A Time of War Companion - 6 June 2021 (v1.1)

[Xotl]

This thread is for all issues and problems with A Time of War Companion.

Product Link: http://bg.battletech.com/?wpsc-product=a-time-of-war-companion

Current errata version is 1.1, and can be found here:
https://bg.battletech.com/errata/

Please remember to follow the errata report template when reporting issues.  Thanks.

[BirdofPrey]

PDF

pg. 23 
•Elbow  move to the Fracture sub-heading
•Ankle  move to Fracture sub-heading

pg. 24
• Knee: Apply a –3 injury modifier to all Attribute and Skill
Checks made using the affected leg. A broken ankle reduces
a character’s MP by 50 percent (multiply MP by 0.50 and
round normally). Character may not sprint.

Should say Knee

pg.29
under game rules, suggest references to E8 should be changed to E9

[mbear]

First PDF release, page 91, "Canine Soldier", first sentence:

but his civilianized counterparts

Dude. Seriously?

but his civilian counterparts

[Frabby]

PDF

This one comes directly from Herb himself:

Hello,

Anyone figured out how exactly the Variable-Pulse Laser Rifle works, in terms of how it's range modifiers are?

Well, darn. That's a minor error, but only insomuch as it doesn't fit how we handled the Sternsnacht Claymore (which replaces the full normal range modifiers with its own). In the case of the VPL Rifle, you're supposed to *add* the weapon's range modifiers to the normal range modifiers used in play. So--Sternsnacht Claymore style--it should read "Range Modifiers: +0/-1/-2/-2".

Hopefully, that helps.

Thank you,

- Herbert Beas
  BattleTech
  Catalyst Game Labs

[Korsar]

First PDF release, p. 33 table with the Lyran ranks, rank E 11: The "Oberstabsfeldwebe" is missing an "l" at the end

[ArcaneRaven]

First PDF release, p. 30, table with House Kurita ranks, rank O10:

Tai-shi

correct to

Tai-shu

rank O2

Tai-I

correct to

Tai-i

rank E0

I guess, the rank designation of "gong" is from House Liao, but not from House Kurita.

[BirdofPrey]

First PDF release

pg. 58
The Head/Limb Blown Off result. . . A
severed limb effect automatically triples the normal damage
sustained to the arm by the hit that severs it. . .

Should say limb instead of arm since legs are also legal targets for limb blown off.

[Joe]

All below: A Time of War, Companion, .pdf release downloaded 9/27/12

Page 250, last sentence: To compute this, take the amount of money added by the tax increase (or taken away by its decrease), and multiply it by the Landholder's Income Percentage.  The math in the example on the next page would need to be updated as well.

Rules issues with Landhold Maintanence in general, pages 249-251: (a.k.a Fun with math)

1) Suggest that the rules math be changed to make the previous year's modified Landhold Budget = the next year's initial Landhold Budget:
Because the Landhold Budget is based on the percentage which was taken by the Landholder the previous year, the formula breaks when the Landholder takes 0% and the following year the Landhold Budget goes to 0 C-Bills, permanently.

2) Suggest rebalancing the bonuses to the administration rolls, and/or % of Landhold Income/Budget gained/lost  due said rolls:
Playing the averages, a character with average attributes, Administration +1 (worse than "Green"), who uses the following:
State Taxes: 20% (+0)
Infrastructure: 34.5% (+8)
Supplies: 15% (+0)
Staff: 15% (+0)
Defense/Security: 15% (+0)
Landholder's Income: 0.5% (no modifier),
and who rolls an average of 7 for their management roll, will increase their Landholder Income and thus the Landhold Budget by 20%/year assuming all remaining modifiers cancel, and will need to roll a -1 (negative one) on 2d6 to succeed.

Said character who starts with an average Knight's Landhold (100,000 C-Bills) will have, on average, the equivalent or better income of a:
Baronet on year 4 (207,360 C-Bills),
Barron on year 8 (429,982 C-Bills),
Viscount on year 12 (891,610 C-Bills),
Count on year 16 (1,884,8843 C-Bills),
Marquess on year 28 (~16,484,470 C-Bills),
and Duke on year 40 (~146,977,200 C-Bills),
...just in time to retire .

