Damage Reduction and Interceptors question

[Anonymous]

According to the B5 RPG rule book the Damage reduction is applied to each weapon that hits a star ship. So doesn't this make it almost impossible for a fighter to do any damage to a capital ship? For example: If a Minbari Nial hits a Nova Dreadnought with its Tri-Linked Fusion cannon, at most each of the three wapons in the link will do is 2 damage and thats assuming that 3 eights are rolled. We know for a fact that fighters can to some extent effectively engage captial ships which is shown in several episodes in the Babylon 5 series. Oh yeah and I forgot, lets say the Nova has its interceptors on matrix mode, its impossible for any fighter to do any damage with the DR and Matrix mode combined (22+30=52 damage that can be negated). It seems to me that damage reduction and interceptors are too stong, or fighters in this system are too weak. Its either this or I misinterpreted the rules. Please, if anyone can provide clarification or maybe confirm my interpretation as either right or wrong would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Traveller-61]

Guest: You have raised a good point and I agree with the way you are reading the rules.

One solution might be to count the all the fighter's guns as a single weapon in regards to a ship's DR.

Eg. The Nail does an average of 13.5 per weapon x3 for a total of 40.5, less the DR 22 of the Nova would leave a respectable 18.5 damage.

Of course this would make fighters a lot more powerful but I think quite true to the feel of the series.

DW

 

[Picaboo]

Just some clarifications:

1) The minbari fighter is armed with fusion cannons. If you read the description of said weapon in the core book, you'll see that it ignores half DR. That makes the Minbari even more terriffying. :evil:

2) I'm not sure about this one but I always thought that the interceptors in matrix mode augmented DR only for weapons which they could not block with intercepting fire. I never permitted an interceptor matrix to affect fighter fire. :?

3) Overall, I am in complete approval of what has been said before. We clearly saw in 'The Fall of Night' a wing of starfuries completely obliterating the left wing of a Primus battle cruiser. Unfortunately, we can't reproduce that effect in the game. A starfury main weapon does 18 damamge on a average hit which cannot pass through the 22 Dr of most capital warships. In my game, I just implemented a minimum of 1 damage per weapon no matter on which craft it is mounted on. :shock: