| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16272
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
|
 Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 10:52 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| cheshire wrote: | | I think I tend to run my games in a more narrative and cinematic style as well. I think if someone is looking for more crunch for their game, then this might do the trick for them. But I think I tend towards a style that would use the orbital bombardment as an environmental hazard for the characters to navigate. That is to say, they'd be crossing a bridge that's in the process of falling apart, or they're trying to make their way to a spaceport with buildings collapsing around them, etc. |
You're thinking too narrowly. This isn't just for capital ships; you just picked an extreme example. The same formula can be used to allow characters to be injured or stunned by any weapon Speeder-scale and above, but survive rather than being killed outright, because the weapon missed, but only by a little bit.
This is a cinematic as I can make this rule; I even eliminated the use of meters-missed-by, because they ultimately don't matter. In a cinematic setting, what really matters is, did the bomb / missile / energy blast hit close enough to do damage and, if so, how much?
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16272
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
|
| Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 11:07 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| garhkal wrote: | | AS It stands, other than scripting things, OR tossing lots of dice onto a gunner/pilot, a walker and higher size, stands little to no chance of hitting anywhere close to a character. AND Since not one weapon that size, has any LISTED blast radiuses: hell the only NON pc scale missile/grenade that does, to my recollection, is the blaster artillery radar tower thinggy from ESB; there is no way to know "DId the shot hit close enough to still damage the characters".. |
This rule is actually the result of our discussion on your artillery topic. I've been mulling it over for a while, and this is the only way I can see to introduce blast radius effects for larger scale weapons without a massive stat re-write.
Using your artillery walker scenario, what happens to the terrain around the characters will be purely cosmetic; what really matters is what happens to the characters when the rounds drop in.
If necessary, I can probably gen-up a chart to say how many meters away a round hit based on how badly it missed by.
Also, something I didn't include in the OP is that, if you want to change up the blast radius effects for different shell types, all you have to do is change the base 1/3 ratio. If you want an anti-personnel frag shell, give it low base damage, but a ratio of 1/2 so the damage doesn't drop off as quickly with accuracy. If you want something with a focused effect like a bunker buster or anti-armor weapon, give it high base damage, but a ratio of 1/4 so the damage drops off more rapidly.
And again, accuracy is crucial to increasing damage, so your various ideas for lazing targets or using drones and spotter droids will have a drastic effect on potential damage. For example, if a targeting laser provides a +2D bonus to Fire Control, that will increase the Damage roll by +6D.
And all that is added to the in-game calculations is multiply by 3, then subtract from the Damage roll.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
Last edited by CRMcNeill on Mon Oct 09, 2017 12:05 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
Commodore
Joined: 07 Apr 2017
Posts: 1448
|
| Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 11:21 pm Post subject: Re: Quick Blast Radius Rule |
|
|
| CRMcNeill wrote: | The RAW is wrong. Here's why:
Since the advent of explosive artillery, the vast majority of human casualties in artillery barrages have been from secondary or tertiary effects (intense heat, shockwaves, shrapnel, structural collapse, etc.), not a direct hit. |
Or, RAW is correct for the Star Wars universe, and targeting a single individual with a Star Destroyer turbolaser is very hard to do--it's hard to even get real close to him.
In WWII, it was amazing how many people survived direct artillery and aerial bombings. Think of the Battle of Britain. The Battle of the Bulge. Etc.
| Quote: | | And to be frank, if you believe that a turbolaser blast capable of damaging a capital ship will leave a character completely unharmed just because it missed and hit the ground a meter away, I'm not really interested in your input. |
Well, that's not very nice.
What I'm saying is, the Dodge could mean that the turbo laser hit so far away from the individual target that the target is outside of the secondary blast range. The rules seem to indicate that.
If we accept that Han Solo used Dodge when Greedo shot at him (in the Han shoots last version), at a distance of less than a meter, then we can certainly accept that a PC Dodge of a turbo laser from a Star Destroyer certainly means that the turbo laser blast hit so far away that the PC was not injured at all from any damage effect.
The scaling rules show us just how hard it is to damage a person on a world from orbit with a Star Destroyer turbo laser.
