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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16281
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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 Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 1:28 am Post subject: Cover and Blast Radius Weapons |
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So, I'm looking for some example of how you have dealt with this in your games. What I'm specifically looking for is how a flamethrower, firing a fire-stream that affects every target in a 3 meter range, would negate Cover bonus dice.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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vanir
Jedi
Joined: 11 May 2011
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| Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 2:19 am Post subject: |
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Maybe I don't understand what you're saying; cover is negated by indirect fire blast radius, not direct fire weapons even if they have a blast radius. The cover still shields you from the blast radius of direct fire weapons.
Grenades negate cover because they are lobbed over it and then blast in a radius behind the cover where the enemy are crouched. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16281
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 2:52 am Post subject: |
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| vanir wrote: | Maybe I don't understand what you're saying; cover is negated by indirect fire blast radius, not direct fire weapons even if they have a blast radius. The cover still shields you from the blast radius of direct fire weapons.
Grenades negate cover because they are lobbed over it and then blast in a radius behind the cover where the enemy are crouched. |
Well, it started with this conversation here:
| Esoomian wrote: | | crmcneill wrote: | | Esoomian wrote: | | I'd also say that the autofire dice could be used to negate the effects of cover as flamethrowers (especially in 40K) are best at flushing targets out of cover. |
Technically, it already does. Cover provides bonuses to the character being attacked to avoid damage, but auto-fire can be added to the To Hit roll, counteracting the Cover bonus. |
True but with cover can't you get up to 4D of protection? I'd say that for a flamethrower you should double the autofire dice's effectiveness at removing cover. Especially considering the 40K flamethrowers you're basing this on just automatically ignore cover entirely. |
I felt that a flamethrower's effectiveness at penetrating or degrading cover effectiveness should be linked to the fact that it has a blast radius effect at range, not because it is capable of firing a sustained blast. However, there are other issues; for instance, even if a character has 75% cover, and is thus at +4D difficulty to hit, couldn't a character with a flamethrower simply target the cover and still catch his target in the blast radius? After all, 25% of him is still exposed to the flame.
Also, under the popular form of auto-fire rules as used by myself and ZzaphodD, a weapon's auto-fire dice can be used in one of three ways:
1). Increasing damage by firing multiple rounds at one target.
2). Increasing accuracy by firing multiple rounds at one moving target
3). Counteract MAPS when firing at multiple targets within a given proximity to each other.
So, which one applies to a flamethrower firing at a target which has 75% cover? It's a toss-up between 1 and 2, but the key question is, when you are firing a weapon that has 2D auto-fire dice and hits everything in a 3-5 meter blast radius (depending on range), how does this affect the effectiveness of cover, and how does the weapon work against cover? Why bother trying to aim directly at the guy who is sticking out from behind the rock when you can just aim at the rock and hit him with the splash? Sure, he could Dodge behind cover (under the rules garhkal and I are discussing, everyone in the flamethrower's blast radius would need a successful dodge to avoid getting hit), but if he doesn't, he would still get nailed by the flame. So, does a direct-fire blast radius weapon like a flamethrower get to ignore cover unless the target is completely concealed? Does the target get to use his cover bonus towards damage soak instead of increasing the difficulty of himself as a target?
These are the questions that keep me up at night.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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vanir
Jedi
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| Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 10:50 am Post subject: |
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I do appreciate your angle but can't help adding pragmatic ruling here.
75% cover does not represent the amount of your body covered by the obstacle. It represents the ready ability to disappear completely behind the cover within the time it takes for an enemy to press the trigger on you. You thus have a +4D bonus to avoid being hit and not to avoid being damaged (precluded by not being hit). You add the cover bonus to dodge and not strength/armour rating. Hence to negate cover you must have indirect fire weapons to lob over the cover with a blast radius to affect those you can't see, crouched behind the cover. Those which fail their cover bonus to dodge are hit by direct fire before they can duck completely behind partial cover.
This clearer? |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16281
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 11:19 am Post subject: |
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| vanir wrote: | | This clearer? |
Yes, it is. I was hoping I could default to the standard cover rules, but I couldn't think of a valid argument to support it. Your explanation works just fine for me.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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lurker
Commander
Joined: 24 Oct 2012
Posts: 423
Location: Oklahoma
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| Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 1:49 pm Post subject: |
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Admittedly, I still don't have a book to check the rules against, and so I may be needlessly muddying the waters ... However, in real life there is a very real difference between cover and concealment. One (cover) offers actual protection to a person using it ie the damage can't get through, the other just hides the person but does not protect them - therefore harder to see/hit, but if hit the damage isn't stopped or reduced.
With this , you could rule that the flame thrower ignores all cover (you don't need to see what you are trying to kill, just burst an area and let the fire do the hard work), but is stopped by actual cover, at least to a point. Where cover will stop a bullet (or blaster bolt in SW) it still doesn't completely stop the effects of a fire - heating of the cover if it is metal, steeling O2 and super heating the air etc. For that, I' say anything other than full cover offers reduced protection ( say - 2D, but that is just a WAG...)
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16281
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 3:00 pm Post subject: |
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The official rules are on pages 92-93 of the 2R&E rulebook. Cover takes the form of both protective (solid objects a character can hide behind) and non-protective (lighting conditions, smoke, fog, etc.). There are also rules for the protecting object taking damage and passing some of that damage on to characters using it for cover.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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