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Aotrs Commander
2019-04-29, 08:22 AM
Seems like as good a place to ask, given the niche level of the system, but...



If you did, how did the DM handle the rules giving the judges all the special ammunition?

Our DM is struggling a bit, since, being the astute players were are, if you hand us resources, we tend to use them. And when you factor in there's, like, usually six to eight of us...

Especially with their rapid fire rules and the two types of ammunition with area effect and with the Stumm Gas. (Shoot three 3D10 Reflex Half effects times several players...) We're only level four, which places us pretty much in the band were typical item stuff is stil powerful.

Actually, even Arrest Checks are kind of a problem.

(Us not doing it in civilian-filled areas only gets him so far. Before you ask, he seems unwilling to tell us outright "guys, you need to stop using those," probably because he's the principal Dredd enthuiast and that's what the lore is.)



Part of the problem is the rules themselves. I get the impression from the way the rules were written that the authors didn't really think about it, and just added it in because they were in the lore and they are, well, kinda sloppily-worded. We have a bit of a struggle with all sorts of stuff with Dredd D20; it's not very well put together, frankly. After I got so fed-up with finding all the numerous errors on the official character sheets - for JUDGES - we made our own in Excel, but even getting the information RIGHT has been a problem. In several places the rules in the text have been inconsistent.

It took us several goes to finally unpick what stuff we had in the magazines because of poor wording.

There is still the baffling issues of why Hi-Ex rounds (10' radius, 3D10 DC 15) and Incendirary rounds (5' radius, 2D5, DC 15) have a critical multiplier. (Were they supposed to be area-weapons at all? If so, why the critical? Do you get that if you shoot a dude with them AND then get the explosion, what? Why did they give those ammunition types rapid fire 3? Surely someone during playtesting must have found how crazy that is...?)

And yesterday, we FINALLY got (after the session) the various bonuses and stuff for the Lawmasters down.

To whit:


The Lawmaster provides a +2 Ride check bonus to the Judge, not a +2 autopilot (autopilot grants a Drive bonus of +1). Automatic targeting systems provides the bike with a BAB of +1 when making attacks without the judge; the fire control system provides a +1 bonus to attacks. (So I WAS right AND SO WAS DM). The former ALSO benefits from the latter. So bikes attack autonomously at +2. (This information is split, respectively, between the details on the bike, the Ride rules, the autopilot rules, the fire-control rule and the automatic target acquisition rules IS SURPRISING THAT IT WAS EASY TO GET CONFUSED.)



I have emailed the DM a list of suggetions for toning the various problems down myself (I realised when I was doing it that it is entirely possible the areas listed were intended to be diameters, because whether they are diameters or radius is never stated; and as D20 and D&D always does radii, it was our collective automatic assumption) and I yesterday I even suggested how he can beef up the bad guys on the fly if we're splortching them too easily (which he did!), but he only DMs twice a year (usually six months apart) and doesn't always remember to think about before the next session (though niether do we, to be fair). He's running a module - he doesn't have a great deal of time (or enthusiasm) for extra prep-work. (Him running Dredd twice a year means I don't have to wrote four day-quests on top of doing the majority of the DMing nowadays on a Monday. Lichemaster, that last D&D character I made is now level 15...!)

As primary rules-smith of the group - our Dredd DM definitely isn't a rules-smith kind of guy - I can only help him so far without him going yay or nay! But I figured maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to see if anyone here had run into the problems and how they solved it.

noob
2019-04-30, 04:10 AM
Overwhelming weapons are a rational thing in a world where there is so much criminality(possibly due to the law system) you have people simultaneously judging and shooting at people.
On the other hand it skews the game towards rocket tag.(with literal fast firing rocket launchers)
If you do not like the rocket tag experience and most people agree you can probably just change the numbers to reduce the rocket tag effect.

Critical strikes are not about precision which is by you can get critical strikes with the equivalent of a fast firing rocket launcher.

Florian
2019-04-30, 04:24 AM
Huh, ok, haven't taken a look at that particular d20 system for...well.. ages.

