Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

A 6d6 killing attack will do on average 21 BODY. Default RW mecha usually have in the 14-18 DEF range, so on average about 3-7 BODY will get through.

 

But: I wouldn't go with "a gauss rifle does 6d6 in the Hero System" as a strict benchmark in Robot Warriors.

 

Are you talking about the RW combat system being whack? Because RW mecha combat pretty much is Hero System combat. Unless you're reading the battle game, which was taking the Hero System combat rules and simplifying them.

 

I would say ignore that first portion of the RW rulebook, except that it contains some important bits of the descriptions of how certain things work.

 

Did I mention that RW was poorly edited, laid out, and proofread?

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

I would say ignore that first portion of the RW rulebook, except that it contains some important bits of the descriptions of how certain things work.

 

Did I mention that RW was poorly edited, laid out, and proofread?

 

No, but I'd guessed it from what I've gotten through so far. Which is fine, once the twitching stops I'll be able to pull apart the rules objectively and make them work. Now in FREd we use all four Physical stats for machines, yes? STR, DEX, CON & BODY. We also figure SPD.

 

The Battle Game is where I'd begun my reading, and I keep having to edit the material in my head going "No... no that changed... who wrote this?" I'll read it through to be comprehensive then move on to something more interesting. What I want to get too are the freaking build rules, but that'll take some time.

 

It was 5d6, typo, mea culpa, thanks for the correction. Okay, so I won't set expectations that they'll be surviving extended combats (which also takes away a great deal of the drama of giant robots). I did read some of your write ups (and flipped through the other site you posted). 110 tons is a little weighty for a fighter, but I'll let it go. One of the rules in Battletech is that in order to build a LAM (Land Air Mech) you had to follow two basic rules:

 

* It had to be 55 tons or under

* 5 tons automatically went to transforming materials/gear.

 

Clearly that same distinction doesn't exist in HERO, so building giant crazy transformers should be easier. They always felt grossly underpowered in BT. Must read, then I'll post more.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

WARNING: If you think the combat system is wack, wait til you see how Entangles and TK (among others) are handled.

 

It's been a while since I checked out Chris's RW conversion, but IIRC he brought those a little more in line with a more modern rule set (4th ed, right? or is it updated to 5th?) Really, the main thing is to correlate active points with tonnage, to keep the robot design process more or less the same, and avoid the 10' mech that carries a 12d6K autofire cannon, which is otherwise allowable in standard Hero rules.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

Exactly right, that's precisely what I want to avoid, and I want to avoid it within a consistent rules set. I don't mind saying "No, that wasn't built for that" but it's much easier (and inherently more fair) to enforce it if everyone is working from the same base material.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

Transformable Mecha = Multiform

 

Hmmm... I posted this before, but it did not register... Wierd!

 

QM

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

Hey QM:

 

That's what I'm referring to in my above post. You could even do "solid illusions" as a limited Duplication, where each Duplicate has 1 BODY or something equally bizarre; there are no 'limits' in HERO as to what you can do with the tech, whereas in Battle Tech there was no toolkit from which to work. I could pick either of the USPDs and apply those "powers" to the Giant Robots.

 

The thought, had in fact, occured to me. But yes, multiform in Giant Robots is much easier here than in Battletech, where it always felt like it'd been included for the sake of inclusion; you never got a feeling that the rules lent themselves to that mechanic, or that look & feel. Very rarely is a LAM prominently featured in any Videogame represetation, which is tragic, because you could build a GREAT game around it.

 

Harmony already failed with their original Robotech cel-shaded version. A mistake I don't intend to make. Then again, I don't intend for my game to suck, either.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

Your gonna need "MUSIC" Anime Sound Tracks and the like... Hmmm...

 

I wonder...

 

QM

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

You know, I'm half tempted to find some pleasantly insipid J-Pop just to get the feeling down, but I think I'd drive myself insane. I may PM Yamamura, she might have a reasonable plan. Personally, I know that the more dramatic stuff borrows from Wagner and other Space Opera soundtracks as much as anything else, although that isn't entirely where I want to go with it.

 

Hrm is right.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

No, but I'd guessed it from what I've gotten through so far. Which is fine, once the twitching stops I'll be able to pull apart the rules objectively and make them work. Now in FREd we use all four Physical stats for machines, yes? STR, DEX, CON & BODY. We also figure SPD.

