That is about as incredibly wrong as anything you could have ever possibly said.

Play nice, "Heaven" is taking the time to give you feedback, and right or wrong his thought process is one that some of your players are likely to share. It's fine to disagree with people, but try to keep it polite please; you could easily have said the same thing without seeming quite so insulting.

That is about as incredibly wrong as anything you could have ever possibly said.

Play nice, "Heaven" is taking the time to give you feedback, and right or wrong his thought process is one that some of your players are likely to share. It's fine to disagree with people, but try to keep it polite please; you could easily have said the same thing without seeming quite so insulting.

If it's insulting to tell somebody they are wrong, they need thicker skin. And I'm insulted as well. I'm quite thoroughly insulted that somebody who apparently has no knowledge beyond television is trying to tell me about lasers. Does anybody care? No. Should they? No. Frankly, being insulted or offended is meaningless and should not be taken into account in any context if it in impairs honest and efficient communication. Moving on.

Will a player share this thought process? Probably yes. They'll also probably expect the laser to have a huge, distinctly visible beam and be reflected by shiny surfaces. None of these things are true, and none of them will be present. If they don't understand this, the game comes with a sizable database (which I will write personally) that should adequately explain this and many other things. If they still don't get it, they aren't worth my time.

LorenzoGatti, on 23 Apr 2013 - 14:29, said:


Another example: a rifle bullet that does X damage and can go through N unarmoured persons implies that each victim absorbs X/N damage, and after exiting N people the bullet has negligible energy.

NO. No it does NOT. Damage is NOT energy. Do you know what kinetic energy does in a human body, in any quantity that could be delivered via bullet? It causes light bruising. Human tissue is really, really good at absorbing kinetic energy. It is elastic, it stretches a great deal before any damage is done, and it's only the tissue too stiff or too thin to stretch (adipose and capillaries, respectively) that are damaged. Most of a bullet's damage comes from it's momentum, and the form it takes is the gaping hole the bullet leaves in a human body. The size of that hole is determined by the size of the bullet, and the depth is determined by its momentum, not its energy. The closest to energy-based damage actually taken is the bruising, which doesn't really matter unless the tissue the bullet passes through is unusually stiff, and the next closest is the exit wound, which doesn't reach vitals and in fact is usually barely deeper than the skin, so it is not a significant contributing factor either. Energy does NOT equal damage.

Designing general rules is hard enough without confusing notions; you should start from physical principles. Why does a bullet stop? Because it has lost kinetic energy. How did it lose energy? Apart from usually minor air attrition, by piercing a hole through armour and victims; that is, by damaging objects. Making a hole requires energy, some to cause a deformation (mostly turning into heat) and some to break chemical bonds.

While it's true that compared to other types of injury a bullet wound is very nasty relative to the invested energy, it's because, like piercing blows in general, it applies a great pressure to a small area instead of a harmless pressure to a large area, not because energy is unimportant.

Try explaining a little better how your rule system manages and separates the three aspects of

• How much does the bullet slow down when it passes through stuff (including air)
• How much the shape of the bullet degrades, affecting its penetration ability
• How many "hit points" are wounds of different shapes worth.

Designing general rules is hard enough without confusing notions; you should start from physical principles. Why does a bullet stop? Because it has lost kinetic energy. How did it lose energy? Apart from usually minor air attrition, by piercing a hole through armour and victims; that is, by damaging objects. Making a hole requires energy, some to cause a deformation (mostly turning into heat) and some to break chemical bonds.

An object's penetrative capability is more directly related to momentum, and a formula based on momentum is both more accurate and simpler. My system is based on momentum for this reason.

While it's true that compared to other types of injury a bullet wound is very nasty relative to the invested energy, it's because, like piercing blows in general, it applies a great pressure to a small area instead of a harmless pressure to a large area, not because energy is unimportant.

For the most part, it's the open wound. An open wound causes a lot more bleeding than a closed one, so weapons that leave open wounds (anything puncturing or incisive) are much more likely to be fatal.

• How much does the bullet slow down when it passes through stuff (including air)

I was planning on a simple range increment system, where every x metres a bullet loses 0.01 penetration and a complimentary amount of energy. (Remember, energy is exponential.)

• How much the shape of the bullet degrades, affecting its penetration ability

That's all handled in DR. DD just covers loss of momentum.

• How many "hit points" are wounds of different shapes worth.

