D&D 5E Why do guns do so much damage?
MGibster
Legend
Just the fact that I'm playing D&D allows me to sidestep any need to conform to historical examples.
Player: Uh, actually, a wheelock would be totally impractical and they didn't work like that in real life.
Me: You're flying 60 feet above an active volcano shooting ice out of your fingers. Don't lecture me about real life!
Well, in addition to that, I can also make the effects and implementation anything I like. So when it comes to the fluff for whatever I decide the weapons should be able to do, in the context of the weapon list and game mechanics, it all fits like a glove. In my case it's also one of the primary exports of a particular country, which has all sorts of interesting political and faction related effects.
That is -also- not a complete understanding of reality.
Force is a function of Velocity and Mass. A very tiny object with a very high velocity and a much larger object with a much slower velocity can impart the same, or similar, force.
Like the Pistol throwing out around 400J and the Longsword throwing about 300J. Even though the pistol ball is moving much faster, the amount of force either imparts is similar.
And both of those are limited by the amount of force that an object can take. Since any force which punches through is essentially "Wasted".
And then there's the use variance... While the pistol uses all that energy to punch a straight line, the sword is dragged across the wound to deepen the channel further because that's how an edged weapon works.
So even the strict comparison of Jules and Resistance provides, at best, an incomplete image.
If you consider a 1.4 inch diameter hole to be Large then you'll be shocked at the kind of holes a sword, axe, or spear can put into someone!
Oofta
Legend
Yes, but just remember that tests with ballistics gel at relatively short distance at a gun range with all the time in the world to aim and either modern guns or high quality blackpowder tell a completely accurate story of what happens when a bullet hits 100% of the time. Meanwhile a video of a pig carcass being cut in half with one swipe is totally unrealistic and irrelevant because ... reasons.
Flamestrike
Legend
You're fixating on 'holes' and not on the damage to surrounding tissue.
A musket bullet is hitting a person with 2,000 joules of energy (that the body absorbs decelerating the bullet). An arrow OTOH generates 75 joules of energy.
The arrow will just punch a hole in you. When fired into ballistic jelly (or flesh), there is little cavitation caused by rapid expansion of tissue and then decompression in absorbing that energy.
A bullet OTOH causes rapid expansion and then retraction of tissue as the tissue around the bullet absorbs the energy transfered by the bullet.
This is called terminal ballistics. The energy transfer on target, and the damage this transfer of energy causes. Something you are completely ignoring (repeatedly).
The other thing you're repeatedly ignoring is the ease of putting that 'hole' in a vital organ with a gun (point and shoot) as opposed to doing so with a longsword against anything other than an incapacitated target. It's much MUCH easier hitting and destroying a critical vital organ with a gun (center of seen mass, and then bang), than it is with a sword against a creature fighting back or otherwise defending themselves.
Well... to be fair...
It is way easier to hit a shot with a bullet than a sword.
The real issue at hand, which Flamestrike continues to refuse to even approach, is how much damage is dealt on a successful hit. It's not a question of how easy it is to hit, but how much total damage is done between the two attacks. At least for the purposes of this thread.
They're arguing on a different battlefield against a group of strawmen and trying to present victory against them all.
Mmmmnah.
Go back. Read my review of the Cap and Ball video where I actually outline the damage outside of the wound channel itself and how it's terrible but not lethal on it's own.
If it was, the survival rate from the study you presented which showed 24% survival rate of those who had been DIRECTLY HIT IN THE HEART by modern firearms would have to be 0 since that wound channel and surrounding tissue damage would "Destroy" the heart... Rather than causing reparable damage.
I get it. I know what you're talking about. I'm not handwaving it or disregarding it. I have DIRECTLY ADDRESSED IT multiple times.
You just keep ignoring the fact that I've addressed it and going to a singular specific example of the 2,000J mark which used to be the bottom of what you thought a Pistol did 'til I posted the Wheellock video that showed it to be in the 400J range.
Pick up your moving goalposts and throw them on top of your strawman and ad hominem attacks and just -go-.
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