Cover (as hide behind/conceal) questions

[MountainMan]

Could I get some idea on the effects of hiding behind some hard cover. I understand that standing behind a soft cover (bush) would add to the needed to hit roll number, but not effect damage dealt. However, the rules seeming to apply to hard cover are not so clear to me. So, two examples: one, standing behind a 2 inch thick door holding it shut; second, a person crouched behind a 5 foot thick boulder. Convert to metric system as needed :wink:

Weapons used are autopistol,shotgun,ACR,sniper rifle with APDS rounds,laser, and fusion gun.
How would combat work in these two examples? The door example offers 100% concealment, but the attacker knows the defender is blocking the door and shoots at the middle of the door. In the case of the boulder, the attacker can either attempt to aim at the exposed part of the defender (normal combat rules) or attempt to attack the cover first and eventually reduce its effectiveness in sheilding the defender.

Is there an armor point value per inch/10mm of material table somewhere? If you are just aiming at the cover, does that help your target number? ect,ect. You can probably see what I'm looking for in rules.

For some reason, our enemies have learned to shoot from concealment and cover, those bastards! :lol:

 

[BFalcon]

Pah... grenades and flamethrowers - don't need to worry about their cover then - the grenades will remove it, the flames will flow around it...

 

[BP]

The rules provide DMs for cover, partial cover and the like, but the Ref decides how applicable and effective said cover can be... at concealment and as armour.

As to 'reducing' the cover - there are no set rules, because there can't be... a 'rock' could be basalt, sandstone, or iron from an asteroid fragment... the Ref should decide to what degree a particular attack against such an object can be effective and then in what way (expenditure, time).

However, all the supporting rule mechanics are there in the Task Check mechanic. Ex: a barrage of bullets against a rock of unknown composition, but very thick - task check with difficulty DM reflecting the unlikelihood of 'destroying' the cover and a time range determined by the Ref. Note that failures can have results like dangerous ricochets, shrapnel (shooting at rocks can be dangerous!), etc.

Another aspect of the Task Check mechanic - dealing with absurdity. Such would be the case if one were say using a low TL sword and trying to punch through a plate steel door. Sure, in an infinite universe of possibilities it might happen (maybe the steel was flawed), but not really an option. However, the process of attempting to do so, might result in some unusual outcomes - most likely bad for the sword wielder. Comical or plot changing - again, up to the Ref.

Also, don't forget to look up - damage from above could ruin an opponent's day.

 

[MountainMan]

Ok, I guess there is a bit of "waverium" involved in actual values of "cover" items. How about some examples of common occurances for better understanding on my part. For example, 30mm thick door made of hard wood has an armor value of "fill in the blank". A person fires a slug rifle through the door at a person holding the door closed who is wearing a flak vest. The combat would run (flow chart) as this: your explanation.

Sorry for my confusion, but planning tactics for my side is made easier if at I have at least some idea on how this specific mechanic is intended to work. I have already downloaded the excellent flowchart mentioned in another thread and found it very helpfull. Ship to ship combat is fairly well explained in the book. Weapon verses vehicle ,the same. While I'm willing to accept variation upon what an item has for HP and AP, I would think that most people (especially combat ones) would have a fair idea on what they are taking cover behind. My door may have + or - 25% at the most, but I would hate to be in a battle and the GM state that my solid door now has zero value to AP or the reverse. I'm not expecting some "official rules", but I'm hoping for a bit more than "it's up the GM to decide". Rough ideas and WAGs are accepted!

 

[nats]

So, two examples: one, standing behind a 2 inch thick door holding it shut; second, a person crouched behind a 5 foot thick boulder. Convert to metric system as needed :wink:

Weapons used are autopistol,shotgun,ACR,sniper rifle with APDS rounds,laser, and fusion gun.
How would combat work in these two examples?

Well the rock is pretty simple if the enemy is firing he can be shot at in which because it would be probably classed as something like 3/4 cover, if he is not firing then he would be classed as being impossible to shoot. As said above, use grenades in this case - it is what they were designed for.

The example about the door, I would class the character as being in full cover ie -4 to hit, and if he was hit you should reduce the damage inflicted by a reasonable amount - something like 10 armour value perhaps.

I don't see reducing the value of cover to be very applicable unless you were using a PGMP or whatever in which case both covers would probably cease to exist once shot and hit once. Although the door would not reduce the damage much from a PGMP! Its all about the referee making a quick decision based on what he considers sensible. I don't think it needs to get too complex.

 

[Fovean]

I think nats makes a good example of using the Cover DMs to affect the to hit roll.

