dragonkingofthe
2013-12-21, 04:40 AM
Guten Tag!
a few days ago I read a thread title about RPG vehicles, and I had a video internet tab open to Girls und panzer and I was struck with a idea to make a tank driving R.P.G, based on the one system I mechanically understood fairly well enough, new world of darkness.
as i said, it was a few days ago, but i work fast, the idea if fairly close to being done actually and it was close to being in a state I feel comfortable in putting up for strangers to look at completely since I still have a few sticking points, but then I realized my points were in the back ground work. Mechanically it's rough but done. So, here it is.
it was so long I had to split it into two posts, so if you don't see the second post, do please wait on commenting till i get the splats and example charter creation.
Chapter one basics and crew
Each player controls a team within a tank, the exact nature of the crew depends on the tank in question, Panzer IV's have five crew, M1 Abrums four, while a Renault R35 has two.
The turn of each tank is divided into 'sub turns' for each member of the tanks crew. So in a individual tanks turn the loader, gunner, driver, radio operator all get a turn. That sounds like a lot. But each 'sub turn' is a single action. So the loader may perform the action of loading, and only that. After words there action is spent.
Sometimes an action takes multiple turns. If loading takes two turns then the loader can do nothing but load for two turns. The rest of the crew may operate independently of the crew member who is performing the extended action.
So for example a Panzer IV has a crew of 5, a commander, gunner, loader, driver, radio operator/bow machine-gunner. Thus giving it five sub turns, one for each crew member.
In the panzer it's gunner spends her action to fire the main gun. Afterward the gunner starts an extended action to load the gun, the radio operator signals to to the other tanks the enemy’s location, the commander uses her action to keep watching the enemy tanks and the driver does nothing holding in place.
In the next turn the loader is still loading, but every one else is still free to perform actions.
Each tank earns XP for her crew as a whole but the player divides that among the crew. A storyteller may reward XP to one specific member for a particularity heroic efforts or critical success.
Each crew member can only use there merits, attributes and skills on there task. A loader can only use his merits to effect loading for example.
Inter-tank movement
in battle, some times crew are injured or need to move around in side the tank for some reasons. In these situations the first the tank commander rolls Presence+ Manipulation+Veterancy, if the roll is successful the crew get the order to move around. If the roll fails the crew don't hear the commander order. Either way, the commanders turn is spent.
When the crew do start moving, either to leave a tank, boarding or obeying the commanders order roll dexterity+speed+Veterency for each member who is suppose to be moving.
Critically failure:the movement is slow and laborious and the crew take three turns to get into position.
Failure: the crew member takes two turns to get into position.
Success: the crew member take one turn to get into position.
Critical success: the crew member get into position as a instant action. Each crew member may then take a action in there new position.
While a position is unmanned the tank can not perform skill checks with that position.
Example: the gunner is injured so the commander orders the radio operator to take her position. The commander passes her roll and the radio operator successfully pass her roll. For one turn the tank can nether take radio or gunner actions as the crew move around.
Outer-tank movement
some times you will want to get out of the tank to perform actions such as camouflaging the tank. This takes two forms, a 'force multiplier' and 'scouting'.
The force multiple is where you have the crew perform an action that does not need personal input. Such as camouflaging the tank or digging a tank trap. To simplify this roll average the crew's skills and roll, then multiply that result by the number of crew to determine the results.
Example:
the crew need to camouflage there StuG. The storyteller determines that this is a extended Strength+subterfuge roll and that it requires 50 success to hide the tank. The four woman crew of the StuG have an average Strength of 4 and a average subterfuge of 3. so they roll 7 dice each turn, on the first turn they roll 4 success times one for each crew member for a total of 16 success.
The other action a crew can take is a scouting action. Scouting is the act of going on foot away from the tank. Scouting can be done two ways. First like a traditional role playing game with the player taking the role of the scout to see what he can see. leaving the tank on 'auto pilot' until they get back or it can be reduced to a simple roll to determine what the scout finds out.
Such a roll would be Speed times turns gone (to determine ground covered)+investigation+Veterency and depending on the number of success the crew member finds out some piece of information, such as where the enemy is.
The tank and derived statistics
In a tank three people have the ability to see into the outside world, the gunner, driver and commander. Of the three the tank commander has all around vision compared to the limited sights of the other two.
The tank commander therefore is the profile used in tasks like target identification and finding where enemy’s are, but the bulk of the tank and size of the vision slits cause problems. Any investigation roll take a -4 penalty.
The tank initiative defines when it takes it's turn in combat, a tanks initiative is the same as it's commanders initiative.
A tank's defense is how hard it is to hit, a tank has two kinds of defense. Passive and active.
Passive defense is earned with camouflage and by moving. See tank speed. This manifests as penalty to enemy shooting at it
Active defense are things like reactive, spaced or normal armor. See the section on tank armor.
Crew Advantages:
Veterency:All tank crews have an advantage called Veterency, Veterency levels up at 5 XP a dot times the number of crew in the tank with Veterency lower then ten. So a five man tank would need 25 xp for one dot, while a two man tank would need ten. But each Veterency upgrade for the 'tank' actually gives each member of the crew one dot in Veterency.
A Veterency score of 0 means the crew member is not evened trained how be in a tank so they suffer a -4 to all action rolls until they get one dot.
Veterency work differently then other world of darkness advantages, rather then allowing points in a pool to use powers, Veterency allows the crew to add there dots in Veterency to any action they preform in the tank.
Crew
A tank crew can only perform actions based on there position in a tank. Anybody in a tank can use the radio if there sitting in the right spot, but only the radio operator has skill in it.
All members of a crew have two free merit dots that have be spent on crew merits and while you can have a crew of five loaders if you wanted to, it is recommend that you have each crew member spend the dots in the position you want them doing. Having a couple crew members cross trained can be useful if you want to be able to cover for injury’s though.
The Crew merits are:
Commander (O to o.o.o.o)
Gunner (O to o.o.o.o)
Loader (O to o.o.o.o)
Radio operator (O to o.o.o.o)
Driver (not to be confused with the drive skill) (O to o.o.o.o)
Each Merit represents how well trained each person is in there role while under pressure, even a person with a high drive skill will bulk at the controls of a Panzer IV, all while some one is shouting at you, while another person is shooting you with a gun so big the ground shakes.
When called upon to perform actions you roll the relevant merit, an attribute, sometimes a skill and Veterency.
Actions
Actions are what each crew member can do in each tanks turn. There are three types of action 'speeds', reflex, instant and extended. Instant actions happen instantly and extended actions take multiple turns, a reflex action happens instantly, and still allow a full non extended action, a crew member may not perform more then one instant actions in a turn. Or a full non extended action and then a reflex action.
In case you have not noticed, order can be important to a tank crew to get the best results. If the loader performs a action before the gunner fires, the loader can't start to reload until her next turn.
There are two types of actions, base and advance. Advance actions have to be purchased with XP like merits before they can be used. Base action are available to all crew member of that class. Universal actions are available to all crew.
Universal actions
Repair
Type:Base action
Speed: extended
Roll: Crafts+Dexterity+Equipment (you can not add Veterency)
Effect: the crew member attacks a broken part trying to fix it.
When equipment is damaged the storyteller decided how much damage it took and how many success until it is fixed. The storyteller may rule that some equipment can't be fixed or that even if it is fixed that all rolls using it suffer a penalty to use.
Critical failure: the equipment is well and truly, broken and can't be fixed.
Failure: no progress is made to repairs.
Success: progress is made toward success.
Critical success: the equipment is fixed.
Fire fighting:
Type:Base action
Speed: extended
Roll: Crafts+Resolve+Equipment (you can not add Veterency)
Effect: the last shot started a fire in the tank! The crew must fight it or risk the ammo going up!
See catastrophic damage to see the effects of fire..
Critical failure: the fire spreads! Roll on the catastrophic damage table.
Failure: the fire does not advance nor is it put out.
Success: the crew make great strides to putting the fire out.
Critical success: the fire is put out.
Snap out of it!
See Espit.
Commander actions.
Eyes peeled.
Type:Base action
Speed: instant.
Effect: the commander crawls out a open hatch to better observe the situation. The -4 penalty to observation rolls is removed, but the commander is exposed to enemy fire. Using eye peeled again allows the commander to return to the safety of the tank.
Motivate
Type:Advance action
Speed: instant.
Roll: Command+presence+Veterency
Effect: the commander shouts encouragements and advice at a member of the crew. If successful she granting them the 9 again quality on any action they perform this turn.
Spotter
Type:Advance action
Speed: instant
Effect: the commanders emerging from the tank watching allied actions and calling in coordinates.
This action is used with the radio operator action of spotter. Spotter gives a designated allied tank a +1 to each fire action each turn it performs a fire action.
So on the first turn of spotter the tank rolls it unaltered fire roll, but each turn after that the roll gets +1 each time it fires, and each time the radio operator and commander preform a spotter action. This bonus lasts until either the allied tank moves or has to fire at a allied target 90 degrees away from where it was shooting.
