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[Let's Read] Rambo Cinematic Adventures
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<blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9200948" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ZJ57jsM.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The last part of Chapter 2, <strong>Equipment</strong> focuses on real-world gear commonplace during the era of the first three Rambo movies. A lot of the new items are specific variations of more generic equipment from the core rules, in some cases better or worse than the default versions. Another thing to note is that high tech, cellular-based electronic devices aren’t present by default and players should avoid taking them without first talking to the GM.</p><p></p><p>We first start off with <em>Equipment Packs,</em> which are a collection of gear for specific roles and a corresponding Price Level for the most expensive gear present. PCs who are active military personnel don’t have to purchase their own equipment, for it is given to them by their organization or employer. The five packs are more or less designed to work with one of the new classes in this book. For example, Combat Medic gets fatigues, helmet, and combat boot for clothes, a light ballistic vest for armor, an M-16A1 rifle and 2 smoke grenades for weapons, a first-aid kit, a soldier’s kit, and “pocket stuff” which can be any inconsequential items that can plausibly fit in one’s pockets.</p><p></p><p>And speaking of the soldier’s kit, we have 4 new <em>specialized tool kits</em> specific to the 1980s. The Demolition Kit is all about setting off explosive charges, First-Aid Kit is self-explanatory, Soldier’s Kit can vary depending on the mission but the essentials include a variety of stuff such as a frame backpack, trench tool, notebook and pen, seven magazines of ammo, three days’ worth of rations, and more. It is by far the heaviest of the kits, coming in at 4 Bulk whereas the others are 2 to 3. The Survival Kit can vary depending on the environment but includes various outdoor stuff such as 50 feet of cord, a reusable water bottle, and tools to start a fire. Finally, the Survival Knife is a multipurpose weapon and tool that is basically Rambo’s signature knife from the movies. It has a magnetic compass on the pommel, and the guard has a Phillips screwdriver on one side and a flat screwdriver on another, and inside the hollow handle is a small survival kit full of various things such as waterproof matches and sewing needles. It is treated as a combat knife when used as a weapon, which is like the knife from the core rules but can deal either piercing or slashing damage.</p><p></p><p>We get new <em>item properties and conditions</em> for some increased variation, including most notably the Masterwork property which 3.5 players may recognize. For +1 to the default item’s Price Level, a masterwork melee weapon deals +1 damage while masterwork ranged weapons don’t suffer disadvantage at long range. Masterwork armor removes the Awkward property, a condition from the core rules that reduces speed by 10 feet and imposes disadvantage on Dexterity saves and Acrobatics checks.</p><p></p><p>Conditions are mostly negative properties that represent a degradation or alteration to the basic performance. For example, dropping a weapon in mud, sand, and the like can make a weapon Dirty, causing it to jam on a natural 1 on the attack roll and must be cleaned during a short rest to remove the condition. Sawed-Off is the only Condition that isn’t inherently negative; it is permanent and quarters the normal and long ranges of a firearm, but reduces its Bulk by 1 to a minimum of 1.</p><p></p><p>The new <em>Basic Equipment</em> includes the aforementioned Combat Knife, plus one revolver and three rifles. The Smith & Wesson Model 10 is basically a reflavored .38 Pocket Pistol but with 6 rounds, while the three rifles (SKS, SVD Dragunov, Winchester Model 88) are based off of the generic Hunting Rifle. Unlike that weapon, none of them have the Slow-Firing property, meaning they can be shot more than once per round if the wielder has the means of attacking multiple times. Only the Dragunov has more rounds than the default rifle, at 10 rather than 6, whereas the other 2 named rifles have 5 and 3 rounds.</p><p></p><p>For <em>Advanced Equipment,</em> we have 3 pistols, 2 rifles, and a shotgun. The Browning Hi-Power and Colt M1911 both use the same stats and are pretty much the 9mm Pistol from the core rules, but hold less rounds (15 and 14 respectively rather than the 9mm’s 21) and the Browning/Colt have a higher range at 125/250 feet rather than 100/200. The Heckler & Koch HK93A2 and M16 are both based off of the Assault Rifle (which is Military) save that they don’t have the Burst and Full-Auto properties, being Semi-Auto instead. The H&K rifle has a widely variable amount of rounds depending on its design ranging from 5 to 40.* Finally, the Remington Model 870 Shotgun is pretty much the generic Pump-Action Shotgun but with 2 less rounds at 7 instead of 9.</p><p></p><p>*Every player worth their salt is going to try to get the 40 round one.</p><p></p><p><em>Advanced Equipment</em> also gets some new nifty explosives. Demolition Charges are prepackaged explosives for controlled destruction, representing plastic explosives such as C4 and Semtex. Det Cords are plastic tubes filled with pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN for short) that is a high speed fuse that explodes rather than burns. They can’t be effectively deployed during combat, but can be made as part of a trap provided the victims are adjacent to it. Finally, Explosive Arrows are a fictional piece of equipment most famously used by Rambo. They are fired like normal arrows, save that they have explosive shrapnel. The Demolition Charge deals 4d6 damage, but the Det Cord and arrows deal 3d6. Given that normal arrows are 1d10 piercing, this is a huge damage upgrade.</p><p></p><p><em>Improvised Equipment</em> is extremely short, covering Dambe Hand Wraps (Nigerian combat sport using hand wraps) that can deal 1d6 bludgeoning damage or slashing if made of rope and broken glass glued to it, and a Trenching Tool which is a collapsible shovel that deals 1d6 slashing damage.