Alternate Core Documents

[Kkat]

Rules Considerations (Part 2)

One of the players sent me this batch of potential changes to combat actions and modifiers. What do you think?

Buck AP cost changed to a flat +10 from base weapon AP. Damage changed to +1d10+5 damage. If performed after taking at least 3 move actions that round deals +2d10+8 instead. Other effects remain the same.
Don’t like that this modifies the cost of the base attack in a multiplicative way. Don’t like the multiplicative damage effect either. Makes it very restrictive to use with many weapons, and very cheap to use with others. Rather have a more static cost and effect.

Burst Fire costs +15 AP, grants +10% accuracy if you meet the weapon’s requirements or -5% if you don’t. For each 20 you roll beneath the to-hit value you hit an additional time, up to 3 hits maximum.
Streamlines damage from Burst Fire, also makes it useful for hitting hard-to-hit targets at least once, helps avoid the problem of high-skill characters putting lots and lots of bullets in everything.

Flying Tackle cost changed to +20 from base weapon AP. Damage if you take at least 3 move actions the same round before the attack increased by +1d10+3. Other effects remain the same.
Brings it in line with Buck’s revised rules. Again feels like effects should be fixed cost-wise.

Full Auto costs +25 AP, grants +20% accuracy if you meet the weapon’s requirements or -15% if you don’t. For each 10 you roll beneath the to-hit value you hit an additional time, up to the weapon’s RoF maximum. Other rules remain the same.
Brings it in line with Burst, also makes it useful for skilled characters while keeping it a means to spray-and-pray for low skill characters. Makes it unlikely any character will put every bullet in the target, even at very high skills, with any reliability.

Aimed Attack changes to granting +5% accuracy per 5 AP spent aiming, to a maximum of +25% accuracy for 25 AP. Can be performed over multiple rounds, but aim actions must be taken congruously or the bonus is lost.
A simple change, helps bring the bonuses for it into a better scalable format, combats random wasted AP, allows for better over-all accuracy at higher AP cost, makes aimed attacks less of a no-brainer especially with low-AP weapons.

Slam AP cost changed to +15 from base weapon AP. Damage if you take at least 3 move actions the same round before the attack increased by +1d10+3. Other effects remain the same.

Tackle AP cost changed to +10 from base weapon AP. Damage if you take at least 3 move actions the same round before the attack increased by +1d10+3 before damage is halved. Other effects remain the same.

Range Chart changes as follows
Point Blank range <10 Feet. +40% accuracy with short range weapons. -10% with long range and battle saddles.
Short range 11-75 feet. +(Per)% accuracy with all weapons.
Medium range 76-300 feet. -(20-Per*2)% accuracy. Short range weapons suffer additional -10% accuracy.
Long range 301-750 feet. -(45-Per*3)% accuracy. Short range weapons cannot fire. Long range weapons gain +10% accuracy.
Very Long range 751-1500 feet. -(60-Per*4)% accuracy. Only long range weapons may fire.
Extreme Range 1501-3000 feet. -(100-Per*5)% accuracy. Only long range weapons with Sniper feature may fire. Sniper does not grant usual bonus.

Sniper feature no longer negates range penalty, instead granting a +2 effective Per to user for accuracy purposes.

[Mister_Clacky]

I'm glad to see the range table getting some attention. The original table can be a bit confusing. I know a few DMs that ignore the range penalties for long range weapons at long range saying "it's a long range weapon, why would it have penalties at long range." The response "it's still harder to hit something at 400 feet than 50 feet, even with a rifle designed to shoot that far" hasn't seemed to work. That said, I'm unsure if multiplicative perception modifiers is the way to go. It's rather mathy. Although I think building a reference sheet into the character sheets would mostly negate that.

I like the idea of the change to burst and full auto. Accuracy drop off is a good way to curb how crazy it can get. I'm not sure if it needs an accuracy boost, though. Burst fires bonus doesn't seem as bad, since effectively the second shot is at -10. For full auto a character that meets the (assuming str) requirement for the weapon doesn't take a negative until the fourth bullet.

[Night Light]

Lots of good thoughts here. Preemptive apology for the wall of text.

Initiative: It has been suggested that Perception should play a role in initiative -- the more alert you are, the faster you should go. There are a few options I think would be worth considering:

...
4) Keep Initiative as is, but change the rules for simultaneous Initiatives such that the person with the higher Perception goes first. Pros: Perception now a factor, albeit a minor one; reduces the frequency of calculating simultaneous actions AP-by-AP (which can take a horrible amount of game time). Cons: none that I can see.

