| From: | Richard Bukowski <bukowski@**.BERKELEY.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Autofire/recoil, threat ratings, and spell locks |
| Date: | Thu, 23 Mar 1995 22:06:02 -0800 |
>From: Damion Milliken <adm82@***.EDU.AU>
>Subject: Re: Autofire and recoil rules
>
>> The idea of the clumping is: since the low HCR weapon hit with
[ yadda yadda yadda ]
>
>Yes, I think I see what you're getting at. The recoil has not got enough
>time to seriously misalign the aim of the firer before another round is
>actually fired. Effectively, what it would be is a +1/2 target number
>modifier to your shot, because the recoil has not effected your aiming as
>seriously as it would with a slower rate of fire weapon (the weapon hasn't
>physically moved enough in the shorter time span to give a full +1 recoil
>modifier).
Bingo! You got it right on the nose.
>> In fact, I would now like to propose a minor modification of the
>> clumping rule that I proposed earlier.
>
>What you have done here is said that rounds fired later in a burst are less
>affected by recoil than rounds fired early in the burst. I don't really see
>any justification for this line of reasoning.
You're right here, too. Later on, I realized this and gave some
thought to a _decreasing_ mode, rather than an increasing mode, on the
assumption that later shots should have a greater modifier. Since
then, I've decided that just a straight clumping was the best way to
go; much cleaner. So, HCR 3 means 3 bullets per clump, from the first
clump to the last.
>> OPTIONAL RULE 1a: Hardened armor uses the power of the _clump_,
>> rather than the base power of the _round_,
>
>I don't like it at all. The rounds will not hit _that_ closely together,
>they will still each be a little off the original target, it is unlikely for
>the rounds from an automatic weapon to hit so very closely to the same place
>one after the other. And remember, the armour of one of the modern day tanks
>(someone posted this earlier) was impenetrable to weapons up to a certain
>gruntiness (I think it was impenetrable to fire from anything which was
>50cal or less actually).
I'll give you this one too.
>
>> [The "I rolled 43, whadda I get for it?" rule]
>>
>> Depends on how many successes you think he should "be able to get." :)
>> IMHO, if this rule is applied evenly across the board for everyone, it
>> just raises the expected number of successes by a small amount.
>
>Yeah, I see your point here. Maybe it would work, it wouldn't increase the
>success rates by more than 1 or 2 successes at most in the general case, but
>it can make for very extreme good luck, with some phenomenal occurances
>(like when you roll 43 - I did once, boy, that guy would've blown one of the
>runners clean off the face of the earth :-)). Does anybody else out there
>use it? If so, could you tell us how you find the rule?
Someone already mentioned they have used and liked it, a few days ago.
---------------------------
>
>
>Date: Thu, 23 Mar 1995 19:23:33 +1000
>From: Damion Milliken <adm82@***.EDU.AU>
>Subject: Re: Threat Ratings
>
>Marc A Renouf writes:
>
>> Could someone post a paraphrasing of the new Threat Rating rules
>> from Prime Runners? I would like to see how they've changed from the
>> original rules.
>
>There are now 4 Threat Ratings, each one corresponding to the appropriate
>Dice Pool it replaces. The Threat Ratings are equal to 1/3 of the Dice Pool
>they replace, rounded to the nearest whole number. There are rules for
[ more about threat ratings deleted ]
Is it just me, or do threat ratings seem sort of cheap and unfair?
Each reason for using threat ratings has a problem:
Reason 1: Make the bad guy tougher.
It is a cheesy way to make something tougher that has no real reason
to be tough in the first place. A guy with a body of 2 has no reason
to be rolling 8 dice to resist a bullet wound (i.e. threat rating 6).
Saying it's purpose is to "make the bad guy tougher" smacks of good
ol' AD&D and its hit dice system. You know, the one where the
capability of a monster can be summed up by the fact that it has <x>
hit dice, which immediately tells you how accurate its attacks are, how
tough it is to kill, how well it will resist spells, and a whole
plethora of other things. Pretty lame and unimaginative way of making
Foozle (tm) bulletproof so that your PCs don't just waste him with one
light pistol shot.
Reason 2: Remove the burden of tracking pools from the GM.
This is much more reasonable than reason 1, but it changes the dynamic
of combat considerably. It is to an NPC's distinct advantage to
concentrate fire on a PC; the first few attacks force the PC to
deplete his combat pool, and then the next attack is death. With a
threat rating, the PCs lose the advantage in the other direction. My
PCs explicitly will concentrate fire to try to deplete combat pools,
assuming that the enemy is obeying the same rules they are. It would
be kind of sad if they didn't. I run pools for the NPCs, myself; I
consider it a bit fairer. (Heaven knows why, I'm actually a fan of
the Paranoia Dramatic Combat System, and use it all the time in SR. :)
------------------------------
>Date: Thu, 23 Mar 1995 11:17:15 -0000
>From: Philip Hayward <Philip.Hayward@***.UK>
>Subject: Re: Spell lock
>
>Gurth writes:
>> The problem for the recipient is that he/she cannot affect it. Mundanes can
>> see it as in "the light that bounces off the spell lock falls into their
>> eyes," but their minds just tell them it isn't there, so they see what they
>> expect to see instead.
[ stuff about locks... ]
>
>What types of magicians (or rather adepts) can switch spell locks on/off
>etc.. this halogen flashlight, its not as bright as a magician with
>magic of 6 surely, how easy to cover/ hide this light (I know this has
>been asked before, I seem to recall a spell lock in the mouth debate when
>joined. We have two methods of concealing them that seem to work,
>surgically implanting (only works on magician who's aura is greater than
>the spell lock or foci) and my shaman who keeps his covered by a pouch
>of seeds - living matter blocks LOS and astral movement :)
There's a basic problem with the whole idea of "hiding" spell locks.
It centers around the "physical" presence of the lock on the physical
plane. SR rules seem to indicate that an active lock is invisible,
intangible, and, in general, not really there. My interpretation of
this is that the active lock actually is no longer the little
bauble/bead/ring/necklace/whatever that it was when it was inactive,
but it goes into some sort of intermediate state where it's part of
the aura of the character/aura of the spell it's holding active. As
such, there is no real concept of "hiding" the active lock. If the
lock is inactive, it is a mundane ring or pendant that has no
connection to the astral. If the lock is active, it is intangible
from the physical, but both the spell and the lock are astrally
entwined with the aura of the caster, and as such are visible (and
attackable) as long as the caster is visible or attackable. (This is
the price you pay for having it completely intangible from the
physical!) If a lock is "disenchanted" by having a spell grounded
through it, the spell goes poof and the lock reverts to its "blank"
mundane state.
Oh, that's another thing: I don't believe it's in the rulebook, but I
have made a house rule that any spell has an astral presence when
active, and that presence extends to anywhere the spell has an effect.
Anywhere the spell has a presence, it may be attacked on the astral.
The primary motivator for the rule was to prevent
clarivoyance/clairaudience from penetrating wards and other astral
barriers; in general, I think it makes astral security a bit more
tenable.
Rick
Richard William Bukowski | Computer Science Department
Bukowski@**.Berkeley.EDU | University of California at Berkeley
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh "BOB" D'lyeh Wgah'nagl Dhobbz f'htagn."