</p><p></p><p>So far, all of these weapons are easily affordable, at Price Level 1 or 2 with only the Explosive Arrows being 3 for a set of 4.</p><p></p><p>The <em>Military Equipment</em> is where it’s at, and has the widest variety by far. There’s a bit too much to go over individually, but we got a healthy assortment of submachine guns, machine guns, rifles, grenade and rocket launchers, and even a new flamethrower weapon! This last weapon is basically a short-range weapon that deals 2d6 fire damage and ignores a target’s armor along with possibly imposing the Burning condition, and can also be used for covering fire as though it were an automatic weapon, but that pretty much depletes all 8 “rounds” it has.</p><p></p><p>As for the rest of the military weapons, they are slight variations of existing types in Everyday Heroes. The notable machine guns include the FN MAG that is basically a light machine gun but is slower to load, the M60 is a medium machine gun but with a slightly lighter Bulk of 5 instead of 6, the ever-popular AK-47 is rather unique in having the damage of a light machine gun, the weight of an assault rifle, can only be full-auto rather than burst fire, and has a variable number of rounds based on box or drum magazines. America’s favorite, the M16A1, is pretty much an Assault Rifle but also with a variable number of rounds including up to a whopping 100 with a drum magazine. The MAC-10 SMG is a hybrid between a typical SMG and a Spec Ops one, having the inferior damage and range between the two but with no burst fire. So worse in pretty much every way. The RPG-7 and M72 LAW Rocket Launchers have the same stats as a typical Rocket Launcher, but are cheaper to acquire at Price Level 4 instead of 5. They both load their own type of rockets and the M72 is a “fire and forget” system in the weapon itself being unable to be reloaded.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/G8YsDQE.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>We get a bunch of new <em>integrated vehicle weapons,</em> or weapons that are an essential part of a vehicle and thus can’t be removed. The core rules only have 4 such weapons, so this is a real treat. As is to be expected, they are very long-range damaging equipment that tend to either fire once before needing to be reloaded or are belt-felt, and include a variety of tank artillery guns, automatic weapons such as anti-aircraft guns and miniguns, and a mortar and rocket pod. The least damaging of them are the GE M134 Minigun and PKT Coaxial Machine Gun (both at 2d8) but the most powerful is the UB-S-5 Rocket Pod dealing 10d6 damage and also has the furthest range at 2 miles while also having 16 or 32 uses before needing to be restocked. The weapon descriptions also say what vehicles they are typically built into, several of which are written up at the end of this chapter. Most of the vehicles are variations of the ones from the Core Rules, being specific US or Soviet models and tend to have lower values than their modern-day counterparts. We do get some new air vehicles which have no clear approximations to core ones, such as the Mi-24D Hind which is a Soviet military helicopter equipped with a gatling gun and rocket pods, or the UH-1 Iroquois Huey combat helicopter of the US which can be fitted with a wide range of integrated weapons.</p><p></p><p>For military explosives, we have the Claymore which is a new type of set explosive, and the 40mm flechette rounds are designed to be loaded into grenade launchers. Both of these explosives blow up in 30 foot cones, an AoE that the default mines in Everyday Heroes don’t have, and the flechette deals ballistic rather than explosive damage. Finally, the M69 Body Armor is akin to the core rule’s Ballistic Vest save that its Armor Value is 3 instead of 4 and has the Awkward property. The in-game description even notes that they were used in Vietnam and not strongly effective due to discomfort in tropical environments and being disliked by soldiers.</p><p></p><p>This section rounds out with three new pieces of <em>general gear:</em> glow sticks, trenching tools (advantage on Athletics checks to construct earthworks), and combat pharmaceuticals. The latter being experimental combat drugs in the 1970s and 80s. The book says to use the Combat Medic’s Just Take This talent as guidelines, but use the optional Drug Rules from the corebook outside of the context particularly for addiction.</p><p></p><p><em>Thoughts:</em> While I do like the plethora of period-appropriate equipment, some of it does feel like padding in being too similar to existing types in the core rules. And even PCs who aren’t min-maxers are going to gravitate to getting their hands on the most ideal equipment, meaning that unless the GM is stringent on what kinds of gear they have access to in missions, quite a bit of material may get passed over. In such a case, it may be more appropriate as the kinds of things that NPCs may have.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/mpb9suF.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>This very short chapter mentions that Everyday Heroes on its own has enough material to emulate the kinds of action-adventure scenarios as seen in the Rambo movies, so the new rules are designed to further enhance such games. The first rule is <em>Graded Challenges,</em> where instead of binary success or failures there are guidelines given for various degrees being 5 or 10 points higher/lower than the base DC. This rule is a general guideline, and it’s up to the GM when to use them in play rather than a universal mechanic. The second rule is for <em>Demolitions,</em> where a building, bridge, or other such structure can be destroyed. We have a table of Necessary Charges based on the relative size of the object/building to be destroyed, and the demolitionist rolls Intelligence (Mechanics) for most cases or Intelligence (Natural Science) as an alternative. The DC is usually 15, and the result is a Graded Challenge determining how effective and controlled the explosion is. <em>Collapsing Buildings</em> is the immediate followup, a new hazard where victims must make two separate saving throws to avoid taking damage from debris and being trapped by it, with the DC and damage determined by the size of the collapsing building. <em>Burning Buildings</em> basically combines suffocation and visibility rules from the core plus the risk of fire damage, where even just being near fire can deal damage and risk the Burning condition. <em>Crewed Vehicles</em> are for vehicles which require multiple people to efficiently operate, with a list of roles such as Gunner/Loader who can reload the integrated weapons or Co-Pilot who can either take over piloting directly or give the Pilot the Help action on certain checks. <em>Vehicle Certifications</em> is an optional rule for added realism where certain vehicles requiring training to operate (tank, jet fighter, etc) require their own proficiencies, and can be basically learned whenever you’d learn a new skill.