Edit: I'm gonna include the critical tabels for all parts here eventually, so far I have Body and Head.

Hey i've played for some time now with the normal rules, mostly battles involving shooting with bullets. As we know, bullets deal impact damage just like clubs, and the critical tables seem to reflect that. In practice this means that most of the time when the acolytes take people alive it's by shooting at them with shotguns and autoguns until they are knocked out by fatigue damage!

Although I can understand the justification of having bullet shock trauma possibly deal fatige and the possibility of passing out, or bullets fracturing bone, I think the critical tables are lacking to descrive accurate or even cinematic bullet injuries with shock, bleeding, piercing damage that ruptures internal organs causing internal AND external bleeding.

Therefore I propose to make a new critical table for ballistic injuries (sp weapons), possibly for pointed missiles as well (although the Rupture table might still work ok for those).

Anyone agree or want to aid in the creation of new ballistic tables?

Structure: Ballistic Critical Effects - Body

1: The shot grazes the target's chest, causing him to bite down in pain. He can only take a half action on his next turn.

2: The attack hits the target's abdomen with force. Although missing any organs, he gasps as the pain sears through his body, causing 1 level of fatigue. If he has no body armor on this location, he is also stunned one round as the bullet exits the body.

3: The target's ribcage is hit, shattering ribs and lodging projectiles deep within him. He suffers 2 levels of fatigue and is also stunned for 1 round.

4. Spots of blood appears as major blood vessels are ruptured by the attack. The target suffers 1d5 fatigue from blood loss but is otherwise still standing.

5: A projectile damages the targets spine, causing an immediate collapse of the body. The target is stunned for 2 rounds and takes 1d5 levels of fatigue as he struggles to regain his footing.

6:The attack ruptures the targets guts causing significant Blood Loss as the stomach acids mix with the numerous blood vessels. In addition to the normal chance to bleed to death, a target must succeed a WP test to remain fighting unless Fearless, on combat drugs or otherwise unaware of his impending doom.

7: The attack ruptures several internal organs. Effects are as above, and in addition any physical activity on the targets part will cause him to bleed to death on a failed toughness test (made each round in addition to Blood Loss).

8: The target's heart is hit, disrupting the flow of blood to the brain. On a successful Toughness the test that target can function for 1d5 rounds before the brain succumbs to the lack of oxygen, causing immedeate death.

9: The attack severs the spinal cords destroying the central nervous system. The heart stops beating and the body crumbles to the ground instantly. The target is no more.

10+: The target is shred to pieces by a hailstrom of bullets. fragmens of bone, muscles and organs are splattered behind him, causing anyone within 5 meters behind the direction of the attack to be covered in blood and gore, blinding them until a half action is spent wiping it away.

This is my initial writing, based on the tables in the books as well as some FBI ballistic injuries reports. The point is to give it a more fitting to gunshot wounds and less "hammer in the face." Most of the entries are supposed to be somewhat realistic, although 10+ necessarily has to be over the top and detrimental to eventual bystanders

Note that the tables is slightly more deadly than before with increased chance of Blood Loss, but with less stunning effects and overall less fatigue damage. In the extreme this may enable both acolytes and enemies of the Imperium to fight on even as they die.

Comments are appriciated and will be taken into consideration, regarding balance, realism and playability. They should also be somewhat entertaining to read

Later I'll try to make some up for the other hit locations. Headshots will be particularily deadly and incapacitating (more fatigue and stun as well, but less chance of Blood Loss). Limb criticals will be slightly less deadly only killing on 9+ as the main artery is severed, although bone fracure and rendering limb inoperable will be more commonplace.

Ballistic Critical Effects - Head
Critical Damage
1 The shot grazes the target's face, causing 1 level of fatigue from the stinging pain.

2 The bullet slices open the target's scalp, which begins to bleed profusely. Due to blood pouring into the target's eyes, he suffers a -10 penalty to both WS and BS for 1d10 rounds. He is also stunned one round as the bullet tears through the skull.

3 The target's ear is hit, making a large hole in it. He suffers 2 levels of fatigue and is also deafened for 1 round as his ears fill with blood. After this he is at -10 to hearing based perception tests until treated or healed.

4 A bullet rips through the target's jaw, destroying several teeth and crushing part of the jawbone. The target is stunned for 2 rounds as he chokes on his own fractured teeth. He also takes 1d5 levels of fatigue.

5 The shot drives through the target's eye socket, rupturing the optical nerves and destroying the eye (1-5 left, 6-10 right). The target suffers a -10 to BS tests and loses his sense of in depth vision until a replacement can be found. The target is also stunned for 1 round and take 1d5 levels of fatigue.

