Author Topic: Monbvol's House rule emporium  (Read 94324 times)

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #270 on: 24 December 2013, 11:54:54 »
Still working out the XP rewards but I figure I can share the first bit of fluff I'm reasonably happy with:
[sub-affiliation]
Toxic Waste Land
XP TBD

Your world is a difficult world to survive on.  Whether it is from some ancient conflict unleashing nuclear weapons, biological agents, chemical agents, chucking rocks from on high, or just the natural state of your world going outside without some sort of protective gear is ill advised.  As one of the "lucky" survivors of your world's hazards this has given you both a curse and blessing.

[/sub-affiliation]

I'm thinking of keeping the XP costs around 100 total for both the major/minor choice.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #271 on: 31 January 2014, 23:59:41 »
Well since there has been no feed back on my previous project I've switched gears yet again.  This time I realized in all the time I've been playing World of Tanks there was some fodder in there to use as inspiration for more SPAs for AToW.  I'm still not 100% on a couple so feel free to comment about tweaks/adjustments.

Name: Safe Storage
Type: Misc
Cost: 150XP
Requirements: Tech Empathy, Technician/Mechanic 4+, Edge 6+
Effect: On any critical hit that results in an explosive ammunition critical, re-roll.  If the second roll still results in an explosive ammunition critical the second roll stands and the critical behaves normally.

Name: Preventative Maintenance
Type: Misc
Cost: 100 XP
Requirements: Tech Empathy, Technician/Mechanic 4+, Edge 6+
Effect: On any critical that results in a fuel critical, re-roll.  If the secon roll still results in a fuel critical the second roll stands and the critical behaves normally.

Name: Recon
Type: Misc
Cost: 100 XP
Requirements: Natural Aptitude-Perception, Perception 4+, Intelligence 4+
Effect: Gain the effects of an Active Probe out to 60m, if unit has an Active Probe or similar ability increase range by 60m.

Name: Smooth Driving
Type: Piloting/Driving(ground units only)
Cost: 150 XP
Requirements: Natural Aptitude-Driving/Piloting, Driving/Piloting 4+, Dex 6+
Effect: Reduce Attacker Movement Modifier for Walking, Running, Cruising, or Flank movement modes by 1.

Name: Off Road Master
Type: Piloting/Driving(ground units only)
Cost: 50 XP
Requirements: Speed Demon SPA
Effect: Reduce MP to enter a non-paved/prepared hex by 1 to a minimum of 1.

Name: Dead Eye
Type: Gunnery
Cost: 50 XP
Requirements: Marksman SPA
Effect: Gain a +1 to all rolls for determining Critical hits.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #272 on: 29 September 2015, 18:35:45 »
Okay I have tinkered around with some things but I still need to update/change a few things in the main document for my house rules.

But while I finish that up I figure I'll announce that I've done away with the age based adjustment to the XP cost of attributes.  As much as I like the idea I've decided it was just a tad too much.  I have also finally figured out a way to handle Vehicle that I like.  Vehicle is now a subcategory of Status and a 1-5 range with 0 being no Vehicle awarded.  You add your Vehicle subcategory to a 2d6 roll to determine the weight class of your mech.  The table has replaced the Custom Vehicle section on my additional tables spreadsheet.  I'll repeat the table below after my next announcement.  My last but probably most important announcement is I went and updated the Field Manual Mercenaries tables for AToW with some tweaks for personal taste to help reward higher levels of certain traits.  You can find these tables here.  If you know how to set print ranges it is well organized to print to three 8.5"x11" sheets.  Let me know if the comments are not clear enough.

Anyway the Vehicle table:
3: Dispossessed
4: Dispossessed
5: Light
6: Light
7: Light
8: Medium
9: Medium
10: Medium
11: Heavy
12: Assault
13: Heavy
14: Medium
15: Medium
16: UltraLight
17: Super Heavy/Assault

Okay main document has been updated.  Link is in first post.  Or at least should be.  If there are still LAM house rules then let me know as I've redacted those until we get a final presentation of LAM rules in IO.
« Last Edit: 01 October 2015, 22:58:17 by monbvol »

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #273 on: 01 October 2015, 11:02:36 »
Also feel free to say that you'd rather have me reorganize the tables so each major section is on it's own tab so you don't have to define print ranges.

Some other thoughts I've toyed with while this thread has been dormant but I guess I could share now that I've resurrected it:

Returning Gunnery to the Gunnery/Ballistic, Gunnery/Energy, and Gunnery Missile paradigm.  I am not entirely sure about it as there may be enough differences in control inputs to keep at least some of the mess we have now and while I can still split hairs well enough to maintain the same skill specializations and SPAs for Gunnery/Energy, I'm not so sure I can do so for Gunnery/Ballistic and Gunnery/Missile without getting really fine on splitting hairs.

Likewise I've been contemplating changing the Driving and Piloting skills to be more unique to the motive type.  This one while I like it may cause too many problems to ensure your character is assigned to something they can reasonably drive/pilot, especially if you have to roll on the RATs.

Liam's Ghost proposed that a skill cannot be higher than it's lowest link attribute and removing the link attribute modifiers.  I have to admit this may be more of a product of the group I game with and how their characters are always so cookie cutter but I like it and I will probably try it out a couple times before adding it to my main document.

As always feel free to give feedback.  It has caused me to change my mind and alter/refine some of my ideas in the past.

Maelwys

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #274 on: 01 October 2015, 12:40:10 »
Hmm. I'm not sure about the new vehicle rule. Even at a +5, on an average roll (7) you're getting a heavy. Sure, you're close to getting that assault, but its not guaranteed. Paying 500 and winding up with a light, while unlikely, couple be kind of a pain in the ass for the player.

Of course, such a thing might be more fitting with your game :)

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #275 on: 01 October 2015, 22:50:31 »
Valid point.  To me I think there should still be a chance for a Light mech even investing 5 points but since I'm making Vehicle a subset of my Status trait and really don't have a reason not to make it a subset of Connections as well it isn't like I'm asking for 500 XP to be spent on something completely worthless if it does go wrong and I think I will go ahead and re-adjust the table so Assault Mech occupies the 7+5 spot.  Though back to my point about not wasting too much XP: 400 XP in Status, which is what I'd consider minimum for a Mechwarrior, would let you put 5 points towards Vehicle and still have 1 left over.  So not a terrible deal all in all.  This all comes back around to my idea that even having a Mech means you have built up some sort of even minimal support structure around yourself and thus have some sort of Status for it.  Note though that I'm not demanding it be Status/Military.  I'm perfectly willing for it to be Status/Criminal and the character is part of a pirate band.  Or any other Status you can think of as long as I buy the story/concept.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #276 on: 01 October 2015, 22:57:56 »
Okay modified the table.  I reduced the possibility of a Light to the 2+5 result so I think it should be sufficiently rare now to not be a problem.  I did have an additional thought in realizing that some people actually like UltraLight or even PAL/Exoskeletons and I didn't have a good place for that on my chart.  So I just replaced the 11+5 spot with UtlraLight but may put some PAL entries lower down to represent they are more common among BattleArmor.  Feel free to give some feedback about where I should put those for BattleArmor as I'm still somewhat debating that.
« Last Edit: 01 October 2015, 23:01:47 by monbvol »

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #277 on: 26 June 2016, 19:25:33 »
Okay I know it has been a while since I've posted to this but I've been kicking around a lot of things lately and realized I haven't actually uploaded a new main document to my mediafire for people to review/comment on.  Link is in the first post of this thread

So the short version of my changes and not in order:
  • Added a few more headers to help separate out some of the sections to hopefully make it a little clearer what each section is about.
  • Added some better descriptors to some sections and giving some heads ups here and there about certain changes.
  • Decided my aging rules were too detailed/complicated so I went with something simpler so be sure to download the document and let me know what you think.
  • Ditched my more advanced botch/MoS XP gain rules as I decided as much as I like them it just creates another thing to keep track of during game.
  • I am still working on the final numbers of how I want attribute progression to go.  So be aware that that section does kind of end abruptly.
  • Added a section for how I want to work field training for Stage 3 versus how it is currently handled.  I like the numbers I have and I'll have to think about how to integrate all that information in a reasonable way but beware it is currently in a supporting document that I don't think I uploaded to my mediafire yet.  I might just upload it as a supporting document(actually two) and revise my main document to include a line referencing it unless I come up with a better idea.
  • Decided I never did like that players did have to see a trainer to increase a Complex Advanced skill so decided it should obey the same rules of pay double or see a trainer.
  • Decided to go more along the lines of MW3E because it just makes too much sense that gunnery inputs would be a fairly easy thing to get used to going from unit to unit and that it just makes more sense to base skills around the flight properties of the weapons instead.  Because this can futz with some of the easy specializations we have now I decided to be nice and give some example specializations I'd be okay with as GM for each and highly suggest perhaps each skill should be specialized to a desired unit type, especially when gained from a field.
  • Made a few alterations to some revised traits because of other revisions(Fast and Slow Learner in particular).
  • Decided to let Natural Aptitudes be limited by base Edge instead of Edge Modifier +1.

Some other things I'm still tossing around:
  • I'm heavily debating the link attribute modifier issue since especially among my group it makes for fairly predictable characters.  Leading thought is no skill should be higher than it's lowest linked attribute or Intelligence if Intelligence is lower and do away with the link attribute modifier completely.  Let me know what you think of that.
  • Likewise I'm debating the whole Status sub-category thing and how many points should be available and if it really should be so customizable, especially since I think if you've got a vehicle that automatically implies some sort of status.  I do like the concept in general, especially for a neo-fudalistic society like that portrayed in Battletech but I want to make things simpler.
  • While I am okay with a certain amount of front loading stuff during character creation I do want to see what I can do to make it easier and faster but also make it easier to adjudicate various elements when they come up once play starts.
  • On that note I could use some ideas for how to handle the Property trait.  I really like the idea that it doesn't have to strictly be a landhold or that you even have to be an outright noble to go past a certain point with it but to do that I basically need to kick the administration chart modifiers in the teeth, especially to help adjudicate certain aspects of what it should provide.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #278 on: 26 June 2016, 19:52:51 »
Just a quick update to let you all know I uploaded my Stage 3 and Alternate Fields documents.  Links on the first post of this thread.  The generic Stage 3 schools should be on their own tab towards the end with a bunch of Stage 3 schools(since I made every field have 5 skills I did change up some of the fields available to each school to make sure no skills got left out that you could have before, if I missed something be sure to check it isn't in a new field I added and if it isn't be sure to let me know, obviously feel free to add some new skill fields if you want, most should be able to add more as I left room for each school to have a good number) I added for my AU before them, each faction getting their own tab.  If you know how to define print ranges most of them will take two pages each with how I have them arranged.  Might take a few more if you don't.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #279 on: 26 June 2016, 23:03:09 »
Found some error and omissions for things I forgot I had changed elsewhere and earlier.

  • Equipped as a substat of Status and Connections now goes to 10 with a slightly altered progression to go with it.
  • Added entries about redundant skills of Artillery and Pilot/Battlearmor.
  • Because I got rid of my aging stuff I altered my additional tables file to take that into account by removing a lot of extra stuff that just wasn't needed.
  • Added some text for dealing with Vehicle.
  • Decided as much as I like the idea of non-linear attributes it was just too much of a hassle finding a progression that felt good and kept things reasonably affordable at the upper end.
  • Because I'm still grappling with what to do about my Status and Connections traits and their substats I removed the substat modifiers as well.
  • Feel like I'm forgetting some other stuff so be sure to look through both files carefully as there might be some other changes I forgot to mention here.


monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #280 on: 05 July 2016, 17:58:27 »
Another update after a ruling on a LAM question and officially committing to my revised link attribute modifier revision.

