Author Topic: Just getting into it.  (Read 22980 times)

Stallion12

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #60 on: 09 August 2016, 00:38:55 »
Looking at the personal vechicle charts, I see a number next to the bar values in (), is that their structure points?

Acolyte

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #61 on: 09 August 2016, 01:26:23 »
That's the BAR of the armor and internal structure. The numbers separated by the slashes are the number of armor points per location. Any vehicle 10 tons or less has only 1 Internal Structure point. So the Crimson Streak Hover Racer (pg324) has 3 points of BAR 6 armor on the front, 2 points of BAR 6 armor on each side and 1 point of - you guessed it - BAR 6 armor on the Rear.

How this all works is on pg.185 to 186. Specifically the Tactical Armor (and Structure) Degradation section on pg 186.

   - Shane
It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion
It is by the coffee that my thoughts acquire speed
My teeth acquire stains
The stains become a warning
It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion.

HABeas2

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #62 on: 09 August 2016, 07:12:41 »
The baseline is this:

BAR (Barrier Armor Rating) in the BattleTech war game is normally not tracked because it's largely presumed that all units are using military-grade armor. At the scale where Mechs and vehicles are regularly hurling heavy weapons fire at one another, the effect of BAR is normally not tracked. But, of course, not all armor is equal; personal armor, the armor used on battlesuits, and non-military/light support vehicles don't typically do well at stopping a Mech-mounted large laser or autocannon blast.

Since the role-playing game focuses more on what your characters may be doing outside of the cockpit than in it,  where personal weapons--which are way less powerful than the heavy weapons mounted on Mechs and combat vehicles--are much more common, the difference in scale for such weapons is expressed by an armor penetration (AP) factor. A weapon's AP vs the target's BAR determines how well they do vs varying degrees of armor (from leather jackets at BAR 1, all the way up to battle armor at BARs of 6-10, and Mech-grade military armor at BAR 10). A hand pistol with an AP of 4, simply won't do much to the armor of a true combat vehicle or BattleMech, which typically has BAR 10 armor--no matter how much damage it could do to flesh and blood--because the BAR is so much higher.

How it works is thus: A higher BAR than a weapon's AP generally reduces the weapon's personal-scale damage by the difference, so shooting a high-powered pistol with an AP of 4 and a BD (Base Damage) of 5 at a target with BAR 6 will reduce the base damage the pistol delivers by 2 points (BAR 6 - AP 4 = 2), to a modified damage of 3 points (BD 5 - 2 = 3).  The same pistol against BattleMech armor (BAR 10) would ping off with no actual damage unless the player got a REALLY high Margin of Success/lucky hit, as BAR 10 would subtract 6 points from an AP 4 weapon's base damage (BAR 10 - AP 4 = 6).

Vehicles typically used at the personal scale have "armor" that reflects their structure and outer body, which normally tries to protect the vehicle from the elements and the occasional collision, but in a role-playing game--player characters being player characters--it's inevitable that the question will come up: "How much damage will my Imperator assault rifle do to that guy's limo?" Vehicles thus receive a BAR value that helps determine the answer to just that question.

(Note: The addition of BAR flows back into standard BattleTech as well; there, a simplified version of the AP vs BAR rule essentially sums the above effects thusly: When a unit hits a target with any weapon that delivers more tactical armor damage than the target's BAR, the attacker gets to roll for an additional critical hit after applying damage, even if the target still has armor after that attack. What this means is that WorkMech with commercial-grade armor (BAR 5) could have 25 points of armor in its Center Torso, but if it gets hit by a BattleMech-scale large laser, the attack not only delivers 8 points of armor damage to the WorkMech; it also rolls for a critical hit, because the WorkMech's armor was effectively pierced.)

Hope that helps.

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Stallion12

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #63 on: 09 August 2016, 17:48:21 »
Can an alternate identity get passed enemy,  it's a character identify trait but it's not listed as one of the ones in the list.

HABeas2

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #64 on: 09 August 2016, 19:47:29 »
Can an alternate identity get passed enemy,  it's a character identify trait but it's not listed as one of the ones in the list.

Generally, an enemy will attach to a given character identity and not necessarily to any of said character's alternate IDs... but if the alternate ID becomes known somehow, you can bet your bippy that the enemy will expand to include that alias as well.