As far as armor values, the MGT Civ Vehicles book (and Military Vehicles from what I understand) has within its design system a small table that helps you figure Armor Values for various materials from 'Wood/Organic Materials' up to 'Bonded Superdense' with values ranging from 1 to 8. Wood, at AV 1 per 85kg, and the next 'Iron' at AV 2 per 110kg would be closest to your specific examples.

That seems a bit light in my opinion for a heavy wood door, I'd house-rule it to AV1 per cm of thickness for a medium weight wood, double it for hardwoods and triple it for something special like petrified wood or Spinward Spice Palm or whatever. So with a 3cm thick hardwood door the shooter takes a -4DM to hit and the target gets an automatic -6 on damage. Sounds like a lot? For a pistol, yeah - for everything else, not so much. But once a shot gets through, probably not much is left in the way of damage-reducing cover.

The rock I would just scale with the system, so AV 2 per 110 kg, say the rock is three metric tons (big enough to hide behind, remember) so that's 3000kg / 110 kg = 27.3 x AV 2 = 54.6 AV, round it up to 55. Pistols and shotguns are just gonna bounce off that thing but the fusion gun will probably blow it in half on the first shot. And hurt whoever is behind it! (1/2 or 1/3 damage perhaps?)

Having said all that, MG has made no secret of the fact they're unhappy with the vehicle design system and have a new one coming out soon. One presumes the AVs are part of the reworking. Anyway, hope this helps a bit but in the end it's up to your Ref.

 

[BP]

... but I'm hoping for a bit more than "it's up the GM to decide".

Sorry - that is the answer for the Rules As Written. If you desire something else - the answer is 42

Seriously, if you are not the Referee, it doesn't matter what non-official (or even 'official' for that matter) mechanics you come up with - as you said, your Ref can just ignore it.

In your example of a wooden door - for the RAW, its cover - not armour. You have to get hit before you can take damage. The mechanic is an abstraction - if you get hit it doesn't really matter how - i.e. whether the shot went through the wood, through a crack, or around to an exposed body part. Of course, I'd try for the hinges

Given an armour value for every material/combination/thickness might sound like a doable thing, but it is really pretty silly. Consider - that likely will result in a sword or a club able to 'penetrate' plate steel... or that no weapon can. This is the problem - the damage is really related to the 2d6 x 3 physical attributes. The nature of the injuries really isn't accounted for - so neither is the nature of the damage to the nature of another material.

A whip could seriously injure a man - but is unlikely to inflict much 'damage' against many types of doors - and yet it might whittle away at it - so now one needs to 'track that damage'. And shouldn't skill impact that more directly (hitting in the same/weak spot) - which is more a Task Check thing than a damage thing (one is rolling 'to hit' the door with a whip and then for the damage it takes?).

When it comes to things other than sophonts - the damage values aren't made to scale to that. (The x50 to starships can work, because it is decently above the normal character attributes, only higher end weapons will likely apply - though, IMO, its a silly hack still - the task mechanics handle it better.)

 

[Fovean]

Given an armour value for every material/combination/thickness might sound like a doable thing, but it is really pretty silly. Consider - that likely will result in a sword or a club able to 'penetrate' plate steel... or that no weapon can.

Agreed, it is a slippery slope and most often gets needlessly complicated in the context of moderating a combat. A Ref's "arbitrary" decision is generally the best way to go.

But I do sympathize with the OP - sometimes you just need a bit of mechanics that are solid and dependable before you commit to something that could seriously hurt or kill your character (not that my above stated mechanics are necessarily solid :wink: )

MountainMan, play it safe! Then, after the session, get with your Ref and tell them you're interested in defining these particular rules a bit more beyond what's in the book.

 

[BP]

...But I do sympathize with the OP - sometimes you just need a bit of mechanics that are solid and dependable before you commit to something that could seriously hurt or kill your character (not that my above stated mechanics are necessarily solid :wink: )

You mean like in RL where we get to calculate the exact odds of everything before deciding if the risks are too great? :mrgreen:

In my games, players really don't know the DMs for rolls that I will apply, or what exact mechanics I will use (or when) - they do know all the situational elements I will employ that their characters would know. The rule mechanics are a metagame aspect. I don't encourage rule mechanics and odds knowledge influencing in-character 'decisions'. Such are about roleplay - is your character overly cautious, overly reckless, stupid? This is what should determine their actions.

Conversely, the rules can't 'kill' PCs. Players can't 'kill' PCs. Referee's are the only ones who can.

