The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

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The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Wooly »

I picked up the Dead Reign main book with my Xmas surprise package this year.

Great game! I really enjoyed the writing

Other than the epic failure that is the weapons section!

The Saiga 12 "clip fed" (I should have stopped reading there) is gods gift to zombie hunters, yet assault rifles suck? Who wrote this garbage?

Did they bother consulting with a competent firearms authority? The answer is obviously no. In fact I can't think of a weapon I would not want to attempt a head shot with more than a semi-auto shotgun!

A scoped AR-15 with a bipod would be an excellent weapon. My Colt which I have configured as a SPR shoots sub MOA @ 100 yards. Semi-automatic battle rifles in 7.62 x 51mm NATO are also quite accurate with the better ones shooting 1 MOA. Scoped Battle rifles and SDM rifles shooting match grade 7.62 x 51mm NATO would be ideal weapons out to 800 meters.

7.62 Rifles I am informed do 5D6 damage while .30 Caliber rifles do 4D6 damage. Please tell me how I am to differentate the two since .30 Caliber and 7.62 mm are the same bloody thing. Imperial vs. Metric.

Closing with zombies might make for more dramatic tension and an exciting game but it is tactically stupid. Zombies have no stand off capability. They are totally vulnerable at range and this should be exploited with aimed, accurate semi automatic rifle fire.

For more weapons check out the poorly written and badly out dated Compendium of Modern Weapons!

Please tell me some of the source books are better?
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by The Beast »

Wooly wrote:I picked up the Dead Reign main book with my Xmas surprise package this year.

Great game! I really enjoyed the writing

Other than the epic failure that is the weapons section!

The Saiga 12 "clip fed" (I should have stopped reading there) is gods gift to zombie hunters, yet assault rifles suck? Who wrote this garbage?

Did they bother consulting with a competent firearms authority? The answer is obviously no. In fact I can't think of a weapon I would not want to attempt a head shot with more than a semi-auto shotgun!

A scoped AR-15 with a bipod would be an excellent weapon. My Colt which I have configured as a SPR shoots sub MOA @ 100 yards. Semi-automatic battle rifles in 7.62 x 51mm NATO are also quite accurate with the better ones shooting 1 MOA. Scoped Battle rifles and SDM rifles shooting match grade 7.62 x 51mm NATO would be ideal weapons out to 800 meters.

7.62 Rifles I am informed do 5D6 damage while .30 Caliber rifles do 4D6 damage. Please tell me how I am to differentate the two since .30 Caliber and 7.62 mm are the same bloody thing. Imperial vs. Metric.

Closing with zombies might make for more dramatic tension and an exciting game but it is tactically stupid. Zombies have no stand off capability. They are totally vulnerable at range and this should be exploited with aimed, accurate semi automatic rifle fire.

For more weapons check out the poorly written and badly out dated Compendium of Modern Weapons!

Please tell me some of the source books are better?


I was about to suggest that when I got down to that part. :lol: Too bad that book's starting to show it's age...
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Kovoston »

A possible Rifter article to clarify this may be in order....
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Illendaver »

I get the feeling that the whole equipment section is very... vague. I guess that is so that we can look up whatever we want to "personalize" our game in our own way, but I can't help feeling that it is just shoddy workmanship. I wish I could call it anything other than that, because I really like the game, but I have to come up with "house rules" for practically everything that we find in my games. Like the whole food and water debate, or logistics rules for how much stuff can be packed into one van.
Not to mention the W.P.s that were pretty much just cut and pasted from the RUE (excluding lasers). For example, where does it mention whips in the equipment page?
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Hendrik »

Kovoston wrote:A possible Rifter article to clarify this may be in order....


That's a great idea. Would you be inclined, Wooly, you seem gun savvy?

What I like about dead reign is that guns are kept simple (for me it is all about having a wee bit differentiation and a straight "damage ladder" that makes sense) but I realize others are more into guns than me and want to be it correct or maybe more detailed.

What about a Rifter article "Revised Modern Arms Compendium"? A brief on weapons putting what fits into one basket, such as 0.3 and 7.62 as you say. I would wish it remained simple and would not over emphasize any minute difference. Rather I would have weapons grouped with a full damage value like 4D6 and give the group the same range than to differentiate and have 7 essentially same guns broken up with 100 yards range plus here and a +1 on damage there.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by azazel1024 »

The compedium of modern weapons is pretty "bad" if you want true realism, but in the context of use in an RPG with only lose resemblence to real life it is actually pretty decent. A lot better than Dead Reign for any kind of realism.

