bpmasher

Tested the mechanics a bit more yesterday. Damage rolls after a hit is scored can be distributed as the attacking player wishes. When rolling damage against a squad, the attacking player divides the potential damage dice amongst the desired targets and rolls. Damage is always: weapon damage + degree of success. The potential damage and attack can make is calculated after the hits are scored, not before. Also, the penalty to fire multiple shots in a round is removed from the OCV calculations, since the timeframe is different, and it opens up the combat to be a bit more deadly, and keeps players guessing. Success is determined after the roll is made. (Example: Old Ollie opens up on a gang of banditos with his Winchester rifle. The banditos have him surrounded at a camp site, so he targets as many as he can, which is three guys bunched up near a wagon (remember miniatures). He has his favorite weapon equipped (Dark Champions Super-Skill, +2 OCV with a weapon), they are 4 meters away with a combat value of 3. Ollie's combat value is 7+2=9 so he needs to roll 15 or below to hit a single bandit. He rolls exactly 15 on his combat roll, and gets to roll two damage dice. He unloads three rounds from his rifle and chooses to use both damage dice on a bandit nearest to him. He rolls two dice and scores a 5 and a 4. Two wounds inflicted on the bandit so he goes down clutching himself. The possibility of hitting two guys was still there, because he chose to fire three rounds instead of just one.) Rate of fire: Machine guns and assault weapons are still at a great advantage, because more potential targets means you get to divide more damage dice among models (there's always the possibility of that 6!) when you roll well. If you include the rule of -1, where every round is a single degree of success, you give automatic weapons a big advantage in terms of the mechanics. (Example: A recon soldier fires on a pair of insurgents guarding a building with his carbine. He has crept up on a camp and chosen his first targets while keeping his position hidden. His combat value is 6 + 2 (Combat Skill Levels) = 8 and the insurgents combat value is halved due to being surprised from stealth. His maximum rate of fire is 15, but he chooses to fire only five rounds to make sure the guys go down, but not wasting ammo. He needs a roll of 15, and rolls 11. His potential damage is 2d (carbine) + 4d (his degree of success) and chooses to divide the damage dice so he rolls 3 dice for both targets. He rolls for the first one: 5, 1, 3 = two wounds and the first guy goes down. He rolls for the second one: 6, 4, 3 = an instant kill plus one wound. Both of the insurgents fall down dead. The rest of the camp now rolls INT to see whether or not they are alerted to them getting killed or hearing the silenced carbine shots.) Bullet-counting: In a more invested or survival-influenced game, you count bullets made in attacks and require reloads after you run out. Resource management is part of the combat in this hack. Remeber potential damage done and possible targets for damage? Rivet-counting: Calculate the carry weight of each character and squad, require endurance use during combat for movement and sprinting, firing your weapons and swinging your swords. Increased resource management and potentially a lot more interesting game when compared to a conventional wargame where you just blast away without worries until one side wins.

I'll check your stuff out. Rpgs for me are on the backburner now since my HDD broke down and I can't write anymore OR play on roll20. I was going to use this stuff with miniatures using my simplified combat for mass engagements. That's where the MG42 with four attacks thing came from (ROF 20/4=5) where every five ROF would give you one attack on the miniatures scale, which is using longer timeframes anyway. Some simplified math plus gaming logic applied combined with a day of writing and thinking about stuff that comes up with those results. Often I forget what I've been working on after I've written it down, which leads to many rewrites and refining stuff over and over again.

I'll probably try to come up with my own gun/armor stats because of the research I've already done into the area of WW2 fighting vehicles. Of course they will be simplified and streamlined to work with the system, but the values will most likely differ from the ones in the official supplements. For instance, I'm going to use "real" rates of fire for machine guns and sub-machine guns for my WW2 games. That means a MG42 squad gets gets four attacks a turn, rolling two damage dice per hit scored. Just the way I like it. I couldn't find the World War 2 Hero -thread I started a couple years back anymore, but it had the gist of my philosophy concerning firearms in Hero. The damages are just fine enough, just the fire output needed to be tweaked in my mind. You could increase the point values of machine guns because of their higher effectiveness, but in a heroic game everybody will have the weapons they want anyway.

