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I'm wondering how the guys at Palladium figure out what weapons should have what stats?
I bet it's a top secret mathematical formula Kevin keeps locked away somewhere.

Am I right?

Seriously, some insight from a few freelancers would be good. How do you guys do it? I'd like to know so maybe I can figure out how to stat out some of the cool future weapons presented in the TV show of the same name. I'm sure everyone would like to see futuretech stuff!

Well...some of Palladium's weapon stats are off by a bit. Other than that look at the damage that similar rounds do and start working from there. I am currently doing a net based firearms project for my own interests. Basically I am doing up a great big list of firearms cartrigdes and the damage from their most common loadings. I'm also going to be listing the Recon damages.


Let me know what "Futureweapons" you want and I'll see if i already have the damage.

The magic word is Benchmarks.

Compare what is in the book to the real world and try to base your decisions off that

Still in order to do an accurate comparison between rounds it is a good idea to use something like the Power factor rateing system used in Handgun competitions.

the formula is very simple. you take the bullet weight in grains and times it by the velocity then devide that total by 1,000.

While it does have it's flaws for very basic comparison without getting into higher mathematics it works.

Yup,

it's a quick and dirty way of compareing calibers for use in handgun competition. Sort of like how 9mm has very low recoil in some loadings but might not have the impact to stop something and the .45 ACP cannot be accuratly fired as quickly as a 9mm but has better stopping power according to a turn of the century test.


Stopping power is one of those subjects that have enough variables to make a physics major cry. As a student of Psychology I have to ask myself why when you have two people of the same size and physical condition. they both get shot in the same way one of them lives and the other does not. Now people collapsing from a non-fatal shot that misses bone and supporting muscle is mostly psychological. Thus it's not an exact science.

Do you consider FMJ, HP, etc?

How do you use the Power Factor to determine how to roll damage in-game terms?

I'm sorry, I understand what you're saying but I don't understand what you did.

What ratio did you use?

How did you decide to go from 8D6 to 1D6 x10 instead of 9D6, for example?

Ah I see what you were doing now. Thanks.

So if I'm converting the .950 JDJ to roughly Palladiums damage system...

it's Power factor is 7,920.

running it through your formula i get 117, or roughly 1d6X100 points of damage.

The .950 JDJ is a wildcat round made from a 20mm Vulcan case.

Well given that it fires a 7.5 ounce lead slug at 7 1/3 football fields a second, it has a kick. I have heard reports of a .950 JDJ rifle knocking out the user when fired.

It's also about the maximum a human being can fire without the weapon mounted on a vehicle.

Still that's a great little formula.

How about the black talon round for the shotgun?

batlchip wrote:How about the black talon round for the shotgun?

First off: The Black Talon round was for handguns and it was just another hollow point that had a little feature that the anti-gun Nuts found too scary.

Secondly can anyone tell me how much the 4.7X33mm Caseless for the H&K G-3 does?

I would also love to know what the 4.6X30mm round used by the H&K MP-7 does. I have a player who's asking.

I forget what compendium of contemporary weaposn says (which is now an edition out of date anyway) but the 4.7 caseless I'd put as rough equivalent to a 5.56, maybe a shade less so 3D6 or 4D6 for most games, 3D10+10 or 4D10+5 for Recon.

I beleive the FN-P90 was listed at 2D6 which makes a good basis for the 4.6 HK round, though I might add some sort of proviso about affect against armour due to the better penetration of this class of rounds compared to a 9mm Parabellum.
So I'd go with 2D6 or 3D6 in most games, or 2D10+5 or 2D10+10 for recon. Depending on the armour rules you use I'd consider the round armour piercing (so reduce target AR by 2 or 4 points).

As for the Black Talon . . . didn't it turn out that the feture was all hype and the round was not really any more effective (perhaps less so than a normal round because of it).

Jefffar wrote:As for the Black Talon . . . didn't it turn out that the feature was all hype and the round was not really any more effective (perhaps less so than a normal round because of it).

