I was wondering if anyone had done a Setting using TROS that Included Sci fi weapons, Blasters, Guns, Vibro Swords etc. I am thinking of a setting where these things would be elements but it would also include swordplay. I want to keep the Magic/Fey rules and include special SA's. One of the things which concerns me is the shift of focus from sword play to gun play would disrupt the sprit of the game...If this is a repost of something someone has done then I am sorry please direct me to the posts

Thanks

This isn't a re-post as far as I know. There have been threads about TROS guns (for modern campaigns) and Bob Richter, a regular around here, ran a "riddle of the force" once, but I've never seen his notes for it (but I want to...).

Jake

Jake Norwood wrote: This isn't a re-post as far as I know. There have been threads about TROS guns (for modern campaigns) and Bob Richter, a regular around here, ran a "riddle of the force" once, but I've never seen his notes for it (but I want to...).

Jake

Andrew Ciotti wrote: I was wondering if anyone had done a Setting using TROS that Included Sci fi weapons, Blasters, Guns, Vibro Swords etc. I am thinking of a setting where these things would be elements but it would also include swordplay. I want to keep the Magic/Fey rules and include special SA's. One of the things which concerns me is the shift of focus from sword play to gun play would disrupt the sprit of the game...If this is a repost of something someone has done then I am sorry please direct me to the posts

Thanks

Bob Richter wrote: I'm good with my Blaster and Lightsaber rules, but I think there were some slight issues with Starships (which was the really hard one) and the Force (which was a minor modification of the TROS Sorcery system.)

I have a copy of Warpworld from Greg Porter/BTRC that I am in the process of converting (actually just starting) that is Post Holocaust with Sorcerers, Low-tech and Magic Powered High tech. Worth a look if you wanted a mixed setting.

Jonathan

Brian Leybourne wrote:

I'm glad to see you didn't make the force an SA.. I never liked that idea, although most of the folk around here loved it :-)

I like the idea of the Force as something where you have a Force Pool (FP) based on your WP and raw talent (your midichlorian count, if you like, although I'm the first to say that I wish Lucas had never pulled midichlorians out of his ass) and then there are a series of different force powers (Force Pull, Force Lightning, Force Jump, etc although I never sat down and worked out what I thought they would actually be) which would be treated as skills - they represent the TN to use that force ability, which you do by spending dice from your FP and rolling against the power difficulty. Additionally, you could add FP dice to your CP on a 1-for-1 basis as well, something clearly seen in most of the films where the Force was used to make people better fighters etc. FP would refresh pretty fast too, you never saw anybody in the films "running out" of force as it's easy to do with SP, for example.

Dark side/Light side? Well, that would depend on what powers you choose to develop and how you use the Force of course, it certainly shouldn't be something black and white, but more shades of grey such as in the films (Luke skirted pretty close to the Dark side a few times). How is the dark side "easier" than the light side? Maybe it's easier to buy down the TN's of "dark side" powers than it is to buy down the "light side" ones.

I'd really like to see some sort of consensus of notes for a "Riddle of the Force" add-on. I understand that, due to licensing, that it would have to be entirely unofficial, but fan material has always been okay before, so I don't perceive any problems.

Lance,

So far only three of us have posted ideas and already there's no consensus, so I don't think you'll be seeing anything like that anytime soon :-)

Having said that, as I mentioned earlier I'm keen to work on Star Wars TROS someday when I have more time (after my pending trip at least) and would be keen to work with others on it, but that would require a "meeting of the minds" on how things work, and as I already said I don't like the Force-as-SA's idea much, which probably sets me apart from most other forum members (although in my idea it works much like an SA, it's just not actually an SA and goes higher, like SP).

Brian.

Wolfen wrote: I'd really like to see some sort of consensus of notes for a "Riddle of the Force" add-on. I understand that, due to licensing, that it would have to be entirely unofficial, but fan material has always been okay before, so I don't perceive any problems.

Brian Leybourne wrote: Starships would be pretty easy as an extension of the naval ships I have been working on for the mass combat stuff. It's all a project to work on one day...

Brian.

Bob Richter wrote: (try building consensus among gamers who aren't completely like-minded sometime,)

Wolfen wrote:

Bob Richter wrote: (try building consensus among gamers who aren't completely like-minded sometime,)

Tried it. A thirsty viking I knew, and one Mike Holmes and I were working on an add-on to bring Gladiatorial arena fighting to TRoS. Life and it's happenings interfered, but I'd like to take the project up again some time.

Bob Richter wrote: We've run both Riddle of the Force (Star Wars) and Riddletech (Battletech.)

