of a pain to learn at first, but its definitely one of the most detailed and 'realistic' games out there - as I'm sure others will agree.GURPS is also very scalable as far as reality... you can go with just basic combat rules, or add in part or all of the advanced rules. You can add in optional cinematic rules.

If you want a fairly realistic gun based game, GURPS is probably the way to go... just scale back the lethality (add the cinematic rules, modify some of the existing ones) until it's where you'll have fun with it.

pendell
2008-01-16, 10:50 AM
No, it won't.

Just think about the energy involved in the two attacks. A .357 will crack an engine block. Good luck doing that with a sledgehammer, let alone a sword.

For your edification, I present the following formula: F = 1/2MA(2). That is, Force = one-half of mass times the velocity of that mass squared. Double the size of your weapon, double the power of its attack. Double the speed of your weapon, quadruple the power of its attack.

Physics FTW! :smallbiggrin:

I think you're making a mistake ...

The formula is F=MA. You're confusing the formula for force with the formula for kinetic energy, which is KE=1/2 MV^2, where V is the velocity of the object, and M is the mass. Converting
F=MA to velocity gives us

F=M(V/T).


Respectfully,

Brian P.

DeathQuaker
2008-01-16, 12:14 PM
I brought this up awhile back, and panda-s1 also mentioned it recently, but no one's responded to it, so I am bringing it up again, 'cause I'd like to hear what people have to say:

In regards to d20 Modern and how "realistic" it is in dealing with firearms damage, what about the Massive Damage rules?

For those of you unfamiliar, this is the rule:



Any time a character takes damage from a single hit that exceeds the character’s massive damage threshold, that damage is considered massive damage. A character’s massive damage threshold is equal to the character’s current Constitution score; it can be increased by taking the Improved Damage Threshold feat.
When a character takes massive damage that doesn’t reduce his or her hit points to 0 or lower, the character must make a Fortitude save (DC 15). If the character fails the save, the character’s hit point total is immediately reduced to –1. If the save succeeds, the character suffers no ill effect beyond the loss of hit points.
Creatures immune to critical hits are also immune to the effects of massive damage.

Now, note that, yer average person is going to have a Constitution between 8 and 12.

Note that most d20 Modern firearms do at least 2d6 damage.

The chances of doing 8-12 damage is decent. Less than 50/50, but decent.

That means, regardless of whether you're a 1st level character with 6 hit points, or a 20th level character with 120 hit points, a single firearm shot has a chance of killing you. Bob the 20th level Hero with 120 hit points and has a con of 12, Thug Sam shoots him for 12 damage, Bob fails his saving throw, and Bob is dead, with his 120 hit points doing absolutely squat for him.

Now, Bob does get his saving throw--and being 20th level, he certainly has a higher fortitude save than a 1st level character--so yes, he has a decent chance of surviving, but that plays into the fact that he is a top level hero, for crying out loud. But there's a chance a single gunshot from a mook could still stop him dead.

Now, yeah, high Con characters (and characters with Improved Damage Threshold) are less likely to suffer from one-shot-one-kill scenarios, but I can live with that since I expect most heroes in RPGs to be able to survive the impossible on a regular basis.

Regardless, provided you're playing the game by the rules and remembering to include Massive Damage, it seems realistic enough to me.

If you really wanted to "fix" d20 Modern, I wouldn't change rules for the firearms, necessarily; I might just raise the DC for the Massive Damage Saving Throw, as someone else (Panda, probably) suggested.

Blackadder
2008-01-16, 01:32 PM
Looking through this thread is rather fun. However as a former memeber of the armed forces and a self proccess gun-nut. After seeing the comments from people Bow=Pistol I have to interject some real world testing.

There's this stuff called Ballistic Gelatin, it's designed to simulate human flesh for determining the lethality of bullets and to aid forensics investigators in helping solve gun crimes(What kind of gun, how far away was the shooter ect)

Along with that we can get some idea comparing swords to guns to bows and such. I've found a few Crossbow VS Ballastics gel on youtube video's and one sword VS block Here, go to 3 mins in the video (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=S76aGs5mVec&feature=related)

The whole reason I bring this up is you can compare various guns to arrows and even swords to get an idea of how effective they are VS your average human being.

