Okay, so my DM and I were bored. He's not familar enough with the SR gameworld to run it, and I rot at DMing. But we both like the SR3 ruleset as a better alternative to anything with guns than d20.


So we came up with Halorun. Halo's universe, SR3 ruleset. Here's the changes and stuff we've got done so far...

Energy shields, like those on the Covenant Elites and human Mjolnir Mk. V armor, are treated as having their own armor ratings, and 15 boxes that can get hit. The shields regenerate if you go five combat rounds without being hit.

Ex: Mjolnir Armor Mk. 5 have 15 boxes of damage they can absorb that dosen't get through to the user, and have a 5/5 armor rating.

We also worked out the weapons, in case anyone's interested. (You could work them into your SR3 games - the human weapons are easily enough just plug and play, and if you have a corp that deveops plasma weapons... Cool. )

Why not just halve all the armor values and make all the ammo not AV?

For the purposes of things like falling rocks, civilian firearms, and melee attacks.

From what I remember, the unarmored guys weren't absolte dogmeat when you hit them with a weapon (it too a few shots first), so your weapons might e a bit overrated. Fire up the game and take some shots at the normal gys and see how hard it is to bring them down...

You mean the little Grunts? One hit from the Master Chief's rifle butt puts them down. Other than that, the yellow ones take three shots, the red ones take four. From the rifle, which is notoriously inaccurate, so they might not all be hits.

The pistol puts them both down in two good hits, one if it's a headshot.

I think he might mean the Marines that are on your side. They aren't exactly unarmored (look like armored vest/helmet), but they definately aren't in Halo's SOTA armor either. They can take a fair number of hits before going down.

I'd make the assault rifle bf/fa, instead of just fa -- you do realistically have the ability to fire short, aimed bursts, unlike a strictly FA-classified weapon in SR.

Critias, can't you just fire a three-round full-auto burst? Or is that more control over your gun than you have over a smartlinked FA rifle?


Toshiaki, you have a point... The Marines are fairly tough, at least when they're being shot at by the lower-level Covenant.... Perhaps we should look into toning it down some, the Marines aren't exactly in a full suit of armor like the Master Chief, but they can still survive a lot.

You should also understand that plasma weapons take out sheilds, but do little damage to the meatbody. Take on a grunt with a plasma rifle. It'll take at least 4 or 5 shots. But a shot or two with the combat rifle or pistol and they'll go down. Here's what I would do with all Covenant weapons. Convenant weapons should go right through the armor ratings for shields and deal normal damage to the shields. But the second they go down, treat the weapon as a fleccet (can't spell) round, staging the damage down normally.

Actually, plasma weapons do pretty well against unarmored stuff. Plasma weapons are the more effective weapons in the game, actually.

Still... This bears experimentation. I do know that when an Elite rears back and roars, he's out of shielding. One burst of FA from the rifle or one center of mass shot with the pistol WILL put him down. It takes a couple of good plasma rifle shots to do it. Never shot an elite with the pistol, so I don't know about that....

Hmmmm. Pistol: should it have a higher or lower damage code than the rifle? I'm thinkin' higher.

Are you talking Halo 1 or 2 here? Halo 1 had a much better pistol (with scope and was a touch more powerful IMO), a full auto battle rifle, a slower shield recharge time, and a shotgun that was great up close but rather lousy at range. Halo 2 did away with the extra health after the shields are gone in exchange for the faster recharge, the shotgun is a little better at range, the pistol is still decently powerful but not nearly as nifty, and the assault rifle is now burst fire only. Then there are the new Covenant weapons avaible in 2 and the laser weapons of the Halo guardian drones (not sure what they're called, but their laser weapons are great for dealing with the Flood).

Halo 1 here. Our game is picking up with the fall of Reach - my character is running around while the Master Chief is busy turning the Halo to slag.

And the drones you're thinking of are called Sentinels. I dunno how we'd do them.

As one FAQ writer stated, when you design weapons you design them to kill your own people, not a buch of aliens that you've never met (I'm paraphrasing). In the original Halo, it seems that plasma weapons are more effective against Covenent. However, human weapons are vastly superior in multiplayer.

The plasma pistol should have the option to be fired at increased power and DL as a complex action.

Had another game tonight. Aren't sologames (for now, maybe) fun? They work on the convienance of only two people.

Anyway, thought you might appreciate some updates. We decides that UNSC projectile weapons were merely Armor Piercing, not Antivehicular in nature. Plasma weapons remain antiveihcular.