Gunner actions
lay gun
Type:Base action
Speed: instant-extended.
Effect: The gunner focus on the target, turning the turret to face the target as she draws a aim.
Each turn she spends aiming with out performing a fire action grants +1 to her next fire action when she performs her action on the target she is aiming at, or a target 45 degrees to either side)
Fire
Type:Base action
Speed: Reflex
Roll:Gunner+dexterity+Veterency+gun accuracy
Effect: with a finger press the gunner sends the cannon roaring and sends a shell into the target.
Gunners can only perform a fire action with a live round in the barrel.
Critical failure: the shot misses and the enemy know where the shot came from.
Failure: the shot misses.
Success: the shot hits.
Critical success: the shot inflicts catastrophic damage
Loader actions
Load
Type:basic action
Speed: as per gun's load speed.
Roll:Loader+strength+Veterency
Effect: grunting the loader slams a shell into the main gun and clanks the breach shut.
At the start of the action pick the type of shell to load (if you have a choice) mark off a shell of that type on the tanks character sheet and then roll. You can also use load to switch the type of ammo already in the gun. Add one type of shell of the type in the gun into the tanks ammo pool and remove a different shell type.
Critical failure: the loader drops the shell and must start the action over again as she either fumbles for the shell or gets a new one.
Failure: the loader struggles to load the shell, add one the number of turns the action takes.
Success: the shell is closer to loaded. The number of turns to load the shell go down by one. At zero turns the shell is loaded.
Critical success: as success.
Radio operator actions
contact
Type:basic action
Speed: instant
Roll:Radio+Socialize+Veterency
Effect: cutting though interference the radio operator allows communication between the tanks.
Tanks are assumed to always have a good connection with each other, there by allowing players to talk to each other. But some times weather, jamming or equipment failures tank, in such cases a contact action has to be made each turn to allow the tanks to communicate.
If successful the player may speak to other players. If the roll is failed the communication is garbled and the players is not allowed to speak to other players.
A contact action allow tanks to exchange information. Basicly it allows the player to talk to the other players, he can still hear them as the communication can still receive signals but talking to them can't be done with out a contact action.
Examining interference
Type:Advance action
Speed: extended
Roll:Radio+computer+Veterency
Effect: by twisting some nobs and examine a manual the radio operator determines what is causing interference
Critical failure: the Radio operator can determinen nothing about the cause of the interference
Failure: as failure
Success: the radio operation makes great progress to determine the interference
Critical success: as success.
Interception
Type:Advance action
Speed: extended
Roll:Radio+Manipulation+Veterency-5
Effect: snickering the tank radio operator attempts to tap into enemy communications.
Once the interception extended action is complete you may take further contact actions to 'tap in' to the enemy communication. Interception has negative penalty unless done with proper equipment.
Critical failure: the enemy figure out about the attempted interception and start to take steps to counter it.
Failure: the operator fails to make progress in breaking the enemy communications.
Success: the radio operation makes progress.
Critical success: the radio operator makes great progress toward intercepting communication.
Spotter
Type:Advance action
Speed: extended
Roll:Radio+Socialize+Veterency
Effect: working with the commander the radio operator allows more accurate fire from allied tanks.
This action is used with the tank commander's action of spotter. Spotter gives a designated allied tank a +1 each turn it performs a fire action.
So on the first turn of spotter the tank rolls it unaltered fire roll, but each turn after that the roll gets +1 each time it fires, and each time the radio operator and commander preform a spotter action. This bonus lasts until either the allied tank moves or has to fire at a allied target 90 degrees away from where it was shooting.
Critical failure: the radio operator makes the allies shoot worse. All bonus is lost.
Failure: the allied tank does not gain a additionally +1 after shooting this turn.
Success: the allied tank get the message and adjusts it's fire granting it a +1 to each shot.
Critical success: the allied tank get exceptional good fire commands and gets a +2 after it's next shot rather then +1
Driver actions
Drive
Type:basic action
Speed: instant
Effect: the tank can move. See speed under tank section.
Evasive actions
Type:advance action
Speed: action
Roll: Driver+Dexterity+Veterency
Effect: the drive starts wildly moving making the tank harder to hit. The tank can only move at half speed as it jink and dodges take up time.
Critical failure: the tank stalls and can't move for the rest of the turn.
Failure: the tank does not become harder to hit.
Success: The tanks passive defense goes up by two, but the gunner suffers a -2 penalty to shooting.
Critical success: the driver manages to perform the maneuvers so the gunner does not suffer a penalty to firing.
Flat out
Type:advance action
Speed: action
Roll: Driver+Dexterity+Veterency
Effect: the driver floors it! Put as much speed between himself and the enemy as possible.
Critical failure: the tank stalls and can't move for the rest of the turn.
Failure: the tank does not move faster.
Success: The tank speed moves 8 centimeters more this turn then it normally would.
Critical success: the tank moves 12 centimers more then it normally would.
Crew merits.
Crew members may take the follow unique merits.
Jack of all trades:O
Requires: Veterency 5
effect: the crew member may use her crew merit divided by two (rounded up) for any other crew position in a tank.
Hot loading: O
Requires: Veterency 4
effect: all loading takes one turn less time as the loader takes a few short cuts in the loading process .
Intuition:O
Requires: Veterency 6
effect: a when you change ammo types roll a chance die. On a success the ammo you wanted to load was already loaded. On a failure you need to reload as normal.
Mad minute:O
Requires: Veterency 10
effect: as an action the loader may expend a point of will power to reduce gun loading time to a single instant action.
Armorer:O
Requires: Veterency 3
effect: the gunner ignores one penalty using a damaged gun or sights.
Snap shot:O
Requires: Veterency 5
effect: the gunner ignores one penalty for turret rotation when firing.
Dead eye:O
Requires: Veterency 10
effect: all firing penalty’s are reduced by one
Off road driving:O
Requires: Veterency 4
effect: a driver with this skill may ignore one -1 penalty to driving over soft ground.
Clutch breaking:O
Requires: Veterency 7
effect: all hull rotations turns between 90 degrees and 120 are reduced to reflex actions.
Smooth driver:O
Requires: Veterency 10
effect: when a driver with this perk moves the tank the gunner suffers movement penalty’s one lower then what the current speed would cause.
Code talker:O To O.O.O.O
Requires: Veterency 3
effect: radio operators have learned how to speak in coded communication. Enemy’s trying to intercepting communications suffer a -1 penalty for each dot the radio operator on the whole team with the LOWEST code talker meirt has.
Situational awareness
Requires: Veterency 6
effect: a radio operator with this meirt constantly listens to the radio, working closely with the commander to provide updated recon. The commander may add the radio operators dots to his investigation rolls.
Licensed :O
Requires: Veterency 10
effect: the crew member gains the nine again property to all radio operator rolls.
Eagle eye :O
Requires: Veterency 2
effect: the commander keen eyes pick out object easily.
The commander gains the 9 again property on her investigation rolls.
Inspiring: 0
Requires: Veterency 6
effect: the crew love there commander, and they know she loves them back.
A commanders Espit always counts as 2 higher then it actually is for snap out of it rolls.
Sixth Sense: 0
Requires: Veterency 10
effect: the commander is easily spooked, able to keenly detect when something is something not quite right.
When a investigation roll is preformed by the storyteller the commander may roll Veterency, if the roll is successful the commander is told weather she got a failure, critical failure, success or critical success.
Chapter two: the Panzer
The Panzers.
A tank operators only as well as it's crew, but the crew only can fight as well as it's panzer.
Unlike new world of darkness, it is recommended that each player have a 15mm model of there tank they can use to represent where on the table the tank is, where the turret is facing and what the arc of fire on the gun is, making Panzers the Vorstross a bit like a hybrid RPG table top game.
All tanks have there own 'character sheet' listing there statistics like ammo count, speed, armor, main gun, gun traverse and more.
Ammo: ammo is a pool dots on a tanks character sheet the represents the number of shots the tank has. At the start of a game determine what kinds of ammo you have loaded and how many of each type. Using differently colored tiddly winks for each ammo type is recommended. in some cases (such as if the tank had 100 somthing rounds) the storyteller may just decided that a tank has enough ammo that a player need not worry about keeping track.
Tank Morality Esprit: tank crews have the same morality as humans since they are (duh) humans. But morality as a mechanic works well to explain enthusiasm among the tank crew, or Esprit de corps.
Esprit is how motivated the crew is to in combat, a low Esprit crew have a tendency to run from combat, some times fleeing the tank and leaving it behind while a high Espirit crew will fight on no matter what.
Esprit rolls are made when the tank suffers catastrophic damage due to being shot at. If a tank throws a track over rough ground that won't trigger a Esprit roll.
High levels of Esprit will cause a tank crew to ignore some forms of catastrophic damage as the crew fight on ignoring the damage. Damage is divided into ten levels, the level of damage they do not have to test for is all damage bellow to there Esprit-3. So a level ten Esprit crew need not test for catastrophic damage seven and below.
