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What's TAC and MDR?

Your point about range and higher TN with increasing range is certainly true.

tac is through armour crits not sure about mdr.

TAC = Through Armor Critical - It's basically the result of rolling 12 To-Hit.

MDR = Multiple Dice Rolls - An official Optional Rule: Instead of rolling 1 pair of dice for all the Damage, you roll a pair of dice for each point of Damage you're going to inflict. Useful for Splitting Fire. You can also include Special Damage (such as Precision AC Ammo) along with normal Attack dice using this method.

Pilot Dice is based on MDR, but instead of rolling a pair of dice, you have 1 single die that acts as a pilot to the rest of the dice. You then roll a single die for every point of Damage you're going to inflict and add that to the Pilot Die to see if it hits.

Another house rule that some people add to MDR and Pilot Dice is that only one die can Crit. Theoretically, this is to reduce the chances of a Crit happening to what it is under the standard rules from the more chances MDR and Pilot dice bring, but it still throws off the chance the other way.

 Charistoph wrote:
TAC = Through Armor Critical - It's basically the result of rolling 12 To-Hit.

MDR = Multiple Dice Rolls - An official Optional Rule: Instead of rolling 1 pair of dice for all the Damage, you roll a pair of dice for each point of Damage you're going to inflict. Useful for Splitting Fire. You can also include Special Damage (such as Precision AC Ammo) along with normal Attack dice using this method.

Pilot Dice is based on MDR, but instead of rolling a pair of dice, you have 1 single die that acts as a pilot to the rest of the dice. You then roll a single die for every point of Damage you're going to inflict and add that to the Pilot Die to see if it hits.

Another house rule that some people add to MDR and Pilot Dice is that only one die can Crit. Theoretically, this is to reduce the chances of a Crit happening to what it is under the standard rules from the more chances MDR and Pilot dice bring, but it still throws off the chance the other way.

Thanks, that makes sense.

I don't understand your comment about the probability of criticals occurring, though.

RAW, you have a 1/36 chance (about 2.8%) of a crit, right? Allowing all sets of dice for Pilot or MDR to trigger a crit (presumably a maximum of only one crit per attack, just a higher chance of it happening) raises your chances to crit based on your damage output. With the "one set of dice can crit" stipulation to the Pilot or MDR variants, you also have a 1/36 chance to crit. I don't think it's throwning the chance the other way, unless I'm misunderstanding something.

 pancakeonions wrote:
RAW, you have a 1/36 chance (about 2.8%) of a crit, right? Allowing all sets of dice for Pilot or MDR to trigger a crit (presumably a maximum of only one crit per attack, just a higher chance of it happening) raises your chances to crit based on your damage output. With the "one set of dice can crit" stipulation to the Pilot or MDR variants, you also have a 1/36 chance to crit. I don't think it's throwning the chance the other way, unless I'm misunderstanding something.

That's the illusion everyone operates under.

While that one pair of dice could potentially Crit with MDR, you're actually throwing more dice, throwing the general results off. It's 1/36 for that one pair of dice, but you're not actually throwing one pair of dice over all. It throws off your results over all.

 pancakeonions wrote:
But conceptually this doesn't make sense. The pilot die rule can *never* do more damage than RAW, but *can* do less damage than RAW and can do the *same* amount of damage as RAW.

I don't know the post you're referring to, but I think the part that you're missing is that the pilot die is less likely to do zero damage.

Default RAW is binary all-or-nothing. Rolling 2D6 per point of damage tends to produce very 'average' results, with you being unlikely to inflict either no damage or full damage. The pilot die mechanic lies in between the two.

That's true, Catbarf, and it's something I'm wrestling with. Gonna have to talk to some experts... Does a mech, e.g., throwing 5 damage at medium range, do more damage over time with Pilot or RAW? MDR doesn't interest me (tossing pairs of dice and trying to sort that out sounds too tedious IMO) but I'm curious about that one too.

