I never played SW, but did Dead Lands, how does SW work, is it similar?

T2K has the beauty of being simple. NPCs are supposed to be grouped into teams or squads, so they don't draw individual cards. I hope there will be another mechanic, once they do a mass skirmish system. But for now, I can live with what's available. Basically, it's 10 steps of initiative and not every step gets filled.

T2k 4e, each PC and NPC (or group) draws a card; SW same, but....

-- all are drawing from a standard deck of cards, plus Jokers, and the deck is not shuffled after every round.* Cards are dealt every round.
-- order of initiative is high card to low, Aces high, suit order is Spades-Hearts-Diamonds-Clubs.
-- you can pass your action, and you would hold your card for that.
-- Jokers are wild: someone who draws a Joker can go at anytime (don't think they can interrupt an action, I can't remember), and will have a hefty bonus to one die roll in their action. The deck is reshuffled after a Joker is drawn.
-- A rare few of the Edges can affect the initiative draw. There's one that can draw 2 cards per round, and keep whichever they choose (That's also in T2k4, I see.) There's one that allows one to keep drawing cards if their card is under 5. There's one that can trade cards between player characters. I think there are several that trigger extra benefits if that character is dealt a Joker, but I've never seen those in play.

There's probably some more options that I've forgotten, and I'm sure some of the different setting books have their own variations. I haven't actually played in 3-4 years, so I may be fuzzy on details.
I've never played Deadlands, but I think this is similar.

Again, I hadn't played in 3+ years, but the only-10-cards in the T2k4 deck left me a little cold. Maybe not enough variability, maybe I'm just missing the feel of shuffling a "normal" sized deck of cards?

I see, that's really like Deadlands then. Except in DL, some cards are also really bad.

Moving this discussion here:

How does some guy have an A-10 to start the game and I got only 1 spare mag?

Starting Gear
 

He's in the rear with the gear, and you're at the tip of the spear. :D

Seriously though, that's a fair question.

Starting gear in 4e: too little, too much, or just right?

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4e = too little. 1.0/2.0/2.2 = too much. 2013 = about right. I like that personal equipment gives player's some decision and agency about how they play their character. I mean, who wants to play a medic with no aid kit, or a rifleman with no rifle.

Also, the personal equipment sacrifice rules in 2013 also bring something really cool to the game. When the RTO's radio stops an otherwise deadly round but now you ain't got no radio, that's really impactful on multiple levels.

If ultra low gear availability is part of the pre-game social contract and core campaign concept ('you POWs will start with nothing...the exception being Major Coolidge has his grand daddy's war watch in his rectum...') then fine.

But it shouldn't come down to a 1d6 roll or some random table that doesn't align well with the character concept. Like the 4e equipment table that will give your combat service support 'medic' some surgical tools and a set of basic tools (like pliers and wrenches), but no actual medical kit. :rolleyes:

I do think the character gear generation in 4E is kinda flawed, or seems incomplete. The group gear section is a lot of fun and a great idea, but also could definitely use some more expansiveness. I understand they were under a pretty hard page limit but it just seems like both of those sections needed another full page and they'd be great.

But in terms of amount of core gear, and ammo, it feels mostly fine to me. I don't think a PC should be running for their lives after losing a major battle and still have 500+ rounds of ammo, etc. One thing 4E does very well through the low starting ammo allocation, and the general deadliness of the system, is encourage you to be cautious about getting into fights.

What's that rule? Is it as simple as "sacrifice something cool in exchange for plot armor"? Who gets to decide, and when?

It's a Stage III optional rule on page 209.

Pretty much this. I always thought the 'purchase' system that the earlier versions used made zero sense. You'd end up with people trying to find ways to spend thousands of USD equivalent and 4e goes too far in the opposite direction, I presume because the design intent is to 'encourage' foraging each hex square on a map.

One thing I thought was often overlooked in games was 'the dead guy's gear.' i had a brief exposure to a 4e online game and we had a dead guy in the Bradley when we started in media res. So I said to the GM 'what about his gear? What are we doing about that?' And he was like 'uh, what do you mean?' So I was like 'well surely the guy has gear.' And the GM was like 'we're not divvying up a dead NPC's gear.'