I like option 4. Simultaneous actions are, as you note, a pain in the ass. As much as they can sort of be cinematically cool, the risk of confusion, required math, and loss of game time simply isn't worth it. Bringing Perception into Initiative in this fashion seems like a fine way to include it and reduce simultaneous actions all at the same time.

Movement: Currently, there is no set AP cost for Jumping and no rules for Swimming whatsoever. This should be remedied. What rules and costs would you suggest?

I imagined Jumping was made as part of your regular movement, just determining what sort of gap you can jump while moving from point A to B. Also prevents a "Jump Action" from interrupting an ongoing movement action. Swimming could simply be noted "You may expend 1 yard of your regular movement to swim 1 foot", making a pony's swim move speed 1/3rd their regular move speed. Maybe a little bit fast, but mathematically very simple. Could also do "You may expend 2 yards of your regular movement to swim 1 foot" which would just be cutting it by 1/6th. It would allow swim to be part of a regular movement action (Allowing someone to run, jump into the moat, and swim across it in the same move action, just having to exchange yards of regular movement for feet of swimming). Not saying that either of those are the best options, just simple possibilities.

Left Over AP: Some people are frustrated that they always have AP left over with nothing to use it on. We currently have three ways to spend excess AP: Wild Shot, Wild Spell (with perk only) and Dodging. Do we need another? And, if so, what? (Personally, I am of the opinion that this doesn't need to be changed -- left over AP is a good motivator to invest in ways to gain more AP or to reduce your AP costs -- but I am open to suggestions.)

Honestly, between the power of Wild Shot to buy you an extra attack, ("I have 100 AP, I fire my missile launchers for 60 AP, move for 15 AP, Wild Shot another round from my missile launchers with my remaining 25 AP taking a -35 penalty on the attack.") and Dodge I don't really see a need for another dump for excess AP. That said, if you tweaked the suggested change to Aiming:

Aimed Attack changes to granting +5% accuracy per 5 AP spent aiming, to a maximum of +25% accuracy for 25 AP. Can be performed over multiple rounds, but aim actions must be taken congruously or the bonus is lost.

to "+1% accuracy per 1 AP spent aiming, to a maximum of +25% accuracy for 25 AP", that would be another fairly decent excess AP dump if that was really desired. I'm not saying this is my personal choice, just pointing it out as an option.

Stun Damage: Stun Damage is still a bit too powerful. (Stun Damage, for instance, shouldn't be instant win against a Steel Ranger.) One suggestion is to do away with Stun DT and just make normal DT apply to it. However, this turns Stun Damage into something unique and threatening into "just like normal damage but it doesn't kill you". (With the side effect of filling me full of bleah.) However, another suggestion has really caught my interest:

Already, Stun Damage ignores DT but shields are double-effective against it. What would you think if we extended that effectiveness to Damage Reduction too? DR is double-effective against Stun Damage? This means the average character can buff themselves with 40% DR against Stun if they are willing to risk Painkiller addiction. And a Steel Ranger with Painkiller is sitting at a confident 80% DR against Stun-based attacks.

A couple thoughts here, especially as the "Must. Have. More. Armor!" pony of our party. Viewing Glass and I have discussed the relative merits of DT, DR and Endurance and the discussion basically boils down to "DR and Endurance are superior to DT because (almost) nothing in the game can ignore them, their increase to survivability is fairly guaranteed, whereas all you need is a unicorn with Arcane Blast or a pegasus with a cloud to make your DT worthless, on top of AP/AP (Heavy) ammo and weapons." While I'm in no way saying DT isn't worth it, goodness knows I love being the tank pony with my DT sitting in the mid 50's, it's just this awkward thing where you have to accept that at higher levels most any monster with claws or any fairly well armed pony with firearms (or, again, most any pegasus with a cloud) is going to easily reduce or totally overcome your DT. As much as I'd love my DR to be even better, making it yet better in comparison to DT feel like an undesirable change.

I'm reminded of your comment when we were designing Shamanism, something like "Being a good pony in the wasteland is hard. Just because you're doing good things doesn't mean it's going to be any easier for you out there. Heck, it's probably going to be harder." which Stun damage kind of flies in the face of. It means that a good pony wanting to take something alive has a significantly easier time doing so than a pony looking to actually just kill the darn thing.

However, that said, I still think your argument that armor should have a hard time working against Stun damage, and a pony's body should naturally have some resistance to Stun damage, has serious merit. My personal thought would be to have your Stun DT be the current calculation for Stun DT ((Endurance-1)*2) plus one half your regular DT. This would make Stun damage comparable to regular damage but an actual choice in combat, as, depending on the pony, they may have more or less DT vs your Stun damage, instead of just lower DT (with the exception of very low levels and some monsters).

Disarming: Should we add a special quality to some weapons to indicate that you cannot use Disarm on those weapons?.

