Robotech

I know that Ty has some of the Invid Inorganics and such from Robotech II: The Sentenals, but has anyone written up anything else from Robotech?

Ty has some stuff for the Invid? That is too cool. I would love to see some more stuff up about all of Robotech. Mostly how you would convert the MDC and stuff over for Marvel. How would the Robotech weapons affect Marvel people as well as how would the powers affect the mecha.

Thanks,
Sid



Post Edited (05-25-04 21:27)

Live Fast, Live Hard and Play it Loud

As far as I can figure out, and Robotech and MSH were my two favorite games in my youth, MDC isn't converted directly. An MSH rank would reflect more about material strength. I guess the best thing to do as a start would be to look at some of the stats for jet fighters done by Norseman on the Norseman Central site and increase the Body material strength by a couple of CS to reflect advancement in technology as a base Body Rank for the first generation Veritechs, non armored versions.

Here is what I have on my site. These came from the MSH mailing list at least 5 years ago if not longer.


Stats and most text by David Fryer

I have often wondered what would happen if some of the aliens from Robotech had attacked the Marvel Earth. I was some what inspired by DC's Invasion storyline where The heroes had to fight off a serious alien invasion instead of the typical one-issue battle with no follow up or repercussions. In fact the DC universe was still feeling shock waves from Invasion until Zero Hour came along and wiped out the whole story along with most of DC's continuity up to 1994.

I will be posting stats on the Invid from time to time since the Regent and his army from Robotech II the Sentinels seems to be the most likely to invade Earth for no other reason then it being there. Also these stats are based on the 90 minute Sentinels movie and the comic and do not bear any resemblance to the Inorganics from the Robotech II the Sentinels role-playing game. The Invid Inorganics are 100% American mecha designs and do not appear in ANY Japanese mecha series. They only appear in the Sentinels video, the Sentinels RPG, and the Sentinels comic books.

Here are the Regent's first wave troops, the indestructible Inorganics.

To start with all Inorganics share these powers:

Immune to mental attacks, toxins, and disease
IN ability to detect energy emissions
a self-destruct device that causes them to disintegrate if their health falls to 0
They also all have the same mental stats which are R: FB; I: EX; P: UN

Now for the individual units


COUGER
Cat-like scout drone
F: TY
A: EX
S: RM
E: UN
H- 156

Powers: all Inorganic powers
Body Armor IN vs physical, GD vs. energy
Claws RM edged damage
Lightening Speed can run at 30 mph indefinitely

The cougar resembles a prehistoric sabertooth tiger. It is primarily used for hunting and stalking prey, as well as reconnaissance. It has no weapons, but possesses sharp claws to tear into mecha armor (and mecha pilots). During combat several cougars will work together to overpower a foe and literally "dig" the pilot out of his mecha.


ODEON
Humanoid Fighting Drone
F: TY
A: PR
S: UN
E: UN
H- 210

Powers: Body Armor UN vs. physical, MN vs energy
Knee Spikes EX edged damage

The most common invid Inorganic design. The Odeon is the "grunt" of the Regent's military forces, with a huge barrel chest and long powerful arms. The Odeon is a lumbering juggernaut that relies on thick armor rather than speed to approach its foe. The Odeon is also not equipped with weapons, but sometimes carries an energy weapon in its hand.


SCRIMM
Nightmare Fighting Drone
F: GD
A: PR
S: IN
E: UN
H- 154

Powers: Body Armor AM vs physical, IN vs energy
Claws (2) IN edged damage
Missile Launchers (2) IN explosive damage, 5 area range
Multiple Arms 3 extra arms allow for 3 extra fighting attacks per round

The Scrimm is designed specifically for killing humanoids. Although smaller than the Odeon, it has three powerful arms and two whip-like arms ending in spiked claws that can be used to impale mecha or people. The Scrimm is faster than the Odeon, and is equipped with two globes on its back that can produce a deadly nerve gas that will quickly kill most humanoids. The Scrimm does not have any other weapons.

