Re: Good initiative mechanics?

On Mar 27, 4:05=A0pm, Simon Smith <simon_smith_n...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> In message
<c9e58ed7-b3d5-42bd-a38d-f5f916a3c...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 DougL <lampert.d...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> > There's still too much concentration of fire. The force-field and HP
> > rules both encourage it too much to avoid it. If I ever bother with
> > another major revision to the house rules I'll worry about that.
>
> Sounds like a typical example of a rule system working against itself;
you=

> have to combine fire to have a chance of piercing a force wall,
therefore
> the scaling rules for combined fire adopt a very gentle slope, and hence
a=

> couple of points of difference in the value of a defence code requires a
> factor of ten more attackers to counteract. But if the only thing that
can=

> threaten a PC is an equal NPC or 1000 mooks, then your opponents will
eith=
er
> be an NPC or 1000 mooks, and the PCs won't be too scared even when
> confronted with tens of thousands of them. If 10 mooks can threaten a
PC,

I think you missunderstand. This ISN'T a mook problem, it's a problem
with COMPARABLE foes. M***** of mooks can reasonably spread fire for
any number of reasons, and for the PCs since each hit kills or
disables there's no reason to concentrate fire vs. mooks.

This problem was visible recently when 6 PCs took on 2 NPCs as both
sides did nothing but "concentrate all fire on a single target till it
goes down". It's not a mook scaling problem, its an inherent problem
with any ablative defense vs. a sane attacker. And it shows up worst
in relatively even fights where taking down one foe is a significant
drop in the OpFor effectiveness.

DougL