But with regards to criticals, Charistoph, I think everyone operates over the illusion, because ... it's not an illusion. I have a 2.8% of rolling a crit with RAW, I have a 2.8% of rolling a crit with Pilot and designating two dice as the "crit dice". This is the same for MDR. Each set of dice is independent (presumably!) so rolling more of them is not relevant to the crit dice.

If we start fishing for crits with MDR (and assuming you only allow one crit, no matter how many boxcars you toss), our chance of critting starts going up based on the number of pairs we're rolling. Two damage/dice-pairs: 5.5%, 3 damage: 8.1%, 4 damage: 10.7%, 5 damage: 13.1%. Basically it's: 1 - ((35/36)^(Number of rolls))

This will be a little wonky under Pilot dice rules.

Which could be fine; a big, bad mech throwing piles of damage should maybe probably be able to crit more than a wee infantry man shooting rubber bands... But you should be aware the chance of crits goes up pretty dramatically as you roll more attempts.

 pancakeonions wrote:
That's true, Catbarf, and it's something I'm wrestling with. Gonna have to talk to some experts... Does a mech, e.g., throwing 5 damage at medium range, do more damage over time with Pilot or RAW? MDR doesn't interest me (tossing pairs of dice and trying to sort that out sounds too tedious IMO) but I'm curious about that one too.

But with regards to criticals, Charistoph, I think everyone operates over the illusion, because ... it's not an illusion. I have a 2.8% of rolling a crit with RAW, I have a 2.8% of rolling a crit with Pilot and designating two dice as the "crit dice". This is the same for MDR. Each set of dice is independent (presumably!) so rolling more of them is not relevant to the crit dice.

If we start fishing for crits with MDR (and assuming you only allow one crit, no matter how many boxcars you toss), our chance of critting starts going up based on the number of pairs we're rolling. Two damage/dice-pairs: 5.5%, 3 damage: 8.1%, 4 damage: 10.7%, 5 damage: 13.1%. Basically it's: 1 - ((35/36)^(Number of rolls))

This will be a little wonky under Pilot dice rules.

Which could be fine; a big, bad mech throwing piles of damage should maybe probably be able to crit more than a wee infantry man shooting rubber bands... But you should be aware the chance of crits goes up pretty dramatically as you roll more attempts.

Which is a problem... why, exactly?

That's how crits, especially TAC, work in the main game. The more separate shots hit, the more crits you're likely to score. Yes, a single AC/20 hit will likely breach the armor wherever it hits but if the armor holds there's only 1/36 chance of a TAC, but ten SRMs will almost certainly NOT breach the armor but have a roughly 1 in 4 chance of getting a TAC per turn.

Of course, Alpha Strike does not distinguish between an AC/20 and ten SRMs, so that might be an issue.

 pancakeonions wrote:
That's true, Catbarf, and it's something I'm wrestling with. Gonna have to talk to some experts... Does a mech, e.g., throwing 5 damage at medium range, do more damage over time with Pilot or RAW? MDR doesn't interest me (tossing pairs of dice and trying to sort that out sounds too tedious IMO) but I'm curious about that one too.

Pilot Dice is MDR with a narrower scale. I don't find it that irritating since I do it in Classic, too, particularly with units like the Hunchback 4P where I'm firing off 8 Medium Lasers, or the Arctic Wolf where I'm shooting 6 SRM-6s

 pancakeonions wrote:
But with regards to criticals, Charistoph, I think everyone operates over the illusion, because ... it's not an illusion. I have a 2.8% of rolling a crit with RAW, I have a 2.8% of rolling a crit with Pilot and designating two dice as the "crit dice". This is the same for MDR. Each set of dice is independent (presumably!) so rolling more of them is not relevant to the crit dice.

If we start fishing for crits with MDR (and assuming you only allow one crit, no matter how many boxcars you toss), our chance of critting starts going up based on the number of pairs we're rolling. Two damage/dice-pairs: 5.5%, 3 damage: 8.1%, 4 damage: 10.7%, 5 damage: 13.1%. Basically it's: 1 - ((35/36)^(Number of rolls))

This will be a little wonky under Pilot dice rules.

