JAGS Combat System v1.

5
Hi. We're the JAGS guys. We've been doing this for well a while
(JAGS Alpha 1.0 came out in 1993, I think). As we keep doing it, here are
some things we've come up with that we want to share. In this case, it's
new combat rules. See the sidebar on deciding whether you want to use
these or notbut we'll explain what we've done, why we've done it, and
what you might want to do with it.

New Auto-Fire Rules

The JAGS Auto-Fire ('full automatic') rules are Byzantine. Without going
too far into the current system's deficiencies, the requirement for charts,
the complex rules for multiple modes of automatic fire, and so on have
proven difficult for everyone. Mathematically, because of the way that
Control Modifiers work, it's sometimes (fairly often, we think) a toss up
whether to fire a weapon many times or just oncethe odds of scoring a
hit wind up being similar (higher control modifiers degrade the chance of
multiple bullets striking).

Anyway. We have "simpler rules" that we've been playtesting and here
they are.

Controlled Burst Controlled Automatic

REA: 10 REA for Controlled
Fire
Automatic Burst.
When a character has an
Roll to Hit: Weapons skill or
automatic weapon its Rate Of Fire
COR with double negative
is now expressed as "number of
modifiers (if you have no skill).
shots per Automatic Fire Action."
Each successive roll to hit in 1
And, each weapon still has its
second is at -1 per full point of
listed Control Number.
Control Modifier (cumulative).
How Many Rolls To Hit: A fully
It works like this: When you get to
automatic weapon gets 1 roll to
go you spend your REA (10pts). If
hit, +1 per 4 full shots fired per
your base character has less REA
second (so a 12 ROF gun gets 4
than 10, but at least 7, you can still
rolls to hit, a 16 ROF gun gets
do thisyou just spend "All of it." If
5).
your REA is reduced to less than
10 as a result of being Stunned,
Dazed, or anything else, you can't take a Controlled Automatic Fire Burst
(but you can still "pull the trigger"see the uncontrolled burst rules
below.)

When you fire a controlled burst you roll for the listed number of shots: an
M16A2 has a rating of 3x[8]. This means you roll 3x to hit (against the
same or different targets) and the clip empties 8 bullets.

Aiming: If you aim with a fully automatic weapon, your aim bonus only
counts for the first shot.
Control: The control modifier is subtracted from each shot's to-hit roll and
is cumulative. If a gun has a -3 Control Modifier and gets 3 rolls to hit per
second (fires 8 bullets) then first roll to hit is at -0. The second is at -3. The
third is at -6. A Level 3 Weapons skill will ignore -3pts of this negative per
shot (so the character would be at -0, -0, -3. A Level 4 weapon skill
ignores -6pts (and would suffer no negative for any shots).
Fractional Control Modifiers: Some guns will have a .25 Ctrl score. This
means if it gets 5 rolls to hit per second, only the last is at -1. The first roll
to hit is at -0, the second at -.25 (drop fractions to 0), the third at -.5 (drop
fractions to 0), the fourth at -.75 (drop fractions to 0), and the fifth at -1
(keep whole numbers).
Control Modifier of 0: If the gun fires bullets in a conventional fashion, a
Control Modifier of 0 is treated as .5 (so every 2 full shots there's a -1). If
the gun is a laser weapon, however or otherwise has literally no kick, treat
as no control modifier.
Blocking Bullets: If a character can deflect bullets with a super-power of
some sort, a single blocking action will apply against all fireif it's a
standard block wherein what the attacker hits by must be equaled or
exceeded by the block roll, then the attacker can keep rolling, hoping for a
better hit. The blocker can choose to take additional actionsdeclared
after a to-hit roll exceeds the original block roll.
Example: A super character has a "block bullets" skill on a 14-. Using the
ability costs 3 REA. An attacker opens up with a 3x [8] weapon (taking 3
shots). The super character declares a blocking action and both roll. The
attacker's first shot hits by 4. The blocker makes his skill roll by 5:
deflected.

The attacker fires again, a hit by 5! As a tie goes to the defender, the shot
is still deflected and the super character spends no additional REA. The
third shot hits by 6this would be a hit.

