Fun with Force Fields

[JmOz]

How would you build a Star Trek type force field, you know you know hit it looses power, harder hit harder it is drained,

 

I looked at the option for Alblative but it is to steady (You loose 5ap per hit no matter if it was a high or a low hit)

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

a summoned creature with it's own body, DEF and regeneration

[Nolgroth]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

Make up your own Ablative rules. Seriously, the more I look at the way the Ablative rules are written up, the more I don't like either option.

 

BODY as a Defense. Special effect is Force Field.

 

You can even build a Regeneration ability for either option.

[JmOz]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

Make up your own Ablative rules. Seriously, the more I look at the way the Ablative rules are written up, the more I don't like either option.

 

BODY as a Defense. Special effect is Force Field.

 

You can even build a Regeneration ability for either option.

 

You know that is not a bad idea

 

something like Force Field generator (all powers mutualy linked)

15/15 FF

+15 Body

Regen only FF Body

 

If the FF runs out of body then it automaticaly falls...

[Nolgroth]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

You know that is not a bad idea

 

something like Force Field generator (all powers mutualy linked)

15/15 FF

+15 Body

Regen only FF Body

 

If the FF runs out of body then it automaticaly falls...

Hmmmn. So in your example, the Force Field DEF protects the Force Field Body and anything that gets past the DEF damages the FF Body. Once the Body is down to 0, the Force Field shuts off. In turn the Regen tries to repair the Shield before it drops. Am I reading this right?

 

Not exactly what I was thinking but that would work nicely.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

a summoned creature with it's own body' date=' DEF and regeneration[/quote']There is something about this that is very appealing, at least within the context of summoning "something" to provide the DEF/Body. I think the cost break you would get is an unbalancing factor. If the summoned "something" simply provided DEF and BODY, and a little regeneration, it would only be a handful of points.

[Curufea]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

Shields in Trek bleed damage through, however. There should be some kind of limitation on them such that any attack is regarded as penetrating.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

Shields in Trek bleed damage through' date=' however. There should be some kind of limitation on them such that any attack is regarded as penetrating.[/quote']Good point. I wonder if you could set up a Partial Penetrating effect, where half of the Body rolled on the dice gets through? Course that makes the ship's integral DEF useless.

 

Gah! Star Trek shields are a tough one.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

Or perhaps its Damage Reduction with the Ablative limitation.

[Rick]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

How about beating and abusing Entangle to make only walls. Then apply Force Wall modifiers as you like than add the modifier that allows both the entangle and the entangled to take damage and make so each takes half of the damage... how was that for a short stream of consciousness?

[Nolgroth]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

Okay, I'm thinking about tweaking the Ablative rule and adding another option.

 

Ablative (-1) (alternate rule)

Ablative Defenses continually wear down under the stress of attack. When first struck, the Full DEF of the defense is used to resist the incoming attack. However, the attack reduces the amount of DEF by a number equal to the Body of the attack as if it were a Normal Damage roll. In other words, treat the attack as if it were Penetrating, Only to reduce the DEF of the defensive power.

 

The second and subsequent attacks continue to reduce the DEF of the defensive power until it reaches 0. At that point it turns off and must be turned back on. This should not be easy or quick to do (it must be done outside of combat).

Example

The

Centurion Eagle

has a Force Field 21rPD/21eRD with the Ablative limitation on it. During a routine trade run, it crosses paths with a pirate assault scout bent on looting it. The pirate ship engages the

Eagle.

 

The Pirate ship fires a Laser Cannon that does 6d6k. It hits for 18 Body (1,3,6,4,1,3). The

Eagle's

Force Field protects it from the Laser, but loses (1+2+1+1) 5 DEF in the process. Now the Force Field is at 16 rPD/rED.

 

On the Pirate's next phase, they attack and hit again. This time, a whopping 25 Body (4,3,2,6,4,6) is done. Not only do 9 Body get through the DEF, but the DEF is further reduced by 8. The new DEF is 8.

 

Now 9 Body gets through to the Ablative Armor (

trust me I am going somewhere with this

). Since the Force Field took the brunt of the damage, the Ablative Armor is not reduced and protects the ship from further damage.