When a Esprit roll is failed the crew react as per the reaction for there current Esprit level. If a tank crew is Esprit seven and they fail a Esprit roll the crew suffer level seven and all higher reactions and autocratically lose a dot in Esprit.
So if a level 7 esprit crew
Esprit rolls differ from normal morality rolls in three ways. First, tanks can not get derangement nor the crew in them this way, secondly Tanks can add the average Veterency of there crew to the degradation roll, thirdly, Espirt rolls can not add derangements to the crew, but some reactions CAN temporarily add derangement’s to the crew as the stress of combat get atypical reactions form them. In this case treat each member of the crew as having the derangement when performing there actions, lastly rather then having more easier to perform requirements as you get higher up the table, the requirements to cause a degradation get harder to acquire as you get higher.
This is because Esprit is not morality, but motivation. A highly motivated group can ignore a lot, but a low motivated group is easier to waylay and stop.
Level
Degradation
Reaction
10
Set on fire (5 dice)
The crew is shaken by there experience, but keep fighting.
9
Crew member seriously injured (five dice)
The crew -1 to all mental attributes for one turns as they panic
8
Serious engine damage (four dice)
The crew panic means they suffer a -1 to all social attributes
7
Radio damage (four dice)
The crew worrying effects there reactions and they -1 to physical attributes
6
Main gun damaged (3 dice)
The crew gain a minor derangement
5
Crew light injury (three dice)
All attribute penalty’s are doubled.
4
Track thrown (two dice)
All attribute penalty are tripled.
3
Armor penetrated (two dice)
The crew panics and all actions suffer a -1 penalty
2
Allied Tank disabled (one dice)
The crews minor derangement becomes a major. The driver will attempt to escape the situation, no matter what the commander (and the player) wants.
1
Tank is hit (one dice)
The crew panics all actions become chance die.
At 0 Espit the crew surrender, they flee there tank or other wise become in operable and count as disabled.
Snap out of it!
In any situations there is one person who keeps there head.
Each turn each crew member rolls Composition+Veterency+Espit.
When the roll is successful the crew member may perform actions as normal. Including the action 'snap out of it'.
When performing the snap out of it action the crew member (hence to be called the 'cool head') rolls Composition+Veterency+Espit against all the other crew members Composition+current Espit-10. When the Cool Head wins the contested roll the crew member has there reaction removed and may act normally. But there action counts as spent that turn. If the Cool head loses the contested roll the reaction remains and the crew still suffer from the penalty.
The storyteller should allow bonuses to this roll depending on what the Cool Head says as determined by the player. If she makes a inspiring speech that could be a +2, where as if she some how makes it worse that could be a -2.
Things are going well!
Espit is gained ever time the crew completes a objective or do something confidence buiding, such as knocking an enemy tank out, inflicting catastrophic damage, or having the seventh shot in a row hits a target, the Storyteller should roll to see if Espit is gained.
Roll the crews Veterency+Composition+Current Espit. If the number of successes equals or is over the next rank of Espit then the tank acquires a dot in Espit.
If a crew passes a degradation roll by having all there dice be success, then the crew automatically gains a dot in Espit.
Speed
Tanks have two speeds, on road and, off road.
On road speed can only be used on roads, and off road speed can only be used off road or other paved surfaces, on road speed is higher then off road. 'off road' conditions are up to the story teller. If fighting across a grassy field a story teller may rule that the tank can use it's on road speed rather then it's off road.
A tank can move up to it's speed score each turn the driver preforms a drive action at the end of the drivers action it can say it's either stopping or that it keeps moving. If the tank has moved when the gunner starts her turn she suffers the movement penalty to her fire action, nor may she take the 'aim' action and all previous aim action bonus are removed.
The faster a tank moves the harder is to hit. Every ten centimeters a tank moves enemy gunners attempting a fire action against it suffer a -1 penalty.
However, for every ten centimeters a tank move it's own gunners suffers a -1 penalty to shooting. This penalty goes up to -2 when moving over unpaved ground.
Each turn a tank moves over soft ground (such as mud or thick snow) a driver has to roll Driver+Dexterity+Veterency. Success means the tank moves normally. Failure means the tank gets stuck in the mud and can't move until the driver passes a soft ground roll. If the driver gets 3 failures in a row the tank is well and truly stuck, and can't move until the crew take action to free it. Put logs under the tracks, hook it up to another tank ectra.
The exact speed of the tank depends on the type of tank, light tanks move faster then mediums for example.
Gun.
This game focus on tank on tank combat so we will be focusing on the main gun.
Any tank's main gun has three category
Loading speed, accuracy and range.
Loading speed is how many turns the gun takes to load.
Accuracy is the number of bonus dice a gunner can use when performing the fire action. Representing how accurate the gun is.
and range is how far the gun can shoot.
The obvious problem is how do you translate real guns into game statistics? This takes a bit of research and players and storyteller should work together to figure these stats out.
For guns with a caliber 37mm and below loading speed is assumed to be one turn, for guns with calibers between 37mm and 120mm assume loading is two turns. For guns higher then 120mm loading is three turns.
Accuracy is assumed to be 0, no bonus unless the tank in real life was known to be accurate (such as the Sherman) or inaccurate (T-34)
Guns are divided into five range category, Short, Medium, long, and very long.
category:Short
Range:60 centimeters
Examples:US:37mm, 75mm howitzer, USSR: 20 mm TNSh cannon British: 2 pounder. German 2 cm KwK 30
Category:Medium
Range:80 centimeters
Examples:US: 75mm, British:6 pounder, USSR: 76mm,57mm, German: 5cm KwK, 7.5 cm,
Category long
range 100 centimeters
German 88mm, russian 152mm, British 17 pounder, US 90mm
Very long
range 120 centimeters
Russian 122mm, British 20 pounder,
Armor and penetration AP
tanks have different armor on differing sides. Depending on which side of a tank you shoot at, the actually armor could be different.
To find the armor of a tank, first, research the actual armor of the tank. World of tanks wiki is a good place to start.
Turret armor is used if the gunner either 'calls the shot' at it for -1 penalty or the tank is 'hull down' and has only the turret exposed.
Second, look up the penetration ability of varying shells. Again, world of tanks wiki is a good source of information.
When a shell hits the armor of a tank roll ten dice. From there, four things can happen depending on tank armor to shells penetration ability.
Armor is double shells penetration: the shell can not penetrate. But if you roll five success the shell inflicts catastrophic damage.
Armor is larger then the shells penetration: the shell needs 7 success to penetrate. Five success inflicts catastrophic damage.
Armor is larger or less then 2 of the shells penetration. The shell needs five success to penetrate and inflicts critical damage at the same time.
The armor is smaller then the shells penetration. The shell needs 3 success to penetrate.
Shells penetration is double the armor. The shells need two success to penetrate.
Example
Sherman VS Tiger
Sherman is armed with the 75mm: penetration 92
Tigers frontal armor is 100mm
Sherman needs seven success to penetrate.
Tiger fires 8,8 cm KwK 36 L/56 penetration 132
Sherman frontal armor 51
tiger needs two success to penetrate.
when a tank is penetrated there is a last chance the shell might not inflict any damage. Roll a chance die. if successful the tank is not knocked out and must 'merely' roll on the catastrophic damage table. if the roll is failed the tank is knocked out well and good.
High explosives shells do not penetrate armor and explode on the side of the tank. (note: I'm not found of this section and i feel it needs a little work)
The crew of any tank hit with a HE shell suffer a -1 penalty for each action in there next turn for every three success the he shell rolled.
HE shells work the same way as armor piercing shells, they have a given armor penetration, however the armor penetration for these shells is very low. When a tank is hit with a high explosive shell roll 20 dice. From there, four things can happen.
Armor is more then triple the shells penetration: the shell inflicts superficial damage.
Armor is larger then the shells penetration: the shell needs 15 success to destroy the tank. Every five success inflicts catastrophic damage.
Armor is larger or less then 2 of the shells penetration. The shell needs 10 success to destroy the tank.
The armor is less then the shells penetration. The shell rips the tank apart. The tank is disabled.
Armor penetration modifiers.
target tank hit is at 45-69 degree angle to shooter:-1
target tank is at a 70 degree angle to the shooter-2
Target tank is under half range away+2
HEAT and HESH rounds
HEAT and HESH, other wise known as high explosive anti tank, and high explosive squash head, are treated like armor piecing grounds but don't suffer from enemy tanks being at a angle to the shooter. But they can't get a bonus for being at half range.
Autocannons and autoloaders.
Auto cannons and autoloaders are both ways to shoot more rapidly, auto cannons though are like big machine guns where as autoloaders come in two types, like a robot loader or a giant revolver.
Autocannons grant the tank the 'auto fire' property from the new world of darkness book. Generally this is the auto-fire medium given ammo box size, but some tanks may have big enough clips to justified auto fire long. Machine guns are automatically auto fire long, but generally unless your playing with world war one tanks, they all don't have enough punch to harm a tank. Auto cannons can fire for a number of turns based on there clip sized. That depends on how many shells in the magazine. Remember, short auto fire is three bullets, medium ten, and long 30. also, some tanks have several auto cannons (such as the Wirbelwind) so they may get the long auto fire every time they fire.
