I don't mind the fast healing either. It definitely doesn't feel as realistic, but it can sometimes make the game feel like a bit of an action/adventure movie, which I think is more fun given the setting. Characters get shot once or twice, but then before you know it they're back on their feet and in the fight.

I think your doing it right.

Further, you will now have two groups rolling recon. And while one group has a high chance of success and another group a lower chance - overall the chances of someone being spotted has likely gone up due to needing to roll for two groups.

So not only do I think your doing it right, but even if you weren't i don't think your gaming the system because overall you have increased your chance of failure anyway!

Allowing separate group Recon (i.e. stealth) rolls could also create interesting tactical situations in which the OPFOR detects one PC group but not another (or vice-versa).

I'm not sure how that would work with the Surprise/Initiative rules, though. Off the top of my head, an undetected group could move closer to its opposition while said is preoccupied with an another group.

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Most recent info from FL (Tomas officially) regarding how grenade damage works. From the FL forums:

"Hello!

For vehicle cannons 20-40mm, the idea is that they are fired like machine guns (with ammo dice), with the added effect that they also trigger an explosion in the hex where a target is hit. The vehicle cannons are different from the automatic or semi-automatic grenade launchers and mortars in that they are typically aimed at a specific target, not a hex.

And yes, when targeting a hex (not a specific target) with an explosive attack, targets in the blast radius suffer only explosive damage, no direct damage. In the reprint, the direct damage from fragmentation hand grenades has been removed. We will include this change in the updated PDF and errata."

And some more info from Tomas about how the system is proposed to work in the reprint:

“Hi! This is being adressed in the reprint, and we will of course update the PDF as well and include in an official errata. The new wording on the relevant paragraphs on page 66 in the Player's Manual goes:

AMMO DICE: Firearms give you ammo dice to add to your skill roll. Six such tan colored D6s are included in this boxed set. You can add as many ammo dice to your attack as you like, from zero up to the rate of fire (RoF) rating of your weapon or the number of rounds left in the magazine minus one, whichever is lower. For example, if you have three rounds left, you can add up to two ammo dice.
If you have only one round left, you cannot add any ammo dice to our roll. In this case, or if you choose to use no ammo dice, only one (1) round of ammunition is used in the attack. This is typically only the case for sniper shots (page 63), but can also be useful if you are very low on ammo or your weapon is in a bad condition (low reliability rating).

AMMO SPENT: After your roll, you sum up the D6 digits on all of your ammo dice, then add one (1) to the result. This sum is the total amount of ammunition you have spent on the attack. If the sum on your ammo dice is equal to or more than the number of rounds you have left in the magazine, your magazine is completely emptied.

I hope this clears things up.”

I still have to consider the full impact of the changes, but so far it seems like a positive move. It basically makes it so a flat skill roll is always your first shot, and then subsequent shots would provide ammo dice. It feels pretty clean at first glance.

It's good to get rules clarification from the source. Thanks for posting those, Heffe.

I've got mixed feelings about a reprint. Of course, it's good to have errors corrected, unclear mechanics clarified, confusing wordings fixed, etc. But it means that the my physical copies will be out-of-date, and I don't feel like paying full price for a few amendments. Hopefully, the PDF version will be updated free of charge.

Also, I asked about potential errata corrections 7 months ago on the Free League T2k forum and Tomas' response was sort of dismissive-

"As for an errata, you're of course welcome report errors, but I can't say that we have seen enough of them yet to merit an official errata."

I guess they've seen enough now.

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Hello team. I have my PC approaching a suspected sniper location which is a 3 story building. Sniper up top, with a novice NPC at street level.

I'm trying to collect all the modifiers that may apply to recon and ambush in this situation as my PC tries to take down the building.

Distance to encounter comes from PDF page 138.
If your in a vehicle and the opposition is on foot there's a -2 to recon (Doesn't apply in this situation).
Weather can impact distance per page 140.
Am i missing any other modifiers in the payer or ref manuals?

If the sniper spots your NPC and takes an aimed shot at him/her, the sniper gets a +1 modifier for firing from an elevated position.

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Another update after 12 sessions and 8 combats of play in my current campaign. We have one machinegunner (a very large Estonian with an MG3) in the party; everyone else is using an assault rifle, sniper rifle, or (sigh) SMG + machete combo.

Our table's implementation has been to ignore 1s on pushed ammo dice. When pushing a machine gun attack, only 1s on the base dice will reduce Reliability or cause jams.

