Crit Tables
OK, so we merge two things right away; the 2d6 roll to see if you crit/how many times you crit, and the individual crit locations for each 'Mech. The game is already pretty comic on rolling dice (initiative) to see when you roll dice (to hit) to see if you roll dice (location) to see if you roll dice (crit confirmation) to see if you roll dice (critical locations). And that's not counting rolling dice for clusters, or your opponent rolling dice for a PSR after taking damage, or overheating, or whatever else. There's room to trim the fat here*.
And you know, here's a little rant about the box of doom; I don't want to play travel Yahtzee with boxed dice, and I haven't wanted to play Trouble with the Pop-O-Matic bubble in decades. If the solution to "that's a lot of dice to roll" is "play dice maracas" I'm going to look at reducing the number of dice rolls. Hence the cut down cluster rolls and the combined crit tables below.
Torso Crit
roll effect
2-7 no Crit
8 weapon/equipment hit (disabled)
9 Engine hit +5 heat cumulative (+6 light/+8 XL) [] [] []
10 gyro hit [] []
11 Ammo Hit
12 Head hit (roll head d6 crit chart; if second head hit, unit destroyed)
Arm Crit
roll effect
2-7 no Crit
8 weapon/equipment hit (disabled)
9 Actuator hit (+1/+2/+4 to hit) [] [] []
10 weapon/equipment hit (disabled)
11 Ammo hit
12 limb inoperable - cannot fire weapons mounted on arm
(if rolled a second time, limb blown off)
Leg Crit
roll effect
2-7 no Crit
8 Actuator hit (-1 mp per hit, +1 PSR)
9 Equipment/Jump Jet Hit
10 Actuator hit (half speed, +2 PSR)
11 +2 heat/turn [] []
12 limb inoperable - cannot sprint or jump
(if rolled a second time, limb blown off)
Since we combined three locations into one table (torso) I've added a little extra kick to getting an engine hit if you have a Light or XL engine. And those numbers could probably be revised upward, honestly.
I only have three boxes for Actuator hits on the Arm table, but there should be 6, 3 for each arm. If you roll Weapon/Equipment hit, you'd mark off the weapon or piece of equipment taking up the most critical space in that location, and work your way down. The idea is, I could print out or copy a page from a TRO and use that as a 'Mech sheet in a pinch. All the data I need is there.
Head hits are subsumed into Torso crits. And I just realized that I didn't type up the Head crit location chart, but that's OK. We can copy the one on the crit location chart, or change head hits to be 1 pilot hit, +1 to hit from Fire Control, or Damaged Circuits for all special equipment (so no more ECM, TAG, MASC, whatever). Two head hits will kill a 'Mech, though. Adjust that to taste.
Note: We always stage down crits. That is, if you roll an 8 on the Arm table (weapon hit) and there's no weapon in that arm (like the Centurion, for example), then you stage down to "No Crit". If you're a monster, you can stage up the crits, moving from 8 to 9, but do you really want to increase the chances of blowing a limb off for 90% of all 'Mechs, who don't carry ammo in their arms?
Movement
Use Alpha Strike movement and TMM determination, with adjustments. You can walk for 0 modifier to hit, Jump for an extra +2 TMM but eat a +2 modifier for your own attacks (and extra heat equal to your maximum jump, regardless of how far you jumped), or run for an extra +1 TMM, +1 heat and you can't fire this turn.
Initiative
Use HBS initiative (Lights, Mediums, Heavies, Assaults in that order, move and fire, alternate sides, reserve if you want).
Autocannons
Oh, you can't have a list of changes to Battletech without adding in some new AC rules, right? These are easy, though. Cross out standard autocannons. LBX and Ultra Autocannons now use the tonnage, crit space, heat, ammo per ton and range of the IS standard autocannons by class. Clan ACs stay untouched.
Ultra Autocannons
Ultras can fire twice in a turn, or can be fired in Ultra mode. You still use two shots, and generate two heat, but you only do 50% more damage (ie, the Aerospace damage for an Ultra autocannon). However, that does get applied to 1 location, so if you absolutely need to put 30 points into 1 spot, an UAC/20 firing in Ultra mode is your best bet. Rolling a 2 when double-tapping or firing in Ultra mode will jam the autocannon, but it can be cleared. Jamming an autocannon a second time before it sees a repair bay will fuse the fire control circuits, leaving you with a very expensive lead weight.
Medium Lasers
Whaaa-what? Not my medium lasers! Errant Jones, you fool!
Medium lasers are 4 heat, 4 damage. Still a great weapon, but not the uber-weapon of old.
The Shoulders of Giants
I've cribbed a lot of these rules from other posters' ideas, namely abou and Fear Factory in their Battletech 2.0 thread, Scotty's thoughts on simplifying the crit tables, and Xotl's Missile spreadsheet for reducing the cluster rolls to d6. Thanks guys!
*Yes, one person's fat is another person's meat. If you like all the dice rolling in standard Battletech, keep on truckin'. I'm not out to change your table.
