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Characters begin play with a number of points available to buy stats and skills. A typical
character starts with 30 points to spend. A character can, with the referee’s permission, reduceone or more of er stats or take disadvantages in order to gain more points.
Stats
Characters have four stats: Physique (PHY), Dexterity (DEX), Intelligence (INT), and Cool
(COOL). Each of them starts at +0. Increasing a stat costs 30 points per +1; characters can
also sell back some of their stats, in which case they get back 30 points per -1. No stat may be
reduced below -2 or increased above +3 without special means such as magic, super powers,
or the like.
Physique represents a character’s strength, health, stamina, physical condition, and athleticability. Dexterity represents a character’s hand-eye coordination, physical agility, balance, and
general physical movement ability. Intelligence represents a character’s reasoning, memory,
speed of thought, and perception. Cool represents a character’s ability to interact with and
make a positive impression on others as well as er willpower and ability to stay calm in a crisis.
Skills
Characters can buy skills. Unless otherwise mentioned, each skill costs 10 points to buy the
skill at base level, and an additional 10 points per +1. Each skill is listed with the name of a stat
in parentheses; any bonuses or penalties the character has with the stat apply to the use of the
skill.
For skills with a (type) noted, the character must choose a specific area with which the skill is
useful. For instance, a character with Driving skill must select a type of vehicle e can drive,
whether Cars, Motorcycles, Oversized Vehicles, Chariot, Horse and Buggy, or other types of
vehicles at the referee’s discretion. The character must buy Driving skill again to be able to
Crew (INT or SOC) - this represents the ability of the character to function as part of a trained
crew, where individuals might have different functions but must operate in unison or in a specificsequence. Characters with any of the following skills automatically have Crew at base level if
desired: Heavy Weapons, Leadership, Pilot, Profession (soldier), Sailing, Systems Operation,
Tactics, Vehicle Weapons. Characters who have more than one of these skills do not receive
additional levels in Crew, however.
Driving (type) (DEX) - Types can include Cars, Motorcycles, Oversized Vehicles, Chariot, Horse
And Buggy, Giant Robot (walker or wheeled only), Giant Transformable Robot In Land Vehicle
Form.
Electronics (INT)
Extra HP (PHY) - this allows a character to buy up to 3 additional HP at 10 points apiece,
without increasing er PHY score. There would normally be no reason to roll the Extra HP skill.
Forgery (INT)
Gambling (COOL)
Heavy Weapons (DEX) - heavy machine guns, mortars, grenade launchers, cannon; any
man-portable crew-served weapon, but not Vehicle Weapons. (This depends entirely on techlevel. In a low tech world, ballistae, catapults, and trebuchets would be considered Heavy
Weapons, though this skill might be renamed Siege Engines in such a game.)
Improved Initiative (Special) - every level in Improved Initiative (including the base level) adds
+1 to characters’ Initiative rolls in combat. A character can buy up to three levels Improved
Initiative.
Knowledge (type) (INT) - Area (specific area), Culture (place or people), General (person or
thing)
Language (specific) (INT) - the character speaks another language. Base level means the
character can carry on basic conversations; with additional levels the character can speak more
fluently. Four levels (Language+3) means the character effectively has native level fluency with
Luck (Special) - A character with Luck at base level makes er Luck checks at 7- instead of 4-,
and additional levels increase er Luck roll.
Magic (INT) - Magic skill represents a character’s ability to successfully cast a spell. A character
with Magic skill has a number of Spell points equal to 10 + COOL + Magic skill value. Every
spell has a spell level; a mage can cast spells of a maximum level equal to half er Magic skilllevel, rounded up. A mage can learn any number of spells they are capable of casting, one at a
time; whether they can find these spells is another story… (Note: the Magic skill represents
Arcane magic only. Divine and Nature Magic are separate skills; Divine and Nature Magic are
Perception (INT) - This represents the character’s ability to sense the environment around em. All characters begin with Perception at base level for no cost.
Pilot (type) (DEX) - Helicopter, Fixed Wing, Hovercraft, Large Watercraft, Hot Air Balloon,
Spacecraft, Giant Robot (with flight or jump capability), Transformable Giant Robot In Air Or
Spacecraft Form.
