Gonna Adapt T4 Combat to My CT Campaign

[tbeard1999]

Despite the fact that hit points are a lousy way of modeling gunshot wounds, I am reluctantly coming to believe that players like hit points. And at the end of the day, I am their humble servant.

Unfortunately, I just can't stomach the CT combat system. So, I am gonna adapt the T4 combat system (which I think is the best Traveller combat system since Striker and far easier to adapt).

The T4 damage/armor system is elegant, in my opinion. Essentially, weapons do x dice of damage and armor subtracts X dice. High penetration weapons are handled well -- the weapon gets more dice, but the maximum damage is 3 dice (4 dice for shotguns). A nice touch -- flexible armor doesn't completely elimate a die; it reduces it to 1 point.

My only problem with this system is that the referee has to disclose to the players how much armor the target has, and I've made my peace with that.

Here are my thoughts:

8+ to hit with the following modifiers:

+Weapon Skill
+DEX DM (I'd still drop all of the +2 mods to a +1)
+0 at T4 effective range; -1 at each range band beyond that.
+2 if pistol at C range
-2 if rifle at C range
-3 target evadng
-3 for group hits if applicable

I'll use CT autofire and burst rules initially.

Since I don't like telling the players how much armor the target is wearing, this is the best workaround I can come up with.

After scoring a hit, the player rolls the weapon's maximum damage (3 or 4 dice). If armor would have reduced the damage dice, the referee eliminates the player's damage dice in order from lowest to highest (if he wants to give the players the benefit). If he wants to give the players less of a benefit, he reduces the lowest, then the highest, then the lowest, etc. This means that the player should call out his individual rolls -- "I rolled a 3, a 4, and a 6". Doing so in ascending order would be a big help.

Comments? In particular, does anyone see any significant problem using T4 range bands instead of CT range bands? The T4 range bands work better with 1.5m interior grids anyhow.

If this works, I get (a) a better combat system than CT (IMHO, of course); and (b) easy access to T4 weapons and vehicles.

(Not trying to be rude, but I really do want to try this system out. I'm not interested in discussion other combat systems at this time. So please limit comments to the T4 system and how to adapt it to CT. Thanks.)

 

[tbeard1999]

CT Ranged Weapon Stats

For CT weapons, use CT stats for weight, cost, length, etc. Do not use CT stats for range and armor to hit modifiers or for damage.

Weapon Damage Effective Range
Body Pistol 2d C
Automatic Pistol 2d V Short
Revolver 2d V Short
Carbine 4d Medium
Rifle 5d Medium
Automatic Rifle 5d Medium
Shotgun 4d* V Short
Submachinegun 2d V Short
Laser Carbine 5d Long
Laser Rifle 7d Long

*Armor stops 2d per point.

For reference, here are the T4 ranges:
C-Contact 0-3m
V Short 4-15m
Short 16-45m
Medium 46-150m
Long 151-450m
V Long 451-1500m

 

[Foxroe]

Please bear with me, since I've never played T4, and I am curious as to how this can be adapted to CT.

Couldn't you just have the player total his/her three highest dice (four for shotgun) and give you that value? Then you could roll the armor dice, total, and subtract from the damage, and weapons would always do a minimum of 3 (or 4 for shotguns) to flexible armor.

EDIT: Sorry, I assumed that weapons would do at least 3D, but you could still do it this way, couldn't you?

-Fox

 

[Supplement Four]

Despite the fact that hit points are a lousy way of modeling gunshot wounds, I am reluctantly coming to believe that players like hit points.

I agree, there are better ways to model wounds. But, hit points are good in a strictly "game" sense. They're abstract. Who knows what 1 hit point of damage does to a person/ What does it represent? And, is that 1 hit point of damage more deadly to a character with physicals 777 than to a character with physicals AAA, or does it represent the same amount of damage?

Throw your hands up and pull out your hair figuring out those.

What they allow in a game, though, is fun. Gun shots are made. Dice are rolled. Damage is applied. And, the game keeps going.

Unlike real life, a character with hit points gets "shot", and it's like nothing really happened to him. Apply 4 points of damage to a character with physicals 777. How is he really hindered?

So, hit points are abstract "extra men" in a video game sense.

