WOW Style Vehicles

[Atgxtg]

I pulled out my copy of Worlds of Wonder, and started building Vehicles using the Superworld booklet.

How does this look.

M1A1 Abrams MBT

SIZ 89 (63tons)

Hit Points= 45

MOVE- 325m(97.5kph)

ARMOR- KInetic 45+16 vs HEAT; Electromagnetic 15; Radiation 15

WEAPON Range Attack Damage Ammo Cost

M256A1, 120mm 2000 (+20%) 15D6/AP 40 45+9=54

M2HB .50 cal MG 1000 (+10%) 4D6+6 900 15+297=312 M240 .7.62 coax 150 2D6+3 10,000 8+333

M240 7.62 skate 150 2D6+3 1,400 8+464

POWERS-Speed 13, Superskill-Main Gun Attack (Fire Computer, Laser Rangefinder) +20%, Superskill- .50 cal Attack (Targeting Sight)+10%, Darkness-5 (Twin, Smoke Grenade Launchers limited to 6 uses per day each, limited doesn't work in windy conditions)

HERO POINT COST= 2185 (but note that 1094 points are spent on ammo!)

[Atgxtg]

Another sample vehicle

Ford Escort (Car)

SIZ 41(1 ton)

Hit Points-41 (maybe half to 21)

MOVE-500m (150kph)

ARMOR-Kinetic-3

POWERS-Speed-20

HERO POINT COST: 864

[Rurik]

Wow, so I can 2 1/2 escorts for the cost of one M1A2 Abrams?

Sighn me up for the escorts!

[Atgxtg]

Wow, so I can 2 1/2 escorts for the cost of one M1A2 Abrams?

Sighn me up for the escorts!

As far as Hero Point cost go, sure. As far as actual $$ costs go, no.

BTW, I also cheated a little since in Superworld you only play for powers and abilities to add to a basic vehicle. So the Escort would only cost 3 points for the Kinetic Armor. But if I did that we couldn't build vehicles with the rules.

Naturally it will require some changes to being it inline with the BRP rules, and a few other tweaks to get it to handle stuff that it wasn't designed for. For instance the costs for ammo double to cost of the tank.

Still, it's a pretty comprehensive framework.

[Atgxtg]

MATRA R530 (Air to Air Missile)

SIZ-23 (430 lbs), INT 2

Hit Points-23 (12)

MOVE-Flight 10,000 (3,000kph)

ARMOR-Kinietic 2, Eletromagnetic-1

ENERGY POINTS-50

WEAPON Range Attack Damage Ammo

Self/Explode 15 (90%) 10D6 1

Powers-Explosion (10D6 attack, limit destroys self, on a special success counts as a direct hit for double damage, normal success yields a proximity hit), Flight 118, Supersenses 11(Either Infranvsion for IR missiles, or Radar Sense for Radar guided,can track targets beyond effective range, use supersenses on resistance table against countermeasures.), Superskill-Pilot (self) 90%

HERO POINT COST: 207

[The Tweaker]

I find this very interesting, Atgxtg (or should I say Iron Man? )

This is one of the reasons I am very happy to have a superpowers system in the new book - it may be a very flexible tool for building a lot of things beyond superheroes.

As a matter of fact - and if my memory serves me; I read it some time ago -, the equipment chapter of the BRP book explains how to build new equipment this way using the different powers systems and includes a sample mecha created with this method to show you how to do it.

As for your designs, I like them. I would probably add a very big discount (10 to 1, perhaps?) to their point cost on the grounds of them being gadgets which can be easily stolen or destroyed (much as the D6 Powers sourcebook by Khepera Publishing proposes in its gadget/vehicle design section).

Both the Abrams and the Escort need a crew to operate, so that could represent another additional discount. Endurance can be a factor, too, so I would add a further discount based on the number of hours of operation of each vehicle to reflect the fact that they can only be used for a few hours (or days, months, etc) at a time and that they must be refueled.

Also, remember that the superpower system from the Worlds of Wonder boxed set will not be exactly like the one featured in the book. According to Jason, some new powers were added and the system was streamlined and modified to be more in line with the other rules.

