Rule discussion/speculation: Spotting, cover, and melee

[MikeDamrat]

It seems like there have been a few semi-revealed rule changes thus far. I have an old copy of the Mechaton rules, so I'm not sure if I'm even up to date as far as Mechaton goes, but I wanted to try and get some discussion going on what the rules are going to look like for MFZ. I think I have a decent handle on things though, and I'd like to incorporate some of the currently-understood MFZ rule changes into some games this week to see how they play. There are three areas I think I'm a little confused on, and I wanted to get some speculation and discussion going on those. Here we go.


COVER and DEFENSE SYSTEMS

In Mechaton, anything that stands in the way of you and your target gives that target cover - including terrain and other mobile frames. (It's not clear how LOS calculations work. On a reading of the Mechaton rules, it looks like there's no such thing as blocked LOS? Only being in cover and not being in cover?) On a successful attack, you subtract their defense from your attack value and roll that many d6 damage dice. Without cover, a 5 or a 6 on those rolls does damage. If your target has cover, the 6 does damage to your target, and a 5 does damage to the cover. Pretty nifty mechanic, I think.

In the rules preview on the Kickstarter page, Joshua mentions that a mobile frame with 2 defensive systems may "provide cover to its teammates without risking itself in the crossfire." Some questions arise from this:
- If I'm targeting a frame behind another frame with 2 defensive systems, I assume rolls of 6 still do damage to the target?
- Do 5's not do anything in this case?
- If I'm targeting a frame with 2 defensive system directly, do 5's damage him or is he immune to those, acting as his own cover, basically?


SPOTTING

Another mechanic which seems like it may have undergone changes is spotting. In Mechaton, you pick a spot target at the same time you pick your attack target, and assign a spot dice (Yellow or White) during your roll. That spot dice sticks with the frame you put it on, and any successful attacks on that frame later in the round may use the spot dice you placed instead of their attack remainder when determining how many damage dice to roll. You can assign spot dice to any frame in direct fire range (regardless of LOS/cover?).

One change has already been made clear, and that's on allowable spot targets. From the Kickstarter page:

While any frame can spot another in plain sight, only those with yellow dice can spot another in cover. If a frame has two yellow dice, it can spot anywhere on the table.[b]

So, it seems, if I'm reading this correctly, that these are the potential spotting abilities:
- If your frame has 0 spotting systems, you may spot an enemy frame in Direct Fire range, as long as it is not in cover
- If your frame has 1 spotting system, you may spot an enemy frame in Direct Fire range, regardless of cover
- If your frame has 2 spotting systems, you may spot an enemy frame [b]anywhere on the map, regardless of cover

Another potential change seems to be the effect spotting has on your attacks. One comment in particular on Kickstarter gave me lots of questions (it was in discussion to someone's proposed stats for a frame):

Totally fair! That guy's a good solitary bruiser. You'll want a commander or scout in there somewhere to get a spot on his target first, though, to really optimize. That way he'll get to roll between 2 and 13 hit dice (yikes) rather than between 1 and 7.

It looks like the spot number is added to your normal hit dice count now, instead of replacing it?


HAND-TO-HAND DAMAGE

In the Rules preview, Joshua mentions this:

Hand-to-hand weapons do approximately twice as much damage as ranged weapons, as their wielders know up close where and how to hit their target.

How do you think this will present itself in the rules? Will you double your hit dice count? Will you be able to do damage on rolls of 4+, instead of 5+? There's not really much information to go on here, but I thought I'd throw it out for speculation.


INIATIVE

Lastly, Joshua has told us that the Initiative system has been drastically changed. It's not clear how, though. This is all I found related to Initiative:

Initiative is totally different. There are actually two new systems. One is really fast but has some odd results, while the other one is faster than the old system (did you know we were spending an hour per game rolling dice and placing them around the table?) but not as fast as the weird one, and works really intuitively.

Yeah, it's now divided into tactical initiative (which works completely differently) and combat initiative (which works the same).

I'm not sure if it sounds like there will be two sets of initiative rules to choose from (one using the classic rules) or if the initiative system has been split into multiple mechanics.

[Mantisking]

I'm not sure if it sounds like there will be two sets of initiative rules to choose from (one using the classic rules) or if the initiative system has been split into multiple mechanics.

From what Joshua told me, Initiative is now based on your VP total. There's no dice rolling involved.

[MikeDamrat]

I'm not sure if it sounds like there will be two sets of initiative rules to choose from (one using the classic rules) or if the initiative system has been split into multiple mechanics.

