I posted about some of this a few pages back, but did not receive any comments. Since we are back on this topic, here is a streamlined version of what I was considering. Any comments from someone who knows the rules better then I (or have actually played the game) would be welcome.

AUTOFIRE

Aiming Autofire is not allowed. Add 1 Difficulty (2?) to the roll if you declare AutoFire. Each Success provides +2 damage instead of just +1 damage. Less chance of hitting, but when you do you get a damage bonus because more bullets hit. Advantages do not cause Criticals, but Suppression instead (see below).

SUPPRESSION

Only automatic weapons can attempt. One Success causes target to be Distracted (loss of Maneuver). Multiple Successes causes target to be Stunned (loss of Action). Each Advantage rolled causes a hit (+1 damage per Advantage). If this is too powerful, add 1 Difficulty unless an AutoFire weapon?

EXAMPLES OF BOTH

AutoFire: Medium range (2 Difficulty) plus AutoFire equals 3Difficulty (if this is not enough add 2?). Only 1 Success is rolled, but it gives +2 damage. One Advantage is also rolled which doesn't give a Critical, but suppresses the target making him Distracted.

Suppression: Three Successes are rolled. The target is Stunned. Two Advantages are also rolled indicating the shooter got lucky and got a hit for +2 damage (as if 2 Successes were rolled) even though he was only trying to suppress the target.

WALKING FIRE

AutoFire weapons could use Walking Fire for either normal attacks or Suppression. You add an extra Difficulty die to either mode for a chance to hit or suppress multiple targets.

Sturn said:

So say we had 3 failures, 2 successes, and net 2 advantages. Would the suppression be activated, at the stunned level? I really like the idea of missed autofire having the possibility of providing suppression instead, and the dice mechanics really can support that.

So instead of your rule, I propose a simpler rule. Keeping the aiming restriction and added difficulty dice, each Success still provides +1 damage. Advantage then provides EITHER an extra hit (which can be walked per the Walking Fire rule) or Suppression. For Suppression, 1 advantage would be spent on Immobilized (no maneuvers), 2 advantages would be spent on Staggered (no actions). Both conditions are already in the game on page 141. These advantages could be spent even on a miss, and can be spread out among multiple targets if you have say, 3 advantages (1 advantage to activate the second hit, 2 advantages to Immobilize both targets).

Thoughts?

Personally I like the idea of suppression being a fear effect. In the real world, that's essentially what it is, and there is already a fully fleshed out fear mechanic in the game.

You know, I like the fear mechanic a lot, but it seems like using it that often would slow down any combat involving autofire weapons to a standstill.

The more I think about it, it seems to me that Suppression is already built into the rules, just not explicitly. You can already add a setback die to a target's next check with two advantages with any weapon. It might be easiest, if the rules really do need to be changed, to just say you can do the same with just one advantage while using autofire.

beeblebrox said:

Or perhaps auto fire with suppression in mind could add 2 boost dice to the roll? More likely to get that 2A you need to add the setback die to the target.

-EF

gribble said:

As far as I remember, the combat section (or is it skill section?) actually even mentions that the sill Discipline is important in order to hold op being shot upon … or some wording like that, pure fluff as its mentioned with no mechanic to support it at the moment - but I think it does show that the designers had something like this in mind at some point ….

So maybe allow weapons to trigger a fear-crit which instead of inflicting an actual crit, everyone in engagement must make a discipline check (average difficulty - upgrade if using autofire, downgrade if in heavy cover, add setuback die for each success rolled on attack) where net failures add black dice to next attack, 2 banes cause loss of free maneuver, threat cause loss of turn (stunned)… -

One of my players had an issue with soak that I found interesting. It's only pierce (or breach) that can ignore it. There's no roll, not even a critical, that can ignore 1 soak (or more). While at one level I don't find this to be an issue, I do notice that the hold-out blaster players have little chance to do anything against brawn 3 and laminate armoured bounty hunters… what if one could spend advantages, or a crit could ignore some (if not all) of soak? This would make pierce weapons even more beardy, but I think it should be an option, at some level.