Assuming you're just looking at the gauntlet-type weapons, which it makes sense you couldn't disarm, then that seems solid. Disarm is already fairly difficult to perform, so I'd be wary of applying a disarm immunity to too many weapons.

Buck AP cost changed to a flat +10 from base weapon AP. Damage changed to +1d10+5 damage. If performed after taking at least 3 move actions that round deals +2d10+8 instead. Other effects remain the same.
Don’t like that this modifies the cost of the base attack in a multiplicative way. Don’t like the multiplicative damage effect either. Makes it very restrictive to use with many weapons, and very cheap to use with others. Rather have a more static cost and effect.

Seems like a fine change honestly, logical to have a set AP and bonus damage instead of multiplicative, don't know if +10 AP is enough though given everything Buck does. Shouldn't have the 3 move actions part, you don't run into a Buck, given you're kicking your back hooves into the pony you're targeting. Also, probably should be noted specifically that only ponies and alicorns can perform a buck. It's technically noted in there as you're required to use your hooves to perform the buck, but that's easily overlooked.

Slam AP cost changed to +15 from base weapon AP. Damage if you take at least 3 move actions the same round before the attack increased by +1d10+3. Other effects remain the same.

Tackle AP cost changed to +10 from base weapon AP. Damage if you take at least 3 move actions the same round before the attack increased by +1d10+3 before damage is halved. Other effects remain the same.

Flying Tackle cost changed to +20 from base weapon AP. Damage if you take at least 3 move actions the same round before the attack increased by +1d10+3. Other effects remain the same.
Brings it in line with Buck’s revised rules. Again feels like effects should be fixed cost-wise.

Again, the AP cost increases should be double checked, but these seem solid. I'd suggest removing the bonus damage after movement given the already-existing Charge mechanic: "Instead of slowing down safely however, you can chose to barrel into an opponent for greater damage. For any Slam, Tackle, or Flying Tackle immediately preceded by one or more consecutive Charge movements, you may add your END + (AGI x 2) as damage provided that you moved at least one full Charge. However, you take half that amount of damage yourself. Barding protects against this damage."

Burst Fire costs +15 AP, grants +10% accuracy if you meet the weapon’s requirements or -5% if you don’t. For each 20 you roll beneath the to-hit value you hit an additional time, up to 3 hits maximum.
Streamlines damage from Burst Fire, also makes it useful for hitting hard-to-hit targets at least once, helps avoid the problem of high-skill characters putting lots and lots of bullets in everything.

Full Auto costs +25 AP, grants +20% accuracy if you meet the weapon’s requirements or -15% if you don’t. For each 10 you roll beneath the to-hit value you hit an additional time, up to the weapon’s RoF maximum. Other rules remain the same.
Brings it in line with Burst, also makes it useful for skilled characters while keeping it a means to spray-and-pray for low skill characters. Makes it unlikely any character will put every bullet in the target, even at very high skills, with any reliability.

I'm not totally sure what I think about this. It makes full auto and burst fire fairly worthless for low-skill characters - and maybe that's fine? A Burst or Full Auto weapon being more accurate than a regular weapon seems strange, but then I'm far from knowledgeable about that subject so maybe I'm just wrong there. My biggest concern is probably the way it'd interact with skill-capped characters and Special Talents. Does the +X% accuracy break the 100 cap? Does that mean a character with 115 would always at least get one bonus hit with a full auto? Very different from how all other rules work for the system currently, potentially very problematic.

Range Chart changes as follows
Point Blank range <10 Feet. +40% accuracy with short range weapons. -10% with long range and battle saddles.
Short range 11-75 feet. +(Per)% accuracy with all weapons.
Medium range 76-300 feet. -(20-Per*2)% accuracy. Short range weapons suffer additional -10% accuracy.
Long range 301-750 feet. -(45-Per*3)% accuracy. Short range weapons cannot fire. Long range weapons gain +10% accuracy.
Very Long range 751-1500 feet. -(60-Per*4)% accuracy. Only long range weapons may fire.
Extreme Range 1501-3000 feet. -(100-Per*5)% accuracy. Only long range weapons with Sniper feature may fire. Sniper does not grant usual bonus.

Sniper feature no longer negates range penalty, instead granting a +2 effective Per to user for accuracy purposes.

Adding Perception into that makes for an absolute mess of math. Personally I'd say leave the range mechanics as-is, I can't think of a single problem we've had with them in the Stalliongrad game.

[SilverlightPony]

Initiative: I don't believe Perception should have a significant influence on normal initiative rolls, if any at all. I'd much rather see Perception used in some sort of ambush/surprise mechanic, giving one side a free round (or even just a single free action), and/or allowing somepony to spot the ambush and act during the opponents' surprise round or respond to their surprise action.