Certain kinds of special ammo are dual use. You can fire them directly or you can set a detonation point. High Ex against a single target is brutal, especially when you score a crit, but then you don't trigger the areal effect. High Ex against a group of mooks is effective, but you cannot score a crit, tho, and so on.

Aotrs Commander
2019-04-30, 05:25 AM
Overwhelming weapons are a rational thing in a world where there is so much criminality(possibly due to the law system) you have people simultaneously judging and shooting at people.
On the other hand it skews the game towards rocket tag.(with literal fast firing rocket launchers)
If you do not like the rocket tag experience and most people agree you can probably just change the numbers to reduce the rocket tag effect.

It's not rocket tag if the Judges are the only one with such weapons. (And, I must point out, the DM is running a published module so the lack thereof of the NPCs is not any fault of his.) It is a group of players well-used to 3.x and co-opertating tactially, brutally tearing through all his combat encounters with, given half a chance, save or lose or multiple reflex save-to death, because we're using the options provided to us.

(Which is why I'm trying to find some solutions for him, because he's bothered he's not able to do more than set up a line of dominos for us to effortless knock down. Hell, we can even obiviate encounters by just Doing An Arrest Check, given the mechanics were daft enough to be opposed Charisma checks and then give the Judges a massive advantage. My character is making an opposed check with (assuming equal number and level of Judges and Perps), even, a +9-11-point advantage...)


Critical strikes are not about precision which is by you can get critical strikes with the equivalent of a fast firing rocket launcher.

Except that you can't get a critical on something that is Reflex save for half, you can only get something with a crit on an attack roll.

Which brings us to...


Huh, ok, haven't taken a look at that particular d20 system for...well.. ages.

Certain kinds of special ammo are dual use. You can fire them directly or you can set a detonation point. High Ex against a single target is brutal, especially when you score a crit, but then you don't trigger the areal effect. High Ex against a group of mooks is effective, but you cannot score a crit, tho, and so on.

But it doesn't actually SAY that in the core rules - anywhere - though. Like, at ALL.

Unless there was errata somewhere...?

(I just did a couple of searches, trying to find those terms, in the pdf - the only way I found the disorganised stuff on the Lawmaster - and turned up ziltch.)

If that was the intention, it went completely unstated. It only says the ammo has an "area of effect" (which may mean diameter not radius, but it never specifies which and as the system it is based off uses radius...) The stats indicate it has a critical rating. That's it. Which is, at VERY best, an unclear "implied, but not stated1."

Oh my Lichemaster, I just noticed that the scatter guns also have an area of effect. What is EVEN with these rules.



(That said, even if that is the intention it still has the issue of why you would even bother NOT using the area effect when you can comfortably deal 9D10/2 => 25-50 damage per round per judge (for 4 to 12 rounds, given the amount of ammo you have as you can rapid-fire 3 and rapid fire is an attack action option) to one or more targets verses a 14% chance of one critical (assuming you hit the target's actual AC, not just the AC 5 space they're standing in).

I suppose mainly for occasions where you can't use AoE (but if you miss, you still have the problem that you fired an AoE, so you wouldn't risk it), but even then, that just makes it even more powerful...)



(Also, looking up this I had to laugh at it saying in the reloading section about ammo being finite and "many" times a characte will be forced to reload... The only times we need to reload are when we run out of special ammo. My character can crak off six shots a round and I MIGHT be the only one that's actually had to do it.)



1As someone who spent about a year getting my own published rules proof-read and eliminating all instances of "implied but not stated" and that 3.x was generally very good about not doing it either, I find it rather poor that a set of actual published rules in paper didn't do the same; they don't even get the excuse of "well, we're not a big company like WotC" because I'm smaller than they were and I did it!

Ahem.

noob
2019-04-30, 03:32 PM
How much budget(in whatever system is used for funds such as requisition checks or money) are your judges issued?
and how much does the ammo and rapid fire explosive mortars costs.
Maybe they just underpriced those or gave too much money in that campaign as an oversight.