From what Joshua told me, Initiative is now based on your VP total. There's no dice rolling involved.

Neat! Can you elaborate on that at all? Is it just, lower VP total goes first with the other player taking turns for mechs engaged in combat?

[Mantisking]

I'm not sure if it sounds like there will be two sets of initiative rules to choose from (one using the classic rules) or if the initiative system has been split into multiple mechanics.

From what Joshua told me, Initiative is now based on your VP total. There's no dice rolling involved.

Neat! Can you elaborate on that at all?

Check the interviews he's done. I'm not sure if it's the second or the third, but he mentions it in one of them.

Is it just, lower VP total goes first with the other player taking turns for mechs engaged in combat?

I believe it's highest VP first, each player -- except the last -- has the option to pass.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

How do you think this will present itself in the rules? Will you double your hit dice count? Will you be able to do damage on rolls of 4+, instead of 5+? There's not really much information to go on here, but I thought I'd throw it out for speculation.

You hit on a 4+ and cover doesn't count. You can punch a guy through a wall. Strong robots are stroooooong.

In Mechaton, anything that stands in the way of you and your target gives that target cover - including terrain and other mobile frames.

No, you have to be hiding behind it for it to matter. That is, within 1 of your cover and on the other side of it. If it's not clear if you're in cover or not, you are; after all, you're ducking behind it.

your target has cover, the 6 does damage to your target, and a 5 does damage to the cover. Pretty nifty mechanic, I think.

Inanimate cover now takes a hit on 4+. If you're in cover behind a mobile frame, the target takes a hit on 6s, cover takes hits on 5.

- If I'm targeting a frame behind another frame with 2 defensive systems, I assume rolls of 6 still do damage to the target?

Yes.

- Do 5's not do anything in this case?

Correct.

- If I'm targeting a frame with 2 defensive system directly, do 5's damage him or is he immune to those, acting as his own cover, basically?

Ha! Nope. It always sucks to be shot at. But keep in mind: dude's rolling two blues for defense. There are damn fine odds that it would take a concerted effort to deal some damage. If that guy winds up with a low defense number, take advantage of the situation! It won't come up much!

It looks like the spot number is added to your normal hit dice count now, instead of replacing it?

Yep! It's easier to deal with. You may have missed that defense dice are no longer turned down by one. That means that spots are now more important than ever because every frame's defense number is one higher than it used to be. Because you add the dice together now, they're also more powerful. So don't neglect yellow dice when building your company!

Lastly, Joshua has told us that the Initiative system has been drastically changed. It's not clear how, though. This is all I found related to Initiative:

Er, that's confusing recontextualized like that. Here's the deal:

The regular rules say that you give the player in the lead the tactical initiative. That player can opt to move a frame or pass to the player with the next fewer points, and so on down the line. (The following is exactly like Mechaton and is what we're calling combat initiative) When a frame shoots at another that doesn't have a defense die, you need to know the defense number, so you roll the target frame's dice, figure out the defense number, take damage if you must, then complete your turn with the dice you rolled (even if you lost systems that you rolled dice for; these things are happening simultaneously). If that frame has attacked another that doesn't have a defense number yet, then you repeat the process. As soon as that's resolved, you go back to tactical initiative.

There is an optional rule to do initiative in the old way (rolling a d10 for each frame and placing them around the table). I didn't like the old initiative system; I found that it randomized the order that my units went in, which made it hard to keep them coordinated and encouraged generic troop types rather than making specialists because you didn't know when a specialist would go, meaning they might be wasted this round.

In the new rules, what makes it hard to keep my units coordinated is my opponents sowing chaos and getting me deliberately screwed up, doing things in the wrong order. I like that much more. I'd rather lose due to cleverness or a lucky guess on my opponents' part (or even panic on my part) than just not being able to roll the right number for a particular frame.

[MikeDamrat]

Wow! Thanks so much for the reply, Josh! I'm gonna give these rules a try on Friday. I'm excited

A couple more questions that I can think of right now (if you have the time to answer):

- You mentioned that defense dice are no longer reduced by one. Do ties between attack and defense hit or miss, now? IE: Is it possible to hit by matching the defense with your attack roll, and just use the spotting dice so you can roll some damage?

- Are spot dice still reduced by one?

- I mentioned this earlier, but... is LOS a thing? Is it best to just make all terrain below eye level of the frames to avoid the issue?

[Mantisking]

I can cover these.

- You mentioned that defense dice are no longer reduced by one. Do ties between attack and defense hit or miss, now? IE: Is it possible to hit by matching the defense with your attack roll, and just use the spotting dice so you can roll some damage?

