Ok...I'm working on creating an RPG...(not all by myself)
At any rate, I need help designing the equivilant to a 9mm pistol and a piece of kevlar chest armor.

I want the pistol to be as realistic as possible.
So making it hurt isn't a bad thing here.

For the armor, I just need to figure out it's durability.
Like, what level of impact it can stand, and what level it gives in.
(or what caliber it can stand)

The armor works as follows in the game.
The bullet strikes the armor and all physical damage is taken by the armor.
The armor loses armor points everytime it takes a bullet.
Once the armor loses all of it's armor points the bullet(physical damage) goes to the defending character.
Even though the character is not receiving physical damage, they still receive a level of stun damage from the impact.
(this is just the basics so you can understand...there's more, but we don't need to go into that for this.)

Damage is straight damage in the game so far.
There is no comparing successes or the like yet, so the 9mm pistol can be straight conversion from caliber to game stat.

The Physical Damage bar is set at 10 boxes.

I would do this myself, but I don't know enough about this stuff yet.
I indeed could go research this and do it all myself, which I will do later, but right now I just need this one weapon and this one piece of armor.


Raygun?
Anyone?
Got any ideas of helpful comments?

(p.s. I'm not going to debate the core system here at all.)

A revolver full at least, before the armor fails. Maybe 8-10 rounds? kind of hard to quantify. Will the system hard armor degredation or just a pass/fail type system? Will the system model whether the bullet actually hits the armor or be much more abstract?

Also, you will need to consider how to model armor that is penetrated, but not completely 'failed' yet. A second hand vest that was hit and penetrated by one 5.56mm round would still provide protection from 9mm...

I think you miss understood me so here's an example.

"A revolver full..." doesn't answer the question of how much damage the weapon does nor how many armor points the armor has.
(aside from this, I don't know what kind of revolver we're talking about...)

Ok, the example...

Acme Armor
Armor Rating: 8

Acme Pistol
Damage Rating: 3

CHARACTERS CONDITION
Physical Damage Bar
[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

Stun Damage Bar
[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

----
TURN #1
Bullet hits armor causing 3 points of damage to the Armors armor points and 1 point of Stun Damage to the character.
Acme Armor
Armor Rating: 5

CHARACTERS CONDITION
Physical Damage Bar
[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

Stun Damage Bar
[X][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

TURN #2
Bullet hits armor causing 3 points of damage to the Armors armor points and 2 points of Stun Damage to the character. (2 points this time because maybe it hit a soft spot like near the ribs.)
Acme Armor
Armor Rating: 2

CHARACTERS CONDITION
Physical Damage Bar
[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

Stun Damage Bar
[X][X][X][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

TURN #3
Bullet hits armor causing 3 points of damage to the Armors armor points, but since the armor only had 2 points of armor left the remaining 1 point of damage is carried over into the character.
Acme Armor
Armor Rating: 0

CHARACTERS CONDITION
Physical Damage Bar
[X][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

Stun Damage Bar
[X][X][X][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

TURN #4
Bullet hits causing 3 points of damage to the character because the armor is useless at this point.
Acme Armor
Armor Rating: 0

CHARACTERS CONDITION
Physical Damage Bar
[X][X][X][X][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

Stun Damage Bar
[X][X][X][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, those aren't actual stats.
That was just so you could see the function.
But I need help creating what damage rating the Pistol would cause.
Straight points are being used here. No L, M, S, D system.
There is only 10 points of Physical Damage.

I also need help figuring out what the armor rating would be for generic chest armor. (e.g., that 8 points that was used in the example above)

So that's how it works
The armor is already modeled to resemble having taken a hit by the very funciton of losing armor points.
And if you are going to buy used armor in this game...I pitty you for you will die soon.

I hope that clarifies things a little...

So I would be able to live up to the point our revolver using goon #1 hits me with his 6th and final bullet every single time? Assuming of course that the Acme Wheelgun™ will have a 6 round capacity.

