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Megatraveller combat questions

Hi!

I'm not sure that I understand the concept of Hits/Life force vs "ordinary" CT damage to the stats. For example, a character with a Life force of 21 (UPP: 777) can take 3/8 hits. How do I use these systems? Does this mean that my character can take 3D of damage before becoming unconscious? What if the actual damage roll is 3 (1+1+1)? Can anyone clarify this please?
 
Hi !

In MT weapons do damage points on those hit points.
The actual effect on the UPP is resolved after the combat. Here each damage point "expands" into a throw of 1D, and the result is then applied to the characteristics.

So, e.g. getting 3 points of damage will render the character "inoperative" for this combat as his hit status is now 0/8.

Regards,

TE
 
It means that a normal hit (made roll by 1 point) with no armor or armor less than half the pen with most firearms will drop the character...

MT damage is in hits by weapon, modified for level of success (x0.5 to x8) and armor.

It isn't rolled until "the adrenaline wears off" (my words). Then, each hit taken becomes 1d to attributes. There is no first hit, so dice are randomized one at a time.

Also, this means that, in MT, the disrupting effects of damage don't come into play until after the adrenaline stops, so you don't need to worry about refiguring mid-combat.

Note also: it's entirely possible to be "dead" by hits but not even KO'd by damage to atts... I've had PC's have that happen!
 
Originally posted by Aramis:
Also, this means that, in MT, the disrupting effects of damage don't come into play until after the adrenaline stops, so you don't need to worry about refiguring mid-combat.

Note also: it's entirely possible to be "dead" by hits but not even KO'd by damage to atts... I've had PC's have that happen!
It was this very thing that was a major turn-off to me when I first purchased MT. I used to run MT, back in the day, but I never used this system. It always seemsed silly for the reasons you state above.

I know that Aramis loves MT and almost everything about it, and I can see what The Enginner wrote. But, for the life of me, I can't understand why a GM would like to use this system.

Speed of gameplay is the only positive thing I can figure about it.

I've always been a roll-initiative-and-try-to-drop-that-guy-before-he-drops-you kind of gamer. And, because of that, I've always added an initiative throw to the CT combat procedure (or MT, if that was what I was playing) and played damage instantaneous instead of simultaneous.

That way, there's a chance that something like 6D can be throw for damage on a character with stats 777, and he can still walk away from it with no more than a scratch if the roll is low enough (even with CT's first blood rule, not that I've used tha trule consistently in my games).

There's no provision for taking a guy out early under that system--rolling just a few dice and rolling high. The opposite is true as well. Character gets hit for a lot of damge, but the rolls suck. The character ends up only scratched.

Why would you guys like that system?

Simply because it plays fast (and I would argue that, but I won't)?
 
Because, S4, It is realistic.

The few serious fights I've been in have resulted in someone being out of action, but NOT seriously injured on several occasions, and someone being seriously injured but not out of adrenaline...

In those two extremes: out of action but not seriously injured: Stunned by some painful soft tissue hits, or ko'd by a head hit == 3Hits turned into less than 7 damage points... purely superficial. In the later case, 2 hits turned into 7+ damage points to one attribute...


Further, the simplicty mid-combat, not needing to actually resolve to stat damage for spearchuckers (3/5 Hits Dex Mod +1 Skill 1 or 2...), and the ability to use the hits system for conglomerate units WITHOUT FORCING PC's into units themselves.
 
Originally posted by Aramis:
In those two extremes: out of action but not seriously injured: Stunned by some painful soft tissue hits, or ko'd by a head hit == 3Hits turned into less than 7 damage points... purely superficial. In the later case, 2 hits turned into 7+ damage points to one attribute...
I can see this point. I'll grant you that. I'm not sure if I like it though--not something I'd like to game with.

Your take on it has lessened my dislike of the system, though.

Further, the simplicty mid-combat, not needing to actually resolve to stat damage for spearchuckers (3/5 Hits Dex Mod +1 Skill 1 or 2...), and the ability to use the hits system for conglomerate units WITHOUT FORCING PC's into units themselves.
See...I don't like this at all.

I feel it detracts from a game. Sure, it's a bit quicker. But players like it when they score a hit then get to roll damage and those 6's start popping up. At least my players do. It's a mutual YEAHHHH! that happens during the game.