6 Drain Bramage! The bullets enters the target's brain (if any). On a successful Toughness test he survives, but some important function of the brain is damaged. The subject's Intellligence is halved and other impediments in speech or muscle control may occur.

7 "A bullet hits squarely in the neck, destroying the windpipe and causing massive blood loss. The target falls on his knees, stunned for 1 round and suffocates on his own blood in TB rounds.
"

8 The attack enters the brain making a third eye. It tumbles through the central cortex of the brain and exits through the back of the head, spraying the contents of the brain behind. The target crumbles to the ground like a dummy.

9 The target is shot with such force that it takes the head clean off. Guess he was feeling lucky.

10 + As above, except the bullets continue on. Roll a new attack with the same modifier against any target standing directly behind the target and within range of the gun.

Maybe its like b/c as it hits the armor its as if a club hits you and if it hits 2 hard we have damage. So the more damage is from the bullets hitting to hard that the impact isnt absorbed by the armor enough and it sinks into you. Or maybe the armor absorbed what it could already and is weakening up as bullets hit you. Maybe later on during the criticals it starts going through the armor entirely thus you have bleeding affects. If you want it more Cinematic well your the DM ... you want it to sound more Cinematic then tell it more Cinematic.

The Heretic takes aim with his rifle and hits Jo in the chest, Luckly his Flack armor manages to absorb the blows enough so he only has the wind knocked out of him. He takes 2 wounds of damage ....

Later on Jo's getting up there in wounds

The heretic jumps out of his cover and lays a round right b/w his last 2 rounds, Jos Flack jacket is no longer able to with stand the force as a bullet impacts his ribs breaking them.

Ok your post was a bit hard to read but I hope I got the gist of it. You mean that the impact table should represent blunt trauma?

I suppose it could, but I'd think that blunt trauma would be represented by normal wound damage (not critical). besides, not everyone have armor at all and some are highly inefficient to ward against bullets, especially the AP ones. And besides, you can't knock off someone's arm or head with a bullet that doesen't even penetrate the armor, unless we're talking about a freaking cannonball!

BTW in the last combats we've been in they have been fighting mutants with high TB that have been knocked out because of being shot at... a bit weird.

Otherwise anything specific in the table that should change?

Ok, my one and only bump here. Are there really that many who thinks there should be no difference between the damage effects of clubs and the effects of bullets?

Actually, I just wait for you to post the Crit-Tables for the rest of the body...so I can ****** them ^^

As you wrote it, I am just fine. Besides one point: you have one point where you describe "internal bleeding". I think you could at that these are "minor bleedigns". Otherwise, I would simply expect the pc to bleed to death from the inside. [Number 4]

Instead of the "Spinal damage" I would introduce the "gut shot". But not at the same stage, since a shot to stomach is normally pretty deadly if not treated very quick (as far as I learned from movies... me is neither a medic nor experienced at shooting people and/or being shot)

Gregorius21778 said:

Ah thanks for answering, that gives me inspiration to make the rest of the tables.

"4. Spots of blood appears as blood vessels are ruptured by the attack. The target suffers 1d10 fatigue from blood loss but is otherwise still standing"

I removed "major" from the text to signify non-lethal blood loss.

As for the spinal damage I suppose you are referring to #5. In almost all the other tables, at this level the damage causes knockdown, stun and fatigue. Since the only way a human will fall when shot is through spinal damage or bleeding (the latter which takes time), I chose the minor spinal damage to represent this. A gut shot would cause bleeding and is somewhat represented by #6. I think the gut shot may be excaggerated in movies such as Reservoir dogs, but still even if you miss internal organs other than the food sack, it will eventually get very painful and if untreated, deadly.

I just read an article about a news reporter who got shot in the belly in the aftermath of a disaster, and was able to drive away. When he checked himself he saw he was shot and called 911. So not exactly enormous pain that we see in movies, at least not in the initial minutes. Still, I think UI will include a dramatic stomach shot

"6: The attack ruptures the targets guts causing significant Blood Loss as the stomach acids mix with the numerous blood vessels. In addition to the normal chance to bleed to death, a target must succeed a WP test to remain fighting unless Fearless, on combat drugs or otherwise unaware of his impending doom."

#7 will stay the same and include the wp test as before, and could represent lung, liver and other organ damage).

I'm also considering redoing Blood Loss to prevent excessive dicerolling and unrealisticly fast bleed-outs (somewhat inspired by the rules in Shadowrun and my own house rules there).

Blood Loss: The target suffers from heavy blood loss. Until treated with medicea skill or a power staunching blood loss, the target must succeed Toughness every TB minutes or bleed to death. The First test is Easy (+30), and each successive test suffers an additional -10 penalty to the Toughness test, however a success by 3 degrees or more will temporarily stabilize the body and the target will only need to test Toughness every TB hours instead.

