![]() July 7, 2016 - 12:38am | Mentalism and Gama Dawn mutations are both optional add on. The only way to balance these for all characters is that all players must opt in with a "me too". I just had an idea for possibly balancing these: in Middle Earth Role Playing the character creation process include 5 (I forget what they were called) character points. A player could spend these for extra money, an entry level magic item, better stats, more skill, etc So let's say that we port this concept to SF? Starting characters are not very capable so the ability to buy a bump to the ability scores or a new skill won't unbalance the game, IMO. Options for SF would be: 1. Role again for starting money and add to previous balance
3. One level 1 skill 4. For two of these points a first level skill becomes level two 5. A mentalism power (if referee allows) or it may be 1 point to unlock mentalism ability for character and another to take a mentalism power. 6. Same for GW mutation (if allowed by referee). 7. If all points are spent together PC can start with a ship ( small and it has repair issues or quirks.) 8. Social standing: some level of celebrity: PC is related by birth to "royalty": CEO, EVP or actual head of state, sports or entertainment celeb or hero of one heroic act: landing a plane on Hudson River or having highest number of sniper kills in Land Fleet history. 9. Fluency in a language 10. Rank: prior military or government organization exp and already attained the rank of senior NCO or low level officer (usually Lt.). This requires that PCs skill reflect the rank position. Money, languages and the star ship would be the only places you could pump all 5 character points. The other areas would be restricted to 3 character points. Skills: this would mean either 3 level 1 skills or a level 1 and a level 2 skill. Mentalism and Gama Dawn: one point to unlock and up to 2 powers at level 1. Ability scores: no more than 15 points added to PC. Social standing and rank could only be taken once. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
![]() July 7, 2016 - 6:34am | #7 would not be viable considering the meager skills of starting characters, not to mention their inability to pay the upkeep let alone just to store it while they attempt to gain the skills needed to start working on the ship. On several occassions I awarded a crashed pirate scout to players in the Volturnus adventure which was transported to Pale & offically registered to them under a govt contract as a boon for their heroic efforts, and despite the excess cash (re: the quarter mil from the Slave City One ore) and close-to-KH skill sets, they had a tough time paying for it. |
![]() July 7, 2016 - 8:27am | The answer to that is simple, Shadow: drop the pre-requisite skills requirements. The whole 1st Ed Bard/"Prestige class" idea is needless in any event. |
![]() July 7, 2016 - 11:03am | The ship idea works with a non ad skill set. And the thinking here is that you do get players who at character creation state they want a ship. So have at it blow your 5 character points for a ship. Referee should keep careful tally of docking fees, fuel and maintenance costs. When PC falls behind then unsavory underworld types offer to help for a little favor or government official offers to lift impound on ship for a little favor. Or corporate"benefactor" comes a long looking for a convienent cut out er I mean local talent for a little job..... I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
![]() July 7, 2016 - 11:09am | Option could be for all PCs to jointly pool 5 character points and jointly own ship. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
![]() July 7, 2016 - 3:15pm | And the thinking here is that you do get players who at character creation state they want a ship. So have at it blow your 5 character points for a ship. Referee should keep careful tally of docking fees, fuel and maintenance costs. Or you could just AD it and assume that the characters keep themselves employed enough in between adventures to cover their costs. RPing the accounting is a bit of a drag. When PC falls behind then unsavory underworld types offer to help for a little favor or government official offers to lift impound on ship for a little favor. Or corporate"benefactor" comes a long looking for a convienent cut out er I mean local talent for a little job..... You can still do that in either event. |
![]() July 7, 2016 - 6:53pm |
The answer to that is simple, Shadow: drop the pre-requisite skills requirements. "Well who's gonna fly it, kid...you?!?" Even when dropping the PR skills you still need 10XP for Pilot:1 (system ships only, add another 20XP for starships HS:1-3) or 8XP for astrogating or engineering...and that assumes the skill is part of the hand-waved PSA group. |