"Command & Control", Leadership =========================== Any Character with the Leadership skill can give "orders", in other words activations to squads on their own activation. (EXAMPLE: If you want to complicate a game, you could make use of runners or dispatch riders on the tabletop to see if a message to hold (retreat/attack) gets through to a pocketed unit in the forests of the Ardennes) All you need to give an "order" is to roll a successful Leadership skill roll. A leader character can also remove a PIN from a squad, or to inderdict a squad ROUTING off the table with a successful Leadership roll. HEROic Bias ========== The action on the table is dominated by Player Characters or Hero Characters when talking about GM -controlled major characters in a more traditional game. Player and Hero Characters do not necessarily possess the Leadership skill, but they can still affect the outcome of the game in major ways due to their different treatment in the combat mechanics. A scout team of player characters would present a formidable "force" in a skirmish action. Combat Mechanics ================ Suppression is mechanism to inflict morale checks on squads in combat. Mechanics: Declare a suppression over an arc of fire on the table, roll with a penalty (-2 for every inch/2 meters covered). In the event of a success, every squad and character in the affected area has to roll a morale check. In the event of a failure, the targeted squad goes to ground and gets PINNED. If successful, the squad can activate normally if they have activations left in the turn (or when they are pushed forward by a leader character). Shooting ranges are better than in the basic Hero rules. Halve the distance penalties when taking ranged shots in combat. OR, eliminate ranged penalties altogether. Especially useful when deploying marksmen -type Hero Characters on the table. Cover makes squads harder to hit. What You See Is What You Get. Check the position of the miniatures on the table, determine the percentage of them showing and use the Hero System cover rules when attacking squads/characters in houses, behind rocks, fences, etc.

The making of a squad =================== - Squads get stats like characters to represent the average squad member The stats are: STR, DEX, CON, INT, EGO, PRE - These values will be rolled whenever a task roll is required that doesn't come under the squads proficiency/skill set. (EXAMPLE: A player character attempts to wrestle a remaining elite squad member to the ground in an attempt to take him prisoner. Use the squad template STR and Speed values when determining contests and activations for the duration of that combat) The secondary stats are: OCV/DCV, Morale (how well the squad performs under pressure) and Speed (how many activations per turn the squad has) - In addition to primary and secondary stats squads get Skill sets or Proficiencies (worth 10 points per point over 11- roll). These could be things like Parachute Infantry that takes into account jumping out of airplanes, fieldcraft, using various weapons, martial arts training, etc.) - Average morale is 11- roll. Poor morale starts at 9-. Exceptional morale is 13- and higher rolls, reserved for elite squads. - Average OCV/DCV is 4 for a combat-trained squad. - Normally squads can activate only once/card per turn. Leaders can activate a squad again on their own action card, given a successful Leadership roll (a nearby leader character could activate multiple squads in a turn, dishing out orders and remaining with his own squad and relocating on the battlefield as needed). Each squad also gets a list of weapons and the amount of attacks the weapon gets in addition to the number of damage dice it rolls after a hit. Squad Powers is a special section reserved for specialized squads (mages, stealth specialists with powers, all the video gamey stuff you could come up with for a squad). (Example power: "Shh! Quiet!": Superior camouflage/stealth when outside of combat for a British commando squad. POWER COST: Invisibility - targeting sense (sight), 20 points, Chameleon limitation -½, Final cost 10 points. The commando squad stops and remains motionless in order to let an enemy patrol pass just yards away from them.) - Elite Squads: Elite squads do not take normal knock-outs or kills when fives and sixes are rolled in damage rolls. Instead they take Wounds on fours, fives and sixes. This increases their longevity further in combat and makes them more dangerous, in addition to any powers, morale advantages or special training they might have. You have to especially try to knock out (punch/wrestle/rifle-butt) an elite squad member because of their exceptional esprit de corps. Elite squad members always have valuable information for campaign/scenario purposes. - Elite squads are usually also larger than average (commandos, American parachute infantry) so their longevity and damage output in combat is increased in proportion. - Squads can always deploy into fire teams (BAR gunner + loader, LMG team + 2 loaders, Bazooka + loader etc.) and scout teams. It is up to the player to use his resources as he sees best.

