Friday, September 16, 2011
On Hiatus... again...
Greetings, gentle readers. I apologize for the lack of updates; the semester got me, and then I ran a one-shot, and it went OK but was quite savage actually due both to system changes, a few miscalculations on my part, and some player mistakes, and then I got owned by the semester, and both of my laptops died. So now I've got Ubuntu running on this one, but I really don't have much to say other than "Hopefully Alex will run a game sometime soon, because I sure won't be..." :\
Friday, September 9, 2011
Miscellanea: Traveller Trade, GM Screens, and Upcoming Game
Nothing groundshaking today, but a couple small things:
First, trade in Traveller has always bothered me because it's kind of a pain to actually do. Too much bookkeeping for not a whole lot of raw fun. I recently found this pdf full of commodity cards, though, which looks like it might improve play considerably, both by speeding up random cargo generation (draw a card, roll tonnage, roll type, go) and by kind of concretizing them (players buy cargo? Give them the card). These kind of seem like they'd make Traveller trade bearable, which is a Good Thing.
Along a similar line, I've been thinking about how convenient the Stargrunt reference card makes the game, and it's inspired me to build a Traveller GM screen covered in handy tables of things I often forget, like weapon range modifiers ("What's the mod for an assault weapon at 50 meters again... ?"), law levels, radiation effects, and things like that. Alternatively, I might build a series of reference sheets for different parts of gameplay; a combat card with actions types, cover, ranges, autofire, and similar, a "Crime and Punishment" card gathering the government, law level, sentencing, and starship loan default rules, and so forth. These would be damn handy, and also useful on the player end of things. So that might be worth the time to put together if I end up playing or running Trav...
But, this weekend, I'm running a Trailblazer one-shot of a stripped-down version of one of the Dungeon Crawl Classic modules that I played through once. The intent is to test TB's action points and short rest rules, as well as to game for the first time in a good while. So the rest of my afternoon is going to be prep for that, interspersed with homework.
First, trade in Traveller has always bothered me because it's kind of a pain to actually do. Too much bookkeeping for not a whole lot of raw fun. I recently found this pdf full of commodity cards, though, which looks like it might improve play considerably, both by speeding up random cargo generation (draw a card, roll tonnage, roll type, go) and by kind of concretizing them (players buy cargo? Give them the card). These kind of seem like they'd make Traveller trade bearable, which is a Good Thing.
Along a similar line, I've been thinking about how convenient the Stargrunt reference card makes the game, and it's inspired me to build a Traveller GM screen covered in handy tables of things I often forget, like weapon range modifiers ("What's the mod for an assault weapon at 50 meters again... ?"), law levels, radiation effects, and things like that. Alternatively, I might build a series of reference sheets for different parts of gameplay; a combat card with actions types, cover, ranges, autofire, and similar, a "Crime and Punishment" card gathering the government, law level, sentencing, and starship loan default rules, and so forth. These would be damn handy, and also useful on the player end of things. So that might be worth the time to put together if I end up playing or running Trav...
But, this weekend, I'm running a Trailblazer one-shot of a stripped-down version of one of the Dungeon Crawl Classic modules that I played through once. The intent is to test TB's action points and short rest rules, as well as to game for the first time in a good while. So the rest of my afternoon is going to be prep for that, interspersed with homework.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Traveller Ramblings: Of Guns, Gear, and Starships
The semester is well and truly upon us, and my weekends this month are pretty filled, preventing much in the way of gaming :(. My discussions with my roommate Alex have actually kind of increased my level of indecision in regard to what, if anything, to run this semester. We've been talking mostly about Traveller, and he's considering running a Stargate-inspired Traveller game as well. We've been discussing a number of things with Trav, and here's what we've come up with:
The lack of small automatic weapons irks me. There's the gauss pistol, but it's TL13 and does significantly more damage than other pistol weapons in addition to being autofire. Ergo, the following:
Machine Pistol: TL7, Range Class: Pistol. Damage 3d6-3, Auto 4, Recoil 0. Mass 1 kg, Magazine 24. Cost 300 Cr, Ammo cost 15 Cr.
Submachine Gun: TL7, Range Class: Assault Weapons. Damage 3d6-3, Auto 4, Recoil 0. Mass 3 kg or 3.5 kg with extended magazine, Magazine 36 or 50. Cost 500 Cr, Ammo cost 15 Cr or 25 Cr.
The first statblock represents modern fully-automatic pistols like the Skorpion or Beretta 93R, while the second represents larger weapons like the MP5 or P90 which have longer barrels and shoulder stocks for greater accuracy at range, but are still chambered in pistol calibers. The larger magazine flavor represents drum or helical-style magazines which are often available for such weapons. I'm also tempted to do a conversion of the Colt-Calico Mini-Gatling from CyD20, but that might be a Bad Idea.
Point the next is that armor-piercing weapons just don't exist. There are weapons that do a lot of damage, and they are good for taking out enemies in armor, but they are also good for insta-killing people not in armor. There is no equivalent to steel-core, high-velocity, or other specialized anti-armor rounds, which go through armor nicely but do less damage to the target's physiology than usual. The problem with implementing an 'armor penetration' mechanic is that it adds an extra lookup, subtraction, and ceiling operation to each attack that hits. One simple option is to halve armor against armor-piercing weapons, much as armor is doubled against buckshot, but that gets brutally effective against heavier armor types. More study of this problem is required.
Idea the third is that I realized that I really dislike the Scout Ship entry on the Scout mustering-out benefits table. It's not that I dislike the notion of the party having a ship; quite the contrary. A ship is freedom to jump the rails and go somewhere interesting, a place to hide smuggled goods and stowaways, and an extra target for me as a DM that the entire party has a vested interest in protecting. But a ship with no cost is a problem, because then when the PCs get money... the credits just pile up until they find a high-TL world to spend some of them on. The monthly payment on a starship is kind of the whole reason for wanting money in Traveller without a scout ship; it's a little bit of constant pressure on the players to take that extra-risky job because it pays more and will help pay the bills. I know last game with the scout ship, money was basically a non-object; the PCs had enough to buy grenades and ammo, spare parts and repairs when they needed them, and life support, and that was all that mattered. It was kind of unsatisfying. So if I run another one, I may need to replace the ship entry on the Scout table. Maybe it's a big pile of ship shares (like... 3d6. Something bigger than other classes get, and unrestricted). Maybe it's shares that are multiplied for getting a scout ship, as is normal for specific kinds of ships on the tables. Maybe it's an extra 'upgrade' for a ship, rather than shares; choose a component, and upgrade it, or install a laser turret or someaught. But no way is it going to be just 'a ship, with minimal organizational obligations attached.' Plus, having a scout ship makes everybody else's ship shares kind of useless, which is frustrating...
And so after all that Traveller talk, it seems I'm likely to run Trav. I've got a plot, I've got a subsector... now all I need is time, players, and characters. Or I could run TB/LL Kingmaker in the Great 3.5 Derivative Smackdown... it's hexcrawly enough that it might get the Wilderlands out of my blood.
The lack of small automatic weapons irks me. There's the gauss pistol, but it's TL13 and does significantly more damage than other pistol weapons in addition to being autofire. Ergo, the following:
Machine Pistol: TL7, Range Class: Pistol. Damage 3d6-3, Auto 4, Recoil 0. Mass 1 kg, Magazine 24. Cost 300 Cr, Ammo cost 15 Cr.
Submachine Gun: TL7, Range Class: Assault Weapons. Damage 3d6-3, Auto 4, Recoil 0. Mass 3 kg or 3.5 kg with extended magazine, Magazine 36 or 50. Cost 500 Cr, Ammo cost 15 Cr or 25 Cr.
The first statblock represents modern fully-automatic pistols like the Skorpion or Beretta 93R, while the second represents larger weapons like the MP5 or P90 which have longer barrels and shoulder stocks for greater accuracy at range, but are still chambered in pistol calibers. The larger magazine flavor represents drum or helical-style magazines which are often available for such weapons. I'm also tempted to do a conversion of the Colt-Calico Mini-Gatling from CyD20, but that might be a Bad Idea.
