Newbish n00b questions, MkII

[Tzan]

The word you are looking for is Cluster Bomb.

[Valak87]

If the die comes up "1", can i fail the sprinting roll?

[Valiant]

*Minifig turns head and attempts to run backwards, but trips. Therefore he has fallen both on his " face and/or ass".

[*CRAZYHORSE*]

What if a minifig uses something like an atlatl or a whiffleball scoop to throw a spear or grenade farther?

Well you could say that it counts as a size 1 or bastard sized launcher of course.

The stats for a size 1 launcher requiring 1 or 2 hands would be:
Cost: 3cp
Use: 2
Range: 6"
This is already a significant boost in accuracy and range to just throwing things with your arms but it still won't really be able to launch big tings that hurt unless you choose to throw explosives which suits launchers really well.

The stats for a bastard size launcher aren't worth it to be launching objects. Compared to a long ranged weapon they are pretty shitty unless you decide to launch explosives with them.
So I think you would be better of if you just used them as ranged weapons which makes sense.

[stubby]

The heroic feat is probably more accurate to the way he actually works; just like Batman's "prepared for everything" cliche, you know the comic book guys aren't planning iron man's gadgets out in advance most of the time.

You'd need to add some kind of funny mechanic for "power levels always run out at the climax."

[Tzan]

You'd need to add some kind of funny mechanic for "power levels always run out at the climax."

His power runs down at the climax because he always forgets to turn off his automatic masturbater before a battle.
It sucks all the juice out of his system.

[stubby]

6. Of course the gadget appearing in the first place is the Heroic Feat, actually firing it would be his regular action for the round, with its own chances of success or failure, right?

The more I think about this, a Feat might not be the way to go - having stuff appear is not really an action feat, it's more of a SN dice kind of thing. His weird gadgets are basically magic spells with a faux-techy facade.

I may actually give the suit a Heroic Half-Mind (Submissive) to emulate the built-in A.I. assist. Also he can step out of the suit, and give the suit orders to carry out like in the films.

I like that.

7. BTW, do Critical Fails (with a weapon) carry a penalty beyond just missing the target? In some games, a critical fail has a chance of damaging the wielder of said weapon, but I couldn't find anything about that in Brikwars. I think the potential for backfire would be hilarious. Or... do you think it would unbalance/slow down the game too much?

There's no official penalty. I've seen some people house-rule it so that a critical fail means they lose their grip on the weapon, which is kind of funny in small games but bogs things down in big ones.

8. For something like Mjölnir, obviously I would start with a Heroic Weapon, but the whole "worthiness" enchantment had me puzzled - maybe (again) give it a mind (or half-mind, Programmed: obey only those worthy of the power of Thor) of its own and just have it save reactions to Heroic Feat [not being able to be wielded by random strangers]? That seems like the simplest way to do it, without resorting to WISG rolls.

If I was going to do it, it would just be a simple "usable by Heroes only," no rolls required. If some Hero was really screwing up and biffing all his rolls, I might have a WISG roll to see if the hammer thought he was too much of a loser to be worthy, but otherwise, standards of "worthiness" in a brikwars universe have got to be pretty lax.

9. Do the costs of minifig special abilities (Mechanikal Aptitude, Heroic Ego, etc) scale with size? As in "Cost X Size"?

Nope. Special abilities don't get any more special with increased size; a 6" mechanik mechaniks up the same amount of mechanikry as a 1" mechanik. It's kind of a tradeoff; on the one hand, you're wasting a six-inch guy's turn doing something a one-inch guy could do just as well; on the other hand, it takes six times longer to kill the 6" guy, so your specialty is a little less likely to get wiped off the board before you can use it.

Since there are no hard limits on heroic feats other than the players' tastes and imagination, a heroic mouse can theoretically do as much damage as a heroic hulk. From a game-mechanical standpoint I don't see any major need to scale the point cost.

10. So what is the smallest object that can be launched/thrown and still do damage - Size 1", or size 0"?

Size 0" objects do as much damage as if they'd been used as close combat weapons. A lot of them will just use the Minifig Tool or Random Object stats, which is to say that they won't be very lethal.

11. For the purpose of cover, does it count what the weapon operator can see, or what the weapon can hit? I actually had this come up in a recent playtest. Say I've got a BlastGun or AutoGun the barrel of which can freely spay down 3 enemies with lead, but the fig operating the gun can only see 2 of them from where he's standing, the 3rd having cover.

Now this is an interesting question.

For a BlastGun, and probably a FlameThrower as well, it seems like the blast would hit everything in the cone of fire regardless of whether the operator is aware of it or not; the dispersal of damage throughout the cone doesn't depend on any conscious control on the part of the operator. For an AutoGun, on the other hand, the operator is consciously directing the pattern of fire, and he wouldn't be able to target things he couldn't see.

[Valak87]

I have a doubt:
we have two soldier with sword and shield, now, Soldier A attacks and Soldier B does "Parry and Risposte" . Parry succeeds and Soldier B counterattacks, has the Soldier A a chance to parry? Or Parry and Risposte?

