WOIN AP Rounds in NEW

[raspberryfh]

I wonder if these have been playtested and tweaked unofficially (since there's nothing in the errata)? I just find it hard to believe that their implementation is working as intended.

As things stand, AP rounds are a 10-credit investment without any trade-offs. This completely negates a kevlar vest (100cr).

It gets worse as armor type becomes heavier. With a long kevlar coat, you've paid 200cr and sacrificed 2 def, but for 10cr, anyone can ignore 83% of your armor AND they are more likely to hit you because you're wearing medium armor.

Moving down the line, someone who saved up for years and years and just bought their first set of powered combat armor (10,000cr) has 50% of their investment negated by someone paying 10cr.

Meanwhile, random Joe-Schmoe on the streets who didn't buy armor is on average harder to hit than a person in a full basic battlesuit (2,000cr) but will only take 3 damage more when shot by a high-powered rifle using AP rounds.

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Let's try something else.

Compare to hollow-point rounds (15cr), which penalize accuracy to give a damage bonus (essentially providing a more efficient mechanism for trading attack dice into damage dice). There's a trade-off of being less likely to hit your target. But is there a situation when this trade-off is actually worth it compared to just freely ignoring 5 SOAK?

Consider the example of shooting at a person in synthetic weave, the lightest armor with SOAK 2. Assume they have no other sources of SOAK. This should be the ideal soft target for hollow-point bullets right?

Hollow Point: pay 1d6 attack to gain +1d6 damage. Average roll on 1d6 is 3.5, giving you [damage roll] +3.5. This will be reduced by 2 SOAK = [damage roll] +1.5 extra damage.

Armor-piercing: Ignore 5 SOAK. No penalty to hit. You will deal [damage roll] - [effective SOAK]. In this case, you ignore the entire 2 SOAK. Effectively you went from [damage roll] -2 to [damage roll] - 0, gaining +2 damage.

So hollow-point bullets only deal more damage (on average) versus targets with 0-1 SOAK, a situation that's highly unlikely to come up. In this unlikely situation, it's still hard to say that they are superior to armor-piercing bullets because you are still less likely to hit your target.

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SOAK negation has a role to play, because powered armor is a thing. But the progression of SOAK vs. cost in suits of armor makes it hardly worth investing when AP rounds are that powerful and have no trade-off or appreciable cost associated with using them. There's also no reason to spend your money on hollow-point rounds (unless you expect to only fight unarmored enemies..... in which case you're probably the villain. And even then, armored heroes will come to stop you).

Ideally, there is a tactical decision behind using one ammo type over another. Something that gives a situational bonus to a savvy player. Jacking up the price of armor-piercing ammo or limiting its availability some other way, is one possible solution, but it still leaves armored-piercing ammo as the clearly superior ammunition choice across all scenarios. I know a few other systems have handled this various ways; I've never played, but I'm told GURPS uses multipliers of post-SOAK damage and armor (HP increases both, AP halves both). I'm curious what other iterations were considered in the playtesting of WOIN and whether there are any other solutions out there?

 

[raspberryfh]

One other, probably minor consideration in using hollow-point rounds: by trading an attack die, you are also reducing your likelihood of scoring a critical hit as well.

 

[Morrus]

It's a cheap way to give ballistic weapons +5 damage. Beam weapons can be used as tracers, some others have stun settings, or do sonic damage, or electricity damage which hurts mechanics more etc.

Sure, ballistic weapons could just have been given 5 points damage to start with, but then switching to hollow point or something would require the player to take the extra step of deducting 5 damage.

I generally assume PCs will use AP bullets by default (bear in mind they apply to armor, not all SOAK - a critter with lots of natural SOAK just ignores it). You would use hollow point where it was tactically appropriate.

 

[raspberryfh]

I generally assume PCs will use AP bullets by default (bear in mind they apply to armor, not all SOAK - a critter with lots of natural SOAK just ignores it). You would use hollow point where it was tactically appropriate.

I mean, SOAK is SOAK. You don't look at an elephant or a giant crocodile and say, "Welp, I guess this thing is gonna soak up my AP bullets without any trouble. Better break out the hollow-point rounds!"

And by basic math (shown in the post above), the only time hollow point rounds are tactically appropriate is against targets with 0-1 SOAK (that are easy enough to hit with -1d6 to attack) or when combined with SOAK reducing exploits (e.g. weak point).

From a 'common sense' standpoint, the ammunition types should have the following flavors and consequences. There should be a choice to make in your loadout and a benefit for making the right one.

Hollow-point: Much higher damage against lighter armored targets. Weaker against armor because the bullets shatter on impact [right now, it actually is more effective against a heavily armored target because they are easier to hit]

Armor-piercing: An effective way to partially negate heavy armor, punching through a target's armor to wound the vulnerable person inside. This is less effective against lighter armored targets, where the round passes through too easily. [currently just straight up better in almost every situation and with no downside]

Here was the idea my players and I have settled on for now:

Hollow-point bullets: Deal +2d6 damage but SOAK is applied twice to your attack

Armor-piercing rounds: Ignore 10 SOAK, -2d6 damage

With those changes, a SOAK of ~8-9 tends to be the break point where it is better to use AP rounds instead of HP bullets. I did a lot of math to come up with my preferred balance for each option (i.e. the specific amount of soak negated/increased and the relative change to damage dice). You can see it here.