Auto loaders work in two ways as mentioned. Loaders that replace the loader work every time. When the gun fires the tank will automatically start to reload, no skill tests needed, but it will also be as many turns as the shell takes to reload. A loader may shorten the time with merits, a auto-loader can not.
Loaders that are 'drum fed' like the AMX 13 90 work differently. They allow rapid salvos that take awhile to reload. Auto loaders like this may fire once every turn as long as they have a shell in the drum, but then they need to reload the whole magazine. The time to reload us the time for each shell (normally two turns) times each shell in the drum. Merits that effect reloading may not be applied to auto loaders.
Aiming:
You can have a 152mm howitzer that can destroy tigers in a single shot, but if you can't hit anything you can't do anything.
There are two considerations with aiming, the tanks gun locations and how fast the tank has been moving.
Tanks with guns fixed to the superstructure, such as most tank destroyers have a limited arc of fire. Generally we assume this to be a 45 degree arc in front of the tank, but the storyteller may enforce the historical limitations of the gun if he prefers, and a player can argue for more firing arc of the gun on the tank could have done more.
If a tank needs to rotate it's hull more then 45 degrees this requires a action from the driver. But this does not remove a tanks camouflage bonus like moving would and does not enforce a move penalty to the gunner for firing. You do lose aiming benefits unless your turning specifically to keep tracking a moving target)
Turreted tanks can fire 45 degrees in the direction of where there gun is facing. If they need to fire more then that they to rotate there turret. A tank may not fire after a turret rotation is started. This takes one turn and on the turn after a turret rotates the tank. For most tanks this is a 'free' action and does not take up the action of any of there crew. But for some tanks with hand cranked turrets one of the crew (normally the gunner) must expend a action to spin the turret.
You can combine a turret rotation and a tank hull rotation to get the most out of a tanks range with out having to spend a action. For example, turning the turret 44 degrees and the hull 44 degrees to be able to fire at targets 88 degrees to either side.
Common to hit modifiers
Modifiers:
called shot on turret-1
only turret visible-1
movement penalty: see movement
target hidden: -1 to -3
Target moving see movement:
Camouflage
camouflage is how well hidden the tank is.
Camouflage can grant up to -1 to -3 penalty against enemy’s attempting a investigation roll against it and will hide tank from view if no roll is taken. A tank is Camouflage by making a subterfuge+strength+Veterency extended action.
When successfully hidden a storyteller determines how well camouflaged the tank is and what level penalty anybody looking for it gets.
A tank well hidden in a forest should get a -3, a tanking trying to hid in a open field, (unless the players came up with a very good idea) might get a -1 or be ruled impossible to hide.
A tank loses it camo bonus if it moves but not if it rotates it's hull. Firing DOES NOT remove a tanks camo bonus, unless the enemy saw the muzzle flash.
Investigation
Investigation is the roll used to determine if a tank commander can find a enemy tank. If a player needs to find a enemy, identify, or figure out which way the enemy tank went roll investigation+Intelligence+Veterency.
Critical failure: the tank commander gets the wrong information.
Failure: the tank commander is stumped.
Success: the tank commander gets a hint about the situation.
Critically success: the tank commander knows exactly what she wants to know.
Catastrophic damage
When an attacking tank gets a critical success, even if the tanks armor blocks the shot and prevents the tanks from being penetrated the tank suffers catastrophic damage. Roll a D10 and consult the table.
1
FIRE! The tank has been set on fire! Each turn the fire is on roll on the catastrophic damage table, (re rolling results of 9 and ten) if you roll fire or ammo storage the fire reaches the ammo storage and the tank explode destroying it.
2
Crew injured!: a random crew member takes five bashing damage and is knocked unconscious. Roll stamina+ health each turn to see if she wakes up.
3
Engine damage: the tank can't move until the engine is repared.
4
Gun damage: the gun suffers a -2 to shooting until it's repaired. In tanks with multiple cannons pick a random gun.
5
Radio damaged: the radio no longer works until it's repaired. When it is repared a radio operator needs to use the contact action in order to speak to team mates.
6
Ammo storage is hit! Roll a chance die. If the result is a ten the tank blows up and is destroyed.
7
Crew minor injury. a random crew member suffers three bashing damage.
8
Gun damaged.
9
Tracked: the tank throws a track and is unable to move until it's repaired.
10
False alarm: no catastrophic damage is inflicted after all.
Tank merits.
Tanks purchase merits at 10 xp a dot. These are mechanical upgrades and they take effect when the tank is next serviced.
Grousers: 0
effect: the driver may re-roll failed soft terrain tests.
Spaced armor: 0 (available where historical accurate)
Effect HE, HEAT and HESH shells have to reroll six success when they hit a part of a tank covered in spaced armor.
Stabilizer: 0
Effect: the gunner has one less penalty for shooting on the move.
Crew amenity’s 0
Effect: the crew start with one higher Espirt each match or battle.
Interception gear 0 to 0.0.0.0
Effect: the tank has the gear to intercept enemy transmissions.
One dot removes the penalty to the radio interception action, each additional dot adds a ectra dice to the radio interception roll.
However, the more gear a tank has, the less ammo it has. At 5 dots a tank does not have room for ammo or a gun and becomes a command tank.
Camo net O
Effect: the tank always has a cameo rating of at least one.
Upgrade:
a 'upgrade' is a attempted to increase a statistic about the tank, such as armor, speed, or the gun.
A player must first propose a upgrade to the storyteller, if the upgrade was historical then the Storyteller has to put a XP price to it. If the upgrade was not historical, then it's up to storyteller discretion if he allows it.
If the storyteller allows it, the player may pay the XP price and when the tank is next serviced the tank is upgraded.
Example: upgrading a Sherman into a Sherman jumbo, 'easy 8' to Firefly, to the Israeli Super Sherman
However, a storyteller should feel free to allow players to mix and match and make non historical tanks, the world is big and anything the players come up with has likely already been tried.
For example: Egypt put a AMX 13 turret on a sherman thus giving it a 75mm auto-loader.
Israel armed Sherman with German 75mm guns after the original weapons were scrapped. Isreal also turned Shermans into SPG with 155mm guns and, rockets lunching tanks.
The Russian army captured dozens of Panzer IV, Stugs and the occasional Panther, it's completely conceivable that they would stick Russian guns in a few of them.
A few Churchill in north Africa armed with Sherman turrets.
but the storyteller should add a cost to these conversions and 'kit bashes', and more then XP since there not working off a blue print.
The storyteller should enforce a number of in story days to iron out the glitches and flaws, otherwise the next battle the tank participates in the storyteller should make some thing difficult for them. For example, if they stuck a Sherman turret on a T-34, then he should give the turret a chance of getting stuck each time it's rotated.
The number of days the storyteller prescribed should remain after the battle, they may know the problem but they still need to fix it. But if no problem emerged though out the battle, then tank is said to be 'teethed' and need no more time to figure it out. Additionally a storyteller should feel free to adjust the speed of the tank if the tank either added a lot of weight, thus slowing it, or removed weight thus speeding it up.
Chapter three:Example tank creation.
Lets use two examples of how to break tanks down in to playable statistics. And a big shout out to the tank Encyclopedia (http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/)for the images.
http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/jap/type4_ke-nu_01.jpg
Type 4 Ke Nu
the Type 4 has a three man crew driver, commander/gunner/loader and a machine gunner. Were assume the machine gunner can double for the radio operator to keep the load off the commander.
We look up the armor and see the vague number '6-25' for thickness.
We know a tank's armor is thicker on the front then sides and rear, so storyteller gives it a front armor of 25, a side of 12, and a rear of six. Due to a lack of information he gives the turret the same values.
The tank was armed with the Type 97 57 mm Tank Gun which the storyteller decides best fits the short range category. The shells AP shells can penetration 25mm.
The type 5 was considered a medium tank, but given it's poor performance the storyteller rules that it is a light tank.
The tank is now ready to be played.
http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/france/char_b1_ter.png
Char B1 ter
the char b1 ter has a crew of four, a commander who is also the gunner and loader for the 47mm, the Driver, who was also a loader for the 75mm hull howitzer, a gunner for the 75mm howitzer and a radio operator.
Looking it up, we see the B1 ter had 70mm of sloped armor. Clearly a heavy tank. The storyteller bumps it up to 75 to account for the slope.
The B1 has two guns, a hull gun and a turret gun.
The turret is a 47 mm SA 35, we decided to give it short range, the shell could penetrate 66mm of armor.
The 75mm hull gun was a howitzer and could only fire high explosive and HEAT shells. We look those up and find stats hard to come by. So we cheat. We look up the high explosives of other 75mm guns and find a rough number of 38mm of armor penetration for the HE, and 91 for the HEAT.
thankfully for the player, the B1 ter has a howitzer with 5 degrees of traverse other wise with a 0 degree traverse the storyteller would have given it a -2 accuracy statistic.
