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Post by dvalkyrie74 on Mar 10, 2010 0:29:30 GMT
I remember seeing it but can not find it here or in any of the game books that if a player wanted to have a weapon, it cost something like the Good damage rating of the weapon desired (IE would cost 5 pts if the PC wanted to have a 9mm pistol).
Is this right and where does it state if it is or isn't?
I have a Government Agent in my game and he wants a pistol.
Mark PS is this cost story points like gadgets or can a Player use character pts like buying a trait?
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Post by knasser on Jul 17, 2010 14:35:32 GMT
If the character is a government agent, give him a pistol. It's not a Gadget, so there's no Story Point cost associated (unless you as GM decide otherwise). I don't know where you found the cost per good damage rule, but I don't think it's official.
DW:AITAS isn't that sort of game. What does he think he's going to achieve with a pistol? Shoot a cyberman? That'll do a lot of good. Let him have the weapon, I would say. He'll lose Story Points if he goes around killing people and he'll learn not to think it will do much good when Donna bluffs the Daleks into not attacking the Earth while he's trying to shoot at them.
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Post by dvalkyrie74 on Jul 24, 2010 23:14:53 GMT
I totally understand that the Doctor Who game is very non-violent in rule structure which I find is going to be rather odd when the UNIT set comes out. The blurb says there will be expanded combat options, but with the small amount of damage one can take, will making a UNIT character be worth the cost of the expansion? Would making a UNIT Sniper for instance be a waste of time?
Shooting a Cybermen or Dalek according to the new series will be futile, but there were Cybermen dropping like flies in Invasion with the 2nd doctor if I remember correctly by UNIT soldiers. Even the missiles used against the invasion fleets were cheesy, but showed they could be defeated by "violence".
Someone once said in a past game group, once something has stats, it can be killed.
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Post by knasser on Jul 26, 2010 15:01:14 GMT
I totally understand that the Doctor Who game is very non-violent in rule structure which I find is going to be rather odd when the UNIT set comes out. The blurb says there will be expanded combat options, but with the small amount of damage one can take, will making a UNIT character be worth the cost of the expansion? Would making a UNIT Sniper for instance be a waste of time? Shooting a Cybermen or Dalek according to the new series will be futile, but there were Cybermen dropping like flies in Invasion with the 2nd doctor if I remember correctly by UNIT soldiers. Even the missiles used against the invasion fleets were cheesy, but showed they could be defeated by "violence". Someone once said in a past game group, once something has stats, it can be killed. Okay, got you. My last reply might have been a bit "this is the way it's supposed to be played", and I actually agree with you. Even the old Daleks got taken down by concentrated fire and the odd rocket. Cybermen are a little too tough by the book. I know in NuWho we see them walking into a hail of bullets, and as men of steel, they should be able to bounce off the odd bit of small arms fire (though men of kevlar would fare better). Still at Armour 10, they can't really be damaged even by machine gun fire. I think I might actually revise it down to about 7 or 8 points of armour in my game so that violence is an option, at least on the small scale. I don't know what the UNIT source book will be like. I was extremely impressed with the core game, but less so with the Aliens and Creatures set, so I don't know how much faith to put in what the UNIT set will be like. If it's similar to A&C, then the expanded combat rules will probably be a fairly small part of the set. I think with the core rules as they are then violence will always be pretty deadly in the game. You have Story Points with which to keep yourself alive so they can afford to let it be a bit deadly. At least so long as your character is doing enough interesting things to keep earning Story Points, which I guess is one of the ideas - main characters survive, side-characters get killed. If you want to make the game a bit more supportive of snipers, et al... Hmmm. Boosting the damage of weapons would make the game even deadlier than it already is. I think all you can do is lower the armour ratings on some of those aliens. You could also codify some of the things that might help - i.e. spec up some equipment such as "sniper scope, +2 to marksman rolls", etc. But a character using violence is normally going to be at a disadvantage over those that use talking, doing and running. I wouldn't count on any future supplements to redress this imbalance. At least that's my personal guess. K.
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misterharry
Dominus Tempus
Dalek Caan's Lovechild
Posts: 3,236
Favourite Doctors: Second, Third, Fourth, Eleventh, Thirteenth
Traits: Empathic, Face in the Crowd, Insatiable Curiosity, Stubborn, Phobia (Heights), Unadventurous
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Post by misterharry on Jul 26, 2010 15:50:40 GMT
If you want to make the game a bit more supportive of snipers, et al... Hmmm. Boosting the damage of weapons would make the game even deadlier than it already is. I think all you can do is lower the armour ratings on some of those aliens. How about some sort of Armour-Piercing trait for certain weapons and ammo? This wouldn't increase damage and therefore make combat any more deadly to unarmoured humans, but would give more of a chance of damaging the armoured aliens. Maybe something like halving the effectiveness of Armour against a weapon with this trait? Would make sense of the Brig talking about armour-piercing rounds for use against Daleks (or was it Cybermen?) in Battlefield.