Point the next is that armor-piercing weapons just don't exist. There are weapons that do a lot of damage, and they are good for taking out enemies in armor, but they are also good for insta-killing people not in armor. There is no equivalent to steel-core, high-velocity, or other specialized anti-armor rounds, which go through armor nicely but do less damage to the target's physiology than usual. The problem with implementing an 'armor penetration' mechanic is that it adds an extra lookup, subtraction, and ceiling operation to each attack that hits. One simple option is to halve armor against armor-piercing weapons, much as armor is doubled against buckshot, but that gets brutally effective against heavier armor types. More study of this problem is required.
Idea the third is that I realized that I really dislike the Scout Ship entry on the Scout mustering-out benefits table. It's not that I dislike the notion of the party having a ship; quite the contrary. A ship is freedom to jump the rails and go somewhere interesting, a place to hide smuggled goods and stowaways, and an extra target for me as a DM that the entire party has a vested interest in protecting. But a ship with no cost is a problem, because then when the PCs get money... the credits just pile up until they find a high-TL world to spend some of them on. The monthly payment on a starship is kind of the whole reason for wanting money in Traveller without a scout ship; it's a little bit of constant pressure on the players to take that extra-risky job because it pays more and will help pay the bills. I know last game with the scout ship, money was basically a non-object; the PCs had enough to buy grenades and ammo, spare parts and repairs when they needed them, and life support, and that was all that mattered. It was kind of unsatisfying. So if I run another one, I may need to replace the ship entry on the Scout table. Maybe it's a big pile of ship shares (like... 3d6. Something bigger than other classes get, and unrestricted). Maybe it's shares that are multiplied for getting a scout ship, as is normal for specific kinds of ships on the tables. Maybe it's an extra 'upgrade' for a ship, rather than shares; choose a component, and upgrade it, or install a laser turret or someaught. But no way is it going to be just 'a ship, with minimal organizational obligations attached.' Plus, having a scout ship makes everybody else's ship shares kind of useless, which is frustrating...
And so after all that Traveller talk, it seems I'm likely to run Trav. I've got a plot, I've got a subsector... now all I need is time, players, and characters. Or I could run TB/LL Kingmaker in the Great 3.5 Derivative Smackdown... it's hexcrawly enough that it might get the Wilderlands out of my blood.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Games I Want to Run 3; also, Why Traveller Psionics Are Better Than d20 Magic
School starts up again tomorrow. This may or may not mean the death of this blog, since free time is about to get a lot scarcer. I do still intend to run Wilderlands or something along similar sandboxy hexmap lines, but at this point I'm looking primarily at systems. Here are the contenders:
All three of these have features and bugs. Here's the rundown:
Trailblazer is already known to the folks I've been playing with, and is well liked as 'fixing most of the problems with 3.5'. On the DM side, I'm still itching to try out their monster upgrade rules and possibly their simplified encounter budgeting as well. A previous post of mine proposes a magic item replacement that would work nicely for TB in the Wilderlands. The main issues here are that it's a heavy system, with kind of slow combat, complex monster statblocks, and NPCs that take a while to assemble. There's also my lingering trepidation over their action points and rest rules; on the one hand, APs are a balancing factor for casters, but on the other, they introduce per-level resources, which I really hate, and the rest mechanic is terribly suited for overland travel where random encounters are fairly frequent (in that those random encounters don't actually cost anything in terms of party resources due to rapid rest availability).
Justin Alexander released the L&L Beta a few days ago, and my copy came in this morning. I've given it a skim, and there are some good things and some bad things. The design goal here was a very stripped-down 3.5 derivative that remained backwards compatible. The monster design rules are a real standout; I am fairly confident I could put monsters together during play with it, and that they'd be about right in terms of CR. That's an awesome thing in a 3.x derivative, and while I'll still probably buy the TB Monster Book when it comes out (hopefully soon...) for what I imagine may be a better-researched monster design system along with a pile of 'Trailblazered' classic monsters, this one has the speed for use in play. The hazard design system is also very cool, providing a quick way to generate CRs for all manner of traps, perilous crossings, and environmental hazards. The stunt system provides a mechanism very similar to Traveller's task chains, as well as flexible combat options; I wasn't impressed on first read, but going back for a second, it actually looks pretty slick. The skill system is kind of nice and simple; you're considered at max ranks for all of your class skills. If you have a low Int, you choose a number of class skills equal to your penalty to not know. Very straightforward, and it means that you're good at the things your class is supposed to be good at; similar to Iron Heroes' skill groups in that regard, but a damn sight less complicated. Other highlights were some notes on wilderness adventures, good rules for hirelings and henchmen, and a number of unusual slimes and molds which didn't make into the 3.0/.5 DMGs (think along the lines of green slime, but different).
On the other hand... man, when he said he was going to strip down the classes, he really, really stripped down the classes. Only Barbarian, Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard, and Sorcerer made the cut, for one. Feats are gone, but at levels where you would get one, you get a pre-selected one based on class (for example, Barbarians get Power Attack at 6th). He seems to have dropped the first-level feats, though... likewise, humans kind of got the shaft and stepped on the half-elf's toes, since that bonus feat got converted into a racial bonus to Diplomacy and Sense Motive. I'd be happier with a +3 to any one skill. This solution would be on par with 3.5 Skill Focus, works with whatever class you might happen to be, and reinforces the 'versatile' nature of humans. Finally, he doesn't appear to have really touched the balance issues underlying 3.x; Clerics, Sorcerers, and Wizards will still dominate, since casting still works as normal, unless he nerfs the spell lists pretty hard (updated spells aren't in the beta). Granted, this move makes sense in the light of his stance on balance in general. Iterative attacks are still at the old -5, and rogues are still running at 3/4 BaB, so they're going to have a rough time hitting, especially since they never get Weapon Finesse (though they do get Vigilant Shot, which allows readied ranged sneak attacks under some circumstances, making ranged rogues much more viable). The feat selection on some of the classes is... questionable, with Rogue being probably the best example. No finesse, no TWF, just ranged feats. Barbarian also picks up Expertise, which is an unusual choice for Barbarians in my experience... I guess as long as one keeps in mind that those feat selections are really just suggestions, and could be swapped out for other 3.5 feats, things should work OK. Otherwise, I would foresee rioting. Likewise, while multiclassing is still around, the problem of base save multiclass stacking persists. At least this time there are fewer classes to multiclass between... It also doesn't address caster multiclassing like TB did. I guess the thing here is that if I decide to run L&L, I'd have to Trailblazer it (yep, it's a verb now). This would basically entail switching iteratives to -2/-2 with decreasing penalties later, chosen good saves at character creation, combat reactions rather than stock AoOs, Combat Tactics for the rogue, upgraded turning on the cleric, BMB for casting... I think those'd be the big ones. And allowing players to choose their feats, too... the classes with pre-chosen feats seem to be primarily a resource for new players and for DMs who need an NPC in a hurry. Used with that understanding, I think the system in general would work pretty nicely.
Finally, there's the black sheep, Adventurer, over at Crawdads and Dragons. Adventurer is basically the Classic Traveller rules converted to run OD&D. This has the advantage of being pretty rules-light; statblocks are small, simple, and easy to assemble. It also avoids the 'ever upward' problem of D&D in all its incarnations, where the numbers just keep growing, because skill training is still fairly slow (they do introduce some faster rules for it than Mongoose's version, though). Being essentially Traveller, it has a number of random tables for things like dungeons and areas of wilderness, which goes beautifully with the style of Wilderlands. But... on the minus side, it's a conversion of one old, quirky, non-standardized system to run another old, quirky, non-standardized system. There are tables of attack DMs based on your weapon type vs. your opponent's armor type. That kind of thing.
