Starting Skills

[gunsarge]

I'm new to the series and I had a quick question about creating my characters. New characters start with 32 pts. and 4 skills (page 3).

Then, on page 6 it says characters start with 32 pts and 3 skills. does that mean 3 additional skills?

thank you, The game components look great! Very fun.

[mister frau blucher]

Hello, Gunsarge, and welcome to the boards!

I take it you are reading this out of the adventure Blood in the Dust? Sorry, don't have my copy at work here.

If so, our games print the core rules in the front - probably the page 3 reference - and then scenario-specific rules right after - probably the page 6 reference.

Back in '08 when BID was published, the three skills were the standard for starting characters. But soon after we increased it to 4. It seems like we did not update the scenario rules!

Thanks for bringing this to our attention!

Go with the four skills. I remember when I playtested BID, we had 3, and it was not quite enough, particularly when you consider the language options.

Hope this answers your question.

Thanks, and welcome again!

Bret

[blacknigel]

All the recent talk about Blood in the Dust and The Untamed West prompted me to finally give my copy of BitD (copyright 2008) a try. So I started with charcter creation and noticed some other discrepancies between BitD and the Untamed West "core rules" I downloaded from the DCG site this weekend.

The 3 versus 4 starting skills, Bret has already mentioned, and for my guys at least I'm giving them all Riding plus 3 other skills.

Armor: Canvas coat is 1/0 in BitD, but 1/1 in Untamed West.
Leather is 2/1 in BitD, but 2/2 in UW.

Shotgun: Is Heft 11 in BitD, but 10 in UW.

There's also a "Land Navigation" skill in BitD. Is that Adventure specific skill, or Obsolete?

Also, I have a ton of comments/questions about the UW weapons chart. Both how it relates to BitD and in general for UW. I think I may start a separate thread just for that, but it basically boils down to... "For play purposes, they are essentially all alike."
Unless there's some difference in the Rate of Fire and Reload restrictions for each weapon?

Pistols, Rifles and Muskets all doing roughly 2d6-1/2d6 makes sense, same caliber projectile. But why does a shotgun do 3d6? Is this to account for multiple projectles? What about the 'scattergun' aspect of shotguns? Any area effect for multiple adjacent targets? What about double barrelled shotguns? Is that two shots on sequential turns? Or can you "give'em both barrels'? (Same target, 2 rolls to hit at some sort of penalty to account for greater and unequal recoil, say -2 on 3/DX or possibly 4/DX, and then 2 separate 3d6 rolls for damage?)

I know, I know, I can already hear, "We want to keep the rules simple." But right now the UW weapons chart is severely lacking in meaningful options when compared to the Ancient World one. Is there some way to bring in the "different tools for different jobs" aspect?

[Deleted]

hmm, that's a tough one. definitely need to differentiate based on range...but then there's the shotgun...

here's some ideas...
pistol: damage 2D6, heft 8: every space between shooter and target acts as 1 point of armor (reduces damage by 1 point)
(pistols are short range weapons)
rifle: damage 2D6, heft 9: <nothing>
(rifles are designed for high ranges)
musket: damage 2D6, heft 10: every space after 10 (heft) between shooter and target acts as 1 point of armor
(muskets are primitive rifles. designed for high ranges but they get off real bad over distances because they don't have the spiraled barrel)

treat rifles and muskets like bows. you can't use one if an enemy is in an adjacent space.

[Deleted]

i would definitely break shotgun, dynamite, and molotov out of the weapon table and write/describe like spells. maybe even do the same thing with pistol, rifle, and musket.

shotgun: 3D6 damage to an adjacent space/foe; 2D6 damage per space over 2 contiguous spaces that are within 2 spaces of the shooter; D6 damage per space over 3 contiguous spaces that are within 3 spaces of the shooter

for the double-barrel shotgun...
same as regular shotgun, but the range and contiguous spaces goes to 4...
DB-shotgun: 3D6 damage to an adjacent space/foe; 2D6 damage per space over 2 contiguous spaces that are within 2 spaces of the shooter; D6 damage per space over 3 contiguous spaces that are within 3 spaces of the shooter; D6 damage per space over 4 contiguous spaces that are within 4 spaces of the shooter

[Deleted]

those ideas may not be the best, but 'keeping the rules simple' really is no excuse for not giving the firearms special, detailed treatment. consider the firearms as spells. LAW has WAY more spells with some detailed descriptions/rules regarding their use. LUW would have only 5. (well, 7 if you count dynamite and molotov)

[Deleted]

hmm...dynamite definitely needs some more 'special treatment' as it currently stands, a shotgun does more damage than dynamite!

