It's cool to see the process as these changes are made, and that you're willing to make sweeping changes when coherence would call for it. Well worth delaying First Blood to have these sorts of things intact, a good call IMO.
I am curious on the AP table, it appears that it's generally better to have an AP rating equal to the defender's armor, rather than higher being better. Does this require the attacker to know the defender's armor rating? Is this done in an attempt to model "weapon vs AC" as armor proceeds from body armor to tanks?
I try not to get bogged down by mechanics considerations, but anything that causes headaches while I'm testing game procedures really deserves attention! I don't want players to grapple with distractions like that. I'm certainly willing to scrap something that doesn't serve the ultimate vision of the game, even if it is a little sad.
The AP design does "require" the attacker to know the defender's Protection in order to execute the attack unless the referee performs all the rolls. If the defending figures have mixed Protection values, the attacker can choose what benefits him most. This is another subtle encouragement of uniformity.
As for the armor piercing model, I could spill tremendous ink on that, but I'll try to give a brief answer.
The concept of "overpenetration" is the best entry point explanation for the idea that AP must be matched to the target. If I fire a bullet with ballistic characteristics such that it will zip right through my target and continue out the other side, you can imagine the remaining kinetic energy of the bullet as wasted. If that bullet had penetrated more poorly, it would have dumped more energy into the target.
Interestingly, this pattern applies to other types of weaponry as well. For example, we can create scenarios where a pulse laser barrage of the same energy merely heats up its target or drills a tiny hole through it or violently annihilates it—just by adjusting the timing and frequencies!
A second dimension of consideration is the "scale" of the energies and targets involved. If you hunt a rabbit with a pebble, you will notice that sharpening the pebble to have a point will make it dramatically more effective. But there is essentially no difference if you're hunting a rabbit with full metal jacket vs. hollow point if the caliber is big enough. The armor-defeating capability adds nothing!
In real-world scenarios, these questions and their nuances quickly become complex, spiraling into details that are specific to weapon system, atmospheric conditions, and so on. But the two points I've mentioned are the bulk logic behind the current AP table. The current numbers seem to work well, but the important thing is that the basic structure is sound and not too difficult to execute in play.
Thank you for the expansive answer, that's quite helpful to understanding the problem. I'm sure a player will ask about that, and it's good to have a solid answer, especially on the point of modern and futuristic weapons working along a similar principle there. Thanks!
It's cool to see the process as these changes are made, and that you're willing to make sweeping changes when coherence would call for it. Well worth delaying First Blood to have these sorts of things intact, a good call IMO.
I am curious on the AP table, it appears that it's generally better to have an AP rating equal to the defender's armor, rather than higher being better. Does this require the attacker to know the defender's armor rating? Is this done in an attempt to model "weapon vs AC" as armor proceeds from body armor to tanks?
I try not to get bogged down by mechanics considerations, but anything that causes headaches while I'm testing game procedures really deserves attention! I don't want players to grapple with distractions like that. I'm certainly willing to scrap something that doesn't serve the ultimate vision of the game, even if it is a little sad.
The AP design does "require" the attacker to know the defender's Protection in order to execute the attack unless the referee performs all the rolls. If the defending figures have mixed Protection values, the attacker can choose what benefits him most. This is another subtle encouragement of uniformity.
As for the armor piercing model, I could spill tremendous ink on that, but I'll try to give a brief answer.
The concept of "overpenetration" is the best entry point explanation for the idea that AP must be matched to the target. If I fire a bullet with ballistic characteristics such that it will zip right through my target and continue out the other side, you can imagine the remaining kinetic energy of the bullet as wasted. If that bullet had penetrated more poorly, it would have dumped more energy into the target.
Interestingly, this pattern applies to other types of weaponry as well. For example, we can create scenarios where a pulse laser barrage of the same energy merely heats up its target or drills a tiny hole through it or violently annihilates it—just by adjusting the timing and frequencies!
A second dimension of consideration is the "scale" of the energies and targets involved. If you hunt a rabbit with a pebble, you will notice that sharpening the pebble to have a point will make it dramatically more effective. But there is essentially no difference if you're hunting a rabbit with full metal jacket vs. hollow point if the caliber is big enough. The armor-defeating capability adds nothing!
In real-world scenarios, these questions and their nuances quickly become complex, spiraling into details that are specific to weapon system, atmospheric conditions, and so on. But the two points I've mentioned are the bulk logic behind the current AP table. The current numbers seem to work well, but the important thing is that the basic structure is sound and not too difficult to execute in play.
Thank you for the expansive answer, that's quite helpful to understanding the problem. I'm sure a player will ask about that, and it's good to have a solid answer, especially on the point of modern and futuristic weapons working along a similar principle there. Thanks!