Looking at the aim manoeuver in the combat section I wonder. It has this option with setback dice to hit certain areas, just like the aim version for vehicles. Yet the vehicle aim has certain effects: component and the like effect… whereas the personal combat aim manoeuvre has only indications towards disarming - something gained through enough advantages or a triumph regardless - and the like, but no good examples, like certain critical effect; like the vehicle aim manoeuvre has… how should I use this setback option for aim?

beeblebrox said:

Not a bad idea. Maybe fear can be implemented if you only accrue enough advantages.

With autofire, the purpose of autofire is not to swing your gun around and kill target after target (although it would look awesome if it worked!). The realistic application of autofire is to suppress enemies from firing back, or to pin/bog down your enemies so that your other allies can act/move with less complication. Autofire is a battle-field controller , not a devastator.

The Engage/Disengage Issue:

MOVE p.180

I would recommend a complete rewrite of these rules. The rules per see are fine, its just that the way they are explained right now is very confusing…

Even worse, I find that the change made in the Beta Update are more confusing than the original text was.

Does it cost a maneuver to engage a friendly/neutral character/object? Does it cost a maneuver to disengage?

gribble said:

+1 to this.

So about supression fire being a fear effect - something I haven't read properly up on - how should this be activated, or is it a default side-effect of being targeted by auto-fire? 1 or 2 advantages? A non-lethal attack, ie auto-fire causes fear but no damage - crit can be ativated to increase or upgrade fear effect?

Jegergryte said:

It sounds like a 2A activation cost, to me. Also, the fear table, pg189, says that battlefield combat is a Hard (PPP) difficulty. However, I'd be inclined to say the fear effect would only last until the end of the following round, since you have to keep firing to keep someone suppressed.

However, I personally don't like the idea of using the fear rules. It would cause an additional roll in the midst of combat. Sure, it'd be like a competitive check, but I would rather just use advantage to represent it. A 2A suppression would add a setback die, while a 3A suppression would cause them to lose their cover bonus. Both of those are per the normal advantage costs, per the table on pag133.

Then again, that also goes with my idea that full-auto, "spray and pray" should add 2 boost dice to your roll, while "focused fire" would add one difficulty die as normal, and give a bonus to the damage done.

-EF

Jegergryte said:

Jegergryte said:

I would say it should be a separate action. Laying down suppressive fire feels like it should be a deliberate action, that replaces an attack, especially since its not usually "directed fire". It should still require a ranged(Heavy) roll, and the severity of the fear effect should be determined the success of the skill roll. Also, the suppressor should get an attack on, or deal damage to the target if the target moves. Lasts until the beginning of the suppressors next turn

I'll admit I've been playing a fair bit of XCOM lately. This is basically how the surpress action it works in that game. While I think this action could have a place here in EotE, it's not designed to be a robust tactical combat game… Gotta leave something for Age of Rebellion. ;-)

-WJL

PS Thank you moderators/support for fixing the interface. I can now edit in this window without deleting half my text.

So our group just found out that the initiative system is done a bit differently than normal. Rather than simply rolling for initiative to determine who goes first, you roll to generate rosters that can be filled out, but it seems to rely on their being a sole primary roll and everyone else providing supportive rolls. We tried this for vehicle/starship combat and it worked alright, but it feels really odd for normal character combat.

I don't know… How do people here feel about the way they do initiative? It seems like an unnecessary revision in one sense.

WereWes said:

This system minimizes holding actions, and frustrations on who acts when, which makes the combat more fluid. This dynamic initiative came across from Warhammer Fantasy RPG. My group really likes it in both games. In fact, its something we wish had been in d20 games, as well. Good change.

-WJL

WereWes said:

The groups I've played in have loved this change, as it keeps the order of combat fluid, and cuts down tremendously on the "okay, my turn's over, so I'll zone out now" aspect that has plagued a number of systems, d20 in particular. And with combat actions generally taking far less time than a more tactical-based game, that fluidity helps keep things moving.

