We needs 'em.
Otherwise, I'll never be able to use my mobile suit-piloting, psychic dolphins.
*sigh*
Any suggestions?
Any suggestions?
Well, we have the Heavy-Lift Harness Omega card:
"Heavy-Lift Harness (O; R: Xi) “Get away from her, you -!” HP 100, Space 2 by 2 squares; AC 20, Other Defenses 17; Speed 5; Driver: A driver occupies 1 square of the heavy-lift harness’s space and must have both hands free to move it or use its power.; Load: 1 Medium creature and 4,000 lbs of gear.; Power: At-Will Physical; Standard Action, Melee 2; Target: One Creature; Attack: Level + 8 vs. AC; Hit: 2d10 + Constitution modifier + twice your level physical damage, and the target is immobilized (save ends). The immobilization also ends if you are no longer adjacent to the target.; Salvage 4: A 4th-level character can salvage the heavy-lift harness. It becomes a special item as above, but without the power."
The Apparatus of Kwalish (from regular D&D: Adventurer's Vault p.17) could also serve as an example.
We might see some more when the Gamma World vehicles article comes out, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I personally would love to see some mecha stats that I could eventually use as Gammarauders. Maybe you could ask Oraibi for input (he does excellent work on this type of stuff).
I'm likin' the lift harness. I guess I could just use that and make a few modifications. Thanks, buddy.
Was it a majestic moose thatkicked your sister's toof?
Legion of Gold is supposed to have mounted combat rules, and they may be customizable for mecha and the such. I've been thinking about how best to do this myself too. Nice to know I'm not the only one.
And anyway, I think that mechs are necessary for this setting. I'm surprised that wasn't one of the first set of rules they tackled.
FWIW really non seriuous effort to be improved upon later.
Rusty Glitterboy
An extremely large power armor from a more civilized age, this has been handed down for generation by family lines. The armor is flaking, and the supports for the Ginormous cannon have long since fallen/broken off, but the gun is still live, and the armor is long from being worthless.
Level 1 artillery
medium humanoid
HP: 35
Defenses AC:17, Fort 15, Ref 13 Will 14
Resist: Laser 3, sonic 5
Trait: When a character is riding the Rusty Glitterboy they gain 3 bonus hp anytime they recover hp, up to the normal max.
Standard : Boom Gun
Ranged: 15
Attack: +7 vs AC
damage: slightly high
effect: all creatures in close burst 2 take 5 sonic damage, the Glitterboy is knocked prone and pushed 3 squares from the target.
Melee: punch/slam
real basic crap attack.
I'll make the entry much better later. But you see the idea?
A destroyed item can be repaired after a battle, up to it's bloody value. After an extended rest, you can try extensive repairs, MEch hard DC level of the item. If successful, the suit regains all hp, if unsuccesful, you lose the trait, and the max hp temporarily is lowered to the bloodied value (bloodied value to match.
This way, also, xp earned by the "suit" (mecha, vehicle, salamander) can raise the "level" of the item so it can improve with the party, and it's an xp drain, so you can build bigger encounters to deal with the added firepower. I don't know, just pit balling here on my lunch instead of doing anything productive.
The idea here was to make the Mech more than just another piece of equipment picked up by a character and make it more of an extension of the character.
I wanted to stick with the abstract vibe of Gamma World, while bringing in a bit of the randomness and making Origins contribute to the SAAW's feel. I also wanted to give players a chance to customize their SAAWs while still keeping in a bit of the randomness.
Anyway these rules are still pretty rough and I havent' gotten all the origins incorporated yet. But I'd love to see what everyone else thinks.
Well, here's my attempt at creating some mech rules. I may have gone a bit overboard, but it's a fun excersize. I've also decided to call my Gamma World Mech's SAAWs or Scavenged Armored Assault Walkers, just for extra flavor.The idea here was to make the Mech more than just another piece of equipment picked up by a character and make it more of an extension of the character.
I wanted to stick with the abstract vibe of Gamma World, while bringing in a bit of the randomness and making Origins contribute to the SAAW's feel. I also wanted to give players a chance to customize their SAAWs while still keeping in a bit of the randomness.
Anyway these rules are still pretty rough and I havent' gotten all the origins incorporated yet. But I'd love to see what everyone else thinks.
The origin Benefits seems interesting, and while I think your rules have a good feel, they may still be too intense for GW. I'm thinking specifically the Omega tech cards like the mini tank and the loader suit.
Simpler may be instead of requiring a skill check to repair you may just treat the unit as an omega tech card. one main weapon, maybe 2. Again, i feel like our model should be the mini tank, but with some adjustment for level to allow them to be leveled up by PC's/salvaged from enemies.
For instance make the weapon or system some equivalent OT item and require over charge to use it's peripheral equipment. the SAAW can be salvaged just for the frame though. Skill check to restore hp, but it shouldn't be too hard to restore hp, akin to an extended rest one roll only.
