I think instead of a fixed number for damage, give the weapons a die roll roll.

Quote from: APN;568684Merely nicking would be treated as a miss (rolling a total equal to the target number, for example). A two handed greatsword, if it hits with any degree of accuracy, will probably lop a limb off unless you are armoured (I'm going to the armouries museum in Leeds later today or tomorrow, I'll try to get a picture of a 'two handed greatsword' to post up to illustrate my point )

Doesn't matter, two handed greatsword, chainsaw, double barrel shotgun, all weapons are capable of doing lesser or greater degrees of damage on a scale between "inconsequential" and "full". You can remove it if you like but for me that's too obfuscated.

Most importantly, remember that sooner or later these weapons will be turned on the PCs - doing full damage every hit won't be too popular then!

Quote from: jibbajibba;568686I think referencing a damage table is slow.

Its actually quicker than rolling another dice in my experience. Horses for courses, each way has its advantages and disadvantages. Rolling for damage is as valid as fixed damage.

Some more good discussion! Go team.
 
For glancing blows - in this system I think we're going to be concerned more with firearm glancing blows. In a game like D&D, I'd be quite happy imagining a 1-HP hit from a sword as being a sideways hit from the flat of the blade (an opportunistic swing when the main thrust didn't connect) or perhaps that the attackers sword locks with their adversary and they deliver a punch at the enemy...
 
Anyway, currently I'm still in the [random roll] + [damage threshold] camp. As I see it there are now three options being proposed.
*a hit does a good amount of damage, plus extra for rolling well (Fixed Damage). The problem: loses glancing blows.
*a hit does a small amount of damage, plus extra for rolling well (the table approach). The problem: uses a table.
*a hit does a random amount of damage, plus extra for rolling well (thd damage dice approach). The problem: extra dice roll.
 
 
I can understand the appeal of just having attack roll determine damage with no second die roll -higher roll giving a straight-out higher result -  but just don't like the table.  So, I'd put fixed damage as my second preferred option.
 
In terms of comparing the options:
 
*separate hit and damage means damage is based off 2 dice, so follows a sort of V-curve. Glancing blows are going to be rarer in this system that with the table approach (they occur only if both rolls are poor). High-damage blows are also slightly rarer, though skill bonus and possibly 10s rolling up are going to cause occasional blowouts in damage - I guess its also good if you want to tie any sort of especially deadly results (e.g. limb loss) to high damage rolls since they'd be rarer, except when fighting mooks with much lower combat skills or in situations that seriously penalize defense.
 
*active defenses are less certain if you're rolling for damage. There's more incentive for a PC to try to dodge an attack that just hits if there's random damage, rather that using a table, since the attack won't necessarily just wing them. (There's also a good incentive with fixed damage, of course, if the weapon has a big damage bonus).
 
Also thinking about it, all the approaches are slightly awkward with multiple opponents since separate bonuses will apply to each damage roll (if the GM needed a 6+ to hit and gets 6, 8 and 9, he has to remember that's +0, +2 and +3 as he rolls damage ?.  Hmm, fixed damage is perhaps the easiest here...Whoops, arguing against myself now...

Giving weapons a minimum amount of damage (as I originally proposed) makes armour vital, or being able to avoid hits (cover, moving, dodging) a high priority. It depends on how lethal you want the system to be. Low lethal (random damage, big cube of hit points as per D&D) or high lethal (minimum damage that increases with accuracy, fixed hit points or minimal improvement) that relies on med kits, hypo sprays and painkillers. In the far future, I'd expect weapons to be very lethal, but medicine to be fairly advanced too. Would cost a pile of cash if soldiers dropped at the first hint of a flesh wound.

Things like cybernetic limbs, body stasis, brain transferral (the chip thing) into a new body and so on don't make the combat less lethal, but do mean the character isn't necessarily finished if they take a big hit.

The other 'problem' for me would be with rolled weapon damage. I thought we were sticking with a single die (d10) for the system? Introducing different dice types kind of goes against what we were aiming for doesn't it?

It's a call for the project director, and maybe come to some common ground where we can all agree.