Now for the ardeous task of making the rest of the critical tables! I appriciate any feedback guys

Ok now I have made a better looking table for the body location, more similar to the ones in the book. Is it possible to upload the xlsx file to the forum?

This forum doesen't allow the editing of posts .

Errata: fatigue damage at 4 critical damage should be 1d5, not 1d10! No other critical at this level deal as much fatigue damage except Energy, and they really have little else going for them.

Shameless plug for my critical rules: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

I too think it's a bit weird that they decided to limit themselves to "just" impact, rending, energy and explosive damage types. One would believe that the huge number of projectile weapons out there would justify a puncturing or ballistic damage type.

Your table's seem nice enough, but as you can probably read from my own take on the critical rules.

I'm more interested in the effects in terms of game mechanics rather than the "fluff". While critical tables are cool the results are bound to repeat at some point, so sooner or later you'll need to invent your own results if you want to avoid re-hashing the same material. With this in mind I prefer a system that tells me that the target has suffered a certain amount of damage so I can come up with a fitting description instead.

-K

kjakan said:

Yeah I suppose it was something they didn't really have time to finish, and someone just suggested using the impact table instead. I was suprised to see how time-comsuming it was to make my own table, Both the typing, inventing fluff, balancing effects and creating the layout in Excel.

I'm not sure I like your system, and I surely didn't like the WHFRP tables, way too many flaws and too complicated. I agree critical text can become repetitive, but as long as the effects are there it should be easy ti improvise somewhat to make it fresher, or at the very least just sum up the effects if it becomes too routine.

In any case I seldom use the critical tables for stock NPCs, and reserve their effects mostly for PCs and the occasional important NPC.

Ballistic Critical Effects - Head
Critical Damage
1 The shot grazes the target's face, causing 1 level of fatigue from the stinging pain.

2 The bullet slices open the target's scalp, which begins to bleed profusely. Due to blood pouring into the target's eyes, he suffers a -10 penalty to both WS and BS for 1d10 rounds. He is also stunned one round as the bullet tears through the skull.


3 The target's ear is hit, making a large hole in it. He suffers 2 levels of fatigue and is also deafened for 1 round as his ears fill with blood. After this he is at -10 to hearing based perception tests until treated or healed.


4 A bullet rips through the target's jaw, destroying several teeth and crushing part of the jawbone. The target is stunned for 2 rounds as he chokes on his own fractured teeth. He also takes 1d5 levels of fatigue.


5 The shot drives through the target's eye socket, rupturing the optical nerves and destroying the eye (1-5 left, 6-10 right). The target suffers a -10 to BS tests and loses his sense of in depth vision until a replacement can be found. The target is also stunned for 1 round and take 1d5 levels of fatigue.



6 Drain Bramage! The bullets enters the target's brain (if any). On a successful Toughness test he survives, but some important function of the brain is damaged. The subject's Intellligence is halved and other impediments in speech or muscle control may occur.



7 "A bullet hits squarely in the neck, destroying the windpipe and causing massive blood loss. The target falls on his knees, stunned for 1 round and suffocates on his own blood in TB rounds.
"



8 The attack enters the brain making a third eye. It tumbles through the central cortex of the brain and exits through the back of the head, spraying the contents of the brain behind. The target crumbles to the ground like a dummy.


9 The target is shot with such force that it takes the head clean off. Guess he was feeling lucky.

10 + As above, except the bullets continue on. Roll a new attack with the same modifier against any target standing directly behind the target and within range of the gun.

Stay tuned for arms and legs

Hi "Friend"

@Making this tables like all other ("fatigue at level X")
While I understand that you shy away from shifthing the balances, you are in my opinion giving away opportunity. After all, why having another table if the mechanic is all the and only the "fluff" is different? With this approach, all a GM would need is a "game mechanic effect table" and some imagination why this could happen.

If it is hard to come up with a reason why a bullet through a body should be tumbling someone (or causing fatigue), why not throwing this concept away altogether and look for something different ?It is hard and it is risking the game balance...but why giving it a try?

@The critical table for HEAD
1) "Grazing shoot"
How about changing this to "being stunned" for a round? Would be more in line with (2) as well

3) Ear shot
Personelly not quiet found of this, but I have no suggestions

6) Is this survivable? You stated you check records. A real case?