We also adopted some expediants to make the game run smoother, since it involves a lot of combat. For example, the DM dosen't bother rolling damage for someone who has two plasma grenades stuck on them. (I threw one at an Elite, hit, threw one at the jackal next to him, missed, rolled the scatter, and hit the Elite again. )

Another example, is that we have learnt two things. Surpression fire sucks. Four grunts crowding though one door, I unloaded ten rounds on their one meter square. Only one kill, one wounded, the rest untouched. I was crouching behind cover, with a clear shot at them at the time. We have since decided that going full-auto and leading targets is a wiser choice.

We also try to remain truer to the Halo games and books than the rulebook. I'm pretty sure we've been ignoring some advanced rules regarding autofire and multiple targets, but it's made for good gaming, apparently, so neither of us is bothered.

And in case you're wondering, I've kept a tally.


Killboard:

300 total (Total number of combatants that came on the lone ship we're facing)

15 officers executed (Apparently the Captain of that ship is losing it, Saddam-style)

1 Elite off the cliff (When I first arrived here, 'guest' of the Covenant, they made me put on my armor and wanted me to read a captured optical chip and take them to the location on it. I used my navigational AI and chose the most hazardous route possible. The DM had me roll a d10, and it came up 1, nuts. Then he said that's how many the terrain killed before they caught on.
10 elites from the ambush (The elites that were 'escorting' me. A UNSC marine ambush, with snipers and rocket lanuchers, took the rest of the sad-sacks out.)
2 flyin' Banshee Elites ('Shot' down in a dogfight, after the crazy Monitor of this Halo (not the same Halo that Master Chief is on) teleported me to the Covenant base. I stole a Banshee and got into a dogfight.)
1 explodin' fool Elite (two plasgrenades) (I think I explained this one above.)

2 grunts in the tube of Argon 220% (They crawled into a sleeping tube to get some shut-eye without their breath masks. I manipulated the controls and set it to 220% Argon content.)
20 grunts in the sleepy slaughter I (if you've played Halo, you're familar with sleepy slaughters. )
4 grunts in the doorway massacre (Shot when they tried to come through the door)
2 grunts through the door (shot when I was looking through the door)

1 Jackal through the door (Victimized him with a fully-charged plasma pistol blast. I scored about a bajillion successes, and the DM ruled I vaporized his shield, most of him, and a goodly chunk of wall.)

1 Hunter, ninja-style. (I climbed up the rock face using my Athletics skill and laser swords. Yes, plural. Trophy-hunting, hehe. Their backs were to me. One stealth roll later, and one 9d6 Default to my QCK score later, one hunter was missing his head. The other turned to stare at his dead buddy, and I snuck around him to get into the banshees.)
1 Hunter, Suicide-by-SPARTAN. (I strafed the other Hunter with the Banshee's Fuel Rod Gun. The DM said he didn't try to dodge, and just opened his arms for the shot. Lunatic!)


Wanton destruction:

3 Banshees in the dogfight (counting my own. I chose to ram the last Banshee out of the sky. I figured he'd be the chicken - I was wrong. Some insane rolling luck later, I crawl out of the wreckage mostly alive.)
1 fuel pump (The Banshee I stole was one of four, being fueled at a mesa-top faccility. I dropped it's FRG shot into the fuel pump. Bye-bye fueling depot and Banshees.)
3 Banshees on the landing pad. (Ditto. )


All in all, one hell of a game. I find that the rules for combat are a bit slow and awkward, but maybe that's just because we're unfamilar with them.

Bah. Should have gone straight to the source and used Marathon.

~J

Marathon?

Marathon.
(Updated engine)

~J

But that removes all roleplaying from the game, dosen't it?

We ARE playing a role-playing game. We just have a lot of running and shooting and hiding and covenant Elites dieing horribly in twin explosions of blue plasma.

Pretty much the reason Microsoft put up with Bungie wanting so much money for producing Halo.

Kage, what do you mean by using it for the source? I thought you were telling me to play a first person shooter as an FPS, not an RPG.

No, I was telling you to play Marathon as an RPG rather than Halo as an RPG

~J

But... I like Halo...

I'm just a crotchety old man yelling at you kids to get off my electronic lawn. Pay me no mind

~J

Ummmmmm, okay...


Anyway, impressive kill record, non? I'm gonna start calling the DM on it when it starts getting close to 300.


Have any of your players/characters ever kept a killboard?

Kage, the fuel rod gun isen't antimaterial so much as it is a shoulder-fired mortar.

I'd recommend getting details of the weapons from the Art of Halo book Bungie made. Full names and weapon comparisons aplenty.

The Halo manual has the specs (cartridges used, etc.) on all the weapons.