Monbvol's House rule emporium

[monbvol]

So in trying to figure out some things for going from AToW to possibly ISaW I am finding the garrison section really unhelpful with what it implies for how much garrisons can vary and thus how much it implies a world has to produce in terms of RP to support itself.

It is quickly looking like another thing I may have to just kick in the teeth and establish more consistent and usable starting point for.

[idea weenie]

Had a thought about making autocannons more effective, based on MWO videos of autocannon fire making the target Mech's operator have to deal with the flashes and noise:

Autocannon damage taken to the front torso or head location, quartered (FRD), is the gunnery penalty for the next turn.

So AC/2 firing at an enemy Mech does no trouble.

A single AC/5 shot will cause the affected Mech to have a 1 pt Gunnery penalty for the next turn only

A single AC/10 shot will cause a 2-pt penalty for next turn only

A single AC/20 shot will cause a 5 pt penalty.

Makes a RAC/5 fairly nasty as if you can get 4 shots hitting the target, they have a 5 pt penalty for the next turn.

I went with next turn penalties since all fire in BT is simultaneous, so affecting this turn wouldn't make sense.  By making it only affect one turn, it encourages autocannon equipped Mechs to hit hard and keep hitting hard when they are shooting.  Depending on the range/capability, taking a targeting penalty limit hits the Punch table would be worthwhile.

[monbvol]

I don't know about that for entering my house rules.  Not a fan of adding extra special conditions that will come up that often.

[Daryk]

And now a revised event table.  Political events wound up being a bit cluttered again anyway despite expanding to 3d6.  Maybe shifting some results around to make No event! more likely will have to do.

Finally had a chance to look over the new table... much better than the last one!  I like the "spin doctor" results, but it strikes me those should have lingering effects, and the potential to die/retire, thus imposing a lingering penalty for a few turns on the other end of the table...

[monbvol]

To an extent that is me trying to keep them brief enough that I can get the tables printed out, the rest is me trying to keep it so the effects work the same no matter how often the Property Administration roll is made despite me making it a lot easier on myself having events only be rolled for once a year.

I am thinking about doing more expanded descriptions in another supporting document and maybe address some of the lingering effects as a GM philosophy guideline more than hard mechanics as a compromise.

[monbvol]

Okay made the adjustment to my Property event tables I was talking about to make No event! results statistically more likely for Political events but I did notice I could do the same for Disasters.  Military I think is fine for that.  I know it forced me to put negative event rolls at the higher numbers but I think it will work out in the end because of statistical probabilities.

I'll try and get the expanded event descriptions worked out and the GM philosophy section written up.

Though another discussion did get me to think about re-working my old Aging trait and gave me an idea how to implement it while being very simple.  It'd just be a direct roll modifier for my simplified aging adjustments or perhaps as a modifier as to when to start applying modifiers.  Since there are direct fluff quotes about Terrans living to be over 100 years old and often waiting into their 70's to have kids I think this could work out pretty well either way and I really should come up with actual rules on this, at least as a starting framework.

Also it is making me go back through my master document and I noticed there were some things I could just plain take out so I'll probably get a revised version on my mediafire account here soon(link in OP).  Also incorporating my Status Quirks and looking for other updates/revisions I need to make before I do so.  Probably have a few I need to do.  Still going to hold off on incorporating my Property revisions until I get a better sense of where I need the garrison budget to be and what is a reasonable budget for each Property rank.

[monbvol]

I think I've corrected everything that needed correcting and did find a couple other things I could adjust.  Hell if I can remember them all now.  I will hold off uploading until certain things are resolved for Campaign Operations, salaries, and I get a better idea of what an appropriate garrison is for each rank of Property.  Once those are all resolved one way or another I will go ahead and slide in the Property revisions.

What I remember:
-I decided to add a foreword to the reader.
-Fixed some skill advancement issues where I was basically doing what AToW was doing already and not realizing it
-Which made me have to make some adjustments to Fast Learner and Slow Learner.
-Came up with three more Status Quirks.  While some might appear to be contradictory I'm not convinced they need to be.
-Added some preliminary Aging roll modifiers frameworks while I still ponder if I want to put Aging back in and if I do how I want it to work.

Some things I am considering:
-My latest addition/revision for Aging modifier is set to apply a -1 for each 10 years or fraction thereof above 50 with Unlucky kicking in and modifiers for appropriate compulsions, injuries, and events being suggested.  Currently thinking Aging should modify the 10 years bit.  So Aging -5 would be a -1 for every 5 years or fraction thereof and Aging 5 would be -1 for every 15 years or fraction thereof.
-Seriously considering adding points to Connections and Status for having a Reputation trait.
-Figuring out a better way to add some descriptive text to my Status Quirks and Property Quirks.

Anyway I'll go ahead and paste the entire thing into a quote block for now.

Foreword:

The main intent of these house rules is to make certain elements of A Time of War more sensible or logical.  Sometimes it will make the mechanics simpler and easier to use in game, other times it will make things more complicated and force Gms and players to have to make certain decisions and perhaps more of them.  I will make what efforts I can for these to be frameworks to build from or discard as you see fit as the first rule is to have fun, not get too mired down in details and complexity.

As such expect some GM/gaming philosophy sections to pop up where I talk about things.  Also certain elements of these rules revisions/additions I put in supporting spreadsheet documents and may not make sense without said spreadsheets.

