I am toying with a damage mechanic, one that I may not get a chance to use in anything to be honest. But want some feedback on it either way. Right now I have two different approaches that are kind of the same concept.

1) damage is always the same die (for simplicity lets say d10, but i may go with a d8 or d6 in the end). Every weapon is is given a lethality rating within that range, a wound rating and a graze rating. So you might have shot gun- lethality 9-10, wound 6-8 and graze 1-5. Basically when you succe ed on a shot gun blast you roll d10, if you get 9-10, oppoent dies, if you get 6-8 opnent takes a wound and if you get 1-5 the opponent gets a scrape or bruise. Picturing about four wounds and each wound being comprised of two to three scratches.

2) The second approach is a bit simpler but loses a bit of granularity. Same wound system assumed. Damage is rated by different die types: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12. When you roll damage the lowest possble result on the die (1) is always a wound, the highest possible result (so a 4 on a d4 or an 8 on a d8) is always a kill and anything in between is a graze (so 2-5 on a d6, or 2-7 on a d8). Therefore a d4 is the best damage die, d12 the weakest.

So this is a game where killing a person in a single blow is always a possibility. Haven't given much thought yet to damage bonuses from things like attributes.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;573509So this is a game where killing a person in a single blow is always a possibility. Haven't given much thought yet to damage bonuses from things like attributes.

How does it interact with armor?

Interesting. I think you'd have a few players puzzled: they like nice shiney simple numbers to look at, like dice codes or straight TNs. I've seen games with complex damage codes (Kult springs to mind...) and despite years of experience in gaming I still can't quite grok them quickly.

On the other hand, the wound system seems somewhat familiar. I know SLA Industries, for example, had a system where everytime you took damage it also took one(at least? Been a while...) wound. Wounds were the penalizer, and the real killer in the system, rather than the... um... other part of damage, and the healing in the game directly approached wounds first.  As I recall, you'd bleed a number of (call 'em Hit points, damnit!) per round per wound, so with five wounds you'd be dropping fast even hiding behind a wall and just whimpering. Of course, that was a high-tech horror game, so lethality was supposed to be high.

Need more info: How does armor work? Dodge? Damage Reduction/Soak? Does accuracy play into this (I'd think a crack shooter could pop headshots and thus have more lethality than someone who isn't)? What about against thingsthat can't be killed (like shooting off a lock)?

Quote from: John Morrow;573518How does it interact with armor?

Have not gotten that far yet. Just thinking about this base concept for damage as a first point of development. But i think armor functioning with any kind of dr would be tricky in this sort of system.

Quote from: MGuy;573589Need more info: How does armor work? Dodge? Damage Reduction/Soak? Does accuracy play into this (I'd think a crack shooter could pop headshots and thus have more lethality than someone who isn't)? What about against thingsthat can't be killed (like shooting off a lock)?

Havent gotten that far yet. This is literally the only part of the system (wounds and damage rolls) i have evn thought about.

My guess is armor will probaboy need to be more like d&d and protect you from the damage roll in the first place.

Not sure whether accuracy will factor into damage or not. With option one it wuld be easy to add a modifier to the damage based on level of success, wuth option two it would be a bit more tricky. But i havent given enough consideration to the rest of the system yet.

I imagine innanimate objects would simply have wounds (based on material and composition) in the way people do and you would roll in the same way.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;573688Havent gotten that far yet. This is literally the only part of the system (wounds and damage rolls) i have evn thought about.

My guess is armor will probaboy need to be more like d&d and protect you from the damage roll in the first place.

Not sure whether accuracy will factor into damage or not. With option one it wuld be easy to add a modifier to the damage based on level of success, wuth option two it would be a bit more tricky. But i havent given enough consideration to the rest of the system yet.

I imagine innanimate objects would simply have wounds (based on material and composition) in the way people do and you would roll in the same way.

