Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[warrenss2]

[peregry]

I figure I can get a bit of a preview:

1. Melee and Ranged Defense are being merged into a single Defense value.
2. The method of calculating the Defense value is being altered, this also allows us to rework some of the other values to be more logical (For instance Range Modifiers now will be a logical 0/-1/-2 rather than a +1/0/-1).
2. The Mech Melee skill is going away, Mech Piloting will now cover everything .
3. Melee Edges are being reworked, some are being removed, some are being altered.

I've reread everything here, our team has discussed it extensively, we've even done some playtesting with the new system. The unfortunate snag we've hit is that one of our core designers is getting married today, so that's slowed down development for some odd reason. (Don't worry, as far as I know he's not giving away Successor States to his bride.)
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- Peregry
It is always giant stompy robot time!

[kronovan]

Something I'm trying to do is adapt my favorite RPG adventure generator to the BattleTech universe. Having read next to none of the BT canons' books, I'm taking a baby step approach and letting my Sword & Dragon starter book (3rd Succession War era) drive a lot of it, which has worked out surprisingly well. I was also lucky enough to have my buddy who's a long-time BattleTech fan dig his Citytech 2nd Ed and a few other sourcebooks out of his attic, which have helped a bit. The 1 area I have questions about is city settings and more specifically building Construction Factors (CF) and elevations/levels for different disticts. I'm thinking this is an important thing for the eventuality that players mount up in 'Mechs and shift from Out of Cockpit scale to Mech Scale - whcih will almost certainly figure into some of my adventures. So far I only have 1 elevation for skyscrapers and a very general one at that. Here's a list of what I have so far in my main location tables for city districts and the CF's I've assigned to them:

* City: The Docks (Space and common transport) (heavy buildings, CF 90)
* City: Warehouses (heavy buildings, CF 90)
* City: Slums (light buildings, CF 15)
* City: Ghetto (light buildings, CF 15)
* City: Entertainment District (medium buildings, CF 40) - a theater row or casino row and the types of buildings (bars/restaraunts) intermingled amongst them
* City: University (heavy building, CF 90)
* City: Government (hardenned building, CF 120)
* City: Skyscrapers (medium buildings, CF40, Lvl 4+)
* City: Museum / Library (medium buildings, CF 40)

Having not been guided through BT urban settings via the creativity of an author, I'm honestly not even sure about areas like slums, ghettos and entertainment districts, but they sure make for fun and interesting places in adventures. My thoughts around Goverment buildings is that they'd likely be hardened due to a war that's raged for centuries - gotta keep those beurocrats safe. I also figured BT planets might want to keep their most promising future "human capital" safe, hence Universities being heavy. I'm also thinking due to their critical importance that space and transport ports as well as warehouses are going to be heavy at minimum. My thoughts on Entertainment districts, is that the rich and famous like to entertained too, so they're medim CF buildings at minimum - maybe they should be heavy? I haven't included low-rise residential, because I'm not sure if its common to BT universe cities, but if so I imagine they're CF 15, and Level 2-.

My biggest question is around whether the CF's I've come up with are way off base and what the appropriate levels would be for such buildings? Are they more or less equivalent to levels we find for contemporary Earth, or much different? Any feedback anyone could give me would be appreciated.

[Edit] Arggh, somehow I missed listing business districts :
* City: Business district (medium buildings, CF 40)

[warrenss2]

[kronovan]

[kronovan]

[VonDan]

And you need some sort of game rules that let you salvage from downed mechs so the gruff but loveable one legged former mech jock who is the chief mechanic can build one off creations
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http://s61.photobucket.com/albums/h51/Vondan/

[kronovan]

VonDan, I think that's already there in the existing BattleTech rules. I know that in my Sword & Dragon book the section on War Chests covers selling, repairing and modifying units. There's also a section in the CBT Intro rules about constructing 'Mechs from scratch. I can't imagine that part of it would be any different for Savage Battletch, with the exception that it'll require a WC with repair to pull it off.

[peregry]

[peregry]

Sorry about the delay, our internal v11 is complete, but in proofing I found a few things I need to fix before public release (typos, bad layout, that sort of thing).

Assuming things are slow at work, I may be able to finish up the release version of the rules and get it posted here tomorrow.
_________________
- Peregry
It is always giant stompy robot time!

[kronovan]

[peregry]

I am certain there is some sort of generic suits that the other Houses had, the list of armor there is heavily based off of what I could find on Sarna, which doesn't have every little thing from the various MechWarrior RPG books.

Keep in mind the equipment listing in the SBT rules is suppose to suppliment, rather than supplant, the equipment in the SW core books (except in the case of Power Armor/Battle Armor). Tornado armor is a special proto-Battle Armor that ComStar had, whereas the Successor States did not. Before the advent of Battle Armor, most of the Successor States infantry make use of the same type of things we use now, so a camoflogued suit of armor is the best they could hope for.