</p><p></p><p>The <em>Bleeding Condition</em> has been mentioned in the prior post. <em>Fortifications</em> are basically the reverse of Traps, where characters can create objects and changes in terrain with the right materials and setup time, and in some cases a DC for more involved projects. Arts and Crafts or Mechanics are the most common such skills for checks. Fortifications include quite the variety, such as decoys who look like a person from a distance or poor visibility and can fool people via an opposed Perception vs Deception or Arts and Crafts, Foxholes/Spider Holes that can grant cover but require 10 feet of movement to leave, and Watchtowers that can provide advantage on Perception checks to those up top. <em>Traps</em> aren’t a new rule so much as additional kinds on top of the ones in the core rules, with suggestions for the PCs to come up with their own traps and using the existing ones as guidelines. Grenade traps, minefields, rockfalls, and spring spikes are the new ones we get. Last but not least, <em>Lures</em> are an open-ended rule where PCs roll a Deception check opposed by an enemy’s Intelligence save; a success on the PC’s part creates a good lure and grants advantage on checks for setting the traps, but a failure makes it a bad one and gives disadvantage on the check. As usual, the GM can use discretion based on in-game actions to know if the lure would be automatically good or bad, foregoing the need for rolls.</p><p></p><p><em>Thoughts:</em> Of the new rules, I’m most fond of the ones for Traps, Fortifications, and Lures, and Demolitions is a good one too as they all cover things most PCs will try in actual play. I don’t have strong opinions on graded challenges due to their briefness, nor the building hazards or crewed vehicles. But I’d rather the latter rules be there, given the commonality of their use and they individually don’t take up much room; the crewed vehicles rule in particular is good in giving PCs various things to do besides being pilot/gunner, so it gets points for that. I am not very fond of vehicle specializations given that skill proficiencies are precious and the aforementioned vehicles are quite situational in use. How often will a PC get to fly a fighter jet in most sessions, for example? At least the book notes that it’s optional and only for more “realistic” campaigns, for even Rambo could pilot a variety of engines of destruction!</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/H2xurEv.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The first third of this book involved hard and fast rules, so this is where we help the GM make their Rambo-inspired military campaigns. We first start off with <strong>Themes,</strong> which more or less do run-downs of what makes the series different from other action-adventures. They include things such as the GM focusing on putting the PCs on missions where they’re in isolated locations without access to outside resources in order to emulate the guerilla warfare feeling, the suggestion of using plot twists of government corruption that comes at the expense of soldiers,* finding ways of inserting the questions of patriotism and fighting for one’s country as means of giving the PCs ways to express how they feel about it one way or another, and of course the use of explosions to spice things up a bit. In typical action movie fashion, said explosives don’t have to threaten the heroes or enemies directly, but can “simply be for the sheer fun of it!”</p><p></p><p>*The book says to use this sparingly to avoid it becoming too predictable, and it doesn’t have to involve direct betrayal but things such as being poorly supplied or informed.</p><p></p><p>There’s also discussion of less conventional adventure types: many aspects of guerilla warfare involve mobile operatives keeping out of reach of a larger force, whereas in most 5e campaigns it is the PCs who are searching for an enemy/dungeon/etc. The book explains that such a set-up can be challenging, so it suggests a kind of sandbox where the GM provides the players the map of an area with points of interest, knowing that PCs will naturally gravitate to areas in line with their mission objective or that can give them ideal resources. This lets the GM plan out encounters in advance and how the pursuers would approach such locations. Additionally, for adventures necessitating a stealthy approach, a variety of skills beyond Stealth are suggested for keeping off the enemy’s radar, and that a single failed check shouldn’t cause a full alert/failed mission/catastrophe. Instead, the book suggests scaling “Alert Levels” from 0 to 5, and each mistake and less-than-ideal situation raises the Alert Level. At 5 the infiltration is a failure and the PCs have to go in loud, if at all. Conversely, the Alert Level can be lowered based on circumstances, usually by the PCs coming up with a clever plan. A similar outline is given to Large-Scale Battles, where Everyday Heroes isn’t designed to be a wargame with dozens if not hundreds of fighting forces, instead encouraging the use of specific goals for PCs to do to turn the tide of battle like blowing up a key fortification or assassinating an enemy leader. Stray bullets, explosions, and other such “random” attacks can be simulated as hazards where an unmodified d20 on a 1-5 result causes a character to get targeted by enemy fire.