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:: : : : : : : : : :: :: : : :::SHOCK / A Small-Arms Tactical Skirmish System for Solitaire Play
Each game turn is the equivalent of around ten seconds of real life action. The turn is split into three distinct phases.
At the start of the turn, the player will roll 1d10 to get their allotment of activation points for the round. Activating a single unit will cost 1AP while activating a hex of units will cost 2AP.
1d10 will also be rolled for each side as an initiative roll. Lowest roll wins with ties going to the enemy. The side with the winning initiative can spend AP on one unit or one hex first, each side taking turns with single activations until all units who are able to activate have done so or the player has run out of activation points. The enemy does not use AP and will act until all able units have done so.
Morale effects are played out first to determine which units are able bodied and which units are not.
After that, units who have LOS to a known enemy within 3 hexes may fire in Panic Fire immediately and forgo movement/actions in the remaining phases. This may also be forced as a result of bad morale, in failure to recover.
Panic Fire has a penalty of -3(?) but may be done before the initiative phase and all panic fire is done simultaneously. If the person is in cover it will count as blind fire for -5(?).
Able units who have yet to act, will do so in this the second phase. Movement, shooting, and other time consuming actions will happen here.
Once all units have finished their actions, medical checks are made for all units who require them. After that is complete, all explosives set to detonate, will detonate.
Now the turn is complete, and onward to do it all over again until mission end as deemed neccessary by the scenario or result of ultimate fates.
The primary unit of combat in SHOCK is a man. On most occasions you will play with anywhere from a small team to a squad or more of soldiers. At times you may see a vehicle or two. Primarily however, the system focuses on infantry type combat.
Units have three stats representing the TAP system:
- Toughness
- Awareness
- Prowess
Each stat is on a scale of 1-9, with 9 being the best.
These stats are randomly generated or point assigned to a unit on creation and abstract intrinsic physical/mental ability of the unit as a man. These abilities do not increase with time or experience, however campaign point purchases may be made to do so.
Troops are generally rated by their overall quality and training level. This is broken down into eight different levels with SHOCK.
| QUALITY | MOD |
|---|---|
| UNTRAINED | 0 |
| CONSCRIPT | 1 |
| GREEN | 2 |
| REGULAR | 3 |
| EXPERIENCED | 4 |
| VETERAN | 5 |
| ELITE | 6 |
| RAINBOW | 7 |
The modifier is a generic modifier that applies to various actions throughout the game aside stat required actions, such as morale and generic troop creation.
Experience gained through the campaign will eventually increase the unit quality.
Untrained are exactly what you would expect them to be. These are people with absolutely no prior experience or training of any manner what so ever. First time criminals, random civilians, etc.
Conscripts are those with no experience but barebones training. They have a faint idea of how things work. Gang members, Conscripted peasants, insurgents, etc.
Green troops are those with no combat experience but an acceptable basic level of training. Rookie police, fresh troops, experienced criminals, guerillas, etc.
Regular troops are those with basic training who have received some basic experience in combat. Standard Troops, police, paramilitary forces, PMCs, etc.
Experienced troops are basic troops with battle hardening, they've seen a decent handful of actions and are still standing. Also applies to standard troops with higher levels of training. Mountain warfare troops and SWAT team members.
Veteran troops are those who have all the experience needed to master their roles and/or higher levels of training. They've seen most of what combat has to offer and do not cower easily. Army Rangers and campaign hardened soldiers.
Elite troops are those equivalent with military Special Operations Forces and national Counter Terrorist Units. These are typically the highest level of the spectrum in troop quality. Green Berets, Navy Seals, GIGN, Spetsnaz, GSG-9, FBI HRT, etc.
Rainbow troops are those who are the cherry picked best of the best, from the best of the best. There is no better. Delta, DEVGRU, Tom Clancy level units, etc.
At the start of every turn, 1d10 is rolled to generate the amount of action points available to the player for the turn. A single point may be used to either activate a single unit, or two points may be spent to activate a hex containing two or more units. Up to five units on foot may stack in a single hex.
- Every unit has 4 movement points to use for movement. If a player wishes to both move and shoot a unit, the shot must be a snap shot and MP is reduced by 2.
A crouched unit has 3MP. A prone unit may only move one hex per turn. Moving prone through difficult terrain will exhaust the unit.
A unit may choose to double time and add 2MP at the cost of being exhausted for the remainder of current and next turn. Units who are prone may not double time.
Units who are moving get one free stance change. Another change after that costs 1MP.
Units are also free to turn within their frontal 180 degree viewing arc while moving. Turning beyond this costs 1MP.
A unit carrying or dragging another unit is limited to 2MP and may not both shoot and move. Units in this position are always standing.
Units who choose to only fire during their turn may choose to either fire two snap shots or a single aimed shot. The stance of the unit will adjust the accuracy of the shot.
Units who need to turn to fire at a target can only snap shoot. If the unit is only turning and not shooting they may still fire two snap shots, but may not turn in between the shots.
Each weapon maybe be fired once per shot, with or without aiming. Bursts and Automatic fire will depend on the ROF of the weapon by type. Units who choose automatic fire for one of the fire actions is firing a Burst. A burst can only be fired as a snap shot. Firing the two snap shots in automatic is considered Full Auto.
