Give me your Coda Q's and Feedback (Good and Bad)

Ah! At last someone who also has problems with the Elite Professions / No-Changing-Base-Profession!
I'm still thinking about ways I could adapt the WFRP career management, but I'd have been really pleased if CODA had done it for me in the first place ;).

All right, let's try to be as structured as others have been.
What I like:

• Pretty much everything (including character creation), except ...

What I don't like that much:

• A few minor things that can be easily fixed with small house rules (multiple-actions penalties for instance).
• As I said above, these BP / EP restrictions.
• A few things I'm not sure about ... I'd really like to know what the thinking process for putting them there has been, maybe it'd help me understand what they are for:
  - Professional abilities and traits. For one thing, they seem to overlap quite a bit. And then ... I don't know, the game looks good even without them: being, say, a rogue means you can hone rogue skills faster than, say, a medic ... this is quite realistic. Wasn't it enough? What do professional abilities bring to the game?
  - Only one skill for all starship operations? /me cocks eyebrow à la Spock. Is this wise?

P.S.: What happens when 2 professional abilities cover the same kind of test? Are the effects combined? I've got to find this back, but I seem to recall seing something very similar between Soldier and Weapon Master ...

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Originally posted by CorpBoy
Don, I know you're not responsible for it, but if you can forward on layout suggestions, please ask Decipher do either include an index just for tables in addition to the regular index, or to include all the tables in it's own chapter. It would make finding them much easier.

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Actually, the Player's Guide does have a list of tables. It's at the end of the index on page 254. Everything from Table 2.1: Species Attrbute Adjustments to table A.16: Natural Healing is included with page numbers. It doesn't really leap out at you, but I'm still surprised you missed it...

OK, my feedback:

I've flipped through the book pretty extensively and am currently in the process of going through it cover to cover, so I guess I may not be the most qualified person to critique it. Still, I'm spending my free time working on an ICON>Coda conversion of the Dune RPG so I have gotten under the hood a little bit, pushing the envelope and considering how the mechanics apply beyond the Star Trek setting. Overall, I'm impressed with Coda and Coda's portability to other settings (my workup of Dune Professions recently went smoother than I had anticipated). I have high hopes for the Lord of the Rings RPG when it comes out.

The Good:
The difficulty scale to skill range ratio is pretty good; you aren't forced to roll lucky to make a Difficult test, you can actually roll average if you're skilled enough, and the wider range of skill levels makes for a marked difference between the amateur and the expert. The system is very simple and consistent. I like the selection of Professions and Elite Professions we've been given. The Professional Abilities are neat and the system for ranking them is relatively transparent if you sit down and examine it, though I've noticed that they parallel Edges pretty closely while costing 1 point more.

Then there's the wonderful support available on this board. :D Thanks to Don and Ross, et al. It's the best way to address what comes next...

The Bad:
I have one gripe with layout, and it's mostly aesthetic. The arrangement of chapters and order of presentation for the game mechanics and character creation didn't quite flow smoothly and intuitively for me. Personally, I see three blocks of information which go together logically. Species, Professions, Attributes, Characteristics, Skills, and Traits all explain in detail the rules for the various components that make up the characters. Development and Advancement contain the rules for growing the characters, and this is where I would have put all the information on generating Attributes, assigning reactions and development packages, and spending your picks after advancement. Finally, I would have taken all the info on using skills between pages 100 and 108 and grouped it with the other mechanics information from the Appendix. You then take those three blocks and figure out how to place them in relation to eachother. My gut reaction would be to present them in the order I just listed, or possibly swapping the first two blocks around (o aside from separating out the Using Skills info, you at least got the placement of the game mechanics right;)).

Then there's the character sheet. Yes, it's a propper Okudagram, and the layout and design is fine, but no document intended for reproduction should ever be white text on a black background. A case of style winning out over practicality, forcing Don to spend his limited free time making a new sheet. I guess if anyone should gripe about it, it should be him...:D

Finally, there are still some errata points that haven't been answered yet.

