Using Striker with Classic Traveller

[creativehum]

Questions:

1) Did you use Striker for your Traveller RPG play? If you did,I did you use the turn structure from Striker or Traveller?

2) Did you use Striker for larger battles and skirmishes? How did it play for you?

3) I assume that there will be some misalignment of mixing Striker with the Book 3 Animal Encounters damage system. (I might be wrong about this. I haven't thought through very much, but I want to check.) As a refresher here the rules:

Animal Hits: The hits column indicates the number of hits an animal can take, expressed as a dice throw. When an animal has received wounds equalling or exceeding the first dice throw, the animal is considered to be unconsious. When it has received wounds equalling or exceeding its total hits, it is dead. If an animal receives wounds equal to twice its hits, it is destroyed, and has lost any food or pelt value.

For example, an animal listed on the animal size and weaponry table as taking 2D/2D hits would have two dice rolled twice: the first result would be the number of hits required to render the animal unconscious. The second two dice throw would indicate the additional hits required to kill the animal. If more than twice this combined value is achieved, the animal is completely destroyed.

Did anyone do any kind of work meshing these two systems together?

4) Are there any "off the rack" vehicles and gear? Or do you really need to build everything scratch?

Thanks!

 

[nobby-w]

Questions:

1) Did you use Striker for your Traveller RPG play? If you did,I did you use the turn structure from Striker or Traveller?

Yes, I do, although I do add a few surprise and initiative rules for a party-size skirmish (i.e. Han Shot First type stuff). Thus, skills like Recon, Tactics and Leader play a part in the process.

Having said that, I do nerf some of the weapons for Traveller combat (e.g. not using the exploding round rule for lasers or snub pistols).

2) Did you use Striker for larger battles and skirmishes? How did it play for you?

Yes. It's quite usable for any mercenary-unit sized engagement (i.e. up to a few companies).

3) I assume that there will be some misalignment of mixing Striker with the Book 3 Animal Encounters damage system. (I might be wrong about this. I haven't thought through very much, but I want to check.) As a refresher here the rules:

Did anyone do any kind of work meshing these two systems together?

I extended the damage system as: Light: 3D6, Serious: 6D6, Death: 9D6 plus an additional 3D6 for every additional 4 on the penetration roll (but only for large creatures). This allows large weapons to do more damage to large creatures. I also did some translations somewhere for animal weapons of various sizes, but I would have to hunt for them.

4) Are there any "off the rack" vehicles and gear? Or do you really need to build everything scratch?
...

GDW never published much for CT/Striker, although there is some material of this sort published for MegaTraveller.

I did a whole lot of this stuff for a TL11-12 fall-of-2nd-Imperium setting. These designs are slightly house-ruled but not wildly out of balance W.R.T. vanilla striker. This TL would be quite appropriate for mid-tech mercenary tickets, so it could be used in a Third Imperium or other setting quite readily. I can send you some of this material if you want.

 

[Dr_Skull]

I've used Striker for Traveller for 2 campaigns now.

I use the Striker turn sequence without real issue.

I did make some modifications to the damage roll. I broke Light Wounds into "Stun/Light Wound/Moderate Wound", and broke Serious Wounds into "Serious/Mortal" wounds, and broke Killed into "Dead/Destroyed", and wrote rules for the medical effects and treatments for each level. This made it more granular for RPG play and made the "Explosive Weapon" damage step increase much less devastating for PC's.

For vehicles, what I did was to look at the standard Vehicles from CT, gave each an "eye-ball" armor rating for Striker and an allowable number of carried weapons. I made a list of standard weapons based on striker values and categorized them as minor or major.

It works pretty well for RPG campaigns.

 

[creativehum]

I extended the damage system as: Light: 3D6, Serious: 6D6, Death: 9D6 plus an additional 3D6 for every additional 4 on the penetration roll (but only for large creatures). This allows large weapons to do more damage to large creatures. I also did some translations somewhere for animal weapons of various sizes, but I would have to hunt for them.

So, those damage die values are rolled against animals after the damage val;ue type is determined, yes? And you just mark off the hits from the animal's hit value per the normal rules. Yes?

 

[nobby-w]

So, those damage die values are rolled against animals after the damage val;ue type is determined, yes? And you just mark off the hits from the animal's hit value per the normal rules. Yes?

Yes. You roll on the penetration table. Light would=3D, Serious wound=6D, Death=9D. You roll the damage based on the type of wound and accumulate the hits as you would do in CT. You can have bigger hits against large creatures (16+ = 12D etc.)

The other part is doing Striker stats for the animal's weaponry at various sizes.

 

[kilemall]

Yes. You roll on the penetration table. Light would=3D, Serious wound=6D, Death=9D. You roll the damage based on the type of wound and accumulate the hits as you would do in CT. You can have bigger hits against large creatures (16+ = 12D etc.)

The other part is doing Striker stats for the animal's weaponry at various sizes.

Striker animals already have the melee values in system.

 

[nobby-w]

Striker animals already have the melee values in system.

Just stats by weapon type. Some years ago (nearly 30 IIRC) I did stats for different sizes - e.g. small horns vs. large horns.

 

[nobby-w]

...
I did make some modifications to the damage roll. I broke Light Wounds into "Stun/Light Wound/Moderate Wound", and broke Serious Wounds into "Serious/Mortal" wounds, and broke Killed into "Dead/Destroyed", and wrote rules for the medical effects and treatments for each level...