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Stallion12

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #65 on: 09 August 2016, 20:40:23 »
Thank you guys, you've been alot of help. I now have enough knowledge to start a campaign. I want to thank you all for your understanding of my newness. You guys were real polite dispite my plothora of questions.

Atlas3060

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #66 on: 09 August 2016, 21:03:44 »
You guys were real polite dispite my plothora of questions.
Then this forum and community is on the right track.  O0
It's not about winning or losing, no it's all about how many chapters have you added to the rule books after your crazy antics.

Acolyte

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #67 on: 09 August 2016, 23:36:44 »
Thank you guys, you've been alot of help. I now have enough knowledge to start a campaign. I want to thank you all for your understanding of my newness. You guys were real polite dispite my plothora of questions.

And thank you! We love answering these types of questions!

   - Shane
It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion
It is by the coffee that my thoughts acquire speed
My teeth acquire stains
The stains become a warning
It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion.

HABeas2

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #68 on: 10 August 2016, 02:15:41 »
Then this forum and community is on the right track.  O0

Wait. Are we sure this is the right forum, then?

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Atlas3060

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #69 on: 10 August 2016, 02:57:16 »
Wait. Are we sure this is the right forum, then?

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Shhhh don't let them catch on that they're on the fake forum.  ^-^
It's not about winning or losing, no it's all about how many chapters have you added to the rule books after your crazy antics.

Acolyte

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #70 on: 10 August 2016, 03:00:15 »
Wait. Are we sure this is the right forum, then?

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They're new. They'll learn, eventually. >:D

   - Shane
It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion
It is by the coffee that my thoughts acquire speed
My teeth acquire stains
The stains become a warning
It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion.

guardiandashi

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #71 on: 10 August 2016, 09:36:41 »
Generally, an enemy will attach to a given character identity and not necessarily to any of said character's alternate IDs... but if the alternate ID becomes known somehow, you can bet your bippy that the enemy will expand to include that alias as well.

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I always took it as the "enemies" attach to specific identities IE who you were at the time you did whatever earned the enemy.  so its possible to have enemies for each identity real, or false.  where it gets complicated is if the identities get linked together, IE you have enemy 1 on false id 1, and enemy 2 on main identity.  if they manage to link the id's then both id's effectively have enemy 1, and 2 ... or depending on the circumstances possibly just enemy 3 which is often worse than enemy 1, and enemy 2

HABeas2

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #72 on: 10 August 2016, 09:59:13 »
That's basically what I said. I see how it could have been misinterpreted though...

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Stallion12

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #73 on: 10 August 2016, 11:10:29 »
Spoke to soon lol,  War of reaving virus mutagenic question.

If you choose the ones listed as n/a, are they tree as far as tp goes but you roll on the chart, or do you use the skills tp then roll on the chart?

HABeas2

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #74 on: 10 August 2016, 11:59:41 »
N/A in that case means Not Available. You don't buy those and they're generally not for player-character use; they're something a GM inflicts on his players.

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Stallion12

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #75 on: 10 August 2016, 22:59:46 »
So I was trying to calculate how many XPs the prebuilts are, at least for the companion book. And the hot shot only makes it to 4500 xp by my calculations, but it's listed as 5k.

My question is, since I'm clearly doing something wrong, how do you brake down the character to check it's total xp?

Also, I'm assuming the main books front man isn't 5k either since he has a total of 6tp negative when a 5k character can only start with 5?

monbvol

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #76 on: 10 August 2016, 23:08:19 »
I'll have to take a look at th Hotshot to see what is going on there.

Front man is probably from a quirk of how the character creation and optimization step goes.  Module build characters can actually wind up with more negative traits then point buy characters because they get them from the various modules and are allowed to take an extra 10% of base experience on top of those negative traits from the modules.  Point buy's advantage is that they get rebate XP for their field skills for the total XP invested in them where module characters only ever get it once at the rate stipulated in the module where they get their field skills.

It's really tough to say which is better in terms of gaining extra XP over the other because of that quirk as I find there is an upper limit to negative traits that if the GM is doing their job and ensures each and every negative trait comes up at some point before you really start kicking yourself for putting your character in all these situations.