The best site for ballistics tests for guns is the rather good BrassFetcher.com (http://www.brassfetcher.com/index.html)



Let me give you three quick image comparisons
(Sorry about the size)
Crossbow VS Ballistic gelatin
http://www.bowhunting.net/Images/2007/GrimReaper-Wade-gelatin-160.jpg
Note the lack of deformation, it punches through the, causing almost no secondary damage and is intact. Since humans don't have 14 inchs of skin, it's safe to assume at the 10 foot range(Where it was fired from) it would have sunk all the way to the fletching if not passed through the limb entirely.

Common .22 Rifle rounds VS ballistic gelatin
http://www.brassfetcher.com/images/22varblk.JPG
Note how very few of the rounds fragmented, but still deformed the gelatin along their direct flight path. Except for custom designed fragmentation rounds, they would pass directly through the human body damaging only what they directly hit.

Now lets compare the damage to a heavier round.
http://www.brassfetcher.com/images/762x39mm123grVMaxblk.JPG
This is the common 7.62mm round found in the most common assault rifle in the world, the Ak-47. Note how despite the bullet being mostly intact it caused a five inch at it's widest deformation zone. That deformation zone reflects muscle, skin and and possibly even bone that would have been ripped, torn apart or broken by the passage of a bullet.

It should also be noted that though the bullet penetrated three inchs less than the crossbow bolt, it zone of damage is simply so high as to be incomparable.

All this real world scientific info brings me back to my point. In D&D a light heavy crossbow can do 1d10 damage, according to D20 modern something like a Ak-47 would do 2d8 damage. While a .22 rifle would do 2d6. This numbers of course don't line up with the weapons in question. While it is conceivable to be hit(In no vital areas) by half a dozen crossbow bolts and keep on moving. A 7.62mm bullet that hits any limb will at the various least disable it. One earlier poster mentioned hydrostatic shock as being a prime killer with guns, while another disagreed. To a certain extent they are both right. With certain gun calibers, the deformation zone is small enough that hydrostatic shock does not come into it. With larger and fragmentation rounds it certainly does.

And that all leads me to my statement.
Don't try doing modern guns in D&D. Modern guns make combat, short-brutal and those hit either die quickly to bleed to death. This is not true of all modern guns, in fact you might be interested to know that World War II era guns where much more lethal, .45ACP(1911's, Thompson's, Greaseguns), .303(Garand, n04, Springfields) where more lethal than today's 9mm's and NATO 5.45mm because modern guns are designed to penetrate most bullet proof vests. And they do an excellent job of it, but the cost is decrease fragmentation and lethality.

If you try and insert accurately modeled guns into a D&D system, they would most likley end up as something along the lines of 4d10 with a x4 critical on any hit between 15-20. In other words, something any ranged person would give their left arm for in a heart-beat.

Guns level the playing field to a high degree, that Level 20 fighter can now be beat by a Level 1 Commoner with a assault rifle and a Dex of 10 if he gets lucky.

Granted Magic users(Stoneskin anyone?) can survive a introduction of guns, but aside from Soc/Wiz, Cleric's with the right domains and Druids, everyone else is screwed. And even the magic users are done if they run into five or six gun equipped Commoners.

So no, either nerf guns to "it's like a crossbow but better!" levels, or simply don't use them.

Swordguy
2008-01-16, 01:45 PM
I brought this up awhile back, and panda-s1 also mentioned it recently, but no one's responded to it, so I am bringing it up again, 'cause I'd like to hear what people have to say:

In regards to d20 Modern and how "realistic" it is in dealing with firearms damage, what about the Massive Damage rules?


It's DC 15. That's not that hard to hit. Now, granted, it sucks for 1st level types, but once you're past that, it ceases to be relevant (excepting, as always, the possibility of rolling a 1). Now, if the E6 variant is in play in d20 Modern, with the massive damage rule, it hits about the right blend of abstraction, heroic-ness, and lethality that I'd like. The trick is not letting people have big FORT save modifiers solely based on level - and E6 does that.

