9mm and damage to Zombies

[psijudge]

Just got Dead Reign, a bit late but after BtS2, it took me a bit to bite the bullet to buy it.
So far, so good. Got a couple of questions.

Zombies take 50% damage from .38 Caliber rounds and below.
9mm do the same amount of damage as a .38 round, so is it also considered a small round and does only 50% damage?

Head shots seem kinds convoluted; in order to hit the head, which is larger then then hand, you have to roll an 17-20 with no bonuses. Then you do damage to the S.D.C of the head, if you didn't crit and do triple damage, you will more then likely just remove the S.D.C. Once the S.D.C. is gone, you then do hit point damage. This is the part that is confusing, it says "If an attack inflicts damage equivalent to the Zombie's full hit points (even if it has already previous Hit Point damage), the skull shatters and the brain is destroyed."
So if the Zombie has 13 Hp, you shoot it in the head, it already has 0 S.D.C., you do 10 points of damage to its Head and then next action you shoot it for another 10, you still haven't killed the zombie. you need to do 13 points of damage in one shot to shatter his skull.
If over a couple rounds, he takes enough damage to reduce his HP to 0, does he drop, and then returns in an hour?
Neck Shots seem to be a little bit easier. You still have to hit the neck, which depending on the Zombie could be really hard, 17-20 with no bonuses, but this time when the SDC is reduced to 0 on the neck, it is decapitated and for all game mechanics, dead.
A neck shot seems to be the most efficient method of killing a zombie. Yes, the head could be reattached by a Death Cult or Zombie Master, but unless there is one handy with the right ritual and tools, its not going to help the zombie and the body can be burnt.
I don't like the idea of head/neck shots not getting bonuses for hitting. It means that a first level character has as much chance as hitting it as a seasoned 20th level character.
Overall it seems to make combat cumbersome and clumsy. It would be fine for Zombie rules if there were zombies's showing in a BtS game, where you are fighting a couple of them, with pretty much unlimited resources, compared to fighting 5, 10 or 20 of them with a very finite resource pool.
Is anyone else using there own house rules? What are they and how are they working?

Thanks,
Psijudge

[azazel1024]

I agree that, especially with guns, it is just to damn hard to kill a zombie. I am not expecting action heros, but hell it is probably 50x harder to nail a zombie in DR than it ever would be a person in real life. I'd expect even low level players that are resonably well equipped with a gun and a hand-to-hand weapon to at least be able to take on 3-4 slouchers by themselves and a larger group a greater number proportionally (4-5 with good planning and placement should be able to take on 30-40 slouchers. Not a whole city, which is likely to descend on them if they stick around, but enough to say clean out a large department store in the burbs or something similar with good planning).

I don't reduce damage for smaller caliber handguns.

Allow bonuses to strike and also point blank range (within 20ft) bonuses (+3 to strike).

I just have players reduce the SDC to zero. For the head/neck I ignore HP. To me if you reduce the SDC to 0 you've destroyed the head or neck. I use the HP if the players are attacking the mainbody of the zombie. Reduce the SDC and HP of the mainbody to zero and I figure you've smashed/bashed/cut/thrashed/shot the zombie up enough that they aren't capable of movement, but they aren't dead either.

Guns do half damage to the main body a of zombie for me.
-Matt

[psijudge]

Thanks for the responses. I just wanted to make sure wasn't missing something.
Yeah, I prefer to be doing fast combat. Reducing the S.D.C. of the head should do it.
If 9mm did half damage, we would be really screwed, the majority of the Police and Military use 9mm.

Psijudge

[Rockwolf66]

Frankly the modern weapon section needs alot of changes.

First thing i would take a look at would be something like the Thopson LaGarde tests where they did shoot at human cadavers to compair tissue damage. Basically alive or dead Flesh is damaged the same way and with the same results. the only thing that Zombies don't have to worry about is blood loss.

As far as shooting the head goes I do know someone who was trained to doubletap people in the head at 5m of distance at a dead run. While he was military I ould also belive that various competition shooters that i know could do the same thing. Basically any armed party after the zombie apocalypse would either get really good really fast or they would die.

[rat_bastard]

As far as I understand there is not a single current bigwig at palladium who has ever fired a firearm or spent much real time studying said weapons. This is something that is epidemic among gaming companies (white wolf used to firmly assert that you needed to be a millionaire with intensive government connections and certifications to get a laser sight). A better listing of Firearms than anything palladium has ever published can be found here.

[Silveressa]

Before Dead Reign it had been a long time since I used Palladiums firearms rules and I won't touch what was created for this book with a ten foot pole.

With a round house kick doing as much damage as a .9mm pistol and a leap kick as powerful as a .357 magnum/.45 caliber pistol I don't blame you a bit. I ran into that problem in my first "mini campaign" for DR, the martial artist of the group Renee, wound up getting into several situations where her unarmed combat ability as way more effective then her pistol, which imbalanced a few encounters horribly. (the main reason they insisted the second campaign took place using the Cortex rule system which incidentally did make for a far better game.)

[Mercdog]

I don't play with these odd damage rules (some shots and arrows do 1/2 or no damage). DR is a very deadly game, and while it does keep things interesting, I like the players to have the edge so we don't have to re-roll characters every other session.

Ditto. IMO the A.R. of the zombies sufficiently reflects their ability to soak up punishment.