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I have been play testing some house rules for my game lately and I have decided to make a post for them. I will update it periodically from time to time with idea's that I have. Feel free to post your own if you like or give me comments about mine. The purpose of my house rules is to make the game as close to the TV series and movies that I can.
Enjoy!
Stule's House Rules
Officers Age and Advancements
Alot of questions on the forums are about how many Advancements should someone have or how many years should a person serve to become a certain rank. Here is my attempt at answering that. (Sorry for the dots but Computer Literate I aint.).
Graduate.......................................... .....................Age
Starfleet Academy........................................... ......18-22
Rank....................Promotion....Years.......T otal........ Age
Ensign.................0.................. 1-2.......... 1-2.......... 23-24
Lieutenant (JG)....1...................2..............3-4..........25-26
Lieutenant..........2...................2......... .....5-6.......... 27-28
Lt. Commander...3...................3..............7-9.......... 29-31
Commander.........4..................4-5...........10-14...... 32-36
Captain................5..................5-6...........15-20...... 37-42..........Must get permission from GM to go any higher than Captain
Commodore.........6..................5-6.......... 21-26...... 43-48
Rear Admiral........7.................. 5-6...........27-32...... 49-54
Vice-Admiral........8...................5-6...........33-38...... 55-60
Admiral................9.................. 5-6.......... 39-44...... 61-66
Fleet Admiral.......10................ 5-6...........45-50...... 67-72...........This Position is usually an appointed one.
Promotion is the number of Promotion Edges that is needed to gain that rank.
Years is the number of years that the position should take to complete before being promoted to the next rank.
Total category is the numbers of minimum number of Advancements that the character should have to achieve that rank. It is also the number of years that the Officer should have completed.
Age is the age that the Officer should be.
All categories are subject to special cases, such as James T. Kirk, who became a Captain at a relatively young age.
So a Ensign could be promoted to Lt (Jg) during their cadet cruise if you want.
A Captain could be really young as could a Commander (The Commander in our game is 30).
Some ranks can be finished quicker through good reviews, commendations, and the like.
Some ranks can take longer to finish for some people, bad reviews; poor performance can also hinder the advancement of an Officer.
Many Officers stay at the rank Captain for most of their careers.
A person can also get early acceptance into Starfleet Academy – Youngest so far was 16 years old (In my game).
Canon Support
In the Epsiode Chain of Command (TNG), Riktor states that he was an Ensign 12 years ago on board the Pegasus. By my charts, it works! :)
Shields Down
This is for when a ships shield comes down. It reflects the incredible damage a torpedo or phasers do to an unprotected ship. Theses are considered Tier Two maneuvers (Target System [Tactical]).
System.................... TN........................... Effect
Normal.....................5...................... ........x2 dg
No Power**.............5............................. x8 dg
Weapons.................15........................ ....x2 dg (dg applied to Weapons Track)
Sensors................... 15............................x2 dg
Engines....................15..................... ......x4 dg (dg applied to Propulsion dg track)
Reactor*..................20...................... ..... x6 dg (dg applied to all systems)
Bridge......................25.................... ........x2 dg (All Bridge Crew makes Sta checks TN15 or take 1d6+1 Wound Levels (not health points but an entire Wound Level))
* Requires a Targeting Maneuver and Lock On to determine where reactor is
** This represents all systems turned off, no defense fields or anything
(TNG – Enterprise destroying Oberth that was infected with disease)
*** All damage is rounded down
Example of Damage (Star Trek Generations)
If Enterprise D shot its torpedoes at a Klingon Bird of Prey that it made to cloak, thus bringing her shields down, and it targeted its reactor….
Torpedoes: 5/5/5/5/5
Dg: 5x6=30
Bird of Prey Structure (20)
Effect: Bird of Prey explodes, which is exactly what happens in movie
P.S.
I fixed this from an earlier post. There are several films where the Enterprise takes a beating without her shields. My next post also answers that question.
Courage Points and Space Combat
Hero’s may spend Courage Points to slow down damage to their ship
1 Courage Pt is worth 5 Temp Structure.
Only 1 CP can be spent per round in this maner.