DeathQuaker
2008-01-16, 02:01 PM
It's DC 15. That's not that hard to hit.

That's why at the end of my post I suggested (and echoed someone else's suggestion) changing the DC of the Fort Save. Actually, I mentioned lowering it, which makes no sense :smallredface: (goes to edit) but hopefully even before the edit people who actually bothered to read the post knew what I meant. :smallsmile:


Now, if the E6 variant is in play in d20 Modern, with the massive damage rule, it hits about the right blend of abstraction, heroic-ness, and lethality that I'd like. The trick is not letting people have big FORT save modifiers solely based on level - and E6 does that.

What is the E6 variant and where might I take a look at it?

GoC
2008-01-16, 04:07 PM
Granted Magic users(Stoneskin anyone?) can survive a introduction of guns, but aside from Soc/Wiz, Cleric's with the right domains and Druids, everyone else is screwed. And even the magic users are done if they run into five or six gun equipped Commoners
Skin made of stone vs. guns? Yeah, right.
An AK-47 bullet goes right through half an inch of steel! Skin of stone isn't gong to help.

hp is a measure of "toughness", right?
Well having tougher skin is excelent against swords and arrows (not crossbow bolts though) a bullet will go right through it. This is because bullets are designed to pierce armor, that's why sandbags work while plate armor doesn't. In order to resist bullets you need to be large or with redundant organs not "tough".

A 20mm to the head will kill anything that's not outright breaking the laws of physics!

But you're right, bullets don't make for a fun game. I statted out Bullseye in D&D and well... DC 44 fort save anyone?

Felius
2008-01-16, 04:45 PM
Lots of stuff

Just a comment: The mythbuster test doesn't seem very reliable to me. As the woman (forgot her name) commented her difficulty in lifting the replicas, I'm led to believe they used the heavier replicas. Also, for this test they should check the records of persons cleaving through swords, and through meat.

I won't claim it's possible to cleave through two persons and half in a single stroke in the middle of the battle, but if you check the tameshigiri (or otameshi) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tameshigiri) you will see the records of samurai cleaving through many bodies in controlled conditions. Note this is to be done with a excellent sword AND swordsman.

Ok, sorry for the rant. Anyway, pistol shots can be survived with a little luck, but when you get to rifle rounds things start to get ugly. If you represent it realistic, and still want great battles or you get REALLY good body armor (the kind that is read in fiction like starship troopers), or don't let neither your players or their foes to put their hands on the higher lethality weapons.

GoC
2008-01-16, 05:14 PM
If a critical from a sword can't kill it, a critical from a gun can't kill it.

A critical from a gun kills an elephant (hp in the hundreds) every time in real life.

Whales can survive bullets because of their mass. It's like they've got sandbags all around them. Compare this to the PCs who have really tough skin but not much of it.

A sword won't even dent 1/2 inch armor (similar to a PCs skin) but the bullet will. Armor penetration is everything with PCs because their skin is literaly steel armor.

EDIT:A single well aimed 20mm shot will kill any non-epic dragon (the epic ones have forcefields).

That's another problem, with good aim you should be able to produce criticals (and even ranged coup de graces against mobile targets if you're superhuman) on demand.

Felius
2008-01-16, 05:31 PM
A critical from a gun kills an elephant (hp in the hundreds) every time in real life.

Whales can survive bullets because of their mass. It's like they've got sandbags all around them. Compare this to the PCs who have really tough skin but not much of it.

A sword won't even dent 1/2 inch armor (similar to a PCs skin) but the bullet will. Armor penetration is everything with PCs because their skin is literaly steel armor.

Bullets penetrate armor well a big deal because of the size of the impact. While the impact of a sword or an axe is distributed through the entire extension of the blade (or what of it hits the target) the bullet is small, and many times made to be even smaller at the tip, so it's even easier to penetrate. It's not just because of it's strength.

wumpus
2008-01-16, 06:52 PM
Now that you have realistic firearms - bring on the unrealistic* DR! Remember: if that bullet isn't silver, it won't effect the werewolf. Bullets pass through vampires (they may damage, but not critical, vampire spawn). I would have to assume that DM's who don't feel the need for counter-cheese won't allow such creatures to have guns. Somebody mentioned Call of Cuthluhu had good gun rules: probably because they included creatures that PC needed guns to even think they had a chance.

