One Shot, One Kill

I have watched quite a few Star Trek, TNG, DS9, VOY, and Movies.

One of the things that perplexes me is that there are times that ships blow up in one shot. Now after playing quite a few starship battles, this really hasn't ever happen, even with suprise (Aka: Star Trek III Bird of Prey vs. Oberth.). In alot of episodes they say target the main reactor and BOOM! No more ship (Generations: Galaxy vs. Bird of Prey).

So my question is, has any one come up with house rules for this?

I am designing some for my game and alot of it has to do with shields being down, but even then the threshold of the ship absords alot of the dg. I was even thinking that if your shields are down, all weapons do x2 or even x3 dg.

I am just trying to get the feel of the shows. My group has just started playing ST and so far, they really like it. I have also incorporated some minion rules from other systems. There are quite a few episodes where Worf and others kill people by breaking their necks, and in the current rule system, thats impossible. I have devised different levels of bad guys. Green Troops can only take 1 hit of damage. Normal Troops can take 1 Health Level of Damage. Elite Troops can take 2 Health Levels of damage. Bosses can take as much damage as a normal character. I use this mostly for fist fights (in phasers fights, health goes away quickly) and low level npc's so that the group can brawl. It also helps me emulate someone getting their kneck broke or Captain James T. Kirk kicking a bad guy and they go down (it happened in the Enterprise Incident I believe). But mostly its for snapping necks.

I have been analyzing the Space Battles and I really would like to get that feel. The rules that I have are great, I just want to be able to emulate the Movies and T.V. shows more closely.

Has anyone come up with anything?

When you play, do you actually need rules for the situations you discribed? I mean when I'm the GM and I narrate a starship battle with a ship firing on an unshielded defenseless one, then I rule if it is destroyed by a single hit. If it's a more dramatic sequence I stick with the rules and let the battle evolve naturaly (meaning by the throw of the dices and the tactics of the players).

When it comes to personal combat I think that Trek due to the use of Phasers and Disruptors makes for very lethal combat, even if there are no neck-breaking rules per se for close combat...

Just my 2 cents :)

Thanks for the reponse.

I watch too much trek lately (lol) and I see alot of one hit take downs in all the series. This happens mostly in hand to hand combat. I want the game to reflect as much of a cinematic flavor as the series and movies do.

As for the ship to ship, one of my players just gave me an idea about shields. Shields are vital to a starship protection. So in our next game, I am going to rule that if your shields come down, you suffer x2 to x3 damage from starship weapons (I need to play test it abit.).

As to your response, do I need rules for that?

Well in our last game, our science officer escaped while the rest of the crew were captured. The science officer snuck in and attempted a rescue. He had very little hand to hand (he lost his phaser and couldnt get back to the ship.). I used my new rules and made the guard a green goon (as I call em). The science officer took him down and free'd the crew. This scene played out alot like the episode in DS9 where Otto is freeing Capt. Cisko.

As for the space battle, I need my games to feel like the TV shows and Movies. If it can happen in the shows, it can happen in my games. So I am just trying to fine tune the system so a Klingon Bird of Prey can come out of Cloak, fire on an Oberth, hit it's engine, and destroy it in one shot. I know its more of a Plot Device but it would be nice if I could rule it. I am thinking of using situational modifiers to recreate this. Something like, if your shields are down, all damage is x2. If you target their engines, there is a further x2 modifier (bringing an unshielded engine shot to x4 dg). If you were to target their main reactor, there would be a x3 modifier (for a total of x5 - No shields and a Reactor shot). This would casue the U.S.S. Enterprise's Torpedo shot in Generations to casue 30 Hull Points of damage to the Klingon Bird of Prey (Ouch!). This would make shields incredibly important. Now x5 is probubly too high, but I will work on it.

Anyway, I'm still play testing it. So I gotta long way to go.

Schweeeet!

Initial play testings are working nicely. I have tweaked my rules a little and they seem to emulate the movies very well. I can even emulate the Grissom being destroyed by the Bird of Prey in Star Trek III. Most of this centers around a ship with her shields down. Once the shields are down the ship is incredibly vulnerable (which is reflected in movies and tv shows).

