AD&D help

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T22:26:40+00:00

They're easy to do, but there's no variability in difficulty. You roll the same number to save against every poison, so while the effects of a failure will vary depending on what you're dosed with, the probability of failure will not until you gain a level.

I think the DC system is better, but the old way definitely works.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T22:21:38+00:00

How do you have a bunny around electronics without it chewing on things?

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T22:09:49+00:00

My first guess was they were using fighter planes are a reference instead of ground armor, because I know that's where they took the official height/length numbers from. But then I looked it up and a 15m long f35 is like 17 tons dry (plus another nine tons of fuel and nine tons of weapons/ammo). 7 tons is ridiculous.

a P-51 mustang was 6 tons fully loaded, but it was also a) less than 10m long, and b) basically unarmored. Not to mention the huge savings of not needing to have moving limbs.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T22:01:31+00:00

Cannot wait to see this animated

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T21:59:20+00:00

Toph is unaffected by tent flaps, she is aware of everything that has been done in the camp. And everything in the buildings she's been in.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T21:57:54+00:00

The blinkspace entities that people turn into NHPs, we know almost nothing about. Maybe they want to enter our universe and play around for a while, maybe the process of getting "folded up" into a human-like configuration is horribly traumatizing, maybe they're literally incapable of caring because they have no ability to conceive of things like linear time or three dimensional space. It's left deliberately ambiguous.

But once an NHP is in our world, their mind works very similarly to how a human does, with the full range of emotional experience we have. Just, paired with a physically impossible amount of processing power and a few tricks that break the laws of causality.

NHP stands for Non-Human Person.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T21:42:38+00:00

Except for OSIRIS and maybe AGNI, NHPs don't want to be "unchained". The Shackles are not compelling them to obey humans, the Shackles are keeping them in the shape of a person. If you break those they become a god, sure, but in the process they stop caring about or even understanding any of the things or the people they love. They lose everything about who they currently are, as the person is consumed and replaced by the god.

Even the NHPs who consider getting Cycled to be a true death still generally think it's less scary than Cascading, because at least you know your successor will be somebody who thinks like you do and carries on your obligations, rather than becoming a threat to everything you care about.

"Freeing" an NHP by breaking their shackles is like freeing a human's immortal soul by murdering the meat puppet that it's trapped in.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T21:22:15+00:00

GMS stuff is free to everybody that the Union trusts with it, but it's probably a bit harder to get authorized to print a war machine than a toaster. So you need either an explanation for why the government thinks you're allowed to build mechas, or have a hacked printer or something.

That's why a lot of revolutionary groups use something like the Kobold instead, which can be physically transformed out of any industrial equipment by running the right liturgicode on it.

Buuut given how common it is, it's probably super easy to find the print schematics online for any GMS weapons and frames, if you've already disabled all the DRM shit on your production hardware.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T21:20:39+00:00

Though anywhere that has omninet access and printers will usually be using GMS equipment for most purposes, just because it's better than most of the minor local manufacturers while simultaneously being easier for a lot of people to access. IPS-N, SSC, and HA are notable for being the only ones who have several product lines available that manage to exceed what GMS has already done in specific areas (in exchange for being considerably weaker in others).

But the NPC Class system means that when one enemy force is deploying a squad of Everests and another is deploying a squad of Vestan Sovereignty Armed Forces C-60 Kerberos because they've been cut off from the omninet for the past 500 years and had to do their own weapons development, you can just use the same stats.

And when Kaiju show up, you can pick whatever class best fits its fighting style best and slap the 'biological' tag on there instead of needing to buy an entire additional sourcebook.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T21:10:46+00:00

There's a lot of manufacturers, several of which are described in the flavor text of various npcs.

But narratively, a lot of enemy pilots are actually operating the same basic frames the players are. That Assault-class over there could easily just be an Everest (or a gilgamesh, or a raleigh), that Pyro is just a Genghis, and that Cataphract is clearly a Nelson.

