"How many traits for a soldier for a modern combat game ?" Topic

Over the christmas i like to play around and make some rules up for a tabletop modern combat game with D6.

And its about traits, what makes a man on the battlefield, and like to keep it down to 3-4, 6 max..

So the idea i had was

COMBAT – shooting and hand to hand
BODY – how tough you are and chance of dying
TRAINING – non combat skills and morale
MOVE – in inches

SO thats 4, good enough for poorly skilled milta to the Elite forces..?

OR can we cut it down to 3, since movement should be a standed with all.. SO..

FIGHTING – ALL TYPES OF COMBAT
DEFENCE – EASY OR HARD TO KILL
GUTS – MORALE AND BRAVERY

Fighting can be used also for non combat skills too, but just battlefield ones, like setting a ambush or calling in a airstike.

The above three + movement option, can be used for a tank, with a few changes

TANK
FIREPOWER – weapons
ARMOUR – save
BODY – hard to kill

Should armour and body just be one trait…?

saves rolling to hit, then try a armour save, and if fail and body save etc…

Same for a soldier, should a armour save be added into his body/defence ?

Thoughts you clever people….

Two Hour Wargames does excellent squad-level skirmish games with only one attribute per figure (REP) plus one or more optional attributes that can tweak certain capabilities. You could probably get pretty far with training and motivation, then just apply those to weapons and vehicles.

- Bob

Yeah, I'd say one attribute is ideal, two if you have some compelling reason for it.

As far as armor goes, I'm on the fence. I'd rather just ignore it, but if I had to work into a mechanic, I might just make a modifier on a combat effects roll. Something like, instead of KIA on a 5 or 6, KIA on a six and WIA on a five if wearing armor. WIA would lead to reactions from nearby friends, like combat casualty care or such like.

Check out Force on Force.

On a modern gunfight, I would not care too much for how tough the guy is – a bullet will still most likely take him out of action.

Similarly, I am not sure if I would even put effort into representing the armour – most of it is not designed to stop bullets. And even with the actual bullet-proof versions the hit can still put the target out of action for a while (with nasty bruises, broken ribs etc.).

The primary purposes of body armour on the modern battlefield is to protect most of the vital areas from shrapnel, and this they do rather well. However, they still leave significant areas of body exposed, and shrapnel hits to those areas can still put a target out of action. And they do not protect from pressure effects of a close-by blast.

Morale
Training/experience/competence

That is all you need.

As above, body armour is designed to reduce the number of fatal casalties, not turn sldiers into Robo-cop. Similarly, being hit by a bullet or significnt shell splinter is generally sufficient to incapaciate anyone, although their overall physique may determine how long (or if) it takes them to recover, this is usually going to be outside of game time.

If you want to do some more RPG type stuff then some Science vs Pluck style 'peculiarities' are always interesting – quick to anger, heavy drinker, ditherer, has a very high voice etc etc.

Thanks all, i know warhammer games have around 7-8 which is a lot, Evo had 6 i think, i was thinking is body armour better at close range, as you will always shoot at the persons chest area, unless you do the one in the head 2 in the chest type of thing…
Cheers

i was thinking is body armour better at close range, as you will always shoot at the persons chest area, unless you do the one in the head 2 in the chest type of thing…

At the close range the armour would be even less effective, as that is when the bullet has the highest velocity.

And close range firefights can also be rather confused and stressful affairs in real life – so don't count on all of the hits being in the chest area.

Yes bullets have more power at short range, its just most people will aim for the biggest area the chest, when the pros knowing the enemy would have body armour would go for the head…

in legennds of the old west, they have " Boiler plate " which adds a +1 to guts, but most of the GW systems its just a save roll.

Not to keen on rolling to hit, rolling to kill or a wound and then rolling for a armour save, which is about have most armour you wear and how good it is..

maybe armour or luck should be added to your defence or body, so its a simple one roll to hit, and then see what happens to the lucky or unlucky person.

Look at conan, 90% of the time he wears no armour, its fighting skill and agility saving him, or modern special ops, they don`t wear armour, they stick with skill and agility/speed.