As for 7.62 versus .30cal, maybe the difference is supposed to be 7.62x51mm versus .30-30? I am sure that isn't what the intention was, but a .30-30 does have a fair amount less muzzle energy than a .30-30.

Of course what about a .30-06? Or a .30 carbine round?

Personally for me an ideal weapon is a .30 M1 carbine or a copy of it. Easy to carry tons of ammo, enough penetration and hitting power to brain a zombie at well over 100yds and accurate enough to hit one at that range as well. Also nice and light weight, compact with a folding stock and low recoil. Also pretty easy maintenance. The ammo isn't super common, but it also isn't all that rare.

That or a Ruger 5.56x45 carbine.

At longer ranges the .30 M1 it isn't nearly as good as a .223, 5.56x45, 7.62, .30-06 (or even really .30-30) 7mm, 6.5mm, etc. However it is a good close in and medium (out to roughly 200yds) weapon that has a lot of perks. Alternately that 5.56x45 ruger carbine has a lot of the light weight perks and uses a much more common round.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Zamion138 »

Ive always had a problem with palladiums take on firearms. a .223 /556 round usaly has an edge on 7.62x.39 based weapons when it comes to acuracy and repeat shots, an ak(in 7.62x.39) hits harder than an AR (in .223). 6d6 for .50bmg from a bolt or simie rifle is very low when a .308/7.62x.51 does 5d6,

So many guns that do diffrent amounts of S.D. that use the same round. a baby 9mm pistol and a long berral carbine 9mm have diffrent ranges and pentration.
Dead riegn is probaly the worst for gun stuff though. Full metal jacket rounds...the most common bullet in the world do not cost 50% more, soft point or all lead is harder to get and all lead is rarely used in anything but a revolver or older guns like a 45/70 gvt and .45lc. AP ammo for anything but .50bmg,7.62x51, .556, other military rounds is unherd of. 9mm, 45acp, .40sw.....do not get massed produced in AP. No one makes mercury filled rounds....its the stuff of movies and mercury being a hazardus substance you may as well be shooting DU rounds around as they would ruin an area for living till a haz mat team comes by to clean the area.

A re-made modern weapons book is needed with new guns and all new damege codes/ ratings. this time insted of rounds per minutes how about rounds per melle and per round?
Sniper rifles that have effect ranges of 300 meters
.22 does 1d8? people kick harder than that, a .38 does as much as a karate kick?
a hundred pound rock falling on your shoulder does more than a 9mm pistol? box=3d6 pistol 2d6?
(going by weapon compendium dead reign has higher rating at 2d4 ...so a tad better than 1d8 and 9mm was up steped to 3d6 from 2d6)

A rifter article would have to be a at least 20 pages of how to figure out weapon raitings.... type of bullet, caliber, berrel legnth...ect. Id really perfer it to not be a rifter as its not really cannon in my mind inless its a published book.

Also the Dead reigns infrared optics are like 1970's style at best, your area of view is not an 18 foot bubble modern systems and mounts make them litterly as good as night vision though grossly more exspensive. and inless the zombie were standing still and the same temp at the wall its leaning on youd be able to make it out....you can see bushes and trees and rocks just fine why not a zombie?
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by azazel1024 »

Some of it is "survivability". A lot of the stuff was written for TMNT and HU originally when it comes to damages and weapons. They didn't want to stray to far from that with later written stuff. That is why a .50BMG does 6d6 (I think 1d4x10 in a few sources), and not more like 2d6x10+40 damage when a 5.56 does 3d6.

I actually don't have a huge issue with the way the guns are portrayed in modern weapons, but dead reign just makes it unworkable. In an RPG context, I do tweak the MW stuff a little, but it isn't so far off that it makes an RPG unfun, or unworkable. Dead reign though makes it almost impossible to survive long at all, even if armed to the teeth, if you run up against more than maybe 3-4 zombies per person (or have unlimited ammo and a REALLY long range to the zombies and they better all be shamblers). I don't need ultimate realism, but I need at least a hint of movie realism here.

Thermal, yeah the resolution is good enough you should be able to pick out a zombie, though in broad daylight they'd be easier to see with the mk2 eyeball than it would be with even really good thermal imagers. At night though, it would likely be close to as good as a good passive night vision system.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Razzinold »

Wooly wrote:ok so I cropped your post to just thisA scoped AR-15 with a bipod would be an excellent weapon.