No.
I don't want that.
The above stats were purely for the purpose of illistration (like I said).

And finding the right mixture is why I need help on this, because I don't know enough about firearms and armor in real life to know how they would typically translate into a game balanced.

Oh and for now, yes, the weapon will always do the same amount of damage.
Later, after I make sure that the damage from the weapon is balanced, I will add the variable damage system in.

Well, like Crusher Bob said, there should be times when a bullet penetrates the armor and you may even take lethal damage, but the body armor hasn't failed yet. A 2-part Armor Rating would work better -- it can absorb a maximum of X damage points at a time, up to a total of Y points.

Of course, a straight Damage value and a straight Armor value sounds like you do not want firearms and armor to work realistically. There's so much more going on in terminal ballistics and body armor protection vs firearms. You should be capable of distinguishing between, say, 12G bird shot and .416 Rigby or Remington Magnums (or any such Very Big Game calibers) so that they're about equally like to kill a man at short ranges, but the latter will rip right through any and all soft body armor without trouble. [Edit]The former will be stopped by any serious body armor, though the blunt trauma can be severe.[/Edit]

If you don't want that sort of distinction, then you can just forget about what would really happen and find figures that are well balanced and fun. Trying to work some realism (or at least suspension of disbelief) into the system when the basic principles just don't work out will only give you a system that isn't realistic or fun or balanced.

Still, an average NIJ type III-A vest front-piece will probably withstand about, I dunno, 5? 9mmP (or similar) handgun shots at random locations before becoming more or less useless. 2 consecutive shots to the same spot, though, and you'd be fucked. 2 consecutive hits on opposite sides, no problem. It's really about the risk of the next shot hitting somewhere near an ealier hit.

ok...

Thank you.
That last part is useful.

The rest, I've already talked about doing Later.

so basically 2 to 5 shots.
does this have anything to do with what you are talking about with the 2 to 5 shots thing?
Also...on that site, does the list of shots represent when the armor gave out, or just the amount of rounds they fired whether it gave out or not?

I'm probably gonna get flamed for this and it doesn't map very well to the shadowrun d6 system (if that's what you're going to use) but the Rift SDC system does sound a lot like what you're trying to do. Basically each 'suit' of SDC armour has a damage capacity (the total amount of damage it'll absorb before being junk) and also an AR rating (which if an attack beats then the shot misses the armour and hits the target)

For example and the values are off the top of my head....

Guy 1 is wearing a flak jacket (100 SDC AR 14)

Guy shoots him with his pistol (2d6 damage 1d20 to hit)

guy 2 roll a 10 on his attack hitting the flak jacket and doing 7 damage (no prob the armour absorbs it)

next round guy 2 hits again but this time rolling a 16 therefore bypassing the flak jacket and hitting an unprotected body part..... and pain occurs *8->

If you wanted to simulate the armour degradation for multiple shots in the same location, as the earlier suggest is bad today, you could reduce the AR rating for every shot or every 10 damage or so on and so show that parts of the actual flak jacket are effectively unprotected areas.....

Just an idea..... *8->

The 'staged penetration' system used in the various flavors of Mekton (R Tal) might be good enough for you.

Basically armor had a rating and a 'hardening' number. the rating simply subtracted from the damage done (ie rating 6 armor hit by a rating 10 attack would let 4 points of damage through). In addition, any attack that was more that the armor's hardening would reduce the armor value by 1 even if it did not penetrate the armor.

This way, you can have actual armor penetrations without ruining the armor. This reduces the 'invulnerability of armor with hit point left (a flaw with many HP based armor systems).

Actually, I like that one quite a bit.
I think I'll go with something like that.

In that case, assuming an average damage of 3 for a 9mmP, an NIJ level III-A vest should probably rank at about Armor 4/Hardening 1.

With such small numbers, using that system as such causes faster degradation than would be optimal. To get armor to degrade slower, there are of course a number of possible fixes.

