Alternate Core Documents

[SilverlightPony]

I still kinda would rather like to see a system with actual item HP and/or percentage instead of condition names. That way you wouldn't have to worry about remembering how many crit fails you already had.

Current item condition should be recorded on the character sheet, so that it can be edited easily whenever the item degrades or is repaired. If there's no field for an item's condition, stick it in a note.

[f1r3w4rr10r]

You misunderstand me. Of course there is a field for item condition on almost every sheet out there. It just feels unnecessary to record it as "good", "used" and so on and then add a note like "1 crit fail", "2 crit fails" and so on. In my opinion a completely health based system is easier to use. Especially since it allows game and weapon designers to have different degradation rates for different actions, that are still precise. And it allows for almost every item to have it's own health.

I will see, if Mad_Modd and me can work something out over the course of the weekend.

[Mister_Clacky]

In G-Platypus we just defined the conditions with percentages. Perfect = 101-120%, Good = 80-100%, Used = 50-79%, Heavily Used = 30-49%, Poor = 1-29%, and it breaks at 0%. A critical failure knocks condition down 10%. Scavenging an item for repair puts half its current condition on the item being repaired.

For us it has been the easiest way to define the table in the current rules document for easy use.

After playing a mechanic character, this was the cleanest quick-fix I could come up with, and it has worked well for us.

[Viewing_Glass]

Hrm...after looking over the Fo3/NV sheet, I am finding less and less reasons how Ranged doesn't always beat Melee on equal ground. I might be wrong, but unless the Melee character gets the jump on the Ranged Character, then the ranged character will always win (barring Bones of course). Assuming both have the same percentage chance of hitting, the Ranged character will always win. I can go into the math if you want, but, I don't want to annoy people with it.

[Kkat]

You misunderstand me. Of course there is a field for item condition on almost every sheet out there. It just feels unnecessary to record it as "good", "used" and so on and then add a note like "1 crit fail", "2 crit fails" and so on. In my opinion a completely health based system is easier to use. Especially since it allows game and weapon designers to have different degradation rates for different actions, that are still precise. And it allows for almost every item to have it's own health.

I am very sorry, but I honestly find that a horrible idea. It adds an annoying and unnecessary level of complexity that will draw players out of the game and slow combat down even further. If you really want to, feel free to create a separate document for it and put it in the "Rules Set Additions" thread... but that will never be part of the core system.

Added the ‘Sharp’ rule to many melee and unarmed weapons. This is simply to add clarity for what works with certain perks but may be used with other rules in the future.

Added the ‘Fragile’ rule for weapons which have a very low (100 or below) Item HP in Fo3/New Vegas.

I have altered "Sharp" to "Unarmed (Bladed)". Sharp was designed to help clarify Steel Claw, but since the perk never used the word "Sharp", it wasn't actually helping. The change rectifies that, and allows it to be applied only to unarmed weapons which Steel Claw should apply to. This way, we do not clog up the special qualities section with qualities that don't have associated rules or importance.

I have removed Fragile until I have a chance to talk to uSea on Sunday.

I also noticed that uSea's done some other weapons and ammo revisions. I like the revisions to 5mm ammo. I've cleaned it up a bit, replacing the effect descriptions with the special quality tags that do the same thing. For the Missile Launcher, I replaced the Agility check with the special quality for Missiles. I really like that the special qualities from ammo, when listed as part of the weapon, now have the ammo type in parenthesis to clarify. Very nice addition!

[f1r3w4rr10r]

Honestly, I don't see how this is any different then subtracting ammo from your current magazine or overall ammo count.
And don't get me wrong, I am fine with the current system as is. But if we start making additions to it like the fragile attribute, then it gets overly complicated in my opinion. Because then there may come other attributes for extraordinary sturdy weapons and so on.

Just the same thing I told Modd already: The vast amount of work with this lies with the people maintaining the item lists. But it is actually not that much, since you can just take the health values from Fallout 3 or New Vegas. The only thing a player has to do is replace the words representing item condition by numbers. And then just subtracting a fixed amount for different actions. As I said, this is no different than subtracting ammo. The health percentage could then be easily calculated by the sheet itsself.

Another, completely different idea FloRad had, is removing item health altogether. His reasoning was, that most other PnP systems don't have it and work just fine. I am not entirely on his side with this, but it is worth putting some thought in.

[Kkat]

Honestly, I don't see how this is any different then subtracting ammo from your current magazine or overall ammo count.

Keeping track of ammo falls into the "onerous but necessary" category. The threat of running out of ammo is an important element of risk in the setting, as is the purchasing and looting of more. Ammo shortages plagued Littlepip repeatedly in Fallout: Equestria, and so it is something that should be simulated in the game. This justifies asking players to keep track of ammo, even though it is a rather annoying task, and is possibly the least enjoyable aspect of combat.

Adding in more annoying bookkeeping that is not reflective of the source material and is not enjoyable for players is not made any better by saying "it's only as bad as tracking ammo".

But if we start making additions to it like the fragile attribute, then it gets overly complicated in my opinion.

Fragile is mechanically simple, and requires no extra effort on the player's part. I don't think it really opens a Pandora's Box of weapon durability rules, but I can see the argument. I do see other issues with the Fragile quality, so I am going to request uSea remove it from the game.

[uSea]

Which is one of many good reasons not to have Fragile, and why I am going to request uSea remove that quality from the game completely.

I don't mind at all. It was just a thought I had but it certainly isn't needed in the game.

The vast amount of work with this lies with the people maintaining the item lists. But it is actually not that much, since you can just take the health values from Fallout 3 or New Vegas. The only thing a player has to do is replace the words representing item condition by numbers. And then just subtracting a fixed amount for different actions. As I said, this is no different than subtracting ammo. The health percentage could then be easily calculated by the sheet itsself.

We tried a few systems like that (the item hp column still exists in the ether) but it was easier for players to keep track of something like critical fails (which would happen, perhaps, once in twenty attacks) than on a per shot basis.

Having said that, I really like the system that Mister_Clacky posted. Would you mind if I stole it for use with my group?

Hrm...after looking over the Fo3/NV sheet, I am finding less and less reasons how Ranged doesn't always beat Melee on equal ground.

This is being looked at at the moment, along with a general revision of that list. I stopped being lazy and wrote some formulas. For anyone interested, here's the in-progress version: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... NFE#gid=12

It's on hold for a bit since I need to do some stuff for group 4 but it shouldn't take long after that.

*edit: now with working link!*

[Godna]

While you're at it mind checking out MEWs and giving them a little love? :3

[Viewing_Glass]

Oooh, cool Usea, very cool. My only questions are: Are you taking into consideration mods as well as the different ammo types and are you treating the damage output as it the melee and ranged characters are starting adjacent, or apart?