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tom kazansky
Federated Suns
Private, First Class
Joined: 11-Jan-2007 00:00
Posts: 39
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 Posted: 02-Feb-2007 01:17 Post subject: House Rules? |
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I'm sure this topic has been brought up before, but I'll go through with it regardless. Does anyone here play with "house rules" that are different that those of Battletech? Me and my buddies do, and they are as follows:
1. When a mech takes a hit to an arm that has been destroyed, instead of applying it to the right/left torso it is simply treated as a miss. This is logical since a mech with its limbs blown away presents a smaller target.
2. We resolve LB-X autocannon cluster fire different. Rolling on the hit location table according to the standard rules takes far too long, so we do as follows: An A/C 2 is 2 rolls each doing 1 point of damage, an A/C 5 is 5 rolls doing 1 point of damage each, an A/C 10 is 5 rolls doing 2 points of damage each, and an A/C 20 is 5 rolls doing 4 points of damage each. This is also logical since larger bore autocannons would have larger flak.
We also tend to frown upon mech designs that produce more heat for a given weapon range than a mech can handle, as this is not feasible militarily. The same is with unreliable weapons and systems, like rotary autocannons and MASC.
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Sleeping Dragon
Draconis Combine
Tai-i
Joined: 06-Apr-2005 00:00
Posts: 4820
Location: Czech Republic
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| Posted: 02-Feb-2007 05:22 Post subject: RE: House Rules? |
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On 2007-02-02 01:17, tom kazansky wrote:
I'm sure this topic has been brought up before, but I'll go through with it regardless. Does anyone here play with "house rules" that are different that those of Battletech? Me and my buddies do, and they are as follows:
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Yes, there were some topics concerning this, but I'm too lazy to look for them.
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1. When a mech takes a hit to an arm that has been destroyed, instead of applying it to the right/left torso it is simply treated as a miss. This is logical since a mech with its limbs blown away presents a smaller target.
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Well, that depends on situation. Unless you roll 12 for critical hits, which specifically says that the arm had been blown off, then the arm may still be there. Completely wrecked, but still hanging there, presenting target. Maximum Tech has rules for armless 'Mech construction. No problems with this.
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2. We resolve LB-X autocannon cluster fire different. Rolling on the hit location table according to the standard rules takes far too long, so we do as follows: An A/C 2 is 2 rolls each doing 1 point of damage, an A/C 5 is 5 rolls doing 1 point of damage each, an A/C 10 is 5 rolls doing 2 points of damage each, and an A/C 20 is 5 rolls doing 4 points of damage each. This is also logical since larger bore autocannons would have larger flak.
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It's long, but worth the effort, especially with the holes created by heavy ACs. You roll for crits for EVERY hit going to internal structure. The difference between 5 projectiles and 20 projectiles can be felt soon. We use many different coloured dice to deal with this, because nobody wants to give up the crit seeking firepower.
[ This Message was edited by: Sleeping Dragon on 2007-02-02 05:22 ]
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mud
Draconis Combine
Tai-sho
Joined: 23-Jul-2002 00:00
Posts: 1618
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| Posted: 02-Feb-2007 10:22 Post subject: RE: House Rules? |
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On 2007-02-02 01:17, tom kazansky wrote:
1. When a mech takes a hit to an arm that has been destroyed, instead of applying it to the right/left torso it is simply treated as a miss. This is logical since a mech with its limbs blown away presents a smaller target.
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Only if the target was standing squarely head-on with respect to the shooter; if the target is fired at from an oblique angle, incoming fire could still hit the side torso...or center torso if the side torso is gone. You've also got to assume that the shooter would compensate for the missing arm. Additionally, increasing the number of missed shots increases the length of the game, which is not desirable.
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2. We resolve LB-X autocannon cluster fire different. Rolling on the hit location table according to the standard rules takes far too long, so we do as follows: An A/C 2 is 2 rolls each doing 1 point of damage, an A/C 5 is 5 rolls doing 1 point of damage each, an A/C 10 is 5 rolls doing 2 points of damage each, and an A/C 20 is 5 rolls doing 4 points of damage each. This is also logical since larger bore autocannons would have larger flak.
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How often do all twenty shots really hit though? This really takes the teeth out of large bore LB-X Acs.
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We also tend to frown upon mech designs that produce more heat for a given weapon range than a mech can handle, as this is not feasible militarily. The same is with unreliable weapons and systems, like rotary autocannons and MASC.
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Extra weapons can give a 'mech contingency systems when damaged, or can provide arcs of firepower which the 'mech can use.
