What would you do to improve/change MGT combat system?

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Hmm, considering some of the the recent advances dealing with muzzle climb and recoil for auto fire weapons, may need to change a rule or two for TL8+ assault rifle type weapons.

Perhaps, if the designs live up to the hype, though really all that would be needed to change would be slightly different recoil and ROF stats. With MgT I try to avoid getting drawn into modelling the difference between, say, a M16 and a SA80, or between different models of M16, seems unnecessary in a role playing game (though more than happy to do so in a set of squad level wargame rules!).

Egil

 

[DFW]

Hmm, considering some of the the recent advances dealing with muzzle climb and recoil for auto fire weapons, may need to change a rule or two for TL8+ assault rifle type weapons.

Perhaps, if the designs live up to the hype, though really all that would be needed to change would be slightly different recoil and ROF stats. With MgT I try to avoid getting drawn into modelling the difference between, say, a M16 and a SA80, or between different models of M16, seems unnecessary in a role playing game (though more than happy to do so in a set of squad level wargame rules!).

Egil

I'm just thinking about higher TL auto rifles. Not current weapons and the small differences. I've seen a demonstration. Works pretty well. Tech does march on after all.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Hmm, considering some of the the recent advances dealing with muzzle climb and recoil for auto fire weapons, may need to change a rule or two for TL8+ assault rifle type weapons.

Perhaps, if the designs live up to the hype, though really all that would be needed to change would be slightly different recoil and ROF stats. With MgT I try to avoid getting drawn into modelling the difference between, say, a M16 and a SA80, or between different models of M16, seems unnecessary in a role playing game (though more than happy to do so in a set of squad level wargame rules!).

Egil

I'm just thinking about higher TL auto rifles. Not current weapons and the small differences. I've seen a demonstration. Works pretty well. Tech does march on after all.

ACR?

 

[DFW]

ACR?

Yep.

 

[rinku]

Someone suggested that MgT lumped too many different weapons together in one skill

If you mean my comment about lumping together weapons, that wasn't the skill groupings but the range mods. Body pistols should have worse range mods than laser pistols in my opinion...

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Someone suggested that MgT lumped too many different weapons together in one skill

If you mean my comment about lumping together weapons, that wasn't the skill groupings but the range mods. Body pistols should have worse range mods than laser pistols in my opinion...

Yes, I did mean your comment, sorry about not attributing it, was half way through writing and couldn't remember where to look.

It looks like I misunderstood you anyway, in terms of pistol ranges I think (see above) that the ranges for normal pistol and revolvers are too generous, originally was going to remove long range from pistols, but finally went for an extra -2 DM (for derringers and the like, the medium range could be removed as well).

However, snub pistols and body pistols are TL8 designs, lighter and smaller than TL6 autopistols, but engineered to a higher spec. I tend to think that they should have the same range as whatever you allow autopistols.

Egil

 

[vitalis6969]

Ive been thinking of adding ROF to the firearms weapon stats. It works well and will up the ROF to something approaching realism without changing the 1 action per round rule that the game uses.

I'll have to look at the recoil ratings as well and see if those will need to be tweaked.

Also thinking of adding a magazine draining "Rushed Fire" mode that will, off the top of my head, impart a -3 to hit but double the ROF of the weapon. It is EASY to drain the magazine on a weapon in semi-auto fire in under six seconds. Of course, you're not really going to hit much/anything. But it can be done.

On a side note, the ranges are pretty funny. There is a BIG difference in performance from 51 meters to 250 meters. Yet they are in the same range band.

Using my favorite AR-15, a 16" hvy bbl with a short gas system, I am moving and hitting targets at about 1.5 shots per second at 50 yards. At 100, more like one shot per second. At 150 to 200, about 2 seconds per shot. At 250? It is more like 4 seconds per shot.

If I get all kinds of motivated I'll probably wind up keeping the range bands and the modifiers, but changing the meters represented by each band for each specific weapon type.

-V

 

[rust]

Body pistols should have worse range mods than laser pistols in my opinion...