 

[Morrus]

I mean, SOAK is SOAK.

Well, it's not -- an undead's SOAK, for example, is because it lacks vital organs. A dragon's resistance to fire is magical. There's all sorts of SOAK.

With those changes, a SOAK of ~8-9 tends to be the break point where it is better to use AP rounds instead of HP bullets. I did a lot of math to come up with my preferred balance for each option (i.e. the specific amount of soak negated/increased and the relative change to damage dice). You can see it here.

Cool! I'll take a look at it a bit later! That looks really useful - probably exactly what I needed!

[FONT=&quot]Save[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Save[/FONT]​

 

[raspberryfh]

Well, it's not -- an undead's SOAK, for example, is because it lacks vital organs. A dragon's resistance to fire is magical. There's all sorts of SOAK.

I will grant you that from a flavor standpoint.

But mechanically, SOAK is simply "your attack deals less damage than you rolled" or "you need to deal extra damage to kill this target." SOAK is not immunity, which is related but distinct. Sometimes SOAK is circumstantial (e.g. negated by certain damage types), but a naturally tough critter is still going to sit up and take notice if you shoot it with an AP round.

A zombie's SOAK from lacking vital organs would likely be either a high SOAK overall with a vulnerability to heat or it might be a regular soak vs. some damage types by high vs. ballistic/piercing/slashing/blunt. Its difficulty to kill with conventional means might also be accomplished by requiring a called shot to hurt it with a particular damage type.

 

[Morrus]

A zombie's SOAK from lacking vital organs would likely be either a high SOAK overall with a vulnerability to heat or it might be a regular soak vs. some damage types by high vs. ballistic/piercing/slashing/blunt. Its difficulty to kill with conventional means might also be accomplished by requiring a called shot to hurt it with a particular damage type.

Zombies work a bit differently. You can keep damaging them forever, and they won't die. They can't shake off conditions (so if you slow one with a keg shot or whatever, it stays like that forever), but regular damage just doesn't kill them. You kill them with a single called shot to the head.

 

[Morrus]

My current thought is leaning somewhere along the lines of simplifying it a bit (a point bas d reduction I find fiddly at the table). Numbers notwithstanding, something like:

AP - ignores SOAK if it’s 10 or less. Does -1d6 damage.

HP - +1d6 damage if the target has no armour SOAK.

 

[raspberryfh]

My current thought is leaning somewhere along the lines of simplifying it a bit (a point bas d reduction I find fiddly at the table). Numbers notwithstanding, something like:

AP - ignores SOAK if it’s 10 or less. Does -1d6 damage.

HP - +1d6 damage if the target has no armour SOAK.

All the different parts of that table were just showing my work. How I arrived at the particular balance that I did. It is not intended as a reference for use during gameplay. AP rounds simply provide the bonus of ignoring 10 SOAK by paying 2d6 damage dice.

Respectfully, I would suggest your adjustments are less balanced than the current state of the game.

1) If you ignore up to 10 SOAK at the cost of only 1d6 damage, then you are effectively gaining (up to) +10dmg -3.5dmg = +6.5dmg. This is a buff on current AP rounds, which will never give you more than +5 damage. For the new rule, the break-even point would be when SOAK = 3.5; below that point it is better to use regular ammo.

So I would argue that this is actually a buff on an already overpowered mechanic. Its only downside is if someone is wearing one of the 2-3 light armors with SOAK 3 or less and has no other source of SOAK.

1a) The "if it's 10 or less part" doesn't really make sense because that means that you get no benefit at all from using AP rounds against more heavily armored targets, which is exactly where AP should be useful. I'd just eliminate this phrase entirely and make it a flat "ignore X SOAK."

2) HP rounds giving a bonus only against a target with 0 SOAK essentially makes them useless. How often are people going into combat against enemies that don't even have padded armor or a helmet? Sure, it combines with weakpoint, but that's a single attack.

 

[Morrus]

All the different parts of that table were just showing my work. How I arrived at the particular balance that I did. It is not intended as a reference for use during gameplay. AP rounds simply provide the bonus of ignoring 10 SOAK by paying 2d6 damage dice.

Respectfully, I would suggest your adjustments are less balanced than the current state of the game.

1) If you ignore up to 10 SOAK at the cost of only 1d6 damage, then you are effectively gaining (up to) +10dmg -3.5dmg = +6.5dmg. This is a buff on current AP rounds, which will never give you more than +5 damage. For the new rule, the break-even point would be when SOAK = 3.5; below that point it is better to use regular ammo.

So I would argue that this is actually a buff on an already overpowered mechanic. Its only downside is if someone is wearing one of the 2-3 light armors with SOAK 3 or less and has no other source of SOAK.

2) HP rounds giving a bonus only against a target with 0 SOAK essentially makes them useless. How often are people going into combat against enemies that don't even have padded armor or a helmet? Sure, it combines with weakpoint, but that's a single attack.

