Critical hits against vehicles (BD used as example)

[GypsyComet]

So, first the example. Note the commentary near the end about the *number* of criticals inflicted, as this is my question.

A PGMP-15 hit is scored against standard Battledress and the damage rolled: 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2.
Against the Battledress presented in the T20 rulebook, the five lowest dice are removed because of the vehicle adjustment (which is five dice when the weapon is "people" scale vs a vehicle). This still leaves the ten levels of actual armor. Four of these are accounted for by removing four more dice, leaving the 18. On the last die, pips are removed, so the last six levels of armor reduce the hit to 12 points of damage. Note that the battle Dress has 25 SI, so the shot has stripped it of half it's equivalent of hit points. Nothing on the suit has *failed* yet, however...

Now the rest of the fire-team opens up. Being "Book 4" Marines, they all have Gauss Rifles, and feel that an opening act of full-auto fire is called for. For Gits and Shiggles, two of the three manage to hit, one of them with a critical hit, having focused their full-auto power on damage instead of coverage. A Gauss Rifle on full-auto (allocated to damage) does 5d12.

The normal hit produces the dice: 11, 9, 7, 5, 3. The low four dice are removed, along with 11 pips, so no damage from this one.
The critical (and if we were sadistic or going in a particular order, this one could be first) does 7d12 (because the autofire dice aren't doubled, only the base 2d12) and *ignores* the armor rating but not the size adjustment. The dice produce 12,10, 8, 6, 6, 4, 2, for a total of 22 points inflicted straight to the SI of the battledress (of which it had only 13 remaining), shutting down the battledress (by inflicting more than it's base SI) and incidently inflicting at least 2 rolls on the critical hit chart (Yes, the rules are a bit unclear here, but you get one roll for the critical hit and at least one for the excess damage after the SI hits zero). If either of those rolls cascades to the wearer, he's toast, with 22 points of damage inflicted with no armor to save him.

For those of you with the textbook, references are on pages 150, 151, 163-165, 168, 175-176, the weapons table on page 200, and the Battledress writeup on page 286.

The problem is the comment in the advanced rules about breaking SI down to individual components level, but *nowhere* providing guidelines for how this is done for vehicles. Also he have the question of how to "carry over" excess damage after SI is overcome. Is each spot on the chart 1 point, or some other number?

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by GypsyComet:


The problem is the comment in the advanced rules about breaking SI down to individual components level, but *nowhere* providing guidelines for how this is done for vehicles. Also he have the question of how to "carry over" excess damage after SI is overcome. Is each spot on the chart 1 point, or some other number?

A very good question. Here's how I've answered it FWIW. Consider each vehicle component as a mini-vehicle and calculate its' own SI using the table on p253 and then multiply by a factor which is based on how much solid machinery makes up the component e.g. I use a factor of 1 for things like engine blocks/power plants, a factor of 0.5 for seating/controls, and a factor of 0.1 for components which take up a lot of space but don't have much mass such as galleys/freshers. If you find any component SIs too high for your liking then just lower it.
If you include a column for component SI on the vehicle data it is quite easy to manage. One thing you do find is that vehicles will take a few more hits but not many.

 

[justacaveman]

I have a problem with critical hits totally bypassing armor. That same gauss rifle critical hit striking a TL15 Intrepid Main Battle Tank would do more than 25% of it's SI, and get an internal damage roll because of the critical hit (pretty good for a rifle). This defies common sense.

I only allow critical hits to halve the AR of a target that is fully enclosed in armor, and don't permit personal scale weapons to inflict internal hits on vehicles unless they score a double critical hit (the second die roll falls within the critical threat range, and a 3rd roll indicates a hit).

If you don't do this, you give groups of people armed with personal weapons the ability to take out heavily armored vehicles.

 

[R_Kane]

Originally posted by LordRhys:
I have a problem with critical hits totally bypassing armor. That same gauss rifle critical hit striking a TL15 Intrepid Main Battle Tank would do more than 25% of it's SI, and get an internal damage roll because of the critical hit (pretty good for a rifle). This defies common sense.

I only allow critical hits to halve the AR of a target that is fully enclosed in armor, and don't permit personal scale weapons to inflict internal hits on vehicles unless they score a double critical hit (the second die roll falls within the critical threat range, and a 3rd roll indicates a hit).

If you don't do this, you give groups of people armed with personal weapons the ability to take out heavily armored vehicles.