If the same character is instead a Veteran (Administration +5) and burns 1 edge before the roll each year (+2), the bonus goes to +35%/year.  This character will have a Duke's income in ~24 years, and will be making over 130x what an average Duke makes (~16,340,000,000 C-Bills... yes, that's Billions) on year 40, all from a 10 square km parcel of land.  Finally, on the character's 60th year, the character would have a personal income of over 6.6 Trillion C-Bills from that same parcel.

[sillybrit]

PDF p59, Completing the Advanced Battle Armor Critical Hit Table section:

The example given how to fill out the record sheet is incorrect:

   Arthur is using his Grenadier battle armor in an AToW
tactical combat scenario. It uses Standard Stealth armor
(4 slots), a body-mounted, 7-shot SRM 4 (5 slots), an Anti-
Personnel (AP) Weapon Mount in the right arm (1 slot), and
a Modular Weapon Mount (1 slot, with a 3-slot capacity)
in his left arm. The Modular Weapon Mount (MWM) packs
a small laser (2 slots). Arthur verifies all of this from the
Grenadier’s entry in Technical Readout: 3075.
   When filling out the Advanced Battle Armor Critical Hit
Record Sheet, Arthur fills out the first 5 slots of the Body
(Front) location with his SRM-4, fills out the first open slot
on the right arm (right after the manipulator) with his AP
Weapon Mount, and puts the MWM in the corresponding
slot on the left arm. The MWM has a 3-slot capacity, but
the small laser takes up only 2 slots (which Arthur places
immediately after the MWM’s slot), so Arthur leaves the
next slot after the small laser free.

1. As per this errata for TRO3075, the Grenadier has regained its torso-mounted Modular Weapon Mount
2. The Small Laser only requires 1 slot, not 2 slots.
3. The SRM4 plus 7 ammo only require 4 slots, not 5 slots.
4. The phrase "in his" at the end of the 1st para, 2nd sentence (highlighted above) should really read "on the", since it's refering to the suit and not the player, Arthur.
5. Similarly, 2nd para, 1st sentence (highlighted above), should be "the AP Weapon Mount", not "his AP Weapon Mount".

Suggested fix:


   Arthur is using his Grenadier battle armor in an AToW
tactical combat scenario. It uses Standard Stealth armor
(4 slots), an Anti-Personnel (AP) Weapon Mount in the
right arm (1 slot), a Modular Weapon Mount (1 slot, with
a 4-slot capacity) in the body, and a Modular Weapon
Mount (1 slot, with a 3-slot capacity) on the left
arm. The Modular Weapon Mount (MWM) in the body
packs a 7-shot SRM 4 (4 slots), while the one on the arm
packs a small laser (1 slot). Arthur verifies all of this
from the Grenadier’s entry in Technical Readout: 3075.
   When filling out the Advanced Battle Armor Critical Hit
Record Sheet, Arthur fills fills out the first open slot on
the right arm (right after the manipulator) with the AP
Weapon Mount, and puts the two MWMs in the
corresponding slots in the body and the left arm. The
body-mounted MWM has a 4-slot capacity, which the
SRM-4 fills completely, but the small laser takes up only
1 slot on the arm mount (which Arthur places
immediately after the MWM’s slot), so Arthur leaves the
next 2 slots after the small laser free.

(The 3rd paragraph is fine)

[sillybrit]

PDF, p127, Randall's Rose:

2nd para, 2nd sentence
"This shoots, usually only forty to fifty centimeters long, are good at capturing neckties or perhaps the beard of a careless owner once their new leaves come in."

Should begin with "The shoots...", not "This shoots...".

[Xotl]

Hello.  Items to date have been corrected in the print version of the Companion, and the accompanying PDF re-release.  Any posts past this point constitute new errata for the current, first-print version.

[Dukeroyal]

PDF, pg. 29, Federated Suns/FEderated Commonwealth Rank Table.

The rank of Marshal, which is a rank is the AFFS and was a rank in the AFFC is missing. Marshal was a rank immediately superior to General (AFFS) or Hauptmann General (AFFC) and subordinate to a Field Marshal.The rank of Marshal should occupy the O-9 slot on the table.  Naval Equivalent rank per FM Federated Suns is Fleet Admiral.

[Xotl]

PDF, p. 148, Random Planetary Government Table:
delete the last three entries on the table (High/Colony, High/Colony, and Very High/Lost Colony) entirely.