The B1 is ready to play.
a few days ago I read a thread title about RPG vehicles, and I had a video internet tab open to Girls und panzer and I was struck with a idea to make a tank driving R.P.G, based on the one system I mechanically understood fairly well enough, new world of darkness.
as i said, it was a few days ago, but i work fast, the idea if fairly close to being done actually and it was close to being in a state I feel comfortable in putting up for strangers to look at completely since I still have a few sticking points, but then I realized my points were in the back ground work. Mechanically it's rough but done. So, here it is.
it was so long I had to split it into two posts, so if you don't see the second post, do please wait on commenting till i get the splats and example charter creation.
Chapter one basics and crew
Each player controls a team within a tank, the exact nature of the crew depends on the tank in question, Panzer IV's have five crew, M1 Abrums four, while a Renault R35 has two.
The turn of each tank is divided into 'sub turns' for each member of the tanks crew. So in a individual tanks turn the loader, gunner, driver, radio operator all get a turn. That sounds like a lot. But each 'sub turn' is a single action. So the loader may perform the action of loading, and only that. After words there action is spent.
Sometimes an action takes multiple turns. If loading takes two turns then the loader can do nothing but load for two turns. The rest of the crew may operate independently of the crew member who is performing the extended action.
So for example a Panzer IV has a crew of 5, a commander, gunner, loader, driver, radio operator/bow machine-gunner. Thus giving it five sub turns, one for each crew member.
In the panzer it's gunner spends her action to fire the main gun. Afterward the gunner starts an extended action to load the gun, the radio operator signals to to the other tanks the enemy’s location, the commander uses her action to keep watching the enemy tanks and the driver does nothing holding in place.
In the next turn the loader is still loading, but every one else is still free to perform actions.
Each tank earns XP for her crew as a whole but the player divides that among the crew. A storyteller may reward XP to one specific member for a particularity heroic efforts or critical success.
Each crew member can only use there merits, attributes and skills on there task. A loader can only use his merits to effect loading for example.
Inter-tank movement
in battle, some times crew are injured or need to move around in side the tank for some reasons. In these situations the first the tank commander rolls Presence+ Manipulation+Veterancy, if the roll is successful the crew get the order to move around. If the roll fails the crew don't hear the commander order. Either way, the commanders turn is spent.
When the crew do start moving, either to leave a tank, boarding or obeying the commanders order roll dexterity+speed+Veterency for each member who is suppose to be moving.
Critically failure:the movement is slow and laborious and the crew take three turns to get into position.
Failure: the crew member takes two turns to get into position.
Success: the crew member take one turn to get into position.
Critical success: the crew member get into position as a instant action. Each crew member may then take a action in there new position.
While a position is unmanned the tank can not perform skill checks with that position.
Example: the gunner is injured so the commander orders the radio operator to take her position. The commander passes her roll and the radio operator successfully pass her roll. For one turn the tank can nether take radio or gunner actions as the crew move around.
Outer-tank movement
some times you will want to get out of the tank to perform actions such as camouflaging the tank. This takes two forms, a 'force multiplier' and 'scouting'.
The force multiple is where you have the crew perform an action that does not need personal input. Such as camouflaging the tank or digging a tank trap. To simplify this roll average the crew's skills and roll, then multiply that result by the number of crew to determine the results.
Example:
the crew need to camouflage there StuG. The storyteller determines that this is a extended Strength+subterfuge roll and that it requires 50 success to hide the tank. The four woman crew of the StuG have an average Strength of 4 and a average subterfuge of 3. so they roll 7 dice each turn, on the first turn they roll 4 success times one for each crew member for a total of 16 success.
The other action a crew can take is a scouting action. Scouting is the act of going on foot away from the tank. Scouting can be done two ways. First like a traditional role playing game with the player taking the role of the scout to see what he can see. leaving the tank on 'auto pilot' until they get back or it can be reduced to a simple roll to determine what the scout finds out.
Such a roll would be Speed times turns gone (to determine ground covered)+investigation+Veterency and depending on the number of success the crew member finds out some piece of information, such as where the enemy is.
The tank and derived statistics
In a tank three people have the ability to see into the outside world, the gunner, driver and commander. Of the three the tank commander has all around vision compared to the limited sights of the other two.
The tank commander therefore is the profile used in tasks like target identification and finding where enemy’s are, but the bulk of the tank and size of the vision slits cause problems. Any investigation roll take a -4 penalty.
The tank initiative defines when it takes it's turn in combat, a tanks initiative is the same as it's commanders initiative.
A tank's defense is how hard it is to hit, a tank has two kinds of defense. Passive and active.
Passive defense is earned with camouflage and by moving. See tank speed. This manifests as penalty to enemy shooting at it
Active defense are things like reactive, spaced or normal armor. See the section on tank armor.
Crew Advantages:
Veterency:All tank crews have an advantage called Veterency, Veterency levels up at 5 XP a dot times the number of crew in the tank with Veterency lower then ten. So a five man tank would need 25 xp for one dot, while a two man tank would need ten. But each Veterency upgrade for the 'tank' actually gives each member of the crew one dot in Veterency.
A Veterency score of 0 means the crew member is not evened trained how be in a tank so they suffer a -4 to all action rolls until they get one dot.
Veterency work differently then other world of darkness advantages, rather then allowing points in a pool to use powers, Veterency allows the crew to add there dots in Veterency to any action they preform in the tank.
Crew
A tank crew can only perform actions based on there position in a tank. Anybody in a tank can use the radio if there sitting in the right spot, but only the radio operator has skill in it.
All members of a crew have two free merit dots that have be spent on crew merits and while you can have a crew of five loaders if you wanted to, it is recommend that you have each crew member spend the dots in the position you want them doing. Having a couple crew members cross trained can be useful if you want to be able to cover for injury’s though.
The Crew merits are:
Commander (O to o.o.o.o)
Gunner (O to o.o.o.o)
Loader (O to o.o.o.o)
Radio operator (O to o.o.o.o)
Driver (not to be confused with the drive skill) (O to o.o.o.o)
Each Merit represents how well trained each person is in there role while under pressure, even a person with a high drive skill will bulk at the controls of a Panzer IV, all while some one is shouting at you, while another person is shooting you with a gun so big the ground shakes.
When called upon to perform actions you roll the relevant merit, an attribute, sometimes a skill and Veterency.
Actions
Actions are what each crew member can do in each tanks turn. There are three types of action 'speeds', reflex, instant and extended. Instant actions happen instantly and extended actions take multiple turns, a reflex action happens instantly, and still allow a full non extended action, a crew member may not perform more then one instant actions in a turn. Or a full non extended action and then a reflex action.
In case you have not noticed, order can be important to a tank crew to get the best results. If the loader performs a action before the gunner fires, the loader can't start to reload until her next turn.
There are two types of actions, base and advance. Advance actions have to be purchased with XP like merits before they can be used. Base action are available to all crew member of that class. Universal actions are available to all crew.
Universal actions
Repair
Type:Base action
Speed: extended
Roll: Crafts+Dexterity+Equipment (you can not add Veterency)
Effect: the crew member attacks a broken part trying to fix it.
When equipment is damaged the storyteller decided how much damage it took and how many success until it is fixed. The storyteller may rule that some equipment can't be fixed or that even if it is fixed that all rolls using it suffer a penalty to use.
Critical failure: the equipment is well and truly, broken and can't be fixed.
Failure: no progress is made to repairs.
Success: progress is made toward success.
Critical success: the equipment is fixed.
Fire fighting:
Type:Base action
Speed: extended
Roll: Crafts+Resolve+Equipment (you can not add Veterency)
Effect: the last shot started a fire in the tank! The crew must fight it or risk the ammo going up!
See catastrophic damage to see the effects of fire..
Critical failure: the fire spreads! Roll on the catastrophic damage table.
Failure: the fire does not advance nor is it put out.
Success: the crew make great strides to putting the fire out.
Critical success: the fire is put out.
Snap out of it!
See Espit.
Commander actions.
Eyes peeled.
Type:Base action
Speed: instant.
Effect: the commander crawls out a open hatch to better observe the situation. The -4 penalty to observation rolls is removed, but the commander is exposed to enemy fire. Using eye peeled again allows the commander to return to the safety of the tank.
Motivate
Type:Advance action
Speed: instant.
Roll: Command+presence+Veterency
Effect: the commander shouts encouragements and advice at a member of the crew. If successful she granting them the 9 again quality on any action they perform this turn.
Spotter
Type:Advance action
Speed: instant
Effect: the commanders emerging from the tank watching allied actions and calling in coordinates.
This action is used with the radio operator action of spotter. Spotter gives a designated allied tank a +1 to each fire action each turn it performs a fire action.
So on the first turn of spotter the tank rolls it unaltered fire roll, but each turn after that the roll gets +1 each time it fires, and each time the radio operator and commander preform a spotter action. This bonus lasts until either the allied tank moves or has to fire at a allied target 90 degrees away from where it was shooting.
Gunner actions
lay gun
Type:Base action
Speed: instant-extended.