I don't have my book shandy to reference, but I think the book addresses this...IIRC personal, vehicular and spaceship weapons are on different scales.

So a vehicular weapon that does 1d20 vs other vehicles does 5d20 vs personnel (just grabbing a for-instance out of the air...I don't have actual numbers).

And/or...armor is more or less effective against weapons of a different scale. A vehicle's armor is +5 vs personal weapons, a starship's armor +5 vs vehicular weapons and +10 vs personal (again, these numbers are just pulled from teh air to illustrate, not necessarily the by-the-book numbers).

If I am incorrent, I apologize, but I beleive that these differences in scale ARE addressed in the THB.

 

[tjoneslo]

The scale differences are there, and the fact that the scale differences apply even to critical hits should be more apparent.

What LordRhys complains about is even after applying the scale differences, a simple hand weapon can inflict significant damage on a critical hit to a vehicle. I never viewed this as a problem, but others obviously do.

 

[R_Kane]

ah...perhaps I should've given his post a more thorough read before I responded...sorry about that...consider me justly chastised

 

[justacaveman]

My real complaint is that you can harm a Main Battle Tank with a pistol if you use the rules as written.

In the real world you can shoot a pitol at a tank all day long and you're not going to do any thing more than scratch the paint.


An unarmored vehicle is susceptible to handguns in the real world, but a heavily armored tank is not. If you're a real good shot you "might" take out some optics or something similar just before the tank runs you over and squishes you flat.

The rules need just a few modifications to reflect this fact.

BTW, I think RAM HEAP grenades should do more damage to vehicles than they do in T20 (at least 1d6 after scale reduction).

 

[far-trader]

Hmm, two quick and easy possible fixes to the problem, for discussion:

1) Disallow criticals across scales. Yes, both ways, since the +5 or +10 when shooting down scale is probably enough anyway.

2) Apply the scale adjustment to the critical threat range too. For example shooting at a tank with a gun with a normal critical threat range of 20+ would have an effective critical threat range of 25+ (i.e. impossible). Some weapons of very special quality (i.e. with a critical threat range of 15+ or lower) could still make a critical hit when scaled up. Naturally when shooting down scale its very easy to score a critical with some weapons (eg. hunting Tree Kraken with a meson bay equipped starship is going to have a critical threat range of 5+

).

 

[Maghwi]

Originally posted by far-trader:
Hmm, two quick and easy possible fixes to the problem, for discussion:

1) Disallow criticals across scales. Yes, both ways, since the +5 or +10 when shooting down scale is probably enough anyway.

2) Apply the scale adjustment to the critical threat range too. For example shooting at a tank with a gun with a normal critical threat range of 20+ would have an effective critical threat range of 25+ (i.e. impossible). Some weapons of very special quality (i.e. with a critical threat range of 15+ or lower) could still make a critical hit when scaled up. Naturally when shooting down scale its very easy to score a critical with some weapons (eg. hunting Tree Kraken with a meson bay equipped starship is going to have a critical threat range of 5+

).

I like option 2 alot. It allows for some wiggle room in the event your PC's optain some depleted handwavium rounds for their ACR's, but for the most part, small arms aren't going to blow up a tank, and a tank is now going to leave a nastier mark on soft targets.

 

[justacaveman]

I like option # 2 also.

I would modifiy it to allow a critical hit on a double critical roll (2 rolls in the critical range followed by a 3rd hit roll).

Don't forget Armor-Piercing rounds.

I would also apply a type of scale difference to hits with slugthrower AP ammo (RAM Grenades etc.. would get full bonuses). A personal scale AP round would penetrate 1/2 the normal points of vehicle scale armor, and 1/4 the normal points of ship scale armor (round down). While a vehicle scale AP round would get a bonus of up to 5 points vs. personal scale armor (I would limit the bonus points to no more than double the normal AP bonus). As far as I know, there are no ship scale AP rounds.

This would allow some flexibility in combat without making it easy to take out heavily armored vehicles with personal weapons

 

[far-trader]

Thanks for the votes, I think I like option 2 better myself too, leaves the wiggle room like ya say Maghwi and the alternative LordRhys proposes is interesting too.

