Battletech/Mechwarrior PbP: "Days of the Jackal" [closed]

[Douane]

Darkknyte,

I'm just working on an Email with some more of BT info (including weapon data) so you can judge the mechs a bit better.


As for the Thug, it's not "not commonly available", it is almost totally unknown in the Inner Sphere by now. A mech of the Star League, its production facilities were totally destroyed and they went out of service hundreds of years ago. So, it is a kind of "unique mech".


Folkert

 

[Douane]

The bitter truth:

Sorry, folks, but I have to delay the start a bit.


With a sick GF "on my hands" (whom I have to drive to her parents this morning) my time to work on the opening has been cut short. This is also the reason why I made myself a bit scarce on the boards these past two days.

It is now 2.30 AM over here and I will start the game this evening (and this is not just "kind of a promise").


My apologies for the disappointment, but, believe me, I would have liked things to go differently, too.


Folkert

 

[shurai]

Well, shoot. I hope your girlfriend gets well soon; take all the time you need to be there for her.

 

[Drakknyte32]

I second shurai's sentiments on your soul-sibling (try saying that 5 times fast)

I decided to rearrange my character to stick better with the anime feel. A shy, kinda weak kid that is insanely good in his mech, but not much good at anything else. This is what I got.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
D5 (21 stats, 16 skills, 3 advantages)

Build 1
Reflexes 6
Intuition 6
Learning 1
Charisma 1

Athletic (11)
Physical (6)
Mental (11)
Social (11)

Skills (MechWarrior Package, remaining 3 points boost gunnery up to 3)
Gunnery 3 (3+)
Pilot 2 (4+)
Small arms 2 (4+)
Unarmed 2 (9+)
Leadership 1 (10+)
Survival 1 (
Technician (Mech) 1

Advantage: Natural Aptitude (Gunnery)

Background with one difference.
when he started to use the mech he took to it like a fish out of water. He could move it like it was a second skin and could hit almost anything with the weapons. After years of practice he only got better at it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can someone tell me if this is munchkin? No, seriosly, is it munchkin? I'm not used to creating characters so I'm not sure if this is unfairly overpowered. Or if that would be a good thing.

For a mech I'm going with the Thug. I've got a mech that nobody has ever seen before and it's an assault class. I've made the following modifications to it as per the guidelines in the letter.

Removed one SRM-4 and it's ammo to make room for an additional 48 points of armor. New armor is applied as follows.

Head 9
Center Torso 44
Center Torso (R) 12
R/L Torso 34
R/L Torso (R) 12
R/L Arm 35
R/L Leg 44

Still looking for a good name for it though. Any suggestions for a giant, metal childhood friend.

In reply to your letter.

I didn't mean I joined so I'd learn the BT and MW systems. I joined so I could learn a new system. I want to see how I do when I have no real knowledge of the game.

Sorry if I made it sound like I thought you were condescending in my mech post. I can fully understand choosing a mech just because of the picture. thats one of the 3 main reasons I took the Thug instead of the Atlas. I just wanted to make sure I ended up with a mech I could play (what if I'd liked the way the Charger looked ). At any rate I do understand a lot more about them no and that is mostly because of the help of you "professionals" .

Your reason for unarmed skill is a good one. I have it at two in my current arrangement. Although I hope my skill at shooting stuff will convince people I deserve it.

I think I understand how you hurt stuff now. The only question I have left about this is purely technical. How much exactly will movement (mine or theirs) affect the attack roll?

For costomizing a mech. That's understandable and it won't really weaken my Mech much. I did use your armor-rule to increase my armor to really-high levels (see above). With my Gunnery I should be able to use my PPC's close up with out to much trouble.

 

[Drakknyte32]

Oh yea, could you roll on the lifepath for me. I'll take it twice and use my extra edge.

 

[Festy_Dog]

I think I understand how you hurt stuff now. The only question I have left about this is purely technical. How much exactly will movement (mine or theirs) affect the attack roll?

Your movement and your enemy's movement affect your attack roll in different ways. In the case of your mech, the penalty depends on whether you walked, ran or stood still. The faster you move the bigger the penalty will be. In the case of your enemy, the penalty depends on how far they have moved rather than how they moved.

For example an Atlas, when running, moves five, while a Locust, when walking, moves eight. Lets say the Atlas is running at the Locust in order to fire at it, it'll have a penalty because it ran, and if the Locust moved its full walking distance of 8, it'll have another (big) penalty to hit a moving target.

The Locust on the other hand will have a far easier time, because it walked it doesn't get as big a penaly to hit, and because the Atlas could only move 5 the penalty for a moving target isn't as big either.

 

[Shalimar]

A few points for you Draknyyte.

1)Battle Tech is not anime, so there really isn't an anime feel for you to go for. If you want him to be weak in other areas, thats fine but your still not the greatest mechwarrior in the unit, your a cut above the rest of the "Average Pilots" in the innersphere, but your far from being great or even close to the best. The best pilots in the Battletech world are Morgan Kell, Danny Allard, people that have Gunnery and Piloting skills at such a high rank that to succeed, before modifiers for movement etc, all they need is a -2 so any positive roll would pretty much work for them. That said, from what Duoane has said this will be mostly Roleplaying, so being so weak in other areas just to mae your Gunnery and Piloting a touch better then average doesn't seem quite wise. The stuff put up by Duoane as far as stats was pretty balanced and very functional, otherwise people who are unskilled at stuff you specialized in are gonna be better at it then you.

