This section contains various different slants on the standard SLA Industries rules that people have developed to improve or enhance play in one way or another. Use the ones you like, and make sour faces at the ones you don't.

MARTIAL ARTS - House Rules designed by Declan.

DAMAGE BONUSES
In this rules variant, the damage bonus while using martial arts is based upon the level of Martial Arts skill, not upon strength, although the same formula is used to calculate the bonus (Skill/3, round down). If the strength bonus exceeds the damage bonus from the skill, the skill bonus is still used.

SPLITTING ATTACKS
An Operative attacking with Martial Arts has the option of splitting their attack, similar to the split attack used with Quad-Limb Dominion (Karma p.153). For example, Animosity, a Xeno Scout, has Martial Arts 10. He can make two attacks in the same action, splitting his 10 ranks of skill between the two attacks (for instance 7 on the first attack, 3 on the second).
A character can also split a weapon kata attack if he so wishes (see 'Weapon Katas' below).

An Operative who splits his/her attack cannot assign any ranks to defense in that phase.

WEAPON KATAS
Weapon Katas, allowing the Martial Arts damage bonus (but not the martial arts skill level) to be used with melee weapons. Weapon Katas, cost 5 points per different weapon.
Katas are more specialised than the melee weapon skills in the rulebook, and each Kata applies to a single weapon (like a VibroSabre) rather than a category (Blade, 1-handed).

An Operative must have the melee weapon skill that governs use of that weapon at 5 or better to have a weapon Kata that falls within that category (thus, an Operative who wanted the VibroSabre Kata must have Blade, 1-Handed skill at 5 before he can learn it).

In summary; when using a Weapon Kata, the Operative still rolls to hit with the appropriate weapons skill (Blade, 1-Handed in the above example) but the damage bonus is determined by the martial arts skill level.

Should he so desire, an Operative with a Weapon Kata has the option of using the regular strength damage bonus, or the martial arts damage bonus, when using that weapon, but if he uses the split attack option, he must use the Martial Arts damage bonus.

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New Rules for Shotguns designed by Declan.

Here's something I worked up to make shotguns a little more useful, as currently a full sized shotgun is less effective than a 12mm round, as fired by the KK Panther hold-out, and a lot less effective than a BLA Deringer.. a sad state of affairs for that old standby. It includes new ammo and new rules for shot shells.

It postulates some pretty basic advances in technology, replacing the 00 buck (which is still essentially a hunting round.. a little redundant on Mort) with a flechette round designed for use against people, unarmoured and in light armour.

10g FLECHETTE ROUND

Known as the 'beehive' round for the distinctive buzzing sound the flechettes make; each round consists of 10 tightly-packed 4mm razor-edged, tungsten-cored flechettes, which seperate shortly after leaving the barrel.
Shot/flechette rounds use a special rules variant developed from the autofire rules: The Operative rolls to hit, modifying his roll with shotgun skill, aim, spread bonus (see below), with appropriate negative modifiers for cover, movement, target size, recoil, visibility and wound status.

If the roll is a 20 or greater, it is a hit. For each point above 20, another flechette hits the target, up to a maximum of 10 per round fired.Each flechette that hits the target does the listed damage.

At medium range and beyond, the 'spread' of the shot allows secondary targets within 1 meter of the primary target to be hit. For these, if the initial shot is successful, but not all flechettes hit, roll 11+ modified only for cover and movement to hit. For each point above 10, an additional flechette hits doing the listed damage, again, up to the maximum flechettes fired. If multiple secondary targets are possible, roll for each and divide the remaining flechettes between the rolled hit.

For autofire shotguns, check for a hit normally (using the old autofire rules) but add the spread bonus. If a hit is scored, then work out how many hit using the autofire rule (using auto/support skill), adding in both the autofire bonus and the spread bonus, with each point above 20 representing another flechette hitting, (minimum of one), up to the total number of flechettes fired.

For secondary targets with autofire, the distance from the primary target is increased to 2m, and the autofire bonus is added to the roll to hit. Again, the number of total hits is limited to the number of flechettes (not rounds) in the burst fired (in a 5-round burst, 50 flechettes).