Aotrs Commander
2019-04-30, 04:01 PM
How much budget(in whatever system is used for funds such as buy checks or money) are your judges issued?
and how much does the ammo and rapid fire explosive mortars costs.
Maybe they just underpriced those or gave too much money in that campaign as an oversight.

None.

We don't GET a budget. (Judges don't get paid, like at all.) Judges get a standard set of equipment and nothing more, nothing less. That standard equipment comes with twelve magazines for the Lawgiver, each with 30 standard execution rounds, three Hi-Ex, three Incendiary, three AP, three ricochet, three heatseeking rounds and on top of that, three, I think Stumm Gas grenades, and two Stumm Gas rounds. (Thanks to Dredd D20's poor writing, it took us several goes to realise they meant two Stumm rounds total, not two per magazine...)

It's not even like thr Stargate SG-1 RPG, where you get gear picks and resource points and bundles of gear you can pick - Judges get the equipment on the list and that's it, not choice at all. (Said equipment gets replenished when we go back to base, as well.)

If we want something outside of and in addition to the standard gear, we have to grovel to the higher-ups (i.e. the DM).

(I think pretty much the only piece of kit outside the standard we have got party-wide is the psi-judge's tac helmet - and we blagged that because we realised that we were (as unfortunately we often do!) vastly over-estimating the capabilities of 1980s sci-fi technology and had been using our standard helmets like it was this particular peice of equipment!)

So, yeah, we're using the equipment the game system told us we should have.

I think that you are correct, though, to a degree; the writers DID undervalue that equipment, though, just not quite in the way you're thinking.

(One suspects the first time in playtesting if anyone had done what we did (in our collective ignorance of what the writers and lore presumed we should do, that they would have had a re-think...)

noob
2019-04-30, 04:15 PM
So once you lack ammo you have to ask the superiors to get ammo but you start with a lot of it(compounded by being a team with 6+ players) and so it is not going to be a concern for this campaign?
(As a plus each time you can go with an arrest check you save ammo relatively to what the campaign planned you to spend)

Aotrs Commander
2019-04-30, 05:37 PM
So once you lack ammo you have to ask the superiors to get ammo but you start with a lot of it(compounded by being a team with 6+ players) and so it is not going to be a concern for this campaign?
(As a plus each time you can go with an arrest check you save ammo relatively to what the campaign planned you to spend)

It's even easier than that; if, in the extraordinary event you ACTUALLY USED enough ammunition (out of your twelve mags) to need replenishing, you would just go back to the precinct and replace it automatically from stores.

Basically, yeah, ammo quantity is not really a singificant concern. (The DM say said he might like it to be, but it's just not possible for it to be within the boundary conditions the game sets you). Indeed, the only ammo we might be in danger or running out of is the special ammo, and even THAT would require either a four-round combat if you were away from your bike and hadn't extracted any of the eight mags therein, or a twelve-round combat by the bikes. With great irony, the special ammunition is about the closest he can get to us being concerned about ammo.

(My character, who can shoot six times a round because of Reapid Shot and their rapid-fire rules, can possibly eat through enough ammunition to be having to be careful about it, if he went on on an extended bit without his bike... But even during the bit we WERE sent into the undercity on foot, we never came close to running out.)

I suppose you might worry about it at high level (assuming Dredd using iteratives), but that would mean making a stupendous amount of attack rolls per round...



Actually running out of ammo is something that games which insist on modelling every bullet like every arrow (Rolemaster/Spacemaster is just the same) renders largely impossible; it's an issue me and a mate of mine had a long debate about with regard to an entirely different part and rules-system. The long and short of it is, if you model every bullet, even with multiple bullet-bursts like RM/SM, it's next to impossible to have enough rounds of combat to expend your ammo (you might get a PC with a lot of burst fire or a continuous weapon to change magazine/energy cell in Rolemaster if you were lucky.) Fixing that, though, is something that requires a fair bit more work - you'd basically have to do it like X-Com and only give character something on the order of 3-4 rounds of combat before a reload (i.e. you would have to stop modelling every bullet and abstract more). But that, as they say, is a more fundemental debate, better suited to other times and places.

noob
2019-05-01, 02:14 AM
Wow the justice system actually gets a lot of budget.

