T5 Personal Combat System Review, Opinion, and Problems

[BytePro]

You see I'm declaring that I'm moving to Band 4, thats why it takes me 4 rounds. Reading the rule I deem that you arrive in the "final counted round" ie. the 4th round in this example. But the rule goes on to say "and then move one Band between Bands 3-4-5 in the movement phase of that [4th] counted round"

Pretty sure you are misreading that... the 'and then' isn't adding an extra movement option, its just clarifying when. The abstract Band changes at the end of the final round - movement occurred throughout, the movement just makes no mechanical difference (i.e. isn't counted) till the 'full' expenditure of rounds.

As you'll see from the rule above a character can move one Band per Round. It doesn't account for a person who is running (Speed-2) covering more than one Band.

Yeah, see that. It works given round time is not fixed, and Range 2 is not 50m but some distance partway to Range 3's 150 m 'zero point'.

Its actually fairly easy to understand multiple opponents using Range Bands as long as you remember you are at the center of concentric rings.

Sure, but easy to understand is not the same as easy to implement.

If dealing with just one pair of opponents, the one dimensional, unsigned (i.e., non-directional) Range Bands are a no-brainer. Consider, however, a very simple example: Three characters A, B, C. Where B is being attacked by A and C.

If A and C are both x Bands from B, but B moves to y Bands from A - how many Bands is C from A?

You cannot tell me, even abstractly, without actually knowing direction (angle on the concentric circle). Even ignoring 2D trig, simply whether A and C where on the same side in relation to B, or whether B was in the middle, is very significant.

Now add in a party of PCs (and Player minds) and a gaggle of NPCs - in various phases of movement - and tell me again how easy it is.

While I agree with you about separating rounds and minutes, I have been advocating this up thread, it is nevertheless useful to compare action in rounds to the suggested equivalent period to make sure that the abstract round is not allowing you to accomplish tasks in an unreasonable time frame.

The rules that were quoted provide no 'suggested equivalent period' in concrete time units for a given round. Its quite explicit in stating the contrary. The time is dependent on what happened...

I can tell you at a glance, based on the numbers given, that minute per round will not be 'reasonable'. Casually walking covers 1.4m/s* and average running more than doubles that. Even extrapolating Ranges given up to the 'zero point' of the next round would be hard to make running speeds vs time reasonable given 1 minute rounds. However, abstractly, with individual round times undefined along with the abstract nature of the distances and how one is running, the rules seem quite reasonable, IMO. I'd think its up to the Ref to determine what other actions can occur in a round, given all the actions, and whether such things as Hasty need to be used...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_walking_speed - and, I humbly submit, walking in combat is typically going to cover the extremes of slow to fast.]

 

[Supplement Four]

:rofl:

But seriously. This combat system needs more playtest and then, a rewrite before it is ready to sold as a finished product.

STAMP, the rule for the combat round procuedure, is not a good rule, imo.

 

[BytePro]

Simultaneous Tactical Abstraction Mechanics for Play?

Just kidding - I got the definition. Yeah, I'm not too keen on it either. But am interested in the T5 mechanics regardless of whether I ever play them. Never know when something useful will crop up, and some of the intents in T5 seem to mirror my own play.

I think some of the problem here is Marc's writing was never edited for 'readability'. I can understand this, in part, because any such editing could easily change his interrelated intents. However, without examples, even stuff that should be clear can become easily misunderstood.

 

[Supplement Four]

STAMP =

Situation
Target
Attack
Movement
Penetration


All characters in a phase complete the phase before moving on to the next one.

So, all characters roll their attacks in the Attack phase. All characters then do movement in the Movement phase. Then, damage is applied from hits in the Penetration phase.

Which is ludicrous, because a character could be shot dead, then he moves around a corner, then he dies around the corner out of line-of-sight from the attacker.

Now, I could see this being cool a few times--in effect, a man is shot and it takes him a few moments to die, in which time he moved behind the corner and bleed to death.

But, with the way the system is set up, this will happen much to often for believability. Hardly ever will a person get shot and just fall to the ground, as he should.

 

[BytePro]

Yeah, the sequence seems whacked.*

Perhaps because everything hinges on Range and it can change with movement... is damage dependent on range in any way?

*But then its not what I am used to, so that may be just bias.

 

[Supplement Four]

Perhaps because everything hinges on Range and it can change with movement... is damage dependent on range in any way?

Not that I've noticed so far.

 

[Apparition]

Simultaneous Tactical Abstraction Mechanics for Play?

:file_21:

 

[Supplement Four]

T5 Task System



Here's another ill-conceived part of T5.

Sheesh.

Now, who playtested this thing again?

OK, so I'm reading through the chapter on Tasks. And, at first, I'm actually pretty impressed. Though I dislike the mechanic, I admire how versitile it is and how it can be easily used for many types of situations.