I looked at some stats for the Sherman and the Tiger tanks. The Tiger weighs almost double the amount that the Sherman does. That gives me some info for the Body stat. Let's look at Golden Age Champions equipment tables...A Sherman has Body 19 in the stats. So let's say the Tiger has some multiple of that. Say 29 or 30. You have to hammer the Tiger a lot more with fire (or Hulk punches) to make it fall apart. Shermans DEF is 13/9 (denoting the flank I guess). Let's say the tiger has at least 30 percent more armor. So the Tiger has DEF 17/11. Now we have both the Body and DEF scores for the Tiger tank. The Shermans STR score is 52. Let's look at it's horsepower. Wiki says Sherman horsepower is 350-450. Wiki says the Tiger had 690 horsepower. That's almost double the amount that the Sherman has. Let's give it a generous STR score...93. Mitigated by its 20 tonne weight excess it becomes...55. EXACTLY the same as in the book. Too tired to do the speed now but yeah...along some of these lines is what I had in mind for the stats.

Rewrote some combat mechanics to be used for wargaming. These are draft -level rules at the moment. Note: with success rolls I use every -1 below the required number as a degree of success (which makes the combat deadlier). Lexicon ====== Activation = An action taken in a segment. SHOCK = STUN damage in Hero renamed to be more descriptive of small arms combat Scale and time ============== - 1" on the table equals 2 meters. - 1 segment equals 6 seconds of time in a squad -based game. Morale ====== - A squad is represented by average morale of the troops (8 (Gritty) or 9 (Normal/Heroic) + [EGO+INT/10], rounding rule = Morale roll). - Morale rolls are used to determine PIN and ROUT results. After losing a man the squad takes a PIN roll. After losing 50% troops a squad makes a ROUT roll. - RECOVERY can be used to recover both SHOCK and ENDURANCE in the same segment it is used. Squad Mechanics =============== - MOOK squads roll (ROF/5) attacks per segment, using the representation of the majority of weapons they are wielding (Assault squad mooks wielding SMGs roll ROF/5 attacks per segment). Damage rolls are Normal Damage for MOOK squads despite weapons being used (HEROIC games standard). - Player Characters targeting MOOK squads make attacks as normal, but instead of rolling for damage for each hit, they roll 1d6. 5 knocks out a mook, 6 kills a mook. Optional rule: 1-4 inflicts wounds on the mook squad, every 2 wounds kills a mook. - Close combat is a simultaneous success roll, where OCV of squad is used as a success roll, BUT every -1 or -2 under the required roll results in a kill. - Depending on the level of the game, a single PC against a squad of enemies that loses a close combat is either killed (gritty), taken prisoner (normal) or knocked out (cartoon/cinematic). Generally a single character making a close combat roll must make an escape test using their OCV as a skill check to run away. Alternately, rolling d6 for a result might be best where 1 = killed, 2-5 = taken prisoner, 6 = miraculous knock out. Damage Mechanics ---------------- - MOOK squads roll Normal Damage despite using Killing Attack weapons. A 5 or a 6 rolled by a MOOK squad means a point of killing damage. The rest counts as SHOCK. Each 5 or 6 do not count in to the shock totals of the roll. (EXAMPLE: A squad of Germans spot a Hero Character (James Manfield, Private First Class) running across a field trying to satchel charge a bunker. They open fire on him using their Kar98k rifles. There are six Germans in the rifle squad. They roll their OCV of 11 + 4 = 15, against the DCV of 5 of the Hero character. Their roll of 8 means a success. They roll 3 dice of Normal Damage for each rifle in the squad (18 dice). The dice for the damage roll come up as 1, 1, 3, 6, 2, 5, 2, 2, 4, 2, 3, 4, 6, 1, 2, 4, 5 and 1. That results in 4 points of Killing Damage to the Hero, and 30 points of SHOCK. They caught the Hero in a hail of fire and shot his legs from under him, causing him to fall to the ground shocked and possibly unconscious.) (The Kar98 got a generous damage due to it being bolt action ) - Player characters roll Killing Attack + STUN multiplier damage against other PCs. Against MOOK squads every damage die result is rolled for with a single d6. 1s do nothing. 2-4 causes WOUNDs, 5 causes a knocked out MOOK, 6 causes a killed MOOK. Every 2 wounds against a squad results in another kill. (EXAMPLE: A sergeant, Player Character Manny Rodriguez fires his Thompson SMG on a squad of German soldiers. He successfully rolls his auto-attack roll (11+OCV (6) -DCV of defending squad (4) = 13) and beats his roll by 6. He then rolls 6 dice, one for each hit he scored. The die results for the damage roll are 6, 2, 5, 1, 4 and 3. He kills one German, knocks out one, and causes three WOUNDs on the squad killing another squad member. 2 KIA and one German knocked out of the fight.) edit: To add to the document, the morale roll required for the squad in the second example is a ROUT roll. They roll their Morale of 11- for a result of 13. The rest of the Germans turn around and make a hasty retreat. Had they been assaulted in close combat by another squad or a hero character, they would have surrendered. More wording fixes. Clarifications, updates.