Donovan Morningfire said:

100% this.

One of the things that's plagued my d20 groups for years is the fact that, by the time another player's turn comes around, there's often a minute-plus spent playing "catch up" of what they missed when they weren't paying attention, whereas if they had been paying attention, they'd have already come up with an idea of what they wanted to do, which would make things move more quickly (and in turn make other players less likely to zone out).

Knowing that combat order is fluid and dynamic and that you can "jump in" whenever a cool idea strikes you makes it much more likely that a player will be invested into all the goings-on in an encounter, not just their own personal spotlight time.

I was under the impression that once a slot was picked by and/or given to a character it stayed in that order for the rest of the combat… I need to double check now.

EDIT: I see now that I misread. Good to know

I love this initiative system, in fact I am debating on trying out Warhammer Fantasy primarily because of the initiative system.

Yes, I would also like some clarification on engage/disengage with friendlies. In the meantime, I am going to look to my Warhammer Fantasy RP 3E rulebooks for possible clarification.

It's not a clear ruling, but as written, I interpreted the "disengage" maneuver a necessity only if there is a threat of being attacked. If you're only "engaged" with friendliest, you would only need to spend a single maneuver to get to short range (as opposed to two if engaged with an enemy).

Exalted5 said:

I think its one maneuver to go to from engaged with friendly to medium range, as it says you don't need to spend an maneuver to disengage from a friendly target. I presume this to mean going from engaged with friendly to short (nee' close) is an incidental, then moving from short to medium is an maneuver.

To move from engaged with a hostile to short is one maneuver, not two. It takes two maneuvers to go from engaged to medium.

The real problem with the wording is that the ONLY description I can find of disengage lists a penalty for moving away without disengaging. I have no idea how this is supposed to work or what the penalty is because it doesn't seem to be discussed anywhere else. I suspect this was from an earlier draft and needs to be removed.

You won't find much clarification in WHFRPG's books, because the text in describing the range bands is taken practically verbatim from there. I suspect it was copied and pasted from WHF to EotE, though the line about a penalty wasn't included in WHF.

I think the above interpretation is supported by the clarification in a previous week's patch notes. The devs stated that engaged is a "subtype" of short range. Therefore if you were engaged & at short range, when you disengage you are not engaged and at short range, or just at short range.

-WJL

I really like the initiative system. I think combined with the dice mechanic it gives the feel of teamwork.

CRITS

I cant help but feel that the crit table in EotE suffers from the same problem as the crit deck in WFRP prior to the 'permanent injuries' …meaning that they are balanced towards making life misserable for PCs without actually killing or seriously dissabling them … against NPCs its just underwhelming rolling a crit giving them a crit which downgrades some will check or permanently reduces their presense … when all you want and all that matters is dropping them, I cant help but feel that so often its just not worth it to spend advantage to give a crit … since its soooo random with 2/3s of the results having no or only a marginal immediate impact on the actual situation.

Part of the problem as I see it … is that unlike PCs

* NPCs effectively "die" when their wounds are reduced to 0, thus crits are not so important

* GM PCs aside (and super villains?) - the distinction between permanent and temporary wounds are a moot point for most NPCs

- > basically crits are mostly annyoing when they pile up - but have a rather limited effect in the short term … (except for staggered which is way OP compared to the other crit results of the same level) and since the long term isnt much of a consideration for most NPCs crits become almost meaningless unless you can get up to a fair chance of a straight up dissabling hit ….

I know Im probably overstating this - and that everyone will tell me how wrong I am … I just really really wish that all crit effects had been split in two: IMMEDIATE IMPACT / LONG TERM IMPACT

example:

"Arm hit" - drop whatever is in your hand / -

"Arm Wound" - drop whatever is in your hand / until healed take a setback die for each action where this hand is needed

"Arm Blown" - You hand is useless until end of encounter & take a setback die on all other actions / At end of encounter make a resillience check to determine whether your hand can be surgically fixed or a prostetic is needed….

"Face blow" - You loose your next action / Treat PRE as reduced by 1 until healed