When I finish play testing them thouroughly, I will post them so that you guys can see them.

Thanks for the input.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stule

Most of this centers around a ship with her shields down. Once the shields are down the ship is incredibly vulnerable (which is reflected in movies and tv shows).

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I won't argue with that. More often then not we see ships with active deflector shields take numerous hits without too much damage but when ships have no protection they blow apart very easily. The only exemption from this seems to be the Defiant of DS9 with her ablative armour thing.

I for my part like the epic feel that space combat situations may present, but if my players decide to fire on an unshielded vessel (which most of the time won't happen - plot-wise!) they may blow it out of the sky. No rules needed.

When it comes down to battle I try to give all the players something to do, so in a case like you discribe above, I'll ask for a "called shot". The Tactical officer should aquire a target look (a little more difficult, as you're targeting a special aera, and if they succeed, there you go :-)

As for the example you mentioned from ST:Generations IMHO the destrucition of the Galaxy-class Enterprise by the smallish BoP is just that: A PLot device to get rid of the vessel...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stule

Thanks for the input.

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Enjoy playtesting, I look forward to your results. :)

Another possible way to emulate the "one shot, enemy down" would be to add this house rule I devised (but never used) : have the character make a stamina roll every time he loses a Health level (the TN depending on the number of levels already lost). If he fails, he collapses, temporarily stunned because of pain, shock, or whatever.

As for the ships, you could use extend the "green goons" rule to ships. Green ships would be considered to have 1 structure point for damage purpose, normal ships 5, elite 10, and boss ships their normal amount.

BTW, I think LOTR had some rules for mass combat as well, along those lines.

Ok, here are a few things that I am play testing so far. Most of these things are plot devices and rules are not really meant for them but i like to tinker so I played with them.

The Lucky Shot (Star Trek III)
If a ship has its shields down, and is hit with a Photon Torpedo or Phasers and scores 3 6’s (rolling 2 6’s then one more on a tactical roll), a vital system was hit and the ship explodes.
(Star Trek III – Bird of Prey vs. Oberth)


Shields Down
This is for when a ships shield comes down. It reflects the incredible damage a torpedo or phasers do to an unprotected ship. All the following are considered Tier Two Manuevers (Target System [Tactical]).

Bridge
TN: 20
Effect: x2 dg (1d6 Bridge Personnel killed, 1d6 BP wounded)

Normal
TN: 5
Effect: x2 dg

Weapons
TN: 15
Effect: x2 dg (1 Weapon System taken down (Phasers, Torp))

Sensors
TN: 15
Effect: x2 dg (Sensors off line)

Engines
TN: 15
Effect: x4 dg (dg applied to Propulsion dg track)

Reactor*
TN: 20
Effect: x8 dg (dg applied to all systems)

No Power**
TN: 5
Effect: x12 dg

* Requires a Targeting Maneuver and Lock On to determine where reactor is

** This represents all systems turned off, no defense fields or anything
(TNG – Enterprise destroying Oberth that was infected with disease)


Using this chart, if your shields go down and you take a normal hit, you take x2 damage. You calculate damage to the Damage Charts in the normal way.


Example of Damage (Star Trek Generations)
If Enterprise shot its torpedoes at a Klingon Bird of Prey, without shields, and it targeted its reactor….
Torpedoes: 5
Bird of Prey: Threshold (1)
Dg: 5x8=40, 40-1=39 dg
Bird of Prey Structure (15)
Effect: Bird of Prey explodes, which is exactly what happens in movie

Now I can lower the multipliers but I am going to try them first. To be honest, there isn't alot of situations where your shields will come down. If they do, your ship is pretty beaten up anyway and you'd best surrender. Most of these situations are plot devices anyway, but I like rules for everything.

I hope these are fun to use.

Anyone got any questions, let me know.

While I can agree that personal combat isn't that well thought through, for certain things, I've never had a problem with starship combat. If you're fighting against a small unarmed ship, and its shields go down, chances are, with the damage you did to it already it's not going to last long! If you get a lucky critical, or if you hit the propulsion systems on purpose, as a targeted shot (WAY easier when the shields are down!) it's enough to destroy most ships!