2)Adding armor to the Thug. Each mech chassis can only hold soo much armor, thats a fact of B-tech physics, by adding that armor, it goes way over that limit, at maximum, it can only take another 15 points of armor. So 48 points of armor would cripple the mech. If you are soo concerned with armor and heat, then just go with the Thug-11E model, assuming its ok with the Storyteller, it has maxed out armor, 2 PPCs, 2 SRM6s, and instead of single heatsinks, it has 18 Double Heatsinks, meaning each heatsink takes away 2 heat a round, so even if you run and fire every single weapon, your mech will never create more heat then it can dissipate. Now, Double heatsinks are not something any of the rest of us have, but the Star League did, if the mech is a star league mech, it might be possible.

 

[doghead]

Douane, sorry about the delay in getting on to this. Its been a bit of a long couple of weeks and the brain isn't what it should be.

Please don't sweat the delay at your end. Take whatever time you need. Friends and family come first. You're not going to hear any noise from over here over a few days.

Obviously, the Fourth Succession War is the "Big One" for a 3025 BT setting. No more small-time raids, no more shifting the whole front around to prepare for an invasion of a single world, no more flea-bites.

There is simply no way around it. (Not that I'd want to! )

But how to appoach it? What would you prefer?

Not really sure. Or put it another way, don't really mind.

Tying into this, the next question:

1. Would you rather have a longer period dedicated to the formation of 'your' mercenary unit, ie. trying to fill the ranks, getting to know each other [PCs and NPCs] (perhaps even forming friendships ) and competing for contracts with other potential units (fair or unfair) ?

2. Or you would you rather have everyone thrown together (as in 'recruited'), provided a contract/mission by your 'organizer' and start from there?

3. Else?

Hasic has been drifting around, selling his services to other merc units, but without formally joining one.

From what I understand, the players are all fairly capable mechwarriors. If Hasic were to see the opportunity to bring them all together in as a unit, he would probably be tempted to try it. But the downside of this approach is that he would feel under no obligation to include everyone, or go through with it if it didn't seem right.

Having someone else do the recruiting does allow you to avoid this problem. Perhaps they too saw the opportunity to put together an "elite" unit from scratch. Using a "silent partner" as patron would allow you to set things up initially, but would give us a fair degree of autonomy as a group.

PS. Its getting pretty close to holiday time for this dog. I just thought I would remind you. If you want me to start later, I'm cool with that.

The other way would be to have had all of the characters working together over a period of time, either in the same unit, or in different units brought together for a particular campaign. During which time they agreed to form a new company at the end of the current contract.

 

[doghead]

Drakknyte32.

My advice is listen to Shalimar's advice I understand what you mean about the anime feel/image/style, but I think that the attribute and skill set you have isn't chuncky enough to reflect what you are trying to achieve. But there is no reason that you have to "insanely" good.

In a lot of stories, the "accidental" hero initially gets by more on luck and bravado than actual skill. That comes later. The problem that you have is it is going to come much later with LRN 1. Why not drop a point of Reflexes and put it to Learning? Leave the Build 1 as is. This will stiffen your Mental skills, and put you at about average for a IS warrior. Personally, I think that it fits your background better as well. Live fire combat is a very different experience to anything a simulator can provide. Just ask the clan warriors.

Another alternative is to drop the Nat Apt/gunnery and take 3 Edge. This would give you 4 in total, which in some ways better reflects the "dumb luck" of some of the anime characters.

Anyway, hope that it helps.

 

[shurai]

Drakknyte32-

Here's a page you can tinker with if you're interested in some of the finer points of the to-hit roll:

http://www.magpage.com/~flynnmj/tcsi/mth.html

One piece of advice: It may be in your best interest to stop worrying about how to optimize your mech and your character. If you just let it go and take the stock mech, you'll have just as much fun as everybody else. All of us have sub-optimal mechs, because according to the strictly mechanical parts of the mech construction and customization rules, much better 'mech designs are possible. The game isn't about strict fairness or optimization, it's about having fun getting into character or enjoying a relatively rich tactical experience (which this game will probably not feature too much of, since it's largely roleplaying).

Also, about your Attributes, to clarify what Doghead was talking about, this is the rules post that explains why LRN 1 isn't possible with the skill choices you've made. LRN defines the maximum starting skill your character can have. That means that there's only one way a 21-point Attribute pool can produce Piloting/Gunnery at 4+ each:

BLD 1
REF 6
INT 5 (10)
LRN 3
CHA 1

But I wouldn't, because CHA 1 is just awful, especially in a game that features lots of roleplaying, like ours will. You might want to consider REF 5 and CHA 2 instead. It's perfectly okay for your character to have Piloting/Gunnery 5+, because he's just a kid and he's got no battlefield experience. 5+ is the standard skill level for Green mechwarriors, after all. Just cook up a cool character concept and don't worry about trying to be particularly awesome at mech piloting & combat. After all, your 'awesomeness' at mech combat already comes from the huge beast you drive. You'll have more fun that way, I promise, and thanks to Edges you can still have a good chance at hitting when it counts. : ]

-S