![]() July 8, 2016 - 1:40am | Then hand-wave that too. Or use the "Skilled Frontier" alternate rules that make skill acquisition easier and cheaper. Remember Rule 1. |
![]() July 8, 2016 - 6:55am | It's been a few years since I've seen Skilled Frontier so I didn't want to speak of which I did not know. Canon, now THAT I know. ;) Honestly I don't mind KH skills coming later on in the game, it's like name level in D&D in my eyes: ship = stronghold. Sure, low level D&D characters might get lucky and acquire an enemy lair but then the upkeep is something they typically lack the facilities for. Lv-2 adventurers simply don't have the means to keep a small contingent of troops on their payroll as well as equiping and housing them while they traipse around in dungeons that are weeks of travel from home, let alone for the remainder of the year as well. Not to mention that acquired enemy stonghold is often too easily breached, after all they managed to do it at level 1-2. ;) |
![]() July 8, 2016 - 7:09am | 1. Looks good 2. Make it a +5/+5 to one stat. if all five points were spent here the total would not make a very powerful increase to the character. 3. Looks good 4. Looks Good 5. One to unlock and one to gain a power 6. One to unlock and one to gain a mutation limit of three mutations but if three are taken then a "bad Mutation" needs to be added 7. Not a favorite especially since size of group and types of adventures would limit the use of a ship and the ability of the group to pay for upkeep. If you are doing the Volturnus campaign the first action means no more ship. Save a ship to be something that is part of a campaign based on a ship either mercantile or Firefly style 8. This is a strictly roleplaying one and very useful for more "Urban" campaigns where it could be helpful. Suggest various levels such as one point well known in city of origin, two points known on planet of origin, three points well known on planet of origin and known on planets connected to it, four points known in the entire Frontier, five points well known in the entire frontier If known NPCs have a 35% chance of recognizing character and if well known NPCs have a 70% chance of recognizing character (change this as you want) 9. With polyvox do not see this being much of a benefit to waste a point on 10. What's the benefit of a Rank? Do you get special treatment in some way? Personally I am retired military myself so I see some benefits but what would the PCs get out of this? Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
![]() July 9, 2016 - 1:21am | Thanks rat T for thorough analysis. 2. I was afraid +10 was too much for this one. The first thing players will complain about with the +5/+5 is why? I'd rather just make it +10 and put the points where you like. This mimics the human racial ability BTW. #5-7 should require the referee's approval. Like the idea about bad mutations. #7 you spend the points and all it gets you is a roll on a table where majority of entries arnt that good: A. Thruster class privateer parked and rusting in your uncle's back yard. Currently inoperable B. Romulus class runabout (system ship) outfitted as a digger shuttle and leased to mining ship Rock Hound. PC can cancel lease and take possession of craft in 1d4 GST weeks if Rock Hound is in the same system or 1d5 if it's elsewhere. But until then PC received X amount of Cr. every month starting (now/next month). C. Small KHs freighter D. You inherited a grand old ship from your dearly departed yazirian but the ship was taken by pirates 3 years ago and the insurance hasn't settled due to technicalities. In addition your dearly departed Yazirians offspring were cut out of the will and even if the insurance Corporation coughed up the 2 million Cr the money will be tied up in probate till who knows when. Etc. Re: languages, social standing and rank: these were half baked brainstorms have to think on them more. The languages idea is straight out of MERP but I can imagine a character where I might have him fluent in vrusk even though he could not speak it sort of like how Han and Chewie communicated. I like your ideas on social standing but might step it up a notch so that one point buys you a little more. The MERP system allowed for purchasing of a magic item with a point. I rather like this and I did create "magic items" for the SF setting in the article "The Magic of Star Frontiers" SFman 18. You don't want artifacts or real magic items but perhaps a rare model of laser pistol that had a ROF of 3 instead of 2 or a more accurate rifle that treats short range as PB, medium as short and etc. Might need a more robust list of "magic items" for players to choose from. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
