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Post by S W Dickson Wed Dec 16, 2009 4:31 pm

Movement = 1" - 24"

Ranged = 2+, 3+, 4+, 5+, 6+

Fight = 1 - 6
Guard = 1 - 10
Attacks = 1 - 10
Strength = 1 - 20
Defence = 1- 20

Life = 1 - 6

Agility = 1 - 6
Spirit = 1 - 6

Okay, there's a brief rundown of the stats as they've developed so far. Ranged Weapons gain their own entry after the model. Some items may not be needed as yet and not developed for, but I reckon it's fairly exhaustive and solid enough. The only time high numbers are bad, is with the ranged skill. It's all still looks pretty rough, esp. as it's been broken up into its component parts, but I reckon it'll look good as a statline, and one that'll be easy to understand. Especially with the new user-friendly names! I hope they all sound like what they do. I was wondering, would it be an idea in the guidelines to have an icon, instead of abbreviation for the statistic headers? The standard is to abbreviate - here's an example -
M R F G A S D L Ag Sp
6" 3+ 4 8 1 6 12 1 4 5

Can you guess what it is yet?
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Post by Kane Wed Dec 16, 2009 4:49 pm

So...why is their a Guard and Defense? Guard=difficulty to be hit and Defense=reduce damage?

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Post by sucramreverse Wed Dec 16, 2009 5:47 pm

melee hits = fight vs guard
melee damage= strength vs defence

did I guess right? If so, give an example, because as it looks now, how would it work with the subtraction method?

I like the names though, and icons would be fancy. though an accepted abbreviation should be provided as well so players can list out stats on paper and not confuse anyone.
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Post by poet Thu Dec 17, 2009 2:52 am

Why is the ranged attack an exception?
Currently, there is no way, inherent in the system, to affect how easy a model is to hit with a ranged attack.

This is what makes bows so annoying in Lord of the Rings and why the designers put a limit on 33% bows. This is BAD. It means a ranged army will be superior almost all the time, unless you give them very low strength, which doesn't really make any sense if you're using any kind of gun.

Why not use the agility as the to-hit comparison for ranged attacks?

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Post by sucramreverse Thu Dec 17, 2009 3:46 am

ranged hit = ranged skill vs agility

good idea actually.

But then would a high agility unit become too hard to kill? Dodging arrows and (I'm assuming) attacking first in melee. While more realistic, it could make that unit extremely annoying for the opponent. Of course, they would probably be worth a bit more, and you'd have less of them.

I want an army of ninjas with max'd agility Twisted Evil
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Post by poet Thu Dec 17, 2009 6:17 am

I think that at this point we should do a recap, get all the rules again into a single point of agreement. And then restart the discussion.

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Post by Kane Thu Dec 17, 2009 9:19 am

I could see a unit getting an Agility bonus if they were in a skirmished formation or for individuals, but ranked units would just hold the line.

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Post by sucramreverse Fri Dec 18, 2009 2:49 am

And any unit that needs to line up in ranks is likely to not have very good agility, whether dodging arrows or fighting melee.

I agree though that someone should scrape all the relevant points together into one post and start a new thread. I'll do it if nobody else does, but that seems like work...
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Post by S W Dickson Sat Dec 19, 2009 10:11 am

I'm all for another go. I'll give it a try. Sorry not been on for like, 36 hours or so - seasonal workload and family commitments (not to mention the ruddy sleety snow - I like proper "dry" snow, but this biting wind and damp icy slushy rain is not conducive to quick travel to and fro locations...)
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Post by S W Dickson Sun Dec 20, 2009 3:56 pm

I was having a thought regarding the new Guard stat re: Ranged stat, it may be throwing too much in the statline, but as the desire to have all the information easily accessible, would another stat be altogether too nasty? Possibly replacing Agility, until we can find a use for it.