Pretty much. The "Talons" of the round didn't do enough increased damage to warrent their inclusion in the rounds repacaging as the Winchester Ranger SXT(or something like that).

Whipped, the 2D4 figure would put the PDF round int he same terminal effectiveness catagory as a .22LR

2D6 is the old school 9mm. 3D6 would be the 2nd ed 9mm

Jefffar wrote:Whipped, the 2D4 figure would put the PDF round int he same terminal effectiveness catagory as a .22LR

2D6 is the old school 9mm. 3D6 would be the 2nd ed 9mm

Jeffer,
In looking at the Mass/Velocity/Caliber of the H&K 4.6 round it is similar in all aspects to any one of Several short ranged .177 varmit rounds used on 30 to 40 pound Coyote. While yes they can kill when they strike a vial organ, against a hostile target their effectivness is iffy. While people like DR. Michael Courtney have made great strides in showing that yes there is some effect to Hydrostatic shock. With a very small caliber round you get less of a "Punch". Ie. getting hit by a pool cue insted of a baseball bat.

It's a lightweight of a round, but I think it's still a better performer than a .22.

Well if you are going to adjust the .22 down then that's a fair bit better.

I was doing some tinkering myself last night, using metric units for muzzzle energy (more or less this Power Factor ranking, except you miss an exponent).

Regretably the scale goes from around 101 joules for a .25 ACP to 16800 joules for a .50 BMG.

I did a fibinachi sequence, multiplied by 200 and got some levels that worked - but still the rifles are on the strong side and the pistols are on the weak side (arguably true to life).

Some of the numbers I got.

.22LR 1D4
9mm Parabellum 2D4
.357 Magnum 3D6
.45 ACP 2D4
5.56 NATO 5D6
7.62 NATO 6D6
.338 Lapua Magnum 1D4x10
.50 BMG 1D6x10

I'm thinking that it still needs work, I'm tempted to give all pistols a step up or use a scale that doesn't increase geometrically - though geometric progression is what keeps those high powered goodies from getting crazy.

Jeffer,

Quoteing a friend of mine who's spent time behind an M-2HB in Iraq.

There goes another house.

he said that when rounds from his Ma Duce ricocheted off the top of the berm being used as a backstop and into Sadr City. Who ever found themselves in the path of those bullets were in a world of hurt as even 7.62mm Fragments can doe enough damage to destroy a joint and in some cases necitate the amputation of a limb.

I do agree at the wicked power of the .50, but it does need to be kept in scope - some of the tinkering I did put the .50 in the killing main battle tanks category, so that was a little much for me - splattering people and wreckign unarmoured vehicles is just fine.

In realim, there does need to be a big gap in the capability of handguns to rifles, but in game, suddenly most PC and NPCs were able to shrug off the entire magazine of a .45 ACP with those numbers, so there's still some work to be done.

More like turn human's into paint and at close range disable light armor.

Watch the video. I've examined the rifle back when I was a 135 pound 16 year old. it's heavy but it can be shoulder fired. As far as the M-2HB Machinegun, things get nasty.

In the 20 years I've been playing PB games, along with all of that time playing with guns from .177 caliber to 120mm, I don't think that the issue of PB games is their damage ratings. They seem to be close enough for government work (especially in Recon...one shot stops are common). Granted, some times you pop a guy center mass and he drops just like he's supposed to, but then sometimes you gotta shoot them a few times "to make sure".

The problem, from my spiderhole, is the SDC of humans increasing to anything past 30 to 50. While for superhero games and RIFTS, you can sort of justify it, but really, how can you justify any other character having SDC above 50?

One of the house rules I have (and it works for other notiously "Tough PC" games too), I limit the PC's to Hit Points only. That's it. No SDC. It makes guns deadly (like they should be) and still allow for PC survival, though they will be hurting. Sort of stays true to Recon as well.

Just my 2 cents.

-STS

Arguably any potentially lethal attack does HP instead of SDC damage so guns could bypass SDC, especially at close range.