Rules adjustments:

Link Attribute modifiers and skill limitation revisions:

Attributes no longer provide direct bonuses to skills without Special Abilities.  Furthermore increasing a skill rank higher than the lowest linked attribute increases XP cost by one factor.  Characters are assumed to have trainers during character creation for purposes of determining this modified XP cost.  As such at character creation increasing a skill beyond this limit would cost double while a complex advanced skill without a trainer would cost triple XP.

Suppressing Fire Combat Action Revision:

Since the current rules only consider what happens to the inhabitants of the hexes/area actually being suppressed and make no mention of what happens if using an attack type such as bullets or lasers and someone getting between the character using suppressing fire and the target hexes to cover this rule oversight if a character enters a hex/area that falls along the firing line of hexes/area being suppressed and no mitigating factor is involved(such as the firer being at a higher elevation, trenchworks/alternate paths exist to go over or under the area in question, or the firer using a weapon type capable of suppressing fire but requires a trajectory that leaves a safe zone for characters to enter ) roll a single attribute Edge roll with current Edge and apply a -1 for every 15 meters or fraction thereof to be crossed and apply a modifier  equal to the firer's Margin of Success.  Apply the Margin of Failure as though it were the firer's Margin of Success on a successful attack roll using the weapon that they are suppressing an area with up to a maximum number of rounds that are designated for each area suppressed.

Revised Spending Edge in Advance:

To help make spending Edge in advance a more attractive option the bonus per Edge point spent on a roll in advance increases by +1 for each additional point of Edge spent in advance.  So if a player spends 2 of their character's Edge in advance they would receive a +6 instead of the normal +4 on the appropriate roll.  If they spent 3 the total bonus would be +12 and so on.

Aging:

Instead of applying XP modifiers to attributes at certain age thresholds once a year a character makes a double attribute check pairing each of Strength, Body, Dexterity, Reflexes, Intelligence, Will, and Charisma with current Edge(not base).  Add the Margin of Success(or the Margin of Failure) to the non-Edge attribute in XP.  Modifiers and multipliers are up to the GM and are highly recommended.  Especially using the Unlucky trait.

As a starting framework for modifiers to this aging roll I suggest a base line modifier of -1 for every 10 years, or fraction thereof, over 50 years old.  Appropriate addiction compulsions should also provide a modifier equal to their rank.  Thus a Compulsion/Chemical Addition 2 would apply a -2 to these rolls.  If the character lost consciousness for any reason or took a lethal injury that needed surgery to repair apply a -1 to Body or Will.  Or both if you want.  A hit to the head? -1 to Intelligence and/or Will.  Spend a lof of time in lower or micro gravity? -1 to Strength and Body(this time I actually do recommend both instead of one or the other as the baseline).

Education/Training/Stage 3:

This section can be ignored completely if using unmodified Stage 3 modules.

A character instead spends a certain amount of time learning each field up to a maximum of 10 fields but not exceeding a maximum of 8 years.  All fields now have five skills each, each one receiving a certain amount of XP based upon how long was spent on training in that field.  Use the stage 2 modules as written with no changes unless desired.  For the sake of simplicity and consistency if you select two or more fields that have the same skill you still get the full rebate as listed on the additional tables document as well as the specified XP in the skill.  New additional specific to these house rules and my AU life modules will also be made available so that there are no adjustments necessary.

Skill revision:

It just makes too much sense to me that the gunnery control inputs would be similar enough between the units that skills should be largely interchangeable. So I've decided to go back to the MW3E of having Gunnery/Ballistic, Gunnery/Energy, and Gunnery/Missile as it makes more sense to instead divide based on flight characteristics of the weapon in question. It is highly recommended that Game Masters apply an automatic specialization to these Gunnery skills appropriate to the unit type the player wishes to primarily use, especially when gained from a training field.  Since this does muck with the existing easy specializations(and increasing the limit to two specializations for these skills only) some alternatives would be(coming up with your own is highly recommended):  It is also highly recommended to use negative design quirks related to accuracy to apply even further disadvantage.

Gunnery/Ballistic:
Direct(Standard Acs, LB-Xs, and Gauss rifles); Indirect(tube artillery, sawed off artillery); Rapid fire(Machine guns, UACs, RACs)

Gunnery/Energy:
Laser(duh); Particle(PPCs); Plasma(flamers and plasma rifles)

Gunnery/Missile:
Guided(LRMs, SRMs, ATMs); Unguided(MRMs, Rocket Launchers); Large(Arrow, Thunderbolt, Cruise missiles)

As you might imagine this has caused me to remove Artillery as a stand alone skill as one of the other gunnery skills can handle firing it and a Navigation/Ground with a Communications/Conventional check would be more appropriate for calling in the strike.

Likewise Piloting/Battlearmor I feel is sufficiently redundant as any task it would reasonably cover could be covered by Running, Climbing, or Swimming, or Acrobatics/Free Fall(on the basis of it also covering regular infantry jump packs) instead.

Negotiation , Interrogation, and Training are now limited by the Language skills of the character.  So even if you have more ranks in one or more of these three skills you can never add more than the bonus of the Language in which you are trying to use them in.