 

STR, DEX, BODY, SPD, and DEF. But, yeah.

 

The Battle Game is where I'd begun my reading, and I keep having to edit the material in my head going "No... no that changed... who wrote this?" I'll read it through to be comprehensive then move on to something more interesting. What I want to get too are the freaking build rules, but that'll take some time.

 

It was 5d6, typo, mea culpa, thanks for the correction. Okay, so I won't set expectations that they'll be surviving extended combats (which also takes away a great deal of the drama of giant robots). I did read some of your write ups (and flipped through the other site you posted). 110 tons is a little weighty for a fighter, but I'll let it go. One of the rules in Battletech is that in order to build a LAM (Land Air Mech) you had to follow two basic rules:

 

* It had to be 55 tons or under

* 5 tons automatically went to transforming materials/gear.

 

Clearly that same distinction doesn't exist in HERO, so building giant crazy transformers should be easier. They always felt grossly underpowered in BT. Must read, then I'll post more.

 

Right. If you haven't gotten there yet, there are two different types of points used for building mecha: Construction Points and Mass Units. Mass Units represent, well, mass, and are used to buy armor, weapons, and a few other types of "hardware". Transform (the RW version of Multiform) is bought with Construction Points, as are DEX, SPD, a few other "systems" like Missile Deflection and Camouflage as well as the robot's base mass. Disadvantages give you more Construction Points to work with.

 

So as the mecha get bigger so do the weapons.

 

Once you're more familiar with the system you'll be able to gauge where to make the modifications; the build system makes it real easy.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

I have Robot Warriors. I have a laptop, and I'm good on the recovery department at the moment. YES. Now, I do actually have some questions.

 

1. Chris: You seem to have kept the inverted +Lim/-Adv system from Robot Warriors. Why? I don't see what this accomplishes other than to be confounding. Within the system they have a chart that details how to guage the weapon damage, and how to scale Mr. Chart. I'm having trouble wrapping my skull around the whole thing in terms of mass/construction points and balancing it against my understanding of HERO.

 

Do I need to let this one go and simply say "Hey, fine, that's the way it is?" or can I update it more cleanly than that? For example. 4d6 only costs 8 points IIRC - now obviously if I were to slap Autofire and Armor Piercing on that puppy I'd be bumping up the cost in 5th Edition mechanics - but I don't know that it would balance against the system itself considering how cheap 4d6 is to begin with.

 

Thoughts on this? I prefer consistency, and I read through your site (large chunks of it) and you clearly kept it for a reason - I'd just like to know what the reason is. Is it what I think it is (the math doesn't carry well) or was it simply easier to leave it alone?

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

I have Robot Warriors. I have a laptop, and I'm good on the recovery department at the moment. YES. Now, I do actually have some questions.

 

1. Chris: You seem to have kept the inverted +Lim/-Adv system from Robot Warriors. Why? I don't see what this accomplishes other than to be confounding. Within the system they have a chart that details how to guage the weapon damage, and how to scale Mr. Chart. I'm having trouble wrapping my skull around the whole thing in terms of mass/construction points and balancing it against my understanding of HERO.

 

The main reason I kept it was because people will be referring back to RW. Consistency with Robot Warriors, mainly. Also, if you see a notation of "+2 Limitation" or "-3 Advantage" you'll know it refers to Robot Warriors.

 

You can also read it as moving the mass up or down the chart while keeping the damage constant. +2 lines means move it up two lines (halving it twice), -3 means move it down three lines (doubling it three times). If you inverted it, you'd change the damage; mathematically, moving the damage down two lines is the same as moving the mass up two lines. (Plus it's easy to say something like this: my robot has 32 mass units of carrying capacity, let me build a weapon to fit, and work it back from there.)

 

Incidentally, at the time RW was written standard Hero System notation was to use "x" to represent an Advantage and "+" to represent a Limitation. So you'd see an x1/4 Advantage (sometimes written as +x1/4) and a +1/2 Limitation.