It seemed like a pretty reasonable request to me. I mean, I know a game where a German LRRP would probably still be stuck on the wrong side of the Vistula if they hadn't been able to use dead NPC's parkas that the GM signed off on before the start to pay the ferryman.

On a serious note I think that does give some latitude for explaining 'extra' gear. I mean, let's face it, looting the corpse is usually pretty much one of the first thing that happens whenever a PC / NPC dies in any game I've been in.

I saw a facebook post by Maciej Komaszyło about finding shelter in the TW2K world. He pointed out that 50% of the world died and many of those deaths were due to famine and disease. So empty houses/apartments/dwellings should be prevalent.

This is my thought as well. Were all the dead buried with their worldly possessions like Egyptian pharos? Prolly not.

I mean, the Ukranians are arming up with WW2 DP-27 MGs.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...%20in%20Russia.

At the end of the world, people and not-easily manufactured consumables are going to be scarce, but relatively durable goods (Rifles, Bayonets, LBE components, Rucksacks - which 4e treats like unicorns BTW - etc.) are going to be plentiful, IMHO.

I got a rucksack but the gear I had would have fitted in my pockets...

Agreed that 4e feels very limited when it comes to gear, especially when stacked up against 1 and 2.

Not only that, but one part of 4e I'm not big on at all is the encumbrance abstraction. I get that they were trying to streamline the rules, but the whole 3kg per unit of weight thing just feels weird and wrong to me. Much prefer the earlier versions where players can track gear on a per lb./kg basis.

Anyone know if there's been some character sheets for 4e created that fiddle with the equipment section to bring it more in line with previous versions?

My quick fix for the EU problem is that each PC should just multiply their carrying capacity by 3 (which gives the amount of kilograms they can carry) and then account for stuff in KGs from that point on, using older sources or Paul's site, with the exception of clothing and LBE.

So a STR 8 PC who would normally carry 8 EU of gear, would be able to carry 24 kg of gear on their person, and another 24kg in their pack.

Every game I've been in has had PCs want gear that doesn't appear in the book. Converting those to EU is more complex than just dealing with their KG weights.

I did the same for Mutant: YEAR ZERO, and I'd also convert Ranges back to meters. I like to different map scales based on whether the engagement is several hundred meters or just a few meters apart. Don't give me an arbitrary scale, give me a distance that I CAN SCALE to my maps or battle board.

My PC just fired an aimed shot at an NPCs head, and hit him.

Did 3 points of damage due to a single success.

The game moved on. My reading of the rules is that it doesn't matter if you get hit in the leg, arm or head, there is no benefit in hitting someone in the head or torso unless you also qualify for a critical hit.

So taking an aimed shot and hitting a called target doesn't give you much benefit unless you roll two or more successes/hits to qualify for the critical.

In my case, running a solo game, i house ruled that a called shot also qualifies for a critical hit, even if there's only one success.

If he had a vest on and no helmet, then you avoided armor reducing the damage. If he had a helmet on and no vest, you just reduced your own damage. So even without critical hits, it can be useful to perform an aimed shot.

That's correct, and a bit contentious. My own house ruling on this has been that any hit to the head causes automatic suppression.

"Rolled" up my first couple of characters using the archetype method. The process was surprisingly fast and resulted in characters that feel balanced.

I know that some people really enjoy the char-gen process but it's one of my least favorite aspects of T2k. Even though I'm more interested in role playing than "roll playing", I tend to get fixated on maximizing PC skill efficiency and effectiveness (min-maxing, I think this is called). The more steps, pieces (abilities, skills, etc.), and maths there are, the more frustrated I find myself becoming. In v1-2.2, there are a lot more steps, so to speak. I've gen'd up PCs using really well-thought out point-buy systems for skills, adding even more granularity to the process. It often takes quite a while. In PbP, it's taken 4-6 players a couple of weeks to finish char-gen. I imagine if this were translated to FtF, it would have taken at least a couple of hours. At the end of it all, I usually feel like a have a PC that's a jack-of-all trades but master of none (or one, at most). And if you're a player or Ref whose actually used the Parachute skill in a game, I'd love to hear the story!

