Combat - What Do You Do?

[Antaine]

for my 0.02Cr worth...I used the CT system then Snapshot. I was never lucky enough to have AHL or Striker (it was hard enough getting Basic Traveller in Outback Aussie

).

Once I had Snapshot the only thing I changed was moving from square graph to hex. I encouraged my players to consider the alternatives to violence in any case.

We did have some "house tweaks" in any case for combat just to iron out some of the "bugs" (my perception as a trained infanteer), but be blowed if I could find any of that paperwork now 15+ years later.

 

[binky]

Originally posted by ACK:
When I started posting on this thread I never answered Binky's question all the way through. I hate the idea of applying armor as a hit modifier. I hated in AD&D and in CT. I liked the Pentration/Attentuation stuff in MT a bit, but I don't have those books anymore.

Okay, now I really understand where you're coming from and have to say I agree. Armour as a to-hit modifier is something that never really worked for me either.

ACQ handles this by comparing the weapon's rating against the armour's rating and rolling the difference as damage. It also includes rules for blunt trauma.

I like your idea of modifying Andy's system. I'm off to do some reading.

Oh, and there's talk of Marc reprinting Striker. If you wan't specifics in the meantime, do ask. I have the books somewhere.

- Neil.

 

[Bill Coffin]

I always found that converting Snapshot was a decent solution, since it got people to act out of sync with each other. The most lethal element of CT combat, as best I remember it, was its simultaneity. Everybody cuts loose on full auto and one round later, the lucky ones are left standing. With Snapshot, the guys who ran for cover firing wild acted on a different schedule as the guy who stands his grond and aims, that sort of thing. I found that added a neat element to it.

Personally, I never felt much need to modify the combat rules in CT because it was fast and deadly. Given that I was playing this game mostly during my old AD&D days, where combat was often drawn out and dealt with endlessly chipping away at your foes (esp. at high levels), the lethality of CT combat was a major plus. It was the only system where you really feared getting shot, even by a piddly body pistol. It also encouraged us to follow reasonable courses of action -- negotiate or think your way out of a solution; stack the odds in your favor if you must fight, find cover (or religion), and armor up.

I guess in the end, CT is far from a perfect combat system, but it facilitated a certain kind of play that I really enjoyed, so for me, it works well enough to pretty much leave it alone.

I only played Striker once, so I can't really comment on it as an alternative rules set, but I did recently pick up the Games reprint, so I'll be giving that a good look over the holiday season, esp. as my PBeM campaign might be getting into a little vehicular combat before too terribly long.

 

[Takei]

Originally posted by ACK:
Anyway, I have been thinking of an easy House Rules solution using the Andy Slack Armor modifiers and applying them to the damage instead of the To-Hit. After all, what does armor do?

I thought I'd read all of Andy's stuff but this one seems new to me. Could you point me to the article in question?

 

[ACK!!]

Originally posted by Takei:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by ACK:
Anyway, I have been thinking of an easy House Rules solution using the Andy Slack Armor modifiers and applying them to the damage instead of the To-Hit. After all, what does armor do?

I thought I'd read all of Andy's stuff but this one seems new to me. Could you point me to the article in question? </font>[/QUOTE]He gave a simplified to-hit throw modifier matrix with exceptions for reflec and ablat against lasers.

I toyed with having two sets of modifiers one for archiac/blade weapons and one for slugthrowers/energy weapons.

The modifiers would take off damage instead of being used as modifiers to impact the to-hit.

Andy was just trying to simplify the large amount of charts regarding to-hit modifiers.

The idea about armor absorbing damage is just my lame attempt at working around something in CT I did not like from my own referring experience.

The idea works on the assumption that armor absorbs damage as opposed to preventing you from being hit. It is also easier than the whole penetration versus armor value for attenuation over varying range bands with floating die modifiers according to whatever style rules.

I like the simplicity of the CT system but I hate the armor as modifiers against to-hit never seem to role-play that well. If you don't get the roll to hit because of the modifiers players still grumble that they missed even if you try to add the color comments about shots bouncing off armor.

I am not proposing my "house rule" is a decent solution.

I am even exploring the idea of using Hyphen's combat rules.

 

[Takei]

I've read a suggestion before where the armour modifier is only used to reduce damage and not modify the chance of hitting. It's an OK idea, although you do have to "0" the plus mods.

Next time I play (if it's not T20!) I'll probably try a slight variant on Striker. In the "Integration with Traveller" chapter it suggests applying 3D for a Light Wound and 6D for a Serious Wound. I'm thinking about adding 9D for Death against players. Probably fatal, but there is the odd chance of survival!

