Weapon Damage

[RFisher]

I like the way pendragon handles the different weapon types. For every situation a different type is the most benefial to use.

Yeah. I took a glance at the Book of Knights last night, & I see what you mean. (I really have to play Pendragon sometime.) There's some good ideas there.

I really like the man-to-man table from the original Chainmail. I'd really like to use it in an RPG, but--while it may work fine in the context of the full Chainmail man-to-man rules--it would need some adjustment if used by itself.

I have long thought that armor v. weapon & weapon v. weapon rules could go a long way towards making RPG combat more interesting to me, but it seems like over-complication.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

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

Uhh, the .223 and 5.56 are pretty much the same size. Powder and pressure is the difference in stopping power between them.

Though, the first time I fired an M16, I thought I broke it. There was no boom, no kick, just a cough and the sound of the recoil chambering another round. Really weird after growing up shooting 12 gauge and all manner of single shot hunting rifles.

Isn't there some NATO nonsense about not using rounds you'd use for hunting, in war/combat?

 

[mmadsen]

Isn't there some NATO nonsense about not using rounds you'd use for hunting, in war/combat?

The Hague Convention of 1899, a precursor to the Geneva Convention, outlawed expanding rounds -- Dum-Dums, hollow-points, etc. -- in war. Of course, it also outlawed aerial bombardment and chemical warfare.

The real reason for the tiny 5.56 mm round is that it's light, so troops can carry more ammo. There's no need for a large round with a high chance of a quick, humane kill. As they say, if you kill a soldier, you take out one soldier; if you wound him, you take out three soldiers, because he needs two comrades to carry him away.

 

[Cameron]

Funny how almost all police forces worldwide still use hollow points, eh?

Anyway, be as it may, hit locations and messy? I don't think so. Classic Battletech survived for a very long time and it was all based on hit locations. Fixed weapon damaged, though, although that can be easily changed...

It is a tabletop wargame, just like DnD is.

 

[Gentlegamer]

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?

Good point! The LEJENDARY ADVENTURE game follows this principle. Every weapon's base damage is rolled on a d20. There are other characteristics that differentiate them.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I've never talked to a knowledgeable firearms person and been told a 9mm is as potent as a .45. I know military people who say the special forces are wanting to use .45 as a sidearm since the 9mm Beretta is not nearly the man stopper. Not to say a 9mm is an ineffective round, but you need a hollow point to get close to the bullet diameter of a .45 round nose and then only if it opens up properly. A .45 just leave a larger wound channel. And with some nice JHP it really tears up.

Hey Tenkar, why do you carry a .38 off duty? Why not a .357 in a similar frame? Significantly more power that way as you know. I have a nice little 2" .38 myself though, not a bad gun for carry purposes.
I like my 9mm but mainly because its cheap and easy to shoot and still has enough kick to do the job in most cases...but I really want a 1911 .45 since I got a chance to finally shoot one. So very nice.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Oh and you guys should play OD&D since it has d6 damage for all weapons. Where is diaglo at...



And I can see how a dagger could do the damage a greatsword does in the right hands...but on average I think the greatsword would do much more damage to a target.

 

[RFisher]

The real reason for the tiny 5.56 mm round is that it's light, so troops can carry more ammo. There's no need for a large round with a high chance of a quick, humane kill. As they say, if you kill a soldier, you take out one soldier; if you wound him, you take out three soldiers, because he needs two comrades to carry him away.

Of course, what soldiers I've known have told me is that most bullets fired in war don't hit anyone. Most aren't even meant to hit anyone. They're usually intended to keep the enemy hiding behind cover. Once you've used "fire & movement" tactics to outflank the enemy, the "stopping power" of an individual bullet isn't so important.

 

[mmadsen]

Of course, what soldiers I've known have told me is that most bullets fired in war don't hit anyone. Most aren't even meant to hit anyone. They're usually intended to keep the enemy hiding behind cover. Once you've used "fire & movement" tactics to outflank the enemy, the "stopping power" of an individual bullet isn't so important.

Exactly.

What's interesting is that the 5.56 round was introduced when the US had a conscript army. Once you have a highly trained professional army, your goal isn't necessarily just to put as much lead in the air as possible.

I enjoyed this piece on the truth about the 5.56 round. As a collection of comments, it makes a number of points:

As hunters, at least American hunters, have gone from 'standard' cartridges like the 33-30, 308, etc. to super magnum calibers we have learned one thing. The kill rate has not increased. More powerful, flatter shooting rounds may slightly increase the effective range at which hits can be made but the percentage of kills and the rapidity of death really have not increased, at least not for the last 100 years. NOTHING works, instantly or otherwise, all the time. In past wars enemy have walked away from hits by .45 ACP, .303, 8mm Mauser, 30-06 and even 50 BMG and 20mm. A hit to a non lethal area is a non-lethal hit no matter what gun one is using. A hit to the brain or spinal cord is a show stopper, no matter what is being used. Anywhere else an inch one way or the other makes all the difference between a quick stop and eventual recovery. Combat is imprecise. If we are going to be realistic we must learn to accept that. In the last century there has not been a service rifle caliber cartridge used by any nation so inherently inferior in performance against personnel that its use had made the difference between victory or defeat. The qualities of the weapons themselves and the soldiers who use them is of ordinately greater significance that the caliber itself.​

One oddity of D&D combat is that it makes hitting easy but disabling on a hit relatively hard, which skews weapon choice toward size and power rather than accuracy.

 

[Cactot]

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

Not precisely true, velocity actually has a far greater impact on lethality than bullet size. Else a 240 grain .45acp cartridge would have roughly 4 times the stopping power of a 62 grain .223/5.56 cartridge and twice that of a 130 grain .357 mag cartridge.

In reality the energy levels are as such:
.223 = 1785 joules
.357 = 781 joules
.45acp = 502 joules

Also, slow high caliber cartridges are far easier to stop with armor.

A 240gr .45acp can be stopped by type 2a body armor
(2nd lowest level of 6)

A 150gr .308 cartridge requires type IV armor to stop. (highest level of 6)

Hell it takes IIIa armor to stop a 9mm +p jacketed round.

Oh, and for the record 5.56 == .223