New Traits:

Exceptionally Bad/Good Attribute(s)[-10 to 10]
Character Trait

If by some blessing of chance or through modern science you can exceed the limitations of mere mortals.  For each positive trait point invested a character may adjust their attribute maximums by a combined total of +1 instead.  Attributes may not be increased beyond a maximum of 10 nor may any attribute receive greater than a +2 bonus to it's rank without GM  approval.

Conversely whether a scientist created you for some sick experiment or your family tree is a little trunk like you have gotten a poor lot in life.  For each negative rank of this trait an attribute is applied a -1 to it's maximum threshold.  No attribute may be reduced to less than a final threshold of 1.

All attributes start with a maximum threshold of 6 without this trait and may not be raised any further.

Intensive Training[2]
Character Trait

Between hard work, natural talent, and a well designed training program you have an easier time with a field of work.  This trait causes one of the Character's fields related skills to have their target number dropped by 1.  Character may only receive this trait once.

Status[-1 to 10]
Character Trait ID Based

Whether it is a position in a social, mega corporation, religious, or military organization this trait represents your character's current lot in life.  As such it is entirely possible for a character to have the Status trait multiple times with the same ID but within different organizations.  A non-exhaustive suggested list is Civilian, Criminal, Intelligence, and Military.  To represent what your character can call upon as part of their status in this organization the player may distribute a number of points to the same sub categories of Connections.  While this trait does not provide as much of a point pool as the Connections trait it has the advantage of not needing any rolls to tap but the GM is encouraged to exploit any inappropriate uses of the character's authority.  See the section on Connections for more information.  Only Equipped and Wealth may go into negatives

-1  Slave or other Ward of the State with restricted rights(prisoners/ex-cons).  -2 points.  Available for Civilian only.  May not possess Property, or Vehicle traits without Alternate ID or Status in another category.
0  Non citizen.  Reserved for scenarios where a character is traveling in a foreign nation.  If a character has no other Status trait they are entirely dependent on black market purchases for all but the most basic of goods.
1  Basic ordinary citizen or grunt.  Poor selection of equipment and little potential for earnings.  1 point.
2  Position of minimal importance.  3 points.
3  Low level supervisory position.  4 points.
4  A person of modest influence: Manager, Mechwarrior, Officer, Pilot, or Vehicle Commander.  6 points.
5  Really still the beginnings of power and authority but more than previous. 9 points.
6  Got a good number of people who'll do your bidding, control over sizable funds, or a good selection of gear available to you. 12 points.
7  Breaking into the upper ends of power.  15 points
8  Near enough to Nobility to not make a difference or someone of similar major importance.  19 points
9  In charge of large groups of people, land, or large corporations.  24 points.
10 Normal maximum unless over-ruled by GM whims.  Positions of great authority and respect.  29 points.

Status Quirks[1 to 5]

Bad Reputation Organization/Unit
Cost: 100 XP
Benefit: -1 Equipped(must be bought up to -1 via other quirks or via Status point pool) as bad reputations make it harder to get the good stuff, +1 People to represent the make the best of what you do have mentality, +1 Info as people are more willing to talk to your people, +2 Wealth because there is always something going on and you can have a cut.

Legacy(your family line is known to have performed well/featured heavily in your particular Status)
Cost: 100 XP
Benefit: +1 People because your family has made friends and friends make sure you have the best staff, +1 Equipped because they want you to have the best stuff too, and +1 Info because people are more likely to tell you stuff.

Officer(Plenty of ways it can apply beyond Status/Military)
Cost: 100 XP
Benefit: +1 People(which has no cap in my House Rules) to help represent you're in charge of something, +1 to Equipped(capped at 10 in my House Rules) because position is as important as wealth for getting a hold of stuff, and +1 Info(again no max in my House Rules) because you have a support structure that can help you find out things.

Pilot
Cost: 100 XP
Benefit: +1 People as you should have at least something of a technical crew, +1 Equipped because getting pilot gear isn't entirely easy, and +1 Vehicle(capped at 5 in my House Rules) because you're Piloting something.

Staffer
Cost: 100 XP
Benefit: -1 People as you are part of a higher up's staff(must be bought up to 0 via other Quirks or Status point pool), +1 Info as you have more direct access to information or at least a research team, +1 Equipped as you have to get things for your boss, +2 Wealth as you have access to an expense account.

Removed traits:

Equipped, Phenotype, Rank, Tech Empathy, Title, Trueborn, and Wealth have all been removed in favor of Exceptionally Bad/Good Attribute(s), Intensive Training, and Status as these traits better represent the game effects of the removed traits.  For module builds player may substitute Connections or Status for Equipped or Wealth, Intensive Training for Tech Empathy and Field Aptitude, Status for Bloodname, Citizenship, Rank, Title and Exceptionally Bad/Good Attribute(s) for Phenotype plus Trueborn at indicated values.

Fit is being incorporated in Toughness and thus for module build characters using unmodified modules may instead apply the appropriate XP to Toughness instead.

Attractive is being removed as what is Attractive varies in a subjective manner and it is so easy to acquire.  Certain things however seem to be nearly universally Unattractive: scars that didn't heal right, broken bones that were never set correctly, and other physical deformities.  As such Unattractive will be remaining.

