Realism, Heroism, and Abstract Hit Points

[Kaisoku]

Well... military grade guns aren't exactly something I was thinking D&D was going to replicate here.

I was far more interested in the fencing/stabbing accounts above, which is the same regardless of grade of weapon in this case (for the most part).


Your point does make me think of how magic would influence things. An arrow or crossbow bolt is one thing... a direct hit with a bolt of magical force damage could be considered more "military grade".

 

[loseth]

Well... military grade guns aren't exactly something I was thinking D&D was going to replicate here.

I was far more interested in the fencing/stabbing accounts above, which is the same regardless of grade of weapon in this case (for the most part).

Actually, the effect is even more exaggerated with non-firearms. Stab someone with a smallsword or rapier (the weapons used in most surviving accounts of duels) and you'll make a relatively small hole that, if it doesn't hit anything vital, will probably not affect muscle, bone or tendons enough to impede performance. Now hack into someone with a battle axe or stab them with a Roman gladius. Even if you fail to hit something vital, damage to muscle, bone and/or tendons will probably be sufficient to badly impede the combat effectiveness of your target. Pre-modern soldiers went into battle with pikes, broadswords and lances rather than rapiers, daggers and smallswords not because of arbitrary preference, but because they knew what would likely drop an enemy with one or two hits and what would only drop an enemy if you hit him in just the right spot. Civilian duelling is a gentlemanly affair. War is hacked through muscles, severed tendons and massive bleeding.

 

[mmadsen]

Military weapons and civilian sidearms are not the same. Not by a long shot.

The popular AR-15 civilian rifle is an M-16 -- only semi-automatic rather than fully automatic; it shoots one bullet per trigger-pull. The Colt .45 automatic and the 9mm military sidearm quickly became popular civilian pistols. And before that, military firearms were civilian firearms and vice versa.

Military weapons, on the other hand, insert larger amounts of metal into the target with much greater total force.

The M-16 and its carbine cousin the M-4 are much less powerful than civilian hunting rifles.

That seems odd until you realize that real-life enemies don't have lots and lots of hit points to overcome. They're not tough because they can take a hit; they're "tough" because they're willing to shoot back at all.

 

[mmadsen]

Stab someone with a smallsword or rapier (the weapons used in most surviving accounts of duels) and you'll make a relatively small hole that, if it doesn't hit anything vital, will probably not affect muscle, bone or tendons enough to impede performance. Now hack into someone with a battle axe or stab them with a Roman gladius. Even if you fail to hit something vital, damage to muscle, bone and/or tendons will probably be sufficient to badly impede the combat effectiveness of your target. Pre-modern soldiers went into battle with pikes, broadswords and lances rather than rapiers, daggers and smallswords not because of arbitrary preference, but because they knew what would likely drop an enemy with one or two hits and what would only drop an enemy if you hit him in just the right spot. Civilian duelling is a gentlemanly affair. War is hacked through muscles, severed tendons and massive bleeding.

When the thin "French blade" was introduced, duelists were shocked by the extremely high lethality of the extremely small wounds it created. This was a problem, because the real goal of a duel isn't in fact to kill one another but to demonstrate bravery, and the broad blades previously in use weren't nearly so lethal, but they made big, bloody wounds, which is exactly what you want for a show of courage.

This evolved to the point where German university students dueled with light slashing swords, which would leave an impressive scar without much risk of deeper injury.

 

[TerraDave]

Yes, it is easier to kill a person then an elk, as long as the person doesn't shoot back. (But imagine if the elk did!). And yes, military type weapons are all to readily available. I am sure you can buy an FN-FAL type semi-automatic rifle in the US. That is a serious military weapon, even if it is a little harder to shoot then the AR-15.

Back to hit points. The save and die or use an action/force/fate points is good. But you are still looking at swingier combats. I think for some genres it is preferable (or just having a lower ratio of hp to avg damage, and then some kind of get out of death mechanic), but I have to admit, for D&D I like the attrition part of tactical combat, knowing you can almost always slug it out for a few rounds, and then start to worry about your own hps, and how many your opponent may have left.

If anything, one thing that 4ed seeks to fix is swinginess, for both pcs and their opponents, ie low hp at low levels, unbalanced advesaries (ie glass cannons with no backup), and save or die spells.

 

[mmadsen]

The save and die or use an action/force/fate points is good. But you are still looking at swingier combats.

Of course, the "swinginess" is adjustable, depending on how many action/force/fate points everyone gets. Our heroes might get dozens, if that's how we want to play -- and we can also decide to make them easy or hard to regain.

This allows us to have combats between, say, a company of Uruk-hai pikemen and a company of Gondorian knights, where numerous soldiers go down in the initial clash, but our heroes "luckily" never seem to take a spear point through the visor.

It also allows our heroes to avoid injury in the first place and to regain plot-protection points without "healing" non-wounds.

If anything, one thing that 4ed seeks to fix is swinginess, for both pcs and their opponents, ie low hp at low levels, unbalanced advesaries (ie glass cannons with no backup), and save or die spells.

That reminds me, another benefit of switching away from hit points and to plot-protection points is that hit points are restricted to hits, when we really want protection from save-or-die spells, etc., too, and more general plot-protection points can do that.

 

[loseth]

@mmadsen--I think you misunderstood my distinction between civilian sidearms (which also refers to the same sidearms when carried by military personnel) and military weapons.

The popular AR-15 civilian rifle is an M-16 -- only semi-automatic rather than fully automatic; it shoots one bullet per trigger-pull.

