Underpowered Guns in d20 Modern (rant, long)

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I do it all the time. Whether its computer geek or scientist geek or even history geek, i find i get lots of use from guys who are "top men" in their field but who wont reasonably expect to be able to shrug off a pistol round much less a rifle round with little concern.

As an anecdote, one of the oddball things i encountered was the write up of an aged scientist who had spent 50+ years marooned on a planet studying an acnient library all alone in stargate sg-1 rpg. In the show, we see this guy as aged, stick thin, shuffling geek guy and in the RPG write up, given the levels he needed to get to be "top science guy" skill ranks/points, he ended up with over-adequate combat stats and hit points so he could take out the moderately experienced and in his prime marine Kowalski (6th level soldier) in hand to hand without breaking a sweat.

I had already moved from their hit points system to damage save at that point, and so it just reinforced my happiness in that decision when i saw how their hit point system did this.

Seems to me he should have had Con 8 or 10 (base) plus aging penalties... that would give him decent (but not great) hit points, a terrible Mas, a low Fortitude save, and so forth. I don't know what the Scientist class' Defense bonus is like, but the Smart class has the lowest possible one, and if armor has any effect on unarmed combat, the scientist should have a hard time hurting Kowalski. One or two gunshots later, said scientist is lying on the floor, bleeding. To be fair, not sure about Kowalski's unarmed damage. Or the scientist's unarmed damage, for that matter.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Although I'm coming into this late, has anyone suggested the first issue of Modern Dispatch? It it gives DR rules for Modern Armor, and I think makes medieval armor completly ineffective against modern weapons.

Also, in D&D Firearms make ranged touch attacks (thus ignoring armor). There is no reason one couldnt do the same thing here against a target wearing mideival armor.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Although I'm coming into this late, has anyone suggested the first issue of Modern Dispatch? It it gives DR rules for Modern Armor, and I think makes medieval armor completly ineffective against modern weapons.

Also, in D&D Firearms make ranged touch attacks (thus ignoring armor). There is no reason one couldnt do the same thing here against a target wearing mideival armor.

Apparently heavy samurai armor could deflect musket fire. Maybe it should be done by PL?

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Any type of 'full' armor (full plate, modern anti-ballistic armor, and so on) confers at least some protection against a rifle or smaller firearm. Some studies even indicate that muskets, with the greater mass of their shot, would be better at penetrating archaic armor than most modern small arms. Now, AP bullets would be a different story, but we're talking standard load.

Since modern armor is specifically designed with modern weapons in mind, it does offer more protection against them while being lighter weight than its archaic equivalent - but on the other hand, a suit of full plate confers at least some protection against both guns and swords, whereas a swordsman will essentially consider modern 'armor' no different than tough clothing, probably no better than leather armor.

One option would be to make armor -1 or -2 per PL difference from a weapon. This actually works well for modern/medieval armor and weapons, although ancient/futuristic skews it into the realm of the silly.

Also, D&D guns are not ranged touch attacks, nor, goodness knows, should they be.

However, the original gist of this thread was a machine gun and a greatsword, and I do somewhat see what the original poster was getting at.

No personal armor yet developed significantly impacts the damage potential of a heavy machine gun. The 'forced entry unit' in the d20 Modern book describes basically the pinnacle of modern anti-ballistic armor technology... and it probably shouldn't take one point of damage/to-hit off a heavy machine gun's attack. Same with full plate.

Possibly the biggest problem is the difference between a heavy machine gun (2d12) and a regular assault rifle (2d8). In a realistic system, the former should be much stronger, or the latter weaker, or both.

I'm a bit iffy on an assault rifle doing about as much on average as a greatsword (9 vs. 10 for a Str 14 wielder, probably 'average' for an NPC greatswordsman), but neither should come so close to a heavy machine gun (average 13 for a non-specialist) without extreme stats and/or special (probably magical) abilities.

 

[Pagan priest]

Anybody remember Agincourt? The flower for French chivlary, plate armor and all, died under a hail of arrows. .50 bullets ought to be a little better at going through armor than an arrow. Of course, the English archers had the wit to set up behind stakes, and the knights had to cross a vast, open muddy field to get there.

 

[Aaron2]

Anybody remember Agincourt? The flower for French chivlary, plate armor and all, died under a hail of arrows.

