Battletech Heaps: The Big Red Die

Whether it's for nostalgia or novelty, Wednesdays are the days that I put up old Battletech house rules I created nigh on 10 years ago. For those of you who aren't familiar with the (in)famous, addictive board game of armored combat, I'll add some context, but know that you should abandon all non-courier fonts, ye who enter here.

The Big Red Die
In Battletech, most weapons just deal a big heap of damage all at once. A class 10 Autocannon (AC/10) will deal, yeah, 10 damage all in once place. That's pretty good. Other weapons, like missiles hit in clusters. 5 is the most common, but there are weapons that deal clusters of 2 or 1.

Example: You're shooting a class 20 Long Range Missile Rack (LRM 20). You roll 2d6 to see if you hit. Then you roll 2D6 and consult a Cluster Hits Table to see how many of your 20 missiles hit. You roll a '7', an average roll, and 12 of your missiles hit.

Cluster Hits Table

   2  3  4  5  6  9 10 12 15 20

2  1  1  1  1  2  3  3  4  5  6

3  1  1  2  2  2  3  3  4  5  6

4  1  1  2  2  3  4  4  5  6  9

5  1  2  2  3  3  5  6  8  9 12

6  1  2  2  3  4  5  6  8  9 12

7  1  2  3  3  4  5  6  8  9 12

8  2  2  3  3  4  5  6  8  9 12

9  2  2  3  4  5  7  8 10 12 16

10 2  3  3  4  5  7  8 10 12 16

11 2  3  4  5  6  9 10 12 15 20

12 2  3  4  5  6  9 10 12 15 20

Numbers courtesy of Sarna's "CBT Tables" page.

Sarna.net is a great resource.

You then roll 2d6 for hit location 3 times, twice for clusters of 5 damage and then once more for a cluster of 2 damage (5 + 5 + 2 = 12).

That's tedious.