So, yes, I've had Blasters, Lightsabers, Guns, Vibro-swords, etc. all in TROS games.

Gun play works well with TROS, but if you want to make swords still viable, make a sword a better weapon than a gun.

Dune does this by providing projectile shields that stop fast-moving projectiles (and react violently with laser and particle guns,) but allow for killing an opponent with a melee weapon (such as a sword) or a slow-moving projectile weapon (such as a bow)

Star Wars does it by having potent energy-swords that can be used by force-wielding Jedi to deflect blaster bolts -- sometimes right back at the guy who fired them.

In Battletech, the (Vibro)Sword is the weapon of choice for deep-space boarding actions. Even a Pistol or Crossbow could cause a dangerous puncture in the sides of a thin-skinned Jumpship, to say nothing of the irreplacable equipment you could be destroying.

Blasters and Guns use the puncture table. I like to add in the elemental damage on top for Blasters, but remove the Blood Loss (any wound is instantly cauterized.) Don't worry, there's still plenty of "Death" Results on the Puncture table.

A Stun-setting Blaster might only dish out Shock and Pain (like the Elemental Damage Table.)

We used an auto-fire rule where you divide your MP between all the shots fired in your (1-2 sec) turn, but we didn't have good rules for area-denial bursts (suppression fire) and such.

Sneaky Git wrote:
Cool. How do you (if you don't mind me asking) work the refreshing of dice pools (speed at which they do so, etc.)?

Chris

Starships...

Easy enough. A ship is a weapon. Therefore it has similar stats and is played in much the same way.

There are different classes of starship which are comparable to the different weapon schools we find in Normal TROS. Fighter, interceptor, Bomber, Frieghter, Gunship, etc...

Each ship has core stats that are basically the same as any other weapon. An ATN (maybe two... one for missle weapons, one for beam), which is determined largely by the ships manuverability and targeting hardware/software. The DTN would be be determined largely by manuverabily and speed (a faster ship is harder to hit).

Then you have the damage stats for the weapons, and Defensive stats for sheilds and armor. You'd have to modify the "wound scale" a bit... an ISD for example is going to have more than 5 levels of wounds... though individual components might not. Mightr want to do something for missles to... give them their own (fairly crappy) ATN and damage ratings, but however many successes the launching craft work as a bonus to the missles ATN or just an added number of sucesses (basically the missle was launched from a good angle/bad angle).

Then there are manuvers and special systems. Manuvers work just like HTH amnuvers in their basic mechanics... though you/we'd have to think of the individual manuvers.

Special systems would be things like turrets and jamming equipment and would vary depending on the system. (Turrets, if manned get an attack seperate from the ship at no cost, though ATN is going to be fairly high... specially on a falcon-like ship if the things manuvering at the same time). A remotely operated turret being used by the pilot would work more like a sim block-strike, but harder. Jammers would take a one die activation/disable cost (he had to reach for/flip the switch, minor distraction), but would bump the attackers ATN up... but would do the same to your's.


Anyway, if anyone sees any flaws in the basic concept, please yell.... and I hope this helps.

Hey, I like that. Elegant.

Jake

Mayhem,

That's a pretty good description of what I have been doing with naval ships as part of mass combat :-)

Brian.

Mayhem1979 wrote: Starships...

Easy enough. A ship is a weapon. Therefore it has similar stats and is played in much the same way.

There are different classes of starship which are comparable to the different weapon schools we find in Normal TROS. Fighter, interceptor, Bomber, Frieghter, Gunship, etc...

Each ship has core stats that are basically the same as any other weapon. An ATN (maybe two... one for missle weapons, one for beam), which is determined largely by the ships manuverability and targeting hardware/software. The DTN would be be determined largely by manuverabily and speed (a faster ship is harder to hit).

Then you have the damage stats for the weapons, and Defensive stats for sheilds and armor. You'd have to modify the "wound scale" a bit... an ISD for example is going to have more than 5 levels of wounds... though individual components might not. Mightr want to do something for missles to... give them their own (fairly crappy) ATN and damage ratings, but however many successes the launching craft work as a bonus to the missles ATN or just an added number of sucesses (basically the missle was launched from a good angle/bad angle).

Then there are manuvers and special systems. Manuvers work just like HTH amnuvers in their basic mechanics... though you/we'd have to think of the individual manuvers.

hmmm... basic damage tables.