 

Do I need to let this one go and simply say "Hey, fine, that's the way it is?" or can I update it more cleanly than that? For example. 4d6 only costs 8 points IIRC - now obviously if I were to slap Autofire and Armor Piercing on that puppy I'd be bumping up the cost in 5th Edition mechanics - but I don't know that it would balance against the system itself considering how cheap 4d6 is to begin with.

 

I think in my web page I put a very large warning about the RW weapon construction system not balancing with the Hero Power design system. You could easily end up with RW weapons in the 200-300 Active Point range if you built them in standard Hero. And there's not really a way you can say that, for instance, a 125 Mass Unit weapon is the same as 250 Active Points, because there's always exceptions. (You might be able to get closer if you tracked, say, "Active Mass Units" which is the base mass modified by Advantages, but that's nowhere near perfect, either.)

 

The best way to balance would probably be to compare attacks to defenses, keeping in mind that RW damage is killing. An 11 DEF robot will likely take damage at least half the time from a 12 DC attack.

 

(4d6 is 2 Mass Units Unless I screwed up my version of the chart. 4d6 with Autofire: 10 Shots (no burnout) and 8 points of Piercing would be 125 Mass Units. Also, and here's the cool part, you can tweak the mass values. Increasing the mass of all weapons by three levels is the same as reducing them by 3 DC; increasing armor DEF by 1 is the same as halving armor mass. Or tweak it differently: Earth's materials science far outstrips its energy matrix technology, making Armor half mass and Force Fields double mass, while it's the other way around for the aliens.)

 

Thoughts on this? I prefer consistency, and I read through your site (large chunks of it) and you clearly kept it for a reason - I'd just like to know what the reason is. Is it what I think it is (the math doesn't carry well) or was it simply easier to leave it alone?

 

Partly consistency with RW, and partly (or mainly) feel. I'm just used to thinking of it that way. I really, really like the robot and hardware design system, and building stuff with it just makes it feel to me like it has mass. It's like, if in Battletech tons were called points. Even if 1 point = 1 ton, if you never equated the two, it'd have an entirely different feel.

 

Plus I'm one of the guys who doesn't really care for the Hero System vehicle rules.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

I'm with you on the general dislike of the vehicle rules - I get them, but I find myself wishing I'd been around when they did "WWYD" thread for TUV, because I'd've made strong mention of including an updated mass system for vehicles. Yes, it would be an additional mechanic, and I know that goes against the general design philosophy of the whole thing, but you just can't get the proper feel for the thing outside of that.

 

I would not, could not in a mech.

I would not, could not in a vette.

 

I think I may make Ilene take me to Dunkin' Donuts this morning. Get some java up in me. I also DL'd Hero Designer on muh Mac, so I'm going to spit ball with that a bit today. I also need to design some martial arts (Blade Arts) for the Empire in my epic campaign and a separate set of arts for the Aelves and Sea Orks. Gonna be a busy week!

[tgrandjean]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

Just chiming in as usual.

Assuming you aren't messing around w/ mass points and such from RW, have you considered instead using the STR Min Limitations?

The result would be that you simply cannot mount da' big guns on de' small mechs. Or at least not without taking OCV penalties.

Also, the Size Diff rule does a decent job of 'the big robots do more damage'.

Also, TUV has some decent damage charts for mecha. Easy to customize at that.

For the Ether pools, you could build a framework with the limitation that you must have X pts in a psionic framework. Perhaps w/ RSR. Alternately, you could instead have a large Aid w/ delayed fade rate and only within mecha.

My suggestion on builds would be for you to create a large stock of weapon designs, systems, etc, as well as some (very) basic frames to customize. Then let the players pick and choose.

BTW: For your game I recommend that the robots also have PRE and Com. Facedowns are a staple with this genre.

(cough... have to plug Mekton Z here.... it does the mecha thing better than almost any game out there... just my opinion though...)

For music, go with Yokko Kanno.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

Hey, Tgrandjean, thanks for chiming in! All comers are welcome. Part of what I'm doing here is building a new thing from the ground up - like many HEROphiles, I really don't care what came before, I have to hammer out my way of doing it. That may mean eventually adopting someone else's way (Killer Shrike was a big influence on my magical VPPs for my epic setting) but regardless of that, I have to do it myself.

