More guns!!

[ancalagon-tb.livejournal.com]

Hello

This is a bullet question, and it refers to hollow point bullets (HP) (page 205 dark champion).

Hollow point bullets are designed to "mushroom" when they hit a target - this allows for more transfer of energy to the target and makes a bigger hole in the person. Hero models this by having HP bullets do more damage AND more stun. There are normally factory made, but as mentioned in the book it is possible to modify normal bullets "in the field" with a knife. This isn't hard - I the player could do it, and I imagine for a trained gunsmith it's child's play

Now the question is how do these home-made HP bullet work, game wise? The book says that they do "at most, 1 pip extra damage instead of 1 DC extra like normal HP bullets". I'm unclear as to what a pip of damage is - if you go from say, a 1d6 weapon and add a damage class, it's now 1d6+1 - isn't that the same as a pip? Would a 2d6-1 weapon (what I have now) become 2d6? I also note it says nothing about stun - do they do normal bullet stun or HP bullet stun?

... I should have asked for spent uranium wadcutter rounds from the (so-called) angels :P

Comments

[m-danson.livejournal.com]

1 pip = +1

[ancalagon-tb.livejournal.com]

so for killing damage, in some case 1 pip = 1 damage class, and in some cases no, depending on where you are on the scale?

And for stun?

[nightstriker.livejournal.com]

From what I understand 1 pip is something that is used when talking about killing damage, and a pip is equal to 1 Damage class for a killing attack, so three pips equal a full d6.

Though as with everything I am willing to be wrong.

[m-danson.livejournal.com]

I'll double check that but I think you are right. This is probably another case of ambiguous language. (Especially since 1d6-1 = 1.5d6 according to Demon.)

[nightstriker.livejournal.com]

Well it is just that when you look at any of the killing attacks, that is the progression of it. It goes from 1(pip, 1DC) ==> 1/2d6(2DC) ==> 1d6(3DC).

So adding one pip to any level in a progression just pushes it up to the next one....to restate what I just said with a little clearer language.

[ancalagon-tb.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to work with that - and I'm willing to ignore the fact that 9 mm guns with helicoidal riffling do 1d6+2 points of damage (see glock) :D

[m-danson.livejournal.com]

I've looked at the Damage class chart in 5ed and the only place where 1 pip is mentioned in 5th ed (at least that I've found) is in the first line of that table.

DC Killing Normal
1 1 pip 1d6
2 1/2d6 2d6

Hence, based on that, I'm going to rule that 1 pip = +1 NOT 1 DC since 1 DC refers to any one step on the table and 1 pip only refers to the first step (+1). The other reason why I'm making this ruling is because other steps may add more than +1 to the killing damage and your situation clearly states that no more than 1 pip can be added.

Sometimes HERO makes me want to feed the book to its creators.

[nightstriker.livejournal.com]

Ok cool so dose this mean that the 1d6-1 is just a negative pip applied to a weapon? That is to say that if I were to roll a 4 on a d6-1 I would have a result of 3 as opposed to rolling a 1/2 die?

I know that Demon did bring up in game that 1d6-1 is equal to a 1/2d6 but if only a +1(pip) means that I add one to the result of my d6(s) roll then should the opposite not also apply for my -1(essentially a negative pip)?

[m-danson.livejournal.com]

Formally the DC table in 5th ed says this for killing damage:

DC Killing
1 1 pip
2 1/2d6, 1d6-1
3 1d6
4 1d6+1
5 1 1/2d6, 2d6-1
6 2d6

While the sidekick says this:

DC Killing
1 1 pip
2 1/2d6
3 1d6
4 1 1/2d6
5 2d6

There is no such thing as a negative pip in the rules. A pip is 1 BODY in a killing attack. A 1 DC killing attack is 1 pip or 1 BODY. That is all we will be using the term "pip" for so as to avoid sematic difficulties.

As for the options... I want everyone to use the 1/2d6 rather than the 1d6-1 option so we can maintain consistency with previous actions and so that we don't run into difficulty with the term "pip".

Hence your 1 1/2d6 weapon (since we are not using the 2d6-1 option) is a DC 4 which is one DC lower than a DC 5 weapon and one higher than a DC 3 weapon. Anc's bullets add one pip not one DC to his attack so (assuming he's got a 1 1/2d6 gun) he has a 1 1/2d6 +1 (DC 4 + 1 pip = 10 max damage) weapon not a 2d6 (DC 5 = 12 max damage) weapon. If his modification added a damage class then he would have the DC 5 result.

[m-danson.livejournal.com]

Slight correction... sidekick doesn't even use "Pip" but rather "DC 1 = 1 point".