T20 Drednaughts? What is the point?

[Michael Taylor]

I've been reading this thread carefully, and have come to the conclusion meson guns may be deadly because they just are, and all this deadliness is designed to DETER acts of agression against fleets armed with meson guns (except the solomani of course, who are insane). Like nuclear weapons, a fleet action involving meson guns is MAD (mutually assured destruction), hence the peace is kept, which after all is the aim of war - ultimate peace.

So if deadnoughts are so vulnerable, why are they built? Perhaps to show the flag ie: a very expensive PR exercise. Perhaps to carry divisions of troops. Perhaps to carry hundreds of fighters?
Even given their vulnerability, it makes sense in a political sense to build some. Perhaps in the OTU you are only regarded as a "superpower" if you have some dreadnoughts?

I agree however that meson svcreens should be doubled in effectiveness, and like other redundant systems, more than one meson screen can be carried and active at any given time.

Mike

 

[Richard Saunders]

Hello Michael.
And welcome, Nice first message.
Yes i agree Dreadnoughts may be for show but the most common ship would be the Cruiser 25-50 Kton.
Bye.

 

[justacaveman]

I use one house rule that reduces the effects of critical hits. Critical hits do not ignore defenses, they halve them.

I equip fighters that go up against large ships with nuclear missles. A TL13+ nuke will do 7d6 blast/7d12 radiation damage. You still need a lot of fighters to take out a capital ship, so I primarily use them against escorts.

 

[Richard Saunders]

Originally posted by LordRhys:
I use one house rule that reduces the effects of critical hits. Critical hits do not ignore defenses, they halve them.

I equip fighters that go up against large ships with nuclear missles. A TL13+ nuke will do 7d6 blast/7d12 radiation damage. You still need a lot of fighters to take out a capital ship, so I primarily use them against escorts.

Hello LordRhys.
One small problem i can see with nuclear armed fighters, Who builds warships without Nuclear Dampeners, So if you detonate the bomb next to the ship it dosn't go of, If you detonate it at range you wont get radiation damage and the blast damage may singe the paint (20 miles range on the dampener).
It would only take one use of nuc missiles and all warships would be fitted with dampeners out to the required range.
Bye.

 

[aramis]

It all boils down to playtest error... in the playtest, Meson Screens acted as AV, not defense vs to hits...

Which meant that damage was reduced, rather than the all or nothing of extant T20 published rules for mesons.

Actually, the way read it, it's abiguous. It clearly adds to the TN to be hit, but the wording could be read (still) to include the armor effects, too.

 

[jfwking]

Even using your meson screen as both AR and AC it doesn't help against spinals. A high meson screen helps against those pesky sub 1000 dton ships with a meson bay but nothing much helps against the spinals and even treating it as AR as well as AC (which I do) still is no defence against the very high probability of crits which then ignore armour. DNs in war are floating targets to meson spinals under T20.

 

[mike wightman]

Simple solution, rule that meson guns don't ignore the effects of meson screens or configuration on a critical hit and then roll your 16 dice of damage, subtract dice (highest first) equal to [the meson screen + any positive configuration AC bonus] and then multiply by 10. Spinals still inflict huge damage on a critical hit though.

 

[BetterThanLife]

The easier quick fix is to not add 5 to the crit threat range of a spinal and make no ship weapon crit multiplier higher than x2. Then you are still highly dangerous but Drednaughts still have a place. this way the gunner having Gunnery skill as PMOS can't auto crit. (And your gunner doesn't have a Primary Military Occupational Speciality of Gunnery?) Certainly your Spinal Gunner will have that feat.

 

[TheBrain]

Has anybody considered giving meson guns a penalty to hit? Consider, with a meson weapon your not just trying to simply hit the target but trying to place the hit inside the target, while both vesesels a manuvering at several thousand miles per minute over a range of several hundred thousand miles.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by TheBrain:
Has anybody considered giving meson guns a penalty to hit? Consider, with a meson weapon your not just trying to simply hit the target but trying to place the hit inside the target, while both vesesels a manuvering at several thousand miles per minute over a range of several hundred thousand miles.

For those same reasons and others, I've been the last couple months considering applying the biggest to hit penalty of all. I'm thinking of dropping the weapon and screen type entirely. I've also been looking at some of the other apparent design problems.

eg. PA Spinals are available at TL8 at 5,500dT (not including anything else) but the largest spaceship you can build at that TL (limited by computer) is (depending on the table used) 1,000dT or 4,000dT. Any clever workarounds? I'm not coming up with much. And no, I won't consider building the ship at say TL13 and then flying over to some backwater port to install a TL8 PA Spinal. Importing a computer might be allowable I guess since iirc there is a canon rule supporting import of higher tech components, have to check that later, HG I think.