Which could be fine; a big, bad mech throwing piles of damage should maybe probably be able to crit more than a wee infantry man shooting rubber bands... But you should be aware the chance of crits goes up pretty dramatically as you roll more attempts.

Your error, and where the illusion lies, is that I'm comparing the crit chance to MDR, when I'm comparing it to the standard 1 pair of dice.

See, with the pilot dice, while you're only rolling one pair for the Crit, you're also rolling more dice over all. When taken in total, the end result will be off simply due to that volume.

The best results I have had over about 10 games (including several 2v2 multi-player games) is using MAR. (Multiple Attack Rolls)

On one end of the spectrum is Normal Damage, which is super swingy and sees either your one chance to hit miss completely, or you just completely delete low armor/Structure units off the board with one attack from high-damage units. It certainly makes units die quickly, though. Natural Crits are few and far between. This method of damage is where things like Combat Intuition really feel broken when you have Skill 2 High-damage units kill things without even being able to be hurt in return.

On the other end is the Pilot Die method, which drops the all-or-nothing from above. It makes the game "feel" like you are shooting more weapons systems, but sees very few (but a few more) natural 12's rolled, as you HAVE to roll a 6 on the pilot die to combine another 6 with.

MAR has worked the best for us. It feels like in Classic where you are shooting lots of weapons at a target, splitting fire is super easy, and even though a single pool of "attacks" can only result in one Natural Crit even if you roll multiple sets of boxcars, they still show up more often. I initially thought it would be too often, but we have had several games with very few Natural Crits on either side.

Light units have a chance to survive more than one turn of shooting at them, which feels better. It lets my cool models do crazy lucky shots, but still for the most part they stay on the table for a satisfying time.

For instance in Classic I have had an enemy Victor blaze away at my Owens from frighteningly close range, and the Owens survived with just the loss of an arm because of unlucky rolls by the attacker. This makes Alpha Strike with Multiple Attack Rolls have that same feel (with a Light/Medium mechs having a bunch of armor damaged and maybe a Fire Control or Weapon crit by a good attack, but still surviving).

I figure my best results of playtesting is when introducing my 9-yo son to Alpha Strike with two games where we each fielded a 125pt Lance. One with a Pilot Die, and a second one with standard Multiple Attack Rolls. He said the second one "felt better" with absolutely no knowledge of Battletech other than "mechs are cool".

 AegisGrimm wrote:
The best results I have had over about 10 games (including several 2v2 multi-player games) is using MAR. (Multiple Attack Rolls)

On one end of the spectrum is Normal Damage, which is super swingy and sees either your one chance to hit miss completely, or you just completely delete low armor/Structure units off the board with one attack from high-damage units. It certainly makes units die quickly, though. Natural Crits are few and far between. This method of damage is where things like Combat Intuition really feel broken when you have Skill 2 High-damage units kill things without even being able to be hurt in return.

On the other end is the Pilot Die method, which drops the all-or-nothing from above. It makes the game "feel" like you are shooting more weapons systems, but sees very few (but a few more) natural 12's rolled, as you HAVE to roll a 6 on the pilot die to combine another 6 with.

MAR has worked the best for us. It feels like in Classic where you are shooting lots of weapons at a target, splitting fire is super easy, and even though a single pool of "attacks" can only result in one Natural Crit even if you roll multiple sets of boxcars, they still show up more often. I initially thought it would be too often, but we have had several games with very few Natural Crits on either side.

Light units have a chance to survive more than one turn of shooting at them, which feels better. It lets my cool models do crazy lucky shots, but still for the most part they stay on the table for a satisfying time.

For instance in Classic I have had an enemy Victor blaze away at my Owens from frighteningly close range, and the Owens survived with just the loss of an arm because of unlucky rolls by the attacker. This makes Alpha Strike with Multiple Attack Rolls have that same feel (with a Light/Medium mechs having a bunch of armor damaged and maybe a Fire Control or Weapon crit by a good attack, but still surviving).

I figure my best results of playtesting is when introducing my 9-yo son to Alpha Strike with two games where we each fielded a 125pt Lance. One with a Pilot Die, and a second one with standard Multiple Attack Rolls. He said the second one "felt better" with absolutely no knowledge of Battletech other than "mechs are cool".

