MechWarrior: Treasure of the Buried Admiral

Game Master dickie

This is your discussion thread!

I would like a little help with a few things since this might be a daunting project. I would like us to figure out a good character sheet format we can use as standard, figure out what info and how to format the class/level bar, talk about how much or little bookkeeping we want to do, and how we want to adapt the rules for smooth gameplay that still feels sufficiently Battletech.

The first two are pretty easy...but I welcome pitches and suggestions.

Also, feel free to make minor changes as you muster up here. I can see swapping some languages or skills as you figure things out. Also, I know at least one of you is looking for an answer to a question, I should have it before much longer.

I will create the game thread shortly. Once it is open, just go ahead and bring your character in however you want to introduce them!

My little brother is currently getting married (we are taking pictures now) so I probably won't be able to post until later tonight. :)

Dotted & deleted in gameplay.

So, I'd like to make some minor tweaks to my Falconer.

I FULLY acknowledge that by any objective standard, I am DECREASING the power and tech level of the mech. I have reasons for doing this.

1) ER-PPC (LA) is now a standard PPC.
2) Gauss Cannon and 2 tons of ammo (17 tons total)(RA) replaced by:
-normal PPC (RA) [7 tons]
-normal medium laser (RA) [1 ton]
-6 double heat sinks (RT) [6 tons]
-3 tons normal armor [3 tons]

Okay, that makes it a more normal, workable, build. I hope this is okay.

If you have stumbled on this thread just now and are sorry to have missed things, I'm honestly working on A) a Starfinder conversion of some sort for the heck of it using new classes and replacing species with human or clan phenotypes, and

Of note I got to working on a Savage Worlds SCi-Fi conversion for Battletech.

If you're going to do all the work of converting it, why not try a new (and much, much easier to learn and play) system? Let me know if you wanna collaborate.

I'll build an alias over the weekend.

As discussed, was hoping to lose the Goshawk's MGs and ammo for three ER Smalls - and other than 1 mg, that's literally a swap of a hand-held pistol.

I have an alias already built, I just need to find a good pic for him :)

I am assuming he got the Star League updated Centurion 'Mech? As this is not his original 'mech it is obvious someone wants to rescue him from the scrap heap of the various merc bands out there :)

I'd like to open discussion on changing how Initiative runs.

I've never liked how it depends -only- on a random die roll. It seems like MechWarrior quality should play some factor.

This problem has been solved by Xwing Miniatures, a game that is very much like BT. Simply, they go in order of worst pilot to best.

Working in the assumption that the PCs will usually be: 1) Outnumbered in most battles, and, 2) of better quality than those they are facing, we could talk about two options:

1) Same as XWing. The Mechjocks with the worst Piloting total (net) skill go first in movement. (In the case of a tie, the GM always goes first, simply because he'll usually have numbers on his side.)
Firing is simultaneous so that's not a factor.

2) Only for the first. As above, except we can get some kind of team Average Piloting skill, and the worst team goes first, with play going forward like BT normally (that is, alternating). (Again, this only seems fair. If 5 PC mechs are facing 7 enemy mechs, it's most even to have the team with the numbers go first, so they don't have this massive advantage at the end.)

This is just my thought that I've always had about BT. Discuss.

As someone whose character has no mech combat skills I don't have a strong opinion on the matter either way although my default opinion is usually to leave rules unchanged.

As a long time old school gamer from back in the AD&D days I lived off the Initiative roll. It always lent a random effect to combat and I see no reason to remove that from this game.

I say we try the current Init rules for a couple of fights and see how it goes. If it does not go well then we can revisit this.

Maybe a compromise is a bonus to Initiative based on the Leadership of the Lance Commander or other commanding officer. What say you?

I'm thinking for initiative (and action economy) that we basically stick with the RPG rules. This means random, but influenced by character ability. Basically, I am looking to borrow heavily from the Solaris VII mech dueling rules from the old FASA boxed set (GM Book page 43). They were written with the intention of being used with the MW2E rules anyway. I don't know about the whole altered heat and movement or anything else yet.

And yeah, I'm not sweating the mech choices. I fully expect mechs to be blown up and scavenged, etc.

Wasn't that the purpose of the tactics skill, though? Which I have ranks in?