I'm surprised that nobody questioned my claim that non-modern guns aren't a problem. Does everybody believe that or is it just not sufficiently interesting.

<insert siggy here>

* someone mentioned that surviving certain blasts breaks the laws of physics. I claim that undead, outsiders, and possibly lycanthropes and constructs can break physics without damaging the game at all.

Blackadder
2008-01-16, 09:14 PM
@GoC
Stoneskin is stoneskin. The fact that it's "magic" requires us to suspend disbelief. However since it's only DR 10/ it should be noted the "leak" through damage would certianly kill most wizards. But that's where being able to turn incorpral will save said wizard's arse VS 5 peasants with guns.

@Felius
I don't stand for Mythbusters accuracy on the whole katana VA Katana. I just have to say it's to be expected they could not get someone to give up a quality 14th century sword. After all those costs in the tens of thousands of dollars and are considered history to boot. If they had acutally dug-up a period sword and used it in their testing, they would have needed allot more money, and legal protection.

However I have to add, with modern steel is far superior than any 500 year old Japanese steel, and that is a chemistry fact, the whole sword folding technique was invented in Japan BECAUSE their steel was so bad(Carbon poor) And a modern sword, using the best steel available failed the test. So sword cutting through swords is myth.

Damage resistance can play with guns just fine. Damage resistance is portrayed as fast healing/shrugging off the damage. And as mentioned even the most "uber' D&D creatures cap out at DR-20/something, few things have DR50/something. As mentioned a heavy 7.62mm in D&D mechanics would be along the lines of a 30-80 damage spell. Even with damage resistance, if you hit a outsider or a werewolf for 50 damage a hit, even if he is healing 20 damage of that, you'll blow through his damage resistance in short order.


*Edit, one final note. Pistol shots can be survived, rifle shots can be survived... it all depends on the caliber. You stand a very good chance of surviving even a .223 rifle round. While the .38 subnosed is famous for not killing people but only breaking bones, and in some cases even being stopped by thick winter clothing. But a .44 Magnum(Think Dirty Hairy) will mess up your day and whatever bodypart it hits. While as noted a .303 rifle round can take off arms and legs if it hits a joint.

With guns it all depends on the calibure of bullet, the grain of the round, the type of round(Fragmentation, Mushrooming, Armor Piercing) and of course most important of all... where it hits you.

Panda-s1
2008-01-16, 09:41 PM
All this talk about swords made me want to bring this up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNiX_l-HEGM
Apparently a katana can cut bullets. Good luck hitting a bullet with a sword.

Also, Deflect Arrow in action!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouU19zvF9xk&feature=related
Who says you need to do it unarmed?

RyanM
2008-01-16, 09:53 PM
Oh, on the effectiveness of large swords:

http://www.thearma.org/Videos/NTCvids/testingbladesandmaterials.htm

First video. Yeah, that does more damage than a firearm. Would take a .50 BMG to do comparable damage.

Panda-s1
2008-01-16, 10:13 PM
Oh, on the effectiveness of large swords:

http://www.thearma.org/Videos/NTCvids/testingbladesandmaterials.htm

First video. Yeah, that does more damage than a firearm. Would take a .50 BMG to do comparable damage.

Well that wasn't easy to watch (poor deer cadaver). But while it's true a sword can do massive damage (well I'm not denying it at least), you can do the same thing with a bullet at a distance. Now bullets aren't gonna cleave anything, but the sheer force of a bullet is probably the same as getting hit by that sword.

You also have to remember a sword has an edge, it's good at cutting things. Saying the sword does more damage than a firearm is like saying razorblades are better than needles at cutting paper. It's true, but in terms of actually "damaging" the both are pretty effective, though a nailgun or staplegun is probably a better analogy for a gun than a needle.

Lord Tataraus
2008-01-16, 10:16 PM
I dunno about cyberpunk or shadowrun....