There is one other Inorganic design called the Crann but I have never seen it in action so I don't know what its stats would be. The Crann is designed especially for reconnaissance instead of killing humanoids. The basic shape of the inorganic is humanoid, with two long arms and a beak-like appendage under the central eye. The Crann is the only inorganic besides the Scrimm with internal armaments; the beak contains an energy tongue that can be used as a whip, and a laser cannon is mounted on the top of the mecha. The two arms of the Crann can detach and function and independent reconnaissance units (they somewhat resemble "face-huggers" from the movie "Aliens").


INVID SCOUT
F: EX
A: GD
S: RM
E: RM
R: TY
I: TY
P: GD
H- 90
K- 22

Powers: Body Armor IN
Flight EX airspeed in atmosphere, AM in space. Flys with IN agility
Life Support MN
Forearm Blades (2) IN edged damage
Pincers (2) RM crushing damage

Contacts: The Regent's army.


ARMORED SCOUT
Same as Invid Scout with the addition of the following system: Plasma Beams IN damage, 4 area range


INVID TROOPER
F: EX
A: TY
S: AM
E: RM
R: TY
I: TY
P: GD
H- 106
K- 22

Powers: Body Armor MN
Flight GD airspeed; flys with EX agility
Pincers AM crushing damage
Life Support MN

Contacts: The Regent's army.


SHOCK TROOPER
Same as the Invid Trooper with the addition of the following system: Plasma Pulse Cannon MN damage, 5 area range


INVID GUARD
F: EX
A: EX
S: EX
E: RM
R: GD
I: GD
P: GD
H- 90
K- 20

Powers: Body Armor EX
Life Support MN
Flight TY airspeed
Laser (2) EX damage, 2 area range
Bazooka Plasma Rifle IN damage, 1 area range
Force Shield IN vs physical and energy

Talents: Military, Leadership.
Contacts: The Regent's army.



MSH Classic RPG System
[rivendell.fortunecity.com]

Based on the stats from Mr. Fryer, the Main Body MD seems to be reflected in a 1:1 ratio with MSH Endurance. That might be a good place to start when writing up other mecha stats. Also, we should think about how Robotech mecha should fair against analagously powered inhabitants of the Marvel Universe, Sentenal robots for instance.

That was pretty much how I understood it I guess. I played both games for years and thought they were the best. No one else that I know of even plays Robotech anymore. I think that it would be great to come up with the rest of the stats for the original Veritechs and Destroids. The Zentraedi would be a bit harder I guess, especially the newer ones from Macross II. I see on Ty's site that he has a conversion for Marvel to Pal. but nothing to go the other way. Any chance of getting something that Ty? Where you could convert the Pal stats over to Marvel? I am not the best at doing conversions and I would just mess it up. It would be awesome if someone could take a crack at it. I have all but the newest book.

Sid



Live Fast, Live Hard and Play it Loud

Palladium is a major pain in the butt system. Too many stats and abreviations for them. I got that conversion from someone I was talking to about figuring out the system but I really don't know anything about it. That conversion should be for Palladium to MSH. I have tons of things from the web that are in Palladium and would be cool to convert. I converted a new alien race to MSH but it was tough.



MSH Classic RPG System
[rivendell.fortunecity.com]

I actually e-mailed the guy who did the Paladium to Marvel conversion, and he said that he didn't work with MDC scale games, just Heroes Unlimited, TMNT, etc. MDC is a scale matter more than anything else, and since Marvel doesn't handle scale the same way, it's hard to convert directly. Can someone refresh my memory on how scale is reflected in MSH?

A big challenge in converting the Mecha over would be the fact that Robotech's system for armor is point-based, and MSH armor rules gives it a rank and rating. Essentially, there really is no 100% way to convert it over directly, just to adapt. Ok, that having been said... From what we already have here, we can see some benchmarks for damage from plasma cannons and such. To reflect the fact that the armor CAN BE damaged by these things, we'd have to set the effective armor rank a tad bit lower than the rating of the weapons, to reflect the fact that the Mecha takes damage. Hmm... The Mecha themselves would have to be handled as Exoskeleton Cyborgs according to the UPB rules (it mentions the giant robots from japanese movies in the listing, so pretty much a no-brainer there). Perhaps the easiest things to convert would be the Cyclones. Need to look at my books again and see what I can come up with.

