ASCE p.175
The new rule for Variable - using Multiple Attack Rolls to resolve damage - has intrigued a lot of new players both abroad and in my area. The snipit in the book is small, almost vague, but because we like to use Weapon Defeating abilities and armor (AMS, BRA, RFL etc) some of us hit a snag and we are curious what the actual ruling should be...
[How or When] do we reduce the damage from incoming attacks against units that have weapon-defeating abilities?
We have several camps in the matter to suggest edits, (some of us mixing the two, depending on the combination) but mainly are as follows:
1) Roll all the attacks, then reduce the number of HITS equal to the ability (for instance: AMS reduces LRM/SRM/IF by 1)
2) When using a Normal ranged attack, assign different colored pairs of dice to the Special ability (for instance, normal dice would be blue but AC would be white). Roll for dice, and then reduce any damage as it pertains to the special weapon defeating ability.
3) Reduce the total hits by the effect before rolling (treated as if they had hit and were defeated), then roll the remaining attacks.
Obviously some intuition will be involved to decipher some of the weapon specials (for damage values), and even then some equipment doesn't even have damage dice to defeat an attack (like using HT weapons against FR targets). We do anticipate it probably being on a case-by-case basis (as different armors defeat different damage differently) but the speed of play makes it difficult to determine when all this is supposed to occur... that's all I'm asking about.
Some clarity and ruling on this would be appreciated.
[I'm aware that this probably should be in the "Ask the Authors/Writers" section, but since it applies to game rules, I am posting it here.]
