Weapon Attack Modifiers - Personal Combat
Most of these rules are straight out of Basics: Campaigns, and repeated here only as a matter of convenience. There are, however, 2 house rules. One concerns darkness penalties, and handling light sources, and the other introduces a new hit location, the entire head, not in normal hit tables.
Humanoid Hit Location Table
If you target just a creature, rather than a specific part of a creature, roll on the first column of following table to determine where you actually hit. If you are targeting a specific location, apply the penalty to your 'to hit' target. Attacks on the Eye, Skull, Face, Neck or vitals that miss by 1 hit the torso instead. Any wound multiplier other than x1 is given in damage column.
Random Penalty Location Disable Damage
None -9 Eye HP/10 imp, pi, beam only
3-4 -7 Skull N/A all injury x4, DR2, Knockdown -10
5 -5 Face N/A HP damage blinds, Imp/pi++ x2, cut/pi+/Cor x1.5, pi-x0.5
6-7 -2 Right Leg HP/2 cut x1.5, pi-x0.5
8 -2 Right Arm HP/2 cut x1.5, pi-x0.5
9-10 0 Torso Imp/pi++ x2, cut/pi+ x1.5, pi-x0.5
11 -3 Groin N/A double shock from cr, males only Imp/pi++ x2, cut/pi+ x1.5, pi-x0.5
12 -2 Left Arm HP/2 cut x1.5, pi-x0.5
13-14 -2 Left Leg HP/2 cut x1.5, pi-x0.5
15 -4 Hand HP/3 cut x1.5, pi-x0.5
16 -4 Foot HP/3 cut x1.5, pi-x0.5
17-18 -5 Neck N/A Imp/pi++/cut x2, pi+/cor/cr x1.5, pi-x0.5
None -3 Vitals N/A Imp/pi++/pi+/pi/pi- x3, tight-beam burning x2 others cannot target
HOUSE RULE
A player can target the whole head for a -4 penalty. This will hit the skull if from behind, or possibly the face if if attacked from the front. Roll a single D6, on a roll of 1-4, the attack hits the face instead.
This is to offset the seemingly great difficult players have if they want to target the head as a whole, instead of just the skull or the face. The penalty seems in line with hitting a hand or a foot, given the heads' greater chance of deflection offsets the decreased ability to dodge when compared to these other limbs, and there is only one head.
Critical Hit Table
For critical hits, roll 3d6 on the following table
Roll Head critical Normal Critical
3 Ignores DR, Max Dam. x3 Dam.
4 Halve DR, Major wound* Halve DR
5 Halve DR, Major wound* x2 Dam.
6 Eye, or treat as 4 Max. Dam.
7 Eye, or treat as 4 Major wound*
8 Knocked off Balance x2 Shock*, Temporary cripple of limb 16-HT seconds
9-11 Normal Normal
12 Scarring* or Deafened* (Cr) Drops items held
13 Scarring* or Deafened* (Cr) Major wound*
14 Drops item held Major wound*
15 Normal Normal
16 x2 Dam. x2 Dam.
17 Halve DR Halve DR
18 x3 Dam. x3 Dam.
A roll of 3/4 is always a critical hit
A roll of 5 is a critical if effective skill is 15+
A roll of 6 is a critical if effective skill is 16+
A roll of 18 is always a critical Failure
A roll of 17 is a critical failure if effective skill is 15 or less
Any roll greater that 10 more than your effective skill is a critical failure. Ie fail by 10 or more...
RAPID FIRE BONII
Number of shots Bonus to Hit
1-4 +0
5-8 +1
9-12 +2
13-16 +3
17-24 +4
25-49 +5
50-99 +6
Each doubling Additional +1
Note, for shotguns, multiply the number of rounds fired by the weapons multiplier. Note that DR applies to each shot that hits...
EXPLOSIVES
Listed Explosion (Concussive) damage applied only to a direct hit, and is reduced by range.
Damage = listed damage/ (3 x range, yards), rounded down, maximum range = 2 x damage dice yards.
Considered Torso damage, hence use torso armour. Armour divisor only applies to a direct hit.
Active defences applicable: Dive for cover (Drop and Dodge) which leaves you prone.
Fragmentation damage, where applicable, is indicated by [n d] after damage. Fragmentation range is 5 x n yards. Fragmentation attack at skill 15 - range modifier, -size modifier -posture modifier (usually -2 for sitting or kneeling, -3 for prone or crawling)
Fragmentation Damage is cutting.
For explosives, 6d x n takes (n x n) / (4 x REF) lbs of Explosive. REF = Relative Explosive Force (to TNT). Damage will be crushing. Ie, to estimate explosive force needed, n = (DR + HP) / 21.
