Energy Blasts

We had our first Squadron UK game last Saturday, but we still don't quite understand energy blasts. Do you have to roll to hit the target area? Can the target dodge or parry? I think we understand how damage is calculated. Any clarification would be welcome.
Thanks,
Pete.

Hi

I'll read up on the rules and get back to you.

Looking at the rules this evening, I would say that you roll as normal when making your attack . This roll seems to be standard for all attacks. The rules state that an energy attack affects all targets within a specific area and this is the area that you define when creating the character. So if you hit, all targets within the defined area are affected. I would say that the affected targets can dodge or parry within the normal confines of the rules. Hope this helps some.

I hope this helps
1) Do you have to roll to hit the target area?

In Squadron UK you roll to SUCCEED rather than hitting. Roll a total of 15 and whoosh! the whole area is filled with energy doing d6 damage. Roll and 18 and WHOOSH! the area is full of energy doing d10 damage.

2) Can the target dodge or parry?

Yup. However, this should be "targets". Anyone caught in the area can dodge or parry. If you want more complex rules then, as a Referee, I'd consider introducing things like this on a case by case basis:

a) If someone is in the middle of an area effect (say a 3x3 square) and dodges I'd give them a -1 to their dodge score for every square they have to move through to avoid the effect.

b) If another Blaster chooses to parry and they are the first target in the area affected then I'd allow their parry to affect everyone behind them as well.

I'm sure we could all come up with loads more. I just didn't want to clog up the rule-book with loads of special caveats. There are enough in the parrying section as it is.

DAMAGE:

Try again Simon. (I've tried so many times to explain this......)

The damage from an Energy Attack consists of two parts - the BASE DAMAGE (1d Kill and 2d Stun) and additional damage from the Hero's DICE POOL.

The Hero cannot make an attack unless they add in at least one die of energy from their DICE POOL.

The additional di(c)e from the dice pool can be added to either the KILL or STUN damage at the player's choice.

The number of dice which are going to be added must be announced before the Skill Roll is made.

There can never be more than 2 dice difference between the dice doing Stun and the dice doing Kill.

(Two consequences of this are that to get the most effective Energy Blasts, you're best allocating an ODD number of dice from your DICE POOL so that the total number of dice in the attack is an EVEN number.)

Example:

It is a 3 panel round and CRESCENDO has 6 dice left in his Dice Pool.

He could fire THREE Attacks:

1) 3 dice from his dice pool for a total of 2 Kill and 4 Stun
2) 1 die from his dice pool for a total of 1Kill and 3 Stun
3) 1 die from his dice pool for a total of 1 Kill and 3 Stun

and have a die left over for next round.

or Two attacks

1) 5 dice from his dice pool for a total of 3Kill and 5 Stun
2) 1 die from his dice pool for a total of 1Kill and 3 Stun

and have a panel left to do something else

or Two attacks
1) 3 dice from his dice pool for a total of 2 Kill and 4 Stun
2) 3 dice from his dice pool for a total of 2 Kill and 4 Stun

and have a panel left over.

Is this any clearer? One day someone's going to come up with an ACE way of explaining this.

Cheers!

Just to be clear, that explanation comes direct from the author himself, Simon Burley.

So i have more questions..

I am having trouble with how the energy recharge rate works.

This is my understanding.

At grade 1 you ehose a refresh rate, from 1 to 5.

You get 2 dice x (refresh rate) every (refresh rate) rounds.

You can add a maximum of (refresh rate) to each attack

Correct so far?

So do you start the fight with a full dice pool?

I assume so, as otherwise someones who's chosen 10dice every 5 rounds won't be able to do anything until most fights are over.
But if this is true why would you ever (at grade 1) choose a lower refresh rate than 5, you'd get 10 dice a the start of the fight then get the same amount of dice every 5 rounds. Giving you both far more dice and the ability to throw far heavier blasts.

Looking at higher levels, lets say Energy attack 3.

The guy who went at 2dice per round is now getting six. 18 dice over 3 rounds.

The guy who was getting 10 dice every five now gets 10 every 3 rounds, but still gets his initial 10. Sure the every round guy will eventually catch up but only over a long fight and he still can't throw heavy blasts.

Unless of course he doesn't start with a full energy pool in which case the guy with a powerful energy attack power (six picks at character creation) gets to twiddle his thumbs for several rounds and every round guy gets a massive advantage (18 dice to 10) in this situation.

So am i reading this wrong?

I can see what simon tryed to do, balance energy output against maximum output but it all seems iffy to me.