The super character has the option of spending 3 more REA and taking
his roll, hoping to beat or equal a 6.
Firing Into Crowds: even though the game system only models a few
individual rounds, if you fire into a crowd of incoming zombies with a
machine gun you can expect to hit more than just 3 or 4. Here are the
rules for crowds:

You get an "extra roll to hit" based on how tightly packed the crowd and
how many bullets you are firing. You get 1 extra roll to hit (with the to-hit
number as listed below) per 4 full bullets fired. This means that a 3x [8]
M16 Rifle gets 3 "aimed shots" (as above) and 2 "extra shots" based on
the size of the crowd and how tightly they're packed.
Bullets Per Person 1:1 2:1 3:1 4:1 5:1 6:1
Packed 10- 11- 12- 13- 14- 15-
Tight 7- 8- 9- 10- 11- 12-
Moving crowd 6- 7- 8- 9- 10- 11-
Loose crowd 5- 6- 7- 8- 9- 10-
Sparse crowd -- -- -- 7- 8- 9-
 Uncontrolled Automatic
Firing from the Hip
Fire
REA: 5 REA for "rock and roll"
Roll to Hit: Weapons skill or Firing from the hip means spending
COR with double negative only 5 REA and blazing away. It's a
modifiers (if you have no skill). lot less accurate unless you're very
As Controlled burst but the good. Weapon's Ctrl modifiers are
Control Modifier is increased by made worse by 1pt. Otherwise rules
1 (a -1 Ctrl weapon becomes -2) as above are in effect.
How Many Rolls To Hit: as per
controlled burst

New Shotgun Rules

We've changed the Shotgun/scattergun rules around too. Again, with an
eye towards making them simpler. We wanted to retain the following
ideas:
Shotguns are not so good against armor.
It's somewhat easier to hit targets with scatterguns at long range.

The chart below gives the range for different shotgun types, the plus to hit
(this is NOT added to damage modifier, a hit by that amount is treated as
a hit by 0).

Gun Type Short +1 Medium +2 Long +3 (1/2 dmg)

Standard 10y 20y 30y
Sawed Off 5y 10y 15y
Extreme 2y 4y 8y

Armor Rule: a shotgun's PEN factor is its listed damage.

 New Weapon/Damage Type Rules
The JAGS Explosive rules are pretty serviceable we thinkbut over time
we've tried slight variations on that theme. As we've introduced a few new
damage types, we've come up with some codified rules for them. Here
they are.

Explosive Damage
Notation: X
Rolls on: Impact Damage chart
Rules: Explosive damage has a RAD of 2 yards. This means that each
two yards, the damage done is divided by the square of the distance (at 6
yards the damage is 1/9th the original).

If an explosive attack misses by 1, due to blast-radius it hits the target for

half damage.

The minimum Damage Modifier for explosive damage is +4. This number
may be reduced by negative damage mods in the target (Fast Company
damage reduction). It only really applies to to-hit rolls (a hit by 0 to 3 is
treated as a hit by 4.

HEAP Damage (High Explosive Armor Piercing)

Notation: HEAP
Rolls On: Penetration Damage chart
Rules: HEAP applies to shells that are shaped-charge explosives. They
are listed as a given amount of PEN damage (a 75mm Recoilless Rifle
shell clocks in at 225 PEN) however, if they penetrate their target the
Base Damage is multiplied by 3. Then the Damage Modifier roll is made.

NOTE: The "Armor Piercing" element of this is reflected in the base

damage score. They do not penetrate armor better than their listed PEN
value reflects.

Cutting Tool / Ultra Sharp

Notation: U-Sharp or Cutting Tool
Rolls On: Penetration Damage chart
Rules: The weapon has two listed Base Damages. One is if it hits by 0-3.
The other is used if it hits by 4+. This determination is made before rolling
for damage or checking for penetration.

The idea is this: something like a lightsaber is incredibly lethal if it gets a

good hit off on you (a torso hit) doing a bazillion points of damage (hey,
MS Word recognizes 'bazillion'!). However if you just get hit in the arm,
you take a lot of damage but not tank-crippling amounts. So the idea is
that when two masters fight, they might hit each otherbut they won't
score a vital hit unless they get real lucky.

The PEN Value of the weapon is most "realistically" (realistic to the

simulation) calculated from the higher value (the lightsaber doesn't cut
armor on the arm less well than the torso). Our standard rule is to simplify
the score to the actual damage that's being rolled on. But consider always
using the higher value as an advanced rule.
 New Grappling and Armor Penetration Rules What the heck were
New Resistance Rules
Grappling and armor penetration both compare two numbers against each we thinking!?
other to get a success roll. In the case of penetration, the armor gets a What good is a game where
save roll to avoid being penetrated by a hit with a penetrating weapon. In you have to compute 129% of
the case of grappling, the aggressor rolls gets a succeed roll against the your grapple score of 24?
defenders grapple score. Well, were kinda wondering
about that too.
In both cases, these values might be close (two evenly matched
opponents) or wildly different (a skinny guy grappling with a rhinoceros). Its like this: the method listed
JAGS handles both of these situations with a success roll chart. in the book (take both
numbers, divide by a
Heres how it works: reasonable factor, and then
take a simple difference) is
1. Identify whos doing the dice rolling (the guy wearing the armor for faster, easier, and (mostly) will
penetration, the guy attacking for grappling). still work.
2. Compare the rollers score against the opposing score to
determine the success roll. But it isnt mathematically
correct. When some people
If the opposing scores are equal the success roll is 10- (including us) started building
(50% chance) computer simulators of JAGS
If the rollers score is twice the opposing score the combat, we found this out.
success roll is 16-
So this is the fix. For a
If the rollers score is more than ten times the opposing
computer, this is simple. For
score the chance of success is 20- (100% chance of
success) everyone else, there are
spreadsheets and calculators.
Or just forget about it (mostly).
On the other hand
Got a score of 80 against a
If the rollers score is less than half of the opposing score,
score of 100? Treat it as an 8
the chance of success is 4-
vs. a 10 in the old system. Got
If the rollers score is less than 10% of the opposing score
a 2000pt of armor tank hit by a
the chance of success is 0-
2500 PEN tank shell? Treat it
as 2 vs. 3 or +1 on the old
3. Roll and apply the results according to the JAGS rules.
chart. It just requires a GM
judgment call that we wanted
Okay, so what do you do for values in between?
to remove in case of computer
simulation or people who didnt
want that in the game.
Heres the full chart
Roll Range Start Range Stop
10% of your To 19% of your Range: Opposing score is between 10% and 19% of the
20- score score roller's score
20% of your To 24% of your Range: Opposing score is between 20% and 24% of the
19- score score roller's score
25% of your To 32% of your Range: Opposing score is between 25% and 32% of the
18- score score roller's score
33% of your To 49% of your Range: Opposing score is between 33% and 49% of the
17- score score roller's score
50% of your To 56% of your Range: Opposing score is between 50% and 56% of the
16- score score roller's score
57% of your To 65% of your Range: Opposing score is between 57% and 65% of the
15- score score roller's score
66% of your To 68% of your Range: Opposing score is between 66% and 69% of the
14- score score roller's score
70% of your To 89% of your Range: Opposing score is between 70% and 79% of the
13- score score roller's score
80% of your To 89% of your Range: Opposing score is between 80% and 89% of the
12- score score roller's score
90% of your Range: Opposing score is between 90% and 99% of the
11- score 99% of your score roller's score
109% of your Range: Opposing score is equal to, or less than 10% greater
10- Your score score than the roller's score
110% of 119% of your Range: Opposing score is between 110% and 119% of the
09- your score score roller's score
120% of 129% of your Range: Opposing score is between 120% and 129% of the
08- your score score roller's score
130% of 139% of your Range: Opposing score is between 130% and 139% of the
07- your score score roller's score
140% of 174% of your Range: Opposing score is between 140% and 174% of the
06- your score score roller's score
175% of 199% of your Range: Opposing score is between 175% and 199% of the
05- your score score roller's score
200% of 249% of your Range: Opposing score is between 200% and 249% of the
04- your score score roller's score
250% of 299% of your Range: Opposing score is between 250% and 299% of the
03- your score score roller's score
300% of 399% of your Range: Opposing score is between 300% and 399% of the
02- your score score roller's score
400% of 499% of your Range: Opposing score is between 400% and 499% of the
01- your score score roller's score
500% of
00- your score Or more Range: Opposing score is over 500% of the roller's score
Example 1:
Roller's
score 100
Opposing
Roll score range
20- 10 - 19 Opposing score is between 10% and 19% of the roller's score
19- 20 - 24 Opposing score is between 20% and 24% of the roller's score
18- 25 - 32 Opposing score is between 25% and 32% of the roller's score
17- 33 - 49 Opposing score is between 33% and 49% of the roller's score
16- 50 - 56 Opposing score is between 50% and 56% of the roller's score
15- 57 - 65 Opposing score is between 57% and 65% of the roller's score
14- 66 - 69 Opposing score is between 66% and 69% of the roller's score
13- 70 - 79 Opposing score is between 70% and 79% of the roller's score
12- 80 - 89 Opposing score is between 80% and 89% of the roller's score
11- 90 - 99 Opposing score is between 90% and 99% of the roller's score
10- 100 - 109 Opposing score is equal to, or less than 10% greater than the roller's score
09- 110 - 119 Opposing score is between 110% and 119% of the roller's score
08- 120 - 129 Opposing score is between 120% and 129% of the roller's score
07- 130 - 149 Opposing score is between 130% and 139% of the roller's score
06- 150 - 174 Opposing score is between 130% and 174% of the roller's score
05- 175 - 199 Opposing score is between 175% and 199% of the roller's score
04- 200 - 249 Opposing score is between 200% and 249% of the roller's score
03- 250 - 299 Opposing score is between 250% and 299% of the roller's score
02- 300 - 399 Opposing score is between 300% and 399% of the roller's score
01- 400 - 499 Opposing score is between 400% and 499% of the roller's score
00- 500 - 500 Opposing score is over 500% of the roller's score