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Post by knasser on Jul 26, 2010 17:41:02 GMT
If you want to make the game a bit more supportive of snipers, et al... Hmmm. Boosting the damage of weapons would make the game even deadlier than it already is. I think all you can do is lower the armour ratings on some of those aliens. How about some sort of Armour-Piercing trait for certain weapons and ammo? This wouldn't increase damage and therefore make combat any more deadly to unarmoured humans, but would give more of a chance of damaging the armoured aliens. Maybe something like halving the effectiveness of Armour against a weapon with this trait? Would make sense of the Brig talking about armour-piercing rounds for use against Daleks (or was it Cybermen?) in Battlefield. Armour-piercing rounds for the Daleks, I think, because I'm pretty sure he went on to list gold ones for the Cybermen. (Although it was silver ones that saved the day). You know, I have absolutely no idea what was supposed to be going on in Battlefield, by the way. Anyway, you're right - armour negating qualities are what would make this work. I still wouldn't like to be on the receiving end when the monsters return fire, though. It's not feasible to have UNIT soldiers armed with weaponry more powerful than that of TL7+ civilisations. If you've got something that can take down a cyberman, then what have the Sontarens or the Daleks got? K.
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Post by Curufea on Jul 27, 2010 0:10:38 GMT
Old series Daleks didn't have force fields, so armour piercing bullets were viable.
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Post by lomythica on Jul 27, 2010 0:13:28 GMT
What if the player is a torchwood operative and has alien tech? I have a player that would like to have a tesla (lightning) gun. I can fugue out stats fir it, but I am not sure if there should be points spent like a gadget..
lomythica
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Post by Kit on Jul 27, 2010 7:28:30 GMT
What if the player is a torchwood operative and has alien tech? I have a player that would like to have a tesla (lightning) gun. I can fugue out stats fir it, but I am not sure if there should be points spent like a gadget.. lomythica I could see that counting as a Gadget.
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Post by knasser on Jul 27, 2010 8:09:11 GMT
Old series Daleks didn't have force fields, so armour piercing bullets were viable. True. Mind you, the Daleks in the book aren't dependent on their Force Fields for their immunity. With Armour of 10, none of the mundane weapons in the book can actually do them harm, even if the Force Field is turned off. What if the player is a torchwood operative and has alien tech? I have a player that would like to have a tesla (lightning) gun. I can fugue out stats fir it, but I am not sure if there should be points spent like a gadget.. For my game I wouldn't ask for points spent like a gadget. Depending on how it will affect your game, you may wish to assign it a cost. I'd keep it low if I were you, probably just a single point. The reasons I wouldn't assign it a cost in my game are as follows. Firstly, the players are likely to be able to pick up such weapons if they really want to in the initial adventures. The player is going to feel pretty agrieved if he or she spends points to buy a ray gun and then in the first mission, someone takes a screwdriver to a bunch of dead Cyberman and outfits everyone with Cyberman twinklers. Secondly, I want to discourage my players from viewing the game as one of "acquiring things". Gadgets to me are for being part of a character. I'll rarely deprive a PC of a gadget permanently. I mean the Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver is more than a possession, it's almost a staple of the character. That to me is a gadget. Rose picking up some big energy weapon to shoot Daleks with - that's just equipment. It'll be gone next episode. That to me is the dividing line between something you spend character points on (Gadget) and something you don't. So I don't therefore take a gadget away casually. However, I do want to be able to take away equipment at the wave of my plot-rearranging hand. Allowing a player to buy guns with character points is just going to increase their attachment to it, and thus their resentment when a Dalek blows it up. It's going to be hard enough getting them to be more casual about their equipment without encouraging them during character creation. Thirdly, there's the issue that it's a weapon. Combat in DW:AITAS is actually pretty deadly. You have Story Points as a buffer to keep you alive, but it still remains the case that one good shot from a Sontaren and your character goes up in smoke. I want to encourage my players to take a different approach to the game than violence. If nothing else, I hate being put in situations as a GM where I have to artificially keep the players alive. Given that what the players are up against will often be considerably more powerful than they are and combat is quite deadly, having them try to shoot their way through problems is almost guaranteed to put me in that situation again and again and again. Fourth, regular firearms are already quite deadly. The main difference with energy weapons in practical terms is bypassing armour. That just makes my job harder as GM because one of my tools for fine-tuning an encounter has just been removed. So for that reason, I'd prefer a player had regular weapons. Finally, I just prefer the flavour of my game to be normal people against unfeasible aliens. I don't want them to load up on sci-fi gear and try to meet everything on its own terms: that's a different sort of story. Now all or none of these reasons may apply to you. If you think a player will enjoy something, and it wont take away from others' enjoyment (especially your own as GM), then you might as well just let him have it. If you're going to, then I wouldn't charge character points for it as then it becomes something of an integral thing. But I wouldn't let them have it just because they say they want it. I'd demand story justification for it and I *don't* mean "yeah - I'm a Torchwood agent and I got it off the body of an alien what I killed". I mean a real bit of story justification, preferably with some plot hooks hanging off it. Up to you mate. DW:AITAS is pretty open with this stuff. Hope this helps, K. EDIT: Maybe the best thing is to create a Gadget version of it that does something more interesting than 4/L/L. Tesla Lightening Gun? Maybe it can take out all sorts of electrical systems around the user. Maybe it can create an electromagnetic forcefield around the user that keeps out anything metallic. Cybermen, no problem. Slytheen - hillarious as they charge through and then are yanked back as their collars catch on the field. Naked pictish warriors with wooden clubs in Ancient Britton? Better run.