This would depend a lot on the circumstances. For example, projectile
weapons are not much affected by dust, fog, smoke or rain, while laser
weapons become almost useless under such conditions - which is why
most real world armies have lost their interest in portable laser wea-
pons, they do not make much sense under battlefield conditions.

 

[rinku]

I guess I'm still influenced by the weapons as they have been presented in previous editions. Previously, the body pistol has been presented as using a less powerful cartridge than the automatic, with the standard revolver having a slightly more powerful one. If they're all using the same cartridge, you'd expect recoil differences, too, based on the weapon mass, with the BP having a worse recoil mod and the revolver having a better one (the revolver is twice the mass of the autopistol, yet has no difference in performance and 6 shots vs 15. A Cr50 price difference does not cut it IMHO).

In any case, I'm not trying to impose my specific opinions on this - just throwing the issue into the ring of things to change. Good game design gives a game reason for every weapon on the list - the MGT basic rules one falls down on a few points here.

 

[apoc527]

Initiative
Largely as written, like the idea that once the order in a combat is established, a sense of action/reaction develops. However,
1. in an ambush type situation the attackers get one "free attack", ie one major action before everybody rolls for initiave, then as normal.
2. when a combatants init is over 12, he upgrades his minor action to a significant action, so can run further, jump higher and, usually, shoot twice. (This rewards tactics rolls, high dex and combat drugs), we did try putting the extra action at the end of the combat round, but, quite frankly, that was a needless complication, so the combatant with Init 14 get his two attacks before anyone else moves. If weapon recoil is an issue, the effects are, obviously, applied twice.

I kind of like this. I think I'll see how this slots into my current house rules.

Minor Actions
as written but changing a magazine requires 3 minor actions, i.e. one to unload the empty, one to reload and one to make ready ("cock") the rifle.

I think this is a little unfair. Experienced shooters can change magazines MUCH faster than they can run or walk 18m. If you wanted to keep this, I'd say that each level of skill reduces the time required by 1 minor action until at level 2, it simply takes 1 minor action as per the rules. However, I think that's a little unrealistic--I can personally change a magazine on a pistol much faster than 6 seconds (which is what this represents). A rifle wouldn't take much longer than a pistol either.

 

[Jame Rowe]

2.) Improve armor ratings, e.g. jack gives 3 points of protection and cloth gives 10. That way armor has some worthwhile protection against the better damage.

Doesn't this all cancell out then, unless you can't afford any armour at all?

Egil

Not for me. I just don't like the way they handled weapons and armor.

 

[PFVA63]

I was initially reluctant to post any response here, because I don't have a whole lot of experience with Mongoose Traveller yet, but I guess when I first read the damage rules something didn't feel 100% right too me. Its not that it feels wrong, but rather it just feels a little bit off. Maybe though, I'm just not fully understanding everything yet, especially since I'm not fully up to date on whether there have been any revisions or clarifications to the original rulebook.

Anyway, my biggest concern I guess is how a characters attributes of Strength, Dexterity and Endurance define his/her ability to withstand damage (which I think may go back to the original version of Traveller, published all those years ago). In general it feels reasonable that these attibutes should play a major part in a players ability to withstand damage, but somehow it just doesn't feel right to me that they are exactly equal.

Specifically, in the rules as written in the copy of the book that I have indicates that damage should initially be applied to a characters endurance, until that attribute reaches zero. I'm guessing that a character with an endurance of zero is either immobilized, or at least mostly immobilized, but somehow it doesn't feel right to me that a character in such a situation would still have his/her full strength and dexterity.

To me it would seem posibly more likely that any damage could potentially impact all your attributes to some extent, though the possibility should also exist that it may not as well. (Every now and again you will sometimes here stories of how in the real world someone is injured but does not fully realize it at the time, whereas in other cases something like a severe blow to the head may end up with a person getting disoriented and confused enough that he/she is unable to fully make use of their strength, dexterity or endurance).

