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CT+ Personal Combat

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Ok, last try, for now ;)

Dex/4 + highest combat skill + 1d6
Shouldn't it be Dex/4 + Cmbt skill in use + 1d6.

Char might have cmbt rifle 4 and be using a knife, or a pistol, or a grenade launcher, or a tac missile or throwing rocks or.... sorry, got carried away.

I prefer to incorporate both Dex and Int for speed of action and speed of thought.

Doesn't matter if averaging tends to bring everyones mods to a similar level as the 1d6 roll will be the greatest mod anyway. That will range from one to six whereas stat mods and probably weapon/skill mods will rarely range greater than one to three.
 
Is the Chargen system going to incorporate Combat service ribbons?

If so you could incorporate those somehow as they more truly reflect actuall combat experience.
If neither Joe Stargrunt or Pod Wanabe saw active combat they'd both probably wet themselves in combat.
 
Moving on to task difficulty to hit for weapons at various ranges. The weapons listed are the ones that work well at that range.

CT has

C - close - in contact/touching, natural weapons, daggers, handguns

S - short - 1-5m as above plus melee weapons, longarms

M - medium - 6-50m guns only

L - long - 51-250m rifles, carbines with sights.

VL - very long 251-500m rifles with sights

My first suggestion is to change short range to 1-3m, or two ship squares (or 10' ;) ).

Next, task difficulties by range for the different weapon groups:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> C S M L VL
natural 8 8 - - - includes daggers, blades, broken bottles etc.
melee 12 8 - - -
handguns 8 8 8 12 16
carbines 12 8 8 12 16 includes smgs, assault rifles
w/sight 12 8 8 8 12
rifle 12 8 8 8 12
w/sight 12 8 8 8 8</pre>[/QUOTE]
 
Originally posted by Badbru:
Is the Chargen system going to incorporate Combat service ribbons?

If so you could incorporate those somehow as they more truly reflect actuall combat experience.
If neither Joe Stargrunt or Pod Wanabe saw active combat they'd both probably wet themselves in combat.
Could this be linked to either the survival or special duty roll?

I'll cross post in the careers thread.
 
Sorry to be late posting, but I was spending a week practicing my personal combat skills with primitive (TL 0-2) weapons.

My take on the various issues mentioned so far:

MT vs. ACQ/T20: I have always liked using Penetration vs Armor but I must admit I like the simplicity of the system Sigg and others suggest. As long as it was cleaned up to avoid any problems with odd results (like having more armor resulting in more damage taken) and some way was built-in to allow vehicles and ships to be involved (even on an abstract level) this system would be fine with me. Referees need some guidance on what happens when a RAM grenade hits the PC's air/raft, or those Imperial Marines use their FGMPs on the hull of a Free Trader.

Initiative: I would like to see military/paramilitary service be a factor for determining initative. Either a modifier based on terms of service (and I'd include paramilitary careers like Pirates and Hunters in this), (perhaps terms/3) for characters generated by basic chargen, and use Badbru's idea of using Combat Service/Command ribbons for characters from advanced chargen (perhaps ribbons/4).

I would use Dex, or (Dex+Int)/2 for the characteristic modifier, and to make End more important it should not only govern the number of "full-power" blows a character can deliver in melee, but also the number of combat turns (perhaps End x 3) the character can keep going in combat before they suffer a disadvantage from "exhaustion." It's really very tiring to be in combat, even if you're just sitting there waiting for an enemy to come into your firing arc. After a while your adrenalin level drops and you just can't keep going. The disadvantage could be a reduction in Initative (perhaps the loss of the stat-based DM?), a loss of mobility, and a morale loss for NPCs.

I would not have a skill-based modifier for Initiative. When I used Tactics skill in the game, I had the PC make a roll with Tactics as a +DM, while secretly making the same roll for the NPC leading the opposition. If the PC got the higher result I would tell him what the opposition was likely to do that turn, and if the PC got the lower result I would tell him nothing.

More later.
 
Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Moving on to task difficulty to hit for weapons at various ranges. The weapons listed are the ones that work well at that range.
I'd prefer to use the AHL/Striker ranges of Effective/Long/Extreme with 8+/12+/16+ to hit. We could have a rule that all longarms are at -4 to hit if within melee range of your target. It also lets us carry over the long range only for laser and gauss rifles from AHL, which gives greater weapon differences.
 
I like the AHL/Striker too, but I see where adding Short and close integrates with melee weapons. The following example uses dummy values
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Weapon Close Short Effective Long Extreme
<1m 1-5m 8+ 10+ 12+
Dagger 6+ 10+ --- --- ---
Sword 9+ 7+ --- --- ---
Body pistol 8+ 7+ 20m 30m 40m
Carbine 10+ 8+ 100m 150m 200m</pre>[/QUOTE]Armor does one of three things. It doesn't protect at all (rifle tears through the chainmail), it protects completely (Iraqi AK vs. SAPI plate) and only in a narrow range provide partial protection. So I propose
if PEN < 1/2 Armor, no damage
if PEN < Armor, damage reduced
PEN >= Armor Full damage

I appear to be the voice in the wilderness here, but I hate subtracting wounds from stats. The sums are a pain, the character sheets get so grubby you lose track of the original values, and it is very much a game artefact. Light wounds, serious wounds, incapacitated and killed makes just as much sense and is easier to keep track of.
I vote for a 2D6 roll, +Damage mod
Armor as above
Every 2 pt exceptional success on the to hit roll get either +1 penetration or +1 Damage
 
Shouldn't the target numbers in combat be the same as the task system though?

