H.E.A.T. Damage Type??

[Tailz Silver Paws]

Hello all, I am trying to work out how I could term the damage type for weapons that function on the HEAT or shaped charge warhead principle.

At the moment I am just using the HEAT keyword as the type, but I would like something that describes it better than the acronim for High Explosive Anti Tank.

I was thinking maybe "Plasma" as the energy damage type, as a HEAT warhead creates a high energy, high heat plasma jet of liquid metal (the warheads metal cone forms the hot metal jet as the explosive charge goes off).

Also I treat all hits against soft squishy characters as automatic critical hits from HEAT weapons.

So what do you think? Am I on the right track?

[tdwyer11b]

Yeah, that sounds about right, since the stuff does some nasty damage. In addition to the plasma jet you have spalling from metal fragments shed from the impact.

[Tailz Silver Paws]

Yeah, that sounds about right, since the stuff does some nasty damage. In addition to the plasma jet you have spalling from metal fragments shed from the impact.

True, that would be slashing damage. But the majority would be "plasma" damage.

[Oberoten]

Or make it into "Energy" to cover things like fire, heat and concussion.

IE a non-shrapnel grenade would do Energy damage. But the same kind of "closed" protection that protects against that would be very good against a flamethrower (or at the least a LOT better than a breastplate. )

[Tailz Silver Paws]

Or make it into "Energy" to cover things like fire, heat and concussion.

IE a non-shrapnel grenade would do Energy damage. But the same kind of "closed" protection that protects against that would be very good against a flamethrower (or at the least a LOT better than a breastplate. )

Different types of energy damage have different effects and some creatures/devices/effects, the game mechanics interact differently with various energy type attacks.

So I am editing the rules text to be:

From d20 System:
Weapons are classified according to the type of damage they deal: acid, ballistic, bludgeoning, energy (fire, cold, sonic, force, electric), piercing, or slashing. Some monsters may be resistant or immune to attacks from certain types of weapons.

Some weapons deal damage of multiple types. If a weapon is of two types, the damage it deals is not half one type and half another; all of it is both types. Therefore, a creature would have to be immune to both types of damage to ignore any of the damage from such a weapon.

In other cases, a weapon can deal either of two types of damage. In a situation when the damage type is significant, the wielder can choose which type of damage to deal with such a weapon.

From d20 Modern:
Acid and sonic attacks deal normal damage to most objects. Electricity and fire attacks deal half damage to most objects; divide the damage by 2 before applying hardness. Cold attacks deal one-quarter damage to most objects; divide the damage by 4 before applying the hardness.

I would like to add the energy type Plasma to represent the damage dealt by super heated liquid metal or super heated projected energy weapons (eg: future weapons). A damage type that would deal normal damage to objects, but double damage to living matter.