Likewise, there's a whole book devoted to spells. Part of what I liked about Traveller was that its psionics served an essentially different purpose from magic in D&D. In D&D, magic is the main and exclusive activity of many characters, and the system encourages this by making spell slots readily available at mid-to-high levels, and by providing mages with very little else to do. In Traveller, while it is possible to try to make psionics your sole activity, it is neither efficient nor necessary. First, the resource behind Traveller psionics is distinctly limited; the more you use, the lower your psi score drops, and the harder it is to use more of it. This is in contrast to d20's magic, where you know exactly how much magic you can put out per day, and running low on slots doesn't make any of your remaining slots less effective than they were at the beginning of the day. Thus, Traveller's psionics are categorically weaker than d20's magic in this 'declining ability' sense. Further, Traveller's psionic recovery mechanism is non-boolean; rather than resting for eight hours and then being fully recharged, psionic strength recovers gradually across hours as long as no further powers are used. This again encourages conservation. Finally, when you look at the things Traveller psionics can do, and the prices on them, it becomes apparent that they fill kind of a 'special projects' role; they can do things that you just can't do otherwise, but it's hard to pull off and expensive. Further, most of the Traveller psionic powers seem to be intended primarily for non-combat use; sure, you could teleport in combat, but it's really expensive and the benefit is probably minimal. They're not built with combat as the first consideration, whereas most d20 spells definitely are. d20 mages are multibarrel weapons platforms that carry loadouts specified at the beginning of the day, while a Traveller psion is more like a solar-powered multitool. However, the need for psions in Traveller to be able to rain hellfire and lightning down on their enemies is significantly less than that of their d20 counterparts for two reasons. First is that it's really hard to generate a Traveller character with no other combat-useful skills, both given the skills on the tables, the group skill package, and the connections rule. In d20, if your wizard is out of magic, he's stuck with a crossbow and an abominably low base attack bonus. In Trav, if you have Gun Combat 0 and a decent Dex, you're in reasonable stead for combat as far as offense goes, and then it's just a question of keeping your head down. Second, Traveller in general places a lower emphasis on combat than modern d20 does, meaning that combat prowess is less necessary, and therefore characters who aren't focused on combat are significantly more viable.
This all kind of leads up to the implicit fourth option: hack my own system together based on Mongoose Traveller, with a similarly 'fuzzy' magic system. The things necessary to achieve this task would be:
All three of these have features and bugs. Here's the rundown:
Trailblazer is already known to the folks I've been playing with, and is well liked as 'fixing most of the problems with 3.5'. On the DM side, I'm still itching to try out their monster upgrade rules and possibly their simplified encounter budgeting as well. A previous post of mine proposes a magic item replacement that would work nicely for TB in the Wilderlands. The main issues here are that it's a heavy system, with kind of slow combat, complex monster statblocks, and NPCs that take a while to assemble. There's also my lingering trepidation over their action points and rest rules; on the one hand, APs are a balancing factor for casters, but on the other, they introduce per-level resources, which I really hate, and the rest mechanic is terribly suited for overland travel where random encounters are fairly frequent (in that those random encounters don't actually cost anything in terms of party resources due to rapid rest availability).
Justin Alexander released the L&L Beta a few days ago, and my copy came in this morning. I've given it a skim, and there are some good things and some bad things. The design goal here was a very stripped-down 3.5 derivative that remained backwards compatible. The monster design rules are a real standout; I am fairly confident I could put monsters together during play with it, and that they'd be about right in terms of CR. That's an awesome thing in a 3.x derivative, and while I'll still probably buy the TB Monster Book when it comes out (hopefully soon...) for what I imagine may be a better-researched monster design system along with a pile of 'Trailblazered' classic monsters, this one has the speed for use in play. The hazard design system is also very cool, providing a quick way to generate CRs for all manner of traps, perilous crossings, and environmental hazards. The stunt system provides a mechanism very similar to Traveller's task chains, as well as flexible combat options; I wasn't impressed on first read, but going back for a second, it actually looks pretty slick. The skill system is kind of nice and simple; you're considered at max ranks for all of your class skills. If you have a low Int, you choose a number of class skills equal to your penalty to not know. Very straightforward, and it means that you're good at the things your class is supposed to be good at; similar to Iron Heroes' skill groups in that regard, but a damn sight less complicated. Other highlights were some notes on wilderness adventures, good rules for hirelings and henchmen, and a number of unusual slimes and molds which didn't make into the 3.0/.5 DMGs (think along the lines of green slime, but different).
On the other hand... man, when he said he was going to strip down the classes, he really, really stripped down the classes. Only Barbarian, Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard, and Sorcerer made the cut, for one. Feats are gone, but at levels where you would get one, you get a pre-selected one based on class (for example, Barbarians get Power Attack at 6th). He seems to have dropped the first-level feats, though... likewise, humans kind of got the shaft and stepped on the half-elf's toes, since that bonus feat got converted into a racial bonus to Diplomacy and Sense Motive. I'd be happier with a +3 to any one skill. This solution would be on par with 3.5 Skill Focus, works with whatever class you might happen to be, and reinforces the 'versatile' nature of humans. Finally, he doesn't appear to have really touched the balance issues underlying 3.x; Clerics, Sorcerers, and Wizards will still dominate, since casting still works as normal, unless he nerfs the spell lists pretty hard (updated spells aren't in the beta). Granted, this move makes sense in the light of his stance on balance in general. Iterative attacks are still at the old -5, and rogues are still running at 3/4 BaB, so they're going to have a rough time hitting, especially since they never get Weapon Finesse (though they do get Vigilant Shot, which allows readied ranged sneak attacks under some circumstances, making ranged rogues much more viable). The feat selection on some of the classes is... questionable, with Rogue being probably the best example. No finesse, no TWF, just ranged feats. Barbarian also picks up Expertise, which is an unusual choice for Barbarians in my experience... I guess as long as one keeps in mind that those feat selections are really just suggestions, and could be swapped out for other 3.5 feats, things should work OK. Otherwise, I would foresee rioting. Likewise, while multiclassing is still around, the problem of base save multiclass stacking persists. At least this time there are fewer classes to multiclass between... It also doesn't address caster multiclassing like TB did. I guess the thing here is that if I decide to run L&L, I'd have to Trailblazer it (yep, it's a verb now). This would basically entail switching iteratives to -2/-2 with decreasing penalties later, chosen good saves at character creation, combat reactions rather than stock AoOs, Combat Tactics for the rogue, upgraded turning on the cleric, BMB for casting... I think those'd be the big ones. And allowing players to choose their feats, too... the classes with pre-chosen feats seem to be primarily a resource for new players and for DMs who need an NPC in a hurry. Used with that understanding, I think the system in general would work pretty nicely.
Finally, there's the black sheep, Adventurer, over at Crawdads and Dragons. Adventurer is basically the Classic Traveller rules converted to run OD&D. This has the advantage of being pretty rules-light; statblocks are small, simple, and easy to assemble. It also avoids the 'ever upward' problem of D&D in all its incarnations, where the numbers just keep growing, because skill training is still fairly slow (they do introduce some faster rules for it than Mongoose's version, though). Being essentially Traveller, it has a number of random tables for things like dungeons and areas of wilderness, which goes beautifully with the style of Wilderlands. But... on the minus side, it's a conversion of one old, quirky, non-standardized system to run another old, quirky, non-standardized system. There are tables of attack DMs based on your weapon type vs. your opponent's armor type. That kind of thing.