 

On the Pirate's next phase they once again hit for 21 Body (3,4,1,4,5,4). 13 Body get through to the Ablative Armor and the DEF of the Force Field is reduced to 4.

 

On, the next Phase, the pirates continue to pummel the

Eagle

with laser fire. Lucky for the

Eagle

only 18 measly Body (4,6,1,1,2,4) is done. It is enough to knock down the Force Field completely, leaving the Ablative armor underneath exposed. Now, since it only took 4 out of the 5 Body to finish off the shield, 1 Body gets through to reduce the Ablative Armor on the Hull.

 

The battle continues on....

In this example, the Shield is completely removed in about 1-2 turns. It is a fair bet that the Ablative Armor will take a similar amount of time to whittle away. That would leave the base DEF of 10 plus the non Ablative armor of 10. I would assume that the battle could last as long as 7-8 turns total before the Centurion Eagle was reduced to 0 Body.

 

Now I think I have a pretty good model to work with here. Let's go into turning back on the Ablative DEF. For the force field, it is easy. Wait a set amount of time for the "shield projectors" to recharge and hit a switch. The Ablative Armor on the Hull is going to take a little bit more effort.

 

Time to look at my 5th Edition revised for some inspiration....

 

....Okay I'm back.

 

Looking at Charges, there is a clause for restricted recovery, which increases the Limitation Value by 1/4. That seems to fit. Extra-Time also seems to fit. Let's say 6 hours per point of DEF. So, for an extra -3 3/4 Limitation, you can make the Ablative defense into something that takes time and resources to repair. That would make Ablative Armor so cheap (point wise) that everybody will want some. Up to you how to control it's use in the game. Weight limit. Every DEF equals 1 ton of weight or something. Make it prohibitively expensive in terms of monetary value. Requires a restricted license to purchase legally (by-passed initially by having it part of the package bought from the manufacturer).

 

So for relatively cheap on the points side, you can create a Star Trek-like Shield for your spaceship. The 21 DEF shield above costs 7 Real Cost after you apply a x10 END cost to it.

 

Now, here is the fun part.

 

Regenerative Shield Technology

Regenerative Shield Technology attempts to compensate for the damage to shields that is sustained during combat. It works similarly to how the shields are damaged in that the number of Regeneration dice rolled are tallied like a Normal attack. The resulting Body "damage" is then added to the Force Field DEF.

 

Shield Regeneration can only be done during Post-12 Recovery.

 

The GM should probably enforce some sort of upper limit on the number of Regeneration dice that can be purchased. Perhaps 1 die per every 5 Size levels or something similar.

 

Okay, there is my take on the whole Star Trek shields concept. Thoughts? Complaints?

[clsage]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

How would you build a Star Trek type force field, you know you know hit it looses power, harder hit harder it is drained,

 

I looked at the option for Alblative but it is to steady (You loose 5ap per hit no matter if it was a high or a low hit)

 

In one of the issues of Digital Hero there was an article on

Force Fields that (as I recall) had some options regarding

this....Can't recall what issue it was tho'....hmmmm.

 

EDIT: Found it....Digital Hero Issue #10:

 

(quoting from the DH page article list)

FORCE FIELDS ENHANCED

As one of the basic defensive Power, the humble Force Field is often

taken for granted. Look at it for the first time, again.

 

From that article:

 

Regenerating Shields (-½): This limitation

simulates Force Fields that get weaker as they

are hit. Unlike Ablative, which causes defenses

to have an Activation Roll as they take damage,

Regenerating Shields causes Force Field to lose

Defense as it takes damage. Many space vessels

have Force Fields with this limitation.

When a Regenerating Force Field is hit and

damage done to the character, the Force Field

loses Defense. For each 1 BODY and/or 5 STUN

that gets through the Force Field, 1/1 Defense is

removed from the Force Field. For example, if a

12/11 Force Field is hit with an attack that does

13 BODY and 26 STUN, then the Force Field

will lose 1/1 DEF from the BODY damage and

3/3 DEF from the STUN damage. The 12/11

Force Field becomes an 8/7 Force Field. Note

the character’s other defenses (such as natural

PD and ED or Armor) do not add to the Force

Field’s defense for this purpose; the Force

Field’s defense is considered to be “on top,”

meaning it protects the character against damage

first, before any other defenses. If anything gets

through the Force Field to be applied against the

character’s other defenses, then the Force Field

loses defense.

