Newbish n00b questions, MkII

[Apollyon]

Weird meta question:

I wanna get better at developing my own factions/kannon - are there any...I dunno, guides, or w/e that help me take a largely disorganized collection of parts & channel it toward creating a mighty space-faring civilization?

See if you can make a coupe of uniform minifigs that look cool with the stuff you have. Or get some cheap sets with minifigs/parts you like. In both cases feel free to blatantly rip off someone else's ideas. Make a badass vehicle for them. For kanon rip off either fiction or history. The latter seems to be rater popular lately. Either way, take your time and slowly develop your kanon over time.

[stubby]

See if you can make a coupe of uniform minifigs that look cool with the stuff you have. Or get some cheap sets with minifigs/parts you like. In both cases feel free to blatantly rip off someone else's ideas. Make a badass vehicle for them. For kanon rip off either fiction or history. The latter seems to be rater popular lately. Either way, take your time and slowly develop your kanon over time.

What I like to do is start with the conventional wisdom about historical or fictional characters and factions, and reverse it. If someone's the goodguy I find a way to show that they're really the badguy. If someone is useless I find a way to show that they're actually deadly. I know other people like to play it straightforward, but turning everything upside down is what keeps me entertained.

[AnnoyedZebra]

Question: Can SN dice users combine their SN dice in a ritual or something to achieve more powerful effects? Say, 4 pyromancers decide to pool their SN dice to create an even BIGGERER fireball?

I believe they can augment any roll of the dice that falls into the right catergory

[aoffan23]

Question: Can SN dice users combine their SN dice in a ritual or something to achieve more powerful effects? Say, 4 pyromancers decide to pool their SN dice to create an even BIGGERER fireball?

That just sounds like Combined Fire but with SN dice. Sounds perfectly legit to me.

[stubby]

I do want to add a form of ritual magic that compounds over turns, kind of like Divert All Power, but I haven't decided whether it's balanced properly yet. But under the current rules you can add SN to any object, unit, or effect, including other minifigs' (or even other players') SN effects.

The tricky part is that everyone would have to cover their own range separately, so it can get expensive. A couple scenarios:

Three pyromancers, each standing 5" from the target. They each have to spend SN to cover their own 5" range, before spending SN on the damage. This works fine, but there's no functional difference from just doing Combined Fire with three separate attacks.

Three pyromancers, standing 5" from the target, but in a Squad within arms' reach of each other. Two of the pyromancers touch hands to the third (or we can assume they're "in contact" because they're a squad) and now they can add power to the spell directly as it leaves his hands, without having to buy any range.

Three pyromancers with magic staffs acting as modified Long Ranged Weapons (d4+1 Fire rather than d6+1 Damage). Their fireballs are added as augmentations onto their regular Long Ranged attacks, skipping the need to buy Range, but now requiring an Attack Roll. Once again, this is just regular combined fire.

Three pyromancers with magic staffs acting as modified Long Ranged Weapons (zero damage rather than d6+1 Damage). Two of the pyromancers can now use their staves' no-damage ranged attack to send SN dice to the third without having to buy the range to reach him. This requires an Attack Roll.

[lordintype]

To number 7, it's just an object with a structure level and size.

[stubby]

To number 7, it's just an object with a structure level and size.

So what about ballistæ chucking spears & such? It seems a bit exorbitant to spend 3+ CP on a 1-shot projectile that doesn't do buttloads of damage. If for that same 3 CP, I can shoot a 3d10 explosive (or 3 1d10 explosives, or w/e), OR a comparatively measly 1 Skill die +2 spear (Heavy Weapon), why have ballistæ (or comparable weapons) at all?

If I remember my history right, this was the argument against ballistae in real life. They were a funny experiment but ended up being completely impractical in military practice. Historically, the only really good use for ballistae was as a harpoon gun, with a rope attached to the spear for ranged Grab attacks on things like ships and whales and enemy fortifications.

A giant spear isn't a one-shot projectile though, not the way an explosive is. Anybody can pick up a spear after it's fired and use it as a melee weapon or reload it into a ballista or use it to climb the wall it's stuck into or whatever.

More importantly, anybody can fight with a spear for several rounds before loading it into a ballista. Send up your spearmen, let them fight and die, every casualty means free ammunition for the shooters. Send up your swordsmen, kill enemy spearmen, take their spears; more free ammo.

