Smashing Blow, Vehicles, and Barrier Ratings?, How do you calculate vehicle barrier? Options

[vandermore]

Hello all,

Question came up tonight in our Sunday night game and it was never truly answered to my satisfaction.

A orc phys ad with Smashing Blow, runs at an armored vehicle (Body 4 Armor 6) and hits it with smashing blow to try and open a hole in it to get to the people inside. The orc had a strength of 10 and a large amount of Unarmed Combat (6 base plus Enhance Ability of I don't recall).

So my question is, what would the Barrier Rating of the vehicle be against Smashing Blow? Both the unaltered and the adjusted barrier rating?

I hope this has been clear enough.

Thanks,

Vandermore

[Moon-Hawk]

Well, a barrier is very similar to a piece of hardened armor; it decreases the power of any attack going through it by it's rating and if it is decreased to 0, stops the attack completely. So with that in mind I would be inclined to say the barrier rating of a vehicle is equal to twice the vehicle armor rating. Of course, that makes no sense for an unarmored vehicle, so what kind of armor would I give someone being shot through the wall of a vehicle? Twice body rating? Seems reasonable. So then I'd say that the combined ability of the armor to protect the vehicle, and the vehicle to protect the inside of the vehicle would be twice body plus twice armor.
My house-rule, and my logic, skewed as they both may be.

[BitBasher]

While not directly addressed in the rules, a vehicle has a condition monitor that must be degraded, and doesn't work like attacking a normal barrier. Barrier rules do not apply for attacking vehicles. Vehicles resist damage where barriers do not.

[Ol' Scratch]

Right. Vehicles don't use the rules for Barrier Ratings in what is once again a convulted mess of the rules. :)

But if you want to give the player a break because it does make sense that Smashing Blow would work in a situation like that, I'd judge a vehicle to have a base Barrier Rating of 4 (Average Material) + (one-half Body) + (Armor Rating). That would give the vehicle in your scenario a Barrier Rating of 12 (24 against melee attacks).

[Dice]

Yeah, but damaging the superstructure of a vehicle doesn't really affect the vehicle... if I punch a hole through the side of a van, does the van later become harder to drive? Not really...

Or are all convertibles automatically on moderate wounds for not having a roof?

Personally, I would say that an unarmoured vehicle would have quite a low barrier rating (the body panels are only thin steel/fibreglass/plastic etc) but armouired vehicles would have higher barrier ratings due to the armour plating

Given that tyres have a barrier rating of 3 I would give an unarmoured vehicle a rating of 4 or Body whichever is higher, and armoured vehicles will have barrier ratings of 24 (per barrier rating table on p124)

Something like a Tank would count as Hardened, for a BR of 32

[Red Swami]

I would say to consult the barrier rating of the material the vehicle was made of on the barrier rating table and treat it like any other barrier. If the ork was trying to smash through the windshield, for example, it would be a lot easier than smashing through the side. If the vehicle's armored, use the armor to reduce the power of the attack (keeping in mind it's vehicular armor) before comparing it to the barrier rating.

Or make up a number that sounds right. GMing is mostly flying by the seat of your pants anyway, right? ;)

[vandermore]

Thanks all for the responses. I think Dr. Funk's and Dice's interpretations will go down fairly well, need to talk with the player about it still.

'Course it would be wiz if there was some sort of conversion for armor --> barrier and vehicle body --> barrier and back, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. One can always hope though.

-- Vandermore

[Kagetenshi]

Idea: if you're trying to damage the overall structure rather than rendering it undrivable, you treat it as an attack against a barrier. No amount of anti-barrier damage will prevent the car from functioning (yes, this breaks down if the players decide to hammer on the car with a sledgehammer for a few hours, but in reasonable use it shouldn't be a problem). If you're trying to fill up its condition monitor and render it undrivable, it's an ordinary attack.

How armor would figure in, I'm not sure. Suggestions?

~J

[Ol' Scratch]

[Kagetenshi]

Ah yes. That looks like it works :)

~J

[Neon Tiger]

Looking at Rigger 3, page 54 says that ships and other large vehicles have barrier ratings of (Bulwark + Hull) * 8. Maybe normal vehicles could be (Body + Armour) * 2?

[Necro Tech]

You might want to go with the rules for shooting through a barrier. I believe it actually doesn't hurt the barrier but allows targets to be hit inside it. After all, you can riddle the passenger compartment of a car with bullet holes and not damage the cars funtionality.

[Orient]

For ease of play, we've just been saying that Crushing Blow allows a PhysAd's unarmed attacks to be considered Anti-Vehicular. Power doesn't drop by half, and the armor isn't considered hardened. THe balance has seemed okay on that so far, but our PhysAd hasn't been hitting that many vehicles, so..