Character Creation

Campaign Character Creation and Setup

Step 1: Choose weight class and advantages

Assault Mech – 1 Advantage
Heavy Mech – 2 Advantages
Medium Mech – 3 Advantages
Light Mech – 4 Advantages

Step 2: Choose advantages

*Mech Gunnery: Your starting Mech Gunnery target number will be 3 instead of 4.

Mech Piloting: Your starting Mech Piloting target number will be 4 instead of 5. (Can be taken twice for piloting of 3).

Dodge Maneuver: Enables the unit to make a dodge maneuver instead of a physical attack. This maneuver adds +2 to the BTH to physical attacks against the unit.

Maneuvering Ace: Enables the unit to move laterally like a Quad. Units also receive a -1 BTH to rolls against skidding.

Melee Specialist: Enables the unit to do 1 additional point of damage with physical attacks and subtracts one from the attacker movement modifier (to a minimum of zero).

Gifted Tech: You have a particularly gifted technician assigned to you. (or you are one yourself, in which case you should pick the Tech skill from the Out-of-Mech Advantage) Whenever you are assigned a new mech, including character creation, you can pick from any of the standard variants available in MegaMek of the appropriate technology level.

Pain Resistance: When making consciousness rolls, 1 is added to all rolls. Also, damage received from ammo explosions is reduced to 1.

Tactical Genius: A pilot who has a Tactical Genius may reroll their initiative once per turn. The second roll must be accepted. Note: Only one Tactical Genius may be utilized per team.

Weapon Specialist (1 Point Version): A pilot who specializes in a particular weapon receives a -2 to hit modifier on all attacks with that weapon. A specific weapon must be selected. (i.e. PPC, LRM-10, Medium Laser, AC/5, etc.)

*Weapon Specialist (2 point version): The weapon of specialization will automatically be the main weapon of your starting BattleMech. (i.e. Wasp=Medium Laser, Archer=LRM-20, Phoenix Hawk=Large Laser, Hunchback=AC/20, etc.)

Gunnery/Laser: Pilot gets a -1 to-hit bonus on all energy-based weapons (Laser, PPC, and Flamer).

Gunnery/Missile: Pilot gets a -1 to-hit bonus on all missile weapons (LRM, SRM).

Gunnery/Ballistic: Pilot gets a -1 to-hit bonus on all ballistic weapons (MGs, all ACs, Gauss rifles).

Edge: Head Hits, TACs, Pilot KO and Explosions will be rerolled if failed. Each reroll costs 1 Edge for that battle. (Can be taken multiple times).

Out of Mech Bonus: Pick 3 skills from the list below. You will receive a bonus of +2 to all rolls made against this skill.
Small Arms (You can shoot)
Martial Arts (You are an asskicker)
Tech (You can fix stuff)
Leadership (Poor dumb bastards will die for you)
Electronics (You can slice a computer and bypass security systems)
Streetwise (You have contacts in the less than affluent side of town)
Bureaucracy (You can hobnob in the highest circles)
Bargaining (You always get the best deal)
Knowledge (You know your shit)
Perception (You notice things)

*Well Equipped: Allows you to choose your BattleMech from the appropriate House list as well as give you a +2 on any roll to obtain equipment.

*Lostech Mech: You have inherited/stolen/found a Star League Era Mech. GM will roll on appropriate weight class table. (Familiarize yourself with the Lostech Mech repair rules before selecting this Advantage).

*This Perk costs 2 Advantage Points


Step 3: Choose your House Origin

This is strictly to determine what table will be consulted to determine your starting Battlemech. So, if you are an ex-Kuritan Mechwarrior, pick Draconis Combine. If, however, you are from Skye, and happened to cheat at cards whilst playing against a Marik noble to win your mech, pick The Free Worlds League. Capisci?

Step 4: Send an email to ‘ehoffm1@hotmail.com’ with your choices

Include any character fluff; appearance, history, likes, dislikes, etc. (Please, at least come up with a name. Note: Lord Pierpont von Woopenpoof is reserved as a major GM character in the campaign). Be as thorough or scant as you like. The main purpose of this (mis?)adventure is to re-connect doing something we used to love and have fun in the meantime.
I’ll make the ‘Mech rolls, create your character in a .mul file and send it back to you. If you want to hop on a server and virtua-roll for your mech just let me know and we can do that too.
Also, be sure to let me know in the email what day(s) and time(s) work for you to play.

Step 5: Get all the required software

You will need 3 pieces of software to play, all are free and safe to download.

The first is JRE (Java Runtime Edition) which can be found here: http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp This is free application software from Sun Microsystems. This is what allows us to share information between our computers like maps, mechs and such.

The second is MegaMek v0.32.2 which can be found here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=47079 (Note: get the full version not the upgrade patch) This is the game software that has all of the Battletech rules. I will be using mostly the old rules we always used with a few updates, but more of that later.

The third is Teamspeak 2 Client which can be found here: http://www.goteamspeak.com/?page=downloads This is the software that will let us talk to one another. You will need a microphone (I recommend a mic/headset combo. You can get one good enough for our purposes for about $10 at Best Buy or Circuit City. My server address is 72.232.167.123:3024, and the password is: ‘pikapp’.

I also recommend getting the All.Camos.zip from here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=47079
And some more camos from here http://digilander.libero.it/syylk/unzip_me_in_megameknet_dir.zip
These allow for a ton of different paint jobs on your mechs, and if you don’t have it you won’t be able to see anyone else’s cool paintjobs either. I can show you where to unzip it if you can’t figure it out.

All of this should take you about 10 minutes to download and install on any broadband connection. CPU requirements are minimal. If you have any problems or questions give me a call.

Starting Battlemech Tables