Newbish n00b questions, MkII

[Voin]

I'm not in disagreement, though my original statement about beamsabers vs. blasters/firearms was more "in-universe", rather than "what looks cool for the game/story".

Obviously, beamsabers blocking blaster bolts is bad-ass. It's awesome when it happens on-screen, and can be neat in a game when done right.

What I was getting at, however, was that if I were a character in a universe where I knew people ran around with beamsabers, I would ditch the flashy blaster and pick up an ol' "primitive" firearm.

As for the Command Vehicle thing, with all due respect, I think we just have a subjective difference of opinion and no amount of back-and-forth is going to convince the other. We come from differing gaming backgrounds, and we bring different expectations to our BrikWars games.
So perhaps we should just agree to disagree and argue about something worthwhile and not at all pointless like politics, font-choice, or why shows we don't even watch suck so much.

[IVhorseman]

agreeing to disagree is the absolute worst method of coming up with a solution.

He hit the nail on the head about uniqueness, and I too think that command vehicles COULD be really really cool. The leadership thing would work, but since most of a command vehicle's actions would be "drive towards the enemy," those don't get super inspirey. You could have a tank that has a commander inside, but at that point you've just got the Command Tank which is a different type of battle role entirely.

What is it about tracking that you think doesn't match up to what a radar-command vehicle should be able to do? I think we can narrow something down from there.

[Battlegrinder]

Regarding the bit about heroes sitting around giving speeches instead of doing something, I've actually found a workaround for that. What I like to do on the rare occasions that I want to inspire the troops is have the hero do something awesome, and have the inspiration come as a side effect of that. For example, on time I had my hero grab a spear and skewer a guy who'd been causing my army trouble, and then he said something along the lines of "top that, losers!"

Basically, have your hero do something inspiring instead of just saying something inspiring.

[Voin]

He hit the nail on the head about uniqueness, and I too think that command vehicles COULD be really really cool. The leadership thing would work, but since most of a command vehicle's actions would be "drive towards the enemy," those don't get super inspirey. You could have a tank that has a commander inside, but at that point you've just got the Command Tank which is a different type of battle role entirely.

Hmmm, maybe something like a "veteran" vehicle that's famous for being awesome in many battles and gets "promoted" to Command Vehicle due to its legendary status among the troops (kinda like the Millennium Falcon in the Rebel Alliance/New Republic). Then the troops are like "Gee willikers, Batman! That's the Millennium Falcon! The day is ours!"

What is it about tracking that you think doesn't match up to what a radar-command vehicle should be able to do? I think we can narrow something down from there.

Oh, if you want to roll the two together, then I don't see a problem with it.

[Voin]

119. Do "implied ladders/walls/etc for off-the-shelf buildings" extend to implied stuff (like crawlways) for off-the shelf starships?

120. Are Gunners still limited to "firing a single weapon, or a paired set of identical weapons, at a single target" like other minifigs?

[Zupponn]

Command Vehicles could use something like an ability called "Berate" where, once per turn, the commander in the command vehicle may berate a nearby minifig. The minifig gets a -6 penalty to his next roll. Then roll for success. If you succeed, your minifigs in the area get a +1 bonus. If you fail, your minifigs in the area get a -1 penalty.

[stubby]

117. Anybody have any good ways of statting out Command vehicles, radars, or communications arrays? I was thinking maybe a radius Bless for units close to the Command Vehicle, and something like the Scout's Tracking ability for the radar, but I'd like to hear what others came up with.

I don't think there's any disagreement to agree about here, for me it was less about trying to figure out the right answer to the question than about trying to figure out what the question was in the first place. I'm still not sure what kind of magic effect a command vehicle was supposed to have that we needed to make rules to account for it, but it seems like we probably covered whatever it was.

Command Vehicles could use something like an ability called "Berate" where, once per turn, the commander in the command vehicle may berate a nearby minifig. The minifig gets a -6 penalty to his next roll. Then roll for success. If you succeed, your minifigs in the area get a +1 bonus. If you fail, your minifigs in the area get a -1 penalty.

