How to Make Ultra-Tech Combat Exciting (TL10)?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by GM.Casper

Ablative DR. If you are buying DR with points, an outer layer of full DR and a bigger inner layer of Ablative DR (-80%) works well. Could design your equipment armor to work similarly.

One thing I've toyed with the idea of, based partially on the performance of Shardplate in the Stormlight Archives book series, is to have variable ablation of armor. Up to some value, attacks simply bounce off and can be ignored. Beyond this, it is some flavor of semi-ablative (although I lean more toward losing 1 DR for every 5 points of damage, rather than for every 10) up to an additional breakpoint. Beyond the second breakpoint, the armor is fully ablative, and is typically impossible to penetrate without destroying it (or at least a portion of it) outright. For example, you might have armor that is DR 10-50-100. Damage up to 10 is simply negated. For damage between 11 and 50, the armor is semiablative, losing 1 DR for every (say) full 5 damage. Beyond 50, it loses 1 DR per point of damage, and has 100 "DR" (which in this case is a bit more akin to HP). So, a 5 damage attack is rebuffed, a 25 damage attack reduces "armor HP" by 3 (25-10, /5), and a 75 damage attack reduces "armor HP" by 33 (50-10, /5, is 8, and it's 25 damage over the 50 HP threshold). I suspect this would end up being a nightmare in play, however, but there may be some way to make it gameable.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Varyon

For example, you might have armor that is DR 10-50-100. Damage up to 10 is simply negated. For damage between 11 and 50, the armor is semiablative, losing 1 DR for every (say) full 5 damage. Beyond 50, it loses 1 DR per point of damage, and has 100 "DR" (which in this case is a bit more akin to HP). So, a 5 damage attack is rebuffed, a 25 damage attack reduces "armor HP" by 3 (25-10, /5), and a 75 damage attack reduces "armor HP" by 33 (50-10, /5, is 8, and it's 25 damage over the 50 HP threshold). I suspect this would end up being a nightmare in play, however, but there may be some way to make it gameable.

In play it wouldn't be all that difficult:

For dam roll 1-10: Dam taken = 0.
For dam roll 11-50: Dam taken = (dam roll/5) - 2
For dam roll 51+: Dam taken = dam roll - 42

That'll work for any dam roll.

[weby]

Having run several short scenarios in my TL 10/emerging TL 11 scifi setting I have the following ideas/observations on combat:

Stealth matters a LOT, the Chameleon Surface combined with even basic levels of stealth skill makes detecting targets extremely hard unless you have hyperspectral vision, then it is only moderately hard.

Ablative armor is really useful in regulating combat.My solution was to introduce fully ablative force screens both as character abilities and expensive technology. (It should be noted that I use a TL based DR cost modifier for abilities to balance them against normal armor: https://water.roto.nu/seikkailu/doku...:advantages#dr )

And finally as others have said go for high penetration low damage weapons so that a single hit will likely not kill PCs.