Melee weapon damage caps

[raithyn]

Hello everyone, I'm relatively new to the D6 system at this point. I've run several one shots with both 1e (well, 30th Anniversary) and REUP rules and know enough about RPGs in general to enjoy both.

I'm starting to see what feels like inconsistency in damage caps. A knife caps out at 6D (base rules) but swords cap out at 4D (TotJC). Spears have different damage codes across sources (usually +1D+1 but +1D in character templates) but I haven't seen a damage cap with any of them. The conversation guides I've read double down on all this with caps from 4D to 7D+2.

My first thought is that the caps are related to the difficulty but those seem to correlate better with the damage bonus instead--and not fully with that, which led me down a whole new rabbit trail.

With all that background, I have two questions:

1. Is there a rule of thumb for a melee weapon's damage cap or maximum STR bonus?
2. Is there a rule of thumb for the relationship between a melee weapon's difficulty and the damage it produces?

Even if those rules come from other D6 games, I'd be interested on how this has been addressed.

Thanks in advance!

[Whill]

raithyn, welcome to the Pit!

I'm not thinking of any official rules of thumb, but garhkal and others will probably be on later and reply to this.
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Star Wars D6 Damage

[CRMcNeill]

No rule of thumb I’m aware of; it’s just written into the stats.

Frankly, I don’t think a damage cap is particularly realistic, since damage won’t plateau if you put enough force behind it. If I were to house rule it, I’d give it a Damage Cap, where if it rolls higher than the given number, the weapon itself takes damage as per the Damaged Weapon rules.
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[garhkal]

[Esoomian]

I don't think there is any real consistency to it but my opinion has always been that some powered weapons are doing damage based on the power field or the vibration frequency and that maxes out at a certain level regardless of the force behind them.

An easy house rule fix might be that if you're doing more damage than the max damage then a one on the wild dice damages the weapon.
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[raithyn]

I appreciate the insight. I'll noodle on if I want to streamline any of the math or just use everything as written.

[pakman]

In my opinon - the damage caps are there to prevent min/maxing creating melee weapon damage levels the put lightsabers to shame.

A common house rule here, and used in later versions of D6, is to half the damage contribution from strength.

For example - see this collection of damage house rules from our own Whill

https://rancorpit.com/jotw/damage/characters_creatures.html#Character/Creature%20Damage

(hmmm....don't think I know how to properly use URL tags....).


Now, in my game, I also address this by limiting the STR attribute - but that is a different topic...
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[CRMcNeill]

[garhkal]

When i used it in one con game as a 'play test' (all the players on the table, signed off on using it for that one session, to see how it played), i had it
IF you go over the damage cap (ie 6d for a standard vibro sword), you take any excess and applied it as damage TO the weapon.
SO if you say rolled 47 points of damage, then since the normal max damage would be 35 points (a 5 on the wild die), then you'd get 12 points of damage to your sword, soaked with its standard 2d body. SO it gives folks a reason to IMPROVE their weapon's body rating.

During that one game, we only had two instances where someone DID willingly push above the damage cap (fighting royal guards), and only ONE of the two rolled above that cap on his 8d+4 roll (he rolled 2 points UNDER the cap!).
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[raithyn]

[Whill]

[raithyn]

Coming back to the idea of streamlining damage:

There are a bunch of outliers, but the melee difficult vs. damage across different sources has a consistent core that makes sense to me.

Difficulty: Damage
Very Easy: Up to STR+2
Easy: Up to STR+2D
Moderate: Up to STR+4D
Difficult: Up to STR+6D

• You can switch out Strength for Control and the values remain the same (mainly lightsabers).
• Difficulty goes up by one level if the weapon has another benefit like a parry bonus (so most double-bladed weapons).
• There are outliers all over the place. Some of them I can justify with more complex rules, some I can't.

Next Steps
I'm a glutton for punishment so I'm considering reworking all the weapons to follow a this with one tweak: drop Very Easy to max out at STR+0. That just completes the symmetry better. I'd give everything either a damage cap of 6D or remove the cap entirely--my games are one or two shots so I don't have to worry about experience going toward ability increases. I'm not sure I have enough experience to consider that case.

I also lean toward simplifying everything down and create a set of standard upgrades for my players to shape their own weapons. Most would be a mix of benefit and detriment--for example, I will probably collapse vibroblades and swords to a single thing with a vibration cell upgrade that increases damage by +1D but also increases difficulty by one step.


Pakman, assuming you'll see this, I would be interested in doing this for ranged weapons at the same time. You have commented elsewhere that you flattened all blasters to have identical range bands. Do you mind sharing those numbers for me to play with?

[KageRyu]

I cannot say I recall ever reading an official melee weapon Stat with STR+4D or STR+6D. The Highest Melee weapon stat I recall seeing was a few weapons of STR+3d, and I do recall a specific note that the total damage could not exceed 6D (i.e. if a Character with 4D or higher STR wielded the STR+3D weapon it capped out at 6D). I know one was some weird Vibroblade in a sourcebook (not certain which off the top of my head, but had a lot of other weird weapons and tech) and the other was a large Vibro Axe (again not certain offhand which book it was in).


Edit- I stand corrected, I checked the book with the Sword (Galadinium's Fantastic Technology) and it says STR+4D+1 for the sword in question with a cap of 8D (this conflicts with my memories of the printed book, but as I do not have access to that book at this time I can not verify). I am still certain I have never seen STR+5D or 6D.
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[garhkal]

[KageRyu]

Yes, that is the one.
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