In any case. Spears and other minifig weapons will be free in post-CP BrikWars, so it'll be a moot point once everyone stops resisting the change.

[bann154]

...once everyone stops resisting the change.

Tzeentch is that you?

[stubby]

Huh, I swear I wrote a response to this one already. Did I just forget to hit the post button?

So...a single-purpose Sn would be couple CP discount off the normal cost of an SN dice? (A fire-sword would become +1CP, do Sword+ 1d4 Fire damage)

If you're playing by the old rules, then yes. In the current rules, I don't think I want to re-introduce single-purpose SN dice without some kind of associated real cost (other than CP, which everyone ignores); all they are is an excuse for stat inflation. The system of trading dice bonuses for dice drawbacks is a better solution here.

For the specific example of giving a sword +1d4 damage, you just set in on fire or douse it in poison or whatever. That's already in the rules.

6. I keep seeing Chapter 10 refer to "healing magik", but how would that actually work? A minifig is either dead or it isn't & AFAIK, the only way to revive one is via a Ker-Triage! roll. I suppose one could use SN dice to add a Bless to a Ker-Triage! roll, but it would still a) require the roll, & b) carry a chance of decapitation. Does "healing magik" regenerate limbs lost from Dismemberment? Does it only work on creatures of size larger than 1"? If so, then how?

Right now I have it set up so that SN d8s can be used to roll on any d8-based Specialty skill table, if it matches the unit's SN cliche. But I might expand that to all dice. So a d8 could be used to Ker-Triage! as well as a standard Medik, a d6 would be a little worse, and a d4 might work but would almost guarantee some amputations and might also set its victims on fire. A d10 would heal everyone very well indeed within a 2" radius.

7. Is there a CP cost for non-explosive projectiles such as boulders for catapults & ballista bolts? (Assume no "special" loadout, just "kinetic damage").

Boulders are free surface elements. If you can carry them, you can bring them. Or you can bring minifigs with shovels to dig up briks as needed.

Ballista bolts are most likely large Melee weapons, which do their own close combat damage rating when thrown.

8. How do I add a flame/poison/etc effect to an attack (CC or Ranged) w/o resorting to overly-broad (& costly) SN dice?

For d4 effects - light it with a torch, dip it in poison, etc. Any object on fire (or a d4 equivalent) does +1d4 damage.

For more generalized effect modifications, that'll be in the weapon mods still to come. Any time you want to buff one stat you'll have to nerf another, because size 1" weapons aren't really supposed to do 2 dice damage.

[stubby]

b) Well yes, after you fire spear at the enemy, more than likely they will be in a position to use them. This isn't as much the case with catapult boulders, cannonballs, & railgun slugs. Not sure why I should pay a premium to deliver weapons into the hands of my enemies. So I was trying to get a consistent ruling on non-explosive launcher payloads.

So... was that a consistent enough ruling? Objects do collision damage, weapons do weapon damage? You're writing a bunch, so I feel like there's still a question somewhere that you feel hasn't been addressed.

Like... if you asked me how much damage a catapult loaded with miniature marshmallows would do, and I told you that under the current rules miniature marshmallows do zero damage, and you come back with "not sure why I should have to pay CP for a marshmallow catapult" I'm not sure if you're just saying that you won't be electing to use them in your own battles, or if you're saying the rule system is flawed somehow because I didn't make marshmallow-based warfare more cost-effective.

I was only referring to them as "spears" for the sake of fudge/handwaving in a game where knights regularly go up against spacemen (in a recent battle, one of my hoplites did a pretty badass stunt, putting a spear through the faceplate of a space marine ), but if we wanna be historically-accurate, then said bolts would not be designed to be used as spears, & for any fig attempting to use them as such, I'd at best allow the Minifig Tools stats (precedent: "rifle butts" listed).

Well sure, but what's the point of having ballistae as launchers in the first place if you can't use the bolts as spears? Making them launchers but disallowing any of the fun parts of launchery is just adding extra overhead for no gameplay benefit. Just stat them as guns and be done with it.

For the specific example of giving a sword +1d4 damage, you just set in on fire or douse it in poison or whatever. That's already in the rules.

It is? Did I miss it somewhere?

