This is in followup to Mark Cook's letter on the topic.
I too was somewhat dissatisfied with the combat skills in MegaTraveller,
so I threw them away and made up my own. This was already a somewhat
non-standard version of MT, since I was using the combat rules from ICE
SpaceMaster (has anyone else done this?), and the Universe from MT. As
far as ``high-tech'' weapons went, I ended up with 5 groups of weapons
which I considered to be similar enough to be covered by the same skill:
Handheld 1-Handed 2-Handed Launcher Heavy
each of which was then split into ``recoil'' and ``recoilless'', making
ten skills in all. Each weapons then fell fairly easily into one of the
ten categories. Almost all weapons come in various weights which affect
the range, the damage done, and the way the weapon was wielded.
Examples (note that SpaceMaster has more available weapons than MT, and
some of them are called different things, I'm mixing and matching here):
Handheld:
Recoil:
Body Pistol, Pistol, Revolver, MLA (Gauss) Pistol
Recoilless:
Laser Pistol, Blast Pistol, Stun (Neural) Pistol
1-Handed:
Recoil:
Submachinegun, Carbine, Shotgun, Flamer
Recoilless:
Laser Carbine, Blaster, Stunner, Rocket
2-Handed:
Recoil:
Assault Rifle, ACR, Autorifle, MLA Rifle, Auto Shotgun
Recoilless:
Laser Rifle, Blast Rifle, Plasma Gun, Neural Rifle
Launcher:
Recoil:
Grenade
Recoilless:
RPG, Bazooka, TOW
Heavy:
Recoil:
Machinegun, SAM (eg Stinger), MLA
Recoilless:
Laser, Blaster
I also stuck in a couple of Artillery skills (light and heavy), just in
case anyone wanted to use mortars and such.
A level in any category cost 1 point (my players spend points to build
their characters) and gives +10 on a d100 roll. Additionally there was a
``Gun Combat'' skill which cost 5 points, and gave 1 level in each of the
above 10 (what a deal!).
I differ with Mark in that my MLA (Magnetic Linear Accelerator, aka Gauss)
weapons had a heavier recoil than the ``equivalent'' explosive weapon, but
they also had much greater range and penetrating power. Remember, recoil
is caused by momentum change, not by energy expenditure. Also my Neural
weapons were deemed to fire in exactly the same way as Laser weapons, but
just to project sonic energy of some variety instead of EM radiation. This
made them useless in vacuum, of course, but extremely effective in an
atmosphere. Apart from the normal stunners and pain-inducers, SpaceMaster
has a weapon called a disruptor which does very nasty things to the target's
internal organs. One can certainly postulate that the effect of such a
weapon would cause such trauma that a nearby psionic could pick it up.
RoleMaster (with which SpaceMaster is very compatible) has a huge set of
rules dealing with Martial Arts and Primitive Weapons. I was far less
sophisticated than Mark in integrating these, having only 5 categories of
Primitive Weapons, and two for Unarmed Combat. These were:
Primitive:
Handheld:
dagger, shortsword, force knife
1-Handed:
sword, rapier, cutlass, cudgel
2-Handed:
2H sword, power sword
Chopping:
battle axe, hand axe
Extended:
pole arms
Unarmed:
Unarmed Combat:
Judo/Karate/Martial Arts synthesis
Brawling:
no rules, use of available weapons
I made these last two cross-over skills at -2, so that Unarmed Combat 3
was equivalent to Brawling 1, and vice versa.
Well, I seem to have rambled on for longer than I anticipated, I hope
that someone gets some use out of the jottings above.
Jonathan Clark
[email removed], [email removed]
The Englishman never enjoys himself except for some noble purpose.