Starfighter, Sheilded

Basic Zones

1 - Dorsal (from above)
2 - Ventral (From Below)
3 - Port (from the Left)
4 - Starboard (from the Right)
5 - Bow (from the front)
6 - Stern (from Rear)

Dorsal
1 - Cockpit
LVL 1 = Sheilds Reduced 1D6 for 2 rounds, -2 CP due to flash
for one round
LVL 2 = Sheilds Reduced 2D6 for 4 rounds, refresh at norm rate
-3 CP Due to flash for one round
LVL 3 = Sheilds Gone, cockpit cracked, -4 CP for one round due to
Flash, -2 CP permanently due to obscured vision
LVL 4 = Sheilds Gone, Cockpit open to Space, -6 CP due to shock
and flash for one round, -4 CP gone permanently due to
shock.... if pilot is wearing sealed flight suit
LVL 5 = Cockpit Gutted, Pilot a cinder, ship salvagable but in serious
need of repair before flyable
2/3 - Fuselage
LVL 1 = Sheilds reduced 1D6 for 2 rounds, refresh at normal rate
LVL 2 = Sheilds reduced 2D6 for 4 rounds, refresh at normal rate
LVL 3 = Sheilds GONE, armor hit, minor systems damaged or
destroyed -2 CP until ship repaired, -1 CP from impact for
one round.
LVL 4 = Big gaping hole in the ship, major systems destroyed or
damaged. -6 CP unitl ship repaired, -2 CP from impact for
one round.
LVL 5 = Ship Dead in space, a good chunk of it is now vapor... flip a
coin to see if it blows up right then and there
4 - Port Engine(s)
LVL 1 = Sheilds reduced 1D6 for 2 rounds, refresh at normal rate
LVL 2 = Sheilds reduced 2D6 for 4 rounds, refresh at normal rate
LVL 3 = Sheilds GONE, armor hit, minor engine damage, -3 CP until
repaired, -2 CP from impact for one round
LVL 4 = Engine Gutted and inoperable -4/8 CP (depends on if 4 or 2
engines), -3 from impact for one round
LVL 5 = Power systems comprimised, Ship destroyed, roll reflex
TN 8 to eject sucessfully
5 - Starboard Engine
LVL 1 = Sheilds reduced 1D6 for 2 rounds, refresh at normal rate
LVL 2 = Sheilds reduced 2D6 for 4 rounds, refresh at normal rate
LVL 3 = Sheilds GONE, armor hit, minor engine damage, -3 CP until
repaired, -2 CP from impact for one round
LVL 4 = Engine Gutted and inoperable -4/8 CP (depends on if 4 or 2
engines), -3 from impact for one round
LVL 5 = Power systems comprimised, Ship destroyed roll reflex TN 8
to eject sucessfully
6 - Weapon System
LVL 1 = Sheilds reduced 1D6 for 2 rounds, refresh at normal rate
LVL 2 = Sheilds reduced 2D6 for 4 rounds, refresh at normal rate
LVL 3 = Sheilds GONE, armor hit, minor weapon damage, -1CP from
impact for one round, -1 base weapons damage
LVL 4 = Individual weapons mount destroyed, reduce base damage
by appropriate percentage, -2 CP from impact for one round
LVL 5 = Your ship has been nuetered, Individual weapon mount
destroyed, fire control systems have been fried and all
weapons are inoperable until you can repair it. -3 CP from
Impact for one round.



Hows that sound so far? (at this point I'm doing this mostly for my own entertainment... but feel free to use it)

Thank you one and All for taking an interest in my question. Its turned out to be a pleasant discussion and the posts with data re: ships is fantastic (in truth I hadn’t even though about that). Thank you one and all for contributing

I have one request though if someone can put up stats for just one blaster /w how many shots are held in a “clip” it would be greatly appreciated (just to have a sense of what others did)


Thanks again

Drew

Ps does anyone want me to post my Idea for the setting? I’m generally not that egomaniacal (In spite of the Y chromosome: P)

AC

Andrew Ciotti wrote: I have one request though if someone can put up stats for just one blaster /w how many shots are held in a “clip” it would be greatly appreciated (just to have a sense of what others did)

Ps does anyone want me to post my Idea for the setting? I’m generally not that egomaniacal (In spite of the Y chromosome: P)

AC

Furious D wrote:
And the devil is in the details...
Really, it's not hard to come up with basic rules, the painful part is stating everything out and then, more importantly testing and balancing. Is a certain maneuver overpowered? Do the ship stats reflect their performance in the movies? And at what point, in adding all these little details does it become too much?

hmmm... how would I do stats for a blaster....