</p><p></p><p><strong>Real-World Conflicts</strong> goes over the benefits and pitfalls of using such material in gaming sessions, and pretty much run the gamut of what you can expect: benefits being ample access to research material about them, and pitfalls being things like the fact that wars are tragic events and that one must cross a fine line between reality and fantasy for enjoyable game nights, and of course the inevitable political sensibilities in the events that players aren’t on the same page of who was the “good guy” in such battles, or if there were any “good guys” at all. The last section in this chapter gives <strong>Adventure Ideas,</strong> or short adventure or campaign hooks, such as being part of a special operations team to rescue diplomats during the Iranian Hostage Crisis, infiltrating a drug cartel’s compound to rescue a DEA agent, or helping a group of refugees and aid workers in Angola escape a combat zone.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/CsT5efO.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>We even have new rules in this section! The first one is <strong>Cannon Fodder,</strong> which are basically the Minion rules from 4th Edition where an enemy is defeated if they take any damage from the PC, with variants such as Elite Fodder that require taking damage twice to be defeated and Useless Fodder who only do the minimum amount of damage on attacks. The variant rule suggests that this shouldn’t be used for all NPCs and to be cautious that PCs who catch on to this may alter their tactics. The book suggests that GMs have ways of mitigating this, such as not telling who counts as Fodder or mixing a normal NPC into the forces who can take a few hits. Cannon Fodder is most appropriate for NPCs with the Fodder role, and it defeats the purpose for Loner and Hulk types to have it. As this drastically affects combat balance, NPCs with the Cannon Fodder template are treated as two steps lower on the Challenge Rating scale for determining encounter balance.</p><p></p><p><strong>Interrogation and Torture</strong> is our next rule, and the book stresses that it should be used with caution as a torture scene in a tabletop game is different than one in a movie where the player/viewer is a passive observer. Additionally, it is something that is the field of “bad guy” behavior so it’s only something that the enemies do in an authentic Rambo-style military fantasy. For rules, torture and interrogation is a contested roll where the player has some autonomy in deciding how their PC can best resist (sheer fortitude, cleverness, etc), and should a PC lose the contest the GM doesn’t just go “you break and give in” but asks the player how their character breaks under the strain. This way, it is the PC that feels helpless rather than the player. For PCs who interrogate NPCs, the book says that there are cases where the PCs will understandably want to get information from an enemy, but that torture can be uncomfortable for the GM as well and also shouldn’t create scenarios where that’s the only means of obtaining said information. Usually a social skill check on the part of PCs resisted by an NPC’s saving throw is sufficient, but also NPCs can spill the beans which the book says as a “win-win for everyone involved.” At the table, presumably, and not for the captured foe who has to deal with revealing valuable intel!</p><p></p><p>Finally, the <strong>Morale</strong> rule is another one borrowed from Dungeons & Dragons, specifically the TSR-era of old-school Editions. Basically it’s a way of determining a character’s fighting spirit and their willingness to stay on the battlefield. While it can apply to PCs, the book suggests using it only for NPCs the majority of the time and that certain “big name” characters such as main antagonists shouldn’t have to roll for it. Generally speaking it’s a saving throw, using an ability score of a PC’s primary class (such as Dexterity for Agile Heroes) or in the case of an NPC the one in which they’re highest or the modifier used by the leader of their fighting forces. Any talent or effect that modifiers saves vs the Frightened condition also applies to Morale. A Morale saving throw is triggered by a variety of events, and we have a sample table of DCs for common events such as an ally being killed, taking damage equal to half your maximum hit points in one attack, suffering a critical hit, your leader being killed, etc. Failing the save causes a character to be Frightened of both the battle and all of their opponents, and a natural 1 causes them to be Stunned for 1 turn as well. Once Frightened, a character can take an Action to try and overcome their fear, rolling a new save but with a DC of 10.</p><p></p><p><em>Thoughts:</em> I feel that the general-purpose advice and suggestions are solid, particularly for the unconventional adventure types engendered by guerilla warfare, and I do like their rationales for when and how to include interrogation and torture and its relative appropriateness for the table. I do like the concept of Morale in principle, but for encounters with a large amount of characters I can see it bogging down play. As for Cannon Fodder, I do like the idea in principle as by the conventional 5e rules all but the lowest-rated CR enemies are able to take at least one hit from conventional firearms, so something to best emulate Rambo’s rampage of destruction in the 2nd and later movies is needed without the GM making everyone CR ⅛ baddies with less than 10 hit points. It’s not just for overt violence, either; the ever-popular trope of “sneak up to an enemy soldier and snipe their head/slit their throat/knock them out” can be easily done with this, which the book does briefly mention. However, not telegraphing who is Fodder may be a double-edged sword; turning it into a guessing game may cause players to be overly cautious and not try to kill anyone in the aforementioned infiltration scenarios. unless they’re absolutely sure that initiative is going to be rolled. For more overt action, it may cause PCs to be more selective with AoE stuff like suppressive fire and explosions until they’re sure they know who the “normal enemy” targets are, which can make some tactical sense but runs counter to the reckless run and gun the Rambo sequels are known for.</p><p></p><p><strong>Thoughts So Far:</strong> It would be all too easy for other sourcebooks to just default to GM Fiat or referencing the core rules, but these chapters did a good job of covering the more likely cases where such things need necessary expansion. There’s quite an amount of emphasis on environmental tactics and alterations, which I do like and helps add variety to encounters to avoid growing stale, but putting them in the hands of PCs in particular is great in encouraging creativity and clever play.