Clearly, after I read the below post in developer Q&A section, I will not be buying A Time of War.
Quote from: Akalabeth on 01 February 2011, 03:29:18
1. Battle Armour
1. Does the BAR rating of Battlearmour ever degrade? Or do the four BAR ratings remain constant until the integrity is reduced to zero?
As indicated in the first paragraph under Armor Degradation on p. 186, Battle Armor rates its armor degradation only through loss of tactical armor (TW-scale) points. The BAR values, as indicated in the first paragraph of Battle Armor and Exoskeletons (on the same page), are defined by the starting number of tactical armor points on the suit. These values do not change.
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2. Do personal weapons interact with Battlearmour in a manner similar to Personal armour? Or Tactical armour? The one example is of a support PPC, which I would argue is on the border of personal/tactical weaponry.
Personal weapons (including Support Weapons) vs. Battle Armor are resolved in the same fashion as said weapons versus tactical armor, when it comes to finding the damage done to the character within, but the armor itself will experience a loss in Tactical armor value equal to the weapon's damage, divided by the suit's BAR. (same page, under Tactical Armor (and Structure) Degradation.) Only if the suit will sustain tactical armor damage will the operator within then suffer damage, and said damage will equal . Otherwise, it is presumed that all damage was absorbed by the suit.
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For example, take a IS Battle armour with Tactical 4 and ratings of 6/6/6/5
Let's say the Armour is hit by a Elephant Gun 5B/6. With normal personal armour, the damage would be reduced to 4B/5 and inflict 5 Standard damage upon the Battlearmour operator. The 5 damage would also degrade the armour to 5/5/5/4
With Tactical armour, the 5 damage would equate to (5/6) = 0.83 damage rounded up 1. Reducing integrity points from 4 to 3 but otherwise leaving the armour at 6/6/6/5 and the user unharmed.
In this example, the Elephant Gun (assuming an MoS of 0 to 3) accomplishes the following vs. IS Tactical Armor 4 (BAR 6/6/6/5):
The BAR reduces the gun's damage from 6 to 5. This 5 points is then divided by 6 (the BAR versus the gun's ballistic damage type), and rounds normally to 1 point. Because the total damage is only 1 point, there's not enough Tactical Armor damage to penetrate the suit and harm the user. The suit is reduced to a Tactical armor level of 3, but retains its BAR of 6/6/6/5.
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And finally if the BAR does not degrade, once integrity points = 0 do all armour values also drop to 0?
Yes, once the suit is reduced to a Tactical armor value of 0, it is considered destroyed.
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2. Grapple Question
Friends to the Grappler gain a +2 bonus versus the Grappled while the Grappled has no bonus versus these characters.
But what about the Grappler? Do friends to the Grappled gain a +1 bonus vs the Grappler? Or do they attack normally? Since it's not mentioned I assume it's the latter but doesn't hurt to ask.
You seem to be asking if a friendly target can grapple the grappler, effectively turning against their own guy. In this case, what happens is this: Because the grappler is friendly, there are no modifiers that apply to attacking the grappler, who has control of the grappling situation. The grappled character gets a +1 to attack his grappler, and the grappler has a +2 to attack the grappled character. Friendlies of the grappler get a +2 to attack the grappled victim because they have a buddy holding him. Friendlies to the grappler attempting to attack the grappler are not likely to find him obliging, but would likely get a modifier for his surprise (he likely doesn't expect his own buddies to hit him!)
Hopefully, this helps.
Thank you,
- Herbert Beas
BattleTech
Catalyst Game Labs
WOW. D-20 anyone? Please, someone let me know when the overhaul happens.