How do you prefer your body-armor rules to work?

[Murphy]

Interesting.

In the system I'm using there are no hitpoints, only "initiative" that determines your tactical advantage and quickness to act. Every action depletes your initiative and being attacked also depletes it (typically very quickly) as you parry or duck behind cover. When it reaches zero, you've been hit, and are out of the fight.

Armor only comes into play in determining the consequences of being hit. If you've been downed by ACR fire and you're wearing a battledress, then you're probably only out for a few rounds and then you can continue with another pool of initiative. If you are unarmored and you ate a plasma grenade in the face -- roll a new character.

 

[McPerth]

While I voted other, in fact I'd voted MT system if it was a different option tan AHL/Striker, as it manages separately penetration and damage. AHL/Striker system makes a good with good armor piercing automatically a weapon with good stopping power (and vice-versa), and, AFAIK, that's not always true.

A shotgun pellet round has very good stopping power, but poor armor penetration (and so is seen as nearly useless in this system), while a discarding sabbot round uses to be a good armor penetrator, but it also uses to be a poor damaging round, as it uses to cross the body without doing too much damage (unless it hits a vital organ, of course).

Same problem (but to some point opposite) appears when armor absorbs damage, as then a shotgun could be a better penetrator than a DS round with less damaging power.

About modifiers to hit, that makes and all-or-nothing damaging weapon, where, if you're hit, you receive the same damage regardless you're unarmored or wear full BD (so to say, a body pistol might be quite as letal against people in BD as it is against unarmored targets if the firer has good DMs, as dex 15 and skill 6).

 

[Timerover51]

I voted "other", but I do not use the combat system for personal combat of any of the Traveller versions, using instead the percentile combat system of Don Featherstone's Skirmish Wargaming. Basically, you have a percentile range of hitting with a weapon, depending on type of hand weapon or firearm verses a stated level of armor protection and hit location. If you successfully hit the target, and the location of the hit is armored, unless it is a weapon capable of easily penetrating the armor, a result of "Dead" goes to "Serious Wound", a result of "Serious Wound" goes to "Slight Wound", and a result of "Slight Wound" goes to no wound at all. All this is resolves with one percentile die roll, which can also take cover into account. If you are firing at a man in a foxhole, and roll a result indicating a Leg Wound, as his legs are protected by being in the fox hole, no wound is scored. I like the system, and it works for both hand weapons and firearms. I do not have personal energy weapons in My Traveller Universe.

 

[LeperColony]

I think it would be more accurate to say that TNE uses a penetration system for armor. All weapons have penetration statistics and you have to breach armor to do any damage at all.

 

[Stevie-the-Gamer]

CT hitting

I may have missed to point over the last 30 years but I thought in CT you where rolling to establish if damage had been done and that the roll combined both hitting AND armour effect?

 

[aramis]

I may have missed to point over the last 30 years but I thought in CT you where rolling to establish if damage had been done and that the roll combined both hitting AND armour effect?

Assuming Bk 1 combat? Yes.
Snapshot? yes.

But CT combat can also be Striker or AHL, both of which are part of CT rules canon, in which case the answer is "no."

 

[mike wightman]

Several of these are combinations of penetration and damage reduction rather than penetration as a stand alone or damage reduction as a stand alone.

AHL, Striker and MT have penetration to defeat armour, but then damage is reduced depending on the amount that gets through, You can argue the same for TNE and T4.