Effect: The gunner focus on the target, turning the turret to face the target as she draws a aim.
Each turn she spends aiming with out performing a fire action grants +1 to her next fire action when she performs her action on the target she is aiming at, or a target 45 degrees to either side)
Fire
Type:Base action
Speed: Reflex
Roll:Gunner+dexterity+Veterency+gun accuracy
Effect: with a finger press the gunner sends the cannon roaring and sends a shell into the target.
Gunners can only perform a fire action with a live round in the barrel.
Critical failure: the shot misses and the enemy know where the shot came from.
Failure: the shot misses.
Success: the shot hits.
Critical success: the shot inflicts catastrophic damage
Loader actions
Load
Type:basic action
Speed: as per gun's load speed.
Roll:Loader+strength+Veterency
Effect: grunting the loader slams a shell into the main gun and clanks the breach shut.
At the start of the action pick the type of shell to load (if you have a choice) mark off a shell of that type on the tanks character sheet and then roll. You can also use load to switch the type of ammo already in the gun. Add one type of shell of the type in the gun into the tanks ammo pool and remove a different shell type.
Critical failure: the loader drops the shell and must start the action over again as she either fumbles for the shell or gets a new one.
Failure: the loader struggles to load the shell, add one the number of turns the action takes.
Success: the shell is closer to loaded. The number of turns to load the shell go down by one. At zero turns the shell is loaded.
Critical success: as success.
Radio operator actions
contact
Type:basic action
Speed: instant
Roll:Radio+Socialize+Veterency
Effect: cutting though interference the radio operator allows communication between the tanks.
Tanks are assumed to always have a good connection with each other, there by allowing players to talk to each other. But some times weather, jamming or equipment failures tank, in such cases a contact action has to be made each turn to allow the tanks to communicate.
If successful the player may speak to other players. If the roll is failed the communication is garbled and the players is not allowed to speak to other players.
A contact action allow tanks to exchange information. Basicly it allows the player to talk to the other players, he can still hear them as the communication can still receive signals but talking to them can't be done with out a contact action.
Examining interference
Type:Advance action
Speed: extended
Roll:Radio+computer+Veterency
Effect: by twisting some nobs and examine a manual the radio operator determines what is causing interference
Critical failure: the Radio operator can determinen nothing about the cause of the interference
Failure: as failure
Success: the radio operation makes great progress to determine the interference
Critical success: as success.
Interception
Type:Advance action
Speed: extended
Roll:Radio+Manipulation+Veterency-5
Effect: snickering the tank radio operator attempts to tap into enemy communications.
Once the interception extended action is complete you may take further contact actions to 'tap in' to the enemy communication. Interception has negative penalty unless done with proper equipment.
Critical failure: the enemy figure out about the attempted interception and start to take steps to counter it.
Failure: the operator fails to make progress in breaking the enemy communications.
Success: the radio operation makes progress.
Critical success: the radio operator makes great progress toward intercepting communication.
Spotter
Type:Advance action
Speed: extended
Roll:Radio+Socialize+Veterency
Effect: working with the commander the radio operator allows more accurate fire from allied tanks.
This action is used with the tank commander's action of spotter. Spotter gives a designated allied tank a +1 each turn it performs a fire action.
So on the first turn of spotter the tank rolls it unaltered fire roll, but each turn after that the roll gets +1 each time it fires, and each time the radio operator and commander preform a spotter action. This bonus lasts until either the allied tank moves or has to fire at a allied target 90 degrees away from where it was shooting.
Critical failure: the radio operator makes the allies shoot worse. All bonus is lost.
Failure: the allied tank does not gain a additionally +1 after shooting this turn.
Success: the allied tank get the message and adjusts it's fire granting it a +1 to each shot.
Critical success: the allied tank get exceptional good fire commands and gets a +2 after it's next shot rather then +1
Driver actions
Drive
Type:basic action
Speed: instant
Effect: the tank can move. See speed under tank section.
Evasive actions
Type:advance action
Speed: action
Roll: Driver+Dexterity+Veterency
Effect: the drive starts wildly moving making the tank harder to hit. The tank can only move at half speed as it jink and dodges take up time.
Critical failure: the tank stalls and can't move for the rest of the turn.
Failure: the tank does not become harder to hit.
Success: The tanks passive defense goes up by two, but the gunner suffers a -2 penalty to shooting.
Critical success: the driver manages to perform the maneuvers so the gunner does not suffer a penalty to firing.
Flat out
Type:advance action
Speed: action
Roll: Driver+Dexterity+Veterency
Effect: the driver floors it! Put as much speed between himself and the enemy as possible.
Critical failure: the tank stalls and can't move for the rest of the turn.
Failure: the tank does not move faster.
Success: The tank speed moves 8 centimeters more this turn then it normally would.
Critical success: the tank moves 12 centimers more then it normally would.
Crew merits.
Crew members may take the follow unique merits.
Jack of all trades:O
Requires: Veterency 5
effect: the crew member may use her crew merit divided by two (rounded up) for any other crew position in a tank.
Hot loading: O
Requires: Veterency 4
effect: all loading takes one turn less time as the loader takes a few short cuts in the loading process .
Intuition:O
Requires: Veterency 6
effect: a when you change ammo types roll a chance die. On a success the ammo you wanted to load was already loaded. On a failure you need to reload as normal.
Mad minute:O
Requires: Veterency 10
effect: as an action the loader may expend a point of will power to reduce gun loading time to a single instant action.
Armorer:O
Requires: Veterency 3
effect: the gunner ignores one penalty using a damaged gun or sights.
Snap shot:O
Requires: Veterency 5
effect: the gunner ignores one penalty for turret rotation when firing.
Dead eye:O
Requires: Veterency 10
effect: all firing penalty’s are reduced by one
Off road driving:O
Requires: Veterency 4
effect: a driver with this skill may ignore one -1 penalty to driving over soft ground.
Clutch breaking:O
Requires: Veterency 7
effect: all hull rotations turns between 90 degrees and 120 are reduced to reflex actions.
Smooth driver:O
Requires: Veterency 10
effect: when a driver with this perk moves the tank the gunner suffers movement penalty’s one lower then what the current speed would cause.
Code talker:O To O.O.O.O
Requires: Veterency 3
effect: radio operators have learned how to speak in coded communication. Enemy’s trying to intercepting communications suffer a -1 penalty for each dot the radio operator on the whole team with the LOWEST code talker meirt has.
Situational awareness
Requires: Veterency 6
effect: a radio operator with this meirt constantly listens to the radio, working closely with the commander to provide updated recon. The commander may add the radio operators dots to his investigation rolls.
Licensed :O
Requires: Veterency 10
effect: the crew member gains the nine again property to all radio operator rolls.
Eagle eye :O
Requires: Veterency 2
effect: the commander keen eyes pick out object easily.
The commander gains the 9 again property on her investigation rolls.
Inspiring: 0
Requires: Veterency 6
effect: the crew love there commander, and they know she loves them back.
A commanders Espit always counts as 2 higher then it actually is for snap out of it rolls.
Sixth Sense: 0
Requires: Veterency 10
effect: the commander is easily spooked, able to keenly detect when something is something not quite right.
When a investigation roll is preformed by the storyteller the commander may roll Veterency, if the roll is successful the commander is told weather she got a failure, critical failure, success or critical success.
Chapter two: the Panzer
The Panzers.
A tank operators only as well as it's crew, but the crew only can fight as well as it's panzer.
Unlike new world of darkness, it is recommended that each player have a 15mm model of there tank they can use to represent where on the table the tank is, where the turret is facing and what the arc of fire on the gun is, making Panzers the Vorstross a bit like a hybrid RPG table top game.
All tanks have there own 'character sheet' listing there statistics like ammo count, speed, armor, main gun, gun traverse and more.
Ammo: ammo is a pool dots on a tanks character sheet the represents the number of shots the tank has. At the start of a game determine what kinds of ammo you have loaded and how many of each type. Using differently colored tiddly winks for each ammo type is recommended. in some cases (such as if the tank had 100 somthing rounds) the storyteller may just decided that a tank has enough ammo that a player need not worry about keeping track.
Tank Morality Esprit: tank crews have the same morality as humans since they are (duh) humans. But morality as a mechanic works well to explain enthusiasm among the tank crew, or Esprit de corps.
Esprit is how motivated the crew is to in combat, a low Esprit crew have a tendency to run from combat, some times fleeing the tank and leaving it behind while a high Espirit crew will fight on no matter what.
Esprit rolls are made when the tank suffers catastrophic damage due to being shot at. If a tank throws a track over rough ground that won't trigger a Esprit roll.
High levels of Esprit will cause a tank crew to ignore some forms of catastrophic damage as the crew fight on ignoring the damage. Damage is divided into ten levels, the level of damage they do not have to test for is all damage bellow to there Esprit-3. So a level ten Esprit crew need not test for catastrophic damage seven and below.