This was the rifle of choice in the zombie novels (Dead City & Apocalypse of the Dead) written by Joe McKinney, well minus the bipod. I think one character had a scope, but another might have just used the fixed sights
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Rockwolf66 »

azazel1024 wrote:Personally for me an ideal weapon is a .30 M1 carbine or a copy of it. Easy to carry tons of ammo, enough penetration and hitting power to brain a zombie at well over 100yds and accurate enough to hit one at that range as well. Also nice and light weight, compact with a folding stock and low recoil. Also pretty easy maintenance. The ammo isn't super common, but it also isn't all that rare.

That or a Ruger 5.56x45 carbine.

At longer ranges the .30 M1 it isn't nearly as good as a .223, 5.56x45, 7.62, .30-06 (or even really .30-30) 7mm, 6.5mm, etc. However it is a good close in and medium (out to roughly 200yds) weapon that has a lot of perks. Alternately that 5.56x45 ruger carbine has a lot of the light weight perks and uses a much more common round.


My characters go with the Ruger carbine as they are almost as common in the US as the AR-15. Plus with the standard factory magazine now 20 rounds you get a decent ammount of ammunition in the magazine especially if you are mobile.

As far as the ammunition goes I've been working on collecting up all the ammunition types and damages and clearing up alot of the stupid like the Browning BAR in .30 cal only doing 3d6 when the 5d6 7.62 NATO is a product improved .30-06 same power only a smaller case. I'll probably end up doing some rounds like the 6.8 SPC and the H&K 4.6mm PDW round as some people do use them. then again the 4.6mm round is tiny and I know I have a picture of one on a $20 on my photobucket. But I have seen police officers use them.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by azazel1024 »

Yeah, if it wasn't for how anti-gun my wife is I'd consider getting a ruger mini-14 in 5.56 with a folding stock. It is a toss-up between that and a short barrel (legal, no sawed off) 12 gauge with a folding stock.

Future years, I am planning on doing a lot of sailing in retirement (looking 30 years on) and I plan on doing a lot of sailing down in the Carib and stuff. I'll have to look in to the laws of a lot more of the islands before I do, but I plan on one of the above (probably have to stick with the shotgun for legal reasons) for personal defense on the boat. No matter how anti-gun my wife is, in a situation like that (outside of US/Canada territorial waters) I don't plan on sailing without something on board (shotguns are okay under the legal code of most nations and even some where they are illegal, it is okay to have aboard a foreign flagged vessel in territorial waters, it just has to stay locked on ship or locked up by customs when in port).

Also if we ever move somewhere pretty rural, same deal. I don't plan on moving anywhere where I don't feel fairly safe...but at the same time I also don't want to live somewhere where the closest police officer might be 10+ minutes away and the most dangerous thing I have to confront someone (possibly armed) trying to break in to my house is a baseball bat or an axe.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Arnie100 »

Agree with Wooly on this. Especially when they talk about assault rifles. Apparently, the author hasn't seen US Marines shoot their M16A4s, or any competent soldier for that matter.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by azazel1024 »

I think for DR KS was looking in part to make it more survival horror, hence the great difficulty to both hit a zombie in the head and actually inflict enough damage to kill one.

My issue is it makes it wholely unrealistic. It is horror enough searching a house and having a zombie grab your ankle as you walk by a couch or have one lurch out of a pantry door that you open, or suddenly find that you spent too much time in the house and now there are 200 zombies from the local neighborhood all converging on the house you are in...and only 100 rounds of ammo for your rifle, a clip in your pistol and a crow bar in your bag.

Survivor horror shouldn't necessarily entail needing to empty a clip just to take down 3 zombies and god forbid there are any runners, because you probably can't take down more than 1 or 2 of them at most from the time you see them and the time you manage to get enough headshots to take one down.

At least against a shambler if you have any weapon proficiency with the weapon and you are within resonable effective range of your weapon, you should have at least slightly better than an even chance of scoring a headshot (say target number 10 to strike before bonuses, since you have a WP, you likely have strike bonuses) and rifles and slug loaded shotguns should have a better than 3 in 4 chance of killing the zombie with a headshot (whatever that works out to for damage dealt verus zombie head SDC/HP), heavy caliber pistols and buck shot a better than 1 in 2 chance and low/medium caliber pistols and .22RF rifles having a slightly less than 1 in 2 chance of scoring an out right zombie kill on a headshot.

Gotta factor in that a hit might only mean a glancing hit, or not enough actual damage to disable the zombies brain.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Ravenwing »

lol.

Everyone's already touched on the modern weapon gripes, but what about the ancient weapons?

Anyone notice how longswords, and claymores became stabbing weapons? For those that don't know, neither weapon was designed for stabbing, they were used to hack away at your enemy. Hacking is not stabbing.