For example, it might take 4 attacks over the Hardening to reduce Armor from 4 to 3, then 3 to reduce it to 2, etc. This would make the heaviest suits of armor too immune to degradation.

Or the # of attacks needed to reduce armor could be linked to Hardening, so that a Hardening 2 suit would take 2 such attacks to reduce the Armor rating by 1. Suits of armor with Hardening under 3 shouldn't be common in that case, however, and even a NIJ level III-A vest should have 3. Only the really brittle ones, like level IV, could have lower Hardening.

Or there could simply be a flat number of attacks >Hardening to reduce the Armor rating by 1. This makes it very difficult to distinguish between the degradation rates of different types of body armor, though.

Just because it was my idea: NIJ level III-A could also be 4/32, where the second number is the potential # of damage points absorbable -- a different kind of Hardening. The current Armor rating would be counted as MaxArmor * (CurrentHardening / MaxHardening), rounded up. The above 4/32 would thus be 4 at 25-32, 3 at 17-24, 2 at 9-16 and 1 at 1-8.

With this system, using the average damage of 3, the vest would degrade like this:
Against the 1st shot: 4/32, stopped
Against the 2nd: 4/29, stopped
Against the 3rd: 4/26, stopped
4th: 3/23, stopped
5th: 3/20, stopped
6th: 3/17, stopped
7th: 2/14, penetrates
8th: 2/12, penetrates
9th: 2/10, penetrates
10th: 1/8, penetrates
11th: 1/7, penetrates
Etc.
As long as Hardening is divisible by Armor, the math is very simple.

In fact, the Hardening could simply be the amount of points absorbed before the Armor rating drops by 1. In this case, it would be 8. The player would keep track of the total number of damage absorbed, and every time it goes over a multiple of 8 (8, 16, 24, 32), he'd reduce the Armor rating by 1.

This would work almost exactly like the above, but without most of the math.

If you are planning to use hit locations, see if you can find a copy of the Babylon project of Milleniums End. The 'action figure' hit location system used is much better than the completely randon hit location used in other games. (and you can bring action figures to the gaming table)

Another optional rule you can from Palladium you can use is the Penetration Value system. Weapons/ammo, armor and objects are all given a Penetration Value rating, in order to damage something the weapon's PV rating has to meet or beat the PV rating of the object being fired at, also giving you a system to determine/rate overpenetration as well.

Crusher, do explain.

I've never liked (well, hated,) random hit location systems, mostly becsue they don't represent the rality of combat.

ME came out with a much better idea. Basically they printed clear plastic circles with numbered dots semi-randomly on them. If you 'hit' you got the point you were aiming at, if you missed, you found the dot thay mapped with how much you missed by and that was where the bullet actually went. This promotes aiming at the center of mass, since even if you 'miss' the spot you are aiming at, you still have a chance to hit the target. (i.e. by only missing by 'a little bit' you still put the bullet into that target). this also let you 'easily' model thing like shooting past the hostage and so on. Want to try to shoot the gun out of someones hand? No problem, bring out the action figures.

So the hit resolution worked something like this, use a shilouette (or action figure) in the same general stance as the character, if they have cover add that in too. Then select your aimpoint (head, center or mass, kneecap, whatever) put the plastic circle over the aimpoint, rotate a random amount (so that missing by, say 5, does not always miss high and to the left), and roll to hit. Well articulated action figures and drawing dummies are even better, in that it shows things the position of the hands.

You get wonderful things like hiding your legs behind a wall (cover in most games) does not really help against being shot in the chest. Even better, you can model the effect of cover not stopping bullets very well, since the position of the body behind the cover is taken into account too (HMG fans take note).

Notice that this is quite complex, gun battles in ME don't take place that often (about 1 per life ) so all the time devoted to hit locations dosen't slow down the game that much.

The Babylon Project had a much simpler version of this system.

Also, the Rainbow 6 series of computer games uses a similar to hit model.

I really, really like this idea and I want to use it.
The only thing I would need to do is make it simpler and not involve figures or siloettes.

