I also received word that Henry won't make this session, so his character (David) won't be present either. That is unfortunate, as David is an expert marksman (Small Arms +4) and would likely acquit himself admirably. His absence leaves us with two combat characters (Alex and Shin) and two civilians (Simon and Clark.) Alex is excellent (+7), Shin is also quite good (+4), as is Simon (+4), but Clark is less impressive (+2). Based on this spread, I expect that facing down reasonable law enforcement officers with +4 Small Arms is not unreasonable for the party. I always try to place a squad leader character who is slightly better than his mooks in any squad attack, so I plan to put a +5 Small Arms officer leading the attack.
The characters have laser pistols primarily, plus Clark's rifle, which orients much of their damage toward the Energy type. That gives the party 4E/3 damage toward the police. I'd like each of the mooks to take one shot to put down, and their captain to take two. That means giving each officer a BOD score of 3, which is low but not terrible, and providing them with armor that doesn't stop a laser pistol. Fortunately, I can give them reasonable armor (Flak jackets) which the party's Laser Pistols will cleave right through (the Flak only having 1 BAR vs. Energy). A party member connecting with an officer will likely knock him out and possibly even start him bleeding on the first hit with a laser pistol. Clark's 4B/4 rifle will actually do just the same damage -- the Flak's 5 BAR vs. Ballistics will reduce Clark's hit to 3 points, on par with his party member's.
The part that requires a bit of thought will be the Captain character. By boosting his BOD to 5, he'll have 10 Standard Damage, and assuming he makes his consciousness check, will still be up after one of the party's 3-point hits. Indeed, he may stay up for a second three-point hit. Pushing his WIL to 7 will make him more resistant to falling unconscious.
Finally, weapons loadout. Last session the party picked up a concealed Flak jacket, so I want to use ballistic ammunition against them so they feel like their item is getting use. As mentioned previously, I thought about giving the mooks 4B/4 revolvers, but such a weapon will go right through the concealed flak's 4 BAR vs. Ballistics. Instead, I'll downgrade the mooks to 3B/4 auto-pistols, which the concealed flak will downgrade to 3 damage on the character wearing it, and leave the revolver for the captain character to make him even scarier to the party.
So there we have it, three mook officers and one captain armed with ballistic weapons and flak armor to go bring in the characters. With a little bit of talking up in the town, they'll project the image of a force to be reckoned with, while carefully engineering of their statistics keeps their actual capabilities in a manageable range for the party.
Does it surprise you how ineffective armour is in this system? If a bulletproof vest does nothing to reduce the damage of most pistols, isn't that a bit worrying.
ReplyDeleteEven the pistols it does reduce the damage of it only reduces it by one point. It doesn't seem very reflective of current body armour's performance verse firearms.
Although it is an old refrain, it is important to remember that BattleTech in general, and A Time of War in particular, is not a simulation, but a game. I agree that these statistics are not terribly realistic, but I think that they serve the game well.
ReplyDeleteThere are two points to be made about the imbalance here; first, the rules cut both ways. Although these rules endanger the PCs even with body armor, so does it endanger the NPCs the PCs are shooting at.
Second, these rules provide very fast combat resolution, despite the considerable paperwork involved in a hit. They are consistent with the "Man is shot, man falls down" trope we're familiar with from movies, and it means that small engagements won't take an hour or more to resolve. From a game design perspective, this fast resolution is often very desirable, especially if, like me, you're running a campaign in which the focus is not on direct combat. Making very effective armor readily available would simply prolong combat resolution. In this case, I agree with the designer's intentions and decisions in the equipment balancing.