I've found that applying damage to characteristics allows you to describe wounds in much greater detail.
 
Originally posted by Takei:
I'd prefer to use the AHL/Striker ranges of Effective/Long/Extreme with 8+/12+/16+ to hit. We could have a rule that all longarms are at -4 to hit if within melee range of your target. It also lets us carry over the long range only for laser and gauss rifles from AHL, which gives greater weapon differences.
That's pretty much what the table above was based on, just using CT ranges for weapon types rather than complicate things with ranges for individual weapons.

Such complication can be added by listing a weapons effective (C S M in CT terms), long and extreme range.
 
Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
That's pretty much what the table above was based on, just using CT ranges for weapon types rather than complicate things with ranges for individual weapons.

Such complication can be added by listing a weapons effective (C S M in CT terms), long and extreme range.
I see individual weapon ranges as adding flavour not complication
 
Me too


I originally had effective range written in the weapon table a few pages back but at the last moment I deleted it so not to confuse the damage resolution system.

So what do people think, CT range bands or individual weapon effective ranges?

(with Takei's suggestion of increasing the difficulty for close range)
 
Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
I appear to be the voice in the wilderness here, but I hate subtracting wounds from stats.
Here's a suggestion from the sidelines - has anyone here seen Blue Rose or True20 from Green Ronin? For those that haven't, these are d20 type systems that don't have hit points but wound levels. When you get hit you make a toughness save (using your Con modifier) to resist the damage - if you succeed, you remain unaffected. If you fail your wound level increases until you become unconscious or die. Each weapon has a damage rating and armour reduces this, making the save easier. One advantage this system has is that it would make Endurance an important stat. It would certainly be interesting tweaking it to work with vehicles and starships.
 
Types of firing action:

snapshot - can move and fire - effective range is reduced to Dex in metres, regardless of weapon type

aimed shot - no movement allowed - use task/range of weapon or weapon+sight

prepared shot - spend a turn aiming and reduce the task difficulty of your next aimed attack
 
Ok, you've all convinced me to seperate my to-hit roll from the penetration roll; the only problem would be that it will add another die roll, resulting in 3 rolls per attack, which is a bit too much for a streamlined system. A way to reduce rolls is to divorce damage from stats, that is, have abstract Striker-style damage levels such as "light", "medium", "serious" and "dead". The main advantage of this is that it could be built to suit the task system, so that every wound level will correspond to a difficulty to diagnose/treat/etc; the main disadvantage is that this moves us another step away from CT. Another option is to use the MT way and have no penetration roll, just penetration/armor comparison.

That is, roll to hit; if a hit is achieved, compare penetration to armor; if penetration is half or less of armor, no damage; if penetration is between half to full armor, half damage; if penetration is armor rating and above, normal damage; if penetration is twice or more of armor, double damage. Then give each weapon it's CT damage dice and apply them as usual (?)

It's hard to decide on which of the two to use. the abstract system is easier to use, but moves farther from CT; the comparison system complicates things a little, but allows direct application of damage to stats.
 
A way to reduce rolls is to divorce damage from stats, that is, have abstract Striker-style damage levels such as "light", "medium", "serious" and "dead". The main advantage of this is that it could be built to suit the task system, so that every wound level will correspond to a difficulty to diagnose/treat/etc; the main disadvantage is that this moves us another step away from CT.
I striker really that far from CT? I don't mean implementing all the technical design and realistic combat aspects of striker, but maybe "borrowing" some streamlined parts like Mr. Employee suggests.

Tom
 
Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
It's hard to decide on which of the two to use. the abstract system is easier to use, but moves farther from CT; the comparison system complicates things a little, but allows direct application of damage to stats.
I like option 1, but few agree with me. If you go option 2, I would junk the double damage for a penetration overmatch.
 
Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Moving on to task difficulty to hit for weapons at various ranges. The weapons listed are the ones that work well at that range.

Next, task difficulties by range for the different weapon groups:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> C S M L VL
natural 8 8 - - - includes daggers, blades, broken bottles etc.
melee 12 8 - - -
handguns 8 8 8 12 16
carbines 12 8 8 12 16 includes smgs, assault rifles
w/sight 12 8 8 8 12
rifle 12 8 8 8 12
w/sight 12 8 8 8 8</pre>
[/quote]But it really does get harder to hit a target as range increases, even with sights of various kinds. The sights don't give you benefit without a prepared shot.

We will also want to extend the table beyond 500m. Snipers regularly practice at 1000m just to qualify and may need to fire on targets twice that far.
 
Originally posted by Straybow:
But it really does get harder to hit a target as range increases, even with sights of various kinds. The sights don't give you benefit without a prepared shot.
This is quite easy to get around by saying that you don't get the benefit of a sight unless you take an aim action.


We will also want to extend the table beyond 500m. Snipers regularly practice at 1000m just to qualify and may need to fire on targets twice that far.
This is another reason why I prefer individual weapon ranges over range bands.
 
Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
Ok, you've all convinced me to seperate my to-hit roll from the penetration roll; the only problem would be that it will add another die roll, resulting in 3 rolls per attack, which is a bit too much for a streamlined system.
Three rolls is too many. However, I thought the generally agreed system was to be;
1/ Roll to hit.
2/ Roll damage (reduced by armour as per T20).
 
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