Alrighty, fair enough.

Next issue!

Lord Kyle Lambert, if you have no combat skills, I am worried that you will find combat in this game to be boring. Are you sure you'll be okay?

If yes, then great. If not, I've got a couple CRAZY ideas. (Short versions: Double cockpit OR put your 1 choice into light mech but use that money to buy and run an infantry squad.)

@Orpheus - that's one of the reasons I want to use the dueling rules. It allows for quirks like the tactics skill. It is basically the personal combat rules from MW2E.

Kyle and tech types should be alright because I'm working up a system to allow for a sort of "aid another" rule. I know there was some negative talk about the animated series, but Rachel Specter is a good model for what I'm talking about. The whole electronic overwatch idea: feeding the warriors data about their terrain, foes, etc. It would also be possible to hinder enemies with ECW type actions.

Tomorrow I'm going to update my notes with current 'dossiers' on everyone and see who needs a nudge. I might also get started with delivering some information that so far Frau Hoffen has kept to herself, but may wait for Tuesday just to be sure folks are mustered up.

I have small arms for human scale combat, although I'll probably try to avoid that as well. =)

I am not opposed to picking up some mech skills in play, or double cockpitting, although I think I really like the idea of electronic overwatch if we can figure out how to make it work.

To be fair, inferno launchers and satchel mines can really mess with lighter 'Mechs, of you've got the skills for it.

Mmmm, Inferno launchers. If we got ahold of them I also wouldn't mind picking up skills to use some of the commando style battle armors. (Once they are discovered/created in the timeline)

That...**THAT** is why Kraus likes his ammo! Cluster rounds FTW!

Is this everyone?

Do we need to send out any PMs?

Kyle and tech types should be alright because I'm working up a system to allow for a sort of "aid another" rule.

I'd just like to say how very much I like this idea. I'm not sure how it's going to work out, but I like the concept that someone can H4XX0RZ the other side. (It makes sense. It's all electronic after all.)

It's also pretty well established in lore. Not just Specter from the animated series, but IIRC, Kai Allard-Liao cheated a bit by hacking a seismology satelite or something in the Wolf's Dragoons training sims. Been a long time since I read any of the novels at all. Might need to grab copies of some of the series.

Re: ECW - I'm still brainstorming exactly what sort of effects I can produce, but skills involving computers, comms, cyrptography, technician seem like easy ways to work it out.

Also, do folks feel okay using some sort of abstract "parts" resource rather than detailed book-keeping? Scrap, PCUs, parts, whatever, the name doesn't matter, but the idea of having a resource pool is appealing to keep things simple. I'm thinking it might be based on tonnage and crit slots. So replacing an MG would require a tiny amount of parts, but an AC/20 would take a whole heap.

Also, do folks feel okay using some sort of abstract "parts" resource rather than detailed book-keeping? Scrap, PCUs, parts, whatever, the name doesn't matter, but the idea of having a resource pool is appealing to keep things simple. I'm thinking it might be based on tonnage and crit slots. So replacing an MG would require a tiny amount of parts, but an AC/20 would take a whole heap.

I like this idea. Kinda like FTL.

I don't think super detailed logistics is necessary. I like the idea of abstract pools for repairs, but for replacements we should have to actually find them (Basically no adding a Clan ERPPC unless we actually find one, but can use scrap to repair ones we have)

Something like:

Armor: X Tons (Takes double tonage to repair FF)
Scrap: X Tons (for repairing Weapons, internals, and other bits)
Missile Ammo: X Tons
Ballistic Ammo: X Tons

I'm also ok with abstracting away money, and letting the GM adjudicate what we can afford/find, or maybe just a sliding scale 1-10 on resources for each character?

That's a good point. Scrap allowing for repairs of existing equipment is fine and dandy, but not for generating new stuff.

I'd amend the list you provided so armor covers non-slot stuff including internal structure materials, that way the scrap portion covers anything that requires crit slots and everything else is covered with the other category.

I'm tempted to just have "ammo" period with specialty ammo (FASCAM or inferno, for instance) needing to be listed separately, but I can see the value in breaking it down between most ballistics and missiles.

