Author Topic: Saves  (Read 6697 times)

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Offline Clark

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Saves
« on: April 29, 2011, 10:25:53 PM »
This is sort of a general question that is thrown out to the membership.

Part of the elegance of LOS is that you score a kill, and the guy dies, and they are removed from board.  I recall one commenter saying how deadly the Mk I Assault Fiend it with "2 hit point!".   

The thing is, combat can affect you in ways that don't take you out of the action entirely.

In Planetstorm and LOS I am talking about the concepts of pinning and wounding.  These are effects just shy of a kill.

In a pin you put them on the defensive and you can kill them if they try to fight back.
On a wound they lose movement and or take a penalty on firing or both.

Take a look at the draft rules for pinning and wounding.  I am not wedded to the use of cards so the use of dice would effectively create a saving thow: if your dude has a kill scored on them, then a roll of the dice might convert that into a pin or wound or both.

Offline Scoutzout

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Re: Saves
« Reply #1 on: April 30, 2011, 02:35:16 AM »
To me a pin  is a tactical position- not a result of a hit. Its the result of incoming fire. I am forced into a defensive posture because I am lucky enough not to be dead. I am pinned down when the enemy is suppressing me more than I am suppressing him. I am pinned when I see that the intersection ahead is being both suppressed and covered by multiple enemies. It makes me want to pause and think of a better plan. "Who has the K-Pulse or Mini Plas?"

However lets keep Pinned as a term we can use for a possible effect of being hit...

A wound on the other hand is non-fatal hit. Despite my armor, cover and sprint ability that damn gremlin rolled an 8.
The hit can have several effects:

"Earth Dogs DIE HARD" It can make a hero hole in my body and armor and piss me off. (No effect)
"Oh ****" I immediately stop, get small and seek cover I may find myself pinned or exposed with no cover. (Pin)
"I ain't got time to bleed" I can "ranger up" and continue the fight (-1move,-1fire)
"Medic!" It can take me out of action (incapacitated, but not dead for campaign)
"That didn't hurt"...thud  (Kill)

Perhaps a less complicated rule to resolve the effect of a "exact hit"

The defender rolls a D6 using the target number of 6
+1 for expending a hero/leadership point (this forces them to use them wisely)
All other modifiers would really be irrelevant. They firer has already overcome range, cover, movement etc to actually score the hit. The defender has already taken account his armor etc.
Special Weapons like mention in the rule document could receive special modifiers


7+  Hero Hole
6 -5 Wound or Pin Defenders Choice
4    Wound or Pin (random)
3    Wound and Pin
2    Incapacitated
1    Kill is scored


As always just brainstorming and having some fun. The scale could change.  You could use 2D6 with additional options etc





Offline YojimboUsaka

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Re: Saves
« Reply #2 on: April 30, 2011, 09:16:56 AM »
One of the big points for LoS was that the majority of all fire actions were resolved with one die roll.  When the wounding rules came out it added a little bit but didnt happen often enough to slow the game down.  I would be very wary of adding anymore die rolls to the combat system for fire actions.  Down that way is a slippery slope that leads to insanity (roll to hit, roll to wound, roll for armor, roll for special ability, roll for ...)

This core mechanic kept LoS moving briskly and didnt get bogged down when large firefights happened.

I would lean towards the -
  one less than kill = pin  (a second pin counts as a wound? *or see below)
  exact kill #          = wound
  1 > kill #            = kill

* maybe a unit could have multiple pin markers on it?  Each one requires a morale check to remove or acts as a modifier to the morale roll.  High rate of fire weapons would then be better at successfully suppressing an area.  Otherwise high morale units will be shrugging off suppression like rain water.

Granted it would require a refiguring of weapons cost and lightly armored troops would be at a slight disadvantage.  We have played with wounding on the kill or 1 less # for a long time and the game balance has not been broken one way or the other from our experience so I dont think this will be that drastic.

Charles

Offline Clark

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Re: Saves
« Reply #3 on: April 30, 2011, 11:17:28 AM »
The simple fix I was looking at is similar to what Scoutzout suggests:

Roll 1d6

+1 if figure is already pinned
-1 for suppression fire

2-  Pin
3    Pin+Wound
4    Wound
5+  Kill

Or

2-      Pin
3-4    Pin+Wound
5-6    Wound
7+    Kill

There seems to be a consensus that this sort of roll shoild not be done everytime you score a ki but rather on some exceptional basis, like rolling the kill# exactly.

Offline Dave Chase

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Re: Saves
« Reply #4 on: April 30, 2011, 11:41:10 AM »
You could always throw an additional different colored die at the same time as the to hit roll.

This other colored die is the hit effect roll. If a hit happens, this is the effect.
That way you could have modifiers to the hit effect which is only added to the colored die if a hit takes place.

Dave Chase
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Offline Scoutzout

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Re: Saves
« Reply #5 on: April 30, 2011, 03:36:49 PM »

@Dave..a lot of experienced gamers would throw exactly that way. The effect dice/special dice are used in a lot of current systems. Whether its official or not players tend to develop their own little ways of making the game go a little faster.


@Charles, I agree completely with you. More die roll, more counters, more record keeping sucks. What I was proposing happens only on the exact roll.  That way the weapons stay the same, the pin effects are incorporated and I only have to know the kill number and above. Anything else is a miss or saved by armor etc.