The wonderful world of tinkering with Traveller

 

[ACK!!]

Originally posted by Takei:
I've read a suggestion before where the armour modifier is only used to reduce damage and not modify the chance of hitting. It's an OK idea, although you do have to "0" the plus mods.

Next time I play (if it's not T20!) I'll probably try a slight variant on Striker. In the "Integration with Traveller" chapter it suggests applying 3D for a Light Wound and 6D for a Serious Wound. I'm thinking about adding 9D for Death against players. Probably fatal, but there is the odd chance of survival!

The wonderful world of tinkering with Traveller

Speaking of tinkering, I was going to also do a simple torso, head, limbs location matrix and adjust damage accordingly.

As I think more and more I am leaning toward Hyphen's rules.

In fact I am editing this post because I finally decided to go with Hyphen's rules because they really reflect what I remembered I like about MT but they do seem to have three issues:

1) The whole "hit points" thing does not feel very Traveller-esque at all. Plus the values seem high.

2) The whole thing is a bit complex for a system that is usually so simplistic and elegant.

3) The values for laser weapons seem low compared to CT even taking into account the penetration.

Ok, but I am still going with that. The Hyphen rules seem to be my standby.

I am almost complete with my IMTU house rules doc.

 

[Takei]

Originally posted by ACK:
Speaking of tinkering, I was going to also do a simple torso, head, limbs location matrix and adjust damage accordingly.
<snip>
I am almost complete with my IMTU house rules doc. [/QB]

Have you read 2300AD? It has quite a nice system for hit locations.

I'd be interested in reading your IMTU doc once it's finished. If you don't fancy posting it could you PM me a copy? (pauldotbendalatattglobaldotnet)

 

[ACK!!]

Originally posted by Takei:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by ACK:
Speaking of tinkering, I was going to also do a simple torso, head, limbs location matrix and adjust damage accordingly.
<snip>
I am almost complete with my IMTU house rules doc.

Have you read 2300AD? It has quite a nice system for hit locations.

I'd be interested in reading your IMTU doc once it's finished. If you don't fancy posting it could you PM me a copy? (pauldotbendalatattglobaldotnet) [/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]I tried to send them to you via email. Got undeliverable. Is it @attglobal.net? Or did you misstype and is it global.net?

Posting them here might make for a pretty long post. Might consider putting it up in the IMTU section later.

Very excited. It seems I am going to have a party of three playing via AIM chat on Sundays. w00t!

If not I might be trolling the Grip traveller games for parties that need a hot shot Vargr -- Scooby in Space!!

 

[binky]

Originally posted by ACK:
Posting them here might make for a pretty long post. Might consider putting it up in the IMTU section later.

If you need somewhere to host a download, yell, I can happily do that for you. Have Acrobat so can also turn it into a PDF.

Very excited. It seems I am going to have a party of three playing via AIM chat on Sundays. w00t!

Congrats.

Have you considered doing it on IRC? Would allow those that don't use AIM (for whatever reasons) to add to your player base. Also there are any number of dice rolling bots for IRC which might make life easier.

- Neil.

 

[ACK!!]

Originally posted by binky:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by ACK:
Posting them here might make for a pretty long post. Might consider putting it up in the IMTU section later.

If you need somewhere to host a download, yell, I can happily do that for you. Have Acrobat so can also turn it into a PDF.</font>[/QUOTE]Ok, it is in html format. I have posted it on my personal website. The full url is:

IMTU

I do not pretend at the moment that my rules are right or even workable. The players understand that I am trying out these house rules on them. I also try not to get too detailed about the Combat rules with the players. That is how I want it to work.

Notes:

1. Tasks are straight from Digest Group copied and pasted from Andy Slack's Classic Traveller House rules.

Andy Slack's House Rules and Downloads

2. Hits section is straight from Hyphen's Combat Rules.

Hyphen's Combat Rules on Hit Points

3. Aiming is from the aiming rules at travellercentral.

Aiming Rules

4. Combat rules are mostly from Hyphen's Combat rules with the General Location stuff thrown in by me.

Hyphen's Combat Rules

5. Experience is from Andy Slack's Classic Traveller House rules.

Andy Slack's House Rules and Downloads

Originally posted by binky:
Congrats.

Have you considered doing it on IRC? Would allow those that don't use AIM (for whatever reasons) to add to your player base. Also there are any number of dice rolling bots for IRC which might make life easier.

- Neil.