A ship can only have 3 CP’s spent in this way (bonus total of 15 Structure max).
This must be done by the Captain, First Officer, or the Chief Engineer.
It may also be done be a Bridge Officer, but only 1 Courage Point may be spent by the Officer.
Only the Captain, First Officer, or Chief Engineer may spend more than one point.
Person in Question must have either Repair 5+ or Engineering (Structural) 5+.
TN for 1st time is 10, second 15, final is 20.
Failure indicates person loses 1d6+1 Wound Levels due to exploding console or fire.
Structure only lasts for that battle.
When the structure is taken away, and the ship would be at – structure, the ship has 1 pt Structure left.
Passing Out
When a character is lowered to Incapacitated or Near Death, there is a chance he or she will lose consciousness. He can come out of the state if he receives medical attention. He makes this check every round, until he fails it. At the expiration of the unconscious state, the character awakens and must begin rolling again until he receives medical treatment. He makes his base Stamina Check, damage modifiers are not added to this roll. So whatever his check is at full strength, that is the bonus he uses.
State...........................................Ch eck...................................Unconscious Duration
Incapacitated..............................Stamina check Dif 10.................1d6 x 5 Minutes
Near Death................................. Stamina check Dif 15.................1d6 x 5 Hours
When a character reaches Near Death, he must also make a Sta (TN 10) check to see if he worsens. If he makes the check, no further health points are lost. If he fails the check, he will lose 1 health point per 5 hour period. This will continue until he recieves medical attention or dies.
The Lucky Shot (Star Trek III)
If a ship has its shields down, and is hit with a Photon Torpedo or Phasers and scores 4 6’s (rolling 2 6’s then 2 more on a tactical roll), a vital system was hit (most often the main reactor) and the ship sustains an additional x4dg.
Example:
Klingon BoP is cloaked.
Klingon BoP targets an Oberth’s engines.
BoP comes out of cloak and fires one volley.
Torpedo hits with 4 6's (He rolls a 12, then rolls a 6, then another 6)
Torp 2x4=8x4=32.
Oberth Hull: 25
Oberth explodes.
Klingon Tactical Officer is shot by Captain becasue he wanted prisoners.
Advance Characters and Tours of Duty
I took most of this from the LUG and CODA rules. I just like having it all in one space. These rules are for if your making an advanced character. They work well with the chart I made above.
Tours (Advanced Characters)
1. Tours last 1d6+1 Years long.
2. Cadet Cruise lasts 1 year
Advancements (Advanced Characters)
Characters receive advancements for the time they spent in Starfleet. The number of advancements depends on their type of service. They receive 1 Advancement per term. They must decide which term applies to them.
1. Cadet Cruise (May only be taken one time)
2. Each year of standard Starfleet service. (This would be exploration, diplomatic, etc.)
3. Every 6 months of combat duty. (Dominion!! Klingons!! Romulans!!! Oh MY!!)
4. For every two years in a civilian career. (Bartender in Ten Forward...snore....)
[Example: If I made a character with 2 tours, First is the Cadet Cruise (1 year), then I would decide that the first tour (2 years long) would be 1 year of standard Starfleet Service and 1 year of combat duty. My next tour (4 years), would be all normal Starfleet duty. I would get a total of 8 Advancements and my character would age 7 years.
Advancements
Cadet Cruise = 1 year = 1
1st Tour = 2 years = 1 (Standard) + 2 (1 year of combat duty)
2nd Tour = 4 years = 4 (Standard)
7 Years
8 Advancements
It is possible to gain alot of advancements if one takes alot of Combat Duties.
Different Yield of Torpedoes
A Starship carries a standard compliment of normal torpedoes.
They can be adjusted to do +1 dg with a TN 15 Engineering [Systems] roll
They can be adjusted to +2 with a TN 20
Photon Torpedoes
A starship can not fire Photon Torpedoes at Point Blank range.
A Starship will take x2dg from a Photon Torpedo detonating at PB range.
They also take dg as if they were not protected by shields.
So total dg would be x4.
Example:
Gallaxy Class Starship fires a Torpedo at PB range, they would take 5x4 = 20dg.