The Errata:
The "Fast on your Feet" edge needs to be removed from the Athletic Aptitude (p.87) personal development package and the Mystic: Aescetic (p.91), Soldier: Guerilla (p.92), Flight Control Officer: Helmsman/Navagator (p.93) and Medical Officer: Emergency Medic (p.98) professional development packages in addition to the Rogue: Scoundrel package listed in the Official Errata thread.

The Armed Combat skill group description states that "more exotic weapons, such as the bat'leth and lirpa, are treated as individual skills; these require a high degree of training to employ." Then right below this, in the list of various Armed Combat skills, bat'leth and lirpa are listed as specialties (of Traditional Klingon and Vulcan Weapons, respectively) instead of separate skills. A notation of which is correct should be made.

An official note should be made that changing professions does not change favored attributes and reactions, even though this only comes up when switching to a Starship Officer elite profession (as none of the other elite professions have preffered attributes and reactions).

The Soldier professional ability Survival Training (p.64) refers to characters receiving "double the normal bonus" from a Specialty, and continues saying "gaining +2 for having the appropriate specialization". Should this not read "gaining an additional +2" or possibly "gaining a total of +4" instead, since the standard specialization bonus is +2?

How do the Starship Officer Basic Profession and Starship Officer Elite Professions work when dealing with multiple professions? Under "Restrictions on Multiple Professions" on p.155 it states that you can only make picks from two professions, no matter how many you have. The example then goes on to describe a character (Sechok) with Envoy, Explorer, and Science Officer professions being able to pick from Envoy and either Explorer or Science Officer. The question is, doesn't this character actually have four professions to pick from: Envoy(elite), Explorer(elite), Starship Officer(basic), and Starship Science Officer(elite)? Or do the Starship Officer Elite Professions combine with the Starship Officer Basic Profession to count as only one profession for this purpose? If they do, this would imply that if a Starship Officer switches from one Starship Officer elite profession to another they would have access to professional skill and ability advancements from both, and wouldn't have to start chosing between professions until they transfered to a third department. A clarification from the Powers that Be, please?

If I come across any others in my reading, I'll be sure to point them out in this thread.:)

So far, I like Coda Trek, and Coda in general. Most of my gripes are minor, and we seem to have some good people working on answering and compiling the errata, so that gripe should get fixed in time. I'm looking forward to the Narrator's Guide, future suplements, and Lord of the Rings line.

-Chris Landmark

On the "Restrictions on Multiple Professions" theme, I think the question (or something very similar) already went up to the PTB (see here ) ... awaiting clarification ;).

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Originally posted by Calcoran
On the "Restrictions on Multiple Professions" theme, I think the question (or something very similar) already went up to the PTB (see here ) ... awaiting clarification ;).

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It's already been answered in the Errata Thread.

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Originally posted by PGoodman13

It's already been answered in the Errata Thread.

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I do not see it there???

Disregard that. :D

Brain is offline.

After reading through the errata again, I'm pretty sure it hasn't been answered yet. Changing base professions has been addressed, but not "How many professions are SOEP?", nor "How do you get your BP back?". Or is my brain offline too?

Just a few things to add.

Good- The way that most redundant disadvantages and advantages from ICON have been streamlined and clarified in CODA. Though some are not there, such as phobias, the one's provided that weren't in ICON make up for it. The character creation part is more complicated, but much more precise in nature.

Bad- That damn character sheet. With all the graphics and nice look it makes it impossible to copy/print effectively. The stat change to a more D&D look wasn't necessary in my opinion. It worked just fine with the 5 base stats which everyone had at a generic level during creation.

I'll add more when I think of more feedback.

Under the heading of Feedback...

(Disclaimer: These are my opinions and not likely to be changed in spite of all efforts to do so by myself. Please respect my right to them. I mean no insult by them to any or all on this board.)

Q: When is d20 not d20? A: When it's Coda!
There is just so much this game system has in common with D&D3E and the whole d20 game system. Just change the names from Feats to Abilities, Classes to Professions and a few other comparisons and voila! Why not just buck up for the use of the d20 license and draw in the 3E players? (I know if it used the d20 system I'd be playing Decipher's LotR setting instead of WotC's Greyhawk setting.)

Second Complaint, which I have already voiced in a forum herein: IMO, Star Trek is "Starfleet". Everyone not an officer (or enlisted) is NPC.