I thought about it. I have mIRC and a dice rolling bot to go with it no less. However, the //roll-dice command (based on 2D6 no less) comes with AIM chat. Not only that, but all the people I will be campaigning with already have an AIM accounts since we use them at work.

 

[Takei]

Thanks for the links Ack. @attglobal.net is correct, although I have had sporadic delivery problems :-(

Time to get reading.

 

[ACK!!]

Originally posted by Takei:
Thanks for the links Ack. @attglobal.net is correct, although I have had sporadic delivery problems :-(

Time to get reading.

Thanks I should probably really have posted this under the house rules section.

I am doing so much of the documentation for this new campaign in straight html. I am starting to wonder if I shouldn't just bite the bullet and put together a good index page for it all.

My players have never even seen Traveller before, don't own the books, etc...

So, I go on this mad documentation spree.

I have an html for my

house rules and

my character generation stuff (a walk through of the mtcg.exe program which seems to be best for me)

tech notes for stuff like how computers work

biotech etc..

and finally a list of common weapons and armor.

That is a lot of stuff.

I was little hesitant to post all of this in a way. Kind of afraid of getting whacked online for screwing with canon too much.

The tough part is that I have only played in one campaign where I was a player around people that had a real history with the traveller game.

Before that, I was always the ones that had the books and ran the campaigns.

Two Megatraveller campaigns and two abortive attempts at TNE campaigns.

So, I am bound to make mistakes. I can name two times off the top of my head here in these forums where I just obviously had something wrong and had to go -doh!- sorry.

Got the re-prints of the basic books and supplements and love the simplicity even if I dash part of that with my house rules.

 

[imported_Doctor_Rob]

Hi ACK, just a quick query regarding your House Rules.

The weapons tables have a column "Pen/Atten".

"Pen" in obviously the penetration rating of the weapon.

But, what is "Atten"?

Rob

 

[ACK!!]

Originally posted by Doctor_Rob:
Hi ACK, just a quick query regarding your House Rules.

The weapons tables have a column "Pen/Atten".

"Pen" in obviously the penetration rating of the weapon.

But, what is "Atten"?

Rob

Ok, these are Hyphen's consolidated tables that he made not mine.
I should include credit to him on the page.

I will edit that.

Atten indicates how much the penetration degrades beyond the primary range of the weapon. If the weapon has a 6/2 pen/atten then the weapon pen degrades two points for every range band beyond its primary range.

I edited the values he gave to give gauss pistols just a bit more punch, and to correlate better with laser damage in CT.

Been too focused on personal combat in my house rules but its one of the few failings I see with CT in my eyes.

The sad part is my major gripe coming in was the fact that I hated armor as DM on the To-Hit. Then well I just got carried away.

Did a couple of sample combat scenes with a player that will play in my campaing coming up. It worked really well. They just have the character right and have no clue about their hits. We go through the combat procedure and I explain the damage done to their character. I never get into the nitty gritty about points and stuff. That degrades from the role-playing.

Example: Player is hit for low penetration on a hit to the arm and I roll 4d6 and get low results to top of. Player can't take less than 4 points of damage from that weapon because he has non-rigid armor. So, he takes a little more than a graze from the weapon to the arm and that is all I tell him. Your arm is bruised bad and that was your shooting arm so you have -1 DM to-hit. No bull for the player to keep track of.

Lots of room for dramatic development since it incorporates a hit location system that is really specific on my side. Look at my links above for travellercentral link to aiming system.

 

[imported_Doctor_Rob]

Hi ACK,

Thanks - that's really helpful!

Rob

 

[ACK!!]

Originally posted by Doctor_Rob:
Hi ACK,

Thanks - that's really helpful!

Rob

Thanks back man.

Cool I might edit the page today to put the Aim location with the combat procedure for aiming and the hits in the combat procedure as well and rename the whole section Personal Combat Rules for something.

I was going to add a link to the full aiming rules page from travellercentral.

Then finally I was going to go back to my email I sent to the character on character generation and add my limits and such about that.

Finally I would then post the link to the consolidated house rules here for comments. I play an odd CT/MT hybrid in the CT milleu.

Here's hoping that T5 rocks so I do not have to keep up with this much longer!

I see four limitations of CT IMO since I originally came in on MT.

1. Chargen needed to be brought together and with limits the MT rules produced nice characters.

2. Digest Task System

3. Combat -- Mine are rather complex but god I hated the idea of Armor as DM on the To-Hit and do not have AHL/Striker rules. Might special order ACQ from my game store. Game Parlor in Chantilly VA just rocks!! My theory -- complex is fine for the ref but should be abstracted for the players.

