Parachuting?!? Options

[gh0st.walk3r]

I've just been flicking through some of the 3rd edition sourcebooks (the ones we're still using) looking for some rules and ideas for a plan we're coming up with. I got to reading the Canon companion for small unit tactics and remembered that parachuting was covered, this would be an ideal way to get at least some of the team into/onto the building (B & E).

So, I flicked to the rules and looked up the difficulty...

Its rediculous, to say the very least! I was trying to work out where they got the formula for calculating the difficulty to OPEN the parachute!

So i was just wondering if anyone has any house rules concerning parachuting

cheers guys

[hyzmarca]

You mean like parachutes open automaticly unless sabotaged or rule 'o 1ed and landing does not cause as much damage as being shot in the face with a Beretta M9?

Determine opening altitude before jumping. Most parachutes open automaticly unless otherwise stated. Damage is taken only opening altitude is below the safe attitude. It is equal to falling damage from a height of (safe altitude - opening altitude).

[mmu1]

I think the rules are (in general) completely absurd, and I'd drop the roll for opening the parachute in non-emergency situations altogether, aside from some sort of a check for a malfunction. (similar to rule 0, done using the skill of the person who packed the parachute, not the jumper)

As for the rest of it... For jumping onto/into a building, the SR rules aren't quite as stupid as for most other cases.

That actually is a use of a parachute likely to result in life-threatening injury if you're not highly skilled, since failure doesn't just mean a clumsy landing and (maybe) a tiwsted ankle.

If you miss your landing zone, you can run at high speed into the side of the building, get busted up, then have your parachute collapse from the impact (the modern ones rely on airflow to stay "inflated" in the correct wing-like shape) and falling down to the ground trailing a streamer of tangled-up fabric that barely slows you down... Or bounce off, only to spin around because of a partially tangled parachute and slam into the wall again. Or impale yourself on one of the antennas many buildings will have up top. Or...

I'd actually be inclined to give the parachute a handling score like it was a vehicle, and require a piloting check to make a safe landing on a small an unsafe target like a rooftop. Use crash checks in case of a failure, based on the speed.

[mfb]

i think you should probably take damage from using military parachutes. i don't believe they slow you down as much as civvie chutes do. i also think that any parachuting during windy weather should involve some sort of test to get out of the chute when you land. failing means you get dragged around and take some damage.

what i'd do is have the rigger who packs the chute make a skill test against TN 4 or so. if he passes, the chute opens correctly.

[Tarantula]

Easy fix for the fall damage, hydraulic jacks, an athletic test, adept powers... Easy fix for not being dragged about by the wind, knife.

[Telion]

I've always considered the rules to be the high altitude low opening rules or something related to difficult drops. They should have just created a TN system involving difficulty. Still a mage casting levitate would be a much easier means out of the plane, or at least a mage saying he cast levitate on you.

[Backgammon]

I tried to use Parachuting once also. Maybe if you use the Search function it'll come up, though I think that thread was in a previous incarnation of DSF. In any case, yeah, the rules are fucked. I never did craft suitable rules. In the end, I just made them roll and went "myeah ok you make it" or something.

[psyberian]

ok, we have five of use parachuting on an island. numbers were nuts and we would take a lot of damage. We did the following to lower numbers and some was ad GM discretion.

1 - lessons. We went to a small diving school (the kind where the owner lives in the hanger) at around ten o'clock at night and paid some guy that works there something like 5000 nuyen plus equipment to train us on the spot and drop us out of his plane. oh, HALO jump by the way.

2 - double up. we had the small guys strapped to the guys with big athletics. That being the close combat ork sam, mage (go figure), and phys ad.

3 - wind spirit (may have just been air). Mage summoned a wind spirit to slow her decent and help contol it.

4 - auto release parachutes. these exist now so should be available fifty years from now. At a certain altitude or time they pop.

We managed to get the numbers down to around fours and fives and after body tests were down to a couple of the smaller guys with light wounds.

If anyone is interested the orc was also cybered for building jumping. With the wind spirit he probably could have made it without a chute and no damage. Nothing like dropping a drugged up close combat orc from 1000 feet to suprise someone.

mook #1: do you hear a whistling sound?
mook #2: yeah, it seems to be getting louder *mook looks up*
*WHAM!!!*
orc: hi guys, we need to talk.
mooks #1 and #2 proceed to wet themselves.

[hyzmarca]

[Kagetenshi]

[mfb]

[eidolon]

Last time I had a player run a character that did any parachuting (he was an avid base jumper), I just had him roll athletics for the jump (since he was basically running and jumping off of stuff), and another athletics for the landing. Both were base TN 4 modified by circumstances.

On chutes and landing, I just went to the local sport jumping airfield last Friday. Those dudes do not land hard. At all. Unless they seriously screw up. One guy was still facing the ground at about 50 feet doing a bitchin' spiral going like a bat outta hell, and he pulled up and dead-sticked a perfect, soundless (except for the wind through his chute) landing about ten feet in front of me with a big "I'm a badass" grin on his face.

Yeah, military chutes aren't quite that nice, but unless they specifically say their character has a military chute, I assume they're using a nice airfoil.

(Oh, and no, I didn't get to jump. Didn't have the cash to blow on it. We were there to watch a reenlistment ceremony.)

[Snow_Fox]

HALO
the call it High Altitude, Low Opening.
In fact it has that name because if your screw it up, that's what you'll be wearing next.

[eidolon]