Thanks Tobian.

I agree with you that I don't think that there are many things wrong with the Space Combat rules.

I am trying to be able to explain things in the Movies and shows that happen that seem unable to happen in the rule system that we have.

And this system that I have devise seems to work rather well.

Last night I tried the quick battle of Star Trek III, Constitution vs. Bird of Prey. With my system, the Constitution does 10 Pts of Dg (5 x2 Normal Shot with no shields) to the Bird of Prey with its shields down. Since the Bird of Prey only has 15 Hull Points, thats enough to do some serious damage (as it did in the movie). The BoP would take 9 HP damage (-1 threshold) and have 6 hp left. This simulates very well in my opinion the actual movie scene much better than 5-1=4 HP damage by the rules. The return torpedo shot that the BoP fires would do 8 dg (2 x4 Target Engines with no shileds) according to my rules not 2 dg. 2 dg would not even damage the Enterprise (whose Threshold is 3) but according to my rules, it would do 8 dg (2 x4dg Target Engines with no shields) so the Enterprise would take 5 dg. This seems to really mimic that fight.

Again, the existing rules are well done for Starship combat. I am just trying to get more of a movie feel for my players.

I think my little House Rule above does just that.

I still have abit of testing to do with them but my players ad I should iron them out.

I just want more of a cinematic feel.

Again thanks for the reply. Always nice to hear from you.

P.S.
And one more thing.
My House Rule doesn't really change combat. Only thing that changes is when the shields go down. Seldom in a TV Show or Movie do you see this happening. They always hint it's going to happen, but it never does. In combat, if you lose your shields, you have take alot of hits already. Most battles that we have run, a ship can be destroyed waaaaay before her shield drops. My rules allow for situational possibillities, broken shields, cloaked vessels that can't have shields up at same time, and attacks on unshielded vessels. In my rules, when a ship loses her shields, the Captain and crew is like AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! This is the feel I get from the movies and tv shows as well. The rule is not made to make combat difficult or over powered. Just conform more to what we have seen on tv or at the movies.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stule

I have also incorporated some minion rules from other systems. There are quite a few episodes where Worf and others kill people by breaking their necks, and in the current rule system, thats impossible. I have devised different levels of bad guys. Green Troops can only take 1 hit of damage. Normal Troops can take 1 Health Level of Damage. Elite Troops can take 2 Health Levels of damage. Bosses can take as much damage as a normal character. I use this mostly for fist fights (in phasers fights, health goes away quickly) and low level npc's so that the group can brawl. It also helps me emulate someone getting their kneck broke or Captain James T. Kirk kicking a bad guy and they go down (it happened in the Enterprise Incident I believe). But mostly its for snapping necks.

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LOTR had "mook" rules that simulate this pretty well...

Wow!!

Used my new rules in a game today. I needed to tweak the reactor dg and the no power damage. I also lowered the difficulty on the reactor TN. Overall it worked really well. Had a great battle between two ships. Galaxy against a Constitution Refit. The Constitution Refit had the Shield Freq of the Galaxy Class so it's first salvo was nasty. The Galaxy won in the end (remodulated shield freq) but my players were sweatting bullets through the fight. Remodulating the Shield was a big deal and the game carried itself with excitement. Without shields, Starships should be very vlnerable to weapons and the Threshold rules sometimes just doesn't match the movies. My players said that the rules I made really helped the game (although the Reactor TN 25 was a little bit high and the x6 dg was still low) and made it feel like a Trek Expierience. I am still going to work on the rules a bit and I will post any more House Rules I come up with.

As for the LOTR rules on Mooks, I don't have that book (used to but lost it) so I am going to see if I can find it (RPGPlanet maybe).

Thanks again for all the advice.

Way back in the LUGTrek era, I wrote up some starship combat rules desgined for multiship fights. I used it to handle a lot of the action for the Dominion War, as I had set my campaign to run a little bewhind DS9. It also sort of intergrated with the LUG system so the player's ship could be run according to the RPG rules, and the other ships could use the mass combat system (this was before SPACEDOCK).