![]() July 9, 2016 - 6:50am | Going back to the question of prerequisite skills, what really torpedoes them IMO is that they represent a high bar to entry for players: GM: Ok, it's going to take [x] years of playing to earn the XP for the prerequisite skills, and that's if you never buy any new ones or improve existing ones (such as weapons skills). "Your story begins with you being in service to the local space Don as a mook guard..." Player: ... bleh! |
![]() July 9, 2016 - 2:31pm | Going back to the question of prerequisite skills, what really torpedoes them IMO is that they represent a high bar to entry for players I have lowered my PR requirements for ship skills in my game and have also created a fair means to acquire them "free" without the lengthy commitment to Space Fleet. You're still not going to start off as a ship captain, but it's going to be more feasible to at least hire on. Even in my Basic Plus rules, a player can gain ship skils quicky...but the ability to acquire the ship is still just the same: expensive to purchase and maintain. Even so, I simply don't see the need for ship skills as a beginning player and I'll expand on yet another reason behind that: GM: Ok, it's going to take [x] years of playing to earn the XP for the prerequisite skills, and that's if you never buy any new ones or improve existing ones (such as weapons skills). "Your story begins with you being in service to the local space Don as a mook guard..." Player: ... One thing to remember is this is Star Frontiers, not Star Wars. Ships are not common in the game, so not every backwater world farmboy that took a few skyhopper joy rides through Beggar's Canyon is going to become an ace pilot let alone practically buy their own ship for 10,000 credits. To parallel D&D once again, it would be no different than that same player stating at the onset "I want to own a castle and rule a territory". Either you start at level 1 or you play with more experienced characters, but you can't start at level 1 and have the name level experience at the same time. Look no further than the modern day world: try getting a pilot's license these days. I passed the FAA entry exam back in high school but came up severly short for funding a flying school, and even back in the mid 1980s buying an entry model Cessna still cost as much as a house. See also: Traveller. Even the "free" scout/courier (free being in quotes as it is merely detached duty and you still have to report to the scout service during your travels to offload the gathered data) that can be acquired during character generation is practically useless for anything beyond its designed intent. You'll never make a profit operating it, and if you even thought of buying a replacement (or buying the ship in lieu of not getting the detached duty "gift") you'd never pay off the 50 million credit loan in twenty lifetimes. Better/purpose driven ships cost a lot more in that game, and ships are actually a lot more common as well compared to Star Frontiers. _________________________________________________ Now one option I have entertained on several occasions is having players new to the game start off with those mook-grade characters and once they have the basics of the game down I award them d10 X 100,000 credits and sufficient XP to acquire a lv-2 ship skill (including the PR skills) along with adding 10+d5 years to their age, thus vaulting them into the "future" of their own game...thereby allowing them to entertain the idea of being a privateer captain or whatever ship campaign they may have in mind. They're on their own for fabricating a decent back story for their characters to cover that time gap. ;) |
![]() July 9, 2016 - 2:49pm | I don't like it when Traveler does crap like that either. Give me a setting, and rules that let me and my players interact with the setting as we chose, instead of trying to hoop-jump us through pre-designed obstacle courses hunting in-game justification for character concepts. |
![]() July 9, 2016 - 4:57pm | Well the nail in the coffin on prestige skills was realization that the US military took young men men straight off the farm during WW2 and trained then to operate what would have been "Knight Hawks" level of equipment in just a few months and sent them into battle. Gunners on a battleship didn't need to become a level 6 marksman with a rifle first before operating navel weapon systems. I believe the skill to operate a gunnery station in a vehicle should be entry level. In fact it should be its own skill and covers operating a vehicle weapon, star ship weapon, artillery piece and we can just presumed that targeting software and hardware has become fairly standardized in the Frontier. Gunnery is gunnery. Now piloting skill restricts level one to system ships only but I ask you, is thrust, pitch and yaw any different for atomic powered craft over chemical rockets. I'd scrap that. And the other level based star ship size piloting requirements are not so much about ability to pilot as what government agencies like to see for experience to pilot that size craft. So let's say we change level one pilot skill to allow a character to pilot a fighter or shuttle. This is a reflection on his license but he actually could attempt to pilot any size ship. There is the caveat that a newbie pilot would probably have trouble piloting a HS 20 ship in tight quarters like say docking with a station or in a complicated flight pattern around a planet with multiple space stations so if a pilot was piloting a ship 2 grades above his license level in a stressful situation and a skill check was required then a penalty could be applied. I also think demolitions should be tech PSA skill. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
![]() July 9, 2016 - 6:54pm | I am going to politely disagree on two points. 1). Ships in Traveller are more common but still very expensive to operate and maintian. Most of the basic scenario is trying to keep up with payments if the crew is willing to give up pay and do some odd jobs on the side. Besides the basic models of ships were Scout and Far Trader. Scouts could be recalled to active duty at any time. Far Traders could make a profit but it was made clear they should do so out in the edge of space away from the Megacorps, Corps and Government sponsored merchant ships. 2)Jed and Shadow if spaceships and starships are so rare in SF we do you two keep creating more and more? (Okay this one is tongue in cheek) Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
![]() July 10, 2016 - 10:06am | Well the nail in the coffin on prestige skills was realization that the US military took young men men straight off the farm during WW2 and trained then to operate what would have been "Knight Hawks" level of equipment in just a few months and sent them into battle. Gunners on a battleship didn't need to become a level 6 marksman with a rifle first before operating navel weapon systems Golwin Academy is the canon SF answer to WW2 "quick training". As I mentioned though there is a commitment that goes along with it that many players do not want to accept. Two years & a few ability checks later and you have a lv-2 ship skill yet with all the restrictions that prevent proper adventuring (not to mention the even more ridiculous amounts of XP needed to increase your rank). In other words, it'll be a long time before your Space Fleet pilot can move the yoke in the direction he/she really wants to go. My Star Fighter Corps game requires the same two years, but you are flying (or engineering or astrogating) shortly after the onset...120 days of flight school before you are taking your first solo space flight in a trainer craft (or the same time in ground crew/navigational school before you are maintaining or coordinating those trainers). After two years you will be at the very minimum level 2 in that ship skill and permitted to muster out and join Space Fleet or the civilian sector or whatever aspiring ship field your character desires. Of course Warriors of White Light is a good setting for those who acquired their lv-1 ship skills the old fashioned way (spending XP). If all goes well in that game it can lead into Dramune Run where they can get the free ship, and a decent one at that. |
![]() July 10, 2016 - 10:10am | I am going to politely disagree on two points. 1). Ships in Traveller are more common but still very expensive to operate and maintian. <sigh> ####ing multi-quote bug again... Unless I missed something I believe we're in agreement to all you've said on this premise. 2)Jed and Shadow if spaceships and starships are so rare in SF we do you two keep creating more and more? (Okay this one is tongue in cheek)
First and foremost I said they were not common, which should never be confused with rare. Despite what every seller on e-Bay would have us believe, D&D module B10 Night's Dark Terror is uncommon --- not rare as is always the (false) claim --- because if you want one there are always several available on e-Bay (sometimes multiple copies under the same seller, yeah...so much for "rare") but you'll have to pay a lot to get one. Meanwhile orange copies of B3 Palace of the Silver Princess are rare because regardless of how badly you want one and how much unlimited cash that you're willing to spend on it, good luck finding one. Big difference. ![]() Secondly you will note my offerings are of the smaller variety, as in what those who just acquired their new ship skills (earned or otherwise) could actually operate. ![]() Finally, not all of those deck plans I have rendered over the years actually belong to anyone...instead many of them are simply there in case the need arises where I might have to utilize them in a pinch. |