I mostly ignore the weapons section completely and just use stats from other games.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by azazel1024 »

Actually the primary use of a longsword against an armored opponent was for clubbing by reversing the sword and using the pommel (to, you know, pommel them about the head, hence the phrase) or by using one hand on the base of the forte (bottom of the blade) which was generally dull and one on the handle and slamming/stabbing the point in to the person in armor. That is the reason why most long swords of whatever style had an unsharpened forte near the base, was for gripping the blade to provide extra leverage in stabbing against armored opponents.

A long sword or even claymore isn't going to do much to a person in plate armor. Even against chainmail it isn't too likely to break the links unless a really large great sword. Though with chainmail, blunt force trauma is going to hurt a lot. With plate armor a cut or blow with the blade isn't going to transmit a whole lot of trauma.

A stab from a long sword with a decently powerful person behind it IS likely to stab through plate armor, at least enough to cause a mild wound to the wearer (typicaly penetration depths are on the order of a fraction of an inch up to around an inch or so through plate armor).

Look at renissance sword fighting manuals and a lot of modern tests of swords and armor. Cutting/slicing only works against unarmored or lightly armored people.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Trooper Jim »

Yea, i have issues with the damage ratings for modern weapons in all of Palladiums books. I also really dislike the Modern Weapons book. It is full of archaic firearms and is missing several weapons that were in the NATO arsenals at the time. The one that comes to mind is the M249 SAW. One thing i do like is the Penetration Value rule. The dated weapons and inconsistent stats is why i tend to just do my own write ups. I just don't understand why this books turned out so bad, I mean there were a couple of other "gun book" that were much better at the time. Hell for as dated as it is I still have use the old "Infantry Weapons" book for Twilight 2000. And the "Ultra Modern Weapons" book for the Millennium's End game. Both of these books were well researched and had allot more accurate stats, and better art.
It also seems like someone has gotten a little lazy with the general equipment sections. I mean I was really mad when I got the new BtS and AtB books and saw how spartan the equipment section is. Especially with the BtS game. And the "You just need to find it on the web" excuse irritates me. As a player and a GM i shouldn't have to find basic equipment and weapons info on the web.

O.K. rant off. I an just passionate about this system and feel betrayed when a half assed product is released.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Ravenwing »

azazel1024 wrote:Actually the primary use of a longsword against an armored opponent was for clubbing by reversing the sword and using the pommel (to, you know, pommel them about the head, hence the phrase) or by using one hand on the base of the forte (bottom of the blade) which was generally dull and one on the handle and slamming/stabbing the point in to the person in armor. That is the reason why most long swords of whatever style had an unsharpened forte near the base, was for gripping the blade to provide extra leverage in stabbing against armored opponents.

A long sword or even claymore isn't going to do much to a person in plate armor. Even against chainmail it isn't too likely to break the links unless a really large great sword. Though with chainmail, blunt force trauma is going to hurt a lot. With plate armor a cut or blow with the blade isn't going to transmit a whole lot of trauma.

A stab from a long sword with a decently powerful person behind it IS likely to stab through plate armor, at least enough to cause a mild wound to the wearer (typicaly penetration depths are on the order of a fraction of an inch up to around an inch or so through plate armor).

Look at renissance sword fighting manuals and a lot of modern tests of swords and armor. Cutting/slicing only works against unarmored or lightly armored people.


lol, I think we're thinking of two differant time periods.

By the time of the Renaissance armor had changed dramatically, and the Longsword was an antiquated weapon, rarely used. It had evolved into the Rapier which was designed for stabbing. With the advent and widespread use of firearms, swords were relegated to a secondary position, and not a main weapon.

The Longsword styles that I'm thinking of and what comes to mind when I read the term Longsword, is the medieval, crusade style weapons, with a rounded, or leaf shaped tip, broad double edged blade, made for hacking.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Ravenwing »

Also although it might be considered blasphemy, the D20 Modern Books Weapons Locker, and Modern Firearms are without a doubt better written researched and illustrated then the PB one. Thats the books I use.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by azazel1024 »

Ravenwing wrote:
azazel1024 wrote:Actually the primary use of a longsword against an armored opponent was for clubbing by reversing the sword and using the pommel (to, you know, pommel them about the head, hence the phrase) or by using one hand on the base of the forte (bottom of the blade) which was generally dull and one on the handle and slamming/stabbing the point in to the person in armor. That is the reason why most long swords of whatever style had an unsharpened forte near the base, was for gripping the blade to provide extra leverage in stabbing against armored opponents.