  • To prevent LAM weirdness and logic issues Aerospace can use all specialty ammunitions but only a few will actually provide any benefit and some of those will be reduced benefit.
  • As noted added the link attribute modifiers are radically changed.
  • Realized I hadn't added my AU specific rules about ammo count changes to all weapons.  Each ton will now never deal more than 120 points of damage.
  • Also(AU specific as well) combined and altered a couple specialty ammunitions while deciding I never really liked how sever the night fighting rules got.

Things should calm down now as the last outstanding things I'm thinking about are how to simplify my Status and Connections alterations or at least make sure they are giving enough points.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #281 on: 06 July 2016, 17:57:47 »
Okay good thing I went back and double checked my link to the document for the revised skill fields.  Wrong mediafire link got pasted.  Fixed now.  Again a little know how for defining print ranges should let you get everything printed up nice and neat.

With that straightened out and still largely undecided on if I should fiddle with my Connections and Status traits or not I'm going to see if I can focus a bit on something else I should have been working on a long time ago.  Step 1 is because there are always 5 skills in each field this kind of mucks with the Clan Stage 2 Sibko Modules.  Easy solution is to just keep the existing field skills of vanilla.  Also since my intention is to ensure every character actually pays for everything(thus my advice to GMs is to be okay with characters that may not have the same base XP pool to make sure everything works out the way you want or be aware some concepts are going cause XP drains) and thus there may need to be some case by case XP adjustments to various modules, especially for the Stage 1 and 2 modules.  Thus leading to my next grand project.  Writing my own Stage 1, 2, and 4 modules.  I'll be keeping them AU specific though so I don't supplant too much of AToW.  If I can get enough inspiration I'd also like to add unique random events that zero sum XP rewards to each individual module.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #282 on: 12 August 2016, 22:46:46 »
Okay Stage 1 of my project is reasonably complete and hopefully actually being reviewed.

I find myself once again contemplating how to resolve Vehicle and Custom Vehicle.  More precisely while I like the randomness of my current method that ensures it won't be all Assaults all the time, at least if dice are behaving in a reasonable manner, I do realize I need to allow for greater control for the player in deciding what they start with and well my current system doesn't do that very well.

I see three ways to handle it.

1.  Just use the vanilla methodology modified.  Vehicle would still be a subcategory of Connections and Status but would follow the normal 1-10 progression.  This would certainly require me to put more points into Connections and Status*.

2.  Just stick with how I have it now.  Might still have to bump points for Connections and Status but it wouldn't be too much.

3.  Return to an earlier idea I had a while back where Vehicle rating is a column indicator(but as a trait would still be a subcategory of Status and Connections) on a RAT that doesn't have each column entirely sorted by weight(going farther to the right doesn't always mean all the entries will be heavier than the column to their left with some tables not even having all options).  This would require me to create 90 RATs for each era(8 factions plus one generic/mercenary/pirate times 10 columns).  So not super keen on this one but it may actually prove the most practical in the end.

*I've also been thinking about the point totals for customizing the subcategories of Connections and Status as well lately.  I am considering upping the point totals for customizing of the subcategories no matter which way I go.  To a certain extent I don't mind the totals being a bit low as I think you could compensate for it by relying on issued equipment more, which I would probably have to reword the Status trait description to be more accepting of the idea of issued gear that exceeds the Legality, Availability, and Tech codes of what the player invested to with their Status trait.

Another random thought I had a couple days ago:

 I was considering how there seems to be little incentive to put much XP into Language skills.  I can think of ways to at least partially penalize players for not putting much into Language but even then there just seems to be no real reason to put a whole lot into Language.  Just not able to think of things to make having high levels of Language worthwhile without being a huge ****** about it.

PurpleDragon

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #283 on: 13 August 2016, 02:35:23 »
Okay Stage 1 of my project is reasonably complete and hopefully actually being reviewed.