A good Referee will encourage roleplay - that means work with their players. A Ref who decides the rules are the rules and they apply regardless of how absurd in a given situation is missing the point of being a Ref. Conversely, players who don't agree that a Ref's role is to 'make the call', have missed the point. Its a balancing act where everyone should remember the goal is to have fun.

I no longer use the combat rules as written. If you think any about it - combat that amounts to your turn/my turn; X types of actions per turn; characters who bleed quicker because they have less Dexterity; armour that retains 100% effectiveness regardless of damage; jacket armour that functions to protect the entire body and regardless of attack nature; only firing one round in 6 seconds; you can aim, but not pick specific body parts (or other parts like weapons, sensors, etc) - these things are limiting in terms of roleplay and often just downright absurd in terms of 'believability', if not applied with a Ref's own judgement. And those are just right off the top of my head. YMMV.

 

[phavoc]

Cover is when you can hide behind something that provides physical protection from attack (a door, a wall, a really large man who's one wafer-thin mint away from exploding...

Concealment is like a bush, a smokescreen, etc. It obscures or hides you from the vision (and/or sensors as well) of the attacker, but provides no protection from damage.

So if you are concealed, it is harder to hit you, but you receive no protection if you are hit (i.e. you roll damage as normal).

If you are under cover, you have to rationalize the type of weapon you are being attacked with to the DR of the cover. So if you are being attacked by a gauss rifle and you are hiding behind a stone wall, you may be "hit", but no or very little damage should be applied. Or if you are hunkering down in a bunker and artillery shells are hitting all around you, the bunker may take a direct hit but you only receive say 10% of the total damage.

Most of the time you are going to need to SWAG the damage role when it comes to cover. Concealment is generally easier because you can say the smoke screen protected you from visual identification and they are just firing blindly, so give the attacker a -5DM to hit for firing blindly. Now, if they have a VRF Gauss gun and a small target area to shoot in... well, you get the idea!

 

[BFalcon]

Conversely, the rules can't 'kill' PCs. Players can't 'kill' PCs. Referee's are the only ones who can.

Dunno about that - I've had players talk their characters into situations where it would have been stupidly unrealistic to do anything other than kill the characters... although I do hear what you're saying...

One of the best player on player kills was in D&D - a low-level mage crawling through an animal "tunnel" through gorse bushes, comes face to face with the wild boar that used it... carefully undoes his cloak, throws it over the boars face to try to either calm it down or distract it and starts backing up.

Other PC asks if he's ok, to which he replies - I've just come face to face with a boar in here, if you see blue, use your spear on it.. it's the boar...

Cut the rest of the story short, the boar's standing still and the mage is backing up... the fighter puts the spear through the moving bit of blue he sees...

At which point I ask the player what colour robes the mage is wearing, at which point the player looks horrified and in a quiet voice says... "Blue..."

Mage's player was alternately crying and laughing...

(For the curious, the mage was trying to single-handed flank a couple of bandit archers that was threatening the party).

 

[zero]

^ I always try the single-handed flank move, one day it will work! :lol:

 

[BP]

...I've had players talk their characters into situations where it would have been stupidly unrealistic to do anything other than kill the characters...

Hehe - I edited out a sentence about killing characters because it was 'realistic' or being 'forced to' due to player stupidity or the rules as written. The bottom line, besides the fact that a Sci-Fi game is inherently unrealistic at a given level, it is still the Referee's call.

The story was funny, but also assumes, ingame, that the Fighter couldn't recognize his party member's blue apparel (or the Mage was wearing blue pigskin ) or was too hyped up to pay attention to what he was doing.

(Of course, as a DM, I would have done the same thing for the humor factor alone - ingame, maybe even made the injury real, but pulled at the last moment to avoid death. The consequences to the surprise attack would certainly apply!)

 

[BFalcon]

Well, the thing was with the blue, was that the player was on the outside of the thick gorse, so could only see a tiny bit of blue fabric moving and couldn't tell if it was the boar under the mage's cloak or the mage... and so just didn't think about the consequences (actually pretty realistic since people tend not to in the heat of the moment, especially given the low-end-average intelligence of the fighter and the panic in the voice of the mage (and a certain level of panic on both sides).

One of the reasons I didn't let the mage off was the high damage caused by the fighter, the low hitpoints (5, I think it was) and the fact that I wanted to encourage the player NOT to go off on solo exploits (especially if he's the party mage). I made it up to him though - I gave him bonus XP for entertainment to get his new PC a head start... since people were killing themselves laughing at his expense (and after he stopped blushing, he did too). I also explained why I didn't let him off and he was ok with it after that... (always helps to explain why you did things to players - they tend to understand more after that).

 

[BP]

Exactly - your call.

