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Sir_Mopalot
2013-06-07, 03:30 AM
I'm kicking around a game where the players are fighter pilots in Korean-Vietnam-era jets, and I've been trying to think of a good system to run it in. Currently my best thought is to run it using Mutants and Masterminds and crib a lot from the Mecha & Manga sourcebook, but if there's a better way (or even better, a game aimed specifically at this) I'd love to hear about it. D20 system is a plus, but certainly not mandatory.

Moreover, has anyone run a game like this? Not necessarily pilots, mecha-drivers would work as well. What advice do you have for a modern(ish) military campaign?

BWR
2013-06-07, 04:03 AM
d20 Mecha (http://www.together.net/~tjoneslo/MechaD20%20SRD.pdf) is open source.
Haven't actually played it so I cannot comment on how the rules work.

As for running a modern military game, how realistic do you want it?
A-team/Airwolf or gritty and real?
Are the PCs basically just sent out on assignments with little intel or hard objectives and fight and stealth and kill until all the enemies are dead, or are they merely cogs in the great military machine?
In any case, there are numerous supplements about modern military out there. You might want to look at things like the d20 modern supplement "Blood and Guts", which also has a basic system for vehicle combat as well as some explanation about how modern militaries work, ranks, adveture ideas, plenty of new skills, feats, PrCs and gear. Written and play-tested by former military types, IIRC.

Fri
2013-06-07, 06:27 AM
I homebrewed a dogfighting system to use on FATE/Spirit of the Century. It's for a pulpy soft sci-fi space-based game though, so it might not fit a Korean/Vietnam era jet. And obviously you need to understand Fate/SotC rules (Fate/SotC basic rules can be legally and freely found in the net). But you might be interested to see it anyway. It's untested and work in progress though.

Fri's Dogfighting Rules



The rules


There are a couple of important parts for Fri’s Dogfighting Game. The summary of them are below.

1. Your ship.

Ships have 5 stats. Speed, Maneuver, Armor, Computer, and Weapons. Each are quite what they say on the tin.

Speed is your ship’s relative max speed and acceleration capability.

Maneuver is your ship’s relative maneuver capability. The ‘practical maneuver rating,’ that is the maneuver rating used in a dogfight or acrobats is the average of (ship’s maneuver rating+pilot’s piloting skill)

Armor is the relative endurance of the ship.

Computer is the relative sophistication of your ship’s technical system/ai. It’s used for initiative and various sensoring. As with maneuver, the ‘practical computer rating’ is the average of (ship’s computer rating+pilot’s computer rating).

Weapons are the relative sophistication of the ship’s targeting system. As with the above stats, your practical attack rating is the average of (ship’s weapon rating+pilot’s gunnery/melee/brawling skill)

And besides that, your ships also have a number of hardpoints on it. There are three types of hardpoint: melee weapon hardpoints, ranged weapon hardpoints, and subsystem hardpoints. You can only put as many weapons as the number of your ship’s weapon hardpoints, and subsystems for your weapon’s subsystem hardpoints.

We don’t use specific numbers for any of them, like whether your max speed is 1000 kph or your armor is 12 mm thick. We just use relative numbers, as usual in fudge or SotC. That is, your ship’s speed might be average (+1) or fantastic (+6) and such.

You always round down to get your effective skill rating.

2. The pilot.

The pilot is an important part of the ship (of course). This is your character. Your characters have skills, aspects, and stunts as usual. What skills you mainly use for piloting a ship are: piloting (for defense and various kind of maneuvers), computer (for initiative and to use all kind of sensors and your ship’s high tech equipments) and attack skills. That is, gunnery, melee, or weapon.You use your character’s attack skill to attack with your ship. But you can’t simply use your on-foot stunts in mech. You need specific piloting stunts for that.

We’ll get more into them later.

3. The dogfight.

This is the meat of the game. The basic summary of the dogfight is below.

When someone decides to have combat encounter, everyone roll initiatives based on the average of (ship’s computer rating+pilot’s computer rating). This reflects the pilot’s capability to digest the various signals they got from their radars. After initiatives are rolled and each ships or group of ships got their position on the initiative line, the dogfight can begin. There are a few phases in a turn of a dogfight. They’re not ‘formal’ phase, aka, phases you must ‘declare’ at your every turn, the division into phases is just for convenience.

1.Confirming range.

You simply confirm the relative ranges between you and your target. There are 5 relative ranges in a dogfight. Point blank(0), short(1),medium(2),long(3), beyond visual range(4)and beyond combat range(5)

The difference between initiative on the initiative phase show how far you could close in at the first round. For example, if you roll 4 and enemy roll 2, you could close in up to 'long' range.