[Atgxtg]

Tweaker,

I'd go with a discount too. In Superworld, you would get the basic vehicle for free and only play for powers, weapons, and improvements. Things like SIZ and movement would be free. So vehicles would cost a lot less.

I did it this way just to get some sort of design frameworld and relative cost.

I'm still tweaking some values too, and will probably need to adjust things more after BRP comes out. I thing I want to do is reduce the ammo costs. By WoW rmost the cost of the M1 is due to the ammo. In fact there is a typo in my write up above (I'll need to update it, and it is short 3000 points due to 7.62 ammo).

SOme good news though-I seemed to have worked out a method for calculating weapon damages and armor points for vehicles that seems to work for most of weapons I've plugged into it so far.

One problem has been the impale rules. Basically, since the armor range is fairly compressed in BRP, the double damage from an impale ends up making tanks vulnerable to heavy machineguns and light cannons.

I'm thinking of either eliminating impales against vehicles, applying the impale after armor, or putting in a hardened armor tweak, that protect a vehicle from implaes from lower tech/hardness weapons.

[drohem]

I think that eliminating the impale rule against vehicles/objects is viable. I think that the impale rule should only be used on living targets.

[Atgxtg]

I think that eliminating the impale rule against vehicles/objects is viable. I think that the impale rule should only be used on living targets.

Me too, for the most part. I did want to keep it for things like AAMs (Air-to-Air Missles) to represent a direct hit over a proximilty hit.

But I suposed I could use a LUck roll for that.

Right now I'm try to figure out the heavy guns. THe 10D6/3 yarda and 15D6/4 yeards damagfes in CoC for Field guns.

If those are HE rounds, there I'll need to up the APs for Tanks. Or work up a "shotgun" rule like in HERO where multiple shots count against armor individually,

If they are HEAT rounds then I need to lower the APs.

If the are APFSDS rounds then I guess the area damage is from the shrapnel.

My current model is as follows:

M1A1 (or maybe A2?)

ARMOR- Kinetic 58+16 vs HEAT; Electromagnetic 15; Radiation 15

M256A1, 120mm

(HE) 15D6/4yrds

(APFSDS)12D6+5(AP) was thinking of 3d6+1x10 instead.

(HEAT) 19D6+2 (AP)

The HE rounds should bounce of the M1, so either I need to up the armor, nerf the HE vs tanks (Half damage would work) or something.

[Atgxtg]

Okay, I did some lokking over the CoC rules and some thinking. Here are the latest tewk ideas for the BRPVDR.

1) Impales-since these reprensent hiting vital locations, slashing muscles, and tearing open ateries, they don't make sense against vehicles. So you can't get an impale against a vehicle. SPecial Successes DO get to rollon a Vehicle Special Charet, where you can take out headlight, blow tires, tear open fuel and brake lines, damage the steeering, and other things.

2) Heavy Weapons-The big gun damages do seem to be HE rounds and damage drops off over range.

I'm thinking of putting in rules for Indirect fire. Basically you really can't relaibly hit a person with an artillery shell. So. I thinking of:

-Reducing the chance to hit to 1/10th the skill. A success indicated that the round landed within the burst radius doing full damage. A special sucess works as normal, and a critical success indicates a direct hit, where he round literally lands on top onf the target.

-A failure misses by a percentage of the range equal to the percentage missed by, with a cap of 20% of the range. So if you are firing at a target that is 1000m away, had a 5% chance to hit and rolled a 20, you missed by 15% or 150m. Note that a "near miss" might still place the shell close enough to do damage.

-If a spotter is available to give corrections, the attacker can increase his attack chance by 10% per round. So eventually they will be able to zero in on the target.

-Any modifiers for moving targets is doubled.

3) Autofire weapons, Burst Rate, and Ammo.

I'm thinking of putting a burst rate down on weapon that caps off just how many rounds they can fire in a round. That keeps the .30 and .50 cal MGs from being able to fire off a couple thousand rounds of ammo in one turn. Of course some weapons might be able to fire off 100 rounds of ammo a melee round.