Aotrs Commander
2019-05-01, 04:36 AM
Wow the justice system actually gets a lot of budget.

It is effectively the government and the military - it is a literal police state.

comicshorse
2019-05-01, 05:53 AM
Basically, yeah, ammo quantity is not really a singificant concern. (The DM say said he might like it to be, but it's just not possible for it to be within the boundary conditions the game sets you). Indeed, the only ammo we might be in danger or running out of is the special ammo, and even THAT would require either a four-round combat if you were away from your bike and hadn't extracted any of the eight mags therein, or a twelve-round combat by the bikes. With great irony, the special ammunition is about the closest he can get to us being concerned about ammo.

(My character, who can shoot six times a round because of Reapid Shot and their rapid-fire rules, can possibly eat through enough ammunition to be having to be careful about it, if he went on on an extended bit without his bike... But even during the bit we WERE sent into the undercity on foot, we never came close to running out.)

I suppose you might worry about it at high level (assuming Dredd using iteratives), but that would mean making a stupendous amount of attack rolls per round...



Actually running out of ammo is something that games which insist on modelling every bullet like every arrow (Rolemaster/Spacemaster is just the same) renders largely impossible; it's an issue me and a mate of mine had a long debate about with regard to an entirely different part and rules-system. The long and short of it is, if you model every bullet, even with multiple bullet-bursts like RM/SM, it's next to impossible to have enough rounds of combat to expend your ammo (you might get a PC with a lot of burst fire or a continuous weapon to change magazine/energy cell in Rolemaster if you were lucky.) Fixing that, though, is something that requires a fair bit more work - you'd basically have to do it like X-Com and only give character something on the order of 3-4 rounds of combat before a reload (i.e. you would have to stop modelling every bullet and abstract more). But that, as they say, is a more fundemental debate, better suited to other times and places.

Has he considered sending the group on a Hot Dog Run ?

http://www.starkafterdarkonline.com/?p=11920

Aotrs Commander
2019-05-01, 06:23 AM
Has he considered sending the group on a Hot Dog Run ?

http://www.starkafterdarkonline.com/?p=11920

He's running a published campaign at the moment (don't know which one, not going to attempt to work it out, because I don't want spoilers), but we've already been on a run into the undercity away from our bikes and out of comms, which was about as close as we can get. We were still not really low on ammo, aside from the specials.

(I have no idea how dangerous Cursed Earth is in D20, as opposed to the comic narrative - it's possible that it is inherently just too much for 4th level PCs or it might be he's just not done that - or it might happen later in this campaign he's running.)



The problem on the running it of ammo front being, it's basically mechanically implausible for us to run out of ammo. Since when the party is firing mostly one shot per round (aside from rapid-fire-spam of Reflex-save bullets), with 30 rounds in the mag, a combat will just not last long enough - even if they rapid-fire (the gun option, not the feat), that's ten combat rounds per mag. The number of times when a combat lasts ten round is vanishingly small. Plus, of course, with the near-total lack of healing option, a combat that would last enough combat rounds for us to run out of ammo would likely see us dead long before.

In my experience, most D&D combats last on the order of 2-4 rounds. So for a bikeless judge (with 120 rounds) to have to worry about running out of ammo (the only good news in this regard is special ammo also expends a standard execution round) most of the PCs would have to have to fight 30-60 combats - which you could cut down to 10-20 if you made them use rapid-fire every round, which is A LOT of combats. (Either way, you're well beyond 3.x's even nominal "four easy encounters per day" standard.) Dredd just really isn't geared up mechanically for the Judges to have any real chance of running out of ammo aside from the specials. Whichever way you slice it, 40 combat rounds at full rate of fire is an awful lot to ask for even a regular game, let alone one we play twice per year, especially with a party size of six-to-eight players.



