Flying High

[Alta]

I was wondering if anyone had made rules for aircraft in Inquisitor?

I know there are rules for skimmers, but I'm thinking along the lines of helicopters (well probably more like the Falcon from Halo) and valkyrie type aircraft.

Any ideas?
...

[Kaled]

I've used such things in games quite a few times - I've never bothered with rules though, just had them controlled mostly by the GM with PCs occasionally getting to fly them by using actions and passing tests made up on the spot. As for attacking them, I usually make the damage appropriate for the weapon in question, suitably dramatic and exciting for the story.

[InquisitorHeidfeld]

/emote agrees.

Place a model on the board if need be but only apply what is needed to aid the drama.

In Reach, the important air-bourne scenes are the evacuation and the Nightclub, ONI building...etc sequence (plus the fighter combat sequence but I'll get to tahat one later); the evacuation is dramatically valuable but would (let's face it) be incredibly difficult to achieve with a game like Inquisitor - your players would simply be rolling to shoot at the emplaced hostiles as you flew by... difficult to build the drama in that way.
The second scene is less dramatically valuable, it is there primarily to give the game a sense of scale... some of you may remember one of the older staffers at GW talking at one point about the golden doors of the Imperial Palace needing to be four meters high (IIRC) to be appropriate for an Epic scale Emperor Titan... Scale therefore is not something many of us can afford to achieve.

As for the much more dogfight driven space fighter section, protecting the station and frigate and assaulting the Covenant Corvette... You're probably better off looking at games like Astronautica Imperia (or whatever it's called - the Forge World driven air to air combat based game).

As a final thought however...
We have, over the years, had lots of different people bringing forth character and rules suggestions which have (mostly) thinnly disguised concepts from a major movie or similar. When I've noted such threads I've tended to give the same advice.
If you want to play Star Wars then West End Games made a very good Star Wars RPG - and TSR/WotC now have the licence. If you want to play The Matrix then look at Feng Shui - it includes rules for running up the bullet stream being fired at you to get to the shooter...
If you really want to play a different game then it most likley already exists, play Inquisitor to play Inquisitor.

[Alta]

I'm planning to do this as a one off scenario set on the tops of skyscrapers in a large Imperial city.
If it works well I may include an aircraft in the campaign we are planning.

It's not going to only be about flying the vehicles, but they will be a major part to help get from one roof to another.

For the actual rules, they will probably be similar to the vehicle rules, but will also include altitude
Flying them effectively will probably require a "Pilot" skill. You coul probably still fly them without this skill, but not that well.
Designing rules for a parachute would also be a good idea...

*deep in thought*

...

[Kaled]

Well, if you do write some and they work well you'll have to share - either post them on here or write them up for DM...

[MarcoSkoll]

We have, over the years, had lots of different people bringing forth character and rules suggestions which have (mostly) thinnly disguised concepts from a major movie or similar. When I've noted such threads I've tended to give the same advice.

I have to disagree. Inquisitor, as a game, is entirely in the hands of the players to do what they want.

If you fancy including some concept or another, while I'd want to make sure it could work within 40k and Inquisitor, I wouldn't say that these things cannot work. Inquisitor is all about including those cinematic action scenes from film and 40k is a pretty open sandbox. If you take something and make it gothic enough, then there's a lot of room for it in a large galaxy.

Yes, I would recommend steering clear of warrior psykers with plasma blades and a ranged weapon taboo, as it's just too much of an export from Star Wars, but there are other concepts which I think work fine.

I ran a campaign a while back that was somewhat based on Terminator - paraphrased a lot: Daemon has a plan that demands the death of character X, and has dispatched agents to kill him. An Eldar Farseer takes a dislike to this and sets a counter-plan in motion. Via a long and complex explanation, you are part of this - try and keep Character X alive.

As I was talking about in the "Backstory issues" thread only last night, it's about whether you merely copy or whether you actually rebuild a concept. Sure, my players worked out where the basic concept came from, but they didn't see the plot twist coming until it was too damn late. (Suffice to say, they were only told part of the Farseer's plan.)

Mostly, I'd encourage people to build in what they think is cool. Yes, sometimes the answer should be "Are you sure this is the right game for you?", but if someone wants to build flight into Inquisitor... I don't see the problem with that.

[Morcus]

I would say go the rules on the fly (If you'll excuse the pun) route on this one but I agree with Heidfeld in that if you want to play alot of airel stuff you might be best using another system to represent it.

I think shuttle/choppers/planes make great objectives but including them in game is always going to be slightly aukward as a plane would clear the average table in such a short space of time. Another thing to think about is how useful this kind of vehicle would be in this situation. My Great Grandfather flew bombers in the 40's and he once told me that even flying as low and slow as possible, you can't see people on the ground in a town or city and you obviously couldn't land unless you had a suitably open space (Even a VT vehicle is going to need alot of room to land.) From what you've said, If you have more than one flyer it will swamp everything down, especially when your players try to use them against each other. I'd go for narrow walk ways and cables, so that crossing the gaps is suitably dangerous.

did anyone else come here expecting rules for Drugs? or an I just a dope fiend?

[Alta]

For this game I'm going to be using the whole room...

