UVG-Troika! damage conversion - take two (and two important questions)

Hello

I recently posted a damage conversion from UVG to Troika!  Unfortunately, I screwed up.  My players protested even before the play-test, I looked at it again, and I realized something fundamental.  Specifically the damages rolled on an 1 are WAY too high.  If you look at the existing weapon damages in Troika!, on a 1 you do 1-4 points of damage, with the sole exception of dragon fire (which is 6).  If you look at my first attempt, you will note that for several weapons, damage on 1 are WAAY above this.

Sausage indeed...

The value you get on a 1 is pretty important because it represents "grazing" damage and, because of armor, it comes up not that rarely (armor imposes a penalty on the 1d6 roll).  It's also important as a determinant of the effectiveness of a weapon vs heavily armored foes.  So I have to re-do this.

First, I'm tweaking my basic patterns:

AVG 6 (base step is 2)	-1	2	3	4	5	6
FLAT (can opener, sword)	4	6	6	6	6	8
Average (spear based)	3	4	6	6	8	9
Wild (ax derived)	2	4	6	6	8	10
superwild	1	3	5	7	9	11
Spike	2	2	4	6	8	14

You'll note that the roll on a 1 or less for the average damage is no longer 4, but 3.

The second thing is that the damage on a 1 must NOT change when the average damage is scaled up.  So if I have an average damage of 7 (not 6) I would go +1 to everything *except* on a 1.  The extra missing damage would go on the 6 instead.  So an average spread, average damage 7 would look like:

3 5 7 7 9 11, instead of 4 5 7 7 9 10 (the old method)

On an average damage of 8, the extra goes on the 4, becoming

3 6 8 9 10 12 , instead of 5 6 8 8 10 11

This may have to be adjusted for individual damage patterns of course - for example on the "flat" pattern that extra is applied to the 6 twice.

Once we reach an average of 9, we create a new set of patterns.  You'll note that the damage on 1 has gone up a wee little bit, but not much.  This means that damage will go wilder as it goes up - a pattern that already happens in Troika!

AVG 9 (base step is 3)	-1	2	3	4	5	6
FLAT (can opener, sword)	5	9	9	9	9	13
Average (spear based)	4	7	9	9	11	13
Wild (ax based )	2	6	9	9	12	16
Superwild	2	5	7	10	13	17
Spike	3	4	6	9	13	19

Again, if you need a higher damage you increase damage but *not* on the 1 d6 value.  And when we reach average 12, a new set of patterns is needed.  Note how the minimum damage has crept up, but again not too much.

AVG 12 (base step is 4)	-1	2	3	4	5	6
FLAT (can opener, sword)	6	12	12	12	12	18
Average (spear derived)	5	10	12	12	15	18
Wild (ax derived)	3	8	12	12	16	21
Superwild	2	6	10	14	18	22
Spike	3	5	8	12	16	28

So let's apply this to UVG guns...

UVG PISTOLS	-1	2	3	4	5	6	7+
Inquisitor squirt gun	2	2	3	4	5	8	10
Revolver	2	3	4	5	7	9	12
Porcelain Prince Pistol	3	6	8	9	10	12	14
Ultra Blaster	5	10	10	10	10	15	18
Blue God Blaster	5	12	14	15	17	21	25
UVG RIFFLE	-1	2	3	4	5	6	7+
Heavy Crossbow	4	5	7	8	9	9	12
Scavenger bolter	2	5	7	7	9	12	15
Redland District SMG	2	4	7	10	11	14	17
Violent Cat Riffle	4	9	10	10	12	15	20
Vome Slagger	2	6	8	11	14	19	24
black city matter disruptor	2	7	10	10	13	18	22
Satrap gun	2	8	11	12	14	19	22
Voice of Death	3	6	9	13	17	30	35

This isn't perfect, but it should be a lot better.  There are probably slight tweaks here and there that would make that much smoother, but it's a solid step forward. It feels more in line with existing Troika! weapons, although some of them hit *very* hard indeed. I admit that I may have pushed the damage too high - playtest will reveal this.  But now that I have my patterns down, adjusting them should be fairly easy from now on.

Lastly, the important question.  In Troika, you have skills tied with specific weapons - spear, hammer, knife.... but when it comes to ranged weapon, there are only 4 - bow, crossbow, pistolet, fusil.  So I assumed that if  you had pistolet, you were proficient in all pistols, and fusil in all rifles... but now I am not so sure.  With that interpretation, it will push people towards pistols and rifles.  

Another thing I was thinking about is the importance of melee combat in Troika! Whenever someone attacks another, there are no "misses" - either the defender gets hurts *or* the attacker get hurts (baring the occasional ties).  This makes fights go quickly, it's a very cool aspect of the system!  But in a ranged battle, especially if everyone has cover... fights can go long because there is a lot of of missing going on.  I wonder if this needs a fix or not... 

 "this post is an independent production by me and is not affiliated with the Melsonian Arts Council"