Example. Thieves want to blast a hole in a safe wall, made from 1" Iron (DR 50, HP 58, B558), n = (50+58) / 21 = 5.14. As n must be a whole number, they round up to 6. Hence, they need 6 x 6 /4 = 9 lbs of TNT. But TNT is a controlled substance...it is much easier to buy diesel and fertilizer. They have a little knowledge, so they plan on making a Diesel Fuel/Nitrate explosive. If they get this right, this will have a REF of 0.5, so they will need 9/0.5 = 18 lbs of Diesel Fuel/Nitrate. But Diesel is a liquid, with a density of 6.943 lb/US gal, so that means they need about 18/6.943 = 2.6 gal of Diesel Fuel. They decide to get 3.5 gal of Diesel in a 4 gallon drum, just to be safe. However, they will want to stand 6 x n x 2 or 72 yards away...or behind a very solid object!
Note, internal explosions (ie inside a person) have a x3 Damage multiplier and are not effected by DR.
Range Table, using Gun-Fu ranges for simplicity up to 1.5 miles.
Close* (0-5') 0
Short (6'-20') -3
Medium(21'-100') -7
Long (101'-500') -11
Extreme (501'-1 mile) -15
1.5 miles -19
2 miles -20
3.5 miles -21
5 miles -22
7.5iles -23
10 miles -24
15 miles -25
25 miles -26
35 miles -27
50 miles -28
75 miles -29
100 miles -30
*Bulk penalties apply in Close range
Bracing +1
All-Out Attack(Ranged) +1
Maximum benefit from spending extra time aiming is +2, without special skills.
Penalty for move and attack: -2 or weapon bulk, whichever is greater.
LIGHT PENALTIES
I have found the rules on Torch/lantern ranges are unclear and/or unrealistic, (Those who know GURPS better are welcome to direct me to anything I have missed), so I am using a house rule with regards to light sources. I am therefore adopting the following:
The darkness penalty for a light source increases by 1 for every 2 yards away from the light source. Hence, a torch reduces the darkness penalty from -10 (maximum, complete darkness) to -3. The darkness penalty as you move away from the torch can be found in the following table:
Range Darkness penalty
< 2 yard -3
2-4 yards -4
4-6 yards -5
6-8 yards -6
8-10 yards -7
10-12 yards -8
12-14 yards -9
>14 yards, complete darkness
Hence, the torch light range is 14 yards, though beyond 12' the darkness penalty is -9!
Light sources can therefore be described by their range or amount of darkness penalty they negate. Most are described by the range. So a candle, with a range of 10 yards, reduces the darkness penalty to -5 at the candle.
Note that Night vision (from whatever source) increases the effective range before the Darkness penalty reaches -10.
Also note that these ranges are multiply by 10 when determining when a light can be seen.
Some light sources (many taken from p51-52 of high Tech)
Candle/Lighter darkness penalty -5
Kerosene Lantern darkness penalty -3
Bulls-Eye Lanterns darkness penalty -2 beam
Mini-flash light/Head light darkness penalty -3 at full power, 10 hrs*.
Micro-light/Key chain light darkness penalty -5, 20 hrs*
IN USE:
For example, with a head light has a darkness penalty of -3 at the source. Now suppose someone with low light vision of 5 uses it. For them, they add 5 to the darkness penalties, though they cannot receive a bonus! So ranges would look like
Range Darkness penalty
0-2' -3+5 = 2, so use 0 (cannot be >0)
2'-6' -4 or -5 +5 = 0 (max)
6'-8' -6+5 = -1
8'-10' -7+5 = -2
10'-12' -3
12'-14' -4
14'-16' -5
16'-18' -6
18'-20' -7
20'-22' -8
22'-24' -9
>24' cannot see, complete darkness.
So effectively, each level of dark vision adds 2' to the range of any light source used. It should be noted that these ranges are greater than those given in the various books, but it is much more realistic to have light reducing slowly with range rather than simply going from a light source giving a -5 penalty to a light source not reaching just one yard further on. You will also note that though the maximum range is greater, the useful range is not necessarily, unless you have Night Vision!
I know light intensity in reality is a squared relationship with the distance from the light source, but that is too complex for basic calculations like this. This way, we simply look at the strength of the light source(s) and reduce them by the range to the target divided by 2.
*GURPS High tech numbers, guide only. Note that GURPS High tech does not seem to have realistic operating times for LED lights, probably because it was written in 2007. Because this is a contemporary setting, if you actually find a specific item advertised, I am willing to accept that instead for that specific item, as I have applied for the rugged head lights, based on the dolphin waterproof ones.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:28, Sat 03 Sept 2022.