Statting an actual tank (and other vehicles)

[Belial666]

So, how would you stat a modern tank? Here's what I have so far;


SKILLS
These reflect the tank's basic abilites. Use the drivers' skills if they would be higher and it would make sense for the drivers to be able to use them from inside the tank;
Might +6, Endurance +6, Intimidation +6, Alertness +4, Guns +2

STUNTS

Armor-Piercing Ammo: the tank's ranged weapons are loaded with armor-piercing ammunition. They treat armor as 2 pts lower.
Size Matters Not: the tank's main gun is specially made to destroy other huge vehicles and structures. It deals +2 stress against anything with hulking size.
Night Vision: the tank has advanced night-vision gear. Anyone using them takes no penalties to any vision-related rolls due to darkness.
Telescopic Vision: the tank has advanced telescopic vision gear. Anyone using them reduces any penalties to perception rolls due to range by 3.
Aiming Aids: the tank has advanced aiming aid equipment. Double the bonus from tagging "In My Sights" for the tank's main gun.
Pin them Down: as normal
Target Lock: the tank's main gun can automatically track locked targets in any direction, independently of the tank's own facing and movement. The tank retains the "In My Sights" aspect unless the target moves behind cover or moves enough zones in one exchange for the main gun to have to turn more than 180' total in order to track him - or until the tank's main gun aims at another target. This is in addition to and stacks with the Pin them Down stunt.
Bend and Break: as normal
All-terrain Vehicle: a tank uses its modified might instead of its athletics for movement purposes such as overcoming borders, sprinting and the like. This also represents a tank's higher-than-human top speed.

POWERS

[-6] Mythic Might
[-6] Mythic Toughness
[-8] Main Gun: the tank's main gun is a "breath weapon" (-2), with range of line of sight or 2 miles, whichever is less (-3), dealing +2 stress (-1) and working as a zone attack at half-strength in addition to its effect on its main target (-2). Remember that breath weapons also get bonus stress from strength powers.
[+2] Unhealing: as a vehicle, a tank cannot recover from consequences unless repaired. In addition, it must take consequences if the damage exceeds its stress track and cannot take more than a moderate consequence.
[-2] Hulking Size
[-1] Made of Iron: the tank is literally made of iron alloy. It gets +1 armor against attacks by materials softer than iron. It also remains unaffected by faerie magic.
[-4] Physical Immunity: the tank, as a construct, is immune to any stress or maneuers from sources that affect biology (such as poison, disease and biomancy spells) or the nervous system (such as flashbangs, tazers and neuromancy spells). Due to its thick armor, it is also immune to any attack of weapon rating 3 or less.
[-1] Humongous: the tank is a fortified vehicle weighing over fifty tons. In most cases, attempting to physically manipulate it is futile. It uses its modified might to resist physical maneuers and blocks and its endurance to resist physical attacks.
[-1] Machine: a tank is a machine. It is unaffected by normal social and mental attacks and maneuers and cannot take part in such conflicts at all. However, it must be operated by a driver - or even a team of driver/gunner/spotter in order to function. While the handlers are hidden from line of sight within the tank, they are still succeptible to mental or social conflicts if an attacker can somehow reach them. Furthermore, the tank itself is succeptible to hexing by mortal magic and electronic warfare; use its mental and social tracks for those.

[Papa Gruff]

Interesting attempt. Some things seem to be a little off though.

First of all I can't see why a tank should have skills. It's crew has them. For the sake of the rules some do make some sense, like Might to reflect its horse power. Endurance? I don't know. If it's just for the sake of stress then i can see why it might be valid, but some trappings should definitely not apply. Same for Intimidation. Alertness again should be reflected by the tanks crew, same as guns. For simplification it is alright I guess.

The stunts largely seem O.K.

Now Powers are tricky. If you go by the rules you definitely have to add a catch to the toughness, like "anti tank weaponry" or something like that (witch would include all kinds of high powered magic of cause).

An other thing is, that I can't see the main gun, witch is a guns weapon in my opinion, benefiting of the might powers. Surely this is nothing that profits from the horse powers of the tank.

Where does it say that faerie magic is ineffective against irony targets? If there is such a rule i'd be happy if you'd point me to it. The "Made of Iron" power is highly questionable as there are no similar mechanics in the game that I know of at the moment.

The Physical Immunity needs a catch as well. I'm also not sure about the discount you award for it (not that it matters )

The machine power again only seems valid if you see the tank itself as a being. It highlights the problem that this writeup presents. Ultimately the tank isn't a being of its own. It is an heavily armored vehicle/weapon system that provides it's crew with special and power full benefits. That said, some stunts and powers doesn't seem to make good sense. Sometimes it seems you see the tank as a "being" of some kind, in other places you do not.

If I would use a tank in my game, I'd probably treat it as a peace of equipment, that benefits all of it's operators who'd have to do a lot of teamwork actions. It would have a high weapon and armor rating, would provide most of the benefits by means of narration or by providing aspects to the crew. The crew on the other hand would provide the skills that are necessary to pilot the tank, witch might be modified by the tanks computers and electronics. I'm not even sure if I would give it a normal stress track that benefits from endurance and toughness powers. The rules for barrier ratings seem to make a lot more sense to me when it comes to heavily armored vehicles.

All in all I think it's almost playable but some things need tweaking...

[ironchicken]

I would suggest looking at starblazers or Diaspora. Both have systems for statting spaceships and other things.

Its about scale. Once something gets out of scale it more or less becomes unable to easily interact with something of another scale.

With vehicles etc you need different skills generally the things you roll against. Stunts then add the specials and aspects well aspects.