Likewise, there's a whole book devoted to spells. Part of what I liked about Traveller was that its psionics served an essentially different purpose from magic in D&D. In D&D, magic is the main and exclusive activity of many characters, and the system encourages this by making spell slots readily available at mid-to-high levels, and by providing mages with very little else to do. In Traveller, while it is possible to try to make psionics your sole activity, it is neither efficient nor necessary. First, the resource behind Traveller psionics is distinctly limited; the more you use, the lower your psi score drops, and the harder it is to use more of it. This is in contrast to d20's magic, where you know exactly how much magic you can put out per day, and running low on slots doesn't make any of your remaining slots less effective than they were at the beginning of the day. Thus, Traveller's psionics are categorically weaker than d20's magic in this 'declining ability' sense. Further, Traveller's psionic recovery mechanism is non-boolean; rather than resting for eight hours and then being fully recharged, psionic strength recovers gradually across hours as long as no further powers are used. This again encourages conservation. Finally, when you look at the things Traveller psionics can do, and the prices on them, it becomes apparent that they fill kind of a 'special projects' role; they can do things that you just can't do otherwise, but it's hard to pull off and expensive. Further, most of the Traveller psionic powers seem to be intended primarily for non-combat use; sure, you could teleport in combat, but it's really expensive and the benefit is probably minimal. They're not built with combat as the first consideration, whereas most d20 spells definitely are. d20 mages are multibarrel weapons platforms that carry loadouts specified at the beginning of the day, while a Traveller psion is more like a solar-powered multitool. However, the need for psions in Traveller to be able to rain hellfire and lightning down on their enemies is significantly less than that of their d20 counterparts for two reasons. First is that it's really hard to generate a Traveller character with no other combat-useful skills, both given the skills on the tables, the group skill package, and the connections rule. In d20, if your wizard is out of magic, he's stuck with a crossbow and an abominably low base attack bonus. In Trav, if you have Gun Combat 0 and a decent Dex, you're in reasonable stead for combat as far as offense goes, and then it's just a question of keeping your head down. Second, Traveller in general places a lower emphasis on combat than modern d20 does, meaning that combat prowess is less necessary, and therefore characters who aren't focused on combat are significantly more viable.
This all kind of leads up to the implicit fourth option: hack my own system together based on Mongoose Traveller, with a similarly 'fuzzy' magic system. The things necessary to achieve this task would be:
- Updated (er, downdated) skill list. Remote operations and astrogation aren't really things in fantasy settings.
- New background term tables and careers. 3.5 has 11 core base classes, which would fit roughly into 4 careers of three branches each with one new one. The expanded education column might be used for a prestige class relevant to each branch. I think Warrior (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin?), Thief (Rogue, Bard, Ranger?), Priest (Cleric, Druid, Monk), and Mage (Sorcerer, Wizard) would be traditional ways to split things up. Alternatively, ditch D&D classes as specialties and make things more interesting.
- Races should be very straightforward.
- Medieval-era gear selection would need expanded significantly, as well as rules for magic items. To be honest, a lot of magic items could just be standard Trav gear - a potion of Cure Disease is not so different from a Medicinal Drug, for example. Likewise magic weapons could be modeled as weapons with expert computers. This may not be the best course, but it's an option. The other would just be to cook up magic gear, hand it out, and see what happens. Naturally, that sounds more fun.
- Magic proper is the hard part. I need maybe 3-5 'schools' / skills for each of arcane and divine, each of which has about 4 fuzzy, non-combat-centric effects of varying difficulty. Tricky. I'm actually tempted to go with the four classical elements, plus life and death, and nix the arcane / divine divide, but then things like summoning and teleportation get lost in the noise. Alternatively, the five colors of Magic the Gathering might work very nicely... They're familiar to a lot of gamers, sufficiently general that I only need the five of them to cover most any effect that could come up, and reasonably clear-cut in most cases. Heck, I was going to have four caster specialties already; it's trivial to map each to a color and its two allied colors, and to introduce a fifth specialty for that last one. Cleric gets white, druid is green, sorcerer is red, wizard is blue, and necromancer is black. Then it's just a question of intuiting difficulties and mana costs for each attempted effect, which is not significantly harder than assigning difficulties on the fly to tasks run by other skills. Boom magic system complete.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Starcraft Stargrunt Playtest Report Part 2: Stuff We Did Wrong, Reprise
So at the end of the playtest report for the Stargrunt game I ran last night, I mentioned that I was concerned on a number of fronts, in that close combat, artillery, and possibly anti-air fire all felt just a little bit 'off'. Went and re-read the rules this morning, and here's what I'm seeing:
First off, close assault. The biggest thing, looking back at the rules, is that initiating a close assault takes two actions; thus, we can't do that thing we were doing where we make a non-combat move six inches towards the target, then initiate close assault, guaranteeing that you'll get there in one combat move. This makes final defensive fire a lot more likely to happen, which is great for Terran. On the other hand, it really exacerbates the problem with Zerg being suppressed - if you have to spend an action to try to break suppression at the beginning of your activation, there is no way you can close assault. I really think a free suppression removal attempt at the beginning of Zerg activations at morale levels where they have to close is probably a good plan.
The other thing we did wrong with close assault was casualty resolution with regard for stunned troops. The way we were doing it, we were resolving the status of casualties at the end of each round of close combat. This in incorrect; the book states that a casualty is out for the rest of that "close combat resolution". We interpreted this to mean that round; however, the Ending Close Combat paragraph opens with "After the first round of close combat resolution..." Thus, a 'resolution' is the entire process from charging to one side breaking and abandoning an objective, while a round is the process of pairing off and making opposed rolls for each pair. Therefore, casualties aren't resolved until one side breaks, and stunned individuals on the losing side may 'come to' out of unit coherency and surrounded by the enemy. Thus, 'stun' isn't just "Oh hey, the squad leader's fine." It's roughly on-par with being an actual casualty.
Finally, there's an important line in the close assault modifiers table that states that if in cover, the defenders get a 1-die shift during the first round of that close combat. Oops.
As for artillery, I found a very important line in the artillery rules that the spotting unit must have line of sight to all three points nominated (the two dummies and the actual incoming). This makes overlords and other aerial units excellent spotters, and also gives hills some value (besides as places to sit at the bottom of and fire up at the enemy who are trying to take it...). However, we did do it wrong last time. Still couldn't find a mention of the Observe action, though, outside of the list of actions at the beginning of the book.
Finally, I screwed up the firing at the overlord, in Terran's favor, actually. We used the rules for firing on point targets with heavy weapons from page 39 and the guided missiles section on page 41, which seemed like the right thing at the time... but we should've been using the "On-Table Anti-Air Fire" rules from page 49. Under these rules, Terran would've needed a roll to acquire the overlord as a target. Then the overlord would've had a chance to take evasive action, allowing it another chance to avoid the fire, after which Terran gets a chance to actually fire the missile, and has a third chance to miss. It's kind of ridiculous really. Terran gains two things from this: first, if an aircraft takes a hit, the pilot has to take a confidence check at +2 TL or decide to purple and GTFO. This means you could potentially drive the overlord off the table, denying the Zerg their command squad, transport, EW, and artillery support. The other thing Terran gains is that when hovering in place, the overlord suffers a negative die shift on its ECM roll. But the Terrans now need more successful rolls in order to actually take a shot at it, so this is a really bad change for them. Considering that their AA fire was already horrifyingly ineffective, we might not want to change the way we played it to this rule.
First off, close assault. The biggest thing, looking back at the rules, is that initiating a close assault takes two actions; thus, we can't do that thing we were doing where we make a non-combat move six inches towards the target, then initiate close assault, guaranteeing that you'll get there in one combat move. This makes final defensive fire a lot more likely to happen, which is great for Terran. On the other hand, it really exacerbates the problem with Zerg being suppressed - if you have to spend an action to try to break suppression at the beginning of your activation, there is no way you can close assault. I really think a free suppression removal attempt at the beginning of Zerg activations at morale levels where they have to close is probably a good plan.
The other thing we did wrong with close assault was casualty resolution with regard for stunned troops. The way we were doing it, we were resolving the status of casualties at the end of each round of close combat. This in incorrect; the book states that a casualty is out for the rest of that "close combat resolution". We interpreted this to mean that round; however, the Ending Close Combat paragraph opens with "After the first round of close combat resolution..." Thus, a 'resolution' is the entire process from charging to one side breaking and abandoning an objective, while a round is the process of pairing off and making opposed rolls for each pair. Therefore, casualties aren't resolved until one side breaks, and stunned individuals on the losing side may 'come to' out of unit coherency and surrounded by the enemy. Thus, 'stun' isn't just "Oh hey, the squad leader's fine." It's roughly on-par with being an actual casualty.
Finally, there's an important line in the close assault modifiers table that states that if in cover, the defenders get a 1-die shift during the first round of that close combat. Oops.
