Fria Ligans forum

Andrew Gaska said that they had to make some compromises in order to create a setting out of this. So the alien in the game is probably weaker than in Alien but stronger than those in Aliens. Continuity was not something that bothers them that much when they made the movies.

This. It's the "problem" I've run into when Homebrewing a Conan RPG (because all the existing ones are terrible). Robert E Howard didn't write for RPG mechanics.
You can balance stuff as best as possible, crunching together all the canon, and then let people tinker to tastes from there.

just bumping of the damage of the Pulse rifle will just auto take out any human in the setting

I suggest you lower the Xeno's Health to 1. That's the sleakest and most elegant way, game mechanically, to make them more squishy.

Not a terrible suggestion, but I think consistency might be a bit off, I mean, health is tried to strength, so a health of 1 would correlate to a low strength, right? That is why I lean more towards a Vaesen-like condition system, where condition/toughness also represent who important to the story a NPC is.
But if you wanted to stay with the old heath-correlates-to-strength system and wanted to run a Aliens style scenario, where the PCs are getting swam’ed by Xenos. Why not give the xenos a heath threshold? Any damage below the threshold is ignored and any damage above the threshold kills it, it will reduce bookkeeping and if the threshold is set at something like 3 or 4, handguns would be next to useless, but pulse rifles and smartguns would be somewhat effective.

I'm not sure I'd hold to the Health = Strength rule for Xenomorphs, unless that's written somewhere that I missed.

I'm not sure I'd hold to the Health = Strength rule for Xenomorphs, unless that's written somewhere that I missed.

well, it isn't written in the rules, but it is true for humans in the game, so why don't other creatures too. And that the Xenos have strength in the ranges 6 to 8 seems reasonable to me.

As far as I can tell, their attack dice don't seem to be based on strength as humans are, but again it's your table your rules.
If you don't want to lower HP, Armor would be the next likely tweak.

If you want a campaign where Xenomorphs are easier to kill I would reduce their health by 2 and only allow their armor to protect them from certain weapons. Xenomorph armor shouldnt reduce the damage from bullets because bullets have never had any problems piercing the carapaces of lesser xenomorphs. Its actually one of the most effective ways of killing them.

The whole way armor works in the game is ridiculous. Armor shouldnt be some random thing. Armor should only reduce the damage of attacks that cant penetrate it and do very little to protect against attacks that can penetrate it.

Although some of the tougher aliens like crushers, praetorians, and queens conceivably have armor thick enough to stop pulse rifle shots. But definitely not a drone or soldier.

This thread is clinging to life like Bishop.

I'm preparing to run Chariot of the Gods, which might lead into Destroyer of Worlds and Heart of Darkness, if we like the system as much as I think we will. I've read this thread top to bottom, because I've also found myself concerned by how difficult it is the kill the tougher xenomorphs, even with pulse rifles.

I like the "add weapon damage again" on each additional success, but I'm considering going even further. Would it be terrible to house-rule "five successes on an attack takes out a non-PC target"?

I think the best balance would be to drop armor down by 2 points and halve the HP on all xenos in a Marine campaign where you want more of a 'swarm' type fight while making them also a threat. 1 or 2 HP has them dying too easy, no reason to have an armor piercing sneeze kill them off.

For the mechanics - let's consider what was seen on screen:
ALIEN - the xeno is up against a net, a cattle prod, and some flamethrowers.
How tough the polarized silicon exoskeleton is - we don't see tested other than it can survive in vacuum briefly.

In ALIENS - you have a point blank pistol shot (or three) that penetrate - pistols can stop being effective at any range beyond point blank if you like.
The Marines roll in with "10mm explosive-tip, caseless, light, armor-piercing rounds" - that's going to be bad news in close quarters like the hive or colony corridors to any meat or xeno that gets in the way.
And we see a xeno eat a shotgun blast with expected and predictable results.

Year Zero isn't a gun-fu game (mechanically speaking) and is not attempting to be a ballistics simulation in the way something like Morrow Project, Aftermath, or Phoenix Command would.

YZE damage is 1, 2, or 3 ... where an M41 hits the same as a .357 magnum (ouch anyway) and a bolt gun hits as hard as the M56 - or shotgun that you like to keep handy for close encounters.

In ALIENS - every alien knocked down is done at effectively engaged or short range ... so all of the weapons given on that damage scale could realistically be expected to mess up what they hit.

But, if the mechanics aren't working for you at the table, then another possible way is to consider the *story* of your combat encounters.

Johnn Four (Roleplaying Tips) co-wrote a D20-based combat course called Faster Combat that goes into a *lot* of different thought about crafting combat encounters beyond the mechanics that are pretty applicable to non-D20 gaming as well.

One aspect, for example, is a plan out how much wear and tear or abuse your combatants should optimally have round by round.

He calls that having a 3-round combat plan, which was a bit more than the old D20 Delve advice of knowing what your monster's opening move would be and maybe a followup.

As a GM, you can ballpark what resources your players have before combat starts, and where you want them to end up to fit into your overall adventure.

Is the encounter a cake-walk / warm up? then the baddies can be just mowed down, run through, and plowed under.

Is the encounter designed to seriously drain the party ammo or healing resources? Then its a different story.

Is this meant to be the final end-all-us-or-them-go-for-broke-knockdown-dragout? Make it so!

Planning out your combat "intentions" for the first 3 rounds lets you figure out an opening move, a follow-up, and some sort of finish that has the monsters put the players where you want them before it flees or keels over.

Then, it doesn't matter how mechanically crunchy or chewy they are in whatever system - that is easy to tune if needed: more or less armor, more or less damage, easier or harder to hit, its bright and they are easy to see, the lights are out and they have the advantage, etc.

That is all easy sauce in the moment - but which do you use IF you don't know what the monsters' (and by extension your) goal for the encounter really are?

All you can do is wear them down mechanically if you don't have the bigger picture plot considered.

ALIENS is a great example of this:
The first battle we don't see - the colony is just empty.
The ambush is chaotic mess we don't know what's going on.
The next battle we don't see - only hear - as the xenos charge the sentry guns.
The comes the operations battle where its pitched and the good guys *take a beating*
And finally you get the one-on-one winner take all that goes all over the place.

Try gaming those out with mechanics - but then try gaming them out with just story effects and see if that helps.

ALIEN - the xeno is up against a net, a cattle prod, and some flamethrowers.

Except the Alien in ALIEN is never actually up against any of those weapons.

Only Jones gets to feel the brunt of the "cattle prod" and the net. And the only "flame thrower" the Alien gets to acquaint itself with is one of the Narcissus's main drive engines … right after taking a hit from Ripley’s grapple gun.

Which, it can be noted, does seem to penetrate at least deep enough into its carapace to stick.