B5W Optional (House) Rules
Fighter To-Hit Rolls - roll D20 for each individual fighter rather than consulting the Flight Combat Chart. It doesn't take any more time if you have more than 1 D20, you don't have to deal with the math of figuring out what 2/3 of 5 is. :) Also, while the average expected results are between using D20 per fighter or the Flight Chart, the probabilities are significantly different. Using the Flight Chart, at reasonably To-Hit numbers there is a significant possibility of having NO fighters hit, whereas the possibility is very slim if each fighter is rolled for individually. We have found that this DOES affect our fighter tactics, because we're not looking at it like "Hmm.. 1 in 3 chance of none of them hitting", and it does make the fighter-on-fighter more significant (i.e. improves the effect of defending fighter screens).
The following table shows the odds of getting the specified number of hits using the two methods (flight chart vs rolling individualy) for the given To-Hit numbers:
| # of hits | To-Hit: 2 | To-Hit: 10 | To-Hit: 19 | |||||
| Flight | Indiv | Flight | Indiv | Flight | Indiv | |||
| All miss | 70% | 53.1% | 30% | 1.56% | 0% | 0.00% | ||
| 1/6 | 10% | 35.4% | 10% | 9.38% | 0% | 0.00% | ||
| 1/3 | 10% | 9.84% | 10% | 23.4% | 5% | 0.01% | ||
| 1/2 | 10% | 1.46% | 15% | 31.3% | 15% | 0.21% | ||
| 2/3 | 0% | 0.12% | 10% | 23.4% | 10% | 3.05% | ||
| 5/6 | 0% | 0.01% | 10% | 9.38% | 10% | 23.1% | ||
| All Hit | 0% | 0.00% | 15% | 1.56% | 60% | 73.5% | ||
Fighter Suppression - In the show, we have seen occasions where fighters are hit but not destroyed, yet they are sent tumbling off course. Fighters are a very small mass and make a relatively unstable gun platform, especially when subjected to the energies of weapons which regularly pound away at huge ships. To represent this, whenever a fighter takes enough damage to inflict a critical, it is considered to be thrown off it's firing run and cannot shoot at anything in subsequent fire phases that turn. Drop-Out is rolled for at the end of the turn when resolving Criticals, as normal. I've found that this makes me more inclined to increase my jinking, since getting hit will most likely prevent a fighter from shooting that turn, as well as forcing the drop-out roll after firing. It also makes use of AoG's elegant Fighter Critical system even in Flight Combat.
Fighter Jinking - instead of assigning and declaring the jink level during the accel/decels, fighter jinking is set when the fighters actually move.
Randomized System Hits - Rather than having the Defender select which systems are hit, he'she rolls a die to randomly determine it. Even already damaged systems are included. We usually use a d6, but in some cases resort to a d4 or d10 if there are 4 or 5 possible systems. Example: There are three possible systems of the type rolled. Roll d6, one 1-2 it is the left-/front-most, 3-4 the central one, and 5-6 the right-/rear-most one.
And let me tell you, it was really cool when the Vorlon's shot crashed into the front of the Sharlin, and the attacker kept rolling "Fusion Cannon" hits for each volley, and the defender kept rolling that each was hitting the #9 Fusion cannon!! (I was on the Sharlin's side, though not running the Sharlin - but I still thought it was cool! OK, maybe a little influence by it being NOT MY SHIP! *GRIN*)
Double-Blind Allocations - Players allocate power, roll for Initiative, allocate EW, and determine accelerations/decelerations. Then everyone announces the accel/decels, and whether they have defensive EW and any locks on other vessels (but no numbers). Initiative is not announced (so you know how good your init roll is when allocating, but not compared to everyone else's). When we get to the movement phase, we simply count up through the numbers, and stop for ships to move at their respective initiatives. We have not found any significant change in time needed for up to 7200 point battles (haven't done anything over that yet). The small amount added for counting is offset by the "negotiation" of everyone figuring out where their Inits fit in. This adds a bit of spice because you don't know which ships will move before you UNTIL they move! Nor do you know what the EW allocations are, so we start using "EW bluffs" where you put 1 point on some ship to help cover your intentions. Adds quite a bit of depth to the tactics.
Damage Based on To-Hit Die Roll - we've never actually used this, but it's a pretty straightforward adaptation of damage based on the To-Hit roll results.
Non-Pulse weapons: Damage is specified as Nd10 + Mod (- Range Mods) [may be Nd6]. Example: Heavy Laser (HL) does 4d10+10 damage; Twin Array (TA) does 1d10+4; Starfury gun does 1D6+4.
Pulse Weapons: Damage is normally specified as N d5 times.
Example #1: Heavy Lasers do 4d10+10. The base damage would be 14 (10+4). The adder would be 4 for every point rolled below the To-Hit. Supposed the To-Hit is 14, and an 8 is rolled. That is 6 under, so the damage done would be 14 + 6 x 4 = 38. If a 3 is rolled, that would beat the To-Hit by 11, which would result in 14 + 11 x 4 = 58, but the maximum damage would cap it off at 50.
Example #2: Plasma Stream does 3d10 (-2/hex). The base damage would be 3, and the adder would be 3 per point under the To-Hit. At range 6, with a 9 To-Hit and a 6 rolled, the final damage would be 3 + 3x3 - 6x2 = 12 - 12 = 0.
NOTE: This method really makes you pay for taking long-odds shots. In long-odds shots, you won't be able to roll well enough to get high-damage shots - meaning your odds of hitting were so poor that your damage potential is greatly reduced. You may be able to walk the beam or burst onto the target, but not enough will hit to do anything approaching maximum damage.