The Force Field regenerates 1/1 Defense at

the beginning of each phase the character acts.

For example, the character whose FF was just

reduced to 8/7 has a 23 DEX and 5 SPD. On

segments 3, 5, 8, 10, 12 the character’s FF will

regenerate 1/1 DEF at the beginning of his action

at DEX 23 until the Force Field reaches full

defense. This regeneration occurs automatically,

with no effort required from the character, as a

zero phase action before the character takes any

other action during his phase.

 

That, stacked with the FF being powered by an END

reserve, might just give you the effect you are looking

for.

 

-Carl-

[alexraccoon]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

Set up your force field with an endurance battery. For each point of damage to the force field remove 1 point of end from the battery. For every attack that is over a certain amount also apply a burn out roll. If the force field is used on a space ship then you can allocate the recovery of your powerplant as required and include a disadvantage that once the power has gone down then the endurance battery must be refilled and or a number of engineering rolls be made.

[MorpheousXO]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

Set up your force field with an endurance battery. For each point of damage to the force field remove 1 point of end from the battery. For every attack that is over a certain amount also apply a burn out roll. If the force field is used on a space ship then you can allocate the recovery of your powerplant as required and include a disadvantage that once the power has gone down then the endurance battery must be refilled and or a number of engineering rolls be made.

 

Actually, the endurance battery on a FF is a great way to represent shields getting weaker over time and the bleed through effect of more powerful attacks. Maybe put in a caveat that bleed through damage doesn't effect FF integrity, though (unless the bleedthrough damages the generator...). Good call, and repped.

[Cancer]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

Shields in Trek bleed damage through' date=' however. There should be some kind of limitation on them such that any attack is regarded as penetrating.[/quote']

 

Good point. I wonder if you could set up a Partial Penetrating effect, where half of the Body rolled on the dice gets through? Course that makes the ship's integral DEF useless.

 

Gah! Star Trek shields are a tough one.

 

I dunno; you might achieve this with a roll-for-effect mechanic on the shields themselves (so e.g. instead of 15 DEF in FF, you buy 5 dice, and roll those for the FF DEF when you enter combat). Not sure what that'd be worth, but it might work.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

There is something about this that is very appealing' date=' at least within the context of summoning "something" to provide the DEF/Body. I think the cost break you would get is an unbalancing factor. If the summoned "something" simply provided DEF and BODY, and a little regeneration, it would only be a handful of points.[/quote']

 

How many points should shielding technology cost? make characters pay for size and slavishly devoted advantages? I'm sure you could tweak the summon.

[rmccarty4]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

As for the notion that "some damage gets through", anyone thought of Side Effects?

Set up the Limitation such that Side Effects cause Body to the ship & occur when the damage reaches a certain threshold. Perhaps put the Limitation on a portion of the Force Field/Wall, so minor attacks cause no damage, but a Romulan plasma weapon will cause Scotty to call up the bridge & complain that the shields canna take it (sorry, I'm really only familiar w/ ST:TOS).

Could choose to work the shields' power as an Endurance Reserve, and have the Side Effect include some Endurance &/or Recovery Drain.

As for the tendency for shields to buckle and slowly regenerate... sounds kind of like "Real Armor" to me; IIRC, Fantasy Hero shields can be destroyed if they block too heavy a blow. Same could apply to the ship's shields. As & when that Body damage comes through, the shield generator device can be part of the ship taking Body, disabling the shield. Work out a system w/ your GM (or work out a system, if you're the GM) & call it a -1/4 Limitation?

If there are more than one set of shields (e.g., a front, rear, left, & right ((or even & top & bottom)) shield), then set up four (or six) separate Force Field/Wall Foci, & apply Limitations such that they cover only a certain area.

Hmm, set up separate END Reserves for each shield generator? Something tells me that might work out as much more expensive... Well, could always attribute partial coverage to special effect, and have fun.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Fun with Force Fields

 

How many points should shielding technology cost? make characters pay for size and slavishly devoted advantages? I'm sure you could tweak the summon.

I suppose you have a point. If all ships used the same thing....