The battle at Agincourt occured in 1415 which slightly predates the developement of full plate and probably did much to spur its developement.

Anyway, the question isn't "can a bullet penetrate plate armor" but rather, is there any possiblilty that medieval plate armor can deflect a bullet that would otherwise cause injury or will the armor slow down a bullet enough to reduce the damage caused. I'd say give archaic armor a +1/+2/+3 bonus for light/medium/heavy armor.


Aaron

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

At Agincourt, the English weren't aiming their arrows. They were firing their arrows upwards at the start of the French charges, letting gravity do its work. This isn't something that comes up often in a Modern or DnD game, however, so there aren't any rules for long-range boosting armor penetration.

On another note, the arrows often hit horses, who had lighter arrows, throwing their riders off. Plate armor wasn't so heavy that knights couldn't get back up (at least, the non-jousting armor wasn't) but a knight walking in plate is pretty slow. They made nice targets for when they got close enough for the English to aim at them.

 

[ragboy]

Technically, it's illegal to fire at troops by the Geneva convention..but that's beside the point). Really Ragboy What Convention? .

Yeah, I don't know. The Hague Convention thing quoted earlier is also included in the Geneva convention. As a tanker, that was what I was always told. Can't seem to find anything at the moment that specifically says that the Ma Deuce is prohibited for shooting at crunchies. And we trained to shoot every darn weapon on the tank at crunchies... and did in combat...so who knows?

I still have a hard time believing that any person not surrounded by a significant amount of steel can survive a barrage from a .50. I haven't built a house rule around guns yet (have yet to play d20 Modern with any regularity), but I like the damage save idea. I'll have to try that out.

 

[takyris]

For my money, this is right. If the knight starts the fight less than thirty yards from the soldier, the soldier is boned. I, having never served in the military, have no idea whether the M2HB was made to be able to fire at enemies who appear quite suddenly at short range, but with a range increment of 110 feet, it seems like the d20 Modern people intended it to be a weapon that created a lovely kill zone for several hundred feet if you kept hosing people down with it.

From playing d20 Modern a fair amount, though, I'd suggest that autofire with a 2d12 weapon makes short work of almost anybody. Forget a Soldier level. Make that soldier a Strong6 so that he gets 2 attacks, and put the knight a bit further away -- far enough so that the knight's one actual disadvantage (his inability to move quite as fast) comes into play and the soldier gets 2 rounds in which to act -- and the knight is boned. Someone else will do the math, but as an English major who played a bunch, I can say that one of those shots will almost definitely force an Massive Damage check, and a 6th level person with a Con of 16 only has a Fort save of +6. That's about a 40% chance of going down right there. And if only one of those shots forced a massive damage save, I'd be very surprised and disappointed in my dice.

As far as armor goes... correct me if I'm wrong, historians, but wasn't full plate invented at least in part to combat firearms? It lost the race, of course, but for awhile, armor had grooves and chestplate angles that could ablate an incoming shot and cause it to glance off. Didn't help against a full-force dead-on shot, of course, but was pretty good at turning grazes into misses.

That's just what I remember from reading, however.

To most other comments: Abstract Combat System. 11 points of damage to a character with 65 hit points is a near-miss that hits the ground nearby and gets dirt in his eye and kicks up tiny shrapnel that gives him a nasty scrape across the arm and causes him to have to dive to the ground to seek cover, scrambling back up a bit more slowly and breathing hard and less likely to be quite as lucky or quite as fast next time. Really.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

How can you make a laser weapon fire in automatic fire mode?

Well, that depends on how lasers are handled in the game...

If every time you pull the trigger, it puts out a sustained bolt for the entire round, you cannot...

If, instead, it is a split second shot of light, then you can have full auto ones, as multiple crystals are rotated through and the power pack discharges vast amounts of power.

Then, you have the "pulse" option, which isn't full auto fire, allows the barrel and lasing material to cool, and ionization and flourescence to clear, resulting in better clarity of the beam.

And that, boys and girls, is the problem with beams...

beam clarity and atmospheric attenuation.

But that's for another post...

So, Ranger, that's how. If you wish, I could get far more detailed, but yes, energy weapons (including MASER) can be put on fully automatic, but if the pulse use is ignored, then eventually, flourescence and ionization, as well as damage to the lasing material, will weaken the beams.