Urban combat...mecha style.

[ParitySoul]

I don't know how many Heavy Gear fans we have hear. But the one thing I'd always wanted to do with HERO was to run a urban war with mecha. Make it a dirty and nasty as you like, but idea is very much the Battletech (we mercs) ethos.

 

How 'well' does the vechicals rules work when I'm tossing around units in the 300 range?

 

What caps should I honestly consider? Keep in mind that these are 'modern' battle units, and quite deadly.

[BobGreenwade]

If you have The Ultimate Vehicle, you should have most if not all of the guidelines you need to run a decent mecha campaign. The sample mecha tend to run in the 3d6-6d6 range for their RKAs, though I'd tend to go a bit higher myself (the published ones are Steve's, whereas the ones I originally sent in were 6d6-9d6 IIRC).

 

With the sort of high-level damage you're talking about here, you might also consider The Spacer's Toolkit and/or Terran Empire and grab up some of the starship equipment for use in your mecha.

[ParitySoul]

Danke. That's just what I'll do.

[Chris Goodwin]

I would suggest Robot Warriors but it's almost impossible to find.

 

Alternately I'd suggest a Battletech conversion. I've played in several Battletech conversions to the Hero System. Unfortunately I don't have any of the notes that we used, otherwise I'd post them.

[NuSoardGraphite]

The following are guidelines I suggest:

 

Body: If you want the Mecha to go down quickly, then have the Body characteristic based on the Mecha's Size and allow no more than +3 additional Body. On a Mecha 4 meters tall, thats a body of 13 to 16.

 

Defense: Keep the defense low, but high enough to ward off small arms fire. Defense 12 to 16 is recommended. This makes it quite difficult for a .50 or 20mm round to inflict damage (around 9DC's. Average damage around 10 Body) and impossible for any sort of Hand Gun or Assault Rifle to cause damage. Defense 20+ makes your Mecha as tough as an Abrams, so be careful here. A level of hardened is recommended for particularly durable mecha.

 

Damage: With the average Defense around 14, A standard mecha cannon would have to do 5D6 killing damage (average 17.5 Body) to consistantly do a few Body per hit. Reduce damage to 4D6 killing, but adding Armor Piercing will achieve decent damage (14 Body average vs Def 7 average!). Autofire weapons should rule the day (5D6K damage doing 17 Body damage average vs Def 14 does 3 Body per hit. 3 hits in a single burst is 9 Body in a single attack. Ouch!)

Highly Recommended!: Use the rules for Critical Hits. This will cause Mecha cannons to do massive damage and rip through other vehicles with reckless abandon. If this is what you are going for, these rules will help immensely.