I have the same issue in a party fo mine, which is essentially the Aotrs Magical space-Liches Do Stargate. The Aotrs coldbeam rifles use basically batteries (which are trivial to carry) and I allotted them, as a guide, approximately the same sort of ammo count as the British army solider does. (Only, o course, being batteries, they don't evn have to carry the rounds loose and not in mags). After one game, me and a mate of mine had a loooong debate on whether I should, for example, cut all the ammo counts in our RM/SM game, by, like a third. But we concluded the same - we just don't fight enough combat rounds for even that to be of concern.

Honestly, if I want THAt party to be worried about their "ammo", the best thing I can do is to make them cross lots of wter, since freezing a path with the coldbeams uses more energy (output over an extended period and low intensity) that a typical combat!

Florian
2019-05-01, 06:24 AM
@OP:

Usual problem with things that came out during the initial d20 craze. Ok, you had a thing you wanted to model and you had a rules system at hand that was spreading like wildfire at that time, so you wrote something up, trusting on people into that stuff/geeks/lore to fill in the blanks.

Point being that you players know d20 inside and out, but only your gm knows the lore and setting, so that leads to a massive miss-match of a kind. As in, the fiction has at most two Judges and the d20 adaption is modeled around that fiction. Naturally, that breaks down when you have a group of 6 and more so, if you have a group of players that are knowledgeable and can game the d20 system, when said system was used to model something else entirely.

To understand what I mean, watch the movie "Dredd", which manages to capture the flavor quite well (No, not the Stalone one). Using incendiary rounds for a direct shot is quite lethal, using it as an area effect depends on the panic and pain caused by burning, which is a different thing entirely, which the d20 rules can't really model.

Do your GM and favor and point him towards the follow-up edition of Judge Dredd, which is based on the Traveller rules and is much, much closer to the initial lore that is modeled.

Aotrs Commander
2019-05-01, 06:43 AM
@OP:

Usual problem with things that came out during the initial d20 craze. Ok, you had a thing you wanted to model and you had a rules system at hand that was spreading like wildfire at that time, so you wrote something up, trusting on people into that stuff/geeks/lore to fill in the blanks.

Point being that you players know d20 inside and out, but only your gm knows the lore and setting, so that leads to a massive miss-match of a kind. As in, the fiction has at most two Judges and the d20 adaption is modeled around that fiction. Naturally, that breaks down when you have a group of 6 and more so, if you have a group of players that are knowledgeable and can game the d20 system, when said system was used to model something else entirely.

To understand what I mean, watch the movie "Dredd", which manages to capture the flavor quite well (No, not the Stalone one). Using incendiary rounds for a direct shot is quite lethal, using it as an area effect depends on the panic and pain caused by burning, which is a different thing entirely, which the d20 rules can't really model.

Do your GM and favor and point him towards the follow-up edition of Judge Dredd, which is based on the Traveller rules and is much, much closer to the initial lore that is modeled.

Trouble is, then he'd have to learn a new system (as it is he relies on me for a lot of suggested rules-calls as it is, plus he spent all the money on it...!) He DMs Dredd because, up until he started this campaign, it was something he didn't have to do a lot of prep-work for (that he doesn't have time for) that he had too himself (campaign needs even less). (He has, like, four kids of two to teen, is a policeman (that and familiarity with Dredd is what made it easy for him to set up some simple stuff) and spends a lot of time workig on degrees and towards promotions - we don't even see him down the regular club anymore.)



The reason why he does it for us despite not having a huge amount of time is because if he didn't, it would mean I would have to do, three-to-four day quests per year - instead of two - (as the other mate who DMs hasn't done it for a while and I'm struggling to get him to decide if he can do just one game this year for our summer or, at a push, Christmas game) AND most of the DMing for the weekly games (where I'm running adventure paths). A couple of the chaps have run stretches of a few weeks, but the guy who spelled me longest by running 4E in between my bits didn't exactly jump up when I offered the chance to have a break between Shackled City and Rise of the Runelords (and I wasn't going to push, he's married now and doesn't have as much time either), so I'm more or less running flat-out. And I am, unfortunately, a prep-heavy DM, not one of the lucky chaps who can sit down and wing a session. (And my players, both blessing and curse, are of the type who are happiest when following the plot along, rather than sandboxing. My one big campaign failure was mostly related to me trying a sandbox and no-one engaging with it!)