[Deleted]

dynamite: 3D6 damage in the targeted space; 2D6 in the adjacent spaces; D6 in the spaces surrounding the adjacent spaces
thrower chooses a target space and make 3/DX roll to hit. if successful, the dynamite lands in the targeted space. (idea from Barbarian Prince->) if unsuccessful, roll D6. the result is a direction from the targeted space. roll D6 again to determine distance in that direction. that's where the dynamite lands.

(my wording is not good for these. i'm just bangin it out. consider the ideas behind the words. definitely needs better wording)

molotov: i would just treat it like Fire-1 in LAW but with the dynamite rules for missing

[Deleted]

ok, in the interest of 'KISS' (keeping it simple, s*****)(@bret @jerry, they are a good band )...

Bow (2)	D6	9
Revolver (G, R)	2D6-1	8
Rifle (2)	2D6	9
Musket (2, R)	2D6+1	10
Shotgun (2, S)	3D6	10
Double-Barrel Shotgun (2, S)	3D6+1	11
Dynamite (T, X)	2D6+2	6
Molotov (F, T, X)	D3	6
(2)		Requires two hands.
(F)		Burns D3 per turn in that space; ignore amor.
(G)		May be used while grappling.
(R)		Range equals a number spaces equal to Heft.
(S)		Range equals 3 spaces. Damage must be evenly distributed over 3 contiguous spaces if target is more than 1 space away.
(T)		May be thrown.
(U)		D3 fatigue, (+1 if the attacker is stronger).
(X)		Affects five-hex diameter circle. If thrower misses, place blast center 3 spaces away from target hex in a direction determined by D6.

dynamite:
i'm still wondering if it was intended for a separate damage roll to be made for each affected hex-space or one damage roll and that damage applied to each affected hex-space. i will assume a separate damage roll for each affected hex-space (if there's something in the space).

[mister frau blucher]

Jul 30, 2012 15:50:48 GMT -5 blacknigel said:

All the recent talk about Blood in the Dust and The Untamed West prompted me to finally give my copy of BitD (copyright 2008) a try. So I started with charcter creation and noticed some other discrepancies between BitD and the Untamed West "core rules" I downloaded from the DCG site this weekend.

The 3 versus 4 starting skills, Bret has already mentioned, and for my guys at least I'm giving them all Riding plus 3 other skills.

Armor: Canvas coat is 1/0 in BitD, but 1/1 in Untamed West.
Leather is 2/1 in BitD, but 2/2 in UW.

Shotgun: Is Heft 11 in BitD, but 10 in UW.

There's also a "Land Navigation" skill in BitD. Is that Adventure specific skill, or Obsolete?

Also, I have a ton of comments/questions about the UW weapons chart. Both how it relates to BitD and in general for UW. I think I may start a separate thread just for that, but it basically boils down to... "For play purposes, they are essentially all alike."
Unless there's some difference in the Rate of Fire and Reload restrictions for each weapon?

Pistols, Rifles and Muskets all doing roughly 2d6-1/2d6 makes sense, same caliber projectile. But why does a shotgun do 3d6? Is this to account for multiple projectles? What about the 'scattergun' aspect of shotguns? Any area effect for multiple adjacent targets? What about double barrelled shotguns? Is that two shots on sequential turns? Or can you "give'em both barrels'? (Same target, 2 rolls to hit at some sort of penalty to account for greater and unequal recoil, say -2 on 3/DX or possibly 4/DX, and then 2 separate 3d6 rolls for damage?)

I know, I know, I can already hear, "We want to keep the rules simple." But right now the UW weapons chart is severely lacking in meaningful options when compared to the Ancient World one. Is there some way to bring in the "different tools for different jobs" aspect?

Armor: We originally thought that the constriction of armor was too steep of a penalty for thw estern characters, particularly since there were no healing potions or spells. So we decided to give some protection for "free." Subsequent, continued playtesting showed it was not necessary, and so to keep things consistent with LAW we changed the armor back to the 1/1 formula. Copies of BitD from 2010 on have the correct values, as does the LUW download.

Shotgun: averages strength people can definitely wield shotguns, so we changed it.

Land Nav: obsolete, part of the Survival skill.

I know, I know, I can already hear "I want my snowflake to do cool stuff with guns!"

;D Heh. Couldn't resist, Mr. Smartypants.

I hear ya, actually, but I am not sure how much is realistic. Yeah, the shotgun damage is for multiple projectiles in the blast. realistically, the force would drop off quicker than other guns (and pistols' effect would drop off quicker than rifles) but maybe not withing the scale of the map. Also, I do not know what the "blast radius" of a shotgun would be realistically. With five foot hexes, to include adjacent targets in a blast it would have to have an 8-foot radius, minimum. Is that possible at 30 feet away (6 hexes)? At 70? At 10?

