4e Mechanics & Rules Discussion

[unipus]

And yes, agreed, pushing rolls is very important to success in general, and the main advantage PCs have over NPCs. You can still push a roll even if you're already showing multiple mishaps, though! I had one player do it in a do-or-die situation and it worked out for him. Jammed, almost broken weapon was a far better alternative than the faceful of bullets he seemed all but guaranteed to receive otherwise.

I do agree that in most circumstances, around 3 seems to be the sweet spot for ROF, except those rare instances where there's a stack of enemies bunched together or you just absolutely need to hose a MF'er right now. Otherwise you end up mostly using a lot more ammo and facing a lot more jams for not huge gain. Every now and then, though, you end up with critical hits against multiple enemies in a single shot. That's pretty ninja.

But, again, all this kinda gets to flaws in the presentation of MGs as I see it. It's not that they can't be effective. It's more that they mostly don't seem to bring a lot of their real-world advantages. IRL the MG is the most important part of the squad. In 4E (which I generally think produces slightly abstract but overall very plausible combat results!) it's a second-rate tool, unless you happen to have lots and lots and lots of ammo.

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by unipus

But, again, all this kinda gets to flaws in the presentation of MGs as I see it. It's not that they can't be effective. It's more that they mostly don't seem to bring a lot of their real-world advantages. IRL the MG is the most important part of the squad. In 4E (which I generally think produces slightly abstract but overall very plausible combat results!) it's a second-rate tool, unless you happen to have lots and lots and lots of ammo.

I haven't examined this issue in detail yet but it seems like the easy fix is to give MGs a limited ability to ignore 1s on ammo dice - possibly ignore the first X 1s, where X equals half of current Reliability, rounded up (so at Reliability 5, you'd have to roll four 1s to affect Reliability and five 1s to jam - not counting any 1s on your base attack dice). This would reflect their designed capability for reliable sustained automatic fire in a better way than just pointing to the action economy advantage of belt feed.

They still have the disadvantages of encumbrance, reduced performance when hip-fired, and high consumption of your most precious natural resource (i.e., lead).

- C.

Obviously if we change the mechanics of the RAW we change what is optimal.

[Tegyrius]

I don't want a universal optimal weapon. I want different weapons to be optimal for different situations and roles. Keeping the hefty penalty to hip-firing MGs while making them less prone to RUD when being used as intended feels like a reasonable balance to propose. It keeps infantry rifles the best choice for the maneuver element without penalizing your MG team for doing that base of fire thing.

At least, that's the intent.

- C.

[unipus]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

I haven't examined this issue in detail yet but it seems like the easy fix is to give MGs a limited ability to ignore 1s on ammo dice - possibly ignore the first X 1s, where X equals half of current Reliability, rounded up (so at Reliability 5, you'd have to roll four 1s to affect Reliability and five 1s to jam - not counting any 1s on your base attack dice). This would reflect their designed capability for reliable sustained automatic fire in a better way than just pointing to the action economy advantage of belt feed.

They still have the disadvantages of encumbrance, reduced performance when hip-fired, and high consumption of your most precious natural resource (i.e., lead).

- C.

That's interesting and could work. As you've written it I think it's a bit too charitable (I don't think I would ever want to let it get beyond ignoring 1 or 2 mishaps, at the most) but there's something to it. Of course then you've got to think of how it affects the pushing issue. If I know I won't jam until I roll 3 or 4 mishaps I probably push almost every roll.

I don't like introducing MORE rolling usually, but something like "you may re-roll even dice showing mishaps when you push" could also do the trick. That could be limited as well. "You may re-roll up to 1 die showing a mishap when you push (or 2 if your weapon is in perfect condition)" or something. Still a chance that you then roll more mishaps, but it's a nice distinct boost to the MG that differentiates it. Dunno, just thinking out loud. I don't like how I'd have to handle this over Foundry, but, eh.

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

I haven't examined this issue in detail yet but it seems like the easy fix is to give MGs a limited ability to ignore 1s on ammo dice - possibly ignore the first X 1s, where X equals half of current Reliability, rounded up (so at Reliability 5, you'd have to roll four 1s to affect Reliability and five 1s to jam - not counting any 1s on your base attack dice). This would reflect their designed capability for reliable sustained automatic fire in a better way than just pointing to the action economy advantage of belt feed.

They still have the disadvantages of encumbrance, reduced performance when hip-fired, and high consumption of your most precious natural resource (i.e., lead).

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.

[kcdusk]

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.

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by kcdusk

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.

[kcdusk]

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.

[Tegyrius]

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.