Anyone have an idea for a basic system for designing tanks for Hero system, specifically World War 2 tanks and vehicles? Stuff like Horse Power = STRength Tonnage = BODY Cannon = Damage and penetration (advantages: armor piercing, piercing etc.) Armor Thickness = DEFense You catch the drift...I'm looking to translate real world stats into Hero equivalents thus making possible to use any vehicle in a game. Otherwise I could use a stat block for a Sherman or a Panzer IV so I could scour my war game -library and convert armor statistics and stuff into DEF values and gun penetration and damage. I'm creating a system for squad based miniatures games based off of the Hero System and the lack of era vehicles is readily apparent. While I'm at it, some sort of equivalency for Artillery shell values would be fun also, despite it rarely being used in a squad -based game (never actually) besides a pre-game barrage (which could still be rolled for). Something like Shell caliber = Explosives damage or stuff like that. I remember these being in Dark Champions to some degree.

Ok, so I have tested Hero with miniatures. Thoughts on getting faster play, initiative, and game sequence: 1. Keep Speed stat to indicate the amount of actions a character can take. 2. Use a deck of playing cards to indicate the side which gets to take an action. 3. To keep things fluent and flexible, each action card can be used to activate the same character who just acted, or another one. 4. You could limit activations according to squad/platoon/company (etc.) levels where only characters from the same units can activate. This could be too restricting for some play styles. 5. Mook rules for faster play -> no damage rolls towards nameless characters. A hit is enough, another roll to determine death or wounding (1-4: Wounded, 5: Knocked out, 6: Dead). Two wounds in a nameless character means being knocked out of the fight. Use markers (blood stains, smoke, or something like it) 6. When a joker is drawn, the current turn ends. Insert possible special effect or happening into the playing area (air strike, mortar barrage, a whale from the sky, the opposing side's hero character trips on his shoelaces) 7. Face cards activate a hero character always, with the option to give an action with a bonus to a nearby nameless character with a Leadership roll. Heroes are a big deal.

Finally got around to designing my own system using the HERO skill and combat resolution system. I'd like some feedback regarding the possible complications I might run into trying to hack this system into something that can be used with minis on a battle mat. My design priorities were as such: 1. Simplified combat and mass combat rules (haven't read fantasy HERO): Squad hit points (men x BODY), that allow for easy calculation of casualties when using single based minis, and keeps track of things when the minis are based otherwise. Squad damage, a single damage roll that determines the firepower output of the squad that turn. Again: damage roll x number of men firing. 2. Introduction of morale to heroes and squads, and allows a use for hero-type leaders to rally men and the psychological model of battle fatigue and shock. Base morale is INT plus EGO /5 for combat troops. Lowering morale increases chances that a squad or character flees combat or surrenders. Leaders and charismatic heroes can raise the morale of mobs and squads by succeeding in an attribute or skill roll (whichever is higher). 3. Keep the points system for creating powers and effects. Basically the main reason I started hacking the system. Allows for fairly level playing field even when mixing genres and types of characters. 4. Changed up the initiative system to suit fast playing with miniatures to a card-draw based one, where a unit type has a card value (basic playing cards) and the managing player can choose to activate squads of that type on his turn. I-Go-u-go. A squads speed score = the number of activations those types of squads can have in a turn. Counting segments is gone. The point of the hack is to allow me to take any cool-looking miniature, give it stats, and make it run around the table with other cool minis, and play war with them. Then they have all these SUPER BADASS POWERS that make unicorns rain from the sky and cause the gold pot to be found at the end of the rainbow. I'm going to test this one soon and write about the results, so folks can get an idea what happens during a game.