So he does it at all a fair chunk as a favour to me, so I can get to play occasionally.



Hense why I'm trying to see if I can make it easier for him by tuning the... not ever-so-well put-together rules.

(It appears the tacit answer to my original question to how the issue is best handled is probably "don't do the exact thing [Dredd D20] you're doing...!" Which is, to be fair, not entirely unexpected...!)

ImproperJustice
2019-05-02, 08:04 AM
So maybe we can abstract things down a little more:

What is the core problem?


Sounds like: Judges are tearing through the opposition with minimal difficulty.
Which is honestly on par with the lore of the setting.

In the movies, what presents a challenge to the Judges:

1. An unbelievable hoard of mooks, while the judges are cut off from retreat and support.
2. Other Judges
3. Past relics of the ancient war that gave birth to the judges (ABC

I feel like any of these elements could be added to your current adventure with minimal rules tweakage.

Maybe you guys need to finish an adventure to clear your names, and you can’t get anymore aid until it’s done.
Maybe some corrupt Judge NPCs are on the prowl and ambush at an inopportune moment.
Or maybe they are even clones of the PCs who are working a plan to replace them?

Aotrs Commander
2019-05-02, 09:24 AM
So maybe we can abstract things down a little more:

What is the core problem?


Sounds like: Judges are tearing through the opposition with minimal difficulty.
Which is honestly on par with the lore of the setting.

In the movies, what presents a challenge to the Judges:

1. An unbelievable hoard of mooks, while the judges are cut off from retreat and support.
2. Other Judges
3. Past relics of the ancient war that gave birth to the judges (ABC

I feel like any of these elements could be added to your current adventure with minimal rules tweakage.

Maybe you guys need to finish an adventure to clear your names, and you can’t get anymore aid until it’s done.
Maybe some corrupt Judge NPCs are on the prowl and ambush at an inopportune moment.
Or maybe they are even clones of the PCs who are working a plan to replace them?

Problem with that is back to the same - that requires the DM... Basically not run the campaign he's running.

(Trust me, if it were me, I'd have done exactly that sort of thing as you suggest - then again, I have the time to get into that sort of thing.)



We even sort of did that first one the last session, in which were were embroiled in a street riot with n perps. (And were more or less unable to use our traditional area-effect weapons because of the crowd.) That encounter basically took all session of us shooting stuff and getting a bit damaged in return (but not really much), but the module intended the encounter to be cut-scened (from the implication of the fluff, we weree supposed to be LOSING, which we really weren't!), basically, to start the chase for the next scene, so it was... Yeah. (I can only point in the direction of the module writers who were being a bit openly rail-road-y and speaking as someone who doesn't on the whole, give much of a monkeys about railroading generally.)



I'll send him the link to the thread at this point, anyway, to pass on the suggestions, at least, now we've got a few. (I think it's becoming apparent that really the main problems is to paraphrase Sun Tsu, "endevour not to be in the exact position you are in in the first place," but I can at least try the damage control, right?) Can't do that much more than try and put some solutions in his hands.

(If in the event he feels he needs to come and post, I'll quietly withdraw so he can talk to you guys without fear of spoilers (and get his side of it, maybe have a jolly old moan abiout how Bleakbane keeps Ruining All the Things and annoying everyone by insisting on wearing his sunglasses all session because he's basically playing the Judge version of Horatio Caine off of CSI Miami or whatever), but as that would likely mean him making an account and everything, I don't think that's too likely.)




Oh, actually, while I'm at it, let me post up my proposed changes for the DM wot I emailed to him for the sake of arguement:

Judge Dredd Suggested Revisions:

Note: We have always assumed “area of effect” was radius (because that is standard 3.0/3.5 convention, but on looking this up, I wonder if they did not mean “diameter.” Not clarifying anywhere either way is part of the general sloppiness of the rules. The fact that incendiary rounds have an area-of-effect of 5’ lends credence to the radius interpretation, as otherwise, it is basically just a 5’ space. But given the rules writers…

One possibility, then, is to reduce all stated “areas” to correctly “radius” and halving all area of effects (except for incendiary rounds, which would be the same).

