I love board games. I love tactical combat. I love hexagones.
I think the combat in an RPG is much more exhilirating when believable and intuitive tactical combat system is used. Spaceship battles with Star Strike are just beautiful. I want to apply this tactical refinement to personal scale combat. I use the 2nd edition rules, and I have no idea what Privateers brings to the table, I am willing to incorporate ideas it it means improvements.
I use hexagones. Following the HERO system standards, each hex is 2m in diameter. This is a list of what works and what doesn't work for me based on the 2nd edition ruleset, and what I think should be an important aspect of tactical combat.
The purpose of this post is to collect your experience and wisdom to complete and improve upon this model I am trying to build. All suggestions welcome.
Here we go:
1. Round length: 10 seconds is long for many RPG standards, but I can leave with that. A lot of things can happen in 10 sec.
2. Movement:
2.1 Movement allowance: The rules to determine a character's allowed movement give me headaches!!! Knowing exactly how many hexes a character can move in a round is crucial in a tactical game, I feel like doing advanced calculus whenever trying to figure out the movement speed table. Really not user friendly. How do you guys deal with this? Maybe I should make an excel spreadsheet.
2.2 Implementation: Walking at normal rate is ok. Running up to 2x movement rate ok in clear terrain, otherwise a movement maneuver is required. 1hex=2m, so typically a human can walk 9 hexes or run up to 18 hexes in a round.
3. Ranged combat:
3.1 Sequence: The fire-move-fire sequence is great. I love that the action is resolved simultaneously. Keep as is.
3.2 Opportunity fire: In any tactical firefight game, moving out in the open is a risk, ans seeking cover is key. Moving out in the open should be punishable. If a character moves in the open, and there are opponents who have chosen not to move, and still possess 50% of their action, they are given an opportunity to fire during movement. They decide when during the opponent's movement (on what hex) they fire, so the opponent has no cover, and risks being pinned down in the open (MM roll required I guess, or SD roll?). The only way to prevent this is through suppressive fire.
3.3 Suppressive fire: If you want to move in the open without being shot like a duck, a buddy has to cover your movement by applying suppressive fire. Basically the suppressor must have a fully automatic weapon (preferably one that makes noise or fires visible projectile/energy, the point is to scare the ennemy. Lasers and Stunners not effective) and expend his action points during movement phase for suppressive fire. It does not hit any target, but denies the enemy its opportunity fire. Of course it means the character has spent action and ammo (or energy) against no specific target.
4. Melee: I find melee at the end of the round sad. I would place melee phase after movement, but before the 2nd firing phase. If you have a ranged weapon and a melee guy gets close, you have a disadvantage.
Anything else I should consider for sound tactical combat?
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