What odd things creep into the mind...

Or may be out of it when one is idle.  Not to sure...do things really creep into the mind...oh well...thoughts for another day.  But what I was thinking about before random musings was vehicles.  Now really...what do vehicles have to do with Manifest Destiny?

They have allot to do with it actually.  Magical vehicles that mimic reality, cars that can fly.  War machines that spit fire and bolts of energy.  From a simple cart to a 30ft tall mecha...it is all possible cause it is powered by magic, by imagination.

What I got to thinking about was how much of the operation of a vehicle in combat is the vehicle and how much is the crew.  In doing so I thought about weapons and accuracy and believe I have a system.  Maybe...maybe not...not to sure.

See what I am thinking about is that the weapons provide the dice for the roll in the form of an accuracy attribute.  And the crew provide the bonuses and skill.  So really any idiot can fire a gun, and that gun can be accurate.  But with out skill, their chances of hitting the broad side of a barn are slim.

So lets say we have a hypothetical tank.  The tank mounts a very good gun with an accuracy of eight.  So the crew would get 8D12 to roll with each shot from the gun.  You then toss in some crew using the same skill set that MD uses skills for general, specialization, and familiarity.  So lets say our gunner is rather new...and between the three he has a plus three from general tank guns, but only a plus one for time with medium tank guns.  And no time at all with this medium tank gun.  So he adds a plus four to all rolls resulting in a 8D12 + 4 for any attack made by the tank.  Not a bad thought I think.

Now this leads into armor also...what to do what to do.  Two routs I can see, both are in MD really.  The first would be the usual, each gun has a power rating and the projectile provides the damage.  If the power of the attack is greater then the armor rating, it goes though.  But that leads to having to track the armor of the tank on all facings and can have armor degradation...kind of messy when it comes to streamlining things.

The other option is a simple bounce/no bounce roll.  Instead of the gun having power, it just does damage based on the round.  If the round hits, another roll occurs with 1D12.  IF the roll is over the armor value, the round penetrates.  If the round is under the armor value, the hit bounces.

Both can allow for effects like armor piercing ammo and the such...and both offer their own unique spin on things.  And this is not even getting into more complex systems like say...vehicle size, its height, the size of a turret if it has one.  That matters since if only the turret is showing...you can only hit the turret so you need to know its size.

The things I think about when I can not think about things.