Canon
Nth Degree – Riker says "A Photon Torpedo at this range would cripple us" - he was refering to the alien probe that was following them.
Trans-phasic Weapons
There are weapons used by the Dominion and other races that go through shields. These weapons impact the ship as per the no shields rule.
Example:
Trans-Phasic Torpedo (Penetration 5/5/5/5/5)
Torpedo hits Galaxy Class Ship
Ship stills receives a Protection of 5, but no Threshold
Dg: 5 x 2 = 10
Starship Personnel
A starship is crewed by many different people. This is to get an average of crew performance for the many systems that a starship possesses. This is an average bonus for the entire crew. Some crew may have higher or lower bonuses. These bonus also take into account a persons ability scores. So if you had an Elite crew firing your phasers, they would get a +10 as their roll.
Level....................... Bonus...................... Crews
Green...................... +4............................0-3 Years
Normal.....................+6..................... .......4-7 years
Seasoned................ +8............................8-11 years
Elite......................... +10..........................12-15 years
Top Gun...................+12......................... .16+ years
Starship Casualties
When a Starship gets into combat, crewmembers die. This is a quick way to determine how many people die during a battle. During most Starship battles on screen, not many people seem to die during a battle. This is why the number is low.
1% – 80% Hull Point Damage *
0 Crewmembers dead (Starships are built to protect their crews)
81%-90% Hull Point Damage
5% Casualties of Crew total (If Crew total is 500, then 25 die)
91-99% Hull Point Damage
10% Casualties
100% Hull Point Damage (Ship is destroyed - says so in rules)
Everyone Dies
When the Hull Damage hits the specified %, the casualties only happen once.
So 1%-80% only gets one set of wounded results.
81%-90% only gets one set of casualties.
Etc.
As the GM, you can decide which of the casualties are dead or wounded.
The death count can also be taken down by an abandon ship order or other means at the Captains disposal.
The casualty rate is low because in the series, not alot of people die due to Starship battles. There are wounded, but very few deaths.
* At this level people can be wounded, but no deaths should occur unless it is a plot device.
Number of people wounded would be 1% of crew total for each 10% DG up to 80%.
Ex: Ship takes 4 HP dg. It has 40. So that would be 10% of the HP. So that means that 1% of crew is wounded. A ship with 500 crewmembers would have 5 people woiunded.
I like your ranks chart "officers age and advancements" the years seem pretty much on target, with two suggestions (based on my own gut feelings):
LTJG can be had by a cadet graduating the academy / cadet cruise with high honors. (this is a FASA tradition, I can't recall if it is true in the real world navy or not, because I didn't interact with officers enough to worry about such things when I was on active duty.)
Admiral ranks are "Floaty" in that once you are an admiral, rank is not so much time spent as it is political, i.e who you know, what circles you run in, and skill.
Meaning:
A captain can make Commodore, (if in the lower half of the promo list) or Rear Admiral (if in the upper half) either way, once promoted.
Ranks of Vice Admiral, depends on if you have the strategic skills to command a battlegropu of about 7 ships or not. If not, you are a commodore / rear admiral, until you get those skills. It's not likely that a gent would go from Captain to Vice Admiral.
Ranks of Admiral would require the ability and talent / skill / trustworthiness to command a fleet of about 40 ships.
Thus, a commodore could go from commodore to rear admiral, vice admiral, or admiral, depending on what the admiralty board says about him. The ranks are not as set in stone for progression (like the lower 0-1 to 0-6 ranks are), so much as they are for ability, and who they want in charge, in the command slots, across the federation.
The same was more or less true for the american civil war, as I recall, but people who are historians, correct me if I am off. They didn't have enough regular academy people to fill the ranks, so they'd sometimes look at a guy, and say okay, you are good, we'll make you a colonel, here's your guys. Or okay, you are a general, here's your army.
Fleet Admiral is nearly impossible to get, maybe one or two in the Federation, and typically only in time of war. And it is definitely by appointment only by the Fed president and council.