In 4e, there are still choices, but they feel more clear cut, and there was significantly less agonizing during selection. It's clear that a PC can't be good at everything one might want him/her to be. It's easier to focus and prioritize when there are fewer choices to make. It took me about 10 minutes, consulting the rule book for every step, to gen up the first trial PC. After than, I could crank one out in about 5 minutes. This seems pretty ideal for players who want to jump right in and start playing right the game.

Of course, it remains to be seen how these archetype build PCs actually play in a campaign, when faced with skill checks and combat. I may change my mind after giving them a test drive or two (if they survive that long).

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Character creation and T2K timeline are the two things i care about the least. I find both uninteresting, easy to house rule yourself to get the result you want and entirely personal.

I first got into RPGs back in the late 70's (?!). My cousin, who i used to see 3 or 4 times a year, used to Ref while i played. I first remember playing Top Secret. He always made me roll up a rookie character. After a few games, i got sick of it though. I kept dieing and could never grow my PC. But he was relentless in me starting as a rookie PC.

Same thing happened when we moved on to James Bond, which is still one of the best game systems i've seen. My rookie taking on single or multiple "double 0" NPCs. By then i was a bit older and wiser. Had read the rules myself, and knew there was a way to make a "00" character using the rule book.

But personally, i choose or let my players decide what their character is, then just reflect the numbers on the character sheet. No rolling, very little editing, no link back to the rule book. Just make up whatever character you want. Its quicker, and gets the Ref and player into the game of their choice straight away.

Good luck running your characters through their first few encounters. I'm close to writing up my own adventure in the "Post Apocalypse Creative writing" thread. Or maybe i'll just post the encounters in my own thread here. My character, mission, random encounters and how i've interpreted the V4.0 rules.

I've rolled up a good dozen or so chars for 4e using the life path method (on top of translating the char-gen rules into a flowchart), and I've been pretty happy with it as a character generation method. IMO, the 4e rules are a bit of a give and take over the older rule sets, but on the whole, I find them to be a tad better.

Pros:

• Less options leads to less analysis paralysis.
• Not only kept, but streamlined the life path method from 2e, which was always one of my favorite aspects.
• Once you get your feet under you, it's undeniably fast. If you're willing to just accept whatever the dice rolls, it can be even faster. I imagine someone could program out an automatic character generator (if it hasn't happened already) relatively quickly.

Cons:

• It's simple. Perhaps overly so. There's a part of me that misses the higher number of attributes and extreme number of skills. Sometimes the lack of skills don't make a ton of sense, such as how a race car driver suddenly is an expert at driving a tank.
• Specialties seem like a bit of a waste to me. FL could have done something with specialties that could give them a little more pop than just a +1 on skill rolls. As is, they all feel a little generic.
• The Life Path method can occasionally result in some poorly balanced characters within the same group. Depending upon someone's attribute score rolling, you could have one character with a ACCC in their skills, with another character that had an AAAC in their skills. I end up just giving all of my players 4 points to distribute just to keep it balanced.

Question on specialties. Does it say anywhere how many you get during character generation?

Or can you add a specialty during a campaign? Or is it simply one specialty skill per PC?

I believe if you go with the archetype method, you only get a single starting specialty. If you go life path method though, it can vary quite a bit based upon when war breaks out and how well you roll for promotions. I think my record was five or six specialties on one character, but most ended up with 2 or 3. It should be noted that generally speaking, life path method characters will be a little stronger than the archetype characters, due to the high chance for more attribute points (2 to 6 instead of a flat +3) and the added specialties.

Regardless of char-gen method, players can also buy additional Specialties with XP, once the campaign is under way (p. 40 of the Player Manual).

@Heffe: As a Ref, I think I'd house-rule chargen so that players using the archetype method could also add one skill level and one specialization from the Childhood table on p. 32. IMO, the archetypes do a decent job of capturing a relatively early career's-worth accumulation of skills, but glosses over anything that came before starting said career. I think adding that one additional skill level and specialization would help round out an archetype build a bit better, and make him/her a bit more "competitive" with Life-path generated PCs. I think adding the Childhood package would also help archetype characters feel a little more real by giving them a bit more backstory (e.g. "So and so grew up in a small rural town, hunting and fishing nearly every weekend...").