On another note, I did rattle out an 'example of play' but won't bother posting it yet - we're still some way off from that sort of thing...

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;568696*a hit does a small amount of damage, plus extra for rolling well (the table approach). The problem: uses a table.

Minor correction here, the table approach does the full spectrum from low damage to massive damage, its just a little harder to do massive damage. If someone isn't dodging using the table, they are going to be severely injured even wearing heavy armour. Thats like when someone walks up and pokes a dagger in the eyeslit of your plate mail.

I think the easiest way to make armor vital is to have a norrow range of HP and make sure most weapons have a shot at dropping you to zero, so armor is there to buffer against that.

The static numbers create an issue with the range for me. I feel like even a gun should have a chance of doing a small amount of damage.

I terms of dice, i don't think we have to obsess over d10. There is no reason we couldn't use different dice for different weapons. Even with a game like d20, one part of the system they didn't streamline into that mechanic was wepaon damages.

My thought is you either go with different dice values, or if you want to stick with d10 you treat damage as a pool, with weapons rated between 1-5 d10. You roll your pool and take the single highest result.

If HP are between 1-10 for characters that will be pretty darn lethal without armor.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;568700I think the easiest way to make armor vital is to have a norrow range of HP and make sure most weapons have a shot at dropping you to zero, so armor is there to buffer against that.

The static numbers create an issue with the range for me. I feel like even a gun should have a chance of doing a small amount of damage.

I terms of dice, i don't think we have to obsess over d10. There is no reason we couldn't use different dice for different weapons. Even with a game like d20, one part of the system they didn't streamline into that mechanic was wepaon damages.

My thought is you either go with different dice values, or if you want to stick with d10 you treat damage as a pool, with weapons rated between 1-5 d10. You roll your pool and take the single highest result.

If HP are between 1-10 for characters that will be pretty darn lethal without armor.

Agreed, armor providing damage soak should do "enough" to keep armor important. I don't think a separate damage roll adds too much complexity too the system and its the middle ground in time consumption between referencing a table and having fixed damage. A single die to rule all possible weapon damage is also workable though I'd prefer using different dice for different weapons myself.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;568700I terms of dice, i don't think we have to obsess over d10. There is no reason we couldn't use different dice for different weapons. Even with a game like d20, one part of the system they didn't streamline into that mechanic was weapon damages.

I'd agree with that - most universal systems have a different mechanic for damage than for other tasks. I think the only d20 variants that loses the damage roll is True20/Mutants and Masterminds. In Savage Worlds the damage dice are read differently to the other checks, or BRP is basically d% for everything but uses various damage dice. Dice pool games are usually unified throughout, but I don't think we'll get sneered at by modern designers for different random damages.

As far as I can see the current opinions are:

APN: fixed damage + bonus from to-hit roll
jibbajibba: weapn damage roll + bonus
MGuy: damage roll
TheTraveller: damage table
Me: weapon damage roll + bonus
BedrockBrendan: damage roll + bonus

So by democracy that would be random damage rolls winning.
I think different ranges (d4, d6,d8 etc ) is likely the best approach. Its possible having a varying number of dice (bigger weapons getting the most, take highest) as BB suggested could work, but unless 10s roll up it would mean extra mechanics to get antitank weapons etc. to work.

I think we should definetely go with armour absorbing damage for an SF game.
Even with that, I'm not sure 10 hit points for everyone is enough since a high hit roll + high damage roll could generate a fair bit of damage ? Time limited today but I might lay out some numbers tomorrow if no one beats me to it.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;568891I'd agree with that - most universal systems have a different mechanic for damage than for other tasks. I think the only d20 variants that loses the damage roll is True20/Mutants and Masterminds. In Savage Worlds the damage dice are read differently to the other checks, or BRP is basically d% for everything but uses various damage dice. Dice pool games are usually unified throughout, but I don't think we'll get sneered at by modern designers for different random damages.