Remember playing D&D and rolling that 20? DOUBLE DAMAGE!! YEAHHHHH!!! Then, you roll max damage, and it's: MAX DAMAGE TIMES TWO!! OHHHH, YEAAAHHHHHH!!!

MT strips that from the players. They don't roll for damage until the fight is over.

My group, at least, like this fun of rolling damage during the round.

On top of this, taking damage becomes strategic. Especially since I've added the Stun rull (when one stat goes to zero, roll END or less on 2D for the character to be stunned 1 round while the zeroed stats is raised to 1. Failing the stun roll leaves the character unconscious per normal CT rules).

Remember, in CT, a character gets bonuses for STR in Brawling or Blade Combat, dependent on the weapon. It's DEX, dependent on the weapon, for Gun Combat.

So, reducing stats when damage is taken is a strategic thing the players do and like. They might reduce STR in order to try and keep their DEX up and not loose thier DEX bonus. END may be kept high to ensure the Stun rule is an easy throw. STR may be kept high if the character is to continue to be any good in Blade Combat. Heck, if a character's STR goes down, I'll call for an encumbrance check, and make the character drop stuff or suffer encumbrance penalties as he gets weaker in a fight.

All of that is lost when the system gets abstracted the way MT does it.

I believe I'll stick with CT's method.
 
MT hits *are* the number of dice rolled for damage that is applied to stats. I love MT because I don't have to roll handfuls of dice lots of times to see what happened...for npc's 2d6,once is all it takes to see what happens. for realism in combat, the first aid rules MUST be used else players keep fighting even as they take more and more damage from bloood loss/shock/etc. ( adrenaline I guess ) unless they hole up under cover to try and stop the bleeding or try to focus past the agony.

for pc's sure, roll damage and apply it to stats for new stat dm's..

keep in mind that in combat, fighters don't always know how much damage they do to enemy or even if target was even hit at all. ( if a target is hit and stops fighting..is it dead?..unconcious? or just sitting back bandaging the wound? )
 
Originally posted by Ishmael James:
MT hits *are* the number of dice rolled for damage that is applied to stats.
Understood. But, it's rolled after combat is over, correct?


...for npc's 2d6,once is all it takes to see what happens.
So, do PC's have an advantage in this area?

One of the things I've always liked about Traveller (and I guess I'm speaking about CT) is that NPCs are just as good and many times better than PCs. They go through the same character generation (unless the GM throws a few dice and makes up a quickie, which I rarely do. I generally use a computer program to roll all NPCs with the same rules as PCs. In fact, PCs and NPCs are interchangeable in my game.)

When a player character goes up against an NPC, that NPC is another living, breathing human being. At the outset, the player has no idea how "good" that other character is. The PC may be getting in over his head. Many times, the PC and NPC are "matched" because the CharGen system turns out like characters.

Classic Traveller isn't like D&D where a player can be comfortable that his 7th level fighter will easily dispatch the 2 hit dice Bugbear. Most of the time, in CT, PCs are going up against equals. If the players find themselves up against an enemy with more personnel, then the players can assume, as in real life, that they're badly outnumbered (it's not like a D&D party being able to easily take care of a horde of goblins).

It seems the MT system, although not as severe as D&D, does lean that way. It gives the enemies 2D for damage but PCs get the normal method--two standards for what should be fairly evenly matched characters.

I've never seen Traveller as a "heroes" kind of game. It's about regular guys in a real world. I don't allow my PCs to arrange their stats to taste, the same way I don't for NPCs. If I want a hero game, I'll play Star Wars (which I love, and even there, all characters start out with the same amount of dice to put into their stats, although it's arrange to taste).

So, that's a problem I have with MT as well. It's more "Big Damn Heroes" to quote TBeard. I'm not into that. Not for Traveller. I'm into real people overcoming overwhelming odds.







... for realism in combat, the first aid rules MUST be used else players keep fighting even as they take more and more damage from bloood loss/shock/etc.
Why don't you give me an example of MT combat. I haven't read it in years.

Take two crewmembers and have them fight three Vargr corsairs.

I'll follow your example.
 
S4:

The damage is rolled when
1) combat is over
2) the character receives 1st aid
3) The character is out of the combat for some other reason (Like being incapacitated by hits)

While IIRC it isn't explicit in the rules, it can be implied that one refigures hits at that point.

Note also: MT's first aid rules are an expanded form of CT's damage effects.
 
