Approved Submission [Mechanic] Damage Rating Revision

[Eistheid]

Submission Type: Narrative driven damage guidelines.
Submission URL: https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=fred_s_damage_rating_revision

Notes: Much of default the form doesn't really apply since this isn't a typical setting submission. I hope you don't mind me removing those components.

This is probably going to take some work to get finalized. I will however be more than happy to fill in blanks and update this as we go along. Additionally post-approval I'll be happy to update old DR values as needed, likely including both systems for a while to smooth over the transition.

A final note, the article will probably need to be moved to a new page location as I believe the current one is just WIP storage.

As has been determined the final call of what is done comes down to GM fiat. As such it is best to view this as intended: A set of guidelines to help players and GMs understand the effects of what they're working with rather than hard rules that must be adhered to.

 

[Rizzo]

I would like to quote Wes when he said repeatedly that the Mindy(specifically the 4) is just body armor, the reason it was originally going to be slower than the Daisy despite having the additional turbo aether wings. But yeah, it's just body armor. It may be super tough but it's occupants are squishy. Zesuaium doesn't bend, flex, or vibrate, but the wearer does. Theoretically you can kill the wearer through the armor.

 

[Fred]

Changelog:
Light Power Armor tier:

• The Demon armor was removed. I judged it as too obscure.
• The Mindy armor is directly addressed as being "M2 Mindy IV".
• The "M6 Daisy II" power armor was added as a light armor.

Medium Power Armor tier:

• The "M6 Daisy" was removed.
• There are now no medium power armor examples.

Regarding sizing guideline per tier:

• After reviewing the feedback given, these values remain unchanged.

Examples of application at the end of the article:

• All mentions of the Daisy were removed. The term "versus lightweight power armor" is now used, and the implied target is a Mindy IV.

DRv3 Quick Reference:

• All the above changes were mirrored as applicable in the Quick Reference article.

Sidenote:

• The M6-1 Daisy power armor's measurements have been adjusted
  • Its height has now been adjusted to be more in line with the Daisy II.
  • The suit essentially adds 6" to its user.
  • The weight of the M6-1 is unchanged. The Daisy II is heavier namely due to a bigger power supply and extra features.

 

[Syaoran]

Shame it lost a strong point of uniqueness in the Yamatai armor line up.

 

[raz]

Don't see a reason to take the Daisy out of the medium armor tier, since it's still a medium armor, but you do you.

Cool changes, generally. Thanks for your hard work, @Fred.

 

[Fred]

I still believe the guidelines given for what determines a light, medium and heavy power armor are excellent ones. The arguments given to consider things differently were things I once considered and did not think applied well. There were clear distinctions for power armors: those that could fit where normal people could, those that couldn't, and the the hybrids between the two that could just kind of squeeze through.

At its originally envisioned size, the Daisy was one such hybrid and greatly representative of that. I believed in this. Firmly. However, my many appeals have fallen flat, or met an indifferent ear. You saw Wes' last post in here. There's really one thing I can do before that, and it is called 'capitulation'.

Wes gets what he wants: a shorter Daisy like he mistakenly pictured. This shorter Daisy also disqualifies it as a medium power armor, giving Wes the other thing he wanted: even footing between the Daisy and Mindy - with the Mindy edging forward thanks to its zesuaium armor.

 

[raz]

It seems like the edit you made still allows the Daisy to "bridge the gap" and be called a medium power armor. It's actually taller at it's tallest configuration now than it was before!

There's no need to see the changes as negative. Why not have the best of both worlds and make mainline/tougher LAMIA armors (Mindy, Daisy, Sarah) medium tier and then make light LAMIA (Sylph, Harpy) in the light tier, since this seems to be how the FM has apparently envisioned their designs to work? As it stands, there really is no place for the Sylph and Harpy if the Mindy and Daisy are Tier 4. It makes sense from an in-universe standpoint based on defensive capabilities, which is what the table is supposed to let us see at a glance.

I just feel like the community should be happy to fill out the DR chart instead of find arbitrary reasons why things shouldn't be on it.

 

[Doshii Jun]

The Sylph and Harpy (especially the Harpy) saw far too limited use in RP. They aren't easily accessible examples for players.