Observation in play is that this doesn’t seem to be game-breaking. Balancing factors include increased ammo consumption (he’s encouraged to use his full ROF more, so his 7.62x51mm supply has been dwindling) and rigid enforcement of the penalty for hip-shooting a MG (p. 65 for those following along in the Player’s Manual). The net effect is that he spends the first turn or two of combat getting into a good shooting location with partial cover before he opens up, which, to my mind, is functioning as designed. He has jammed twice with double 1s on base dice, and he usually loses at least one point of Reliability each combat (which sucks up downtime actions for the party's techs to address).

- C.

I'd love to hear of more in game examples, and learnings. Or AARs to see what others are up to in their games, and even check modifiers and die rolls to see if they/I am interpreting rules correctly.

Not exactly what you're seeking, but I've been chronicling my campaign on my gaming blog at https://libellus.de-fenestra.com. There's a chronological index of campaign-specific posts here.

- C.

Agh that's excellent, thanks for the link. Looking forward to some great reading there.

I know long stories are not everyone cup of tea to write up, so my comment was aimed at anyone who wanted to only write up brief encounter AAR with no expectations of expansive creative writing.

Something that came up in last Friday's session of my campaign: vehicle commanders aren't that useful in coordinating crew actions. Solution:

Vehicle Command: As a slow action, the vehicle commander may coordinate the actions of his vehicle's crew. Make a Command check. With success, this counts as help (Player's Guide, p. 46) for each other crew member's actions this turn.

The timing for this wasn't an issue because of our house rules on initiative, though I can see how it could be difficult for tables that are using the book rules (even with the ability to exchange initiative with allies).

In the interest of balance, we restricted the benefit to actual crew positions, not passengers. There was some debate about whether human cargo using firing ports should benefit, but I felt that was excessive. If you want an in-game rationale, assume that only the actual crew seats have jacks for the vehicle’s intercom.

The main benefit here was to make the player running the vehicle commander (Ellis, for those following the campaign blog) feel like his XP investment in Command was paying off. So I'm counting it as provisionally successful.

- C.

Good thinking. I like this idea enough to use it. I would probably add the specific caveat that the PC must be a vehicle commander and not just any officer occupying a command position in the vehicle in order for the Help roll to apply to vehicular ops. A vehicle commander would have the knowledge and experience to effectively direct their vehicle crew during combat. An infantry, officer, for example, would likely have a good grip on infantry tactics, but probably wouldn't know enough about vehicle capabilities, crew roles and responsibilities, and/or the nuances of mounted combat to be particularly helpful (I could even see a non-vehicle commander officer character being a hindrance to crew effectiveness).

Are you thinking that this application of the Help roll would apply to both vehicle combat and driving checks? I would argue that it should.

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Attacks, driving, comms or sensor use - any reasonable crew actions that would benefit from overall coordination.

- C.

Help on a Group Ambush Recon roll
 

I may have already asked this question, but it's been almost a year since I've played the game, so...

Can a PC Help another on an opposed Recon roll for a Group Ambush situation?

Here's the situation: I've got two PCs trying to get into a position to observe an enemy POW camp (and eventually, attack the guards). Since they are trying to get into an OP without being detected by the enemy sentries, I assume that I need to follow the rules for Group Ambush, which involves making opposed skill rolls.

One PC has INT A and Recon C, the other has INT B and Recon C. According to the Group Ambush rules, I have to roll for the PC with the lower Recon skill level. Both PCs have Recon C, but I assume that I should then use the lower of the two Ability scores to determine which PC rolls. Is that correct?

The two PCs already have favorable modifiers (+2 total) for distance (200m) and terrain (forest), but I would like to increase the odds of success by having the PC with the higher Recon skill Help the PC with the lower skill level, thereby adding another +1 modifier to the Group Ambush roll. Is that possible/correct? I don't see anything in the rules saying otherwise but I'd like to make sure I didn't miss- or misinterpret- anything.

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I have not been interpreting the group stealth rules as allowing assistance. No matter how good the team ninja is, they can't fix Noisy McTanglefoot's fundamental lack of investment in Recon.

When there's doubt about the "lowest" skill, I use the probability table on p. 46 to settle the debate.

- C.

:D

I see your point, and I agree (to a point). If stealth was purely a physical task, it'd be hard to explain how one person could help another. On the other hand, part of stealth is fieldcraft, and that can be taught/modeled by someone with greater expertise. A more stealthy individual could offer helpful advice like, "Slow down. Look where you step. Avoid those dried twigs. Don't silhouette yourself on that crestline. Stay in the shadows." etc.

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Maybe it can be modelled and some teaching can happen. Might incur a time cost though. So instead of taking 10 minutes to get into position, it takes an hour.

