Battlefield Builder System

8/10/2019 Battlefield Builder System

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BATTLEFIELD BUILDER RULES

Everything you need, and nothing you dont

A Rulebook by Franz Braatz


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Battlefield Builder System

Welcome to the Battlefield Builder system. This system is an update and improvement on some of my

previous games (Universal Miniatures and Army Men). While these two rule sets are compatible, I felt it

necessary to combine them into one cohesive rule set for better continuity and eliminate redundant andoutdated concepts. After a lot of play testing, many of the old systems, that did not work so well, or

slowed the games down, have been revamped to make game play smoother and faster. I am hoping

that this will be the be all-end all rule set for D6 tabletop combat.There are several reasons why I

wanted to create this rule set. I am always looking for a set of rules that I can use to play teams of

soldiers with. There is always this reason, or that reason why most of the ones you find, dont quite fit

the bill for what Im looking for. Let me go over some of the difficulties and frustrations I have with

existing rule sets that are out there. First and most importantly is that most rules are too complicated. It

takes forever to learn the rules, and then once you do, you fight and argue over the subtle nuances

forever. Next, many rules require you to have lots of special items in order for you to play. Many rules

are designed to make money or be commercially viable. Therefore, you need to have special dice, orminiatures, and extra books for you to play a special army and so on. I wanted a rule set that anyone

can use and customize with very little effort. Character creation should be quick and easy to set up. The

characters profiles are very simple, and yet, can be customized to an infinite degree. No two soldiers or

armies need to be the same. Once you read the rules, you should be able to build soldier profiles in an

unlimited variety in mere minutes. The next thing I wanted was for the game to be virtually free to start

and set up. All you need are some six sided dice, pen and paper, a ruler, a play surface area, and some

figures of your choice. It should also be flexible enough to fit any scenario or time frame. If you dont

have a sniper in your fantasy setting, just change the name to fire mage and you are done. All actions

in this game are resolved by one six sided dice roll. If you attack, roll a D6. If you need to defend against

said attack, roll a D6. That is almost all there is to the rules of combat. Dont let the simplicity fool you.There will be plenty of strategy involved. We just need to expand off of that premise and establish some

parameters.


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CHARACTER CREATION

Once you get the hang of it, creating your own characters will become second nature. I like to refer to

the builder system as an A La Carte style system. First, you start with a basic profile, then; you can go

through the menu to pick and choose different options to make each character unique and valuable to

the team in different ways. Creating a new character consists of three easy steps described below.

STEP 1:

CREATE A CHARACTER

Start with a basic character template. Every character in the universal rules set starts out exactly the

same, with a basic framework with which to build off of and give balance to the game. All characters in

the game need to have the same initial stats so they can interact properly with the world they are in and

other characters they are playing with. Lets go over all the stats that they will need to play.These stats

are Action Dice, Movement, Melee Attack, Ballistic Attack, Damage, Defense, and Health. All stats start

at zero and can be modified with personality points later in the creation phase to increase their

effectiveness.

ACTION DICE: Each character gets two action dice to use on their turn to perform different actions of

their choosing. You can choose to use your dice to move, shoot, or melee attack in any combination you

want. Certain special abilities give you additional action dice that can only be used for certain types of

actions. Use these wisely in combination with your normal action dice. Characters may not use any more

than three actions on their turn per game round.

MOVEMENT: All characters need to move. All characters start off with a basic movement of three

inches. You can increase your movement speed up to six inches by spending skill points. You may also

double the speed of your character by using both of your actions to run. Certain types of terrain may

hinder your movement speed and abilities. Here are the movement related parameters.

CLEAR TERRAIN: No movement penalties.

ROUGH TERRAIN: Examples of rough terrain would include broken ground, rubble, and heavily wooded

areas. Rough terrain reduces your movement speed in half, rounding up. For example: if your movement

is three, rough terrain will reduce it to two. If you are running, you divide the total speed all at once as if


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it were one action. So your speed would be three inches in the example above if you were running, not

four.