As for artillery, I found a very important line in the artillery rules that the spotting unit must have line of sight to all three points nominated (the two dummies and the actual incoming). This makes overlords and other aerial units excellent spotters, and also gives hills some value (besides as places to sit at the bottom of and fire up at the enemy who are trying to take it...). However, we did do it wrong last time. Still couldn't find a mention of the Observe action, though, outside of the list of actions at the beginning of the book.
Finally, I screwed up the firing at the overlord, in Terran's favor, actually. We used the rules for firing on point targets with heavy weapons from page 39 and the guided missiles section on page 41, which seemed like the right thing at the time... but we should've been using the "On-Table Anti-Air Fire" rules from page 49. Under these rules, Terran would've needed a roll to acquire the overlord as a target. Then the overlord would've had a chance to take evasive action, allowing it another chance to avoid the fire, after which Terran gets a chance to actually fire the missile, and has a third chance to miss. It's kind of ridiculous really. Terran gains two things from this: first, if an aircraft takes a hit, the pilot has to take a confidence check at +2 TL or decide to purple and GTFO. This means you could potentially drive the overlord off the table, denying the Zerg their command squad, transport, EW, and artillery support. The other thing Terran gains is that when hovering in place, the overlord suffers a negative die shift on its ECM roll. But the Terrans now need more successful rolls in order to actually take a shot at it, so this is a really bad change for them. Considering that their AA fire was already horrifyingly ineffective, we might not want to change the way we played it to this rule.
Starcraft Stargrunt: Playtest Report
Got together this afternoon for two games of 'grunt with Glisson, Matt, and Jared. Glisson brought the paper rulebook this time, which was immensely helpful; I should probably print and bind my own copy from the pdf if I intend to play on a regular basis. Glisson also brought a bag of green army men and a bag full of the original counters for the game, which were likewise wonderfully convenient; being able to mark the LD, quality, and morale status of a squad all on the board with the squad was a great improvement over tracking those things on a whiteboard, nevermind other things like In-Position and Suppression which were really problematic last time.
The first game we played was a straightforward battle between two forces of two platoons each of non-Starcraft units. The game kind of dragged on, with units in cover remaining in cover and kind of poking at each other ineffectually, and with units who ran out of cover being mercilessly gunned down. We did have a few rounds of close assault in some woods, and likewise managed to deny the enemy the hill on the south side of the map, but in general, it was a very entrenched kind of warfare. On the plus side, we didn't see the kind of squad-wiping fire that we got in the previous game, but it was pretty slow and static, centered around defensive positions, nonetheless.
Not so the game with Starcraft Terran vs. Zerg.
There are several reasons that I believe this game went differently. The first and most obvious was the availability of off-map artillery support to both sides. This meant that sitting in a single defensive position the entire game was a recipe for attracting high explosives. Second, the Zerg were compelled to close to melee by their morale rules. The Terran player exploited this to great effect by putting a squad of firebats in the front, and managed to annihilate 8 zerglings with only two casualties. Third, the general lack of support firepower meant that sitting and hammering at range was very difficult; the only unit with a SAW or SAW-equivalent on the map was the goliath. Since ranged combat was relatively hard, we saw a lot more close combat, which required movement. Fourth and finally, the availability of higher-mobility units, namely the overlord, goliath, and zerglings, encouraged players to make use of that mobility.
The game ran somewhat like this - a Terran force was set up on a hill on one side of the map, with the Zerg behind a hill on the other side, and a ruined town in the middle of the map (complete with hostile but terribly-ineffective villagers). Zerg objective was to capture the Terran supply depot on their hill, while Terran's was to survive / prevent this outcome. Both sides rapidly ran for the town, taking cover in the buildings, but quickly abandoning and hopping between buildings as the shells started to fall. The goliath was primarily concerned with firing missiles at the overlord and suppressing two squads of zerglings, but the overlord's EW capabilities really put the nix on the missiles. The firebats engaged and destroyed two squads of zerglings before being stomped into the ground by the hydras in melee, and the marines suppressed some zerglings before coming under murderous deviated artillery fire that they really shouldn't've survived - about 12 rolls between all three shells, impact d8, armor d8 should've been almost a complete wipe. They took one casualty; Jared had some simply stupendous luck there. However, that casualty was their squad leader, and when they were then close assaulted by zerglings, they broke and routed and fled off the map. We finished with the hydras going up against the goliath and the last zergling squad being carried by the overlord towards the depot to assault Jared's command squad, who were holed up in the vicinity; they had been driven out of the depot proper by a dummy artillery marker. We called it about then; it looked like the hydras would probably disable the goliath, and we ran the close combat out between the command squad and the zerglings; the zerglings took 50% casualties, and the marines were wiped.
Overall, we came away with one primary concern and two secondary concerns:
1) Hydras as powered armor are brutally overpowered in melee. Matt and Jared agreed that they should not have been able to just stomp through the firebats like they did. Solution: downgrade to normal armor (d8). I'm still not convinced they shouldn't be considered armed with a close-combat weapon, but that's probably pretty acceptable. Also considering upgrading their weapons to d12 impact to keep things on par with marines, but I think d10 impact and a CC weapon is probably a reasonable place to be. Hence, Hydra 2.0 looks like normal infantry with d8 armor, 6" move, FP2, Impact d10, and a close-combat weapon for a 1-die shift in melee.
2) Goliath vs. overlord balance, and by extension electronic warfare. The EW system was very dissatisfying, in that it ended up creating these ridiculous EW 'stacks' of Jared trying to counter Matt's counter to Jared's counter to Matt's jamming of the guided missile, which was annoying. Then, had the missile actually hit (which it never did), it would have either totally obliterated the overlord or bounced off harmlessly, neither of which is a terribly satisfying outcome (in that squads, when hit, will likely survive to some degree. Vehicles just go "Boom" or keep running fine). There were also complaints regarding the infinite range and infinite movement of the GMS and the overlord; not sure what to do about these. On the one hand, reducing speed / range is certainly an option. On the other hand, it kind of sacrifices realism and breaks strongly from the SG standard of "VTOLs come in, drop off troops wherever, get out in two turns. You need that infinite range to be able to even get a crack at 'em."
3) Zerg morale and suppression issues. Zerglings, when suppressed and running on low morale, are a special flavor of hosed - even if they break the suppression, they have to keep running straight into the guns that suppressed them, whereupon they get suppressed again and eventually casualties add up and they just die off (whereas a normal squad might get a chance to break suppression and then fire back, suppressing their suppressors, or if morale got bad enough, it might break and run away from the suppressing squad, and then get far enough away to avoid being suppressed). Matt proposed a rule similar to one by the Warbard for Xenomorphs, a similarly all-melee army, that each activation, a Zerg squad of a low-enough morale that it can't be in cover gets a free attempt to break suppression. This seems fairly reasonable, but plays into the second concern that Jared had about Zerg morale, namely that as a Terran player, it was dissatisfying to watch the Zerg get bonuses for failing morale rolls. On the one hand, yeah, they get bonuses to morale checks to enter close assault... but on the other, they also have to close the range and try to get in close, even if it's a really terrible idea (one zergling vs. a squad of firebats for example). I guess the thing was that while Jared was dissatisfied with the morale situation, he also used it to great advantage by provoking a squad of zerglings to engage (and be toasted by) his firebats, and was never really negatively affected by the changes, except possibly when his marines were assaulted by a squad of steady zerglings. Since steady doesn't impede actions and grants a bonus to attacking in close assault for Zerg, it was actually strictly better than Confident for Matt (except in that it was close to Shaken, Broken, and so forth). Not sure it's really a problem, but it was a concern which might need addressed.
But, other than those issues, the game went really well. It was agreed by all sides that unit balance felt pretty right except on the hydras and in the overlord vs. goliath pairing, and the artillery kept the game moving quickly. While artillery and close assault both involved a lot of rolling, neither side was bored during the process; with artillery scatter, it's always a "oh god oh god is it going to land on me?" type tension, and melee has many hand-to-hand opposed rolls. It seemed to me that Jared and Matt became significantly more excited during close assault than during shooting; not really sure why that was the case, but hey, I'll take it. I suspect that only having two players (I was reffing / advising, basically) improved gameplay because subsystems involving many rolls weren't horribly dull for the remaining players. I do think we played CC wrong, in the handling of stunned units - we should've counted them as casualties for morale / withdrawing resolution, but didn't. Likewise, I suspect there's something buggy in the way we played artillery, but I'll try to hunt it down later today maybe.