Revised traits:

Connections[1 to 10]

These represent favors, access to gear, access to funds, and allies that are capable of going above and beyond what the character's normal position of authority allows.  Connections can be with entire organizations and may even include people already under a character's authority.  To represent the often varied nature of connections there are five sub categories available.  Equipped, Info, People, Vehicle and Wealth.  The player may distribute the pool of points as they see fit among these categories.  While there is no upward limit on People or Info there is on Wealth and Equipped.  It costs one point for each rank of Info, Wealth, People, Equipped, Vehicle, and Custom Vehicle.  Equipped and Wealth both have a maximum value of 10.  All other categories have no upper limit beyond the point limitations of the trait.  Vehicle has a maximum value of 5.  Vehicle may have a zero rating.  If a character needs a vehicle from their connection or requires one as part of their Status trait roll 2d6 and add the Vehicle value and consult the table in the supporting documentation.  For all other sub categories see A Time of War for what these sub categories do.

1:  3 points
2:  5 points
3:  8 points
4:  12 points
5:  17 points
6:  21 points
7:  25 points
8:  29 points
9:  33 points
10:  38 points

Fast Learner[2]

Doubles all downtime XP rewards and characters do not require trainers to avoid skill increase XP penalties but still pay double for raising any skill beyond lowest linked attribute.  No longer modifies XP to Rank conversions.

Gremlins[-2]

No longer modifies XP to skill rank conversions.  Otherwise unchanged.

Illiterate[-1]

No longer modifies XP to skill rank conversions.  Otherwise unchanged.

Natural Aptitude[2 or 4]
Character Trait

Complex skills cost 2 TP and Simple cost 4 TP.  A character may not have more natural aptitudes than base Edge.

Slow Learner[-2]

Halves all downtime XP gains and the character must see a trainer or pay double(triple in the case of an Advanced skill without a trainer or raising a Basic skill beyond lowest linked attribute, and quadruple if raising an Advanced skill beyond lowest linked attribute) XP instead of double when increasing a skill.  No longer modifies XP to skill rank conversions.

Toughness[3]

Instead of modifying damage Toughness instead adds a 25% bonus(round normally) to the character's health pool and 50%(round normally) to their Fatigue pool..

Custom Vehicle:

You must invest at least two points in Vehicle before you can invest in Custom Vehicle which is now a subcategory of Status or Connections.  As per normal you can spend one to change which RAT you roll on for your random unit or select from your faction's RAT.  Also as per normal to not roll on this new table requires a second point spent on Custom Vehicle.  You may spend a point to increase refit by one category(Field, Maintenance, Factory).  One point will let you select the mass of the unit without having to roll.  Or you can just spend all 5 to custom design a new unit but it will automatically have the Prototype design quirk.  Increase the Vehicle point requirement by 1 for each weight class of Vehicle desired when using Custom Vehicle to determine the weight category of the Vehicle without rolling(1 point for Light, 2 for medium, and so on).

New Special Abilities:

Note:  The limit for all Special Abilities is equal to the Character’s base Edge score and thus does not drop as Edge is spent.  For example if a character has an Edge of 4 then they may have 4 Special Abilities.  This also applies to the special pilot abilities found in A Time of War and A Time of War Companion.

Name: Athlete
Type: Personal Improvement
Cost: 10 XP
Requirements: Strength 7+

Effect: A character with this ability adds their Strength modifier to any trained skill checks that link to Strength.

Name: Clever Mind
Type: Personal Improvement
Cost: 10 XP
Requirements: Intelligence 7+

Effect: With this ability a character may add their Intelligence bonus to all trained skill checks that link to Intelligence.

Name: Conditioning
Type: Personal Improvement
Cost: 10 XP
Requirements: Body 7+

Effect: With this ability a character may add their Body modifier to any trained skill check that links to Body.

Name: Death of a Thousand Strikes
Type: Arcane Combat Arts
Cost: 50 XP
Requirements: Dex 6+; Martial Arts, Melee Weapons, or Thrown Weapons 4+

Effect: A character with this ability as a complex action may unleash a rapid flurry of attacks on their foe as a complex action.  Doing so allows the character to deal Strength divided by 4 rounded normally plus Weapon Damage plus Margin of Success damage as well as the defender having to make a Will check to avoid losing one of their simple actions.

Name: Fan of Blades
Type: Arcane Combat Arts
Cost: 50 XP
Requirements: Thrown Weapons +5, Death of a Thousand Strikes

Effect: A character with this ability can unleash a torrent of thrown weapons such that they can make use of the suppressing fire ability normally available only to automatic fire arms but may only target one hex while following all other rules of suppressing fire.

Name: Flexible
Type: Personal Improvement
Cost :10 XP
Requirements: Dexterity 7+

Effect: With this ability a character may add their Dexterity modifier to any trained skill check that links to Dexterity.

Name: Iron Body
Type: Arcane Combat Arts
Cost: 50 XP
Requirements: Toughness, Martial Arts 5+

Effect: A character with this ability gains +1 Melee armor even when not wearing any protective gear.

Name: Iron Fist
Type: Arcane Combat Arts
Cost: 50 XP
Requirements: Martial Arts 5+, Toughness, Iron Body

Benefit: Character gains 1M Armor Penetration for unarmed attacks.


Name: Iron Will
Type: Personal Improvement
Cost: 10 XP
Requirements : Will 7+

Effect: Character may add their Will bonus to any trained skill checks that link to Will.

