It's not complete yet, but here are some of the new rules I'll hopefully be making use of in my project. Still just statting out weapons and armor before I even think about balancing everything. Balancing suggestions would be nice, though.
Those of you who disliked the wonky artificial balance in D20Future may enjoy the Piercing Value and Protection Level rules. This allows for future armor to progress alongside future guns without making the wearers totally untouchable. You'll see what I mean, hopefully.
You'll probably notice I priced all the weapons in US$ as opposed to wealth check. I'm hoping to use a system where expendible assets are represented as in-game cash (or an expendible point system), and less flexible assets (the kind you'd allocate to taxes and lifestyle expense) are represented similarly to a less powerful Wealth bonus (capped at 15, though that might change with feats/levelups).
Comments and critiques would be greatly appreciated, as would some help statting out guns and armor as I'm no expert in either (much as I like the former.)
Thanks for reading!
Okay, I have a few thoughts. I tried to do something vaguely similar to this several months ago with Generic Firearms.
Piercing Value might be simpler to keep track of you just list is as 0, 10, 20, etc., rather than Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, etc. Having the number just be the number allows players to skip one small bit of mental calculation.
On the subject of prices, speaking as someone outside the US, I know that I really appreciate the internationality of Wealth. I get that you're trying to come up with a straight-up money-based system, and I respect that, but I'd love to also have Wealth on there. Just a humble request.
Purpose is a pretty important piece of information on the Armour table. I think it deserves its own column. That might seem like a very small thing, but damage type plays a big, big role in the rules you've created, so players are going to want to be able to see it at a glance, not hunt for it within cell that already has other information in it.
Will your armour grant an Equipment Bonus, an Armour Bonus, or something new? When I saw "Deflection Bonus" in the table, I got kind of intrigued. It makes sense that that could be the kind of defence that physical armour grants. Then I read closer and realised that that was anticipating Future weapons, but still. It was an interesting notion for a minute there.
I won't comment on any of the actual values for individual guns, because I don't know anything about that stuff.
Piercing Value might be simpler to keep track of you just list is as 0, 10, 20, etc., rather than Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, etc. Having the number just be the number allows players to skip one small bit of mental calculation.
I thought about that as well. I might change it when a few more people reply.
On the subject of prices, speaking as someone outside the US, I know that I really appreciate the internationality of Wealth. I get that you're trying to come up with a straight-up money-based system, and I respect that, but I'd love to also have Wealth on there. Just a humble request.
Well, most of the guns and armor I've statted are already covered in the D20Modern Corebook. You could use the PDC's from there as they're (mostly) correct.
Honestly, just for quick'n'dirty rulings, I'd just make a rough conversion from US$ to C$ (in your case) based on the states of currency in the time the campaign is set in. Google can do most of the work for you, really.
Purpose is a pretty important piece of information on the Armour table. I think it deserves its own column. That might seem like a very small thing, but damage type plays a big, big role in the rules you've created, so players are going to want to be able to see it at a glance, not hunt for it within cell that already has other information in it.
That's a good point. Originally I crammed it in there because there wasn't enough horizontile space in Open Office to add another column.
Will your armour grant an Equipment Bonus, an Armour Bonus, or something new? When I saw "Deflection Bonus" in the table, I got kind of intrigued. It makes sense that that could be the kind of defence that physical armour grants. Then I read closer and realised that that was anticipating Future weapons, but still. It was an interesting notion for a minute there.
Deflection bonus could possibly apply to hard armors that have a chance of deflecting bullets instead of absorbing them (such as the type of armor SWAT and some military teams use). Right now I'm not exactly sure what to apply it to. I'm kinda waiting for the gun nuts to chime in here. lol
Thanks a bunch for reading and replying. When I'm less tired, I'll probably start changing stuff so it makes more sense.
For weapons, I'd list PV (piercing value) as a straightforward amount of damage reduction that gets ignored.
For armour, I'd have one columbn for the primary damage type it is designed against, and a second column with two numbers separated by a slah, indicating DR against teh primary type (or types, if more than one is listed), and the second number as the DR against all others. Again, this DR would be as straight number, not a value that needs to be looked up on another table.
Agreed with dropping Class for piercing... just give each a PV.
NOt the end of the world, but Is ses you listed M14 as semi,
the M1A was/is the semi and the m14 was/is select fire.
ALso, I wouldnt rush into so much PV for the rifles,
You gave m16 PV10 and m14 PV20... I would suggest scaling them back to like 5 & 10.
Fianlly, and this is just a semantics / clarity consideration,
I like to use Hardness for armor damage stopping, and leave DR for body toughening.
