Anyone ever try these house rules?

[stacktrace]

Anyone have any experience with the following rule modifications?

1. Applying concealment modifier to shooting a ranged weapon at a target in cover. (Problem attempting to fix: cover mostly meaningless due to ability of every successful attack to choose CM: choose location)

2. Using true opposed rules for Parry and Evade attack reactions. (Problem attempting to fix: combat between opponents with high attack %. Also allows for an attack exchange in which no one gets a CM)

 

[Nickbergquist]

On #1: Do you mean a beneficial or detrimental modifier to firing from concealment? Also, I am not sure what the issue is with targeted locations; the common sense rule leads to situations in which a target behind cover may have portions of his/her body that are effectively receiving total cover; even if the attacker declared a specific location, if it was behind cover than it should act as if the cover is providing shielding, first--at which point I would treat the attack as if it were blocked with an impromptu shield and rely on size modifiers, the cover's approximate HP/AP and so forth to resolve the location, thus meaning if the attacker declares his location, he'd probably rather shoot a part that's exposed.

On #2: I have found a few instances in combat where it was simpler or more effective to arbitrate an attack vs. parry/evade as a true opposed skill roll to see who "got the better" of the deal. I've only used this in cases where it's good for establishing some real specifics on who came out better in the combat, or when resolving special actions related to the actual attack. But it's pretty easy to implement, overall. If you do it constantly, however, you'll find that high skill opponents probably dominate combat even more than they already do.

 

[HalfOrc HalfBiscuit]

On #1: Do you mean a beneficial or detrimental modifier to firing from concealment? Also, I am not sure what the issue is with targeted locations; the common sense rule leads to situations in which a target behind cover may have portions of his/her body that are effectively receiving total cover; even if the attacker declared a specific location, if it was behind cover than it should act as if the cover is providing shielding, first--at which point I would treat the attack as if it were blocked with an impromptu shield and rely on size modifiers, the cover's approximate HP/AP and so forth to resolve the location, thus meaning if the attacker declares his location, he'd probably rather shoot a part that's exposed.

I think the issue the OP is referring to is that no matter what proportion of the target is behind cover, as soon as the attacker gains a CM he can select "choose location" and ensure he hits an exposed part of the target. And since a ranged attack against an unaware opponent (or one who is out of CAs) will automatically gain a CM, such an attack becomes an auto-hit on a successful attack roll - regardless of the degree of cover.

One answer to this would be to use the "target size" modifiers in the ranged attack modifiers table on p93. If an attacker can only see half of his target (because he's behind cover extending up to his waist) treat him as half his normal SIZ - if only the target's head is above the cover, treat it as SIZ 1.

Another would be to make the choose location CM only available on a critical success in the case of ranged attacks.

 

[almightygm]

The easy fix for #1 is to make Choose Location a CS only combat maneuver for ranged weapons.