I find myself once again contemplating how to resolve Vehicle and Custom Vehicle.  More precisely while I like the randomness of my current method that ensures it won't be all Assaults all the time, at least if dice are behaving in a reasonable manner, I do realize I need to allow for greater control for the player in deciding what they start with and well my current system doesn't do that very well.

I see three ways to handle it.

1.  Just use the vanilla methodology modified.  Vehicle would still be a subcategory of Connections and Status but would follow the normal 1-10 progression.  This would certainly require me to put more points into Connections and Status*.

2.  Just stick with how I have it now.  Might still have to bump points for Connections and Status but it wouldn't be too much.

3.  Return to an earlier idea I had a while back where Vehicle rating is a column indicator(but as a trait would still be a subcategory of Status and Connections) on a RAT that doesn't have each column entirely sorted by weight(going farther to the right doesn't always mean all the entries will be heavier than the column to their left with some tables not even having all options).  This would require me to create 90 RATs for each era(8 factions plus one generic/mercenary/pirate times 10 columns).  So not super keen on this one but it may actually prove the most practical in the end.

*I've also been thinking about the point totals for customizing the subcategories of Connections and Status as well lately.  I am considering upping the point totals for customizing of the subcategories no matter which way I go.  To a certain extent I don't mind the totals being a bit low as I think you could compensate for it by relying on issued equipment more, which I would probably have to reword the Status trait description to be more accepting of the idea of issued gear that exceeds the Legality, Availability, and Tech codes of what the player invested to with their Status trait.

Another random thought I had a couple days ago:

 I was considering how there seems to be little incentive to put much XP into Language skills.  I can think of ways to at least partially penalize players for not putting much into Language but even then there just seems to be no real reason to put a whole lot into Language.  Just not able to think of things to make having high levels of Language worthwhile without being a huge ****** about it.

for the vehicle assignment thing, if you have a mechwarrior 1st ed, your assignment was to weight class with plusses for putting points into it or something.  The chart was not completely linear.  You might have it further set where the number of vehicle levels (xp/100) would give extra rolls on said chart in an attempt to get the weight desired for the 'mech wanted. 

I have been struggling with the languages thing as well.  I am bi-lingual and learned my second language only after I was an "adult".  I came up with something like skill level =

1: very basic speech only can ask for emergencies (police, hospital,...) and obtain the very basic necessities (food, drink) but nothing much more.
2: basic conversational speech; can understand conversations and communicate ideas.  Some reading/writing skill may be possible (GM decision; campaign oriented). 
3: Basic conversational speech; can understand conversations and communicate ideas.  Some reading/writing skill is possible if the above is not implemented.  Common Street Slang may be understood here.
4: "High School" level speech with reading/writing skills to match. 
5: "College" level speech with reading/writing skills to match.
6: good understanding of doublespeak. 
7: legalese.

Of course, some of those might be too restrictive or lenient.  feel free to modify and use according to your desires. 
4:
give a man a fire, keep him warm for a night. 
Set him on fire, keep him warm for the rest of his life!

The secret to winning the land/air battle is that you must always remain rigidly flexible.

I like tabletop more anyway, computer games are for nerds!  -  Knallogfall

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #284 on: 13 August 2016, 10:45:21 »
The way AToW handles Vehicle as written is you can put 1-12(2 are for Owns Vehicle) points into it.  What you get for those 1-12 points does depend on what kind of Vehicle you want.  So if you put 10 points into it you could own your own Assault Mech.  Then you'd roll for your Assault Mech on the appropriate RAT unless you have Custom Vehicle.  This linear progression means in my group results of Vehicle are very predictable unless I use optional rules to restrict XP.

After creating a mercenary unit using Mercenary Supplement Revised I came up with my current methodology by borrowing the Mass table and saying Vehicle rating is your bonus to the roll on that table.  I still grapple with this methodology because it does make results less predictable but because there is no control on the player's part so it can be a bit unsatisfying.

My original methodology I described in my last post and as stated may ultimately be the best methodology available to me.  Heck I'm pretty sure that I still have an out of date RAT linked in the first post of this thread(I've since redone the naming conventions on almost all my AU mechs) that shows what I'm talking about.