 

[mike wightman]

Hmm, large ship combat using T20 rules?
See my post on "how big is 1 vl".
Change the wording slightly.

I now just stick to High Guard or PP:F varients for large ship combat.
The T20 rules work well for PC scale small ships though.

 

[aramis]

Under the playtest, there was no agreement on bypassing AR on crits.

Damage multiplication is (IMO) better than defense negation. Simply making crits do a minimum 1 point past defenses winds up degrading systems enough IMO.

I could argue for a dozen better methods, but here are my favorites, now:
WILD HAIR MODE

1) Crits do increased damage by crit code, and minimmum 1 point of damage post-defenses (Personal favorite here)

2) Crits get no minimum damage, but reduce AR by 1 IF THEY FAIL TO PENETRATE.

3) Crits cause armor rating to be rolled on D6's; each armor die then pulls one damage die of equal or less rolled number, unused armor dice then each cancel a die, reducing the AR by 1 each.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by TheBrain:
Has anybody considered giving meson guns a penalty to hit? Consider, with a meson weapon your not just trying to simply hit the target but trying to place the hit inside the target, while both vesesels a manuvering at several thousand miles per minute over a range of several hundred thousand miles.

There are already to hit penalities based on the configuration of the ship. (Or in some cases bonuses.) One of the big problems you run into is the gunnery skill. Hitting is fairly easy to accomplish in starship combat in T20. It is more difficult to hit (significantly more difficult) in either vehicle and personal combat. If you make it much harder to hit on the big ship end then you have a problem that was significant under High Guard. Fast agile smaller craft can't hit each other. SO a pair of fighters being equal would score no hits on each other. Until you got into batteries at around 400 Tons it was very difficult to hit and score damage on another equal ship. Under T20 they have solved that problem but the other end of the scale is significantly nasty. I say scrap the gunnery skill and use the BAB. (Using the Martial Training feat for Naval Gunners should even up the odds a bit vs. Marine Gunners.) Under the current system, an average Naval Gunner, with computer support, a factor 9 or higher weapon and PMOS gunnery can't miss. You don't even need computer support. the nastiest target to hit in space combat is a TL15 fighter with agility 6 and AR 15. this gets you an AC of 32.

Average naval personal. Gunnery skill 13, (The commander has no leadership skill or bonus for ship's tactics, obviously not a good commander.) +8 or +9 computer assited gunnery from sensors/computer, +9 for factor of the weapon, plus a D20=31+D20. You miss on a 1. (Only because you always miss on a one. At the 3rd range band you miss on a 2. Against an Atlantic (a TL15 Atlantic with an agility of 5) Heavy Cruiser you miss on a 1 out to 8 range bands. At maximum range (10 range bands) you miss on a 5 or less. Add a competent commander, (Leadership 9 or Intelligence 16 or Wisdom 16) and you miss on a 2 at 10 range bands. With a factor 9 meson bay you miss on a 1 at max range, without the commander. (Meson Screen is only factor 6 and close structure is actually a bonus to hit.) A Crit (30%) chance from the same bay would kill the Atlantic with one average critical hit even without the Radiation damage. A Spinal mount with one Critical hit (55% chance or on a 10+) will do more than twice the SI of the ship. without the radiation damage.) Since Gunnery is a skill a Gunner with PMOS (Gunnery) will auto Crit with a Spinal Meson mount by simply taking 10 at 10 range bands. (And you don't even need a competent commander.)

By the way 10 range bands for all the bays except the Fusion and Plasma bays is 20 Strategic hexes or more. 20 Strategic hexes is only 4 range bands for a Spinal Meson weapon and 3 range bands for a spinal PA. With a typical spinal mount you don't even need sensor assistance to score a hit by taking 10. You fire over open sights at 20 hexes with your factor 17 or 18 Spinal Meson and you score a Crit. The victory goes to the guy with the highest initiative. (All other factors equal.)

 

[Richard Saunders]

Hello Bhoins.
You cant get an auto crit with any weapon, you still need to roll the hit chance for the crit, Yes it is an auto hit but not an auto crit, yes with spinals it's 50% crit but not auto.
Bye.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by far-trader:
I've also been looking at some of the other apparent design problems.

eg. PA Spinals are available at TL8 at 5,500dT (not including anything else) but the largest spaceship you can build at that TL (limited by computer) is (depending on the table used) 1,000dT or 4,000dT. Any clever workarounds? I'm not coming up with much. And no, I won't consider building the ship at say TL13 and then flying over to some backwater port to install a TL8 PA Spinal. Importing a computer might be allowable I guess since iirc there is a canon rule supporting import of higher tech components, have to check that later, HG I think.

