Re: B5: Infinite range heavy beams ?

>We played a game with the Earth Force Source Book space ship combat
rules 
>last night, and the very first shot of the game caused a controversy.
>
>>From 70 MUs away, a Narn assault cruiser fired a 2-dice heavy beam
shot at a 
>Centauri Primus Cruiser.  As the rules are written, that meant each die
had 
>a -11 on it, but if either rolled a 6, then that would be rerolled for
more 
>damage with no modifiers.  Since assault cruisers recharge very
quickly, 
>they could afford to take long, low probability shots like this.  Many
of 
>the Centauri players thought this to be an exploitation of the rules,
and 
>that the heavy beams should be limited to range 36 or 42 MUs, or that 
>penalties above -6 should be applied to the rerolled die.
>
>Have we misread the rules, or are we misjudging what we see as a
possible 
>flaw in them ?
>
>Tom
>Tom + Dana McCarthy

Yes, the rules are not explicit enough at this point - the HB should not
be
able to hit when the modifier gets to -6, so its maximum range is 36mu.
The
reroll only counts if you inflict some damage with the initial hit roll.
Unfortunately a case of both myself and CE/WF knowing what we meant, but
not saying it clearly enough!

Jon (GZG)