Rad! So for MDR, do you roll a handful of matched pairs, one set per potential damage? Or do you prefer to roll 2d6 X times one after the other, where X is the potential damage? I've only played twice, both with RAW, and both felt a little... 'wrong'. Admitedly, I fall more into your son's "mechs are cool" category, as I have very little exposure to Battletech beyond the fact that, as the thread title clarifies, it is awesome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Charistoph wrote:

 pancakeonions wrote:
That's true, Catbarf, and it's something I'm wrestling with. Gonna have to talk to some experts... Does a mech, e.g., throwing 5 damage at medium range, do more damage over time with Pilot or RAW? MDR doesn't interest me (tossing pairs of dice and trying to sort that out sounds too tedious IMO) but I'm curious about that one too.

Pilot Dice is MDR with a narrower scale. I don't find it that irritating since I do it in Classic, too, particularly with units like the Hunchback 4P where I'm firing off 8 Medium Lasers, or the Arctic Wolf where I'm shooting 6 SRM-6s

 pancakeonions wrote:
But with regards to criticals, Charistoph, I think everyone operates over the illusion, because ... it's not an illusion. I have a 2.8% of rolling a crit with RAW, I have a 2.8% of rolling a crit with Pilot and designating two dice as the "crit dice". This is the same for MDR. Each set of dice is independent (presumably!) so rolling more of them is not relevant to the crit dice.

If we start fishing for crits with MDR (and assuming you only allow one crit, no matter how many boxcars you toss), our chance of critting starts going up based on the number of pairs we're rolling. Two damage/dice-pairs: 5.5%, 3 damage: 8.1%, 4 damage: 10.7%, 5 damage: 13.1%. Basically it's: 1 - ((35/36)^(Number of rolls))

This will be a little wonky under Pilot dice rules.

Which could be fine; a big, bad mech throwing piles of damage should maybe probably be able to crit more than a wee infantry man shooting rubber bands... But you should be aware the chance of crits goes up pretty dramatically as you roll more attempts.

Your error, and where the illusion lies, is that I'm comparing the crit chance to MDR, when I'm comparing it to the standard 1 pair of dice.

See, with the pilot dice, while you're only rolling one pair for the Crit, you're also rolling more dice over all. When taken in total, the end result will be off simply due to that volume.

lol. Respectfully, I think we're talking at cross purposes... The end result may very well be different in terms of damage output, yes, but RAW vs. MDR vs. Pilot (each with only one set of crit dice) all have a 2.8% chance of a critical hit. Anyway, I'm clearly not understanding, lol, so I'll just climb back into my Urbanmech, stall the motor once or twice awkwardly, then slink away in a cloud of black smoke once I get the damn thing to fire up.

Rad! So for MDR, do you roll a handful of matched pairs, one set per potential damage? Or do you prefer to roll 2d6 X times one after the other, where X is the potential damage? I've only played twice, both with RAW, and both felt a little... 'wrong'. Admitedly, I fall more into your son's "mechs are cool" category, as I have very little exposure to Battletech beyond the fact that, as the thread title clarifies, it is awesome.

Sorry, I misspoke in my post.

There are actually FOUR(!) different ways some groups roll for damage with Alpha Strike. There's the main rules style, then the two types of Variable Damage in the Commanders Edition, AND the "Pilot Die" that some groups prefer to use instead. They all function differently and are not compatible. All my games use Multiple Attack Rolls, though sometimes I accidently call them MDRs instead (I went back and corrected my post where I did just that).

Multiple Damage Rolls are something I have never used. In that way, you roll 2D6 like normal, and if you hit, you have to roll a D6 for every point of damage the unit can do with that attack, and anything that rolls 3+ does damage. I don't like it because everything takes two rolls, and then the To-Hit rolls are the swingy all-or-nothing like with the main rules, AND even if you hit with the one roll, then you can still miss all your damage rolls and do the pitiful "minimum 1 damage" rule enabled when using that method.