In addition, just as a point of presentation, for future npc's in future supplements you should probably make explicit what the maximum damage allocation for the character write-up is. Eg Tech Knight gets 10dice every 4 rounds at level 2, so clearly he chose a refresh rate of 5 and can add that many dice to his attacks but it doesn't tell you that in his write-up. You can work it out, but you shouldn't need to.

This makes things much clearer. Thank you.
One last question - the damage that is rolled, is that applied to everyone that is hit? I'd rather do that to reduce the number of dice being rolled, which slows the game down too much.
For parrying an energy blast I've tried to be fairly sensible - it's very difficult to parry a laser blast with your fist!! But a shield is ok.

I believe the intention is that you roll damage once and then this is applied to any within the are of effect who do not dodge or parry.

...... and not to belabour this but i was thinking about it last night.

Level 1 , take 2 dice every round or 6 dice every 3 rounds.

becomes at level 3

Take 6 dice every round and take 6 dice every round.

Only the latter can add up to 3 dice to each blast rather than 1.

As i said above, i assume the idea of energy attack was to balance energy reserves against the ability to throw big blasts. You could trade more available energy for a lower maximum damage output or have the ability to throw fewer but stronger blasts.

I like that idea, one of the things i really liked about Golden Heroes is that you had to manage your power reserves rather than just do INC damage (MSH) every round, but I just don't see how the math here adds up.

its all about choosing the amount of power you put into an energy blast, do you light a cigarette or blow the bloody doors off.

Don't over complicate things by trying to extract the smallest detail. find an explanation that worked for you and use that.

Think less about the rule and more about the role-playing situation. the rules might say the blast vaporise the car but have it blast into the air and crash down destroying it.

But my point was

" i assume the idea of energy attack was to balance energy reserves against the ability to throw big blasts. You could trade more available energy for a lower maximum damage output or have the ability to throw fewer but stronger blasts"

It's not about the roleplaying, it's about how the rules were (I think) trying to work as above, to allow you to further differentiate between characters with the same power, and they don't work.

So how to fix this, i'm tempted to just abandon the whole thing and go back to golden heroes rules.

You get 10 dice which regenerate every 5 rounds.

Nb 10 dice rather than the original 15 because you get 1 dice of stun/lethal damage for free in these rules.

Then at each grade (as well as the other benefits) you get an extra d10 extra dice/+5 extra dice (as you prefer).

But lets try and fix this.

How about this.


You choose a Power Rating of between 1 and 5.
You start a fight with 15 dice minus your Power Rating
You can add up to that Power Rating in dice to your attacks.
Pool regenerates every 5 rounds.

This gives you a simple trade off between lots of low level blasts or a few high power ones (or somewhere inbetween) as suits your individual tastes.

At higher levels add more dice as seems best to you.

For example.

Each level give 5 (or more) extra dice.
or
Each level knocks 1 round off your pool regeneration time.

Maybe each extra level allows you to add 1 dice to your maximum blast level as well?

This is just one possible solution but I think it does a better job of what the rules are trying to achieve (and are much clearer) than the rules as written.

Sounds interesting, and perfectly reasonable . I have to say that i'm in two minds about this issue. Like a lot of others, I find the energy blast rules as written confusing. I appreciate Simon's clarification, of course. On the other hand, I've only played two games of the new Squadron UK so far, and feel that I need to give the new rules a chance before wanting to change things.

This is easier to explain in a spreadsheet, ill knock one up then find somewhere to put it

Ok, i have a Spreadsheet which breaks this down from Level 1 to Level 5.

it shows the Max dice pool for each option of Refresh Rate (1 to 5) over the 5 Levels. it does not show the options for splits over panels.

the only question is where do i put it for Review.

the way to use it it to choose your level and refresh rate the pick the tables that fit, as there is a number of tables.

You can download the spreadsheet from here

Renny's Game Corner Downloads

It's under the Squadron UK downloads header.

Here's a thought.

New rule
Overwhelming power
When the chips are down and you have used up you energy, the bad guy is still up you could use overwhelming power.
This allows you to ignore the time restrictions on energy blasts
But there is a cost. 10 stun. If the PC is reduced to their unconscious threshold they loose a point of psyche. Permanently.

But if you want to allow a truly heroic death then
All consuming power
This is the same as above but loose 20 kill and 3 psyche. It adds an extra 5d6 damage though. This option is only for heroes and mega villains.

There is an after effect, if someone consumes themself with their power they will die. However their being is reverted to a different state changing into a new entity. A ghost or wraith.
And will become either an NPC or a new version of the hero.

How does that sound?