Lasers in Metamorphosis Alpha

[dekelia]

So I am still very new to Metamorphosis Alpha and am struggling through how I want to play it. I love OD&D and have played it a lot so I am very comfortable with rules as a framework and make up the rest. That being said, the MA rules are still giving me some trouble on deciding how I want to apply them. I'll probably have a number of these questions, but I thought I'd start with lasers.

In the MA book, there are laser pistols. They do 5d6 damage (third degree burn) if they hit armor (and destroy it), or 15d6 if they hit exposed flesh. The ability to hit with them is very difficult against metal armor.

Ok, some thoughts and questions. These seem REALLY powerful. One thing I definitely like about MA is the radically unbalanced items so I'm not trying to change that. They make it scary.

In the description, it refers to "direct hit", "grazing shot", "heavy body armor", "light body armor" which are not described like that anywhere else. Do the body armors refer to AC2 and 3? I'd assume you still need a hit on them. It says the "least it will do" is 5d6 on a "grazing shot". Is that a miss in any other armor - so it still does damage?


This laser pistol is clearly trying to represent something closer to a Star Trek phaser set on highest lethality rather than a Star Wars "blaster". I'd like to also represent Star Wars blaster in MA and am planning on using MA for other time periods of scary sci-fi where the players are basically space marines with blaster rifles. For those cases, the MA laser pistol seems totally inappropriate.

I'm thinking:
Blaster Pistol: WC6, D:3d6
Blaster Rifle: WC6, D:6d6
Laser Pistol: As book

The Laser Pistol would be a completely different type of weapon (a true laser). The book says it does five shots before being recharged. Maybe this is a very powerful weapon but with only a few shots.

Is WC6 the right class for blasters? I keep looking at the difficulty hitting metal armor and am thinking that is supposed to be because it is reflective. Would that matter to a blaster?

One note, I played with Jim Ward at GaryCon and he used 6d6 damage "laser rifles" which also matches at least one type of laser rifle in MA 4th ed. I think Gamma World also uses 6d6 for what it's worth.

So how is everyone here playing lasers?

[Red Baron]

I believe characters in MA have inane amounts of hit points, so btb values work well.

I guess it really depends on how lethal you want your lasers to be, and only you can be the judge of that.

[dekelia]

So how do you adjudicate the "grazing shot"? It seems to imply that if you wearing anything other than worse than AC3, if you miss (i.e. grazing shot) it still does 5d6. With better armor, it does 5d6 on a hit, and 15d6 after the armor is burned through.

An average character in MA will have 35 hp. The average roll on 15d6 is 52 hp. That doesn't really bother me, I'm totally cool with lasers being super powerful, there are just some odd cases I'm trying to understand the intent. I do also like the idea of a more standard gun that isn't quite so powerful - though I'm still thinking about that too. Maybe that's what the slug-thrower is for.

[Red Baron]

Jun 10, 2015 6:23:41 GMT -6 dekelia said:

So how do you adjudicate the "grazing shot"?

I would have a successful hit do 15d6, and a save vs wand reduce it to 5d6 (it only grazed you).

Of course the idea in d&d style combat is that anything that doesn't kill you can't be a direct hit, because then it would have killed you.

[Finarvyn]

Jim Ward intended for MA to be really deadly. I don't think he bothered with a graze -- if you were hit you took full damage.

[dekelia]

Jun 10, 2015 9:58:07 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

I would have a successful hit do 15d6, and a save vs wand reduce it to 5d6 (it only grazed you).

Of course the idea in d&d style combat is that anything that doesn't kill you can't be a direct hit, because then it would have killed you.

There aren't saving throws in the MA rulebook. Do you use the OD&D tables? I could definitely see that as a way to do it.

Jun 10, 2015 10:09:53 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Jim Ward intended for MA to be really deadly. I don't think he bothered with a graze -- if you were hit you took full damage.

I agree with the deadly part, which is why I was thinking maybe he intended that laser to always do some damage against weaker armor (even on a miss). In this case, it is pretty detailed about different damage and its effect against armor, it just isn't precise enough to actually use without some interpretation.  He also talks about number of hits required to break through light and heavy "body armor" but isn't really clear what AC those apply to.

I think what we are seeing in the MA rulebook are all the different ruling Jim made while he was playing which is why there are different rule concepts for all kinds of stuff. It adds to the mystery of MA as a player where you have no idea what the next thing is going to do. That is something I like about playing with Jim and it definitely comes out in the rules. I'm just struggling with how to implement it myself.

I think the laser is supposed to be this wild, super powerful, limited us weapon. The equivalent of a wand of lighting or something from D&D. I like it as something the players stumble upon (or is used against them). I don't see it as a reasonable "daily use" weapon like the security or space marines would use, however, which is why I also want to have a weaker, less complicated, form.

Does anyone have any thoughts on why it is harder to hit someone in "metal armor" (i.e. AC2/3) with a laser (15) than with sword (14)?

[littlewars]

I've been doing this: if the MINIMUM to-hit number is rolled it is considered a graze - much like shallow hits for disruptors.

Jim Ward also suggested that if you MISS by one or two it is also considered a graze.

Also, if you look at the Weapon Damage chart lasers do 5d6/10d6/15d6. So I have lasers do 15d6 only on a "crit", they do 10d6 otherwise.

I classify any armor other than metal as light and it can "soak" one hit for grazing damage - however it is destroyed on a subsequent direct hit.

Metal armor can take three hits with no damage, with a fourth hit doing graze damage, and then melting on the fifth hit doing 15d6 damage.

[dekelia]

Jun 10, 2015 11:32:16 GMT -6 littlewars said:

I've been doing this: if the MINIMUM to-hit number is rolled it is considered a graze - much like shallow hits for disruptors.

Jim Ward also suggested that if you MISS by one or two it is also considered a graze.

Also, if you look at the Weapon Damage chart lasers do 5d6/10d6/15d6. So I have lasers do 15d6 only on a "crit", they do 10d6 otherwise.

I classify any armor other than metal as light and it can "soak" one hit for grazing damage - however it is destroyed on a subsequent direct hit.

Metal armor can take three hits with no damage, with a fourth hit doing graze damage, and then melting on the fifth hit doing 15d6 damage.

That's an interesting way to do it. I like it. Maybe you could go one step further and treat lasers like the other "beam" weapons completely with hit ranges at different distances to different materials. I think that would fit much better than the standard to hit tables.