I like the idea of Agility coming into the equation, but there is so much more to it when shooting at something. There is of course the size of the target - a closely grouped regiment or a tank being much easier to hit as opposed to a single human sized model. The speed of the target - is it moving, is it moving fast, is it hiding behind something, is it supernaturally shrouded in shadows?

So, a similar stat to Guard, but this time with regards to how easy it is to spot and fire at. A large group (ooh, of 5 or more) human sized models would be easier to hit than a single guy. A monster, tank etc. would also be easier to hit. A dog, or ninja, would be harder to hit. (I don't like to keep using ninjas, but they're just asking for it)

State of the game update:

Combat and Shooting coming along nicely.
Movement, player turns etc. need a lot of work.
Morale, completion of turns etc. needs to be started.
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Post by poet Mon Dec 21, 2009 3:41 pm

I don't think its too much trouble to remember a list like this:
Rank and file -1 ranged defense.
single model +1 ranged defense.
Models with move 10" or higher +1 ranged defense.

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Post by S W Dickson Sun Dec 27, 2009 10:42 am

Remembering that many of the things that we are discussing are purely from a development point of view is hard sometimes - having a set of rules for us to create units is essential, and if the game is to be simple to play, and bereft of complicated tables, we can include the modifiers simply in each statline. I'm thinking that you'd have it something like this

-
Unit Name/Type
Statline
Sergeant/Mount/Upgrade model stats
Ranged weapon stats

Cost of Unit (e.g. Regiment of 10 Kings Guard armed with Halberds (including 1 Sergeant) - 80pts + 8pts for each additional)
Unit Upgrades (e.g. Upgrade the sergeant to a decorated Sergeant - +8pts, upgrade a guard to carry a standard - +8pts, upgrade a guard to a musician - +6pts)

Special Rules (e.g. "Assassin" = does not lose Fight Skill whilst taking cover, "Aethyric" = does not take damage from non-magic weapons, "Amphibious" = does not count water features as difficult terrain, "Flying" = Ignores Terrain, and may always move up to full distance, "Sweeping Tail" = May make 1 Attack against all opponents in base contact against their Agility as opposed to Guard, instead of its normal attacks etc.)

-

As you can see, it's not very big, but almost everything you'd ever need to know about a unit would be here, including unit costs (that remains to be seen of course) and any alternative statlines.

This is just an excuse to bring up special rules and stuff - and I reckon that is the way to go - a brief descriptive name, and it's effects. No need to fluff it out, especially when it's a rule reference - perhaps include an appendix of what special rules actually signify, but so long as you know what is happening, does anyone need a paragraph to explain it?
Perhaps even highlighting what area the special rule affects, so you don't need to worry about it before it comes down to its use.

I had a thought about movement, and someone else was talking about a D6 roll for terrain - and I reckon this could work -

Terrain Feature - roll a D6
Score 1 - May not further than 1"
Score 2-5 - May move up to half the movement
Score 6 - May move normal movement

Of course, there'll be terrain that's signified as too hard to cross (impassable?) or dangerous. Impassable would be impossible to cross for anything unless noted (such as "flying"). Dangerous would perhaps use the terrain roll, and a roll of 1 would take a point of life.

On charging - Making a charge is the nail in the coffin of many games, and it's hard to say how to make it just right. Too easy, and it makes close combat specialists hard as nails, too hard, and it makes shooting too effective. Hard to say as turn sequence is up in the air still. I reckon the shooting and combat basics are ready for dice to get rolled and tested, but moving into combat, maneuvering etc, is another matter. I'm going to go brainstorm, with models and dice.
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Post by S W Dickson Sun Dec 27, 2009 12:24 pm

Okay, so just done some playtesting with the current process -

1. Killing a tank is weird - no in between, it's dead or it's not. Extra life doesn't seem to sort it - it just need more to kill it, no massive explosions. Possibly rules for weapons giving x, y or z damage. An anti-tank weapon doing more explosive damage than just whittling away at life points.

