Girl Interrupted:
Would someone be so kind as to educate me on how 'pi' damage works?
"pi" damage is "piercing". It's mostly tacked onto bullets (or other very fast moving smaller projectiles) because those sort of weapons/projectiles do not work exactly the same way as standard crushing, cutting, and impaling attacks do.
There are four flavors of pi, each has it's own wounding modifier, but they all enjoy the same hit location and overpenetration benefits, and suffer the same "flexible armor blunt damage penalty".
pi Type | Wounding Mod |
pi- | x0.5 |
pi | x1 |
pi+ | x1.5 |
pi++ | x2 |
While you can kinda say "pi is equal to crushing, pi+ is equal to cutting, and pi++ is equal to impaling", that isn't exactly the case and might cause you to overlook the Hit Locations benefits pi damage enjoys that crushing and cutting sometimes miss out on (and vice versa).
Now for your example, I'ma be real with you, I need more info so I'll just supply it... also I'm broadening out your example to show the differences between pi and crushing. Also, only using pure Basic Set rules, no optional things from other sets (except some made up armors).
Alice and Ecila are fighting a mob of foes, Alice has her trusty Glock (doing 2d+2) and Ecila has a stout shillelagh (and also doing 2d+2 because... I said so). For ease of example let's say they're both hitting, no misses, and the mooks are too dumb to defend. They also both deal 8 damage with each attack...
They take the first mook group (HP 10, no armor, auto fail HT checks), hit each of their mooks in the Face, the Torso, and the last in an Arm.
The four that take face and torso hits take 8 injury [(8 damage - no armor)x1 wounding mod
*], all four take Major Wounds (over half their HP in one shot, Basic Campaigns pg 420), fail their HT checks, are Stunned and Knocked Down. The two mooks who take arms hits both take 6 injury [(8 dam - 0 DR)x1 wm; capped at [(1/2 HP) + 1] for a limb], both have their arms crippled, both took a Major Wound (crippled extremities are treated as Major Wounds even if below "1 past half HP", say for a hand, foot, tail, etc), fail their HT checks, are Stunned and Knocked Down.
* The way damage is applied may sound simple (and it kinda is) but I see it trip up experienced Players and GMs all the time, so I'll lay it out real quick: Damage is the amount rolled on the dice, so Alice's Glock does 2d+2 pi, and when she rolls an 8, that 8 is the
damage. the "pi" is her
wounding modifier, it controls some Hit Location benes as well as directly influencing the
injury. To find injury, (the amount of HP loss a target suffers from an attack) first take the damage, subtract any DR,
then apply the wounding modifier, the result is the injury the target takes.
I say this only because I've seen far too many people say things like "I hit, they take 13 cutting injury!" when they meant "13 damage with a cutting wound multiplier" and I've seen Players go ahead and "helpfully" multiply the damage by the wounding modifier without bothering to account for an enemy's armor... or forget to apply the wound modifier to damage they take after subtracting DR, etc. Yeah, it's a bit to keep track off, but just hoping a quick refresher here helps some people...
The next wave gets interesting, they have armor! (HP 12, DR 2 heavy leather "jakcets", DR 4/1 ballistic vests, and DR 2/1 "impact" helmets with face masks - good against crushing)
Again Alice and Ecila take on three each, hitting Face, Torso, and Arm, again 8 damage each time...
Alice drops the face shot guy with one hit (7 injury after DR 1), deals with the arm guy after two shots (6 + 1 injury = 7 injury cripples), and ends up having to dodge around till she lands six hits on 'torso dude' as his leathers and concealed ballistic vest give him an effective DR 6 against her Glock's pi damage. But he does finally reach HP 0 and whiff his Unconsciousness Check.
Elica also has to juggle her foes a bit, everyone needing two hits, the face dude drops with HP -2 after the second hit (6 injury is not a Major Wound with HP 12), torso guy drops at HP 0 after two attacks (taking 5 injury + 5 injury, and then whiffing their Unconsciousness check), and like with Alice the arm guy takes two hits.
To stop belaboring a point, "pi" and "crushing" are very similar, I could have used different weapons like impaling and cutting to showcase those difference (or pi-, pi+, or pi++), but I was kinda sticking with your setup. Armor and Hit Locations will make a difference, but well, you kinda chose poor Hit Locations to show off that difference. "Head" isn't a Hit Location, that's Face or Skull, both are different...
Frex if they were both making Skull shots on their foes, the foes have an additional DR 2 and take a x4 wounding modifier (and are at -7 to hit). Face hits don't have Skull DR or the extra wounding modifier (are -5 to hit and cannot be hit randomly from behind).
Eye shots would also be an interesting set up, Alice can target eyes as she has a piercing attack, however Ecila with her crushing attack cannot (and would be making Face shots instead).
Neck and Vitals both also work differently as Hit Locations for them, Alice enjoys the Vitals, to hit -3, getting a x3 wounding modifier while Ecila cannot target them, and they can both target the Neck at -5, but Alice has no benes where Ecila gets a x1.5 wounding modifier (crushing and corrosive get x1.5, cutting enjoys x2 on the Neck).
The other major difference is that piercing (piercing, impaling, or tight-beam burning damage with a ranged attack) damage "enjoys" Overpenetration (Basic Campaigns pg 408), which sometimes is not so very enjoyable (if there are things behind your target you don't want getting shot up). With Overpenetration if you hit with significant enough damage (anything in excess of the foe's HP + front
and rear armor) "blows through" and the projectile will continue to travel into another target.
Frex if Alice were rocking a Bolt Action 7.62 rifle (7d pi) hitting the first mooks (HP 10) at range for an average 21 damage... then... the first mook in front would take 21 injury but the round would Overpenetrate 11 damage into any mooks behind him as well. If they were wearing DR 2 heavy leather, then the first mook would take 19 injury, and the round would Overpenetrate 7 damage (HP 10 + DR 2 front + DR 2 back) into the next mook.
I personally also apply Overpenetrate to cutting attacks, and to melee versions of those attacks if and when appropriate. So say a long spear being heroically thrust through two enemies that are tightly inline, the giant's sword swinging through multiple hexes worth of foes, the Jedi's lightsaber loping through their foe and the floor, ceiling, walls...
This message was last edited by the player at 17:59, Sat 23 Apr 2022.