Yeah, 8.5. "Objects and units on Fire take a -1d4 Penalty to all Skill and Armor rolls, and trying to use an object that's on Fire carries a -1d4 Skill Penalty as well (unless it's an object specifically designed to be used while burning, like a makeshift torch or a flaming sword). [...] On the bright side, any target struck by a burning object or unit takes +1d4 Fire Damage in addition to whatever normal Damage is dealt by the attack or Collision."

Right now I have it set up so that SN d8s can be used to roll on any d8-based Specialty skill table, if it matches the unit's SN cliche. But I might expand that to all dice. So a d8 could be used to Ker-Triage! as well as a standard Medik, a d6 would be a little worse, and a d4 might work but would almost guarantee some amputations and might also set its victims on fire. A d10 would heal everyone very well indeed within a 2" radius.

So you'd still need an actual sawbones medic, thus it's not so much a traditional "healing spell" as it is, "help the Doc hold the hacksaw more steadily".

No, I mean you use the SN die to roll directly on the table. The table is based on a d8 die roll, so rather than having a Medik go up and roll on the table, you just roll on the table. Limbs are disabled or amputated as seems appropriate to whatever your SN effect fluff is.

For more generalized effect modifications, that'll be in the weapon mods still to come. Any time you want to buff one stat you'll have to nerf another, because size 1" weapons aren't really supposed to do 2 dice damage.

That's fair. I'd be willing to accept a +1 UR or w/e on a flaming/poison weapon, b/c you'd be trying to wield it in a way to not burn/poison yourself/your buddies.

That all was re: our conversation of a few weeks ago: Post 330672

I feel like this is a much better basis for effect modifications than single-use SN dice with no counterbalancing factors.

[stubby]

I feel a weird déjà vu to a convo I recall hearing about b/t a Pathfinder dev & a PF player... in short, the player wanted more comprehensive rules for crossbows (supporting feats, etc) to make them competitive w/the high rate of fire (& thus DPR) one can achieve in the d20 system w/ bows (IRL, crossbows were so damn effective that Pope Urban II banned them as an ironically "un-trianglist" weapon at the Lateran Synod of 1097, b/c a peasant w/ minimum training could shoot a fully armored noble knight right off a warhorse, & we can't have that.

Well, Pathfinder is designed to be about the infinite fractal devolution of fiddly bits, so it makes sense that players would ask for that. As a dev I'd have said that a bow's effectiveness depends on the archer's arm, while a crossbow's effectiveness depends on the crossbow's gears. As far as PF goes, archers level up, gears don't, so within the fiction of that system it makes sense for bows to become super-effective and crossbows to never improve.

In real life, anybody you meet in battle is going to be the equivalent of a level 2 or 3 character at most, no matter how much training or experience they have, so you have to adjust any "in real life" argument to fit within that frame. No real person has 200 hit points.

I wanna fire non-explosive payloads out of launchers - ballista bolts, catapult stones, cannonballs, railgun slugs, filled chamberpots, dead animals, beehives, etc. What's a handy way of figuring out the CP cost of said stuff & anything else I can imagine to launch at the faces of my enemies? I don't want for us to waste time having to come up w/ a specific ruling for every single one of the nigh-infinite non-explosive items that can be shot out of a launcher, b/c then we'd be right back at 2001 rules, & we don't want that.

The main answer is that surface elements and decorations are free, which includes most types of ammunition (i.e., ammo without special damage bonuses or effects). "If you can carry it, you can bring it" means the cost is included in whatever you're using to carry it. If you spend the CP to buy a 5" ammunition cart, then you get as much free ammo as can be carried by a 5" ammunition cart.

Again, I didn't want to push the issue w/ regards to historicity of catapult ammunition for the sake of Rule of Fudge, but if we're gonna gonna jump down the rabbit hole of being pedantic about "ballistæ weren't historically effective"

I'm going to clip a lot of this text here, but if I understand right you're saying that ballistae were effective, as long as you're looking at the specific niche of history before more effective weapons arrived. But the question I was answering earlier was why aren't ballista as cost-effective as the more effective weapons that arrived. So I feel like you're kind of answering your own earlier question here.

(which, #WellActually they were for their time "The ballista was a highly accurate weapon (there are many accounts of single soldiers being picked off by ballista operators), but some design aspects meant it could compromise its accuracy for range. The maximum range was over 500 yards (460 m),

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longer than the effective range of an AK-47

but effective combat range for many targets was far shorter.