Some preliminary ideas:

• helicopters or aircraft with vertical thrusters can rise/drop vertically (yards risen per action will depend on the engine's power)
  
• aircraft that only have rear thrusters have to travel forward a certain amount before rising (what do you think the ratio of horizontal distance to vertical distance should be)
  
• helicopters and aircraft with vertical thrusters can hover and keep their current position
  
• aircraft that only have rear thrusters cannot stop while in the air otherwise they will start falling
  
• it takes 4 actions to ready an aircraft (open cockpit, get in, close cockpit, turn on engine)
  
• other than that the aircraft follow all the rules for normal vehicles
  

parachute ideas:

• while falling if the character successfully passes an Initiative test he can deploy the parachute
  
• once the parachute is deployed the character floats down 6 yards per turn
  
• when the character lands he suffers D3 points of injury on both his legs
  

I'll be going away for a week (leaving tomorrow), so I should be able to think of some more rules during while I'm away

note that these are only ideas and any suggestions for improvement would be greatly appreciated

[MarcoSkoll]

• once the parachute is deployed the character floats down 6 yards per turn
  
• when the character lands he suffers D3 points of injury on both his legs
  

The first is pretty sluggish - I'm not an expert on parachutes specifically, but I do know drag very well.
6 yards a turn is slower than a walking pace for an average character (4 yards, average of two actions a turn), so I'd say it needs to be faster. After all, you do still fall fast enough to risk injury - 12 yards would make better sense.

In the latter case, I'd say it should be more of a case of pass a Strength test or take X damage (maybe 2D6, armour doesn't count) to a leg, chosen at random. After all, because of the way the injury system works D3 damage will either roll under the armour value of their leg locations and do nothing, or cause an automatic injury level.

It is possible to land without actually injuring yourself - and I'm personally of the opinion that armour shouldn't affect falling damage* - so an auto D3 damage doesn't really work for me.
*I make an exception for the "armour" on bionics, as that represents greater durability and resistance to damage.

I might also suggest grav chutes (powered anti-gravity devices). Those would be automatic activation, but they're also a lot heavier and hinder their owner a lot more (-1 Speed).

[precinctomega]

If you want to play The Matrix then look at Feng Shui

Or GURPS Martial Arts - another good source of (unnecessarily) detailed martial arts rules and styles.

I've been giving thoughts, recently, to combined games: that is, two games playing simultaneously on the same table (or on separate tables that represent similar spaces).  Playing EPIC:A and Aeronautica Imperialis, for example, on one table should be perfectly feasible.  Equally, I can see the possibilities of playing a game of INQ on one table, with competing air support being played out on another.

Refer to my recent article for DM - A Twist in the Tale - for rules on Strafing and Bombing Runs in games of INQ.  Instead of using cards and playing them at will for these rules, one could easily represent them as happening when the position of the aircraft place them in range of the area in which the INQ game is taking place.

R.

[InquisitorHeidfeld]

Provided it is Inquisitor which you want to play (I'm afraid I got the impression that you wanted to play Reach using the Halo Ruleset from your initial post)...

What cause do the characters have to move between rooves? Why would they not, on grabbing a Thunderhawk or a Lightning... or whatever else, stay airbourne making full use of the added mobility, durability and armaments of the aircraft?
Why would they not fight things out on the ground?

If you have warband 'A' weakened so that they have to run from warband 'B' then that disadvantage is lost in the air, you can't impose a worse vehilcle on the first to reach them after all... and if, for some reason, you can then why would warband 'B' not simply strafe everything rather than putting down?

To use another Halo analogy, several of the bigger fights in Halo were less dangerous than they appeared because, with a little work and persistence it was possible to squeeze a Warthog through a doorway (and on one of them, a Scorpion)... Several fights in Halo: Reach are considerably easier if you can steal a Ghost; blow a wing off it and it'll actually fit through most doors...
So while the computer games can place certain restrictions to prevent you from bringing a Shotgun and a handful of grenades to a knife fight the same result is rather more difficult in the, more freeform, Inquisitor table.

So, have you given any considerations to these issues? Do you have any solutions?

[GAZKUL]

i'm not sure wether this'd work for Inquisitor but i was watching Black Hawk Down the other day and they used a method of getting out of the helicopter by sliding down a cable, it might be an alternative to more hi-tech methods. alternatively you could just jump and pray.

[MarcoSkoll]

They used a method of getting out of the helicopter by sliding down a cable.

It's called fast roping.

[precinctomega]

...and the 40k rules for the Valkyrie make it clear that Imperial forces apparently use it, too.

R.

[Alta]

Going to test out these rules on Sunday.

I'm going to have 2 valkyries, but I need some idea of values for certain aspects of it's rules:

• Vertical thrusters - how much should it rise/drop per action?
  
• Rear thrusters - how far forward can it travel per action?
  
• Can hover
  
• Takes 4 actions to ready (open cockpit, get in, close cockpit, turn on engine)
  
• When firing from aircraft apply wind rules (choose one that best suits environment/conditions)
  
• If manned by a character who does not have the Pilot skill, roll scatter die for movement (hit roll=go intended direction, reroll scatter direction that is more than 90degrees from intended direction), cannot hover
  
• Other than that, follows all the rules for normal vehicles