Underpowered Guns in d20 Modern (rant, long)

[blaskowicz]

Well, this has been an interesting read. That first post certainly does a lot to point out some of the deficiences of d20 Modern, even if you DO subscribe to the "highly cinematic is good" camp (which I don't).

I am not against cinematic, but those two characters are at the same level, both experts at their forms of combat, and there is a clear disadvantage in using firearms. Many posters argued there would be saves from the massive damage threshold, which the .50 would very likely cause. IF it hits, that is, which is highly unlikely.

For X-com d20, here's what I'm doing: armor grants both DR and a Defense bonus. The Defense Bonus will be small, but it will represent the ability of armor to completely deflect some hits that would otherwise be grazes. Think of it as "Passive Defense" (from GURPS). The DR will be the main protection of the armor, and may end up going pretty high for the famous Flying Suit (a highly advanced form of personal armor...that flies). Weapons may or may not have a Penetration value. I haven't decided quite yet. The benefit of using a Penetration value is that you can keep the actual damage dice to a minimum (because instead of relying on a large die roll to penetrate DR, you simply apply the DR only if the Penetration isn't good enough to ignore it...again, you can do this partially or as an all-or-nothing gambit). Anyway, on to HP.

GURPS has dropped PD as of 4th edition, or so I heard. But we will consider this option, I will even take a look at Unearthed Arcana (never had time to analyze all those optional rules).

Thus, X-com d20 will use a sort of scaling threshold massive damage system. The idea is simple. Using the basic concept of the massive damage save, I will create a number of thresholds whereby the effects of even TAKING that much damage start to have serious consequences. Likely, it will look something like this when I'm done:

The idea is simple, and sounds interesting to me. I am concerned, however, about the time it takes to make all these extra saves. Especially if we are talking about highly damaging weaponry.

There you go...that was a lot more than 2 cents, but hopefully not too bad.

Not bad, I would say.

 

[Aaron2]

IF it hits, that is, which is highly unlikely.

Here's my obligitory "what I do" response about autofire. I'm not too fond of d20M since you are given two choices; one where you take a penalty to hit for more damage, and another where your chance to hit is fairly low (and, more important, doesn't even consider armor!). There is no option for "spray and pray"; for firing multiple shots to increase the likelyhood of a hit.

My rules ....
I let the firer choose the width of any autofire attack. He can pick a 5' spread (basically shooting at one guy or down a narrow corridor) and get a bonus to hit (+2 for burst, +4 for full auto). He rolls to hit against all targets in the area. If the firer chooses a wider spread (10 ft' or more), the bonus decreases as the spread widens up until its actually a penalty (a pretty severe penalty at, say, 50' wide). Again, he rolls to hit against all targets in the affected area.

If the firer fires full auto, he has the option of continuous fire. If he does so, all character in the affected area on their next action must drop prone or get behind total cover or they suffer an additional attack (with an additional -4 penalty) during their action. NPCs must make a Will save to act.

Finally, if the firer hits with a shot while performing an autofire attack, he can make another attack roll for a second hit. He can continue racking up hits until he misses or runs out of bullets.

Autofire Example: A squad of Americans try rush a German MG42 sandbag bunker. During the German’s turn, he decides to try and cover their approach. The Amis are spread out but the German want to pin them down. The Amis are 60 feet away but only 30 feet apart (measuring the distance from the American soldiers furthest apart). The German is a recent conscript and poorly trained so his normal attack bonus is only +1. A 30 foot spread results in a -2 Autofire Attack Bonus. The German makes an attack at -2 against all American soldiers in the spread zone (whose depth is one range increment due to the flat ground). The German then decided to continuous fire as he as plenty of ammo. During their turns, if the Americans continue to rush forward rather than dive for cover, the German can make an extra -6 attack against them. This attack can occur during the turn of each individual American soldier. If any of the American soldiers are NPCs, they must make a Will Save (DC 8) to perform any actions other than diving for cover.

Under my rules, the soldier would make a +15 attack against the knight, hitting on an 11 or better and rolling for multiple hits. If the knight continued charging, the soldier would get an additional +11 attack.


Aaron

 

[mmu1]

There are two issues here:

1. Armor as AC boost is obviously the wrong way to go, as has been pointed out several times already. Against assault rifles and up, the stuff might as well be tissue paper - it doesn't help much if it slows down the bullet to the point where it can "only" penetrate 8" into your chest cavity rather than go all the way through, or (for heavy machine guns) leave it with enough energy to blow right through your chest once, instead of three or four times over.

