Newbish n00b questions, MkII

[Silent-sigfig]

6. How exactly do OverSkill die work in regards to shielded units (this has been a cause of some confusion at a recent game). What about a twice-shielded unit (Heavy Armor + Heavy Shield parry)?

While the overskill die wouldn't be used for damage because the shielding cancels it out, you should roll it anyway. Then, take the number that comes up, and kick whoever fielded a double-shielded unit in the nuts that many times. Critical successes apply.

[RedRover]

6. How exactly do OverSkill die work in regards to shielded units (this has been a cause of some confusion at a recent game). What about a twice-shielded unit (Heavy Armor + Heavy Shield parry)?

While the overskill die wouldn't be used for damage because the shielding cancels it out, you should roll it anyway. Then, take the number that comes up, and kick whoever fielded a double-shielded unit in the nuts that many times. Critical successes apply.

Aren't double shielded units somewhat common? I'm thinking a knight in heavy armor with a shield is probably pretty common, but I could be wrong.

[stubby]

6. How exactly do OverSkill die work in regards to shielded units (this has been a cause of some confusion at a recent game). What about a twice-shielded unit (Heavy Armor + Heavy Shield parry)?

If you're swinging a 1-die weapon against an un-Shielded unit, then the OverSkill Die raises it to two dice of damage.

If you are swinging a 1-die weapon against a Shielded unit, the Shielding reduces it to zero dice. An OverSkill Die raises it back up to one die again.

If you're swinging a 1-die weapon with OverSkill against a double-Shielded unit, then the double Shielding eliminates both dice, so I hope you have a workaround.

Workarounds:

Heavy Armor is always Shielding, so there's not much you can do about that with direct attacks - but indirectly, disrupting them with a shove or a collision works pretty good.

Shields, on the other hand, aren't as reliable - for normal units they depend on a successful Parry (easily prevented by ganging up or disruption), and for a Shield Wall they depend on the wall being in the right place relative to the attacker. I'm still looking at reworking the Parry rules for something that has some balance but also works for Squad combat, so stay tuned for that. But the wall problem is simple enough to counter - get around, over, or under that wall and attack from a side that it doesn't protect.

And of course, there's always Two-Handed Weapons, Charges, and Instant Bennies to push the number of damage dice up past the Shielding limit.

7. If a Hero has a Special Ability such as Piloting, Gunnery Support, Ker-Triage, Pathfinding, or any other ability that for a regular fig would boost their Skill Rating from a d6 to to a d8 for that specialty, does the Hero use their d10 Skill Rating? (Bearing in mind that criticals, and thus OverSkill are rarer for heroes, I think this would balance out). What about Officers with their d8 Skill Rating?

A Hero using a d10 for Specialties is fine. I try to set up all the dice-based specialties so that they'll scale appropriately with different-sized dice.

A Hero Officer would still boost everyone's dice by one size, but with an upper limit of d10 instead of d8, I think.

8. Is it legit for a smart weapon that is wielded by a minifig as a CC weapon, but has the "smart" part is keyed to a ranged weapon to hold it's action until the minifig makes a successful CC melee attack (the moment the pointy end makes contact with the target) and then unleash the ranged attack? If it still has to make an attack roll, that's fine. (So think like a battering ram with a shotgun mounted inside the business end).

That seems fine, as long as the combination isn't exceeding the weapon size limit for the unit or units swinging them. What's the design goal there? What's the tactical situation where 1d6 (melee) + 1d8 (shotgun) is better than the simpler 1d6 + 1d8 (melee)?

[Quantumsurfer]

That seems fine, as long as the combination isn't exceeding the weapon size limit for the unit or units swinging them. What's the design goal there? What's the tactical situation where 1d6 (melee) + 1d8 (shotgun) is better than the simpler 1d6 + 1d8 (melee)?

Also, it give my melee specialists a backup ranged weapon for when their foes are just out of reach (see above).