SWIMMING: If you are trying to cross a body of water that is too wide to jump over, you may have to

swim across. Swimming is done at half speed. This means that you would divide your speed result in

half, rounding up, and move that many inches across the water. It is assumed that you will not drown ifyou end your movement in the water. Swimming units cannot perform any attack actions until they

clear the water.

CLIMBING: Climbing is a similar action to swimming. You may add all of your movement inches that you

are using to climb and divide by half, rounding up, to see how many inches you can climb vertically. As

with swimming, you cannot perform other actions until you have completed your climb up or down.

FALLING: If, for some reason your character falls, he may need to check to see if he is hurt. Anyone

falling from one floor or lower receives no penalties or injuries. For every floor above two flights, you

will have to take a damage test of one attack dice per floor with no bonuses to defense allowed.

MELEE ATTACK: This is your characters ability to fight in hand to hand combat. Everyone starts with a D6

ability to attack and can be modified with personality points and special abilities described later.

Whenever a character moves into base to base contact with an enemy, he may perform a melee attack

as long as he has the actions available to do so. Characters in melee combat may not perform ballistic

attacks until they are no longer in base to base contact with enemy combatants. If there are only two

characters involved in the melee, both have to option to break away from that combat on their turn by

using both action points to move away at their standard movement rate from the other character. If

there are more than two characters involved in the fight, then the player with the least amount of

fighters involved cannot break away from combat. The player with the superior numbers can move

people away at will until the numbers are even. Melee attack dice are rolled one at a time. Whenever amelee attack dice is rolled, the defender always rolls a defense dice to counter the attack. Defenders

always win on ties. An attack roll of one always misses, and a defense roll of six always wins, and the

attacker immediately ends his turn. If your attack succeeds, roll a damage dice and add any bonuses.

Subtract the result from the defenders health line.

BALLISTIC ATTACK: Ranged combat is very similar to melee combat as for as mechanics are concerned.

The difference is that you are attacking from far away. In order to perform a ballistic attack you must

first choose a target. Next you want to determine if your character has a clear shot at the target. We

use a method known as the 1/3 to 2/3 method. If a model can see its intended target and is not

obstructed from view by more than 1/3 of the area, it considered to have a clear shot with no coverpenalties. If a model is obstructed from view by more than 1/3 but not more than 3/4 it is considered in

cover. A cover bonus gives the attacker a minus one penalty to their attack roll. If the target is

obstructed from view by more than 2/3, it is considered to be blocked from view and cannot be targeted

for a ranged attack, even if a character has a special ability. Characters in melee combat cannot be

targeted for a ballistic attack as it is considered too dangerous to shoot into melee combat for friendly

team members. Next, the attacker needs to check the range to the target. Use a tape measure to


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measure the distance form base to base of the two models involved. If the range is less than 12 inches,

then no penalty is applied. At a range between 12 and 24 inches, the attacker subtracts one from their

dice roll. A target between 24 and 36 inches gets minus two to the ranged attack roll. Anything farther

than 36 inches is considered too far away to shoot at. After factoring in all of your bonuses and

penalties, make your ballistic attack roll and compare it to the defenders roll. If your attack is a success,

then roll for damage as with melee combat.

TEMPLATE WEAPONS: Template weapons are special ranged weapons that attack an area on the board

instead of a particular target. Different template weapons have different ranges and effects on the

battlefield, but they all have certain characteristics in common. All template attacks use a standard CD

or DVD as their area of effect. When placing templates, determining ranges, and line of sight, always

use the center of the template as your reference. For example: if a template weapon has a range of 12

inches, you may place the center of the template anywhere from the base of the user, up to twelve

inches away. If a template weapon has a range of (edge), then you would place the EDGE of the

template up to the base of the user. A user must have line of sight to where he wants to place the

center of the template, not necessarily the intended target. Use the templates center as your line ofsight when rolling your attack. Targets still benefit from cover and blocked line of sight such as walls and

other terrain objects.

