"House Rules for DS2" Topic

Just thought since not a lot has been going on here to start a thread on this. What specific house rules, not necessarily on the web, are players using for DS2?

A couple of mine -

Missile loads: Using small dice to mark them, I use magazines for vehicles and troops to limit missile firing. A standard GMS/L vehicle mount has 6 missiles and a standard GMS/H has 4. ( The Brigade Loki(?) Light tankk is therefore carrying GMS/H by WYSIWYG for example). Militia teams carry 4 shots, Line carry 6, specialized ones like the NSL Panzergrenadiers and Powered armour carry 8.

I always ignore the "system down: firer" result when determining artillery results. With multiple targets under the beaten zone of an effective artillery strike you are sure to pull at least one of these, knocking you gun out of action as soon as you fire it.

I never really liked the chit system. Below is a system that we used a few times:

Two dice are rolled, one for the weapon type and one for the weapon size. Both results are added and if that total beats the armour value, the vehicle is destroyed.

Weapon sizes:

1 = D4
2 = D6
3 = D8
4 = D10
5 = D12

Weapon type (shot/medium/long range) examples:

HVC = D8/D6/D4
MDC = D10/D8/D6
DFFG = D12/D10/D8

Amour values for vehicles are as follows (frontal/sides & rear):

Armour-1 = 4/2
Armour-2 = 6/4
Armour-3 = 8/6
Armour-4 = 10/8
Armour-5 = 12/10

So to recap, if an armour-3 target is hit from the front at medium range by an MDC-3, the firing vehicle rolls a D8 (for a size 3 weapon) and another D8 (weapon type, medium range). The target number to beat is 8 (9+). So if the combined result of both D8s is 9+, the target is destroyed.

What do you think?

Senor Cartmanez, I've seen years of table sand dice replacements for the chit system, and frankly . . . that one beats them all for simplicity.

Looks very good to me at face value.

Does it match up well with the outcomes using the chit system, or does it make combat more, or less lethal?

Well, it eliminates BOOM chits for a start, so that will reduce a certain percentage of lethal hits – maybe 10-15% maybe?

RFAC?

HEL?

Otherwise it seems okay at first glance. I may give it a whirl…

I have got copy of the Full Metal Armour & FM Ogre rules for Dirtside 2 if anyone is interested.

My apologies, I had totally forgotten that I posted my suggestion several months ago.

Covert Walrus, thank you for the kind words. I must say however that this system is not perfect, far from it. You and Mako 11 are right: this does not accurately duplicate the probability matrix of the chit system, but overall it does work.

The biggest difference lies with the lethality of weaker weapons like HELs and RFAC/HVCs and the powerful DFFG. With this system, HEL, RFAC/HVCs are more powerful while DFFGs are not as potent. This is not out of design, but a trade-off against the simplicity of the system.

This is especially true with size 4 or 5 HEL/HVCs and DFFGs. For instance, a size 5 HVC fired at long range would roll a D12 (for being size 5) and then a D4 (for being at long range). On average, the result would be 9, which is sufficient to destroy a size 3 vehicle. Under the chit system, you would draw 5 chits but with only the green ones counting, you would only have a 21% chance of that occurring per single chit drawn. So the chances of getting enough green chits to destroy a size 3 vehicle is quite remote. On the other hand, this goes a small way towards offsetting the lack of a 'Boom' mechanism (a 4% probability with the chit system).

On the other hand, damage resolution is only half of the process when firing. You obviously have to hit the target first. So that factor tends to mitigate the inherent differences with this system.

To take an extremely average example, let's say a size 3 vehicle is firing at another size 3 AFV with a size 3 (!) HKP at medium range, with an Enhanced firecon:

Both attacker and defender roll a D8. Since the attacker must beat the defender's result for a hit to occur, we could say that roughly on average the attacker has a 50% of succeeding.

Then the attacker rolls a D8 (size 3 weapon) and another D8 for an HKP at close range. The armour factor of the defending vehicle is 8, so the result of both attack dice must be 9+. Here again the chances of that occurring would be about 50%.

So overall, there would roughly be a 25% chance of the defender being destroyed.

Lastly, I also omitted the fact that to speed up play, we drafted what we call 'Dirtside Light' rules, and one of the provisions is that there are no damaged vehicles. Vehicles are either intact or blow up! As a side note, rules for morale, infantry firefights and close assaults have also been simplified, leading to much less counter clutter on the board.

"Both attacker and defender roll a D8. Since the attacker must beat the defender's result for a hit to occur, we could say that roughly on average the attacker has a 50% of succeeding."