That's the difference between maximum and effective range, I guess. The maximum range of an AK-47 is also longer than the effective range of an AK-47. (I've been a big fan of the AK-47 myself, but it's not the rifle I'd pick for long range shooting.)

I'm gonna jump right alongside you & dispel the all-too-common notion that catapults regularly threw "just any ol' random rocks one happened to dig up at the battlefield."

Yeah, but just like Pathfinder has its unspoken ethos, so does BrikWars. As far as the BrikWars aesthetic is concerned, based on a nine-year-old's view of combat, launching random objects is infinitely more satisfying on a gut level than shaped boulders, just like the potential for further mayhem inherent in launched spears is more satisfying than giant bolts.

(again, we'd be falling back on "Desperate Measures, Random Objects" to distinguish boulders from purposefully-shaped catapult ammunition).

The effect of that would be to make it more complicated to use random objects than purpose-built ones, which is the opposite of the 2010 rules' central design goal. If you think of imposing added complexity as punishment, and the feeling of open possibility as fun, then this is punishing players for having fun.

Instead, if I'm going to add complexity, I'm going to punish the ones who bring purpose-built ammunition, because clearly that's where they want complexity and it won't feel like a punishment to them.

Otherwise, if "spears" flung by ballistæ are gonna be considered Melee weapons & made to be purchased as such, then why aren't those nice rounded rock spheres the catapults fling?

A two-story granite sphere is just a big rock, but once it's rigged up as part of a rolling boulder trap, it becomes a Size 5" Melee Weapon and should be purchased as such.

If you want to buy each individual rock as a melee weapon, you're completely free to do so. Up to a point, they do the same damage either way (1 die per 1" Size), so there's no real benefit until you get up to the really big ones.

Have you ever dug an actual boulder out of the earth?

Yep. I traveled from one side of the country to the other doing day labor through much of the nineties. It was kind of the joke about me for awhile: if there's a job that requires manual labor, no matter how dumb, I've done it somewhere at some point, and probably got paid $2.50 an hour for it.

Well yes, if wanted them to just be "shooty", I would have done exactly that - I ain't dumb. It's why we stat bows & crossbows & slings & stacks of throwing weapons the same as "guns"

I'm going to admit that I lost the thread of your argument right about here and I wasn't able to figure out what you're asking. If there's no gameplay benefit to ballistae as launchers - and by "gameplay benefit" I mean things that make the game more fun, not things that make you more likely to win - then you make them guns. There's nothing fun about tracking arrows, so bows are guns. But we definitely track thrown weapons, because there's all kinds of potential trouble in a thrown weapon laying around. It's definitely not to your tactical advantage, but it's absolutely a gameplay advantage.

I am really trying to think in Brikwars terms of "anything goes" - let's not shackle the rules back to "weapon X can only ever be weapon X" of the older editions, or we'll be back to having pirates wait a turn to reload before firing their flintlock pistols while spacemen blast them w/ Future-Tek Autolazerphazertazermazertrons.I thought we both wanted to evolve this game past the 2001 rules?

I don't understand what you're objecting to here, if it's something you're saying, or something you think I'm saying? Who is turning which part into the 2001 rules?

I had seen that, I just didn't see any special costs or w/e associated w/ flaming swords & the like. What's to stop a player from making all their army's swords flaming for the same cost as regular swords? Even if they justify it w/ making their fiction "Knights of the Un/Holy Flame" or w/e.

Nothing, except they have to take the time to set their weapons on fire, and then everybody is holding a burning object and has to make burning rolls at the beginning of each turn to see if the fire goes out (25% of the time), the weapon burns up (depends on the weapon), or they accidentally set themselves on fire (25% of the time). If you want to go that route, the only really safe thing to do is to set the weapon on fire on the same turn you launch or throw it.

Acid is a little less dangerous (it can lose effectiveness or destroy the weapon, but it doesn't spread) and Poison is less dangerous still (it can lose effectiveness, but it doesn't spread or destroy the weapon), but in all cases you have to have a guy running around with a bottle of poison or acid or whatever else and applying it to swords individually.

If you want a permanent flaming sword, on the other hand, then you have to buy it as a weapon modification.