![]() July 10, 2016 - 2:02pm | The game is a bit schizo about operating costs in any event. AD tells GMs and characters to not sweat COL, that the characters make enough to get by on. Then we hit KH and out of nowhere they are supposed to be sweating it out over debt service and operating expenses and calculating P&L on cargos? And that's assuming the PCs are even interested in playing "space trucker". There aren't any rules for mercenaries, or free-lance survey explorers, etc. Again, bleh! |
![]() July 10, 2016 - 5:06pm | Ship construction costs are spelled out throughout the KH campaign book (as well as AD rules) but the bulk of them can be found on the last two pages of the KH book. Fuel costs are laid out in the Drives section, although the ion drive requires a lot more devoted attention than the much simpler "1 pellet per jump per drive" atomic rule. Life Support costs are spelled out on p14. Mining, freight, passenger transport, exploration, and research are spelled out on pp19-22 and more info on the first three can be found on pp44-47. Spacesuit upkeep is laid out on pp28-29. Ships' vehicle refueling isn't covered but can be easily hand-waved via the generic chemical drive fuel cost of "250Cr per load" seeing as they're easily HS:1 (or less). Loans for ships (or anything else for that matter) are spelled out on pp40-42. Ship crew wages can be found on p54 (as well as the AD skill table wages for non-ship skill crew, re: troops, medics, and technicians etc). Additional info such as berthing fees and a decent ship log (which can give you an idea how much time elapses) can be found in the Dramune Run module. |
![]() July 10, 2016 - 7:10pm | I know they're all "covered", Shadow. That's not the point. The point is a tonal 180 from AD to KH. And the lack of extensive rules covering anything other than schlepping freight from system to system. |
July 10, 2016 - 7:26pm | And that's assuming the PCs are even interested in playing "space trucker". There aren't any rules for mercenaries, or free-lance survey explorers, etc. Again, bleh! Hi, mind if I jump into this discussion? It's a great read so far. Although there are no rules for handling mercenaries, freelance survey explorers, etc., referees are free to create their own versions. Of course, that means on the fly rules, etc. But, I guess is someone is ambitious enough to create some rules, we're all set to go... or disagree with them... If SF survived... if Zebulon's Guide hadn't been so flawed... there probably would have been some mercenary rules developed for handing MercCo characters, etc. We'll just have to borrow ideas from other game systems such as Battle Tech, Traveler 2300, Twilight 2000, etc. Keep in mind too, there were no extensive rules for vehicle combat -- such as mounted weapons -- until Tanks A Lot! came out in Dragon magazine and then the revised vehicle rules in a Star Frontiersman issue. Joe Cabadas |
July 10, 2016 - 7:41pm | I am going to politely disagree on two points. 1). Ships in Traveller are more common but still very expensive to operate and maintian. Most of the basic scenario is trying to keep up with payments if the crew is willing to give up pay and do some odd jobs on the side. Besides the basic models of ships were Scout and Far Trader. Scouts could be recalled to active duty at any time. Far Traders could make a profit but it was made clear they should do so out in the edge of space away from the Megacorps, Corps and Government sponsored merchant ships. 2)Jed and Shadow if spaceships and starships are so rare in SF we do you two keep creating more and more? (Okay this one is tongue in cheek) Yes, I played Traveler a bit and agree that the costs of getting a ship for a PC were rather ridiculous. Now, as to the number of ships in the Frontier. If I recall, from reading other posts on this site and looking at Star Frontiersman, this issue's been raised before... I'm not saying a fresh discussion is out of the question, just that we can look at those sources for other opinions... but going from memory, the SFman discussion did point out that if you took the strict Knight Hawks interpretation, then there aren't too many ships out there plying the Frontier space lanes. So, I would think that each ship lost would be a major disaster... akin to losing the Space Shuttle Challenger or Apollo 1. But, I think there was an accompanying story in SFman that basically said that the number of ships portrayed for the UPF and Sathar for the Second Sathar War battles are basically limited so you can run a "big" invasion without dealing with hundreds of different ships. The fleet sizes, for that game, are kept small to make it easier to run. Believe me, some of my friends and I tried running a Star Fleet Battles game where we all got the major powers -- Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Gorn, Kzinti, etc. -- and could build up a number of ships before launching into the epic war... It's very hard to run a large battle of 30-40 ships on each side even if you have some kept in reserve for reinforcements... For role playing purposes, you could argue there are many, many more Frontier and Sathar ships out there than the KH game provides for. After all, there's all those yachts and privaters running around. In the end, it's up to referees to decide how they want to run their games. As to getting rid of the prerequisite skills to start getting KH skills? Great idea. Joe Cabadas |