2. No interaction with other player. I kill you. You have no chance to expend your own "luck" defending yourself. Feels a bit unfair for whoever's getting shot at. Hrm.

3. A rundown of the stats and how well they work.

Movement - not truly tested, but seems to be okay
Ranged - Again, seems to be reasonably balanced - and convertible.
Target - It's interactivity is limited - 7 seems the best number for the average sized target, but make it under 6 (huge) and it becomes a barn door. So, there's really three stats here - 6 = Tank, Dragon etc. 7 = Human sized 8 = Stealthmaster/incrediby small - especially if hiding would modify the target stat. However, it may assist in the problem of defending yourself when being shot at, it's down to your own postitioning.
Fight and Guard - working well, and seems to be well balanced, get away with up to 9/10 guard and feels right.
Attacks - again, quite reasonable, as expected
Strength and Defend - Quite funny, I marked up the points fairly accurately to my initial formula, and it worked quite well. The only problem was as before - it seemed a very small margin between someone living and dying, with no interaction from the defender. Working with just a single D6 seems quite brutal at times for models that shouldn't be as worried about certain attacks. This also applies to the tanks. Perhaps another tier of defence? Perhaps the agility concept could come in before rolling to damage - except that is given by Guard in its calculation.
Life - Again, a fairly self-explanatory stat that worked without problem. It's a standard.
Agility and Spirit - I didn't use these, but it poked my brain a bit as to how they could be used.

So there you go. A wee report. Strength and Defend need a look at. The new Target stat is certainly a sticky subject, and needs clarity.

I have thought about tanks, and reckon a standard Tank should have 6 or more lifepoints, which can be whittled away by anti-infantry guns and stuff, but an Anti-tank gun/missile would have the ability to cause D6 points of damage, and if it's the killing blow to the tank, it'd blow up and out D6 inches, causing more damage, otherwise it'd just stutter out and die. It'd make killing the tank more fun. Major tanks would have different areas - Hull, weapons, sponsons, engine - and you'd have to destroy the engine to stop it moving, the main gun separately from the sponsons - of course only the engine and the main weapons would have the highest defence and would have the chance to blow up, therefore a canny player will go for the jugular, but if they can't, they can still take out some of the danger from the other available targets.
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Post by S W Dickson Mon Dec 28, 2009 1:12 pm

Right, so Strength vs Defend

If you have a model with Strength 6, against a model with Defend 9, you're looking at 3+. However, by using the full gamut of numbering, a Strength of 6 is about the Strength of a Modern Anti-infantry rifle, and Defend of 9 is around where well-armoured human goes, which is fine. A power-armoured guy would get Defend around the 11 mark - which still means a single roll of 5+ would take him out. Not so good. The same applies to tanks and the like.

So, what to do? I dunno. I'd say that the concept is sound, but the numbers are a) hard to keep track of and b) a bit unfair on the lesser powered guys. Perhaps dropping Strength down to 1-10 vs Defend of 1-14 (Strength Maximum = Defence Maximum = 4+ dice roll) may be more appropriate. Perhaps the use of a Guard roll for the Defender to give them some form of interaction with their guys at this point.

Anyway, I'm gonna work on an alternative just now.
Tanks and fortification etc. may need a separate "sapper" stat.
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Post by S W Dickson Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:23 pm

I've also noticed that as per my last but one posting - Target is a silly statistic, which does little to the stat-line functionally, when the 4+ roll is just sitting there. I understand the reasons why it was changed, but it seems that the Ranged skill vs Target is more complex than it need be, when 9 times out of ten you'll be shooting Target 7 models. It would make more sense to add a note to each model that is not "standard" to modify the shooting ability appropriately. It also keeps the stat-numbers down - too much going on just now - a bit RPG-y.