I like the This Is Hard rule a lot.

I think Tasks Without Skill, Tasks With Optional Skill, and Tasks With Skill Only, and Duration are handeled adequately.

Cooperative Tasks are OK. I don't really like the way Opposed Tasks or Uncertain Tasks are produced, but I can live with them.

Arcane Tasks are a pretty good idea.

And so on...




So, where does the T4 Task system break down?

Spectacular Success and Spectacular Failure.

SS happens when Three Ones are thrown on 3D. SS isn't possible with 1D and 2D tasks.

SF happens when Three Sixes are thrown on 3D. SF isn't possible on 1D and 2D tasks.

And, get this, SF and SS are possible on extremely hard tasks that are 6D and above. (scratching my head at that one).



Hasn't anybody realized that Spectacular Success GETS EASIER the HARDER the Task?

It makes sense that Spectacular Failure get easier to achieve, but why is it easier to achieve SS on the harder tasks--especially when SS cannot be achieved on the easiest of tasks (the 1D and 2D tasks).

That really makes no sense at all.





EDIT: I remember having to conquer this issue when I was designing the UGM. I was determined to make a rule that made sense.

 

[Almuric]

You won't run out of ammo with T5. There's no ammo tracking!

Doesn't that make "one shot" weapons much more powerful than they should be in military-style engagements?

That is: in prior Traveller, things like RAM grenades or tac missiles were limited because you could you could carry a couple of shots, often only one shot for a missile or rocket launcher. But if there's no ammo tracking, does not the advantage go to such high damage weaponry? Why carry an FGMP that costs so much for its unlimited-shot mini fusion reactor when you could just carry a cheap RAM grenade launcher that (unlike prior Traveller) can no fire an unlimited number of 1 kg grenades instead of only a couple?

(On a less important level, thus, there would have been no reason to go to small caliber weapons - like the US switch from 7.62mm to 5.56mm - since the big advantage of the small caliber weapons - carry more rounds - goes away. But that's not a big problem if caliber of gun isn't being tracked, though i would miss the 4mm gauss rifles having 40 shots to the 9mm ACR's 20.)

 

[Supplement Four]

Doesn't that make "one shot" weapons much more powerful than they should be in military-style engagements?

Yup. And what a character will do, without restrictions, is use his most powerful attack, over and over, until his enemy is dead.

The difference between Single Shots and Burst Fire becomes a choice of difficulty.

If you need a grenade, I guess you've got it.

 

[aspqrz]

On a less important level, thus, there would have been no reason to go to small caliber weapons - like the US switch from 7.62mm to 5.56mm - since the big advantage of the small caliber weapons - carry more rounds - goes away.

I guess you could work out a compromise between TL, weapon mass, and weapon type ... a TL13 Gauss weapon massing X kilos would have about 10% of weapon mass in rounds, and the rounds -- if it is a heavy gauss weapon, then each round masses 0.5% of weapon mass, hence a 20 round magazine.

Note: The figures and examples are intended to be merely *for* example, and *not* real world!

Real World example: M16a1 = 3.6 kilos with loaded 30 round magazine or 3.4 kilos unloaded. An empty 30 round mag masses 0.11 kilos and a loaded one masses 0.45 kilos (or so the internet says ;-).

So a 30 round mag is around 13% of the weapon mass, and an individual round is around 0.4% of weapon mass.

So, as a rule of thumb, based on one data point, you could assume that light assault rifles designed at whatever TL an M16a1 was equivalent to (TL7?) can take a magazine containing between 5% and 20% of weapon mass, or around 10-50 rounds.

I presume something close to this would work for an AK-47 (though you may have to fiddle with difference between the wooden stocked and folding stocked versions).

There are also a number of excellent weapon creation books out there for other game systems and you could do a little reverse engineering from the results they give (and they give pretty close to real world figures for real world weapons designed using them) to get a reasonable approximation.

Or, maybe, you could use Thingmaker to design the bullets, and then work back.

Should be a way of doing it without too much trouble.

Phil McGregor

 

[Murdoc]

Hasn't anybody realized that Spectacular Success GETS EASIER the HARDER the Task?

Good catch. I knew that something bugged me about that rule, it just seemed clunky, but I guess I hadn't thought about it enough yet. Of course, to be fair, when I run into a rule I don't like or think doesn't make sense, I ask myself two questions: 1) What was the game designer thinking? Not sarcastically, just trying to figure out where they were trying to go with it. In this case I can kind of see how tricky it would be to do a SS/SF rule for a variable dice system like this. And 2) Could I do any better? For a variable dice system like this? Nothing comes to mind.

And, get this, SF and SS are possible on extremely hard tasks that are 6D and above. (scratching my head at that one).