I am also thinking of adjusting the cost for ammo to reflect the burst rate. So that way if a weapon fires 20 round per merlee round in stead of 1, you get 200 rounds of ammo with it for free instead of the base 10, and every 3 extra hero pints gets you another 200 instead of another 10.

How do that go down with everybody?

[Trifletraxor]

Wiki article? :thumb:

SGL.

[Atgxtg]

Not enough deatialed worked out/checked. I want to play around with it a bit first and see how well it holds up.

Ideally, I can work up some sort of meta-vehicle design rules that will be useable for ground vehicles, space and whatever. Messing with 4 or 5 different methods and seeing what gives the best results and what is easiest.

My tool for calculating APs for materials seems to be holding up though.

[Atgxtg]

Handling-

Here is an idea I was wonder what people though of.

Vehciles could have a handling rating like in CoC.

a +10% to handling would cost a number of Hero Points equal to the vehicle's SIZ (so it is easiler to make a ferrari turn on a dime than a battleship). THis could be broken down for smaller increments.

+1% for SIZ/10

+2% for SIZ/5

5% for SIZ/2

and so forth.

Optionally, a vehicle that is supposed to be a bit sluggish, like a tank, could have a negative handling.

[TRose]

Perhaps not impaling hits for vehicles, but maybe allow crits to do things like explode gas tanks, ammo etc. instead of extra damage.

[soltakss]

1) Impales-since these reprensent hiting vital locations, slashing muscles, and tearing open ateries, they don't make sense against vehicles. So you can't get an impale against a vehicle. SPecial Successes DO get to rollon a Vehicle Special Charet, where you can take out headlight, blow tires, tear open fuel and brake lines, damage the steeering, and other things.

I was going to say that vehicles have vitals - tyres, brake cables, hydraulics, fuel tanks etc - so specials/impales have their place. But you've covered that. Presumably, criticals can still ignore armour.

What about indirect damage done to occupants of vehicles? If a shell penetrates armour, will the excess damage go and hurt the occupants? If so, is it on a 1:1 basis or should we use a scaling factor?

[Atgxtg]

I was going to say that vehicles have vitals - tyres, brake cables, hydraulics, fuel tanks etc - so specials/impales have their place. But you've covered that. Presumably, criticals can still ignore armour.

Critical & Armor- Good (tough) question. I'm mostly thinking no, otherwise Tanks become sort of useless, since any weapon can critical. I woundn't want to see a M1 get taken out by a bunch of guys toting AK-47s who score some crticals. On the other hand, its a critical.

Most vehicles are open to some extent, so perhaps such a hit could go through an gun port or eye slit and get inside the vehicle? Have to think about this.

Maybe a crtical/major wound table? Or how about crticals ignore only half of Avehcile armor. THat way a tank would still be immune to small arms.

The big obstacle with crticals and implaes is that they double fdamage, or bypass APs entirely. That and the fact that APs seem to increase as a sqaure root of the thickness. It were are not careful, tanks bewcome vulnerable to shotguns and rifles.

What about indirect damage done to occupants of vehicles? If a shell penetrates armour, will the excess damage go and hurt the occupants? If so, is it on a 1:1 basis or should we use a scaling factor?

[Atgxtg]

I've got some basic design rules, adapted from WoW, just about finished (I'm working up the last few super powers now).

I should be able to get them up on the board somehow tomorrow so everyone can read them over and tear them to shreds.

I set it up so the Sci-Fi stuff can be treated as a plug in, so we can adapt the system to work for a specific setting and get the proper FTL travel method and weaponry.

The new rules for using vehicles, like indirect fire, and the special hit damage chart are still in development.

[Nightshade]

There is some precedent for criticals against vehicles--its known as the "golden BB" effect--but the problem is that they occur too often. Probably the big problem is that "ignore armor" as a critical method sort of works for people but isn't that accurate for vehicular armor (or even some high tech body armor like power armor). Perhaps a quality for vehicular style armors where all criticals do is cut it in half or the like?