Think of it this way....you've got an AR-15, and you're trying to kill an ant on the ground at your feet. Do you think the AR-15 will obliterate the ant? Or, do you think the scaling rules will kick in, and it is extremely likely that the ant will crawl off when you've finished firing? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16272
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
|
| Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 11:47 pm Post subject: |
|
|
My God, really? Go watch the Battle of Hoth. An AT-AT fires a laser blast that hits the ground NEAR a running Rebel soldier, who falls to the ground. These same laser cannon had been used to destroy multiple weapon emplacements (and would shortly take out Echo Base's reactor with a single shot), yet the trooper's body was left intact. This is CLEAR, ON-SCREEN EVIDENCE that energy weapons in the SWU have blast radius effects, yet no rule in the RAW exists to represent it.
Go back and read my original examples; even with this rule, a single turbolaser will undoubtedly have a very difficult time targeting a single human being, which is why massed barrages or precision guidance become necessary.
Bottom line, if you don't want to use this rule, move on. I've put way too much time, effort and research into this to throw it out just because you think the RAW automatically got everything right.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14152
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 1:25 am Post subject: |
|
|
| CRMcNeill wrote: |
You're thinking too narrowly. This isn't just for capital ships; you just picked an extreme example. The same formula can be used to allow characters to be injured or stunned by any weapon Speeder-scale and above, but survive rather than being killed outright, because the weapon missed, but only by a little bit.? |
Thing is C, you look at most published vehicles of speeder scale, and even WITH The +2d scale bonus their weapons are barely better than regular blaster rifles or light repeaters.. Even at walker scale (for the AT-ST) their chin laser is only 2d damage, add 4d scale and its CHIN laser is as powerful as a standard light repeater. Its concussion missile launcher is only 1d stronger.
That said, i do agree, it is fubar that only grenades and missiles (cha) scale even have a blast radius listing..
| Quote: | If we accept that Han Solo used Dodge when Greedo shot at him (in the Han shoots last version), at a distance of less than a meter, then we can certainly accept that a PC Dodge of a turbo laser from a Star Destroyer certainly means that the turbo laser blast hit so far away that the PC was not injured at all from any damage effect.
The scaling rules show us just how hard it is to damage a person on a world from orbit with a Star Destroyer turbo laser. |
But what IS the blast radius of that turbo laser? IF it can blow up a 30 meter zone with a 50 meter secondary zone, exactly how will a character (who has a max move at all out of 40) be able to avoid any of that with a successful dodge?
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
Commodore
Joined: 07 Apr 2017
Posts: 1448
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 1:27 am Post subject: |
|
|
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | My God, really? Go watch the Battle of Hoth. An AT-AT fires a laser blast that hits the ground NEAR a running Rebel soldier, who falls to the ground. |
This would be considered a hit in game mechanics terms.
Besides, that guy was a faceless mook. He wasn't a hero. The heroes are on another plane in this game. They get Force Points. They get 6D more in attributes. They get Character Points. They get a lot of stuff that faceless background mooks don't get. If that poor b@st@rd* that fell would have had a Force Point, then he would have spent it in order to not be taken by the AT-AT blast.
The rules are different for him.
And, I don't see you changing the game so that your PCs are more like that mook.
You're thinking too specifically about Dodge. You need to think a bit more abstractly about it. A Dodge doesn't necessarily mean (although it can) that a character darts the other way and drops to the ground. Han certainly didn't move when Greedo shot first, and Han must have used Dodge, or Greedo would not have missed.
| Quote: | | Bottom line, if you don't want to use this rule, move on. I've put way too much time, effort and research into this to throw it out just because you think the RAW automatically got everything right. |
Don't care about dissenting opinions. Got it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16272
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 9:38 am Post subject: |
|
|
| garhkal wrote: | | Thing is C, you look at most published vehicles of speeder scale, and even WITH The +2d scale bonus their weapons are barely better than regular blaster rifles or light repeaters.. Even at walker scale (for the AT-ST) their chin laser is only 2d damage, add 4d scale and its CHIN laser is as powerful as a standard light repeater. Its concussion missile launcher is only 1d stronger. |
True. I just wanted to include the possibility that a character could get Wounded or Stunned if a Speeder-Scale laser cannon or a PLEX missile went off a few meters away.
| Quote: | | But what IS the blast radius of that turbo laser? IF it can blow up a 30 meter zone with a 50 meter secondary zone, exactly how will a character (who has a max move at all out of 40) be able to avoid any of that with a successful dodge? |
That hung me up on this for the longest time, not to mention the fact that, as you mentioned in the other topic, incoming artillery generally gives no warning. Plus, past a certain point, a blast radius is just going to be too large for a character to just run out of it.