The first game we played was a straightforward battle between two forces of two platoons each of non-Starcraft units. The game kind of dragged on, with units in cover remaining in cover and kind of poking at each other ineffectually, and with units who ran out of cover being mercilessly gunned down. We did have a few rounds of close assault in some woods, and likewise managed to deny the enemy the hill on the south side of the map, but in general, it was a very entrenched kind of warfare. On the plus side, we didn't see the kind of squad-wiping fire that we got in the previous game, but it was pretty slow and static, centered around defensive positions, nonetheless.
Not so the game with Starcraft Terran vs. Zerg.
There are several reasons that I believe this game went differently. The first and most obvious was the availability of off-map artillery support to both sides. This meant that sitting in a single defensive position the entire game was a recipe for attracting high explosives. Second, the Zerg were compelled to close to melee by their morale rules. The Terran player exploited this to great effect by putting a squad of firebats in the front, and managed to annihilate 8 zerglings with only two casualties. Third, the general lack of support firepower meant that sitting and hammering at range was very difficult; the only unit with a SAW or SAW-equivalent on the map was the goliath. Since ranged combat was relatively hard, we saw a lot more close combat, which required movement. Fourth and finally, the availability of higher-mobility units, namely the overlord, goliath, and zerglings, encouraged players to make use of that mobility.
The game ran somewhat like this - a Terran force was set up on a hill on one side of the map, with the Zerg behind a hill on the other side, and a ruined town in the middle of the map (complete with hostile but terribly-ineffective villagers). Zerg objective was to capture the Terran supply depot on their hill, while Terran's was to survive / prevent this outcome. Both sides rapidly ran for the town, taking cover in the buildings, but quickly abandoning and hopping between buildings as the shells started to fall. The goliath was primarily concerned with firing missiles at the overlord and suppressing two squads of zerglings, but the overlord's EW capabilities really put the nix on the missiles. The firebats engaged and destroyed two squads of zerglings before being stomped into the ground by the hydras in melee, and the marines suppressed some zerglings before coming under murderous deviated artillery fire that they really shouldn't've survived - about 12 rolls between all three shells, impact d8, armor d8 should've been almost a complete wipe. They took one casualty; Jared had some simply stupendous luck there. However, that casualty was their squad leader, and when they were then close assaulted by zerglings, they broke and routed and fled off the map. We finished with the hydras going up against the goliath and the last zergling squad being carried by the overlord towards the depot to assault Jared's command squad, who were holed up in the vicinity; they had been driven out of the depot proper by a dummy artillery marker. We called it about then; it looked like the hydras would probably disable the goliath, and we ran the close combat out between the command squad and the zerglings; the zerglings took 50% casualties, and the marines were wiped.
Overall, we came away with one primary concern and two secondary concerns:
1) Hydras as powered armor are brutally overpowered in melee. Matt and Jared agreed that they should not have been able to just stomp through the firebats like they did. Solution: downgrade to normal armor (d8). I'm still not convinced they shouldn't be considered armed with a close-combat weapon, but that's probably pretty acceptable. Also considering upgrading their weapons to d12 impact to keep things on par with marines, but I think d10 impact and a CC weapon is probably a reasonable place to be. Hence, Hydra 2.0 looks like normal infantry with d8 armor, 6" move, FP2, Impact d10, and a close-combat weapon for a 1-die shift in melee.
2) Goliath vs. overlord balance, and by extension electronic warfare. The EW system was very dissatisfying, in that it ended up creating these ridiculous EW 'stacks' of Jared trying to counter Matt's counter to Jared's counter to Matt's jamming of the guided missile, which was annoying. Then, had the missile actually hit (which it never did), it would have either totally obliterated the overlord or bounced off harmlessly, neither of which is a terribly satisfying outcome (in that squads, when hit, will likely survive to some degree. Vehicles just go "Boom" or keep running fine). There were also complaints regarding the infinite range and infinite movement of the GMS and the overlord; not sure what to do about these. On the one hand, reducing speed / range is certainly an option. On the other hand, it kind of sacrifices realism and breaks strongly from the SG standard of "VTOLs come in, drop off troops wherever, get out in two turns. You need that infinite range to be able to even get a crack at 'em."
3) Zerg morale and suppression issues. Zerglings, when suppressed and running on low morale, are a special flavor of hosed - even if they break the suppression, they have to keep running straight into the guns that suppressed them, whereupon they get suppressed again and eventually casualties add up and they just die off (whereas a normal squad might get a chance to break suppression and then fire back, suppressing their suppressors, or if morale got bad enough, it might break and run away from the suppressing squad, and then get far enough away to avoid being suppressed). Matt proposed a rule similar to one by the Warbard for Xenomorphs, a similarly all-melee army, that each activation, a Zerg squad of a low-enough morale that it can't be in cover gets a free attempt to break suppression. This seems fairly reasonable, but plays into the second concern that Jared had about Zerg morale, namely that as a Terran player, it was dissatisfying to watch the Zerg get bonuses for failing morale rolls. On the one hand, yeah, they get bonuses to morale checks to enter close assault... but on the other, they also have to close the range and try to get in close, even if it's a really terrible idea (one zergling vs. a squad of firebats for example). I guess the thing was that while Jared was dissatisfied with the morale situation, he also used it to great advantage by provoking a squad of zerglings to engage (and be toasted by) his firebats, and was never really negatively affected by the changes, except possibly when his marines were assaulted by a squad of steady zerglings. Since steady doesn't impede actions and grants a bonus to attacking in close assault for Zerg, it was actually strictly better than Confident for Matt (except in that it was close to Shaken, Broken, and so forth). Not sure it's really a problem, but it was a concern which might need addressed.
But, other than those issues, the game went really well. It was agreed by all sides that unit balance felt pretty right except on the hydras and in the overlord vs. goliath pairing, and the artillery kept the game moving quickly. While artillery and close assault both involved a lot of rolling, neither side was bored during the process; with artillery scatter, it's always a "oh god oh god is it going to land on me?" type tension, and melee has many hand-to-hand opposed rolls. It seemed to me that Jared and Matt became significantly more excited during close assault than during shooting; not really sure why that was the case, but hey, I'll take it. I suspect that only having two players (I was reffing / advising, basically) improved gameplay because subsystems involving many rolls weren't horribly dull for the remaining players. I do think we played CC wrong, in the handling of stunned units - we should've counted them as casualties for morale / withdrawing resolution, but didn't. Likewise, I suspect there's something buggy in the way we played artillery, but I'll try to hunt it down later today maybe.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Starcraft Stargrunt, Part 2: Zerg
So last time, I talked about converting Terran to Stargrunt. This time it's Zerg, and it's going to have to break from canon a little more to make it work within the system.
Morale and leadership are the hardest part of alien species in SGII, because we humans don't really have a particularly large dataset of real examples to draw from. So this is where we have to make some assumptions.
Proposition 1: Zerg battle-units are bred for killing. They're hungry. Their instincts tell them to go forth and devour, even without any mental urging from the hive mind.
Proposition 2: The Overmind exerts its influence over the swarm through overlords, giant flying psychic transport whale-bugs (kind of).
Proposition 3: Zerg units of the same genotype do vary to some degree in maturity / quality. Ex: Devouring Ones vs. adrenal zerglings vs. zerglings. All the same breed, more or less, but of varying quality.
These propositions suggest or imply the following:
Morale is really the only complicated thing there. Below I propose a modification of the Warbard's rules for Kra'Vak morale.
At Confident and Steady, or Calm and Irked, a Zerg squad may take any action normally available to it.
At Shaken, or Mad, a Zerg squad cannot enter cover or retreat from the enemy unless it passes a Reaction test.
At Broken, or Angry, a Zerg squad must spend one of its actions per round advancing towards the nearest enemy unit, and may not go in-position. If fired upon, they automatically become Routed.