I'm fine with the abstraction -- heck, it could be a "feature" of the Star League stuff that we're looking for, that it's standardized/universal parts, as it were. Or we could split the difference and break down the scrap by class of weapon/thing [e.g. - ballistic (mg/autocannon), energy (laser and PPCs), missiles, electronic (tag, ecm, sensors, beagle, taccomp))]. I'm good either way.

In terms of ammo, we've always played the "a ton is a ton is a ton" - so it comes in 4 base flavours (SRM, LRM, AC, MG), with variants (Artemis, thunder, inferno, etc).

We definitely would need to differentiate between the auto-cannon ammo type, standard or Cluster, but other than that everything looks good to me :)

The reason why I'm against the aforementioned detailed bookkeeping is a simple one: How do we know how much we get after a battle?

The answer seems easy. You look at who we beat and give us theirs.

Uh-huh...and how much would that be?

A mech starts with 200 MG rounds. How many did he use? Do we get the full value regardless of usage, or are we forcing the DM to track all the ammo? (Ballz, I don't like to keep track of my own ammo use.)

This mech starts with 24 SRM missiles. That one starts with 12, but ran low during the battle. Another one started with 36 but...did they fire? How much? I'll have to check.....

Same thing with armor. How much armor does that mech have? How much was blown away...? Count the dots, divide by 16....

How much work are we willing to do for the sake of realism?

My proposal: A defeated mech gives SCRAP in the value of their weight. Killed a 30-ton Comando? 30 Scrap.

Repairing your mech? Every ton (or fraction thereof) that you are REPLACING takes 1 Scrap. Fired 4 missiles? Recharge is 1 Scrap. (I like Anton's modualr idea. Also, I've seen enough Star Trek to know that anything can be replaced with anything. It's not hard to imagine a LRM being turned into a SRM with a spanner and re-calibrating the neutrinos.)

Fixing a limb, or any of the MAJOR repairs found in the MW2 handbook takes 10% of your mech's weight in scrap. Fix a limb on that Centurian? 5 Scrap. (We can increase this for weapons, but, of note, a destroyed limb does not automatically mean the weapon was destroyed. There are critical hits for that. It's not hard to think of us un-screwing that medium laser and re-mounting it on the new limb.)
Replace a gyro? 10% of wt Scrap. Replacing 2.5 tons of jump jets? 3 scrap.

I fully acknowledge that this spits in the face of reality, but, quite simply, I find booking NORMAL loot (longswords, leather armor, jewelry, etc,) to be tedious, so maintaining a log that racks individual resources will probably get away from us, and just cause headaches.

Let not this game fail because we have to do too much math.

(Also, I volunteer to keep track of Scrap in a simple system. If you vote in favor of a more complicated system, be prepared to do that Excel spreadsheet because we shouldn't make the DM do all that work.)

Yeah, historically I've done it as SRM, LRM, AC, Ultra AC, LBX AC etc as their own categories, but I don't think we need that level of detail. I do like keeping the variant's separate though.

It's also pretty well established in lore. Not just Specter from the animated series, but IIRC, Kai Allard-Liao cheated a bit by hacking a seismology satelite or something in the Wolf's Dragoons training sims. Been a long time since I read any of the novels at all. Might need to grab copies of some of the series.

Correct. After Sun Zu made it a free for all and ejected Kai Allard Laio alphstriked and ran away. He then hacked the seismic satellite. And nearly won against 6 crack pilots, including his father, Hanse Davion and the old wolf himself.

Then I need to apologize for my terrible Google translation use, lol. Mein Deutsche ist sehr schlect. I know my days of the week and some colors, but that's about it lol.

How are we handling languages? I can't find anything in the rules that mention them.

Oh, yeah, this edition didn't make them their own skills...we can just ignore it. Or if we want to keep them in play, we could say LOG score doubles as # of langs. I can go either way.

I thought they used SI skills for that, per the Companion?

Good catch, specifically under the expanded SI skill expansion...I'm not totally happy with the way it's presented though, so I think my above question will stand. We can ignore them or just hack the LOG score to give bonus languages a la AD&D.

I just read the rules in the companion. Considering the low number of skills that characters get in the game, I think one skill rank per language is ridiculously over priced. I am in favor of the LOG score as number of languages.