Maybe roll two critical threats for one scale difference and three for a two scale difference before checking for an actual critical hit? I don't think adding the scale penalty to the actual threat range would be too fair in that case though, which leads back to the lucky (slightly more though) plink with a handgun blowing up a tank Hmm, no I think maybe just a threat scale change is simpler and more in the spirit. Hey I'm not saying no, just arguing with myself, by all means jump in

Yep, gotta try option 2 and keep option 1 for quick and dirty big engagements that don't factor PC involvment directly.


I'm thinking the basic scale idea might work for the old "Is BD a vehicle or armor" question too. I seem to recall suggesting it be treated as vehicle scale for defense (its legendary invlunerbility to small arms and good defense against even bigger stuff) and as personal scale for attack (so you still need tanks to take out tanks, just now those enemy tanks also have to take out your busy BD troops

I'm going to have to review the AP rules again to see how to mesh it all, and explosives. My first thought with explosives was to make them add a level of scale (i.e. personal explosives are treated as vehicle scale and vehicle explosives are treated as ship scale) but that sounds a little maybe overkillish

 

[Richard Saunders]

Hello.
Sorry i must have been reading and interpreting the rules differently, i just remove the size dice mod before they get to double the damage dice (usualy leaves none or only a few which disappear in the armor).
Will an RPG hurt a modern tank.
Would you stay in a tank if it had its tracks shot of, the traks on a modern tank arnt armored so shoot them and stop the tank then hit it with arti or rpg's up the arse.
Buy warmonger bonds.

 

[sandman]

Originally posted by Maghwi:
I like option 2 alot. It allows for some wiggle room in the event your PC's optain some depleted handwavium rounds for their ACR's, but for the most part, small arms aren't going to blow up a tank, and a tank is now going to leave a nastier mark on soft targets.

I second that motion, I think I`ll talk it over with my ref for today`s game

 

[justacaveman]

In the standard rules, critical hits bypass armor reduction, but not scale reduction.

A soldier fires a TL12 Gauss Rifle at a TL15 Intrepid Main Battle Tank. He fires a 10-round burst for extra damage. A critical hit is scored (A 20 rolled, followed by a normal hit.), so the player rolls double the base damage (2d12), plus 3d12 for the extra burst damage (Total:7d12). Scale reduction reduces the damage to 2d12. Armor is not a factor. The 2d12 left are the highest dice of the 7 dice rolled. So a possible 24 points of SD damage could be done to the Intepid (about 1/3 the total).

If you do the Scale reduction before the doubling of the base damage, you will do 5d12 that is reduced to 1d12-1 from scale reduction then doubled to 2d12-2 by the critical hit. The main benefit to the Intrepid is the dice are rolled as is, and are not the highest 2 dice out of 7 rolled.

Requiring an extra critical hit to be scored for each scale increase seems to me to be the easiest solution. Plus I don't allow critical hits to bypass armor completely (at any scale), but cut the AR in 1/2 (round down). Also I reduce the effect of slugthrower Armor-Piercing rounds by 1/2 per scale difference, and double the vehicle scale AP bonus vs. personal scale armor.

 

[justacaveman]

Just a clarification: I do allow critical hits to bypass armor if the target is not fully enclosed in armor (Such as not wearing a helmet, just wearing a vest, open-top vehicle etc..).

 

[zephyrus]

I'm inclinded to suggest that against targets that have SI that are out of scale that you do not ignore armor. Its like they packed too much of an advantage into a critical hit.

Damage is Multiplied
Armor is Ignored
Special internal damage effects

thats going a bit overboard cramming too much into a result that has a (most frequently) 5% chance of occuring <this is not counting the verification roll>.

the Damage Multiplier and the Internal special damage effects should be the extent of a critical hit. That alone should mitigate the effects of handguns and small personal arms harming vehicals etc.. only weapons that have high threat ranges and/or a large number of dice of damage should be able to hurt vehicals expecially if those damage dice are D20's

If you dont do that and ignore armor, consider applying the out of scale factor as a pip-modifier to the damage AS well as to the dice reduction on a critical hit (thus while they dont get any armor that at least will get a reduction of 5 or 10pts of damage. That way using the above mentioned examples when you take your highest 2d you'll reduce the damage by 5pts. with D12's that'll do on average 13pts reduced by 5 is only 8. only 1/3rd that of the potential 24 it could have caused. The average damage however is scew'd by the fact that you are taking the highest dice.

Thus another possible rule would be that: Against vehicals and objects which otherwise do not take 'stamina' damage. Do not roll dice untill after applying AR and Scaling damage reductions. This