STREAMLINING LETHALITY IN THE DELTA GREEN RPG
Added 2024-04-05 15:21:44 +0000 UTCYears of playing the Delta Green RPG rules have led me to adopt the following in my games (note, this is a modification of how Lethality rolls are resolved, it doesn't much change the underlying mechanics). We created Lethality to streamline the otherwise tedious task of rolling endless damage dice, but over the years I've realized it can be further streamlined...
Usually, when a weapon has a Lethality rating (like a Hand Grenade with Lethality 15%), you roll the Skill to hit, and then, if you hit, you roll the Lethality rating. If you roll under the Lethality rating, the target drops to 0 HP. If you roll over, you add the two dice together and apply that as HP damage.
EXAMPLE OF THE PREVIOUS SYSTEM: You roll Athletics 55% to throw the Grenade. You roll 41 and hit, and then roll the Lethality Rating of 15%. You roll 26 and fail, so the target suffers 6+2=8 HP damage.
With this modification, you streamline the process further:
When you roll the Skill to hit, note the attack's Lethality number. If the SKILL ROLL is UNDER the Lethality number, the target drops to 0 HP. If it is OVER the Lethality Number, but BELOW (or equal) to the Skill Number, add the two dice together and apply that as HP damage. If the roll is ABOVE the Skill Number, the attack misses. Critical success doubles the Lethality Rating and doubles the HP damage if the Lethality Roll fails as normal.
NOTE: While this increases Lethality in a weapon by a measurable amount, it changes little else. For my considerations, this isn't enough for it to matter (truth be told, if you were shot by ANY firearm, you should be rolling Lethality, not a 1d10 HP damage). For you, that might be different. If you want the odds to remain unchanged, try dividing the Lethality number by 5 to get a similar spread to the previous two roll system (so a Lethality 10 becomes 2, 15 becomes 3, etc...)
EXAMPLE OF DENNIS'S HOUSE RULE: You roll Athletics 55% to throw the Grenade which has a Lethality Rating of 15%. You roll 37 and hit, but since you rolled HIGHER than the Lethality Rating but LOWER than the Athletics, the target suffers 7+3=10 HP damage. If you had rolled 15 or less, the target would have dropped immediately to 0 HP.
For some this might seem obvious, for others, a nice surprise. For me, when I realized this was essentially identical to the previous system minus another die roll to resolve combat, I was quite pleased and it became my default rule for Lethality.
It will almost certainly go into future editions of the Delta Green RPG as the rules for Lethality (and no, we have no plans in place for when or what that might look like...yet).
Comments
Yea, you're not wrong. I guess the best way to evaluate it just to try it out. It's not like it's a big change and if it works for the group keep it and if it doesn't, just revert.
Rasmus Paulsen
2024-06-14 18:21:47 +0000 UTCThis is true Rasmus, but remember the average person is about 10 HP. As I said, YMMV. I've used it for quite some time and have seen no ill-effects.
Dennis Detwiller
2024-06-14 14:49:19 +0000 UTC"You roll Athletics 55% to throw the Grenade which has a Lethality Rating of 15%. You roll 37 and hit, but since you rolled HIGHER than the Lethality Rating but LOWER than the Athletics, the target suffers 7+3=10 HP damage. If you had rolled 15 or less, the target would have dropped immediately to 0 HP." Forgive me if I'm dense, but wouldn't this miss out on some potential very high damage rolls. In the above example, by not rolling the damage dice on their own, don't you miss out on the chance of rolling 89 thus getting 17 DMG? The player above with 55 Athlectics, crits aside, cannot roll above 55 to roll damage with the revised rules. Yes, you save a roll, but you lose a lot of damage potential. With the old rules, the damage roll had a high peak in both ends of the scale. Now you cut away one side of the scale.
Rasmus Paulsen
2024-06-14 14:32:54 +0000 UTCYeah, 45% Firearms would have their damage outside a Lethality-result capped at 14 (on a roll of "40") or 16 (on a Crit roll of "44" when HP-damage is doubled)? Still plenty deadly and a skilled attacker might do more HP-damage on average than a mediocre one, but it's not something massively game-changing as far as I can see. I like it, but I also sort of liked the cruel randomness of separate rolls missing the Lethality but ending up a crushing "89". In the end, I feel it's a flavor thing that I can test at the table and let the players decide which one they like best :)
Beelzebjörn
2024-04-20 03:31:07 +0000 UTCWell ACHTUALLY...The rule is not 10-20% death (unless you want it that way, of course, it works fine at my table). That's why there's the Lethality÷5 option, which sounds like what you want. So 1-2% of instant death (it should be MUCH higher, honestly). About 1/4 of shootings in the US end in dead. (The examples you point out are a vast numbers game —billions of shots with a few “but the guy walked away”…If utter realism was the target everyone would have normal skills in Firearms, UNTIL a shooting with intent to kill, whereupon all their skills would drop to 20s, with nearly all short range shots missing, punctuated by hits that kill ~25% of the time). The obscene amount of mechanical control in TTRPGs is PRECISELY the opposite of real combat (as pitched and tuned for us by combat experienced by a Marine Major and a Navy Captain), beware the "but I saw it on YouTube!" As for "If every weapon was 10-20% death, otherwise 2d10 dmg (double on crits), there would barely be any middle ground and combat would be unplayably lethal." I'd have to say wrong. I've run it that way for a long time with no problems. People who DO get into a gun battle never want to see one again. Now THAT is realistic ;) Cheers!