You took into account your players - and that everyone was there to have fun. You kept the fun, at the expense of offering to violate the rules as written. Well done - and a perfect example of what I was talking about, really.

 

[BFalcon]

Well, the idea actually came (when it came up in-game) from our dog... she used to rummage around in the gorse bushes, going alone the game trails to investigate them. And if you can't see a white dog in the bushes, except the very occasional white flash (you mainly tracked the swaying bushes to see where she was) then I figured that any colour would be equally hard to spot... so a simple application of logic.

It helps that I grew up in the country, of course... (the North Cornish coast if anyone's curious).

 

[MountainMan]

OK,got it I think. Don't wear blue, get in the gorse, or assume anything because the GM may modify the rules, add new ones or hoist you on your own petard. Kind of like Amber diceless RPG I was involved in a way back.

I'll play it safe, expect the unexpected, and roll with flow. I guess I was expecting to take some of the pressure off the GM by knowing how some of the mechanics worked, but it appears its up to the GM to determine many of them. This could become very interesting. .....Well, as long as it's fun, I'm in!


However, I've started rolling up at least 3 more characters to fall back on when it hits the fan. :wink: Let the battle commence!

 

[BP]

That's the spirit!

There were several things mentioned that could assist your GM - just nothing cookie cutter... but, in the long run, its a lot easier to have more arbitrary rule mechanics and experience using them. Makes things a lot more flexible and a lot less to really memorize/lookup during roleplay.

When players concentrate on roleplay I've always found things to be more enjoyable - of course, I listen to what my players want to do and try to keep the fun (failures are part of the enjoyment - I don't make them so catastrophic the game can't continue... it just gets more 'interesting').

 

[nats]

So what do you do when a character dies like that in the middle of a game. Does the player just sit around waiting for a chance to start a new character in the game (could be a long wait). Or does he have to sit that whole session out and wait till the next session in order to roll up a new character? I've always wondered (never having killed off a character myself).

 

[BFalcon]

nats: I always either let them have a minor NPC if there's one floating around - if they're minor enough, then they can, if they want, keep him...

If one isn't available or they want their character in as quickly as possible, they get to roll it in the session, getting a fellow player to witness their rolls when they're not busy in a situation (in which case I have been known to rearrange players so that players in different subgroups are on either side of the rolling player).

If they need to roll between sessions, they need to do the basic stat rolling in front of me and then make up as much of the character as they can on their own... in systems like Traveller and Cyberpunk, where you have lifepaths/careers that need a lot of rolling, I either ask that another player witness the rolls or that they turn up early to the next session and I'll do it. A trusted player will be allowed to just make a character on their own. The reason why I ask for witnessed rolls is to prevent the temptation to reroll bad events - it's all too easy for some players to "just reroll this time", so having someone else around who had to put up with bad rolls makes it less likely that they'll do so.

MountainMan: Not necessarily, the true moral of the story is don't go wandering away from the party unless you're one of the rogues (who can use their wits or their legs to get out of anything their weapons can't handle) or one of the fighter-types who can usually just deal with it if it's a minor threat. Definitely not if you're a weak non-fighter with only one spell (as in his case) to defend yourself with. Oh and if you yell instructions, think for a few seconds and try to find the flaws in your plan... before they come back to bite you - a good GM will always look to turn flawed plans back on the players at least a little... if only to ramp up pressure in the name of fun.

As for rules... rules are there as a guideline - if something doesn't fit, the GM/Referee is well within his rights to throw out the rulebook if it doesn't make sense or if it slows things down (for example, see the Melting Ice discussion - while what I said there about iced up landing gear could be applied each and every time, it's not in the rules, but also if the GM wants the group off the planet ASAP and back in the adventure, he can arrange the wind so it's blowing in JUST the right direction... misjumped when the GM's got the adventure planned out? Fine, you happen to find a comet just a couple of hours after coming out of jump, so you can refuel (don't ever count on it though... or the GM might get vicious and play it "by the book" in which case you could be in serious trouble - and he's fully entitled to, if you abuse his generous nature).

As for the cover, I remember reading an article that said that bricks were bad cover - rounds tended to go through and cause chips in the process. High Curbs if you're caught in the street or large trees are best - the natural fibres of live trees slows the rounds down mid-way. Dunno how true it is, but if you need cover, in my mind, it's probably best not to be seen in the first place, rather than have a nice clearly-defined bit of cover like a hard rock or a metal doorway, where your outline can be told nice and clearly apart from that of your cover - a few irregularities in the shape make finding a firing point and avoiding return fire a little easier than crisp straight edges