I mean, last I remeber about Cyberpunk was running up to guys with guys and tearing them to peices in melee, but then that might not have been the 2020 version.

I don't know much about 2010, so you might have played that, though 2020 was more popular. Of course, Cyberpunk combat needs to have AoOs and more flexible movement/cover rules to work as realistically as it can and your GM might not have ran enemies as brutally as he should have. Of course, if you play a melee character, you can still rip up enemies if you ambush them, but running up to them is a death wish (even without AoOs).

On a separate note, some one mentioned E6 (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=206323), which is what I use for my steampunk Thraan, City of Fear setting where I use guns, though the rules are unrealistic, but are supposed to allow a hero to take a few hits and keep fighting so it works.

TheOOB
2008-01-16, 10:34 PM
Beings the hp system of D&D tends to follow what I call Conan physics, realistic damage is a bust. Hp doesn't represent your ability to take damage, it represents your ability to avoid damage. Lets say a low level warrior with 10 hp gets shot with a pistol in the chest and takes 10 damage, that disables him, making him barely able to fight. On the other hand take a higher level fighter with 30 hp, just because it takes 3 10 damage hits to take them out, doesn't mean that they can take 3 bullets to the chest, but rather the first one chips their shoulder, the second one lodges itself in their calf, and the third one hits them in the chest.

Take new world of darkness on the other hand, which is a bit more realistic but still allows your characters to take some hits. The average human has 7 health, and the toughest humans have 10(barring special abilities and supernatural advantages and such), and you start taking penalties due to your wounds when you have 3 or less health left. An average person with minimal firearms training shooting a high caliber hunting rifle rolls about 8 dice for their attack, which would average out to be roughly 3 damage, which means an average person could take someone out in 3 shots, which considering the average person is a pretty crappy shot makes sense. On the other hand, a master gunner will roll 15+ dice, which is an average of 5+ damage, which means they have a decent chance of taking someone out in a single shot, an a very good chance to wound them to the point where they won't fight any more. The system is forgiving, it's hard to kill a player in a single shot, but it is possible. It should be noted that the primary advantage of firearms in the storyteller system is that you do not get to use your defense agienst them unless they are in melee range(which you could knock the gun out of the way.)

Then take shadowrun where it is entirely possible to kill someone with a single shot if you surprise them.

If you want realistic firearms, play a realistic game, D&D is not realistic.

Felius
2008-01-16, 11:17 PM
However I have to add, with modern steel is far superior than any 500 year old Japanese steel, and that is a chemistry fact, the whole sword folding technique was invented in Japan BECAUSE their steel was so bad(Carbon poor) And a modern sword, using the best steel available failed the test. So sword cutting through swords is myth.

I'm not saying it's necessarily true, but I won't call it false so soon without further testing. Even because on this matter you don't need merely a good sword, but an excellent swordsman, and by excellent, I mean truly masterful. Not persons that are just proficient or skilled.

sikyon
2008-01-16, 11:21 PM
A critical from a gun kills an elephant (hp in the hundreds) every time in real life.

A sword won't even dent 1/2 inch armor (similar to a PCs skin) but the bullet will. Armor penetration is everything with PCs because their skin is literaly steel armor.


By your reasoning a critical from a sword should kill an elephant every time in real life too, assuming they hit the same spots. Well in D&D a sword critical won't kill an elephant, so a gun critical won't kill an elephant.

PC's don't have steel skin. PC's don't have redundant organs. PC's have hitpoints. That is all. Stop trying to express increased hitpoints in terms of real life. There is no equivilent.


Well that wasn't easy to watch (poor deer cadaver). But while it's true a sword can do massive damage (well I'm not denying it at least), you can do the same thing with a bullet at a distance. Now bullets aren't gonna cleave anything, but the sheer force of a bullet is probably the same as getting hit by that sword.


the force of a bullet impact is the force of recoil. Pretty simple physics. Force doesn't hurt you, just by being a large amount.

