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Speck-taclular

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Mon, 2009-09-14 21:37

Skimble

Speck-taclular

I was running a couple of sample combats tonight to try and get the hang of the Eclipse Phase system and I noticed a slight anomaly. Robots/shells that are used to crash into targets do 1d10 + (DUR/10) damage, twice that if they are moving at running speed. One test character (the Barsoomian reporter archetype) started attacking with his gnat drones when the combat got to a desperate stage and they were quite effective. Looking at other robots made us doubletake though. The fruit-fly-sized Speck apparently has TWICE the durability and three times the armour of the larger Gnat drones. Are these attributes correct? If so those are highly over-engineered fruit-fly sized specks! Capable of ramming targets for a maximum of 2d10 + 10 damage if they are 'running' at 5 metres an Action turn! In addition with an armour of 6 Durability of 50 and a Wound Threshold of 10 they can take a LOT of punishment before being destroyed. Of course I can edit the stats down accordingly, but I wondered if there's any in-canon reason why these apparently insigificant specks are so dangerous in the system?!

Tue, 2009-09-15 03:06

Slith

Probably the same reason the

Probably the same reason the sniper rifle can fire in full automatic mode with an extended magazine for longer than a machine gun can, or why the armor mods can stack onto a synth to give it 40/40 or so armor - Just not enough gametesting/balancing. Some things slip through into the final product that just don't make sense. Hopefully the Errata fixes most/all of these sorts of issues.

Tue, 2009-09-15 04:35

Skimble

Speck lethality

Yes, if the difference between Gnats and Specks is unintentional then it clearly is an error that has slipped through.

It isn't really a problem except for the horrifying prospect of a swarm of speck bots being used in combat to attack. I'd almost be tempted to let it stand; the mental image of a guy standing around flailing at insignificant specks like King Kong on the Empire State Building while they make little zzzzzsplitch noises as they go zooming through his flesh is horrifying and entertaining in equal measure.

I would say that it's self limiting as they take damage when they hit things, but those bad boys have got 6 armour and durability of 50, if I remember correctly.

I suspect that my house ruling on this will simply be that any drone smaller than a fist can't be used effectively in combat to ram an opponent. Seems like a simple, logical fix.