</p><p></p><p><strong>Join us next time as we cover the adventure in this Book, Rambo: Flesh & Blood!</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libertad, post: 9200948, member: 6750502"] [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/ZJ57jsM.png[/IMG][/CENTER] The last part of Chapter 2, [B]Equipment[/B] focuses on real-world gear commonplace during the era of the first three Rambo movies. A lot of the new items are specific variations of more generic equipment from the core rules, in some cases better or worse than the default versions. Another thing to note is that high tech, cellular-based electronic devices aren’t present by default and players should avoid taking them without first talking to the GM. We first start off with [I]Equipment Packs,[/I] which are a collection of gear for specific roles and a corresponding Price Level for the most expensive gear present. PCs who are active military personnel don’t have to purchase their own equipment, for it is given to them by their organization or employer. The five packs are more or less designed to work with one of the new classes in this book. For example, Combat Medic gets fatigues, helmet, and combat boot for clothes, a light ballistic vest for armor, an M-16A1 rifle and 2 smoke grenades for weapons, a first-aid kit, a soldier’s kit, and “pocket stuff” which can be any inconsequential items that can plausibly fit in one’s pockets. And speaking of the soldier’s kit, we have 4 new [I]specialized tool kits[/I] specific to the 1980s. The Demolition Kit is all about setting off explosive charges, First-Aid Kit is self-explanatory, Soldier’s Kit can vary depending on the mission but the essentials include a variety of stuff such as a frame backpack, trench tool, notebook and pen, seven magazines of ammo, three days’ worth of rations, and more. It is by far the heaviest of the kits, coming in at 4 Bulk whereas the others are 2 to 3. The Survival Kit can vary depending on the environment but includes various outdoor stuff such as 50 feet of cord, a reusable water bottle, and tools to start a fire. Finally, the Survival Knife is a multipurpose weapon and tool that is basically Rambo’s signature knife from the movies. It has a magnetic compass on the pommel, and the guard has a Phillips screwdriver on one side and a flat screwdriver on another, and inside the hollow handle is a small survival kit full of various things such as waterproof matches and sewing needles. It is treated as a combat knife when used as a weapon, which is like the knife from the core rules but can deal either piercing or slashing damage. We get new [I]item properties and conditions[/I] for some increased variation, including most notably the Masterwork property which 3.5 players may recognize. For +1 to the default item’s Price Level, a masterwork melee weapon deals +1 damage while masterwork ranged weapons don’t suffer disadvantage at long range. Masterwork armor removes the Awkward property, a condition from the core rules that reduces speed by 10 feet and imposes disadvantage on Dexterity saves and Acrobatics checks. Conditions are mostly negative properties that represent a degradation or alteration to the basic performance. For example, dropping a weapon in mud, sand, and the like can make a weapon Dirty, causing it to jam on a natural 1 on the attack roll and must be cleaned during a short rest to remove the condition. Sawed-Off is the only Condition that isn’t inherently negative; it is permanent and quarters the normal and long ranges of a firearm, but reduces its Bulk by 1 to a minimum of 1. The new [I]Basic Equipment[/I] includes the aforementioned Combat Knife, plus one revolver and three rifles. The Smith & Wesson Model 10 is basically a reflavored .38 Pocket Pistol but with 6 rounds, while the three rifles (SKS, SVD Dragunov, Winchester Model 88) are based off of the generic Hunting Rifle. Unlike that weapon, none of them have the Slow-Firing property, meaning they can be shot more than once per round if the wielder has the means of attacking multiple times. Only the Dragunov has more rounds than the default rifle, at 10 rather than 6, whereas the other 2 named rifles have 5 and 3 rounds. For [I]Advanced Equipment,[/I] we have 3 pistols, 2 rifles, and a shotgun. The Browning Hi-Power and Colt M1911 both use the same stats and are pretty much the 9mm Pistol from the core rules, but hold less rounds (15 and 14 respectively rather than the 9mm’s 21) and the Browning/Colt have a higher range at 125/250 feet rather than 100/200. The Heckler & Koch HK93A2 and M16 are both based off of the Assault Rifle (which is Military) save that they don’t have the Burst and Full-Auto properties, being Semi-Auto instead. The H&K rifle has a widely variable amount of rounds depending on its design ranging from 5 to 40.* Finally, the Remington Model 870 Shotgun is pretty much the generic Pump-Action Shotgun but with 2 less rounds at 7 instead of 9. *Every player worth their salt is going to try to get the 40 round one. [I]Advanced Equipment[/I] also gets some new nifty explosives. Demolition Charges are prepackaged explosives for controlled destruction, representing plastic explosives such as C4 and Semtex. Det Cords are plastic tubes filled with pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN for short) that is a high speed fuse that explodes rather than burns. They can’t be effectively deployed during combat, but can be made as part of a trap provided the victims are adjacent to it. Finally, Explosive Arrows are a fictional piece of equipment most famously used by Rambo. They are fired like normal arrows, save that they have explosive shrapnel. The Demolition Charge deals 4d6 damage, but the Det Cord and arrows deal 3d6. Given that normal arrows are 1d10 piercing, this is a huge damage upgrade. [I]Improvised Equipment[/I] is extremely short, covering Dambe Hand Wraps (Nigerian combat sport using hand wraps) that can deal 1d6 bludgeoning damage or slashing if made of rope and broken glass glued to it, and a Trenching Tool which is a collapsible shovel that deals 1d6 