making firearms more deadly (deadlier?)

[VirgilCaine]

In a D&D scaled engagement, I've always assumed that everyone gets one shot, then it's back to swords, knives, spears and riflebutts. Last of the Mohicans had some great illustrations of this kind of small scale fighting...

Or Jeremiah Johnson or The Patriot. Yeah, everybody had guns, but without revolvers, you need a big knife or an Arkansas toothpick or a tomahawk or a hatchet or something, or you're dead cause the other guy has one.

I won't go so far as to say "really good", but it s workable system that is both lethal and yet fun. The problem in that system is armor.

In the real world, Class II body armor (bullet proof vest) provides full protection against 9mm and .45 ACP ammo. As in you can get shot repeatedly and not even realize you've been hit (I met a police officer who was shot twice with a .38 in an incident and only found out afterwards when he checked his vest). Where this breaks down is heroics... everyone layers on the armor and runs around like michelin men with guns...

GURPS is realistic, or so I've heard. Does it do armor like this?

 

[Captain Tagon]

This alludes to my example above. Taking multiple hits with a sword can be rationalized. I'm not sure the same can be said for getting shot multiple times.

It can though. I personally know somone who got in the jaw with the bullet coming out from behind his heard with a rifle and not only survived but was somewhat functional afterwards. Then there are the police horror stories of shooting a perp in the torso upwards of ten times and the guy just keeps coming at them because he's so hyped up on adrenaline or drugs he doesn't feel anything and his body either isn't several damaged internally or hasn't realized it is yet.

 

[Captain Tagon]

In the real world, Class II body armor (bullet proof vest) provides full protection against 9mm and .45 ACP ammo. As in you can get shot repeatedly and not even realize you've been hit (I met a police officer who was shot twice with a .38 in an incident and only found out afterwards when he checked his vest). Where this breaks down is heroics... everyone layers on the armor and runs around like michelin men with guns...

Again, a lot of that comes back to the adrenaline thing. From a dead stop getting shot while wearing a bullet proof vest is going to hurt. A lot. Just from sheer kinetic force. But once the adrenaline gets pumping there have been plenty of people who got shot in an unarmored part of their body and didn't realize it until someone pointed it out to them. The human body is a funny thing.

 

[HellHound]

From a dead stop getting shot while wearing a bullet proof vest is going to hurt. A lot. Just from sheer kinetic force.

Interesting... How come it doesn't hurt to shoot the gun then? Class II body armor redistributes the impact over a large area, a larger area than the grip of a handgun, which is hit harder when the gun is fired than the impact of the bullet against the target.

Armor is considered to be rated for a particular round when it can take the hit with less than 44mm of displacement and no chance of penetration.

 

[Captain Tagon]

Interesting... How come it doesn't hurt to shoot the gun then? Class II body armor redistributes the impact over a large area, a larger area than the grip of a handgun, which is hit harder when the gun is fired than the impact of the bullet against the target.

Armor is considered to be rated for a particular round when it can take the hit with less than 44mm of displacement and no chance of penetration.

Well then none of the law enforcement around here has vests that high tech.

 

[C. Baize]

I used to be one of the people that thought that someone getting shot 3+ times and living to adventure again was unrealistic. Then I started working in the medical department of a state prison. I have seen many inmates that are doing fine after multiple gun shot wounds. A few I think of in particular are one guy who was shot by a "coworker" who placed a 9mm pistol with ripper rounds against his chest and pulled the trigger 3 times. The guys has some nice scars but is fine. Then there is another guy who was shot TEN TIMES ,in the same exchange, with automatic weapons fire (some type of submachine gun) and is fine other than some aches in legs with damp weather.
After seeing these guys I no longer have that big a problem with game style gun damage
Blastin

Yeah. My ex-brother-in-law was shot 8 times by cops with his empty hands in the air after his van flipped in the chase (they.... really didn't like him, much). Then they waited for over an hour to get an ambulance in there. Once he healed up.... he was fine and dandy.

On the flipside of that, however, you have the guy who gets shot once with a .22 and is stuck in a wheelchair with someone wiping his drool and changing his colostomy bag for him...
The brother-in-law is definitely a high level Tough (one of the few people who used to scare me even when I was in full martial arts mode), while Mr Colostomy bag is likely an ordinary... a mook.
It's a matter of scale, and where someone gets hit.
Gun damage is fine.
If you want to make it scary... adopt a one roll hit placement system.
If a mook is just as likely to shoot you in the head as you are him... Well... the players get their adrenaline going...
I've used one for many many years, and only ever had one person complain about it.
But it didn't come from WotC so he didn't like it (he was one of those).

 

[Vigilance]

I just feel that there is less "abstractness" with getting shot as there is getting "hit" with a melee weapon.

I guess.

My father was a WWII and Korean War vet who was way more afraid of knives than guns.

His exact words, "If someone pulls out a handgun just run and he'll never hit you. Hitting a moving target with a handgun is MUCH harder than people imagine. If you have a gun, take cover and shoot back until you're both out of ammo, then get up and casually walk away. If he pulls a knife run whether you have a knife or not. Only one man walks out of a knife fight."

Chuck

 

[Frostmarrow]

I guess.

My father was a WWII and Korean War vet who was way more afraid of knives than guns.

His exact words, "If someone pulls out a handgun just run and he'll never hit you. Hitting a moving target with a handgun is MUCH harder than people imagine. If you have a gun, take cover and shoot back until you're both out of ammo, then get up and casually walk away. If he pulls a knife run whether you have a knife or not. Only one man walks out of a knife fight."

Chuck

I feel sick to my stomach. It reminds me of Gangs of New York with all their backstabbing, or that scene from Saving Private Ryan when Upham's pal gets it. Yuck! Shivs are scary.

 

[Emiricol]

Being shot while wearing body armor and "not feeling it" has more to do with adrenaline than the armor, I'm told. It was explained this way to me: The reason it doesn't hurt like hell to fire the gun is complicated, but has to do with force control (the weapon itself directs the majority of the energy OUT the only way it can, ie through the barrel, and it contains much of the remaining energy). Also, the weapon itself moves up, which is the release of energy over and above what the body can control. Pistols "kick" less than revolvers also, and this is due to the action of the slide absorbing some of that energy. And finally, the bullet contains all that energy and applies it to an area about 1cm sq. The gun distributes that over an area many times as large, ie, the contact area of the hand, and also the whole body acts as a spring, whereas at the 1 cm sq area of impact, that's much less of a factor.

Don't know how real all that is, but it makes a certain sense to me.

 

[HellHound]

Emiricol - true so far, but remember that what makes body armor work is the ability to redistribute the impact also. When a bullet hits something that it doesn't penetrate, the entire item struck moves from the impact. In the case of hard body armor, that means the impact is spread out across the full area of the component struck. In the case of soft body armor, the armor still spreads the impact out as it moves backwards, and in the end only moves backwards a small amount, spreading the impact out over a larger surface area.