There's probably a real easy way for me to translate the "missing markers" with simple math equations that say you hit "here instead of here".
Like you said, though, it needs to be somewhat random in that dedication of where the missing round hits, so a certain aspect of the formula will have to purposefully be anti-cimetrical.

Still, I'm going to have to look into this more because we really are aiming to represent a little bit more of reality than hollywood.

Plus, I really do want hit locations in the game so that players can exploit the weeknesses of armor and we can remove the ability of players to abuse "cover-all" armor systems.

This would also work real damn well with our damage system that we have going on, as our damage system makes combat pretty lethal.

Just took a look at a character sheet for ME. I think that it might be ok to have a siloette in that way on a sheet. I also like the way they have armor set up per each individual 25 body locations. Very clever.

One quesiton I have though...what dice are they rolling in that game?

I'm at work and I can't access any site with the word "game" in it or it gets blocked, otherwise I would probably already know.

Eek! That stuff is really freaking heavy! If you can come up with a simple formula that gives you the hit location based on a dice roll and the amount by which the shot missed, possibly also on the stance and facing direction of the character (at that point you might want to have an Excel sheet for it or something), then it sounds sane.

How many hours, on average, does a squad-sized firefight to the death take with the ME system? 10? 20? Of course, when firefights are extremely rare and far between, it doesn't matter that much. It really depends on how prevalent combat would be with this new system. If a small firefight could pop up in every game, then that level of micromanaging might lead to extreme frustration at some point.

While not 100% realistic (maybe closer to ~75%), random hit locations are better than no hit locations at all, and possibly also better than spending 30min-1h per game figuring out the hit location with some other method. I still haven't run into statistics of where people get hit with small arms in firefights, but using reasonable numbers, random hit locations do give reasonable results.

I do like this idea though...while the whole recieving a shot might be overwhelming, I don't think that the concept of a location chart would be...I mean...it's really no different than a damage chart.
I already have a damage system that's been approved by our project manager so our system won't be really anything like theirs.

More than likey, the hit location system would act as a tally sheet which would give you your total damage that is logged on the Damage chart, which happens to be a grand total of 10 crits.

Also, it's very important that players be able to target the head with blunt objects easily in our system as we declair that Stun damage is damage only received to the head by a blunt object, and has it's own damage chart seperate from the normal damage chart.
Grenades might work in to the Stun damage later, but I haven't made them yet.


I could work this out with math to a verfy simplified version and toss the sheet away, but really it would be the same thing as having the sheet. Actually I think it might be worse because you wouldn't be able to remember what part of your body got hurt which could be important when trying to run away with a shot up foot, shooting with your right hand that's had a bullet go through it.

I'm not sure which way I'll end up using, but I think that I'm going to try this idea out first at least.

Crusher Bob,

Besides which dice they roll...
How is it determined which quadrent your shot moves to ishould you miss?
Is it something like Aimed for Quad 7 (torso - more acuratly, the lower left rib) and subtract a given number gathered from your miss, like 3...
7-3=5
Qaud 5=vitals.

Is it something relevant to this, or something completely different?

Thety are using d100. There is one printed circle for each range band (there are around 4 of them <10, <50, <300, >300 or something like that). The closer the range band the closer the dots are together, so missing by a small number in a long range band will increase your chances of actually missing the target because the actual hit location will be further away from the aim point. The actual hit location is very 'analog' in that it is done using a shilouette or action figure and a pre-printed distribution of dots.

The way you determine hit location is this: the shilouettes that come with the game are broken up into 'meatchop' like areas that also determine hit location.

Most 4 on 4 combat in ME dosen't take too long as long as you know the system, since it's very lethal you don't have to shoot someone more that once or twice.

The problem I have with random hit location tables is that they work 'fine' when shooting at someone standing upright with no cover, they quickly fall apart when the stance or cover changes.