[Liam's Ghost]

PDF: Page 195

In the infantry armor construction table Triple Strength Myomer implants have a 0.5 damage divisor, while Dermal Camouflage Armor Implants have a damage divisor of 1. According to the original sources of these implants (Jihad Hotspots 3072 and Jihad Conspiracies Respectively), Triple Strength Myomer imposed no change to the damage an infantry unit sustained, while Dermal Camouflage doubled all damage the infantry unit recieved. Therefore it would appear the two values have been flopped.

Correction: Change the damage divisor of Triple Strength Myomer to 1 and that of Dermal Camouflage to 0.5

[HABeas2]

Hello,

In the infantry armor construction table Triple Strength Myomer implants have a 0.5 damage divisor, while Dermal Camouflage Armor Implants have a damage divisor of 1. According to the original sources of these implants (Jihad Hotspots 3072 and Jihad Conspiracies Respectively), Triple Strength Myomer imposed no change to the damage an infantry unit sustained, while Dermal Camouflage doubled all damage the infantry unit recieved. Therefore it would appear the two values have been flopped.

Note: A Time of War Companion actually supersedes the data from JHS: 3072 and accounts for the full-body implants by themselves alone. It does this by using the armor conversion rules found earlier in the book (p. 171). Thus:

TSM Implants = 0.5 (BAR 0/0/0/0 = the armor value of an effectively naked character).
Dermal Armor = 2 (BAR 4/4/3/4 converted to TO Infantry Armor Damage Divisor; [4+4+3+4 = 15/10 = 1.5, rounds up to 2]).
Camo Implants = 1 (BAR 2/3/3/2 converted to TO Infantry Armor Damage Divisor [2+3+3+2 = 10/10 = 1]).

Thus, those values are now correct.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Thank you,

- Herbert Beas
  BattleTech
  Catalyst Game Labs

[Lissette Woo]

PDF, page 160 - Modifying Weapons (Example Text)

Is...

Doug has his eye on a stock Stersnacht Claymore heavy
pistol and is considering purchasing it with some custom
upgrades. The weapon has a base cost of 200 C-bills, with an
Equipment rating of C/D/D (the game is set in the 3070s). For
modifications, he is considering an increase in the weapon’s
damage and its magazine size. If he selects just one of these
options, his customized Sternsnacht Claymore will increase
in cost to 600 C-bills, while retaining its Equipment rating of
C/D/D. If he opts for both modifications, the weapon will cost
him 2,000 C-bills and have a final Equipment Rating of D/E/D.

should...

Doug has his eye on a stock Stersnacht Claymore heavy
pistol and is considering purchasing it with some custom
upgrades. The weapon has a base cost of 200 C-bills, with an
Equipment rating of C/D/D (the game is set in the 3070s). For
modifications, he is considering an increase in the weapon’s
damage and its magazine size. If he selects just one of these
options, his customized Sternsnacht Claymore will increase
in cost to 600 C-bills, and its Equipment Rating to
C/E/D. If he opts for both modifications, the weapon will cost
him 2,000 C-bills and have a final Equipment Rating of D/E/D.

[Xotl]

PDF/Print, Conversion formula table (p. 170):

The single dagger footnote should read "†Round up (Weapons with no Burst value are treated as if they have Burst of 1)"

[BirdofPrey]

First PDF release

Advanced Battle Armor Combat Record Sheet

Per this response (and the indicated page)

AToW:  pg. 216-217
Under battle armor melee attacks it states you use the appropriate skill for the melee attack being attempted stating that you use Martial arts for punches kicks, etc, and the table on the preceding page give modifiers to the Martial Arts skill rolls.  The record sheets for Battle armor in both AToW and AToWC both list Manipulators as a weapon with the skill as Pilot/BattleSuit, though.  Which of those skills do you use when making a Melee attack in battle armor?

In melee, you use Martial Arts.

Manipulators on the weapons table should use the skill Martial arts rather than Piloting/BattleSuit

[mitchberthelson]

First PDF Release

Vintage Personal Armor (pg. 174)

First SLDF Armor Kit

The Cargo Jacket says that its Coverage is Torso (Rear). However most pictures of SLDF infantry (including the color plate in the original Star League Sourcebook) that show the Cargo Jacket show it clearly covering the front of the torso.

As currently written, the "Rear" coverage doesn't seem supported by any of the previous descriptions and it undermines its own purpose as weight saving gear by causing Encumberance due to armor stacking rules without providing any useful protection (unlike the lower tech Load Bearing Vest, which at least provides some frontal armor).