I'll hack them into some sort of monster hunters for purposes multi-genre playing and general bad-assery. They're GIFTED with the holy spirit in this hack, in their quest to rid the world of unholy entities.

Being a Hero newbie, and only having read the second and first edition books of UA, I might be forgetting key points of both games. However, my version of UA magic in Hero would look something like this: Instead of using charges, create a new pool of usable resource (Endurance -like) that costs more points than Endurance, and which requires the use of rituals and actions mentioned in the UA core books to generate resource points. In Hero, this could be more flexible in the sense that you don't generate minor, significant or major charges, you just generate juice into your magick pool. As for the spells, you can start with the ones listed in the UA book, and either create more spells or use a variable power pool to represent the abilities of Adepts. Avatar skills can be created as powers, requiring an Skill roll using the Avatar: Whatever skill first. This system can also be more flexible than the one in the UA books. Just for flavor, you could limit the everday skills Adepts have, because of their obsessive nature towards whatever magick they practice and the general lack of coping skills to deal with real life. A DC game (Unknown Hero) set in this kind of occult world would probably be a blast.

While some might think that being lucky takes away from a characters credibility, I think it suits the Saints much better, than making them some sort of professional hitmen from the get-go..

I'll try and make the characters so that they have more legitimate complications in terms of gameplay. Just learning the system here.

What a cool site. I'll have to dig around there and make adjustments to these boys. Also, upping the power level of course sounds inviting.

Limited Hero-Fu.

Well, I'm a smoker and I know that when sometimes you can't have one, that's all you're thinking about. Nicotine is classified as a drug. Matter of opinion I suppose, and easy to fix. I got the vigilante mentality off the 5e Dark Champions book, where it mentions that it's a limited version of the casual killer complication. In the movie they talk about killing whoever they think is "bad". De La Rocco mentions that he's the guy they should listen to, and Connor says "I feel strangely comfortable with it" and the conversation ends as they decide to go after the whole Italian mafia in Boston, not considering the risks or repercussions. It might be a needless complication, since the whole premise of the movie (and the game) is that they kill bad guys, but from an objective view, it makes them pretty messed up people to a point where their decisions are based on whim rather than analysis.

Yeah, I suppose. I just based it on them knowing several languages at fluent levels.

Here's the initial version of the brothers. I just assumed they both have the same stats in game terms. They ended up being quite costly when looking at the character point numbers, but I tried to remain modest as in the movie got on by luck and surprise. They are much less competent than the typical vigilante in the Dark Champions book, but they can put up a fight against a roomful of clueless mafiosos. This is them before the first hit on the Russian mafia men, falling through the roof. The Boondock Saints 5e 191 CP - 65 Disad. Points = 126 CP CHARACTERISTICS: (cost) STR 13 (3) DEX 15 (15) CON 13 (6) BODY 15 (10) INT 15 (5) EGO 15 (10) PRE 15 (5) COM 15 (2) PD 2 (3 rPD) ED 2 SPD 4 (20) REC 6 END 26 STUN 27 OCV 5 DCV 5 DISADVANTAGES: Dependence: Cigarettes (10 points), -1 to skill rolls after one hour Distinctive Feature: Tattoos (5 points) Income Level: Poor (5 points) Psych. Lim: Code of Honor: Only kills criminals (25 points) Psych. Lim: Vigilante Mentality (20 points) PERKS: Anonymity (3 points) Contact: David De La Rocco 11- (2 points) Contact: The Bartender 11- (2 points) TALENTS: Combat Luck 3 Resistant PD/ED (6 points) Resistance: Interrogation/Pain Tolerance +5 (5 points) SKILLS: +2 with Pistols (6 points) AK: Boston (2 points) Breakfall 12- (3 points) Fast Draw 12- (3 points) KS: TV Shows (1 point) Language: French (2 points) Language: Gaelic (2 points) Language: German (2 points) Language: Italian (2 points) Language: Latin (2 points) Language: Russian (2 points Language: Spanish (2 points) Oratory 12- (3 points) Streetwise 12- (3 points) Teamwork 12- (3 points) WF: Small Arms (2 points) POWERS/SUPER SKILLS: Luck O' the Irish [Luck 5d6] (25 points) Scenery Weapons [HA +3d6, OIF] (7 points) Two-Gun Kid [Two-Weapon Fighting, Ranged + Rapid Attack, Ranged] (15 points) EQUIPMENT (50 Equipment points = 10 points): 2x Beretta 92FS + Silencers [Cinematic] (15 Equipment points) 2x Concealment holster (2 points) Taser (Non-Ranged) (21 Eq. Points) Rope