Sawyer II:
You said your opinions were rather unlikely to change ... as a matter of fact, they seem to be quite opposed to the average opinions on the boards here, and more specifically to those of the guys at Decipher.
It's a matter of perception I guess, but it seems natural Decipher should provide us all with something we can enjoy, doesn't it? You don't want your players to play something else than Starfleet, well, fine, just forbid the use of any other profession. But don't ask Decipher to forbid us to play Ferengi bartenders! ;)
About the d20 similarities, I remember detractors of ICON who kept saying "this ICON system is just a rip off of WEG D6, just change the names yadda yadda ..." ... well, the fact is: I'm not sure WEG D6 would have played that well for Trek, but ICON did its job rather fine. There were lots of small (or not so small) differences, which in the end made the system worthwhile. We'll just see how CODA handles, won't we?

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Originally posted by Calcoran
Sawyer II:
You said your opinions were rather unlikely to change ... as a matter of fact, they seem to be quite opposed to the average opinions on the boards here, and more specifically to those of the guys at Decipher.

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Oh I understand and accept that fact. It is not unusual for me to have an opinion opposed by all around me. Just as long as I'm not ran out of town for doing so.

I realize there were lots of character templates generated for ICON and posted on TrekRPG's web site. These were helpful for me to create the non-Starfleet NPC's. It's just that in my games, no one ever mentioned wanting to be that Ferengi bartender. For that matter, I can't remember anyone sitting down at a D&D game asking to play a dwarf bartender either. It's just an idea foreign to me. To me, Star Trek is synonymous with Starfleet. To other's, it isn't. I understand and gladly allow GM's the chance to play as their players wish.

I hope Decipher does great in their attempt to reach the greater market with their decision. I just don't remember reading a lot of complaints about LUG Trek being constrictive and not allowing for creating all those character archetypes that DecTrek now provides for.

Nuff said on this. All are welcome to contact me via email regarding this thread. (Taking it off list before the moderators do.)

It seems funny to me that there are some people who think a game system or game background should be limited by what they want their game to be like.

Icon did allow non-Starfleet characters-it was called the Deep Space Nine core rulebook.

I have very few problems with Coda. I have run the system twice and greatly enjoyed it both times; just waiting on the Narrator's Guide now to begin running it even more.

I have no problem with characters only getting one basic profession. Back in the day, the designers revealed to use the mathematical underpinnings of the Icon template system, which allowed for creation of more balanced templates by the fans. Perhaps someone can ferret out such a system for professions, so people can design their own. The combination of Basic Profession + any number of Elite Professions can be used to model a wide number of character types.

The errata states very clearly that you can only have one basic profession.

Allen

Besides nothing says that you can't change the things you don't like for your own game. If you want to allow more then one basic profession, I say go ahead. It's your universe afterall. You only want Starfleeters, so be it, your the boss. ;)

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Originally posted by Phantom
Besides nothing says that you can't change the things you don't like for your own game. If you want to allow more then one basic profession, I say go ahead. It's your universe afterall. You only want Starfleeters, so be it, your the boss. ;)

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Very true. My campaign will be Starfleet only, because I do prefer that, but the game allowing for other styles is a good thing. And we have discussed playing a civilian merchants game set in the TOS timeframe...and I know one guy here in town who is thinking about a Boomer campaign in the Enterprise time period.

This is seriously off-topic, however. sorry :)

Allen

Please no more debates about what the company should put in the books based on what one single person wants or not. I read all the crud WotC took from guys who thought the PG shouldn't have elves (or dwarves) because they never used them or liked them...and WotC took the same guff (probably from the same lame-o) about Star Wars. Its an old argument, and I applaud those who said things like "...its your world (universe, pocket dimension, etc...) do what you like..."

That's the way to GM. I myself am putting together a Klingon campaign, not that StarFleet isn't fun or interesting...its just the way I wanted it. In fact, if things go in a certain way its quite possible that the Khitomer accords will be chucked out the window. I personally don't care if anyone out there doesn't like that...too bad...run your own campaign.

My appologies for blasting away at anyone (I'll put the pulse cannons away now), its just that I've heard this argument before and it annoys me to no end. I meant no personal offense or insult.

-Darth Sarcastic