At Routed, or Furious, a Zerg squad must spend both of its actions per round either advancing towards or close-assaulting the nearest enemy unit. If they attempt to rally and fail (or are passed an action by a unit up the chain of command, use it to try to rally, and fail), they fall to Berserk.
At Berserk, the squad must spend both of its actions per round either moving towards or close assaulting the nearest other unit, with no regard for side.
When making reaction rolls to initiate a close assault, Zerg units invert the normal modifiers; they take -0 at Confident, -1 at Steady, -3 at Shaken, and automatically make the reaction test at any lower morale level. They do not modify the morale test for defending against close assault; it's an unexpected and scary situation, for the hunter to become the hunted. Note, though, that even if you drive the Zerg from a hilltop when they fail their morale save to hold their ground, they might charge right back at you next turn...
Now I know what some of you are saying... "But the Zerg want to be in close assault! This just makes them do what they were going to do anyways!" As Heavy would say, "Maybe, maybe... but I have yet to meet Zergling that can outrun Bullet." Put your marines on the other side of difficult terrain before enraging the Zerg. Put firebats between your marines and the Zerg before enraging the Zerg. Minefields are wonderful things. If the zerglings want to remain in cover, make 'em mad and make them come to you. Those hydras want to sit at range? Make 'em mad and then they can't. I think it may be workable.
Oh yeah, burrowing and regeneration. Burrowing's easiest - it operates similarly to In-Position. A Zerg ground unit may choose to Burrow as an action. While burrowed, it cannot move or fire any weapons, but it gains a 1-die shift to its range die and its armor die, as if in soft cover. These die shifts stack with bonuses from actual cover. For purposes of spotting hidden burrowed units, a burrowed unit applies a two-die shift to its range roll; see Hidden Units, page 26. A reaction test is required to Burrow successfully; the difficulty of this test is at +0 in reasonably-soft ground (most terrain, but definitely mud and swamp), but at +2 in areas which are more difficult to burrow into, such as concrete or through the root webs of trees (so in woods, inside buildings, on roads, and similar). Moving out of Burrow operates exactly the same way as moving out of In-Position. A unit may not be both Burrowed and In-Position simultaneously; they're mutually-exclusive states.
Regeneration's slightly tougher. On the scales involved in a typical SG2 game, regeneration is completely ridiculous, so I intend to ignore it. If, however, you wanted to apply a +1 bonus to casualty resolution rules in some circumstances to model regeneration and make up for the Zerg's lack of medics, go for it. Alternatively, you could resolve all Zerg casualties immediately, rather than requiring a Reorganize action, but at no bonus. Also, just for shits, the Zerg take the same penalties for leaving behind injured squadmates as injured humans do; those are their pack-brothers, of one mind and one flesh!
And so, without further ado, on to stats!
Zerglings are light / scout infantry (speed 8") with light armor (d6 armor value) and a close combat weapon (+1 die shift in close combat). Simple, but dangerous in numbers and in close. Note also that they're technically inferior to Firebats of the same quality in close assault, because flamers give a two-die shift.
Hydralisks are slow light powered armor units (speed 6", armor d10) armed with a biological equivalent of an advanced assault right (FP2, Imp d10). Powered armor makes sense here, because they're twice the size of a man, and while they don't have specialized close-combat weapons (arguably...), they have raw mass and brute strength, as modeled by PA's melee doubling. Compared to Terran marines, hydras under this conversion are tougher (d10 armor vs d8 for marines) and meaner in melee, but slightly less punchy at range (Imp d10 as opposed to Imp d12 for the Terran gauss rifle), and use twice as much transport space. So the trouble with hydra deployment and use is that, on the one hand, they're pretty strong in melee, and tough enough to probably get there, but on the other hand, they're also all the ranged fire support your zerglings get. Choose wisely.
Overlords are Size 3 vehicles with Armor 2, carrying capacity 8, and command capabilities. Additionally, they carry an enhanced EW suite (3 EW counters per turn, d8 on EW rolls) and Basic ECM (1d6 on rolls against guided missiles and similar). Movement is where things get really tricky. On the one hand, they're probably best modeled as VTOLs like dropships. On the other hand, they're also slow as anything in SC, which causes problems with SG's aeospace rules, namely that an air unit can move to anywhere on the table as a move action. I'm kind of OK with that for overlords as a concession to reality - air transports should probably be reasonably fast, and they're still countered by guided missiles, which have "Anywhere on the table" range as well. The real question is "Why is the overlord hanging out on the table at all?" There's an essential conflict in its two roles of 'dropship' and 'command unit'. I think a compromise position is this - feel free the move the overlord off-table, but you can't activate off-table units, which means you can't use its command capabilities to transfer actions. So you can protect it, but you lose a hefty chunk of the benefit of having one if you do.
Most of the other Zerg units are just too damn big to have in SG... Guardians are artillery support firing medium-caliber shells (4" blasts). Mutalisks might qualify as gunships, but I never did understand how they actually flew... I'm writing them off just like I wrote off wraiths for Terran. Devourers and Scourges, as with Valkyries, just contribute to the Air Defense Environment. Lurkers are an interesting problem... I'm kind of thinking that unburrowed, they're mid-sized vehicles with no weapons, but when burrowed, they radiate a large minefield that doesn't attack friendlies. Call 'em Size 3, Armor 2, walking propulsion with a speed of 8", and they radiate a 6" radius Mixed AP/AV minefield when burrowed. Great for holding a position, and vehicle armor means that you might actually be able to get up near an enemy unit and then burrow. Rather scary, really.
So that leaves us with Queens, Defilers, Ultralisks, and Infested Terrans to deal with. Infested are probably easiest; they're Independent Figures (per page 27) with d8 armor, 6" speed, and the ability to detonate the equivalent of a Command-Detonated Mine (page 56) centered on his own position at any time, after which he is destroyed. To model the effectiveness of Infested against armored targets like buildings and bunkers, we may want to let them apply 1d10 doubled against the armor of buildings and vehicles within the blast.
So we're down to Queens, Defilers, and Ultralisks. Spellcasters and the superheavy tank. The spellcasters I think could be modeled as variant off-board artillery; Dark Swarm, for example, might be a variant artillery shell type that creates a zone of soft cover in a radius about where it lands, Ensnare creates an area of difficult terrain, and Plague could do something interesting like inflict a penalty on casualty resolution rolls for units that were caught in it (or go with the simple solution of "It's a general-purpose artillery barrage, screw the flavor text."). Battlefield control via unusual artillery, basically. So that pulls those guys mostly off the table... Parasite and Spawn Broodling are odd, in that they're single-target... maybe light artillery? Or just leave 'em out... It also just hit me that I left out Science Vessels last post. Off-board EW capabilities with Enhanced sensors, and whatever Plague ends up doing, Irradiate should end up doing something fairly similar.
And the ultralisk. These should pretty much never be on the table, unless it's like the only unit the Zerg have. You want to play the tank game, you're welcome to... but use Dirtside and keep it out of Stargrunt.
So there are the Zerg... thoughts?
(Proposed modifications following playtesting are here; this version is preserved in its original state for reference purposes)
Morale and leadership are the hardest part of alien species in SGII, because we humans don't really have a particularly large dataset of real examples to draw from. So this is where we have to make some assumptions.
Proposition 1: Zerg battle-units are bred for killing. They're hungry. Their instincts tell them to go forth and devour, even without any mental urging from the hive mind.
Proposition 2: The Overmind exerts its influence over the swarm through overlords, giant flying psychic transport whale-bugs (kind of).
Proposition 3: Zerg units of the same genotype do vary to some degree in maturity / quality. Ex: Devouring Ones vs. adrenal zerglings vs. zerglings. All the same breed, more or less, but of varying quality.
These propositions suggest or imply the following:
- A zerg squad's leadership value is a measure of how strong its link to the hive mind is (receptivity, if you will). Note that there is no single 'squad leader' element; leadership measures the reception each individual in the squad gets. As a result, you never lose the squad leader (but you also never get leadership upgrades by replacing poor leaders).
- If a zerg force has a command squad, it's an overlord (which basically operates as a tank-sized VTOL vehicle with EW, transport, and command capabilities).
