Combat change ideas

[far-trader]

So, not getting any feedback in the IMTU forum I've moved this here. Feel free to add your own ideas on combat fixes and modifications.

This is a developing work in progress from a question regarding damage factors, repairability and my thoughts on it from a post here:

Jury Rig feat question

I might house-rule in MTU system damage factors based on the damage scale by size.

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Scale &gt; Personal Vehicle Craft

F vs P 1 5 10
F vs V 0 1 5
F vs C D 0 1</pre>[/QUOTE]Read F vs S as the number of critical hits to reduce the system by 1 factor. A system reduced to 0 factors is disabled and cannot be field repaired. A system reduced below 0 is destroyed and cannot be repaired and must be replaced.

So:

Personal scale critical hits:

1 hit vs Personal scale target disables one system
5 hits vs Vehicle scale target on a single system disables that system
10 hits vs Craft scale target on a single system disables that system

Vehicle scale critical hits:

1 hit vs Personal scale target destroys one system
1 hit vs Vehicle scale target disables that system
5 hits vs Craft scale target on a single system disables that system

Craft scale critical hits:

1 hit vs Personal scale target destroys the target
1 hit vs Vehicle scale target destroys that system
1 hits vs Craft scale target disables that system

Of course you're probably asking what are Personal scale systems? I'm thinking something like a specfic critical damage type chart. Something like:

Roll 1d20 and add to hit bonuses:

1-2 Head (control system = unconscious)
3-4 Right Leg (drive train = half speed, cumulative)
5-6 Left Leg (drive train = half speed, cumulative)
7-8 Left Arm (weapon system = unusable)
9-10 Right Arm (weapon system = unusable)
11-14 Abdomen (fuel = immobile)
15-20 Chest (power plant = immobile)


Comments?

 

[princelian]

My observation is that unless you change how critical hits work, this adaptation is moot. A critical hit from many weapons is an immediately lethal wound.

If, on the other hand, critical hits disable one of these "systems" instead of being multiplied and ignoring armor, that might be viable.

Note that in your system, the better you are, the harder it is to hit them in the head.

...scanning memory...scanning memory...

In RuneQuest and other Chaosium games, the hit location chart for humanoids was:

1-4 Leg
5-8 Abdomen
9-12 Chest
13-18 Arm
19-20 Head

You rolled randomly to see whether it was the right or left appendage.

If you took additional time for the attack, you could modify the location roll by one per Strike Rank you waited. (Rounds are 12 SR's, a typical attack is about 4 SR's, so if you waited to the end of the round, you could modify the hit by 8.)

Hmm...

I'd say you should use the called shot rules for aiming at a specific location and then assign it totally randomly otherwise.

Going back to RQ, each hit location had its own hit point pool and could go to negative that pool. (If your leg has 4 hit points, it can go to -4. All of that damage (up to 8 in this case) applied to your total hit points, which were basically equal to your CON plus your POW stat bonus.) The consequences of losing a hit location were:

</font>

• Leg: Can't move very fast (1/4 movement or something like that) but can stand.</font>
• Both legs: Can't move, probably dying or dead from total hit point loss.</font>
• Abdomen: Can't move, if you go to negative location hit points, you are dying.</font>
• Chest: Most hit points of any location; falls to zero unconscious; if you go to negative its hit points, you are dead.</font>
• Arm: Can't use weapons/shield in that arm.</font>
• Both arms: Can't use weapons/shield or potions or anything else that requires hands. Total hit point loss probably didn't kill you (the arms have the least hit points).</font>
• Head: Go to 0, unconscious, negative location hit points = dead.</font>

Anyhow, it's an interesting idea.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by princelian:
My observation is that unless you change how critical hits work, this adaptation is moot. A critical hit from many weapons is an immediately lethal wound.

If, on the other hand, critical hits disable one of these "systems" instead of being multiplied and ignoring armor, that might be viable.

True, the ignore armor and all on Lifeblood does that. But there will be cases where the character isn't killed. Still, I will ponder the ramifications of toning down the critical hit damage. Perhaps simply changing the damage mulitplier to equal a number of critical systems hits rolls instead of more damage?

Originally posted by princelian:
Note that in your system, the better you are, the harder it is to hit them in the head.

Yep, by design. Better combatants aim for center of mass to score hits or make called shots for specific effect. Poorer combatants are more wild and land a hit just about anywhere if they don't miss completely.

Originally posted by princelian:
...scanning memory...scanning memory...

In RuneQuest and other Chaosium games...

Very interesting. I wonder if that was in the back of my mind when doing this, I probably glanced at it sometime many years ago but never played the systems. Not too overly complicated which I like, I'll have to give that some thought too.

Originally posted by princelian:
I'd say you should use the called shot rules for aiming at a specific location and then assign it totally randomly otherwise.

Pretty much where I'm aiming, just figured adding the to hit bonus to the location roll was easy and sensible. Reflecting skill somewhat. Not sure

Originally posted by princelian:
Anyhow, it's an interesting idea.

Much thanks for the feedback and ideas.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Dan,
You know where I stand on most of this.

When dealing with Starship combat and not meson guns or Fusion guns under the standard rules the system pretty much works without major modifications. Ships will get nickled and dimed into combat ineffectiveness instead of destroyed. (Meson crits and Fusion crits on the small ship scale) simply vaporize most targets.

As for scaling damage, If you have a hit on an engine knock it down a factor regardless of scale, that isn't unreasonable. After all if your fuel pump is damaged, no matter what size it is, your car still won't go anywhere. If you put a bullet in a tire, regardless of size of the tire or the caliber of the bullet, (Provided you actually put the bullet in the tire and barring solid tires or similar.) The tire is still going to go flat.

Things like engines and other things with moving parts don't react well to damage. Granted bigger ships will have redundant systems. But in all fairness all starships will have redundant systems. But if you want to scale it based on size, you also have to scale repair efforts. It may be more difficult to break, but how easy is it going to be to fix it? Changing the tire on a kids bicycle is easy, changing it on a 20,000 metric ton crawler is a bit more difficult.