OVER WATCH: There may come a situation where your character is unable to do anything. You may

choose to put that character on over watch. Over watch is a situation where the character can spend

both of their basic action points to be on the lookout for an opportunity to attack an enemy when

they come into range. This way, when an enemy character comes into range, you may interrupt the

opposing player and declare your action with the character on over watch. You are trading both actions

now, for one you can use later on your opponents turn. You cannot use special actions to either go into

over watch or when you activate on over watch.

DAMAGE: Whenever you make a successful attack, you may roll to see how much damage you have

inflicted on your target. For each successful attack, roll one damage dice. You may modify damage

results using personality points and special abilities. Action Dice CANNOT be used for extra damage.

DEFENSE: Every time your character is attacked with either melee or ballistic attacks, you will roll a

defense dice to counter the attackers attempt to inflict damage upon your character. Defenders always

win ties after modifiers have been applied. Defense dice are not the same as action dice, and must be

rolled against any and all attacks.

HEALTH: All characters start off with 15 health points. You can increase your total health by 5 points forevery personality point you add to your health stat. When your character is reduced to zero health

points from being attacked, they are removed from the game.


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STEP 2:

SPEND SKILL POINTSSkill points are bonus points that you can spend to increase stats and purchase equipment. You get SIX

skill points per character to spend to make them more powerful and specialized.

ADDING POINTS TO STATS: You can add skill points to the following stats: movement, melee attack,

ballistic attack, damage, health, and defense. For example, if you added a skill point to your characters

melee attack stat, every time you roll a melee attack roll, you would add one to the result. No stat may

be modified by more than three points of combined bonuses. In order to add a point to your character,

write in a +1 next to the stat you wish to boost.

HEALTH INCREASE: For every skill point you put into your health stat, you would add five additional

points of health to your stat line. Each character starts with fifteen health points. You can use up to

three skill points to increase your health up to an additional 15 points. This brings the total maximum

health points up to thirty total.

MOVEMENT INCREASE: For every skill point you spend on movement, you add one inch to your

movement stat. Each character starts with three inches of movement. You may spend up to three points

on your speed, bringing your total up to a maximum movement speed of six inches. A character with a

movement speed of six inches can run twelve inches! Thats pretty fast!

DAMAGE INCREASE: You may add one point of damage to each of your damage rolls for each point youspend in your damage stat. You may spend up to three skill points for a total of plus three to damage

rolls.

The next three stats work very differently from the previous stats above. Since the following stats use

dice rolls that increase the probability of success exponentially for every increase, the price goes up

exponentially as well. The price to increase the dice roll up by one point will cost one skill point. Not bad

so far. But the price to go from plus one to plus two will cost you an ADDITIONAL two points. Thats a

total of three points for a plus two bonus. To increase from a plus two to a plus three costs another

three points, for a total of six skill points spent to get a plus three bonus to the following stat dice rolls.

This sounds expensive, but remember for each additional point added; you are increasing your odds ofsuccess exponentially.

RANGED COMBAT INCREASE: To add one point to your ranged attack roll, spend one skill point. Spend

an additional two points to increase to plus two. Spend three more points to increase your dice roll to

plus three. Since each character only has six skill points to spend, you will need to use all of their skill

points to achieve a plus three bonus to this stat.


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MELEE COMBAT INCREASE: To add one point to your melee attack roll, spend one skill point. Spend an

additional two points to increase to plus two. Spend three more points to increase your dice roll to plus

three. Since each character only has six skill points to spend, you will need to use all of their skill points

to achieve a plus three bonus to this stat.

DEFENSE ROLL INCREASE: To add one point to your defense roll, spend one skill point. Spend anadditional two points to increase to plus two. Spend three more points to increase your dice roll to plus

three. Since each character only has six skill points to spend, you will need to use all of their skill points

to achieve a plus three bonus to this stat. Since defensive rolls are used more often in combat, it would

make sense to put a priority on increasing this stat first above the other combat skills.