Also, while the armor rules as written seem to work OK, there are also the posiblity of having results that just don't feel quite fully right either. Specifically, in the example on page 66 of the rulebook it describes how a character wearing a "flak jacket" with an armor value of 2 would reduce the amount of damage that she recieves from the original value of 10 to 8.

This seems to be an OK approach for gaming purposes, but in real life I can see how a person wearing a "flak jacket" could potentially either be almost completely protected from damage for certain kinds of attacks at certain ranges, or only partially protected (ie as in the example), or even not protected at all if injured in an area not protected by the "flak jacket" (ie the head, arms or legs, etc). The way the rules are written though, it would appear that the "flak jacket" would always provide some protection.

Additionally, some of the armor information also seems a bit vague to me. For instance both Jack and Mesh are described as being either a "jacket" or a "body suit" but doesn't appear to address whether a character with just a "jacket" would be as well protected as a character in a 'body suit", unless I've missed something. Additionally, nowhere does the book appear to address helmets in specific, unless they are part of a complete suit (ie a VACC suit, Combat armor, or the like).

It seems to me that the simple act of just wearing a helmet could have a significant impact on reducing the impact of some types of damage, though I suspect that you would want to avoid a situtation where the helmet would reduce the effect of any/all attacks, since the helmet only covers such a small part of a persons body.

I'm not really sure that I have enough experience in gaming to suggest anything better than the current system, that would still retain its simplicity and ease of play but at the same time I wonder if there isn't some possible alternate way of doing things that might help address some of the issues discussed above.

Anyway, just some thoughts I wanted to add to the discussion.

Regards

PF

 

[rinku]

PF:

To clarify damage vs stats, the way it originally worked was as follows:

Each rolled die of damage was treated as a distinct wound and applied to a given characteristic (defender's choice). However the first damage received in a fight "can be sufficient to stun or daze" and was randomly applied in total to one of the three characteristics. One characteristic to zero meant unconsciousness, recovering in about 10 minutes, two meant seriously wounded (meaning serious medical attention would be needed for recovery) and all three meant death.

For example:

Jack (777777) is hit by a shot doing 3D6, which is rolled as 2, 3, 1. Dexterity is randomly rolled as the affected characteristic, so Jack is now temporarily 717777, but still active. He then receives a sword blow doing 2D6, rolled as 2 and 5. Jack's player can choose to apply a wound of 2 and a wound of 5 to any of strength, dexterity and endurance, and chooses 2 off strength and 5 off endurance. Jack is now 512777 and in a bit of trouble.

Note that under this system armour did not absorb damage directly, but reduced the chances of being hit. I can see why Mongoose changed things since now most of the time damage is coming in in small amounts, but IMHO the old rule spreading damage around is better, and I use it as a house rule.

The effects of partial coverage armour is probably best dealt with using some kind of hit location roll, but it does slow things down. Optional rule territory IMHO.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Minor Actions
as written but changing a magazine requires 3 minor actions, i.e. one to unload the empty, one to reload and one to make ready ("cock") the rifle.

I think this is a little unfair. Experienced shooters can change magazines MUCH faster than they can run or walk 18m. If you wanted to keep this, I'd say that each level of skill reduces the time required by 1 minor action until at level 2, it simply takes 1 minor action as per the rules. However, I think that's a little unrealistic--I can personally change a magazine on a pistol much faster than 6 seconds (which is what this represents). A rifle wouldn't take much longer than a pistol either.

