Why is damage always something linked to the characters health/stamina/hit points?

Surely what the character is wearing or carrying should enter into the equation?

Why should a swipe from a sword always impact the character's hardiness or a shot from a gun always injure the character? What about the armour he is wearing or the equipment he is carrying?

There are plentiful real-life stories about a book or cigarette case taking a bullet, why isn't this factored into damage in games? How would you factor this into a game?

I thought some games DID factor that kind of stuff into it all.

GURPS in 3rd edition did.
While running 4th edition GURPS, if a player has an unusual success roll surviving a hit that he or she normally wouldn't - as the GM I've said something like a metal item or other small bit equipment they were wearing deflected the shot.


-Ed C.

A lot of games factor armor into damage, as damage reduction. Even factoring it into the armor class, technically impacts the amount of damage you sustain, so you could argue it is being factored in there as well. I think including stray items on your person however, would get a little on the complex side.

Alright then...here's a real life example to figure out in your preferred gaming system:

Person walking at a normal rate. He is wearing the equivalent of leather armor from the waist up, head unprotected. Around one shoulder, strap diagonallyt across his body he is wearing a leather shoulder bag . (bigger than a woman's purse - like a large-ish laptop bag)

He gets hit by an automobile thats going around 10 to 15 miles an hour.


Does he survive or not ?

And why?

What are the numbers and saving rolls involved?

- Ed C.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;372712A lot of games factor armor into damage, as damage reduction. Even factoring it into the armor class, technically impacts the amount of damage you sustain, so you could argue it is being factored in there as well. I think including stray items on your person however, would get a little on the complex side.

Damage reduction is one way of doing it, for sure. But does armour always get in the way of a hit?

For Armor:

Didn't the original Stormbringer work that way? Armor reduced damage that hurt the character, but took some of it in turn.

I vaguely recall some game where gear just added to ones innate "hit points" quite simply.

I think part of the "take damage" thing is generally you assume a very low damage roll, or a absorption by the gear worn (whatever it is) counts in that case.

As mentioned above a critical failure to hit might also not equate to a miss in some games, but a failure to do damage.

Most gear has such a small cover area that its only relevant in some very extreme circumstances, and modelling around those circumstances not worth the time for most people.

I usually use a game of some time with things like Hero Points, Luck, Karma, I assume spending those to reduce a damaging event is exactly something of the sort. A shot that bounced off a buckle, or one that passes through the body without hitting anything truly vital.

Quote from: One Horse Town;372709There are plentiful real-life stories about a book or cigarette case taking a bullet, why isn't this factored into damage in games? How would you factor this into a game?

The Elfquest game by Chaosium allowed metal ornaments to act as armor if a certain roll was made, to emulate a scene in the comic book where a metal headpiece acted as a piece of armor.  

Quote from: ElfquestRPGMetal Ornaments: most metal armor worn by anyone in the World of Two Moons is purely accidental.  A decorative piece of jewelry may actually stop some damage points if it is hit by a weapon.  Such jewelry is rarely worn on the legs, often on the arms and head and occasionally on the body.  The armor points of the piece should be rolled when obtained.

If a character is wearing metal ornaments on a hit location receiving damage, he may make a roll of his POWx3 to see if the damage hit the ornament.  If the damage exceeds the armor points of the ornament, the ornament absorbs damage equal to its armor points and breaks (after all, it is not meant to take damage).  Excess damage goes on through to damage the target.  If the damage done is equal or less to the armor points of the ornament, the ornament loses 1 armor point and there is no other result.  As with weapons, the ornament's hit points are equal to it's armor points.

Basically, make a roll to see if something hard that the character is carrying takes the hit, especially if the hit is to the location where it's being carried.

Edit:  The downside is that some people may think this qualifies for the "Stuff You Don't Want To Have To Roll For" thread.

Quote from: One Horse Town;372718Damage reduction is one way of doing it, for sure. But does armour always get in the way of a hit?

No. But if you want to reflect that sort of thing, you will probably need hit location rules to go with it.

Quote from: One Horse Town;372709Why is damage always something linked to the characters health/stamina/hit points?

Surely what the character is wearing or carrying should enter into the equation?

Why should a swipe from a sword always impact the character's hardiness or a shot from a gun always injure the character? What about the armour he is wearing or the equipment he is carrying?

There are plentiful real-life stories about a book or cigarette case taking a bullet, why isn't this factored into damage in games? How would you factor this into a game?

I think that Palladiums AR system fits what you are saying very well. Depending on the roll. Sometimes the armor is hit. Some times the individual is hit. Either way damage is done to one or the other. If the armor is damaged to the point it is no longer effective is providing protection. At the same time the armor can be by-passed to hit the individual depending on the "skill" of the shot.