Just looking for some ideas on this topic. I'm planning on running small scenarios with miniatures not unlike the gunfights in the movie itself. I haven't yet gotten my FRED book (pretty rare) but I have Dark Champions and I have read about the mechanics of the game elsewhere so I have a pretty good idea how things work. I need a little project to keep me occupied. PS. Limitations. Dependence: Cigarettes (5 points), Dependence: Alcohol (10 points). Psychological Limitation: Code of Honor (25 points)

As an extension of my other posts and ideas, I've been giving thought to creating my own version of popular board games that place and emphasis on adventure and dungeon crawling. Obviously, playing a RPG with maps is the number one choice, but in the absence of a group and lots of play time, the board game approach is most sensible. I've looked at older games like Magic Realm, Heroquest and newer games like Descent. I'm probably buying a couple of these since they seem like fun games on their own. The other idea I had was using a generic system like Hero to create a framework for playing open-ended board game -type games with more choice and variation built-in. Take the tactical combat of Hero, marry it with board game props like dungeon tiles and miniatures, then set up a beginning scenario and off we go on to an adventuring campaign. The point would be to challenge the players and the "gamemaster" in a strategic and tactical sense with some luck thrown in to the mix, and allow for developing characters and story. Some tropes from other games would be player choice (concrete actions you can choose between), dangerous combat (preferably) and character creation and character advancement from role playing games. Firstly, defining the options characters would have within the game. Different actions a player can take on their "turn" that would have success rolls tied to them. Another option would be to allow automatic success in whatever action the player chooses to take (to lessen frustration and effect of luck). When it comes to combat, the choices would be to battle it out, where a combat is played out step by step using the initiative system that comes with the system. The combat could be either phased, or played out to completion per character depending on the approach players want to take. In a party vs. horde combat the normal sequence would probably be the best choice. Also, differentiating between minor and major monsters could make the flow of combat different, where a hit dispatches a weak enemy, and stronger enemies would have BODY points as usual. You could also avoid combat completely, choosing to sneak in and out from a dungeon, or choose to ambush monsters and characters within the game when playing a stealth -oriented character. These could be your traditional thief types or wizards with useful spells that allow them to sneak around. A different strategy could be used in portions of exploring a dungeon or a location, so different types of characters would be useful throughout the game. Different levels of play would be another thing I'd like to include in the game. Choose a map or draw it yourself, and place chits representing characters on the map. These are your locations. Depending on the location, you either choose an action to do (visit a tavern for rumors/quests, buy or sell gear, find somebody, rest, etc.) or zoom in if the location is linked to a quest or adventure. All this could be either randomized to create a new map each game, or retain a map for campaign play. You can include things like the time it takes to travel from place to place (and even sending characters to different locations), establishing bases or homes for characters or groups (for bonuses and storage space), time limits on quests and other things like this. Zooming in on an adventure location would begin a dungeon romp, which again could be randomized or pre-planned depending on what the game master has prepared. A lot of the things you could "do" in the game would tie-in with character abilities. Different characters would have different approaches. Traditionally in board games, you have a choice between pre-generated characters. This could be a real option when preparing a game such as this. Another way to create characters would be a series of choices on what abilities the character will have, in a more open-ended RPG structure. Give a set of priorities to players that they put on abilities. It could be as simple as naming a feature "combat", so the character would prefer combat as his approach to problems. Name another feature "stealth", "magic" or "social" and define the character abilities based on these. These could be used as skills, where the name of the skill covers the possible actions, or defined as powers, where the character can do certain things tied with his specialty. At first, pre-generating a set of characters would probably be optimal, and after the game play has been defined further allow for more open-ended characters to be created. Winning. In role playing the journey is the destination. In board games, you can actually win the game. Get the magic ring and you win. Level up your character first and win. Victory can be defined by any meaningful or meaningless factor, but the main fun of the game would still be exploration and adventure. With two players where one is the GM and the other the player, you could define winning as succeeding in quest the GM has created. With several players, the quests would probably be the means to an end, like amassing fortunes to build a castle to win. Characters should have individual goals with different ways of getting there, to keep the game varied for each player. If the goal is the same for everyone, ensure that there are different ways of getting there, otherwise the game is the same each time for every player. The type of game I have in mind would simply be a complex framework to create a fun and varied game experience for every player sitting down to play. I'm taking a basic concept and hopefully creating something a bit more complex than say, a game of Talisman (a fun but samey game) would offer. These are just the initial ideas I've been thinking about, and there's lots of notes and revisions and removals to get to a final stage: actually playing the game. Hopefully someone reads this and finds the concept intriguing enough to add some of their own ideas to this thread.