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Karagin
Imperial Karagin Army
Imperial General
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 4120
Location: United States
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| Posted: 02-Feb-2007 19:10 Post subject: RE: House Rules? |
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The Arm idea has made the rounds in my group and we have gone back and forth on it. So it's not a bad house rule.
The LBX issues, we haven't really done much with that.
The heat to weapons thing, well I agree that it wouldn't make sense from the military's POV, but if the mech isn't roasting the pilot then the excess heat won't be an issue. In real life, the fighting compartments of tanks and IFVs get very hot and become very dangerous to the crews, so weapons heat isn't going to be an issue.
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Only the dead have seen the end of war. - Plato
"Wasted trip Man. Nobody said nuthin' about lockin' horns with no tigers." Oddball
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Knightrunner
Clan Snow Raven
Star Commander
Joined: 20-Jul-2005 00:00
Posts: 123
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| Posted: 08-Feb-2007 10:38 Post subject: RE: House Rules? |
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Actually the house rules I've used that stand out have to do with the 'unreliable' systems. I agree that any real life commander would be horrified by MASC, and Ultra AC's aren't much better. For a campaign I once played in I used alternate rules where Ultra AC's can be unjammed in a similar fashion to Rotaries, and where failing a MASC check means rolling for leg criticals and falling down rather than instant, permanent immobility.
We used randomly selected mechs for the entire campaign, so this kept the Ultra and MASC-equipped mechs in the game longer without really unbalancing the game.
I've also sometimes seen the house rule that pulse lasers are not compatible with targeting computers. Amen to that.
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Col. Dwight Chandra
Lewis' Executioners
C.O., Alpha Co.
Joined: 15-Aug-2002 00:00
Posts: 170
Location: United States
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| Posted: 07-Mar-2007 12:54 Post subject: |
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One of my favorites, that I have only used 3-4 times, is a modified rule for hitting infantry. This was created for two reasons:
First, after seeing my share of medium and heavy mechs taken down by a massed infantry assault, I figured infantry is too powerful
Second, it seemed since infantry are "soft targets" it should be easier to hit and damage them. There are a lot a individual guys running around, and even if a weapon 'misses' them, there should be some minor damage for ricochets, flying debris, etc.
So with the jusification done, here's the rule:
When you fire at infantry (NOT BATTLE ARMOR) and miss, there may still be some damage, as determined by the margin of failure on the die roll:
die result......Damage
target.............(normal damage)
1 below target....... half damage (round down)
2 below target........quarter damage (round down)
3 below target........one-eighth damage (round down)
These modifications to damage are cumulative with the effect of doubling MG damage if the infantry are in open terrain.
example 1. a mech fires a MG at infantry in open terrain, needing a 9. The die result is 8. The MG damage would be doubled for the open terrain, but is halved for being one below the target number, so the MG does its normal 2 points.
example 2: a mech fires a M Laser at infantry in open terrain, needing a 9. The die result is 6. Since this is three below the target, the damage is one-eighth of 5, which is rounded down to zero.
Practically, the rule works out well in terms of balance. My fear was that infantry would just evaporate, since most attacks would yield *some* damage. However, this isn't that bad since all the weapons being shot at infantry *aren't* being shot at the mechs supporting them (that is, the infantry *really* become cannon fodder). One word of caution is that I never used this in conjunction with the optional MG rule from Max Tech that uses a d6 to determine MG damage....that probably wouldn't work.
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SaberDance
Federated Suns
Colonel
Joined: 07-May-2004 00:00
Posts: 837
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| Posted: 07-Mar-2007 14:42 Post subject: |
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On the LBX, back in the day when we did it all with dice, on the rare occassions when we used lvl 2 tech, we simply banned LBX guns bigger than 10. We didn't have enough dice to keep the game going even after we'd scavenged all the board games in the house.
So LBX-20s just became regular 20s.
Now, on the computer, it's no problem, and in this way, MegeMek was a godsend.
A personal favorite house rule we I used when I GMed was progressive damage to weaponry.
Critical hits to weapons make the weapons work less efficiently, but don't immidiately knock the weapon out. E.g., increased difficulty, increased heat, less damage, et cetera.
We generally winged it, with weapons requiring between 3 and 5 hits to knock out completely, depending on the number of crit locations it had.
Afterwards, the number of crit hit locations had to be repaired, but the whole weapon didn't have to be replaced.
Made the games go faster, since critted weapons could still be used, but people who insisted on using them built up heat faster.