Look at a GW space marine, no agility, cannot hide in that suit, hes a easy target, but stops the bullets, so wearing armour, easy to hit, harder to kill.
Not for modern i think…

i may have gone off topic then, its late and i do have a can of cider beside me.

FIGHTING
DEFENCE
GUTS

i think i work with that for the modern setting

Fighting for attacking
Defence for not being hit
Guts for morale etc

I think that covers anybody on the battlefield

IE/ US MARINE
FIGHTING 4+
DEFENCE 4+
GUTS 4+

DEFENCE IS 3 for the marine and a +1 for the body armour

QUESTION

Do we roll Fighting + to hit and the defence + to kill

OR

Use the warhammer table, using fighting vs defence instead of strength and toughness to kill somebody..

So one roll is needed to hit and kill a enemy, instead of 3

so you could have
close range -1 def
long range +1 def
burst fire -1 fighting
scopes / aiming -1 fighting
body armour +1 defence

you get the picture, so time for bed, and i see what your brains have to say about that for a easy system.

Reading a firefight manual, and the single biggest decider in a firefight was the ability to plug away with single aimed shots.

Getting shot and getting up again is only really for pistol / SMG rounds.

Statistically speaking, training being equal, the only significant physical attribute affecting being shot is size. The smaller you are, the less of a target you present and the better you can take advantage of cover. Balances out against the amount of kit you can carry, and being smaller is more of a problem when you actually get hit.

Trouble is, there's no real data to back this up because there are too many variables. But modern body armour cuts casualties by about 2/3.

Hence my preference to ignore armor. But, if covered in my 'system' killed or wounded mean the same thing, i.e. out of the fight. However, wounded puts a burden on others depending on the circumstances.

Soulman wrote:

[…] Fighting for attacking
Defence for not being hit
Guts for morale etc

Nothing wrong with this, but you could also think of "skill" as combining your "Defence" and "Fighting" attributes, since somebody trained in one will likely be skilled in the other. Unless you mean Defence to be something more like strength or hardiness.

- Bob

Not sure any of these are crtical, but it depends to some extent on the socio political climate. Proably the most key are:

ENGAGEMENT. Are they willing to die for that cause. Conscripts badly lead with no stake in the fight will have a poor performance. Having said that this is in part a sub set of LEADERSHIP so it may be that that is all you need for this aspect.

The other issue is what are you going to do with those traits. Rolling X saving roles for each trait may add colour but does not add to the game tactically. MG and SG II have a single factor LEADERSHIP which in MG is classsed As Leadership/fear/Fire and fatigue. It degrades the overall performance as a funtiuon of its value. Elite troops low on ammo, tired,hungry and poorly lead will behave not unlike well fed, well supplied, well lead but poorly trained troops. Not perfect but you have to decide what the overall objectives of your game are. Do you want more rules on command than weapons, but even more rules on traits? That is adecision for the game desiner and no one else.

I personally am not too bothered about traits. The wargamer has his own traits. If he is wary, no set of rules can realisically make him adventuros so rules that give home an attitude like that have little meaning.

Hi bob, yes defence is a word for hardness etc, a mix of skill / luck / training and armour, or cover..

After i wrote this last night i remembered the lord of the rings game, uses Defence instead of toughness and armour is added to this, which i think is better then the armour save of 40K

soulman, if you haven't already, I'd urge you to check out the free Chain Reaction 3 rules from Two Hour Wargames. This set provides the core mechanics of THW's highly successful skirmish games. Most are based on that single trait I mentioned before, REP, which is a combination of training and motivation. Additional flavor can be applied to specific figures in the form of attributes, without slowing down the entire game for those figures without. Combat is cut down to roll-to-hit, and a deferred roll to determine damage (stunned, out of the fight or obviously dead) at the end of shooting.

If you find that lacking, then you might add more, but I suspect you'll find THW's approach well suited to what you're describing. The games play very quickly once you get the hang of the mechanics.

- Bob

Whatever you do, I would recommend avoiding tables for trait-to-trait comparison whenever possible. Simpler mechanism could be just:

Target score = [attacker's offensive trait] – [defender's defensive trait]

Where target score is what the attacker has to roll equal or under to score a succesful attack.