Think of a game without hitpoints and more realistic damage. One shot. Blam. And, the character doesn't move, incapacitated, because he's shot.

Or, there's a lot of firing without anyone being hit (which also may be unrealistic depending on the penalty modifiers).

Or, there's just plain no gun fights in a game--but, let's face it. Gun fights are "fun". They're great for "action" scenes in a game (just like a movie).

And, for better or worse, hit points serve that purpose fairly well.

 

[aramis]

Having played a number of games that use other methods of wound tracking, Hitpoints are just about the simplest to handle.

On the other hand, Traveller uses attributes AS hit points, thus directly tying damage effects to damage taken, rather than the D&D-esque "-1 when below 25%".


In fact, aside from CP 2013/FNFF and Striker/AHL, almost all of the so-called "non-HP" systems really are just multi-track HP systems with overflow.

My personal favorite is a toss up:

• CORPS, with HP by location, and checking to see if it broke something like bones or major arteries....
• MT, where Hits are simply dice of damage to stat suspended til the adrenaline wears off
• Shillouette (Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles) where each hit has a wound level, but the sum of the wound levels is also a hit point track...
• Palladium Fantasy 1st ed, where SDC is your armor, and HP are you...

Seriously, in doing Traveller combat with non-Grognards, it really helps to explain that Traveller uses attributes AS hitpoints.

For, as a rule, yes, players love hitpoint systems...

As to using T4 combat: it should work, with the simplest method being to simply define each task as a specific CT roll needed, and using the CT mods, and use the entirety of the T4 combat system. My players hated it, due in no small part to the T4 task system, and in part to not having AP nor low-pen weapons being handled well.

 

[Ishmael]

I like mt for damage...one 'hit' is one die damage.
If one uses the dm= stat/3 type houserule, that means each hitpoint taken is pretty much a -1dm for many cases....makes it easy to handle wounded npcs...and for players it degrades performance if they get hit so the players have direct incentive to NOT get hit. I recall how players would not worry about damage during combat and assume its all better before the next combat occurs.

if AHL-style AP's are figured from stats, then damage slows you down too.
(str+dex)/3 = AP rounded to nearest whole number seems good...joe average gets 5
Adrenaline can be modeled by letting player substitue endurance for str or dex.( even if only to get a huge strength boost for lifting cars off babies )

T4 is a system that looks neat, but just misses what I want in combat.
I'm leaning towards pen determined by muzzle energy, but damage coming out of bullet momentum...I feel that would model big slow moving bullets better...I just need to find a sensible conversion setup for that.
And if I had my druthers, it'd be as simple as the AHL damage too apply

I'm rambing now...its early and I have to get ready for work
nevermind

 

[tbeard1999]

Please bear with me, since I've never played T4, and I am curious as to how this can be adapted to CT.

Couldn't you just have the player total his/her three highest dice (four for shotgun) and give you that value? Then you could roll the armor dice, total, and subtract from the damage, and weapons would always do a minimum of 3 (or 4 for shotguns) to flexible armor.

EDIT: Sorry, I assumed that weapons would do at least 3D, but you could still do it this way, couldn't you?

-Fox

Yeah, I probably should write this up so that folks unfamiliar with T4 can see how the system works.

The key difference between T4 and CT is that T4 requires a "to hit" roll that is not adjusted for armor. Armor reduces damage taken. Specifically, armor reduces the number of damage dice. So, if a player with a rifle (3d damage) fires at a target with a rigid armor value of 2, the target takes 1d of damage. Damage effects are handled just like CT (i.e., allocated to physical attributes, first hit applied to one random attribute, etc.).

What makes this system superior to most "armor absorbs damage" systems is that high penetration weapons do not do an outrageously high amount of damage against unarmored targets. The mechanism used is very elegant -- the maximum damage is 3d for most normal small arms. So a damage 7 ACR will do the same damage to an unarmored target (3d) as a rifle, which is how I think it ought to be.

 

[tbeard1999]

My players hated it, due in no small part to the T4 task system, and in part to not having AP nor low-pen weapons being handled well.

Well, low-pen weapons are not much of a problem, IMHO. The easy way to handle low-pen weapons (like shotguns) is to give them a high damage and provide that armor provides double protection. For some reason, I like this better than the Emperor's Arsenal approach of doubling damage that gets through armor.

