Tanks... for the memories...

[Agent Oracle]

My players are currently in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Campaign setting (Dragonstar D&D in spaaaaccceee).

They happen to be clones of a team of crack infiltrator operatives, who were supposed to keep their memory tapes updated, but conveniently avoided doing as such for almost two years because the process of updating a memory tape hurts like hell (and causes severe temprary stat drain across the board, to reflect the severity of it to my players)

My next session features a setpiece battle wherein the players will be part of a fireteam trying to hold a position against an oncoming enemy froce. The first few things will be infantry, which they can hold their own against... but it's all setup for the big showdown, where a tank rolls into the city square.

I'm worried I might be putting them in over their heads.

Any reccomendations for how to run a Tank? Here's a few details I thought of, but i'm a little wary to implement:

1. The tank is from the Steampunk force, It's main cannon is exactly that, a Black powder cannon. The shells are not explosive, but shatter and inflict damage to everything in a 5' radius of where they impact

2. The armor is thick, several inches thick. But i'm torn between low AC / high DR (as a large, slow-moving object is wont to be) and High AC / No DR (as the apparatus of Kawalsh)

3. Turning the turret takes time, 1 round per 90 degrees of turret rotation. This will allow the players to take advantage of momentary lapses in it's firing arc.

4. reloading takes 1d4 rounds, similar to a dragon's breath, this gives players a chance to equalize damage inflicted / damage taken.

5. Size is... well, big as hell : i'm thinking 20 feet wide by 35 feet long. what category is that?

6. The damage for the main gun: sadly, my only references suggest 10d10, but that's for a plasma weapon (and it would kill my players outright) any suggestions?

 

[Ferrix]

1. The tank is from the Steampunk force, It's main cannon is exactly that, a Black powder cannon. The shells are not explosive, but shatter and inflict damage to everything in a 5' radius of where they impact

Cool.

2. The armor is thick, several inches thick. But i'm torn between low AC / high DR (as a large, slow-moving object is wont to be) and High AC / No DR (as the apparatus of Kawalsh)

Low AC / high DR. Alternatively you can break up the tank into various object sections, allowing the players to target specific parts of the tank (treads, turret, etc.) which would be much more fun than having it be a single giant monstrosity.

3. Turning the turret takes time, 1 round per 90 degrees of turret rotation. This will allow the players to take advantage of momentary lapses in it's firing arc.

They'll probably need it, although canny players would spread out and keep moving giving it little chance to pin them down.

4. reloading takes 1d4 rounds, similar to a dragon's breath, this gives players a chance to equalize damage inflicted / damage taken.

Good for them.

5. Size is... well, big as hell : i'm thinking 20 feet wide by 35 feet long. what category is that?

Gargantuan (long) or Collosal (long)

6. The damage for the main gun: sadly, my only references suggest 10d10, but that's for a plasma weapon (and it would kill my players outright) any suggestions?

Your normal heavy catapult deals 6d6 damage, so I'd say in the range from 6d6 to 10d6 depending upon how mean you want to be. I'd also suggest equipping the tank with say a mounted light gun of sorts (as most tanks had them for anti-personnel) that would do say 2d6 or 3d6 damage.

You could also treat the attacks as area-of-affect attacks which provide a reflex save for half.

 

[Jdvn1]

What? Dragonstar? Do you have a Storyhour/website I can peruse so that I can pretend I might be in a Dragonstar game someday?

 

[Liquidsabre]

The area of effect attacks sound pretty good, just pick a square and just roll scatter dice to see which square the round lands in. Then give them a reflex save for dmg, but I might think about making the area a little larger than a 10-ft square, just not all that impressive. Additionally, you might try making the center of the blast deal more damage than the outer radius of the area, so have the center square deal 6d6 dmg, surrounding squares progressively deal 2d6 less dmg. That'd allow for a couple of shots to come pretty near the PCs but still not lethal enough to totally blow them away.

I agree with Ferrix that there'd likely be some kind of mounted machingun on the tank as well. It deal less dmg than the main gun of course but has a much easier time pinning down, suppressing, and otherwise weeding out infantry in cover. For even more PC-charging-the-tank-fun, you could even have the machinegun turret on top of the main gun and manned by a guy standing out of the main hatch on top of the tank (as an awfully temptign target to gain entry into the tank!). With infantry dug in on either side of the tank to protect it from infantry assaults (things like attaching bombs to the tank's tracks/wheels immobilizing it, possibly neutralized by bypasing it or coming in from the rear to finish it off, etc.) to make this particularly interesting.

 

[Agent Oracle]

Low AC / high DR. Alternatively you can break up the tank into various object sections, allowing the players to target specific parts of the tank (treads, turret, etc.) which would be much more fun than having it be a single giant monstrosity.

...

Your normal heavy catapult deals 6d6 damage, so I'd say in the range from 6d6 to 10d6 depending upon how mean you want to be. I'd also suggest equipping the tank with say a mounted light gun of sorts (as most tanks had them for anti-personnel) that would do say 2d6 or 3d6 damage.

You could also treat the attacks as area-of-affect attacks which provide a reflex save for half.

Those are all excelent suggestions! I've decided on the tank doing 6d6 damage, with Multiple sections (Wheels, turret, body, smokestacks, furnace). The "light" gun will be faster than the main turret, but be exposed, (permitting the PC's to do what comes naturally, kill the guy manning the light gun. )

What? Dragonstar? Do you have a Storyhour/website I can peruse so that I can pretend I might be in a Dragonstar game someday?

Sadly, not yet. I just set up a yahoo group, and I plan to continue the game online with the aid of a fine Virtual tabletop, since two of my players are moving (one state north and one state south, respectively). The whole gang wants to continue playing, so I've set up a yahoo group and gotten some resources for online gaming. When we get started, i'll send you a personal invitation, and you can join the game online.

Dragonstar is a great setting, very active, very open to any player style, race, class, character build (etc.) Though it does need some supplements to be used to maximum efficiency, so I've been allowing players to bring in other Sci-fi and fantasy books for me to look over and approve things from. Traveller d20 is our unofficial equipment guide. and this world is heavily based off of the Goodman Games book "Etherscope" which calls for more of a d20 modern approach, but I finangled it a bit.

I agree with Ferrix that there'd likely be some kind of mounted machingun on the tank as well. It deal less dmg than the main gun of course but has a much easier time pinning down, suppressing, and otherwise weeding out infantry in cover. For even more PC-charging-the-tank-fun, you could even have the machinegun turret on top of the main gun and manned by a guy standing out of the main hatch on top of the tank (as an awfully temptign target to gain entry into the tank!). With infantry dug in on either side of the tank to protect it from infantry assaults (things like attaching bombs to the tank's tracks/wheels immobilizing it, possibly neutralized by bypasing it or coming in from the rear to finish it off, etc.) to make this particularly interesting.

Brilliant! Though a machine gunner in a steampunk setting has it's folleys... i'm thinking.. fire for 1d6 rounds... let the gun cool for 1d4. Damage of 2d8 (traditional) with a "continuous fire" option that allows me to tell the PC's that they are pinned by the enemy's fire.