1KM1KT Free RPG Community

Long and short I've been wasting time, most of it playing xbox live and mmorg's like Destiny and Defiance (just in case you want to know I like Defiance better) . . . but I've gotten the itch to get back into designing as by far it is the one thing that helps me keep slightly more sane.

So to the point . . . I'm thinking of rehashing a lot of my ideas and one theme is popping up in my mind constantly. It's an idea involving layers of armor and weapon penetration vs weapon damage.

What I'm thinking of is more of a more modern styled game then I have done before, including firearms, but the more than the fire arms is the 'munitions' used. Ie Full-metal-jacket vs Lead-point- vs wad-cutters and what would happen/should happen when those items hit targets of various armor levels (Ie un-armored vs light-armor vs heavy-armor).

What I am considering is a table/chart of some-type (possibly a round one), that illustrated the various layers a pc and npc could have, with the center of the diagram being the vitals, the next layer structure (ie bone), then flesh/tissue (need another generic layer term for this) with at least two other layers being armor and over lay (I'm planing over lay to be basic one hit ceramic (or similar material) type stuff that shatters easily but has massive penetration stopping abilities.)

Now the theory I'm working on is that the ammo used to cause damage to armored targets would be less effective against unarmored targets and vice-versa. So a fmj round designed for punching through say at least two levels of armor would pass cleanly through an unarmored target doing minimal damage. Now this causes me to think that I'll not only need a penetration stat for ammo, but also two types of damage stats one for the amount of damage caused by the passing of the round and a second for the amount of damage caused when the round finally reaches it's penetration limit.

And if we flip the scenario around and have a wad-cutter round designed for causing massive tissue damage, hit an armored target it would be basically wasted, though it might cause knock-back/stagger upon impact, and yes I do want to include effects like stagger and shock when impacted by rounds, or even melee weapons.

what I'm trying to figure is should it be a diagram, with a set number of boxes/segments to indicate over all damage to each layer, or would a set of just listed values be more welcoming/easier?

Also I do understand calibre would impact these values as well, as a .22lr can pass through a human, like a .50 cal can, but the shock from the .50cal and size of the wound track would be exponentially more devastating (more like lethal) to an un-armored target that the same wound track for the .22lr, but calibre aside (just for now) is the thought.idea of weapon penetration, wound tracks and diagrams getting overly complicated for a possible one of system.

One of the things for Miracle that I've been considering is having damage come in two forms: Penetration and Hit Effect.

Something like a .22 and a .50 cal both have a decent amount of penetration, but the .50 cal has a hit effect that really cannot be matched. In this way, it's possible to manage to put a .22 through a structural wall and into a target, but it'll have lost some of its penetration and therefore do really piddly damage, while a .50 cal will really wreck anyone's day until it finally comes to a "stop" by slowing down too much to deliver a hit effect.

Correct. Though I'm a little more complicated as ammo-type will also impact the ideas of penetration and damage, as a .50 fmj would punch through a cinder block wall and the person behind it, and potentially three more walls and people, the damage would be severe, but take that same calibre and make it a wad-cutter round, which has minimal penetration but causes massive tissue damage. The calibre and fps muzzle velocity would theoretically allow it to slam through the first cinder-block wall (making a huge hole) and the person using that wall for cover, but the following wall it may only damage.

Of course all my musing does not include anything about shaped charged or explosive rounds, which throws the above scenario in a wide arc to left field.

What I want to do is compile a simple and systematic way to allow pc's to track when getting hit with these types of thoughts about firearms and ammunition. I learning towards using a chart/table/image of some type (if you have ever played the Battletech table-top games where you tick off armor pips as your mech takes damage - - kinda like that) that makes it standard for my game anyway to track a wound track as well as the damage incurred to each layer that is penetrated.