Rapid Fire (Clarification):

When used in Rapid Fire mode, a weapon will fire make a number of attack rolls equal to its Rapid Fire number per attack action. All of these attacks must be on the same target. All attacks that round suffer a penalty equal to the Rapid Fire Number. (E.g. Rapid fire 3 imposes a -3 penalty to all attack rolls.)

Alternatively, a character can use Rapid Fire to spray an area. The character designates a primary target for the first attack roll. All other characters within five feet are potentially secondary targets. The remaining attacks of the Rapid Fire action are allocated to secondary targets, one to each target.

If there are remaining attacks after all potential secondary targets have one attack allocated to them, the shooting character may designate which target (primary or secondary) will receive the remaining attacks. If there are more potential targets than attack rolls, secondary targets are determined randomly.

Incendiary Rounds (suggested revision):

Incendiary Rounds deal 2D6 damage when they hit a target. They have a radius of five feet (Reflex DC 15). A target struck by incendiary rounds continues to burn for D6 rounds (or until extinguished), taking D6 damage per round. If shot directly at character, they have a critical of x2. (Implied by presence of critical multiplier.) Incendiary weapons are not affected by damage reduction.

Suggested Revision: Change effect to Splash weapon: i.e. remove critical chance, a hit deal direct damage (2D6 fire damage) to target and splash damage (suggested 2 points of Fire damage) to all targets within a five-foot radius, or if targeted at a grid intersection or on a miss) deals splash damage to anything within the 5 foot radius. On a miss, impact point is determined via stray shot rules. Targets directly struck burn for D6 rounds or until extinguished, taking D6 fire damage per round on the attacker’s turn. Incendiary weapons are not affected by damage reduction.

(This essentially changes the into a slightly better version of Alchemist’s Fire)

High Explosive Rounds:

(As we have used them): Hi-Ex rounds deal 3D10 damage within a 10 foot radius (Reflex half DC 15). If shot at a creature, they have a critical multiplier of x3. (Implied by presence of critical multiplier.) Hi-Ex rounds have an AP rating of 12.

Suggested Revision 1: Change effect to splash weapon as above (suggested splash damage of, say 3D6) (i.e. removing critical multiplier); splash damage AP reduced to 6.

(Larger tone-down.)

Suggested Revision 2: Remove critical multiplier, otherwise no change.

(Depending on how you want to do it. Being both an area effect weapon – strong area effect weapon – and having a high critical multiplier is kind of ridiculous. It’s either a single-target weapon or it isn’t.)



Stumm Gas (revision):

(Current as used): Grenade: 30’ Radius, Fort DC 20 or be helpless for D6 minutes (natural 1 of Fort save means DC 10 Fort save or be reduced to -1 hit points and have to make this secondary save whenever exposed to Stumm Gas), lasts D6 rounds

(Current as used): Gas Round: 20’ radius, Fort DC 20 or be helpless for D6 minutes (natural 1 of Fort save means DC 10 Fort save or be reduced to -1 hit points and have to make this secondary save whenever exposed to Stumm Gas), lasts D6 rounds

Suggested Revision 1: Grenade => 15’ radius, Gas Rounds => 10’ radius (whether this change applies to other areas of effect or not)

(Straight reduction of radius.)

Suggested Revision 2: Reduced DC by 5 for every 10 feet from the impact point. Reduce Gas Round DC by 5 to DC 15. (I.e. Grenade is DC 20 at 10’, DC 15 at 20’ and DC 10 at 30’; Gas Round is DC 15 at 10’ and DC 10 at 20’))

(No change of radius, but easier to manage as it means the effect will be less.)

Suggestion Revision 3: Combination of both of above in some fashion.

(We really need to do SOMETHING about the gas as it is an issue the DM has said “ruins the game.” That’s an appropriate call for a nerf is there ever was one.)