This I have no problem with since they had something similar in The Babylon Project rpg, and described it well. Such as, sure, spectacular success on hitting that guy right between the eyes at range 4! Good job! Only to find out later he was the only one who knew where the enemy base was located. Or he fell down and landed on the bag carrying the Imperial Crystal Chalice you were sent to retrieve. Something like that anyway. Definitely Spectacularly Interesting! (Ok, maybe it shouldn't ruin the whole mission, but it should be a set-back of some kind.)

 

[fridge]

how about 3 sixes for SF, all ones (on at least 3D) for SS, 3 sixes and the rest 1s for SF+SS?

Only change for RAW is the all ones rather than three ones.

 

[Supplement Four]

And 2) Could I do any better? For a variable dice system like this? Nothing comes to mind.

You could have only one die represent your go-to die. If a 1 pops up on that die (color it different), then you check for SS.

Same thing for a 6. A 6 on that die means check for SF.

This is no different than the Critical Check in d20 games (or what I did with the UGM, here.).

And, if you only used one die, you could have SS and SF available with the easy 1D and 2D tasks.

To my thinking, SS should definitely be available for very easy tasks--if you're going to throw an exceptional success, it should be easier to do with the easier tasks.

If 1-in-6 is too high a chance that SS occurs, you can adjust your over all chance of getting SS with the probability that your check task is successful.



I don't think it would been that hard to figure something like what I've said above, or even something different, to represent SS/SF.

This I have no problem with since they had something similar in The Babylon Project rpg, and described it well.

I'm not sold on it. Would you mind repeating the Babylon description?

 

[Supplement Four]

Only change for RAW is the all ones rather than three ones.

Because your chance of SS goes waaaayyyy down. Rolling 3 ones on 3D is already a less than 1% chance. Each time you add a die, your chance goes waaayyy down.

 

[Almuric]

I guess you could work out a compromise between
Should be a way of doing it without too much trouble.

Phil McGregor

Could be. At the moment, I think I may end up waiting for T6, though.

 

[Spartan159]

T5 Striker/FF&S?

 

[aspqrz]

T5 Striker/FF&S?

Well, we know, in theory, that T5 is meant to be a Toolbox (or did this change somewhere along the line?) ... so, yes, a supplement would seem to be necessary.

Hmmm. Striker5 @ 600 pages! The next Far Future Kickstarter!!!

<grin>

 

[Murdoc]

I don't think it would been that hard to figure something like what I've said above, or even something different, to represent SS/SF.

No, and it wasn't, I just had already decided against those ones. Yes, 1 in 6 is a bit too often for me. We do something similar in our Cyberpunk 2020 games (where you only roll one die anyway), and 1 in 10 seems to happen a little too often. As for the second one, or whichever, I don't like the idea of relying on a second die roll. I'm not dead-set against it either, but I'm not sure I like it any better than the RAW.

I'm not sold on it. Would you mind repeating the Babylon description?

As you wish. The BP uses a task roll similar to flux, but when you roll two 6s you get a "benefit", and when you roll two 1s, you get a "Setback" (in both cases the 'roll' is zero). How it is similar is that you can therefore get a Benefit even if you failed a roll, or a Setback even if you succeeded. The Setback or Benefit doesn't need to be even terribly related. For instance say you are walking across a floor of rotten wood, and you don't want it to collapse making you fall. A failed roll would mean that it does indeed collapse, and you fall to the floor below. A Benefit in this case (or SI result) might mean that in that room below you discover a key or other item you might not have found otherwise that will help you later on in the building. Meanwhile, you are either stuck in the room below, injured, or lost surprise, whatever was bad about falling in the first place.

Now I won't say that this makes the whole thing worth it, I was just saying that I have no problem with interpreting results like that. I think it's fun actually.

 

[BytePro]

T5 Task System
...SS happens when Three Ones are thrown on 3D. SS isn't possible with 1D and 2D tasks.

SF happens when Three Sixes are thrown on 3D. SF isn't possible on 1D and 2D tasks.

And, get this, SF and SS are possible on extremely hard tasks that are 6D and above. (scratching my head at that one).

Hasn't anybody realized that Spectacular Success GETS EASIER the HARDER the Task?

o: :rofl: :nonono:

Not only is that freaking obvious - fiat spectacular results based on arbitrary dice rolls are silly given the nature of the rest of the structured task mechanics, which attempt to adjust odds based on character stats and situations. It says even if I may not have any real chance of regular success/failure, I do have a real, fixed, irregardless of everything in the game, chance at spectacular success/failure... that is a spectacular rules fail, IMO.

MgT has the right notion - scaled outcome based on range from target value. I want the experienced, atypical stat guy to have a greater chance (or the only chance) for spectacular anything outside of fiat 'luck' I bestow for storyline or exceptional roleplay. As Ref, I'll prefer to control (and self limit) the fiat - not the dice.