As far as Language I took three years of Japanese in high school so yeah it is an interesting grapple as I can think of things to do for certain levels of Language being a problem but I still largely feel like I'd be purposefully contriving things to punish my players.

One of my more interesting thoughts on the matter is Negotiation is a very Language dependent, to the point I'm wondering if there is really sufficient justification for it to not be a function of the Language skill.

Though I've realized I could post a link to what I've gotten done so far for my alternate modules, including affiliation data.  I'll warn that I let my language and implications get a bit colorful and potentially unpleasant in some of the random event roll descriptions.  While I don't think it actually gets that rough, just enough that a warning on my part is in order.

Link redacted due to new personal policy.
« Last Edit: 24 December 2016, 23:30:31 by monbvol »

PurpleDragon

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #285 on: 13 August 2016, 18:22:54 »
I understand what you are saying about the language thing.  I don't really see it as "hosing" the players over.  I see it more like putting it on par with the other skills in the game.  Characters are not really consider good with a skill until about skill level 3 and they aren't considered masters with it until about 5 or 6.  This would also put a damper on some of those players that just want to go around being able to speak any language in the game. 

I agree with the language used for negotiations comment.  It is also a big part of interrogations.  Maybe it could be done something like with D&D where some skills give a synergy bonus to others. 

I don't think I was clear about the 'mech weight comment.  I understand how it works in AToW.  I was just trying to offer an alternative according to what I had read in the post I quoted.  I'm sorry if I misunderstood something. 
give a man a fire, keep him warm for a night. 
Set him on fire, keep him warm for the rest of his life!

The secret to winning the land/air battle is that you must always remain rigidly flexible.

I like tabletop more anyway, computer games are for nerds!  -  Knallogfall

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #286 on: 13 August 2016, 19:32:29 »
I probably didn't quite catch what you were trying to say either.  Still catching up on my sleep after getting a short notice overnight bit of work.

But yeah Language, I'm sorely tempted to have it cover Negotiation and Interrogation.  They both cover a lot of the same principles in my mind and it would give Language some actual specializations, something else that I have been having trouble figuring out for Language.

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #287 on: 16 August 2016, 13:57:32 »
Something I realized only today is with my stance of no more link attribute modifiers is that it makes some of my new out of the cockpit/combat special abilities not work entirely correctly.

Worry not for I've figured out a fix, one that even allows the attribute modifiers to still exist and matter.  I'll be re-working the affected special abilities so that they allow the attribute modifier to apply and create new ones so each attribute can gain the same benefit.

This also lead me to realize that there is also a better alternative to untrained skills.  Roll using the link attribute modifier against the skill target number.

Also with the loss of link attribute modifiers tiered skills also become a bit complicated but my easy solution is to just use the most advanced form of the skill and be done with it.

This also means I'm going to have to revise some of my just recently written modules.

I've also realized I'm going to have to revisit my gestalt rules.  They are massively out of date and I'd like to simplify them a bit.  It'll probably take me a bit to figure these out but the rest should be updated.

As usual links should be in the first post of the thread.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #288 on: 16 August 2016, 21:38:52 »
Found a few items where the latest changes were still not fully implemented in the main document and did find that I forgot to update my alternate field list.

I've also decided Survival should not get any sub skills as the principles of survival are similar enough that any differences I feel are more in the realm of skill specialization.

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #289 on: 26 October 2016, 18:34:12 »
Okay I've been dragging this out long enough.

I've just not been able to come up with any good ideas about Stage 2 Modules and I'm starting to feel like I'm starting to step a bit too far over the line for what should be permissible of fan rules as well.

So I'm shelving any further public sharing of new modules, at least when I do get back to writing them, and will just be sticking to revising my existing house rules if my group ever decides they want to give them a whirl and we find things that don't work.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #290 on: 24 December 2016, 23:34:52 »
Removed the link to my Affiliation and Module data document in compliance with my new policy of not going where I feel is too far.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #291 on: 30 December 2016, 01:13:24 »
I doubt there are many people left keeping tabs on this but I think I just figured out how to finalize how to handle vehicle.