AP: This is part of the reason I prefer having the AP pool calculated in multiples of 5; less chance of having odd bits of AP left over. If you keep the current AP pool formula, I'm not sure what to do to remedy this situation.

[Viewing_Glass]

Night Light hit a majority of my points on the rules modifications. However, I'm afraid I will have to disagree with him on the changes to unarmed maneuvers.

Looking over the suggested changes in this instance causes me to look at those maneuvers and...well, it makes unarmed combat unappealing. Consider, at currently, that Bucking an opponent, if you aren't adjacent, takes at least 60 AP of actions: 15 to move up, and 45 (more with higher AP cost weapons!) AP to perform the maneuver. The damage, if you invest perks into it, is frightening, but you are trading the potential for three hits to possibly make one very solid hit. Not sure why the damage needs to be lowered on the buck maneuver, and raised for the other maneuvers. Sure, the multiplicative cost is a bit high, but that makes perks like Gladiator Pony and Action Colt/Filly much more worthwhile.

Oh, and the to make a Jump, the AP cost is 15. Its as per a movement action.

[TyrannisUmbra]

Add this little tidbit to Sensory Foil: Visual Sensory Foil (including Invisibility) will not mask the light emanating from light source otherwise obscured by the effect (for example, if a stable-dweller using a Stealth Buck leaves her PipBuck light on, or a blue alicorn casts a spell, causing her horn to glow).

That reminds me, as the /opposite/ came up in a recent session I played: If an illusion unicorn wanted to create a light source, which spell(s) can do that?

Initiative: It has been suggested that Perception should play a role in initiative -- the more alert you are, the faster you should go. There are a few options I think would be worth considering:
2) Initiative = 1d10 + [AGI + PER]. Benefit: easy math. Problems: cripples the effectiveness of Initiative-boosting perks, spells and effects.

Actually... it doesn't cripple init-boosting effects as much as you might think. It makes them have a little bit less of a difference on low-init characters, but is just as overkill on high-init characters. The ponies who tend to use init-boosting effects are the ones that care enough about going early in the first place to have designed their character with high AGI, so it will probably be not very much different at all. 4AGI vs 7AGI with Like a Bullet can still win with the current setup, whereas 4AGI4PER vs 7AGI7PER with LaB can only tie. And it's not a factor of the flat LaB bonus, it's a factor of adding extra base init minimizing the randomness factor from the d10 roll.
I also like the dynamic of some characters not being quite as /fast/ as the others, but being more quick on the draw.

Movement: Currently, there is no set AP cost for Jumping and no rules for Swimming whatsoever. This should be remedied. What rules and costs would you suggest?

I pretty much just counted them as substitutes for momement actions, so 15AP.

Left Over AP: Some people are frustrated that they always have AP left over with nothing to use it on. We currently have three ways to spend excess AP: Wild Shot, Wild Spell (with perk only) and Dodging. Do we need another? And, if so, what? (Personally, I am of the opinion that this doesn't need to be changed -- left over AP is a good motivator to invest in ways to gain more AP or to reduce your AP costs -- but I am open to suggestions.)

Well, motivation is all well and good, if you had more ways to actually gain AP and reduce costs. As it is, it's pretty much a "Well, I have all this leftover AP, but in 7 levels I'll be able to use it more efficiently!" sort of deal in regards to ways to reduce costs and add AP.
As for a solution, I like the suggestion for changing the aiming bonus to be in smaller chunks, even so much as the 1 for 1%. And maybe even adding a lot more "minor actions" you can perform? I love the idea of having a lot more choices with things I can do with leftover AP! Choices make players very happy, and more choices is rarely a bad thing.

Stun Damage: Stun Damage is still a bit too powerful. (Stun Damage, for instance, shouldn't be instant win against a Steel Ranger.) One suggestion is to do away with Stun DT and just make normal DT apply to it. However, this turns Stun Damage into something unique and threatening into "just like normal damage but it doesn't kill you". (With the side effect of filling me full of bleah.) However, another suggestion has really caught my interest:

Already, Stun Damage ignores DT but shields are double-effective against it. What would you think if we extended that effectiveness to Damage Reduction too? DR is double-effective against Stun Damage? This means the average character can buff themselves with 40% DR against Stun if they are willing to risk Painkiller addiction. And a Steel Ranger with Painkiller is sitting at a confident 80% DR against Stun-based attacks.

I have to second the response above me in regards to not making DR more OP than it already is. I like the half-DT idea. He's right when he says that incapacitation should be just as hard as, if not harder than outright killing somepony.

Disarming: Should we add a special quality to some weapons to indicate that you cannot use Disarm on those weapons?