Realistically having a bullet bounce off the cigarello box in your pocket is probably rare enough that it may be best handled by spending Plot Points (TM). Otherwise, unless you can rig it off another roll so it happens infrequently, it could require another die roll with a very low % chance of success (a la say a World of Synnibarr character making their 10% Fate roll against physical damage).

Unrelatedly, armour values by location are neat, though IMHO if you do that its nice to break down armour penalties by location as well (helmet for vision checks, legs for running, arms for manual dex, etc).

GTG

Yeah, really, aside from some kind of extraordinary luck roll or the use of some kind of hero-point mechanic, I don't see it necessary to actually quantify he chance that your cigarello case would protect you from a bullet.

RPGPundit

Limiting the discussion to armor and not sheriff's badges or bibles...

Yes, Stormbringer/Elric! use armor reduction but the reduction is variable. Effectively this means that weapons can hit you were you don't have any armor. In some BRP games this is done via hit locations. If I recall correctly, in most/many BRP games you also bypass armor on critical hits.

Harnmaster is similar to BRP.

TFT bypasses armor on critical hits. (Armor absorbs otherwise.)

Not sure about GURPS but it's similar to the above. So is Dragonquest.

Dragon Warriors has a separate armor-bypass roll. I'm not sure but it may forego variable weapon damage.

BESM 1e allowed you to treat armor ablatively if you wanted, so basically adds to your total hit points while you're wearing it, and gets chopped up as you get hit. I don't remember exactly how the system worked. Not as well as I'd like, but not as badly as could be imagined.

I seem to recall some game out there, probably an optional rule in one of the above, also having a cumulative armor damage rule. Like for every X points of damage absorbed, the armor's absorption goes down by 1, but it can be repaired.

In High Fantasy, IIRC, the combat chart always gave two results: damage to person and damage to armor, and when your armor was all gone, all the damage would go to the person. (Or something like that.)

The near-RPG board game Magic Realm had a nifty armor/damage system where armor would always protect you 100% from hits lower than the armor's rating, but hits greater than the armor's rating would destroy the armor and still hit you (with a reduced impact IIRC). Hits equal to the armor would damage it, and two "damage" results would destroy the armor. As well, each type of armor only protected against certain types of attacks. The game had a nifty, multidimensional combat system that allowed you to strategize about trading off a number of different offensive and defensive factors against each other.

Yep, Dragon Warriors had fixed damage (doesn't increase even for criticals, though crits automatically bypass armour. The recent reprint has optional rules for rolling damage.

From memory, HarnMaster had a rule where a hit could put a hole in armour and that would reduce subsequent armour protection. I don't know if BRP was the same.

Oh also ---Just to clarify on re-reading the OPs post and not sure if I missed a subtext --were you suggesting a system where your 'armour points' effectively work as extra hit points, e.g. like mega-damage body armour in Rifts?

Iridium V1 has ablative armor. Also, hit locations so a chainmail bikini means hits tot he midsection bypass armor. Also, criticals can bypass armor (about 2.5-5% of the time). Armor can be mixed and matched to protect vital areas for more points.

This is a V2 charsheet but armor works much the same.

Quote from: One Horse Town;372709Why is damage always something linked to the characters health/stamina/hit points?

Surely what the character is wearing or carrying should enter into the equation?

Why should a swipe from a sword always impact the character's hardiness or a shot from a gun always injure the character? What about the armour he is wearing or the equipment he is carrying?

There are plentiful real-life stories about a book or cigarette case taking a bullet, why isn't this factored into damage in games? How would you factor this into a game?

Damage is not always directly taken off 'health'.

I've used (and use) different versions of 'protection' in almost all my systems for the last 25-odd years.  In a broad way, game designers use armor as an absolute avoidance value system (it decides whether you get hit or not, period..armor class is a perfect example), or as a protective value ( the armor stops a certain amount of damage, Tunnells and Trolls is a good example).  There are a few other ideas, but 90% of the systems start here.

Often, Among the first 'complications' a GM throws at a ruleset they are creating for the sake of simulation is using both of these.  If the numbers are done right, it allows a GM to create a system where 'health; can be a little lower and often makes the game a lot more dangerous for those without armor.

The next major complications the GM can throw in here are Hit Location and Armor Ablation.  Hit location allows a much more personalized and more realistic system, but getting to this layer of complexity escalates the amount of time spent rolling for stuff in combat.  Ablation is also very realistic, but it adds another level of math and bookeeping.
Shields as absolute avoid or protection, parrying, weapon speeds and length primacy are at this level of complexity as well.

There are ramifications and benefits for all of the above, depending on the type of game you want to play.  My ruleset saves Hit location for the advanced rules, but we use Avoidance and Protection values (with high damage potentials and lower Health than most games) to create at least a realistic armor outcome for the game my groups want to play.

I'm sure all of the above is nothing new, but maybe the breakdown is useful.