 February 23, 2010 - 10:19am | Does anyone ever spend the time to pump exp into developing their racial abilities: lie detection, battle rage, comprehension? I'd love to know the thinking behind a vrusk's comprehension score starting at 15% and the others at 5% Wouldn't lie detection and comprehension also qualify as skills? They are something that you can become skilled in in the real world. I kind of like the idea of both of those as a skill with exp cost for dral's learning the lie detection skill being "in" PSA and for all others its non PSA and the same with comprehension and vrusk. except the skill roll is just based on 10%/ skill level and no ability score modifier. The drals and vrusk get the modifier for their respective racial abilities- thus ensuring they are the premier die detectors and comprehenders of the Frontier but open up the field a little and give a character a chance to use their racial abilities a little. after all the human character gets to use his 1 racial ability from the day of his creation and every game session he is active. (+5 to one ability score) as for the yaz- they get gliding which is way cool and battle rage is pretty powerful so they can just suck it up and put some EXP into that. of course another tact could be to just increase the percentile racial abilities to 25% for all of them to start IIRC I did see a game that did this as a house rule What are you thoughts. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 23, 2010 - 11:19am | In my games the players can develop their racial abilities with XP. I just go 1 point for 1%. Works great. My wifeplays a Yaz that now has a 40% battle rage. There is also a Boon Shen that has a 35% danger sense. Oh yeh, In a game a guy was playing a Dalasite. He wanted to imitate an NPC 's voice. His reasoning was that if a Dral can change shape they could imitate just about any kind of voice. I thought that was a clever idea. So I allowed the player to develop voice imitation as a skill. 1 for 1% again. At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
 February 23, 2010 - 3:14pm |
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 February 27, 2010 - 4:37am | An elder NPC yazirian of mine from my original SF group has something like 60-75% battle rage...which in hindsight would have been XP better spent on skill improvement. Although there is a certain noteriety that goes along with such a high score (and fourteen slain life enemies). Alas, I'm typically satisfied once a racial ability reaches 25% and don't place too much importance on raising it further after that point. I always questioned the 15% for the Vrusk and the 5% for the Dral and Yaz. I always thought it was a typo until the published modules listed the same thing for their pre-gen characters. I suppose you could chalk it up to battle rage and lie detection being more "powerful" abilities compared to comprehension. |
 February 27, 2010 - 7:36am | An elder NPC yazirian of mine from my original SF group has something like 60-75% battle rage...which in hindsight would have been XP better spent on skill improvement. Although there is a certain noteriety that goes along with such a high score (and fourteen slain life enemies). Alas, I'm typically satisfied once a racial ability reaches 25% and don't place too much importance on raising it further after that point. I always questioned the 15% for the Vrusk and the 5% for the Dral and Yaz. I always thought it was a typo until the published modules listed the same thing for their pre-gen characters. I suppose you could chalk it up to battle rage and lie detection being more "powerful" abilities compared to comprehension. Hey, the Vrusk need all the edge they can get against those Gorlian thugs.- "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
February 27, 2010 - 10:48am | @Jedi - did you like my post? Anyone give bones to circumstances to enter into battle rage? |
 February 27, 2010 - 1:40pm | I allow my players to use exp not only to up their racials, but even allow them to use some of the Gurps character advantage and disadvantages. One of the major changes I let them do, is allow Dralasits to morph faster, cutting the times in half in some cases. Allowing Vrusks to lose limbs and not bleed to death and only slowing them down a lil. ( in my settings Vrusk can molt just like Spiders, replacing limbs as they do. and adding a time frame when they are touchy and easy to anger, when they are going through the phase. Thou it takes time and they eat massive amounts and are very weak for a few weeks for the shell to hardened. I figured if your gonna do Sci-fi do it up big time. I even keep my Gurps and Star Frontiers stuff together. The open style of SF allows for a lot of flexability. Balancing out everything can be a task, but in the end it allows for a more fleshed out character. Gold is for the mistress-silver for the maid-copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.But Iron-Cold Iron- is master of them all |
 February 27, 2010 - 3:09pm | ( in my settings Vrusk can molt just like Spiders, replacing limbs as they do. and adding a time frame when they are touchy and easy to anger, when they are going through the phase. Thou it takes time and they eat massive amounts and are very weak for a few weeks for the shell to hardened. I figured if your gonna do Sci-fi do it up big time. This has to be core to their biology. Thanks for the comment. I'm going to post this in Core Four and get a physiology discussion going on it. Refer to: Vrusk Physioolgy -iggy -iggy |
February 27, 2010 - 3:50pm | Yeah I would always get flak from other Dm's when I put that idea on the table, they would spout real world physics and biology. And I'd come back with my classic, "it's a game and it's science fiction, have some fun with it". But yeah I am glad I sparked something for you to use. Gold is for the mistress-silver for the maid-copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.But Iron-Cold Iron- is master of them all |
February 27, 2010 - 6:16pm |