I'm also wondering if Fight vs Guard is working as it should. On it's own it's okay, but with the issues regarding Strength vs Defend - is it a tad lopsided? Where does our defender get to put his shield up? Looking at ways to combine this and possibly agility for a defence roll for the defender.

NB - Just had a thought regarding armour and defend. I wanted something easy to use, whilst still approximating the effects of certain armour types. Using no tables, only a simple rule. Armour classes starting at 5, down to -2 the better it is. Add the strength of what you're being hit with, and that is the roll you must make. e.g. A Knight has an armour class of 0, and is hit with a crossbow at strength 4, he adds the four to 0, therefore receives a save of 4+. A Tank with an Armour class of -2 is hit with a Anti-Tank laser of Strength 8, they get a roll of 5+ to deflect it. A Lightly armour trooper with armour class 4 is hit with a small slingshot of Strength two, and gets a roll of 6+ to save. Some weapons may be able to negate the armour (possibly the Laser!)
It's not as pretty as I'd wish, but it's just a thought. Unfortunately it doesn't use the subtraction method, but without adding another stat into it, it just won't work. This means that the defender will get a go at saving his boys, rather than just watch them die. Can anyone come up with a more elegant method that doesn't involve calculating from nasty ugly negative numbers? Would the addition of an anti-armour stat for the attacker be too far? Obviously as some weapons are more likely to penetrate armour or circumvent shield use. I would love the armour to be in line with the subtraction method, with higher numbers being better, but I can't see it working simply.

Armour Class method 1 (using strength as modifier) -

Armour Class = -1 vs Strength = 4
D6 roll to save casualty = 3+

Armour Class method 2 (using Armour classes 0-6 and Anti-Armour value as plus modifier)

Armour Class = 2 vs Strength 4 weapon with Anti-Armour value of 1
D6 roll to save casualty = 3+
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Post by S W Dickson Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:07 pm

Here's a sample "statcard" for your pleasure - a quick nyadd - sea-dwelling elfin sorta creature. If you wanna play test it out of combat, give the harpoon a stat of something like S-4 AA-2 Range-18" Shots-1 (move and shoot?)

Starter for ten... - Page 2 Test_s10

Oh yeah, the stats in this revision are

M - Movement in inches
R - Ranged Ability
F - Fight Skill
G - Guard Skill
S - Strength
D - Defend
A - Attacks, number of
AA - Anti-armour, Close Combat attacks
Arm - Armour Class
L - Life Points
Ag - Agility
Sp - Spirit

With a layout similar to this, with all the associated stats grouped together, it should be quite easy for players to reference stuff.
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Post by S W Dickson Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:01 pm

Thought I'd just recap what I've written up for the rules so far - this is simply for the combat phase. Movement is coming along - but I'm definitely starting to worry about the "All move before shooting/combat" - it takes some of the steam out of well-timed charges and things. Anyway, use the stat above with this, and see how it feels for fighting -

COMBAT

In a close combat turn, there may be many individual fights occurring. The order in which they are played through is not important, so long as they are all played. The “controlling player” decides which order fights are to be played.

Determining who fights first
To find out which models in a fight go first, look at the models Agility value. This tells you how fast they are, and therefore how quickly they react to their enemies. Those with the highest value fight first, proceeding in descending order. If all the models have the same agility value, then they count as attacking at the same time, but to avoid confusion, it is best perhaps to still take turns to roll the dice. If a model in a fight is killed by a model with a higher agility then it has no chance to strike. This is one reason why such value is placed on high Agility troops.

Fighting
The attacker resolves their attacks by rolling the amount of dice equal to the Attacks value on their profile. They must roll equal to or more than the value of their opponents Guard skill minus their own models Fight skill to score a hit.
If they score a hit, the attacker then rolls to see how much damage they cause. For each attack that hit, roll again, this time rolling equal to or more than the value of their opponents Defend skill minus their own Strength skill.
For every roll that succeeds, the defender must take one Life point from the defending model. When a model reaches 0 Life points, it is removed as a casualty.