 

Stare downs WOULD be a huge element of this. Also, the Front Mission series of games are a big influence, as they have Giant Robots bashing it out and men involved in the skirmish (who get swiftly and violently shredded, as well they should). There's a sense of weight, scale and menace that some of these things should convey - PRE and COM will be incorporated into the designs, thank you for the suggestion.

 

I made mention of the STR Minima requirement elsewhere I think because I'm thinking on the exact same lines that you are - you want the Guass rifle, you have to be able to CARRY the Gauss Rifle. Those shouldn't conflict with the Robot Warriors rules much at all. I also need to build a template for RW construction in Excel. I'd ask if anyone has one, but I'm using a Mac with the 2001 Microsoft Excel built in, and it refuses to read normal .XTL files. Bastard.

 

I'm going to make full use of both versions of size diff rules when it comes to Mecha, because I want to draw a clear distinction from "mech class" weaponry and "vehicle class" weaponry and finally, "hand held firearms." The smallest "vehicle class" weapon I'm envisioning is a .50 Cal - something that you just wouldn't be carrying around by yourself without considerable aid.

 

From there you know the drill - 110s, Missile Launchers (Mavericks, Hellfires, SAMs, Anti-Armor Rounds, HARPOONs, HARMs, etc.) Then your classic Battletech inspired mech-class weaponry: Auto Pistols, Auto Cannons, AA Shotguns, Point-Defense Lasers, Laser Weapons, Beam & Particle Guns, Mass Driver/Rail/Gauss weapons, dumb-fire FFARs with a broad dispersal area for anti-personnel and single-shot Fire & Forget rounds.

 

Most RIGs (Robotic Interactive Gear, for now) will have lifters capable of picking things up - any military model is going to have fully articulate hands in anime style to pick up any weaponry left on the battlefield, retrieve items and objects, and so on.

 

I really need to make that spreadsheet. One down (did the normal HERO 5th version today) and one to go (Robot Warriors, here I come...)

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

Dude. If you make a spreadsheet for Robot Warriors, I want!

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

I'm going to sit here with my book and do it this morning, in fact. If you know how to get a 2001 Mac Excel sheet to export in a format people can read, please let me know. I'm doing things in MS software that's MAC based but no one with a PC can access the material. And I say unto thee:

 

"IT'S CRAP!"

[Chuckg]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

Have you tried exporting it to a text file with tab delimiters and then importing said text file into MS Excel?

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

I could certainly export it with tab delimiters, the problem would be other people importing it into Excel. As noted, I'm already using Excel. But it doesn't cooperate with any PC version I know of, which rather defeats the pupose of using excel, mais non?

[Chuckg]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

Erm, ze point is, a .csv or .txt file with tab delimiters should import into damn near *any* version of Excel.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

I know MS Excel can open comma delimited text files. I think it can open tab delimited also, I don't see why it wouldn't.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

Oh, sorry, I know that, guys, but my reason for using Excel in the first place was to avoid this sort of chaos. That's all. Chaos was not avoided, and the paladin is annoyed.

 

What I don't know is that if I do it with drop-down boxes (for engines and such) will those export with the tabs? I doubt it.

[Chuckg]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

No, to the best of my knowledge, they won't.

[Chuckg]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

Hrm. This might work:

 

http://www.macdisk.com/msxcelen.php3

 

And a quick google groups search seems to hint that the major obstacle between Mac Excel and MS Excel is that the two versions handle macros differently. (MS Excel macros are based on Visual Basic, Mac OS Excel macros are based on God Only Knows.) If you use lots of macros, no joy.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

I didn't do the spreadsheet yet - I got obsessed and had to build one of these things using the system for myself. It looks like this:

 

Okay. Today Thia is going to build a Giant Robot. There are things I still don't get - for example, what's light? What's heavy? There's no guage to the mass system that tells me which qualifies as what. Battletech tells me that Assault is 90-100 Tons, and Light is 20-35. In a straight fight there's no contest - it's just a matter of when the Light Mech is going to get tagged and go down. But we'll put that aside for the moment.

 

Like a character, I'll remain uncreative and build this puppy on 300 Construction Points. As the book suggests I start with Disads, I'm going to make this an Imperial Model.

 

Shock Class, Model: Negotiator

 

System Under Review - Watched, (Destroy, Full Time 11-) This machine is watched by the Empire, and its pilots kept under close scrutiny. The Empire isn't likely to destroy one of their own RIGs, but they retain the ability to do so. 20 points.