Deployed automatic weaponry such as an LMG with a bipod may fire automatic aimed shots.
Ammo checks are made against the ROF of the weapon, and a critical failure will result in a weapon jam.
A grenade takes one snap action to prime and one to throw. Grenades detonate at the end of the turn following the turn it is primed in.
A unit who has an enemy unit within his Fire Arc, may choose to react to the action of that enemy unit and forfeit his turn for the rest of the turn in doing so with a single snap shot. If the target is hit, wound or no wound, they will be interupted.
Some actions require a greater deal of skill and/or time. These are Turn Actions, and a acting unit declares to use them immediately at the start of his turn. If any action points have been spent, they will have to wait until next turn to attempt it.
Turn Actions apply as such things like Clearing Jams, Climbing, Picking Locks, Kicking Doors, Setting Explosives, etc. At the end of every turn, Action rolls are made for these against the unit skills, and if pass they succeed in their action and may continue freely on their next turn. If they fail they are not successful and may choose to spend next turn trying again with a +1 bonus or give up.
This section goes over the various implementations of the damage system and how they interact with each other.
When a targeted unit is successfully hit, the next step is to determine where the attack hit. This is done using the table below and rolling 1d10. Cover might mitigate what would otherwise be a hit if the cover is of sufficient protection to stop the attack.
| Roll | Location |
|---|---|
| 01 | HEAD |
| 02 | HEAD |
| 03 | NECK |
| 04 | ARM |
| 05 | ARM |
| 06 | UPPER TORSO |
| 07 | UPPER TORSO |
| 08 | LOWER TORSO |
| 09 | LEG |
| 10 | LEG |
Instead of working out the exact specifics of every single gun and round known to man to create almost meaningless minute differences in stats, damage is separated by calibers into classes based on their overall raw power and penetration. These classes effect wound severity of a target if struck, as well as figuring out the effectiveness of cover and/or armor.
| Class | Mod | Type |
|---|---|---|
| I | -2 | Sub-Standard Handguns |
| II | -1 | Standard Handguns |
| III | 0 | High Power Handguns and Carbines |
| IV | 1 | Standard Rifles |
| V | 2 | Battle/Large Rifles |
| VI | U | Anti-Material and Autocannons |
The class level also dictates the modifier on the severity chart. When making a roll for location severity, the power of the round will add or subtract from the roll to give a final result.
Class VI weapons, which would be 12.7mm/.50cal weaponry and up constitute a severity upgrade instead of a roll modifier. Whatever result you receive becomes the next tier of severity.
For example if you were to hit someone in the upper torso with a DShK 12.7mm machine gun round, and rolled a 4 on the severity, that SHOCK result becomes a DEATH result.
Once the Hit Location has been determined, another 1d10 roll is made, to determine the severity of the hit, in that location, apply the damage modifier and get a final result for the target state.
| Roll | Head | Neck | Arms | Upper Torso | Lower Torso | Legs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | STUN | STUN | STUN | STUN | STUN | STUN |
| 02 | WOUND | WOUND | WOUND | WOUND | WOUND | |
| 03 | SHOCK | |||||
| 04 | DEATH | SHOCK | ||||
| 05 | ||||||
| 06 | SHOCK | WOUND | ||||
| 07 | SHOCK | |||||
| 08 | ||||||
| 09 | DEATH | SHOCK | ||||
| 10 | SHOCK |
For all intents and purposes wound severity has been relatively simplified, as the absolute realism of terminal wounding is so insanely precise and chaotic that it can be difficult to fully simulate with a computer, let alone a traditional pen and paper system.
It is for this reason that the above chart breaks lethality down into likelihoods instead of trying to work out the finer details of whether a round might hit this artery or this organ on every single shot.
A stun result is usually to imply or abstract a round that for some reason has little to no power/effect to provide, for example, a ricochet or grazing wound, or a round that has simply struck nothing of vital importance.
A stunned target skips his current/next turn.
Bleeds are one of the main defeaters of one who has been wounded by gunshot. Wounds are simplifications of this, and scale in effect with the damage class of the round that struck them.
Every character with a wound will have to make a shock check at the end of the turn. This is simply done by making a single 1d10 roll for each character, attempting to roll higher than the total sum of wounds. Wounds are additive unless properly treated and if they amount to a total of ten or more, the unit immediately succumbs to shock.
Shock is abstracted as the various different types of shock that can befall and diminish a target, and also covers severe bleeds.
A target in shock is now incapacitated, whether conscious or not and can no longer act in accord to the battlefield. Units who are in this state must be evacuated by mission end or risk dying. Units who take more damage in this state die.
A unit who passes into shock from wounds removes the wound counters.
Gunshot wounds can very easily result in death from a single shot, but very few shots actually directly and instantly kill a target. This can only be achieved by severing/destroying the spinal cord and spine to brain connecting parts above the neck. Rounds of higher power that exert enough force and pressure can destroy and rupture said areas without directly hitting them.
A target that receives death has received one of these critical shots. They instantly drop and are immediately deserviced. Otherwise this outcome is the result of lingering shock from an overly damaged or untreated target.