As I said, it's not the numbers, just the process. The numbers were just off the top of my head - don't bother analysing them, they won't stack up!

The point was that deducting X points of SOAK is a PITA at the game table. Ignoring SOAK is easy. I'm thinking about processes which are quick and easy to apply. I really hate deducting AP from SOAK and then deducting the remaining SOAK from the damage - it's too fiddly.

 

[raspberryfh]

You hit the quote button too fast! I tried to edit in a second bit and you missed it

1a) The "if it's 10 or less part" doesn't really make sense because that means that you get no benefit at all from using AP rounds against more heavily armored targets, which is exactly where AP should be useful. I'd just eliminate this phrase entirely and make it a flat "ignore X SOAK."

If the change ignores SOAK only up to a certain level, then you eventually hit a magical SOAK number where you're immune to AP rounds too.

 

[Morrus]

The problem with your AP rounds doing -2d6 damage is that a lot of weapons only do 2d6 damage. There's isn't really space to remove two dice from the damage mechanic.

 

[Morrus]

One other design space might be to play around wth the crit mechanic.

Hollow point, for example, maybe does severe crits rather than regular crits. It's harder to stop the bleeding.

What is it GURPS does? Not that I want to copy another system -- but HP doubles armor and does extra damage, while AP halves both armor and damage, IIRC.

 

[raspberryfh]

While that is true, most players will still be rolling more than 2d6 dice when it comes time to roll damage. The ignore 7 SOAK, pay 1d6 damage dice is fairly comparable in terms of balance. I didn't use it because it becomes better at lower SOAK values, and I was intentionally trying to create a spot between HP and AP rounds where usual ammo could be useful.

I'd also argue that if you're shooting at a heavily armored target with a weapon that only does 2d6 damage, you probably made a poor tactical decision.

One final point is that my rule was designed in the microcosm of a game where there are significantly more options for higher damage weapons. I've posted the google spreadsheet for that a few times.

 

[raspberryfh]

One other design space might be to play around wth the crit mechanic.

Hollow point, for example, maybe does severe crits rather than regular crits. It's harder to stop the bleeding.

What is it GURPS does? Not that I want to copy another system -- but HP doubles armor and does extra damage, while AP halves both armor and damage, IIRC.

I've never played GURPS but one of my players had and it was the basis for the rules we came up with, adapted to more of a d6 system.

I do kind of like the idea of HP rounds causing more deadly crits. I think balancing it might be tricky, but something like "-1d6 attack, roll 2 crit effects on a critical hit" might be okay. That could even just be another ammo type, leaving HP rounds as a damage-boosting ammunition.

 

[daniiren]

I rolled high enough on my Programming [LOG] check and got my WOIN damage simulation to give me a few useful things here. For the interested party, I took an attacker with an assault rifle and 5d6 attack pool, and a defender with 18 ranged defense and either kevlar or a battlesuit. I look at both the AP/HP rules as written (ie, vanilla), and also raspberryfh's proposal (except the damage penalty for AP is only 1d6).

The end result with vanilla rules is that a battlesuit tends to take more damage from both AP and HP. With raspberryfh's rules, AP has very reliable low-damage output against a battlesuit, and HP is more effective against kevlar than a battlesuit.

 

[raspberryfh]

What was the SOAK penetration that you used when you reduced the damage penalty to 1d6? Did you ignore 7 SOAK or 10?

 

[Morrus]

Could you try running it with half damage and half soak?

And conversely, for hollow point, double soak and double damage?

I don’t expect those values to be useable, but it will give a good sense of direction.

 

[daniiren]

What was the SOAK penetration that you used when you reduced the damage penalty to 1d6? Did you ignore 7 SOAK or 10?

10.

Could you try running it with half damage and half soak?

And conversely, for hollow point, double soak and double damage?

I don’t expect those values to be useable, but it will give a good sense of direction.

I present the results from the GURPS idea, and also a hybrid where AP gives half SOAK and -1d6 damage (opposite for HP ammo). Not gonna lie, I like how this hybrid setup looks. Battlesuits are vulnerable to AP and almost immune to HP, and kevlar is about the same for both.

I think I'm going to spend some time making this code usable by someone else, and I'll post it to allow others to play around with it.

 

[raspberryfh]

My issue with all of these results is that they still do way too much damage against someone in heavy armor. AP rounds, as they stand in the current state are too powerful. They are cheap as dirt and come with no downside. As we've seen in the other thread, there's already a trend toward "heavily-armored" defenders taking more damage than their lightly-armored counterparts. We don't need to make that situation worse with AP rounds.

Your tweaked version of my suggestion actually buffs AP rounds in many circumstances: Instead of just ignoring 5 SOAK (equivalent to +5 damage for almost all targets), you are ignoring 10 SOAK at the cost of 1d6 damage dice (on average this will give you +6.5 damage vs heavily armored targets; it is a buff for anything higher than 8.5 SOAK).

Unless heavy armor gets a major buff, I would highly suggest capping the SOAK penetration at 7 with a damage penalty as 1d6.