Post advent of Battle Armor, the Successor States had a bunch new options. Infiltrator and Infiltrator Mk2 for the FedCom (later FedSun and LyrCom), Kage for the Dracs, etc. Anything with the Stealth property or better was developed for infiltration and covert operations. You'll also note that most of the armor with the Stealth property is not Heavy Armor, making it much more useable on SW scale combat than the heavier armor.

I am trying desperately to not differentiate types of camo (IR, Visible Light, etc) as it leads into a level of crunch that is both difficult to balance and a pain and the ass to GM. Instead, we try to find an average value and grant a generic bonus to Stealth, with advanced sensor granting generic bonuses to Notice. Sure, it ain't as crunchy or simmy as some may like, but we hold the mantra for Savage Worlds dear: "Fast, Furious, Fun!" and having to calculate three or more ways of detecting someone when sneaking is not fast nor furious and only to some is it fun.
_________________
- Peregry
It is always giant stompy robot time!

[kronovan]

Many thanks for the info.

[peregry]

Well, the thing to keep in mind is that BattleTech material sciences make our look like... well... chumps.

I don't know the calulculations for it (my brother, who's our numbers ape on the team does), but suffice to say, BattleTech armor is damn close to physics breaking.

What I'm saying is that you can probably just take the stats for combat vest and add on the Stealth Armor trait. Make it Uncommon availiblity rather than Common and be done with it.

Hell, I may just add that in the next release, I plan on doing extensive reworking on the equipment section for r12.
_________________
- Peregry
It is always giant stompy robot time!

[peregry]

Savage BattleTech Rules - Revision 11 - 06/21/2012

Specific Changes:

• Core Concept renamed to Mech Scale Core Concepts
  
  • General Conversion section reworked for clarity and to introduce concepts in a logical order.
  
  While rereading the rules section, I found that some ideas were not introduced in a good order. Expect more changes to the layout and presentation of the document in future revisions.
  
  
• "Piloting" Section reworked and broken up into new section
  
  • Piloting Skills section introducing the core skills
  
  • Movement section introducing movement rules
  
  Note: New rule added: If a unit begins a turn with no MP due to damage/heat, it cannot change facing that turn.
  
  This rule plugs a hole from removing the MP cost for facing changes.
  
  Note: Some rules that used to be in this section have been reloacted to different sections. For instance the "Movement Bonus to Defense" rules have been relocated from here to the Defense section to allow for logical idea progression.
  
  • Defense and Attack section created
  
  Movement Bonus to Defense has changed. The bonus now begins with +1 at 5 hexes moved and then progresses every two after, capping at +6 for 15+ hexes.
  
  Ranged Defense and Mech Parry have been merged into a single stat called Defense.
  
  Defense is calculated by taking the appropriate Piloting Skill and dividing by 2.
  
  Mech Melee skill has been removed, Melee attacks are now resolved as Mech Piloting -2 vs Defense.
  
  These changes are a result of both discussions here and within our group. While it may seem this is a major nerf to defences, it is actually a minor readjustment downwards. When all the changes are tallied, the actual change to defenses works out to either one lower for slow mechs, or equal for fast mechs due to downward adjustments of the Range modifiers. The Speed and Range modifiers may be further tweaked in the future if we find fast mechs to easy to hit. Feedback will be greatly appreciated on this.
  
  • Critical Hits section reworked for clarity. Critical Hits now classified in one of three ways: Penetrating Crits for Crits resulting from raises, Locational Crits for Crits resulting from rolls on the hit location table, and Structural Crits for Crits rolled due to internal structure damage.
  
  This was done to clarify terminology, and potentially open up new rules or Edges that can modify the specific types of critical hits.
  
  
• Battle Armor rules slightly modified.
  
  • Defense for Battle Armor is calculated by taking Agility divided by two and adding 1.
  
  In core BattleTech Battle Armor automatically has a -1 from larger enemies. This new formula reflects this bonus.
  
  
• Special Equipment rules updated.
  
  • Supercharger added to the MASC rules.
  
  • Cooldown added to the MASC/Supercharger TN.
  
  This brings the MASC rules more into line with core BT rules and helps clarify how they work. The Supercharger is effectively identical to a MASC when it comes to the rolls involved in BT, so its included with it in the rules section.
  
  
• Stealth Rules updated
  
  • Beagle and Active Probes now add +2 to Notice stealthed units,
  Bloodhound adds +4.
  
  We had previously not addressed how these devices aided in SBT when involved with the Stealth skill, this helps make those pieces of equipment more functional and valuable. More equipment will likely be added to the Stealth section as we figure out specific rules for them.
  
  
• Clan Character Options Updated
  
  • Clan racial backgrounds now have additional bonuses and complications.
  
