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Username17
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Post by Username17 »

Stahlseele wrote:They have no systems being damaged.
This is completely wrong.

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Evangelion units being damaged and being unable to do various things was a key element of literally a majority of the angel fights. Power cables got cut, arms got broken and even severed, controls got locked out. Sachiel broke an Eva arm. Shamshel broke an Eva rifle. Ramiel broke an Eva's shield. And so on and so on.

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Post by Koumei »

And while I can't recall off the top of my head any cases of the Eva units being attacked from specific angles (other than directly below) and that mattering (what with the angels typically being as big as them or bigger and conventional weaponry being told to go fuck itself), if we accept the angels as mecha for the purpose of this specific argument, then facing and "where you are standing" are totally important:

1. Matariel walked around dribbling acid everywhere and its weak point was right underneath it. Which was partially a down side, what with that being the entire section that was actually exposed to the Eva units, but was also a strength in that its weak point was also "the bit that can see and attack", so if you can deal massive damage, it knows you are there and can cover you in acid.

2. Gaghiel basically needed to choke on a dick have a payload of torpedoes shoved down its throat, requiring it to be attacked from one direction (the direction with the teeth). Also that fight involved stepping stones in an ocean for a bit, so again, positioning mattered even though the giant robots weren't your more conventional "front-armoured tanks that happen to be on legs rather than treads."

You could possibly also mention the bit about Sahaquiel being positioned "out of reach" and the Eva units needing to spread out so they could intercept it when it decided to fall. And the Zebra Ball (Leliel?) playing a special version of "The Floor is Lava".
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Post by OgreBattle »

The angle of attack matters in things like Rei using a shield to block the super death laser and Asuka picking up a battleship as a shield against incoming fire from one side.

Asuka in her final battle is trying to crush the core of a mass production eva, but then has to let go because a weapon is thrown at her from the other side. So flanking rules apply.

So agile giant monster-robots like the Eva are like D&D characters who are assumed to turn to face threats but can still be hit, while more ponderous mecha are like a 40k vehicle that only move on their own turn.

I'd also prefer more abstracted instead of specific combat. So if you have a 100 meter walking fortress with 20 different machineguns, just roll that as an AOE or "attack all within radius" instead of rolling 20 individual attacks.

If you're doing something "walking tank" scale I recommend Front Mission: Dog Life & Dog Days

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Post by Thaluikhain »

Stahlseele wrote:There is no meaningfull weaponry around for normal 40K boardgaming to actually hurt a titan. Much less take out. And the scale difference is such that the entire battle between two 1500 pts armies could take place inside one of them.
They might have changed that (they like changing things), but at some points Warlord Titans were vulnerable to (massed) lascannon and the like, had a crew of around 12 and were about 100 ft in their greatest dimension (height).
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Post by Whipstitch »

If you're worried about things slowing down too much it's worth noting that having special rules for one shotting opponents below your power level makes a helluva lot more sense in a mech setting where "advancement" comes in the form of climbing into a JagerMech than in the lazy clusterfuck that was D&D 4e. In mecha combat you can have a system where you have locations charted for everything but allow attacks that are way out of scale to be effectively treated as save-or-dies by hitting every location. That is, you worry about flank attacks and getting hit in the nards when two assault mechs duke it out but the same mech can step on a tank or whip out the wave motion gun and only worry about rolling for locations if they're going out of their way for salvage.
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Post by Voss »

Thaluikhain wrote:
Stahlseele wrote:There is no meaningfull weaponry around for normal 40K boardgaming to actually hurt a titan. Much less take out. And the scale difference is such that the entire battle between two 1500 pts armies could take place inside one of them.
They might have changed that (they like changing things), but at some points Warlord Titans were vulnerable to (massed) lascannon and the like, had a crew of around 12 and were about 100 ft in their greatest dimension (height).
No, you're complete correct. 40K titans have always been vulnerable to man portable heavy weapons and tank based weaponry from normal units. [And very few are the size Stahlseele is thinking of. Imperators and Mega-Gargants are pretty much the only ones with armies inside]

These days (8th edition), like everything, else they can be killed with enough lasguns. It's just a matter of number of shots and statistics. But a typical Guard army will have enough lascannons and shit that it doesn't even need to come to that.