Medipak:

D6 healing is ridiculously low, even at low level, even by D&D standards. It’s sufficiently bad, it’s almost a trap and a waste of an action. Its fine to try and take into account healing is not as easy as magic, but at the same time D20 as a mechanical system is not very well optimised to this sort of situation. (By comparison, for Dreemaenhyll, my Comfrey poultice (a non-magic replacement for a potion of Cure Light Wounds was D4 instantly, D4 after an hour (in both cases +1 for every 5 points your check beat 15.)

And Dredd using multiple D6 damages as a base shot makes it more ridiculous, as it takes three rounds (and all a Judge’s Medipaks) to counter one to one-and-a-half hits. This badly needs fixing, as much as the terrible state of healing in regular D&D had to be boosted.


Suggested Revision 1: Successful use of a Medipak heals D6 (plus any bonus, e.g. the +2 for Med-Tech or +2/level for Med-Judge Prestige Class) per character level of the character receiving healing.

Suggested Revision 2: Successful use of a Medipak heals D6 (plus any bonus, e.g. the +2 for Med-Tech or +2/level for Med-Judge Prestige Class) per character level of the character using the Medipak.

Suggested Revision 1.5 and 2.5: Replace D6 with D4.

Suggested Revision 3: Successful use of a Medipak heals D6 (plus bonuses) plus 1 point (or perhaps two points) for every point the check exceeds 15. (E.g. Medical check is 20, heal D6+5.)

Suggested Revision 4: Successful use of a Medipak heals D6 (plus bonuses) plus 1 point per character level (of the character using the Medipak).



Arrest Checks:

Arrest checks are stacked in favour of the Judges, since Charisma is the most common dump stat, so a charismatic judge (like Caine) may have as much as a 5-point advantage over a general perp (likely of Cha 8) of the same level – with Improved Arrest, that goes to +4 (and another +2 for five ranks of intimidate). Level and number of judges/perps should cancel out, assuming equality.

Possible Revision 1: As arrest checks are ostensibly the same as Turn Undead checks, follow the logic and apply an Arrest Damage (2D6+Character level + Charisma modifier), which sets the maximum number of HD of perps that can be affected by a single Arrest check. (Who would then make their appropriate opposed check and may or may not succeed to resist – this somewhat balances the fact that Turn Undead can be used only a limited number of times per day).

Possible revision 2: Completely change Arrest Checks from opposed rolls and instead have the Arrest check (which would be just Charisma Bonus plus modifiers, removing character level*) set the DC for a Will save for the perps to resist. (In this case, Resist Arrest (see below) would grant the bonus to the Will save instead.)

This would reduce the gap somewhat. (One imagines the number of perps whose charisma modifier is higher than their Will save is a fairly small sample size.)

(Both this and revision 1 could be implemented together, if desired.)



*You would be effectively just replacing the usual DC formula of 10+modifiers to D20+modifiers




Resist Arrest (revision): This feat is the “counter” to Improved Arrest. Resists Arrest currently adds twice their character level to resisting arrest checks**, and requires a base Will save of +1. (Improved Resist Arrest requires Resist Arrest and base Will save of +2, but makes you immune to arrest checks.)

Thus at, low level, is it unhelpful, but scales to ridiculousness at high level. (A tenth-level character now likely is now even or at an advantage verses Judge like Caine who is pretty optimised for arrest checks (the extra 10 cancelling Improved Arrest, the +2 from intimidate and most or all of the Cha-bonus gap); a 20th level character is baically impossible to fail.

While not as bad as I first thought, it probably still needs some help; I would suggest a revision to “the character gains a bonus to resisting arrest checks equal to +4 or his character level, whichever is higher” and removing the base Will save requirement.

(And for DM to consider using this on some NPCs!)





**Poor phrasing again – it took me a second read to realise they meant twice character level (instead of just character level) and not a bonus of twice character level (i.e. three times level). Again, sloppy phrasing.

Florian
2019-05-02, 11:10 AM
I did read the suggestions, still I'm at a loss. Personally,I find that in this case, lore and game system used don't match, like at all, no meaningful emulation/simulation is happening here.