(TFT) Damage

["Jay Carlisle" <selfinflicted_wounds@boardermail.com>]

Types

Direct Force (area)
Mace blow, explosion, high speed collisions, tackels

Direct Force (linear)
Sword cut or stab, shrapnel, arrows
(turned to area force by armour if blow dosn't penetrate armours pST)

Enviromental Extreams
Fire, lightning, exposure
(body limits)
(starvation as limit)

Indirect
Exaustion, high G turns

Poisions
Damages specific body systems
(this is tech. disease, but poisions have too rich a lore in gameing to be listed as a subset IMO)

Disease and Illness (starvation as malnutrition)
These act like very slow poisions

Asphixiation
Drowning, poision gas, suffication, strangulation
(lack of blood means lack of oxygen to the brain, the ultimate cause of death)

Ageing
(the slowest disease of all)

Catergories can, and often do overlap, as in a grenade that does Area (explosion) with Linear (shrapnel) and an Enviromental Extream (heat) factors, if it explodes right on top of you.



Okay this seems to indicate that there is more to Damage than ST.

Direct force damages ST
Poisions, disease, ageing and such, damage the Figures abilities and statistics.

Drowning, high G turns, and the like, push Figures to the limits of conciousness.
Passing out in these situations is what gets ya.
These are Saves vs Death for all practical intents.

Direct force is pretty straight forward.
So what's the diffrence between an internal injury and a flesh wound?

TFT
DX Adjustments
Attacker's Status
Took 5 or more hits since last action
-2

Now one of those damn programes I watch had guys chopping balistic gel with Chinese Broadswords.
(of note here, Celtic, Roman, Chinese, etc. swords all check in at about 30" on average which suggests ergonomics in design)
They got between 5 and 6 inches deep with unimpeaded blows.
Ergo I pull the datum 1pt dam ~ 100 psi ~ 1 in. deep cut with Linear Force.
In other words, 1pt damage is knocking on the door of a stitch or two, useing the right tool.
I figure 5+ points in a blow is "internal".

Internal injury can only be treated with surgury, else if these injurys must heal naturally (or not).
First Aid will staunch wounds, splint (not set) bone,
and ease shock.

I ain't no Doctor.
(I ain't no Psyciatrist with a degree...)

It gets worse.
I'll be writing up scaled counters shortly, but here's the general problem.

Body Composition for 160lbs
100 lbs Water
29 lbs  Protein
25 lbs  Body Fat
5 lbs   Minerals
1 lb    Carbohydrate
> 1 oz  Vitiman

Why mention body comp?
Well remember that 5 to 6 inches from a broadsword?
That won't get through a Rhinos fat, much less something REALLY big.
Halflings vs Giants.
I can't recall who it was who ran the Halfling Longbowman with a stool slung on his back, but Halfling shortbows are like the Lilyputians shooting Guliver.
Anoying at best.

Of course this all depends on how one designs the critters and such.
Right now I'm useing Giants that are X2 human size.
This also means the proportions are the same, and there's an issue.
Just like spells, everybody seems to have thier own ideas about monsters.
So in order not to inflict "my" version of Orcs, etc. on everyone I've got this scale stuff, so my Dwarfs can be barell chested and such.
Then I think about that balistic gel.
Useing quarter inch graph paper, I call 1 square 3 1/4" x 3 1/4"
It takes a whole die damage, maxed, to cut more than 2 squares deep into flesh.


Alright me weapon experts out there, let me know if I have this sused.

As I understand a knife in combat, the tool serves two related purposes.
This is assuming an actual knife.
< heroically resists the Paul Hogan quote >

First, as a thrusting weapon, the thing is designed to get Internal.
As I understand it, effective targets (end fight quickly) are very similar to presure points from martial arts.
Second as a slashing weapon, the thing is geared to sever major mussel groups.
This renders areas like limbs mechanicly useless.

AM already has a basic hit location bit.
I've got some info on tensel strengths of bone and a copy of Gray.
The stuff on internal damage may be superflurious, but the idea of effective scale for attacks is built into nature.
Also of intrest here are other damage effects like knockback from big blows.

Max Giant swings his Great Sword at Joe Halfling.
Joe Halfling wears Fine Plate and carries a Shield.
Max hits, rolling three 2's making 7 pts damage.

How big is Max's Great Sword?
If a Giant uses a Humans Great Sword, is it still considered a Great Sword?
How about a Halfling useing the Humans Great Sword?

I repeat, TFT already has ST based damage for Clubs.
Swords are pretty much sharp clubs.
ST based damage fixes the Halfling vs Giant damage issues.
After all, hitting something is basicly moving mass at velocity.

A bullets damage would be determined by the Strength of it's propelant, not the ST of the cat pulling the trigger.

There is ALOT of stuff to talk about here.
Mega Damage is fun stuff to play with and nukes are just cap guns to Mnoren.
But before we can scale up, we have to agree on the terms.
Or at the least, anyone who's gonna try and read my campaign settings need to have a good idea of how I'm useing them.

I'm slowly getting there.


Jay

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