Disarming is already /very/ hard to pull off. I'd be a little wary about adding this to weapons unless they're literally impossible to disarm, but it does strike me as silly that you'd be able to say, disarm someone of their power hoof, which is pretty much sealed and locked to the hoof.

Buck AP cost changed to a flat +10 from base weapon AP. Damage changed to +1d10+5 damage. If performed after taking at least 3 move actions that round deals +2d10+8 instead. Other effects remain the same.
Don’t like that this modifies the cost of the base attack in a multiplicative way. Don’t like the multiplicative damage effect either. Makes it very restrictive to use with many weapons, and very cheap to use with others. Rather have a more static cost and effect.

Flying Tackle cost changed to +20 from base weapon AP. Damage if you take at least 3 move actions the same round before the attack increased by +1d10+3. Other effects remain the same.
Brings it in line with Buck’s revised rules. Again feels like effects should be fixed cost-wise.

Slam AP cost changed to +15 from base weapon AP. Damage if you take at least 3 move actions the same round before the attack increased by +1d10+3. Other effects remain the same.

Tackle AP cost changed to +10 from base weapon AP. Damage if you take at least 3 move actions the same round before the attack increased by +1d10+3 before damage is halved. Other effects remain the same.

No problems with the changes on my part. Except like above, I'll say that it might make the bonus from charging redundant.

Burst Fire costs +15 AP, grants +10% accuracy if you meet the weapon’s requirements or -5% if you don’t. For each 20 you roll beneath the to-hit value you hit an additional time, up to 3 hits maximum.
Streamlines damage from Burst Fire, also makes it useful for hitting hard-to-hit targets at least once, helps avoid the problem of high-skill characters putting lots and lots of bullets in everything.

Full Auto costs +25 AP, grants +20% accuracy if you meet the weapon’s requirements or -15% if you don’t. For each 10 you roll beneath the to-hit value you hit an additional time, up to the weapon’s RoF maximum. Other rules remain the same.
Brings it in line with Burst, also makes it useful for skilled characters while keeping it a means to spray-and-pray for low skill characters. Makes it unlikely any character will put every bullet in the target, even at very high skills, with any reliability.

Under any circumstances, you should /not/ make it easier to hit with burst and full-auto. Auto/rapid weapons are already some of the most dangerous ones out there. Axe the accuracy bonuses, make the penalties higher for not being able to effectively wield the weapon. The problem is that the accuracy boost will make absolutely sure someone with high accuracy will hit with the vast majority of the RoF, which is absolutely devastating to anypony not wearing heavy armor. And believe me, the /first/ thing /anypony/ does when leveling up their characters is invest as many points as they can manage into their weapon skill of choice. It's a rare thing to have somepony wandering around who isn't Lv3 or below without a capped or close to capped weapon skill.

I /do/ like the change to how the number of hits are calculated though. It means that higher accuracy makes the damage get less swing-y. The accuracy boosts /might/ work if they were only factored into the first hit, and all subsequent hits ONLY worked off your base weapon skill without the bonus modifiers.

One other thing, burst fire should be based on 1/2 RoF or something instead of the static 3, since there are weapons with low RoFs out there, and it would be silly if you had an RoF 3 weapon that fired the same number of shots in burst or on full-auto

Aimed Attack changes to granting +5% accuracy per 5 AP spent aiming, to a maximum of +25% accuracy for 25 AP. Can be performed over multiple rounds, but aim actions must be taken congruously or the bonus is lost.
A simple change, helps bring the bonuses for it into a better scalable format, combats random wasted AP, allows for better over-all accuracy at higher AP cost, makes aimed attacks less of a no-brainer especially with low-AP weapons.

Love it. The only issue I see is that as-is, aiming is not a 1:1 thing. If anything, it's closer to a 1:2 thing. But, I don't really have that much of a problem with nerfing aiming a bit to get the smoothness of aiming-in-increments. I also second the suggestion that if we're going to go down to 5 for 5%, we might as well go down to 1 for 1% and kill two birds with one stone, and combat some leftover AP troubles.

Range Chart changes as follows
Point Blank range <10 Feet. +40% accuracy with short range weapons. -10% with long range and battle saddles.
Short range 11-75 feet. +(Per)% accuracy with all weapons.
Medium range 76-300 feet. -(20-Per*2)% accuracy. Short range weapons suffer additional -10% accuracy.
Long range 301-750 feet. -(45-Per*3)% accuracy. Short range weapons cannot fire. Long range weapons gain +10% accuracy.
Very Long range 751-1500 feet. -(60-Per*4)% accuracy. Only long range weapons may fire.
Extreme Range 1501-3000 feet. -(100-Per*5)% accuracy. Only long range weapons with Sniper feature may fire. Sniper does not grant usual bonus.