I thought of this in the reverse. Giving ranged guys a backup melee weapon. See chapter 5:

Minifigs may make only one Ranged Attack per turn, and they may not make any Ranged Attacks on the same turn in which they are actively engaged in Close Combat, either before or afterwards

With minifig's Move, Sprint, and Angry Inches combining in some combination to maybe give ranged guys one or two turns of firing before becoming body fodder.

[stubby]

Okay. Maybe a little chart would be helpful?

Okay, here's the chart:

• One level of Shielding cancels one die of damage
  Two levels of Shielding cancel two dice of damage

Chart done.

A Hero Officer would still boost everyone's dice by one size, but with an upper limit of d10 instead of d8, I think.

Ohh, okay - everyone's. I did not know that. But then again, how often do Officers command other Officers? And I was under the impression that Heroes are loose cannons who don't listen to orders at all.

An Officer commanding another Officer would have no effect, since he can't raise the other Officer's skill any higher than the d8 it already is.

Nobody can raise a Hero's skill any higher; it's already d10.

[stubby]

Which is why the fig isn't the one making the ranged attack - their Smart-Sledgehammer is, as quasi-separate entity.

Even in that case, I'd say just fudge it under the rule that ranged attacks are automatic hits if the end of the barrel is embedded in the target (it's in one of the 5.1 sidebar boxes).

6. do hands/arms/manipulators on >1" (typically humanoid) creations need to be paid for as launchers? The arms on a minifig aren't bought as launchers, so do the arms on a 2" Hulk fig need to be? How about the arms on a 5" Mech?

Depends on what you're using them for. If they can throw things, then you should pay the Launcher cost. If they can attack and parry, then you should pay the weapon cost.

Eventually I'm going to finalize that part of the Creature rules so that every creature gets a free natural implement. Right now my list looks like this:

6. Arms: Throwing, Shoves, Grabs. No Parries. Can operate tools, hand weapons, etc.
7. Bite: Attacks, Grabs, carrying stuff. No Parries. Any successful attack can also automatically be a grab.
8. Kick: Attacks, Shoves. No Parries. Any successful attack can also be a Shove.

7. So even if a monk or some other martial-artist character or whatever has their hands purchased as hand weapons, they still take damage on a parry, because that's common-sense for when squishy flesh (d6 AR) meets a sword or something. So I assume if their armor is above that of a regular fig, they don't take damage on a successful parry? Like if they're a d10 AR android, or in a suit of armor?

Well no, if they had a different armor rating then they'd take damage against that new armor rating instead of a minifig's usual 1d6 (or 4). But an arm is even worse off - if you're going to be super technical about it (not recommended, obviously), limbs are one structure level lower than the main body, which puts all minifig arms at SL:0 - (minifigs are Size:1" so their SL can never be greater than 1) - any hit that specifically targets the arm and does even a single point of damage automatically destroys it.

Now, if you wanted to make some special Wonder Woman bracelets or something, that'd be fine; you could probably just give them regular Small Shield stats and it would work just fine.

[stubby]

That sounds good. I vote yes. Maybe throw a tail/tentacle whip in there for shiggles?

I guess - you'd want an octopus or a giant serpent or something to have something to represent how it interacts with the world. Although octopi are pretty clever, their tentacles could just count as standard arms. For a snake or a shoggoth or something it'd be Tentacle/Tail: Grab; crush or bite on following turn?

Ah, I see. So lopping off limbs can be an option... what about if the fig is armored?

Lopping off limbs is already an option under the dismemberment rules, which are a little different than targeting a limb specifically. If the fig is armored, then you have to do one point of damage after accounting for armor.

On that note, what about sundering (attacks specifically aimed at destroying weapons, shields, armor, etc)? Disarming maneuvers?

We used to have those, but weapons/shields/armor are usually just a single element, making them hard to destroy in minifig-reality. Disarming is easier, and it already happens by accident on some types of Parrying failures. Grabs against weapons and items should be added in when I cover whips and flails, but then it'll just be a tug-of-war to see who pulls the weapon away from whom, probably.