Power (type) (Special) - if a character has any kind of super, psionic, or other types of powers,
this represents er ability to activate and control them. The stat to use depends on the powers
and is generally up to the referee. It’s possible that different types of power might be controlled
by different stats. In most cases the Power skill is not necessary for a character to simply use er
powers; this can help em perform power tricks, stunts, and so forth.
Profession (type) (INT) - accountant, blacksmith, cartwright, detective, soldier, etc. The
governing stat can depend on the specifics of the profession; Profession (dancer) might be
DEX-based, while Profession (loader) might be PHY-based.
Walk - 3-4 feet/1 meter per second (approximately 2 miles or 3 kilometers per hour)
Jog - 7.5 feet/2 meters per second (approximately 5 miles or 8 kilometers per hour)
Run - 15 feet/4 meters per second (approximately 10 miles or 15 kilometers per hour)
Jump - 7.5 feet/2 meters in distance or 3 feet/1 meter in height, or an amount of distance
equal to any prior movement (halved for height). Jumping is considered a combat
action. Sprint - 30 feet/9 meters per second (approximately 20 miles or 30 kilometers per hour)
During a turn, a character can move (up to a Run) and then perform a combat action; no
character may attack while Sprinting. Regardless of how far a character has moved during the
turn, e may not move after performing a combat action.
A character may, instead of performing a combat action, perform a second move action (Walk,
Jog, or Run only). Sprinting is effectively two Run actions performed during the turn.
(Note: In real world terms, 10 mph approximates 15 feet per second, while 15 kphapproximates 4 meters per second. Within the same margin of error, 10 mph also approximates
15 kph. For our purposes, it doesn’t matter whether units are exact as long as they are
consistent.)
Initiative
At the beginning of combat, every character rolls 1d6 and adds er INT (plus any bonuses from
Improved Initiative and/or Tactics skill); the result is the character’s Initiative score. During each
turn, characters declare their actions and movement in order of Initiative from lowest to highest,
and after all actions have been declared they resolve in order from highest to lowest. Once all
characters have acted, the turn is over and the next turn starts.
Initiative order is fixed at the beginning of combat, though circumstances may permit a character
to reroll er initiative (such as disengaging from and re-engaging in combat).
Sm aller Turns optional)
In games where characters or other entities move at extremely high speeds, the referee may
wish to proportion movement throughout a turn, by “slicing” a turn up into equal parts, and
allowing each character to prorate their movement down to the fractions of a second. It is
recommended that one turn be divided into no more than three to five parts.
Size
Characters have a “hidden” stat, called Size. Characters shouldn’t increase or decrease their
Size stat unless playing in a game where they can be much larger or much smaller than the
norm (superhero and fantasy games, most likely), though at the referee’s discretion a character
might be able to take +1 or -1 Size to represent being extremely large or very small (children
Increasing or decreasing Size would cost 10 or -10 points per level, respectively, with no lower
or upper limit (unless the referee decides otherwise). Every -1 level of Size would halve the
character’s weight and give attackers a -1 penalty to hit or perceive em. -3 levels of Size would
in addition halve the character’s height, movement, and volume. Every +1 to Size doubles the
character’s weight and grants attackers a +1 bonus to hit or perceive the character. +1 to Size
also effectively grants the character +1 to er PHY stat (through reducing Size below 0 does notaffect PHY). +3 levels of Size would double the character’s height, movement, and volume as
well. Increasing or decreasing Size by one or two levels would have a cosmetic effect on the
character’s height but not affect er movement. (Reduced Size could be considered a character
disadvantage.)
Size can also be used to roughly estimate combat penalties to hit targets that are much larger or
smaller but that aren’t necessarily expressed in terms of Size.
The Fantasy Game
Here is a link to a set of rules for converting fantasy OGL SRD monsters, spells, and charactersover to the Certain Well known vehicle combat board game, which would work just fine and
dandy with Micro Wars. Note that those rules are based around roll-high, so keep that in mind
when reading and using them.
Changes
21 May 2015: Added link to the fantasy rules.
14 April 2015: Added description for Magic skill.
17 December 2014: Tweaked gender neutral pronouns. Included Roll High Variant.
2 December 2014: Fixed DEF and SP. They are separate items.
11 July 2014: Tweaked some of the wording around DEF and SP for Armor, and rearranged
that section.
26 June 2014: Added rules for Size, Critical Success and Failure, and optional rules for smaller
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