D20, Vehicle damage reduction question

[Beholder]

hi all,

A small question on damage reduction:

Is there an errata on vehicle attacked by personal weapon that gets a minus 5d on the damages?

I mean, lets take a Austin Mini fired upon by M-16s, the car is going to be filed with holes and unusable in no time, yet the rules states that the weapon will do a minus 5d on the 2d of damages, in other words, no damage. Is there a missing sentence that says that the weapon always does at least 1d of damage or something like that?

Beholder
http://www.rpgzone.org

 

[DrSkull]

There's no errata, you have to apply the regular armor reduction rules. The damage reduction for scale works just like armor.

Say Machinegun Frank fires his SMG at an Air/Raft.
He fires a 4 round burst and chooses the extra damage option (+2 dice). So he hits and rolls 3d10 damage, rolling an 8, 7, and 3.

Because the air/raft is a vehicle and Frank is using a personal weapon, there is 5 levels of dice reduction.

The first level removes the "3" die, the second removes the "7". When the last die is reached, the remaining levels of dice reduction (for size or armor) is taken off as points not dice. Since there are 3 levels left, those three points are removed from the remaing die. 8 minus 3 equals 5 points of damage to the air/raft.

 

[Ellros]

Originally posted by Beholder:
hi all,

A small question on damage reduction:

Is there an errata on vehicle attacked by personal weapon that gets a minus 5d on the damages?

I mean, lets take a Austin Mini fired upon by M-16s, the car is going to be filed with holes and unusable in no time, yet the rules states that the weapon will do a minus 5d on the 2d of damages, in other words, no damage. Is there a missing sentence that says that the weapon always does at least 1d of damage or something like that?

Beholder
http://www.rpgzone.org

Yes, minimum of one die of damage, but then it is reduced by Armor Reduction as mentioned.

 

[Beholder]

Guess I should have reviewed the rules more toroughly before asking.....

Thanks a lot guys, I am happy to know that personal weapons can still damage a vehicle that has no armor rating.

Soooo, in other words, the Battle dress is not something to let players have too early in a campaing.

Thanks again.

 

[GypsyComet]

Originally posted by Beholder:
Soooo, in other words, the Battle dress is not something to let players have too early in a campaing.

Nah. Just warn your players that every suit they get hold of means that the bad guys just got a case of Gauss Rifles and enough ammo to use full auto whenever the PCs are around. Enough 10d12 armor-ignoring critical hits (or even that 5d6 regular hit enough times: every time the high damage die comes up a '12', that an SI pip) and Mr. Battledress won't be too happy. Hand the bad guys a VRF Gauss Gun and watch the happiness (every time the high damage die is 5+, that's SI pips he doesn't have anymore).

If they complain that you never let them use the BD you gave them, just tell them that just having it is "character building."

 

[Beholder]

Originally posted by GypsyComet:
Enough 10d12 armor-ignoring critical hits (or even that 5d6 regular hit enough times: every time the high damage die comes up a '12', that an SI pip) and Mr. Battledress won't be too happy. Hand the bad guys a VRF Gauss Gun and watch the happiness (every time the high damage die is 5+, that's SI pips he doesn't have anymore).

What page of the d20 book details these rules:

-every time the high damage die comes up a '12', that an SI pip?
-every time the high damage die is 5+, that's SI pips he doesn't have anymore?

Thanks.

 

[GypsyComet]

Those aren't standing rules as such. They represent how the rules shake out for the situations presented.

Battledress as presented in the T20 book: Vehicle, AR10.

Gauss Rifle, personal scale, 2d12, ROF 1/4/10.

Fired at ROF10, the Gauss Rifle is rolling three additional dice for a total of 5d12.

Fired at Battledress, we get 5 dice of reduction for the scale change, and 10 dice for the AR of the Battledress.

The first four "dice" of reduction remove four of the five dice rolled, leaving 1d12 and 11 "dice" of reduction yet to apply. As such, only on a roll of 12 will any damage (SI since its a vehicle) be done to the Battledress, since those 11 "dice" become 11 pips when you reach the last die of damage.

The numbers look slightly better when you look at the VRF Gauss Gun. It is also a personal scale weapon that does 2d12, but it has a ROF of 100, which adds *ten* dice to the damage roll for a total of 12d12. Once again,we apply 15 "dice" of reduction, eleven of which remove all but the final d12. The last four "dice" remove pips from the highest valued d12 among the twelve (which is why you should always roll ALL of the dice called for, BTW). As such, that last, highest, d12 inflicts SI on the Battledress if the value of the die started at 5 or better.

The rule for high ROF weapons adding dice is on page 151. As I read the text, the burst size (ROF) of the weapon gets you ONE of the other two columns for any given attack, but not both.

 

[Beholder]

Ho! ok.

Thanks for the explanations, very good examples.

 

[titandamocles]

Heh heh heh, no rules to hand, but how much more painfull is the Gauss rifle using AP ammo (if they can afford gauss rifles, they can spalsh for the good ammo too right? )

 

[GypsyComet]

AP ammo, for a large price increase, will reduce the effective Armor value of the target by a point or more. It won't affect the scale modifier at all, though.

 

[justacaveman]

Note: On a Critical Hit you only multiply the number of base damage dice. You do not multiply bonus dice from any source.

Thus a a Gauss Rifle does 2d12 normal damage, 5d12 with a 10 round burst (+3 bonus dice), and 7d12 on a Critical Hit (40+ points on an average roll). Since armor is ignored on a Critical Hit, the extra dice are probably irrelavent to the recently deceased anyway.

Any Critical Hit with a High Energy Weapon on someone not wearing Battle Dress would probably be best cleaned up with a Dust Buster.

 

[DrSkull]

You do also multiply any bonus points, from Strength or Weapon Specialization or Point-blank shot (or the +1/+2 for assault rifles and ACRs) on a critical hit.

So if you fire an ACR 1d12+2 and have point-blank shot and weapon specialization and are within 10 meters, with a 4 round burst and get a critical hit yo would do:

2d12 (1d12 doubled for crit)

+10(+2 weapon damage bonus, +1 point-blank, +2 weapon specializaton--all doubled)

+2d12 (burst fire)

 

[Ellros]

Any Critical Hit with a High Energy Weapon on someone not wearing Battle Dress would probably be best cleaned up with a Dust Buster.

Nahhh, a mop and bucket would be easier