Using a person as cover/armor

[pmulcahy11b]

Damn, I had what I think was a good answer to this, but I hit the wrong button...let me try again.

If you're behind someone's body, use the hit point value of that body part as if the dead guy's unwounded. The body absorbs that many hits -- and the rest go on to you. You can divide that by 3.5 (the average of 1 and 6) to determine how many D6 you receive.

BTW, I have the glimmer of an idea of how to possibly handle body armor and equipment someone is carrying a bit better. There are far more grades of body armor that can be accounted for in T2K rules. So, I though, how about giving types of body armor a fractional multiplier. A standard PASGT helmet, for example, might have a value of 0.6 -- which means that the damage that goes on to you is multiplied by 0.4 (your character receives 40% of the damage). But the problem I'm having is when you get into items like ballistic plates or handgun rounds where the round could be stopped dead in its tracks, and the victim receives little blunt trauma. An then you have to account for the penetrative ability of different rounds, which would move the multiplier up or down -- and I end up with what sounds like a fundamental change in the combat rules. That's when blood vessels in my head start exploding. Anyway, it's just a glimmer of an idea right now.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

If you're behind someone's body, use the hit point value of that body part as if the dead guy's unwounded. The body absorbs that many hits -- and the rest go on to you. You can divide that by 3.5 (the average of 1 and 6) to determine how many D6 you receive.

BTW, I have the glimmer of an idea of how to possibly handle body armor and equipment someone is carrying a bit better. There are far more grades of body armor that can be accounted for in T2K rules. So, I though, how about giving types of body armor a fractional multiplier. A standard PASGT helmet, for example, might have a value of 0.6 -- which means that the damage that goes on to you is multiplied by 0.4 (your character receives 40% of the damage). But the problem I'm having is when you get into items like ballistic plates or handgun rounds where the round could be stopped dead in its tracks, and the victim receives little blunt trauma. An then you have to account for the penetrative ability of different rounds, which would move the multiplier up or down -- and I end up with what sounds like a fundamental change in the combat rules. That's when blood vessels in my head start exploding. Anyway, it's just a glimmer of an idea right now.

Gunmaster deals with all of these things very well, including the blunt trauma passed on to the body when armour stops rounds entirely. In Gunmaster damage comes in 7 different classes (Blunt, Edged, Piercing, Ballistic (which is actually a sub-class of piercing), Fire/Frost, Squeeze and Tear). Every different type of armour/cover has different values for each of those damage clases.

[copeab]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

BTW, I have the glimmer of an idea of how to possibly handle body armor and equipment someone is carrying a bit better. There are far more grades of body armor that can be accounted for in T2K rules. So, I though, how about giving types of body armor a fractional multiplier. A standard PASGT helmet, for example, might have a value of 0.6 -- which means that the damage that goes on to you is multiplied by 0.4 (your character receives 40% of the damage). But the problem I'm having is when you get into items like ballistic plates or handgun rounds where the round could be stopped dead in its tracks, and the victim receives little blunt trauma. An then you have to account for the penetrative ability of different rounds, which would move the multiplier up or down -- and I end up with what sounds like a fundamental change in the combat rules. That's when blood vessels in my head start exploding. Anyway, it's just a glimmer of an idea right now.

GURPS and several other systems use fixed armor numbers (say, 8-12 for flexible armor and 30-40 for trauma plates). Against Kevlar, for any die that comes up 5 or 6 (GURPS uses d6) one point of blunt trauma gets through, unless the shot actually penetrates.