CordwainerFish
Emperor Mongoose
Wonder if laser weapons have tunable wavelengths. Remember the scene in Ringworld wheee Louis Wu tried to shoot a dude whose shirt was the same color as his laser?
Weapon Damage Output Balance?
- Thread starter DeHammer
- Start date
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
1. Concentrated heat, so I'd suppose anything that can disperse it.
2. Multi spectrum fog, or gas, if it's visible.
2. Multi spectrum fog, or gas, if it's visible.
Following my post, it's also worth noting that rolling a 12 to hit is only a one in 36 proposition. It happens fairly often. Rolling a natural 10 or more is a one in 6 chance. A lucky shot followed by a better than average damage roll is not rare, and usually decides things.
For low power targeting ones, shouldn't think that would be much of an issue. +Cr100 option.
Weapon grade ones probably can't be that flexible, but you might have some ability at high techs.
+6 or +7 dmg is nothing to sneeze at when you have 21 before it kills you dead.
It's also worth noting that a 3D6-3 Autopistol IS NOT optimised for shooting at targets with modern or future body armour. Targets wearing helmets and vests should be engaged with longarms or heavier pistols anyway. But it does the job it's supposed to do against unarmoured or lightly armoured foes at close ranges.
(Plus, you can't really tell if it's loaded with spicy rounds, or how good a shot the other guy is. As a threat, it's still one that usually needs to be respected.)
(Plus, you can't really tell if it's loaded with spicy rounds, or how good a shot the other guy is. As a threat, it's still one that usually needs to be respected.)
Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that Traveller has a lot of things you can do. That doesn't mean you should do them in your particular game's situation.
Combat in Traveller works fine and is scary enough to make you think before wading in, without making instakills very likely unless you do something really foolish. Like fancy military weapons without military armor.
A typical 2d6 pistol fired at a guy in AV8 by a character with +3 to hit will most likely do a minor amount of damage. Roll a 7 on the hit +3 = 10. So +2 dmg. Roll a 7 on the dmg +2 equals 9. The heavier pistols at 3d6-3 actually do only 1 more point on average, but have a higher max (15 vs 12 before effect bonus). But if someone rolls a 12 to hit or on damage, now that 1dmg is 5dmg.
And that's a mediocre pistol with a decent combat total. A higher Dex + Gun Combat will, of course, do more damage on average.
Again, the average character is in the hospital at 14 dmg.
On the other hand, if your party strolls up to the fight geared up like a riot squad, most likely there won't be a fight if the other guys have pistols. They'll be running for the hills after seeing how you are geared up.
Combat in Traveller works fine and is scary enough to make you think before wading in, without making instakills very likely unless you do something really foolish. Like fancy military weapons without military armor.
A typical 2d6 pistol fired at a guy in AV8 by a character with +3 to hit will most likely do a minor amount of damage. Roll a 7 on the hit +3 = 10. So +2 dmg. Roll a 7 on the dmg +2 equals 9. The heavier pistols at 3d6-3 actually do only 1 more point on average, but have a higher max (15 vs 12 before effect bonus). But if someone rolls a 12 to hit or on damage, now that 1dmg is 5dmg.
And that's a mediocre pistol with a decent combat total. A higher Dex + Gun Combat will, of course, do more damage on average.
Again, the average character is in the hospital at 14 dmg.
On the other hand, if your party strolls up to the fight geared up like a riot squad, most likely there won't be a fight if the other guys have pistols. They'll be running for the hills after seeing how you are geared up.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Generally speaking, protected by the law but not follow it, depends a lot of how much money, or social standing, the player character has.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.[10]
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.[10]
Any society that can produce a particular type of armour will generally be able to recognise that armour as armour. If your world allows shotguns that does not mean it allows you to carry them around the streets by default. If it did them wearing armour suitable to protect against it would also be common (within the budget of the average citizen).
Many states in the US allow carrying firearms (at varying levels of control). Most of the inhabitants of those states would still be alarmed if they saw someone who was not on some official duty wandering around in a flak vest, even in states where concealed carry is the norm. Whilst there is a shooting every day in the US (and even multiple times a day in some cities), it is not an everyday occurrence to every citizen. Even in those cities where there is a real chance of being shot most people do not routinely wear body armour even though it is commonly available.
Just because they can it doesn't mean they will. There are lots of soft factors:
Mobility and comfort. Traveller does not impose this at a game mechanics level as if you really need to wear armour it is comfortable enough when it's protection might be needed. That doesn't mean it is sufficiently comfortable wear it all day and when off-duty etc.
There is the perceived threat, people dressed for combat look intimidating.
There is the admission of vulnerability and intent, if you are wearing armour it signals that you are expecting a fight and is an internal admission that you are expecting to be attacked. That mindset can get wearing and ironically can lead to carelessness over time.