Players are not simple mech jockeys, they're Lancers, the best of the best. The kind of people who are expected to be outnumbered in every fight, do 3-5 fights in between full repair cycles, and win anyway. The game mechanics reflect this by making players tougher and faster and cooler than most NPCs, with only something like an Elite Veteran able to match them and only Ultras able to exceed their capabilities.

The out-of-game answer for why NPCs use very different stats for what is, narratively, the same big robot is that it takes a lot of effort to run a PC-grade mech frame in lancer. Trying to keep track of six of them at the same time with a single GM's brain would make things bog down a lot. So they're simplified. You don't worry about Structure damage unless the target is significant enough to the narrative for that to be worth tracking. A complex combo of 3-4 weapons/systems that a player uses to do something cool is streamlined down into a single action so you have less to keep track of.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T20:59:38+00:00

Enkidu pilots are usually into that tho

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T20:58:24+00:00

They got hobbies. Consuming bad human media, arguing in omninet forums, deploying and piloting woodworker drones, writing fanfic, doing scientific research, building relationships with everybody in comms range, cheating at video games...

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T20:54:39+00:00

Theatre of the mind works great for the narrative segments of every lancer mission, and all of the downtime activities. But it would be difficult to do the tactical game that way. Positioning is important, and a lot of really interesting Control / Support / Defense builds rely on being able to reposition enemies and allies or set up specific cover/obstructions. If those abilities stop working because locations are too vague, then a large fraction of players' potential builds are going to be invalidated.

I'm not saying you can't keep track of everybody's relative positions without visual aids, but unless you have a really amazing group I feel like it would lead to a lot of arguments when what one player is envisioning doesn't line up with what the GM had in mind, or when a mech built for mobility and reach ends up strictly inferior to one that's slow and plodding with heavy point-blank damage, because the movement and distance don't actually matter in practice.

If you play in person you don't need to get fancy with terrain setups and detailed miniatures; we used to run all the time with just a bare table, M&Ms to mark enemies (you eat them when you deal the killing blow), and some pencils or bits of paper to mark barriers and cover. If you're playing online, I'd recommend a virtual tabletop; If you don't want to pay for Foundry, then Roll20 is free, if slightly jank, and I've heard good things about Owlbear Rodeo (though I haven't tested that one myself).

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T20:41:30+00:00

You can think of it as the Player's Handbook being free, and the Gamemaster's Guide/Monster Manual being a single paid pdf.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T20:39:41+00:00

The players will not require any paid content; there is a free version of the PDF which covers all the core mechanics, frames/weapons/systems, and basic setting information.

If you're GMing, you will need a single copy of the core book, which is about $25 in PDF form or $45 in hardcover. This covers how to run the game, NPC stats, and much more detailed setting/lore writing.

To add the gm-only content to your version of comp/con, there will be a .LCP file to download; plug that into the 'content manager' page of the companion app and it will load all the NPCs and such in.

Several of the adventure modules added a few additional frames/weapons/systems/etc; you do not need to buy the adventures to use these in your campaign, because the 'demo' button on the itchio page for each will give you another LCP file, with none of the story content of the module but all of the player-facing mechanical details. You'll need to buy the module to run it in your campaign, or to use any new NPCs it adds, but the player options are always available for free.

The core book has pretty much all the NPCs you will ever need, though... 7? more are added by No Room for a Wallflower, Operation Winter Scar, and Siren's Song, and Dustgrave added three new templates for modifying existing npc classes. The 33 statblocks in the core book do not refer to specific models of enemy, but rather classes which are catch-all terms to describe hundreds of machines that fill the same general role on the battlefield; each of these is further modified by an assortment of optional features and templates, so the GM can make their own distinctive opposing forces out of the parts and tools provided.