So what I decided to do was throw out meters entirely, and co-opt Dodge so that, rather than a conscious decision to avoid an attack, it randomized the odds of a character's survival within the vagaries of a blast radius. A character with a high Dodge roll just happened to be standing in the right place to not get hit, whereas the character with the low Dodge roll gets slapped with a flying boulder and is killed instantly. This will favor characters with more Dice in Dodge, but that's consistent with the RAW anyway.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16272
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 9:48 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote: | | Don't care about dissenting opinions. Got it. |
I've been playing with this for a long time. I finally get it to the point where it works and I post it. What in the world makes you think I consider an opinion whose core concept is "WEG is always right, therefore you are wrong" to have any value with regard to refining this concept?
I don't expect you to incorporate this rule into your game if you don't like it, but since you've made it clear that you think WEG's imperfect and incomplete rule set somehow trumps basic physics and artillery theory, what else do you have to offer?
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
Commodore
Joined: 07 Apr 2017
Posts: 1448
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 10:26 am Post subject: |
|
|
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote: | | Don't care about dissenting opinions. Got it. |
I've been playing with this for a long time. I finally get it to the point where it works and I post it. What in the world makes you think I consider an opinion whose core concept is "WEG is always right, therefore you are wrong" to have any value with regard to refining this concept? |
Well...
You did end your OP with...
Which looked to me to be inviting opinions about what you posted...
 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cheshire
Arbiter-General (Moderator)
Joined: 04 Jan 2004
Posts: 4848
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 1:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote: |
Well...
You did end your OP with...
Which looked to me to be inviting opinions about what you posted...
|
I've seen this discussion before on the forums. It ends in one or more paties getting worked up over very little.
Whether you agree with crm''s philosophy of commentary on house rules or not, you're going to save yourself a lot of energy by moving on. You're not going to convince him that he's inviting dissenors to engage in discourse.
He wants people to refine this idea and nothing more.
I'm not going to advocate that philosophy on thr forums, but I thought I could save some time and energy explaining it.
_________________
__________________________________
Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kytross
Line Captain
Joined: 28 Jan 2008
Posts: 782
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 2:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
This doesn't come up much in my games.
Most battles between different scales are in space, where a miss doesn't USUALLY impact anything. Without an impact the blaster/turbolaser bolt does not dissipate, so there's no shockwave to deal with.
There have been more than a few speeder chases, but the weapons fired are generally hand held. So no scale difference.
At one point I played a Barabel fighting a chicken walker. All said and done, between the armor I was wearing and a Barabel's natural armor and strength, I was rolling more dice to resist damage then the AT-ST was rolling to do damage. That's the only time I remember facing a walker. I don't use them much.
I think you've struck gold here McNeil. Especially if this is coming up frequently in your games. I have run some test rolls and I like it. I may have to put some walker combat into my next game with veteran players. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16272
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 3:08 pm Post subject: |
|
|
That's something that has come up in other conversations on this idea; obviously, there has to be something for a laser blast to hit for there to be a blast radius effect. Proton torpedoes and concussion missiles, however, could easily be proximity detonated, which would greatly increase their lethality and effectiveness in air and space combat.
While the discussion so far has concentrated on capital ship weapons, I think the most common applications for this will end up being starfighter or walker scale weapons being used against character scale targets. And the smaller scale disparity will also reduce the crunch.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 3:51 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Blast effects are weird things... |
Yes they are. In the real world. But in the real world you can't dodge a bullet and how good you are at doing the wacky chicken dance has nothing to do with how likely you are to be killed by the shrapnel and blast effect of an artillery shell. Survival is based on taking cover (if there is time and cover available) and pure luck. Here you are choosing to mix two unlike things: (1) the narrative method of figuring out if the PC heroes are hit by a blaster bolt or bullet and (2) real world artillery effects.