Armour
Some models are blessed with armour enough to help prevent their untimely demise. Albeit this is not foolproof, it is a surefire way of making sure your troops survive longer. Once an attack has been resolved to the point where a Life point is due to be taken (and usually a model with it!), models with an Armour Rating (Amr) may attempt to save it. Some weapons also carry enough weight, or are designed specifically, to defeat armour plating, and as such can have an Anti-Armour (AA) rating. To determine your “Armour Roll”, simply add the AA rating of what you have been hit with (if any) to the Amr value of your model – and this is what you need to score on a D6 or higher to negate the Damage – your model does not lose their Life Point. As with many rolls, no matter how good your armour, a roll of a 1 will automatically fail, however, a roll of a 6 is not an automatic pass – sometimes your luck just runs out!
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Post by sucramreverse Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:02 pm

wow, quite a bit of reading there o.0

anyway, I was thinking that why doesn't the defender roll for fight vs guard? the attacker already rolls for hitting with melee skill.

and as for the tank vs infantry and how to represent armour, just thought I might point out something to think about. In a few RTS videogames, this is represented by each unit having multiple armour rating depending on what type of weapon is attacking it.
ie:
anti-infantry, anti-light armour(chariot/power armour), anti-tank(heavy armour)

so a tank would have a higher armour vs anti-infantry weapons a fairly good rating against anti-light armour, and lowest in anti-tank, obviously.

just something to think about, even though doing something like this would be adding way too many stats probably.
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Post by S W Dickson Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:23 pm

I've been busy! (Sometimes it's hard to stop)

I was thinking about the different values too. It's just hard to make it not be too RPGish with all these stats.

I thought the wounding system would work quite well for tanks. Give them armour saves too. Light Vehicles (bikes, dune buggies etc.) may be whittled away with small arms fire until it fizzled out, but to blow it up, you'd still need an Anti-tank weapon with it's own specific anti-tank powers.

I'm imagining fifty foot tall battle robots too, with stats for each arm and torso/head. You could take out the arms, but it'd still stomp on you. Or a Ship to shore battle - you could aim for the rigging, the decks, the hull, or the guns.

But yeah - ideally you'd have Tanks being very hard to kill/impossible with small arms, but with the right weapons you could take it out. Possibly in the weapon stats, a special "Anti-Tank" attack - whose to say you couldn't use it on a particularly powerful hero though? I know of several things that count as "fire magnets" and they ain't always big ol tanks.
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Post by sucramreverse Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:33 pm

hmmm..."anti-tank" attack you say. perhaps an anti-tank mechanic. penalty for using the special anti-armour attack (like no moving for that unit that turn) and then just add in an effective attack rating to the weapon's profile?

would mean that a well armoured tank could be whittled away mindlessly by pointy sticks or one rocket launcher guy takes the time to load the "super missiles" and blow it up.

maybe make the penalty part of the stat, like
"super missiles, str 10 (Immobile[common special rule])"
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Post by S W Dickson Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:47 pm

Yeah - but pointy sticks would do nothing with strength about the 2 mark as opposed to Defend Rating of the lightest Tank starting about 10 - no cigar for the men with pointy sticks! A Bloke with a sledgehammer might make some dents at Strength 5-6, but again, will take him a while. Especially if the tank has an Armour Class.

So yeah, varying weapons, varying weapon abilities pros and cons. And if in doubt, make them expensive.
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Post by poet Tue Dec 29, 2009 2:35 am

How about:

Defend too great! -
A model with 7 or more Defend than the strength of the attack can't be damaged by it.

Armor piercing -
Some weapons have armor piercing quality, models have their defend halved when determining damage from strength of these weapons.

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Post by Kane Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:10 am

Poet, good call on both counts. I like that.

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Post by S W Dickson Tue Dec 29, 2009 4:42 pm

How about the damage roll not liable to the 1+ = Always Fail, 6+ = Always Pass rule.