The probability of success is actually somewhat lower. Consider: an attacker's 8 will beat a defender's 7 or lower; an attacker's 7 will beat a defender's 6 or lower; and so on. The number of combinations that will result in success for the attacker is the sum of the numbers from 7 to 1. Using the formula n(n+1)/2, that's 28 combinations out of 64 (8^2), or about 44%.

I just thought people might like to see the calculation since it's relatively simple. Incidentally, the probability of 9+ on d4+d12 is 54%. The product of the two probabilities is 24%, so Senior Cartmanez's back-of-the-envelope estimate is pretty spot-on.

Been a while, so I thought I'd add some more House Rules.

Movement rules for flying vehicles; For a bit more granularity, true helicopters can treat low mode Urban areas as Impassable ( For rotors ), while enclosed-rotor flyers and jet-lift/AVs for Traveler and Cyberpunk fans treat it as Difficult. In high mode, of course, all flyers can traverse Urban areas as Normal.

I like those rules for flying vehicles.

My main change was to infantry weapons: I wanted my pongoes to have the option of a bit more firepower, especially against vehicles.

So I said that PA *rifle* squads could carry a class-1 weapon (including GMS-L); PA missile teams got GMS-H.

Any rifle teams could have a GMS-P (like a GMS-L, but range only 18" and draws 2 chits; counts as IAVRs in close assault), or a Portable Plasma Gun (like a DFFG1, but 2/4/6" range, with BASIC firecon: in close assault, count as IAVRs but all colours count…). Not every team would necessarily get them, of course. The similarity to squad-level weapons in Stargrunt is entirely deliberate.

That's a reasonable approach, EvilBen. Would also be useful for combat adaptation from RPGs like Cyberpunk ( Which I have done ). They do like their man-portable Plasma guns and such and your idea is pretty reasonable for that.

Thanks! Funny you should say that. I kind of had Cyberpunk's ACPA suits in mind when I was thinking about what I wanted power armour in Dirtside to be like: the 'rifle' for a military ACPA suit is basically a heavy machine gun, which translates well to their anti-infantry firepower in DS. GMS/L and RFAC1s for special weapons troopers seemed about right, too.

Senor Cartmanez,
I love the ideas presented. How has this been working for you, have you made any changes and do you have anything else to share with someone VERY interested in your DS Light?
I have some Microworld and GZG vehicles and infantry I'm currently gluing and I'll have some CAV mechs to add to them.
Thank you and everyone else on the thread, and board, for your input.

Another new House Rule.
To give a little more flexibility to rocket batteries and MRL artillery in comparison with tubes, try this -

Optional fire pattern for Multiple Rocket Launchers; Artillery vehicles equipped with rockets may choose a third option for their Fire Pattern; Because rockets can be fired with a flat trajectory like an aircraft and deliver ordnance from Cluster Warheads, an MRL may choose to fire an Open Sheath pattern with the long axis along a flight path straight ahead of the firing vehicles, rather than at right angles.

The Open Sheath in this format is resolved exactly the same way as in any other artillery strike in an Open Sheath pattern.

Did anyone notice…. Polyversal uses the mechanism described!

Daribuck, I understand there has been some inspiration for Polyversal from DS2.

A recent addition to our local rules -

Indirect/Overwatch Missile Fire; Missiles in DS2 are described as being "smart" with onboard staring sensor arrays that can identify a range of vehicles for IFF purposes. It follows that, combined with vehicle fire direction, a missile can be fired "blind" and given instructions to seek a particular target.
This suggests that missiles mounted on vehicles could be fired as Overwatch weapons – If an opposition vehicle moves into Line of sight (LOS) of a vehicle but ends its move out of direct LOS, then that vehicle can fire a missile to pursue the opposing vehicle even when in cover, by flying in the general direction with programming to locate the target. This house rule allows this for all vehicles, with one proviso; The firing vehicle's unit MUST take the next activation after the moving vehicles Unit and missiles may ONLY be fired at and target those ve vehicles seen in LOS by the vehicles in the firing Unit – And vehicles in the firing Unit that did *not* have LOS to the moving opposing Units may NOT fire missiles.

It also suggests that missiles could be directed by other vehicles with LOS to a target IF they are in missile range; For example a VTOL or aircraft might see a target and direct fire from friendly vehicles with missiles it those vehicles do NOT have LOS to the target, but with a penalty; Move TWO die levels down if the missile guidance is Basic, ONE die level down for Enhanced, and no change for Superior, when resolving missile attack.
Again, firing vehicles MUST activate in the next available activation after the VTOL locates and is in LOS of the targets, and if the VTOL is destroyed, they may no longer fire upon the opposing target.