That's fine if you want to do that, but you can't simultaneously choose (1) and also claim the high ground of realism over GMs who choose not to add rules to account for (2).
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | You're thinking too narrowly. |
I think that's an unfair characterization. I could say that you are thinking too narrowly about character survivability by tying avoidance of artillery barrages solely to the character’s skill with Dodge. Running or piloting if you are in a vehicle seem as likely to get you away from the blast zone and help you survive an artillery attack as does Dodge.
Conclusion: I'm not comfortable tying survival solely to Dodge. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16272
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 10:44 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Bren wrote: | | Yes they are. In the real world. But in the real world you can't dodge a bullet and how good you are at doing the wacky chicken dance has nothing to do with how likely you are to be killed by the shrapnel and blast effect of an artillery shell. Survival is based on taking cover (if there is time and cover available) and pure luck. |
As I stated above, there is room to fit those modifiers in. Using the Cover and Protection rules from the 2R&E Rulebook allows for characters to increase the artillery's To Hit Difficulty, which in turn reduces the Damage roll even further. What I posted above is just the core rule, to which additional features can be added.
| Quote: | Here you are choosing to mix two unlike things: (1) the narrative method of figuring out if the PC heroes are hit by a blaster bolt or bullet and (2) real world artillery effects.
That's fine if you want to do that, but you can't simultaneously choose (1) and also claim the high ground of realism over GMs who choose not to add rules to account for (2). |
Artillery and its effects do feature in the SWU, so I don't see where you think the two are somehow mutually opposed. In fact, WEG even made a (poor) attempt to give artillery weapons a blast radius (see the ImpSB, Chapter 9). Unfortunately, all they did was give the artillery a single metric value, with A) no way to measure deviation and B) no way to determine distance-based dispersion of damage.
| Quote: | | I think that's an unfair characterization. |
I was saying that because he was focusing specifically on the Star Destroyer vs. Character scenario as the basis for his disagreement. Cheshire suggested that it would be more appropriate to treat a Star Destroyer bombardment as a Movement difficulty, which is not without merit (it's one of the avenues I considered en route to this one). Unfortunately, the gaping hole in that idea is that, if one wishes to survive an orbital bombardment. all you have to do is stand perfectly still: you aren't moving, so therefore you can't suffer a Movement Mishap.
| Quote: | I could say that you are thinking too narrowly about character survivability by tying avoidance of artillery barrages solely to the character’s skill with Dodge. Running or piloting if you are in a vehicle seem as likely to get you away from the blast zone and help you survive an artillery attack as does Dodge.
Conclusion: I'm not comfortable tying survival solely to Dodge. |
And I could say that you too are thinking too narrowly when you assume I'm talking about using only Dodge in every scenario. Naturally, the skill used would be appropriate to whatever method of propulsion the characters are using, whether it is on foot, speeder or starship.
As to Running, I decided a while back (as have several others) to fold Dodge and Running into a single skill called Agility.
There is room for a multi-layered system here:-If the characters are just standing, or are walking slowly, use Dodge.
-If they're moving fast, use Running.
-If they're operating in a vehicle, then use whatever vehicle operation skill is appropriate.
-And so on and so forth...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14152
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 12:01 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Kytross wrote: |
At one point I played a Barabel fighting a chicken walker. All said and done, between the armor I was wearing and a Barabel's natural armor and strength, I was rolling more dice to resist damage then the AT-ST was rolling to do damage. That's the only time I remember facing a walker. I don't use them much.
|
And imo that's part of the issue.. Can you imagine someone wearing 'power armor' and taking the shell from an M1-Abrams full in the chest and walking away with barely a scratch??
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | That's something that has come up in other conversations on this idea; obviously, there has to be something for a laser blast to hit for there to be a blast radius effect. Proton torpedoes and concussion missiles, however, could easily be proximity detonated, which would greatly increase their lethality and effectiveness in air and space combat. |
And in a # of Starwars novels, the heroes do just that.. Proximity detonate a proton torp to cause damage to everyone around it..
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