We also once had LarLas and PPCs deal heat as well as regular damage for the turn. Figured the energy had to produce some heat on the target. Had the desired effect of causing mechs to blow their tops sooner, but was too hard to keep track of.
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Mordel
Mordel.Net
Administrator
Joined: 03-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 6023
Location: United States
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| Posted: 08-Mar-2007 09:10 Post subject: |
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| SaberDance wrote: | We didn't have enough dice to keep the game going even after we'd scavenged all the board games in the house.
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 You're a gamer and there aren't enough dice in the house?!?! Should I start up a fund? Maybe everyone on this board could send you a set of dice.
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Sleeping Dragon
Draconis Combine
Tai-i
Joined: 06-Apr-2005 00:00
Posts: 4820
Location: Czech Republic
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| Posted: 08-Mar-2007 13:50 Post subject: |
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I do NOT volunteer to pay the costs for posting the dice from abroad 
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chihawk
Clan Blood Spirit
Master Bartender
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 8051
Location: United States
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| Posted: 08-Mar-2007 16:07 Post subject: |
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| Mordel wrote: | | SaberDance wrote: | We didn't have enough dice to keep the game going even after we'd scavenged all the board games in the house.
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You're a gamer and there aren't enough dice in the house?!?! Should I start up a fund? Maybe everyone on this board could send you a set of dice.
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Roll 4 pairs five times. Problem solved.
(Although nothing will ever match Casey rolling 32 pairs of dice when he hit with 16 steak 2s  )
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Seraph
Blighted Sun Battalion
2nd Company
"Seraph's Slaughter"
Major
Joined: 11-Mar-2004 00:00
Posts: 1744
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| Posted: 08-Mar-2007 18:02 Post subject: |
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I've used quite a few house rules back in the day. But Oafman is a stickler for following the rules. So no more fun house rules.
I loved using mule-kicks for quad mechs. Using small tanks as clubs.
Must think of a few more I've used.
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SaberDance
Federated Suns
Colonel
Joined: 07-May-2004 00:00
Posts: 837
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| Posted: 08-Mar-2007 23:03 Post subject: |
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| chihawk wrote: | | Mordel wrote: | | SaberDance wrote: | We didn't have enough dice to keep the game going even after we'd scavenged all the board games in the house.
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You're a gamer and there aren't enough dice in the house?!?! Should I start up a fund? Maybe everyone on this board could send you a set of dice.
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Roll 4 pairs five times. Problem solved.
(Although nothing will ever match Casey rolling 32 pairs of dice when he hit with 16 steak 2s ) |
There's a few things to consider. With all the games we had, we probably owned at one point upwards of 50 D6s.
And we'd probably lose a third of them every time we moved (every 3 years since dad was military). So after we settled back in the US, there were only a dozen or so left, which were kept in a comunal pool for all games. The remainders were also all either red or white (4 pairs of dice doesn't work with only two colors). Playing with a group (or the brothers, since I insisted on playing there were always at least three of us), each person gets a pair of dice, that leaves three pairs of dice out there, but they're all the same color.
Given we only played a couple times a month, and then less when brothers started going off to college, it wasn't worth it to replace all the lost dice.
Then there were the freak dice (wooden spheres with weights in them so they'd come to rest with a number up, giant dice, tiny dice. My brother was something of a collector of dice that weren't good for playing).
So we made do with what was left.
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Sleeping Dragon
Draconis Combine
Tai-i
Joined: 06-Apr-2005 00:00
Posts: 4820
Location: Czech Republic
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| Posted: 09-Mar-2007 02:38 Post subject: |
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If you have a PC at hand when you play then you may find this useful. Just click on the twenty-sided dice to the left.
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AWAD
Draconis Combine
Chu-sa
Joined: 06-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 766
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| Posted: 09-Mar-2007 10:52 Post subject: |
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| Sleeping Dragon wrote: | | If you have a PC at hand when you play then you may find this useful. Just click on the twenty-sided dice to the left. |
But it is not the same. I mean 30 dice hitting the table, the suspense of trying to figure out how well you did before matching all the pairs. Then calling them out and putting the dice off to the side.
AWAD- I hate clans but the Vulture with SRMs is just so fun for the massive die rolling effect
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Sleeping Dragon
Draconis Combine
Tai-i
Joined: 06-Apr-2005 00:00
Posts: 4820
Location: Czech Republic
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| Posted: 09-Mar-2007 13:34 Post subject: |
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It isn't, but we're solving the lack of dice problem, not feelings. Purchasing more dice would be also an option of course. The dice aren't that expensive and any shop dealing with games tends to have A LOT of them.
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