Allright, thanks for the feedback.

D'oh. I built the bomb with flight instead of gliding...Live and learn I guess.

What I've got so far for M712 Copperhead precision artillery: (5E stats) Automaton with Targeting Computer: STR 0 cost -10 INT 10 cost 1 DEX 10 cost 3 SPD 12 cost 100 END 20 (Battery) =94 pts Program: Fly from A to B, 1pt Transport Familiarity: Rocket, 1pt Warhead: RKA 5d6 (6.69kg of composite B, plastique in Dark Champions) (75pts) + Explosion (+1/2) + range 15" 5 points (megascale =15km, +1/4) + one time charge (-4) Flight 1.5km per segment (1.5" +2pts *1/4 megascale) 3pts = 31 Total cost= 31 + 96 = 127 points Phew. Didn't get farther than this, and it's still missing the targeting system link, which is laser-guided system by someone on the ground, or UAV with targeting equipment. So I'd have to create the ground operated targeting device, or a UAV with targeting capability to get the full cost of the weapons system. The weapons minimum range if 3km but I didn't look up how to apply it. I'm too tired to do any more math The SPD score is something I thought about leaving at 2, but that means the flight would occur only in two phases per turn. With SPD 12 the projectile flies at 1.5km or 1500 meters per segment, which is the relative speed of an artillery shell. This way you can count the exact number of segments before impact. It turned out to be a pretty expensive weapon in it's current form, and it might be underpowered (still having 10 of these things would cost you 1270 points per game!).

Last night I played a test session with these tweaks, and I decided to rework some things and add others. Autofire needed work. The original way I wrote it would have needed too many dice rolls to be fun and quick during game play. So, suppressive fire is more like normal autofire. You still assign areas to fire upon during your action, and divide rounds along 2cm segments of terrain, but you can roll to hit when someone acts or moves in the covered area. The normal autofire rules are then used, along with any autofire skill modifiers you want to use, and assigning hits for every two points you make the roll by, to a maximum of assigned rounds per 2cm of ground covered. Tactics rolls. A leader character can point out targets to less experienced soldier characters by rolling a successful tactics roll and using an action to give orders to other figures. This way soldiers do not have to succeed with perception rolls of their own, they effectively use the spotting skill of their officer. Stun damage. Instead of using 6E standard stun multiplier of 3, I reverted back to 5E stun multiplier die rolls to speed up combat and make gunfire more dangerous to troops. A stunned character is effectively out of the fight if he is not a "special" individual like a leader.