Sniper feature no longer negates range penalty, instead granting a +2 effective Per to user for accuracy purposes.

It's a nice idea to factor PER into the range chart... but that chart is damn intimidating. Like Clacky said, it would be simple to add a reference to character sheets, but that depends on people adding it to their sheet. Also, I don't know if I like the changes to point-blank, nor changing the distances for ranges. 75ft is too far to be considered short range, imo. If anything, short range should be across a decently sized room, and 50ft does just fine with that. It might even be able to stand a bit of a reduction, but definitely not an increase.

Overall, some nice suggestions, but there are definitely things that need to be seriously carefully considered.

[Night Light]

Looking over the suggested changes in this instance causes me to look at those maneuvers and...well, it makes unarmed combat unappealing. Consider, at currently, that Bucking an opponent, if you aren't adjacent, takes at least 60 AP of actions: 15 to move up, and 45 (more with higher AP cost weapons!) AP to perform the maneuver.

I think the only reason I'd look at those as positive changes would be to reduce the advantages of using low AP weapons, as they're by far the optimal choices to use for these maneuvers (on top of mathematically often being the optimal weapons anyways with proper perk choices). Changing to a static damage bonus and AP cost increase would work to decrease the differences between fast and slow weapons. That said, I don't think the abilities as they currently exist are dysfunctional by any means, so I can totally see a "don't fix what isn't broken" argument there.

Oh, and the to make a Jump, the AP cost is 15. Its as per a movement action.

You know, looking at the wording "Small jumps can be made freely as part of movement, but a pony attempting to jump very high or very far spends AP as if doing a movement action." you're definitely right. I'd personally say change that to noting that jumps can be made freely as part of movement and leave it at that, the calculations simply noting how far you can cover in a single jump as part of the move action.

If an illusion unicorn wanted to create a light source, which spell(s) can do that?

I'm assuming you mean other than the Light spell? Amplify could increase a small light - like a firefly - to something much brighter. That'd be the only spell within the Illusion school that could "create" light, though you could certainly use Illusion or Grand Illusion to create false light, though it wouldn't illuminate anything.

...it does strike me as silly that you'd be able to say, disarm someone of their power hoof, which is pretty much sealed and locked to the hoof.

Yeah, the power hoof is a great example what I meant by gauntlet-type weapons that could logically be immune to disarm.

[Dance_Explosion]

Alright let me go down this list:

Initiative: personally i really like when im in an AP off in a one on one fight but i do agree that is a huge amount of time in game, and seems to happen ALL the time. so i would go with if initiative is tied, highest PER goes, and then highest Luck before its all at once barring special actions, such as a dual or perhaps actively choosing to be going at the same time.

Movement : i would say making jump cost the same as a move, and maybe 10AP while sprinting should be fine, i would say swimming should be based on like Agil+STR in yard for movement per round at same AP costs.


Left over AP : ya no nothing really needs to be done, wild attacks are great at mid to high levels since most max out a combat skill fast, and dodging is super valuable, no changes needed

Stun damage : Well the stunning damage has been a pain in the ass since it first reared its armor piecing head. the EASY way to balance it is to make it the same as damage just it doesn't kill, thus making the choice to use the "not killy" weapons [of which there are at best 5 and they all either cost a lot of caps for the ammo or they are low tier and suck] this would mean we rebalanced a few non killy options on the list, and maybe add some other then explosives to the list at all. now the problem with the "armor piercing stunning damage" is that it turns things like low damage dakka weapons such as assault rifles, into miniguns with AP ammo, and while yes double DR makes it so steel rangers are still walking unstopable tanks, and many monsters are immune to it [which is a new problem with dealing with leviathan hide monsters since nothing below the T4 list can hurt them]. So the choice is really, being bleh about stunning, or knowing that players wil be abusing the shit out of how powerful it is when used right.

Disarming :they already exist! its called a battle saddle, its hard enough to disarm with out making it even harder, beside all natural attacks are immune too all ready leaving griffons, bears, dragons, and most spirits fine.

On the new action stuff : ALL the unarmed stuff, as a melee type player, i hate it, i think we should keep it as it currently is and not make those changes to buck, slam, tackle, i don't like the changes at all and find all these +1d10+3 damage bonus's to make it seem like a massive waste of AP to bother with it since both buck and slam still push your target away from you, something you don't WANT as you are trying to kick them to death.

Full auto : I have to say this is pretty much how it works in Dark Herasy, and it will make the use of full auto attacks much faster, BUT it will also need some real balancing and tweaking with how RoF works in the game, and i really want to know how critical hits will work with it.