A long sword or even claymore isn't going to do much to a person in plate armor. Even against chainmail it isn't too likely to break the links unless a really large great sword. Though with chainmail, blunt force trauma is going to hurt a lot. With plate armor a cut or blow with the blade isn't going to transmit a whole lot of trauma.

A stab from a long sword with a decently powerful person behind it IS likely to stab through plate armor, at least enough to cause a mild wound to the wearer (typicaly penetration depths are on the order of a fraction of an inch up to around an inch or so through plate armor).

Look at renissance sword fighting manuals and a lot of modern tests of swords and armor. Cutting/slicing only works against unarmored or lightly armored people.


lol, I think we're thinking of two differant time periods.

By the time of the Renaissance armor had changed dramatically, and the Longsword was an antiquated weapon, rarely used. It had evolved into the Rapier which was designed for stabbing. With the advent and widespread use of firearms, swords were relegated to a secondary position, and not a main weapon.

The Longsword styles that I'm thinking of and what comes to mind when I read the term Longsword, is the medieval, crusade style weapons, with a rounded, or leaf shaped tip, broad double edged blade, made for hacking.


True, but even then good quality chainmail would resist or stop a long sword blade from penetrating. Of course in the early medieval times especially, and less as time went on, armor more sophisticated than boiled leather wasn't very common, so a hacking weapon was pretty effective. Even against a person in chainmail a hacking weapon could be pretty effective, even if the end result is that the 3lb sword becomes a 3lb baseball bat...chainmail, even with padding under it, doesn't really pad all that well. Crack someone with a long sword hard on an arm and the blade might not break the chainmail links, but it is possibly going to break your arm, or at least leave some pretty bad muscle bruising.

Wearing leather, not contest, the sword will cut right through the armor (Though it does still provide some protection against glancing blows and ones without a lot of power behind it).
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Trooper Jim »

Ravenwing wrote:Also although it might be considered blasphemy, the D20 Modern Books Weapons Locker, and Modern Firearms are without a doubt better written researched and illustrated then the PB one. Thats the books I use.

I think the guy that wrote that book also wrote the Ultramodern weapon book for M.E. it is a very solid book with high quality art and excellent research.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Ravenwing »

Ultramodern Firearms is also a good d20 Book! I just prefer the illustrations in Weapon Locker then the grainy, hard to see pictures in it. Or perhaps my copy is just a bad print of them lol.

Also with D20 Modern having rules for 'Vitality Points and Hitpoints' the damage scale works fine. I also like how damage is standardized, and the Authors understood what a Submachine Gun was, not confusing it with Carbines, or other smaller scaled Assault Rifles, which has always bugged me about PB's firearms book. That and the fact that the Kalishnikov weapons are listed correctly (Ak-47, AKMS, AKMS-R, AK-74, AKS, AK-101 Etc) I also like that the books understood that the 7.62R is not the same round as the 7.62Nato, or that a 7.62 round of either type is the same as used in Machine Guns.

add into it the rules for reliability, balanced etc, and some weapons provide bonuses or penalties to strike based on their design and construction.

Lastly I like the D20 books because they list the Uzi as craptastic, while the much better and far more widely used H&K MP series shines.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Trooper Jim »

I don't know if i would call the UZI craptastic. Just that there are much better guns available now. If all i had access to was an UZI, I wouldn't complain. Now a MAC 10 or 11, I might be a little put off. IMHO
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Rockwolf66 »

Hoju wrote:Stop me if I am wrong but the world war Z book dumped on the assault rifle and HMG as they were efficient at wounding and maiming a living target, yet zombies never responded to DUCKING for HMG and could go on no matter how bad the wounds got, so in all the ultimate weapon was the .22 rifle with incendiary rounds - shot to the head.

Yup,
The weapon section in that book was written by an idiot who has no idea what modern firearms are capable of. Frankly, I have seen an AK litterally tear the head off a ballistic gel torso. While the AK series has been dumped on as inaccurate they are accurate enough to make headshots at 100m and at the same range be minute of car door when switched to full auto. As far as a .50 BMG round goes just a single ball round is enough to put a softball sized hole through a human torso. While some people like to ignore reality that will severly reduce the strenght of the zombie as they are just animated human tissue. Think about it one hit to the upper chest and you have rendered one arm useless, or one hit to the hip area and it's no longer running at you but trying to crawl at you and a sitting duck for infantry sharpshooters or flamethrower useing cleanup crews. heck there is a really big reason professional armies stopped useing human wave attacks durring WWI.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by azazel1024 »

After WWI.