Grapple table Making Sense of all this

Offensive 14 These numbers seem arbitrary at first, but they
Roll Defensive actually do make some sense. To use smaller
20- 1 - 1 numbers as examples, take a rollers value of
19- 2 - 2 14. To make things clearer, well use a
18- 3 - 3 grappling example: a wrestler (the roller) is
17- 4 - 6
attacking a defending wrestler (the opposing
value).
16- 7 - 7
15- 8 - 8 Under this new system, grapple values are
14- 9 - 9 increased by 10. A normal human with a
13- 9 - 10 strength of 10 and a mass of 2 has an
12- 11 - 11 offensive grapple of 14 (the old way, he had a
11- 12 - 13 grapple of 4).
10- 14 - 14
09- 15 - 15 Heres what the chart looks like for that value
08- 16 - 17
Note that an opposing value of 14 yields a10-
07- 18 - 20
roll, just as described above.
06- 21 - 23
05- 24 - 27 Since most average humans have a defensive
04- 28 - 34 grapple of 12 (under the new system2 under
03- 35 - 41 the old system), the attacker has an 11-
02- 42 - 55 chance of a success against an average
01- 56 - 69 opponent.
00- 70 - 70
What happens when this average guy goes up against an inferior
opponent (wrestling with his girlfriend for ownership of the remote
control)?

She has a mass of 2 (100lbs) and a strength of 9, giving her a grapple of

11 (Mass + (10-strength) = 2 + (-1) = 1, +10 for this new system). Looking
on the chart, challenging a resisting score of 11 yields a 12- chance of
success.

Lets say he gets the control and she tries to take it back whats her
chance? Trick questionyou dont look at this chart. Youd look at the
grapple chart on her character sheet.

Now, lets say the cat with a grapple score of something like 2 (Mass = 0,
Strength = 2), has the remote control and he tries to pull it away. A 14
Grapple against a 2 opposing value has a 14- chance of success. Hell
almost always get it.
These values may appear somewhat strange, but they work, mostly on
relatively common fractions.

A 10% difference in scores gives +/-1 for up to 3(30%).

A 50% difference in scores gives +/-4
A 75% difference gives +/- 5
A 100% difference gives +/-6
And so on.

Since we dont recommend calculating these things on the fly, weve

provided tables for most of the values weve used and suggest working
out the ranges for each roll for your characters grapple score and
weapons during character creation.

The Wound Chart

The new character sheet contains a Wound Chart. This isnt a new rule
but rather a way of recording wound and condition levels in a manner that
makes them easier to reference during play.

The text in red, you fill out yourself: What does this mean?
For a character with 15 DP, his chart will look like
Wound Chart this:
Normal: SubM 1 Normal: SubM 1
Total Damage Minor 1/3 DP Total Damage Minor 5
One to Minor Wound-1 Major 1x DP 1-4 Major 15
Crit 2x DP Crit 30
Hurt: Minor 1 Hurt: Minor 1
Total Damage Major 1x DP Total Damage Major 15
Minor wound to Major 5-14
Wound -1 Crit 2x DP Crit 30
Injured: Minor 1 Injured: Minor 1
Total Damage Major 1/3 DP Total Damage Major 5
Major Wound to 15-29
Critical Wound-1 Crit 1x DP Crit 15
Serious: Minor -- Serious: Minor --
Total Damage Major 1 Total Damage Major 1
Critical Wound+ 30+
Crit 1/3 DP Crit 5