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STEP 3:

Purchase EquipmentArms and Equipment give your character bonuses and special abilities in a particular area of expertise.

Some weapons allow characters to roll extra dice for a particular action or give bonuses in others. A

characters equipment helps define his or her role in the group. Groups of soldiers should have special

abilities that complement each other in order to maximize your groups effectiveness. Below is a list of

some basic arms and equipment to choose from. You can make up new ones as long as everyone playing

agrees that they are balanced and fair compared to the other options.

Name: Leader

Cost: 3 points

Limit: 1 per Army. Each army must have a leader.

Effect: Once per game round, a leader may give any character on your team an additional dice roll or

action of any kind of yourechoosing.

Name: Jump Pack

Cost: 2 points

Effect: The jump pack allows the unit to move through any type of hindering terrain without anymovement penalties.

Name: Scout Vehicle

Cost: 3 points

Effect: A scout vehicle may make an additional movement action once per turn.

Name: Blount Melee Weapon

Range: Melee

Cost: 3 points

Effect: When making a melee attack action, roll 2 D6 and use the highest result.

Name: Armor Piercing Ammo

Range: As Per User


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Cost: 3 points

Effect: When making a ranged attack action, roll 2 D6 and use the highest result.

Name: Bladed melee Weapon

Range: Melee

Cost: 1 point

Effect: Roll 2D6 damage after a successful melee attack instead of 1D6.

Name: Hollow Point Ammo

Range: As Per User

Cost: 1 point

Effect: Roll 2D6 damage after a successful ranged attack.

Name: Riot Shield

Cost: 2 points

Effect: Roll 2 D6 on defensive rolls against melee attacks and pick the highest result.

Name: Ballistic Armor

Cost: 2 points

Effect: Roll 2 D6 on defensive rolls against ranged attacks and pick the highest result.

Name: Drones

Cost: 2 points each

Effect: Each drone has one action and ten health points. Drones have a movement of 6 inches. They

have a basic ranged attack and no stat bonuses. Drones cannot run or engage in close combat. Drones

do not benefit from the operators personality stat bonuses. You may place your drones anywhere

within 12 inches of the operator as an action.

Name: Medic Kit

Range: Base

Cost: 2 points


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Effect: Characters may use medic kit to heal themselves or others in base to base contact. In order to

use a medic kit, you must spend an action point and take a skill roll of 4 plus. If you roll a 4 or higher,

then you may add D6 points of health to the target.

Name: Sniper Rifle

Range: Unlimited

Cost: 3 points

This unit does not suffer any penalties on ranged attacks. Snipers do not have range restrictions.

(Blocked lines of fire rules still apply)

Name: Smoke Grenades

Cost: 2 points each

Range: Template 12 inches

Effect: Smoke grenades use a template that blocks line of sight for D3 rounds. This allows units to hide

from ranged attacks until the smoke dissipates. You may only have as many smoke templates active as

you have grenades in your inventory. Once a smoke template dissipates, you may redeploy in another

area.

Name: Shotgun

Cost: 2 points

Range: Template Edge

Effect: Shotguns allow you to attack multiple targets that are in close proximity to the attacker.

Shotguns may be used in melee combat. When using a shotgun, the attacker uses their ranged attack

stats and bonuses for the attack roll regardless of whether targets are in base contact or not.

Name: Flame Thrower

Cost: 3 points


Effect: This weapon is similar to the shot gun, but the flamethrower does not require an attack roll. Thisweapon automatically hits all targets within the template for D6 damage. The damage roll may NOT be

modified with other bonuses. This weapon requires TWO actions to fire.

Name: Grenade Launcher

Cost: 4 points


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Range: Template 12 inches

Effect: This weapon fires grenades up to 12 inches from the attacker. This template weapon has an

unmodified attack value of D6, and does D6 damage. This attack cannot use the attackers ranged

bonuses.