Aim I'm a little iffy, but it is worth testing. and a bit of a better explanation i find it a little confusing.

- Ranges: 1.why is this all in feet now? 2. holy balls this is terrible, it will make the low levels super dangerous since even if i have 5 agil and 5 luck stats for it and un tagged my fire arm jumps to a whooping 72 if i get close and aim my shot gun at something, or 102 if im sneaking, and with the expanded mods list [which i love! thanks Usea!] its easy to just have a 60 something un tagged as long as you go close, and then at high levels its a worthless waste of time trying to use a sniper rifle [which is completely worthless as a long range gun all of a sudden with this] it makes the sniper quality really stupid, and super over complicates the whole thing.

Other: having seen leviathan hide in action i feel it may be a little over powered with how it renders armor piecing useless AND adds a massive amount of DT on top of it, the stallion-grad party only beat it by using one trick pony eldrich knives, and stunning damage along with a flight of raptors [the raptors did the least damage] it may need a few tweaks to it.

[uSea]

Rules Considerations (Part 2)

I am very in favour of melee combat actions having a set additional cost instead of a multiplier to weapon AP. This is something we were already doing in Group 4 so our unarmed zebra wouldn't be punished for using AP 25 power hooves instead of AP 15 brass shoes.
I'm not sure about the change to Buck's effect but I wasn't too fond of it dealing double damage either so maybe a set amount of bonus damage? Buck getting more damage from moving before hand doesn't make sense to me though.

Burst fire and Full Auto getting their own AP costs? All of my yes! It would be simple enough to change the RoF and base AP cost of automatic weapons with these changes in mind, and means they won't all have to be 30 or 35 AP anymore!
But as Mister_Clacky mentioned there isn't actually an accuracy penalty until the forth bullet, so maybe numbers can be tweaked. I also had an idea.

What if using Burst added +1 to the STR requirement and Full Auto added +2? This would reflect the added difficulty in keeping the weapon steady while firing so many rounds and means that things like Battle Saddles and tripods (which reduce STR requirements) are extra helpful for reducing the recoil of these attacks. If that were to happen the existing STR req for those weapons could be altered.

Dance_Explosion brought up how critical hits would work with these changes, since one low dice roll with a Full Auto attack could mean 8+ bullets all hitting for 1.5x damage. Perhaps only a limited number of bullets would get the multiplier (e.g. the first 2, or the first half of the salvo) or perhaps a Full Auto crit could just add +1d10 (or +2d10?) damage to each bullet instead of the multiplier.


I'd really like to have PER help with range penalties but I'd rather we found a way to make it (at least look) more simple. I suppose the formula could be added to character sheets and maybe we could have a reference table included in the rule doc for players using paper character sheets. I also think that it should measure in Yards, since movement etc. is also in Yards now.

Honestly, between the power of Wild Shot to buy you an extra attack, ("I have 100 AP, I fire my missile launchers for 60 AP, move for 15 AP, Wild Shot another round from my missile launchers with my remaining 25 AP taking a -35 penalty on the attack.") and Dodge I don't really see a need for another dump for excess AP

I realise that many groups do this and that the rule could do with being clearer, but this isn't how it works.

Wild Swing / Shot: If a character uses one or more move actions in order to be able to attack an opponent and is left without enough AP to attack but they still have some AP left unspent, they may expend all remaining AP to make one Wild Swing or Wild Shot attack with any readied weapon or an unarmed attack. This poorly aimed attack has a penalty of -1% accuracy to hit for every point of AP that the character is short. For example, if a stallion raced forwards to get into hoof-to-hoof combat only to come up 25 AP short of what he would normally need to Slam his opponent, he could still make an attempt at a -25% penalty to accuracy.

As written, a Wild Swing can only be made if the character has had to use their AP to make move actions in order to attack at all. If you did not need to move in order to attack then you cannot Wild Swing. If you have already made an attack and do not need to move in order to make another then you cannot Wild Swing.

The rule was introduced primarily to help melee users with slow weapons (the pony in question used a sledge hammer) who would find herself without enough AP to make even a single attack after reaching her target. This would be their only chance to attack that turn, which is why the penalty for missing AP is so low.
Movement values have tripled since then so the original problem is already greatly reduced.

[Night Light]

Disarming :they already exist! its called a battle saddle, its hard enough to disarm with out making it even harder, beside all natural attacks are immune too all ready leaving griffons, bears, dragons, and most spirits fine.

That's an interesting thought - are battle saddles immune to disarm? There's nothing in the rules that specifically states they are, though given they're strapped to your body and take considerable time to remove, it'd makes sense if they were. On that note, given items like power hooves need to be locked onto a pony, should they take longer to take on or off? Perhaps that could be something worth noting along with an immunity to disarm.

