Quick Question: LAW

[DMauricio]

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My assault rifle specialist was caught in a grapple and was understandably unhappy. He did have Evasion and a pretty good Reflex save, though, so he opted to draw a thermite grenade and drop it each turn in the grapple. He's done it three times so far and made his save each time. It's tough to flavor-text "Dropped grenade at my feet while grappling with bad guy and somehow avoided ALL damage, while bad guy only got singed, too," but you can do it if you really really try.

Thanks for the responses. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't being grappled mean you don't/can't add your dex modifier to your saves? (way I figure it, you can't add it to your defense, why should you be adding it to your saves?)

Also, with a thermite grenade *that* close, I'd have upped the save DCs, cause honestly, how do you evade an area of effect weapon when you're at ground zero and not actively dodging it? Sure, you can move enough to make your opponent take the most of the brunt, but I doubt you can use evasion while you're in a grapple (even if its a partial hold)

Yeah I know the rules don't state it, but that's what the GM rulings are for (inserting much needed sense into an action)

Personally I don't know if I'd have let him even *grab* a grenade if he's grappled. Let alone arm one.

just my $0.02 AUD


D.

 

[S'mon]

S'mon, it's one of the nastiest weapons in the game...
And if it does more damage than your Con, you have a decent chance of automatically dropping to -1.

So, uh, the damage is just fine. Really. Ordinary 4d6 frag grenades can be a near-instakill if you roll well.

Well, this is a weapon designed to destroy a main battle tank - and it does 35hp damage on a _direct hit_? And characters get hp same as in D&D? the failed Fort save just drops you to -1 hp?!

You can handwave anything as 'it's an heroic game', but the idea of LAWs (or RPGs for that matter) striking normal-human PCs, detonating and still leaving them standing seems just too ridiculous for words to me. If they didn't want weapons that would automatically kill people they shouldn't have included them in the game.

How many hps does a 60-ton MBT have, anyway? 30? *rolls eyes*

 

[S'mon]

RPG - Rocket Propelled Grenade, not Role-Playing Game.

 

[takyris]

Well, this is a weapon designed to destroy a main battle tank - and it does 35hp damage on a _direct hit_? And characters get hp same as in D&D? the failed Fort save just drops you to -1 hp?!

This is a greatsword, a weapon almost as long as most people are tall, and it only does an average of 7 hp damage on a _direct hit_? And 10th-level characters have HOW many hit points?

Do I need to go into the extended rant about abstract combat and how people aren't actually getting physically hit by the weapon but are diving out of the way at the last second as it explodes nearby and coming to their feet scorched and off balance and slightly deaf with tiny shrapnel wounds?

You can handwave anything as 'it's an heroic game', but the idea of LAWs (or RPGs for that matter) striking normal-human PCs, detonating and still leaving them standing seems just too ridiculous for words to me. If they didn't want weapons that would automatically kill people they shouldn't have included them in the game.

You can handwave anything as 'it's an heroic game', but the idea of a greatsword striking normal-human PCs full-on in the chest and still leaving them standing seems just too ridiculous for words to me.

How'm I doing?

How many hps does a 60-ton MBT have, anyway? 30? *rolls eyes*

20 hardness, 64 hit points. So your 2d6 handgun ain't doing much unless you're the coolest shot ever -- taking out important gears in the treads or otherwise hitting tiny critical areas. The designers did say that a tank at 0 hit points is not blown up or destroyed -- it's just unable to function. That might mean that the treads are shot, that the electrical system got fried somehow, or something else along those lines.

 

[S'mon]

This is a greatsword, a weapon almost as long as most people are tall, and it only does an average of 7 hp damage on a _direct hit_? And 10th-level characters have HOW many hit points?

Um, as I pointed out earlier, I run a mid-to-high level D&D game PCs 11th to 13th level currently. The ones using two-handed melee weapons are averaging around 45 damage on a power attack, not 7!

 

[S'mon]

You can handwave anything as 'it's an heroic game', but the idea of a greatsword striking normal-human PCs full-on in the chest and still leaving them standing seems just too ridiculous for words to me.

How'm I doing?

It's very easy in D&D for melee weapons to do vastly more than their minimum dice damage - obviously 7hp dmg to a high-level fighter is not 'full in the chest', but a crit for 90 dmg (not unusual IME) might well be.

I guess my beef is that while monsters get much tougher as they get bigger in D&D - Giants are actually tougher than they ought to be (see Upper_Krust's calculations) - mechanical stuff isn't allowed to scale naturally at all. A ballista bolt will pierce 6 shields and kill 6 men on a single cast - if a monster was described as doing that they'd have it doing maybe 40-60 damage on a hit, not 3d6. Likewise a LAW will punch through a meter of armour and destroy a 60 ton monster that ought by rights to have hundreds of hp (compare to any organic monster of similar mass) and hundreds of points of DR on its sloped forward facings.

With LAWS doing 10d6 on a direct-hit it's no wonder people complain that D&D breaks down at high levels, that deities can't be run as PCs, etc. If mechanical damage was scaled up proportionately the way monsters are, with a little bit of an eye to realism, it's very easy to keep things under control and there wouldn't even be a need for arbitrary Fortitude saves.

-S'mon goes off muttering about Twilight:2000...