So, do PC's have an advantage in this area?
No, PC's do not have any advantage in this area as far as I know. NPCs are treated the same as regular characters-- the only difference between CT and MT in this regard (damage) is the fact that as a GM you aren't obligated to track the individual stats of the NPCs during combat (ie. it's faster, as you observed).

I'm not sure about the "2D6 to see what happens" Ishmael is referring to- perhaps a Striker reference?
 
I was referring to roll 2d6 one time to see if hit and then damage done, which I like better than roll to see if hit then roll again to see damage.

MT damage is rolled after combat, but I often roll it earlier to see stat changes which affects dm's
npc's aren't worth the time...I just make their damage a blanket dm against their actions.

I also have a house rule that lets player's subtract end and add it to other stats like strength or dex for favorable dm's at the expense of becoming exhausted

I'll do a combat example sometime this weekend...gotta 30yrd dumpster to fill first
 
I was referring to roll 2d6 one time to see if hit and then damage done, which I like better than roll to see if hit then roll again to see damage.

MT damage is rolled after combat, but I often roll it earlier to see stat changes which affects dm's
npc's aren't worth the time...I just make their damage a blanket dm against their actions.
MT damage to hits is determined at to-hit resolution and penetration comparison.

It's left in hits until the character affected is at the downed point. (that is, hits taken ≥ HTU) those then get converted to dice of attribute damage. If the character (say a 3/5 hits character) just got a decent shot from almost any small arm, that's 3 hits. He now resolves that to current atts - if not KO'd, he can return to combat, with a new figured hits based upon current life... Or, for NPCs or players who don't want to return to the fight, take the 10 min KO.
For NPCs, the GM's not required to convert it; the dropped by HTU value is sufficient to write them off.
This speeds up play in two ways: PCs often take 2 hits before rolling damage to attributes, and minor NPCs require no detailed tracking... don't bother past hits.

This approach, while present in rules, isn't obvious in the rules. It is more obvious once you use the conglomerate unit rules in the Referee's Companion... which uses on the hits values as a speed and numerical tracking simplification.
 
MT hits *are* the number of dice rolled for damage that is applied to stats. I love MT because I don't have to roll handfuls of dice lots of times to see what happened...for npc's 2d6,once is all it takes to see what happens. for realism in combat, the first aid rules MUST be used else players keep fighting even as they take more and more damage from bloood loss/shock/etc. ( adrenaline I guess ) unless they hole up under cover to try and stop the bleeding or try to focus past the agony.

for pc's sure, roll damage and apply it to stats for new stat dm's..

keep in mind that in combat, fighters don't always know how much damage they do to enemy or even if target was even hit at all. ( if a target is hit and stops fighting..is it dead?..unconcious? or just sitting back bandaging the wound? )
On the last point the players roll the damage to themselves and the ref rolls the NPC damage. With my hit location armor rolls the players know how many dice they achieved which is variable, but not the actual damage.
 
MT damage to hits is determined at to-hit resolution and penetration comparison.

It's left in hits until the character affected is at the downed point. (that is, hits taken ≥ HTU) those then get converted to dice of attribute damage. If the character (say a 3/5 hits character) just got a decent shot from almost any small arm, that's 3 hits. He now resolves that to current atts - if not KO'd, he can return to combat, with a new figured hits based upon current life... Or, for NPCs or players who don't want to return to the fight, take the 10 min KO.
For NPCs, the GM's not required to convert it; the dropped by HTU value is sufficient to write them off.
This speeds up play in two ways: PCs often take 2 hits before rolling damage to attributes, and minor NPCs require no detailed tracking... don't bother past hits.

This approach, while present in rules, isn't obvious in the rules. It is more obvious once you use the conglomerate unit rules in the Referee's Companion... which uses on the hits values as a speed and numerical tracking simplification.
Come to think of it, sounds like sort of a hybrid Striker mass faceless resolution going to specifics for PCs.
 
Not super-happy with any of the combat systems I have used, but I really preferred the MT decoupling of PENETRATION and DAMAGE over the CT Weapon vs Armor bonus/penalty matrix. That was definitely a step forward.
 
You can have that in CT with Striker...
Striker is my current "go to" (just stripped down and simplified since so much is not needed for a couple guys in an argument where someone draws a pistol or a knife ... or a sniper on a roof trying to discourage a pack of Arctic wolves from getting too close to the COMM Tower where the group is making repairs.) However, this was a topic about MT and that was a change that MT made that I found for the better.
 
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