Dennis Detwiller
2024-04-11 12:32:04 +0000 UTC> truth be told, if you were shot by ANY firearm, you should be rolling Lethality, not a 1d10 HP damage Mhhh, at the risk of going ACKSHUALLY... People have survived gunshot wounds, sometimes multiples, fought with them, or continued intense movement. Not to mention being saved by personal armour / helmets from even sniper / marksman shots (e.g. famous Marine vid of getting shot in the head with a Dragunov and just falling and getting up again). If every weapon was 10-20% death, otherwise 2d10 dmg (double on crits), there would barely be any middle ground and combat would be unplayably lethal.
Threefold Brush
2024-04-11 09:32:28 +0000 UTCYes, sorry by "non-lethal damage" I do mean the damage calculated by adding the two dice together. I'm almost certainly just overthinking this.
Paul Browning
2024-04-10 17:48:03 +0000 UTC"Non-lethal damage"? Do you mean adding the two dice together — sorry, confused by your comment. If you want to normalize the math, divide the Lethality by 5, which will keep it within the existing range. But yes, this means a shitty shot will get a lucky shot and kill their target if they roll a 3 or 2 or lower, etc. Otherwise they miss. (Also, keep in mind ~10-12 HP damage is the mathematical equivalent of "dead" for most Agents anyway. )
Dennis Detwiller
2024-04-10 13:34:57 +0000 UTCAm I right in thinking this places a cap on non-lethal damage that scales as your skill increases and that with low skills (at or below the lethality rating) you either get a lethal hit or miss ?
Paul Browning
2024-04-10 12:34:23 +0000 UTCFor some reason I read this as "Streamlining leGality in Delta Green RPG" and thought "WTF?" After recovering from the initial lapsus and reading it, I thought "very nice house rule."
Gus Diaz
2024-04-08 15:01:33 +0000 UTCI'm also loving this, and will use it in my game. Great Idea, Dennis, as always!
Andrew S
2024-04-08 06:16:01 +0000 UTCI will definitely be using this. It just streamlines combat. Especially because combat is supposed to be an intense situation that is made tedious with so many dice rolls, IMO
Tyler Dorton-Beck
2024-04-06 23:32:11 +0000 UTCI've always handled it like it is in the Agent's Handbook "MANY TARGETS: A single attack with a Kill Radius usually affects everyone in the Kill Radius. If that doesn’t make sense for the situation, the Handler can decide who gets hit."
Dennis Detwiller
2024-04-06 16:01:05 +0000 UTCI like this, I think the possibility of "dead right there" attack rolls definitely enhances the "this is why people get nervous when guns come out" tone of DG. I'm curious how this rule handles kill radius. If my PC, Sgt Keyes, announces his separation from NRO Delta by tossing a grenade into the middle of MJ-12's bigwig roundtable (a literal round table), not calling a specific MJ bigwig a target but intending to put them all in the grenade's kill radius, I'm assuming a successful roll under lethality does not presumptively kill everyone sitting within the blast radius outright. Rather, the handler would have to randomly determine which member takes that first instant death and then make a lethality check for each additional member at the table inside the kill radius. Or would they all in fact be killed under the streamlined rule? I guess there's a third possibility, that each seat at the table receives an attack roll under this rule; but that would be nerfing kill radius munitions and I don't think that's the intent.
Midnight Platypus
2024-04-06 15:58:49 +0000 UTCConsidering you still have to hit. Not likely. But, as I said, if you want to normalize it, divide the Lethality by 5 (I personally don’t think that’s needed, but YMMV).
Dennis Detwiller
2024-04-06 12:25:53 +0000 UTCI wonder if this would encourage PCs with low Firearms skill to engage in a shootout. Would this new rule increase their chances of fucking people over compared to the current one?
fellowhoodlum
2024-04-06 06:31:34 +0000 UTCIt was doubled if the attack roll was a critical. “ If the attack roll is a critical success, double the Lethality rating, and double the HP damage if the Lethality roll fails.”
Dennis Detwiller
2024-04-06 03:13:58 +0000 UTCInteresting. I don't know if I'm actually gonna use this but it's an fun thought experiment. Did crits with Lethality weapons always do double damage if they rolled over the doubled lethality? I must have missed that and have been doing that "wrong" 😵💫
Sabreman777
2024-04-06 03:11:07 +0000 UTCHaha. No it’s cool. I like chatting about this stuff. The consideration going in for me was “how much this changes results” vs. “How much faster is it?” Truth be told, it doesn’t change outcomes too much because when Lethality comes into play (in this version or in the real game) the results are “miss” “fucked” or “TOTALLY FUCKED”. There’s not much of a spectrum there. And it seems MUCH faster. In any case, that’s where I’m coming from.