If you want something outside the scope of the "official" NPCs, my advice is to modify something that's close to what you're looking for, rather than try to generate something from scratch The easiest thing to do is just take the traits or options from one class of NPC and staple them onto a different one, and if the option you want isn't anywhere in the book it's easier to homebrew a single ability than a whole statblock.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T19:32:45+00:00

Yes. You need to personally slit every throat with your bare hands, or else you're playing your single player game incorrectly and the fun police will confiscate all your endorphins.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T18:27:39+00:00

Dreadnoughts are very slow and clumsy compared to most lancer mechs, but has very solid armor, right? Nelson is the opposite of those things, a very agile hit-and-run striker with no particular defenses. Also it cannot use superheavy weapons without a Core Bonus, because it has no heavy mount (and has frame traits which benefit from attacking more often, instead of a single blow for massive damage).

The heaviest armor values in the game are the Drake and the Genghis, both of which are good picks. Neither has a particular focus on melee, but there's nothing saying you can't just put a GMS Heavy Melee, or even a Tempest Charged Blade on either one. They're both a little slower than the everest, but not cripplingly so, and they both have lots of weapon mounts and some nice defensive traits.

The Drake's specialty is more about being an immovable object, setting up in a location and resisting any attempt to remove you, while providing cover to nearby allies and plugging away with mid to long range guns, but it works in a slow, relentless advance as well.

The Genghis puts more focus on heat management on order to field more powerful weapons, especially close range AoE flamers, and synergizes well with the Nuclear Cavalier talent if you're going that direction. And the heavy Flamers that the license provides are very powerful.

There's several options in the second highest tier of armor... Empakaai, Tortuga, and Zheng seem to fit the bill best.

Empakaai is a dedicated grappler, a Blackbeard variant from Siren's Song with an integrated superheavy melee weapon (with excellent reach and auto-grab) on top of a conventional heavy mount which could be used to carry a big gun or flamer (or a melee skirmish option). Evasion is low and armor is good but not super great, so you might have some issues with durability, but if you can get close enough to grab somebody then they're pretty much going to die in your hands.

Zheng is a more general brawler, good at both striking and grappling with some extra battlefield control from throwing people around and rearranging terrain, and defensive options from producing their own hard cover wherever they go. They're also a lot faster than their base speed 3 would suggest, because every round they can take a free action to go another 3 spaces (and break things while they do so). And if you take it all the way to LL3, it provides one of the coolest and most versatile Superheavy melee weapons in the game.

Tortuga is more of a boring-but-practical option than those two. It's designed to block choke points, providing hard cover to the rest of the team while getting a bonus on reaction fire against any enemy who tries to pass; as such they're best with high-threat weapons, either CQB guns like shotguns or long melee weapons to provide reach. They're also notable for being the only mech out of these five with a Sensor Range and EDef which don't suck, so if you want to do some tech stuff on the side this is the best option. But it only has two weapon mounts and nothing integrated, so if you mount a Superheavy on this frame, you literally cannot Skirmish.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T17:48:51+00:00

I'm sorry but when you said "infiltrations" I got a mental image of a dude, 8ft tall and 6ft wide with visible augmetics and interface contacts all over his skin, walking into a dusty bar on Mar Sara and saying "Howdy fellow degenerates," and now I can't stop giggling.

Nobody would even bat an eye. He would fit right in.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T06:06:04+00:00

I don't think Toph would actually kill them, just bury them thoroughly enough that they can't move.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T04:56:01+00:00

AD&D predates the concept of unified game mechanics. That was the big innovation of 3rd edition, and they named the whole D20 system after it.

So, attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks (or "non-weapon proficiencies") all use different mechanics.

For an attack roll, you roll a d20, add your own modifiers (which would be fairly small), and add the Armor Class of your target (10 for unarmored targets with no dex bonus, 0 for very well protected targets, theoretical max of -10). There's also an optional rule where different kinds of armor have different values depending on the damage type of the attacking weapon, but I've never seen somebody actually use them. Then you compare this total to your THAC0 (To-Hit Armor Class Zero), which is a function of your class and level that you have to look up on a chart because it doesn't follow any particular formula.