4. Experience rules -- I like Andy Slack's experience rules. The 1-3 points per break in game with 8 needed for skill advancement is simple and well it works.

 

[ACK!!]

I need help!!

Now I am completely confused. I came up with this really complex MT style combat system from Hyphen's stuff and other people's input.

It is here.

Then I came across a posting from William on an older Andy Slack system that took off damage according to armor type and I crafted a simplier version of the combat system here.

Which is better?

The armor values in the second system might seem lower but so are the repurcusions initially though the result of combat (possible death) is the same.

I just hated the idea of say a 4D6 gauss rifle have no penetration on a Cloth Armored opponent.

Please do I go with complex but more elegant or simplier and probably truer to the ideals of a CT system?

 

[binky]

Originally posted by ACK:
Which is better?

Ooooh..... I love the simpler system.... well except the hit locations which personally I think are unnecessary.

The system is similar to that outlined in At Close Quarters, which is what I was basing my modified combat system on. It however was mising some of the basic armour values which was giving me a headache. If you don't mind I think I'll borrow yours.

Only things outstanding are armour values for ablat and reflec and a way to handle ablat. Having it reduce one armour point per hit may be too much.

The other thing you may want to add is something that replicates the first hit off one stat rule, though I notice that you are handling hit loss differently so it may not be appropriate.

- Neil.

 

[ACK!!]

Originally posted by binky:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by ACK:
Which is better?

Ooooh..... I love the simpler system.... well except the hit locations which personally I think are unnecessary.

The system is similar to that outlined in At Close Quarters, which is what I was basing my modified combat system on. It however was mising some of the basic armour values which was giving me a headache. If you don't mind I think I'll borrow yours.

Only things outstanding are armour values for ablat and reflec and a way to handle ablat. Having it reduce one armour point per hit may be too much.

The other thing you may want to add is something that replicates the first hit off one stat rule, though I notice that you are handling hit loss differently so it may not be appropriate.

- Neil. </font>[/QUOTE]I was thinking 7 against laser for reflec and 4 for ablat. Your are right I do need to include those.

My only problem is penetration rules handle multiple weapons with the same damage better. In fact, I had almost decided to go with the complex system. For example shotgun becomes a special case doing 4D6 like a gauss rifle and ripping through Cloth with my system. Ugh.

On edit:

I added location stuff mainly because I wanted the combat system to be specific for me - the ref but abstract to the players. What do I mean? I keep track of my players hits anyway, always have. So, why in the heck should the player have to. Answer, they do not IMTU. I describe combat not bog them down in figures.

I describe combat like he draws and takes an unaimed shot at your character with a autopistol. The round hits you in the leg but can't penetrate the cloth ballistic you have a nasty bruise and will not be running full speed till it heals. blah..etc..etc.. I never go into details about how many hits and all that stuff. The hit location helps me feed in the flavor.

Update! - I added reflec and ablat and included myself a low pen/high damage out for shotguns and HE rounds.

Thinking of adding Jack at AV 1 and upping the AV of mesh, flack, cloth and CES all by one point.

In other words I think I have my exceptions backwards.

There should be an exception for high penetration weapons/rounds and not for high damage/low pen weapons.

Armor piercing rounds and lasers weapons cause you to have to deduct 2 points from Armor Value. With that deduction not being applicable for relec and ablat in regards to laser which they were designed to counteract.

What do you think?

This is what William (who originally pointed out the older Andy Slack rule I partially based this on) said about Armor Value :

originally sent to me by Williams:
Hello,

In his older house rules (the printout I have is dated 10/19/98) he essentially used the T4 concept of armor. That is, if you hit, you subtract the armor value from the weapons number of dice. I also use the flexable armor rule from Doug Berry's ACQ - the die per armor value point is subtracted, but the PC still takes 1 point of damage from blunt trauma for flexable types of armor.

The values I use are:
Ablat tl9 cr75 av3 against lasers only, each hit reduces av by 1.

Battle Dress tl13 cr200,000 av7

Cloth tl4 cr250 av4 flexable

Combat Armor tl11 cr20,000 av6

Combat Environment Suit tl10 cr1,000 av5, flexable (based on cloth)

Flak Jacket tl7 cr100 av3 cheap cloth, flexable

Jack tl1 cr50 av1 leather - often a flight jacket in Traveller Flexable.

Mesh tl7 cr150 av2 metal reenforced natural or synthetic leather Flexable

Reflec tl10 cr1,500 av6 only against lasers.

Hope this is of help.

William

Once again, look here

Should I reverse the exception and make Armor Values more in line with Striker and MT?

Needing some advice.