MDC body armor and Backface trauma

[slade2501]

When a human wearing a bulletproof vest is shot and the vest resists penetration, the force of the bullet impact is spread out, not mitigated or nullified. All of teh force behind that bullet still impacts the human.

AS a GM, I have a house rule that players, NPCs/SDC beings that wear MDC armor take SD damage when struck by Mega-Damage impacts. This includes grenades, railguns, missiles, etc. Anything that throws physical force. As a rule of thumb, I assign 1/2 of the Mega-Damage as Structural Damage to the being. I also roll on the optional knockdown table in the GM Guide.
Example: A CS soldier eats a mini-missile for 1d4x10 MD. The roll is 30, so the being takes 15 SD.

I also use the same idea for mega damage hand to hand. If a supernatural or giant sized being (like 2 or 3x a humans size) hits a human with mega damage hand to hand, the human takes sd equal to the hand to hand damage and gets launched 2d6 ft on his ass.

[dragonfett]

Sounds reasonable.

[guardiandashi]

When a human wearing a bulletproof vest is shot and the vest resists penetration, the force of the bullet impact is spread out, not mitigated or nullified. All of teh force behind that bullet still impacts the human.

AS a GM, I have a house rule that players, NPCs/SDC beings that wear MDC armor take SD damage when struck by Mega-Damage impacts. This includes grenades, railguns, missiles, etc. Anything that throws physical force. As a rule of thumb, I assign 1/2 of the Mega-Damage as Structural Damage to the being. I also roll on the optional knockdown table in the GM Guide.
Example: A CS soldier eats a mini-missile for 1d4x10 MD. The roll is 30, so the being takes 15 SD.

I also use the same idea for mega damage hand to hand. If a supernatural or giant sized being (like 2 or 3x a humans size) hits a human with mega damage hand to hand, the human takes sd equal to the hand to hand damage and gets launched 2d6 ft on his ass.

there is actually a rule/guideline that you take sdc equal to or 1/10 sdc based on the mdc done

[dreicunan]

When a human wearing a bulletproof vest is shot and the vest resists penetration, the force of the bullet impact is spread out, not mitigated or nullified. All of teh force behind that bullet still impacts the human.

AS a GM, I have a house rule that players, NPCs/SDC beings that wear MDC armor take SD damage when struck by Mega-Damage impacts. This includes grenades, railguns, missiles, etc. Anything that throws physical force. As a rule of thumb, I assign 1/2 of the Mega-Damage as Structural Damage to the being. I also roll on the optional knockdown table in the GM Guide.
Example: A CS soldier eats a mini-missile for 1d4x10 MD. The roll is 30, so the being takes 15 SD.

I also use the same idea for mega damage hand to hand. If a supernatural or giant sized being (like 2 or 3x a humans size) hits a human with mega damage hand to hand, the human takes sd equal to the hand to hand damage and gets launched 2d6 ft on his ass.

there is actually a rule/guideline that you take sdc equal to or 1/10 sdc based on the mdc done

I've always liked this style of rule for physical MDC damage. It makes it the lower damage of some of the physical MDC weapons seem like more of a trade-off, and helps to explain why, say, the Big Bore line of weapons would be a fearsome thing to people (even if you are wearing armor, getting hit is gonna hurt).

I'd personally go a bit beyond just a single conversion rate, and have some weapons be more efficient at transferring the force through than others. In fact, I could see a sliding rule based on maximum potential damage of a round. So, for example, if the max is 20 or less, 1-1; if the max is 40 or less, half damage in SDC, etc. That is just spit-balling some numbers, and I'll freely admit that my main concern is not so much realism but crunch factors. For example, Boom Guns are lethal enough, I don't want them turning into a likely insta-gib even through your armor. I suppose a different way to do that could be different damage rates to SDC and HP , e.g it damages a targets SDC at 1-1, but HP at only 1/10th (it batters you pretty easily, but you are unlikely to die with your armor intact). Not sure what I would prefer.

[slade2501]

Love your ideas. My thought was to make taking Mega damage punches/kicks more of a threat to players than simple numbers off their armor. Yeah, the armor would prevent getting misted, but if a giant or cyclops stomps you then they should be picking armor plates out of your goo pile. Your teammates should be pouring your body out of that set of Gladiator armor. A CS trooper could be killed by the impact of a dragon punch. A SAMAS pilot punched out of the sky by a robot would be severely hurt/possibly killed by the hit and impact from the landing. A glitterboy pilot would die from his own injuries long before the suit could be destroyed. Ever see that old black n white film clip of an atomic bomb test and the blast wave effects? that wouldn't significantly damage a suit of power armor or a robot but it would almost certainly kill the pilot getting tossed around like that.
A robot knocked down could severely injure the pilots getting shaken around in the cockpit like beans in a maraca.