Name: Lethal Techniques
Type: Arcane Combat Arts
Cost: 50 XP
Requirements: Martial Arts 6+, Natural Aptitude Martial Arts, Iron Fist

Effect:  Character as a complex action instead deals Lethal damage with Martial Arts attacks

Name: Lightening Reflexes
Type: Personal Improvement
Cost: 10 XP
Requirements: Reflexes 7+

Effect: For any trained skill check that links to Reflexes the character may apply their Reflexes modifier to the roll as a bonus.

Name: Master of Improvisation
Type: Personal Improvement
Cost: 50 XP
Requirements: Int 6+, Demolitions 4+, Science/Any 4+, Survival/Any 4+, and Tech/Any  4+

Effect: Character with this special ability ignores any modifiers for not having the correct tools for the job as long as they have something to improvise with.

Name: Muscle Memory
Type: Arcane Combat Arts
Cost: 10 XP
Requirements: Martial Arts or Melee Weapons Rank 4 or higher

Effect: A character with this ability receives a +1 initiative bonus when combating a foe with a lower Martial Arts or Melee Weapons score so long as the character is using Martial Arts or Melee Weapons to combat their foe.

Name: Power Thrower
Type: Arcane Combat Arts
Cost: 25 XP
Requirements: Strength 5+, Thrown Weapons 5+, Natural Aptitude Thrown Weapons

Effect: A character with this ability multiplies thrown weapon ranges by 1.5 rounding normally.

Name: Practical Experience
Type: Personal Improvement
Cost: 25 XP
Requirements: Clever Mind

Effect: Using this ability a character may roll three six sided dice keeping the two best for any untrained skill check.

Name: Silver Tongued Devil
Type: Personal Improvement
Cost: 10 XP
Requirements: Charisma 7+

Effect: A character with this ability may add their Charisma bonus to any trained skill check that links to Charisma.

Name: Sweeping Attack
Type: Arcane Combat Arts
Cost: 50 XP
Requirements: Strength 6+, Dexterity 6+; Martial Arts, Melee Weapons, or Thrown Weapons 5+; Death of a Thousand Strikes

Effect: A character with this ability may take a complex action to attack all foes within three meters of their present location.

Name: Safe Storage
Type: Misc
Cost: 150XP
Requirements: Natural Aptitude/Tech/Mechanic, 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: Natural Aptitude/Tech/Mechanic, Technician/Mechanic 4+, Edge 6+

Effect: On any critical that results in a fuel or Engine critical, re-roll.  If the second roll still results in a fuel critical the second roll stands and the critical behaves normally.

Name: Smooth Driving
Type: Piloting/Driving(ground units only)
Cost: 150 XP
Requirements: Natural Aptitude-Driving/Piloting, Driving/Piloting 4+, Dexterity 6+

Effect: The driver may elect to reduce the Attacker Movement Modifier for Cruising or Flanking by one but in doing so also reduces their Defensive Target Movement Modifier 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.

Revised SPAs

Range Master
As normal except now Minimum Range and Line of Sight Range are no longer valid choices.

Revised combat rules

Tactical Armor provides twice the normal damage reduction against any weapon classified as a “Small Arm”.  Additionally always round down the result of adjusted BD divided by BAR calculation.  Weapons classified as Support Weapons or Ordinance weapons are unchanged.  Long Ranged attacks apply a -1 AP to all Small Arms and Support Weapons not using Ordinance or eXplosive AP type attacks.  Extreme Range further increases the penalty to a total of -2 AP.  When shooting through cover/barriers any barrier rated at least 1 BAR automatically reduces the attack AP by 1 before penetrating to the next layer.

Internal Structure of all support vehicles is always a minimum of BAR 10.

To prevent weirdness with LAMs, aerospace units may now be equipped with any specialty ammunition but be advised many will have no effect in aerospace combat(such as Thunder Ammunition), do not provide their bonus but still deal appropriate damage(Precision Ammunition), or have reduced effect(AP versus Capital grade Armor).  While I will not make an exhaustive list GM's best judgment should be applied on a case by case basis.


AU Specific:

Autocannons(including LB-X and UAC versions) are -2 tons to a minimum of 0.5 tons, -1 critical to a minimum of 1 critical, and have no minimum range.  Ammunition counts per ton have been changed as follows with the ammo counts for specialty ammunition types altering shots per ton following the slash in the order of reduced then increased after the second slash:

AC-2(includes LB-2X and UAC-2): 60/40/90
AC-5(includes LB-5X and UAC-5): 24/16/36
AC-10(includes LB-10X and UAC-10): 12/8/18
AC-20(includes LB-20X and UAC-20): 6/4/9

Flak and Flechette are now combined into one specialty ammunition.  Armor Piercing no longer applies a +1 to hit modifier.  Tracer is removed and night modifiers for combat will also be capped at -2(+2 in TW play).

All Gauss Rifles have no minimum range and count as Energy Weapons for purposes of determining Heat Sink capacity and Power Amplifier tonnage.

Heavy Gauss Rifle now produces 12 heat and explodes for 30 damage.  Range adjusted to 6/12/18 and damage to 20 at all ranges.  Ammo per ton adjusted to 6.

Light Gauss Rifle now produces 4 heat.

Standard Gauss Rifle now produces 8 heat.

LRM-5 and 15 have had their weight increased by 0.5 tons each, Clan versions as normal weight half as much measured to the quarter ton but now have a minimum range of 4. 

