| From: | Marc A Renouf <jormung@*****.UMICH.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Speed is Life (Is it?) |
| Date: | Wed, 20 Sep 1995 14:30:04 -0400 |
> Could you post some alternatives to "Speed=Everything"? Speed and
> reaction and not-being-surprised pretty much -are- everything in
> just about every combat I've seen.
Skill, weight of numbers, reach, superior positioning and tactics,
suppressive fire, and anti-personnel mines. A good plan beats a fast gun
any day of the week.
Especially in hand-to-hand, being faster means dying faster if
you have less skill. Sure, your combat pool refreshes more often than
the other guy, but if he has twice your skill to begin with, you're
hosed. If he's smart, he'll wound you on the first action and then it's
all downhill.
And I don't care how fast you are, if you trip a claymore, you're
toast. Yes, you're scooting down the corridor at half your Quickness in
meters while still holding your action, but that just means you'll get to
the trip-wire faster.
Also keep in mind that in you basic shoot-out with corp guards,
speed is really not going to be that much of an advantage. When you
include all the modifiers (here I go again...) for shooter's movement,
target's movement, poor visibility, your cover, their cover, wounds, and
other random situational modifiers, you're often looking at a
double-digit target number. Suddenly skill, far more than speed,
becomes the deciding factor. Faster characters just waste more ammo.
In situations like this you also have to worry about the weight
of numbers. Yes, you'll shoot twice before the goons go, but your
chances of hitting, much less killing one are slim. If they have
superior numbers, they will ultimately end up rolling more dice than
you. In addition, they can often lower their target numbers to less than
yours by doing things like trapping you in a cross-fire where you have
less (or even no) cover in relation to some of them.
How about surprise? If they are laying in wait to ambush you,
their target number for the surprise test is at -2. So while you're
looking for 4's, they're looking for 2's. A wired-3, max natural
Reaction sammy has a Reaction of about 12. That's 6 successes,
statistically speaking. The corp goon with Reaction 5 and a Threat
Rating of 2 is going to at least tie. That Lone Star DED trooper with a
Reaction 8 and Threat Rating 3 is going to blow you away. And if there
are two of them? Goodbye.
On to supressive fire. It doesn't matter how fast you are,
you're still going to take rounds if you step out into an area that's
being suppressed. Though the rules don't explicitly state it, it is
reasonable to allow suppressive fire to "wrap around" from one combat
round to another. After all, you're just holding down the trigger. So
it doesn't matter how fast you are. Once you start, the renewal of
suppressive fire is a free action (house rule, but makes sense). You can
keep it up all day long, or until you run out of ammo (or you barrel
melts). And when that happens, the three goons that you didn't see while
you were pinned down have already taken up positions to hose you.
As you can see, speed is definitely not everything, especially
when facing a well-trained opponent who actually thinks rather than
standing out in the open and shooting from a standstill in a well-lit
corridor. And facing an opponent who knows you're coming and has
prepared for it? The fastest one is the first one in the bodybag.
Marc