I dont know woot, having 2 systems would add a level of confusion especially since each is a number at heart- poor record keeping and a player is suddenly cheat himself or cheating the game by using a number under a different system than what he paid for. actually there could be something to be said for dropping the % score for this and make it a level thing- the max level is 6 and thus 60% chance. if you get rid of the % and make everyone buy these as a skill then there wont be confussion drals get lie detection 1 for free and buy knew levels at in PSA or Primary PSA (skilled frontier rules) While a human could learn lie detection its at out of PSA rate or even tertiary skill cost (skilled frontier) I suggest tertiary because if we went with this for AD what PSA skill cost would you use? I would lean toward the Biosocial skill cost from AD. Plus for some reason I think battle rage should be exclusive to the Yazirians. or maybe humans with not tech background and a LOG score that is below, oh say 30, if it ever goes above that they lose the battle rage skill. Drals and vrusk just dont battle rage. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 27, 2010 - 8:42pm | @Jedi - I have no problem with the two methods - as long as they are documented in the section "Developing your character" -or "Improving Characters" :-) My table allows a player with low ability scores to "catch-up" to at least mid-range scores. Plus they open up a lot of options. Star Frontiers only allows 1xp per 1 ability point. blah! Using a skilled frontier, does this work better for ya? ----- Each race starts with a level one special ability. Treat the ability as if it was a skill from the characters secondary PSA. Humans can increase one ability score by 10 or choose one additional skill during character creation. Lie Detection Dralasites possess the ability to detect lies in each-other and other races and must be communicating face to face. Success Rate: 1/2 INT + 10% per levelComprehension Vrusk have such an incredibly complex society they are able to analyze any type of social dealing between other vrusks and another core race. Success Rate: 1/2 INT + 10% per levelBattle Rage Yazirians train themselves to go berserk around dralasite jokes. When successfully entering into a battle raged state they gain a +20 to hit in melee and unarmed combat. Success Rate: 1/2 STA + 10% per level |
February 27, 2010 - 8:54pm | @ Woot this porposed system would work well and have the simplicity of being the same as the skills and would shadow my original point that some racial abilities really ought to be skills so why keep the old system too? Why not adhere to the KISS rule? I still say that racial abilities that originally belonged to a race aught to be easier to excell in for that race and much harder for the rest. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 28, 2010 - 12:49am | I need some help coming up with a human special ability. Drals have lie
detecting, vrusk have comprehension and yazirian's have bad attitudes.
;-) I just don't dig the +5 to one ability. I'm considering making a table that can be rolled on during character creation. Ideas? |
February 28, 2010 - 3:42am | Humans have no level limits. Oh, wait...wrong game. Seriously though, I'd probably look into allowing an environmentalist subskill like survival due to the human nature to adapt to any environment. |
 February 28, 2010 - 6:14am | Playing on the "humans are adaptable" idea, how about have them select one of the other races traits? This follows the KISS rule. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
 February 28, 2010 - 10:37am | Humans have more fun reproducing. Of course, I havne't given much thought to Monkey Love. |
February 28, 2010 - 3:26pm | how about a straight +5 to one skill for all rolls or +5 pts to one ability players choice which. its simple and enshrines the adaptability idea not sure the survival skill works in a post modern tech society for me at least thought its a nice idea maybe for another genre. @ shadow: no level limits! LOL I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 28, 2010 - 3:46pm | I like the idea of allowing human to have a advantage with survival. I usually gave the humans a discount on gaining lvls, seeing we learn from everything so fast. I'd allow them to get a 2% bonus on Xp, its not alot but it adds up quick. I am glad there is another follower of KISS here! Keeping it simple since 1970 hehehehe Gold is for the mistress-silver for the maid-copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.But Iron-Cold Iron- is master of them all |
February 28, 2010 - 3:53pm | how about a straight +5 to one skill for all rolls or +5 pts to one ability players choice which. its simple and enshrines the adaptability idea w00t said; Humans can increase one ability score by 10 or choose one additional skill during character creation. |
February 28, 2010 - 7:46pm | how about a straight +5 to one skill for all rolls or +5 pts to one ability players choice which. its simple and enshrines the adaptability idea w00t said; Humans can increase one ability score by 10 or choose one additional skill during character creation. this is good- I can roll with this- though the extra skill level might skew racial choice. not that its all that different from getting an ability at X% when you think about it- I wonder if it would be percieved as a bigger advantage than the other racial abilities. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 3, 2010 - 10:05am | I like the idea of consistency in approach. Having the Racial Abilities be developed just like any other ability trait (such as STR/STA) is one way to make it consistent. Having it akin to skills is another way. I could go either way, but it would be nice to make it one way or the other... and not having both in play. <insert witty comment here> |
 March 5, 2010 - 7:41pm | I allow my players to use exp not only to up their racials, but even allow them to use some of the Gurps character advantage and disadvantages. One of the major changes I let them do, is allow Dralasits to morph faster, cutting the times in half in some cases. Allowing Vrusks to lose limbs and not bleed to death and only slowing them down a lil. ( in my settings Vrusk can molt just like Spiders, replacing limbs as they do. and adding a time frame when they are touchy and easy to anger, when they are going through the phase. Thou it takes time and they eat massive amounts and are very weak for a few weeks for the shell to hardened. I figured if your gonna do Sci-fi do it up big time. I even keep my Gurps and Star Frontiers stuff together. The open style of SF allows for a lot of flexability. Balancing out everything can be a task, but in the end it allows for a more fleshed out character. I had assumed that the Vrusk molted also due to their insectoid likeness. However, I did a 180 on the attitude to where they stayed in seclusion from others while molting but the molting took place in 2 month to 2 year intervals depending on age and could be chemically controlled because it would leave them in an almost defenceless state. When I read your article I felt like I was not as strange as I was thinking on this subject. |