2.Moving

If both you and your opponent feel that you’re in the intended range with each others, you can skip this. But if one of you want to move closer or farther to your opponent, roll opposing speed roll using your ships’ speed stat. The winner got what he want. For example, if one participant want to get closer and the other participant want to move farther, they both roll speed dice. If the first participant won, the ships are getting closer to each other, and vice versa. This is basically the ‘movement phase’ in the combat round.


3.Maneuver

Then, the attacker got to choose what maneuver that he want to do. This is optional, the attacker can simply choose not to use any maneuver in this turn.

The most basic maneuver is called outmaneuver. Both participant roll opposing maneuver check, which is the average of (ship’s maneuver rating+pilot’s piloting skill). You can either roll outmaneuver for attack bonus or defense bonus.

Before you roll the maneuver roll, you must bet at the outcome. You can bet +1, +2, or the difference between the winner and loser’s roll. The winner got the bonus. So it is your choice, are you going to be bold, and bet everything at the next attack, or be conservative?

Besides outmaneuver, you the next most basic maneuvers are attack stance and defense stance. If you choose attack stance, you get +1 bonus on your next attack roll and -1 penalty at your next defense roll, and vice versa. You don’t need to roll to use stance.

Some weapons, like homing missile, need a successful outmaneuver check before you can use them.

Transforming your fighter is considered a maneuver.

You can make your own maneuver, be creative. The guideline is, if the maneuver gives you something, it also must takes something away from you. For example, you can have ‘aiming’ maneuver. You get attack bonus without defense penalty, but you can’t attack this round. Discussing it with me first is preferable.

4. The actual attack. Attacker roll attack dice, defender roll defense dice. Stuffs might or might not blow up. You also might do other kinds of action in this phase, like hiding, ramming your ship, landing your ship, do crazy defensive stunts, shooting covering fire, or what else.

5. Move to the next participant in the initiative line.

The ships.

XF-1 Valkyrie.
Armor : 4
Computer: 3
Maneuver : 3
Speed : 3
Weaponries : 5
Hardpoints: 1 melee weaponries, 3 ranged weaponries, 2 Subsystems.



XF-2 Lancer
Armor: 5
Computer: 4
Maneuver: 3
Speed: 3
Weaponries: 3
Hardpoints: 1 melee weaponries, 2 ranged Weaponries, 3 Subsystems.

New stunts

Ranged mecha fighter: can use your gunnery stunts in mech.

Melee mecha fighter: can use your melee stunts in mech.

High Tech Ace: Can use computer skill to lock missiles instead of piloting skill.

Old-school Ace: You can use alertness instead of computer to use sensors instead of computer skill.

Tactician: Can transfer piloting maneuver results to allies.

Supportive Wingman : Can give the bonuses and results from your technical systems to your allies.

Surprise Transformation: you can transform as free action (not considered a maneuver), once per round.

All the ‘drive’ stunts can be bought as ‘pilot’ stunts.

As usual, you can make your own stunts, but discuss it with me first.

Melee weapon choices

Vibro-blade: A small, high frequency, vibrating blade designed to pierce through armor. +2 damage after the attack hits. Use (melee) weapon skill to use.

You can choose to not equip any melee weapon and you can brawl with your plane's manipulating arms.



Ranged Weapon Choices.

Vulcan: High speed gatling gun.
+1 bonus against mooks and for covering fire. Short range.

Heavy Kinetic Cannon: High caliber long ranged gun with low rate of fire.
+1 against non mooks, long range.

Homing missiles: pods of lock-and-forget missiles. Must successfully use outmaneuver before it can be used. You can reroll the attack roll for missed homing missiles for free at the next round.
Long range. Can only bring 5 pods/hardpoint/sortie.

Micro Missiles: Pods of very small homing missiles that hold much less warhead and fuel than normal homing missiles. Attacks by swarming your opponents with their high number. Must successfully use outmaneuver before it can be used. +2 attack against all target, but no chance to reroll.
Medium range. Can only bring 5 pods/hardpoint/sortie.

Torpedo. Large anti capital-ship warhead. Must use outmaneuver before it can be used. +4 bonus against ships larger than fighters.
Long range. Can only bring 5/hardpoint/sortie


Subsystems


Active point defense. You can roll computer once per round to counter one single missile attack in the area, even ones not targeted at you. If you roll higher than the missile’s attack, you destroy the missile.

Passive ECM. Gives you +1 bonus defense against missiles.

Stealth system. Gives you +1 bonus for stealth and initiative checks.

Emergency Nanorepair. You can instantly repair your ships with computer check as with the ‘medic’ stunt, one use per sortie.

Autonymous sensor drone. Gives you an ‘average’ independent companion with skill in computer.

There will be more weapons and subsystems available later.

There's an added on that I thought up later called Focus. You build up focus in a set amount per round, and then you can use it to add to any of your roll. But I haven't thought about it in much detail.