Talk:Future Imperfect chapter 3

--Melonberg 21:44, 17 March 2016 (MST) I know about your justified hate-on regarding the big rifle being the ultimate weapon. Here's another thought: Is there anything to reflect the notion that in close-quarters, if you're trying to fight with a rifle, it might be more difficult to defend yourself? You can feasibly block a melee attack with your rifle, but no small part of being able to block and dodge in a hand-to-hand fight requires one's hands to be free... Now, if someone closes in and you use your rifle as a melee weapon (club to butt-stroke them) or use an attached bayonet (like a spear, I guess?), that's fine, but while you're doing that, you're not shooting them. If you block a melee attack while using your rifle, should you have to make a breakdown roll for it? If you just took a shot, or plan on taking a shot and a melee attack is made against you, should you face some kind of penalty to block or dodge? Just some thoughts.

--Melonberg 00:34, 18 March 2016 (MST) On the hit location table, one of the roll modifiers is fighting (hand-to-hand) and the bonus is +2, which makes sense; if you are punching somebody, you're less likely to hit them in the foot. With advanced martial arts and the inclusion of different types of maneuvers like kicks, should we say that kicks have a -2 roll? Or is it just splitting hairs? The original intent, I believe, is that if you are fighting up close, you are less likely to "waste" an attack hitting someone in the foot, while you are more likely to hit a vital spot (whether that be the head or the gizzards, but in this case, the head). Purposefully trying to kick someone who is standing upright in the head is rarely a good idea in a real fight, and most martial artists won't recommend it (because with your foot so high, your balance will be greatly disrupted), hence, the usual targets of kick and knee attacks are the opponent's feet, legs and lower torso. Unless, of course you have someone grappled in a particular way and can feed a knee to their upper chest or face...

--Dieter the Bold 17:44, 22 March 2016 (MST) Bruce, re: your first comment- Perhaps make a rule that items not designed for melee combat take damage as if they were the target of the attack when being used to block a melee weapon? So you can use your rifle to block, but chances are it's not going to be functional for very long! Adding a bayonet lets you do lethal damage instead of CT damage as well as parry melee weapon attacks.

Re: your second comment- Kicks are -2, but give Martial Arts the default ability to ignore this penalty. Keeps things real, and gives another reason why Martial Arts are cool!

Now my feedback!

Conflict: What chapter does the rules of putting a "Card Up Your Sleeve" come in? Those rules should be introduced before appearing here, I think. Or just introduce them later in this chapter.

Simple & Complex Actions- Waiting: When you reserve a card, do you have to specify what is the trigger action? Or can you use your card to simply jump in at any later point?

Movement: Is movement outside of combat different than during combat? It would be odd for there to be a large variation (i.e., d6 vs d10) in speed between regular moseys.

Movement- Movement Rates: Is the Pickup gain from Walking double if you run? The example says no, so is Running considered a special form of Walking, or should the Movement Table be edited to say Walking/Running?

Weapons: I would state up front that there are different rules used between Melee & Ranged attacks.

Weapons- Area Effect Weapons: Does this mean that AE weapons get double-bonuses, + to hit and + to damage? Or is this only shotguns?

Weapons- Aiming/Procedure: 1) Why not just call the Aim Value, Accuracy? 2) Just to make this perfectly clear, if you have a weapon with 2/-3 Aim Value, you'll need three actions to shoot it without penalty? Two aiming, third shooting? The example is unclear, as only two cardsa are played, but three counters are somehow on the card. I'd state it explicitly in the rules, and clear up the example a little.

Weapons- Two Weapons: Recalling from that time in the woods how stupidly inaccurate two-pistol shooting was, I'd argue for putting the additional -4 (for off-hand use) to all attacks. Or you could state that using your card for the "Two Weapon" special maneuver means you can't take the Aim maneuver. So shooting with two pistols is -3 for the on-hand and -7 for the off.

Weapons- Melee Weapons: Example needs editing, "...Rigel III happens to find hiss casual sneer..." to "...happens to find his casual sneer"

Weapons- Weapon Speed: Like in Weapons- Aiming/Procedure, make it clear that Speed means you can act as soon as the given number of cards have been laid down.

Weapons- Defensive Bonus: I think there should be something like Bruce's X-Com Suppression rules for Ranged Combat.

--Melonberg 16:12, 23 March 2016 (MST)We could say that you can perform a "covering fire" or "suppression" attack (akin to X-Com: Enemy Unknown) or say that certain weapons cause "suppression" to the targets they are fired at, and have the target(s) make a fear check vs. a target number (maybe make the target number the attack roll of the shooter?). Fear rolls are already a thing in the rules, after all. It would be easy to incorporate for this. Thoughts?

Tech Level: I had the thought that as tech develops, older weapons still manage to find ways to keep pace. Slugthrowers could be gauss versions, or maybe enhanced materials & chemistry allow for more powerful propellent to be used, with super-dense smart-forming ammunition. This would allow you to keep a limited and simple gear list, and use TL as the modifier for when someone rolls up on TL5 (20th-century?) armor with a TL8 laser pistol. And vice versa.

Darkness: Why do you have damage information here? Should be in the next section

Rolling damage: For Vitals & Head shots, how about having 1 or 2 dice (respectively) maximized instead of simply added into the roll. It makes special hits much more serious, instead of the classic, "Boom, head shot! Only 4 points of damage", situations.

--Melonberg 16:12, 23 March 2016 (MST)I can understand both sides here, but there is always the possibility that a head wound might just be a graze. I like the simplicity of the suggestion (and the hazard that it brings to shots to the head or vitals), but a couple dice extra on a head shot will generally equate to roughly one extra wound, on the average (for d6 weapons like pistols)

Wounds: You say "guts" under the Maimed explanation, but you should be more specific. Does this mean Vitals (which is on the Hit Location chart), or specifically the abdomen (which isn't on the Hit Location chart)?

Wound Markers: You mention 6 locations, and then state that "Wounds taken to the vitals and upper and lower torso add to those in the torso area", except "Torso" isn't one of the 6 locations given.

Boom!: This whole section should be moved under Area Effect. The first two paragraphs can be dropped as the mechanics are already explained in Area Effect, and the final paragraph should be edited to make it explicit that each character rolls separately for location when they take their damage, and that damage received in this way isn't modified by location (i.e., the Vitals or Head)

Brawling: The example references "Wind". I'm assuming this should be CT?

--Melonberg 16:12, 23 March 2016 (MST)Based on a discussion that Jason and I had recently, I threw in a blurb to the Fighting: Unarmed (brawling) skill description that gives brawlers the ability to "soak" damage from unarmed or melee attacks to represent the toughness of a brawler (since levels in the brawling skill didn't offer any advantages other than more attack dice over advanced martial arts). Just wanted to throw this out there in case anyone thought it was OP.

Drowning: Maybe add rules for how long characters can hold their breath? Unless you intend to have that somewhere else.

Fire: Wind is again mentioned, change to CT I presume. Also, do you want to throw a line in here about putting fires out? Could be as simple as, "Master uses their judgement here"

Healing: "After one hour, Medicine rolls are only possible at a medical facility or using advanced equipment and require Medicine: Surgery. Doctor's really can’t do a whole lot for a broken bone that's surrounded by swollen tissue or a gash that's already started to heal on its own without advanced medical facilities or equipment."

Fate: Retitle to- Fate Chips. Move "A player can spend Fate Chips helping other members of the crew, and this sort of working together is encouraged. One rule, however, is you cannot spend a Fate Chip to reduce the damage another player takes if that player has any chips of his own." to here. Also, does this mean one Player can spend chips to boost another's skill? Does it fall under the same limitation (not when the recipient still has chips of their own?

Fate Chips: Retitle to- Fate Chips: Skills<u>. Move "A character can use..." to the end of the first paragraph in 'Fate' (Fate Chips). Move "One note..." to the top of this secion, followed by "Any Fate Chip..."

Saving your skin: Retitle to- <u>Fate Chips: Saving Your Skin. Replace "Wind" with CT at the end of 2nd paragraph. For the table, I assume "CT Regained" should be "CT Negated"?

Bounty: Retitle to- Fate Chips: Bounty. Change whole section to read-
"After a fellow tussles with the antagonists of the known universe, he either gets a whole lot smarter or a whole lot dead. At the end of each game session, remaining Fate Chips can be converted into bounty points with Master approval (see the next page). Blue chips are worth 3 bounty points, red chips are worth 2, and white chips are worth 1. The Master may also give you something called a "bounty". Bounties come from exceptional circumstances. Every Hero in the crew gets a share of the bounty. You can then use your bounty points to raise your character's Traits and Aptitudes if you'd like. Any leftover points (i.e., remainders after dividing the bounty between the Heroes), they stay in the pot until the next time the group gets a reward.

New Aptitude levels cost whatever the new level is. If you want your character's Shooting to go from 3 to 4, it costs you 4 bounty points. You can only raise Aptitude once per story arc, and only one level at a time.

Raising your Coordination in a Trait costs two times the new level. So to go from 4d6 Strength to 5d6 would cost 10 points.