Depending on the stat system you could use their 'Body" (using CP2020 stat as a reference because it matches up nicely with stat ranges of 2-10), so that it would interact with the character's physique some.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;573682But i think armor functioning with any kind of dr would be tricky in this sort of system.

That's why I asked the question, because it's going to make armor difficult to factor in as damage reduction, which is the most representative abstraction for armor.  That means you'll probably need to switch to non-representative abstractions (like AC in D&D) which creates different problems.  It's possible you could change the die used base on armor, as per your point (2).

I think you should develop it some more. Without knowing more details I can't really say whether or not it looks good.

Quote from: John Morrow;573792That's why I asked the question, because it's going to make armor difficult to factor in as damage reduction, which is the most representative abstraction for armor.  That means you'll probably need to switch to non-representative abstractions (like AC in D&D) which creates different problems.  It's possible you could change the die used base on armor, as per your point (2).

Shifting the die is certainly an option if I go there. I am picturing a more modern setting for this so you would mostly be dealing with flak vests and stuff. Another option is good armor could turn wounds into grazes (really good armor might also turn kills to wounds).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;573814Shifting the die is certainly an option if I go there. I am picturing a more modern setting for this so you would mostly be dealing with flak vests and stuff. Another option is good armor could turn wounds into grazes (really good armor might also turn kills to wounds).

in Phoenix Command you don't have a roll for damage, you roll for location, then make a Glance Roll to see if your armor deflects the round (which is based on the penetration of the round compared to the Protection Factor of your armor; armor is effective 50% of the time at double the PF etc..), which allows for an abstraction of the armor's protection relative to the actual penetration of the weapon.  

If you're not looking for that much detail (PCCS uses a D% hit location chart) you could go with something along the lines of cyberpunk (1 Head, 2-4 body, 5-6 arm, 7-0 leg) and keep the damage abstract.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;573817in Phoenix Command you don't have a roll for damage, you roll for location, then make a Glance Roll to see if your armor deflects the round (which is based on the penetration of the round compared to the Protection Factor of your armor; armor is effective 50% of the time at double the PF etc..), which allows for an abstraction of the armor's protection relative to the actual penetration of the weapon.  

If you're not looking for that much detail (PCCS uses a D% hit location chart) you could go with something along the lines of cyberpunk (1 Head, 2-4 body, 5-6 arm, 7-0 leg) and keep the damage abstract.

I am hoping to keep to keep it fairly light. So don't intend to do hit locations.

Quote from: MGuy;573797I think you should develop it some more. Without knowing more details I can't really say whether or not it looks good.

I might develop it more. Right now I am just trying to get initial feedback on how these two options feel to folks. For example if someone immediately finds the idea of option two completely offputting for some reason. This is just at an initial concept stage. If i did develop it, this would be an important core mechanic so I am just trying to get a sense of how it strikes people on a first glance more than anything else.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;573860I might develop it more. Right now I am just trying to get initial feedback on how these two options feel to folks. For example if someone immediately finds the idea of option two completely offputting for some reason. This is just at an initial concept stage. If i did develop it, this would be an important core mechanic so I am just trying to get a sense of how it strikes people on a first glance more than anything else.[/QUOTEI can say a flat 20% death rate on gun firing is pretty ballsy but if that's what you're looking for that'll do it for lethality. I can say that, in a vacuum I can't fiure out whether or not it would "feel" right but I might as well wait for the update.

Quote from: MGuy;573867

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;573860I might develop it more. Right now I am just trying to get initial feedback on how these two options feel to folks. For example if someone immediately finds the idea of option two completely offputting for some reason. This is just at an initial concept stage. If i did develop it, this would be an important core mechanic so I am just trying to get a sense of how it strikes people on a first glance more than anything else.[/QUOTEI can say a flat 20% death rate on gun firing is pretty ballsy but if that's what you're looking for that'll do it for lethality. I can say that, in a vacuum I can't fiure out whether or not it would "feel" right but I might as well wait for the update.

I am looking for lethal here. Every weapon will have a shot at killing you (though unarmed might just KO or something) in one shot.