A scenario off the top of my head . . . a PC takes aim and fires upon an un-armored NPC from let's say the right side. The PC is using armor piercing rounds and let's give them a penetration power of say 7. So the rolls work out that it was a successful shot and it hits . . . 1st Layer - clothing (penetration); 2nd Layer Tissue (penetration); 3rd Layer Bone (penetration); 4th Layer Tissue (penetration); 5th Layer Clothing (penetration); 6th Layer Clothing (penetration); 7th Layer Tissue (Penetration) . . . not let's say the penetration state dictates how many layers the round will punch through before causing final damage, so on a penetration value of 7 it's the 8th layer that takes all the damage (this does not include any thoughts on impact, shock and stagger effects) so in this example the 8th Layer is Bone as the bullet punches through the entire right arm and slams into the rib cage. Let's just make the final end damage value for this round 12. Let's say the chest bone structure can absorb 8 points of impact damage before totally failing and allowing the remainder of the damage to transfer into the next level, so with 8 - 12 = -4 this means 4 points of impact damage overflow into the vitals of the NPC (i.e. the heart & lungs) causing death. (let's say the vitals only can take 2 damage.)

So on a diagram it may look like this (right arm - chest - left arm) CMBMCCMBVBMCCMBMC for the wound track.
(Wish I could make a diagram with a line through it to show what I'm thinking, but to generalize think of three circles one for each arm and a larger one for the chest. Arm circles would have Bone in the middle, while the chest one would have vitals in the center.)

IS this too complicated with again a possible one off game idea? Keep in mind nothing was included for the effects on the body/nervous system) of being hit with this round would be (ie stagger, knock back, system shock) or even the damage to each layer from the round passing through them.

And this case assumes the PC is aiming center mass and not trying for a head-shot kill, or a crippling shot to the legs.

I kinda like this idea, though I think it will slow down combat if everyone is tracking wounds & projectile paths, but then again if this ends up being as tactical, and possibly lethal as I'm toying with a slower game where PC's really need to plan and set-up shots as opposed to "Hollywood double wielding run & gun flying ninja warriors" style of rapid play.

Then again I maybe grasping at straws, too. Thoughts?

I love the battletech charts, but it's been done. The thought that came into my head when I first started reading your idea was layers of materials that effect ammo in different ways. Or rather, different ammos effected the armor in different ways.

I had this idea of a bunch of concentric circles, each another layer of material. When the layers are hit, the player rolls a die (or dice) and somehow, without long tables or math, the direction of the bullet would change. If it reverses direction, it has been effectively stopped. If it is deflected into the layers of material, it damages the material but doesn't penetrate. If it cuts into the "vitals" section, then it kills.

I'm not sure how to elegantly do all that. Just quick thoughts though, a dum dum rolls a 1d4. It can't deflect much, but because it's number is low, it stays on track easier. Therefore it's more deadly to unarmored targets. FMJ gets a 1d8 or something. The higher numbers have more chance of altering course but less chance of being stopped. An armor piercing tungsten sabot round gets a d20. Again, more chance of some deflection but far less of being stopped.

How to make the numbers do that elegantly? I don't know. Maybe someone else will have a clue that I don't.

Just to be clear I'm not planning on a "BattleTech" type armor diagram.

I was thinking circles as well, and now that you mention using dice as an indication of variation on direction; I likes that.

Generally bullets deflect when they hit something dense so if we give denser materials like armor, bone, and muscle a deflective stat and then assign various ammo types a dye we can reduce the number of dye rolls but also achieve the result of allowing for bullet damage. So a wad-cutter would get no dye as it hits and basically mushrooms upon impact, a dum-dum which is a hunting type round is designed to penetrate to a degree as well as mushroom for impact damage, give it like you suggest a d4.

The circles would be similar, with bone getting a deflect value of say 3. Roll 3 or below and the round deflects with 1 indicating the round is stopped dead. Now give say plasi-steel body armor a rating of 6, meaning dum-dums and wad-cutters are basically wasted against such armored targets while and fmj with a d8 can penetrate.

I'll dwell on the degree of deflection and how to work direction. Maybe involve a double dye roll. A d4 to indicate direction of deflection and then the bullet's assigned deflection dye for if it does deflect?