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One big advantage of the Archetype method of chargen is the ability to pick any Specialty, yes, lifepath gives more Specialties, but since it is random, it is possible to end up without what one may consider a 'defining' trait. I made a couple of lifepath characters to be translators, and neither got the Specialty to speak another language.

I ran an ad hoc, shake-and-bake session at Adepticon, and we used Archetype chargen only, and it is nice when you are introducing the game to new players to be able to make playable characters in such a short time.

If I were going to be a player in a campaign, I would choose Lifepath, because it gives characters more......character. But, even min/maxers could do worse than the Operator Archetype with Sniper or Combat Awareness; they may not be old-school snake-eaters, but they can still do work.

Yep that seems like a good workaround for folks wanting the archetype experience. I suppose you could always just house rule all of it pretty easily as well by giving people 3-4 attribute points, 10-12 skill points, and a couple specialties.

Question on page 50 of the players manual. Under specialties, what's the difference between Infiltrator skill and scout?

Scout gives you +1 for spotting others and avoid ambushes. I assume this gives you +1 on the ambush roll from page 60 to spot an encounter before they spot you?

Infiltrator gives you +1 when trying to remain undetected. Does this +1 apply to the ambush roll? Or is it used at a different time and place, like trying to creep past a sentry?

So scout is used to spot the encounter first. Then infiltrator is used to get closer (ambushing, closing distance to enemy per table on page 61)? Or creep past a sentry or into a house? Or something entirely different?

I have a similar type of distinction in my game BUT I'm playing a Merc2000-style game.

The Scout = Has both Stealth and Observation skills and can hide or avoid the enemy. Also good at Tracking and identifying enemy personnel. operates from camouflaged or concealed positions and avoids enemy contact whenever possible.

The Infiltrator = Has Disguise/Acting and Interrogation and Observation skills. They enter into a place or group by posing as a member of that group to gain "Intelligence" about that group by listening and even asking questions of various group members. They "blend in" to hide and would be called "The Grey Man" in Tradecraft circles (yes this is a thing, GOOGLE it). The girls in the original 1980 Red Dawn are an example of Infiltrators.

I think you are correct re Scout. As I understand it, Infiltrator is more for avoiding detection when moving in the presence of patrols, sentries, etc. but, as it reads, Infiltrator could also be applied when trying to move stealthily into position to "ambush [an enemy] in close combat", as per:

"If you want to ambush in close combat, you need to move into the same hex as your target." (p. 60 of PDF)

I hope someone with more 4e experience will chime in to confirm or correct.

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For Draftees: Archetype > Lifepath
 

I've noticed a potential balancing issue where the Archetype actually trumps Lifepath- the fresh-out-of-high-school draftee.

After mastering Archetype char-gen, I decided to play around with the Lifepath method for a couple of concepts for older, more experienced PCs. I realized that said PCs would probably end up more capable than most (if not all) Archetypes and I was worried about balance in mixed char-gen method party, so I tried to roll up a youngish draftee PC with Lifepath, thinking that it would yield a slightly more capable build than an Archetype. I quickly discovered that Lifepath produced a significantly less capable youngish draftee PC.

Using an Archetype for said base concept actually yields a couple more skills (and better CUF rating) for the PC than the using the Lifepath rules for drafted characters, which state:

"THE DRAFT: If your final term before war breaks out was spent as a civilian (except Intelligence careeers), and if your character is not a local of the country where your game is set, your At War term will be spent as a draftee or volunteer in the military. In this case, one of the two skill increases for the At War term must be RANGED COMBAT – unless you already have a level of D or better in the skill – and you roll for your specialty (or choose) using the Military column." (p. 39, 4e Players Manual)

Assuming no prior, post-childhood career, the Lifepath draftee ends up with a measly three skills (one from childhood, two from The Draft rules) and CUF D.

There's nothing in the rules that says an Archetype PC can't be a draftee. Assuming The Grunt, for example, is a draftee- he/she starts with six skills and CUF C.

The only way in which a Lifepath draftee tops an Archetype draftee is in the Attribute scores (all starting at C, and potentially receiving 6 upgrades, depending on the 2d3 roll).