All sides still used them pretty much for the duration of the war. It took a long time to learn the lessons of Machine Guns and how they really changed the battle field.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by kaneman19 »

another thing left out is archery i dont think they know what a crossbow or compound bow can realy do thanks to technology the bow has been preaty much perfected in the art of silent death
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Ravenwing »

Lol, thats a good point.

Whoever wrote the archery section needs to pick up a history book.

First off, a Welsh longbow was utterly and completely capable of piercing plate armor, at extended ranges. We have numerous reports and accounts of knights being ' nailed' to their saddles by the longbow.

Second off, the crossbow is probably the worse weapon possible to use against a zed, why? reload times. It takes a considerable effort and amount of time to reload a crossbow. to much time in fact, a zed would be on you and killing you while you tried to reset your crossbow and reload.

Third the modern compound bow, with modern arrows and arrowheads(IE laser edged, tungsten steel heads, with titanium shafts) is more powerful then the ancient welsh longbow. This means it can easily pierce and shatter bone, and destroy the zeds brain.

although I have found that the weapons section in DR is good for a laugh. :lol:
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Colt47 »

Ravenwing wrote:Lol, thats a good point.

Whoever wrote the archery section needs to pick up a history book.

First off, a Welsh longbow was utterly and completely capable of piercing plate armor, at extended ranges. We have numerous reports and accounts of knights being ' nailed' to their saddles by the longbow.

Second off, the crossbow is probably the worse weapon possible to use against a zed, why? reload times. It takes a considerable effort and amount of time to reload a crossbow. to much time in fact, a zed would be on you and killing you while you tried to reset your crossbow and reload.

Third the modern compound bow, with modern arrows and arrowheads(IE laser edged, tungsten steel heads, with titanium shafts) is more powerful then the ancient welsh longbow. This means it can easily pierce and shatter bone, and destroy the zeds brain.

although I have found that the weapons section in DR is good for a laugh. :lol:


Considering I've actually seen an arrow shot by a twelve year old go through an adults thigh bone during an archery session I am inclined to believe you. (And am absolutely terrified of twelve year olds with compound bows now) :P
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Ravenwing »

Colt47 wrote:
Ravenwing wrote:Lol, thats a good point.

Whoever wrote the archery section needs to pick up a history book.

First off, a Welsh longbow was utterly and completely capable of piercing plate armor, at extended ranges. We have numerous reports and accounts of knights being ' nailed' to their saddles by the longbow.

Second off, the crossbow is probably the worse weapon possible to use against a zed, why? reload times. It takes a considerable effort and amount of time to reload a crossbow. to much time in fact, a zed would be on you and killing you while you tried to reset your crossbow and reload.

Third the modern compound bow, with modern arrows and arrowheads(IE laser edged, tungsten steel heads, with titanium shafts) is more powerful then the ancient welsh longbow. This means it can easily pierce and shatter bone, and destroy the zeds brain.

although I have found that the weapons section in DR is good for a laugh. :lol:


Considering I've actually seen an arrow shot by a twelve year old go through an adults thigh bone during an archery session I am inclined to believe you. (And am absolutely terrified of twelve year olds with compound bows now) :P


:lol: You should fear a twelve year old with any weapon, they are after all plotting the demise of every adult on the planet.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by azazel1024 »

Actually, modern bows aren't as powerful as authentic welsh longbows. For the longest time we thought modern replicas were the bee's knees and were typical of what the Welsh/English longbow archers actually used with draw strengths in the 50-70lb range being typical. Based on what was found on the Mary Rose and a few other examples of well preserved Longbows, as well as studies of exhumed longbow archers and their extreme dimorphism of bones we are pretty confident actual draw strengths tended to be in the 100-150lb range...which few if any modern compound bows can match. Most modern compound bows are in the 45-70lb range, and even with the compounding action and everything, don't typically get power up to the level of the high level of medieval long bow power at the top end of the supposed actual power of those bows. It gets it close though.

That is one of the things I dislike when they are looking at how strong an English/Welsh longbow really was in various History channel, etc shows. They are typically using a bow with a 50lb draw strength, which is about half to one third the actual power of the typical bow used.

We know from historical documentation that longbowmen tended to practice from 10-20hrs (or more) per week for years and years with their longbow. Not only could they handle immense draw strengths, but also shoot very accurately and very rapidly. Longbowmen were one of the few professional soldiers who tended not to have a "day job" in the off soldiering season.