 

Enforcer of Imperial Law - Distincive Features, Not Concealable (Always Noticed, Not Distinct in Empire Territory). Imperial RIGs are impossible to hide; you'd need to repaint them, rebuild them, adjust their gait and strip their weapons. There are also numerous factions who would rather see the Empire destroyed, and will always take shots at their RIGs: 15 Points.

 

335 Construction Points thus far (both lims get full value). Since Systems are purchased before Construction Points are cashed in for mass, we'll purchase the following:

 

20 DEX, 30 points.

16 PRE, 6 points

SPD, 10 points.

Find Weakness, 18-, 30 points

Leap, 10 points.

Damage Control, 13-, 9 points.

 

 

Chassis & Power Plant: 64 Mass Units, 1000 Capacity, 34 BODY.

Armor: 250 Mass, 19-4 (size) = 15 DEF.

Crew Accomodations, 7 Mass (125 Mass Escape Pod)

Lifters: 125 Mass (2000 Capacity, needs reworked to STR score)

2-Way Radio, All Bands: 8 MU

Infrared Vision: 4 MU

Spares Pool: 43 MU

Cargo Hold (Ammunition Store): 1:20 MU, 5 MU, 100 Mass

Total Mass: 1000, with Cargo Hold

 

Reviewing the weapons/armor/movement construction rules I think I've finally got my brain around what is a simple, but wholly alien concept. That all of these figures are used to move steps in value - not to change the cost. In other words, if you want a 6d6 weapon with a total of +2 Limitations, you end up with a 6d61/2 weapon, that has limitations on it. You could also put on an AOE: Explosion Advantage (-2) which would adjust it back to 6d6. I think I understand this now. With that in mind.

 

Movement:

20 Hexes, 8 x 12 = 160 MU.

 

Autopistol: 5d6 16 Mass Units, (Total -1 Advantages, 4d6 1/2)

Autofire 10 w/Burnout, (-1), on 8- (+1), Carried (+1), No Knockback (+1)

Charges (60 rnds, -1), Must be reloaded from clips in Cargo Area

Burnout & Charges (-2 Adv)

 

Anti-Armor Shotgun: 6d6+1 250 MU, (Total –3, 5d6+1)

Carried (+1),

Charges 8 (+1), Must be reloaded from clips in Cargo Area (1/2 Phase?)

Inoperable Under Special Conditions (+1) If Immersed in water, weapon becomes useless until “dried out” – cleaned and repaired at a shop, or in the field with sufficient time (Damage Control Roll?).

Delayed Effect 1 Segment, chambering a round (+1)

AoE: Cone (-2 Adv.)

Piercing 10 pts. (-5 Adv.)

 

Knuckle Blades: 5d6+1 32 MU (51/2d6)

No Range (+1)

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Giant Robot RPG (carry over post to SH from DC)

 

Follow up to the above post:

 

If you have Burnout & Charges, you get tagged with a -2 Advantage. LAME. What is I have enough Charges that it's an Advantage? Would the penalty still apply? My Autopistol would be more effective if this were the case. I would almost HR that, since to build the weapon as a projectile, you sort of have too. The rule says "Make it an energy weapon on your fusion drive, that's more logical." L-A-M-E. But I left it on there, because it's the rules.

 

I was proud of the AAS. Under the construction for it, I hit anything within two hexsides in front of me... then it continues in a straight line? That wasn't quite what I wanted, but meh.

 

I left the mech at 990 because I wanted movement cheaper - it was the only way to afford the thing clocking at 20 hexes in a turn. Which I thought was absurdly fast; I hope I'm right, it's supposed to be. I have to put in the calculation for MPH/KPH in the Spreadsheet. Must do that. It seems that unless you get into the stupid large range (see notes in the build) you're going to hover around the 5d6 - 7d6 camp. Anything bigger gets into 1000 base MU, or more. The numbers get kind of crazy.

 

Interesting side note: you COULD build 10 Small Lasers all at 64 MU and fire them in grossly oversized volleys at their targets. That'd be hilarious. Until you were still rolling dice ten minutes later. Then, not so much. Good old Battletech.

 

I have more, but now I'm tired. Finally.