slashing damage. So far, all of these weapons are easily affordable, at Price Level 1 or 2 with only the Explosive Arrows being 3 for a set of 4. The [I]Military Equipment[/I] is where it’s at, and has the widest variety by far. There’s a bit too much to go over individually, but we got a healthy assortment of submachine guns, machine guns, rifles, grenade and rocket launchers, and even a new flamethrower weapon! This last weapon is basically a short-range weapon that deals 2d6 fire damage and ignores a target’s armor along with possibly imposing the Burning condition, and can also be used for covering fire as though it were an automatic weapon, but that pretty much depletes all 8 “rounds” it has. As for the rest of the military weapons, they are slight variations of existing types in Everyday Heroes. The notable machine guns include the FN MAG that is basically a light machine gun but is slower to load, the M60 is a medium machine gun but with a slightly lighter Bulk of 5 instead of 6, the ever-popular AK-47 is rather unique in having the damage of a light machine gun, the weight of an assault rifle, can only be full-auto rather than burst fire, and has a variable number of rounds based on box or drum magazines. America’s favorite, the M16A1, is pretty much an Assault Rifle but also with a variable number of rounds including up to a whopping 100 with a drum magazine. The MAC-10 SMG is a hybrid between a typical SMG and a Spec Ops one, having the inferior damage and range between the two but with no burst fire. So worse in pretty much every way. The RPG-7 and M72 LAW Rocket Launchers have the same stats as a typical Rocket Launcher, but are cheaper to acquire at Price Level 4 instead of 5. They both load their own type of rockets and the M72 is a “fire and forget” system in the weapon itself being unable to be reloaded. [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/G8YsDQE.png[/IMG][/CENTER] We get a bunch of new [I]integrated vehicle weapons,[/I] or weapons that are an essential part of a vehicle and thus can’t be removed. The core rules only have 4 such weapons, so this is a real treat. As is to be expected, they are very long-range damaging equipment that tend to either fire once before needing to be reloaded or are belt-felt, and include a variety of tank artillery guns, automatic weapons such as anti-aircraft guns and miniguns, and a mortar and rocket pod. The least damaging of them are the GE M134 Minigun and PKT Coaxial Machine Gun (both at 2d8) but the most powerful is the UB-S-5 Rocket Pod dealing 10d6 damage and also has the furthest range at 2 miles while also having 16 or 32 uses before needing to be restocked. The weapon descriptions also say what vehicles they are typically built into, several of which are written up at the end of this chapter. Most of the vehicles are variations of the ones from the Core Rules, being specific US or Soviet models and tend to have lower values than their modern-day counterparts. We do get some new air vehicles which have no clear approximations to core ones, such as the Mi-24D Hind which is a Soviet military helicopter equipped with a gatling gun and rocket pods, or the UH-1 Iroquois Huey combat helicopter of the US which can be fitted with a wide range of integrated weapons. For military explosives, we have the Claymore which is a new type of set explosive, and the 40mm flechette rounds are designed to be loaded into grenade launchers. Both of these explosives blow up in 30 foot cones, an AoE that the default mines in Everyday Heroes don’t have, and the flechette deals ballistic rather than explosive damage. Finally, the M69 Body Armor is akin to the core rule’s Ballistic Vest save that its Armor Value is 3 instead of 4 and has the Awkward property. The in-game description even notes that they were used in Vietnam and not strongly effective due to discomfort in tropical environments and being disliked by soldiers. This section rounds out with three new pieces of [I]general gear:[/I] glow sticks, trenching tools (advantage on Athletics checks to construct earthworks), and combat pharmaceuticals. The latter being experimental combat drugs in the 1970s and 80s. The book says to use the Combat Medic’s Just Take This talent as guidelines, but use the optional Drug Rules from the corebook outside of the context particularly for addiction. [I]Thoughts:[/I] While I do like the plethora of period-appropriate equipment, some of it does feel like padding in being too similar to existing types in the core rules. And even PCs who aren’t min-maxers are going to gravitate to getting their hands on the most ideal equipment, meaning that unless the GM is stringent on what kinds of gear they have access to in missions, quite a bit of material may get passed over. In such a case, it may be more appropriate as the kinds of things that NPCs may have. [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/mpb9suF.png[/IMG][/CENTER] This very short chapter mentions that Everyday Heroes on its own has enough material to emulate the kinds of action-adventure scenarios as seen in the Rambo movies, so the new rules are designed to further enhance such games. The first rule is [I]Graded Challenges,[/I] where instead of binary success or failures there are guidelines given for various degrees being 5 or 10 points higher/lower than the base DC. This rule is a general guideline, and it’s up to the GM when to use them in play rather than a universal mechanic. The second rule is for [I]Demolitions,[/I] where a building, bridge, or other such structure can be destroyed. We have a table of Necessary Charges based on the relative size of the object/building to be destroyed, and the demolitionist rolls Intelligence (Mechanics) for most cases or Intelligence (Natural Science) as an alternative. The DC is usually 15, and the result is a Graded Challenge determining how effective and controlled the explosion is. [I]Collapsing Buildings[/I] is the immediate followup, a new hazard where victims must make two separate saving throws to avoid taking damage from debris and being trapped by it, with the DC and damage determined by the size of the collapsing building. [I]Burning Buildings[/I] basically combines suffocation and visibility rules from the core plus the risk of fire damage, where even just being near fire can deal