Stallion12

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #77 on: 11 August 2016, 00:19:31 »
Front man is also point system. That's why I assumed he was more than 5k points.

Good to know that Modules don't have to follow that.

monbvol

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #78 on: 11 August 2016, 01:35:46 »
I get 5,000 XP on the Hotshot when adding everything up.  So not sure what you're missing to only come up with 4,500 XP.

Which I just realized means the Hotshot was created without using fields to get field rebates.  Or else there'd be more XP there.

Frontman I'll have to wait a bit to reverse engineer.

Stallion12

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #79 on: 11 August 2016, 02:37:23 »
Yea, after several tries I started getting 5k there.

So only three questions remain.

The faceman one because I don't know how he got the extra negative being points system.

Also, the elemental is 160 points over, is that from the fields discounts? Also, the elementals link modifier is a -1 for will despite being a 4, is there an ability I'm missing that's causing that?

Sorry for these quesitons because I'm sure they are a pain to answer, I just want to make sure I understand why these guys are the way they are before I try to teach someone how to build them.

Acolyte

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #80 on: 11 August 2016, 04:20:21 »
Also, the elemental is 160 points over, is that from the fields discounts? Also, the elementals link modifier is a -1 for will despite being a 4, is there an ability I'm missing that's causing that?

The 160 points is probably from the field discount, as to the -1 link modifier for WILL I think you've found a typo!

   - Shane
It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion
It is by the coffee that my thoughts acquire speed
My teeth acquire stains
The stains become a warning
It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion.

Stallion12

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #81 on: 11 August 2016, 11:49:35 »
Ok cool, I'll ignore that negative.

Martial artist page 93 of the companion has a sixth negative trait too.  Is there a loophole to the 10 percent  Of xp rule when using the point buy system?

guardiandashi

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #82 on: 11 August 2016, 12:45:47 »
Ok cool, I'll ignore that negative.

Martial artist page 93 of the companion has a sixth negative trait too.  Is there a loophole to the 10 percent  Of xp rule when using the point buy system?
not really, Granted GM's can always choose to allow more negatives that the standard char creation rules specify.... but that's an individual gm/house exception

Stallion12

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #83 on: 11 August 2016, 13:03:36 »
Ah, So those are typos then?

Acolyte

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #84 on: 12 August 2016, 01:54:12 »
There is a loophole for the 10% negative xp, but only if you use the Life Path system. The Negative traits gained during the lifepath don't count towards that limit.

   - Shane
It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion
It is by the coffee that my thoughts acquire speed
My teeth acquire stains
The stains become a warning
It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion.

monbvol

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #85 on: 12 August 2016, 11:35:50 »
It should also be noted you can have more negative traits than the 10%, you just don't get the extra XP for them, even in point buy.

Stallion12

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #86 on: 13 August 2016, 01:51:26 »
I thought I read there are traits you can't get after character creation through xp, but I can't find it, a player needs to know because he would take them, which ones are they, or was it skills?

guardiandashi

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #87 on: 13 August 2016, 10:04:26 »
I thought I read there are traits you can't get after character creation through xp, but I can't find it, a player needs to know because he would take them, which ones are they, or was it skills?
well for the clans you can't really get a bloodright after creation because it has to do with your genetic heritage. for instance.
I believe the IS nobility is similar, with the consideration that there are mechanisms to allow "common" people to gain noble ranks but the odds of them being used are somewhere between slim and none.

Stallion12

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #88 on: 13 August 2016, 16:54:27 »
What can appraisal be used for? Is it just art related stuff? It mentions use the appropriate technical skill for electronic stuff. I ask because my brother asked me why techs get it when they already get the ability for tech related stuff.

monbvol

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Re: Just getting into it.
« Reply #89 on: 13 August 2016, 17:14:09 »
As far as traits that cannot be gotten after character creation the only real sticklers are actually Phenotype and Trueborn.  All others you can gain through role play as far as I can tell.  A noble can always leverage themselves into a better position, a Clanner can gain more glory and honor for their bloodline, and yes the odd occasion of regular people being promoted to noble status.

Appraisal is for evaluation of stuff.  Yes it would most likely come up for determining the value of art work and precious objects but it can also be used to appraise battle damage to help determine man hours and costs of repairs.  A little imagination and it can be a very useful skill.

 

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