![]() July 10, 2016 - 8:34pm | IIRC, someone ran the numbers and came out with about 1,500 ships total at any one time based on the capaicity of the stated number of SCCs. |
![]() July 10, 2016 - 9:41pm | 1500 ships really isn't a lot when you consider 27 worlds in canon AD/KH, and even fewer if you go by all of the expanded worlds that fill the Frontier in Zebs. That comes out to less than 60 per world and probably half that figure for the Zeb specs. Since each world doesn't have considerably more than, let's say for the sake of argument: 120 pilots to cover two 10 hour GST shifts as pilots for those 60 ships, the skills shouldn't be so common or easily obtained. |
![]() July 11, 2016 - 10:05am | If you stick to "canon". I like a "big fleets" Frontier. Take just one planet, our Earth. The top 3 navies (N Korea, China, US) ALONE have 2,096 ships in service. The top 10 nations have 4,185. (Figures from here: http://www.globalfirepower.com/navy-ships.asp). To give you an idea about non-military vessels, in 1850, Britain ALONE had almost 26,000 vessels in service (just under 3.6 million tons worth). Again, ONE nation on ONE planet. Do the math for 27 planets, some of them colonized for over 4 centuries. |
July 11, 2016 - 12:49pm | http://www.globalfirepower.com/navy-ships.asp). If you stick to "canon". I like a "big fleets" Frontier. Take just one planet, our Earth. The top 3 navies (N Korea, China, US) ALONE have 2,096 ships in service. The top 10 nations have 4,185. (Figures from here: To give you an idea about non-military vessels, in 1850, Britain ALONE had almost 26,000 vessels in service (just under 3.6 million tons worth). Again, ONE nation on ONE planet. Do the math for 27 planets, some of them colonized for over 4 centuries. For role playing purposes, I agree with the "big fleet" idea. If one is doing strictly a Knight Hawks campaign -- i.e. the fleet battles -- then the canon version could work. Joe Cabadas |
![]() July 11, 2016 - 1:57pm | To be realistic of the 967 North Korean vessels 211 are Coastal Defense Craft (think WWII PT boats and Coast Guard Cutters) while the US 416 vessels includes 19 Aircraft Carriers. Numbers don't mean much but their purpose does. North Korean Navy is designed to protect a tiny country with two unconnected coastlines while the US Navy is designed to project military power around the world on all oceans. Funny thing is North Korea has 70 submarines and the US 75 submarines no word on how many are attack subs and how many are missile boats. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
![]() July 11, 2016 - 1:59pm | That can work. I just assume that the parts depicted in KH are the "turning points" in much larger confrontations. |
![]() July 11, 2016 - 2:07pm | To be realistic of the 967 North Korean vessels 211 are Coastal Defense Craft (think WWII PT boats and Coast Guard Cutters) Read: Assault Scouts Numbers don't mean much but their purpose does. North Korean Navy is designed to protect a tiny country with two unconnected coastlines while the US Navy is designed to project military power around the world on all oceans. I'm just pointing out that all those ships are just to police and patrol the surface of one planet with a population probably equal to that of any of the older Frontier worlds. How many more ships would be needed to mount an adequate defense of an entire solar system that would take weeks to cross? Multiply that times 27 worlds. And that's not counting merchantmen sufficient to keep interstellar trade flowing. |
July 11, 2016 - 2:24pm | To be realistic of the 967 North Korean vessels 211 are Coastal Defense Craft (think WWII PT boats and Coast Guard Cutters) while the US 416 vessels includes 19 Aircraft Carriers. Numbers don't mean much but their purpose does. North Korean Navy is designed to protect a tiny country with two unconnected coastlines while the US Navy is designed to project military power around the world on all oceans. Funny thing is North Korea has 70 submarines and the US 75 submarines no word on how many are attack subs and how many are missile boats. True. In SF terms, there should be a lot more fighters or some hull size 2 craft available than Knight Hawks provides for. I can see that there would only be a handful of cruisers and battleships and carriers, they are big ships and it probably costs a fortune just to "turn the lights on" for them. Joe Cabadas |