Weapon Damage

[Li Shenron]

After all if you are shot with 9mm hand gun it will cause the same amount of damage every time, it really depends on where the round hits you as to how life threatening it is.

That's already a good reason to make it variable.

It could be argued that a better fighter would hurt more by targetting weak spots better. The reason why D&D doesn't have a detailed rule like that is because it complicates the game, and apparently most gamers wouldn't pay the price.

Anyway, at least some effect of skill (although it works on averages, not individual attacks) on damage already exists, and it's in the confirmation rolls of critical hits (more likely to be confirmed by a character with higher attack bonus).

Factor in that every weapon in typical D&D setting is intrinsically more random than firearms. Guns usually just hit you or miss you (scratches happen only in a minority of cases), but a sword has many more ways of hurting you: slashing, back-slashing, piercing from the tip, sliding the blade, bludgeoning with the flat side or even with the pommel...

 

[mmadsen]

It could be argued that a better fighter would hurt more by targetting weak spots better. The reason why D&D doesn't have a detailed rule like that is because it complicates the game, and apparently most gamers wouldn't pay the price.

The rule doesn't have to be detailed or complicated at all. You could, for instance, simply add your BAB to damage -- or convert it to comparable dice to maintain randomness.

Anyway, at least some effect of skill (although it works on averages, not individual attacks) on damage already exists, and it's in the confirmation rolls of critical hits (more likely to be confirmed by a character with higher attack bonus).

Agred. We could increase this effect -- and even simplify the game -- by increasing critical threat ranges, even to the entire range of 1 to 20.

 

[tenkar]

I carry a 9MM for a living... I carry a .38 cal off duty. I can tell you that the stopping power of a firearm is definitely linked to the caliber. A .45 cal has much more stopping power then a 9MM.

My original vest was not rated to stop a .45 cal (my new one is). The .45 will leave a much larger hole then a 9MM. Larger hole, more damage, greater chance to disable or kill. All the good stuff you want when you want the person you shoot to stay down.

If size of the round didn't matter our soldiers would be using .22 cal rifle rounds instead of 5.56

How well this converts to traditional DnD weaponry I can't rightly say... but I don't recall English Knights preferring daggers over swords in their battles... I expect the swords were just a bit more lethal and had more stopping power.

edit

Let me also add... getting shot in the same spot does not insure the same damage... the variables as a bullet enters the body change the way in moves and expands... it is a poor assumption to assume that hitting the same spot will cause the same amount of damage. Additionally, striking extremities can be just as lethal if not more so then striking the torso if you nick an artery with your shot... bleeding out is a horrible way to go.

 

[RFisher]

So I was just thinking, is there a reason why weapon damage is variable?

There's an old game called Dragon Warriors in which you roll for how much damage your armor absorbs instead of rolling to see how much damage your weapon inflicts.

More that damage should be based on how "well" you hit.

I always wanted to try 3e with Arms Law.

I mean if you run a person through with a longsword or a bastard sword, why should one weapon do 1d8+X and the other do 1d10+X?

I like class-based damage, but someone always seems to tell me that I'm insane whenever I mention it. (^_^)

Although, unless you also abstract away money or change the price of weapons to match their stats, you have to come up with other ways to make the price differences make mean something in the game. Well, you don't have to, but generally it's a good idea.

 

[RFisher]

but I don't recall English Knights preferring daggers over swords in their battles... I expect the swords were just a bit more lethal and had more stopping power.

Against another knight, you'd want a mace or polax. Something that can either punch through the armor or deliver some heavy concussion through the armor. If you manage to get your foe on the ground, then you pull out the dagger, jump on him, & slip it between the seams.

At least, that's the impression I get from the things I've read.

BTW, in the man-to-man rules for Perrin & Gygax's Chainmail, a dagger was the best choice against a prone foe in plate-mail.

 

[pawsplay]

The problem with hit locations is basically Phineas Gage.

IRL, a nick to an artery in your left leg can kill you inside of five minutes, while soldiers walked away from the Gettysburg with their jaws blown off and kept marching and fighting. Steve Irwin died of a sting to the chest, while Blackbeard the pirate took several saber cuts and over a dozen direct hits by lead rounds to go down. People die of crushing their own trachea closing car doors, while Rasputin the monk survived a dose of arsenic which should have been fatal several times over for a human being.

 

[HalfOrc HalfBiscuit]

I've had a similar thought about weapons and damage too. But instead of hit location/variable damage I've always had this nag about why certain weapons should naturally be more deadly than any other given weapon and thus have different damage dice.