But if Wes wants to make that decision, we need only be told.

 

[Fred]

As you've seen Wes mention, he considers the Mindy armor to be the standard for power armors. It is therefore normal from this point of view that most power armors in this setting would fall under the light power armor category. They are all LAMIA, as you have once insisted.

The armors you mentioned are not badly served by all being in the light armor category. The Sylph and Harpy still have durandium, which makes then even lighter. The SARAH and Mindy both have heavier zesuaium plating. The Daisy is inbetween with Yama-Dura. There are already nuances there to grant further identity to these items.

Regardless, the Daisy no longer qualifies as Medium. As originally envisioned, it commonly exceeded 6'8", on average being at 6'10". Now, it averages at 6', which is clearly insufficient to reach 6'8".

I am sure the future will bring other candidates to the Medium and Heavy armor categories.

 

[raz]

As originally envisioned, it commonly exceeded 6'8", on average being at 6'10".

It was actually always 6'8" regardless of whether the wearer was small or the maximum 6'6" user height limit. That seems to be where the oversight in the article's prose was—that its smallest users weren't compensated for by anything but the hemosynth insert. But, hey, that's neither here nor there, I guess.

But if Wes wants to make that decision, we need only be told.

You guys could always offer up something he might like based on what he's already stated. Does it always gotta be like pulling teeth where Wes has to put his foot down after previously communicating his preferences?

 

[Doshii Jun]

Preferences are nice. Orders are ironclad.

I like orders. Don't suggest what I do; tell me outright and don't leave a gap.

 

[Navian]

Does Wes really want size to be the key means of classifying how tough something is? This doesn't seem to fit the idea of Yamataians being pint-sized powerhouses, or the Nepleslian tendency to overcompensate. It seems to strangely disfavour the core of the setting in favour of the periphery by having zesuaium demigods start out as the underdogs and iron giants start at the top, even though the latter tend to be used as hapless mooks who can't last ten seconds in combat, and the former always seem to be able to take a few hits, and are far more often used as if they're standard units rather than unusually light ones.

Explaining that there are reasons why their roles are reversed from what their 'tiers' would suggest seems to defeat the purpose of classifying them on tables, unless they're meant to a guide to how to envision them and sort out how to accommodate them environmentally rather than as guide to how tough they are. I only use the DR guide for the latter, for the former I use the suits' own articles.

 

[Syaoran]

I think part of the reason size was used for the Tier classification was so that people couldn't BS it. So you don't have have someone doing out and saying something like the size of a Mindy is as heavily plated as an Aggressor. However the tier list is assuming all things are made out of comparable material. It doesn't take into account the effects of the material at all. Which actually gives the GMs more freedom in RP. So leaving it as it is is 'best'. It not only allows for GMs to GM the way they want, but it also means people can start making new materials more easily, because materials aren't judged by the system itself so they can have more crazy effects that don't have to be put into 'stats'.

 

[Fred]

Yamataians power armors are pint-sized powerhouses. Their power armor run on aether generator, they can pack aether weapons in such a small package (some of their default weapons hurt as much if not more than handheld equipment you would usually see on much bigger armors). They teleport. They have quantum computers in their armor. They have the technology to plate them in zesuaium.

The Tier isn't meant to tell the whole story!

And the logic that a gun that will blow a big hole in a larger power armor will make a proportionally bigger hole in a smaller power armor simply cannot be circumvented.
How the Mindy is a small power armor and the NAM power armors are much bigger is also fact. How they are tougher is nothing new, their SP values were significantly higher in DRv2 and there was no problem about it back then. Using size as distinction is also nothing new, DRv2 did it too.

 

[Navian]

This means I have to ignore the classifications for practical purposes, and reassign and apply new ones based on the actual roles units have and how well they serve in them in order to use them in play without confusion. I think that's silly, but okay, seems you're all excited about it.

 

[Syaoran]

This means I have to ignore the classifications for practical purposes, and reassign and apply new ones based on the actual roles units have and how well they serve in them in order to use them in play without confusion. I think that's silly, but okay, seems you're all excited about it.

