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I'm a huge fan of dark heresy, a dnd style game based around the grim and dark future of the war hammer 40k universe. I've always wanted a system for armor and hp that wasn't what dnd normally had. And the Ultimate warrior book has presented just such a system. However i find that while people become incredibly easy to hit in comparison, that ranged combatants slowly become more and more useless as time goes on.
Think about it. A average ranger around 4th level has a composite strength bow for 2 point of strength and either some magical arrows or already has the bow enchanted, adding another plus 1 dmg. So that's 1d8 +3. on average that's 7 point of dmg per shot without any special feats or traits to gain additional dmg from bows. Now a average party make up has 2 armor people, a cleric who wheres medium or light armor and a fighter who wears heavy armor.
The cleric, lets say is wearing a chain shirt. So his armor needs 4 point to get past it. Leaving a lesser 3 points of dmg dealt compared to the original 7. Now you might say, well its a lot easier to hit people , so the average of projectiles fired landing blows increases. And you'd be right about that.
But somehow i still feel that projectile weapons are basically being given the shaft in comparison to melee weapons. The system works fine for magic and melee combat though.
So I was thinking about adding penetration to the game as a game mechanic. My first thought was that since guns are touch attacks in the normal system, they would bypass peoples armor when fired from the first range increment in this alternate system. But i don't see a mention of guns bypassing or penetrating peoples armor in the alternate system presented. guns don't even really do that much dmg, so I'm not sure what the makers of the system are afraid of, the deadliest guns I've ever seen in a medieval dnd game were in Arcanis, where pistols did 3d4 and rifles 4d4 with crits of 19-20 x3 and x4 respectively.
So the help i'm searching for here is how to effectively add penetration into ranged weapons mechanics. Crossbows, historically were feared because a conscript could pick one up and figure out how to use it with very little training compared to archers. And the force behind the bolt was greater than a archer could usually muster, and at closer ranges the bolts would go right through people armor.
So.... any suggestions?
My only idea so far is that when a sneak attack, or crit is made via a ranged weapon you bypass the targets armor up to the weapons crit modifier. So a Bow shot from the first range increment would bypass 3 armor if it was a sneak attack or a crit. Also all called shots that land hits would bypass armor based on the weapons crit modifier. What do you all think?