damage and risk the Burning condition. [I]Crewed Vehicles[/I] are for vehicles which require multiple people to efficiently operate, with a list of roles such as Gunner/Loader who can reload the integrated weapons or Co-Pilot who can either take over piloting directly or give the Pilot the Help action on certain checks. [I]Vehicle Certifications[/I] is an optional rule for added realism where certain vehicles requiring training to operate (tank, jet fighter, etc) require their own proficiencies, and can be basically learned whenever you’d learn a new skill. The [I]Bleeding Condition[/I] has been mentioned in the prior post. [I]Fortifications[/I] are basically the reverse of Traps, where characters can create objects and changes in terrain with the right materials and setup time, and in some cases a DC for more involved projects. Arts and Crafts or Mechanics are the most common such skills for checks. Fortifications include quite the variety, such as decoys who look like a person from a distance or poor visibility and can fool people via an opposed Perception vs Deception or Arts and Crafts, Foxholes/Spider Holes that can grant cover but require 10 feet of movement to leave, and Watchtowers that can provide advantage on Perception checks to those up top. [I]Traps[/I] aren’t a new rule so much as additional kinds on top of the ones in the core rules, with suggestions for the PCs to come up with their own traps and using the existing ones as guidelines. Grenade traps, minefields, rockfalls, and spring spikes are the new ones we get. Last but not least, [I]Lures[/I] are an open-ended rule where PCs roll a Deception check opposed by an enemy’s Intelligence save; a success on the PC’s part creates a good lure and grants advantage on checks for setting the traps, but a failure makes it a bad one and gives disadvantage on the check. As usual, the GM can use discretion based on in-game actions to know if the lure would be automatically good or bad, foregoing the need for rolls. [I]Thoughts:[/I] Of the new rules, I’m most fond of the ones for Traps, Fortifications, and Lures, and Demolitions is a good one too as they all cover things most PCs will try in actual play. I don’t have strong opinions on graded challenges due to their briefness, nor the building hazards or crewed vehicles. But I’d rather the latter rules be there, given the commonality of their use and they individually don’t take up much room; the crewed vehicles rule in particular is good in giving PCs various things to do besides being pilot/gunner, so it gets points for that. I am not very fond of vehicle specializations given that skill proficiencies are precious and the aforementioned vehicles are quite situational in use. How often will a PC get to fly a fighter jet in most sessions, for example? At least the book notes that it’s optional and only for more “realistic” campaigns, for even Rambo could pilot a variety of engines of destruction! [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/H2xurEv.png[/IMG][/CENTER] The first third of this book involved hard and fast rules, so this is where we help the GM make their Rambo-inspired military campaigns. We first start off with [B]Themes,[/B] which more or less do run-downs of what makes the series different from other action-adventures. They include things such as the GM focusing on putting the PCs on missions where they’re in isolated locations without access to outside resources in order to emulate the guerilla warfare feeling, the suggestion of using plot twists of government corruption that comes at the expense of soldiers,* finding ways of inserting the questions of patriotism and fighting for one’s country as means of giving the PCs ways to express how they feel about it one way or another, and of course the use of explosions to spice things up a bit. In typical action movie fashion, said explosives don’t have to threaten the heroes or enemies directly, but can “simply be for the sheer fun of it!” *The book says to use this sparingly to avoid it becoming too predictable, and it doesn’t have to involve direct betrayal but things such as being poorly supplied or informed. There’s also discussion of less conventional adventure types: many aspects of guerilla warfare involve mobile operatives keeping out of reach of a larger force, whereas in most 5e campaigns it is the PCs who are searching for an enemy/dungeon/etc. The book explains that such a set-up can be challenging, so it suggests a kind of sandbox where the GM provides the players the map of an area with points of interest, knowing that PCs will naturally gravitate to areas in line with their mission objective or that can give them ideal resources. This lets the GM plan out encounters in advance and how the pursuers would approach such locations. Additionally, for adventures necessitating a stealthy approach, a variety of skills beyond Stealth are suggested for keeping off the enemy’s radar, and that a single failed check shouldn’t cause a full alert/failed mission/catastrophe. Instead, the book suggests scaling “Alert Levels” from 0 to 5, and each mistake and less-than-ideal situation raises the Alert Level. At 5 the infiltration is a failure and the PCs have to go in loud, if at all. Conversely, the Alert Level can be lowered based on circumstances, usually by the PCs coming up with a clever plan. A similar outline is given to Large-Scale Battles, where Everyday Heroes isn’t designed to be a wargame with dozens if not hundreds of fighting forces, instead encouraging the use of specific goals for PCs to do to turn the tide of battle like blowing up a key fortification or assassinating an enemy leader. Stray bullets, explosions, and other such “random” attacks can be simulated as hazards where an unmodified d20 on a 1-5 result causes a character to get targeted by enemy fire. [B]Real-World Conflicts[/B] goes over the benefits and pitfalls of using such material in gaming sessions, and pretty much run the gamut of what you can expect: benefits being ample access to research material about them, and pitfalls being things like the fact that wars are tragic events and that one must cross a fine line between reality and fantasy for enjoyable game nights, and of course the inevitable political sensibilities in the events that players aren’t on the same page of who was