Various TV shows, show a bodkin arrow and ~50lb English longbow capable of just putting the head of the arrow through typical thickness steel plate that a knight of the times would have worn...yet actual bows were quite capable of putting the head AND shaft straight through at short ranges and easily killing a knight. At longer ranges and striking at a slight angle plate armor offered significant protection, but a solid hit or at closer ranges and the arrows would typically go through most plate armor, unless a glancing blow and/or hitting a highly angled portion of the armor.

Crossbows were good because they required significantly less training and strength to utilize. For quite a long time they were outlaws by the catholic church because of this! You could turn a peasent in to a crossbowman in a matter of a couple of weeks (and a pretty decent one at that). It took years or even up over a decade of constant training (and decent diet) to turn a peasant in to a longbowman.

Crossbows could also have even higher power (some over 200lbs of draw strength) because of mechanical advantage, but for every 1 quarrel from a 200lb arbalest/crossbow, a good longbowman could likely fire 6-10 arrows or more. Crossbows however were great siege weapons (especially for the besieged). Just like muskets, you could have several cocked at a time waiting for a defender to fire them in rapid procession and you could have non-combatants (if there were any) within the defensive works re-cocking crossbows for defenders to greatly increase the rate of fire.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Ravenwing »

azazel1024 wrote:Actually, modern bows aren't as powerful as authentic welsh longbows. For the longest time we thought modern replicas were the bee's knees and were typical of what the Welsh/English longbow archers actually used with draw strengths in the 50-70lb range being typical. Based on what was found on the Mary Rose and a few other examples of well preserved Longbows, as well as studies of exhumed longbow archers and their extreme dimorphism of bones we are pretty confident actual draw strengths tended to be in the 100-150lb range...which few if any modern compound bows can match. Most modern compound bows are in the 45-70lb range, and even with the compounding action and everything, don't typically get power up to the level of the high level of medieval long bow power at the top end of the supposed actual power of those bows. It gets it close though.

That is one of the things I dislike when they are looking at how strong an English/Welsh longbow really was in various History channel, etc shows. They are typically using a bow with a 50lb draw strength, which is about half to one third the actual power of the typical bow used.

We know from historical documentation that longbowmen tended to practice from 10-20hrs (or more) per week for years and years with their longbow. Not only could they handle immense draw strengths, but also shoot very accurately and very rapidly. Longbowmen were one of the few professional soldiers who tended not to have a "day job" in the off soldiering season.

Various TV shows, show a bodkin arrow and ~50lb English longbow capable of just putting the head of the arrow through typical thickness steel plate that a knight of the times would have worn...yet actual bows were quite capable of putting the head AND shaft straight through at short ranges and easily killing a knight. At longer ranges and striking at a slight angle plate armor offered significant protection, but a solid hit or at closer ranges and the arrows would typically go through most plate armor, unless a glancing blow and/or hitting a highly angled portion of the armor.

Crossbows were good because they required significantly less training and strength to utilize. For quite a long time they were outlaws by the catholic church because of this! You could turn a peasent in to a crossbowman in a matter of a couple of weeks (and a pretty decent one at that). It took years or even up over a decade of constant training (and decent diet) to turn a peasant in to a longbowman.

Crossbows could also have even higher power (some over 200lbs of draw strength) because of mechanical advantage, but for every 1 quarrel from a 200lb arbalest/crossbow, a good longbowman could likely fire 6-10 arrows or more. Crossbows however were great siege weapons (especially for the besieged). Just like muskets, you could have several cocked at a time waiting for a defender to fire them in rapid procession and you could have non-combatants (if there were any) within the defensive works re-cocking crossbows for defenders to greatly increase the rate of fire.



:lol: ok I stand corrected about the Welshbow Vs Modern.

However the overall point is that a modern compound bow, with modern arrows is completely and utterly capable of killing a Zed. unlike what the weapons section in DR states.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by azazel1024 »

Oh absolutely. Modern hunting bows are used to take down large game, why not a zed? Even a broad head arrow from a modern bow can easily punch right through the few milimeters of bone that the skull represents, hell at closer ranges you'd probably get penetration out the back from the arrow head.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Colt47 »

azazel1024 wrote:Oh absolutely. Modern hunting bows are used to take down large game, why not a zed? Even a broad head arrow from a modern bow can easily punch right through the few milimeters of bone that the skull represents, hell at closer ranges you'd probably get penetration out the back from the arrow head.


And thus we can now redirect the twelve year olds putting arrows through trainers hip bones to good use by instead having them putting said arrows through the heads of zeds.

