Adjustments For d20 Weapons Locker

[HellHound]

A .22 round will most definately knock back a full jug of water (ok, the jug will explode really and only have an entrance hole, not an exit hole when put back together) where a .45 round will go right through. An empty container, well, that's a different story.

And if you don't believe me, it's a standard practice in the Hunter's Safety course (or was when I took it almost 20 years ago) to take a full milk jub full of water and shoot it with a .22, a .45 (or even a .357 mag) and a shotgun and then discuss the results.

I do a lot of shooting. I have a collection of handguns in .22LR, 9mm, .45ACP and .45Colt as well as rifles in .22LR, .32 Special, and .400, as well as four shotguns. In my experience, .22LR will usually do nothing to 4l jug of water (such as a windshield washer jug, filled with water), without moving it. Explode? Not likely. Nice little hole on one side, sometimes clean through. No explosions. Not once. Heck, I've shot the same jugs with a 12g with light shot, putting about a dozen pellets into the jug. The jug didn't move and we thought we had missed until we saw the bubbles in the jug as the water poured out of the holes. Now, 12g with 00 shot at closer range blasted clean through the jug, but it still didn't explode, just ruptured.

Obviously, we must have had some other variable significantly different beween our experiences to have had such different results.

 

[Bobitron]

In my experience, .22LR will usually do nothing to 4l jug of water (such as a windshield washer jug, filled with water), without moving it.

Same here. I haven't shot in years, but gallon jugs of water would just spurt leaks. I had a great link to a medical description lasting many pages of what bullets of different types would do to a human target, but I can't find it. A great read, if a little gory.

 

[Bobitron]

I found that link. It's really informative, but also pretty gory, as it has photos and detailed descriptions done in a emotionless, medical manner.

WARNING: Don't click unless you are certain you want to see what the site has to offer. If a mod would like me to remove the link, let me know.

WARNING: LINK

 

[HellHound]

Excellent Link, Bobitron. I read that quite a while ago, when working on ballistics rules for our home-brew cyberpunk-styled game in the late 90's.

 

[Khorod]

Ultramodern Firearms D20
http://www.greenronin.com/catalog/grr1016

 

[arkham618]

So... if a bullet has the ability to move the target backwards five feet... wouldn't firing a burst of 5 rounds from submachinegun move the shooter back 25 feet? After all, a bullet gets momentum FROM somewhere, and the acceleration of the bullet actually produces MORE energy than the impact, since the bullet loses some momentum as it travels.

If anything, the belief that being hit by a bullet will send someone flying backwards five feet is something based on movies and TV shows, not reality.

Tuck your genitalia back in your pants and stow the feces, man. The knockback rule wasn't worded as well as it could have been, but it's pretty obvious that the effect isn't cumulative. No one but you is proposing that he meant that a long, ragged machine gun burst is going to send a man flying half a mile. One attack, one knockback check. Sheesh.

Let's take this system to the extreme... a .22 round deals 2d4 damage. With this system, average Joe -WILL- be knocked back 5 feet from a .22 impact. As a footnote, a .22 round will NOT knock over a jug of water, nor a can of pop in most cases. On average, we are looking at a knockback roll of 12.5 for the firer and 10.5 for average Joe. But the possibility exists that this same shot will knock Joe back 10 feet. Stop and look around you. Ten feet is the distance from one side of my bedroom to the other, wall to wall.

The revised stat table for the various guns is missing (probably a formatting issue from the cut and paste). I've seen the original article, and in it .22s do not cause knockback. Only .357 magnums, .45s, and .50s do. And then only if the target takes Wound damage (as in Wound/Vitality points).

Now, a lot of bullets pass through the victim... so we are often not dealing with 100% transfer of energy... Conservation of energy indicates that the firer would also have to make this save to prevent himself from flying back 10 feet. I just can't see it.

Fair enough. This is something to think about for a revision.