the “good guy” in such battles, or if there were any “good guys” at all. The last section in this chapter gives [B]Adventure Ideas,[/B] or short adventure or campaign hooks, such as being part of a special operations team to rescue diplomats during the Iranian Hostage Crisis, infiltrating a drug cartel’s compound to rescue a DEA agent, or helping a group of refugees and aid workers in Angola escape a combat zone. [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/CsT5efO.png[/IMG][/CENTER] We even have new rules in this section! The first one is [B]Cannon Fodder,[/B] which are basically the Minion rules from 4th Edition where an enemy is defeated if they take any damage from the PC, with variants such as Elite Fodder that require taking damage twice to be defeated and Useless Fodder who only do the minimum amount of damage on attacks. The variant rule suggests that this shouldn’t be used for all NPCs and to be cautious that PCs who catch on to this may alter their tactics. The book suggests that GMs have ways of mitigating this, such as not telling who counts as Fodder or mixing a normal NPC into the forces who can take a few hits. Cannon Fodder is most appropriate for NPCs with the Fodder role, and it defeats the purpose for Loner and Hulk types to have it. As this drastically affects combat balance, NPCs with the Cannon Fodder template are treated as two steps lower on the Challenge Rating scale for determining encounter balance. [B]Interrogation and Torture[/B] is our next rule, and the book stresses that it should be used with caution as a torture scene in a tabletop game is different than one in a movie where the player/viewer is a passive observer. Additionally, it is something that is the field of “bad guy” behavior so it’s only something that the enemies do in an authentic Rambo-style military fantasy. For rules, torture and interrogation is a contested roll where the player has some autonomy in deciding how their PC can best resist (sheer fortitude, cleverness, etc), and should a PC lose the contest the GM doesn’t just go “you break and give in” but asks the player how their character breaks under the strain. This way, it is the PC that feels helpless rather than the player. For PCs who interrogate NPCs, the book says that there are cases where the PCs will understandably want to get information from an enemy, but that torture can be uncomfortable for the GM as well and also shouldn’t create scenarios where that’s the only means of obtaining said information. Usually a social skill check on the part of PCs resisted by an NPC’s saving throw is sufficient, but also NPCs can spill the beans which the book says as a “win-win for everyone involved.” At the table, presumably, and not for the captured foe who has to deal with revealing valuable intel! Finally, the [B]Morale[/B] rule is another one borrowed from Dungeons & Dragons, specifically the TSR-era of old-school Editions. Basically it’s a way of determining a character’s fighting spirit and their willingness to stay on the battlefield. While it can apply to PCs, the book suggests using it only for NPCs the majority of the time and that certain “big name” characters such as main antagonists shouldn’t have to roll for it. Generally speaking it’s a saving throw, using an ability score of a PC’s primary class (such as Dexterity for Agile Heroes) or in the case of an NPC the one in which they’re highest or the modifier used by the leader of their fighting forces. Any talent or effect that modifiers saves vs the Frightened condition also applies to Morale. A Morale saving throw is triggered by a variety of events, and we have a sample table of DCs for common events such as an ally being killed, taking damage equal to half your maximum hit points in one attack, suffering a critical hit, your leader being killed, etc. Failing the save causes a character to be Frightened of both the battle and all of their opponents, and a natural 1 causes them to be Stunned for 1 turn as well. Once Frightened, a character can take an Action to try and overcome their fear, rolling a new save but with a DC of 10. [I]Thoughts:[/I] I feel that the general-purpose advice and suggestions are solid, particularly for the unconventional adventure types engendered by guerilla warfare, and I do like their rationales for when and how to include interrogation and torture and its relative appropriateness for the table. I do like the concept of Morale in principle, but for encounters with a large amount of characters I can see it bogging down play. As for Cannon Fodder, I do like the idea in principle as by the conventional 5e rules all but the lowest-rated CR enemies are able to take at least one hit from conventional firearms, so something to best emulate Rambo’s rampage of destruction in the 2nd and later movies is needed without the GM making everyone CR ⅛ baddies with less than 10 hit points. It’s not just for overt violence, either; the ever-popular trope of “sneak up to an enemy soldier and snipe their head/slit their throat/knock them out” can be easily done with this, which the book does briefly mention. However, not telegraphing who is Fodder may be a double-edged sword; turning it into a guessing game may cause players to be overly cautious and not try to kill anyone in the aforementioned infiltration scenarios. unless they’re absolutely sure that initiative is going to be rolled. For more overt action, it may cause PCs to be more selective with AoE stuff like suppressive fire and explosions until they’re sure they know who the “normal enemy” targets are, which can make some tactical sense but runs counter to the reckless run and gun the Rambo sequels are known for. [B]Thoughts So Far:[/B] It would be all too easy for other sourcebooks to just default to GM Fiat or referencing the core rules, but these chapters did a good job of covering the more likely cases where such things need necessary expansion. There’s quite an amount of emphasis on environmental tactics and alterations, which I do like and helps add variety to encounters to avoid growing stale, but putting them in the hands of PCs in particular is great in encouraging creativity and clever play. [B]Join us next time as we cover the adventure in this Book, Rambo: Flesh & Blood![/B] [/QUOTE]
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