Notes on the Rules Upgrade

[boot]

Aug 29, 2018 10:04:44 GMT -6 Starbeard said:

Aug 27, 2018 20:00:17 GMT -6 boot said:

The GM controls the Skill Points, and those are awarded only at the end of each adventure.  Thus, advancement is slow but steady.  If a PC gets up to, say, 7D+2 Dodge, then that's a character that has been played a long time, and all he's done is put points into his Dodge skill at the expense of other important skills like Blaster, Brawling, Starship Piloting, Starship Gunnery, and any special interest skill the player may have.

That's a good point. The way experience points work, for a character to max out a skill he'd have to focus on that to the exclusion of all else. A character who slammed dodged is only good at drawing fire (until the enemy gets smart enough to shoot at something they can hit). A character who slammed points into his blaster skill won't ever be able to shoot because he's constantly being hit and stunned. Same goes with the starship combat skills. The combat system rewards balanced characters, which already solves most problems with extreme outliers.

Yes, and the GM can also mix his game up with liberal use of space combat. If there is no, or very little, space combat, then a PC need only focus on his ground combat skills. But, if a PC has to keep Blaster and Dodge improved, plus Brawling and Brawling Parry, and maybe Melee and Melee Parry...and also has to improve Starship Piloting, Starship Shields, Starship Gunnery, and Astrogation...in addition to favored skills like Search, Hide/Sneak, and Medicine...well, that's a lot of skills, all with their mouths open like baby clucks waiting for mama to drop down some skill points!

Chances are, Dodge will be improved because it is an important skill, but other skills demand improvement as well.

[Starbeard]

A brief aside, related to using special rules to speed up the mook vs mook part of a fight:

I've had another thought on how to handle this, instead of using combined fire, etc.: just borrow from the Miniatures Battles rules.

Hitting a target

1. Every attack rolls 1D and adds your skill die code (ignore pips) — so each firing stormtrooper would roll 1D+3.
2. Any rolled 1s 'bomb out' — ignore the die, and your skill bonus becomes 0 — so if a stormtrooper with a +2 conditional modifier rolls a 1, then the roll becomes 0 (dice) + 0 (blasters) + 2 (bonus modifier) = 2.
3. Any rolled 6s 'add and roll over' — keep adding and rolling over as long as you keep rolling a 6.
4. Repeating weapons get to keep attacking, with a cumulative +2 to the difficulty, until they miss a shot.

• Short range: need 6+
• Medium range: need 8+
• Long range: need 10+

Damaging a target

1. Again, all dice are 1D + stat die code.
2. The weapon rolls 1D + damage, vs the defender's 1D + Strength — so a blaster (4D) against a typical character (2D STR) would be rolling 1D+4 vs 1D+2.
3. Again, 1s bomb out and 6s roll over.

• Damage < STR = no effect
• Damage > STR = wounded (knocked to the ground, -1 to further rolls); if already wounded, incapacitated
• Damage > STR+4 = incapacitated (or killed; point is, remove from battle)

All attacks are simultaneous in the miniatures rules, so just roll the bucket of dice for each side and tally up hits & wounds, then mark the results. You don't have to worry about whether someone got wounded before they had a chance to shoot.

To further streamline it, I would just count every wound result as hitting someone who is already wounded (if there are any), so you have less to keep track of. No worrying about randomly applying which individual trooper got hit—just how many are still up and how many are wounded.


How I Would Use This
If the PCs are accompanied by a squad of troopers, say eight or more, and they go up against another squad of stormtroopers, then I would switch to these quick rules for attacks between rebel troopers and stormtroopers. The PCs would take their actions, enemies would take their actions against the PCs, and then the bulk of the troops would just dice off at the end of the round to see who on each side got hit. You could even have a 40 vs 40 battle raging around the PCs and the attacks could still be rolled out fairly quickly, as long as you have a big enough bucket of dice.

If the PCs have nothing else to do but shoot at the mass of stormtroopers alongside their rebel comrades, then I would add them in the 'miniature' attack—but every hit their side receives would have to be diced to see if it hits a PC or a mook. If it hits a PC, then damage is rolled using the RPG rules.

[boot]

That's a damned nice thought you have there, combining the miniature rules with the rpg combat. I definitely think it is worth some playtesting.  I like it a lot.