The Caffeinated Penguin

Posted By matt on September 27, 2005

And other impressions….

Old rule:
If you are hit in ranged or melee combat, you need to test for knockdown by making a Body test. For ranged attacks, the TN is 1/2 the power of the attack, rounded down. For melee attacks, the TN is the opponent's strength. The number of successes determines the result.
0 Successes = fall down prone.
If you roll successes greater than 0 but less than your wound level, you take a step or two back.

New rule:
If you take damage geater than or equal to your Body or 10 boxes (whichever comes first), you are knocked down.

Now, tell me that isn't better.

- There are rules for suppressing fire.
- Shotguns are longarms (couldn't remember what skill they were classed under).
- The “chunky salsa effect” (blast in a confined space) is still in there, and the example character's name is Ortega.
- Melee attacks – Defender can choose to parry, block, or dodge. What you can do is limited by your skills and whether you are armed.
- You can do a pile of things with called shot, including

  ~ Bypass body armor.
  ~ Target a vital area (this is done very fluidly and well)
  ~ Knock something out of the opponent's grasp
  ~ Other things as allowed by GM.

- You get attacks of opportunity (called Interception) if someone tries to run by you or leave combat.
- There are rules for subduing combat.

Also, an observation: This new system (fixed TN) is much easier to have the players make “secret” tests for the GM. See, I'm in the habit of saying to the group “Make an XXX test”. With D20, this works well – they just tell me the score. With SR3, it was a pain, because with the variable TN, I needed to get all the numbers of the rolls to determine successes without letting them know what I was testing for. Here, since the number of hits determines success, the players can just read me that one number, and it gives nothing away. Oh, and to disguise whether this is a real roll or not, I often have the players roll at random, or roll dice myself. So, don't think that just because I have you roll that there is anything to find. (It's amusing to see a group spend half an hour of game time looking for something that isn't there just because I had them make a “GM Paranoia” roll when they entered the room).

Category: LJ Import
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