One of the things I've struggled with was finding a way to ensure Vehicle wasn't more=bigger with the kind of certainty that the vanilla system had, especially since some of my players had to be coerced into not taking all assault mechs all the time via various methods but every alternate method I came up with removed player agency to a degree that never sat well with me.

Thanks to a tangent of thought I realized I could incorporate player agency into a trait that already offers some when it comes to their Vehicle, Custom Vehicle.  I still need to work out the exact mechanics, especially to keep it reasonably simple, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.

Beta version floating around my head:

Each point gives the player another bit of control.

For instance 1 point lets the player dictate weight but they still have to roll on an appropriate RAT.

Or they can randomly roll weight then select from the appropriate RAT.

Or they can change to another RAT and roll for both weight and specific unit.

Or the can apply up to a Class D refit on what they roll.

Might cut it down to a 5 point maximum trait since I can't think of a way to get to 5 points without it being a bit of a waste.

So if they want a specific Light Mech from their affiliation they'd need to spend 2 on Custom Vehicle(1 for ensuring it will be a Light, 1 to choose from their affiliation's RAT).

Alternate example player Bob wants his character to have an Assault mech that they salvaged in their earlier career but at the time they didn't have the spare parts to get it back to original configuration so the techs worked their magic.  This will cost player Bob 4 Custom Vehicle points.  1 for it to be an Assault Mech, 1 to change affiliation RAT, 1 to choose specific design from that RAT, and 1 to apply up to a Class D refit.

I might go with that.  It just looks more complicated than I think it will be when put into action.

Daryk

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #292 on: 30 December 2016, 15:35:19 »
Reading back through a bit, one way to link Language skills to Negotiation and Interrogation is to limit both of the latter to a maximum of the level of the Language they're conducted in.  Heck, you could apply that to all CHA based skills (Acting, Disguise (if speaking is involved), Interrogation, Leadership, Negotiation, Protocol, Streetwise, and Training).  That could drive your "face" characters to share the load more evenly, and make everyone in a leadership role work harder for it.

PurpleDragon

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #293 on: 30 December 2016, 15:55:16 »
Reading back through a bit, one way to link Language skills to Negotiation and Interrogation is to limit both of the latter to a maximum of the level of the Language they're conducted in.  Heck, you could apply that to all CHA based skills (Acting, Disguise (if speaking is involved), Interrogation, Leadership, Negotiation, Protocol, Streetwise, and Training).  That could drive your "face" characters to share the load more evenly, and make everyone in a leadership role work harder for it.

This sounds like a good idea and I may implement it in any future games I might run. 
give a man a fire, keep him warm for a night. 
Set him on fire, keep him warm for the rest of his life!

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monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #294 on: 30 December 2016, 22:10:16 »
It is a tricky thing.  Language to me does cover things like expressing yourself and understanding what is being expressed to you.  Like picking up on a white lie or particular wording to evade answering a question or knowing what inflections to put on your words to inspire your troops and clearly communicate your desired tactics in battle.

Of all the skills talked about Language is certainly a key limiter of what can be accomplished and I'll admit that's where I'm having the most trouble because it just feels like if I limit those skills by the level of Language it becomes dangerously close to being a skill specialization instead.

But the food for thought you're giving me does make me realize they probably do need to still be separate skills because I haven't really properly thought about cases where a character has more than one language and the mess having these skills as specializations instead of stand alone would create and the fact that I'd almost certainly have to house rule having more than one specialization per skill being possible.

Daryk

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #295 on: 31 December 2016, 06:34:33 »
If you do go the specialization route, I recommend grouping the languages.  Figuring out another language that at least uses the same alphabet as one you already know is significantly easier, and that difficulty pales in comparison to switching from a non-tonal language to a tonal one.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #296 on: 01 January 2017, 02:33:56 »
Well it is in thinking about stuff like that where I am forcing myself to change my mind a bit and keep the skills as stand alone skills moving forward.

idea weenie

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #297 on: 18 March 2017, 18:09:25 »
Apologies for the necro, had a thought for LB-X pellets to make it a lower need for rolling locations:

The LB-X shot rolls normally on the cluster table to determine how many pellets hit the target.  From there, you divide it into 4 pt groups, similar to LRMs.  You then roll for the location.

