I Have purchased RoH and I'm very impressed, but I have queries on the some of the combat rules:
1. Page 112 - Area attacks, does this work?
Roll damage, say 3d6, total 14, compare with armour, say 8. 'If the damage overcomes the armour rating' - as it does in this case, (14>8), then damage inflicted is full, less half the armour rating (4) so actually total damage to HP = 14-4 = 10.
Ok, 'if the armour succeeds', say damage rolled is 7 vs. armour 8, 'the armour protects fully with any penetrating damage deducted from HP'.
However, if the armour 'protects fully' by presumably being rated higher than the total of the damage 9as in 8>7 above), unless the weapon has a PV value there IS no penetrating damage. On page 113 it states that area effect weapons with a PV value only apply to direct hits. So, presumably if damage does not exceed armour rating and PV doesn't count, the damage in that case will always be zero (making the 'with any penetrating damage deducted from HP' statement on page 112 redundant)?
2. Grenades - do these always have a 3m blast radius? What about larger 'artillery' - blast radii for missile etc. these aren't listed.
3. The good old discussion about movement options still isn't clear to me. Are the options listed on page 107 exclusive: i.e. you can either:
Change Stance (and presumably react/ attack) OR
Fighting Retreat (move from contact up to score plus one attack OR one reaction) OR
Move (with one attack and one reaction) OR
Sprint (Dodge only, double move)
Is Charge also instead of one of these exclusive moves or can it be combined with one of the above?(given that you get an attack and a double move, but forsake your reaction)
At the core of the question really is, what is the maximum distance someone can cover in one turn, is it two times their move rate (from Sprint or Charge) or are they allowed to do these AND get a free move?
4. Multifire - VERY confused by this. On page 111 under 'firing bursts' it refers to 'each additional shot fired in a burst'. Given that you can fire one shot OR burst for each ROF point for a weapon, I have taken it that if you have an FA weapon with a ROF of three you can make three attacks in the round, each of which could be a burst. Where does it say how many rounds (shots?) are fired in a burst to inform the calculation for 'each additional shot fired in a burst' increasing the shooting skill by 5%?
Also, when it says 'if the attack succeeds, roll to see how many shots hit the target' - roll what?
If the assumption is that you can effectively empty a mag in one round, say split between three bursts, you might be adding 20 rounds to each burst, pretty much guaranteeing a doubling of your chance to hit, and then what? Am I then just making a random die roll to see how many rounds hit - say on 1d20. If I roll a 20, am I then rolling the damage 20 times? I assume not else auto weapons would be instant killers every time. The rules must have intended something else, but what? I can house rule this stuff just fine but I'd like to know what the authors actually intended here. A worked example would help!
5. Pump action shotgun. Is pumping the weapon considered a 'load' action, or something you can do as part of your attack (effectively making it a Semi-Auto weapon in rules terms)?
6. Suppressing fire - I declare suppressing fire, my opponents run into it. As written, they are hit automatically - no roll required? I'm assuming this can't be right, else it's harder to hit a target that you are aiming at (normal ranged attack) than it is to hit them with suppressing fire?
7. Panic fire - this isn't very clear. Let's say I'm surprised by gunfire and I panic. Have I read it correctly that this means all my own ranged attacks back are halved in chance until I run out of ammo? What then? How long does it last? do I get a chance to re-assess the situation and get back under control. What if I'm armoured heavily and the incoming fire is so weak as to be almost meaningless other than by Critical. Can I figure this out and check my panic?
8. Critical Hits and ignoring armour. On page 108 it says I do max damage with a crit, and double any PV value, but don't ignore armour. If my opponent attempts to dodge however (page 109), and fails, now armour IS ignored. Are these two rules in conflict?
Thanks for any time you can give to answering these queries,
Regards,
Guy