If a Ten Bazillion gigawatt laser can bore a whole thru an entire mountain,
but that whole is 1.3mm diameter,
wouldnt that be a 2d6 damage gun with 25k Penetration?
NOt the end of the world, but Is ses you listed M14 as semi,the M1A was/is the semi and the m14 was/is select fire.
Really? The M14 was semi/auto (or semi/burst)? The thought of firing .308 that fast makes my shoulder hurt.
EDIT: Just looked it up. Most of the M14's in use nowdays are permanently set to semi-automatic. If you happen to get one that hasn't been messed with, that'd also change the legality (as it would be a fully-automatic-capable weapon).
ALso, I wouldnt rush into so much PV for the rifles,
You gave m16 PV10 and m14 PV20... I would suggest scaling them back to like 5 & 10.
So should I change th PV progression to increase by 5's instead of 10's? I guess that could help. My only problem with this is that it makes it difficult to have a low-grade ballistic vest which reliably stops hangun ammo, but doesn't really bother 5.56mm or 7.62mm.
Or am I thinking about this too much?
Fianlly, and this is just a semantics / clarity consideration,I like to use Hardness for armor damage stopping, and leave DR for body toughening.
Probably a good idea. I'll change the wording to reflect htat.
If a Ten Bazillion gigawatt laser can bore a whole thru an entire mountain, but that whole is 1.3mm diameter,wouldnt that be a 2d6 damage gun with 25k Penetration?
That sounds like a PV(PLOT) weapon to me. Also, if it burns through an entire mountain in a single shot, wouldn't the air/flesh that the laser is superheating/expanding cause additional fire/concussion damage to any human the beam shoots through?
@Rhialto - Thanks. I'll edit those changes in.
EDIT: Done editing. Document republished. Added rules for layering up. Thinking of allowing limited stacking, but for now the effects of the different armors overlap (so layering would be used to cover more bases than it would be to reenforce a single one).
So should I change th PV progression to increase by 5's instead of 10's? I guess that could help. My only problem with this is that it makes it difficult to have a low-grade ballistic vest which reliably stops hangun ammo, but doesn't really bother 5.56mm or 7.62mm.Or am I thinking about this too much?
Yes you are. I think you should be fine going by 5s. Also, as far as a ballistic vest completely stopping handgun ammo but not 5.56, keep in mind that a vest is just that, a vest. You can justify any damage that gets through as either not hitting the vest, or bruising from the bullet impact (the vest keeps the bullet from penetrating the body, but it's still going to hurt like hell. It will be better if it hits a ceramic plate, but at that point you're probably stopping more than just handgun ammo anyway).
I guess you're right. Bullets can still break bones even if they don't penetrate the vest. I guess if we wanted to go turbo-realistic with ballistic armor, damage under X could be converted to bludgeoning damage. I might include that as an optional houserule for the finished project.
Any other thoughts on the system? Good? Bad? What do and don't you guys like?
The NIJ threat level tiers already incorporate non-penetrating trauma:
They have a nonpermenent internal deformation limit for nonpenetrating impacts,
below that limit the threat caliber is considered Defeated.
The best way to look at it is as was said,
The protection of a NIJ2 vest that would be a 10 hard
(all 2d6 guns defeted for all but damage rolls 11 & 12)
should get reduced because that 10 is only over half your body.... and d20 dont determin if you hit Armor or Skin when you attack.
A guy with a .38 can kill you
because your armor that can stop a tankshell only covers 3% of your body
.
That why a Stormysuit would get some high numbers,
cause it is all over and is high value materials
The NIJ threat level tiers already incorporate non-penetrating trauma:
They have a nonpermenent internal deformation limit for nonpenetrating impacts,
below that limit the threat caliber is considered Defeated.
The best way to look at it is as was said,
The protection of a NIJ2 vest that would be a 10 hard
(all 2d6 guns defeted for all but damage rolls 11 & 12)
should get reduced because that 10 is only over half your body.... and d20 dont determin if you hit Armor or Skin when you attack.A guy with a .38 can kill you
because your armor that can stop a tankshell only covers 3% of your body.
Hmm, so what you're saying is that reducing the hardness value represents lack of coverage. Better yet, it does so without requiring a full hit-locations system. This way you make all the realism-loving folks happier whilst preserving "damage is abstract" for those who want to think of HP that way. Holy crap, backstabbist! You've done one of the many things the D&D3.X designers couldn't: give PC's a reason to wear helmets!
That why a Stormysuit would get some high numbers,
cause it is all over and is high value materials
Agreed. I'm hoping to stat some new armors/firearms soon, once I get the motivation to wiki/Ultramodern Firearms-reference the stuff.