Re: (TFT) Doing damage modernly in the magical world of cidri

["rmorger" <rmorger@mail.ev1.net>]

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "John J Hyland" <johnnyboytmm@juno.com>
Reply-To: tft@brainiac.com
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 14:21:12 GMT

>Lots of interesting posts on this one, I thought I'd throw a 
>simple set of TFT suggestions into the mix.
>I am a big playability fan in the playability VS realism debate.  
>I want combat to move along quickly, while involving some 
>tactical decisions, that's why I play TFT essentially straight 
>out of the box, I have not modified the combat rules much at all, 
>though I like the idea of RM's attack and defense rolls, but have 
>not put them into practice.

First off let me state that the defense rolls I use right now were 
stolen from the Thail Campaign Rules by Dave Seagraves although I 
am probably butchering them to some extent.

>
>All that having been said, I'd go with something real simple, 
>using the 2 guns in TFT as a jumping off point.  First, sealed 
>modern shells are not impacted by the gunpowder eating 
>microorganisms, hand filled local replacements would be, until 
>the manufacturer either involves a cleanse spell in the 
>manufacturing process, or develops a technologically equivalent 
>solution (sort of a clean room for bullets).

Cidri micro-organisms and Cidri itself are not part of my campaign 
at the moment.

>
>Moderm weapons ignore some archaic armor.  Light pistols ignore 2 
>pts, heavy pistols and shotguns ignore 3, rifles ignore 4 or 5, 
>railguns and lazers ignore ALL mundane armor, and the first 5 pts 
>of magical enchantment. (Magic should help a little against 
>everything).

I liked the way that modern armor was described in a earlier post
about High-Tech TFT I believe this also posted on TY's site.

Anyway my fix is gonna be a two column type deal each type of 
modern armor will have a dual designation whereas standard types 
of armor will not. 
For instance here are three examples: Top two are standard types 
of armor last is powered armor.

Name  weight  cost  notes

Cloth             7kg       50s        stops 1 hit damage, -1 DX

Light Composite Shell Armor	8kg	900s	-3 DX, Stops 5 
hits per attack/melee, reduces gunfire attacks to 1 hit damage, 1 
in 6 chance missile attack is deflected	

Marauder Power Armor Suit	700kg	20000s	(Hit stopped 3/8)
(MA 10/20) Suit has eight hardpoints for weapons load out, plus 
standard communications unit(Planetary), also has standard powered 
detection and targeting  array. Can Carry all weapon systems 
including micro-nukes. Fatigue rate is 1FT for every 120 turns(4 
minutes) of heavy use. Minimum ST to operate 12 No DX Loss 
Military item only.

In the hit stopped column you see that the powered armor stops 3/8
here is how that works.

3/ = 3 hits removed from each die of modern weapons fire which 
includes guns, lasers, plasma beams, ion beams, railguns and 
partical beam weapons. If the suit is hit by a modern wepon that 
does 5d6 damage then three is removed from each die, if the roll 
is 3 or smaller then no damage for that die is recorded. It may or 
may not stop the full 15 damage from 5d6.
 
/8 = the armor also will stop 8 hits of melee weapon damage, 
sword, club axe, arrow etc. 

If magical attacks are used ie. fireball, lightning, etc I think 
these would probably fall under the heading of modern weapons

OBTW the Marauder Power Armor Suit is the pinnacle of modern armor 
in this rendition.

>
>Damage something like 
>
>Light pistol - 2 dice
>Heavy pistol - 2+3
>Shotgun 3+3
>Rifle  4dice
>Lazer/Railgun/etc (from 3 to 10 dice depending on size and GM 
>desire for destruction)
>
>And some sort of fire multiple times a round with skill and dex 
>rules to make a skilled gunman fairly deadly.  As to frequency of 
>fir for the advanced weapons, I'd keep them like guns, or maybe 
>keep them at 1 shot per turn due to cooling requirements etc.  I 
>just don't want them to be that deadly (I have a soft spot in my 
>heart for the chainmail wearing swordsman fighting futuristic 
>soldiers)

All very similar to what I am working on. Railguns, lasers, ion 
cannons, particle beams etc all work basically on the principle of 
the crossbow several rounds between fire for charging cooling 
purposes. These will be able to be sped up by higher DX.

>
>For automatic weapons, use the size of the gun to determine armor 
>stoppage, triple the number of damage dice, and do away with the 
>second attack each round - there is no such thing as skilled 
>machine gun use in melee as far as I am concerned.
>
>For military rifles that have an intermediate setting, firing off 
>3 or 4 bullets per trigger pull, and designed to do so without 
>dramatically reducing accuracy, I'd just double the damage and 
>again do away with the second shot.
>
>Modern/futuristic armor might need 3 ratings (Yuck) 1 for melee 
>weapons, one for bullets, and one for energy weapons (though only 
>future armors really need the last one).  
>
>So a NYC cop's bullet proof vest migh be 2/7/0
>and advanced anti-lazer reflec armore  2/3/10
>while a light space infantry combat array maybe 12/15/20
>
>with railguns maybe using the bullet defense but ignoring modern
(non-futuristic) armor just like archaic armor.  
>
>
>I might also change the SHOCK rules in TFT for modern weapons to 
>weaken them.  Essentially if you take 5 pts from a modern gun 
>before your attack, you get this round's attack BEFORE the minus 
>to dex, it affects your next rounds attack, rather than the 
>immediate attack the way melee damage does.  I'd still have 8 
>points drop you immediately, but I want to give the big ax 
>weilding barbarian some small chance to bash the guy who just 
>shot him in the gut with a pistol.
>
This sounds like a good idea

>Also, reverse missiles impacts all modern distance weapons, even 
>lazers and energy beams (after all it reveses magical lightning).
>
If magic is used I would agree

>Obviously, this is all WAY over on the fast and simple end of the 
>spectrum, but that is how I run my game.
>
Definately not fast and easy but it all depends how fun it is in 
the end ;)

>In no way do I claim that it in any way realistically models what 
>would happen if you really fired a hand-held railgun at a 
>charging barbarian weilding an enchanted greataxe, and protected 
>by ironflesh, but I think it would be fast and fun to play.
>
Again as long as it is fun it doesnt have to be realistic

Robert Morger 
Pangaea_TFT Fantasy RPG adventure 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Pangaea_TFT/ 
Subscribe:  Pangaea_TFT-subscribe@yahoogroups.com 



 

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