[Joseph Paul]

Rurik wrote:

The damage roll is a result of two things, an abstraction of the weapons capabilities to damage a person or thing, and the location of the hit - which is not affected by energy at all. A shot to the heart or brain with a .22 probably as bad as one with a .45.

You are right and I would put forward that we are, wrongly, compensating for damage to major organs and the central nervous system by inelegantly upping the damage of pistols. Yet strangely we have weak rifles in BRP. Do you doubt this? I don’t after realizing that a .45 ACP has 68% of the average damge that a .30 06 does (7.5 pts to 11 pts.)

Arguments about energy transfer and overpenetration are moot in the face of such inelegant mechanics. For instance let us shoot a very large target, an elephant perhaps, such that the rifle round cannot overpenetrate and lose in the E-transfer lottery. Assume maximum damage from both rounds; 12 for the pistol and 16 for the rifle. The pistol does 75%(!) of the damage of the rifle. Hmm that is pretty good given the large difference in the RW energies of the two rounds, 412 and 2800 ft/lbs at the muzzle. Since pistols get more shots per turn than rifles we should hunt elephants with .45’s eh?

I suggest that pistols be toned down so that firearm damage and later weapon developments can be rationally added as needed. Further the ability of high velocity projectiles to stop or kill a target needs to be based on where the shot lands. There are plenty of ways to abstract that so that we get any degree of lethality we want and yet don’t make super weapons out of pistols. Edit: and we keep the mechanics clean.

Joseph Paul