DM 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!
Alison "Wraith" WhiteAngel |
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.
Alison "Wraith" WhiteAngel |
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.
Tilnar |
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.
Alison "Wraith" WhiteAngel |
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.
Wendelin "Jester" Kraus |
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?
DM Dickie |
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.
Alison "Wraith" WhiteAngel |
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.)
DM Dickie |
@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.
Alison "Wraith" WhiteAngel |
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.)
DM Dickie |
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.
Alison "Wraith" WhiteAngel |
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.
Lord Kyle Lambert |
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?
DM Dickie |
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.
Anton "Orpheus" Kunegund |
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).
Alison "Wraith" WhiteAngel |
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.)
Titian Grimm |
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.
By the way as german, and minor fanatic, no I do not go to Galahad myself, but one of my best friends has been for years, I am pretty well in Lore, especially Steiner.Titian Grimm |
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.
Alison "Wraith" WhiteAngel |
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.
DM Dickie |
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.
DM Dickie |
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.
DM Dickie |
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.