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Knock down and Unconsiousness rolls.

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Sat, 2010-05-29 03:57

Totalgit

Knock down and Unconsiousness rolls.

Firstly forgive all the combat questions but i have only just recently had a mock combat session using eclipse phase and so its only now that some of these things come to light. There seems to be a hell of alot of dice rolling needed, and i was just wondering if some could be cut out. Examples are say your character gets shot at by somebody using burst fire, the person rolls two attack rolls & you roll two fray/2 rolls, if they hit they then roll two damage rolls at you doing say 14 and 14 after armour which happens to mean you take 2 wounds from each one. You now have to roll two knock down tests and 2 unconsious tests. How would changing it so that you only roll for Knockdown and Unconsious at the end of the persons phase you take damage, so in the example above you would roll once for knockdown and uncon vs 28 damage and having 4 wounds and not 14/2 & 14/2? I could even imagine only rolling fray/2 avoidance tests once per action turn and using that value for all shots fired at you otherwise i see the person as looking like a agent out of the matrix (which isnt that bad considering the setting) Anybody else think some of these rolls could be combined as to reduce the number of rolls needed in combat?

Wed, 2010-06-16 19:31

trechriron trechriron's picture

Re: Knock down and Unconsiousness rolls.

I don't think you make an unconscious roll unless you take 2+ wounds from the same attack. There's 2 less rolls right there (from your example above)! also, IIRC. :-D Skip Knockdown rolls. Add it when you and the players feel it's dramatically appropriate or fits the situation. If the round has any AP and traveling at these velocities, knockdown won't be that common anyways. Getting hit with a 9mm in the chest wearing police body armor doesn't generally knock you down. If a bullet flies through you, it's not pulling anything with it to knock you down. Not sure how a kinetic weapon would affect someone in zero-g. Mass vs. mass, you outweigh the bullet, so I am not sure the velocity of the round can add anything to the equation. Opposed rolls in combat are more "fair" because a defender could score a critical success negating an attackers standard success. If you go with any other static type defense or one roll defense, you're eliminating or reducing the effect of a critical. Also, if you critical on your one defense roll, you're more likely to avoid EVERY hit that round, which could start to add the "all or nothing" wonkiness some systems suffer from. All or nothing can drag combats out... Just my two cents...

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Trentin C Bergeron (TreChriron)
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Mon, 2010-06-21 11:48

Thampsan

Re: Knock down and Unconsiousness rolls.

I agree, sometimes knock down just doesn't apply. In zero-g, or micro-gravity, unless the mass of the projectile could reasonably be assumed to toss you about, chances are it is just going to stagger you. Plus knock down presumes gravity for you to collapse in - in micro-gravity you would just float or hang or get knocked-back. However knock-down could mean staggered in those instances. The reason someone might collapse if shot is out of shock and over-reaction causing you to fall over. However in zero-g because there is nothing to fall making the player spend a quick-action (as if he had to stand) simply to regain his wits from the mental shock and panic of being injured badly might be appropriate. A question though, I remember reading in the morph section that biomorphs at least the better models with a basic-biomod are designed not to suffer from shock (the biological kind), so I am curious - surely that should mean that the unconsciousness roll should receive some sort of bonus for those characters with basic biomods.

Wed, 2010-06-23 15:02

Decivre

Re: Knock down and Unconsiousness rolls.

Thampsan wrote:
I agree, sometimes knock down just doesn't apply. In zero-g, or micro-gravity, unless the mass of the projectile could reasonably be assumed to toss you about, chances are it is just going to stagger you. Plus knock down presumes gravity for you to collapse in - in micro-gravity you would just float or hang or get knocked-back. However knock-down could mean staggered in those instances. The reason someone might collapse if shot is out of shock and over-reaction causing you to fall over. However in zero-g because there is nothing to fall making the player spend a quick-action (as if he had to stand) simply to regain his wits from the mental shock and panic of being injured badly might be appropriate. A question though, I remember reading in the morph section that biomorphs at least the better models with a basic-biomod are designed not to suffer from shock (the biological kind), so I am curious - surely that should mean that the unconsciousness roll should receive some sort of bonus for those characters with basic biomods.

Much like in atmosphere, bullet knockback actually depends on a number of factors... bullet weight, velocity, and how much of its kinetic energy is transferred to its target. A round that goes through and through will actually knock someone back less than a round that is completely stopped by a kevlar vest. As for basic biomods, I don't think consciousness rolls are meant to represent shock. Someone who goes into shock is anything but unconscious. Rather, I would recommend tacking on a shock roll for people who aren't modified to see if they handle it well.

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