Correction: Either remove the "Rear" coverage note allowing it to provide some supplemental armor to the torso or remove the MBEX values and patch cost and have it not count as armor at all. This will either provide some protection in exchange for the Encumberance or remove the issue by not treating the jacket as armor.

[Xotl]

p. 190, AToW - Advanced Combat Practice Equipment Table - Add a "Mass" column between the Affiliation and Notes columns, with the following data:

Field Simulation System
Infantry Practice Mesh   5 kg
Vehicular Inhibitor Kit   —
Vehicular Holo-Projector   500 kg
Field Simulation Server   1,000 kg

Console-Based Null-Network
Console Interrupt Kit   —
Null-Network Server      250 kg

Simulator Pods
Simulator Pod, Basic      245 kg
Simulator Pod, Enhanced   1,500 kg
Pod Command Server   1,000 kg

[HABeas2]

Hello,

The following errata applies to the weapon conversion rules presented on pp. 169-170, A Time of War Companion:

Under Damage Factor (p. 169), change the first sentence to read as follows (changes indicated in bold):
"The Damage Factor for a personal weapon takes its BD value, and multiplies that by the sum of the following: 3.5 + one-fifth of the weapon’s listed Burst value (rounded normally to the nearest whole number, rounding up on .5) + 1 (if the weapon features a splash damage ability)."

In the Infantry Weapon Damage Conversion Table (p. 170), make the following change to the footnotes (change noted in bold):
"†Round normally (.5 rounds up; Single-shot weapons are treated as if they have Burst of 1)"

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Thank you,

- Herbert Beas

[Acolyte]

Pg 185 Glide and Flight Wings

  ".... For limb-action limit purposes, prosthetic wings are treated as a second set of legs, so natural legs will go limp when flying or gliding while prosthetic legs will lock into place. Landing
   The bulk of the wings....."

The word landing seems to be an orphan.

   - Shane

[Carbon Elasmobranch]

PDF, First version (2012)

Page 97, regarding the ratings in Attributes that characters could achieve in MW2, the AToW Companion lists some Clan phenotypes as being able to reach a rating of 9.  This is in error; elementals and aerospace fighter pilots could reach 8, but characters with Clan phenotypes were forbidden from getting the Exceptional Attribute advantage, which would keep the MW2 Attribute range at 1-8.  Additionally, the AToW Companion notes 4 as the MW2 average for Attributes, when the MW2 core describes a rating of 3 in an Attribute as average, and 4 as good.

[Carbon Elasmobranch]

PDF, First Printing

age 28
General Rank Equivalency Table misspells Enlisted Ranks as Enlkisted Ranks.

Page 30

Rank "Busoshensi", also spelled "Busushensi".  Should be Busousenshi, as in "armed warrior", as in the kanji 武装戦士

Page 31

Goa in Warrior House Ranks should be Gao.

Page 237

Corporate Mogul NPC referred to as "Corporate Mongol" in Skills subsection.

[Daryk]

A Time of War Companion, PDF release.

Related to mitchberthelson's post above, the cargo jacket listed as part of the SLDF armor kit on page 174 doesn't seem to have been taken into account in the calculation of the Infantry Armor Divisor in the table on page 195.  If it's providing any protection to the torso at all, it seems it would kick the Divisor up to 2, and make the kit encumbering.

Suggested solution: Incorporate the load bearing quality of the jacket into the fatigues, and make the HC Satchel Battery a removable insert that increases the ballistic protection of the fatigues by +1 (which is enough to give the armor kit a divisor of 2).  Also recommend increasing the weight of the Satchel Battery plates to at least match a normal satchel battery (i.e., 3 kg).  This would also explain how the ComStar kit (which has a non-encumbering divisor of 2) is inferior to the SLDF version beyond the sophistication of the helmet sensors (as they went with a micro power pack for the helmet vice the much larger capacity of the satchel battery).

[Restemayer]

Just bought the PDF from your store, so I'm assuming the most up to date (though, I will say that a lot of the errors mentioned in this thread are still present... hmmmmm)

Anyway, Free World's League Rank Table, Page 32.

Its a mess of footnotes, half of which are missing the actual footnotes.  I'm assuming that the dagger and double dagger markers indicate separate sub-affiliations based on context, but without the footnotes to tell which ones they are...