[guardiandashi]

Love your ideas. My thought was to make taking Mega damage punches/kicks more of a threat to players than simple numbers off their armor. Yeah, the armor would prevent getting misted, but if a giant or cyclops stomps you then they should be picking armor plates out of your goo pile. Your teammates should be pouring your body out of that set of Gladiator armor. A CS trooper could be killed by the impact of a dragon punch. A SAMAS pilot punched out of the sky by a robot would be severely hurt/possibly killed by the hit and impact from the landing. A glitterboy pilot would die from his own injuries long before the suit could be destroyed. Ever see that old black n white film clip of an atomic bomb test and the blast wave effects? that wouldn't significantly damage a suit of power armor or a robot but it would almost certainly kill the pilot getting tossed around like that.
A robot knocked down could severely injure the pilots getting shaken around in the cockpit like beans in a maraca.

The thing is those pass through guildelines were for body armor not power armor and robot vehicles. Which have features to prevent blow through damage

[Axelmania]

Power Armor is heavier so it shuold be better, but I'd like the heaver-still robots to have more of an advantage there.

If we did 1 sdc per 2 MDC for body armor, power armor could be 1 per 10, robots 1 per 100?

[Warshield73]

Love your ideas. My thought was to make taking Mega damage punches/kicks more of a threat to players than simple numbers off their armor. Yeah, the armor would prevent getting misted, but if a giant or cyclops stomps you then they should be picking armor plates out of your goo pile. Your teammates should be pouring your body out of that set of Gladiator armor.

I think the old "Gateway to the Megaverse" pod cast called this the "tube of toothpaste" situation. A dragon stomps on you and the armor is just fine, you on the other hand are squirting out of all the holes.

[slade2501]

Love your ideas. My thought was to make taking Mega damage punches/kicks more of a threat to players than simple numbers off their armor. Yeah, the armor would prevent getting misted, but if a giant or cyclops stomps you then they should be picking armor plates out of your goo pile. Your teammates should be pouring your body out of that set of Gladiator armor.

I think the old "Gateway to the Megaverse" pod cast called this the "tube of toothpaste" situation. A dragon stomps on you and the armor is just fine, you on the other hand are squirting out of all the holes.

The case for this was a player who was next to a fusion block when the timer hit zero. He was wearing a triax predator suit and it soaked the damage from the block explosion. As the GM, I ruled that he might indeed be alive, and if so he wasn't gonna be happy about it. Power armors don't have a reinforced pilots compartment. And the guy ate a 110 MD explosion. He was ring side to a fusion event. the other players should have been BREATHING him instead of patching holes or replacing limbs.

[Axelmania]

Stomping isn't really an issue because you aren't sent flying by it, the earth below you absorbs the force.

The problem is when there's no great mass of inertia to slow the acceleration of your armor from the force, and then the front of the armor hits you. Like when a train or car quickly accelerates. This is why we have lots of padding on the back of our seat, but even that has limits.

[42dragon]

We created these house rules for damage transfer.

Armor
• Armor is not meant to take direct hits, mainly for environmental purposes.
• Every 10 MDC damage to armor inflicted at once the wearer will take 1D6 SDC/HP damage from burns or impact, which ever is the case.
• Armor will no longer be fully environmental after it has lost ½ of its MDC.

Power Armor
• Power Armor is designed to take some shots unlike armor, but it is still far from perfect.
• Every 15 MDC damage to power armor inflicted at once the wearer will take 1D4 SDC/HP damage from burns or impact, which ever is the case.
• Power Armor will retain its fully environmental capabilities until any part has lost 2/3 of its MDC.
• Any failed rolls to dodge will result in a random hit location from the conversion book.
• A roll on the optional damage tables will be required after every 20% of MDC has been lost, unless all 20% was lost to many shots that each do less than 10 MDC.

Robots
• Robots are designed to take many hits, even direct ones.
• Every 25 MDC damage to the robot inflicted at once the pilot/pilots will take 1D4 SDC/HP damage from burns or impact, which ever is the case.
• Robots will retain their fully environmental capabilities until the pilot’s compartment has lost ½ of its MDC.
• Any failed rolls to dodge will result in a random hit location from the conversion book.
• A roll on the optional damage tables will be required after every 20% of MDC has been lost, even if inflicted by small shots, there are more things to go wrong in a robot.

[drazool]

I like the rules in concept, but there is one major issue: what happens to cyborgs?

If the brain is getting battered around inside of the borg head, it seems like most borgs would be either dead or badly brain damaged. Although, this could be simply handwaved.

Also, I would rule that these effects are only present for kinetic/explosive damage, and could be reduced or eliminated by a successful roll w/ impact check.

[dragonfett]

I would personally say to treat 'Borgs at the very least like Robot Vehicles in that there is enough components in between the outside and the inside that the 'Borg's chassis will take the brunt of it.