Ok, I want to try something new. Suppose we, the collective anons whom frequent this board, has been hired by Company Inc. to make a Deathmatch Tabletop game in a generic sci-fi setting where most ground combat is done using battle mechs. If you don't know what a mech/mecha/meka is
en.wikipedia.org
Anyway, we need to come up with the setting/rules for a fun game that possibly has a GM to control hostiles and NPCs if players want to cooperate for mvp and story, but also cater to pvp. Each user gets a few lines and I will put them in the design document. When we are done we can playtest it on roll20 or where ever.
>I'll start
There are mobile mechanized walker type, hover type, and belt type robots controlled by pilots and AI which are popular in ground warfare.
Deathmatch Battlemech Tabletop
shameless bump
Attack Rolls, Damage Rolls, Hit Locations
D6 system probably
Mecha are large, so you should have a system with front,back,sides hit location, with various penalties and bonuses. Or maybe you can hit specific parts of the mech randomly unless you take a sniper feat.
System targeting is too important to be something only one type of mech can do. I'd treat it like GURPS does, with each system having a size value which acts as a to-hit modifier, and a fractional modifier which determines how much damage can be applied to that system (and the mech's general health through hits to the system) before it ceases to function and any further damage is written off.
Then you'd have certain mech options that reduce to-hit penalties.
I'd basically build it as a heavily simplified version of gurps combat.
Hmm.. we dont need a bloated hp system. Maybe each system component has an AC and can take a few hits, from any weapon, no damage roll. So you make an attack roll, and all systems with AC below that are elligble to be hit.
hmm interesting
working off and working off the mechs armour thickness should be a value in this game, and various weapons have various anti armoure values that have the possibility of either damaging or penetrating the armour.
So each component has an AC:
combination of how small it is, and how well it is covered in armor plating.
They have a hit number or basically a non bloated HP, so maybe 1-5 or something, which is reduced by 1 when it is damaged.
Finally the armor plating on the component has a strength/thickness/penetration difficulty, which determines what types of weapons can penetrate the armor?
The problem is it feels a bit funky to have AC combined with missing then
Actually, you can use that armor strength as a modifier for determining which component of AC less than attack roll got hit, maybe that is less weird?
Or maybe the attacker announces the damage type and we have different ACs for each type.
Different AC for each type sounds best. So you only need to record keep AC and hits for each component. Although it might become a headache with too many types. At the same time it sort of looks weird for large components, like chest chassis, which should be heavily plated, but very easy to hit.
Actually, what do you mean by either damaging or penetrating
Bump
For simplicity, do it thac0 style with a single number representing armour, ability to dodge and penalty to hit. Smaller components have a higher penalty to rolls to damage, armour can be purchased for components to increase the penalty, certain equipment (I'm thinking quick legs) give the whole mech a bonus.
Thaco style penalties more or less can be done with simple modifiers to AC and Attack Roll. I guess I see what you mean though.
Any idea for damage types then
Force/Impact AC (covers melee, sonic and pulse weapons)
Heat/Cold AC (covers lasers/plasma and ice, resistance to temperature change)
Eletricity AC (zappy stuff)
Piercing AC (bullets)
Radiation AC
If we're going for fast and fluid, damage types would be better represented by certain weapons having additional effects, like a tesla lance with a chance to fry systems or a flamethrower that can cause overheating.
I've been taking ideas so far, and wrote this up:
Obviously this has some glaring flaws. Probably when a System Component is destroyed, we should lower the AC of all the remaining components or something. At the same time this sounds like a death spiral..
Fuck also, if its a good idea of berserking battlemechs, it could be cool to sacrifice points used to build it to make the pilot better at calming it down, i.e. resisting the effects of berserking.
Some system components are going to provide AC, shit like shield generators and the legs. Mech combat works best when it's like FTL combat and you have to prioritise systems and balance damage dealt with systems disabled.
So not all of them? So far I sort of imagined system components like:
Primary Weapon
Secondary Weapon
Utility
Locomotive
Power
Chassis
Cockpit
where the pilot is in the cockpit, the chassis is there to absorb hits, and the rest are pretty self-explanatory.
oh you know, like you roll a die maybe when you try to damage the vehicle and add that to the power of your weapon
and either the shot goes through the armour or jutst takes a chunk off, and if it goes through, based on the weapon that shot it, it has a further chance to maybe scare the pilots or something, or maybe even blow it up.
just a thought.
just making a prototype player mech sheet has kind of made me think having different ACs for every part is a bit silly..
So, we're remaking Battletech?
you do realize he is trolling right? these are the rules for vehicles in 40k
replace ac with av and replace damage with glance and anti armour with armour penetration value
Are we talking big clunky mechs or ninja Gundam?
A combination? Maybe quick melee/fighter types with focus on close range, and big slow well armed and armored mechs meant to make stable firing platforms?
I prefer the slow and clunky style more, but I could see either working.
Explain. So far all I have is an Attack Roll, which hits every non-obscured component with AC lower than or equal to it and reduces its HP by 1.
How would your mechanic work?
so the way he is explaining it, which is how it works in 40k, is that each gun has a strength and armour penetration value
to determine if you damage tanks and vehicles you roll a d6 after you hit and add that to the strength of the weapon, if you equal the armour value of the side you are shooting at you remove one HP (hull point) and thats it, if you excede it you remove one HP and then you roll on a seperate table to see the damaging effects to the penetration
these effect range from stunning the crew, immobilizing it, removing a weapon from it, or outright exploding it
you use the AP value of the weapon to modify the penetrating hit roll on that table.
right, so you are saying this is a total rip off from 40k, and that's bad? Do you have any suggestions then?
So far I've been thinking of having Light, Medium and Heavy Types. Heavy being the clunky oldschool armor box who sits behind with missiles, and the Light type having possibly jetpacks and crazy sword arms.
ya its a total rip off from 40k
on top of that it sounds good in theory, but in practice it ends up nerfing the shit out of vehicles
Actually, I think I am going to do away with different AC types entirely. Instead, let each damage type have different types of effects when they hit. Also combine all weapons into one system, and then maybe have statuses affect each of these combined components instead.
Introucing Sanity for the pilot might be fun too.
this
having you sub systems fail or whatching fellow mechs being beat down by weapons could fuck with them
I played around with the idea of Evangelion type stuff, but maybe no?
How about a Tension/Will system like in Gundam G Generation and Super Robot Wars?
>Damage modifier
>Gain by dodging/attack landing them
>Lose by missing attacks / blocking
>Certain things may have a will requirement
>Allied losses remove will
Use the star wars Edge of Empire rules for vehicles and their armor, but just make the hull zones arms/legs/torso instead of normal.
Work from there.