Yes. A tie between Attack and Defense is considered a 0 point hit.

- Are spot dice still reduced by one?

No.

[Axhead]

Thanks a bunch for taking the time answer these, it is really appreciated.

There is an optional rule to do initiative in the old way (rolling a d10 for each frame and placing them around the table). I didn't like the old initiative system; I found that it randomized the order that my units went in, which made it hard to keep them coordinated and encouraged generic troop types rather than making specialists because you didn't know when a specialist would go, meaning they might be wasted this round.

On Point 1. Thats what Clauswitz (sp?) called Friction which I normally really like in my war games, but I agree that the old mechanic did slow down game play. Given the small scale and the high tech nature of the game there are a million fluff reasons to dispense with the old way, especially as there is new snazzy mechanic to replace it.

[MikeDamrat]

Thanks a bunch for taking the time answer these, it is really appreciated.

There is an optional rule to do initiative in the old way (rolling a d10 for each frame and placing them around the table). I didn't like the old initiative system; I found that it randomized the order that my units went in, which made it hard to keep them coordinated and encouraged generic troop types rather than making specialists because you didn't know when a specialist would go, meaning they might be wasted this round.

On Point 1. Thats what Clauswitz (sp?) called Friction which I normally really like in my war games, but I agree that the old mechanic did slow down game play. Given the small scale and the high tech nature of the game there are a million fluff reasons to dispense with the old way, especially as there is new snazzy mechanic to replace it.

Anything that does away with tedium in favor of blasty goodness is fine by me.

[Axhead]

Amen brother!

[Forged]

I just thought of a possibly weird situation.

Player A has a single blue Frame (call him Defender) with another mech behind it (call him Victim)

Player B has a 1 mech attacking with a 2d6 direct fire weapon (Call him Shooter)

Victim is using Defender as cover from Shooters assault.


It's Player B's turn with Shooter, He WANTS to hurt Defender, and Defender has a 1 Defence right now, and hasn't been spotted. Victim on the other hand has a six spot on him and a paltry defence of 1.

Shooter has a 100% chance to hit Victim for 7-11 hits
due to cover, he has a 1/6 chance of damaging Vicitm and a 1/6 chance of damaging Defender.
Dealing at least one hit to defender with a ~72% to ~86% chance and an almost 50% chance for 2 hits. With the same odds for Victim

Shooter has a 100% chance to hit Defender for 0-5 hits
Without cover he gets hit by 1/3 shots
Thus the chance to get at least one hit caps out at the same ~86% chance.


By shooting at Victim he has a better chance of hurting Defender then if he shot directly at Defender. Plus collateral, Defenders defence going up only makes it a better choice.
It really makes double blue's special power worth it.

[Ramcat]

Yes, this is one of the things that is bothering me about the rules. You should not be able to do more damage to the cover by shooting at what's behind it. Better said, this shouldn't be:

By shooting at Victim he has a better chance of hurting Defender then if he shot directly at Defender.

[Axhead]

This seems like a rare situation but if it is bugging you here is a simple fix: Only apply yellow hits to the marked mech. So in this case defender could only be affected by hits caused by red dice. This makes sense from a fluff perspective as Yellow hits represent hitting weak spots or critical systems.

[Forged]

The way I planned to clump my artillery forces it would have been bad, but I like your suggestion of having yellow dice not injure "cover"

[Mantisking]

This seems like a rare situation but if it is bugging you here is a simple fix: Only apply yellow hits to the marked mech. So in this case defender could only be affected by hits caused by red dice. This makes sense from a fluff perspective as Yellow hits represent hitting weak spots or critical systems.

The problem with that is you would have to have to seperate dice rolls.

Also, we found out last Saturday that just because you are rolling a big handful of dice it is not a guarantee that you will do damage. Several hits of 7 or 9 dice came up empty during the day.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Oh, this one's easy.

Cover doesn't get cover.

[Forged]

Oh, this one's easy.

Cover doesn't get cover.

I don't get how that helps the situation at all?

[Forged]

Oh, this one's easy.

Cover doesn't get cover.

I don't get how that helps the situation at all?

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Oh! I'm sorry, I misread.

Yeah, don't get in the crossfire. You're obviously not paying attention to the guys who are firing on you.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Oh! Also, by the new rules, cover takes a hit on 4 or 5 if it's inanimate, and only a 5 if if it's a frame. Note that you have the same chance of hitting your target or the guy standing in front of him.

Retreading your post, I still don't quite understand, but I am too sleepy to say anything intelligent. Will try again tomorrow!