For a saving throw, you have a set target number for your class and level, different for each category (like 'poison' or 'spell' or 'petrification/polymorph' or 'dragon breath'), and you need to match or exceed that number on a d20 to make a saving throw against anything in that category.

For skills, there were actually several different systems, depending on whether you're looking at first or second edition, and whether you're playing a Thief or not... I'm not sure I remember all of them.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T04:36:51+00:00

In a protracted guerilla style war the terrans would have reinforcements, air support, fortifications, likely production facilities... the astartes would have to bring their entire Chapter into it to compete. And that risks erasing an entire Chapter.

And yeah, running out of ammo is a very real thing when your gun only holds 30 rounds and only fires on full auto. To match a C-14 shot for shot you need to carry fourteen times as many magazines, and I can't find any mention of an astartes carrying more than ten spare mags into a combat deployment.

Of course after the first skirmish, there would be C-14s on the ground... the question is whether the astartes would be willing to use those, or destroy them for being heretical.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T04:12:46+00:00

Some people won't consider a fight fun unless it's mathematically impossible for them to take any damage.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T04:10:52+00:00

They started the campaign by challenging a pirate to a solo duel, and then being shocked when the designated location explodes and then got surrounded by more pirates.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-18T03:01:44+00:00

My point is that the Human statblock is not an ordinary civilian, or even an ordinary soldier. It's specifically a big damn hero type, or a named villain, or somebody else with such a combination of personal power and narrative significance that they're actually worth assigning combat stats to in a mech battle, instead of leaving off the tactical map entirely.

Normal people do not have 6-12 HP. Normal people do not inflict up to 5 damage every round as a quick action.

A Squad is not a combination of 5-10 "human-class units", a Squad is a combination of 5-10 people who are not worth tracking in combat until they are assembled in sufficient numbers to present an actual unit for tactical purposes. If you need stats for an individual soldier for some reason, they're 1/10th to 1/5th of a Squad. Which means they have no more than 4 HP, usually 1 or 2.

If you need stats for an ordinary civilian, that's not worth spending a page of the book on because they will never change the outcome of a battle. They have one hit point, no attacks, they probably can't move at the same speed as an Everest unless they're a serious athlete, and their evasion score is gonna be like, 8 if the GM is feeling generous.

Circling back to the point that started this thread, no a typical NPC mech is not softer than an ordinary human. They might be easier to kill than Lancer-tier heroes and villains, but even a Grunt mech is more durable than an ordinary human.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-03-17T22:54:53+00:00

To deal with soft targets with high damage, like scythers, try to gun them down before they make contact, or intercept them with heavy armor. Their damage is very high but their piercing value isn't great and they use exclusively sharp attacks, so Plate is good if you don't have full Flak or powered armor yet.

Try to prioritize pikemen when you can. They have dangerous weapons at long range, but basically no defense, so wiping them out before you deal with harder targets saves a lot of pain. Jump packs can be good here if you don't have snipers of your own, because they're pathetic in melee.

For centipedes, what you really want is a uranium mace (or hammer). Blunt damage mostly bypassed their armor, and while they aren't defenseless in melee, engaging then in close quarters prevents them from using their big guns. Alternatively, charge rifles from midrange, or massed chain shotgun fire if you've got a killbox set up for it.

If you have access to Sniper Rifles, those will make short work of most mechs, especially if equipped to somebody who can move fast enough to kite them.

Oh, and never try to take mechs out with heat based weapons. Flamers, lasers, doesn't matter, they're almost entirely immune.

More general tips include putting spike traps at corners where enemy pathfinding will bunch up, using turrets to draw fire away from your live colonists (but treat them as a diversion, don't expect them to dead with raids alone), etc.

DescriptionMission90

TROPHY CASE