Adding a civie career prior to being drafted adds two more skills but, after applying the draft term skills, the total is still one less than any Archetype. CUF remains at an anemic D. You might score an extra specialty, if the dice are kind.

So yeah, the vast majority of Lifepath builds are going to be more skilled, possess higher attributes, and have more specialties to start, than pretty much all the Archetype builds (save, perhaps, The Operator). For for your young draftee characters, though, the Archetype is the better option.

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There's definitely the opportunity for archetype characters to be better than lifepath characters. I think a ton depends on your rolls themselves - 3 attributes for archetype chars is fine, but the option for 6 from a lifepath character is huge. Of course, someone rolling poorly might only get 2 attribute points from the lifepath method...Same thing for when war breaks out, aging effects, etc.

In general, I think FL tended to make the archetype chars just slightly worse than lifepath on average. Using the attribute points as a baseline, the only way to make the archetype truly equal to lifepath chars would be to give the archetype chars 4 attribute points. FL intentionally chose to give them only 3 points, however, presumably to balance out some other advantage that archetype chars had, or as a buffer against lifepath chars that happen to just roll really poorly.

Best of Both Worlds?
 

I'm trying to work out a hybrid char-gen system that uses elements of both Archetype and Lifepath. I want a little more flexibility and capability than Archetype offers, but less randomness (and fewer rolls) than Lifepath. I also don't want to make the hybrid more complicated than Lifepath, or encourage min-max'ing.

Suggestions are welcome.

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Start with the Archetype. Then...

My house rule is that once your skill is C or higher, you get a specialty for it. So if you select Recon C, you could get one of Forward Observer, Historian, Infiltrator, Intelligence, Investigator, Scout.

So each of you will start with 3 specialties.

One for your B skill, and one for each C level skill. More can be learned in game.

Does reloading break aim?
 

I really like that, Spartan. I think that's the route I'm going to go. Thanks!

Here's a question about action economy during ranged combat:

The Aiming rules state,

"If you do anything else except shoot your weapon after you have aimed, you lose the effect of the aim and you need to spend another fast action to aim again. You can fire repeatedly at the same target without breaking your aim." (PM p. 64)

This can be interpreted two ways, as I read it. One, since reloading is doing "anything else except shoot your weapon", it breaks aim, and another fast action must be spent after reloading to aim before resuming fire. The bit about "you can fire repeatedly at the same target without breaking your aim", however, could be interpreted to mean that after reloading, another fast action to aim is not required as long as the PC resumes firing at the same target as before.

Which is the correct interpretation?

Also, does "you can fire repeatedly at the same target without breaking your aim" mean that you don't have to use a fast action to aim each turn, if you've done it once initially (assuming the target doesn't change, of course)?

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The way I read it is that on a subsequent turn, so long as you haven't taken any other actions, you can continue firing without needing to aim. Given that firing takes a slow action however, that really only means that you can fire on that subsequent turn, and then either stay there doing nothing, or moving using your fast action after you've fired. To me at least, reloading is taking a separate action, and thus would break your aim.

Explosions
 

A question about explosions:

A PC grenadier targets an enemy occupied hex. He rolls a hit. The 40mm HE round from his M203 does 3 damage and has a blast rating of D.

Do both direct hit (3) and blast damage (results of 2d6 roll) apply to every enemy within the same hex? I assume the answer is yes, but I'd appreciate confirmation or correction.

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This question has come up a lot over the past few months since the way the rule book is written (and the grenade example they use on pg 68 doesn't help) leave a lot to be desired. We ended up asking FL directly for clarification here. The TL;DR is that you generally can have an easier time hitting someone with a heavy weapon but do less damage, or have a harder time hitting them but doing more damage.

When using a heavy weapon, such as a grenade launcher, generally a PC would aim for a large target such as a hex. When targeting a hex, the damage done to the target is only the blast damage, not the direct damage. The benefit of this approach is that you don't get any penalties for aiming at a large target (hex or vehicle).

When aiming for a small target directly with a heavy weapon (such as an individual enemy), you would receive a -2 to hit penalty, and therefore have a higher chance of your shot deviating. The benefit of aiming directly at a person however, is that if you hit, you do both the direct damage AND the blast damage.

As I mentioned, the way it's written is a little vague, but it can be found on pages 70 and 71 of the player manual.