EvilElitest
2008-01-16, 11:34 PM
Something SurlySeraph said in another thread got me thinking about something that's bothered me for a long time about modern RPG's. Almost every modern-era based RPG out there does a terrible job of portraying firearms realistically, or even "cinematically." Usually they do less damage than they should (sometimes much less), are limited to very short range, and provide no significant advantage over bows, swords, and other archaic weapons that they replaced. I've especially noticed this in my current WOD campaign, but it also crops up in d20 modern, Mutants and Masterminds (but that system makes NO claims of realism), and especially Palladium, despite their efforts to research real firearms and provide cool descriptions and pictures. The only game that guns have actually proved useful in is my Call of Cthulu game, but I think that has more to do with the fact that people in that game are very frail compared to "adventurers" from other games.
Now I know that A) RPG's are rarely written by people who are experienced with firearms and B) realistic lethality would make tabletop RPG's extremely frustrating, as PC's would die or be crippled much more often. But it seems like a bit more effort could be placed into portraying the weapons that largely define modern combat, especially for games that claim to draw from real-life sources for their information.
Anyways, has anyone ever found a modern-era RPG that handled guns well? thanks, Gryn

Well in my games their are two kinds of fire arms

1. Smoke powder is a magical gunpowder like substance, acts like WOW gunpowder, powerful, but not great
2. Gunpowder that is extremly rare but far more powerful but takes a while to reload and often doesn't work. However they will kill almost anything it hits
from
EE

tyckspoon
2008-01-17, 02:04 AM
I'm not saying it's necessarily true, but I won't call it false so soon without further testing. Even because on this matter you don't need merely a good sword, but an excellent swordsman, and by excellent, I mean truly masterful. Not persons that are just proficient or skilled.

I'm inclined to trust the Mythbuster's test. What difference does the skill of the swordsman make? Can he make his sword harder, sharper, and more able to resist the stress of hitting another sword simply by virtue of it being him holding it? Eventually, you're up against the hard facts of materials science. Metals of similar quality and hardness cannot easily cut each other. You can deliver enough force to overstress a weak point easily enough- many of the test swords did fail by snapping or bending in response to being struck. But none of them were cut to anything more than a deep chip in the blade, and I cannot imagine how a supposedly better striking technique would improve that.

Panda-s1
2008-01-17, 05:37 AM
the force of a bullet impact is the force of recoil. Pretty simple physics. Force doesn't hurt you, just by being a large amount.

Yeah, but a lot of force on a small area will. I mean just look at the ballistics gel samples. It may seem like a little, but the cavity was much bigger at one point. That and I don't think swinging a sword will create the same amount of force as a gunpowder charge being shot out of an incredibly confined area.

You also gotta think about hollow point bullets. I mean the fact that they expand in someone's body. I mean my god it'd probably take me a while with a hammer to make a bullet expand like that, and yet it can do it by going through flesh at a high velocity. Ugh.

RyanM
2008-01-17, 09:18 PM
Lead is soft enough that you can make deep notches in it with your fingernail. A bullet can be flattened no problem with a small hammer. And people are not made of gelatin. The radial tears tell you absolutely nothing about a bullet's effectiveness. You can easily stick your finger into 10%gelatin, but not into a person, even if the skin were not there (try it with a steak). Gelatin tells you only the approximate penetration depth of a blunt, high-velocity projectile, nothing more. The diameter of the hole has minimal/no correlation with the hole in tissue.

RyanM
2008-01-17, 09:34 PM
Argh, slowest double post ever.

Swordguy
2008-01-17, 10:28 PM
I'm inclined to trust the Mythbuster's test. What difference does the skill of the swordsman make? Can he make his sword harder, sharper, and more able to resist the stress of hitting another sword simply by virtue of it being him holding it? Eventually, you're up against the hard facts of materials science. Metals of similar quality and hardness cannot easily cut each other. You can deliver enough force to overstress a weak point easily enough- many of the test swords did fail by snapping or bending in response to being struck. But none of them were cut to anything more than a deep chip in the blade, and I cannot imagine how a supposedly better striking technique would improve that.