Name: Mortar

Cost: 6 points

Range: Unlimited

Effect: This weapon operates similarly to the grenade launcher, except that it has an unlimited range

and can fire anywhere on the board that the operator has line of sight. This template weapon has an

unmodified attack value of D6, and does D6 damage. The operator of the mortar must spend TWO

actions setting up and firing this weapon. Refer to the templates section above for other special rules.

Name: Land Mine

Cost: 2 point each


Effect: Land Mines limit the movement of your enemy. You may spend an action point to deploy a land

mine in base contact with the activated unit. Land mines stay in place until it has exploded. You may

only deploy as many mines as you have in your inventory until they have exploded. Once a mine has

exploded, you may redeploy a new one. Mines do not explode automatically. When an enemy unit

enters the mine field, they must make a skill roll of 4 plus to see if they have activated it or not. A roll of

4 or higher does not activate the mine and the unit may continue its movement. On a result of 3 or

below, the mine explodes and does D6 damage to anyone in contact with the template. Any time an

opposing player uses a movement action in a mine field, they must make this skill roll.


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GAME SETUP

Now that we have all of our characters set up the way we want them, it is time to determine what type

of game we want to play. First, we need to decide what size we want the game to be. The larger the size

of each army, the longer the game will be. A game with five units on each side is a team. Ten units oneach side is a raiding party. Fifteen units on each side is a squad. And the largest size game is a platoon

sized game with twenty people on each side. Next we need to decide the size of the board we will be

playing on. A small game can be played on a 2x2 table. The average sized game should be played on a

4x4 board. Larger scenarios may require a 4x6 board or even larger. Once you have determined the

board size, place terrain elements according to the scenario you have picked out. Examples of different

terrain ideas are hills, trees, buildings, and wrecked vehicles.

Game Round Order

Once we have our game size determined, each player should roll for initiative. The player with the high

roll gets to place all of his models first and the second player places his models. The player that places

second gets to activate first. The game is broken up into rounds of combat. At the begging of each

round, each player rolls a dice to see who goes first. Each player activates one unit per turn and

alternates moves until all units have been activated. When all units have been activated, the game

round ends and a new one begins. Players must activate a unit on their turn, but may choose to have

that unit not perform any actions. Actions may be played in any order the player chooses. Make sure to

keep track of who has been activated and when. You may use token to do this to avoid confusion. If an

action dice rolls more points than are needed for a certain action, they are lost and cannot be saved for

later. If a unit loses all of its health points before it is activated, it is still immediately removed from play.

The game ends when one side has no more units on the board or one player concedes.

Rolling Sixs

Rolling a natural six in the game is always exciting and adds intensity to the game. A natural six is a six

rolled on the dice with no bonuses added. Depending on what type of roll you are making will determine

the effect of the six rolled, but it is always good for the roller.

Attack dice roll: If you roll a six on an attack roll, that unit gains one additional action dice. It must beused immediately or it will be lost and can only be used by the character that rolled it. The rule for each

character only being able to use three actions per turn still applies.

Defensive roll: If a character is rolling a defense dice and rolls a six, he instantly wins the combat and the

attacker immediately ends his turn regardless of whether they have action dice left or not. The

defending character does not receive any damage from this attack.


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Scenarios

This rule set was designed to be able to be adapted to the setting that you have already selected. It

should be flexible enough for you to use to recreate scenes from movies, TV shows and books. I have

not included any scenarios in the assumption that you have come here with narratives already in place.There are many recourses available to make up great scenarios and battle plans in the general media.

Once you get the hang of how to build characters, you can start to experiment with making new boss

characters or minions and zombies by adding or taking away skill points.

Conclusion

I hope that these rules will help you bring your characters to life in a dynamic and easy way that can be

used over and over again in any situation that you can think of. Once you get the hang of how the

mechanics work, it should be no problem to add your own special abilities and options to suit your

needs. Thank you for reading and your support.

Franzyland

Battlefield Builder System

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