As far as I can see the current opinions are:

APN: fixed damage + bonus from to-hit roll
jibbajibba: weapn damage roll + bonus
MGuy: damage roll
TheTraveller: damage table
Me: weapon damage roll + bonus
BedrockBrendan: damage roll + bonus

So by democracy that would be random damage rolls winning.
I think different ranges (d4, d6,d8 etc ) is likely the best approach. Its possible having a varying number of dice (bigger weapons getting the most, take highest) as BB suggested could work, but unless 10s roll up it would mean extra mechanics to get antitank weapons etc. to work.

I think we should definetely go with armour absorbing damage for an SF game.
Even with that, I'm not sure 10 hit points for everyone is enough since a high hit roll + high damage roll could generate a fair bit of damage ? Time limited today but I might lay out some numbers tomorrow if no one beats me to it.

High dodge and high armor mitigate damage at a good enough rate where you can make things survivable. It depends on how we set up the dodge skill. I won't have any numbers or material for a while. I have had now 2 laptops die on me in the past few weeks so I don't even have the material for my own stuff to work on outside of dead tree format.

I think as a general thought for damage, without proposing actual mechanics this is what I wouod like to see: pretty much any lethal weapon has a chance at dropping a character in one shot. However a character with armor is pretty much assured (in a worst case scenario) 2-3 big hits before dropping. This makes armor very important, literally the difference between life and death.

Sounds like we are making armour ubiquitous.

Does that fit the style we are aiming for? are we thinking -





or

I've been GMing a game where a knife in the back could kill a character for some years now, and to be honest armour is just insurance, and not 100% either, not even close. It leads to a more thoughtful kind of game - players are unlikely to brashly challenge large groups of armed men to combat, charge down machine gun nests, or go tearing through dungeons without a distinct goal in mind.

Instead they formulate a plan and try to see it through without putting themselves at too much risk, like real life in many ways. Armour is no panacea for these type games, unless you want to go down the ubermaxi armour route a la CP2020 (which many people complained wrecked the game).

Players used to D&D style stand-up slugfests are going to have to adjust their expectations and strategies a bit, which is no harm at all to my mind, it really brings out the roleplayer in a lot of people when you can't just nuke everything from metaphorical orbit. If you want a more two fisted pulp game, up the hits or drop weapon damage, but a big focus on armour is the wrong approach from what I can see so far.

I can't imagine a future whereby firearms get less effective - whatever you shoot will get a hole punched through it in other words, unless armour or luck come into play. I'd suggest you can still run around with normal clothes on, but need some kind of repulsion field worn on the belt or cybernetic lightning fast reflexes to avoid getting turned into hamburger.

Quote from: jibbajibba;569089Sounds like we are making armour ubiquitous.

Does that fit the style we are aiming for? are we thinking -





or

I think anyone seriously considering combat would want to wear armor like the later images (though I was visualizing something a touch less robotech). But my experience with lethal games is you can still have fun outside of combat, and sans armor. People are just a lot more cautious about entering potentially dangerous situations unless they are suited up. But they presumably wont be able to wear the armor at all times (if its powered armor I imaine fuel cost is a big consideration as well). So I think the bottom images are where we are going, but we should be careful about confining the setting entirely to a haloesque style of play.

I basically agree with APN that futuristic weapons and firearms should be very effective and so being shot with one is going to be quite lethal (maybe unless it just clips them perhaps).

FUDGE tried to go with a system where weapons weren't any more lethal from tech level - I forget the details now but it said something like "being stabbed through the kidney is no more lethal than being shot through the kidney with a sonic disruptor", and I think it just reduced armour against higher tech level weapons. It never really convinced me, though.

The question of what armour looks like is a bit different from how effective it is, though. MDC swimsuits (a la Rifts Blind Warrior Women) are a bit silly (I don't care how good your armour is, if it doesn't cover the area you got shot in, you're boned - barring force fields, which are also silly), but you could assume that armour development is pretty advanced and so a fairly lightweight suit provides amazing protection.
Hence I lean more toward the storm trooper outfit, although it would be good to give characters some degree of choice in armours. Strength might help determine what a character can wear comfortably, unless you want to assume a suit has its own servos - in which case I guess a character's own Strength score is a bit redundant.