Consider any point I do not mention to be "taken"

Gregorius21778 said:

Oh, yes, it is. The head-shot insta-kill is a Hollywood/video game generated myth. There are many folks who've had all kinds of foreign objects jammed through their gray matter and survived. Sometimes they are completely intact, sometimes their personality is completely scrambled, sometimes they lose sight, control of parts of their body, memory loss, cognitive abilities, but in the end, the brain is at once highly fragile and terribly resilient. If it can still fire it's neurons, it will try to find a way to continue functioning by rewriting it's paths (which tends to have some negative effects on the individual on the whole) and any thing else it can.

There's a reason why the old school hit-man's preferred execution weapon was a small caliber .22 at point blank range to the back of the skull. At PB range, the small .22 round would have enough force to punch through the skull once but not twice. It would simply ricochet off the inside of the skull and swiss-cheese the brain. This insures the kill as opposed to putting a high velocity round through the skull only to have the guy wake up from a comma 3 days latter is just not a good way to go about conducting hits after all ;-)

Hell, this past Mardi-Gras, a fella got shot in the head down the block and he lived long enough for it to be an attempted homicide according to the last report i read on the matter. My room-mate's cousin got a bullet to the brain (through his helmet non-the-less) in Iraq. I don't know if it lodged in there or came out as he doesn't and wont talk about it at all. All I know is he was shot in the head, was lost in VA hospitals for nearly a year, left Iraq, and now has to walk a cane.

It happens.

Edit:

And HERE are some stories about odd survivors of tramatic brain injury if you're interested

Sorry about this post going a bit close to derailment of this fine thread wit it's shinny new bullet induced fun :-D

Gregorius21778 said:

Hello Gregor

Mechanically speaking I tried to make my tables as close to the original ones as possible. I've noticed there were consistent results from all the tables, and that these results and their differences was part of balancing the different weapons and damage types. Thus fatige, stun, stat penalties, Blood Loss and permanent injuries to body parts are pretty much there is. There also seem to be some consistency on what level of damage these effects occur.

The reason why I decided to do this is because that I didn't want my tables to deviate too much outside the system or seem out of place, I just wanted what I think Black Industries should have made from the get go.

However as I said there are differences between the tables, and also in mine. For ballistic damage I tried to include less stunning and fatigue - more blood loss and organ damage.

"Tumbling" is referring to the bullet ( traveling inside causing more harm than in a direct line), not the body tumbling itself. My tables have alot less knockdown effects as well, as they're not realistic.

"Fatigue" as I see it represent the effect of pain upon the body. It gives a penalty to all actions, and too much of it causes the person to pass out or be overcome, pretty much helpless. I think it is more fitting with the other critical tables but I did include some. Then again if you think you have good replacements let's hear it

Stun: Comes from extreme pain rendering a person unable to act or defend well for a short duration of time. Stun in the game is more powerful than fatigue, as it's more important to take out people temporarily than simply do damage or cause penalties. Thus Stun should be higher up the table than Fatigue (although 1d10 fatigue is more powerful than 1 round of stun!).

If I wanted to do something completely different I'd also have to rework all the critical tables in the game, or even the whole critical system. It's frankly too much work, and I think they are ok, simple and fast to use as they are.

I'll answer the rest of the post when I get to work!

Continued:

1) Stunned for 1 round is more powerful than 1 fatigue. If you dislike the fatigue, you might as well replace it with "no effect" but I like to have something as otherwise why would it be a critical?

Since there are 10 levels of critical damage you need something less dangerous for #1. If, however one would change all that I'd limit the critical table to maybe 5-6 entries and rather let any attack dealing more Wounds than your TB also deal 1 Fatigue damage. Or maybe, whenever you are seriosuly wounded (more than twice TB) you count as fatigued. Ah some other time perhaps.

3) It was difficult to invent interesting damage without it being too dangerous or deady. I considered eyes, nose and ear, and nose damage from the front is highly unlikely without the bullet also entering the brain and killing or disabling the victim. But if anyone has a better suggestion, go ahead!

6) Yeah Graver made an excellent answer for me, and I agree with him. There are tons of cases where soldiers, boxers, traffic accidents where people survive grave brain injuries.

The weird part is that you readily accepted #9 which is highly unrealistic (but very cinematic) (you can't cause a head to fall off with a bullet shot unless the "bullet" is about the same size i.e. a cannonball) Guess that's how Hollywood affects us!

Graver: How do you edit your post? And don't worry about derailment, discussion on the effect of bullets on the human body is definitely on topic And alot of fun.

Edit: I found the edit button at last!

Friend of the Dork said:

Not really. There was this little itch "how should this happen" but then I remembered we are 40K. With chainsaws used liked swords and a world with 25 billions of people getting fed by imported food from other worlds... "Come on, Greg... it is just another fancy way of being dead and this is 40k"

Gregorius21778 said:

Yeah that's why I decided to kiss realism goodbye for the last entries