We played a game with the Earth Force Source Book space ship combat rules last
night, and the very first shot of the game caused a controversy.
> From 70 MUs away, a Narn assault cruiser fired a 2-dice heavy beam shot
they could afford to take long, low probability shots like this. Many of the
Centauri players thought this to be an exploitation of the rules, and that the
heavy beams should be limited to range 36 or 42 MUs, or that
penalties above -6 should be applied to the rerolled die.
Have we misread the rules, or are we misjudging what we see as a possible flaw
in them?
> We played a game with the Earth Force Source Book space ship combat
Hmmmm...good question; hadn't thought of that before (like I've had the rules
for more than a couple few days). If I were ruling, I'd say the beams cannot
hit after you reach the -6 penalty range. -6 or -7, anyhow. Definitely
-7.
This should offset the auto-hit aspect of the weapons at range 6 or
less.
Just my call on it.
Mk
> We played a game with the Earth Force Source Book space ship combat
Yes, the rules are not explicit enough at this point - the HB should not
be
able to hit when the modifier gets to -6, so its maximum range is 36mu.
The reroll only counts if you inflict some damage with the initial hit roll.
Unfortunately a case of both myself and CE/WF knowing what we meant, but
not saying it clearly enough!
> Tom McCarthy wrote:
> We played a game with the Earth Force Source Book space ship combat
[Before anyone says: Yes, I have seen Jon T's response, that he intended
the range to be limited]
How would you handle applying the penalty to subsequent dice? Something like
this:
If the penalty is grater than 6 and a "natural" 6 is rolled, then
re-roll,
applying a reduced penalty of 6 less then the original penalty.
eg. Rolling against a penalty of 13: 1) the die is rolled once, landing on 6
- indicating a re-roll with a reduced penalty of 7 (ie 13-6)
2) the dice is re-rolled also landing on 6
- indicating a re-roll with a reduced penalty of 1 (ie 7-6)
3) the dice is rolled, and again lands on 6
- the penalty reduces this to 5 (doing 1 point of damage ?),
but because it was a natural 6, we still need to re-roll (without
penalty this time) 4) the unpenalised roll produces a 5 (at last!) (doing 1
damage?)
If you're that lucky, you deserve to hit! (or at least, to have your dice
checked for weights)
[Off topic digression follows...]
Actually, this reminds me of an incident in a Star Wars RPG game, where
someone was "guest playing" one of the storm troopers attacking our party. No
disrespect to aging Jedi knights, but normally they can't hit the broadside
of barn, but the SW-RPG rules have the same sort of re-rolling scheme...
Oh, a six.
Ok, re-roll..
Oh, another one, and another one, and another one.
<BLAM> one critically injured character :-(
If I remember correctly, the victim is on this list,
you know who you are ;-)
> Oh, a six.
Yes Alun I'm still here - actually she managed to roll 42 on 1d6!
But never mind I recovered and have returned the favour to another
stormtrooper since. And there was a certain other player's character (also on
the list) who lost 99 SAN in a Cthullu game in one roll It just goes to show
that sad dice rolls do occur and don't forget FT ships don't recover from
those hits whereas my RPG character did thankfully.
I've only ever had one incredibly memorable dice roll. I rolled 7 6's in one
handful. In response, my opponent rolled 5 1's. Odds against this happening
are approximately 2 billion to one. Needless to say, my friends mini is
a heap of melted metal, whereas mine is gold-plated ;)...
> It just goes to show that sad dice rolls do occur and don't forget FT
> On Sat, 17 Jan 1998 16:35:49 -0000, "Craig" <craig@clara.net> wrote:
> And there was a certain other player's character (also on the list) who
Hmmph. When I TRY to drive my players insane, they roll great. One of the
players saw Cthulhu (don't ask) and rolled a 1 on the 1D100. Next time he
appears, it will be, "Oh, hi big boy. What brings you here?"