- Zerg units do have unit qualities just like human units, but based on the quality of their genetics. Hunter-Killers are elite, upgraded grooved-spine hydras are veteran, bog-standard hydras are regular, and perhaps 'rush-job' hydras are green; the Overmind sacrificed quality for rapid growth, resulting in a wide variety of negative mutations which impede performance.
- As a zerg squad's morale deteriorates, they become less cautious and prone to close-assaulting the enemy against orders. When they would be broken, they may turn against their own kind.
Morale is really the only complicated thing there. Below I propose a modification of the Warbard's rules for Kra'Vak morale.
At Confident and Steady, or Calm and Irked, a Zerg squad may take any action normally available to it.
At Shaken, or Mad, a Zerg squad cannot enter cover or retreat from the enemy unless it passes a Reaction test.
At Broken, or Angry, a Zerg squad must spend one of its actions per round advancing towards the nearest enemy unit, and may not go in-position. If fired upon, they automatically become Routed.
At Routed, or Furious, a Zerg squad must spend both of its actions per round either advancing towards or close-assaulting the nearest enemy unit. If they attempt to rally and fail (or are passed an action by a unit up the chain of command, use it to try to rally, and fail), they fall to Berserk.
At Berserk, the squad must spend both of its actions per round either moving towards or close assaulting the nearest other unit, with no regard for side.
When making reaction rolls to initiate a close assault, Zerg units invert the normal modifiers; they take -0 at Confident, -1 at Steady, -3 at Shaken, and automatically make the reaction test at any lower morale level. They do not modify the morale test for defending against close assault; it's an unexpected and scary situation, for the hunter to become the hunted. Note, though, that even if you drive the Zerg from a hilltop when they fail their morale save to hold their ground, they might charge right back at you next turn...
Now I know what some of you are saying... "But the Zerg want to be in close assault! This just makes them do what they were going to do anyways!" As Heavy would say, "Maybe, maybe... but I have yet to meet Zergling that can outrun Bullet." Put your marines on the other side of difficult terrain before enraging the Zerg. Put firebats between your marines and the Zerg before enraging the Zerg. Minefields are wonderful things. If the zerglings want to remain in cover, make 'em mad and make them come to you. Those hydras want to sit at range? Make 'em mad and then they can't. I think it may be workable.
Oh yeah, burrowing and regeneration. Burrowing's easiest - it operates similarly to In-Position. A Zerg ground unit may choose to Burrow as an action. While burrowed, it cannot move or fire any weapons, but it gains a 1-die shift to its range die and its armor die, as if in soft cover. These die shifts stack with bonuses from actual cover. For purposes of spotting hidden burrowed units, a burrowed unit applies a two-die shift to its range roll; see Hidden Units, page 26. A reaction test is required to Burrow successfully; the difficulty of this test is at +0 in reasonably-soft ground (most terrain, but definitely mud and swamp), but at +2 in areas which are more difficult to burrow into, such as concrete or through the root webs of trees (so in woods, inside buildings, on roads, and similar). Moving out of Burrow operates exactly the same way as moving out of In-Position. A unit may not be both Burrowed and In-Position simultaneously; they're mutually-exclusive states.
Regeneration's slightly tougher. On the scales involved in a typical SG2 game, regeneration is completely ridiculous, so I intend to ignore it. If, however, you wanted to apply a +1 bonus to casualty resolution rules in some circumstances to model regeneration and make up for the Zerg's lack of medics, go for it. Alternatively, you could resolve all Zerg casualties immediately, rather than requiring a Reorganize action, but at no bonus. Also, just for shits, the Zerg take the same penalties for leaving behind injured squadmates as injured humans do; those are their pack-brothers, of one mind and one flesh!
And so, without further ado, on to stats!
Zerglings are light / scout infantry (speed 8") with light armor (d6 armor value) and a close combat weapon (+1 die shift in close combat). Simple, but dangerous in numbers and in close. Note also that they're technically inferior to Firebats of the same quality in close assault, because flamers give a two-die shift.
Hydralisks are slow light powered armor units (speed 6", armor d10) armed with a biological equivalent of an advanced assault right (FP2, Imp d10). Powered armor makes sense here, because they're twice the size of a man, and while they don't have specialized close-combat weapons (arguably...), they have raw mass and brute strength, as modeled by PA's melee doubling. Compared to Terran marines, hydras under this conversion are tougher (d10 armor vs d8 for marines) and meaner in melee, but slightly less punchy at range (Imp d10 as opposed to Imp d12 for the Terran gauss rifle), and use twice as much transport space. So the trouble with hydra deployment and use is that, on the one hand, they're pretty strong in melee, and tough enough to probably get there, but on the other hand, they're also all the ranged fire support your zerglings get. Choose wisely.
Overlords are Size 3 vehicles with Armor 2, carrying capacity 8, and command capabilities. Additionally, they carry an enhanced EW suite (3 EW counters per turn, d8 on EW rolls) and Basic ECM (1d6 on rolls against guided missiles and similar). Movement is where things get really tricky. On the one hand, they're probably best modeled as VTOLs like dropships. On the other hand, they're also slow as anything in SC, which causes problems with SG's aeospace rules, namely that an air unit can move to anywhere on the table as a move action. I'm kind of OK with that for overlords as a concession to reality - air transports should probably be reasonably fast, and they're still countered by guided missiles, which have "Anywhere on the table" range as well. The real question is "Why is the overlord hanging out on the table at all?" There's an essential conflict in its two roles of 'dropship' and 'command unit'. I think a compromise position is this - feel free the move the overlord off-table, but you can't activate off-table units, which means you can't use its command capabilities to transfer actions. So you can protect it, but you lose a hefty chunk of the benefit of having one if you do.
Most of the other Zerg units are just too damn big to have in SG... Guardians are artillery support firing medium-caliber shells (4" blasts). Mutalisks might qualify as gunships, but I never did understand how they actually flew... I'm writing them off just like I wrote off wraiths for Terran. Devourers and Scourges, as with Valkyries, just contribute to the Air Defense Environment. Lurkers are an interesting problem... I'm kind of thinking that unburrowed, they're mid-sized vehicles with no weapons, but when burrowed, they radiate a large minefield that doesn't attack friendlies. Call 'em Size 3, Armor 2, walking propulsion with a speed of 8", and they radiate a 6" radius Mixed AP/AV minefield when burrowed. Great for holding a position, and vehicle armor means that you might actually be able to get up near an enemy unit and then burrow. Rather scary, really.
So that leaves us with Queens, Defilers, Ultralisks, and Infested Terrans to deal with. Infested are probably easiest; they're Independent Figures (per page 27) with d8 armor, 6" speed, and the ability to detonate the equivalent of a Command-Detonated Mine (page 56) centered on his own position at any time, after which he is destroyed. To model the effectiveness of Infested against armored targets like buildings and bunkers, we may want to let them apply 1d10 doubled against the armor of buildings and vehicles within the blast.
So we're down to Queens, Defilers, and Ultralisks. Spellcasters and the superheavy tank. The spellcasters I think could be modeled as variant off-board artillery; Dark Swarm, for example, might be a variant artillery shell type that creates a zone of soft cover in a radius about where it lands, Ensnare creates an area of difficult terrain, and Plague could do something interesting like inflict a penalty on casualty resolution rolls for units that were caught in it (or go with the simple solution of "It's a general-purpose artillery barrage, screw the flavor text."). Battlefield control via unusual artillery, basically. So that pulls those guys mostly off the table... Parasite and Spawn Broodling are odd, in that they're single-target... maybe light artillery? Or just leave 'em out... It also just hit me that I left out Science Vessels last post. Off-board EW capabilities with Enhanced sensors, and whatever Plague ends up doing, Irradiate should end up doing something fairly similar.
And the ultralisk. These should pretty much never be on the table, unless it's like the only unit the Zerg have. You want to play the tank game, you're welcome to... but use Dirtside and keep it out of Stargrunt.
So there are the Zerg... thoughts?
(Proposed modifications following playtesting are here; this version is preserved in its original state for reference purposes)
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