@Clark, For something like this you would have to decide what was "worse" to do the graduated scale. Is a wound worse than a pin? Some players may think differently


Pin
Wound
Pin+Wound
Kill


I still like the idea of a hero shot.... :P



Offline Dave Chase

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Re: Saves
« Reply #6 on: April 30, 2011, 08:01:02 PM »

@Dave..a lot of experienced gamers would throw exactly that way. The effect dice/special dice are used in a lot of current systems. Whether its official or not players tend to develop their own little ways of making the game go a little faster.
...

I think I mentioned this in another thread,
back 10 years ago, it was becoming popular to use the dice from Koplow that was a clear 6 sided that had 3 different smaller 6 sided dice inside it.

I have some of their other clear dice with a die in it, but the 3 of 6 was a popular die in many wargames and RPG's.

Dave Chase
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Offline smokingwreckage

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Re: Saves
« Reply #7 on: May 01, 2011, 06:03:47 AM »
I'd be happiest if it were optional.

What about a system where you could spend Ld or HP to get a "luck" roll (similar to or replacing the "Oh Sh!t" rule that gives you a straight-up saving throw). Basically what I'm thinking about here is making it an active part of the game rather than just adding more rules. You would have limited chances to keep a guy in the campaign or the game, so you would have to choose. The problem with that is that it would always make sense to spend those points early.

The detailed rules as they stand are detailed enough that I'd never use them, so I'm not the target audience, but if I were to use them I'd prefer a roll to a card draw, especially if cards were already being used for initiative, for example.

Offline Clark

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Re: Saves
« Reply #8 on: May 01, 2011, 09:45:34 AM »
@Clark, For something like this you would have to decide what was "worse" to do the graduated scale. Is a wound worse than a pin? Some players may think differently


Pin
Wound
Pin+Wound
Kill


I still like the idea of a hero shot.... :P

Yes and no.  As long as pins are at the bottom and kills are at the top then the chance of wounds vs pins stays the same, so it doesn't matter which is worse.

The hero shot or hero hole is a good bit of fluff.  Keep in mind that a pin is generally a near miss that forces you to go to ground.  A grazing shot or hero hole could have the same effect.

Offline grendeljd

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Re: Saves
« Reply #9 on: May 02, 2011, 10:17:59 AM »
I always loved the fact that in LoS fire actions had fast resolution. I switched to LoS from GW and never looked back - all the ridiculous dice rolling just to have a figure be fine at the end of it all... ugh. So I would be leery of adding too much in this vein to slow down fire resolution, unless it is an optional rule that I'd be free to ignore but there for those who might like it.

However, I did enjoy the old 'penny token' wounding rules mentioned by Sergeant_Hastp elsewhere. Perhaps a workable variation would be to limit it to a function of leadership/hero points as suggested by SW, and also only possible to make the roll if the exact kill# is rolled. Perhaps it should cost 2 leadership to perform? I'd just hate to see it get silly or seriously impact the speed of the game.

Also, for clarity's sake - are we strictly talking about Planetstorm for this pinning/wounding concept? AFAIK, pinning is not in the indoor rules, is the intention there to bring it in?
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Offline Clark

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Re: Saves
« Reply #10 on: May 02, 2011, 12:51:24 PM »
Indoors, pinning has no application and wounding will remain optional.

Outdoors we need pinning but not wounding, but I wanted to figure a way of incorporating both.

From the discussion it appears that the odds of implementing the draft kill, pin, wound rules I posted in the media gallery is becoming vanishingly small. What I liked about it was that it gave more richness to variations in terrain and weaponry while still keeping the basic d6 for firing.

Offline Dave Chase

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Re: Saves
« Reply #11 on: May 02, 2011, 01:39:31 PM »
Sounds more like a good optional rule to include in 3e.

:)

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Offline smokingwreckage

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Re: Saves
« Reply #12 on: May 03, 2011, 08:22:51 AM »
There are people who will enjoy the option of more detailed wounding rules. I'm not one of those people, so I'm sneakily using the word optional a lot optional in order to covertly influence optional Clark's decision making process..... optional.

Offline Clark

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Re: Saves
« Reply #13 on: May 03, 2011, 08:40:23 PM »
"These are not the core rules you are looking for."


Offline sergeant_hastp

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Re: Saves
« Reply #14 on: May 05, 2011, 05:41:01 AM »
Once again I will lobby the benefits for the system I (we) used as discussed;

NO extra dice rolls. (except to determine the type of wound, in the case of wounding)

Players have control of when it gets used.  Offensively or defensively as desired. Maybe not 'realistic' but more 'cinematic;' in that the ones that are likely to get pinned or wounded are the important figures that matter.  Does anyone really care that much if gremlin #32 off by himself at the side of the board gets 1 less movement point?  Maybe..maybe not.  Chances are, marking and tracking that wound would me more trouble than its worth.  But if you hit my only assault pioneer on the exact number required, then I am surely going to use up one of my tokens to give him a chance to keep doing his job.

Being able to purchase a couple more, gives you a way to burn up a few UPV and get you a little closer to your opponent's UPV total for a more even balance.

Perhaps this is better as a wounding-only mechanic, and adopt a more 'realistic' method for pinning.  If I recall correctly we only used this token system for wounding.

We also had stats for medic characters if I recall.  I remember paining up a UNE Medic.