Hi Jon,
4e's Hit point issues. As you might or might not be able to guess, I have a
fondness for Age of Sail battles, and translating real world vessels into
something usable in GURPS (either of 3rd edition or 4th edition) has been
problematic. A quote from one of the books I own:
"There was a curious balance between wooden ships and the number of iron shot
they could absorb, something which was to be totally upset by the use of
shells. After Lord Howe's Battle of the Glorious First of June 1794, a British
98 gun ship had 200 round-shot remove from her hull and was ready for action
again in a fortnight. The only ship destroyed by gunfire alone at the Battle
of Tralfalgar was a Spanish 74, which caught fire and blew up. Ships sometimes
sank because of their battered condition, particularly in rough weather after
action, but explosive shells and red-hot shot were much more formidable and
once a navy had adopted them there was little rivals could do but take
defensive measures and follow suit."
Keep in mind, that a British 98 gun ship is NOT a small ship, but constitutes a
second rate ship of the line. Even so, these ships often took cannon fire from
enemy ships from ranges as little as 50 yards away (essentially yardarm to
yardarm when you consider that the yardarms often were twice the width of a
ship's hull). I've pointed out elsewhere, that as the rules are now, a squad
of 20 men, armed with muskets of the era - can SINK a warship. The DR is
insufficient to stop musket fire from damaging the ship, and the hit points for
the ships are sufficiently low that musket armed men can sink a warship!
Factor in the fact that the full armament of a third rate ship of the line (aka
the 74's) are sufficient enough to sink ships RAPIDLY in battle.
GURPS 4e understates the abilities of ships to absorb damage in my opinion.
General rule of thumb was that roughly 1/3rd the weight of the round shot being
fired was required as a black powder charge in order to propel the shot to
maximum range using a roughly 5 degree elevation of the barrel.
In all? GURPS 4e does not take into account the spacing of scantlings
(essentially ribbing structural members) the thickness of those structural
members, nor the fact that the size of the holes produced in the side of a ship
that has taken a round shot, is miniscule against the surface area of said ship.
As I've mentioned elsewhere - GURPS 4e makes no distinction between the hit
points of a 3 lb piece of iron in the form of a sword blade, and the same 3 lbs
of iron in the shape of a sphere - they both have the same DR and the same hit
points to render the object "inoperable".
Of the two versions of vehicular combat thus far - the basic 4e rules and the
GURPS VEHICLES 2nd edition, I'll stick with VEHICLES 2nd edition primarily
because the time it takes to damage such a vessel is closer to reality than the
rules from GURPS 4e. Truth be told? Even GURPS VEHICLES 2nd edition
understates the resilience of purpose built warships in the age of sail. Ah
well, that's one man's opinion. <shrug>
Hal
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Jon Lang
Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2012 4:35 PM
To: The GURPSnet mailing list
Subject: Re: [gurps] Sean Punch mentions GURPS Vehicles 4e
On Sat, Dec 8, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Alaconius <[email protected]> wrote:
> I hope they solve the hit point issues that plague the game system for
> GURPS 4e. As it stands, I would have to create my own "formula" that
> I'd use in place of the current rules. I'm trying not to have a "Bad feeling"
> about this, so I'll wait until it comes out and buy the darned thing -
> just to see what is in it!
>
Please elaborate: what are the hit point issues that you're referring to?
3e's hit point issues, or 4e's hit point issues?
--
Jonathan "Dataweaver" Lang
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