Conversely it can generate a false sense of security and lead you to over-engage when alternative resolution would be more prudent.
There is the social acceptability aspect, "body armour at the theatre... how gauche". People who routinely wear body armour are generally lower SOC, they are foot soldiers not people with style. The high SOC "have chaps that do that for them".
If you are wearing that body armour day in day out it will get scuffed and dirty (self-cleaning/repair armour helps). Even in armour there will be local fashion and you could signal that you are behind the tech curve or an off-worlder (and we all know what they are like!).
Visible armour will escalate an encounter. If your opponent knows you routinely wear cloth, they will tool up accordingly. That makes anyone in your group who isn't wearing armour even more vulnerable so now everyone has to wear it. So will the opponents. Now everyone is using 4D weapons with AP as that becomes the minimum viable force. Now shots can go through walls and harm innocent bystanders etc. Police first responders will be quasi-military. Any legal process will assume intent as you went equipped.
Smart rounds can home in on armour (somehow). If you are not wearing it there is nothing to home in on. If the only tech you are wearing is a wrist comm then maybe the smart round will take off your hand rather than your head.
Most real world armour comes with some perception impact. You cannot feel as well when wearing it, you vision and hearing can be impaired by helmets. Traveller does not explicitly have rules about this but it doesn't prevent the referee from applying a bane in certain circumstances.
It is an extra layer that needs to be removed to receive effective first aid. Again this isn't written into the rules, but Traveller is a toolkit for the referee.
Armour comes with a weight burden. In the encumbrance sidebar it states that you CAN count armour as 25% of its weight as it is distributed. Whilst this might be true for the DM-2 for being overburdened in that section, I am not convinced it applies to overall weight for Fatigue purposes, it is still weight you are lugging around for an extended period. TL10 cloth is already implausibly light for the protection it offers.
If your characters want to dress like a street gang who only have combat in their repertoire then that is the sort of patrons they will attract. Those jobs tend to pay less and are intrinsically more dangerous. They are also jobs that tend to invite personal retaliation and double crosses. You have chosen the role of expendable mook not highly competent specialist. That doesn't mean you shouldn't tool up for the job itself, just not swan around town advertising you are a gun for hire.
Many states in the US allow carrying firearms (at varying levels of control). Most of the inhabitants of those states would still be alarmed if they saw someone who was not on some official duty wandering around in a flak vest, even in states where concealed carry is the norm. Whilst there is a shooting every day in the US (and even multiple times a day in some cities), it is not an everyday occurrence to every citizen. Even in those cities where there is a real chance of being shot most people do not routinely wear body armour even though it is commonly available.
Just because they can it doesn't mean they will. There are lots of soft factors:
Mobility and comfort. Traveller does not impose this at a game mechanics level as if you really need to wear armour it is comfortable enough when it's protection might be needed. That doesn't mean it is sufficiently comfortable wear it all day and when off-duty etc.
There is the perceived threat, people dressed for combat look intimidating.
There is the admission of vulnerability and intent, if you are wearing armour it signals that you are expecting a fight and is an internal admission that you are expecting to be attacked. That mindset can get wearing and ironically can lead to carelessness over time.
Conversely it can generate a false sense of security and lead you to over-engage when alternative resolution would be more prudent.
There is the social acceptability aspect, "body armour at the theatre... how gauche". People who routinely wear body armour are generally lower SOC, they are foot soldiers not people with style. The high SOC "have chaps that do that for them".
If you are wearing that body armour day in day out it will get scuffed and dirty (self-cleaning/repair armour helps). Even in armour there will be local fashion and you could signal that you are behind the tech curve or an off-worlder (and we all know what they are like!).
Visible armour will escalate an encounter. If your opponent knows you routinely wear cloth, they will tool up accordingly. That makes anyone in your group who isn't wearing armour even more vulnerable so now everyone has to wear it. So will the opponents. Now everyone is using 4D weapons with AP as that becomes the minimum viable force. Now shots can go through walls and harm innocent bystanders etc. Police first responders will be quasi-military. Any legal process will assume intent as you went equipped.
Smart rounds can home in on armour (somehow). If you are not wearing it there is nothing to home in on. If the only tech you are wearing is a wrist comm then maybe the smart round will take off your hand rather than your head.
Most real world armour comes with some perception impact. You cannot feel as well when wearing it, you vision and hearing can be impaired by helmets. Traveller does not explicitly have rules about this but it doesn't prevent the referee from applying a bane in certain circumstances.
It is an extra layer that needs to be removed to receive effective first aid. Again this isn't written into the rules, but Traveller is a toolkit for the referee.
Armour comes with a weight burden. In the encumbrance sidebar it states that you CAN count armour as 25% of its weight as it is distributed. Whilst this might be true for the DM-2 for being overburdened in that section, I am not convinced it applies to overall weight for Fatigue purposes, it is still weight you are lugging around for an extended period. TL10 cloth is already implausibly light for the protection it offers.