[Shaira]

Scaling systems are unfortunately necessary unless you like rolling hundreds of dice. But, you can probably deal with it in a pretty linear way. Say, have 1 Structural Integrity Point for a vehicle equal to 10HP. Let's say an attack helicopter has 50 SI, which translates to 500HP, and 5 Structural Armour Points (50AP) everywhere except its rotors, which have only 1 (10AP).

Let's say you attack the attack helicopter with your 3d6 damage shotgun. On a normal attack (avg 12 damage), you won't damage the copter unless you hit the rotors, when you'll go "ping" and do 2HP (0.2SI) to something which has probably at least 5SI. On a critical, you bypass the armour, and do, say, max damage (18HP / 1.8SI) to the copter's SI direct. Given it's got 50SI, you're going to have to blast 25 shotgun criticals (which presumably hit guidance systems, fuel tanks, etc) before the copter is at 0, unless you manage to hit the rotors every time, in which case 3 good criticals will cause problems. 0SI doesn't mean an explosion, either - it just means the copter stops functioning (for a flying vehicle, this may be academic...).

Now, if the copter brings its twin wing-mounted machine-cannon to bear (doing 3d6SI, or 3d6 x 10 HP), it probably isn't going to matter what kind of armour you're wearing - if it hits at all, you're pretty much toast.

For Starships, you can go 1 more magnitude up, where one Starship Hull Point (or whatever) = 10SI = 100HP.

I've seen games where scaling doesn't translate so neatly, and frankly it's always been a pain.

[Atgxtg]

There is some precedent for criticals against vehicles--its known as the "golden BB" effect--but the problem is that they occur too often. Probably the big problem is that "ignore armor" as a critical method sort of works for people but isn't that accurate for vehicular armor (or even some high tech body armor like power armor). Perhaps a quality for vehicular style armors where all criticals do is cut it in half or the like?

I know. It is one of the big pains in the butt when design the vehicle rules. As written, the rules were designed with the the idea of things like dagger points finding gaps through metal and striking the soft guy inside. They were not designed with the idea of things like .25ACP rounds finding gaps through 200mm of CHOBHAM armor and striking the not so soft chassis inside.

Halving APs won't work through because the weapon damage and AP scales are so condensed in CoC. A 9mm pistol can sometimes get through 2 inch plate (19AP) thanks to impales (the other problem). Even halving armor makes the crew of an M113 APC vulnerable to AKM and M16 rounds.

So We need to figue out how to:

1) Reduce the effects of crticals

2) Reduce the effects of impales.

I was thinking of a couple of ideas:

!) Only apply impale effects If the attack penetrates the armor. Basically the impales in the rules were really the ability to find a chink and hurt a person. Against something solid like a tank, the bullet would probably bounce or go splat. I was thinking of Calling this Hardened Armor and it would only apply to vehicles that have been specifically armored as such (like tanks). So you can still impale a Chevy truck.

2) Maybe have Hardened Armor drop critical hits to impales. That way there is still a chance of small arms firing pulling off a golden BB effect but it would take a critical roll and a high damage roll.

3) AP rounds of the same tech or higher could ignore HArdened Armor. SO that way an WWII era 76.2mm AP shell will "bounce" off a T-92 Tank, but a modern 120mm APFSDSDU shell will still punch right through.

[Atgxtg]

Scaling systems are unfortunately necessary unless you like rolling hundreds of dice.

Yes and no. There are multiple ways to scale. For instance most RPGs, including BRP use scaling in the weapon damages an stats. A dragon isn't 7 times larger and stronger than a man, but more like 192 times.

Likewise the .50caliber bullet isn't just twice as powerful as a .45ACP round.

There are some difficulties with the approach BRP has used though.

Part of the problem is that there is a big difference between penetrating ability and damage potential. Shotgun pellets can do a lot of damage, but don't penetrate well.

Another problem is that since armor in CoC increases based on the square root of the thickness, an impale that does double damage also can penetrate 4 times the armor.

The latter is what makes working up APs for vehicles so tough.