Do you remember when we were talking about a Drill Sergeant unit? He was like an officer with a power drill and the ability to Scapegoat a squad member. Once a turn, he could blame any failure on one of his squad members, sacrifice him (by drilling a hole in his head), and then the rest of the squad would get a motivation bonus. (Later this got turned into Masters and Thralls in chapter 10, but I always liked this image of leadership.)

119. Do "implied ladders/walls/etc for off-the-shelf buildings" extend to implied stuff (like crawlways) for off-the shelf starships?

Not sure what you mean. Can you show an example?

120. Are Gunners still limited to "firing a single weapon, or a paired set of identical weapons, at a single target" like other minifigs?

120. Yes, so you'll often need several Gunners on a vehicle with a lot of weapons. The nice thing about having a bunch of gunners is that you can switch them on the fly between all firing separate weapons at separate targets to working together in Gunnery Support groups for larger main weapons.

[stubby]

Oh man, reading back through that Leader thread again now -

121. how did I forget about this??

What do you think of this:

A Leader can ScapeGoat any subordinate unit that hasn't taken its turn yet, blaming them for failures real or imagined and motivating the troops with his decisive leadership. The unit's CP cost is immediately converted into Instant Benny bonus points which can be divided up and spent during that turn by the Leader and/or any other subordinate units.

The Leader picks an enemy player to control the ScapeGoat unit from that point forward, so it's in his own best interest to neutralize the victim quickly. The ScapeGoat now acts on the enemy's turn, so he won't be able to respond immediately, but he will have a Response Action to spend (since he hasn't taken his turn yet). When a Hero is ScapeGoated, he can make a one-time 1d6" roll for loyal RedShirts to join him in exile, although the RedShirt's CP costs will increase the number of bonus points for the Leader as well.

In a pinch, the player may also have any subordinate unit ScapeGoat the Leader instead.

Not that this has anything to do with command vehicles, but it's still great

[Voin]

119. Do "implied ladders/walls/etc for off-the-shelf buildings" extend to implied stuff (like crawlways) for off-the shelf starships?

Not sure what you mean. Can you show an example?

Okay, so for example with the Republic Cruiser, there aren't really walkways or crawl-tunnels for the crew to get from one compartment of the ship to another, thought the arrangement of equipment inside the vehicle certainly implies that they should be able to (not to mention the in-movie ship it was based on).



I assume "environmental seals" are also implied for spaceships that are not fully enclosed?

[IVhorseman]

Yes and Yes, as long as everyone at the table knows what's going on like Bonn-o-Tron.

[Battlegrinder]

122. Can vehicles use the stealth skill?
123. Can units enter the battle as reinforcements already stealthed, or do they have to arrive visible and then cloak?

[stubby]

121. how did I forget about this??

121. I think it's because you're stupid.

122. Can vehicles use the stealth skill?
123. Can units enter the battle as reinforcements already stealthed, or do they have to arrive visible and then cloak?

122. If it fits the vehicle concept, I guess so. They lose the advantage of the +1 Cover of course, since that's minifig-specific.

123. They arrive visible. The main balancing factor on Stealth is the need to find those hidden spots where you can successfully cloak. So the bigger your vehicle, the hard it is to find a spot where you're hidden.

[Battlegrinder]

122. Can vehicles use the stealth skill?
123. Can units enter the battle as reinforcements already stealthed, or do they have to arrive visible and then cloak?

122. If it fits the vehicle concept, I guess so. They lose the advantage of the +1 Cover of course, since that's minifig-specific.

123. They arrive visible. The main balancing factor on Stealth is the need to find those hidden spots where you can successfully cloak. So the bigger your vehicle, the hard it is to find a spot where you're hidden.

Nuts. I was planning on doing something really with a stealthed APC sneaking up behind an opponents army. Guess I'll have to come up with another way to create the brikwars version of Creed.

[Voin]

123. They arrive visible. The main balancing factor on Stealth is the need to find those hidden spots where you can successfully cloak. So the bigger your vehicle, the hard it is to find a spot where you're hidden.

Quick-deploy fold-out panels?

[Voin]

Yes and Yes, as long as everyone at the table knows what's going on like Bonn-o-Tron.

Naturally, something like an actual hull breach (as opposed to an opening that's simply there by design so you can move the minifigs around inside the ship) should be marked with flame pieces, or at least red pips.