Rather, for damage rolls 1+ = Always fails - giving weak troops a sporting chance, but if you need to roll a 7, you're stuffed, meaning you don't get unseemly wet flannel attacks taking out bunkers.

I like the Armour Piercing being just as a yes or no, with a standard Effect. I did like the use of armour classes though - my hypothesis on this -

Whilst the Strength of vs Defend values give a good approximation of the powers the model represents, it does have a couple of shortcomings - For a truly representative, inclusive of armour, statistic, the numbers get ungainly high, and as the numbers get higher the simplicity of the system wears thinner by demanding double digit calculations - which is easy enough, but it soon turns into monotonous arithematic with higher numbers of troops. I'm thinking of the lower echelons of statistics being populated by 9/10 of your models, with the Cannons, Dragons, Tanks etc occupying the higher echelons. My issue with a standard effect Armour piercing rule (especially affecting Defend) is that it does not represent the gamut of armour available - A direct hit from a Field Gun would pretty much pass through a Knight in full plate armour, however it'd be lucky to leave a dent in a modern tank - yet an implosive depleted uranium fictional anti tank missile should run through it like butter - it'd still be nice to give the cannon a lucky chance to cause damage. The numbers to fully give benefit to better armoured models would be in the tens and twenties, and that's where anything from a Modern Infantrymans Rifle, to a ICBM would be doing the damage. To illustrate what I mean -

The Armour method -
A Human wearing a fully protective suit of Kevlar Body Armour - Defend = 7 Amr = 4
A Shotgun - Strength = 3 AA = -
Rifle loaded with Armour Piercing rounds - Strength = 4 AA= 2

The human would be damaged by the shotgun on a roll of 4+, and receive the full benefit of his armour, allowing him to save himself on a roll of a 4+
He would be damaged by the rifle on a roll of a 3+, and it would allow him to save himself on a 6+ - the armour is still there, it's just less effective - it could be blind luck and it hits him at an angle that allows deflection.

The Armour Piercing Method -
Same human in Kevlar - Defend = 14
Shotgun - Strength = 3
Rifle Armour Piercing - Strength = 4

The guy gets no save from the shotgun, but as his opponent needs 11+ to kill him, he's laughing!
The rifle halves his Defend down to 7, killing on a 3+ again. No way to save.

That's my killer right there. The reason behind the third roll (To hit, To Damage, To Save) to see if someones getting killed is to add a certain longevity to your troops. For the hundred years war troops and medieval stuff, I'd keep Armour out of it as much as possible - as you'd want your regiments churning through masses of bodies, but for heroes and modern warfare, it seems a bit more necessary.

My closing argument is this example - Dragons.
Naturally tough skinned, and meaty. Big and hard to damage noticeably. Out of fourteen, I'd probably say a Defence of 12 would be appropriate based on my calculations - that means someone would have to have a Strength of at least 6 to even look like driving a Sword or whatever into it's musculature before they even look like hurting it. That's before you count the scales - which would more than likely protect it from most shiny sharp objects. Give it an armour value of 3 to count for this. (you could add it in the Defend stat, but that means no lucky strikes from "powerful" weapons)
Then someone comes along and clads it in Bronze armour...

Your heroic knight could still hurt it, but my god he'd have to be good - probably with excalibur. You can't just walk up to a dragon and expect it to die for you.

Anyways, that's my reasoning. I've been through a dozen or so lists of how to allocate statistics over the past few days, and this way seemed to be one of the most reasonable without too much hassle for the player. Unfortunately the one thing with my explanations, they need heavy editorial work before public consumption!
S W Dickson
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Post by S W Dickson Mon Feb 01, 2010 2:40 pm

Okay, I've been living the postapocalyptic dream for wee bit too long it seems!

