Hey Folks,
Being the crazy cats we are we have decided to craft our own rules system for our Fallout games...
Basicly it's s Frankenstein creation that utilises elements of what we like from other systems, but converted to fit fallout and a Opposed D10 dice roll mechanic. This opposed dice roll is the core of the system and looks like;
Attacker Skill roll vs Defender Skill roll
With lots of mods :) Goal is to roll equal or under your skill on a D10 AND beat your opponents roll. Skills are derived from your base S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats and can increase as you play the campaign.
We have been working on lots of stuff (like campaign rules, faction stats etc) but Andy and I thought it was time to throw some dice!
Nevada 2280. An New California Republic (NCR) squad stumbles across a Brotherhood of Steel (BOS) scouting party in the outskirts of the town of Hope. Soon bullets will fly and lasers burn because War, War never changes...
Star Paladin Michaela leads her small squad of BOS Knights out of the town only to find the way blocked by NCR morons. There are quite a few of them so it looks like the BOS are outnumbered 2-1...but the Knights are wearing power armour and have advanced laser weapons. Knight Marco has a good position un the top story of the large house. He also has a Gatling laser.
Most of the NCR force hides behind the hydroponics barn but a few brave troopers are walking the picket line.
Initiative is determined by a dice draw mechanic. Each model generates one dice and they are drawn randomly. Each dice is an order and you can use it to Preform actions like move and fire, running, sneaking or picking locks. You can stack multiple dice on one model but this will get generate pins (more on that later)
They've just walked up when Knight Marco hoses them with Gatling laser fire, pinning them down
Here was out first test - Marco fired four shots at the group of two NCR troopers (as we said burst weapons could fire at all models under a small 3"template) - so two shots each. To hit each one he needed to roll equal or under his skill (Big Guns 3) - 1 for being over optimal range and -1 for them being in cover, so "1"s to hit. On a D10. The NCR troopers opted to return fire as a Reaction to being shot at. This puts a pin marker on them (pins are a -1 penalty to any actions, and stack) and they shot back with there assault rifles. Assualt rifles are ROF3 but as they are reacting this is halved to 1. Unsurprisingly given they were both normal troopers and the range both missed.
The NCR break for cover. Meanwhile a trooper tried to shoot A BOS Paladin. Paladins are elites and as such are tougher and more skilled.
BOS Paladin Romeraz has a "tag" skill taking his Energy Weapon skill to 6 (BOS faction stat increase is Intelligence, which is the derived stat for Energy weapons). This combined with how accurate lasers are (+1 to hit) means that Paladin Romeraz hit on a roll of 5 or less, while the NCR trooper needed a 1. I rolled 1 dice as I was reacting (Laser rife is ROF2) and Andy rolled 3. He missed but I didn't The steely eyed Paladin sighted the NCR troopers muzzle flash and dropped him.
Damage is a second opposed dice roll with the attackers skill and weapon damage stat combined vs the defenders endurance and armour. The NCR trooper is endurance 3 (the base for humans) and has medium combat armour (arm 2) Lasers are accurate but don't hit hard. I needed to roll 7 (skill 6, dam 1) or under to damage while Andy needed to 5 (END 3, armour 2) I damaged but Andy passed his armour roll. I beat Andys success so the trooper was knocked down face up, and will need to expend half an action to stand up again. If he beat my success he would have ignored the hit. If he failed to save and I wounded him he would be face down and rolling for injuries at the end phase of the turn. We both take a pin, me for reacting and Andy for being hit
Lots of bullets are flying and the NCR is flanking. Missiles come flying out of the hydroponics barn at Knight Marco but luckily they miss and he is only knocked off his feet
Blast weapons scatter if they miss - we were rolling a random direction dice and a D5 but this should probably be D10 as some blasts are pretty big (10"!) and most pretty large (5")
Amongst the chaos troopers on both sided tried to keep there wits about them and continue fighting
Pins degrade performance pretty rapidly as each is a 10% penalty. You can remove one pin by hitting the dirt as an action/ reaction or spend a whole action to rally (-D5) but only if your in the Leadership range of your boss (Charisma * 2 inches, * 3 inches for NCR, but in Line of Sight) or at the end phase each model can make a Charisma test to remove pins, removing the measure of success amount. (Ie CHA 3 rolling a 2 will remove 2). A roll of a 1 is insane bravery - remove all pins while a roll of a 0 is cowardice, add one more pin!
Even power armour dosnt save you all the time, Knight Estevan is down and injured
Models can preform first aid on other models to patch them up. This is a Medicine test (Intelligence base stat) and using stimpaks helps! No self stimpak-ing here like the Vault Dweller or Courier. War bands can also have Specilists, who could be Medics with Medicine as a Tag Skill
Given that Estevan was injured, and by this point do were 2 NCR troopers the two war bands disengaged to regroup
So, thoughts
A bit clunky to begin with as we were making a lot of it up on the fly! Overall once we sorted out the basic interactions it started to flow pretty quickly. Power armour seems a bit too good so we need to adjust it as Andy really struggled to put any hurt on. Having said that he did manage to pin down my Paladin (4 pins!) so Romeraz had to crawl into the Frosty Ba to hide and recover.
We decided to not allow models to react to enemy movement unless they were on Overwatch, as otherwise it got very clunky quickly, and also it make Overwatch make sense.
The initiative, pinning and rally mechanic works really well. The opposed dice roll system works well with a marked difference between those who are skilled and those who are not!
Overall it's a great start and I'm very happy with how it's going!
Cheers
Jason