[Daryk]

Page 28 has a discussion on "Zero-Level Ranks" that is internally inconsistent:

Zero-Level Ranks and Trait Costs:
As with the basic Rank Trait shown in A Time of War, the costs (in Trait Points) for each of these ranks remains equivalent to the numerical value of the listed rank level, with a rank of O3 or E3 costing 3 TPs each. (Officer ranks, designated by an “O”, also require that the character either hail from the Clans, or possess the entire Officer Skill Field). The zero-level ranks for both officer and enlisted grades are a new addition, however. These ranks nominally reflect characters who are either still undergoing training or who have been awarded a provisional or minimal level of authority. Possessing these ranks still requires the full training prerequisites for a 1-TP level of that rank’s grade (or 3-TP, plus Officer Training Field for O-0 ranks), but at character creation, these minimal ranks may be purchased as a special 0.5-TP Rank Trait (worth 50 XP) for E0 (3-TP Rank, worth 300 XP, for O-0).

I believe the first part is in error, and should be change to read: "As with the basic Rank Trait shown in A Time of War (page 124), the cost (in Trait Points) for each enlisted rank remains equivalent to the numerical value of the listed rank level, with a rank of E3 costing 3TPs.  Officer ranks, designated by an "O", are offset in the table, and require that the character either hail from the Clans, or possess the entire Officer Skill Field."

[Daryk]

Xotl, will the errata collected here ever be published to the front page?  Herb's correction to the weapon conversion formula (at least) should probably be made formal.

[Xotl]

I'm prodding Paul into tackling AToW errata, since he's the guy who knows the system, but he's pretty busy lately.

"Hopefully", is about all I can say.

[monbvol]

Posted by permission of xotl.

Weapon Conversion Rules Page 168-169:

Error if using the conversion for Vehicular/Heavy Weapons from A Time of War and using the derived values with this conversion a creeping error that causes inaccurate results to appear for weapons dealing 10 damage or higher.

Fix is two part.

Vehicular Weapons vs. Non-Battle Armor Infantry: Unless
otherwise stated (see Vehicular Weapon Traits, pp. 212-214), any
attack by vehicular weapons that directly hits a character will
inflict damage with an AP of 10 and a BD equal to 6 times the
weapon’s Total Warfare damage value. For example, the Inner
Sphere medium laser—with its Total Warfare damage value of
5—would inflict damage with the following AP/BD ratings in A
Time of War: 10E/30.
Unless otherwise noted, if a character is within a vehicular
weapon’s “strike zone” (see Vehicular Weapons Targeting
Infantry, above), but is not directly hit by the weapon, the
character suffers half the weapon’s AP and BD in damage.
Thus, a character standing just under half a meter away from
the impact of a medium laser (and thus still within the laser’s
“strike zone”) will suffer 5E/15 damage, rather than 10E/30.

Change to:

Vehicular Weapons vs. Non-Battle Armor Infantry: Unless
otherwise stated (see Vehicular Weapon Traits, pp. 212-214), any
attack by vehicular weapons that directly hits a character will
inflict damage with an AP of 10 and a BD equal to 5 times the
weapon’s Total Warfare damage value. For example, the Inner
Sphere medium laser—with its Total Warfare damage value of
5—would inflict damage with the following AP/BD ratings in A
Time of War: 10E/25.
Unless otherwise noted, if a character is within a vehicular
weapon’s “strike zone” (see Vehicular Weapons Targeting
Infantry, above), but is not directly hit by the weapon, the
character suffers half the weapon’s AP and BD, rounding normally, in damage.
Thus, a character standing just under half a meter away from
the impact of a medium laser (and thus still within the laser’s
“strike zone”) will suffer 5E/13 damage, rather than 10E/25.

Change 2:

Damage Factor: The Damage Factor for a personal weapon
takes its BD value, and multiplies that by the sum of the
following: 3.5 + one-fifth of the weapon’s listed Burst value
(rounded up to the nearest whole number) + 1 (if the weapon
features a splash damage ability). Remember that explosive
and area-effect weapons also tend to have a splash effect; if
in doubt, look for an “X” in the weapon’s AP value, or the letter
“S” in the weapon’s BD value. The presence of either of those
indicates a splash-effect weapon. The weapon’s Burst value
is the number that appears in the notes after the word Burst.
If no Burst value is given, the weapon is presumed to have a
Burst of 1.

Fix:
Add a provision that for Vehicular/Heavy Weapons only to allow the Damage Factor Multiplier to work out to 4.