Raellus
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Errata

Sat 18 Dec 2021, 17:08

Does anyone know if there are currently any plans by Free League to release an official list of errata (and, hopefully, corrections) for the rules, and/or update the PDF version? I haven't noticed any glaring errors, yet (there's a lot of material to parse and digest), but one obvious error is that page numbers in the index don't always correspond to the indexed item's actually location in the book. For example, the index says that Jamming is on p65, but it's actually on p66 (this is true of the PDF and the hard copy). That would be a fairly simple error to correct, I imagine.

In terms of "errors" in the rules, there are some funky rules regarding the interaction of large caliber rounds and body armor. For instance, a player wearing a flak vest could be hit square in the chest with a 25mm HE round. With only a single success on the dice, that round likely isn't going to do much more than knock the player down. That seems more than a bit unlikely, IRL, and could be fixed by making some adjustments to the rules.

Thanks, in advance.

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Tomas
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Re: Errata

Sat 18 Dec 2021, 18:22

Hi!

I don't think the example is entirely accurate - a 25mm HE round has a base damage of 4, meaning that 1 point of damage will penetrate the flak vest even with a single success rolled (the armor level is increased from 1 to 3 by the +2 armor modifier for HE, leaving a single point of damage penetrating). Plus, the target will suffer blast damage in addition to the direct damage.

As for an errata, you're of course welcome report errors, but I can't say that we have seen enough of them yet to merit an official errata.
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baldrick0712
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Re: Errata

Sat 18 Dec 2021, 19:51

Not sure if errata are called for but certainly some sort of house rule. By comparison, the RAW makes a 50 calibre round from an M82A1 sniper rifle more powerful than a 25mm HE M2 Bradly chain gun round. Both have the same damage and crit value but the sniper rifle has armour modifier 0. The 25mm HE round does have blast power D but this would be completely stopped by the flak jacket even if we declared it an automatic hit for being a contact explosion rather than rolling 2d6.

Don't get me wrong, I like the system and most of the time it gives credible results, but I think an HE round from an M2 Bradley chain gun would go through a flak jacket like butter from the kinetic energy alone.
 
Oddball_E8
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Re: Errata

Sat 18 Dec 2021, 20:08

Not sure if errata are called for but certainly some sort of house rule. By comparison, the RAW makes a 50 calibre round from an M82A1 sniper rifle more powerful than a 25mm HE M2 Bradly chain gun round. Both have the same damage and crit value but the sniper rifle has armour modifier 0. The 25mm HE round does have blast power D but this would be completely stopped by the flak jacket even if we declared it an automatic hit for being a contact explosion rather than rolling 2d6.

Don't get me wrong, I like the system and most of the time it gives credible results, but I think an HE round from an M2 Bradley chain gun would go through a flak jacket like butter from the kinetic energy alone.
Well, here's the problem... if you hit someone square in the chest with a 25mm HE shell, while they're wearing a Flak vest, and you only roll one success... you do 1 damage, this is true. But the thing has a ROF of 4, meaning that unless they're deliberately just firing one shot, that's a skill die, ability die and 4 ammo die that all have to amount to just 1 success.

HOWEVER, you also have a blast value of D. This means that if you hit someone, not only does it do *that* damage, but it also does the blast damage. So, in this case you roll 2D6 with a base damage of 1 and +1 armour. Assuming you don't roll any 6's there, then sure, you've only done 1 damage. And you also have to roll separate hit location for that dice, so it would have to roll chest *again* to get the armour protection.
But that's one VERY lucky shot.
In addition to all that, the person hit (as well as anyone in the blast radius) is knocked prone and has to roll for suppression.

In general, though, I think you should determine things like "hit square in the chest" after you've rolled for damage.
Sure, the hit dice might have rolled chest, but that doesn't mean the hit must have been "square in the chest", it could have glanced the flak vest while detonating right behind the person. Or it might have been a dud (if no one else is in the blast zone, you can rule it like that).
I mean, you could say the same for a bolt action rifle hitting "square in the chest", but only rolling 1 hit and no more, doing just 3 damage... most likely not a killing shot (and not enough to do a critical injury). Would you still say that that shot hit "square in the chest" to your players?

Either way, it's not something that will be a common occurrance.

As for it doing more damage by kinetic energy alone, I think you're wrong.

HE rounds are, for all intents and purposes, hollow. And they tend to explode before the entire kinetic energy of the round is transferred to the target. So, for sure the target will be knocked down by the energy, but doesn't necessarily mean more than 1 damage. After all, most of the damage done by the weapon is from fragmentation, not the actual explosion.

EDIT: Add to all this the fact that additional *hits* on ammo dice can be used to score more than one hit on the target, to force more than one hit location dice meaning you increase the chance of not hitting the chest (or head, if you have a helmet too). And a hit on the arms or legs will do 4 damage + explosive damage (and more than one hit will do additional explosive damage, which also rolls a separate hit location dice), which is more than enough to do a crit since the crit value is 3. (and the crit value for the explosive damage is just 2, so if you hit the chest with the initial impact, but hit an arm or leg with the explosion and do 2 or more damage, you cause a crit anyway)

