50cals are deadly as well and yet we have defense tests and game mechanics that make them survivable. Are grenades deadly sure,are they more deadly than a shot to the face by a anti equipment rifle. No, no they are not. In fact they are far less deadly than that. Halve the damage in each band, add a defense test, if the defender has more net hits they are one range band further away than the scatter would indicate, if after scatter the attacker has net hits they add to damage.
Personally, if I had it to design, I would run with this:
- Any attack that is not a spell tests attack test vs. defense. This test is all or nothing - you either avoid the attack or get hit.
- Hits have a base damage value, and are not adjusted by net hits.
- Critical hits occur when the attacker scores twice as many hits or more as the defender scores.
Even if it makes real life sense that some attacks can't be avoided (explosives is a good example), that doesn't work well for game design or balance, especially if we make the damage from those unavoidable attacks ludicrously high.