Post by Precinct Omega on May 15, 2017 14:38:06 GMT
Phew! I have really been struggling with this one. I'm on my third or possibly fourth draft of how to execute explosive weapons in a way that pleases me, and I think I've got it sorted this time, but as I thought that all the last three times, I could be wrong.
The thing with explosive weapons that I've been trying to get a hold of is (1) their lethality for those directly hit by such weapons, and (2) their impact of others in the vicinity. I've always found binary shooting annoying. What I mean by that is the hit/miss status of range such that a soldier may have a, say 25% chance of hitting a target 24" away, but a 0% percent chance of hitting one 25" away. My approach to shooting, using range as a target number, is how I've tackled that to my enormous satisfaction. But explosive weapons are similar. The closer you are to the heart of one, the more lethal it ought to be. Traditional solutions to explosive weapons have been the use of various sorts of template on the basis of, if you touch (or, sometimes, are completely inside) the template, you suffer nastiness. But outside (or only partially covered) and you suffer no ill effect.
In addition, I would like (although was less wedded to) the ability for explosive weapons to be unpredictable in their explosiveness. For a long time I have explosive weapons with an impact radius equal to a d12 result. But that was just *too* random in practice. The last thing I was keen to try to get was a sense of what happens to an explosive projectile if it misses its target. Again, the traditional solution has been to simply ignore such shots, but I find this profoundly unsatisfying.
My current solution is based on a minimum but expandable blast radius, with the damage proportionate to the range to the impact point.
You roll to hit a target as normal. It doesn't have to be an enemy model. If it is, the model gets a counter-test with Av against the attack, giving a higher probability of a miss. But if you do hit, the pay-off is that a target model is simply killed outright, irrespective of what it is (yes, even the Red Mech - this is supposed to encourage players to hold back their heavy artillery for use against critical targets). If it isn't an enemy model, you have a higher chance of hitting your target but no insta-kill.
If you hit, you hit. Your basic blast radius is 5", doing 5 hits. For each additional hit the shooting model gets, you get +1" radius and +1 hit. But the number of hits is reduced by the distance from the impact point and by cover (the obscured level). So a mini in contact with the target takes 5 hits. A mini 3" away takes 2 hits. Unless you get extra successes on the shooting roll, in which case that might go up by one. And don't forget that natural 12s add another success, making the blast radius even bigger.
This isn't quite as lethal as real life, but seems lethal enough to make explosive weapons worth taking, even though they are single-use.
Oh, and btw: any mini inside the blast radius that survives is also stunned and knocked prone (if a character). Bogeys are already having a bad enough day, so they don't suffer any further effects.
Anyway, I'm busy writing this up for the next version of the rules, but I thought I'd put this here because this forum is too quiet...
R.
The thing with explosive weapons that I've been trying to get a hold of is (1) their lethality for those directly hit by such weapons, and (2) their impact of others in the vicinity. I've always found binary shooting annoying. What I mean by that is the hit/miss status of range such that a soldier may have a, say 25% chance of hitting a target 24" away, but a 0% percent chance of hitting one 25" away. My approach to shooting, using range as a target number, is how I've tackled that to my enormous satisfaction. But explosive weapons are similar. The closer you are to the heart of one, the more lethal it ought to be. Traditional solutions to explosive weapons have been the use of various sorts of template on the basis of, if you touch (or, sometimes, are completely inside) the template, you suffer nastiness. But outside (or only partially covered) and you suffer no ill effect.
In addition, I would like (although was less wedded to) the ability for explosive weapons to be unpredictable in their explosiveness. For a long time I have explosive weapons with an impact radius equal to a d12 result. But that was just *too* random in practice. The last thing I was keen to try to get was a sense of what happens to an explosive projectile if it misses its target. Again, the traditional solution has been to simply ignore such shots, but I find this profoundly unsatisfying.
My current solution is based on a minimum but expandable blast radius, with the damage proportionate to the range to the impact point.
You roll to hit a target as normal. It doesn't have to be an enemy model. If it is, the model gets a counter-test with Av against the attack, giving a higher probability of a miss. But if you do hit, the pay-off is that a target model is simply killed outright, irrespective of what it is (yes, even the Red Mech - this is supposed to encourage players to hold back their heavy artillery for use against critical targets). If it isn't an enemy model, you have a higher chance of hitting your target but no insta-kill.
If you hit, you hit. Your basic blast radius is 5", doing 5 hits. For each additional hit the shooting model gets, you get +1" radius and +1 hit. But the number of hits is reduced by the distance from the impact point and by cover (the obscured level). So a mini in contact with the target takes 5 hits. A mini 3" away takes 2 hits. Unless you get extra successes on the shooting roll, in which case that might go up by one. And don't forget that natural 12s add another success, making the blast radius even bigger.
This isn't quite as lethal as real life, but seems lethal enough to make explosive weapons worth taking, even though they are single-use.
Oh, and btw: any mini inside the blast radius that survives is also stunned and knocked prone (if a character). Bogeys are already having a bad enough day, so they don't suffer any further effects.
Anyway, I'm busy writing this up for the next version of the rules, but I thought I'd put this here because this forum is too quiet...
R.