Full auto : I have to say this is pretty much how it works in Dark Herasy, and it will make the use of full auto attacks much faster, BUT it will also need some real balancing and tweaking with how RoF works in the game, and i really want to know how critical hits will work with it.

Good insight, I hadn't even thought of critical hits. That'd radically complicate things for burst or RoF weapons. I think between the last few comments we've seen that sort of change would cause significantly more problems than it would save in game-time.

Other: having seen leviathan hide in action i feel it may be a little over powered with how it renders armor piecing useless AND adds a massive amount of DT on top of it, the stallion-grad party only beat it by using one trick pony eldrich knives, and stunning damage along with a flight of raptors [the raptors did the least damage] it may need a few tweaks to it.

Leviathan Hide replaces all previous Hide perks (just like all other Hide perks), so the bonus DT is actually a bit less substantial than it seems. It also still allows Armor Piercing (Heavy) to work, just makes it function like Armor Piercing. Also, anything that reduces DT still works against it. The point of Leviathan Hide as an Epic monster perk is for it to have to be something that a large force of ponies, or even a small army, needs to take on - such as we see with the mutated Ursa the Steel Rangers are fight outside Little Pip's Stable. It makes for a monster that a party may actually have to flee from if they aren't prepared, which seems pretty spot-on to me.

I am very in favour of melee combat actions having a set additional cost instead of a multiplier to weapon AP. This is something we were already doing in Group 4 so our unarmed zebra wouldn't be punished for using AP 25 power hooves instead of AP 15 brass shoes.

That was pretty much my thought behind the suggestion. Viewing Glass and I did some math and noted that, unless the pony had sub 10 DT, those changes to Buck would be a strict nerf, although it would open up the maneuvers to more weapons. Possible tweaks to Buck and the suggested bonus damage might be worthwhile if there's serious desire to see those changes pushed through.

Burst fire and Full Auto getting their own AP costs? All of my yes! It would be simple enough to change the RoF and base AP cost of automatic weapons with these changes in mind, and means they won't all have to be 30 or 35 AP anymore!
But as Mister_Clacky mentioned there isn't actually an accuracy penalty until the forth bullet, so maybe numbers can be tweaked. I also had an idea.

What if using Burst added +1 to the STR requirement and Full Auto added +2? This would reflect the added difficulty in keeping the weapon steady while firing so many rounds and means that things like Battle Saddles and tripods (which reduce STR requirements) are extra helpful for reducing the recoil of these attacks. If that were to happen the existing STR req for those weapons could be altered.

I'd be behind optional Full Auto increasing the AP cost of using a weapon, though don't most Burst weapons always fire in Bursts and some Full Auto weapons always fire in Full Auto? I might be misremembering/misunderstanding there, and if I'm wrong there I'd also definitely support Burst increasing the AP cost as well. If I'm not misremembering there I could see changing to optional in all cases, however, given I really don't really see a downside to that given Burst and Full Auto weapons are typically very strong as-is. I'd assume base AP costs for those types of weapons would be decreased so they'd stay in similar states balance-wise?

Increasing the Strength requirements to use those types of attacks and decreasing base base Strength requirements for those weapons also totally makes sense. I think my only concern with any/all of that would be the amount of new rules and mechanics that'd have be added to Burst Fire and Full Auto weapons, as you'd have to refer to those rules anytime you wanted to pull up actual AP costs/Strength prereqs for weapons that use them. Maybe not a bad thing, just wanted to point that out.

I'd definitely have to say though, I'd strongly vote against combining all of a Burst or Full Auto into a single attack, we've already seen just how seriously problematic that becomes in the last few posts.

As written, a Wild Swing can only be made if the character has had to use their AP to make move actions in order to attack at all. If you did not need to move in order to attack then you cannot Wild Swing. If you have already made an attack and do not need to move in order to make another then you cannot Wild Swing.

That's fairly problematic, especially given most weapons can fire past their intended range. For instance, if I'm just outside Long range with my Long range weapon (which can technically fire at Extreme range, just at severe penalty), does that mean if I move from Extreme range into Long range then I can't Wild Shot, given I could technically have shot him where I was standing? I totally hear you that that's the original intention of the ability, as that was my assumption before the Stalliongrad group corrected me, but it definitely could use a wording change.

Movement values have tripled since then so the original problem is already greatly reduced.

Given this, maybe removing Wild Shot from the game entirely would be appropriate? I'd say leave Wild Swing, as I still see the logic there and the wording can easily be tightened up in such a way to totally prevent abuse with melee weapons. Removing Wild Shot certainly would make for a cleaner ability and more clear-cut gameplay for ranged weapons.