Author Topic: Shooting while in melee and other questions after 1st session  (Read 1109 times)

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Offline GMLovlie

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Shooting while in melee and other questions after 1st session
« on: December 23, 2016, 05:57:00 AM »
    So, this came up last night in our first session.

    While I have played HARP before, my players haven't. Also, it's about ~9 years since I ran my last session, in HARP fantasy.

    So. Here are some questions that came up:
    • How do you treat ranged weapons in melee? That is, the soldier was charged by a space ghoul, he wanted to continue to use his assault rifle, which I thought was fine. But. In other games, using ranged weapons in while engaged melee incurs some kind of penalty. I can't seem to find any in the book.
    • Piloting seems really difficult. Being within the gravity well of Saturn incurs a -60 on piloting checks? Which is further modified by the difficulty of the manoeuvre...? So avoiding collision within Saturn's gravity well can easily be -80 to -100. I think I understand why beginner characters shouldn't have a ship to start with ... :o
    • Collisions with spaceships are based on speed (km/s) or acceleration? I assume the latter, and this is also divided by 5 and then added as an OB to the collision roll on the crash table...?
    • Also about piloting (in a pursuit for instance, I found it :) ), when you determine difficulty of a pilot check, you pick % velocity, would that be % of you top fraction c speed? And then add % of acceleration and other factors...
    • I seem to remember a rule that said results of 99 and 100 on an open-ended d100 attack roll ignores damage cap. Was that a house-rule or an actual rule... and is that rule continued in HARP SF? I can't seem to locate it...
  • As stated elsewhere, the winner of initiative decides distance against one opponent. Is the intention that there nothing the opposition can do to close that gap? What about adapting the pursuit rules in an attempt to close the gap? Modified by -xx as the winner of initiative is keeping his distance... at least during combat using 1 minute turns...

Right, I'll leave it for now. Most of these will probably solve themselves through play and trial and error, and I'll adapt as I see fit, so the question is more about the intention than what is right or wrong. :)
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Offline GMLovlie

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Re: Shooting while in melee and other questions after 1st session
« Reply #1 on: December 23, 2016, 10:27:42 AM »
Ignore the first question. Sorry. I've looked at that page multiple times... now I noticed it ...  :o
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Offline pyrotech

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Re: Shooting while in melee and other questions after 1st session
« Reply #2 on: December 23, 2016, 12:30:35 PM »
Well an engagement in close proximity with a gas giant is a pretty difficult fight for pilots.  But it is hard for both parties. 

I have used 1st level characters for a ships crew, but the idea was that they were fresh out of an accelerated training program to meet a colonies very pressing need.  The colony simply did not have the manpower to staff all their new ships with more experienced crews.  The Introductory adventure was set up to get the party to around 3rd level by its completion.  General consensus seems to be that 3rd level is a better starting point for characters who represent new but competent crewmembers.

Page 176 of the HARP SF main book covers the 99-100 damage cap.  But yes natural 99-100 results are both open ended and ignore damage caps.  They tend to be fight enders or Fate point expenditures for the players.

Oddly enough I have not had to get out the collision rules for spaceships in any of my games yet.  So I would have to review those myself.

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Offline GMLovlie

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Re: Shooting while in melee and other questions after 1st session
« Reply #3 on: December 23, 2016, 01:20:04 PM »
I've found, some, of the answers - but thanks for the page reference for 99-100 results.

Collisions only use km/h - I believe - in the text. I guess you could use km/s too and just divide to get km/h and then divide by 5... it's still be quite a high OB... which makes all kinds of sense, I know.

It came up in our last session due to them navigating on the shadow side of Saturn, well within the orbits of the inner moons (Tethys, etc), which I would think is within the gravity well of Saturn. In the darkness they failed on their scanning and sensor checks, so they didn't see the black/grey massive starship looming ahead of them ... I let the Pilot make an evasive check... and they collided. I decided it was a tiny critical, even if the ship is a lot more massive, due to the fact they just clipped a "corner" on one of its sides.

By the end of the session I let them level up, they'd managed not to die, locate a way on to the mysterious ship, they explored it, fought some space ghouls, managed to hack into the network to shut down two security robots just as they were getting ready to let loose some machine gun madness. They discovered the name of the ship and, at last, a working terminal to access the ship's systems.

I felt rusty going in, and the players were all new to this system, but not to the hobby. All in all I think they liked it. But yeah, I need to get them to level 3-4 before I let loose the full plans...
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Offline NicholasHMCaldwell

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Re: Shooting while in melee and other questions after 1st session
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2017, 08:56:28 AM »
1st-level characters unless carefully optimised will find many things difficult for them, but then they are only 1st-level characters.

With an experienced group of players, I will typically start characters at 2nd or 3rd level so that they can get on with major plots and risky stuff.

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Publisher of Rolemaster, Spacemaster, Shadow World, Cyradon, HARP & HARP SF, and Cyberspace, with products available from www.drivethrurpg.com
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