Newbish n00b questions, MkII

[Gungnir]

I think it's really up to whomever is at the table. If there's a disagreement, just make a WISG roll.

[stubby]

So when an AutoGun is fired in a burst, does every shot that hits contribute to one big pile of cumulative damage (like combined fire), or does the target get a separate armor roll (if applicable) against each hit?

Every shot that hits on the Attack Roll contributes to cumulative damage - all one Armor Roll.

Every shot that just barely misses the Attack Roll but manages to hit anyway (because the target is large enough to soak up some miss inches), is taken separately - separate Armor Rolls.

Regardless of how they hit, every shot hitting a Shielded target has a die removed from its Damage individually.

[stubby]

What's the action cost for a minifig to remove armor? Like if you wanted to shed the extra protection and the encumbrance that comes with it? A turn? Move inches?

What's the action cost to put on armor, or loot it from a corpse? I know from experience wearing it that heavy armor, both modern and archaic, takes some assistance from a second person to put on properly, so should there be an assistant requirement for donning heavy armor?

Putting on Armor is a full-round action. Taking it off is a regular Action.

Also, is there any way to unsubscribe from a thread, so that you don't have to see a bunch of annoying trolling every time you want to clear off unread topics when you go to click " View your posts"?

I don't know if there's a way to do that. There's a subscribe/unsubscribe topic button at the bottom of the topic page, but I don't think it takes things off the View Your Posts page.

[Scratch]

This came up in a chat battle, and I realized I never actually saw any answer to this question in the rulebook, if you shoot an explosive directly, does the explosive get an armor roll as part of the structure it's attached to, or does it just go off? I always assumed the latter but I couldn't find any reference to it in either explosives section.

[IVhorseman]

It's the former, but the die roll is usually really damn low. The latter is the case for highly-volatile explosives though, like raw dynamite.

[Quadruple.Digits]

On a point of whimsy:
Can you shoot a missile out of a launcher? If so, can you add the ranges of both missile and launcher? (e.g. a catapult that throws missiles, which then activate and fly off to their target.)

[stubby]

Officially speaking, no. The missile just uses the range of the launcher.

But if you were going to house-rule it, then you'd make one attack roll from the launcher, see where that took them, and then make a second attack roll from where the missiles activated, using the skill rating of the missiles themselves. (Hopefully you remembered to buy Half Minds for the missiles.)

I guess you could have the gunner make a single skill roll for both attacks, if you just add the sum of the Use ratings for launcher+missile. It would have more range but be very inaccurate.

[stubby]

This came up in a chat battle, and I realized I never actually saw any answer to this question in the rulebook, if you shoot an explosive directly, does the explosive get an armor roll as part of the structure it's attached to, or does it just go off? I always assumed the latter but I couldn't find any reference to it in either explosives section.

This has been a matter of debate for a long time and I haven't come up with a hard and fast rule that I like. It generally comes down to WISG.

Dynamite and nitroglycerin are pretty volatile, so any damage at all is enough; molotov cocktails an greek fire are similar. Fuel tanks are tougher, and require some combination of beating the Armor and using an attack with enough heat to ignite it. C-4 explosives can't be set off by any standard attack, as far as I can figure out. Something like a hydrogen bomb or an intercontinental ballistic missile can't be made to explode until the arming sequence is complete, but obviously minifigs see no point in that kind of safety precaution.

So there's a variety of things to consider, and I haven't figured out a one-size-fits-all rule for them.

[Gungnir]

We've already established that you can fire a launcher out of a larger launcher, right?

[devincp]

Quick question, if i use a SN dice to increase the range of my gun do I still suffer skill penalty for firing outside of my guns base range or just out of the new SN range that was added.

Example: I have a hand gun with use 3, range 6" and damage 1d6. I also have 2d6 SN dice. I use one d6 to add range to my gun rolling a 4 I now have a 10" range giving me the option to fire at a minifig 9" away from me.

Attackers frustrated by targets that are slightly Out of Range can go ahead and fire their weapons anyway, but their attacks' accuracy and effectiveness drop off quickly with distance. For every inch past a Ranged Attack's listed Range, the result of every die rolled as part of the attack (each Skill and Damage die, in particular) is reduced by 1

Would I still occur this -1 to die roll per 1 inch out of range thus incurring -3 to die my die rolls or would the SN dice make it so that I don't incur this penalty?