EDIT 2: Just for fun, I rolled this in the Foundry VTT a few times. First roll was a miss. Second roll had 1 hit and 1 ammo dice hit.
This I used to convert to 2 hits on the same target. This gave me a hit location of chest on the first hit (just like your example), doing only 1 damage. Blast roll gave me 0 hits, meaning the blast did no damage. Second hit impacted the head (and I pretended that the target also had a helmet), thus also only doing 1 damage (for a total of 2 to the target so far). Blast roll gave me 1 hit, meaning I do 2 damage. Hit location roll for the blast was arms, so no protection given. Total of 4 damage done to the target (I was using a Soviet soldier as the target and as the one operating the gun) leaving only 1 damage before being knocked out. Crit roll for the arms was high (9) giving a life threatening injury.
And that's all before any suppression rolls. And the character is knocked down prone.
So yeah... I'd still say that the 25mm gun is pretty lethal even if wearing a flak vest.
(If my target had been unarmored, they would have gotten 4 damage to the chest from the first shot, giving a crit, and 4 damage + 2 damage from the second shot, meaning 2 more crits. A crit to the chest, head and arms. From just 2 impacts. That's pretty damaging for a very low roll)
 
Raellus
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Re: Errata

Sat 18 Dec 2021, 21:34

Thanks for the quick reply, Tomas.

I'm really enjoying the 4e rules, and still trying to wrap my head around a few of them, so I hope no one is taking my question as veiled criticism of the system. As for the example I cited, it was the first that came to mind and, perhaps, since I don't yet have a solid grasp of the rules yet, not a great one.

As for it doing more damage by kinetic energy alone, I think you're wrong.

HE rounds are, for all intents and purposes, hollow. And they tend to explode before the entire kinetic energy of the round is transferred to the target. So, for sure the target will be knocked down by the energy, but doesn't necessarily mean more than 1 damage. After all, most of the damage done by the weapon is from fragmentation, not the actual explosion.

I doubt we'll find anyone who's been hit in the chest by a 20mm HE round and survived to tell us what really happened. ;)

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baldrick0712
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Re: Errata

Sun 19 Dec 2021, 00:19

One more thing on this topic. How are you supposed to handle ranged combat using vehicle cannon with a ROF greater than 1? Do you do the same as is shown on p102 of the Players Manual for the AGS-17 Grenade Launcher? I don't recall reading anywhere how to handle the ROF 4 of the 25mm "Bushmaster" cannon of the M2 Bradley.

To recap how the AGS-17 does it...

Unlike other heavy weapons, the AGS-17 uses ammo dice just like small arms. If you hit, each success (6) on an ammo die lets you land an additional grenade in the target hex or a hex adjacent to it – or, if you attacked a specific target, score another hit on the target, or a secondary target in the same or an adjacent hex. If you miss, roll deviation one additional time for each success (6) rolled on your ammo dice.

So, when firing the 25mm "Bushmaster" chain gun of the M2 Bradley, does it expend 1 round, plus 1 additional round per success on the ammo dice?
 
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omnipus
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Re: Errata

Sun 19 Dec 2021, 00:52

In general, though, I think you should determine things like "hit square in the chest" after you've rolled for damage.
Sure, the hit dice might have rolled chest, but that doesn't mean the hit must have been "square in the chest", it could have glanced the flak vest while detonating right behind the person. Or it might have been a dud (if no one else is in the blast zone, you can rule it like that).
I mean, you could say the same for a bolt action rifle hitting "square in the chest", but only rolling 1 hit and no more, doing just 3 damage... most likely not a killing shot (and not enough to do a critical injury). Would you still say that that shot hit "square in the chest" to your players?
This is true and a good thing to keep in mind. The dice adjudicate the results but they can't describe them. There's a lot of ways you can be hit or injured that are very very different from each other.
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omnipus
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Re: Errata

Sun 19 Dec 2021, 00:54

So, when firing the 25mm "Bushmaster" chain gun of the M2 Bradley, does it expend 1 round, plus 1 additional round per success on the ammo dice?
No, like the AGS, it expends rounds equal to results on the ammo dice, same as any gun.
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Vader
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Re: Errata

Sun 19 Dec 2021, 02:30

As for it doing more damage by kinetic energy alone, I think you're wrong.

HE rounds are, for all intents and purposes, hollow. And they tend to explode before the entire kinetic energy of the round is transferred to the target.

A bit of reality check:
  • A .50cal M82 fires an approx. 50g projectile at about 850m/s, yielding a muzzle energy of about 18kJ.
  • A 25mm M242 chain gun fires a 184g HE projectile at about 1,100m/s, for a muzzle energy of 111kJ — an order of magnitude higher than the M82!

A couple of comments:

  1. First, HEAP (shaped charge) projectiles are pretty much hollow — HE projectiles are not; they’re jam packed with high explosive and shrapnel. (BTW, there are no HEAP projectiles for the M242; 25mm HEAPs would be pretty meaningless. 25mm AP rounds are some variety of APDS.)
  2. Second, even if the projectile explodes and fragments completely at the instant of contact without having penetrated even a millimetre (which isn’t the case anyway), that doesn’t in any way change the sum of the forward momentum of that expanding cloud of fragments. The full kinetic energy from that forward momentum will still hit the target — it’s just that the fragments from the projectile’s forward portions will now instead be propelled into the target even faster.

So, the conclusion can only be that of course a direct hit from a Bushmaster is going to be much, much deadlier than an M82A1 on kinetic energy alone, before even the explosive effect is factored in! Not unlikely, it’ll pass straight through a human and explode on the other side…
Before you use the word "XENOMORPH" again, you should read this article through:

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/aliens-throwaway-line-confusion
 
Makhfi
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Re: Errata

Sun 19 Dec 2021, 09:39

In my campaign, personal armor does not protect against large caliber rounds (20mm and larger). It only protects against secondary effects from them, shrapnel etc, but no direct hits.

/Makhfi

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