For example: An M-113 APC has armor that is resistant to all pistol rounds, but won't stop a .50 bullet. In CoC the highest pistol damage is 2D6+4(.44 Magnum). Now if you give the APC 17 points of armor it will stop a .44 and also stop most rifle rounds. A .50 cal bullet doing 2d10+4 will even penetrate it 16% of the time, which is a bit off. If an impale or critical pops up, and then a 9mm can get through.

[Kloster]

...

I was thinking of a couple of ideas:

!) Only apply impale effects If the attack penetrates the armor. Basically the impales in the rules were really the ability to find a chink and hurt a person. Against something solid like a tank, the bullet would probably bounce or go splat. I was thinking of Calling this Hardened Armor and it would only apply to vehicles that have been specifically armored as such (like tanks). So you can still impale a Chevy truck.

2) Maybe have Hardened Armor drop critical hits to impales. That way there is still a chance of small arms firing pulling off a golden BB effect but it would take a critical roll and a high damage roll.

3) AP rounds of the same tech or higher could ignore HArdened Armor. SO that way an WWII era 76.2mm AP shell will "bounce" off a T-92 Tank, but a modern 120mm APFSDSDU shell will still punch right through.

I like the 1st 2 ideas.

For the 3rd, not so much. I would prefer a real AP effect.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Atgxtg]

I like the 1st 2 ideas.

For the 3rd, not so much. I would prefer a real AP effect.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

What I was thinking of for AP was to increase the damage die, but reduce any damage that gets through. Probably not a big difference, since AP rating seem to increase with the square root on the thickness in BRP. In order words to double the AP you need four times the armor. So if a .50 cal does 2d10+4 (as in CoC), the an AP round might do 3d10+6 at best.

The nice thing about #3 is that it would reflect how obsolete weapons are not as effective against modern armor. It isn't just the thickness, but the hardness. Of course this is only going to come up if you have modern (or futuristic) tanks up against obsolete tech, not something that should pop up often in an RPG.

[Shaira]

For example: An M-113 APC has armor that is resistant to all pistol rounds, but won't stop a .50 bullet. In CoC the highest pistol damage is 2D6+4(.44 Magnum). Now if you give the APC 17 points of armor it will stop a .44 and also stop most rifle rounds. A .50 cal bullet doing 2d10+4 will even penetrate it 16% of the time, which is a bit off. If an impale or critical pops up, and then a 9mm can get through.

Ah. I see your point - that is annoying.

Clearly as you say some sort of penetration rule is in order, not directly linked to damage done. Do you know what the new rules say, out of interest? Anything?

I had a quick look at the Ringworld rules to see what they did, and they take a very drastic tack: no attacks, not even special / criticals, bypass any armour. Some do double damage, but it depends on the weapon type (archaic, personal energy weapon, heavy energy weapon, etc). Whilst that solves the problem in the Ringworld era, I doubt even that would model the real-world example you give above.

And I guess that's the issue: how close to real-world modelling do you want to get? If you want something that's extremely accurate, I think you may have to go down the "penetration rating" route - I very much doubt there's any close analogue between the BRP rules and real-world penetration and armour resistances. Things can get pretty complicated very quickly doing that of course, which may dampen some of BRP's innate elegance. I guess it's the old playability vs realism conflict.

Perhaps you could achieve a quick and dirty win by simply saying that "personal weapons" do not ignore "vehicular armour" on a critical? You could even define "personal weapons" as "melee weapons and firearms with less than .50 caliber, or some such. It gets ugly quick, though... I think I'd personally go for playability over realism, and chuck in some GM fiat at moments of creaky "unrealistic" moments.

[threedeesix]

Okay, I did some lokking over the CoC rules and some thinking. Here are the latest tewk ideas for the BRPVDR.

1) Impales-since these reprensent hiting vital locations, slashing muscles, and tearing open ateries, they don't make sense against vehicles. So you can't get an impale against a vehicle. SPecial Successes DO get to rollon a Vehicle Special Charet, where you can take out headlight, blow tires, tear open fuel and brake lines, damage the steeering, and other things.

Sorry this is a response to an older post. I'm just getting caught up. You dont

do impales against undead either. This would tell me it is only against living targets.

Rod