Won't object to getting a few free languages. ;)

Also: Any objection to me having taken a flamer and two ER Smalls instead of 3 ER Smalls -- was thinking the anti-infantry would be helpful -- plus the ability to set fires is also potentially useful.

I am absolutely in favor of the log rules.
About scrap not so much. For example we destoyed a 200 years old grasshopper (no SLDF) and now I repair with it a gauss weapon. That just wont work well.... unless your tech makes an exceptional repair roll.
Even more with IS tech to repair clantec.
Also it makes techs even more valueable in a mech centred univers.

I am absolutely in favor of the log rules.

About scrap not so much. For example we destoyed a 200 years old grasshopper (no SLDF) and now I repair with it a gauss weapon. That just wont work well.... unless your tech makes an exceptional repair roll.
Even more with IS tech to repair clantec.
Also it makes techs even more valueable in a mech centred univers.

Using a Scrap system simply assumes that, in the Pointillism of accumulated loot, we'll probably get enough things that we can make do with for repairs.

Of note, the new Battletech game (I'm sure everyone here has played that) doesn't even keep track of armor points or IS.
I'm just trying to make sure we don't make the GM keep track of how many small lasers we get at the end of a fight (or for us to keep track of how many we have storage.)

If we get something special, like clantech, of course we can keep track of things that are special and of very limited quantity.

Depends on which one do you mean? ;-)
But yes armor and IS is pretty much no prob.
Haven´t played much after finished the campaign.
I really liked how they incoperated MWO and their hardpoints ;-)

Yeah, which new one? Lol, I was considering using Alpha Strike type rules, but I think we are just going to have some clumsy early encounters where we will have some failures that we hopefully learn from quickly no matter what we do. Overall, I want to preserve as much of the feel of Battletech as I can while still running as smooth of a game as possible.

Clan gear can be better than even SLDF stuff, we could split the difference and have "IS Scrap" and "Clan Scrap". I just really want to avoid having to keep a massive spreadsheet, lol.

Just curious, Titian, but how are you with American English idioms? As I was typing "split the difference" I realized that might not translate over well, but I've noticed a lot of Germans are better with English than many native speakers, lol.

Well that depends on the idiom? But no worries, if it goes down to the brass tacks, there is still google.

I am at the moment unsure about how to calculate attributes:
0 = 18
1 = 21
2 = 24
3 = 27
4 = 30

BLD, REF, LRN and CHA have a point cost of final value, Int has a point cost of double final value.
So 4 BLD cost 4 points, 4 INT costs 8.
Correct?

That's correct.

I know it's a little funny, I think FASA was trying across three games to slowly align their systems.

I'm still doing a lot of unpacking and move related nonsense, but I'm going to give a last call on recruitment and get things really really going over the next couple of days.

Just started skimming through my Solaris book.

Oh yeah. One side makes a Tactics roll for initiative.

That...makes much sense.

In most circumstances it adds to the individual character's initiative, but in large combats it is an opposed roll with the opposition's commander. I'm using the rules from the Solaris VII boxed set from FASA, which essentially defaults to MW2E.

The real question is how to handle the scale compared to those rules. The action economy seems good (albeit kind of tricky), but the dueling rules were scaled differently.

If you don't compress time, you wouldn't need to worry about the x4 scale to everything else (or weapon speed).

Which is what I'm thinking of doing, I just don't know how that might effect the action economy in the end. Like I'm tempted to keep the TICs rule, but IDK yet. Seems like the idea works best for the weapon speed aspect rather than action economy.

Sorry I didn't post before this. I just had some nerves in the back burnt out a couple of days ago, and am catching up.

Will have an Alias done by tomorrow.

Ow. Just ow.

Hope you're feeling better and healing well.

Oooo. I just heard that Catalyst just announced a new version of the Mechwarrior RPG at Gencon.

The shuttle is an ST-46 clone, pretty standard small craft. It can seat 8 and normally requires three crew. Hoffen can provide you with a couple redshirts if you need, but I'm sure there are enough skills and knowledge among you that you can operate it just fine. It can also carry 12 tons of cargo.

The dropship Jenni Lynne is a heavily modified Union class drop ship. The smaller 'mech Bay has been converted for small craft. I haven't gotten it a modified set of numbers exactly yet, but I'm anticipating it also carrying something a little more industrial in the other cubicle for salvage work.