Back to some rules -

As far as scalability goes - The "interesting" turn sequence turns out to be not that good. It's just too unpliable - if that's a word. So I'm proposing a far more traditional affair of -

Player 1

Movement (Charges, then movement regular)
Shooting
Combat

Then play goes to player 2.

It just works better that way.

To "Charge", you simply move up to twice your regular movement towards your enemy. If you make that critical second move, the enemy may make a "Take Aim", and shoot the living beejeesus out of you, adding 1 to the score they normally require to hit something. If you have any soldiers left, you keep moving (up to the maximum second move distance - both moves liable to difficult ground) - they may also "Flee", or "Close Ranks" - Fleeing is fairly self explanatory, they just turn into a routing unit - and "Close Ranks" is an option to quickly reform to a more suitable fighting stance. (That needs definite work)

A Normal move is up to your regular movement value, and may not come within 1" of an enemy model.


To shoot at something you must see it. This is where it becomes contentious - especially through "not literal" terrain features such as woods and broken buildings - are there just three trees (as most people will base their woods for ease of movement through them) or are there thirty? I was thinking that "Agility" may change for "Acuity" - being a representation of not just physical sharpness, but mental and visual agility also. This would lend itself to being a measurement, in inches, your model may see through an area of terrain enough to draw a bead on a "hidden model". This would be one measurement, so, a regular soldier of Acuity 1 could see a model hiding just in the line of trees, but not see anyone deep within or behind it. A Super Scout Sniper of Acuity 4 may even be able to judge where their target lies beyond the trees themselves.

Targets would still be liable to some form of bonus for hiding or positioning themselves well in cover - such as an additional "Armour" save based on their surroundings - if they're in a bunker they're hard to kill, if in a bush, easier.

Combat is fought in order of Acuity. Some weapons/units will give a bonus to this when charging or defending (Lances, Polearms, Pikes), some weapons/units will have other bonus (+Strength with Greatswords when charging, +1 Attack for having Pistol and sword combo etc.)

At any point, when casualties are wrought on a unit (Take Aim, Shooting) or they lose more casualties than their enemy in Combat, they must see how their morale holds up under duress. They will roll using their Morale value, passing the test if they roll equal to or lower than it. The following modifiers apply -

-1 Morale = Lost more casualties than enemy in combat
-1 Morale = Lost more than 25% of Unit this turn (but less than 50%)
-2 Morale = Lost more than 50% of Unit this turn

A unit that passes a Morale Test is then deemed to have proved itself, and therefore composed (or mental) enough to continue as a fighting unit. As with many of these tests, a rule of absolute will play - a roll of 6 is considered a total failure, and a roll of 1 always a success - no matter the modifier.

If a unit fails it's Morale test - it then goes into chaos, and succumbs to the only thing that comes naturally - Run Away! They run directly away from their nearest enemy - the distance is equal to a difficult terrain test. If they were in combat, the enemy units follow them up and destroy the cowards by rolling the same test.

At the very beginning of each turn, before movement, the player may see if any of his units that are routing compose themselves enough to re-enter the battle - this is another simple Morale test - but this time the only modifier is

-1 Morale = Unit has less than 25% of it's original number (that is how many began the game)


Well, there you go. I'm thinking whether Standards should make an appearance - though I usually find that unless it's an extra special army standard, as opposed to a humble regimental one, it shouldn't make too much difference except to those who have none - which is an unfair advantage for those with. Mostly I reckon it's personal preference if your historical regiments have a standard or none. Same goes for little drummer boys.

The Generals/Heroes should certainly make an impact on Morale, as should "Shock and Awe" tactics such as Giant Robots, War Elephants and suchlike, so a garnish regarding Psychological warfare should be added to this - I'm really just concentrating on the rank and file just now though.

I must admit - I've not looked at the stats I've made up already for a few days and forget if Acuity is covered elsewhere. Silly me. I just liked it as a concept - Some folks just got a better sense of where to plant their shots.
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