Bridge......................20.................... ........x1.5 dg (All Bridge Crew makes Sta checks or die TN15)
I would suggest modifying this to some amount of damage that MIGHT in fact kill a PC, but NOT ALWAYS. Thus you can have the heroics of saving the captain or other officer while bleeding to death /unconscious, dragging higher ranks off of a burning bridge, etc.
If you just always have bridge hit = kill, your game will only last a few combats, given the volume of energy being tossed around, some will just strike the bridge at random. unless of course, you are looking for lots of pcs coming and going through death via hard core space combat.
My own series, the bridge has been hit three times, with shields down, in about 6 years of play, off and on.
Some PCs were lost outright (killed/ blown into space beacuse the SIF failed), one PC captain (who is now a commodore) was knocked out and rescued from a burning bridge by a LTJG navigator (the rest of the PC guys ran), many pcs have been burned, partially crushed, electrocuted, but survived, scarred, or broken bones, etc that have healed. All from bridge hits.
In thinking about it, maybe make your TN 20 a rule for NPCs, with my suggestion for PCs. But, on the other hand, Battletech has that rule, cockpit critical hit = dead, no save. You take your chances in battle. Just seems a bit harsh on PCs from here.
Old Stardate magazine had some excellent rules for critical hits in FASA space combat. None of 'em killed pcs outright, which I think is a mistake. Something like that should be reserved for "A PC is in the forward torpedo room, when it takes a plasma hit, and a torp inside loses containment = M-A explosion."
If bridge hits were that deadly, they'd fly the ship from aux control with tons of armor around it, and not have the bridge on the exterior skin, since you are losing fully half of your officers in one hit, = ship effectively KIA, for most purposes.
Anyway, that's my input.
Thanks for the suggestions LUG.
I went ahead and amended my rules.
Good call on the Bridge Rule.
I changed it so that they have a chance of dying.
I also raised the difficulty from 20 to 25 so that it is much harder to hit.
Makes for a more exciting game!
Nice call!
"Courage Points and Space Combat"
I would just suggest making this a lesser / emergency / roleplayed aspect of the damage control rules, making for more efficient / faster / risky repairs, not giving extra structure. And instead of CO and Engineer, make it XO / Engineer, and any bridge officer who has damage control skills, if he is allowed to be relieved from the bridge by the officer at the Conn. I think the CO is too busy to direct damage control teams to lend them courage. make it the XO instead.
(this makes it dramatic, since it's putting a less qualified guy on the bridge, in the efforts of saving the ship by the guy that's supposed to be there in his panel control / chair.)
I suggest you make it deadly also, in that if you do this super emergency repairs, on a critical failure, the guy down below leading this damage control team has a chance to or actually gets burned crushed / trapped on a critical failure of the repair roll.
AND/ OR, if the ship takes a hit in the exact area he / she is repairing, they get wounded, or take some damage or something, from the new fresh damage incoming hit...which makes the repairs harder, thus leading to more drama.
Miracles can be performed if all you need is time to do it, and you have the right skills and tools.
But tons of ship (i.e. extra structure) are not gonna appear out of nowhere.
That's my input.
I'm liking these suggestions, a lot.
no comment on lucky shot. I don't know Decipher well enough to assess that.
The going unconscious, same thing. Most systems have rules like that. Depends on flavor.
Nice efforts on your part. (even though it's for decipher, and not lug which I run.)
Boy. Wish I had seen this before I got into a big debate with my player who is about to play the Captain.Quote:
Originally Posted by stule
It just so happens that we agreed on 15 advancements. And she is a younger go-getter just like Kirk.
In fact her backstory is that she attended command school with Kirk (even having a brief fling with him). While Kirk got his command, she was the XO of the USS Hood. During training excercises with the M-5 controlled Enterprise, the Hood Sustained massive damage and casualties, including the Captain. She-who-has-no-name-yet took command and by force of will held the ship and her crew together. She was later decorated for her bravery and awarded command of the ship (at the beginning of our series.
