Re: [HOE] Massive damage

["Scott Pedersen" <spederse@hotmail.com>]

> First of all, we have decided to look away from the
> "Iron Oasis" update on massive damage. Instead, we
> calulate the damage total as normal, and count the
> total of wounds. I.e. 30 damage from grenade equals 5
> wounds. We then roll one d6 per wound, to check out
> where the hell it ended up.
>
> Armor saves the way it usually does. I.e. A kevlar
> vest would absorb two wounds to the guts.



This sounds very similar to the way massive damage worked before Iron Oasis.
I know that given my posse's love for bang makers, it would _drastically_
decrease the lethality of the game.  My posse has spent some time scroungin'
in ruined cities looking for old car parts so the junker could make armor
for all (or, as they prefer to call it, carmor).  They built some armor one
step up from an infantry battle suit, nothing too outrageous, just AV2 to
all locations.  Under the rules you describe above they could, if the dice
rolled just right, end up taking 2*6*6=72 points of damage and take no
wounds (12 wounds total, 2 wounds to every location, they are all soaked by
armor).  Meanwhile, under the Iron Oasis rules the same 72 points of damage
would come out a little less since I'd be rolling 2 die-types less.  Let's
assume the 72 came from 10d12, so it'd get knocked down to 10d8.  I'd
estimate that the damage changes to be about 50, which they'd then take d6
times (I'm assuming ground zero).  On average they'd be taking 24-32 wounds
total.  Splutch.



This isn't a necessarily a criticism of your system, since I expect your
priorities and gaming style differ from mine.  Personally, I think 10d12 and
72 points of damage is a really big blast that should be instant death for
anyone in the middle of it.  However, I like really lethal games (Although,
oddly enough, nobody in my posse has actually died yet).  So, I'm curious,
how does your system work out for your posse?



> But, since
> explosives are meant to knock you out, if it doesn't
> kill you, we roll an equal amount of d6 in wind, no
> matter how many may have been taken away by armor.



This does do a little bit to make up for the lowered lethality I mentioned
above.  It seems like this, combined with the above, would lead to
explosions that knock out the whole posse, but leave them mostly unharmed.
This obviously isn't lethal, but it is certainly very cinematic.  Is this
how it comes out in actual practice?


> When we took a look at the rules for the damage
> explosives caused, we figured them to be a bit to
> dangerous. Instead of lowering the damage die, we
> decided to lower the burst radius.



In my experience, lowering the burst radii of explosions has the unintended
side effect of making the pose more powerful.  Yes, smaller explosions lead
to a more powerful posse.  That's because I have found that the biggest
challenge a posse faces when trying to use explosives effectively isn't the
damage dice or anything like that, it's "How do we use these without killing
ourselves in the process?"



My .02 widgets worth (If widgets are equivalent to a dollar, what do Yarders
use for change? doohickeys?)

-Scott Pedersen