  Due to the Mech Melee changes, Clan MechWarriors needed to be updated to reflect their disdane and lack of skill in it. This racial penalty needed to be offset by a new bonus, resulting in the Sibko Training ability being expanded to allow Clanners to have one skill from a short list reflective of their Clan at a d6. This was worked into Clan Aerospace Pilots, replacing the previous Low Light Vision (which was, as noted here, unsupported by canon and admittedly a placeholder), and Clan Elementals (by having them gain new penalties on certain skills due to their bulk).
  
  
• Edge Revisions
  
  • Enhanced Mech Melee updated, now adds +2 to Piloting when making Melee attacks.
  
  • Furious Charge, Improved Furious Charge, and BattleMech two fisted removed.
  
  • New Edge: Gunkatta. Allows a MechWarrior to fire the weapons in the arm used in a melee attack in the same round of combat!
  
  Mech Pilots with Enhanced Mech Melee now completely offset the inherant penalty. This allows those who are not familiar to still make various melee attacks, while giving people who invest in it clear advantages. Furious Charge was removed due to it not fitting canon of BattleTech in any way, and being generally overpowered. BattleMech Two Fisted was removed as being unneeded. Due to the dual-actions that MechWarriors get, Mechs can attack freely with weapons in either hand with no penalty. Gunkatta was added to give more options to Melee fighters.
  
  • Leadership Edges updated to so that units equipped with C3 and C3i units are always considered to be within the Command Radius.
  
  
• All tables have been reformatted for readability.
  
  
• Appendix A greatly expanded.
  
  • Piloting Skill modifiers tables added.
  
  • Attack Modifiers tables greatly expanded.
  
  Due to popular demand, the only tablets from Core BT that are now required to be found are the Cluster Hits, Critical Hits and Hit Location Tables.
  
  
• General Formatting clean up.
  
  
• Appendix B: The Inner Sphere and Near Periphery added
  
  • Work in progress section, eventually will be expanded with special information for characters from the Inner Sphere.
  
  
• Appendix C: The Clans Added
  
  • Special information used for the Clan Racial Backgrounds and the Freebirth hindrance added to this section, as well as an overview of
  Zellbrigen.
  
  This section was added to due to the modifications of the Clan races as well as to help clarify some things with the Code of Honor: Zellbrigen and the Freebirth hindrances.
  

_________________
- Peregry
It is always giant stompy robot time!

[kronovan]

I've been going through the Release 11 doc and I'm more impressed than ever, great job! I really like the tables in the appendix and printed them out on cardstock immediately. I have noted a few typos and errors.

On pg. 10 there's mention of an IIF transponder, but if that's anything like the Identify Friend or Foe transpodners that are found in contemporary military jets it should be spelled IFF. Of course if that's an acronym something else ignore that.

Pg. 14 in the paragraphs for Repair:(Smt), the 2nd paragaph ends with an incomplete sentence: "If any of the rolls fail, the weapon is rendered useless as if it"

Pg.17 Legendary Defeat (Major/Minor) hindrance. The 1st sentence states "This Edge cannot be taken by a Novice characters,.." Should read "This Hindrance cannot be taken"

On pg. 19 you have the Enhanced Mech Melee edge listing d8 Mech Melee as a prerequsite skill, but that skill was removed for R11. The Prerequisite should now be d8 Mech Piloting. This edge is more important than ever, as it nulls the new default penalty of -2 for physical 'Mech attacks. The incorrect skill is also listed for the BattleMech Frenzy edge.

The edge on pg 22 is spelled MacGuiver, but the correct spelling is MacGyver. Angus MacGyver would be none to happy with you for that.

Not a typo as much as a minor suggestion. Pg 37 in the 2nd page of the Attack Modifiers table, under Terrain Modifiers for Depth 2 Water it should probably be parenthesed to the right, or footnoted, as "blocked for 'Mechs out of water"

Something I noted that exists in the A Time of War quick start rules and in the Thrilling Tales Savage World book is this hindrance:

Glass Jaw (Major) -2 penalty to soak rolls

It exists in the AToW QSR Combat Tech archetype. I'm going to house rule it in my game, but it seems like it might be a good hindrance for SBT for characters that aren't primarily frontline, combat focused archetypes?

[peregry]

As always, thanks for those catches. They will be corrected.

You may want to mention the MacGuiver thing to Clint, as that's how it's spelled in the core book. .

Glass jaw will be added.
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- Peregry
It is always giant stompy robot time!

[Zadmar]

[kronovan]

[peregry]

I will double check and correct it then. Again, good catches.

If you're impressed with v11, I don't know what you'll say about the v12 that is in the works. It's going to have a major layout overhaul to be laid out more like a proper suppliment, more character creation options and hopefully will reflect further playtesting and numbers refinements.
_________________
- Peregry
It is always giant stompy robot time!