If your characters want to dress like a street gang who only have combat in their repertoire then that is the sort of patrons they will attract. Those jobs tend to pay less and are intrinsically more dangerous. They are also jobs that tend to invite personal retaliation and double crosses. You have chosen the role of expendable mook not highly competent specialist. That doesn't mean you shouldn't tool up for the job itself, just not swan around town advertising you are a gun for hire.
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Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
You never know when you might need someone to take a bullet for you.
Fweeba
Mongoose
Arguments about the idea that travellers shouldn't wear armour often because people don't do that in reality tend to fall flat for me.
In my experience, very few GMs have combat be something so rare that you wouldn't want to wear body armour of some kind whenever you're not on the ship. The nature of being an adventurous traveller results in close-range urban combat at a rate which would make a soldier blanch, because GMs like to have games be exciting and a shootout is one of the easiest ways to do that. I'm sure there are GMs out there who have combat occur as a once in a blue moon thing, but I have not experienced that myself.
If I led that sort of lifestyle and I had access to clothing which was more protective that modern ceramic armor while only weighing two kilos and maybe being a bit tight or uncomfortable (TL10 Cloth), you bet that I'd be wearing it; particularly when Travellers are usually rich enough to get stuff specifically fitted or modded to suit their purposes, if needs be (Though in reality, if I led the kind of lifestyle my Travellers usually do, I'd be a paranoid wreck who wouldn't leave the ship.)
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On the subject of not wearing armor because it escalates when people know about you and set out to kill you; in the situation where people are gearing up to fight you, they'll pick weapons they think can kill you regardless of what you're wearing. The only way to avoid that is to have armour they don't know about, or to have armour so good they can't get weapons to deal with it. Basically, I think that's a wash. If you deliberately go without armour, you're still very threatened in that same situation, but now you're also more threatened by groups who didn't specifically set out to kill you that day.
Plus, if I'm a bunch of gangers setting out to get revenge on some Travellers, and I know they're not wearing any armour at all, that doesn't make me not wear armour if I can access it. I'll just think "Those idiots" and put on the best armour I can get away with anyway, as I prepare to jump them with the best weapons I can get away with, since I don't select a weaker gun from my wall o' firearms just because they seem unarmored.
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With regards to smart rounds and homing in on armour, I have never really experienced a situation where armour makes you less safe because your opponents are using smart rounds. Even if that is sometimes possible (But the rules don't cover how damage changes for being shot in the arm instead of your center mass), it seems rare enough to not really be worth considering, because in the exact same situation, the non-smart round (Which is far more likely) just kills you, because you're unarmored.
Besides, they'd probably be homing in on my smart glasses, because having augmented reality, thermal, and low-light vision for a few hundred credits is a steal, and that seems worse for me than homing in on my armour.
In my experience, very few GMs have combat be something so rare that you wouldn't want to wear body armour of some kind whenever you're not on the ship. The nature of being an adventurous traveller results in close-range urban combat at a rate which would make a soldier blanch, because GMs like to have games be exciting and a shootout is one of the easiest ways to do that. I'm sure there are GMs out there who have combat occur as a once in a blue moon thing, but I have not experienced that myself.
If I led that sort of lifestyle and I had access to clothing which was more protective that modern ceramic armor while only weighing two kilos and maybe being a bit tight or uncomfortable (TL10 Cloth), you bet that I'd be wearing it; particularly when Travellers are usually rich enough to get stuff specifically fitted or modded to suit their purposes, if needs be (Though in reality, if I led the kind of lifestyle my Travellers usually do, I'd be a paranoid wreck who wouldn't leave the ship.)
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On the subject of not wearing armor because it escalates when people know about you and set out to kill you; in the situation where people are gearing up to fight you, they'll pick weapons they think can kill you regardless of what you're wearing. The only way to avoid that is to have armour they don't know about, or to have armour so good they can't get weapons to deal with it. Basically, I think that's a wash. If you deliberately go without armour, you're still very threatened in that same situation, but now you're also more threatened by groups who didn't specifically set out to kill you that day.
Plus, if I'm a bunch of gangers setting out to get revenge on some Travellers, and I know they're not wearing any armour at all, that doesn't make me not wear armour if I can access it. I'll just think "Those idiots" and put on the best armour I can get away with anyway, as I prepare to jump them with the best weapons I can get away with, since I don't select a weaker gun from my wall o' firearms just because they seem unarmored.
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With regards to smart rounds and homing in on armour, I have never really experienced a situation where armour makes you less safe because your opponents are using smart rounds. Even if that is sometimes possible (But the rules don't cover how damage changes for being shot in the arm instead of your center mass), it seems rare enough to not really be worth considering, because in the exact same situation, the non-smart round (Which is far more likely) just kills you, because you're unarmored.