So, failure to stabilize a .50 BMG can quite likely be a FATAL injury to a green soldier? (level 1 normal, with average hit points).

Again, the article mentions Wound/Vitality Points, so the recoil from the .50-cal (which can shatter bone, if I'm not mistaken) is not instantly fatal to low-level characters, because they have the soak from VP on top of WP. Again, it could have been made cleaner and clearer, but I don't think that's the point of this whole exchange. What I'm seeing here is a pissing contest between gun enthusiasts.

 

[squat45]

I do a lot of shooting. I have a collection of handguns in .22LR, 9mm, .45ACP and .45Colt as well as rifles in .22LR, .32 Special, and .400, as well as four shotguns. In my experience, .22LR will usually do nothing to 4l jug of water (such as a windshield washer jug, filled with water), without moving it. Explode? Not likely. Nice little hole on one side, sometimes clean through. No explosions. Not once. Heck, I've shot the same jugs with a 12g with light shot, putting about a dozen pellets into the jug. The jug didn't move and we thought we had missed until we saw the bubbles in the jug as the water poured out of the holes. Now, 12g with 00 shot at closer range blasted clean through the jug, but it still didn't explode, just ruptured.

Obviously, we must have had some other variable significantly different beween our experiences to have had such different results.

A .22 is fired with such force that a FULL jug of water will explode. The mass of the bullet is not enough to penetrate the water and the high velocity transfers the energy into the water, which having no place to go, forces itself out through any opening it can... in every case (3 times I've seen the demonstration) it has cause the mulk jug to "explode". We picked up the pieces, put them back together and noticed that there was not a exit hole, just an entrance hole.

A couple of things, the jug was full (with regular old H2O... very little air in it) and we were not using a target or practice round in the .22, so the .22 was firing at full velocity. Most shooters use a partial charge when taking target practice rather than a full charge of powder. I don't think that they "overcharged" the round, but they could have, I'd have to ask my dad - who was involved and does much of his own reloading. I also blieve that it was from a handgun, but it could have been from a rifle... I'll need to check on that.

Remember, a .22 is such a small bullet that it has a tendency to deflect off bones, etc. I don't play the modern rules, I was just piping in about firearms in general, and without reading the rules, I would not give a .22 any chance of any sort of knockback. Only thing would be a slug, .44 mag, .357 mag and the like. Not even a .45, ok, maybe a .45, but I'd need to see the rules.

 

[JPL]

I think the only way to settle arguments like this is with an actual gunfight.

Anything else is just walking that fine line between "RPG enthusiast" and "Asperger Syndrome."

 

[Bobitron]

Anyone who is still looking at putting knockback into the rules should look at the link I posted above.

 

[Guild Master]

I have to apologize; I didn't notice that the articles' tables did not transfer. Also this article probably needed a little intro. I’m new to enworld. I was looking through the forums and I thought hey I’ve read this good article that gives optional house rules for D20 Modern’s Weapons Locker. I’ll post it and maybe more people will have suggestions or would like to use them.

Then I get jumped, even though it’s apparent I’m a green horn. And an article that I didn’t even write, but thought was helpful, gets torn apart and it’s obvious that parts of it were missing. It was one hell of a first impression! But I understand that when you show up on a new scene the first couple of people you meet are the most uncouth pricks in the crowd. They are first to open there mouths and usually don’t think about what they are saying because they love to hear themselves talk. So I’ll stick around away.

Oh and that business about a failure to stabilize a .50 BMG is not meant to be a word to the wise. It’s because there was a player in this game whose character was running around with a barrett light 50 trying to fire it standing up holding it like a deer hunting rifle. I’m no gun expert but I’m pretty sure that if you could pull that off you would be sore afterwards.

I believe when you see the article in its entirety it will make more sense. Here is a link to a PDF version that has all the tables and charts.

http://www.lrpg.info/D20modern/Adjustments%20Weapons%20Locker.pdf