Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[nonefornic]

Been ah brainstorming some things for a Lost World War (Nazis on Dinosaurs!) showdown game to make it a little more "survival" orientated... WHat do you guys think...

Placement of Terrain & Knowledge (Battle)
Before the start of each game, each player takes it in turns to place terrain. To determine who goes first, each player makes a Knowledge (Battle) roll using the highest rank of this Skill in their force. The winner of this roll determines who places terrain first.

Dinosaurs and other Animals
Dinosaurs, carnivorous plants and other animals count as Rogues. Units or individual Dinosaurs will attack each other if encountered. Obviously, a Unit will not attack other members of that Unit.
Dinosaurs and other animals are placed as terrain.

Ride Skill
For Tests of Will, Shaken, Fear, Suppression or any other such roll affecting a mounted creature, the rider’s Ride Skill may be used in place of the creatures’ statistics. Additionally; when successfully hit, the mounted character may make a Ride Skill roll to attempt to place the mount between themselves and harm. A successful Ride Skill check means that damage is rolled against the mounts’ Toughness rather than the riders.

Note; this latter idea regarding ride came from the fact that most of the figues I'm using are mounted on dinosaurs which end up with a higher toughness than their riders...
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No longer a luddite... I have a blog... After losing settings, rules and more in PC wipe after wipe its now home to my swag of RPG homebrewing... http://theniconomicon.blogspot.com/

[Thunderforge]

Having players take turns placing terrain is certainly an interesting idea as it can "give them the high ground" or other benefits. My only concern is that savvy players might be able to game the system a little bit, like making it more difficult for fleeing units to get to the edge of the board (or have to go around a looooong cliff to get there. Otherwise, I think it's a really interesting idea that has some merit.

I take it that there are some dinosaurs that the Nazis are riding and some that are "wild"? If that's right, it makes sense that rogue dinosaurs are rogues. It might make sense to have the dino rogues to only kill certain types (e.g. carnivores will only attack herbivores so that there is less cannibalism), but hey it's up to you. My only concern would be that players will have more fun rolling for the dino rogues to beat each other up!

I'm not sure about your riding skill uses though. I think that having the Rider's skill roll replacing a beast's statistics is a little much, as it means that a good rider can completely overcome any issues with his mount. I guess it depends on the feel you're going for and how important a Riding skill should be. If I were going to keep it, I would probably put a penalty on it (maybe Riding at -4) or make the effect less useful.

Also, I feel putting a mount in harm's way seems a bit too much. I think that most mounts would not willfully move into the mouth of a T-Rex no matter how skilled their rider is. Plus, I'm not sure it makes sense about doing it when a rider gets hit. After all, if he's hit, does he really have time to move his mount?

Good ideas and good use of setting rules! Those are my initial concerns, but I think they'd ultimately have to be played out to see the full effect. I'd love to see this when it's done!

[nonefornic]