Autofire Agents

[IndianaJoe3]

I was thinking about conflicts with large numbers of weaker combatants, and how to speed them up. One idea I had was to make a single to-hit roll for a group of agents, and use the Autofire rules to determine how many hits the group got. Has anyone ever done something like this?

[Russell]

That sounds like a cool idea. 

[Vondy]

One objection players might raise is: how do you determine which characters were the ones hit? If its random, characters who rely on DCV instead of DF to avoid damage will be on the short end of the stick. That brings us to a second issue: whose DCV do you use for this "one hit to rule them all"? If you roll against the lowest DCV the characters on the high-end of the stick will, effectively, be caught in their undertow.

 

The strategy I've used in the past is to pre-roll however many I think I'll need in advance (you can use an app or tool that does multiple rolls with one click....). You can plug them into a spreadsheet that calculates DCV hit, print, and then cross them off as you go!

 

A separate issue with large cadres of agents is that, based on statistical likehoods, they tend to get lucky at dramatically inopportune moments. One thing I've done in the past is to let mooks use suppressing fire and blazing away with their full-auto weapons, but to treat regular attack rolls as single shots. I just pretend lots of bullets are firing. This has the added effect that they turn into hollywood shoot-em-up mooks who never seem to run out of ammo....

[IndianaJoe3]

One objection players might raise is: how do you determine which characters were the ones hit? If its random, characters who rely on DCV instead of DF to avoid damage will be on the short end of the stick. That brings us to a second issue: whose DCV do you use for this "one hit to rule them all"? If you roll against the lowest DCV the characters on the high-end of the stick will, effectively, be caught in their undertow.

 

The expected use of this technique is when there are multiple identical agents attacking a single target, so that situation wouldn't arise.

[lemming]

I've done that it in the past with hordes of agents with a +1 OCV for every doubling of the agents.   So +3 for 8 agents and treated as autofire.  (though they were firing auto anyway).

 

Worked well enough and sped combat.

[massey]

I've been poking around at having a group of agents as a single stat block.  I'm not sure if things will speed up, but it decreases record keeping.

 

So your basic agent is like:

 

One guy

 

Str 13

Dex 12

Con 13

(snip)

PD 5

ED 5

Spd 3

Rec 6

End 26

Stun 24

 

Blaster Rifle - 8D6 EB, 16 charges, OAF

Cobra uniform - 5/5 Armor, OIF, radio transmit OIF

 

Something like that.  But if you want a big group of agents, you could have:

 

Room full of guys

 

Str 30

Dex 20

Con 25

Body 15

Int 10

Ego 15

Pre 20

Com 10

PD 20

ED 20

Spd 5

Rec 11

End 50

Stun 45

 

Martial grab (dogpile)

Crush

Martial escape

 

2 lvls HTH

2 lvls blaster rifle barrage

 

Blaster rifle barrage - 10D6 autofire - OIF (hard to disarm cuz its a lot of guys)

Cobra uniform - 5/5 Armor - OIF, radio transmit OIF

 

He shouldn't be a serious threat to a hero, but he's tough enough to take several blows to put down.  Captain Batmerica will bounce around the room kicking this guy (these guys) in the face.  Each hit drops an agent, but they just seem to swarm him until the writeup runs out of stun.  His last hit knocks two of them down, then he looks around and sees the rest are all unconscious.

[drunkonduty]

Interesting. It's like the DnD, um, is it Swarm Template? Something like that.

 

Anyhoo...

 

I like it but personally I wouldn't increase the group's PD/ED. I would just increase it's STUN a bit more.

 

I also think that some sort of Drain vs. the DC of the attack makes sense. Something like a Susceptibility - suffers 1d6 Drain vs. EB for every X Stun suffered. This is to represent the fact that as goons are taken out there's fewer of them to fire the Blaster Gun Barrage.