Homebrew rule: damage threshold mechanic

[knightofrubus]

For posterity as this was already up in the FB group. This is a tweak to the game to use a Threshold mechanic for damage. It still uses most the combat rules as is but might need some minor tweaks to make it work 'right'.

Comment and critique are welcomed!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...t?usp=drivesdk

[mmartin798]

Just a couple of initial observations before I start digging deeper into this. First, the rules are quite clear for ballistic damage. How does this system deal with whole body damage from explosives, electrocution, collision/fall damage, etc? The second is how are you handling SP/BP recovery? Are you using the existing rules or something else?

In the meantime, I will just take a character and shoot at it a few times to see how it differs.

[knightofrubus]

I'll start digging into those next. I've got an inkling how Fire will work electrocution and falling not so much that will take a bit longer most likely. I might also tweak a few other things as I go.

[mmartin798]

My preliminary results are in and the results are a little mixed. This could be in part because I was a little unsure how to apply burst fire, so I did it resolving individual hits and using a single total for damage from the burst. I will summarize the 9 test cases. In all cases, the target had CON 20, FOC19. That gave the target, using the new rules, Threshold of 20, SP 20 and BP 20. The target was assumed to be wearing resistweave coveralls. The shooter was using an M4 at 200m with a Rifle skill of 74%. For comparison purposes, half the DoS was used to increase damage for the 4e rules results. Failed shock rolls for 4e will also be indicated.

Test set 1 - Single round

1) DoS 1
Hit location: Right Thigh

4e Rules
Failed shock roll
8 SP, 13 BP

New Rules
No damage

2) DoS 5
Hit location: Right Upper Torso

4e Rules
10 SP, 13 BP

New Rules
1 SP, 1 BP

3) DoS 4
Hit location: Left Upper Arm

4e Rules
9 SP, 9 BP (Exceeds SP of location rendering arm unusable)

New Rules
1 SP, 1 BP

4) DoS 12 (Exceptional success)
Hit location: Right Calf

4e Rules
Failed shock roll
13 SP, 13 BP
Limb dismembered
Critical Bleed

New Rules
Dead

5) DoS 4
Hit location: Abdomen

4e Rules
9 SP, 9 BP

New Rules
1 SP, 1 BP

Test Set 2 - 3 round burst

1) DoS 1 - 2 rounds hit

4e Rules
Hit location 1: Head
14 SP (Exceeds SP of head resulting in death)

Hit location 2: Left Upper Torso
Failed shock roll
8 SP, 13 BP

New Rules (Treating each hit individually)
Hit location 1: Head
0 SP, 1 BP

Hit location 2: Left Upper Torso
0 SP, 1 BP

New Rules (Adding each hit and using as a single hit)
0 SP, 1 BP

2) DoS 8 - 3 rounds hit

4e Rules
Hit location 1: Right Knee
Failed shock roll
11 SP, 15 BP (Exceeds SP of location rendering leg below knee unusable)

Hit location 2: Right Upper Torso
11 SP, 11 BP

Hit location 3: Abdomen
Failed shock roll
11 SP, 15 BP
Imparment
Critical Bleed

New Rules (Treating each hit individually)
Hit location 1: Right Knee
8 SP, 8 BP

Hit location 2: Right Upper Torso
8 SP, 8 BP

Hit location 3: Abdomen
8 SP, 8 BP

Note: Target dies from wounds

New Rules (Adding each hit and using as a single hit)
Dead

3) DoS 5 - 3 rounds hit

4e Rules
Hit location 1: Left Upper Arm
Failed shock roll
12 SP, 17 BP (Exceeds SP of location rendering left arm unusable)

Hit location 2: Left Hand
Failed shock roll
12 SP, 17 BP (Exceeds SP of location rendering left hand unusable)

Hit location 3: Right Elbow
Failed shock roll
12 SP, 17 BP (Exceeds SP of location rendering right arm below elbow unusable)

New Rules (Treating each hit individually)
Hit location 1: Right Knee
1 SP, 1 BP

Hit location 2: Right Upper Torso
1 SP, 1 BP

Hit location 3: Abdomen
1 SP, 1 BP

New Rules (Adding each hit and using as a single hit)
Dead

There are some unusual results, but largely the rules seem to cause similar damage. The outliers are Test set 1 case 4 where the calf was hit. The proposed rule resulted in death, while the 4e rules only had a dismemberment with a critical bleed. While that will result in death unless treated in a timely manner, it is still a difference. The other outliers were Test set 2 cases 1 & 2. In case 1, the proposed rules had light while the 4e rules had that be a fatal headshot. In case 2, the proposed rules resulted in death while the 4e rules result in serious, but not necessarily fatal wounds. The critical bleed in the abdomen is serious, but you have time to treat and possibly correct the bleed.

The proposed rules do make for much faster combat, but the damage from Heavily wounded / Severe injury seems to scale too quickly from high and exceptional DoS making any such hit almost assuredly fatal. Scaling the damage down to half DoS in these cases might help.

The headshot doing so little damage also feels off. We should be able to rely on common sense rulings, but maybe not.

Those are my initial tests and comments. Hope they help.

[mmartin798]

I just realized that I did not do hit location properly for the proposed rules. I used the same location I rolled for the 4e hits as indicated on the chart. I did not just reverse the digits on the hit roll to determine the hit location. Though reversing the digits as the location does seem to mix up the locations, it does make headshots much more likely when the to hit roll is less than 30%. In that range, all torso hits are only twice as likely by reversing digits, rather than three times as likely using the chart by itself. Just something to consider.

[knightofrubus]

That's fair. I might need to tweak some things though I must admit it does technically do its proposed purpose.

The burst fire is definitely interesting. I was truthfully worried I had damage values on a wrong scale in terms of SP between the two but around ~10:1 was what I was figuring.

The head thing also strikes me as odd. That though interesting I'll need to mill on that.