Basically, what I did for the similar to what stule is doing. I reduced the ship struture ratings (about half), and increased the effectiveness of shields (about double). Not exactly that way, since I had simplified everything for the quick combat rules.

In general ships in Trek go up pretty quick once the shields are gone, unless there is a significant character (series regular, or guest star) on board, so I had a rule that a VIP could spend courage points to reduce the damage taken.

This might not be a bad idea to incorproate into stule's variant-it will keep the PC's ship from going up in a fireball once it's shields are down. For CODA, this could mean something like spending a courage point to soak upa point of PEN, or maybe just spending a courage point to reduce the x2 (x3, etc.) damage multiple down to x1.

That would help to explain why ships named Enterprise can take a pounding even after the shields are knock down.

Nice Tony!!

I like that idea.

I will work on that one.

Thanks!

In written stories like this, whether they be TV, movies, or books, the author usually just goes with expediency in situations like this.

For example, in STIII, they could have had a battle between the Grissom and the BoP, but that would have distracted from the story. Similarly, in all of the Star Wars films, when our heroes needed to get from Planet A to Planet B, it seemed to take no time at all.

In a RPG, you need to account for travel times and distances or have that big space battle.

DC

The potential problem w/ a one shot, one kill rule is that if PCs can do that to their opponents, then opponents can do that to PCs.

So as a GM, I think you should ask yourself if you want rule that allows that PCs ship to be so easily destroyed.

Nevertheless, I can see a scenario that if the shields have completely collapsed, the ship is vulnerable to one well-placed photon torpedo.

Jem'Hadar, I think the point is was to get a more epic rather than realistic aspect to the games. In the movies, the Enterprise always suffer a lot of damage without blowing up, while ennemy ships tend to blow after one successful hit. It goes the same for brawls in movies : one bullet or one punch is enough to deck most unnamed guards (while the superboss takes much more time), but the hero on the other hand suffer at worst flesh wounds or a bruised eye.
And most game rules usually don't allow this sort of things, except with incredibly lucky rolls, something which doesn't happen every time.

"If it can happen in the shows, it can happen in my games."

That's a good idea.

It is my feeling though, that you are trying too hard.

As Ensign Deconn says, (and C5 also) it's for expediency, as the writers don't want each show to be a half hour long space battle (or hand to hand) with all the maneuvers and such, unles sthe episode is ABOUT the space battle.

In TOS "City on the Edge of Forever", McCoy (who is not known for his martial arts skills, at all) enters the Transporter room (albeit jacked up on cordrazine), and with a Space Karate chop to the neck, and looks like the left kidney, he takes out a transporter operator tech in two moves, taking all of 1 second, and the guy goes down.

The next scene is Kirk and people on the bridge being notified MCoy has left the boat via transporter. So the story flows, rather than have McCoy wrestle with this younger, stronger looking guy, and stop the story right there.

I don't think this requires rules, so much as the narrator deciding ahead of time, what story he/ she wants.

If you need to have an npc escape the ship, he does, via this one hit deal. If it's all about capturing him, and interrogating him, use the rules as written, or just rule that security shows up, and captures the guy.

Space opera has a few unwritten conventions:
(this applies to Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, etc. etc. ad infinitum)

The good guys fly in white ships, while the bad guys fly in ships that are greenish grey or black.

All good guy ships with characters on them, pretty much no matter what the size, can take multiple hits, (if it's a small fighter, it takes less than a cruiser, though)bad guy ships or good guy ships with no Main story characters on them die with one or two shots.

Any bad guy ship with the Evil Commander or the Series Focus Crew, takes a boatload of damage.

The only way to truly destroy a good guy ship, piloted by the series crew is to have them self destruct, or fight an IMPOSSIBLE MONSTER SHIP (Like the Borg), and then they find the Secrtet Weakness to killing it. (Usually by a spy mission)

I loved the mook rule in LOTR, many many games have this, Gangbusters, Twilight:2000, and others.

It allows PCs who are tough as nails, to fight a bunch of bad guys, without having to have a stack of paperwork to keep track of bad guy's hit points, etc etc.
Twilight:2000 was especially good for this, since bullets are so lethal, the PCs get extra hit points.