For suppressive fire, work out as normal, but add the spread bonus to the roll.
At point-blank range, the flechettes haven't had time to seperate, and act as a single projectile with normal rules, and do the second (parenthesised) Dam/Pen/AD values.

The spread bonus is based on the length of the barrel (the shorter the barrel the shorter the range, but the wider the spread pattern and the higher the chance of hitting). If the optimum range of the weapon is 10m or more, the weapon is considered 'long barrelled', and the spread bonus is +3. If the range is less than 5m, the weapon is considered a riot gun, and the spread bonus is +5. Long-barreled weapons can have their barrels shortened, making them riot-guns, but this decreases optimum range to 5m.

Damage for 10ga Flechette rounds is listed below, with the second, parenthesised number being the damage done at point-blank range.

Dam Pen AD Cost
10ga Rifle 5(15) 3(8) 1(5) 6c(100u)
10ga Pistol 3(8) 2(5) 1(3) 4c(60u)

In practice, these rules make the combat shotgun, especially the autoshotgun a devastating weapon for close-in use against groups of unarmoured and lightly armoured targets, which is the way they should be. The low penetration and damage value of individual flechettes make them of very limited effectiveness against anyone wearing heavy exo or better, unless you stick the gun up their nose.

Ammo costs have been increased to reflect the new usefulness, but as I'm sure you could deduce, this weapon is very popular with the bean-counters in SLA Industries as the flechettes cause minimal collateral damage to surrounding property.

As a footnote, these rules are a little more complex than I usually like, but it was the best way I could think of to make this old favourite the weapon of choice where it should be. Nonetheless, caveat emptor (even though I don't charge).

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The Problem with Powersuits designed by Declan.

Let's face it: there's a problem with powersuits. The game mechanics don't match the literature. Sarge powersuits are supposed to be these monster unstoppable powersuits, but you can wound the wearer with a 12.7mm HESH round, and two shots from a MAL loaded with HESH will kill anyone wearing a Sarge (or Shock for that matter).

Now this just doesn't fit in with the 'literature'... to quote from the extract of battle communications on p.273 of SLA Industries, "...HESH the MAL's"..... then later "HESH has no effect, switch to AP". In addition, the 'Sarge' is described on p.278 of SLA Industries as being able to '...withstand any pistol round as well as rifle rounds up to 12.7mm".

For reference, a MAL firing HESH has a pen of 4 and does 26 Damage. Against a PV of 18 (Sarge) this would do 12 points of damage to the wearer. So...we have a problem Houston.

To rectify this problem, making powersuits more what they should be (terrifying battlefield systems) I propose the following.
A powersuit is any mechanical suit with a PV of 18 or more (for our purposes, currently Sarge and Shock).

Use of a powersuit requires the Pilot: Powersuit (DIA) skill. This acts as a limiter on how well you perform in a suit. No skill based on Dex, Phys or Str can be used at a level greater than the Operatives 'Pilot: Powersuit" skill while in a suit.

Thus, if an Op has rifle 9 and Pilot, Powersuit 7, while in the suit he rolls as if he only has rifle 7. If he had rifle 6 and Pilot, Powersuit 7, then he would roll with a skill of 6. (I got this skill from the description of the Thresher Pilot on p.135 of Karma. It wasn't explained to I thought I'd use it).

In return for this limitation I came up with a new way to handle 'hardened' battlefield Powersuits. No round with a penetration of less than a powersuit's PV does *any* damage to the wearer. The round still does AD as normal, and if you can trash the suit you can get to the wearer.

This makes sense in terms of the Literature, as MAL's wouldn't touch the Sarge, but the Sarge's armament has sufficient PEN to break through the Shock.

It does make them powerful, but as Shock is 10,000c your ops shouldn't be running round the streets of Mort in it anyway, and the Pilot; Powersuit skill adds to the balance, and it kills two birds with one stone... makes the Powersuits as scary as they should be, and makes the Literature make sense.