Traits can be raised as well. The cost is equal to three times the die type of the level. To go from a d4 to a d6 would cost 18 bounty points. You'll probably have to save up for a while to pull this off. You don’t have to, but it makes for a better story if you say exactly how your character starts getting stronger or smarter. Maybe he spends his off hours lifting weights or reading technical manuals."

--Melonberg 12:55, 18 April 2016 (MST)When it comes to armor, should we use the SO-esque method of having various damage "types" to apply to armor? In SO, each armor had an A/B/C rating for melee/projectile/energy attacks. It might be one way to spread out the tech level effect over more than one game mechanic to reduce its chances of being broken too easily.

--Dieter the Bold 20:42, 11 May 2016 (MST) My latest impressions:
In general, I thought this was a good section. Most of my suggestions are editing for clarity, minor misspellings or wrong words. I would recommend making a pass for style consistency at some point. I.e., making sure all Skills are capitalized (Medicine: Surgery).

The Environment: I'd recommend putting a copy of the first line of the 'Rolling Damage' section here, so people know what the two damage numbers mean from the get-go. It's short enough not to break the flow or to be annoying to read it twice. Except without the 'weapon' reference.

The Environment->Drowning: I'm confused what the "steps above" refers to for characters lacking the Swimming skill in water over their heads

Movement-> Movement Rates: "Transhumans take no CT when picking up the pace" should be changed to "... when stepping up". Switching descriptive phrases when explaining rules is a quick way to confusion.

Conflict->Action Card Hand Management: After you draw your cards in Action Time, do you then draw a new card to resolve that action once you declare it on the appropriate Step, or do you use what's on the card you are already playing for the Step? I think being explicit here would prevent possible confusion.

Conflict->Action Card Hand Management->Action Time: I would collapse "Actions" into "Action Time". It seems to pretty much describe the same situation and goes backward in the 'narrative' of the rules explanation

Conflict: I would organize this section differently. I would go: Action Card Hand Management -> Action Time (w/ Actions collapsed into it) -> Simple & Complex Actions -> Action Speed -> Rushing -> Waiting -> Extended Actions -> Surprise -> Special Cards

Automatic Weapons: 'Automatic weapons fire looses'. 'looses' seems like a very clunky word to use here, as it's very close to loses. I recommend 'shoots' or 'distributes' or 'disburses'.

Automatic Weapons: Where is 'splits his skill' defined? I'm not sure what the process for this is.

Entanglement: Wrong word. "...and potentially dodge if the Master..."

Entanglement: How does breaking free work vs. "goo" chemicals/guns, since you're not fighting the weapon itself?

Hit Locations: I am confused what the "Modifiers (Optional)" section applies to. An example here would be nice.

Hit Locations->Cover penetration: Change to, "If the Penetration value falls below the Armor value by 5 or more, the shot cannot penetrate."

Hit Locations->Cover penetration: What about stacking? If you gain an Ablate result while behind cover, is the cover ablating, or is your armor ablating? Or both?

Tech Level->Penetration Number: Armor Value (capitals!) hasn't been introduced yet, so I'd spell it out here before dropping in the abbreviation. "Weapons will have a Penetration Number (PN) assigned. Once a hit has been scored, compared the PN to the AV (Armor Value) and ..."

Armor: If you introduce AV in the section above, just say, "This is measured via the Armor Value, AV"

Recovery: After the table, arrange instead like "Every time your character... -> Concussion is shock... -> When a character... -> This doesn't necessarily... -> Concussed characters might... -> Concussed characters get... -> Concussed characters generally... -> Heroes who continue..."

Death->Bleeding: "A character who goes below 0 CT by an amount equal to his normal maximum CT is dead. Bleeding to death in this case, or beaten to death if already unconscious and still taking CT damage from blows."

Healing: I recommend increasing the natural healing times to a tiered amount depending on Wound Level. Measured in days: 1/5/25/125. A day of rest will clear up Light cuts and sprains enough to fight without penalty, heavy strains or deep cuts will take 5 days to drop down, etc. Actual medical treatment will of course greatly reduce this time. Still requiring the Fortitude check.

Collaborative Roleplaying->Saving your skin: Old reference to 'Wind' just above the table. "... Story Chip negates 5 points of Wind..."

Collaborative Roleplaying->Bounty: The rules seem to encourage players to convert Story Chips to Bounty Points at the end of every session, since they'll just draw back up to their limit the next time. Plus, some players could get lucky in their draws and greatly outpace others in their advancement. How about a rule, or suggestion, of limiting conversion to 3 points per session. Actual Bounty awards are exempt. So everyone advances pretty much the same, but lucky players start out with a better draw for the next session, so they're not being penalized.