No wonder that seemed familiar, here's the old thread here.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Lionel Deffries:
Hello Bhoins.
You cant get an auto crit with any weapon, you still need to roll the hit chance for the crit, Yes it is an auto hit but not an auto crit, yes with spinals it's 50% crit but not auto.
Bye.

Actually it is a 55% Crit. And reading through the D20 rules it says that a Natural to hit of the Crit threat range is a potential for a Crit. (which then must be confirmed by a second to hit roll and a simple hit is required. The Take 10 rule for skills states "When a character is not in a rush and is not being threatened or distracted, the character may choose to Take 10. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check the character's result as if the character had rolled a 10." (Though I haven't found any other weapons that crit 55% of the time. Nor have I found a circumstance, besides T20 where any attack is a skill check. A probable unforseen circumstance in having Gunnery as a skill.) The PMOS Feat benefit is to "Select one skill as PMOS. Whenever using this skill the character may always elect to Take 10, even in situations where they normally could not."

If the gunner firing the Spinal Meson Mount has the Feat PMOS (Gunnery) that, under the current rules isn't a 55% chance for a critical threat and a 95% chance of confirming it it is a Critical Threat (by taking 10) followed by a hit (again taking 10) therefore a Critical hit.

Now if Gunnery wasn't a skill, or if Gunnery was specifically prohibited from being a Primary Military Occupational Speciality, or if Spinal mounts did not increase the Critical threat range by 5 (requiring a natural 15+ for a Critical threaton a Spinal Meson)or even if a Non-Spinal Mount didn't have a Critical Threat Range of 15-20 then this wouldn't be an auto crit. As all those situations do occur in T20 then why isn't it an automatic critical hit?

All of which is one reason that IMTU Gunnery isn't a skill, Spinal mounts don't add 5 to the critical threat range (And to prevent Destroyers from knocking off Drednaughts with one hit) and the biggest crit multiplier for a Starship weapon is x2. It seems to work best. The other reason is to give you a reason to build Dreds. Otherwise Nothing bigger than 50KTons is economical and in most cases 30KTons is more than enough.

As for Marines making better gunners than Naval personel the Martial Feat goes a long way to equalizing that. (Especially since they no longer can specialize in the gunnery skill.) It isn't a perfect fix, by any stretch of the imagination but it plays better. A destroyer flotilla can still rip up a Dred but it will take serious losses in the attempt. And 10 destroyers won't kill 3-6 dreds per turn.

Now if I am misreading the Take-10 rule I stand corrected. And if I am please show me an example in one of the rule books.

 

[aramis]

Crits always must be rolled to be obtained. Taking 10 prevents crits, no matter how wide the range, since the wording in 3E was clear that crits required a roll of a natural 20, or natural roll in the threat range if better, to crit. natural roll meaning unadjusted die roll...

Taking 10 (or 20) doesn't get you crits... so why should PMOS be any different.

So, PMOS means never having to make the confirmation roll... but still needing to expose to the 5% failure chance if you want to crit.

 

[BetterThanLife]

The wording in 3e is clear but combat in 3e isn't a skill check. And the wording on Take 10 is also quite clear. The roll is a 10. I have yet to find a reference that says anything else. Because combat in 3e was not meant as a skill check so you can't Take 10 for a combat roll. Unless I missed something in the combat rules that says you can Take 10 to shoot at someone. Firing weapons above the personal firearms level in T20 is a skill check unlike any other combat I have found in 3e unless you count a driving check to hit someone with a car as a combat roll and in that case there is no critical threat range. (D20 modern) Gunnery in T20 is a Skill check not a combat roll. To the best of my knowledge only in T20 does a skill roll in combat have a critical threat range.

What other D20 weapon has a threat range of 10+? What other D20 combat roll with a threat range is a skill roll? I haven't found any. For the first one I admit I don't know the threat range or all the combat rules modifications for seige weapons or other games in D20 like Buffy. I would hazard a guess that there aren't any though.

If your DC for a skill roll is 10, you have 11 ranks in a skill and you are unhurried, not distracted etc. and you Take 10 is that not a great success? What is a Critical hit but a great success in combat? If you have a Feat like PMOS, and PMOS, at least, keeps that choice from getting over used you only get one skill, D20 Modern you can have a whole list of skills you can always Take 10.

