Rules, combat, own changes

[Sean-Khan]

Hi, I've become interested in Traveller rules recently - especially as it's soon getting B5 supplement. I had a chance get a glimpse of the rules, and while I like some aspects of the rules, there's some that felt strange.

For example, dynamic initiative - I think that temporary modifiers are worse than permanently moving initiative down. Autofire also felt a bit strange, as well as some other things. Damage dropping physical abilities wasn't my favourite either, and for simplicity's sake, I'd also like to tie abilities straight to skills.

How do you think of the rules? Do you use much house rules? I tried to find some kind of combat example of the system from the web but didn't find any - such always give some insight to the system.

I've been toying around an idea of building a simple combat system of my own around (Mongoose) traveller. One thing that always comes to my mind when thinking of scifi games is old PC game UFO - enemy unknown, I really liked reactions -aspect in it and would like to mimic them in rules.

If I get to this route, I'm torn between if I should use action points a'la UFO (although a bit more standardized, no great difference in them) or predefined actions. Also, using reactions (for avoiding attacks or making them) is a big question mark - do you have to reserve an action for them or do they just push back your initiative, possibly giving penalties.

I've tried to create rpg rules many times and the plans have always crumbled to dust; I think Traveller -material would be a great basis for new rules, and would allow concentrating only on selected mechanics.

I'd love to get some comments about those ideas and your thoughts about need of changes to the system in genenral - and how you think the combat is doing right now. Btw, do other books bring new rules to the combat?

 

[LotusBlossom]

So far, from my own experience, the game combat rules vary.

Spaceship combat has been really exciting, edge-of-the-seat stuff. Simplistic but not too simplistic, with options for evasive and shipboard activities. Excellent. Not sure how it would scale to large fights, perhaps High Guard will come to the rescue.

Ground combat seemed a little messy regarding modifying intiative scores and detracted from the visualisation of combat, for us at least. We simply kept initial rolls, rolling once for party, once for the bad guys.

The effect roll on bonus damage also didn't really seem to make sense on firearms and also introduced more calculations, which we try to avoid

Overall good!

 

[JimG]

OK, first a disclaimer, I've only run a couple of one-off sample combats with the MGT rules. So I'm certainly no expert...

For example, dynamic initiative - I think that temporary modifiers are worse than permanently moving initiative down.

I like the concept of dynamic initiative... but it felt clumsy in practice. Maybe it will get better after I run a few more combats...

Autofire also felt a bit strange, as well as some other things.

I don't like the autofire rules, and will probably house rule them... but I haven't worked out the details yet.

Damage dropping physical abilities wasn't my favourite either,

This was my favorite part of CT combat, and I really like it in MGT. In most other games I've played, taking damage has little or no effect other than as a countdown before you get killed. The reduction of physical abilities is - IMHO - an elegant way of simulating progressive injuries.
You really do not want to get shot, and when you do it really hurts.

and for simplicity's sake, I'd also like to tie abilities straight to skills.

I'm not sure what you are saying here...

Another combat related house rule I'm considering is a Penetration vs. Armor value component, but again I haven't worked out the details... and I'm not sure it would be worth the effort of converting all of the weapons.

 

[Sean-Khan]

Thanks for comments! Great to hear that space combat is good!

Abilities tied to skills - I'm not sure about right terms in traveller, but what I mean is that Perception is always used with Int (and they are added together to the character sheet) so you can say 'Roll perception' instead of 'Roll perception and intelligence'.

Maybe ability damage will become fine, but I'd prefer flat penalties to all rolls (and probably movement) from damage; Not sure yet how to represent damage, I'd love to use just wound levels but problem here is how many low level wounds it would take to make higher level wound - maybe 3+End checkboxes would do that, or just adding hits to that wound level, making End check to endure and not to drop to next wound level harder. Wound levels would depend on End (5+End, 8+End and so on).

What I don't like about ability damage is having to check what ability modifier currently is when wounded (I haven't tried but sounds clumsy).

More thought about reactions - D20 -like readying probably works with slight modifications; A nice extra twist would be adding per-case initiative checks when reactions are checked.

 

[Jame Rowe]

My suggestions? Pistols do 3d6 damage, Carbines do 3d6+2, rifles and laser carbines 4d6, shotguns 5d6, gauss rifles and laser rifles 5d6.