I personally like using Multiple Attack Rolls. When you are making a weapon attack, you figure out the TN with Sator as normal, and then simply gather up as many pairs of dice (make sure they are unique pairs to tell them apart) as your mech can do in damage at that range, and roll them all once, so it's fast, a little bit forgiving, and determinative. Each pair that meets or exceeds the TN does a point of damage to the target. If at least one point of structure is damaged by the complete attack (NOT per hit), you get to make a single crit roll. If any one of the to-hit rolls is a double six, you also get to roll a crit roll even if there is armor left after damage is marked off. It really feels like a bunch of weapons all hitting or missing separately.

If you are attacking form the rear arc (the triangle) of the target, you simply add one additional pair of dice to the attack.

Physical Attacks are never made with any sort of Variable Damage as far as I know. You just figure the TN like the normal rules, roll a single pair of dice, and if they hit, you do all your physical damage (based on size and weapon if available) to the target, similar to the standard damage rules. Structure Crits and Natural Crits work just like above. So it's an all-or-nothing gamble.

I like how the two ways of doing damage scale against each other. One big punch or kick, versus a bunch of weapons that may not all hit, but sometimes they might just actually ALL hit, and at the very least, all those weapons blazing away at once increases the chances of lucky hits.

Then of course there's all the crazy Physical Attack stuff like Death From Above attacks, Charging, etc. I've honestly never had to resolve any of those!

 AegisGrimm wrote:
The best results I have had over about 10 games (including several 2v2 multi-player games) is using MAR. (Multiple Attack Rolls)

DANG IT, I keep mixing that name up. We use MAR, locally.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
MAR ... splitting fire is super easy...

Officially speaking, Splitting Fire is only available with MAR.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Physical Attacks are never made with any sort of Variable Damage as far as I know. You just figure the TN like the normal rules, roll a single pair of dice, and if they hit, you do all your physical damage (based on size and weapon if available) to the target, similar to the standard damage rules. Structure Crits and Natural Crits work just like above. So it's an all-or-nothing gamble.

That is how the rules work. House rules obviously may be different.

If you think it's crazy with normal rules, check out some of the Melee SPAs. They make it even nastier and stronger. Melee Specialist for a -1 To-Hit. Melee Master adds 50% of its Size to the Attack. Street Fighter adds in the S Damage to the Attack. Put it in a Mech that has a MEL and TSM, you have something REALLY scary.

In our campaign, our unit commander almost has all those abilities. He's piloting a heavily modified Shadow Hawk with a Snub-Nosed PPC, Hatchet, TSM, and the Engine from a captured Vapor Eagle. All told and Heated up, he's at 7 Damage! I think when he gets Melee Master he'll be at 8. Pretty nasty for a Size 2 'Mech.

I could have sworn that you could split-fire with the normal rules, as the "Other Modifiers" of the SATOR chart has "Secondary Target" listed. Unless that is just referencing the +1 modifier when splitting fire using MARs.

As for Melee SPA's, I am currently painting up a 3D-printed Hunchback IIC model where I removed the pulse laser barrels and used green stuff to sculpt a pair of missile 6-pack holes in their place so I can run it as an Inner Sphere Hunchback 4SP. I am thinking of trying it out with the Fist Fire SPA for some real "Danger Close!!" action as he blazes away with SRM's as he punches you, for double the damage that he would normally do in melee- equal to being kicked by an assault mech!

Ironically, the player who thinks SPA's are broken also thinks that standard and melee-based physical attacks are extremely lackluster and not worth trying to make. I keep trying to convince him that a surprisingly large number of the SPAs that he hates actually make physical attacks quite a bit better, as you said above.

As far as I can tell something like an Axeman with "Swordsman" for instance, if they roll a Natural Crit to hit, and do at least one point of structure damage to the target, with that SPA they could make three crit rolls against that target!

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Light units have a chance to survive more than one turn of shooting at them, which feels better. It lets my cool models do crazy lucky shots, but still for the most part they stay on the table for a satisfying time.

I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion, but it's more the opposite.