Thrown Weapon / Indirect Fire
 

I like that idea. Unfortunately, early consensus seems to be that opposed recon rolls can't be helped (at all). I'm still waiting for a few more people to weigh in before I decide if it's kosher or not.

Here's another question: An enemy soldier lobs a grenade over a wall towards the PCs. He can't see them, but he has an idea where they are (he saw them move into [suspected] position the previous round). The rules say that for a ranged attack, the attacker must have LOS or they have to use the Indirect Fire rules. Looking at the latter, indirect fire requires a Forward Observer with LOS to the target. So, it appears that the rules don't allow for a grenade attack like the one described above. That's really unrealistic. Am I missing something?

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We're probably getting into some hairy complications of the rules here, but I seem to recall that grenades can only attack hexes. So long as the thrower has LOS to the hex itself, then it would likely be okay.

You might now be asking yourself, "well how would you know on which side of the wall the grenade would land?", and you'd be right for asking that question. The only info we have regarding the answer is found on page 68 of the Player Manual under the Blast Damage section:

COVER: Solid cover (page 58) provides protection
against shielded hit locations, just like for a ranged
attack – unless the explosion occurs in the same hex
as the target.

In short, I don't think the rules are particularly helpful here, and a Referee ruling would probably be in order.

I'd allow the soldier to make an attack on the hex that he assumes the PCs moved into. I wouldn't be dogmatic about the specific indirect fire rule here, but obviously the attacker couldn't target anything but the _area_ he assumes the enemy is in.

The thrown grenade should target the hex, not an individual PC. I mean, yeah, technically, the -3 "target in full cover" penalty should apply, but it's hard to not know where an adjacent hex is, even if it's on the far side of a wall.

- C.

Practical Application
 

Thanks for the advice and council, fellas. Applying it, I rolled up an encounter and narrated the results in the post-apoc fiction sub-forum. (See post #28.)

https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread....4938#post94938

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You might like to look at the mod's answer to that in the official forum. I added rules from UrbOps to that: https://forum.frialigan.se/viewtopic.php?p=83750#p83750

Short version: UrbOps p. 19 has you answer for Close Quarters Combat. For regular combat, HE and frag hand grenades are aimed at hexes, so the wall is a penalizing feature at best.

AT hand grenades would be a different thing, since you need to aim it at a specific target. And yes, I'd argue, if you try to lob your RKG-3 anti-tank grenade against someone you cannot see, but are beyond close quarters combat, you'd be incredibly lucky to hit your target at all.

Called Shots v. Vehicles
 

The rules are pretty clear on this, but I want to run it by y'all because what they say doesn't seem correct/realistic. Here's the scenario:

The PC machine gunner, operating a vehicle mounted DSHk HMG is shooting at a Zil-131 truck, which is approaching head-on. He wants to put his first burst into the truck's engine block. Aiming for a specific component means this is a Called Shot. So far, so good. Here's where the rules butt up against realism.

Called shots will never penetrate armor. (p.86)

The Zil has front armor of 1. That means a 12.7mm round (Damage 4, Armor 0) can't penetrate the truck's front grill? Huh? A hit, since it can't penetrate at all, can't damage the engine as engine is in the Penetration Damage column of the Component Damage table (p. 84). I'd have to use the result from the No Penetration column instead. In the engine row, the Non Penetration damage result would be "weapon", of which the Zil-131 is equipped with none. Basically, a hit on a Called Shot as described in the scenario, in this instance, produces no damage to the target.

The rules as stated basically nerfs the HMG and buffs a soft-skinned (i.e. unarmored, IRL) truck in the case of a Called Shot.

Am I missing something?

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Rae - I think your read of the rules is correct, but I also think that's just a poorly written rule.

I imagine the intent here was probably to avoid munchkin players from always aiming for ammunition or fuel in order to bypass the vehicle hit chart, but the rule ends up removing quite a bit of player agency. IMO, a houserule is probably in order here.

If it were me, I'd probably stick with the -2 for a called shot, but on a hit roll again to see if hitting the engine block actually has the expected outcome (presumably disabling the engine).

Rads
 

Thanks all. I feel better equipped to handle a called shot v. vehicle situation in the future.

I pulled the Rain of Ash card from the random encounter deck. Looking at the rules for rads in the Player Handbook (p. 80), there doesn't seem to be any penalty for accumulating permanent rads (other than the sickness that can be caused by exposure to "new" rads, temporary and/or permanent). According to the rules, a PC that starts with six permanent rads doesn't appear to have any disadvantages compared to a PC that starts with 1, and that holds true if any additional permanent rads are accumulated during the course of the game. For example, if they are both exposed to any "new" rads, they both have the same chances of becoming sick, and the same symptoms if they fall ill. That all seems a bit strange. It's more intuitive that the PC with more rads should become more ill.

