Stealing a BattleMech

I knew I had read rules somewhere for stealing a BattleMech.  It took a fair amount of searching by hand through my physical library of books, but it turns out the (apparently) last time they were printed was on p 247 of the FAN10975 - Classic BattleTech Companion.  This is one book I've been waiting to be replaced with a Time of War-compliant update, but for the moment, I'll explain how I'm doing my own refit of the rules.

There are three major steps described in the art of Grand Theft BattleMech: getting aboard, disabling on-board security, and getting off.  The approach, getting aboard, is vaguely described in conceptual terms -- there may be guards, security cameras, locked doors, etc to be bypassed, but we have rules for that already.  Once you're in the cockpit, though, numbers start coming around.

The major part of these rules is bypassing the onboard security system.  The key changes to the rules are the direct bypass check (requires specialized hardware) and the replacement attempt, which requires an identification check (Tech/Electronics TN 12, Opposed) and the actual removal and substitution check (Tech/Electronics TN 15).  After that there are some penalties if the neurohelmet is tuned to the MechWarrior (as with almost all Clan 'Mechs), which translate to +4 penalties, or if the pilot foregos the neurohelmet entirely (+8 piloting, +4 to gunnery.)

The fact that we're translating to A Time of War means we need to adapt these numbers a bit to fit the 2D6 system; TN 15 isn't bad when you're rolling 2D10 in Classic BattleTech RPG, but it is extremely difficult on 2D6.  So let's translate that quickly: the TN 12 becomes a TN 8, and the TN 15 check becomes a TN 10.  The +4 checks become +3, and the +8 checks become +6.

Tomorrow I'll go over the math of converting CBTRPG checks to AToW checks.