Combat Armour/Battle Dress and Fair Fights...

[Maedhros]

We played last night.

Challenge One (Dealing with crotchety belter): They talked with the guy, trying to weasel gas giant access out of him. They got it, but had to sign a contract granting him 25% of their take from their exploration mission.

Challenge Two (En Route to Destination): They were tasked by Imperial Navy Intelligence to visit a system in which a naval ship was destroyed 70 years ago and find out what happened. In an intervening system they tracked a distress beacon to a far trader parked in a decaying orbit over a gas giant. Sensors revealed that the M-drive had been blasted to smitheens and the hull breached in multiple places. They docked their scout ship to the far trader and explored, reaching the conclusion that pirates had attacked. They powered up the computer system in order to download the logs, only to find that they had been wiped. The engineer discovered that the computer system had linked magnetic sensors in the hull to a nuclear warhead stored in the fuel compartment, creating a dead-man switch that would detonate the warhead if the docking connection was severed. And the warhead was counting down...1:59...1:58...1:57...
The engineer used a pretty spectacular Computers roll to set up a "ghost" sensor signal to buy them time as they returned to the scout and blasted away at full thrust. Narrowly escaped with no damage to the ship.

Challenge Three (Arriving At Destination): Long range sensors detected a corsair in orbit around an M-class planet with an oblong moon. Spectral analysis of the moon was coming back null. Near the moon were remnants of a destroyed Imperial craft - not the close escort that they had been led to believe was destroyed here, but instead it was large chunks of a capital ship. They shut down into silent running mode and escaped the notice of the corsair, and prepared to launch exploratory drones to quietly recon the system.

Then they decided they had completed their mission and it was time to leave. ??? Wow.

So...no need yet to break out the combat armor in the ship's locker. They are very, very intimidated by the corsair, which is understandable. There are maybe a dozen or so pirates, one of whom is outfitted as well as the PCs are. All are Zero-G combat specialists. The pirates are in the system trying to reactivate the Berserker-like ancient starship that the PCs think is an oblong moon. If the PCs don't stop the reactivation, it will wake up and wreak havoc.

I'm halfway hoping that they DO decide to cut and run. :twisted:

 

[khazwind]

Everybody reading the thread, pay attention! Maedhros has explained that this is a mechancial question about how to structure opponents so that fights are exciting without killing off all the PCs. This is not about making the PCs avoid fights or punishing them for fighting.

Well, yes and no.

If the question is simply, "How do I match numbers so the PCs can't splat the opposition?" then you're right.

However, if the question is, "How do I present interesting and entertaing challenges to the PLAYERS?"

I read the question the second way and I think that all the discussion about repercussions is relevant.

Personally, as a GM and player, the most fun challenges are the ones I have to think about. If I can go into town waving weapons around willy-nilly and ignoring or intimidating the local authorities, that's not so much fun.

If I have to make careful plans, that's half the fun. YMMV.

Consider, that people wearing armour are VERY noticable and the use of heavy weapons is going to bring official notice.

For example, people get shot every day somewhere in the world. There's some local news coverage and the local police retain jurisdiction. However (and I'm trying REAL hard to avoid controversy here), using WMDs not only causes world-wide headlines but ends up with the involvement of governments and armies and in Traveller, that could mean the Imperial marines armed for grizzly.

Players will always have more firepower than most locals. A tiny ship laser does 1d6 times fifty points of damage. If they want to shoot a random drifter or the local police headquarter, they can.

I really disagree. The "locals" will also include the local army. A tiny ship laser may do 50d6 damage, which is impressive in hand-to-hand combat. It's a gnat-bite compared to the weapons on the system defense ships waiting in orbit.

That's assuming you reach orbit. Here's an interesting challenge for trigger happy players: try to reach escape velocity while interceptors are firing air-to-air missiles at you, ground forces are firing surface-to-air missiles and the system defense ships are warming up their meson cannon.

I'm not saying punish the players for being violent. If that's what you all want, take it and run.

We're all guilty (myself included) of creating and playing uber-powerful killing machines, but Traveller isn't D&D and Traveller PCs aren't the world straddling giants that D&D PC are. They're the little guys, and the challenge (and the fun) is to make a difference from such a low position.

OTOH, I could be full of it.