You don't have to ignore the classifications. In fact you're not supposed to ignore them. It's just that the classification does not mean everything. Think of the classification as determining HP. The defense stat and the special abilities and damage resistances come from the article.

 

[Navian]

It doesn't work, because size doesn't determine 'HP', that's determined by a combination of mass and structural integrity. Mass and structural integrity depend on material composition and technology as much as size, to the point where two things the same size could have different 'HP' by a multiple of two or more (and that's just for environment suits, for spaceships and structures the difference could be more than an order of magnitude.)

By making it so size is the primary determinant, the classifications lose meaning when crossing between faction borders, because while one faction might be able to make 6 foot tall medium power armours, another faction might not even be able to make effective light power armours that small. One faction might be able to make light mecha that are less than four meters tall, another might expect them to be more than six meters in height in order to hold all the systems they need to function as one. And so on.

Size does matter, but it doesn't matter that much. I'm not convinced.

 

[raz]

I still think it's important to look at a power armor's capabilities rather than just its size.

Just looking at size makes Nepleslian PAs more survivable than Yamataian PAs overall, which they never really have been. Just saying "but look at the materials!" doesn't help, since the information on that little chart doesn't suddenly make a Mindy 4 more survivable than a Hostile (which it is).

In other words, a Hostile will always fare better against a tier 4 attack and take only "moderate damage" while a Mindy 4 will take "potentially lethal" damage, according to the "attacks" guide in DRv3. In reality, they're about as equally survivable with the newer m2-4 having the edge because of the other qualities each possess.

 

[Syaoran]

Navian that's why the size is different for different types of things. A 'light vehicle' is a different size from a 'light power armor' generally speaking things of the same type and size will have similar structural integrity when composed of the same materials. They will also have similar mass. So size does work for being used as a basic determination of HP, with the actual materials and properties being modifiers. This system isn't meant to give you an exact figure for something will end up, it's meant to be a guideline for GMs so that they can have some basic information as a skeleton and then flesh it out with the details of the situation.

You're also getting caught up in "size being the primary determinant" but it's not the primary thing for determining damage or durability. It's the primary determiner for classification. The actual sheet does more for that. As you notice weapons aren't really governed by size. However if something like size wasn't used to give a basic limitation on how far up something could go. We would have like I mentioned before people trying to say something Mindy sized, with comparable armor, is just as tanky as an Aggressor with comparable armor, because they just said it is. The volume of an object limits how much plating you can put it on while still including the needed components.

As for Raz, the first sentence of your last paragraph is incorrect. Fred specifically said before that the 'size' does not account for things like the armor and how Zezuim or however it's spelled has massive defensive benefits.

You guys keep comparing things constructed of entirely different materials and technologies at different levels and saying that the bigger thing is better. But it's been explicitly said that technology and material properties make a big different, that's just not included on the guide, however it is mentioned. If we had to account for material properties in the guide it'd be endless and would end up limiting the GMs.

 

[raz]

You can say that materials matter based on explanations Fred has given in this thread, but a straight reading of the DRv3 without that extra information proves that, right now, higher tiers are always more survivable according to the suggested guidelines.

The system should represent survivability at its core. Not everyone comes and reads through 19 pages of explanations.

 

[Syaoran]

Okay then explain this quote taken directly form the materials section of the page.

A material's properties give players options as to what they want to do.

Durandium is an extremely widespread material and makes for cheap, reliable armor. The Mindy relied greatly on Durandium because it was lightweight. Since the Mindy's teleportation module could transfer only a limited amount of weight, the lighter armor permitted to bring along a bigger weapon payload.

However, a Mindy plated in Durandium could take some serious damage from a Hostile's vibroblade in the chest. If the Mindy's breastplate was Zesuaium, the vibroblade wouldn't be able to dent it, as Zesuaium has the property of not being able to be reshaped through physical force.

Other aspects of physics remove that potential. If a gauss bazooka is fired directly in the chest of that same Zesuaium-plated Mindy, all the kinetic impact will be transferred directly over to the inner titanium framework. The Zesuaium chestplate will not have bent, but it may still crush the user's ribcage from the impact.

That looks pretty freakin' clear to me that it says materials matter and can drastically change the defensive ability armor.