Unguided weapons that roll on the cluster table(ACs/RACs/UACs in Rapid Fire Mode, MRMs, and Rocket Launchers) apply a +2 to the cluster table row at Short Range, no modifier at Medium Range, a -2 modifier at Long Range, -4 modifier at Extreme Range, and a -8 modifier at Line of Sight Range.  A result less than 2 results in all clusters failing to deliver damage.  Any result above 12 is treated as a 12.  LB-X Cluster munitions use a proximity fuse system that provides no range modifier to the cluster roll.

MRMs and Rocket Launchers no longer have +1 to hit and instead take a -1 to all cluster table rolls(stacks with the above).

SRMs, ATMs, LRMs, and LB-X Cluster munitions as guided/variable fused weapons behave as normal except as noted below.

LRMs and ATM munitions with minimum ranges instead of applying a +1 to hit per hex take a -1 to the cluster hit roll per hex with results less than 2 result in all missiles failing to deliver damage.  For example a Clan technology LRM firing at a target at 1 hex would take a -4 modifier to cluster hit rolls.

All ammunition counts have been adjusted so that maximum damage potential is 120 points per ton except for certain specialty ammunitions.

All Battlemechs and ASFs come with the Design Quirk Rumble Seat for free and it does not count against any other limits for Design Quirks.

As such all units of that type operate at highest efficiency with someone occupying the extra seat and performing various supporting duties.  If so desired they can be a backup Mechwarrior or ASF pilot as well as long as the rules for Command Consoles are followed.

When using Battle value the best piloting and best gunnery scores between the two warriors are used.

Rules for co-ownership of a Vehicle:

If two or more characters wish to own the same vehicle then they both must pay the appropriate points for Vehicle, including ownership of said Vehicle, and Custom Vehicle.

[monbvol]

Okay I sat down and did some pretty basic and incomplete math while waiting for cray to get back to us in the other thread about Campaign Operations pay issues to see if I can at least establish a basic starting point for what kind of forces we should be talking about for each rank of Property.

According to ISaW the smallest garrison possible for an Other World is 1 vehicle regiment and 2 conventional infantry regiments.

Using the rules as they currently stand to determine just the payroll of the troops, ignoring the tech, admin, and spare parts needs, I come up with 2,984,040 C-bills a month(assuming vehicles with crews of 7 just to set the highest possible salary costs).

A Property 10 as it stands in AToW, not my house rules revisions, according to the Companion has a monthly defense budget of 5,000,000 C-bills.

Pretty easily capable of supporting that I'd say.

I think just so we can all have a point of comparison I will go ahead and put these findings in the other thread too.

[Daryk]

Good idea... I've been short of time this week, but I'll try to look at your most recent revisions this weekend.

[monbvol]

Well by the time I got there and started thinking out how to express the math I did in a relevant way I kind of realized maybe we have been making a bit of a mountain out of a mole hill.

[Daryk]

Finally had time to sit down and read through all the updates.  My comments are below.

For the event tables, I think the bottom results of all the tables practically requires pre-spending Edge to avoid them.

As a whole, I think the list of house rules increase overall complexity, though that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I'm not entirely sold on the revised aging rules, but we discussed that in another thread (I'll mention here that at 46, I'm stronger, faster, and have more endurance than ever before in my life; aging is what you make of it).

I'm also not sold on the changes to Stage 3... what problem were you trying to address?

I thought you were going to add Protocol to the list of language dependent skills?

Did you reverse the base rules on Natural Aptitudes?  I thought Complex skills were more expensive...

Toughness makes sense, but I think I would have left Fit a separate trait, but used the same principle.

For the SPAs, I think it would make sense to group the attribute linked ones together, vice making the reader sift through the whole list to find the CHA linked one.  Also, it should be "Lightning Reflexes" vice "Lightening".

Similarly, I recommend grouping all the Martial Arts ones together.

I strongly recommend "Practical Experience" be more expensive.  Taking the 2 best of 3 dice roughly translates to a +2.

Conversely, I recommend "Smooth Driving" be cheaper.  It has a built in drawback, so no need to overly penalize someone for taking it.

I'm inclined not to comment on your AU specific rules, but I have to ask: with your changes to LRM-5s and LRM-15s, why not just make it half a ton per tube, and remove the restrictions on rack size?  The cluster table has all the columns now, so it will support them.  By assigning an appropriate (fractional) heat value to each tube and rounding up, you could easily yield the current heat values for the existing racks.

[monbvol]

With 3d6 a lot of the really nasty events just are not going to happen a lot(3 is a 1 in 216 probability) and honestly that is the kind of thing Edge is for.  It is only 20 XP to restore a spent point of Edge and frankly Edge is kind of a dump stat  in my group.

The upside to the complexity I am adding is a lot of it is only during character creation and won't really come up again.

Aging, well I do despise how it works currently because it is so cookie cutter and really I want to emphasize campaign award XP instead of just getting older to get better.

Mostly the changes to Stage 3 came about because of wonkyness with the fields to prevent Intensive Training from being too good of a trait and I was going to try and do something overly ambitious for full conversion Stage 3 for AU specific modules.  Having been forced to take a good long hard think on that I am certainly considering giving this an overhaul.

Honestly if I was going to I forgot about that completely but thinking about it that may not make as much sense, especially when I quite often see forms at local government offices in multiple languages.