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree here, but first, go outside, and get someone to time how far you can run in 6 seconds, :lol: I think that a reasonably healthy human will be able to manage 18m, remember that this equates to 100m in about 33 seconds, a brisk amble rather than even a sprint.
Basically, IMHO, 2 seconds is too quick in stressful conditions, yes, if you have your 9mm magazine on the table infront of you, then 2 seconds is not unreasonable, but a more likely scenerio is in a middle of a firefight your rifle stops firing, you need to check that it is an empty mag, (and not some other kind of stoppage) then unload, then open your pouch/pocket/jacket, fish out a full mag (while checking that it is full, and that the top round is correctly fed and not not dirty (if American, you will probably want to bang the mag on your helmet as well! )), then load the magazine then ready the weapon, while at some point closing pouches etc. 6 seconds seems more reasonable.
I did think about including weapons skill as a modifier, but felt it was a needless complication, what I could be persuaded would speed thing up would be, e.g. sitting at a window with all your mags piled up right next to you (in which case, when you move make sure you pick them up) or taped magazines (in which case there will probably be a modifier for unbalancing the weapon, or the possiblity of a stoppage caused by the exposed top bullet getting mucky or displaced before being fired.)

Egil

Edit for punctuation

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Anyway, my biggest concern I guess is how a characters attributes of Strength, Dexterity and Endurance define his/her ability to withstand damage (which I think may go back to the original version of Traveller, published all those years ago). In general it feels reasonable that these attibutes should play a major part in a players ability to withstand damage, but somehow it just doesn't feel right to me that they are exactly equal.

Specifically, in the rules as written in the copy of the book that I have indicates that damage should initially be applied to a characters endurance, until that attribute reaches zero. I'm guessing that a character with an endurance of zero is either immobilized, or at least mostly immobilized, but somehow it doesn't feel right to me that a character in such a situation would still have his/her full strength and dexterity.

Frankly, this is an aspect of the MGT system I like, that injuries will begin to degrade performance. Having end reduced to 0 only leads to unconsciousness if playing the optional knock out blow rule, and then only if one attack causes all the damage. However, once 2 attributes are down to 0 the pc is knocked out and in a bad way. If you try to avoid that by sharing out the damage, your character becomes seriously wounded which brings it own problems, see pages 65, 66 and 74, 75). You can always argue the what ifs and real world situations, but for a rpg system, the wounds rules are reasonable.

Try running through a number of combats, take fight scenes from your favourite movies, set characteristics and equipment accordiingly, and see what happens.

Egil

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Ive been thinking of adding ROF to the firearms weapon stats. It works well and will up the ROF to something approaching realism without changing the 1 action per round rule that the game uses.

I'll have to look at the recoil ratings as well and see if those will need to be tweaked.

Also thinking of adding a magazine draining "Rushed Fire") mode that will, off the top of my head, impart a -3 to hit but double the ROF of the weapon. It is EASY to drain the magazine on a weapon in semi-auto fire in under six seconds. Of course, you're not really going to hit much/anything. But it can be done.

On a side note, the ranges are pretty funny. There is a BIG difference in performance from 51 meters to 250 meters. Yet they are in the same range band.

Using my favorite AR-15, a 16" hvy bbl with a short gas system, I am moving and hitting targets at about 1.5 shots per second at 50 yards. At 100, more like one shot per second. At 150 to 200, about 2 seconds per shot. At 250? It is more like 4 seconds per shot.

If I get all kinds of motivated I'll probably wind up keeping the range bands and the modifiers, but changing the meters represented by each band for each specific weapon type.

-V

ROF is part of the thinking in the Auto score many weapons have, and burst and auto fire (see above for different posters ideas on "rapid fire". Some players will think the recoil scores need tweaking, frankly I think they are ok, and are happy to use as written, but that is open to debate in terms of specific weapon types.
"Rushed fire" sounds like "spray and pray", done by panicked individuals pretending to participate. I tend to think that the rounds will miss widely.
The "long" range band, 51-250m is a bit of a problem, but want to avoid over complication of different range tables for different weapons, so sticking with it for now (but with additional -2DM for one handed pistol use).
Your comments about your target practice are interesting, we tend to aim more at more distant target, while at close range most of us shoot instinctively and more quickly. Not sure how to represent this, other than by the current aiming rules, without massive over complication.