By the way, I typically frequent this site for contemporary and modern firearms. It's pretty comprehensive on the different weapon types.
http://world.guns.ru/main-e.htm
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Ravenwing »

Colt47 wrote:
azazel1024 wrote:Oh absolutely. Modern hunting bows are used to take down large game, why not a zed? Even a broad head arrow from a modern bow can easily punch right through the few milimeters of bone that the skull represents, hell at closer ranges you'd probably get penetration out the back from the arrow head.


And thus we can now redirect the twelve year olds putting arrows through trainers hip bones to good use by instead having them putting said arrows through the heads of zeds.



:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Colt47 »

While we are here, anyone got any idea what the damage would be on a 6.8x43mm Rem SPC? I know it's got to be greater than the 5.56mm NATO...
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Ravenwing »

Thats the problem, as per regular rules, a single round of 5.56 Nato does 4d6, while a round of 7.62(it doesn't specify between Nato and R) is 5d6.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

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I'd just double the damage and maybe more for the bow.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Rockwolf66 »

Colt47 wrote:While we are here, anyone got any idea what the damage would be on a 6.8x43mm Rem SPC? I know it's got to be greater than the 5.56mm NATO...


I use the same 4D6 damage for the 6.8X43mm Remington SPC round. That puts it in the same damage catigory as the M16 and the AK47. The reason the M16 does so much damage as it tumbles and fragments. When you use non-fragmenting ammo in a M16 the damage is miniscule when compared to your standard US Military round.

The SPC is a decent round but it has the range of an AK but much better accuracy. After about 400m the 5.56X45mm round is superior in accuracy although it's looseing velocity and will no longer fragment reliably.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by azazel1024 »

Very true, but at the same time, getting hit by a bullet at almost any range is generally not considered a good thing for the person being hit by the bullet.

I have never been in the military and hope I am never in a situation where I'd have to worry about it, but I'd think if you can hit a person at greater than 400m, even if the round is going slow enough not to tumble and/or fragment, so long as it had the velocity to penetrate whatever cover/clothing they have on and hurt them, you are likely to still disable them in large part, at least over a period of a couple of minutes (even if they aren't dead or disabled immediately from shock)...which might not be as great as "immediately" taking them out of the fight from a hit, but I'd think immediate stopping power is going to be much, much more of a concern at very close ranges rather than longer ranges.

I have seen plenty of tests of 5.56 rounds and it is amazing how much they tumble and fall apart just hitting relatively innocuous things, like a few jugs of water and some sheet rock. Decent penetration on hard targets and plenty of stopping power/damage at short to medium ranges, but poor penetration through thick targets (even "fragile" thick targets). Of course it isn't often you are trying to shoot someone through several sheets of plywood and/or a bunch of jugs of water.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Ravenwing »

azazel1024 wrote:Very true, but at the same time, getting hit by a bullet at almost any range is generally not considered a good thing for the person being hit by the bullet.

I have never been in the military and hope I am never in a situation where I'd have to worry about it, but I'd think if you can hit a person at greater than 400m, even if the round is going slow enough not to tumble and/or fragment, so long as it had the velocity to penetrate whatever cover/clothing they have on and hurt them, you are likely to still disable them in large part, at least over a period of a couple of minutes (even if they aren't dead or disabled immediately from shock)...which might not be as great as "immediately" taking them out of the fight from a hit, but I'd think immediate stopping power is going to be much, much more of a concern at very close ranges rather than longer ranges.

I have seen plenty of tests of 5.56 rounds and it is amazing how much they tumble and fall apart just hitting relatively innocuous things, like a few jugs of water and some sheet rock. Decent penetration on hard targets and plenty of stopping power/damage at short to medium ranges, but poor penetration through thick targets (even "fragile" thick targets). Of course it isn't often you are trying to shoot someone through several sheets of plywood and/or a bunch of jugs of water.



I've been hit with both 5.56mm, and 7.62R rounds at distances. Believe it or not it wasn't until after the shooting stopped that I noticed the hole in my shoulder, or my legs. And no not at the same time, on two separate occasions. when your adrenaline gets to pumping, and all you can do is duck and find a target you don't have much time for pain unless it's utterly debilitating at the time.
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by azazel1024 »

Well damn. I am glad you survived both (or if you didn't, congratulations on figuring out how to post from beyond the pale :D).
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Re: The poorly written Weapon section (my rant)

Unread post by Ravenwing »

azazel1024 wrote:Well damn. I am glad you survived both (or if you didn't, congratulations on figuring out how to post from beyond the pale :D).


Lol, my wife and kids are glad of that fact as well ;)

Although if I died, I think I'd probably haunt my computer and find away to post on the boards.... Course it would be full of typo's but without a spellchecker program I can't spell :lol:
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