Stahlsteele wrote:And when you want to play with Titans, you go straight back to Facing. Hitlocations. Subsystem damage effects. Weapon-Templates.
Also wrong, at least currently. And recently. That may change if they actually redo Adeptus Titanicus the Game in a new scale, but current 40K (and I believe, but would have to check, the last edition of Epic) just treats them as big vehicles. No facing, locations or subsystems. Just toughness, armor save and wound values like everything else.


But truthfully, 40k is much more irrelevant than Evangelion when discussing mech combat. It has pretty much zero of the tropes, and is mostly just plodding walking guns spit-balling each other to death, except when they accidentally get too close and resort to chainsaws (assuming the player didn't do the smart thing and replace the chainsaw with more dakka). Their proper place in the universe is entirely background or a much larger scale the game can handle.
Last edited by Voss on Wed Oct 25, 2017 7:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Mord »

Whipstitch wrote:If you're worried about things slowing down too much it's worth noting that having special rules for one shotting opponents below your power level makes a helluva lot more sense in a mech setting where "advancement" comes in the form of climbing into a JagerMech than in the lazy clusterfuck that was D&D 4e. In mecha combat you can have a system where you have locations charted for everything but allow attacks that are way out of scale to be effectively treated as save-or-dies by hitting every location. That is, you worry about flank attacks and getting hit in the nards when two assault mechs duke it out but the same mech can step on a tank or whip out the wave motion gun and only worry about rolling for locations if they're going out of their way for salvage.
This could translate into a sliding scale where the relative penetration vs toughness of the combatants determine whether hit locations/facing is relevant.

For instance, a pixie with a letter opener fighting a human cares a lot about the human's facing and where it's hitting, whereas the human treats the pixie as having only one location.

An AT-AT considers an AT-ST to have only one hit location (as would a fellow AT-ST in a duel situation), while a Stormtrooper with a standard blaster would care about the AT-ST's facing. A Stormtrooper with an anti-tank laser cannon or field artillery piece no longer cares about the AT-ST's facing.

Things with an attack penetration ability equal to or above the toughness of their target regard the target as a single location, whereas something with a relatively weak attack worries about individual locations.

At certain levels of divergence, there's just no point in measuring, though. If your penetration ability is so pathetic compared to your target that you are starting to target individual nuts and bolts, you just can't hurt it through means of those low-penetration attacks; it's time to break out the tow cables.
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Post by Prak »

Ok, next session, the players are going to be fighting on top of a dragon's hoard. What exactly should the terrain rules for trying to stand, fight, run or even just walk on a pile of fucking coins and junk be?
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Post by Voss »

Difficult terrain. Half move, no 5' steps. Don't over complicate it.

Of course, if it's 3.5 dragons hoard by book, odds are it isn't particularly noticeable or relevant. Unless the dragon keeps it all in copper pieces.
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Post by Prak »

It's not by the book, since they won't be fighting the actual dragon and won't really have an opportunity to run off with it. It's just an opulent setting for fights.

What I had thought up was "Make a balance check (DC 15) if you move above half speed. If you fail, there's a 10% chance you land on something hard or sharp or whatever. Take 1d6 damage."

I'm going to take that damage part off. I'd rather just have specific squares be dangerous...
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Post by OgreBattle »

Is there random magical stuff to attempt to activate? You could have the dragon also be aware of all the dancing swords in there that he can use against the PC's.
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Post by Prak »

So, the set up is that the dragon kidnaps people and makes them fight for his amusement. His hoard is the arena, and he just watches from the stands.

There's definitely going to be magic stuff, and I fucking wish I could remember where the hell I put my write up for when I ran a session with an in-game party game about fighting a dragon (dudes in a costume) on a pile of "treasure" because I wrote up a mechanic for digging around. But I think this time I'd kind of rather just stud the pile with more obvious stuff and make it more about getting to, say, the enchanted sword, before someone else does, and before you slip down the side of the pile.
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Post by OgreBattle »

There any formal courses on designing tabletop RPG's
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

I guess that depends how formal you think Udemy counts as?
https://www.udemy.com/boardgames/
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Post by Prak »

Not that it's likely to actually come up in my game, but what stats would you figure to be important to a pool player in D&D? I mean, obviously, you can abstract pool to either a single roll for overall game, or a roll per shot, or whatever, but what would you ask a player to roll?