I mean if you run a person through with a longsword or a bastard sword, why should one weapon do 1d8+X and the other do 1d10+X? They both are going to kill a person the same. One could argue that that particular instance is represented in the moment a character is reduced to 0 or less HP. But still, why should a bastardsword, or greataxe be more 'deadlier' than a longsword, rapier or even a dagger?
Thus instead of assigning each weapon a specific die type how about weapons starts at a base of d4 (or whatever... I just made that up for sake of discussion). Then through Weapon Focus type feats a character could expand the max damage of the weapons they 'train' in higher and get higher die types for weapons.

I seem to recall that some while ago someone posting on the House Rules forum suggested a similar idea, but with weapon category making some difference and more damage being done with all weapons if you had the martial weapons proficieny feat.

It would mean something like:

all simple light melee weapons used with simple weapon proficiency would do 1d4 (x2 on crit)

all simple one-handed melee weapons used with simple weapon proficiency would do 1d6 (x2 on crit)

all simple two-handed melee weapons used with simple weapon proficiency would do 1d8 (x2 on crit)

all light melee weapons used with martial weapon proficiency would do 1d6 (x3 on crit)

all one-handed melee weapons used with martial weapon proficiency would do 1d8 (x3 on crit)

all two-handed melee weapons used with martial weapon proficiency would do 1d10 (x3 on crit)

Ranged weapons would need a bit more thought.

It would make choice of weapon more of a style issue than a mechanical one.

 

[mmadsen]

I carry a 9MM for a living... I carry a .38 cal off duty. I can tell you that the stopping power of a firearm is definitely linked to the caliber. A .45 cal has much more stopping power then a 9MM.

And you base this on the hundreds of people you've shot with each weapon? I'm joking, of course, but my point is that the evidence isn't really that clear, and gun nuts on each side of the debate argue quite strongly for their preferred round.

My original vest was not rated to stop a .45 cal (my new one is). The .45 will leave a much larger hole then a 9MM. Larger hole, more damage, greater chance to disable or kill. All the good stuff you want when you want the person you shoot to stay down.

It's odd that you'd bring up body armor, because a 9mm round penetrates armor more readily than a .45. It has more energy -- it moves at much greater velocity -- and a smaller cross-sectional area.

Against an unarmored foe, it's not clear which round is better.

If size of the round didn't matter our soldiers would be using .22 cal rifle rounds instead of 5.56

A 5.56mm round is a .223 round, which is just a hair larger than a .22 round. The real difference is in the amount of powder behind the bullet.

How well this converts to traditional DnD weaponry I can't rightly say... but I don't recall English Knights preferring daggers over swords in their battles... I expect the swords were just a bit more lethal and had more stopping power.

Once a knife is long enough to reach the vital organs, the extra blade length is more about extra reach than extra damage -- at least for a stabbing weapon.

 

[tenkar]

I was going to use quotes, but quoting quotes will confuse the heck out of me

II A (my old soft body armor) (approx 16 layers of kevlar) rated for:

9 mm FMJ (Full Metal Jacket) at ~1,090 fps
(332 mps)

.357 Magnum JSP (Jacketed Soft Point) at ~1,250 fps
(~381 mps).

III A (my new soft body armor) (approx 30 layers of kevlar) rated for:

9 mm FMJ at ~1,400 fps
(~427 mps)
(e.g., sub-machine-gun velocity)

.44 Magnum Lead Semi-Wadcutter at ~1,400 fps
(~427 mps).

I am far from a gun nut... but I have seen the devastating effect of gunshots up close more times then I like... I'll take larger with more stopping power any day over smaller with less.

Don't take this to mean I've fired my weapons in the line of duty... I've just responded to far too many crime scenes where the victims were shot... the joys of big city police work.

 

[Jhaelen]

Against another knight, you'd want a mace or polax. Something that can either punch through the armor or deliver some heavy concussion through the armor. If you manage to get your foe on the ground, then you pull out the dagger, jump on him, & slip it between the seams.

At least, that's the impression I get from the things I've read.

I like the way pendragon handles the different weapon types. For every situation a different type is the most beneficial to use.
It really shows why knights had to have a squire (well, there's other reasons like being unable to put on their armor without help, etc.)

In D&D a similar effect is achieved by having the different types of damage reduction. There are too many different weapons for my taste, though. The system would work a lot better if there were just weapon groups.