Firearm-rules in BRP

[Trifletraxor]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

.45 1D10+2(2D3 or 1D8)

With hit locations gone, won't that make the damage a bit too low? It would on average take 3 normal hits to kill someone with a .45 with those revised damages. Some armor in addition would make it really hard.

(must say, I have not that much experience with firearms and RPG so I do not really know how it works during play)

Sverre.

[TRose]

Here my opinion about gun damage. The values seem fine but I think that guns should " Impale" and do double damage on any special hit. This is to reflect that a normal shot just hits muscle but a special shot would then hit an artery, vital organ ect.

[drohem]

Originally Posted by TRose

Here my opinion about gun damage. The values seem fine but I think that guns should " Impale" and do double damage on any special hit. This is to reflect that a normal shot just hits muscle but a special shot would then hit an artery, vital organ ect.

We used this rule as well, and it worked fine.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by TRose

Here my opinion about gun damage. The values seem fine but I think that guns should " Impale" and do double damage on any special hit. This is to reflect that a normal shot just hits muscle but a special shot would then hit an artery, vital organ ect.

In the black powder rules we've used locally, we treated regular bullets as impaling damage and shot as crushing damage (in the RQ: AIG sense) and had it vary according to range; double at short, half at long.

[SDLeary]

And, FWIW, when Sandy devised the damages for Cthulhu Now, he did use Jane's. IIRC, he based the damage on the amount of pressure at impact.

It seems to make more sense, as listed above, to enforce Impale and Critical hits, along with major wound than to rework the whole list.

SDLeary

[badcat]

It's worth a great deal to me. I always had a feeling the CoC damages for guns were based on real life tests, somehow. What about the original gun values, from 1e CoC on? If you know.

[Nightshade]

While impact energy isn't a bad metric, its not entirely the whole story, either.

[SDLeary]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

While impact energy isn't a bad metric, its not entirely the whole story, either.

Very true. But for a simple (in terms of combat) game like Cthulhu, it made sense. And it does give a very very good baseline to work from.

By enforcing impailing (I would limit this to first round in a burst, as in the rules), and criticals, you enable almost any round to not only take big hulking types down, but to kill them.

I've been toying with the idea that criticals are auto death in the head and chest, but for NPCs... kindof a toned down mook rule.

Adding special rules for round types, etc., would cover most variation. For example, the 4.6 x 30mm round used in the new MP7 PDW. Its a small and light round (For those of us in the states, the bullet is .177 cal., the same as many air rifles). Because of this the actual standard damage should be low. The round has excellent armor penetration though. On a special, I would allow three rolls of the dice for damage, similar to the way a rapier impales in RQ.

Other options might be impaling for jacketed rounds, and nothing special for unjacketed. Not sure about hollow points and the like though.

The extremely long winded point being that the current tables can be tweaked for better real world performance, and left alone for the light games.

SDLeary

[Enpeze]

Some of our house rules for special ammo are

-AP round: 1/2 targets armor
-explosive round (SciFi): +1d6 damage

The above house rule for AP rounds are only applicable if you use fixed armor instead of variable (like in SB). If we use variable armor then then we scale the armor roll 2 dice down. (eg. a 1d10-1 becomes a 1d6-1)

The above AP rule could also be used for warhammers/warpicks, some specialized crossbows and other armor breaking gear.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by SDLeary

Very true. But for a simple (in terms of combat) game like Cthulhu, it made sense. And it does give a very very good baseline to work from.

Its certainly better than muzzle energy which I often find a bit dodgy to use by itself.

By enforcing impailing (I would limit this to first round in a burst, as in the rules), and criticals, you enable almost any round to not only take big hulking types down, but to kill them.

I'd have never thought of _not_ giving firearms impaling damage, to tell the truth. I have to remind myself its not standard to non-RQ versions of BRP.

I've been toying with the idea that criticals are auto death in the head and chest, but for NPCs... kindof a toned down mook rule.

I don't think that'd be necessary, honestly; impales are usually ugly enough to do the job. There are some problems with criticals in some versions of BRP not dealing with unarmored targets well, but I think that needs to be addressed generically; its not just a problem with guns.