EDIT: I missed something in the rules, as usual.

"Every time you gain a rad, you must immediately roll for STAMINA to resist radiation poisoning (see Diseases on the next page). The virulence of the disease is equal to +4 minus your total rad count." (p. 80)

So, someone with more permanent rads has greater odds of suffering symptoms of radiation poisoning.

The question below, however, still stands.

What happens when a PC reaches the maximum number of permanent rad points accommodated on the standard char-sheet (there are 10 boxes total)? Death?

It seems like something's missing, or maybe I'm just missing something.

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New houserule proposal: Radiation Induced Cancer

Roll for the onset of cancer. Based upon the number of permanent rads the character has, they roll a corresponding die anytime they're exposed and gain a new permanent rad. On a roll of 3 or less, cancer has started growing somewhere on the players body.

If a character develops cancer, every month without treatment the player must subtract a die from an attribute of their choice. When the character has an attribute drop further than D, the character dies.

Permanent rads:
7 rads - 1d12
8 rads - 1d10
9 rads - 1d8
10 rads - 1d6

I like this idea. To make it a little less harsh, I think I'd modifying it so that the PC only starts rolling once they've accumulated more than 10 permanent rads.

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It's not well-articulated at all, but radiation sickness' inclusion on the disease table on p.81 makes me think the design intent is for it to be treated as any other disease, albeit with a different method of "infection." Thus, if a character is suffering from radiation sickness, he's taking damage and is unable to heal damage, the same as any other disease - and he can die if incapacitated. A character with more permanent rads will be dealing with a more severe virulence modifier, and thus will find it harder to recover on his subsequent infection rolls.

- C.

Languages
 

One area in which I think the 4e rules fall well short is how they handle languages. In 4e, it's pretty much all or nothing. You can either speak a language very well, or you can't speak it at all. The only wiggle room in the rules as written in the Nationality (Languages) subsection of the Character Creation chapter. It states (paraphrasing here) that everyone speaks a little English, and that Warsaw Pact personnel all speak a little Russian.

A PC can learn another language in the game by using skill points to take the Linguist Specialty. However, according to that rule, adding that specialty could conceivably take a PC from not being able to speak a lick of another language to being mistaken for a native speaker of it! That's simply not realistic.

INGUIST: You know another language of your choice, well enough to be taken as native on a successful PERSUASION roll. (p. 51 of the Player's Manual)

As anyone who's learned a second language can attest, it takes time to learn and build proficiency and fluency- sometimes years! I lived in South America for 6 years as a teenager and I still wouldn't consider myself fluent in Spanish. :o

In v2.2, at least, you could be a little proficient, or moderately so, or fluent, by allocating skill points to a second language. It was tricky (and pretty subjective) to determine how well a PC could speak another language in that ruleset because it wasn't really clearly explained what the numbers meant, but at least there were degrees of proficiency.

How have other 4e ref's dealt with second languages?

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I share your irritation.

My solution is to allow each PC one non-native language for each Empathy rank above D. They have limited vocabulary and can never pass as a native speaker, but they can hold a basic conversation. I've kept Linguist working as written. My table has been happy with that arrangement so far.

- C.

Agreed here as well - the language system in 4e seems to have been pretty intentionally left simplified, and the version suffers for it.

I've had my crew be able to speak a smattering of Polish simply from osmosis in the default setting (by Ref fiat), and then linguist allows for additional languages as written. It's not great a great system though, especially when no one happened to get the linguist specialty on character creation. As a result, there are a fair number of Poles that speak English. :|

Languages
 

I've been mulling how to deal with languages for the players in my forthcoming campaign as well. I'm considering a three tiered approach to languages:

- 1 rank - speaks a pidgin of the language, can generally make themselves understood, but no nuance and plenty of misunderstandings. -1 penalty for Persuasion checks, -2 for any sort of disguise or subterfuge.

- 2 ranks - speaks language well, but with noticeable accent and some malapropisms. -1 penalty if trying to disguise as a native speaker

- 3 ranks - equivalent of Linguist specialty, character speaks language like a native.

Since I'm also dabbling with some alternate character creation mechanics (around starting equipment), I'm going to roll this fluency into character creation. I hadn't thought about experience points and development, need to roll that around a little more.

