master of asgard wrote:
-I definitely like the idea you suggested of weapon types. What I've currently got is still too close to original
40k and I was really struggling to make
AP something more original. Even making it a modifier to wound could be improved, so getting rid of it altogether could well be the answer!
I got the idea from this computer game:
http://units.wesnoth.org/1.10/mainline/en_US/mainline.html
The different weapons classes are blade, impact, cold, pierce, fire, arcane. It looks simple but it's actually a highly addictive computer game... and I think that part of it was that every unit had a weakness to some other unit, and you really had to think about where certain units were. And if you look in there pretty much every kind of fantasy unit is represented. Its so great for inspiration, especially since
40k is pretty much just fantasy in space. And that game is actually a true open source game which is why it's so cool to draw inspiration from.
I think to represent
40k and sci-fi you might need more weapons classes, perhaps something like 8. You don't really need cold, although you might keep it if you want to create a ruleset you can use for fantasy or sci-fi or hard sci-fi (which I think you are actually better off working on). But you might have the same game mechanic, and adapt it to different settings merely by changing the weapons classes.
A generic but
40k friendly version might have: Flame, Ray (would include particle beams, lasers, heat rays), blade, impact, piercing, psychic or arcane, disintegrator, poison. And of course every weapon is ranged, melee, or template, and has a damage value, and number of shots. Using that you can create various weapons. For example, shuriken weapons are ranged, blade. A melta would be a short ranged but powerful ray (or possibly another class... heat ray). Bullets are ranged piercing, shotgun is ranged impact... Disintegrator could be a necron gauss while tesla could be ranged flame (I know it's electricity but its area of effect and burns so works like flame). Plasma could be a high strength ranged flame (it's a kind of fire). Anyway I'm still thinking about how to do it best and what classes would be best to use to represent
40k but it's fun to think about the possibilities. Weapons could also have other special abilities or effects but I'm still thinking how best to do it. Another possibility is to not only have a class, but have it be a number... this would harken back to the
AP system. For example, a Ray:0 weapon you would just use the unit's normal resistance to Ray. A Ray:1 weapon is a slightly more powerful ray, so if the resistance would normally add 2 you would add 1 instead. So weapon would have damage, and a second number that shows 'armor pierciness' or 'fieriness' or 'sharpness' It would allow for differences like, well you are cutting me with a blade but it isn't a particularly sharp blade, so I am only slightly more susceptible to it... or, you are cutting me with a mono-particle sharp blade that would slice through solid steel so while i would normally be vulnerable, in this case the effects are compounded and I have no chance.
Then there is the question of how to treat
40k's 'rapid fire', 'salvo', 'pistol', etc. rules... I actually think it's a non issue because I hate those rules anyway! There is no reason a space marine can't fire a bolter and then jump into combat, their bolters can even be used as close combat weapons! I think your idea of 'weapon accuracy' might be an elegant solution to that problem. But it needs to interact with orders somehow... perhaps some weapons allow you to give an order to advance and fire, while others do not? And certain units like marines have a greater ability to fire while advancing, with pinpoint accuracy, so it's not just a weapon thing, it's an interaction of weapon and unit.
I don't know how deep you're interested in the fluff of
40k, but I love it... i read all the black library books and everything. When there are things that happen in the fluff but not in
40k the game, it just irks me. I don't know if you read my example before but the best example is, chaos daemons are supposed to be all but immune to small arms fire like bullets. When space marines first encountered them, they had to figure out that weapons of ritual value (blades, or flame) had the best effect. In the game of
40k, that does not work well at all because daemons get the same invul save they normally get against small arms fire, so it comes out that they are weak against small arms fire which is the opposite of what it should be.
Building resistances is fun too. For example, Necrons could be highly resistant to piercing attacks; being skeletons and full of holes in the first place a few more holes won't hurt much! similarly they would have extremely high (or immunity) resistance to poison. But they could be highly vulnerable to impact weaponry, and to a lesser extent blade, ray, and also disintegrator.
-I agree with what you mean by the redundant stats. It does kinda make things a bit less accessible. But also possibly more complex (in a good way). I wanted to get across the idea that it may be easy to draw a pistol and shoot quickly, but you won't necessarily hit much, whereas it might take much longer to aim a sniper rifle but you're much more likely to hit. Still needs some work for sure.
Definitely. I think anything that will make the game more tactical is worth taking a look at... for example it pays to have your quick-reaction units up front, that throw out a lot of shots but don't require much skill to hit, and your more highly skilled units in the back, that take time to set up and aim and can snipe out the enemy and support.
-As for nimbleness, I personally love the idea but I'm on the fence as to whether it works with dividing. I'm experimenting with this example: Eldar: M20, N2. Marine: M15, N3. Guardsman: M10, N3. Grot: M8, N1.
So, the Eldar is fast. 20/2=10cm moving through cover.
