Damage resolution in games

[pixelgeek]

So work begins again on the Weird War rules I started some months ago. I'm actually trying to keep the core rules fairly generic as I want to use them for a sci-fi ruleset after I get the Weird War rules running.

One issue that I am pondering is damage resolution. Basically I want there to be some random element but I also want to have a system where it is sometimes next to impossible for a weapon to penetrate some types of armour. One of the things I dislike about some rule sets is that it is often possible to take out heavily armoured units with very weak weapons. This is especially frustrating in a sci-fi game.

The initial thought was to simply compare weapon damage to armour and if damage exceeded armour the shot damaged the target. This seems a little dull to me. The second idea was to use the "10 target" rule that I am trying to use in the system so that you subtracted the armour from the damage and rolled a dice and if the result was over 10 then you penetrated.

My concern is that this will bog down in gameplay. Something that necessitated the rewrite of the rules in the first place.

So given a D10, an armour value and a damage value what are some quick and simple ways to add a random element to the process?

[Westfalia Chris]

You might have very effective types of armour (sloped, very thick, made from Super-Unobtainium etc.) which force players to re-roll successful damage rolls by AP weapons. Similarly, "regular" armour would force such a re-roll on any small arm and HMGs, and "thin" armour would only force the re-roll on small arms (.50cal being its bane, if you catch my drift).

Or just say that all armour values above a certain threshold simply ignore hits by small arms unless there´s crew exposed.

[matakishi]

If you only allow a weapon who's damage value is greater or equal to the armour value to damage the target you need only roll shots against things you have a hope of damaging. The D10 then allows for scaling of the damage.

e.g.

Captain Kosmos, armed with his pathetic Peace Pistol (tm) (damage rating 2) is being charged by War Robot R0xx0r (armour rating 6). The good Captain can shoot all he wants but will have no effect so the game isn't slowed down by the player rolling any dice as he whines and begs etc.

Just when all seems lost and the Captain is about to be trampled under foot, his Moon Monkey companion Boppo leaps in between him and the rampaging War Robot. Boppo lets loose with a hail of Trans-C Irradiated Kloktonium flechettes from his experimental Fuquoooo Doom Gun (tm) (damage rating 12) and gets to roll shed loads of damage (perhaps 6 dice worth since that's he difference in weapon rating and armour rating?) destroying War Robot R0xx0r for all time.

Through his tears of gratitude Captain Kosmos promises multiple sexual favours and apologises for the last time etc....

On with the game!

[Commander Vyper]

Captain Kosmos, armed with his pathetic Peace Pistol (tm) (damage rating 2) is being charged by War Robot R0xx0r (armour rating 6). The good Captain can shoot all he wants but will have no effect so the game isn't slowed down by the player rolling any dice as he whines and begs etc.

Just when all seems lost and the Captain is about to be trampled under foot, his Moon Monkey companion Boppo leaps in between him and the rampaging War Robot. Boppo lets loose with a hail of Trans-C Irradiated Kloktonium flechettes from his experimental Fuquoooo Doom Gun (tm) (damage rating 12) and gets to roll shed loads of damage (perhaps 6 dice worth since that's he difference in weapon rating and armour rating?) destroying War Robot R0xx0r for all time.

Through his tears of gratitude Captain Kosmos promises multiple sexual favours and apologises for the last time etc....

On with the game!

Very very funny! Captain Kosmos and his moon monkey! ACE!

[pixelgeek]

I love those names!

What about damage states? No Effect, Stunned, Killed, Gruesome Death.

Then have something like a roll of a 1 reduces the state down one level and a roll of a ten increases it one level.

So that way a lucky short may in fact stun an opponent. In your example Captain Kosmos could fire and fire and at best might slow down the War Robot R0xx0r but Boppo may easily destroy the robot and have a very good chance of reducing it to a pile of scrap.

[xeoran]

Well perhaps you could run it on the number created by rolling the dice. So-

Boppo rolls his 6 dice and scores a total of 20, he subtracts the armour of 6 for 14. Consulting his chart,
1 No Effect
2-6 Stunned
6-15 Killed
15-20 Gruesome Death
He sees that Boppo has Killed the War Robot. Ta Da.

If you want you could then use Matakishis system for aiming too.

So Solar Lord Kraytor uses his Blast Gun against the Grawoolian Lazer Tank in front of him. Its armour is 12, the Blast Gun is damage rating 20 so he gets 8 dice. He chooses to use two dice to try and aim at its turret, hoping to hit its ammo supply. Kraytor has a warrior rating of 4 so he needs a 4 or less to hit his chosen target. He rolls and gets one 3 and one 5. He's done it. He then gets his 6 dice of damage against it and if he rolls a 6 on any two of them he'll hit the ammo and gets an automatic Gruesome Death.

Alternatively you can adapt Matakishis system as follows. Kosmos (damage rating 2) rolls 2 dice (one dice per damage rating) and score double 6! The War Robot rolls its 6 dice but scores a pathetic 10 in total. Kosmos aims for the head with one dice, hoping to use it to get a Gruesome Death result. But he rolls a 2 and only has a Warrior rating of 1. He rolls his dice and gets 4, subtracts the 6 and ends up with -2. Absolutely no effect. Thank Jupitor Boppo is around.

Etc.

[matakishi]

Complicated maths stuff

I envisioned the following:

War Robot R0xx0r has armour 6 and 20 damage points.
Moon Monkey Boppo fires with 12 dice, loses 6 for the armour and totals the remaining 6 to try and reach the 20 points needed to smite the robot.

He rolls 1,2,3,4,5,6 (Yes he does, he's a Moon Monkey, he can do stuff like that) a total of 21 which fixes War Robot R0xx0r's little red wagon for good.

If he'd rolled 19 or less there would have been no effect and he would have been half a pair of slippers on a War Robot foot.

However, the Captain could have added his 2 dice to the total and that might have helped a bit.

This wonderful combat system is bought to you by my own hugely popular 'Alien Invasion' game (except it uses D6 and doesn't have armour but you get the point)

[pixelgeek]

Both examples involve a little more dice rolling than I want to do.

The original rules didn't scale well when you added a few more minis so I am looking at trying to keep the dice to a minimum if I can.

[Cory]

Why not just go with d10+damage value needing to equal or beat the armor value? Similar to what you first proposed but less fiddly math to do the same thing.

[pixelgeek]

I could do that but then I need to scale the armour values to ensure that some weapons have a minimal chance of a kill.

And I am hoping to be able to have a system that makes a kill impossible but does impair a unit somewhat when hit with small arms.

But that just might not be feasible.