When a Esprit roll is failed the crew react as per the reaction for there current Esprit level. If a tank crew is Esprit seven and they fail a Esprit roll the crew suffer level seven and all higher reactions and autocratically lose a dot in Esprit.
So if a level 7 esprit crew
Esprit rolls differ from normal morality rolls in three ways. First, tanks can not get derangement nor the crew in them this way, secondly Tanks can add the average Veterency of there crew to the degradation roll, thirdly, Espirt rolls can not add derangements to the crew, but some reactions CAN temporarily add derangement’s to the crew as the stress of combat get atypical reactions form them. In this case treat each member of the crew as having the derangement when performing there actions, lastly rather then having more easier to perform requirements as you get higher up the table, the requirements to cause a degradation get harder to acquire as you get higher.
This is because Esprit is not morality, but motivation. A highly motivated group can ignore a lot, but a low motivated group is easier to waylay and stop.
Level
Degradation
Reaction
10
Set on fire (5 dice)
The crew is shaken by there experience, but keep fighting.
9
Crew member seriously injured (five dice)
The crew -1 to all mental attributes for one turns as they panic
8
Serious engine damage (four dice)
The crew panic means they suffer a -1 to all social attributes
7
Radio damage (four dice)
The crew worrying effects there reactions and they -1 to physical attributes
6
Main gun damaged (3 dice)
The crew gain a minor derangement
5
Crew light injury (three dice)
All attribute penalty’s are doubled.
4
Track thrown (two dice)
All attribute penalty are tripled.
3
Armor penetrated (two dice)
The crew panics and all actions suffer a -1 penalty
2
Allied Tank disabled (one dice)
The crews minor derangement becomes a major. The driver will attempt to escape the situation, no matter what the commander (and the player) wants.
1
Tank is hit (one dice)
The crew panics all actions become chance die.
At 0 Espit the crew surrender, they flee there tank or other wise become in operable and count as disabled.
Snap out of it!
In any situations there is one person who keeps there head.
Each turn each crew member rolls Composition+Veterency+Espit.
When the roll is successful the crew member may perform actions as normal. Including the action 'snap out of it'.
When performing the snap out of it action the crew member (hence to be called the 'cool head') rolls Composition+Veterency+Espit against all the other crew members Composition+current Espit-10. When the Cool Head wins the contested roll the crew member has there reaction removed and may act normally. But there action counts as spent that turn. If the Cool head loses the contested roll the reaction remains and the crew still suffer from the penalty.
The storyteller should allow bonuses to this roll depending on what the Cool Head says as determined by the player. If she makes a inspiring speech that could be a +2, where as if she some how makes it worse that could be a -2.
Things are going well!
Espit is gained ever time the crew completes a objective or do something confidence buiding, such as knocking an enemy tank out, inflicting catastrophic damage, or having the seventh shot in a row hits a target, the Storyteller should roll to see if Espit is gained.
Roll the crews Veterency+Composition+Current Espit. If the number of successes equals or is over the next rank of Espit then the tank acquires a dot in Espit.
If a crew passes a degradation roll by having all there dice be success, then the crew automatically gains a dot in Espit.
Speed
Tanks have two speeds, on road and, off road.
On road speed can only be used on roads, and off road speed can only be used off road or other paved surfaces, on road speed is higher then off road. 'off road' conditions are up to the story teller. If fighting across a grassy field a story teller may rule that the tank can use it's on road speed rather then it's off road.
A tank can move up to it's speed score each turn the driver preforms a drive action at the end of the drivers action it can say it's either stopping or that it keeps moving. If the tank has moved when the gunner starts her turn she suffers the movement penalty to her fire action, nor may she take the 'aim' action and all previous aim action bonus are removed.
The faster a tank moves the harder is to hit. Every ten centimeters a tank moves enemy gunners attempting a fire action against it suffer a -1 penalty.
However, for every ten centimeters a tank move it's own gunners suffers a -1 penalty to shooting. This penalty goes up to -2 when moving over unpaved ground.
Each turn a tank moves over soft ground (such as mud or thick snow) a driver has to roll Driver+Dexterity+Veterency. Success means the tank moves normally. Failure means the tank gets stuck in the mud and can't move until the driver passes a soft ground roll. If the driver gets 3 failures in a row the tank is well and truly stuck, and can't move until the crew take action to free it. Put logs under the tracks, hook it up to another tank ectra.
The exact speed of the tank depends on the type of tank, light tanks move faster then mediums for example.
Gun.
This game focus on tank on tank combat so we will be focusing on the main gun.
Any tank's main gun has three category
Loading speed, accuracy and range.
Loading speed is how many turns the gun takes to load.
Accuracy is the number of bonus dice a gunner can use when performing the fire action. Representing how accurate the gun is.
and range is how far the gun can shoot.
The obvious problem is how do you translate real guns into game statistics? This takes a bit of research and players and storyteller should work together to figure these stats out.
For guns with a caliber 37mm and below loading speed is assumed to be one turn, for guns with calibers between 37mm and 120mm assume loading is two turns. For guns higher then 120mm loading is three turns.
Accuracy is assumed to be 0, no bonus unless the tank in real life was known to be accurate (such as the Sherman) or inaccurate (T-34)
Guns are divided into five range category, Short, Medium, long, and very long.
category:Short
Range:60 centimeters
Examples:US:37mm, 75mm howitzer, USSR: 20 mm TNSh cannon British: 2 pounder. German 2 cm KwK 30
Category:Medium
Range:80 centimeters
Examples:US: 75mm, British:6 pounder, USSR: 76mm,57mm, German: 5cm KwK, 7.5 cm,
Category long
range 100 centimeters
German 88mm, russian 152mm, British 17 pounder, US 90mm
Very long
range 120 centimeters
Russian 122mm, British 20 pounder,
Armor and penetration AP
tanks have different armor on differing sides. Depending on which side of a tank you shoot at, the actually armor could be different.
To find the armor of a tank, first, research the actual armor of the tank. World of tanks wiki is a good place to start.
Turret armor is used if the gunner either 'calls the shot' at it for -1 penalty or the tank is 'hull down' and has only the turret exposed.
Second, look up the penetration ability of varying shells. Again, world of tanks wiki is a good source of information.
When a shell hits the armor of a tank roll ten dice. From there, four things can happen depending on tank armor to shells penetration ability.
Armor is double shells penetration: the shell can not penetrate. But if you roll five success the shell inflicts catastrophic damage.
Armor is larger then the shells penetration: the shell needs 7 success to penetrate. Five success inflicts catastrophic damage.
Armor is larger or less then 2 of the shells penetration. The shell needs five success to penetrate and inflicts critical damage at the same time.
The armor is smaller then the shells penetration. The shell needs 3 success to penetrate.
Shells penetration is double the armor. The shells need two success to penetrate.
Example
Sherman VS Tiger
Sherman is armed with the 75mm: penetration 92
Tigers frontal armor is 100mm
Sherman needs seven success to penetrate.
Tiger fires 8,8 cm KwK 36 L/56 penetration 132
Sherman frontal armor 51
tiger needs two success to penetrate.
when a tank is penetrated there is a last chance the shell might not inflict any damage. Roll a chance die. if successful the tank is not knocked out and must 'merely' roll on the catastrophic damage table. if the roll is failed the tank is knocked out well and good.
High explosives shells do not penetrate armor and explode on the side of the tank. (note: I'm not found of this section and i feel it needs a little work)
The crew of any tank hit with a HE shell suffer a -1 penalty for each action in there next turn for every three success the he shell rolled.
HE shells work the same way as armor piercing shells, they have a given armor penetration, however the armor penetration for these shells is very low. When a tank is hit with a high explosive shell roll 20 dice. From there, four things can happen.
Armor is more then triple the shells penetration: the shell inflicts superficial damage.
Armor is larger then the shells penetration: the shell needs 15 success to destroy the tank. Every five success inflicts catastrophic damage.
Armor is larger or less then 2 of the shells penetration. The shell needs 10 success to destroy the tank.
The armor is less then the shells penetration. The shell rips the tank apart. The tank is disabled.
Armor penetration modifiers.
target tank hit is at 45-69 degree angle to shooter:-1
target tank is at a 70 degree angle to the shooter-2
Target tank is under half range away+2
HEAT and HESH rounds
HEAT and HESH, other wise known as high explosive anti tank, and high explosive squash head, are treated like armor piecing grounds but don't suffer from enemy tanks being at a angle to the shooter. But they can't get a bonus for being at half range.
Autocannons and autoloaders.
Auto cannons and autoloaders are both ways to shoot more rapidly, auto cannons though are like big machine guns where as autoloaders come in two types, like a robot loader or a giant revolver.
Autocannons grant the tank the 'auto fire' property from the new world of darkness book. Generally this is the auto-fire medium given ammo box size, but some tanks may have big enough clips to justified auto fire long. Machine guns are automatically auto fire long, but generally unless your playing with world war one tanks, they all don't have enough punch to harm a tank. Auto cannons can fire for a number of turns based on there clip sized. That depends on how many shells in the magazine. Remember, short auto fire is three bullets, medium ten, and long 30. also, some tanks have several auto cannons (such as the Wirbelwind) so they may get the long auto fire every time they fire.