On a Mech the damage is applied in the following order:
1st point) that location
2nd point) 1 section 'inwards' on the damage transfer diagram
3rd point) 1 section 'outwards' of the original hit location
If there are additional pts of damage remaining, go back to the 1st and repeat.

So a standard 4 pt hit on the left torso would apply 1 pt to the Left torso (this is also the only one that would get the potential for a through-armor crit), 1 pt to the center torso, 1 pt to the left arm, and the 4th pt to the left torso.  If it is a hit on the leg, the first point damages the leg, the second hits the center torso, but the third has no 'outside' to go to.  The damage starts back at the top by doing 1 pt of damage to the leg, and the 4th pellet does 1 pt to the center torso.  (IIRC, excess damage to legs goes to the center torso instead of the side torso.)

(You would still get to roll normally on the crit table if the location has no armor.)

You would get fewer crits (approx 1/4), but the faster damage allocation means less need for a box-o-dice.

For vehicles, I'd want to make it where if a location receives 2+ pts of damage from pellet clusters it would roll for crits.  So if the last cluster of pellets is only 1-2 pts, it will not cause a crit roll.  The pellet clusters of 3-4 pellets will cause 1-2 crit rolls.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #298 on: 18 March 2017, 18:46:31 »
No worries.  I have been thinking about ACs a lot lately again so this isn't an entirely unwelcome bit of food for thought for my own recent ponderings.

My latest thoughts though to be honest have been more focused around the ideas of reducing the number of ACs in the game and perhaps giving each remaining AC some individual flavor.

Like the AC-5 gets a bit of range, loses minimum range, loses even more weight, and becomes a bit smaller crit wise but is now the only AC to do it's damage in a single grouping.

AC-10 just loses a bit more weight and a few more crits but rolls on the 5 column of the cluster hit table and applies that many 2 point damage clusters.

AC-20 would follow the pattern established so far and roll on the 20 column of the cluster table and apply that many 1 point damage clusters.

No more AC-2, no more LB-Xs, and no more Ultras.  Might consider some second or even third generation versions that give a bit more range or other benefits but I'm not sure what forms those would take.

Of course it's also started me thinking about other more widespread changes.  But without easy/good ways to implement them I've been keeping from sharing.

monbvol

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Re: Monbvol's House rule emporium
« Reply #299 on: 16 April 2017, 02:47:11 »
I've actually had something of a revelation.

Not a particularly helpful one but a revelation nonetheless.

I've realized a big part of why I've never been satisfied with the Vehicle(and by extension Custom Vehicle) trait is because there has been no consistent system in the game for determining Vehicles.

Add in I'll admit I'm probably not giving the player enough agency/control over what they wind up with and I think it does explain why these two traits in particular keep nagging at me.

I'm stuck on not being able to consider them stand alone traits, especially now that I'm having thoughts about players being able to borrow/arrange a temporary Vehicle from a Connection.

With inconsistent formatting of the Random Allocation Tables over the years and the distancing from the C-Bill I am wondering if I'll ever be able to figure out a methodology that will work in any era and still give the player some measure of control over what they end up with.

I'm also going to try and focus on my Gestalt rules.  They are a tad complicated right now and I'll admit part of them probably always will be, mostly just to help determine the weight of the Gestalt and having a limit of how much stuff you can put on it.  My main thought is for determining what capabilities it has streamline the XP opportunity costs a bit by making it more consistent/in line with just generating a normal character and streamlining most of the weight and costs by using the equipment lists but as previously noted I need to have some sort of balance mechanic and some inherent opportunity costs both in terms of base XP and weight for even being a Gestalt character.

 

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