Personal combat and damage

[drjones]

Considering the personal combat system, it seems unrealistic in terms of the damage done, at least in comparison to other systems. Comparing the damage values for personal weapons (pg. 155) with a character's damage capacity shows that a hit by an elephant gun will take a NPC MechWarrior (pg. 128) to the equivalent of three tabletop hits; an assault rifle would take four hits to "stagger" the character and a fifth to kill the character (assuming I'm reading pg. 36 correctly on additional damage being required after taking a staggering hit to kill a character). Armor can add the ability to take several more hits.

In addition to realism questions, this seems to make for slow personal combat. Am I missing something? (I'll note that I favor systems such as D6, FUDGE, or Rolemaster that allow for higher impact results.)

[pokefan548]

Well, you have the added damage from MoS potentially. Also, the standard damage rules assume that the weapon might or might not be hitting a vital area. The degree of abstraction does make somethings a tad difficult as a result. A solid hit from pretty much anything short of a support or heavy weapon is probably not going to instantly kill you—but you stand to fail a consciousness check, bleed check, et cetera, and even in a best case scenario you'll still be stunned. In other words, much like real life, getting shot once really isn't likely to kill you instantly, but you will be taken out of the fight and may succumb to your wounds aren't quickly and properly treated.

The Hit Locations optional rule captures this better, and the Expanded Hit Locations rule from the Companion ever more so.

[drjones]

I couldn't find references to those rules in Destiny -- are those AToW rules?

[pokefan548]

You know what, you're right. I had AToW on the brain at the time and didn't pay enough attention to which subforum I was in. Oops!

Destiny's combat not being too lethal is, I think, very much in line with what Destiny is meant for: a not-too-punishing way for players to live out their novel moments in a relatively rules-lite environment. Let's be real, most of BT's most well known protags would be dead as a doornail in an AToW campaign, so, you know...

[drjones]

I'm not familiar with AToW; I've read the freely available quick start rules but that's it. The rules mentioned regarding AToW personal combat, at least with the Companion, seem more realistic/lethal.

[Pat Payne]

Destiny's combat not being too lethal is, I think, very much in line with what Destiny is meant for: a not-too-punishing way for players to live out their novel moments in a relatively rules-lite environment. Let's be real, most of BT's most well known protags would be dead as a doornail in an AToW campaign, so, you know...

When you think about it, Destiny's system is set up to play out A-Team-style action fun, given the lower lethality of the weapons and the fact that the system by design does not track ammunition expenditure (or money, for that matter). It trades out realism (ignoring the Atlas in the room of... well... how most of BattleTech already makes realism cry "uncle!" and does it gloriously) for more flashy action and excitement. Think of your character as less a real soldier and more an '80s action star, and you're halfway there.

There are optional rules in the book to bring the lethality back up if you and your group desires (a matter of adjusting armor and hits, IIRC).

[drjones]

There are optional rules in the book to bring the lethality back up if you and your group desires (a matter of adjusting armor and hits, IIRC).

To some degree, there are. Pg. 35 gives options for increasing and decreasing lethality of personal combat. For increasing lethality, it suggests reducing armor values. I don't believe it discusses adjusting hits.

[koraq]

I've played it with the rules for increased lethalty, and a damage multiple on MoS. It worked well.

[drjones]

I've played it with the rules for increased lethalty, and a damage multiple on MoS. It worked well.

How would the damage multiple on MoS work?

[koraq]

How would the damage multiple on MoS work?

Sorry it took a while to get back to this. I don't often the forums that often.

I decided to add 1 dmg / 3 levels of MoS and cutting the armour in half. Like I said, it worked well.