The skill of the swordsman can actually mean quite a lot when cutting anything. Every sword cuts differently, as a function of their weighting (center of gravity and center of percussion) and blade shape. Understanding the best manner in which to cut can make a tremendous difference in the attacks effectiveness. In addition, blade alignment is of critical importance. Blade alignment is how straight, from edge to edge, the blade is as it cleaves through material. Ideally, it's a perpendicular angle. Even a degree of two of difference from that massively increases the resistance against the cut, meaning it take a lot more energy to cut through a given volume of material.

That said, intentionally cutting through another blade is just folly - something seen in fantastical RPGs or TV shows. Swords can break. Intentionally trying to break them is next to impossible - if another sword could do it so easily, why were "sword-breaking" daggers invented (and if THEY worked well, why did they stop being used even as swords got lighter and "more fragile")? The above is simply to demonstrate that the skill of a swordsman is NOT superceeded by the materials science involved.

Blackadder
2008-01-17, 10:33 PM
Lead is soft enough that you can make deep notches in it with your fingernail. A bullet can be flattened no problem with a small hammer. And people are not made of gelatin. The radial tears tell you absolutely nothing about a bullet's effectiveness. You can easily stick your finger into 10%gelatin, but not into a person, even if the skin were not there (try it with a steak). Gelatin tells you only the approximate penetration depth of a blunt, high-velocity projectile, nothing more. The diameter of the hole has minimal/no correlation with the hole in tissue.

Ryan.... that's not Jello on the table, if you've ever handled Ballistic Gelatin it's not weak stuff. It's quite stiff because it's designed to represent flesh. Furthermore while Ballistic gelatain is not filled with bones and ligaments, but that's okay they designed the tests with that in mind The depth bullets penetrate and the amount of separation they achieve in pure gelatain help determine the lethality of rounds.
See here for a text copy of the FBI gun testing protocol (http://greent.com/40Page/general/fbitest.htm)

In real life said bullets will sure as heck bounce or be deflected off various bones and other body-parts once they enter the body. The exact method of scatter and the exact lethality of this round is different from shot to shot. But a general idea of how rounds will behave once they hit a human being can be discovered through Ballistics Gel-testing. And as mentioned the fact that a .22 rifle round is ten times more likely to go strait through someone with a minimum of fragmentation or hydrostatic effect is know. Just like it's well know thanks to fifty years of military experience and testing that Ak-47 rounds have a very high chance of totally fragmentation once they entered a persons body.

I've seen what an 7.62mm round can do to someone, it's not pretty and very few people get back up after being hit even once by an AK let alone more than once.

Which is again, gets back to the point. Just don't do modern weapons with super armor in D&D. The system can not handle it, what was true 200 years ago is true today. Guns level the playing field far to much.

vrellum
2008-01-18, 12:03 AM
the force of a bullet impact is the force of recoil. Pretty simple physics. Force doesn't hurt you, just by being a large amount.

This statement is false. The maximum force of the may be bullet is larger than the force of the recoil. Here is why:

When the gun is fired, the bullet travels down the barrel, say maybe 20" During this time it is accelerated by the burning powder and is a relatively smooth acceleration.

When the bullet hits the target it often stops after going less than 20" and if it hits bones the acceleration is not uniform (there's a big drop in velocity when the bone is hit)

Force = mass * acceleration

the quicker the acceleration (or deceleration) the greater the force. Since bullets stop after traveling a shorter distance than they travel down the barrel the force of the bullet striking the person is indeed often greater than the force of the gun on the shoulder of the person who fired it. Also the force is not uniform. When the bullet hits something hard (like a bone) it decelerates quickly, delivering more force to the object it hit.

GoC
2008-01-18, 10:26 AM
By your reasoning a critical from a sword should kill an elephant every time in real life too, assuming they hit the same spots. Well in D&D a sword critical won't kill an elephant, so a gun critical won't kill an elephant.
Actualy it should but it's MUCh harder to hit in the right spot with a sword


PC's don't have steel skin. PC's don't have redundant organs. PC's have hitpoints. That is all. Stop trying to express increased hitpoints in terms of real life. There is no equivilent.
*shrug*
I disagree but anyone can interpret it different ways. I just chose tough skin.