The AR-15 is no more a civilian sidearm than an M-16 is.

The Colt .45 automatic and the 9mm military sidearm quickly became popular civilian pistols.

All pistols are sidearms--none are intended for use as primary military armaments.

And before that, military firearms were civilian firearms and vice versa.

Civilian sidearms have always been pistols, while military weapons (i.e. weapons intended for primary use on a battlefield--not military sidearms) have always been muskets, rifles and (later) (sub-)machineguns. All of these are vastly more damaging than pistols, both because of the much greater size of the bullet and the much higher velocity at which it travels.

The M-16 and its carbine cousin the M-4 are much less powerful than civilian hunting rifles.

That depends very much on the hunting rifle, but again, a high-caliber hunting rifle is anything but a civilian sidearm and will cause you much greater harm that a civilian sidearm would.

 

[mmadsen]

Training for the Real Fight or Avoiding Fantasy Gunfight Training adds some more examples of an enemy not going down fast enough when shot, this time with an assault rifle:

Who dictates the speed of the fight? The bad guy and how fast he falls, does. It might be a fast or slow process (the bad guy dying), but one should get in the habit of solving one problem at a time before moving to multiple threats. You can shoot two rounds on paper or ping a piece of steel and move to the next target, but in reality, two rounds or the sound of steel being struck may not solve your problem.

I remember servicing a bad guy one night at about 7 yards with night optics. I was trained to do double-taps throughout my military career. I punched him twice with two 5.56 rounds and stopped for a split second in my mind and on the trigger, looking for a response from the bad guy. The problem was that he was still standing with an AK-47. I hit him with two more rounds before he began to fall the ground. To my amazement, he stood back up before collapsing a second time.

Lessons learned, shoot until they go down. Not one, not two, or three. I now teach a four in the chest, one in the head failure drill with the rifle. Why four? It may take the human body that long to react to the amount of trauma you are inducing (5.56). At the time of this incident, we were using military green tip ammo and the energy transfer was minimal. Realizing we had a stopping power problem, we developed a drill that would work on any determined individual and made it part of our training package.​

 

[loseth]

When the thin "French blade" was introduced, duelists were shocked by the extremely high lethality of the extremely small wounds it created. This was a problem, because the real goal of a duel isn't in fact to kill one another but to demonstrate bravery, and the broad blades previously in use weren't nearly so lethal, but they made big, bloody wounds, which is exactly what you want for a show of courage.

This evolved to the point where German university students dueled with light slashing swords, which would leave an impressive scar without much risk of deeper injury.

Myths like this abound, and it's often hard to know who to believe, but just thinking about it in terms of common sense quickly makes it clear that early modern soldiers were right to go into battle with broadswords (military weapons) rather than smallswords (the duelling weapon and civilian sidearm of the age). If a blade enters your body somewhere where it might hit an artery, is there a greater chance of the artery being hit by a 1/2" hole made in your body or a 3" hole? If your muscle is penetrated, will it function better with a 1/2" tear in it or a 3" tear? Would you rather have your bone hit by a sharp edge with almost no weight behind it or one with quite a bit of weight behind it?

Many of the duels you have heard about were probably conducted with 'french blades,' i.e. smallswords (which can be used both to stab and slash--the 'cut vs. stab' controversy is itself a huge collection of myths and misunderstandings), and as noted in the OP, they were rarely immediately deadly (though death due to infection later on was extremely common).

Basically, civilian sidearms need to be light and easy to carry, while military weapons do not suffer these restrictions and are thus much deadlier.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Military weapons and civilian sidearms are not the same. Not by a long shot. This is true of the modern age (military assault rifle or .50 cal sniper rifle vs civilian pistol), of the early modern period (military broadsword vs civilian rapier or smallsword) and of the medieval period (military pike or lance vs civilian dagger). Civilian sidearms usually insert a small quantity of metal into the target with a relatively low total force. As such, they don't usually kill on a single hit, and they tend to be all or nothing--either they hit a vital spot and deliver a fatal wound, or they hit a non-vital spot but can't cause enough tissue damage to actually impair the target.

That depends on where you are .50BMG rifles are entirely legal where I'm typing this from. In fact more .50 rifles are owned by civilians than issued by the military (this does not include HMGs different category). Similarly what you point out as military assault rifles are also entirely legal with the single alteration to semi-auto action. I can buy an SKS for less than the cost to attend a single college class.

Military weapons, on the other hand, insert larger amounts of metal into the target with much greater total force. If they hit a vital spot, then you get the same effect as a civilian sidearm--a fatal wound. The big difference comes when the weapon fails to hit a vital spot: unlike a civilian sidearm, a military weapon has sufficient damaging surface area and sufficient force to cause significant trauma to muscle tissue, tendons/cartilege/etc. and to bone. It may not kill you, but it very likely will either put you out of the fight or significantly impede your combat performance for the rest of the fight.

Limiting this to small arms so that we aren't including crew-served weapons and artillery or large caliber portables such as RRs or rockets. Most firearms used in crimes are pistols, this is understandable as it's very hard to tote around a shotgun or rifle inconspicuously. But if you examine the effects of rifle caliber firearms you observe similar effects. For example 5.56 using green tip rounds do not transfer a lot of energy. A person can be badly wounded even fatally wounded but the trauma is not sufficient to immediately stop them in many cases. It's just not predictable one might drop at the first shot the next you might need to unload four or five into center mass.