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Post by lomythica on Jul 28, 2010 0:32:14 GMT
I think I'll just make the lightning gun a glorified taser with better range, but make it restricted through a recharge.
To use it for 'kill mode', would drain the self recharging battery, and would require recharge time of 2 hours. For stun mode, it will recharge in one minute. Either way, it's mostly a single use device for most conflict situations.
Considering knasser's insight, the player didn't give a lot of story as to why or how the character got the gun, so I opted to keep it off the gadget status.
My campaign is certainly not going to match the series, so I'm not going to have players limited on weapons.. The idea I'm shooting for is torchwood meets lost, set before the doctor was born, in the time just before the timelords outlawed meddling with lower races in time.
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Post by knasser on Jul 28, 2010 11:28:57 GMT
Sounds good. Like the idea of setting it just before the Time Lords outlaw meddling with the lesser races. If your players are anything like mine tend to be, they'll end up being the actual reason for the Time Lords outlawing meddling.
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Post by lomythica on Jul 28, 2010 13:58:31 GMT
I'm counting on it in some respects.. In fact, i'm planning on helping them dig a hole for themselves to have to dig themselves out of. I am planning an episode where they show up on a planet that is almost completely overrun with Daleks. The resistance is almost given up hope. But a mysterious person had beenn working with the resistance on a new personal force field technology that will protect against dalek death rays. I expect one of the player characters to help them finish the experiments and get the technology working, saving the day, and enabling the resistance to defeat the Daleks.
I say this because in a future episode, they will come to the same planet five hundred years later, and find that they (the PCs) have been turned into the God's of the resistance movements descendants. Having the new technology (before their time, and time for proper ethical consideration), they went on a hunt throughout the galaxy to erradicate all of dalek-kind. What's more, they became a warmongering race bent on enslaving weaker, or useful races, and eradicating the ones that got in the way.. Basically, they became their own worst enemies.
In episode two, the PCs will have to figure out how to go back and change the course of history to help the resistance without turning humanity into a carnivorous war race.
Sorry for going a bit off topic.. I'm excited about my new campaign. Lomythica
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Post by da professor on Jul 28, 2010 14:55:07 GMT
Sounds good. Like the idea of setting it just before the Time Lords outlaw meddling with the lesser races. If your players are anything like mine tend to be, they'll end up being the actual reason for the Time Lords outlawing meddling. You mean it's not just my players? ;D
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Post by dvalkyrie74 on Jul 29, 2010 21:00:27 GMT
I totally understand that firing weapons is not going to be the answer to a lot of problems in the Doctor Who universe, but from what you see in the series and any other sci-fi, guns are used. It is an integral part of most Sci-fi films going back to the B-rated black and whites. I am not looking to have my entire group be a bunch of mercenaries travelling time and space to colled pelts or the odd Dalek eye stalk on their belt, but having a gun even for "protection" or as a back up if all else fails could be helpful.
My first thread above was asking if weapons should basically be gadget or story points to allow players to have a weapon , yet limit them from going overnaord with them. Even in the TV Show Stargate, the teams are armed with P-90's, guns were not always the answer as well. I can see the use of an assault rifle on a world that just figured out how to make chainmail could be an issue, but not every time traveller out there is going to a be a kind-hearted, yet eccentric scientist travelling in a blue box. Even the Master had a sidearm for several regerenartions called a tissue compression eliminator.
It was just a rules clarification or an open question to how others GMs have been handling the weapon issue in character creation?
Since my first poting above to start the thread, we decided that a sidearm was ok to have. After all the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver as a ranged weapon a lot during the Tennant series and the recent use of a sidearm by Rivr song agains the Dalek in the Museum reaffirms sidearm use has been frequent in the new series.
Reminds me of the Braveheart scene when Wallace's uncle said learn to use his brain and then he will teach him how to use the sword during the bagpipe play at night. Maybe we need to do that as GM's toward our players in this game
Mark.
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