The Marine is more bulky but can still move pretty far on level ground. However, 15/3=5cm through terrain. That's barely anything and even worse for a Guardsman who moves 3cm through terrain. Then you have a Grot who is small and sneaky. He can't move far but he's completely unaffected by terrain. I think this system is quite fluffy but seriously hinders some units in terrain. The only other way to work this system better would be to divide by fractions, but that starts getting a bit annoying when you have to get your calculator out every 5 minutes. Or, I keep it like that and it just adds a serious tactical element on how you use terrain and open spaces.
I think it needs work. I think nimbleness is better as a stat if you are going to use it for die tests and not just as a modifier... in the
D20 system that would mean 10 is about average pass or fail. It could also be used similar to a run roll in
40k to add a bonus to movement? just a thought. If you want to give movement as a stat for each individual unit, just write it out for example Marine is 15/5 where the second value is the value used for difficult terrain. In infinity every unit has two moves because movement is split up into a first and second move (so you can have combos like move/shoot). But that is using an orders system... which is interesting but I don't know if I'm sold on.
-I'm also trying to work out Vitality in a way that it's not too confusing.I just wrote out all my ideas for it, realised it had a serious flaw and deleted the paragraph. So, I'm thinking that Vitality is written as 2 parts, eg 5/7. The first number represents wounds and the second represents both strength and toughness. The only problem with combining the two values (S+T) is that it limits creativity a bit. For example a skinny little Ninja might hit hard, but fold when he gets hit back. That isn't really well represented with this idea. But seperating them just adds more things to keep track of.
Come to think of it, everything should go down the more wounds you take. Reactions, movement, aim skill. If you're walking around with 2 or 3 bullets in you it's certainly not going to help with any of that! But maybe that really makes things too hard to keep track of?
As a side note, I was thinking of using nimbleness to also influence things like sneaking up on people, climbing etc, as opposed to vitality (PH in Infinity).
That was one thing that sort of bothered me about infinity, the same stat is used for different physical tasks that may or may not have any relation to each other. For example a unit might be really good at throwing grenades but that doesn't mean they are good at jumping. So it's an interesting idea.
I think special movements could be restricted with wounds. with normal walking, it really depends. Most troops in the far future still might be able to walk fine after being wounded, unless they are hit in the leg or something. Also I think normal human beings should just have one wound then they die. Only special units should have more than one wound, in most cases you just give them higher resistances (like orcs)
this is another crazy bananas idea but in x-wing miniatures game you don't just take wounds, the wounds have a quality to them as well to represent different effects it might have on your ship (but only critical hits, where you turn the card face up).
If you integrate cards into the game (simple ones could be drawn up and printed, really have to be if you are using such complicated stats) then using mini-cards is a great way to give some character to the wounds that large humanoid units like marines/orcs and vehicles receive. It would be like the vehicle damage chart but without rolling, and the cards double as counters for wounds (you put them right on your unit card). Anyway you just put on the back of the card 'leg wound' or 'headshot' or 'weapon arm damaged'. Each card could have some corresponding stat that it affects, some cause instant death, some cause you to lose special abilities or elite abilities, etc. Another reason I like cards is I don't think massive amounts of tokens need to be placed on the board next to miniatures. they get messed up, it's awkward to keep track of, and it messes up the visual appeal of looking at a miniature battlefield.
I haven't had a chance to check it out yet but Deadzone is supposed to be great the way it integrates card game + plus miniatures game. X-wing is great at that too. It's good for skirmish or any game where the elements are restricted to about 12 or so, other games are moving in that direction too.
-I thought I was being radical with d10, but d20! I guess that would actually give even more scope for customisation and showing the degrees of difference between different units. I'm going to look into it.
Also I think it's the best way for the system of resistances to work. Every weapon would have a damage value and would roll to hit, then the defender rolls to save based on the damage value (you skip the toughness). Then with a nice range of 1-20 to work with, you just add numbers to the value you need to succeed. positive numbers increase the chance of success (you need to roll higher than the damage value), negative numbers increase chance of failure. Now you could also fold some kind of cover saves into that, like standing behind a wall for instance could add to your resistances.
I tried to make the Marine pretty middle of the road (which in this game will be quite good I think) and then base the others from there, emphasising that the Eldar is faster but weaker. The Grot was basically the worst single model I could think of, so he's there to show just how bad you can get.
Marines are very superhuman, so they'd definitely be an order of magnitude better statline than a guardsman... eldar can outmatch them for speed and dexterity but a marine is built to survive the attack and then just hit back and if the eldar doesn't dodge fast enough, he's gone. Marines should be very rare in the game and like an elite medieval knight or a
TAG in infinity, the centerpiece of a skirmish force pretty much. You want to base the game around humans because that is what we can truly relate to, and then base the other things around that.
1000 points 80% painted
90 points 0% painted