Ohh, ok, I wasn't quite clear on that. As I've stated before, I think a small sampling of staple spells statted out would help immensely (Fireball, Heal Fenix Down, Shield, Force Shove,Summon, See Invisibility, Lightning, etc). I've been considering making (Edit) made a separate "stat a spell" thread for people to share ideas on that.

That's the plan. But I'm saving examples until after I've got the system in a little bit more finalized state (and moved over to Chapter D).

Idea for that Ker-Modify table: Single-Purpose SN die as a Benefit (I'm slapping my forehead for not mentioning this sooner).

Most likely. That's why it's getting put in the Dice chapter instead of the weapons chapter - modification dice and hazard dice are getting tied more closely to SN dice in one big system instead of three distinct ones.

[stubby]

Before I get into my answer (b/c tone is extremely easy to misinterpret in text), I'd just like to start by saying that I extend to you the benefit of the doubt by treating you as a peer - an intellectual equal - & I'm confident we can both maintain that mutual respect & good faith, & having both grown up around tabletop gamer culture, we know there's a healthy amount of good-hearted "just giving you shit" that's part & parcel of bonding over such activities, especially by males, & should not be taken personally by any party./end disclaimer

Just as a follow-up note, I've never felt any sense of disrespect in any of these posts and I value this kind of nit-picking immensely.

[stubby]

New question (this popped into my head as I was looking at many of the old 2-cockpit space sets): if a vehicle has more than 1 pilot (say, primary pilot & a copilot), can they all use their Stunt Inches for the purposes of Stunt Driving? Say I've got the 6939 Saucer Centurion...

Nope. Only one unit can Operate a vehicle in a turn. But what they could do is provide specialist assistance, the same way a medik or a gunner does, adding one die size to the stunt inches roll.

[Zupponn]

Stuff

tldr

[stubby]

By "more effective weapons", do you mean gunpowder & cannons? Because the Romans fielded ballistæ right alongside their other siege engines like catapults & onagers.

Not more effective, but more cost-effective, which was what the original question and my original answer were about. Not "why would I use this," but "why would I use this if it costs this much." One ballista per 100 men means the romans thought that, up to your first hundred guys, it's a lot more cost-effective to spend resources on men than on ballistas. They're a special-purpose item, just like they would be in brikwars. They're good for striking fear, good for picking off individual high-value targets, good for denying opponents the safety of turtling at range. But the 100 men are the ones who then go forth to win the battle.

Well, first of all, I thought in Brikwars terms, a Launcher is a Launcher is a Launcher.

Well sure, that's never been under debate. There's no part of this discussion where anybody was suggesting that ballistae couldn't be used to launch random battlefield garbage, just what was the most appropriate way to represent a ballista bolt. I have rock-launching ballistae in one of my ongoing battles at this very moment.

Right, I get that - and I agree w/ the general principle. But being the history buff that I am, I know that ballistæ shot a) in a parabolic arc

The same is true of archery though. Does it bother you when bows are statted as guns? Would you be better satisfied by a Cannon category to cover parabolic-style Guns? I've considered it before, but there's never seemed to be a lot of general appeal for most people.

Ok, bear w/ me here - this is what it seemed like from my perspective:

a) I asked a question about launchers in general, using ballistæ as an example
b) you countered by saying a bunch of stuff about ballistæ specifically...
c) I'm saying we don't need/want a specific rules section on ballistæ. Ballistæ are launchers (or at least can be, if one wants that degree of versatility), as are minifig-scale bazookas, mortars, and slingshots, siege-scale catapults, trebuchets, and artillery cannons. I was just asking about Launcher ammo.

To me it seemed like you weren't satisfied with the Launcher rules because you couldn't use them for ballistae, so I was trying to figure out what was the specific thing you wanted in ballistae that you felt like the Launcher rules didn't cover. Which meant really drilling down into ballistae specifically, finding what it was you were looking for, and then bringing it back up to generalize for all launchers.

So let's start from the opposite side. If you're sticking strictly by the existing launcher rules: You've got a minfig spear piece that you're calling a ballista bolt. Players agree that bolts can't be used as spears, and if any minifig tries it'll be counted as a Random Object rather than a minifig weapon, so you can have any number of them for free.

So we stat it up: a spear element is roughly a size 2" projectile, we'll say it's reinforced sufficiently to do the full 2d6 damage of a size 2" projectile when launched. What part of that isn't working for your idea of ballistae?