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

In real-life, there's no Evasion and probably no 10th-level Fast or Tough heroes walking around. As a result, a LAW is basically an instant-kill in real life.

Something with higher class bonuses to Defense and lower hp would probably be more realistic, but less heroic, more deadly and possibly less fun.

(If you shoot someone in the chest with a weapon the diameter of a coffee can, you can take a nice long nap without fear of reprisal. Adding explosives to this device just means you have to dodge flying limbs before you take your nap.)

Now, a typical 1st-level Tough Ordinary with Con 15 will 7 hp, or say 15 hp for 2nd-level. They will have a Reflex save of +1 to +3 and a Fort save of +3 or +4. With those kinds of stats, against an average of 35 points of damage, they're dead.

 

[takyris]

S'mon, D&D != d20 Modern. Please make an 11th-level d20 Modern character and show me how he can average 45 points damage per attack against an opponent with a CR equal to his level while using a melee weapon he could have crafted or purchased appropriately for his level. Bonus points if you can make it work in a non-magical setting.

...if a monster was described as (killing six men with a single blow) they'd have it doing maybe 40-60 damage on a hit, not 3d6...

Actually, I think that they'd have it doing 2d6+9 or so, and they'd give it Great Cleave, and the 6 poor guys would be first or second level non-heroes (who didn't get max hp at first level). That works perfectly well in D&D, and in d20 Modern as well. Average of 16 points damage is enough to put down (and then cleave off of) any second-level non-hero.

Area effect stuff doesn't get flat bonuses, usually, so you're stuck with 3d6 for little fired grenades, 4d6 for big thrown grenades, or 10d6 for the LAW. That's an average of roughly 11, 14, or 35. The first and second are enough to put a 2nd-level ordinary down and dying reliably unless they get lucky and dive behind some cover to minimize the damage (ie, make their Reflex save). The third will reliably kill said ordinary even if he saves. And it works at a distance.

I don't know if your beef is that d20 System characters get more hit points, that area effect damage doesn't get many non-variable bonuses (ie, you can never get 4d6+5 from a grenade -- well, you could, if you mastercrafted the heck out of it, but that'd be one expensive grenade), or what. But I know that your beef isn't with the damage a LAW does, because it's the nastiest hand-held weapon in the game.

 

[S'mon]

S'mon, D&D != d20 Modern.

Well I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that they be crossover-compatible?

My beef isn't with the area-effect damage from the LAW, which sounds fine, it's the fact that you can't do significantly more damage with a _direct hit_ that's silly.

 

[takyris]

Well I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that they be crossover-compatible?

Well, you can use the monsters and the weapons, and most of the dice rolls are the same. That is compatible.

They were, however, up-front about the fact that d20 Modern is meant to be a bit more lethal than D&D. People in d20 Modern don't have as many hit points, saving throw bonuses, or direct damage-dishing powers as people in D&D.

My beef isn't with the area-effect damage from the LAW, which sounds fine, it's the fact that you can't do significantly more damage with a _direct hit_ that's silly.

Well, you don't flavor-text it as a direct hit, then, do you? You say to the hero, "As you dive to the ground, rolling desperately, the rocket detonates with a blast that sends your world spinning. His aim was good, and while you dove for cover, even you couldn't completely avoid this one. Now, roll for damage -- the direct hit gives you no chance of a Reflex save."

Let's take a 10th-level Strong5/Tough5, one of the better tanks in the game. We'll give him an optimistic Con of 16, saying that he goes for damage absorption rather than avoidance. We'll even give him Improved Massive Damage Threshold and Great Fortitude and Concussive Resistance. He is, for his level, just about the utterly minmaxed guy to survive a direct hit from a LAW.

His Massive Damage Threshold is now 19. He soaks the first 3 points of Concussive damage he receives (which, if I recall correctly, is what the LAW does). So the LAW needs to do at least 22 points damage to force a Massive Damage check on him. The average damage is 35. Okay, so that's not likely to be a problem.

So, now he makes his Massive Damage Save: It's a Fort15.

Strong 5 = +3
Tough 5 = +3
Con = +3
Great Fort = +2

+11. That's actually pretty good. I only immediately lose all my hit points, no matter how many I had, if I roll a 1,2, or 3. I have only a 15% chance to have that attack completely ignore the 90 or so hit points I probably have and put me down & dying. 15% chance, and I am a 10th-level hero who is utterly minmaxed to survive that kind of thing.

Now, what if I'm not minmaxed? What if I'm a 10th-level Fast4/Martial Artist 6? Those guys are just tons of fun. Everyone loves those. Let's say that I went the Str16, Dex16, Con14 route, and that I spent most of my feats on kicking stuff really hard.

Fast 4 = +1
Martial 6 = +2
Con 14 = +2

I have a Fort save of +5. I'm a 10th-level combat character, and my Fort save is +5. If somebody rolls well and gives me a direct hit with a LAW (thus denying me my wicked awesome reflex save which almost definitely has Evasion attached to it), I have a 45% chance to just flat-out hit the ground. Kersplat. Thank you for playing. No, I'm sorry, hit points? No, you have no hit points. All your hit point are belong to us. Welcome to negative numbers. A tenth-level combat character has a 45% chance to just plain drop into down & dying-land if you hit him with one of those things.

Still too weak? It kinda looks like a potential instakill to me.