 

[JimG]

Abilities tied to skills - I'm not sure about right terms in traveller, but what I mean is that Perception is always used with Int (and they are added together to the character sheet) so you can say 'Roll perception' instead of 'Roll perception and intelligence'.

Ah, I see.

In Traveller, skills tend to be broader in application than in d20. The example that comes to mind is Medic... Medic+Edu might be used to identify a disease or poison, whereas Medic+Dex might be used to perform surgery or splint a broken limb.

This flexibility is a strength of the system for me, but it does mean keeping track of the bonuses separately.

 

[Alexander Cecil]

I really liked the reaction rules in UFO - Enemy Unknown as well. The game was also released as X-COM - UFO Defense. I have long thought about adding some its aspects into my sci-fi games.

For the uninitiated, X-COM gave each character a set number of action points each turn. The points could be used for movement, attacking, switching equipment, or "readying" and attack to shoot an enemy who moved through your line of sight during his turn. You could usually move small amount, fire a quick shot (low accuracy), and still have enough movement left over to ready an attack if the enemy came near. The options with respect to strategy were fantastic.

In Traveller, I may also allow PCs to ready an attack as a response. If the PC only takes a minor action in his or her round, then the readied attack is free and may be used when an enemy presents himself or herself during their own action. The PC may also take a major action during a turn when he readies an attack, but at the cost of maybe -2 to all actions or some such.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Funnily enough, X-COM came from Laser Squad, which itself came from Rebelstar, which was in turn inspired by Snapshot (a counter based boardgame), which was a spin off from the original Traveller. The lineage is pretty direct.

However, action points are a fiddly way to determine actions, much more than keeping track of dynamic initiative, IMO. Fine for a computer, ok with counters, but a lot of numbers to keep track of with pen and paper.

Having played through a few combats, I can offer a few observations.

Damage and armour values do seem to balance. Raising armour values will just mean combats take a lot longer.

Using stats for damage is an elegant way of modeling injury, and it ties in nicely with the healing rules. If you use a character sheet that has boxes to cross off, and even better if you stick the bonus/penalty in each box in grayshade - it becomes quite intuitive for a player laid out like that.

Not fixing stat to skill is a very flexible and powerful ref tool. Might take a bit of getting used to, if unfamiliar with it, but worth the effort. Instead of having 'perception' fixed as Recon + Int, add a new attribute Perception, adding its bonus to any skill used in a spotting type task. That's actually encouraged by the rules, and saves you a lot of work.

On thing about adding penetration values vs armour - unless the pen value is higher than armour rating, penetration is identical to extra damage, and usually, that would mean weapons having to have very high pen values for it to make a difference, making armour redundant. It would only make a practical difference in the case of the unarmoured, and personally, I'm quite happy for combat to be even more deadly in those poor cases. :twisted:

I house rule armour piercing rounds by saying they halve armour values up to 10+mod by tech level (in exactly the same way stats apply mods).

I also houserule autofire and burstfire, because as it's written it seems weak.

BTW, an ARMP will wreck an air/raft quite nicely. Then again, so can a laser carbine.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Our group stuck with using single 6-sided dice for initiative, rather than 2d6. The shifts made for dynamic initiative were adjusted slightly (+1/-1 rather than +2/-2). The only real effect we found was that Tactics, Leadership and Dexterity bonuses become doubly potent on Initiative. But we thought this was fine.

 

[Sean-Khan]

Thanks again for comments, I'm getting a good picture of things!

I'll still have to see about current damage system. If I change it, I'll probably keep it at current level, just change mechanics; It might change dynamics a bit between tougher and weaker characters. A generic damage soak number for tougher character might do it - or then just wound level is increased by 1 automatically if 'seriously wounded' character would get another 'seriously wounded', but never 2 levels - I'm just afraid this could lead into situations where someone becomes unkillable, and would need a solution for that.

Hm, dynamic initiative - maybe one could have an option of moving his initiative down permanently OR take -2 penalty to rolls/reaction.

I could think of middle-way solution for action points/actions. A character has 2 standard actions. They can be used to shoot twice (snapshot/auto), or shoot once with aim. A standard action can be turned into 3 minor actions. With a minor action, you can pull an item from your belt, stand up from prone, move 2 squares(if using squares) etc. Increased or decreased move would be added/removed from first moves.