If I have a 6-damage attack shooting at a unit with just 2 hits and needing 10+ to hit, under the base rules it's all-or-nothing and I have a 17% chance of splattering it. With multiple attack rolls, I just need at least two out of those six to connect, which has about a 26% chance, on top of the 40% chance of doing one point. There's only a 33% chance of the target escaping unscathed, compared to 83% with the all-or-nothing system.

Multiple attack rolls makes crippling or destroying light units significantly easier, since hitting them with attacks that under the base rules would otherwise overkill instead increases the likelihood of damage. Of course it does also make that damage tend to accrue rather than a unit being fine until it suffers spontaneous existence failure, but on the whole those light mechs don't stick around as long.

I do agree that does make sense for units like Dashers or Bug mechs that are on the extreme low end of the armor/structure scale, but when you get into light and medium units that have something like say, 3 Armor and 2 Structure, with Multiple Attack Rolls in the games we have played they don't seem to face nearly as many instances of a 5-damage attack just killing them in one attack, unless (justifiably) at extremely close range.

It also makes bad rolls less of a bummer, as usually you can at least do at least a slight amount of damage as a consolation prize.

The other thing we noticed is that with standard damage rolls, lots of light and even some medium units barely ever see critical hit or or motive hit checks even need to exist, unless they are getting shot by extremely weak attacks.

As an amusing side thought on that, Protomechs have a Critical Chart like Mechs and Combat Vehicles, even though only the largest can take more than 2 Damage at all, 1 Armor and 1 Structure (if they even HAVE Armor) is the most common Alpha Strike set up.

That doesn't compare to what the Great Turtle (22A/8S) and Viking IIC (17A/7S) can endure. Talk about units most likely to die to Critical hits...

Wow. I never had heard of those two mechs (well, other than the original Clan-Era Viking). That's.....insane.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Wow. I never had heard of those two mechs (well, other than the original Clan-Era Viking). That's.....insane.

Benefits of being Assault Mechs with Hardened Armor.

In fact the Great Turtle was designed with survivability in mind. It's a 100 ton Quad with near-maxed out Hardened Armor. It only carries a little more firepower than a Wolverine 6M, though, and is only a little faster than an Annihilator.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Wow. I never had heard of those two mechs (well, other than the original Clan-Era Viking). That's.....insane.

The Great Turtle is a Solaris VII 'Mech, so that's understandable and the Viking IIC is just an obscure 'Mech from Early Republic Era (3081 - 3100).

Obscure being a relative term, and dependent on the individual people.

Personally, I think obscure would be 'Mechs like the Night Chanter, Spirit Walker, and Dirt Shag.

 Charistoph wrote:
Obscure being a relative term, and dependent on the individual people.

Personally, I think obscure would be 'Mechs like the Night Chanter, Spirit Walker, and Dirt Shag.

The ‘Golden Century’ Clan ‘Mechs? Nah, they’re not obscure.

They absolutely are, though.

A lot of people is completely oblivious to anything about clan history.

I know the Viking IIC because I printed one for a friend.

I know about the Viking IIC when we were to bring one Assault, no limits. That's what someone on my team brought, and he spent like 90% of the time standing in one place firing off LRMs and laughing at return fire. Till he eventually got a leg Crit and fell down... or was it the Gyro...?

I used an Osteon Prime with its vast array of Ammo bins to play around with iATM Ammo. Mag Pulse is no joke when the target's trying to run away.

The Cleveland Battletech League met at Recess Games in North Olmsted, OH for the Battle of Macross City today. One of the guys in our group 3D printed a large version of the SDF-1, it was the centerpiece for a big city battle between the invading Zentraedi Battle Pods (Ostols, Ostscouts, and Marauders) and the defending Veritechs (Phoenix Hawks, Valkyries, Stingers and Wasps) and Destroids (Longbows, Warhammers, Archers, Riflemen, and Stone Rhinos). The Zentraedi edged out a narrow victory in the last turn. It was a good time.

Edit: why are all the pics sideways? If you click on them you get a right side up picture.

Neat application of the AS rule set.

Alleged Davion Lance packs at Gencon: