Fallout: Equestria Resource

In the IRC today, we realized that Sunrise doesn't actually have a thread to discuss his rulebook. That cannot be allowed to continue. This is that thread. For clarity's sake, I'll keep a running tally of things that people thing should be revisited rules-wise in the first post.

Let the discussion begin!

Things that need looking at:

- Non-magical/Non-potion healing.
- Healing potions
- Several skills that don't really get used at all (Speech, Medicine, Barter, Mechanics)
- Critical hits and the Luck stat.

and more to come.

As a reference:
Sunrise's current rules.
List of in-development revisions.

About the healing potions: it would be good to have them as a mixture of percentage healing and fixed one, since none of them really work separately. Also, including a small bonus based on the Medicine of the imbiber kinda makes sense, so I'd go
Healing potions: 10% + Med/6 + 2d10
Super Healing potions: 30% + Med/3 + 5d10
so that both scale with level, and with the ability of the imbiber. Also, [Surv - 30] can be placed in the formulae in place of Medicine.

Nonmagical healing: It's just about spending a number of hours on a subject, and having him recover some damage now, and some more later during the day (like when (s)he goes to sleep).
I'd say, a round of Medicine cures [30% + 20 + (Med - d100)] health to a patient, split in half between immediate relief, and points recovered during sleep. The check could have a -20% bonus or such, because of prolonged care, plus eventually some more because of the Doctor's Bag (and yes, that d100 refers to the d100 thrown in the check).

The skills that don't get used: it really all depends on the campaign. Some skills get arguably used in less contexts, but as long as they're used in some cases, and the skill level has influence on its outcome, then there is going to be the need for someone with the skill, period. Now to list all possible uses of said skills:

• Barter: ability to have better deals with merchants, and to get better contracts. What to say, you can't help this one much.
• Mechanics: Repairing damaged weapons/armor (even if the players' don't lose quality, there's always the chance to loot some more in bad conditions), upgrading both, eventually fabricating both, knowledge of all things mechanic, knowledge of robots, and interactions with them, being able to drive vehicles.
• Medicine: Useful for curing allies outside of battle, dealing with poison/illnesses, curing addictions, creating better potions, and empowering healing spells. (I also made a couple of nice perks that have good Med as prerequisite)
• Science: Knowledge of Magitech, ability to interface to terminals and hack them, Alchemy, AIs, and whatever academic knowledge, I guess.
• Speech: convincing anyone of anything (with modifiers, of course), sounds good already to me as-is.
• Survival: Knowledge of the wildlife, following tracks, surviving outdoors, and also knowledge of tidbits of alchemy and medicine (can craft potions and drugs).

Criticals: That's an easy one, LCK% as chance to crit for double damage (or other critical successes); chance to critically fumble is [7 - LCK/2]%, rounded down; also, I'd like that Energy weapons had increased crit chance, and do triple damage on a crit, disintegrating the subject if brought under 0 HP this way (so they are scary enough to be on the lookout for, but not so much to provide the dreaded 1-hit kill so easily. PCs are both a valuable and sturdy resource afterall!)

One issue we talked about in the IRC was that Unicorns have very little use for STR.

Currently

For the other races STR governs:
Carry Weight (when implemented)
Weapon Requirements (basically implemented if the GM wants to use it)
Melee/Unarmed Damage

For Unicorns STR only governs:
Carry Weight (when impemented)

The main issue as I see it is that Unicorns use END in place of STR for Weapon Requirements, draining Strain (mana) with each shot and needing to improve their telekinisis to use Big Guns effectively.

My suggestion

Unicorns use their STR for Weapon Requirements like everyone else. This can be thought of as the strength of their telekinetic grip and their ability to deal with recoil. This will not take Strain, reducing the amount of things that the player needs to keep track of with each shot.

Getting the improved ranks of telekinisis could aid with Weapon Requirements. For example: Rank 1 Telekinesis reduces weapon requirements by 1, Rank 2 Telekinesis reduces weapon requirements by 2 and allows you to use Big Guns without a Battle Saddle, etc.

This should make STR about as desirable for Unicorns as it is for everyone else.

One thing I would like to see explored is the possibility of Hellhound claw unarmed and Melee weapons, such as gauntlets, helmets, knives etc.

Also, in regards to potential uses for the Mechanics skill; the Repair Skill in Fallout 3/NV (upon which I presume this to be based) is factored into the ability to disarm traps (although sometimes Explosives is considered), so that might be something for GMs to include (particularly in Raider hovels)

Trying to come up with my own system of damage balances for weapons, it occurs to me that it might be prudent to have AP costs be by individual weapon instead of weapon type. Even more important is imposing some kind of penalty on burst fire, as currently there are none.

From what came up in the IRC...

AP rules as of now seems to be acceptable... hopefully the damage forumulae will get fixed, since most are unbearably low as of now. Either Eri's or Strobe's charts look good, and also similar, and I helped with both some (mainly Eri's), so I guess I'm not one in a position to choose :p

Also, introducing a much-needed abbreviation: In weapon damages, + stands for +1d10, so 25+2d10 become 25++. Since weapons dice are always d10, this looks like a reasonable move.

About Burst fire: I stand where I've always been, burst needs to cost more AP (10 probably) and have less hit% (-30% circa), and also it cannot be aimed or targeted, since it doesn't really make sense for it to.

Full Auto: I'd suggest it being like Burst fire, but cost more AP (+20), fire moar dakka, and (here comes the crazy idea) roll against full skill with a 1d200 instead of a d100, so you get half chance to hit, while also halving % to crit and fumble with each bullet, so reasonable crit chances, and also no more jamming three times out of 4! Now only out of 8 :p
(On a side note, for those worried with IRL dice, just a d100 and a d2 rolled together do the trick, if the d2 hits 2 you're on the 101+ side of the d200)

Snapshot: The problem with snap shots is that no matter how you cut them, they become way advantageous at some skill %, which makes no sense, since you're not even spending the time to do a proper shot! Plus it means a no-no to crit% bonuses rules/perks, that could become easily exploitable by means of faster shots.
Making it -5 AP, -20% to hit like Doubleclick suggests could be a reasonable compromise, but I was more along the lines of having a perk to cut weapon AP costs by 5 along the way, and that would be highly incompatible with snap shots x_x

And, I was also thinking of making turns a little more cinematic with a new mechanic:
Multiple actions: If you have the limbs available, you can take any two actions at the same time (like running and grabbing an object); the AP price for that is the AP cost of the more costly action, and skills take a 30% (or maybe 40%) penalty while doing that. Think of firing on the run, or grabbing a potion while doing other stuff.
Battle saddles can't be used while moving, unless if by means of flying (since the pesky things have been shown to be able to fly from pretty much any position) (pegagus-fighting anyone? I'm thinking with the right perks to compensate, this could really open up some very interesting tactical options for flying creatures), and also, this makes Tail trick all the more desirable for having that extra limb.

There also needs to be rules governing flight speed. Flying is significantly faster than walking or running.
Also is anyone working on Rules for EFS, SATS, and PipBucks?

Mmm, let's see...

About the EFS, I'd say basically it gives you +2 PER for creature detecting purposes. Any more, and Strobe might pop a vein xD that is to say, it's a bit of a pain to have someone always spot things first, and from so far away. And especially seeing beforehand if they're hostile or not. It can really ruin the sense of doubt and surprise :p
The tracking of specific IDs, however, sounds pretty cool plot-wise. Especially if the GM gets creative with it >:]

SATS is a different matter however. I had the idea of it having a reserve of 90-120 AP, which could be used at double rate for shooting (so using 60 AP from the PipBuck you can actually fire 60 AP's worth of dakka while only depleting 30 from your pool), and with a recharge rate of around 30 AP per turn (which actually only means 15 net extra AP).

The inventory sorter means you have your items more at the ready, but I don't feel like it should give any mechanical advantages of the sort.

The radio and data storage functions are very interesting story-wise, and would be one of the main good reasons to introduce them actually.

The light function is pretty cool to have ^^ But of course it destroys stealth, probably done by reversing any bonus to stealth due to low light conditions, and then some.

The mission tracker... good for flavoring and puns hehe.

EDIT:
How could I forget the Compass + Automap functions! They don't serve much story purpose, though. :p

Then of course, the Health Monitor. But again, this might warn the player of radiation, poison and taint levels, but I don't know if anything else's worth of mention.

Not to forget the ever-useful Geiger Counter! Never leave your Stable without it

From the IRC (lines trimmed for getting to the point):
... <Sunrise> I've looked over the weapons thrice and actually i've not found a single issue. It's the playstyle that's going to change now. Instead of OH FUCK FIRE EVERYTHING WE'VE GOT it's now more 'What would be more useful to bring to bear in this fight?' For example, as you guys found last night the assault rifle is now pretty... mediocre, against armored targets....
<Sunrise> Weapons that have higher base damage like rifles or straight up heavy weapons are better against heavy armour, thus giving more of a reason for a group to use heavy weapons as so far i've heard of *one* person who has chosen them and that worries me a little, but whatever it's still better fitting the rules. The REVERSE of this is that assault rifles are fucking disgustingly good at mowing down lightly or unarmed foes in droves.
<Sunrise> So really in short: Small Guns for Small Targets and Big Guns for Big Targets. I suppose you could say hurrr big guns could kill small targets, well, yes they could but it'd be a bit of a waste of ammo to do so. Minigun would be a decent enough example to use against both small and big targets but its the only one.
<Sunrise> And it's prone to 'whoops, missed a shitload'
<Sunrise> I mean, what worries me is that people keep on assuming the guns i have listed on the weapon sheet are the only guns in the game
<Sunrise> and as such are trying to balance it like that
<Tosxychor> that's because you're not the only GM :p
<Sunrise> whaaa?
<Tosxychor> and other people are gonna use your list first and foremost :p
<Sunrise> Oh yeah, well, i even said on it these aren't the only guns ie: if you're running a game, MAKE SHIT UP YO
...
<Sunrise> I dunno, I was under the impression they just... would? I'd be kinda shocked if someone ran through a whole game without 'man, that's a sick idea for a weapon' and adding it into their game

So, that's Sunrise's idea about Small Guns; guess that explains it. I did point out that
<Tosxychor> well, it's about expectations Sunrise, in the FO games small guns are the shit, you can kill everything with the good ones :p
But as long as it's clarified what weapon should be used on what enemy, i guess it's all good.

(Also, because of aforementioned point, a paragraph has been added to the rules doc to furthermore encourage weapon designing by eager GMs.)

A couple GMs have said they were interested in implementing the Battle Saddles skill as I envisioned it within Fallout: Equestria.

Firearms & Battle Saddles


Firearms
The Firearms skill determines the player's accuracy with every kind of conventional firearm, from pistols and rifles to miniguns.

(Firearms functions as per the Guns skill in Fallout: New Vegas, replacing the Small Guns skill and incorporating the use of most weapons from the Big Guns skill, although not weapons that fire explosives, such as the missile launcher, nor magical energy weapons, such as the plasma cannon.)

Battle Saddles
The Battle Saddles skill determines the player’s accuracy with every kind of battle saddle.

Battle Saddles - Pros:
Battle Saddles can be designed to house two medium or large weapons which would normally fall under the Explosives, Firearms or Magical Energy Weapons categories. Battle Saddles cannot incorporate weapons from the Unarmed or Melee categories. Nor can they utilize mines, thrown weapons or any small-sized weapon, such as a revolver or plasma pistol. (Exception: the battle saddles integrated into Enclave magically-powered armor were occasionally designed to use four identical, small-sized magical energy weapons. In such cases, these weapons were always linked.) With the proper modification, weapons built into a battle saddle may be linked to fire simultaneously so long as both linked weapons are identical. If two weapons of dissimilar design (such as a minigun and a rocket launcher) are mounted in the same battle saddle, the wearer suffers a -10 penalty to Battle Saddles rolls.

A Battle Saddle reduces the minimum Strength requirement to wield a weapon by 2.

Battle Saddles - Cons:
Characters specializing in Battle Saddles lack versatility in combat. While individual Battle Saddles possibly carry weapons from three other skill sets, a character specializing in Battle Saddles is limited to the weapons in the battle saddle she is wearing. A character carrying a battle saddle with two assault rifles will not be able to pick up a fallen enemy’s Zebra Rifle and use it (unless she also has the Firearms skill), nor will a character who has a missile launcher battle saddle be able to use a grenade or disarm a mine (unless she also has the Explosives skill). Battle saddles are extremely bulky, encumbering any character attempting to pack additional saddles. Furthermore, battle saddles require at least two full minutes to properly don or remove, making switching saddles in combat unfeasible. In addition, any character who wishes to get the most out of their battle saddles will also need to invest in the Mechanics skill.

Battle Saddles & Mechanics:
Building or modifying a battle saddle requires appropriate ranks in the Mechanics skill and access to tools:

Mechanics 25 - can swap out weapons of very similar design (such as an assault rifle for a Zebra Rifle) in a battle saddle, or add a battle saddle mod (such as an ammo changer or a weapons link). Requires tools (and the appropriate battle saddles mod kits). Time required: one hour, halved with a successful Mechanics skill roll.

Mechanics 50 - can build weapons into a new battle saddle, or rebuild an existing one with different weapons. Requires tools and a workbench. Time required: 6 hours, halved with a successful Mechanics roll.

Mechanics 75 - can modify a battle saddle integrated into magically-powered armor (such as adding a battle saddle mod or redesigning the trigger to not rely on helmet input). Requires tools and a workbench. Time required: 12 hours, halved with a successful Mechanics roll.

Battle Saddles & Telekinesis:
It is nearly impossible to effectively wield a battle saddle with telekinesis. A unicorn may make the attempt, but the skill roll takes a -20 penalty. In addition, the initial kick of the battle saddle will cause it to break free of the unicorn’s telekinetic hold (unless the battle saddle is firing either a medium, unlinked Firearm or utilizes magical energy weapons, which are recoil-less). If the battle saddle has a rate of fire greater than one, all additional shots will go wild. The unicorn will need to succeed on a Luck roll to avoid being shot herself.

Battle Saddles, Traits and Perks:
In a campaign which uses both the Firearms and Battle Saddles skills, the Good Natured trait gives a -5 skill penalty to each, but also gives a +5 skill bonus to Survival.

Saddle Crafter (basic perk; req: 2nd level; 3 ranks) - You are a master of the saddle. Gain +5 to both your Battle Saddles and Mechanics skills.

Blazing Saddle (Earth Pony perk; req: 6th level, STR 6) - You are exceptionally stable while using an unbalanced battle saddle. You may ignore the -10 penalty when using a battle saddle built with weapons of dissimilar design.


Battle Saddle mods:
(Pricing under revision. For accurate prices, please contact your GM.)

Weapons Link (cost: ½ cost of the weapon modded) - Links two identical weapons together in a battle saddle. Both weapons will fire simultaneously, requiring only one Battle Saddles skill roll for attack and costing the AP of only one weapon. Once linked, two weapons cannot be unlinked. When making alterations to a battle saddle, linked weapons must be modified or removed together. A jam or glitch to either linked weapon prevents both from functioning.

Ammo Changer (cost: 5 per feed) - Adds a mechanical device (activated by a quick-kick lever) which allows the saddle wearer to swiftly (AP 5) swap ammo feeds (clips, drums, belts, etc) for one of the battle saddle’s weapons. Models of ammo changers can be installed to handle anywhere from two to five feeds. Without an ammo changer, it is impossible for the wearer to change ammo feeds without removing the battle saddle (or using Telekinesis).

Ammo Loader (cost: ½ cost of the weapon modded) - Adds a special ammo feed device that automatically reloads single-shot weapons which normally carry only one or two rounds (such as a rocket launcher). Without an ammo loader, it is impossible for the wearer to reload such weapons without removing the battle saddle (or using Telekinesis).

Jambuster (cost: 20) - Adds a mechanical device which allows the saddle wearer to swiftly (AP 15) clear a jam or fix a glitched magical energy weapon mounted within the battle saddle. Without a Jambuster, the battle saddle’s mechanics will clear the jam or glitch on its own, but it takes a full turn. (During that turn, the pony may use use AP on other actions.)