My experience with guns is minimal, but George's is much greater and very practical. Let me get the cattleprod and get him to chip in some thoughts. You raise some good points, and ewookie makes some good suggestions.

[Deleted]

well, i was thinking the guy in the middle space would be total hamburger meat while the guys to either side of him would only be slightly wounded. however, you've made me rethink that. i think what i have would be a good balance of 'real' with simple...for a sawed-off shotgun.

as far as the range of the pistols, rifles, etc. i really liked my original idea of having the 'range' stay consistent with current rules but letting each number of spaces after the 'heft-range' subtract 1 point from damage. for the shotgun, perhaps it subtracts 2 points.

[dare2go]

Let's start with one thing at a time. First of all, thanks very much Bret, for clarifying what has gone on with revisions, and the corrections and changes that have been made over time.

Thanks gunsarge for pointing that error out, that has been corrected in the "master copy" of BID.

Blacknigel, thanks for point that error out, that was corrected in more recent copies, according to what Bret said.

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SHOTGUNS

First of all, we didn't want to do the GURPS approach where firearms did so much damage (4-5D6) that no matter what, you'd be out if you got hit with a gun. That's simply not realistic.

I have a friend who got into an argument with his (at the time) wife, and she emptied a .38 into him, all six rounds hit. He still was able to leave the house, walk out to the car, and open the car door before collapsing. Now, years later, he is pretty healthy considering the injury. Hence 2D6-1 for a pistol is reasonable.

At close range, shotguns do more damage than rifles, though a high-powered rifle wound is pretty horrible. I believe that this is because of the number of pellets that come out of the barrel. There's some spread (though not enough to hit two spaces), and each pellet at close range, does damage.

The old Vietnam-era guys who taught jungle warfare at SEAL Team FOUR back in the 1980's, told us that their point men would sometimes patrol with a shotgun. In Vietnam, firefights occurred at extremely close range, so the limited range of a shotgun wasn't such a limiting factor. I've heard no more than 50 yards quoted as a reasonable range for shotguns, but that depends on the shot you're using, and whether you've messed with the barrel and so on. However, the impression that I have is that contact was frequently closer than that.

Now on the DCG 17x11 board, 50 yards, at no more than five feet per space, is 30 spaces. That's about double the length of the DCG board. So taking the time to make fine adjustments to range-based accuracy tends to bog down play, while not really contributing that much to the game in terms of fun, feel, or realism. However, everyone plays the game differently, and some people like the refinement. So we will add range-based adjustments in the advanced rules.

At SEAL Team FOUR, we had shotguns in our platoon loadout. We had the option to use them on patrol, but our area of operations (AO) lent itself to more open spaces, and as a result, we didn't use them that often.

We did a lot of range and destructive power "experiments" with different rounds, pistol, rifle, shotgun, etc., and see the damage that they inflicted on simulated soft targets as well as steel armor. (Don't worry, no animals were harmed.) Recently, for the K&R job, I've done first-hand experiments on rifle penetration of concrete block and solid concrete, so that I can make better recommendations as to what sort of protection corporations should provide their guardhouse facilities in Mexico.

Basically, for soft targets at short range, shotguns appear to inflict more destruction on human tissue. Rifles are really horrible too, but shotguns are more convincing when you're trying to persuade that bear to "back off."

[dare2go]

The problem with the weapons table in LUW is the lack of variation. Keep in mind that our Untamed West series is still very new, and hasn't really been fleshed out that much. As a result, Untamed West development is behind the LAW, and LTS.

We will improve variation as time goes on. Of course there will be more options in the adventure themselves, and you enter stores that sell guns, or run into NPCs who might be separated from their guns for some reason or other.

BTW, GSD will be from the native point of view, and as a result, may not have any guns in it at all--sorry! However, though it's far from complete, IMHO, it's looking to be an interesting adventure, especially if you liked BID.

[blacknigel]

Thanks George, My questions started out as, "how am I supposed to create and equip my characters?" But about halfway through turned into, "what's the rationale behind the weapon choices and game mechanics?" As you rightly remind us, the UW rules and adventures are the least fleshed out. I've got a few general ideas and suggestions as you go through that process that I'd like to share. But before I put both feet in my mouth, what's the time scale for a UW combat turn?
Chris

[mister frau blucher]

Time scale is not real precise, but a few seconds. The GURPS break-everything-into-one-second-turns just isn't realistic, as few humans can perform mentally at that level of precision for any length of time under duress. So it is a bit relative, can be 2 seconds, up to five. But because of the vagaries of human experience and situational realities, it is purposefully nebulous and relative.