Damage System

[KillWatch]

So a while ago I had a thought about doing damage.
It didn't seem right that if I roll one over the target number needed to hit that I could do more damage than someone who hit with a solid 10+ over target number

So here is what I came up with
Max Damage/20
each point over target number results in greater damage

shotgun: 6d6 = 36
36/20=1.8 per point
Roll over target number/damage
1=1.8=2
2=3.6=4
5=9
10=18
15=27
20=36

better/worse?
Simpler/more complex?

If you figure damage per point each time you get a new weapon you cna figure it easily during game play
On the other hand, you have to exchange numbers with the players as another step
but is it really all that much harder to say "ok you hit by 6 what's your damage?" "6x1.8=10.8=11"
You could also have a damage matrix made previously made,...

thoughts?

[Noon]

Depends on what I'm aiming for. High fidelity toward realism doesn't automatically mean more soap opera style drama, or even play to win fun. If anything realism is often the enemy of excitement - take reality, for example. Absolute realism and typically boring for it.

[KillWatch]

I could make the argument here that if my character prizes himself on being highly trained, my skill should reflect how much damage I can dish. I know that it can in the hand to hand department, but it can be further exemplified in this method,...? favoring the skilled versus the lucky

[Noon]

Well, if your character thinks himself as skilled...no, that doesn't seem any reason for him to do more damage. It doesn't matter how skilled he thinks himself - it matters what you in real life decide about the damage system. Unless you've decided on some funky matrix like way, whatever the character thinks he can do, he starts being able to do it?

You have to avoid saying 'what my character wants' - because the character doesn't exist. What do you want, yourself? That's the real question, as your the one who exists.

[J. Lionheart]

I'd say the change is pretty unnecessary, and potentially causes huge problems.

Think this way - a person rolling 1 over the AR of a bulletproof vest may have gotten a chest shot that missed the edge of the trauma plate by 2 millimeters, while the person who rolled 5 over the AR may have missed the edge of the trauma plate by 6 inches. The fact is, both bullets hit, both penetrated the defense, and they're both going to play havoc. The fact that one was almost blocked has no bearing on the fact that it wasn't blocked. Close doesn't count.

Rolling versus AR is not a measure of how hard you hit a person, it's only measure of whether or not that hit penetrated their defenses. Anything that penetrates their defense is going to do damage according to the weapon. How hard you hit the person is what the damage roll tells you. A person rolling low damage had their bullet/weapon slowed down or deflected enough on the way to the target that it was a glancing blow, or didn't penetrate fully. A person who gets a high damage roll had their bullet/weapon continue unimpeded, and maybe hit an importent vessel, organ, or nerve center. That's something that very genuinely is luck for the most part. There are many stories of people with seemingly fatal wounds who end up just find because everything got missed inside, and their are many unfortunate victims who get hit with a single seemingly inoccuous injury, and die from internal trauma or bleeding.


Looking at it from another perspective, consider the implications your system would have for facing a person with full armor. A person in Class 4 armor, even facing the shotgun you're using, which based on the damage you state must be firing a 10 gauge or larger deer slug, is never going to take more than 5 points of damage from a hit. Go to Palladium Fantasy where you can rumble out in AR 18 plate armor, and a swing from a giant sized claymore, even if it penetrates armor, can't do more than 2 damage! Damage has to be determined by the weapon used, or it gets silly. Armor is a hit or miss proposition - it either succeeds in deflecting the hit, or it doesn't.


Finally, regarding "skilled" players, I'll echo what Noon said. It doesn't matter what your character thinks or wants, that doesn't make it true. The fact that a "skilled" person can do more damage in HTH combat represents the fact that they have learned additional techniques they didn't know before - kicks that are more powerful, ways of driving a punch, etc. With a gun or sword, it doesn't matter how skilled you are, you are not the one hitting the other person, and the laws of physics are the weapon. A certain sized piece of lead, flying at a certain speed, will do certain things to the human body, whether fired by a 5 year old child who doesn't know better, or fired by a worldwide assassin of legend. Your skill with a weapon is represented by your ability to get hits that penetrate the AR more often. The damage done once you're there is still bound, however, by the bullet or blade you're using.

[Natasha]

Yep - if you play it out a few times, you'll find some kinks I'm sure.

I never saw the strike roll as determinant of damage, even with putting critical hits at the upper edge of the strike range. I always saw it as a convenience thing to reduce the number of rolls during combat.

[ZorValachan]

If you want the strike to represent 'accuracy' and superiority in finding a good weak point in armour and thus, damage maybe try this:

1) For every 4 points over the to hit number, add a die to the weapon's damage to itself.
So if the gun does 5d6, 4 points over = 6d6. If 8 points over it does 7D6.
If weapon does 1d4x10, at 4 points over it does 2d4x10.
It can be much more deadly, yes. I am aware. I use a similar system for my own published RPG.

or

2) Make the player make the call. For every 4 points he wants to lower his 'to hit' roll trying to make a great shot, he adds a die to damage. if he does not call -4, -8, etc. to his roll, he just wants to shot, no extra damage. This would show the 'thinks he is good vs. is he really good' divide.

ignore natural 20s with this system.

[grandmaster z0b]

I had a very similar system in place at one stage, I think the theory behind it is sound; why roll two different dice when one die roll can tell you if you hit and how effective it is.

However the players never really liked it and seemed to prefer rolling again for damage. I suppose rolling dice is more fun than maths or looking up tables...

[Natasha]

However, if you rolled an 8 or 9, that represents luck, and you struck truer and harder for it.

So instead of 20 being critical, base to strike +1 becomes critical?

[Spinachcat]

You may want to check out an OOP RPG called Waste World by Bill King, one of the supreme Warhammer dudes. It had an interesting damage system based on the attack roll.