Egil

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

I guess I'm still influenced by the weapons as they have been presented in previous editions. Previously, the body pistol has been presented as using a less powerful cartridge than the automatic, with the standard revolver having a slightly more powerful one. If they're all using the same cartridge, you'd expect recoil differences, too, based on the weapon mass, with the BP having a worse recoil mod and the revolver having a better one (the revolver is twice the mass of the autopistol, yet has no difference in performance and 6 shots vs 15. A Cr50 price difference does not cut it IMHO).

In any case, I'm not trying to impose my specific opinions on this - just throwing the issue into the ring of things to change. Good game design gives a game reason for every weapon on the list - the MGT basic rules one falls down on a few points here.

Certainly agree that the weapons list in the core rulebook should have been a little more comprehensive and explanatory, esp when the csc is not always such a good fit.
On body pistols I tend to envisage a higher tech pistol that is small and lighter, fires a different kind of round (probably 9mm, but different propellant) with an inbuilt recoil system, thus creating weapon with the range and damage equivelent to the auto pistol, but with some advantages of weight and recoil, and a smaller mag. But your guess is as good as mine (in fact, probably better) as to what was actually intended!

Egil

 

[PFVA63]

Thanks Rinku & Egil, your explanations help a bit. I guess I really need to just try out the rules as written a bit more to get a better feel for them.

One thing that confuses me though, is that on page 65 of the Core rulebook it states that;

"If a target is reduced to Endurance 0, then further damage is subtracted from either Strength or Dexterity (target'd choice, but all damage from a single attack must be subtracted froma single statistic). If either Strength or Dexterity is reduced to 0, the character is unconscious..."

I had taken this to mean that if Dexterity wer 0 the character would be still conscious, but immobolized. However, its now unclear to me if this is the case.

Regards

PF

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

One thing that confuses me though, is that on page 65 of the Core rulebook it states that;

"If a target is reduced to Endurance 0, then further damage is subtracted from either Strength or Dexterity (target'd choice, but all damage from a single attack must be subtracted froma single statistic). If either Strength or Dexterity is reduced to 0, the character is unconscious..."

I had taken this to mean that if Dexterity wer 0 the character would be still conscious, but immobolized. However, its now unclear to me if this is the case.

You were right first time, if 2 characteristics, through cumalative damage or through one wound are reduced to 0, character is unconscious, but note the rules about coming round on page 74 (and remember that the unconscious character will probably have an End of 0, so a -3DM on his role)

and note the following e.g., a character (777777) is hit three times over three rounds, in the first his END is reduced to 1, in the second he choses to reduce his STR, which ends up as 2, if in the 3rd he suffers 7 points of dam, if he choses to reduce his Dex he will be seriously wounded (see page 75), if the damage is applied to STR and DEX first he will still end up at 003777, unconscious and very unwell.

MGT Traveller is pretty lethal with rules as written. Perhaps not quite as bad as real life, but still far more dangerous than most rpgs. As I don't want PCs getting slaughtered all the time, I tend to think that the rules don't need to be made even more lethal.

On the good side, the system does force characters who get into fights regularly to do their best to stack the odds in their favour, otherwise goodnight Vienna.

Egil

 

[PFVA63]

Egil,

Thanks. this has been very helpful. I guess I need to go back and reread everything again.

One last comment, that I kind of alluded to in a previous post, but then forgot to follow up on, is how/why dexterity impacts a characters ability to handle damage. I'm not sure I fully understand why two otherwise similar characters would differ in their ability to handle damage just because one has a slightly higher dexterity than the other.

On the one hand maybe it might be meant to reflect that in hand to hand or blade combat that character might be quick enough to react to prevent a blow from being more serious than it could be, but on the other hand I can't really see how dexterity would play much into absorbing damage from slug thrown weapons or beam weapons.

I guess two benefits of including it in a characters ability to absorb damage is that it gives all characters a higher ability to absorb damage than if damage only revolved around strength and endurance, as well as it provides a means for tracking how a characters abilities are decreasing with injuries.

Anyway, the rules as written are probably good enough, but its just one of those things that kind of stick in the back of mind my making me wonder if there might be a different way to handle this.

Thanks again for your feedback and explanations.

Regards

PF