Lets get away from the Meson Spinal for a moment. If I fire a Meson Bay at another ship, with a GUnnery skill of 10 and Skill focus of gunnery and a wisdom of 10 and my target is a Cylinder shape. That means I have a +21 on my die roll. (10 for the skill level, 2 for the focus and 9 for the factor.) That will hit virtually all targets on a 2. (And if we are a compentent ship designer and Captain there are all sorts of bonuses to add to that 21.) It will be a critical threat on a 15. and a confirmed critical hit on an additional roll of a 2. Not quite one chance in 3 but close. Taking 10 in this case will guarantee a hit but since the roll is a 10 no chance for a crit. A skill roll still fails on a 1. Taking 10 in this case has no chance for a crit. But it also can't miss. Take the roll and you get a 5% chance to miss and a 30% chance to crit. (Well OK 28.5 chance to crit, taking into account failing to confirm on a subsequent 1.)

In D20 modern any weapon above personal firearms requires a specific feat for the weapon but still uses standard combat. IE Exotic Firearms (M2HB)(though once you get to the big boys it is one feat for the 25mm, the 30mm and the 120mm)

I was going to use the example of the M2HB but T20 seems to have left the Medium and Heavy Machineguns out of the equation. (They aren't covered under any of the feats.) I'd guess an M60 would be a Light Machinegun and a M2HB an autocannon but since it isn't there I'll continue with autocannons.

The 25mm on an M2A2 Bradley requires the Exotic Firearms Proficiency [Cannons] feat but is an attack roll. In T20 that same weapon requires the Weapon Proficeincy (Heavy Weapons) Feat and the Gunnery skill. It is just a machinegun writ large. While you are in a Bradley you have all sorts of aiming aids when you put that same gun on a Carriage and fire over open sights in T20 that is still gunnery.

I have to admit I don't have the PHB I bought D20 modern. Does a seige engine in D&D have a Critical threat rating and require a skill to fire or is it just a feat without an associated skill?

Where can you back up that taking 10 can't generate a Crit. The subject isn't covered but then again the basis of the rules, from my reading says that combat isn't a skill roll, which means you couldn't Take 10. Aside from the Meson Spinal is there another weapon in any D20 game that has a Critical threat of 10+? That is 55% of the time! That isn't a Critical hit that is a normal hit. You have a 40% chance for a glancing hit and 5% chance of a miss. Oops forgot that it is 52.25 chance for a Critical Hit because of that 5% chance of not confirming. That makes your chance for a substandard hit 42.75. I don't want to exaggerate.

Again if I am misreading show me what I need to read. (Or quote it.)

Originally posted by Aramis:
Crits always must be rolled to be obtained. Taking 10 prevents crits, no matter how wide the range, since the wording in 3E was clear that crits required a roll of a natural 20, or natural roll in the threat range if better, to crit. natural roll meaning unadjusted die roll...

Taking 10 (or 20) doesn't get you crits... so why should PMOS be any different.

So, PMOS means never having to make the confirmation roll... but still needing to expose to the 5% failure chance if you want to crit.

 

[aramis]

You are correct that attack rolls aren't skill rolls.

Skill rolls become "exceptional success" by making DC+20. (3.0 CRI p 61) So, unless the Skill is at least diff+10, taking 10 DOESN'T crit a SKILL ROLL.

And it is possible to get bladed gauntlets down to a 9-20 threat range, if they are magical and you have the improved critial feat, doit is possible to get some ludicrously low

Page 97, same reference, says "...the weapon scores a threat on a natural 19, or 20...", "...the weapon scores a threat on a natural 18,19, or 20..." and not "...roll of..." (This is in the 3E weapons section).

Page 123, combat: critical hits, again uses "when you make an attack roll and get a natural 20 ..." ascore threat and hit any AC. "Longswords,for instance give you a threat on a natural roll of 19 or 20."

Page 279, same source, "Natural: a natural roll or check is the actual number appearing on the die..."

I can't find my 3.5 rulebooks. But the 3.5SRD doesn't help much there, either.

Note also that T20 predates 3.5E...

Interesting side note: T20 doesn't define hat it is a gunnery skill roll or a gunnery skill based attack roll, but the tables treat it as an attack roll. I think I'll dig in the archives from the playtest...

 

[aramis]

One other thing: in the playtest drafts, it clearly said "Gunnery Attack Roll" before the formula.

That is missing in the final version.