If I am poking just my head aorund a corner and someone shoots at me, but the random hit location table says I should be hit in the left hand!!? The 'common sense' view of this situation is that shooting just my head would be much harder than shooting my whole body, but if I am hit, then I can only be hit in the head (we'll ignore the chance or the bullet penetrating the cover for the moment). The 'action figure' system of ME covers this 'seamlessly' since such things are included in teh base hit location mechanic. Normally I'm against hit locations since they just grate on my suspension of disbelief, but ME has a great idea.

For bonus points, you want to shoot that dog, or shark or at the view slits in that Tiget tank? Bring out the scale model and pick your aimpoint. The shilouettes that come with the game map well to 'GI-joe' sized action figures, so anything on abnout the same scale you can use to get hit locations on.

Yeah, but what if you miss?
How do you determine where that round lands?
That's what I'm not clear on.
How do you determine what direction, and how far the round travles from your intended target spot.


p.s. I agree...I've never liked the rolling for hit location. Mainly for one reason.
It made it seem like the gun you were firing was shooting in multiple angles when you were pointing it straight forward.
You could go to a range and set-up a tripod and you would still have the chance of the round hitting the target to the left of the target you were aiming at.
No good.

what I meant was this:
Click For Diagram (it really sucks but you get the idea)

See, I don't like that even if you were to cement your weapon into place and fire at a target 50 meters away aiming at the torso, you could still hit the leg or head just from the roll.

It only works good if you don't describe a damn thing other than "I'm shooting" and then resolve what it was that you did to shoot after you have shot. Otherwise you end up with magic bullets that hit a toe when you've aimed at a head.

Also, as it is plain to see, you have to worry about the balance of the rolls per the hits. In this example, the right arm would be hit quite a bit more often with this hit location table (which I realize this is a REAL crappy version of a hit location table, but they all work the same as this at the core).

That's all I meant.

It just has no place in our system...

I'm completely fine with you not using random hitlocs. I just want to justify their existence, because they really aren't that bad.

For example, crappy doesn't even begin to describe that table. I've got hitloc tables that balance right and left limbs completely, and that give a, what was it, I think 42% chance of hitting either chest of abdomen, about 10-15% chance of hitting the groin (for about 55% chance of hitting the torso), about 10% for head, etc. That's assuming someone aims normally at center-mass.

If you deliberately aim high (+1 TN), you have about a 25% of hitting the head, ~40% upper torso, ~35% arms. If you deliberately aim low (+1 TN), you have about 90% to hit the legs, 10% lower torso. Etc. Calling a shot to a specific spot still works as normal in SR. So it doesn't have to suck anywhere near as hard as you make it out to suck.

It certainly has some problems. When someone specifically says they go prone and the hit locations seem slightly odd, I often just wing it. In special situations, the results a random hitloc table gives are not as good as what you get from an ME-like system. On the other hand, it's a lot quicker to use. So you should weigh the frequence and importance of such special situations with how quickly you want to resolve them to decide what kind of system you use.

"You" being the passive form here, since obviously you (Stumps) have already made up your mind.

True,

I'm not going to use ME's system. I'm going to take it and see if I can't make it faster to use but equally effective as it is presently when altered to fit our games mechanics, which are FAR different than those in ME. (I think that the very way that ME accounts damage is part of the reason that it takes so long, but I'm not sure...)

If I find that no possible improvement on time can be accomplished, then I will look for other alternatives, such as rolling random hit locations.

For some sample shilouettes here's an archive of the ME page. Take a look at the end of the Tigershark adventure for some shilouettes of sharks. Those would be printed on paper and the hit loaction circle would go down on top of them.

The ME adventures are also pretty easliy adaptable to SR.

The only problem I have with hit locations is that the damage model is based on the gun, not where you hit. So how do you tell your player you shot Joe Schmoe in the head.. and then say he isn't really hurt?

If you skip the to hit roll, and just leave it up to the GM to make it up on the fly, you won't have that situation. You can of course say that if you shoot someone in the head they die (which is realistic but not as fun).