Krizzel
First Post
Concerning the fire fight...
I think 'nearly defeated' is stretching it a little...
IIRC (and I'm too tired to look it up ATM), you guys took them out in four or five rounds - that's thirty seconds. Pretty short for a firefight - especially one involving cover, concealment, and fair range. And none of you took any hits (only Wraith even came close). I should also mention that these guys were far from first level, though they were 'ordinaries' (read: flunky NPC type in Modern, vs. full character abilities).
OTOH, I don't think it would've went so 'well' for them without a lucky roll (the non-suprised guy got a Nat20 on a spot check) - otherwise they would have been a lot closer before anything happened, and a little easier to hit. Rolling a 20 was the only way they were going to be able to see you. A couple bad rolls to hit before he could dive behind cover, and then the situation developed from there. I don't cheat on rolls at all for either side, and I've suffered under bad rolls as a player so I can empathize with that.
But the point about the seeming relative difficulty of the encounter is well taken. Some work on characters may help with that, but I think also just making it through more encounters is what's going to do the trick. Modern is still a new system, and from my brief experiences it seems pretty different than D&D in the way it plays. It's still hard for me to say how good a +6 to hit is, or how tough MAS 14 is (massive damage threshold). Working through the statistics is one thing, but seeing how it behaves in action is something else.
Anyway, a long way of saying I hear what ya'll are saying, and I'll put some thought to it. And realize at the same time that some things are going to end up easier than they should have been, and some harder. Hopefully it all equalizes in the end (and certainly the good and bad rolls spread pretty well).
I think 'nearly defeated' is stretching it a little...
IIRC (and I'm too tired to look it up ATM), you guys took them out in four or five rounds - that's thirty seconds. Pretty short for a firefight - especially one involving cover, concealment, and fair range. And none of you took any hits (only Wraith even came close). I should also mention that these guys were far from first level, though they were 'ordinaries' (read: flunky NPC type in Modern, vs. full character abilities).
OTOH, I don't think it would've went so 'well' for them without a lucky roll (the non-suprised guy got a Nat20 on a spot check) - otherwise they would have been a lot closer before anything happened, and a little easier to hit. Rolling a 20 was the only way they were going to be able to see you. A couple bad rolls to hit before he could dive behind cover, and then the situation developed from there. I don't cheat on rolls at all for either side, and I've suffered under bad rolls as a player so I can empathize with that.
But the point about the seeming relative difficulty of the encounter is well taken. Some work on characters may help with that, but I think also just making it through more encounters is what's going to do the trick. Modern is still a new system, and from my brief experiences it seems pretty different than D&D in the way it plays. It's still hard for me to say how good a +6 to hit is, or how tough MAS 14 is (massive damage threshold). Working through the statistics is one thing, but seeing how it behaves in action is something else.
Anyway, a long way of saying I hear what ya'll are saying, and I'll put some thought to it. And realize at the same time that some things are going to end up easier than they should have been, and some harder. Hopefully it all equalizes in the end (and certainly the good and bad rolls spread pretty well).
