Optional Damage Bonuses

[DougRed4]

I'm pretty sure I've seen some optional damage stuff posted or discussed here, but after doing a Search on these forums and after reading over the titles of the first few pages of House Rules I'm not seeing it.

What I've done - occasionally (not always) - is to let characters that exceed the Difficulty number by 5 add +1D, and characters that exceed the total by 10 add +2D. My rationale is that a really solid hit (say, one that hit where the target is hardly armored, or struck in a vulnerable spot) is likely to do more damage than a "regular" hit.

Anybody done anything similar? Or seen any house rules that do something like this?
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[shootingwomprats]

This is an interesting idea. I kind of like the idea of it being increments of +10. I also like the idea of a +10 success allows something "cool" to happen. Make the players come up with something. This can be narrative, it can be mechanical, etc, with the GM being the final arbiter.

Drendle: shoots his blaster at a bad guy [13] and rolls a 23. The GM asks him what special happens. Some examples could be: 1) I hit him hard [+1D damage], I shoot him in the leg [falls down, -2 movement], the blaster bolt hits him and bounces off hitting the door control, closing it, I hit him in the head, his comm shorts out.

These are just some ideas.
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Don Diestler
Host, Shooting Womp Rats
The D6 Podcast
http://d6holocron.com/shootingwomprats
@swd6podcast, Twitter

[Darth Ginzain]

Oh oh. That's a great idea.

[Centinull]

Pg 58 Rules of Engagement

Option 1: Add points rolled over target number to damage roll
Option 2: Add +1 point to damage roll for every 5 rolled over target numger to hit
Option 3: Dice Pool - before rolling to hit, dice can be subtracted from to hit roll and added to damage

I've used option 2. It adds a little boost to damage rolls. Found it had the biggest impact in brawling, where Star Wars characters usually aren't all that good at brawling parry while the PCs were pretty awesome at brawling.

Your idea of adding a D6 for every 5 falls somewhere between options 1 & 2, and I like it. I'm going to give it a try in my star wars campaign over the next few weeks and give some feedback on how it worked out.

I've been reading alot of Star Wars novels lately and the characters are frequnetly using hold out and sporting blasters to deadly effect, while in the RPG my players shuddre at the thought of using anything less than a heavy blaster. This would make skilled player wielding a holdout blaster a bit mroe formadable.

[Naaman]

I think Doug has possibly the best solution yet. What I've been trying to come up with is a way to allow the higher hit roll to represent a hit in a critical location, or to allow the player to declare a called shot.

It seems to be more fair to allow a called shot to be easier to deal damage than a lucky hit. For example, as an extention of Doug's rule, I might say that on a called shot, the attacker must roll +5 (or +10 depending on the target location) or miss all together. But on a hit, the damage bonus is 1D+2 or 2D+2, respectively... or maybe it could be 2D and 3D or something.

[DougRed4]

Thanks, all. I should note that I'd probably cap things (for the bonus) at +2D, regardless of how high somebody rolled (with an exploding Wild Die, it could get quite high).

For just shooting at a 'mook' (a thug or stormtrooper), it woulnd't much matter, but I'd hate to see a Dark Jedi go down to a lucky early shot, just because somebody rolled a bunch of 6's.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[shootingwomprats]

I like the ideas floating around. The problem I see, is the mechanic only applies to combat situations. The mechanic I suggested applies to ALL skills. Furthermore it does not change the current system overly much, still keeps it simple, rewards a good roll, continues to tell the story, allows the players to have input into their world/game.
_________________
Don Diestler
Host, Shooting Womp Rats
The D6 Podcast
http://d6holocron.com/shootingwomprats
@swd6podcast, Twitter

[garhkal]

[Naaman]

[vanir]

Our house rule is essentially called hit location for a +1D for every 5pts over the target value.
But it is a 'special manoeuvre' and is at raised difficulty (+5-10) and has a MAP for aiming at a specific target location instead of just centre of mass.

On the one hand it does give an open end on high damage dice but on the other to consistently roll impressively you would need such high skill dice that it is a predictable and believable result. Jango Fett killed a charging creature outright with a single blaster pistol shot at a vitals location, and that's how it works. A heart or head shot will kill just about anything with just about anything, a sniper doesn't need large caliber just a really good long range match round and a nice fresh barrel. In army training it's generally taught sidearms are best used at hand to hand range and only aimed at vitals for any surefire success, and those are military handguns. But target vitals and the Army really doesn't distinguish much between a 7.65mm pilot's sidearm and a 9mm-parabellum or .45, all will kill just as dead as each other in the hands of an experienced combatant. The doctrine is it's not the calibre but the hand using it.

Home defence gun training is a completely different exercise to military combat. You're taught to target centre of mass like LEO training does, here calibre really does make a difference because it ultimately comes down to energy released on the target to put the man down. Vitals targeting is ill-advised for combat psychology like target fixation, best avoided for the inexperienced. It can also bring legal troubles in a domestic situation. On the battlefield you don't want to waste ammunition and you don't want to give away your position lightly.

So I think there'll be two different cultures of thought on what personal arms should be capable of in the hands of varying skills and experience. Some would say a Magnum is king. Others that a battlescarred master sergeant with a .22 is much scarier and far more guaranteed the kill shot. And how does he do this when the Magnum does 4D+2 damage and his .22 does 2D+1 damage? Well he's probably going to exceed the target value by about 20pts for some 6D+1 damage on the burn shot right through the left ribcage to hit the right ventricle...

We've been playtesting the system as a new addition in recent weeks and found it feels pretty realistic whilst making some of the non Force user PCs and NPCs with high blaster skill really stand out as they should. Han Solo is awesome with this rule, and he should be.
The fact that it also means every Party member PC doesn't have to kit themselves out like Boba Fett to really shine in combat, you can just wear the spacer clothes with a quickdraw pistol and fight right alongside a Boba Fett and take down guys with conservative kill shots whilst Boba slaughters the room with heavy weapons. The skill related damage bonus places more focus on skills than weapons and that helps PCs maintain more individual template type rather than the whole PC Party equipping themselves out like professional Mercinaries just to get by.

[DougRed4]

[garhkal]

Some issues i have seen in the past with rules like this (or say crits in an adnd game) is how do you figure whether an NPC also gets to use it or not?

If its a blanket all npcs (baddies) can do so as well, it gets overwhelming for the pcs eventually due to shear #s of npcs who will get to use this rule.

If only major baddies, then you got to figure who are those major baddies? Plus unless those major baddies are numbering the same as the PCs, it weights things definitely in their favor (lots of pcs versus small # of baddies.)

If you make it a PC only thing, it severely ramps up the power factor in their favor.. Some may say that is no biggy, but it's like having it where only PCs can spend CP/FP...
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Naaman]

Well, sveryone in SW gets the wild die, which, Ive always thougjt of as the "critical hit" indicator. On the other hand, how DO we account for situations like Jango shooting that rhino thingy and taking it down with a single blaster pistol shot. That creature reasonably had 6D -7D strength (about what a wampa has) and probably a naturally thick hide which may have acted like armor. Even still, a blaster pistol deals 4D damage. Even if he was using a heavy blaster pistol (which it doesnt appear that he was), thats 5D. A kill is almost impossible, RAW.

[DougRed4]

Good point on the Jango shot of that creature.

I tend to use this for all characters, from PCs to even mook NPCs. What I've found is that the NPCs (especially the mooks) rarely hit by enough to get the extra damage.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[garhkal]

True, but its often those 'rare shots' that do happen that get the most stick. Especially if the damage then done IS sufficient to kill a PC (even after spending of CP)..
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!