Starship Enterprise
Scale: Starships

Skills
Phasers good
torpeadoes Great
Maneouvre Fair
Shields Good

Stunts
Transporters
Suttlecraft
Warp drive

Aspects
The engines cana take it captian
Flagship of the fleet
etc

[Belial666]

@vehicles as creatures:
Many vehicles - including armored ones - can be remote controlled and thus have no driver. Also, yes, somebody drives a vehicle but the vehicle still uses its own engine, sturdiness, speed and the like. Especially for the modern sensors that not only see further than the human eye or in the dark but can also display additional info, that makes the difference in many combats.
Similarly, a stealth plane would have a stealth skill while a normal plane would not, even when the first is driven by an average human while the latter by an international superspy with very high stealth of his own - though the spy could use his own stealth stunts to help.
Ditto for targeting systems - especially for guided weapons and automated weapons - where the human is not moving the weapon around on his own; the mechanism does that.


@tank skills:
might: its engine's power
endurance: the physical toughnes of its armor and how well it is built - buildings and barriers have a stress track and consequences as if they had an endurance equal to their breaking difficulty. (i.e. vault door is endurance 12)
intimidation: a tank is a frightening thing. when you see a tank moving in your general direction, you will be scared shitless most of the time. Even if a cute 12-year-old without intimidate happens to be driving it.
alertness: the tank's sensors other than its visual aids for the crew.
guns: the tank's automated targeting systems. I.e. use that if the gunner's skill is lower or if someone is driving the tank by remote.

@Toughness powers:
Armor and extra stress don't need a catch because they are object armor and stress. I.e. something like a wall is going to have armor 3 and lots of physical stress boxes without any "catch". Explosives and antitank weaponry, instead of being a catch, have "armor piercing" to treat all armor as lower regardless of source and simply do loads of damage. I.e. an rpg is weapon 4-5. A rocket may be more.
The tank's Physical Immunity on the other hand does have a catch; it is penetrated by anything of weapon 4 and higher that also isn't a biological or neurological attack.
As for magic and electronic warfare, that is taken care of by machine traits; the tank only has a mental stress track of 2 and a social of 2, without armor. You use mental vs Hexing and social vs electronic warfare. So in effect, direct magical attacks can disable a tank pretty easily.
Finally, faerie magic does not cause Hexing and traditionally does not affect iron - that is part of any fairy's high concept much like red vampires being harmed by the sun.

@main gun:
There are no rules for pricing a Weapon 10 attack. In addition, the tank only uses a very small part of Mythic Might by itself so the pricing for it would be wrong. There are, however, rules for thrown weapons and breath weapons that use thrown weapon rules. Using those rules and building the tank's main gun as a "breath" weapon solves both problems rules-wise.
Thematically, Mythic Might -which represents the tank's increased power and bulk- enables the tank to carry a larger main gun than, say, a same-sized truck that has a quarter of the horsepower and a tenth the weight. Therefore, it is that ability that gives an indirect "bonus" to damage. Hence doing so rules-wise would fit.

[Papa Gruff]

Yeah ... thats all very nice. If you see the tank as some kind of creature then it all makes sense (in some way at least). But honestly. A tank ain't a creature. Stating it with creature powers is problematic and some trappings of the rules just don't make any sense what so ever if you ask me. Declaring the gun of a tank a breath weapon is ... well ... illogical at the very least. A gun is a gun. So let the tank have a weapon: 5 and be done with it. No mythical strength/might needed.

And I'm still not getting why the Toughness doesn't need a catch...

I'm not saying that you can't stat a tank like this. I'm not even discouraging you from trying it, nor am I in any way against you trying it. All I'm saying is that the rules of the DFRPG obviously aren't prepared to handle the stating of complex war engines like a tank. Why? Because they are very unlikely to come up in a urban or suburban scenario (in witch the Dresden Files are set). In my humble opinion pressing something like a tank into the existing set of rules if very difficult and problematic at the very least.

[CableRouter]

Yeah ... thats all very nice. If you see the tank as some kind of creature then it all makes sense (in some way at least). But honestly. A tank ain't a creature. Stating it with creature powers is problematic and some trappings of the rules just don't make any sense what so ever if you ask me. Declaring the gun of a tank a breath weapon is ... well ... illogical at the very least. A gun is a gun. So let the tank have a weapon: 5 and be done with it. No mythical strength/might needed.

Another problem is that a tank just doesn't fit into human scale rules at all.  The kinetic energy of a modern tank round is roughly thirty thousand times as much as a Weapon: 1 Handgun Bullet and a Weapon 1 bullet, no matter how well fired or how many shifts of effect it generates won't penetrate the hull of a tank.  For rules of this scale, a tank should be a plot device and nothing else.  It blows up what the GM says it blows up and lasts as long as the GM allows.

[Belial666]

@CableRouter:
Exactly. That's why my tank has:

Physcial Immunity; Due to its thick armor, it is also immune to any attack of weapon rating 3 or less.

As for the energy of a shot being thirty thousand times bigger, yes it is. You might have noticed though that for weapons of the same type, weapon 2 has four-five times the energy of weapon 1 or far more efficient use of energy.. Weapon 3 has four-five times the energy of weapon 2. Weapon 4 has four-five times the energy of weapon 3 and so on. Using that scale, a weapon of 40.000 times the energy is 7 weapon ratings above that. So tank's main gun? It's weapon 8. I gave it weapon 10 to reflect a high-tech explosive round.
The above is why a weapon 1 spell could only deal second degree burns to one target while Harry's weapon 8 fuego can burn through a brick wall or vaporize a coffin-sized piece of pavement. Weapon 8 is NOT 8 times the energy of weapon 1. It is 40.000 times the energy.

Simply put, humongous weaponry is grossly inefficient energy-wise.