2. When comparing modern guns and archaic weapons, many games (certainly d20) underestimate how easy guns are to use, and how high the practical rates of fire actually are. Any system that assumes a proficient user will only be able to get off one shot in six seconds unless he sacrifices a lot of accuracy or gets special training (feats) is hopelessly unrealistic. Six seconds is an eternity when using a gun.

 

[takyris]

And a dagger through the eye does just as much damage, no matter what kind of armor you're using. C'mon, guys. The "armor is tissue paper" argument is great when describing a dead-on hit to the body that doesn't hit at any real angle and can use its full power for penetration -- which, in d20 terms, is what we'd refer to as a Crit. Is a full suit of platemail really no good whatsoever against even a glancing shot, a shot that would just have grazed the target in passing? Heck, Native Americans used canvas shields that were no good against bullets that hit dead-on but could deflect a bullet that came in at an angle, and that was, y'know, a flat strip of leather tied to a hoop like a drum. You'd think a full suit of platemail might do something against a glancing shot -- which, in d20 terms, is what we refer to as a hit.

(Caveat, however: I run a d20 Modern game that is mostly by the normal rules, and I run a fantasy game with VP/WP-ish hit points and armor functioning as DR only against WP damage. I'm not against armor-as-DR at all. I like that. But I can see armor as Defense as well, and I don't think that this situation is as bad as advertised.)

 

[mmu1]

A full suit of platemail has practically no ability to deflect modern military firearm rounds, certainly not at the distances 95% of RPG combat occurs at.

This armored vehicle

http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/j/M-113.jpg

doesn't provide adequate protection from the kind of machine gun discussed in the first post, and it weighs in at around 12 tons.

 

[takyris]

mm1, no offense intended (seriously -- I respect your opinion), but would you mind going into more detail on that? Does "not sufficient protection" mean that every shot fired at the vehicle gets through, that even a glancing shot fully penetrates the armor? If that means that a dead-on shot will penetrate, I don't think that invalidates the point I was trying to make (that the Defense bonus means that it's turning glancing shots into misses, just like it would on the low-damage hits if armor provided DR instead of Defense). I'm not arguing that a dead-on shot won't penetrate. I'm arguing that I haven't seen evidence that full plate is useless in all respects against even that big honkin' gun.

If someone shows me that even a graze or glancing shot will fully penetrate full plate without any change in angle, any deflection away from the body, then I'm fine with saying, "Yeah, it doesn't model well here." And then we can probably change the text of that particular gun to read "Ignores the first 8 points of Defense bonus from armor" or something like that. (Unless this "doesn't change the angle at all" is true for all firearms.)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Six seconds is an eternity when using a gun.

Not if you're not using a heavy machine gun, IMO. You're going to be spending time aiming and taking cover (since your opponent is probably shooting at you too).

But of course, Modern isn't supposed to be realistic. If it were, the heroes would stay home for fear of being shot and suffering death or permanent injury. Body armor doesn't usually cover your head and neck.

 

[Krieg]

takyris, standard ball .50 caliber ammo will penetrate over 1" of rolled steel at 200m (with SLAP rounds penetrating 2-3 times as much).

The metal used in a typical plate harness would not be more than 16 ga or so, that translates to .06".

An M2 would have no problems completely penetrating the armoured knight (front and back) out to any practical range (we are talking more than a 1k here) regardless of angle of incidence.

 

[takyris]

krieg: Thanks. Those were the stats I was looking for.

Then a related question: Would a flak jacket help you at all in that situation? Is the problem in full plate not living up to its numbers in a modern situation, or is the problem that guns that heavy should really be making touch attacks or area-effect nastiness, automatically using a certain number of bullets per round?

Or should all archaic armor be scaled back (ie, "Take the D&D value and subtract 2")? Or should we assume that when d20 Modern says "full plate", it means "this totally awesome modern suit of full plate, made with shock-absorbant fibers and, you know, polymers in important places and stuff"?

 

[S'mon]

.50 long rounds as used in the M2HB HMG will penetrate personal body armour without difficulty - the Barrett .50 Sniper rifle uses the same round and has no difficulty killing armoured men at over 1500m. The example I know of is IRA snipers using Barrett .50 vs RUC (police) men in flak jackets at over 1km ranges (firing from across the Ireland/Northern Ireland border) - 10 hits, 9 immediate fatalities, one man was hit in the hip & survived. If you ever _see_ a .50 round you'll know why... this is a weapon designed to kill _light armoured vehicles_, vs humans it's massive overkill.