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Message: <blockquote data-quote="karolusb" data-source="post: 6066537" data-attributes="member: 83359">One of the arguments I keep seeing in regards to current damage scaling is it doesn't give enough love to the greataxe.  And I do get it, but I don't agree.  This is not a new problem in gaming it plagues tons of modern games, arguably has been in dnd for a long time as well.  Modern games of course make for easier comparison.  in the real world people are squishy, in most games they are tough.  The toughness is pretty much never a belief that physics works differently, or that humans have woven carbon nano-tube skin in this game setting (well occasionally, but those people tend to be extra tough), it's purely a narrative device.  At the same time we like to give lip service to physics, and rate things in the game world based on some perception of real world capability.  Sadly when you combine the two you get bad rules.  Real world (Marshall studies, so disputed and a tad archaic) the center mass take-down on a 9mm on a human target is 47%, for a 44 magnum it is 53%.  The 9mm is putting out 326 ft/lbs of energy, the 44 mag 760 ft/lbs.  In most games (shadowrun, palladium etc., not d20 modern as it works out) the 44 would be doing ~3 times as much damage as the 9mm.  A bit generous in terms of kinetic energy, and completely unreasonable in terms of actual take-down rates.   How does this get back to next?  Simple combat is abstract, and hit points are not marble hard skin.  In the real world the guy hit with the Arming Sword is going to drop about as quickly as the guy hit with the Danish Ax, which is to say quickly, people are squishy (unlike firearms I don't have actual data on these, I am just guessing).  If we take the force of blow as the standard for damage than we are not modelling heroic luck and battle prowess with our hundred hit points, we are instead saying that people are hard as stone, and mining picks should be the best weapons.</blockquote>

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