Besides, they'd probably be homing in on my smart glasses, because having augmented reality, thermal, and low-light vision for a few hundred credits is a steal, and that seems worse for me than homing in on my armour.
A couple points:
No one at any point in this thread said that wearing cloth armor was not something characters should do. The comment about excessive armor was about guys looking like a swat team with cloth armor + armor trenchcoat + riot shield. More importantly, it was about consciously deciding on the tone of your game. Roadhouse, John Wick, and Rambo all feature a lot of fighting. But they aren't all using the same level of gear even though they all happen where the same gear exists.
Second, regarding your point about combat frequency, that's a game play choice. And, again, the point was made that the table should be deciding what experience they are looking for because Traveller offers a very wide range of options about what kind of game play you can have. If you want to feature a lot of gunplay, you can certainly do that. If you don't, you don't have to.
The topic of the thread was about weapon/armor balance. Traveller has options for weapons and armor that range from fisticuffs and t-shirts to plasma rifles and powered armor. It is very easy to have one side of the weapon vs armor equation get far ahead of the other. And if that happens combat will tend to be unsatisfactory, either because one side can't hurt the other side or because characters will get killed in one shot regularly.
Just because something exists doesn't mean it needs to feature in your game. If you want to play Hammer's Slammers, that's great. If you want to play Leverage, that's also great. But if you are playing the former, you need to have different gear than if you are playing the latter.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
Roll vs law level
roll 2D vs law level, if the result is less than or equal to law level then you have attracted the notice of local authorities who may well ask why you are tooled up with body armour.
If your armour is obvious then I would apply a DM to this check.
Modern bullet proof vests and stab proof vest can be worn under loose clothing, the issue is a stabproob and bullet proof vest is thicker. The John Wick suit I posted the video for above is plain enough to blend in, but is not knife proof.
As you make the armour thicker the clothing becomes more obviously padded which mat attract attention.
What Mongoose Traveller is lacking is the old MegaTraveller pinpoint hits rule, take a hefty -DM to hit but if you do hit you can strike the location of tour choice, which can be simulated by a reduction in armour value or even ignoring armour entirely if there are exposed areas to aim for.
Which then begs the question of should there be a hit location determination?
Since I long ago move away from having any more than two rolls of the dice for combat I use each die that is rolled as a data point, I can use the to hit dice to also give hit location, or alternatively the damage dice, or even all of the dice if they are rolled together in one fist full.
roll 2D vs law level, if the result is less than or equal to law level then you have attracted the notice of local authorities who may well ask why you are tooled up with body armour.
If your armour is obvious then I would apply a DM to this check.
Modern bullet proof vests and stab proof vest can be worn under loose clothing, the issue is a stabproob and bullet proof vest is thicker. The John Wick suit I posted the video for above is plain enough to blend in, but is not knife proof.
As you make the armour thicker the clothing becomes more obviously padded which mat attract attention.
What Mongoose Traveller is lacking is the old MegaTraveller pinpoint hits rule, take a hefty -DM to hit but if you do hit you can strike the location of tour choice, which can be simulated by a reduction in armour value or even ignoring armour entirely if there are exposed areas to aim for.
Which then begs the question of should there be a hit location determination?
Since I long ago move away from having any more than two rolls of the dice for combat I use each die that is rolled as a data point, I can use the to hit dice to also give hit location, or alternatively the damage dice, or even all of the dice if they are rolled together in one fist full.
I just assume that the PCs can have access to a level of armored clothing that passes for civilian clothing, unless there is a reason why they can't.
Are you wearing:
Nude, bathing suit, PJs, undies, or the like: Armor 0
Light casual clothes (Shorts and/or or short sleeved shirts): Armor: 3
Pants & Long sleeves: Armor: 5
Layered outfit: pants, shirt, jacket, suit, etc: Armor: 8
You don't get above AV: 8 unless you are wearing a helmet.
My last campaign was mostly doing heists and espionage stuff on relatively high law level worlds (7+), so the fights were not that common and mostly non lethal. If they carried "real" weapons, it was normally pistols. The former marine had an armored vacc suit and a gauss rifle, but it rarely left the ship.
Are you wearing:
Nude, bathing suit, PJs, undies, or the like: Armor 0
Light casual clothes (Shorts and/or or short sleeved shirts): Armor: 3
Pants & Long sleeves: Armor: 5
Layered outfit: pants, shirt, jacket, suit, etc: Armor: 8
You don't get above AV: 8 unless you are wearing a helmet.
My last campaign was mostly doing heists and espionage stuff on relatively high law level worlds (7+), so the fights were not that common and mostly non lethal. If they carried "real" weapons, it was normally pistols. The former marine had an armored vacc suit and a gauss rifle, but it rarely left the ship.
