AR values for bodys as cover

[someoneelsehasmyname]

? for all of you out there much wiser thin myself. What if any would a body offer in terms of AR? In a game I was in we had a NPC we were after who grabed a dead body(another pcs falt) and threw it over his sholder and took off running. The GM gave him 1/4th cover and we were missing him the cover mod. (meaning the cover, aka the dead body was getting hit.) The GM gave the body a AR equal to 1/2 his con. That was fine but he asked me to ask one and all if they had any other ideas on a way to handle this situation as it may come up again. (The NPC got away. but thats what happens when you have the only PC with a good attack bonus watching the back door.)

 

[Shadow Bear]

Was the body in any kind of armor???

 

[Turanil]

My belief is that the body has the same AC as the NPC without armor.

Suppose he has Dex 13 (+1), Defense bonus +2 (I know there is no such thing in T20), and an armor providing a +4 AC bonus (I simplify here). As such the NPC has +6 AC overall, but +3 without armor.

Now the character shoot at the NPC. To simplfy thing, I would say: if they miss AC 16 but hit AC 13, just see if due to 1/4 cover they would have hit the dead instead. If yes, the corpse is damage while the NPC would not be hurt anyway due to armor. If the character hit AC 16, they hit, and just roll for cover, so if it works, they hit the corpse instead.

Now, what amount of damage the corpse may endure before disintegrating depends on the weapon used against it. I would assign, say 25 hit-points to the corpse, but when hit by bullets rather than laser blaster, they have dmg reduction of 5 for example. This because I believe laser would burn the corpse faster than just bullet burrying in it.

Now, there is no perfect answers IMO. As a GM I often must adjudicate things and houserules on the fly. Sometimes, I even discuss them with players when I am not sure.

 

[someoneelsehasmyname]

The Person in question did not have armor he was just calateral damage from one of the party using supresive fire. One of the questions this brought up was how much damage must be caused before the bullet blows through the origanal target and can have a chance to damage what is behind it. What happens if the target is hiding behind a large animal like a horse. High calaber weapons should have a chance to blow right though the target if you are using the right gun and ammo.

 

[far-trader]

My take, this comes down to a question of Cover vs Concealment which T20 doesn't seem to get into except an oblique reference in the vehicle design section. Fortunately T20 is d20 and the topic is covered in the D&D 3rd Edition.

Basically Cover is hard, Concealment is not. In my opinion a body in armor is Cover, one not in armor is Concealment.

I'd say Cover adds to AC, about 1 point per 10% being a good average. Being that T20 uses AR as well you do need some idea of the AR of any cover like you say. Check the Errata for the AR Table ed.1 pg.158 for numbers. As for an unarmored body even if you called it Cover, I don't see it adding to AR since your PC's and NPC's don't have a natural AR.

Concealment is more like a saving throw. If your attack would normally hit the target but they have some Concealment there is a chance that you actually missed (or in this case hit the body slung over his back). About a 10% chance to miss per 25% hidden for a good rule of thumb.

That's how I'd handle it, and of course the NPC should have been penalized for the added encumbrance of the dead body, hope your GM at least figured that into it but I have to wonder from the description of the NPC running away

Lumbering maybe, unless they were very strong and not already encumbered. There are other combat modifiers that may have come into play that are not mentioned (due to the license) in the T20 book that you will find in a Core d20 book. Stuff like the max Dex mods for being encumbered.

Or you could treat it like firing into melee (Mr. Body is grappled by the guy carrying him) only in this case you don't care if you hit friendlies (i.e. Mr. Body) so there's no negs on the attack, just a percentage breakdown of where the succesful attacks hit, 25% it hits Mr. Body, 75% it hits the guy carrying him. For an even better bonus (though not in the spirit of the system and not endorsed by me) aim at the dead guy (all the munchkins will), aw come on, he won't care, he's already dead

 

[Richard Saunders]

Hello.
Or you could just use the body as a hit point soak - if you do more damage than the stamina of the body the extra damage goes through to the person carying it.
Yes the weight of the body would have slowed the person down atleast one movment range (the average body would be 100pounds with gear this is going to atleast make you moderatly incombed.
I assume there where other badniks or why didnt you just chase him and stick your gun in his ear, remember a flank shot ignores the body.
Bye.

