Workbench Update: Taking Gothic Horror Indoors

Although I haven't done much painting during the last week, I have been busy planning a new "layer" for our Gothic Horror gaming. I have some rustic buildings in my collection, as well as a stone tower (not yet painted), Grunberg's lunatic asylum, a few mausoleums, and not to mention the various cellars, crypts, and dungeons that lie beneath these various structures. I've decided that it's time to take our game inside these buildings.

Buildings With Interiors

Many companies make buildings with interiors and lift-off roofs. Although these suit the needs of some gamers, I'm just not into them (pun intended). First of all, who wants to spend half of their game with a bunch of roofless buildings on the table? Not me. Secondly, there's the scale inconsistency issue. As most of you are likely aware, the buildings we lay out on the table for 25-32mm miniature gaming are greatly-abstracted in size. That is to say, buildings usually appear smaller than they actually would be if a miniature was an actual person. However, a smaller scale building, although effective for creating the illusion of a larger landscape, presents a very small interior space. After some thought, here's the solution I've come up with.

I'm in the process of cutting out MDF rectangles to represent interiors and sub-levels of all the buildings in my collection. When the walls and windows are marked out, the floors are textured, and the painting is all finished, I'll populate them with my painted furniture collection and lay them to the side of the main game table. But here's the kicker - I'm cutting out the floor plans to be around 30% larger than the footprints of their matched buildings. In this way, when a model enters a door or window, it will be removed from the main table and placed at the entrance of the off-table floor plan where it will continue its turn. Here are some simple ideas I've come up with to make this work.

Entering Buildings & Rooms

Rather than over-plan every scenario, each player will roll on the following table when one of their miniatures tries to enter a doorway or a window.

1: Ajar or Opened. No action required, keep on moving.
2-5: Unlocked. Free action to open, keep on moving.
6: Locked, Barred, or Shuttered. Special action to open, keep on moving if successful.

Modifiers:
+2 to roll if entering long house, town hall, artisan's residence.

+3 to roll if entering fortified tower, crypt/mausoleum entrance.

+4 to roll if entering strong room, treasure store.

-1 to roll if entering church.

To close a door behind him a model would use a free action. To bar the door or reinforce it with furniture or debris would require a special action.

B and E

When a character comes upon a locked, barred, or shuttered door or window, a successful Strength test must be made according to the appropriate difficulty level as outlined below.

TN2: most wooden doors to dwellings, churches, public buildings, and between rooms.
TN3: mausoleum, crypt entrance, rich dwelling.
TN4: fortified building, watchtower.

TN5: prison cell.

A character with Strength 3 or higher who fails to break down a TN2 or TN3 door may try again the following turn with a re-roll if he fails the second time, two re-rolls the third time, and so on. A physically-fit person will eventually break down a normal wooden door. It's just a matter of persistence.

Being Inside

The following general rules apply to all characters when inside or under buildings.

All models suffer -1" to their Move value and reduce charge bonuses to +3".

Firearms and ranged weapons are difficult to employ when both the firer and the target(s) are inside a building. Maximum range for all weapons is reduced to 10" if it would normally be higher. Targeted models gain +1D to Agility tests. This bonus is cumulative with cover bonuses. (Ex: An expedition member crouches behind an overturned pew inside a church. He would receive a total of +3D to his Agility roll; +1 for being inside, and +2 for hard cover.)

A model whose base is in contact with a door or window can shoot at targets outside within a 45 degree arc from the edges of the door or window.

Since Chaos In Carpathia scenarios generally take place at night, it is assumed that all buildings are dark inside unless the scenario description dictates otherwise. When hiding from non-werewolves and non-vampires, all models gain +2 to Hide tests regardless of whether or not they have cover to hide behind. This bonus is lost if a model carrying a torch or a lantern enters the room.

When fighting within 1" of a window, a miniature may attempt the Trip attack as described on page 18 of the rulebook to push its enemy out of the window. If a model falls out of a second story or higher, follow the Falling rules on page 11. A vampire may use Shape of the Bat (out of turn in this case) or Mist Form to avoid taking damage. If Mist Form is used, the Vampire returns to normal form when it hits the ground and the ability cannot be used to escape from the scenario. Characters with the Wall Crawler skill may make an TN# Agility test to avoid taking falling damage where # equals 1 for every 2 inches fallen.

That's pretty much everything for the time being. These rules are a work-in-progress and some test games will help us to iron them out. In the meantime, I'll try to get the floorplans finished and post some photos for your perusal.

Thanks for reading,
JET