I don't see how anyone can say that armor piercing weapons aren't handled well. Armor piercing weapons get a high damage, but the system keeps high penetration from equating to unreasonably high amounts of *damage*.

Never did like MT's combat system. I ran a MT campaign a month after the game came out. Within 4 weeks, we were back to using Striker.

 

[robject]

Well, low-pen weapons are not much of a problem, IMHO. The easy way to handle low-pen weapons (like shotguns) is to give them a high damage and provide that armor provides double protection.

...thus creating a 'p2' value for low-pen weapons ("double armor, then subtract damage"). Scott Martin favors that kind of system. It's a reasonable evolution, I think.

 

[tbeard1999]

...thus creating a 'p2' value for low-pen weapons ("double armor, then subtract damage"). Scott Martin favors that kind of system. It's a reasonable evolution, I think.

I think that the important thing is the result. You want low penetration weapons to be appropriately lethal against unarmored targets. This gets you there with minimal fuss. It also avoids some of the problems that arise from equating damage and penetration.

And since T4 handles armor piercing weaponry well already, there's no need for a similar mechanic for armor piercing rounds.

 

[tbeard1999]

Oh, I forgot to include CT armor:

Mesh -- 1f
Cloth -- 2f
Combat Armor -- 6r
Reflec -- 6r vs lasers only
Ablat -- 5r vs lasers only; -1 to protection after each hit
Jack has no effect on guns

f--flexible armor--reduces the indicated # of dice of damage to 1 point each. So a rifle (3d damage) hitting Cloth (2f damage) will do 1d+2 damage.

r--rigid armor--reduces the indicated # of dice of damage.

And here are some Mercenary small arms:

Assault Rifle 4d Medium
ACR--DS 7d Long
ACR--HE 5d Long (1d damage in adjacent squares)
Gauss Rifle 8d Long
LAG--DS 8d Long*
LAG--HE 5d Long (1d damage in adjacent squares)*
LAG--Flechette* 6d** Medium
Snub Pistol--HEAP 5d V Short
Accelerator Rifle 4d Long

*Maximum damage 4d
**Armor protection doubled (flexible armor reduces 2 dice to 2 points per point of flexible armor)

Note that many of these values are different than T4, because T4's weapons and armor have different capabilities than their CT counterparts (often less effective against armor, but far more ammo). If you're gonna take full benefit of T4's gear, you'll need to replace CT weapons with T4's weapon and armor.

 

[Foxroe]

The key difference between T4 and CT is that T4 requires a "to hit" roll that is not adjusted for armor. Armor reduces damage taken. Specifically, armor reduces the number of damage dice. So, if a player with a rifle (3d damage) fires at a target with a rigid armor value of 2, the target takes 1d of damage. Damage effects are handled just like CT (i.e., allocated to physical attributes, first hit applied to one random attribute, etc.).

Well since T4 uses the same "attributes as HP" system as CT, then T4 combat should easily insert into CT. You would just have to use a CT-style to-hit task (8+ as you say, modified by range), and use the weapon/armor values from T4. Seems very doable.

-Fox

 

[tbeard1999]

T4 is a system that looks neat, but just misses what I want in combat.
I'm leaning towards pen determined by muzzle energy, but damage coming out of bullet momentum...I feel that would model big slow moving bullets better...I just need to find a sensible conversion setup for that.

I've considered just adapting the shotgun damage rules for large caliber, low velocity weapons (like heavy pistols). They do as much damage as rifles (3d), but armor is doubled against them. So against unarmored targets, they are very lethal, but armor renders them relatively ineffective. That's about right, it seems to me.

 

[tbeard1999]

Oh, and autofire works like CT (double attack; group hits). In addition, autofire weapons get a +1 to hit.

Melee combat works like CT, except that damage is done per the rules in this thread. Melee weapons have the same damage rating as in CT. Broadswords can do a maximum damage of 4d, due to their size.

Animal weapons all do 2d, except stingers which do 3d. Horns and teeth are contact range; the others are vshort range. A +1 for the animal's weapons on the animal sizes and weaponry chart is converted to +1d damage.