Thoughs familiar with the Subdual Damage system from D&D could find a good framework for dividing attacks into those that do damage direct to hit points and those that have to wear down the SDC first.

let us not forget that there are countless accounts of people being shot twenty or more times without going down. While there is no doubt in my mind that even a little .22 pistol is lethal(I know of people who have repeatedly killed American Black Bear with a .22). There is a Psychophysiological componant to getting shot. You have some people who when shot go " oh [censored] I'm shot!" and fall over and stop. there are other people who are usually either mentally unballance or high on something that just take the hits and keep going. Take those two north Hollywood bankrobbers for instance. One of them took 11 rounds before going down and the other took all of 23 rounds before they did the public a favor.

Basically it would be a drug induced bonus to SDC.

Or perhaps some sort of "wound" mechanic rather than an HP mechanic.

Jefffar wrote:Or perhaps some sort of "wound" mechanic rather than an HP mechanic.

Nope it's the brain not telling the body that it should be dead. As long as a person has enough blood in them for the heart to pump and their Motor cortex is intact a human being can survive an encredible amount of punishment.

According to at least one soldier who fought doped up insurgents in Iraq. Some of those on drugs had to either bleed out or get shot in the head before stopping fighting. In the Miami Shootout in 1886 one of the crooks kept fighting even though he was lethaly wounded. he was that amped up on adrenalin that he didn't realize that he was supost to die.

Basically my personal research on the subject of the psychology of injury has lead me to belive that the only true one stop shot is one to the motor cortex and even then there are people who will still pull the trigger.

Yeah, the odds of a 1 shot stop to the torso are pretty low for anything less than a 20 mm cannon.

However the HP system as it is doens't take into account the really weird things that happen when bullet meets body. A .22 can bring a man down and a .50 can be shrugged off all depending on what part(s) of the body they pass through.

In the old Shadowrun game they had a wounding mechanic in which your condition deteriorated independantly of your ls of hit points representing the sevrity of any particular attack. They also had a wonderful golden BB set up that meant that a .22, with a lucky roll, could bring down even the toughest hombre.

I found this more realistic, though it's not so popular to try and introduce something comperable in a Palladium game - I don't think I've ever encountered a player who likes being subjected to the optional damage rules in the Modern Weapons Compendium for example.

There needs to be some sort of hybrid system of cumulitive damage and potential catastrophic wounds that could be playable, plausible and entertaining.

Jefffar wrote:I found this more realistic, though it's not so popular to try and introduce something comperable in a Palladium game - I don't think I've ever encountered a player who likes being subjected to the optional damage rules in the Modern Weapons Compendium for example.

There needs to be some sort of hybrid system of cumulitive damage and potential catastrophic wounds that could be playable, plausible and entertaining.

Some of my local games do use the CCW rules for called shots. it makes the game a whole heck of a lot faster. Thankfully, the badguys don't use those rules very offten unless someone is anoying the rest of the group.

Well, here's what I use for the "Death Spiral"

Full SDC Healthy No Modifiers
3/4 SDC Bruised -1 all Stats, -5% all skills
½ SDC Injured -2 all Stats, 10% all skills
1/4 SDC Seriously Injured -5 all Stats, 25% all skills
0 SDC Unconscious -10 all Stats, all skills 0%
-1/4 SDC Critically Injured Critically Injured
-1/2 SDC Dead Dead

-STS

They probably play tested a few stats over and over again until it made sense.

.50cal/12.7mm MGs are wonderful at stopping light armored vehicles. I've played many hours of Steel Panthers.


That's why I like random dice rolls for rounds. Roll 7 '1's, the 50cal round just grazed. Roll 4 '6's, and the .22 rifle stopped 'em.

I'm pretty sure that they just made them up with what seemed "reasonable" at the time. There are some fairly large discrepancies between calibers and weapons (like the CAR-15 doing +10 damage per-round than a M16 despite having 1/2 the barrel length) and it was done pretty well off the cuff as the weapons would be much more lethal if they had really gone all out with calculations and the like.