Oh (and on a side-note) screw the no-female-starship-captains-even-in-the-2260s. That's about as bad as beehives and fainting at the site of blood. :rolleyes:
Pardom me my vanity, but we decided our Series would be TOS, and the ship would be the Hood. The whole M-5 thing was an accident, but created a great backstory :D
DC
Added Starship Casualties
Edited some of the rules due to play testing
Not going through your rules fully, looking over your crew mortality rates they are WAAAAAAY too high. In Trek most people will survive if the ship takes a critical hit, bar it being destroyed by a warp core breach, with no time to evacuate. Personally I see zero structure as a point where the vessel is in severe dire straights, but not destroyed, and people still have emergency evacuation centres, life support pockets and a chance to make it to the escape pods/shuttles. It just seems to me in most episodes when there is any disaster only a small percentage of people die, unless there's a catastrophic plot device occurring! Just my opinion, but it's the feel of the show.
Thanks Tobian.
I will tweak the casualties rules abit. You are right, not alot of people die even in a battle. The Starships seem to protect them very well. I only remember seeing 2-3 shows where anyone died in a Starship battle.
Thanks for the input.
Ok, I twiked it abit. If you still find this high, give me a shout.
Better, but even at 100% destruction, the crew should get some time to evacuate. That's down to the GM of course, and really the reason I wouldn't normally have rules like this, is it's more flavourful to have naritive. Still it does give crews something to do while their ship is being shot up, in the 90% end, like running for escape pods, and adding that element to the game! :)
I see your point.
To me, when the Captain is yelling abandon ship, the ship has taken 80% or more damage.
When the ship hits 100%, it explodes.
It is up to the Captain to know when he needs to get his people off his ship or when to surrender his vessel to save his crew.
Thanks again for bringing up the excess in casualties.
I tweaked it again so it emulates more of the series.
I just skimmed it. Not too familiar with the ship rules outside of Spacedock, and a bit fuzzy on those at the moment since we've been on hiatus from the game for awhile.
Not sure I like the age chart completely. For a standard, they're good, but PCs are supposed to be exceptional people, and should be allowed to be outside the chart (I'm not saying allow for a 22YO captain or anything, but allow for a little bit of sway). Also, is that just for creation, or does that apply for in-game promotions as well? Rewarding the characters when they accomplish great things in the game with promotions are a good idea, and I don't think you should be limited by their age in that case.
Are you planning on doing an age chart for the enlisted ranks?
As for the chart being an absolute guide or reference, read the paragraph just under it. The chart are a set of guidelines. It allows people to gauge how old a Commander should be, not has to be. I made the chart ot help people in CODA get an idea on how many advancements a Captain should have, as well as how many years should he (or she) have served. As for characters doing great things and getting promoted for it, just use my Advance Characters and Tours of Duty rules and give them alot of Combat Tours. You could have a 24 Year Old Captain if you really wanted to (it would be especially cool if it was a female Captain but I'm biased).
As for making a chart on enlisted, I actually hadn't thought about it, but since you asked, I'm on it. Hope to have it cranked out in a few days.
Remember most of these rules I used the CODA system for. I am currently experimenting with the ICON system and enjoying it so far. I really like the Starship Combat rules (which remind me of the games I used to play when I was a wee lad.).
Thanks again for your input and I will try to have those enlisted charts up ASAP.
I would say abandon ship is not ordered at a certain % of damage, but instead when the ship is lost/KIA, unable to fire weapons, or maneuver effectively, with no help on the way in the form of reinforcements.
That might be 80% it might be 60%.
Also, I was a big fan of the FASA casualty charts back in the day. It ended up a few % of the crew as casualties for most big hits, witrh the chance to heal some of them by the medical staff.
I think it's pretty certain that a torpedo / plasma /disruptor hit with shields down is going to kill / seriously wound a bunch of people.
They just didn't want to focus on that kind of grisly reality in the shows. The movies seem to be a different story, especially Wrath of Khan.
Again, depends on your series flavor. I am more or less a fan of 1 casualty per point of damage that gets through the shields, with 17% chance KIA, 33% Chance seriously wounded, 50% chance able to be healed and returned to duty.
But when anti-proton beams hit the main saucer, people die in droves.
Didn't we have a conversation before regarding promotion lengths in Starfleet? Didn't many, based on cannon reference states that it appears that time spent in grade is almost double that normally spent by those in current modern militaries . . . do to so many factors that we wont get back into?