As far as damaging armor, don't forget these rules taken from a Marvel Phile article.

Damaging Armor
To add depth to armored combat, each power--including Body Armor--and each of the FASE ability modifiers is then assigned a number as part of a random-roll table. These numbers will determine which of the armor's systems are damaged when an attack exceeds the suit's Body Armor (or applicable Force Fields, etc) by more than +1CS, as noted later. The numbers should be arranged so as they can be rolled on a simple die: 1d8, 1d10, 1d12, etc. Optionally, assign two or more numbers on such a table to a power that would have a greater chance of being damaged., like Body Armor or Flight, depending on your vision of the character's armored suit and the placement of his weaponry and equipment.

We now get to the raison d'etre for this expanded system: armored suit combat. Every time the character is in combat and recieves a blow that inflicts more damage than his Body Armor rank, the character takes damage minus the amount absorbed by his body armor. For example, if a hero has Remarkable (30) Body Armour and is hit by an Incredible (40) rank Force Bolt, the hero takes 10 points of damage (40 - 30 = 10). This is per normal rules.

If the damage is 2CS or more than the Body Armor rank, the character takes the appropiate damage, and percentile dice are then rolled on the rank of the attack -4CS to determine if the character's armor was damaged by the attack. For example, if the hero as above with Remarkable (30) Body Armor was punched by a villain possessing Amazing (50) Strength, the hero would roll 1d100 on the Good (10) column (50 - 4CS = 10). If the result is red, then roll on Table 3. Energy attacks are a special case, as Body Armor is 20 points less effective against energy attacks than against physical ones. When a hero is hit by an Energy attack capable of breaching the armor's reduced rank vs. Energy attacks, the character must follow the procedure for determining armor damage from physical attacks as before. Armored heroes can take Resistance to Energy Attacks to cover this weakness.

Repairing Damage
Fixing damaged armor is relatively simple. The hero must make a Reason FEAT roll to make the proper repairs correctly. A Resources FEAT roll might be called for as well, to see if the hero can afford to make the repairs. Other strictures can be applied to the roll at the Judge's whim. It is often a good idea for the Judge to make the Reason FEAT roll for the hero in secret. That way, if the roll is a failure by a narrow margin--say, within five points of the number needed for success--the hero may mistakenly believe that his armor is repaired when it actually might fail at an important moment. This is a nasty thing to do, but I leave the decision whether or not to use this up to each Judge.



MSH Classic RPG System
[rivendell.fortunecity.com]

Yes, those rules and suggestions would definitely come into play, and fortunately, there already exists a table in the Robotech game which handles such situations :-)

Thanks for bringing that up!

I'm currently downloading all the Robotech RPG sourcebooks from Kazaa.

Man I didnt know the Robotech books were in pdf format. That game was awesome but it took way to long to generate a character. I had a friend who did this whole crossover thing between multiple game systems but I do not think that he ever used any kind of correct conversion techniques. I believe that he just guessed at it. I think it could be extremly difficult to convert everything as some of the weapons inflict various damage, i.e 3d6 or 4d10+25. It sure would be nice but I dont think that it is really possible to convert correctly. It is good to know that there are Robotech RPG fans out there and that I am not the only one left.

Sid



Live Fast, Live Hard and Play it Loud

OK, I've been out of the loop for a while but have recently been watching Robotech Remastered with my wife and a friend and reading through to old RPG books and a couple of the McKinney novels. Anyone want to work on Robotech conversions?

Actually, I created an entire Robotech RPG for MSH before Palladium ever came out. I can see if I can find the old stats if you like?

One issue was whether to treat Mecha as characters like the Invid and Zentradi are or as vehicles. I believe I stated them both ways, but as time went on treated veritech's more like characters whose stats were modified by the pilots abilities.

It'll take awhile to post either way, but I'm game for making a stab. What would you like to see first?

I'd love to see these stats.

Yeah I would love to see them too.

Live Fast, Live Hard and Play it Loud

^ Well my hubby and partner in rpg crime would love to, I think it would be very interesting campaign wise.

Raptor, are you still out there? A lot of us would still like to see your Robotech stats.