 

[someoneelsehasmyname]

The dead body may have slowed him down alittle but one of the things I didn't mention was that the person we were after has psionic tallents in the awarness sphere. So he vary likly had psiononicaly enhanced strenth.(The GM is a little anel about thing like encumbered charicters and npcs.) I was just wondering if anyone had a idea about how much damage a normal body(in this case it was just some guy on the street in the wrong place wrong time) could take before the round passed thourgh.
One of the things D20 does not take into acount is firearms(funny if i was a wizard I would be happy to spend a feat on combate rifleman.) Almost any cover can be blown up or thourgh. If a weapon that can put large chips into cement it should have a chance to go though a dead body. Or what if a Crit is rolled and 2-3 times the stamida of the charicter is inflected? Would it be reasonable to say the round wint completly thourgh the target and maybe into something behind it?

Not sure if this makes a differance but the two Pcs that were trying to shoot the guy running away one of them was using a Gauss rifle and the other was using a LAG with AP 3 rounds.

 

[someoneelsehasmyname]

The dead body may have slowed him down alittle but one of the things I didn't mention was that the person we were after has psionic tallents in the awarness sphere. So he vary likly had psiononicaly enhanced strenth.(The GM is a little anel about thing like encumbered charicters and npcs.) I was just wondering if anyone had a idea about how much damage a normal body(in this case it was just some guy on the street in the wrong place wrong time) could take before the round passed thourgh.
One of the things D20 does not take into acount is firearms(funny if i was a wizard I would be happy to spend a feat on combate rifleman.) Almost any cover can be blown up or thourgh. If a weapon that can put large chips into cement it should have a chance to go though a dead body. Or what if a Crit is rolled and 2-3 times the stamida of the charicter is inflected? Would it be reasonable to say the round wint completly thourgh the target and maybe into something behind it?

Not sure if this makes a differance but the two Pcs that were trying to shoot the guy running away one of them was using a Gauss rifle and the other was using a LAG with AP 3 rounds.

 

[mike wightman]

I'd try something simple like subtract the rolled damage (before any critical effect) that hits the corpse from the maximum damage the dice could do. Then randomise the result by converting it to the nearest type of die/dice, apply any AR reduction for armour worn to the new damage die/dice and roll for the damage to the person carrying the body.

 

[Richard Saunders]

Hello.
The average person has 10 points of stamina so they will soak 10 points of damage any more damage will go straight through, Remember a body gives cover but only to the part behind it so if you hit the person after the to hit mod then they wear all the damage.
OR you could use the passenger in a vehicle rules.
Bye.

 

[womble]

I don't think LAG AP rounds will do significantly less damage having passed through a single human body. Though there are accounts of 20mm cannon shell failing to penetrate the rucksack of a soldier (it didn't detonate either)... but this was in Gulf War 1 and it may not have been a direct hit.

Gauss Rifle rounds though are designed as anti-personnel and would dump most of their energy into the first body hit.

While 'damage over its hit points goes through' might be a rough and ready estimate, the simulationist in me says it's a poor measure. An overpenetrating round can leave the first target functional and still damage another victim, or a well-designed fragmenting round could do enough damage to fell a buffalo and still not exit the first target's body.

I think some GM fiat and common sense is called for: I'd probably say the GRifle rounds don't have enough power left to damage the NPC, but the LAG rounds would be on full.

 

[TheBrain]

Well at least the gunfight didn't takes place in a morge. Oh and on that a bit of advice, never use the thin guy for cover.

 

[Linwood]

My inclination would be to treat the body as cover (1/4 sounds right) and give it an AR rating. If an attack that would have hit the target normally missed due to the cover, then consider it a hit on the target but with an additional AR due to the corpse. If the corpse wore armor, you might just use that armor's AR -- or maybe a fraction of that AR -- as a bonus. If the corpse didn't have armor, then either give it an arbitrary AR of 1 or calculate an AR as an equivalent thickness of something similar (like sandbags?) from that table in the explosives section of the PHB (sorry, no book handy).

Either way, two things would happen:
1) The target would take stamina damage regardless, and
2) The LAG round, being an anti-vehicle round (if I remember correctly) gets to ignore 5 AR plus 3 for the AP 3 shell and probably blows through both the corpse and the victim anyway unless one or both are wearing some high-value armor