Natural Aptitude RAW is more expensive for Advanced skills than Basic skills.  To me that is backwards.  A Natural Aptitude that you can roll with more often, potentially in the same turn, should be the more expensive option.  And as good as 3d6 keep the 2 best is they did seem a bit expensive RAW.

Toughness and Fit are another couple of traits that I admit I keep going back and forth on.  People who are in shape can tend to take more of a beating then those who are not so a certain amount of overlap does seem a bit unavoidable to me and combining them to get some simplicity may be the best I can do as I am not sure how to keep them separate in such a way that makes sense or that couldn't be represented just as well by just raising relevant attributes and skills.

Yeah re-arranging may be in order for the special abilities and oops typos.

Practical Experience only looks cheap.  It requires Clever Mind.  Which requires an Intelligence of 7+.  So to get it the player has to invest some not insubstantial XP.

Smooth Driver I take your point.  Especially with how many other ways there are to mitigate to hit penalties.  I think taking that down to 50.

I want that to be the implication for sure and if I ever get good enough with java to code all that into MegaMek(Lab in particular) I probably will make those kinds of adjustments.

[Daryk]

On the Fit/Toughness thing... I've known people who were both, sure, but more who were only one or the other (I'm far more Fit than Tough, for example, being relatively scrawny).  I think they used to call Toughness "Thick Skinned" or something?  It's been a while.  Anyway, my point is Toughness is more naturally opposed to Glass Jaw than a combined Toughness/Fit, I think.  It's totally reasonable for a Fit person to have a Glass Jaw.

Otherwise, it all sounds reasonable.  Thanks for hearing me out!

[monbvol]

Well that can just be you having a good Will stat or my revised Toughness trait and a kind of poor Body score.  Though I see I forgot to add in a note mentioning it should always add at least one to the health pool.  Add in that it can only ever add three at max it's main benefit is the extra fatigue a character can endure anyway.  I chalk it up to it doing a decent job of representing an in shape person even if a bit scrawny can take a few more punches if in shape than someone not in shape but it isn't really going to matter too much how many push ups they did if they get shot.  So yeah as I said I think some of these distinctions might be better handled by raw attribute scores than trying to have two different traits that realistically speaking do have a fairly large amount of overlap.

And yeah I do take feedback under advisement.  It has helped me refine some fairly large sections of my house rules.  I've lost track of the number of revisions I have made because of feedback.

I am now thinking about how to refine my Stage 3 stuff in particular.  I do kind of want to keep the 5 skills a field thing and the varied levels of training mostly because I think it does give a good way to introduce concepts like abbreviated training due to national emergency or the difference between taking a few courses here and there and being a true dedicated student in a field that does demand a lot of time, study, and effort before you can even enter the workforce proper but also make sure it still gives plenty of player freedom of choice.  So we'll see what I can do with that and perhaps getting those special abilities re-organized.

[monbvol]

Okay I've already re-organized the Special Abilities into rough categories though I'll probably wind up going through again and putting them in alphabetical order in those categories.

My Stage 3 revisions are proving troublesome.  I've taken the point of what I'm trying to setup with those revisions has undergone some significant change itself and as a result some scrutiny could be applied here to see if there is really a problem that still needs solving but I still find myself attracted to the ideas of variable training times and unified skill fields.

What doesn't show up in what I posted is what I was doing with the varied training time.  Like say you just want your character to get out there and into the action you could invest 0.25 years in your only field costing you 100 XP and all your skills in that field are at 20 XP and you have 20 XP of rebate XP and use that to reflect abbreviated Basic Training for a Taurian PBI in the Reunification War or a college drop out.

Next step up is 0.5 years which costs 150 XP one skill getting 50 XP, two 30 XP, and two 20 XP with a rebate of 30 XP.  I made it uneven to help bring back some of that second edition flavor where some skills would just be better than others for the same training.

Did similar for 1 year and 2 years.  The idea was to make it all nice and unified so you could have some of that second edition flavor without certain skill fields throwing that for a loop by having more skills than others which neatly helps keep the power of my Intensive Training trait fairly even all while giving the player more freedom and granularity in how they wanted to customize their character.

What has changed is that I've decided rather than write sufficiently altered modules that could be used with Battletech proper(ultimately coming down to even if I could alter things enough I didn't want to compete too much with AToW and CGL if it came down to it) I would just write AU specific modules for my own setting(which was going to include a wider variety of Stage 3 options, most of which would be faction specific, but I quickly realized writing event tables for each and every one would be too much, especially since I'd have to write up generic stage 3 options on top of those anyway) and with me contemplating not going so far down the rabbit hole because it is already causing burnout and some good points being made does raise questions of if I really should still be trying to do keep these revisions or not.

Either way it is not like I can just borrow AToW's Stage 3 stuff for such a wholesale re-write of the modules, especially if I want to share them eventually.

[Daryk]

If you're trying whittle down skill fields to only 5 skills, I think some of the larger skill fields will end up having to be split into two, though that could work.  The larger skill fields are things like Scout or Covert Ops that could benefit from a few more skills.  The trickier ones will be the aerospace/naval fields.  They're mostly 6 skills to include Zero-G Operations.

[monbvol]

Oh I already did all that.  But it is like I said I'm now contemplating if it was wasted effort or not because as much as I like the ideas, controls, and concepts I'm now questioning how necessary it is.

Also the ethical/legal issues I face in sharing it are worth bringing up since a lot of it is copied directly from AToW(since there are quite a few 5 skill fields already).