All things considered it is probably better to have house rules that play to our individual styles though. I like the Wahoo style play, but with serious plot story. Much like a JTHM style world, post apoc naturally. So for me, I'd rather the rules were fast and loose with minimal record keeping. Big Big Mechs may be just a bit too much of a distraction for my PC's to play with. But not necisarily.
Big thing with your SAAW is findign the right challange level. How does your PC in a SAAW affect the part as a dynamic, and the enemies they face? My immidiate thought is to count the SAAW as a seperate PC, but that doesn't jive with the action economy (since the SAAW has to be piloted you don't have extra actions) so I'm not sure.
The origin Benefits seems interesting, and while I think your rules have a good feel, they may still be too intense for GW. I'm thinking specifically the Omega tech cards like the mini tank and the loader suit.
Yep it is quite possible that these rules are too intense.
I wanted to make SAAWs more than just the regular Omega Tech so that players could feel more attached to them without needing to salvage for a lesser version. But for a quicker/looser feel having Omega Tech Mechs is definetly a good choice.
Simpler may be instead of requiring a skill check to repair you may just treat the unit as an omega tech card. one main weapon, maybe 2. Again, i feel like our model should be the mini tank, but with some adjustment for level to allow them to be leveled up by PC's/salvaged from enemies
For instance make the weapon or system some equivalent OT item and require over charge to use it's peripheral equipment. the SAAW can be salvaged just for the frame though. Skill check to restore hp, but it shouldn't be too hard to restore hp, akin to an extended rest one roll only
All things considered it is probably better to have house rules that play to our individual styles though. I like the Wahoo style play, but with serious plot story. Much like a JTHM style world, post apoc naturally. So for me, I'd rather the rules were fast and loose with minimal record keeping. Big Big Mechs may be just a bit too much of a distraction for my PC's to play with. But not necisarily.
Absolutely agree. Definetly go with the playstyle and rules that fit you best. My proposed rule-set would probably be best for someone who wants to bring in a bit of the Battletech style to their Gamma World.
Big thing with your SAAW is findign the right challange level. How does your PC in a SAAW affect the part as a dynamic, and the enemies they face? My immidiate thought is to count the SAAW as a seperate PC, but that doesn't jive with the action economy (since the SAAW has to be piloted you don't have extra actions) so I'm not sure.
Yep, I haven't had a chance to playtest out any of these rules to see how they effect the challenge level. But as a starting point I planed to treat the SAAW as an extra level or character as far as determining encounter budget. So if I had a team of level 1 characters piloting SAAWs I would base the encounter budget as if they were level 2. If the team of 5 that had two SAAW pilots and three characters on the ground I'd act as if I had a party of seven while determining encounter budget. Not sure if that would be the right conversions though.
I wouldn't treat SAAWs as separate PCs though. The trade-off for piloting a SAAW and gaining the extra defenses and basically a large bonus HP pool would be not using your origin powers, alpha mutations and omega tech to their fullest extent.
So as if you were playing a SAAW pilot, until you exit or eject from the SAAW you can only use the SAAWs hardpoints for attacking (unless your origin bonus grants you an exception).
That is part of the reason why I included origin bonuses. So the main identifying trait of your character wouldn't be useless.
What I wanted to accomplish was the constant tension of players weighing the benefits of fighting with the SAAW over exiting and engaging with their own powers and equipment.
Plus with the Hardpoint system you could always reward players with some kind of tech that allows them to use an alpha mutation or omega tech while piloting if needed. (Similar to the Bio-interface Auxiliary Hardpoint that grants the SAAW the character's Origin Crits).
But I can totally see how this added complexity wouldn't be everyone's preference.
Thank you!
I'd love to hear how your players react to them.
They're simple, thin and pretty basic.
Like I said, I like to err on the side of simple, but even with more complex rules in mind I would say there is definitely a couple things to keep in mind.
The defense scores on the samples you had in the doc were pretty high (19's on one or 2) and so i would tone that down a lot a lot.
As I said before, I think the key is to build them like you would build a monster or character. Assign a base HP, defenses, give one high one low, and go from there. This way you can be more balanced in the construction. If the "mech" gets attacks on it's own or adds bonus damage, then I would also treat it like another character for encounter budget and xp distrobution. If not, then the Mech can just be another Item or mount.
Also the origin powers should be unlocked by the first feat of the "mechwarrior" vocation.
I'll post more on this later, but A lot of what you have is really cool.
Good suggestions.
I just got LOG myself and plan to take another pass at the ruleset to see how best I can simplify it while keeping some of the desired flavor in there.
I like the idea of the origin powers being unlocked by a "mechwarrior" vocation.
Hopefully I can post the revised ruleset next week.
I look forward to seeing more of your ideas.