That's a good idea. I'm tempted to adopt something along those lines.

 

[kilemall]

In the 80s when I ran things, we treated Striker as more a separate minis game. We particularly liked the command/control rules, really a RPG mechanism put in place into a wargame.

Nowadays I am inclined to a modified Striker because the original CT is just too fiddly and autodestruct for me (killer penetration should not translate to autohit), Striker is more nuanced, there are a lot more toys that 'feel' right.

I have an IMTU task roll of roll less then char + skill modified by difficulty in steps of 3. I would tend to treat Effective as routine (no mod) Long as challenging (-3 mod) and Extreme as difficult (-6 mod ).

So in the case of say a DEX 7/Rifle-1 character, the to hit at Effective would be 8 or less, Long 5 or less, Extreme 2 or less.

Options would be surprise gets one task category easier, and going for headshot/sniper shot gets one task category harder but gets a shift down on Striker for damage.

I'm seriously considering putting in a dodge action where the character rolls against DEX against one known shooter and if successful the category gets one harder. Maybe successive checks at greater difficulty for each shooter past the one.

Damage is

Light 1D
Serious 3D
Dead 6D
Very Dead 8D
Obliterated 10D



As for phasing, depends on scale, if its adventurer level I would be inclined to an RPG type of phasing, if a larger battle then Striker, just to keep it all straight.

One concept I thought of while typing this up was allowing players to phase on trading in DEX for rolls, indicating they did a hurry-up shot/dodge, trading careful aim for first shooter advantage. Otherwise everyone else is simultaneous.

So in our previous example the DEX 7/Rifle-1 guy can trade in 2 DEX for a 2 advantage and take his shot at Effective at 6-, Long at 3-, and Extreme at 0- (I have critical failures at 12 and successes at 2 so he could get an extra roll to possibly succeed on a 2).

Thought some more about this, and I think I'm going to put in some of that bulky business from T5, in a ridiculously simplified form.

So

Hurry 4 below 1Kg (normally pistols).

Hurry 3 1Kg-3.9 Kg and crew weapons already on bipods/tripods- normally lighter rifles/carbines.

Hurry 2 4Kg-6 Kg, heavier assault/auto rifles.

Hurry 1 7Kg-15Kg heavy equipment.

Hurry 0 high recoil/slow.

Shift down one for high recoil. Shift up for each point of DEX expended in hurrying (lowered DEX then base stat + skill for to hit).

Backpack weight doesn't count.

Characteristic below minimum stat DMs apply, higher DMs ignored.

 

[creativehum]

Another question!

Fire Team A move during the movement phase.
They are spotted by Fire Team B.
Fire Team A end its movement behind some shelter (which reduces penetration).

It seems as if B fires on A, they fire after A's moment is finished, not when A is out in the open, yes?

 

[jec10]

See Rule 16.B. in Book 1.

"In a unit's friendly fire phase, it may fire and be fired upon at any position (or positions) it occupied during its movement."

In other words, and using your example, team B may fire at team A at the point that team A comes into line-of-sight (or any point thereafter). In practical terms, you back team A up to the point where team B wants to open fire.

 

[creativehum]

See Rule 16.B. in Book 1.

"In a unit's friendly fire phase, it may fire and be fired upon at any position (or positions) it occupied during its movement."

In other words, and using your example, team B may fire at team A at the point that team A comes into line-of-sight (or any point thereafter). In practical terms, you back team A up to the point where team B wants to open fire.

Great! Thanks so much!
I had thought it would have been in the Spotting phase section and had been scouring that.

 

[jec10]

Happy to help.

Note that in Striker you can always call somebody back if you see them before they go out of sight or get into cover. But in MegaTrav you have to pass a task roll to Interrupt someone (roll 7+ on 2D6). This difference makes MegaTrav combat rather different to Striker combat in practice even though MegaTrav is derived from Striker.

 

[Murph]

I used it since the combat was better, but still the weak link in the Traveller system. Designing vehicles was much more complex, and ended up with less functional vehicles. For example a 400 ton grav tank vs a 40 ton pinnace with a ships laser and 4g acceleration, and great armor (starship armor) vs Striker armor.

 

[mike wightman]

LBB4 Mercenary - no such thing as grav tanks at high TLs, their roles has been subsumed into what are now called gunships.

There should be little difference between an armed and armoured ships' boat (30dt about 450t in mass) with a Striker designed 400t grav tank/gunship.

 

[whartung]

Once mass and configuration stop working against you to get a vehicle in to the air, all sorts of vehicles become viable.

The lander becomes effectively a Bradley IFV, bristling with gun mounts like auto cannon and VRF gauss guns.

The primary reason to keep things small is simply the smaller that they are, the better they are at leveraging terrain for defense and detection. Once you give that up, then may as well bring the streamlined 1000dt DD's as close as practical to support ground troops.

But then you have the issue of "starship power" weapons blasting away at "point blank range".

Part of the defense of a ship in space is simply the extreme ranges ships engage at. And the starship combat systems have large time frames, like 20 minute turns where lasers are fired over and over trying to get just one hit.

When those ranges get knocked down to 100's of km, then most of that it out the door.

There is no "agility" for example against lightspeed weapons at those ranges. You simply can't get out of your own way fast enough. Plus the combat systems are down to, like 30 second game turns. Now instead of eating one potential laser hit each combat turn, you maybe be eating 10 or 20 or 40 of them. This also make smaller vehicles more viable at these close ranges.

It can get very bloody indeed.