I'll probably stick with it for my AU specific material, which I probably should separate out into it's own document.

So my idea to replace that for more general utility is perhaps a bit of a compromise.  Uneven skill distribution options for four to seven skill field combinations, at least I don't remember a field having eight skills off the top of my head, and an abbreviated/emergency training option.

Basic field only I am thinking but I could be persuaded to extend it to advanced and specialist fields too, half time, all skills get 20 XP each with 4 XP rebates each skill as I'm not inclined to let the player drop down lower than that for Stage 3 field skill rewards.

I'll have to run through some math to see how many options/combinations can be done and what they might look like.

[monbvol]

And already threw together a table in a spreadsheet.  I wanted to stick to the XP to skill rank milestones in the rewards to keep the number of possible combinations manageable.

If I wind up finding out I did forget a field with 8 skills in it I can add in those combinations easy enough.

[Daryk]

When I was building my spreadsheet, Herb had asked me to "minimize verbatim content", but blessed off on using what was necessary to make things work.  I think this project may tread a bit closer to his line, and I don't know how the new guy feels about it, but I think you'll be OK.  Downloading now...

[Daryk]

What exactly did you have against 30XP per skill again?  I think the "balanced" option would be better served with that, but I like the abbreviated and focused options.  And I don't see any fields bigger than seven skills either, so I think you're good on that score.

[monbvol]

Well mostly I admit I kind of missed the way 2nd Edition did it's version of stage 3 where not all skills got the same bonus and thought it would make a fairly interesting alternative to bring that back but going going forward it will be an option, not the new standard.

So you can have the all 30 XP each skill default or if you want to mix it up you can have some alternatives that I have made sure work out to be the same total XP and rebate.

As far as sharing what I put together as an exclusively AU option I think you may be right because to an extent it is unavoidable but I am at least re-arranging the fields and creating enough new ones that it should be fine.

For my AU specific stuff I've managed to create what I can admit at times is heavily inspired by AToW life modules but even then are pretty unique with most I think being clearly different all the way through Stage 2 with a bit of inspiration for some stage 4 options causing me to jump ahead.  All with unique random events to add flavor but made painstakingly sure are rather balanced.  So even if you roll a 2 on 2d6 you will get an offsetting bonus of some sort that works out to the same XP as the penalty that just got applied.  I did decide 7 would just give +5 XP with no negative offset but all others XP balance.  No result forces the player to pick a particular path.  The only thing I worry about is I probably did get a bit too dark and suggestive for people's tastes a bit too often.  I guess I'll find out for sure when I figure out my Stage 3 modules and decide how to incorporate all this stuff into a single document.

Ultimately though all in all I actually feel like I'm getting close to a finished product for my house rules.  I may have to make some adjustments to my Status trait once the payroll stuff is finished and then I should be able to finish off my Property section too once that is settled and I think those are the last two major issues to tackle.

[Daryk]

Makes sense... if 30XP per skill is still on the table, I think "balanced" needs a different name since it does actually lead to some specialization.

Best of luck putting it all together!

[monbvol]

Fair enough point about the naming conventions.  Hmmm... Semi-Balanced perhaps.  Or would Semi-Focused be clearer?

[Daryk]

Maybe use "focused" for that level, and "specialized" for the more extreme version?

[monbvol]

Yeah that would probably be better.

[monbvol]

I actually realized something about my Property events table, well two really.

1. Even though statistically speaking re-arranging some of the vents I did the way I did technically makes them less likely to occur than the way I had them before that is actually only true if using straight up 3d6 not 4d6 keep the three best.  So I'm going to have to work on re-arranging the tables yet again.

2. Spending Edge in advance isn't worth as much on 3d6 tables as +2 is less meaningful and since everything else is 2d6 it isn't terribly internally consistent but as previously discussed 2d6 runs out of room entirely too fast.

This raises a couple issues in my mind.  Bad events will be a little too common if I rearrange events as I had them before on straight 3d6 but having them the way I do now makes them more common on 4d6 keep the three best.  Leaving the tables 3d6 makes spending Edge to just re-roll a bad result so much more valuable than spending in advance to avoid a bad event in the first place that there really doesn't seem to be a decision there on which way to go.

The only way I can think to fix both issues is add another layer, possibly two, of tables.  First one determines if it is a bad event or good event.  Second determines if it is Political, Military, or Natural Disaster.  Then six tables, one for good event for each type of event and one for bad events of each type.  Should make things a bit better.

[Daryk]

I don't know... I was thinking pre-spending was always the way to go, but then I guess I'm more conservative in general when it comes to property management...

[monbvol]

The trouble is the wider range of 3d6.  +2 on 2d6 makes getting a 12 a 1:6 chance while it only improves getting an 18 on 3d6 to 5:108 chance.  So rather less valuable.

[Daryk]

Less valuable from the perspective of obtaining the maximum result sure, but just as valuable (if not more so, given the dire consequences) in avoiding the least desirable results.

[monbvol]

Eh still doesn't seem as valuable thanks to the wider range of possible results.

Ultimately though what is driving the change is a desire to remain internally consistent.  No other mechanic has 3d6(Natural Aptitude and Combat Sense still boil down to 2d6 in the end).  Plus by going for more layers of tables I could potentially actually uncrowd some and make it a lot less likely to even get a crippling event in the first place.