[Valiant]

Stubby, if five minifigures are manning a 7" launcher, and only one of them rolls a critical failure, how(if at all) would that affect the gun?

[Gungnir]

Stubby, if five minifigures are manning a 7" launcher, and only one of them rolls a critical failure, how(if at all) would that affect the gun?

Depends on what part of the weapon they're manning.

[stubby]

Stubby, if five minifigures are manning a 7" launcher, and only one of them rolls a critical failure, how(if at all) would that affect the gun?

The second means of employing a Too Big weapon is to bring a team of friends to help out. This is most often seen when a group of minifigs use Teamwork to manually operate a weapon too large for any of them individually, like swinging a battering ram, tossing a boulder, or winding the crank on a catapult. Creations using Teamwork add their Effective Sizes together for the purpose of satisfying the weapon's Size requirement; if a Skill roll or throwing Range is required, the lowest-Skilled unit makes the roll and the lowest-Ranged unit determines the Range.

This is a trick question. Only one of them should be making a Skill Roll at any given time, so only one of them would be able to roll a critical failure in the first place.

[Valiant]

So, in my scenario, I have four gunners on the Paladin SPG. Would it work out to be two rolls for loading the gun, one for calculating trajectory and one for firing the gun? Or am I still confused?

[stubby]

Besides firing large Weapons with greater Skill than usual, Gunners are also trained to work in teams to fire Weapons more accurately and effectively. Any unit with the Gunnery Specialty can spend its Action to provide Gunnery Support to another unit operating a large Weapon, granting it a +1 Attack Bonus to fire. This bonus is cumulative, adding additional +1 Bonuses for every Supporting Gunner, but the number of minifigs in the firing team (the firing minifig plus the minifigs providing Gunnery Support) is limited to the number of inches in the Size of the Weapon, and each minifig must be able to access the Weapon or a working set of Controls for it.

It would work out to one roll with a +3 Attack Bonus.

[stubby]

Let's see if I can answer these from my phone.

You should totally be able to destroy a large parrying weapon, but it's really a matter of taste. I don't really call attention to it in the rules, but I think sundering giant stuff is rad.

If all you can see is a minifig's head, then it's a head shot, but that doesn't grant much advantage - the head is part of a Creature's main Structure, so it has the full Armor value. Any damage amount that would kill the head would kill the minifig regardless.

It's a little better for larger Creatures, since you can kill the whole thing with a single hit of Component Damage to the head, but minifigs are only Size 1" so it's the same either way.

[stubby]

So is that stuff still in effect? Personally, I think it gives fire a lot more prevalence (as it ought to be in the world of Brikwars) if there's a chance of it from every explosion, rather than just when someone busts out a FlameThrower.

It was too burdensome in practice. Until I figure out a way to make the Fire rules a lot simpler and faster, I decided to limit it to games where people are making the conscious choice to burn stuff, rather than accompanying every explosion.

7. Where can I find a changelog of stuff that gets changed in the official rulebook?

I usually make a mention of changes in the BW2010 Feedback thread, I think. You kind of have to dig for them sometimes.

8. With Energy Shields, where it says

A Creation protected by Energy Shields may spend an Energy Shield die to be Shielded against an incoming Damage die of that type

- what exactly does that mean? Does that mean if I buy d6s of Energy Shields, I'm still vulnerable to d8s from BlasGuns and d10s from Explosions? Can we get some clarification on how Energy Shields are supposed to work?

Originally, that was the plan - since damage types were divided up by die types, energy shields were optimized against a certain type of damage. Some shields work against physical objects but not energy attacks, etc. That's all getting shifted around now, so Energy Shields are going to get some revisions.

[stubby]

Damage-specific resistance was one of the things that made Energy Shields unique from regular Armor Plating or Melee Shields. As I peel these things away, it approaches the point that there's no reason to have a separate system for them at all anymore. So Energy Shields might just be getting removed rather than updated.