I think a lot of the reason for the vague approach here in the book is that things are...abstracted? a lot when it comes to explosions. For example, if you lob a grenade directly at a person and hit despite the -2 penalty, you'd do 2 direct damage in addition to the blast damage. In this instance, the 2 direct damage from the grenade is abstracted as the grenade landing at someone's feet or right under them, as opposed to the damage being imparted from the kinetic energy of the grenade literally smacking someone in the chest after being thrown. Contrast this with other weapons where the direct damage is a representation of that kinetic energy transfer, such as a 30mm round hitting someone in the arm and tearing their arm off.

Hm. That's an interesting take. I was interpreting the two distinct damage types as representing shrapnel (Direct Damage) and concussive blast (Explosion), similar to the system employed by v2.2. It's familiar and it makes sense to me, real world modelling-wise.

I get the point v area target trade-off argument, but there are already modifiers in place to model that. As I read back through the Heavy Weapons section again, I don't see anything that specifically states or even implies that both types of damage would not be applied to targets within a hex if that hex was the intended targeted and a hit was rolled.

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Like I said, the wording leaves a lot to be desired. If it's helpful, here's their written response from back when I asked a similar question about grenades. Unless I may have misinterpreted the response somehow?

Heffe: I had a quick question or two about grenades that I'd love some clarity on. First, an easy one. Do grenades suffer from deviation on misses? Reason would indicate that they would, but it's not stated explicitly in the player handbook so I wanted to ask just to be sure.

FL: Hand Grenades have some special rules about them, but other than those they follow the rules of Heavy Weapons, so yes the deviate if you miss.

Heffe: Second, grenade damage - grenades are listed with both direct damage and blast power. The example of a grenade being used in the player's handbook (pg. 68) indicates that the grenade only did blast damage to Diaz. Is that because the grenade only landed in the same hex as Diaz and wasn't targeting Diaz? Is there a certain proximity to a grenade that a target should be before they take both the direct damage and the blast damage? Should grenades only have blast damage and not both types? Or was the example just written poorly and Diaz should have taken more damage? Any thoughts here or official rulings would be super helpful to clarify the intent of the rules on this topic.

FL: When you use a Heavy Weapon, like a Grenade Launcher (or a thrown HandGrenade), you can target an individual (with a -2 penalty) or you can target something big (like a vehicle) or you can just target the hex. If you target an individual (or a large target), then that individual (if you hit) will suffer Direct Damage (2 for a frag grenade +1 for each extra success) and then there will be a blast (C for a frag grenade) that will do damage according to the explosion rules.
So, since -2 is a lot, it might be good enough to just aim the HandGrenade for the hex instead. Sure, no one will get the Direct Damage, but you also hopefully won't miss.

Source: https://forum.frialigan.se/viewtopic...t=hand+grenade

40mm Nerf GL
 

Thanks for the link, Heffe. Fenhorn is a mod, but is he an official FL spokesperson? I haven't spent as much time on that forum as you have, but my impression is that he is not.

If his interpretation is correct, 40mm grenades, at least, are severely nerfed. They have a blast power of D (which only does 1 damage on a successful damage roll). On an indirect (?) hit (i.e. the hex was targeted, not an individual person), the Ref rolls two d6s to determine blast damage. Since you can't push that roll, it has only a 31% chance of doing any damage whatever to enemies within that hex.

That's super low, wouldn't you say? It kind of negates even rolling a successful HW attack with the GL, I would argue.

Here's why I asked this question in the first place. I was soloing a firefight. The Blue Force grenadier rolled a hit on a hex occupied by two prone OPFOR*. I rolled the 2d6s, showing no sixes. So, the two OPFOR in the targeted (and hit) 10m hex escaped injury from a 40mm exploding within same.

If I'm reading this rule correctly, being prone makes one completely immune from a level D blast:

PRONE: If the target is prone, the blast power is reduced one step.

Since D is the lowest level blast, reducing it one step means no blast at all? Or would that mean rolling only one d6? (That would lower the chances of the hit doing any damage to 17%)

Unless the design intent was to nerf 40mm grenades, I think Fenhorn must be wrong (or I'm still missing something).

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