Klaus, I loved to hear that bit of information about connection between Traveller & Ufo

 

[Sean-Khan]

Btw, about skills - don't most of them use some default ability? Even if using multiple abilities, IMHO it would make things simplier in play if you could normally just call for the skill check, but on some situations call the check but with different ability.

 

[madcyric]

I also houserule autofire and burstfire, because as it's written it seems weak.

Would you be so nice to explain your house rules? Because I was thinking about revamping the autofire stuff, too.

 

[Sean-Khan]

For autofire, I'm thinking of some kind of larger area = larger penalties to attacks -system; Longer ranges would force larger areas of effect but ignore additional range modifiers. Still not sure how to add autofire rating to that.

Btw, how do you think of Traveller's current range system? Does it work? From what it looks like, I'd like if it would be a bit more unified. For example, maximum range without penalties is defined for each weapon type, and 2 next range increments would get cumulative -2 penalty to attack, after which attacks aren't possible. Tweaking ranges a bit and making squares 2 metres would make calculating ranges easier. I'm thinking a bit about a separate tactical game at the same time too.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Btw, about skills - don't most of them use some default ability?

Actually, not really. There may be skills that tend to use mental stats over physical stats and vice versa. For instance, all the specialist athletics skills will tend to use a single stat (like Dex for co-ord), but sometimes another will be used (End for hanging off a cliff, rather than Dex). Gun Combat skills mostly use Dex, but will use Edu for maintenance and recognition. All mental type skills will use Int or Edu equally, and sometimes others, such as using Str + Mechanic to open a jammed hatch. Tying skills down to a single stat would really diminish the power of the system.

Tweaking ranges a bit and making squares 2 metres would make calculating ranges easier.

Don't go there..... Traveller squares always have and always will be 1.5m. The baying mob that came out when the book was released with wonky deckplans (1m per square), and the fact that you can use 30 yrs worth of Traveller material ensure that this will never change. It is about 5 feet, too, which is a reasonable space. 2m might be a bit big, too, for deckplans and stuff, while 1m is too small. The tiny benefit that you'd have from multiplying/dividing by 2 would be offset by having to redo every deckplan you wanted to use.

Also, weapon ranges are already on the high side so would advise not increasing them further, unless you want handguns with the range of sniper rifles!

My advice to you would be to see how it handles as is, before adding in too many tweaks to soon.

I also houserule autofire and burstfire, because as it's written it seems weak.

Would you be so nice to explain your house rules? Because I was thinking about revamping the autofire stuff, too.

OK, short version....

Auto Value: divide by 2 and add a +, so Auto 4 becomes Auto +2, Auto 6 becomes Auto +3, etc.

Burstfire, 2 options:

Tracking burst: the Auto number becomes a mod to hit at short and medium ranges.

Focused burst: twice the Auto number is added to any damage scored; identical to original burstfire in TMB.

Full Auto: the Auto number becomes the number of additional shots, so Auto +2 rolls 3 attacks; they don't roll handfuls of dice and group them, but skill 1 is still the highest skill mod to apply. Will result in one more attack than TMB offers.

Suppressive fire: well, it's a bit garbled in Mercenary... I just add to it saying a single shot firing weapon can suppress a single square, while automatic weapons can add the Auto value to the number of (adjacent) squares suppressed.

 

[Tathlum]

Tweaking ranges a bit and making squares 2 metres would make calculating ranges easier.

Don't go there..... Traveller squares always have and always will be 1.5m. The baying mob that came out when the book was released with wonky deckplans (1m per square), and the fact that you can use 30 yrs worth of Traveller material ensure that this will never change. It is about 5 feet, too, which is a reasonable space. 2m might be a bit big, too, for deckplans and stuff, while 1m is too small. The tiny benefit that you'd have from multiplying/dividing by 2 would be offset by having to redo every deckplan you wanted to use.

To be fair, that isn't what happened. The mob bayed because the plans said they were in one scale, but were actually another. The artist made an innocent miscalculation on the scale and held it over all the plans.
Also, one version did use 2m squares; TNE.

But yeah, keeping 1.5 has some advantages.

 

[GamerDude]

But yeah, keeping 1.5 has some advantages.

I like the 1.5m squares. I tell my players "listen, if you do the math, it's just a hair under 5 feet, which makes it about 28mm = 5 feet, exactly the same scale as most minis today.