Snapshot Questions

[jawillroy]

First - a pretty basic one - but do hits take effect immediately, or at the end of the turn? Inclined to think yes they do, rather than "simultaneously" as per LBB1, but wanted to know what you guys thought.

Second - I don't see any implementation of either Leader or Tactics skill in Snapshot: has anyone house-ruled that in?

I'm planning on going with LBB1 "surprise" rules to start with, so Leader and Tactics play into that, but in the event that a firefight happens I'm going with Snapshot. It seems to me that those skills could come into play, perhaps as bonuses to the party's action point totals, or a prioritization?

Of the top of my head, what would you think of these:
Leader: + leader skill to AP of all party members in communication with leader
Tactics: + tactics skill to AP of individual with skill

OR PERHAPS, Tactics skill allows a pre-emption of another character's move regardless of the characters' respective AP totals.

What do you think?

 

[Supplement Four]

First - a pretty basic one - but do hits take effect immediately, or at the end of the turn? Inclined to think yes they do, rather than "simultaneously" as per LBB1, but wanted to know what you guys thought.

I don't have my book in front of me, but I'm pretty sure it's just like Book 1 Combat where damage is applied at the end of the round after everybody has moved (regardless if a character hits and kills an enemy before he moves).

 

[jawillroy]

I don't have my book in front of me

Unless I'm going really cross-eyed, it won't help: I don't see any specific statement on when wounds are applied.

Absent that, I'd lean towards retaining the LBB1 rule, except that LACKING the LBB1 context, intuition would tell me that wounds were immediately applied.

 

[mike wightman]

I've always applied them immediately.

 

[jawillroy]

The more I think on it, I'm starting to lean towards simultaneity. The spirit of LBB1 says "everyone moves, everyone shoots, and the AP lets us figure out how much you can do within that framework while allowing the faster guys govern the action more."

character A has 8 AP
Character B has 16 AP

A gets pre-empted by B, who moves moves moves moves sneakily, using up 12 AP, and takes a snap at A. Suppose he hits.

A gets his move now, and makes one aimed attack. He hits too.

If we look at AP as measuring time, do we take A's shot to have occurred in sequence after B's, at a (whatever ap's count) of 20?

Or do we judge the moves to have begin concurrently, with A's attack occurring at 8 and B's occurring at 12?

If we take the turns to be sequential, I now imagine four or five characters patiently waiting their turns to run and fire, possibly reading magazines and chatting about the weather. "Oh really? And how's Maggie and the kids? Whoops, my turn BLAM BLAM BLAM."

Rather than having combat boiled down to a phase-by-phase analysis of who-shoots-when, I think I'd sooner just have the damage calculated after.

 

[Supplement Four]

Typically, in games with no method of "initiative" or determining which character will move first, damage is applied at the end of the round, after all characters have had a chance to move.

When damage becomes instantaneous, some type of initiative system is usually needed to determine who goes first.

 

[jawillroy]

TWhen damage becomes instantaneous, some type of initiative system is usually needed to determine who goes first.

For me, that wouldn't itself be an issue - I'm long since comfortable with LBB1 simultaneous combat myself. However, I'm shepherding a group that's new to Traveller and in some cases new to roleplaying, and in smoketests the other day found that the initiative-less basic system led to paralysis on the players' part that should NOT be the case with their characters. The structure of an AP-driven movement order would have made things go much more smoothly.

 

[mike wightman]

I would suggest you borrow the action phases from AHL, but keep Snapshot APs and costs.

 

[jawillroy]

How do AHL phases play out? Haven't seen that ruleset yet.

 

[robject]

It's been a long time, but if I recall, AHL is an improved version of Snapshot.

 

[aramis]

It's been a long time, but if I recall, AHL is an improved version of Snapshot.

turn-wise, yes. combat mechanics, no; It's the same as Striker

 

[mike wightman]

It's been a long time, but if I recall, AHL is an improved version of Snapshot.

AHL has superior turn structure and combat resolution (similar to Striker as Aramis says).

Snapshot has a much better AP system and interrupt system.

 

[mike wightman]

AHL turn phases:

1. Covering Fire - declare if you are spending the turn giving covering fire
2. Movement - moving through an are under covering fire means you will be shot at
3. Aimed Fire.
4. Snap Shots.

 

[robject]

Hmmmm. Maybe T5 should be stealing more blatantly from earlier editions. Lessons learned and all that.

 

[Supplement Four]

Hmmmm. Maybe T5 should be stealing more blatantly from earlier editions. Lessons learned and all that.

I've said a few times that the TNE combat system is a damn good fit for T5, with a few tweaks. T5 seems to be a very crunchy, detailed, simulationist game, from most examples of it. TNE's combat is that. It could work well--just need to figure out a few things.

OTOH, the T4 combat system isn't bad at all. Simple. 180 degress from TNE. But it would fit like a glove. If you want something simple, then it's a good model, and it's based on CT.