Too many moving parts

[Vormaerin]

This seems like an aesthetic objection rather than a substantive one.

I don't think so. The reason this thread was brought up is because there have been several recent cases where the difference between a +2 modifier and a reduction in difficulty class have caused confusion. At the very least, the rules need to be clarified.

The most recent example was about robots. The mid tech robots have maximum difficulty tasks they are allowed to even attempt. In the CRB there is a comment that taking longer makes takes easier by applying a +2 DM. In the robot book, it says that task limited robots can use the take longer rules to reduce the difficulty class to be within their capacity. So, is any +2DM the same as reducing the difficulty? There's a lot of other sources of +2 DMs. What if I have two different +1 DMs?

There are other places where Difficulty Level seems to have some innate value separate from the math of target numbers. If that's the case, then it needs to be spelled out. If not, is Difficulty class actually a shorthand that is helpful? Like does saying a Hard task check make more sense than " task check at -2"?

If they are completely interchangeable then, yeah, its an aesthetic objection. But there is obvious confusion about whether they are or not. That's actually substantive.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I don't think so. The reason this thread was brought up is because there have been several recent cases where the difference between a +2 modifier and a reduction in difficulty class have caused confusion. At the very least, the rules need to be clarified.

The most recent example was about robots. The mid tech robots have maximum difficulty tasks they are allowed to even attempt. In the CRB there is a comment that taking longer makes takes easier by applying a +2 DM. In the robot book, it says that task limited robots can use the take longer rules to reduce the difficulty class to be within their capacity. So, is any +2DM the same as reducing the difficulty? There's a lot of other sources of +2 DMs. What if I have two different +1 DMs?

There are other places where Difficulty Level seems to have some innate value separate from the math of target numbers. If that's the case, then it needs to be spelled out. If not, is Difficulty class actually a shorthand that is helpful? Like does saying a Hard task check make more sense than " task check at -2"?

If they are completely interchangeable then, yeah, its an aesthetic objection. But there is obvious confusion about whether they are or not. That's actually substantive.

Agreed. Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[MonsterX]

In fact the Auto Fire thread is an indirect example of the danger of making simple fixes. Auto fire used to be balanced, well it had a gameplay tradeoff anyway, but it was balanced in some odd ways that no one including me much misses. Then the edition change threw out those unpopular forms of balance and replaced them with... nothing much at all. If you've got the ammo, always auto fire. Though this one's not so big a deal so I just run RAW (until now), but it's an example.

IRL, full auto tends to run through ammo really, really fast, and makes the gun more difficult to control, so that esp. with certain guns, recoil makes the gun less and less accurate as you go. It seems to me, burst is underpowered - it should be more like full auto somehow, with the possibility of multiple hits, and for full auto maybe add a -1 for each attack after the first, so -0, -1, -2. Another issue is that it usually take 2 or 3 hits to put someone down - more with armour - so that's what you do since you don't want them firing back.

That said, I also just run it RAW, though the full auto RAW functions more like a burst IRL, and the FC's suppressing fire is more like how full auto normally works out IRL (i.e. emptying the full mag in one turn and giving chances to hit to everyone in a specific area, though not being particularly accurate). I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze in changing the rules, since I can get the desired tactical impact RAW.

 

[J. L. Brown]

I'll chip in on 'Full Auto' vs 'Burst'; for what (very little) it is worth.

It is weird that 'Burst' tire uses 'Auto X' number of rounds, and gets +1 damage per round. This means firing a 20 round burst from a BB-gun does more damage than two a round burst from a 50 caliber. I think the 'damage add' should be +1 per d6 damage the basic round inflicts, per additional round in the burst.

Second it is weird that 'Full Auto' uses 3x 'Auto X' ammunition, but allows X ('single shot') attacks. I think that 'Full Auto' should allow 'Auto X' burst attacks; and uses exactly as much ammo as X 'Bursts'.

Also; allow 'Burst' fire and 'Full Auto' fire to benefit from aiming. Every attack roll after the first suffers a cumulative penalty; if 'Recoil' values (ala the Field Catalog) are in use, then use that -- otherwise -1 per additional attack for non-'Zero G' weapons.

Also; rewrite the restriction on which targets may be hit with 'Full Auto' attacks; right now all such targets must be within 6m of each other. This is fine for individual soldiers shooting at each other -- but it makes little sense for tanks, artillery, strafing runs, or starships.

 

[Condottiere]

It's a bit of a conundrum in space combat, since six metres over thousands of kilometres within six minutes is a pretty tight grouping.

 

[Sigtrygg]

This seems like an aesthetic objection rather than a substantive one.

It is a bit of both. Why keep an inconsistent rule that is rarely used? Is there a way to make things consistent but keep the distinction.

It's a net plus you listen to player and customer feedback, but shifting the rulebook for one or only a few vocal forum dwellers isn't automatically an improvement for the rest of us.

I doubt very much if one or two voices on these forums have an affect on the game - even "vocal forum dwellers"

The Mongoose team make their own decisions, and they are pretty good at it.

In fact the Auto Fire thread is an indirect example of the danger of making simple fixes. Auto fire used to be balanced, well it had a gameplay tradeoff anyway, but it was balanced in some odd ways that no one including me much misses. Then the edition change threw out those unpopular forms of balance and replaced them with... nothing much at all. If you've got the ammo, always auto fire. Though this one's not so big a deal so I just run RAW (until now), but it's an example.

Was this a change requested by a forum member or was it an authorial decision? I have noticed over the years that a lot of games struggle with rate of fire and automatic weapons.

Speaking of which, I never liked the blanket TL difference as modifier to begin with. But that's a battle I've definitely lost.

Me neither, it is likely a hold over from the computer comparison DM in CT HG, I would cap it.

Added: what would be nice is if you could get authors of subsystems and supplement books to cool it with all the stacking modifiers. Because Gwydion is right about huge DMs, but it's a little embarrassing to see huge DMs in a 2d6 system to begin with. It doesn't seem like the right base system for it.

I agree the stacking of DMs to absurdly high numbers disrupts the 2d game system, this could be fixed by using the difficulty scale rather than DM stacking and or reducing the number of DMs that apply. I know of other 2d6 based games that limit the DM to +/-3.