Dennis Detwiller
2024-04-05 20:56:47 +0000 UTCYeah. You're right. I'm very much chatting shit tonight. I'll get my coat.
Steve
2024-04-05 20:51:37 +0000 UTCInteresting points (the first one more than the last), but again, on the second one particularly, if you miss the Lethality rating it still does both dice added together, low skill or not in the normal system. This would make it more likely than not they get the 0 HP effect (which due to the shit skill would be described under any circumstances as a “lucky shot”). Statistically speaking for the average agent losing ~10-12 HP or going to 0 HP is essentially the same outcome. We’ve played this extensively across dozens of groups and it has never been noticed as wildly different, but YMMV.
Dennis Detwiller
2024-04-05 20:40:44 +0000 UTCOr what Cody said below. But I still think fewer rolls are better.
Steve
2024-04-05 20:38:26 +0000 UTCWhat he said. Essentially if Lethality is 15%, your chance of Lethality is 15% of your chance to hit, so if you've got 50% to hit, Lethality is 7.5% (actually it's a little bit higher because of criticals, but not very much, still only 8.1%). With the new system Lethality is the lower of your to hit chance or 15%, so almost always 15%. Under old system, you'd need much nearer to 100% to get it that high.
Steve
2024-04-05 20:37:15 +0000 UTCI see what he means. If you roll a success on to hit and then roll the lethality you have a chance of higher damage. With the streamlined approach the player will never be able to do more damage than by adding the two digits of their skill points together. As an example if your skill at something were 30% you can never score more than 13 points unless you score a crit then your max damage would be 26. If you use the approach written in the book you could succeed on your to hit, fail the lethality roll but roll a 98 (max damage without a critical) for a total of 17 points. While the point difference in damage isn't incredible there is a difference, and the lower the players skill with a weapon that has a lethality rating the less max damage they can do unless they roll a critical. ALSO is creates a scenario, while statistically low, of ALWAYS killing with a weapon If a PCs skill is under the lethality rating for the weapon used. They will always kill something if they roll to hit. That means a PC with a skill of say 10% in Heavy Weapons will always kill everything they manage to hit with a weapon that has a lethality rating of 10% or higher (if it can be killed with that weapon). With the system in the book then one can have a low skill rating, hit, miss the lethality rating and then roll low on damage to allow some targets to survive. I'm not sure I'm sold on the revised system here. It saves one die roll but skews results.
Mike Nusbaum
2024-04-05 20:26:06 +0000 UTC(But if such a difference mattered to you, dividing the Lethality by 5 might help. I don’t think that level of fidelity is really necessary when you’re dealing with weapons designed to chop the human body into giblets. Cheers!)
Dennis Detwiller
2024-04-05 16:22:25 +0000 UTCYeah, I took this into account. Considering the Lethality outcomes are “dead” or “fucked” (but once past the threshold never really mediocre it really is a minor range shift. In play that difference is all but unnoticeable.
Dennis Detwiller
2024-04-05 16:20:02 +0000 UTCI'm not sure if it's intended or not, but this actually makes weapons with Lethality a decent bit more powerful. For example, consider a weapons with a 10% Lethality, used by a player with a 20% in the relevant skill. With the old Lethality rules, the player has a 20% chance to hit, and then when they hit, a 10% chance to get an immediately lethal hit, for a total 2% chance of an instant kill. With the new rules, the player has a 10% chance to hit the lethal range and get an instant kill.
Cody West
2024-04-05 16:16:53 +0000 UTCAh! I thought I might have missed something. Cheers.
Dennis Detwiller
2024-04-05 16:08:31 +0000 UTCBecause I'd forgotten, in my dotage, that DG criticals are on doubles, not low rolls.
Steve
2024-04-05 16:05:29 +0000 UTCAn engine with one roll, eh? You could be on to something.
Simon Brunning
2024-04-05 16:05:26 +0000 UTCIt already says: "Critical success doubles the Lethality Rating and doubles the HP damage if the Lethality Roll fails as normal." With a Grenade (lethality 15) and Athletics (65). If you rolled a 55, that would be a critical, and the Lethality would be 30, and the damage inflicted by the 5+5 would be x2 or 20. But perhaps I'm not grasping your point.
Dennis Detwiller
2024-04-05 15:41:56 +0000 UTCIt does make weapons a bit less lethal, because ordinarily a critical hit doubles the lethality rating, and damage. And now there's no circumstance under which you might critically hit but not get lethal damage. But that said, it does streamline the rules, require less rolling, and it's what I've been doing anyway.
Steve
2024-04-05 15:33:55 +0000 UTCTo be completely honest I misremembered the rules as written and thought that this is how lethality rolls worked. Or perhaps I was remembering something I hadn’t read yet…
Connor McCormick
2024-04-05 15:27:59 +0000 UTC(Yeah, we should have written it that way!)
Dennis Detwiller
2024-04-05 15:24:33 +0000 UTCThis makes a heap of sense and is how I’ve actually been running it in my games. Can confirm, it works fantastically
An Actual Wombat
2024-04-05 15:23:54 +0000 UTC