It's linear in that respect. The size of the wound is more important than its shape, and in this case the formula is D2*2, where D is the projectile's diametre in millimetres. Then PF determines the depth of the wound to get its approximate value. I tend to round this for most values, and usually round up. For instance, a 7.62 should have a puncture of ~116, but I gave it 120. As for non-penetrative trauma, it's usually based on their energy (or momentum for bludgeon damage) and the concentration. It's not exact most of the time, but the rounding errors are fairly small.

JLW, on 26 Apr 2013 - 08:04, said:
If it's insulting to tell somebody they are wrong, they need thicker skin.

I'm in no way insulted by being told I am wrong. You are absolutely correct. Too many people nowadays are “sissified” in my opinion. In fact the first thing being told I was wrong made me want to do was to find out WHY. And what my [admittedly very limited] research showed was that you were in fact entirely correct. Phased laser pulses can in fact produce explosions. Pretty cool stuff!

However...

JLW, on 26 Apr 2013 - 08:04, said:
And I'm insulted as well. I'm quite thoroughly insulted that somebody who apparently has no knowledge beyond television is trying to tell me about lasers.

...it's my turn to be insulted. I don't understand how any of my comments above could have been taken in any way, shape, or form to be “telling you” anything about lasers. In fact all I see me doing in the main is ASKING QUESTIONS. To make the implication that I'm simply some idiot who gets all his knowledge from television is what makes your remark so rude. Bleh.

JLW, on 26 Apr 2013 - 08:04, said:
Does anybody care? No. Should they? No. Frankly, being insulted or offended is meaningless and should not be taken into account in any context if it in impairs honest and efficient communication. Moving on.

Yeah, you're right again here. For the most part. However I would like to point out that “honest” would also include not categorizing your readers falsely. And “efficient” would probably mean not needlessly offending your target audience by demeaning their intelligence.

Other than that thanks for educating me on the additional properties of lasers. Sincerely, I had no clue they could do that even though it's such a small step from what I thought they did to what they actually do! Truly a 'duh' moment for me!

I look forward to further comments in this thread.

Take care.

I'm in no way insulted by being told I am wrong. You are absolutely correct. Too many people nowadays are “sissified” in my opinion. In fact the first thing being told I was wrong made me want to do was to find out WHY. And what my [admittedly very limited] research showed was that you were in fact entirely correct. Phased laser pulses can in fact produce explosions. Pretty cool stuff!

At the very least, we have something in common.

...it's my turn to be insulted. I don't understand how any of my comments above could have been taken in any way, shape, or form to be “telling you” anything about lasers. In fact all I see me doing in the main is ASKING QUESTIONS. To make the implication that I'm simply some idiot who gets all his knowledge from television is what makes your remark so rude. Bleh.

You're absolutely right. I jumped to a conclusion, and for that I apologize. In the future, I will try harder to reserve my judgement.

Other than that thanks for educating me on the additional properties of lasers. Sincerely, I had no clue they could do that even though it's such a small step from what I thought they did to what they actually do! Truly a 'duh' moment for me!

You're welcome, I guess.

I'm making a quick change and removing RE. It didn't really mean anything as it was.

Also, although it's not "armour" and when present on armour provides no benefit to the wearer, there is another effect. It's called Damage Immunity. (DI) It's a small, straight percentage effect that is not impacted by penetration and only impacts the damage that one target takes. It's not provided by any attribute, skill, level or trait and may only be acquired through species abilities, feats and perks.

The amount of DI provided by any given species ability and the amount of DI you can gain from perks varies depending on the category the damage type in question is in.

Species abilities: Five possible tiers. Each tier provides 5% for energy damage, 10% for miscellaneous damage, 15% for chemical damage and 20% for biological effects. None for kinetic.
Perks: No ranks for kinetic, 1 rank for energy, 2 for miscellaneous, 3 for chemical and 4 for biological. 5% each.
Feats: Always 10 feats, 1% each.
Maximum: 10% kinetic, 40% for energy, 70% for miscellaneous, 100% for chemical and 130% for biological effects.

I don't feel any examples will be necessary, this effect is pretty straightforward. If any are, it's really just scale and I can sum that up pretty easily.

Humans start with tier 1 for every damage type as a natural ability. So do all tough species. However, tier 5 would require something extraordinary. For instance, in the fantasy it requires a character be of a tough species that is strongly aligned to the relevant element (the fantasy setting revolves around five elements) while also being divine.