[stubby]

we have two soldier with sword and shield, now, Soldier A attacks and Soldier B does "Parry and Risposte" . Parry succeeds and Soldier B counterattacks, has the Soldier A a chance to parry? Or Parry and Risposte?

Soldier A already used his sword to attack, he can't use it again. He can parry with the shield, but doesn't have any more weapons to riposte with.

[Gungnir]

Dunno if I've asked this before, but can I buy a minifig heavy shield as front-facing armor plating as though it were a non-minifig structure?

[stubby]

6. Can Gathering Power be used to temorarily increase carrying capacity?

You might use Divert All Power to temporarily increase lifting or throwing capacity, although it would probably come to a WISG roll if somebody tried something super weird. But you can't move while diverting power, so you wouldn't be able to carry anything anywhere.

The Carrying Items rules work fine for a vehicle towing another vehicle of equal of lesser size, but what about trains? I had been thinking lately of making some battle-trains with mounted guns, troop compartments, helipads, the works, and I just realized that under the current rules, I'll need one locomotive per car to pull/push it along at full speed.

7. Is there a work-around for trains that doesn't involve SN dice?

Well the obvious thing would be to buy the whole train at once, rather than each car as a separate unit, and then you wouldn't have to worry about the hauling capacity of inidividual locomotive cars.

The second option would be to house-rule it and say that rolling train cars maintain their momentum. If a locomotive car can haul two more cars at Half Speed, then on the following turn it can accelerate them to full speed.

8. So when purchasing Standard Movement (Spaceflight) is that only for Spaceflight? What about starfighters and other small craft that are designed to operate in the atmosphere too? Would I have to purchase regular flight for them?

The only difference between spaceflight and aeronautical flight is in the Power limitations. So, depending on how you imagine your propulsion system works, it's easy to say you have a single propulsion system that has different power requirements depending on if it's flying in atmosphere or not.

9. For purchasing Armor Plating, do you just measure the longest dimensions of a stretch of armored section like (kinda like when measuring the size of a creation)? Or do you need to purchase each angled segment of armor separately?

I'm thinking it's the former, because Brikwars tends toward the simplest, least Anorak-ish path, but I also don't wanna seem too munchkiny, looking like I'm trying to get a whole pile of armor on the cheap.

That's right. In most cases I'd treat all the armor on the creation as a single item to measure, even if it's in multiple parts, especially if it's all the same basic type of armor. I can imagine some cases in which the individual segments are so separated or so conceptually unrelated to each other that I'd buy them individually rather than treat them as part of the same item.

[stubby]

6. A 2H weapon has the stats of a 2" weapon, but a much longer reach.

7. People can house rule whatever they want, of course. That never changes.

8. A mighty shield and a motorcycle don't have the same heroic cliche. One is a heroic shield, and one is a heroic motorcycle. Can you give me an example of a heroic feat that uses all three cliches?

[stubby]

8. A mighty shield and a motorcycle don't have the same heroic cliche. One is a heroic shield, and one is a heroic motorcycle. Can you give me an example of a heroic feat that uses all three cliches?

~goes back and rereads wording~ I should have said "satisfy the Heroic Feat". Maybe the Captain America cycle is a bad example (and I was able to just build on most of the gadgets after all).

Maybe. I'm sure we could think of a working example though. Let's say, a heroic baseball player, with a heroic bat, hitting a heroic baseball.

I guess in this case you'd roll 3d6 and take the highest result? I wonder what that does to the odds. Let's see:

• 1d6 v 1d6, ties or better 58.33% of the time
  
  Highest of 2d6 v 1d6, ties or better 74.54% of the time
  
  Highest of 3d6 v 1d6, ties or better 82.64% of the time

That's pretty good odds, I guess, but you had to spend three potential separate heroic feats to get that one slightly-more reliable one, so it's not as unbalanced as it might be. Additional heroic modifiers continue to provide diminishing returns.

[stubby]

6. If I create a "Smart Weapon", I should designate which part of the weapon holds the "brains" (high-tek targeting chip, trapped spirit of ancient warrior, etc), right? Just like with a regular creation that has a mind and ought to have a head or something?

7. Would I need to buy said weapon as a creation (with Size * SL and all that) for purposes of it being destroyed?

8. Can a Gunner with Multitasking provide himself Gunnery support with the weapon he's firing, as he's firing it?

6. Yes. How you would cost it depends on how "smart" it is though. It could be a full mind, a half mind, or even just a gunnery support specialty with no mind.

7. That would really depend on whether it was designed to operate as an independent unit (then yes), or something carried by another creation or unit (then no), I think.

8. This is a tough call, and depends on what kinds of actions are involved in gunnery support. If I imagine the support guys doing stuff like looking through binoculars and calculating parabolic trajectories, that ties up the eyes and hands they would need for making precision adjustments to the firing mechanism, so having a brain with the ability to focus on more things at once still wouldn't let them do both. But your idea of support tasks might be different, so it really depends on what you can get the other players at your table to agree to.

[stubby]

I feel like one sword could be heroic, or maybe even two if they have a cool backstory, but anything mass-produced is un-unique by definition.

Still, Heroic Feats are nice because they fuck you over when they fail. Are your Holy Paladins constantly accidentally killing each other and themselves?