CT+ Personal Combat

[robject]

Looks like the biggest issue with CT+ is how personal combat works.

In the lead is the MT-leaning crowd, with preferences for separate pen/dmg values. This provides a number of benefits, including scale: you can create conglomerate units, and also figure out how much damage your PGMP-14 does to the outer hull of a scout ship. Integrated combat which scales smoothly from the barroom brawl to interstellar slug-fests.

On the other side is something based on a T4/T20 damage system. It's simpler, which means you lose scalability, but personal combat becomes faster since there's no multiplication and division to keep track of. Assuming most combat is level (person-to-person, or ship-to-ship), it makes sense to have a simple mechanic tuned for these common encounter types. A more complex mechanic -- or translation -- may be needed for scalability, but interface issues tend to be special cases anyhow.


Have I misrepresented the topics?

And do you have an opinion?

 

[Berg]

Lose the charts some how and all is well

Tom

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by robject:
And do you have an opinion?

My opinion on an alternate CT combat system (based on a very simplified version of Striker) is available here.

 

[mike wightman]

The T4/T20 method is easier in play, no complicated calculations involved. It's much easier to tech to new players as well. Plus it can be scaled to vehicles and ships, T4 did it and T20 does it too in a slightly easier manner.

I like subtracting damage from characteristics - especially if what each type of characteristic damage is is explained to the player

I would scrap the first hit rule as being unrealistic, and instead use it if someone gets an exceptional success on their task to hit.

 

[mike wightman]

Oh, I also like the rule in T4 that only the highest 3d of damage that get through armour are counted for damage for kinetic weapons.
Except for the shotgun.
Explosive rounds, lasers, plasma and fusion guns are exempt too.

I would increase the amount of damage that can be transferred to a target on an exceptional success
e.g. a gauss rifle with a damage of 6 hits an unarmoured PC for damage of 5, 4, 3, 3, 1 and 1. Normally this would result in 12 points of damage to the PC, unfortunately the gauss rifle scored an exceptional success (rolled 4 more than needed to hit) and so the 3 die is counted as well for a total of 15 damage.

 

[Berg]

I read Mr Employees take and I like what I saw. Streamlined CT/AHL/Striker. You could add the PEN as additional damage instead of an increase to hit mod? Streamlined is Good

That's the beauty of CT.

Tom

 

[robject]

There are lots of CT+ folks who prefer pen/dmg; the "votes" favor it. I'd like to know if there's wiggle room here.

Employee, your version puts damage as a factor of how well the attempt succeeded, and pen improves the probability of success. Is that correct? If so, then it's not really 'pen', but rather something else.

 

[zakrol]

Mr Employee's system is elegant but I do see a slight problem with penetration and hitting the target being tied together so completely.

For instance, a laser rifle with penetration 9 against an unarmoured opponent will hardly ever miss even at long range with a relatively unskilled marksman.

The MT system is not far off this but as well as the damage multiplier caused by how high the roll is, there is a separate multiplier for penetration of the weapon compared to effectiveness of the armour. So in MT our unskilled laser rifleman wouldn't hit the unarmoured bloke that often, but would do decent damage every time he hit.

One complexity in MT that could perhaps go is attenuation (decrease of penetration over distance) with a suitable rejigging of weapon penetrations.

 

[Berg]

For instance, a laser rifle with penetration 9 against an unarmoured opponent will hardly ever miss even at long range with a relatively unskilled marksman.
The MT system is not far off this but as well as the damage multiplier caused by how high the roll is, there is a separate multiplier for penetration of the weapon compared to effectiveness of the armour. So in MT our unskilled laser rifleman wouldn't hit the unarmoured bloke that often, but would do decent damage every time he hit.

Thats why I say add the PEN as additional damage in the form of points (eg. +9)

Tom

 

[zakrol]

Originally posted by robject:
There are lots of CT+ folks who prefer pen/dmg; the "votes" favor it. I'd like to know if there's wiggle room here.

I'm definitely open to suggestions but I think that MT penetration was actually almost a simplification of the CT tables.

CT gave bonuses or penalties for every weapon against every sort of armour to give a very fine tuned definition of how well each weapon could penetrate that armour.

Likewise the range modifiers gave an individual attenuation of damage capability.

MT simplified two rows of about 5 modifiers each down to two numbers.

As I said above I don't think MT and Employee's systems are so far apart - if you take the penetration and armour out of the roll and use their relationship as a damage modifier to apply to the roll result.

 

[zakrol]

Originally posted by Berg:
Thats why I say add the PEN as additional damage in the form of points (eg. +9)

Or maybe even PEN - Armour rating?

So laser rifle against nothing is +9, laser rifle against reflec is -1?

 

[Berg]

As long as No charts

Tom

 

[robject]

Well, the main problem with Paul/Golan's system is that, as a new invention, it has an uphill battle to get a majority of CT+ers to back it.

 

[mike wightman]

Would the T4/T20 hybrid be more acceptable if I reminded people that:
At Close Quarters, the excellent combat system by BITS is base on T4;
and
It would allow easy conversion between CT+ and T20

And it means all the weapons in Emperor's Arsenal can be easily integrated.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by robject:
Employee, your version puts damage as a factor of how well the attempt succeeded, and pen improves the probability of success. Is that correct? If so, then it's not really 'pen', but rather something else.

At worst, I'll go back to the Striker "to-hit roll and penetration roll" system and make damage more abstract; there shouldn't be more than two rolls per attack. Otherwise just call penetration "power", implying the contribution of the weapon to the attack/damage.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by robject:
Well, the main problem with Paul/Golan's system is that, as a new invention, it has an uphill battle to get a majority of CT+ers to back it.

It isn't really a new invention, it's a streamlined variant of Striker and CT intended for use in normal CT play by people who aren't wargamers (if you're a wargamer, just use Striker as-is

).

It does use "tables", but of these two are consulted only when you aquire a new weapon (you write its range modfifiers and penetration on your character sheet) and the other will probably be printed on the character sheet and the referee screen by default (the damage table). So no matrixing, no page flipping, just take a little look at your char sheet. Same with pre-generated NPC stats.

 

[Berg]

The tables I'm talking about are cross-indexing type stuff

'shudder'

AD&D was notorious for this. A weapons Pen/damage stat are fine. It's when you start adding "min Dex" and things that the system bogs down.

CT+ = streamlined

I think this aspect would be refreshing in the RPG market.

Tom

 

[zakrol]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
At worst, I'll go back to the Striker "to-hit roll and penetration roll" system and make damage more abstract; there shouldn't be more than two rolls per attack. Otherwise just call penetration "power", implying the contribution of the weapon to the attack/damage.

I think two rolls would be a backward step.

There are two things that can be affected by the various factors: DMs to the dice roll which affect which value on the damage table is used; and modifiers to the chosen value on the table. Using both should give enough variety for our needs including penetration.

 

[mike wightman]

Roll to hit.

Roll for damage.

Armour subtracts damage dice and then damage.

Damage is allocated to stats with gruesome description by the referee.

No charts, no tables.

You just have to note your weapons damage dice, and your armour rating, on your character sheet somewhere.

 

[kafka47]

Sigg, I am with you on that.

But, I wonder if we would not have to have dual stat for certain things like blades are slowed down by mesh but do not do nothing really for slugs and certain fusion melts any mesh or Reflec is effective against lasers but nothing else.

This was the beauty of the Chart system system in CT but it would have to be reformated with different white and gray scales to make the thing more readable.