Auto loaders work in two ways as mentioned. Loaders that replace the loader work every time. When the gun fires the tank will automatically start to reload, no skill tests needed, but it will also be as many turns as the shell takes to reload. A loader may shorten the time with merits, a auto-loader can not.
Loaders that are 'drum fed' like the AMX 13 90 work differently. They allow rapid salvos that take awhile to reload. Auto loaders like this may fire once every turn as long as they have a shell in the drum, but then they need to reload the whole magazine. The time to reload us the time for each shell (normally two turns) times each shell in the drum. Merits that effect reloading may not be applied to auto loaders.
Aiming:
You can have a 152mm howitzer that can destroy tigers in a single shot, but if you can't hit anything you can't do anything.
There are two considerations with aiming, the tanks gun locations and how fast the tank has been moving.
Tanks with guns fixed to the superstructure, such as most tank destroyers have a limited arc of fire. Generally we assume this to be a 45 degree arc in front of the tank, but the storyteller may enforce the historical limitations of the gun if he prefers, and a player can argue for more firing arc of the gun on the tank could have done more.
If a tank needs to rotate it's hull more then 45 degrees this requires a action from the driver. But this does not remove a tanks camouflage bonus like moving would and does not enforce a move penalty to the gunner for firing. You do lose aiming benefits unless your turning specifically to keep tracking a moving target)
Turreted tanks can fire 45 degrees in the direction of where there gun is facing. If they need to fire more then that they to rotate there turret. A tank may not fire after a turret rotation is started. This takes one turn and on the turn after a turret rotates the tank. For most tanks this is a 'free' action and does not take up the action of any of there crew. But for some tanks with hand cranked turrets one of the crew (normally the gunner) must expend a action to spin the turret.
You can combine a turret rotation and a tank hull rotation to get the most out of a tanks range with out having to spend a action. For example, turning the turret 44 degrees and the hull 44 degrees to be able to fire at targets 88 degrees to either side.
Common to hit modifiers
Modifiers:
called shot on turret-1
only turret visible-1
movement penalty: see movement
target hidden: -1 to -3
Target moving see movement:
Camouflage
camouflage is how well hidden the tank is.
Camouflage can grant up to -1 to -3 penalty against enemy’s attempting a investigation roll against it and will hide tank from view if no roll is taken. A tank is Camouflage by making a subterfuge+strength+Veterency extended action.
When successfully hidden a storyteller determines how well camouflaged the tank is and what level penalty anybody looking for it gets.
A tank well hidden in a forest should get a -3, a tanking trying to hid in a open field, (unless the players came up with a very good idea) might get a -1 or be ruled impossible to hide.
A tank loses it camo bonus if it moves but not if it rotates it's hull. Firing DOES NOT remove a tanks camo bonus, unless the enemy saw the muzzle flash.
Investigation
Investigation is the roll used to determine if a tank commander can find a enemy tank. If a player needs to find a enemy, identify, or figure out which way the enemy tank went roll investigation+Intelligence+Veterency.
Critical failure: the tank commander gets the wrong information.
Failure: the tank commander is stumped.
Success: the tank commander gets a hint about the situation.
Critically success: the tank commander knows exactly what she wants to know.
Catastrophic damage
When an attacking tank gets a critical success, even if the tanks armor blocks the shot and prevents the tanks from being penetrated the tank suffers catastrophic damage. Roll a D10 and consult the table.
1
FIRE! The tank has been set on fire! Each turn the fire is on roll on the catastrophic damage table, (re rolling results of 9 and ten) if you roll fire or ammo storage the fire reaches the ammo storage and the tank explode destroying it.
2
Crew injured!: a random crew member takes five bashing damage and is knocked unconscious. Roll stamina+ health each turn to see if she wakes up.
3
Engine damage: the tank can't move until the engine is repared.
4
Gun damage: the gun suffers a -2 to shooting until it's repaired. In tanks with multiple cannons pick a random gun.
5
Radio damaged: the radio no longer works until it's repaired. When it is repared a radio operator needs to use the contact action in order to speak to team mates.
6
Ammo storage is hit! Roll a chance die. If the result is a ten the tank blows up and is destroyed.
7
Crew minor injury. a random crew member suffers three bashing damage.
8
Gun damaged.
9
Tracked: the tank throws a track and is unable to move until it's repaired.
10
False alarm: no catastrophic damage is inflicted after all.
Tank merits.
Tanks purchase merits at 10 xp a dot. These are mechanical upgrades and they take effect when the tank is next serviced.
Grousers: 0
effect: the driver may re-roll failed soft terrain tests.
Spaced armor: 0 (available where historical accurate)
Effect HE, HEAT and HESH shells have to reroll six success when they hit a part of a tank covered in spaced armor.
Stabilizer: 0
Effect: the gunner has one less penalty for shooting on the move.
Crew amenity’s 0
Effect: the crew start with one higher Espirt each match or battle.
Interception gear 0 to 0.0.0.0
Effect: the tank has the gear to intercept enemy transmissions.
One dot removes the penalty to the radio interception action, each additional dot adds a ectra dice to the radio interception roll.
However, the more gear a tank has, the less ammo it has. At 5 dots a tank does not have room for ammo or a gun and becomes a command tank.
Camo net O
Effect: the tank always has a cameo rating of at least one.
Upgrade:
a 'upgrade' is a attempted to increase a statistic about the tank, such as armor, speed, or the gun.
A player must first propose a upgrade to the storyteller, if the upgrade was historical then the Storyteller has to put a XP price to it. If the upgrade was not historical, then it's up to storyteller discretion if he allows it.
If the storyteller allows it, the player may pay the XP price and when the tank is next serviced the tank is upgraded.
Example: upgrading a Sherman into a Sherman jumbo, 'easy 8' to Firefly, to the Israeli Super Sherman
However, a storyteller should feel free to allow players to mix and match and make non historical tanks, the world is big and anything the players come up with has likely already been tried.
For example: Egypt put a AMX 13 turret on a sherman thus giving it a 75mm auto-loader.
Israel armed Sherman with German 75mm guns after the original weapons were scrapped. Isreal also turned Shermans into SPG with 155mm guns and, rockets lunching tanks.
The Russian army captured dozens of Panzer IV, Stugs and the occasional Panther, it's completely conceivable that they would stick Russian guns in a few of them.
A few Churchill in north Africa armed with Sherman turrets.
but the storyteller should add a cost to these conversions and 'kit bashes', and more then XP since there not working off a blue print.
The storyteller should enforce a number of in story days to iron out the glitches and flaws, otherwise the next battle the tank participates in the storyteller should make some thing difficult for them. For example, if they stuck a Sherman turret on a T-34, then he should give the turret a chance of getting stuck each time it's rotated.
The number of days the storyteller prescribed should remain after the battle, they may know the problem but they still need to fix it. But if no problem emerged though out the battle, then tank is said to be 'teethed' and need no more time to figure it out. Additionally a storyteller should feel free to adjust the speed of the tank if the tank either added a lot of weight, thus slowing it, or removed weight thus speeding it up.
Chapter three:Example tank creation.
Lets use two examples of how to break tanks down in to playable statistics. And a big shout out to the tank Encyclopedia (http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/)for the images.
http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/jap/type4_ke-nu_01.jpg
Type 4 Ke Nu
the Type 4 has a three man crew driver, commander/gunner/loader and a machine gunner. Were assume the machine gunner can double for the radio operator to keep the load off the commander.
We look up the armor and see the vague number '6-25' for thickness.
We know a tank's armor is thicker on the front then sides and rear, so storyteller gives it a front armor of 25, a side of 12, and a rear of six. Due to a lack of information he gives the turret the same values.
The tank was armed with the Type 97 57 mm Tank Gun which the storyteller decides best fits the short range category. The shells AP shells can penetration 25mm.
The type 5 was considered a medium tank, but given it's poor performance the storyteller rules that it is a light tank.
The tank is now ready to be played.
http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/france/char_b1_ter.png
Char B1 ter
the char b1 ter has a crew of four, a commander who is also the gunner and loader for the 47mm, the Driver, who was also a loader for the 75mm hull howitzer, a gunner for the 75mm howitzer and a radio operator.
Looking it up, we see the B1 ter had 70mm of sloped armor. Clearly a heavy tank. The storyteller bumps it up to 75 to account for the slope.
The B1 has two guns, a hull gun and a turret gun.
The turret is a 47 mm SA 35, we decided to give it short range, the shell could penetrate 66mm of armor.
The 75mm hull gun was a howitzer and could only fire high explosive and HEAT shells. We look those up and find stats hard to come by. So we cheat. We look up the high explosives of other 75mm guns and find a rough number of 38mm of armor penetration for the HE, and 91 for the HEAT.
thankfully for the player, the B1 ter has a howitzer with 5 degrees of traverse other wise with a 0 degree traverse the storyteller would have given it a -2 accuracy statistic.
The B1 is ready to play.