(I want to make an NPC who is good at pool, in case it does come up)
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Post by hyzmarca »

Prak wrote:Not that it's likely to actually come up in my game, but what stats would you figure to be important to a pool player in D&D? I mean, obviously, you can abstract pool to either a single roll for overall game, or a roll per shot, or whatever, but what would you ask a player to roll?

(I want to make an NPC who is good at pool, in case it does come up)
DEX and INT, mostly DEX.

Pool is all about geometry and force, and hitting with the right amount of force at the right angle. Actually doing that would be DEX. While making the calculations on paper would be INT, most players do it intuitively, so DEX all the way.
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Post by Prak »

Cool. Sucks for the dragon NPC I was thinking of, but, Int is in there, so maybe he just uses Int when he plays. He plays in a shapeshifted form, so its not like his actual personal physical scores matter that much.

Hmm... I guess you could have professional games as a form of Profession, and then for some uses, like pool, you make a special profession check using Dex or Int as appropriate?
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Playing Pool as a skill, could be handled as a Profession (Poolshark); but D&D's skills don't list anything remotely useful, and neither does Kaelik's Skill Groups. As both are meant to detail actions in adventures; not urban hustlers.

However, you could give +2 Synergy bonuses (up to a maximum of no more different Synergy Bonuses than the creatures CR/2 (round up)) to the Dexterity check for playing pool for having 5+ ranks in:
[*]Balance
[*]Concentration
[*]Craft
[*]Disable Device
[*]Escape Artist
[*]Jump
[*]Knowlege (Architecture and engineering)
[*]Knowlege (Dungeoneering)
[*]Sense Motive
[*]Sleight Of Hand
[*]Spot
[*]Tumble

While something of a stretch, having skill in any of the above is likely to have some transferable skills; while Swim, Intimidate, and Listen might not.

Having training in Perform (Pool Trick), or Profession (Pool Player) should probably give bonuses, if not simply making such a character perform better than any creature with a Dex score lower than their own. While having to actually roll when someone with the same Dex score (or better) is their opponent.
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Post by OgreBattle »

I'd do the Ranma thing and have something like pool vary based on what the character is good at

so a wizard uses his big arcane brain, a warrior uses his combat experience with trajectories and application of force, a rogue is all finesse like and so on
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Post by Prak »

Hmm... interesting ideas. Fortunately it's not likely to come up, but it does give me something to think about in case it does.

I mean... how likely would you be to challenge an ancient red dragon to a game of pool?
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Unless it's been shown that the Dragon plays pool; and the players/PCs have any interest in playing it, it's unlikely to show up.

If you want a "poolplaying" scene, you'll have to introduce one to the players before they even consider it as a possibility.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Prak wrote: I mean... how likely would you be to challenge an ancient red dragon to a game of pool?
In the Red Dwarf novels there's a story arc where they need to shove a planet into a black hole and the pool expert/bum Lister says the computer is calculating things wrong because the computer doesn't have an instinct for pool.

Lister then knocks the planets into each other with proper spin and over the next 24 hours they watch the shot play out with intense focus.

You could do something like that in D&D say the red dragon's magical array of floating crystals needs to be potted into a vortex, so it's "my pool skills are now relevant in this non pool situation"
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Post by Voss »

Prak wrote:Hmm... interesting ideas. Fortunately it's not likely to come up, but it does give me something to think about in case it does.

I mean... how likely would you be to challenge an ancient red dragon to a game of pool?
Well, a pool playing dragon (and friends) was a staple of Dragon magazine for most of its first decade of existence.

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https://sites.google.com/site/wormycoll ... on-issue-9
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

Prak wrote:Ok, next session, the players are going to be fighting on top of a dragon's hoard. What exactly should the terrain rules for trying to stand, fight, run or even just walk on a pile of fucking coins and junk be?
Image

Swim skill rules ;)
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Post by Prak »

Actually, that gives me an idea, Josh.

While "how hard is it to stand on a pile of gold" has probably not been asked and answered on it's own, "can you swim in a vault of gold" has probably been asked and answered on the internet a lot, and it probably has some side piece about standing on it.

So off to XKCD's What If archives I go.
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Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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