Really if you want to simulate what you are seeing on screen, go for it. With your triple damage rules, etc, it WILL make it more dramatic, for both PC and bad guy crews. Just be prepared to lose the ship of the player crew. If you are okay with that, and they are, game on.

Doing it as a story / plot factor without as many rules serves the same purpose. When a PC rolls some incredible shot with a full salvo of torps, ***Boom*** the bad guys cancel Christmas. no need to count up shield points. It just gets there with less rules. Same deal.

As long as your players are happy with it, there it is.

I think keeping down the amount of paperwork is always a big key. Just depends on how gritty you want to make it. Sometimes it's MORE of a challenge to force players to maneuver, twist and turn to set up for the perfect kill shot, using all the rules.

Star Warriors the board game of the Star Wars d6 by WEG was kind of like that.
If you muffed up your maneuver, you got a TIE on your tail, and usually lost an engine or got torched. And to get on the tail of one was difficult, but if you did, he was smoked. Trek is a different flavor, being large scale ships, but the idea is there.

Big Mon cal cruiser / Star destroyer ships in that game, real simple combat: roll a pile of d6, each "6" scored on a ship within range was a hit, and reduced the amount of gun dice the enemy was firing accordlingly.

Ships were slow and could move a space and turn or move two spaces straight (If I recall correctly). To the players that wanted gritty simulation, it seemed too random.

To the players that wanted to see BIG SHIPS GO BOOM (TM) real fast, while they were zooming around in X-wings, Y-wings, and A-wings as Squadron commanders, it was just exactly perfect.

Since I was in the latter category of player / ref, I used that system as written, since it was easy to track, implement and use, and didn't need a damn Star Fleet Battles control sheet for each ship present, so that we could have a fleet engagement of say 10-15 ships per side, and finish it up in an hour, or LESS.

Anyway, nice to see people still playing LUG version. I'm glad to see that, since it seemed a lot of the Decipher faction was a lot more numerous around here.

Wow!

Thanks again LUG.

Nice response.

As for as trying to hard, that's not it.

I'm bored and I have too much time on my hands lol!!

I have rewritten all my NPC's at leat 3 times (and there are about 10 of them).

So I decided to try to make my game more like the movies.

I really wish someone would tell me where those Mook rules are in LOTR. I have all the books and can't find them anywhere.

Again, thanks for the feedback.

Search these forums for Mook, I think Doug Burke or Don or one of those famous designers (TM) reprinted or excerpted them. I saw them again 2 or 3 days ago.

HELL YEAH!!!

I FOUND DA MOOKS!!!!!

PG. 270 LOTR under Combat Pacing!

Kinda makes my Minion Rules moot though lol!!

Thanks LUG!!!

Animate thread!

Hrm, that was kinda creepy....


Anyhow, just to chime in the way I do damage to unshielded ships is weapon damage +2 for complete, +4 for superior, +6 for extraordinary. I'm a little leery of writing one shot, one kill rules in, especially when it could take out the entire party. Cinematic insta-kills on NPC ships is another story.

For character action, I think the phaser combat is deadly enough. I wanted something for non-lethal hand to hand that didn't require knocking down all your Health to end the fight. What I'd come up with was the PC (or NPC) must declare knock-out intention before rolling to hit. If they rolled a superior or extraordinary success, the opponent must make a stamina TN as follows:

Superior - TN 5 + damage dealt (minimum TN 5) or stunned 1d6 rounds
Extraordinary - TN 10 + damage dealt (min. 10) or stunned 1d6+5 minutes

I assigned the minimum based on those pesky Klingon and Cardassian bar thugs who insist on wearing their armor everywhere.

I haven't run enough to fully test out these house rules. If anyone takes them for a shakedown cruise, please post your results!

One rule I used for instant kills in a pre-CODA starship game was that the instant kill could be reduced to 1 damage point if a PC/significant NPC spent a courage point.

THat allows for lots of ships blowing up while still giving the PCs and major NPCs some protection against a lucky die roll. Tieing to to Coruage points also kept the players from felling invulnerable, since they only had a limited number of points and many things to spend them on.

It could probably be adapted to CODA\maybe limit the perk to characters in command of the ship (Captain, Exec).