Language as a New Skill
 

I like your ranking idea, Claidheamh. It might be worthwhile to make Language its own skill (under the Intelligence attribute), with D through A levels indicating levels of proficiency. This would relegate the Linguist specialty to attempts to pass as a native speaker, but that's pretty much how it's currently written in the rules anyway.

In line with Heffe's reasoning, I've always given PCs at least very rudimentary language skills for whatever campaign setting we're using as a matter of course, as long as the PC has spent more than a few months there before the IG action starts. As I've been thinking about this topic, I remembered a reason besides osmosis to continue this practice.

In WW2 (and other 20th century wars, I am sure), US troops were issued with small, basic French phrase books before the D-Day landings. They contained not only touristy words and phrases (e.g. "May I use the bathroom, please?"), but some martial ones as well (e.g. "Where are the German soldiers?"). It stands to reason that the DoD would issue similar Polish phrase books as soon as the fighting moves into Poland*. These would have been issued up to the start of nuclear warfare, at least. PCs could either "buy" this item as part of their starting equipment, or find it during scrounging (something similar could be in the 4e loot tables already).

Access to a basic phrase booklet and exposure to / immersion in the local culture would give US troops in Poland (or wherever) for more than a few months would allow for very basic proficiency in Polish. Think of it as the PC being able to use and understand simple phrases that one might find in an average travel guide (e.g. "Where is the bathroom.").

So, "translating" these principles into skill levels could look something like this:

D- Exposure to local language = beginner (e.g. yes, no, please, thank you)
C- "" plus access to store-bought or G.I. phrase book for local language = basic grasp (Excuse me. Where is the library?)
B- "" plus immersion in local culture (i.e. frequent practice using local language) = proficient
A- all of the above = fluent
Linguist [specialty] = fluent and native-like pronunciation

*IMHO, it would be perfectly reasonable to extend these suppositions to other national military forces (e.g. the BAEF) or campaign settings (e.g. Sweden).

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I think you're on to something with those skill levels, Rae - that feels appropriate and matches the schema of FL's other skills. It's still abstracted, but better represents how learning languages works in real life.

Translated to real life I'd be a D in German (used to be a C), a C in Spanish, and being my native language, I'd have an A and linguist specialty in English.

Language as a Skill
 

I'm hesitant to add a new formal skill into the 4e system, since it disrupts the simplicity of the 12 skills in the RaW, and new skill ranks are handed out pretty carefully in the rules. But I do like the A-D rank structure, as it keeps the nomenclature consistent (my gaming group is a mix of casual gamers who want easy to understand rules and a few hardcore nerds who will break down every part of the rules themselves).

If you're going with languages as a new skill, I'd put it under EMP, since that seems to be where all interpersonal skills live.

I completely agree that most troops would easily get the basics of communication in Polish, German (and maybe Czech or Russian), I plan to make it easy for a PC to choose basic competence (Rank "C") in a language or two, more skill will require a larger investment at creation time. I offer the ability to have Rank D, for those PCs who decide that they have relied completely on the tried and true American communication method of speaking English more loudly and slowly, while waving their hands.

Hah! That's great, Claidheamh. Agreed that it should probably live under EMP somehow.

As a suggestion, perhaps a die roll during character creation in order to determine if other languages are known at level C (or above) and how many, but the die results would vary by nation of origin. For example:

American character
1-3: No additional languages
4-5: 1 additional language
6: 2 additional languages

German character
1: 1 additional language
2-4: 2 additional languages
5-6: 3 additional languages

Other Direction
 

I understand your hesitation re adding a new skill. Maybe we should consider a simpler alternative than adding new mechanics. How about sticking to the rules and just rolling against EMP? It's already SOP in 4e (from p. 44 in the PM: "If you don’t have a level in the skill you’re using, just roll one for the attribute."), so nothing new there. Without a language skill (which doesn't exist in the base rules), a PC would only be rolling the attribute die, so there'd be less chance of success than rolling a pair of dice (1 for attribute + 1 for skill). The slight tweak is this: the Ref can add or subtract multipliers based on the circumstances (which is already a feature of the base rules). For example:

1.) The NPC has a strong regional accent? That's -1.
2.) The NPC uses complex technical jargon? That's -1.
3.) For both of the above, it would be -2.)
4.) The NPC speaks slowly and uses small words? That's +1.

etc.

This would add a little realism without really complicating the rules, as written. Every PC can at least attempt to communicate in another language (based on their EMP score alone). PCs with higher EMP would have a better chance of making themselves understood. Circumstances could make attempts at communicating in another language easier or more difficult, depending on various helpful or complicating factors. It's still abstract, but a little more nuanced this way.

Thoughts?

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