4e Mechanics & Rules Discussion

[Raellus]

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 But it means that the my physical copies will be out-of-date, and I don't feel like paying full price for a few amendments.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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[kcdusk]

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

[Raellus]

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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[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]

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 vehicles 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.

[Raellus]

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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[Tegyrius]

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

- C.

[Raellus]

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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[Tegyrius]

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.

[Raellus]

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.

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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[kcdusk]

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.

[Raellus]

Thrown Weapon / Indirect Fire

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.

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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