[stubby]

Yeah, I get tired of movies treating nukes like simply a big jar of nitroglycerin. I've actually studied nuclear warfare quite extensively (a topic of morbid fascination for me), and the thing about the arming mechanisms is that a) they're designed for very specific conditions (commonly altitude), and b), they tend to be fairly delicate, complex pieces of electronics and machinery. In other words, you could bang on one with a hammer, and all you'd probably accomplish is making it not be able to detonate.

What I mind end up doing is saying that if your explosives aren't armed, then you have to spend an Action to arm them, and they can't be armed and fired in the same turn. That way you're stuck with the choice of explosives that you can use immediately but represent a huge risk to yourself, or explosives that are "safe" but can't be fired without a delay.

Quick question, if i use a SN dice to increase the range of my gun do I still suffer skill penalty for firing outside of my guns base range or just out of the new SN range that was added.

Example: I have a hand gun with use 3, range 6" and damage 1d6. I also have 2d6 SN dice. I use one d6 to add range to my gun rolling a 4 I now have a 10" range giving me the option to fire at a minifig 9" away from me.

Attackers frustrated by targets that are slightly Out of Range can go ahead and fire their weapons anyway, but their attacks' accuracy and effectiveness drop off quickly with distance. For every inch past a Ranged Attack's listed Range, the result of every die rolled as part of the attack (each Skill and Damage die, in particular) is reduced by 1

Would I still occur this -1 to die roll per 1 inch out of range thus incurring -3 to die my die rolls or would the SN dice make it so that I don't incur this penalty?

Any range penalties would be based on the new modified range, not the gun's original base range. You'll still take a -1 Skill Penalty for spending the SN die, and there's a chance that the die could Fumble as usual. (Assuming that adding range to guns fits into your particular supernatural cliche, of course.)

[cleanupcrew]

Antimatter bombs are a whole 'nother story.

[stubby]

What I might end up doing is saying that if your explosives aren't armed, then you have to spend an Action to arm them, and they can't be armed and fired in the same turn. That way you're stuck with the choice of explosives that you can use immediately but represent a huge risk to yourself, or explosives that are "safe" but can't be fired without a delay.

A whole Action to arm? Wouldn't that be more of a routine task (i.e. Move-equivalent)? Maybe XS = Move Inches cost to arm?

You know, maybe you're right. I think the "can't arm and fire in the same turn" is probably good enough by itself, without any Action or Move cost.

[stubby]

... this means it's in the best interest of all bombardiers involved to be efficient about the size of the explosives, right? So it's good tactics (and not at all munchkinny) to drop a bucket of little 1x1 thermal detonator tiles or something out the side of a plane?

Sure, I guess? A bucket of thermal detonators is cool if it's a random thing your hero comes up with in the heat of the moment, but lame if your ships are built that way in advance to take advantage of cheese. Your opponents will probably demand to know how your pilot is arming all the detonators inside that bucket, or they'll WISG them to make them all bounce in random directions on impact or something.

Also, when "Explosive Size" is counted by "bricks", does that mean bricks as in "separate LEGO elements", rather than" 1x1 bricks"? For my armies, I tinker around with a lot of really intricate guns using very fine-scale technic pieces, so my grenades often end up being 1/2-pins and even smaller.

Bricks used to be a unit of height measurement in older editions, I think this line is a holdover. Bricks are anything the height of a 1x1 brick. So the thermal detonator tiles wouldn't work under the strictest interpretation of the rules, but 1/2 pins are right in line.

[stubby]

So the thermal detonator tiles wouldn't work under the strictest interpretation of the rules

Of course, those rules were written before that thermal detonator tile was made... it'd be a darn shame to deny such an iconic piece of Star Wars weaponry it's rightful place among the mayhem-causing devices of Brikwars over a mere technicality from an old rules edition.

I only mention strict interpretations as a joke. This is BrikWars. Strict interpretation of the rules is against the rules.

On the question of arming explosives - I presume, like with big weapons (often found on starships), the minifig doesn't have to necessarily physically touch the ordnance itself, just the controls for the weapon that fires it (or bomb bay doors), correct?

Sure, but it's not clear that there are any controls with access to the arming mechanisms of thermal detonators in a bucket.

(Though I will award a Benny to anyone who sacrifices a fig to re-enact the ride-the-nuke scene from Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.)

I feel like Warhead already did this once, but I can't remember for sure now.