Stormtrooper Blaster Carbine

100 rds at normal power settings
50 at heavy power settings
200 at stun
1 at maximum power settings (useful for blowing open blast doors)

normal power base damage of 8 (no blood loss, extra shock for up to level three wounds)

Rate of Fire (ROF) = 6/sec

*Aimed shots take one full round, unaimed are half a round

ATN for aimed shot = 5 with, +1 for every 30 yds

ATN for aimed burst = +1 for each additional shot (still equal's one action, max 5 shots per burst) + 1 for every 20 yds

ATN for unaimed shot (from the hip) = 8

ATN for unaimed burst = +1 per additional shot, max burst is 5 shots

Full auto fire is never treated as aimed, (gun will fire according to Rate Of Fire Stat) ATN = 13.


*Bursts and Full auto note... each individual shot is rolled for with however many die are spent on the attack. So if firing full auto with above gun, I spend 6CP, I get to roll 6 die for each of the six shots (ROF = 6/sec) but ATN for every shot is 13.


That work???????

I'd rather think that full-auto gave more dice for one roll (thought the ATN may go up), and each success represents more shots making contact.

Jake

nah... :-)

How many dice you spend on an attack is how much effort your putting in right?

If you go full auto on someone, your spending that much effort on the burst and each individual round is going to recieve that much effort in terms of aiming... but that many rounds fired in rapid succession makes it much arder to actually aim the gun. So the result is more rounds going in the right general direction, but the difficulty goes up.

After all, individual bolts/bullets are devestating enough that each one should count, but there are such thing as knicks and near misses.... making each success a hit makes it to hard to figure out how much damage was actually done by the individual bolts.

Jake Norwood wrote: Tell me about this. Tables? Tables? Ha ha ha ha ha ha hah ahh aha hah ah ahah h ah ah ahhah aaa haahahhah ahha haha

Jake Norwood wrote: Only Brian knows the HELL of writing those damn tables!!!

By the way, Mayhem -

I have to go with Jake on this one. In the films etc there's not really that much difference between being hit once and being hit multiple times (the result is usually that you go down, either way) and IMO it's a lot more elegant to simply add more dice and thusly represent the more successes as more hits.

So, I would up the difficulty when firing multiple shoits, but also give a bonus to the firing pool, that way you have more dice to hit with, representing more hits and more damage, but more importantly more chances to hit, which represents blasts going all over the place and a few of them hitting the guy because you've covered the area etc.

I think it's more elegant than working out individual multiple hits.

Just my 2c.

Brian.

Brian Leybourne wrote:
You're not wrong, and I was working from your masters. I hate to think what you had to go through making them from scratch... :-)

Brian.

More elegant maybe, but I think my method more accurately represents whats going on. It is possible to get grazed or take a round through non-vital tissue...so levels of wounds are always a real possibilty... and multiple shots hitting isn't going to make one bigger wound, but individual wounds of a similar scale. Doing it the other way, to me, almost feels like your cheating the player a bit.


Of course this is really one of those "I think" things. :) So I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that one until we get a chance to argue it face to face. :)

Mayhem1979 wrote: It is possible to get grazed or take a round through non-vital tissue...so levels of wounds are always a real possibilty... and multiple shots hitting isn't going to make one bigger wound, but individual wounds of a similar scale. Doing it the other way, to me, almost feels like your cheating the player a bit.

Jake Norwood wrote: And, little known fact, I did them all 3 times!!!!!

Hey I didn't say such things were easy to achieve with a high powered, plasma-based weapon :-).... just that the possibilty (usually with advanced armor, the guy using the weapon on it's low power setting to save ammo, etc...) should be there.

After all, with SW weapons even a graze with a powerful weapon is gonna cook a signifigant portion of whatever it hits a lot of the time. Or alternately, using a modern weapon, a .50 cal macine gun round is basically never gonna do what we'd refer to as a level one or two wound if it hits someone in the arm.

Besides, the base 8 weapon I gave is a military grade weapon meant to go through armor... and is no worse than a longbow in norm TROS. :-)

Brian Leybourne wrote:
I like the idea of the Force as something where you have a Force Pool (FP) based on your WP and raw talent (your midichlorian count, if you like, although I'm the first to say that I wish Lucas had never pulled midichlorians out of his ass) and then there are a series of different force powers which would be treated as skills - they represent the TN to use that force ability, which you do by spending dice from your FP and rolling against the power difficulty. Additionally, you could add FP dice to your CP on a 1-for-1 basis as well, something clearly seen in most of the films where the Force was used to make people better fighters etc. FP would refresh pretty fast too, you never saw anybody in the films "running out" of force as it's easy to do with SP, for example.