Star Trek d20

[Alex]

New poster...

I did my own d20 rules that I at first meant to be for Star Trek. The actual rules were far more useful and generic, so I made it setting neutral and had some blurbs for using it with Star Trek (which is why I post here), Star Wars, Babylon 5, and Stargate.

13 page PDF: Alex's d20 Sci-Fi game draft

If anyone would like to make suggestions, I'm happy to listen and incorporate feedback. I'm not putting starship mechanics into this game, it is for personal story involvement of the characters. I'm also sure my treatment of telepathy and psi will not sit well with others. It is the simplest approach I could think of. You are welcome to come up with your own.

[Tobian]

Nice document. Now looking through it I can see a few things to suggest.

You are only giving out the base feats.. In D20 you get something other than skills most levels, Mages get magic, wariors get bonus feats etc.. but there's nothing in this game so it's going to be a hard climb up the levels, with little to sweaten it! Perhaps you could develop profession trees, like in D20 Modern and Steampunk (of the one's I have seen) these could gain you extra perks (such as weapons bonus feats for fighters, repair feats for fighters, social feats for counselors and diplomats etc) and also be used for things like promotions, which are absent altogether in your game system.

The wounds idea is a good one, simplifies it, though most things will kill a person in one hit ! I'm curious why Phasers do such pathetic damage? A Staff weapon can kill a person.. true.. but a phaser can disintergrate them! There aren't any rules for disintergration in your system (which even a tiny phaser can do!)

The Telepathy have and have not table was a little odd. babylon 5 had clairvoyancy all over the place (they even had Majel Barrat Roddenbery in doing it hehe) and I was just not sure how the differences between strong weak psionic and all that worked, and what was the limiting factor in being allowed to have them, it was a little confused.

The Ferengi are stupid.. for no reason whatsoever, they are socially inept yes, but they are capable of building and using 24th century technology quite well, their low wisdom scores are bizare, especially because they have such big ears and HUGE brains! they should probably get a bonus to listen checks (as with Vulcans). Rom might have acted dum, but he was technically brilliant (which he could never have achieved with a -4 int) and Quark was certainly not stupid, so I would certainly drop both of those negative values.

As a suggestion I think most races should, because of their futuristic education levels, recieve a racial knowlwege bonus of +4 (history culture, languages, art etc) or perhaps make it like Stargate's 'education' test, whereby a character can roll against his education, rather than have specific skills, for things he should know about his world and job etc.

In both Stargate and Startrek they have universal translators - Everyone in Startrek and the Asguard in Stargate (and the Nox are just naturally good!).

Regarding death, reviving a dead character in Startrek is a fine line, but they often can recusitate people who are medically dead, depending on their type of wounds, so it really should be a Gm call, and the same witht he Goauld - you can't resurect a 6 month old corpse

[Alex]

Thanks for some feedback. I overlooked the Centauri seers, so I guess they do have clairvoyants in B5. I didn't want references to strong and weak telepathy in the document any more. I must have done a poor editing job. As for phasers being so powerful and can disintegrate people, on the other hand most episodes show alien bad guys trudging forward while being hit by 3 phaser shots on heavy stun or even kill. It's a dramatic choice by the writers but it makes for inconsistencies that just don't fly in a game.

I was looking to design the system to be a little more realistic and a lot less anime-like (other d20 games make me vomit, but the mechanics of the system are quite appealing). What's so bad about d20 normally? Well, to me it is all those super-dooper-hydro-mega powerups. The oodles of special abilities gained at every level. By 5th level, a character is about as powerful as anyone in the real world ever gets. By 10th level, a character is about as powerful as anyone in myth or legend ever got. By 15th level, a character resembles a superhero out of a comic book and by 20th level, a character is soemthing out of Final Fantasy, Diablo II, or some of the most absurd anime. That's not what Star Trek or Babylon 5 were about. I don't want that kind of power inflation.

What was the difference between Picard and an average joe of the 24th century? Picard had more extensive knowledge of cultures, tactics, shuttlecraft piloting, etc. He didn't attack 5 times as fast as the other guys, he didn't take 8 phaser shots to drop. Neither did Worf. I eliminated the "class bonuses per level" idea, just like I eliminated the "class" idea. Sheridan didn't have a "return from the dead" ability because of his class and level, he came back from Z'ha'dum because of outside intervention. There is still a degree of improvement and literary-style unbelievable abilities presented by the feats. A character can still get a whirlwind attack or a cleave, but there is no call for a sci-fi character having special abilities that keep him on par with Elminster or a 15th level paladin. That stuff just isn't part of science fiction.

[Tobian]

I take your meaning exactly, there should not be a level 20 Pickard who has a plus 57 to hit bonus it makes no sense.. however, why have levels at all if that is your beef! You could just simply keep the mechanic and ditch the levels system entirelly - Mutants and Masterminds (almost) did this, your level is more or less static, but you get points so you can raise your powers.. or in these cases you can simply raise your skills - Skills in Trek / Babylon 5 / Starwars ARE the superpowers - how knowledgeable someone is or how skilled a negotiator they are are the the main thing in all three. Pickard was a phenomenal negotiator and a highly knowledgeable historian, Crusher was a fantastic doctor, G'kan a sage and wise spiritualist and mightly warior.. none of these characters were uber-anime like you say, but they were uber-anime in their skills...

I recomend you look at the professional ability trees, these add to things like this in D20 modern and Steampunk, and they would well fit in.. the abilities fit in to the characters. - they are not manga like, they have diplomacy abilities, translation abilities, etc etc.. they are more than just feats, damn useful but NOT ubermanga powers

and I have to agree - you can't mix Scifi and fantasy - or else you open up the starwars Vs star trek fanboy debate into a whole new realm

Another thing you should consider making for Trek and Wars is robots. their abilities and how you make them...

There is a fine line on the combat issue. Worf, in the prisioner of war camp, was able to go at it for hours with Jem Hadar, that kind of implies someone tougher than your average bear.. though I guess especially in this system the Toughness feat would actually be worth it !

With regards to the Phasers.. err there's only ever been specific story reasons for a bad guy of the week not dying when you hit him with maximum phaser.. The Borg have SHIELDS - and they have a connected energy network, so they can more or less draw from the energy reserves of a starship and up to 64000 drones to deflect almost anything you throw at them.. hit a bog standard humand and they go SPLAT.. I can recall an alasomorph being hit with a high setting (not max I think) but again it was a shapeshifting energy being and kindof therefore imune to energy attacks as we would be. Not all shots evaporate, but then they can kill, and it's a lower power setting, hence using less charges! That isn't an inconsistiency it's a story driven device. If you wanted to give it a name in game it could be an 'imunity to energy weapons' feat' not available to PC's.. or just say they are imune.. the end a Phaser is still completelly lethal even in it's tiniest form, so I will have to just disagree with you on that one!

[Alex]

I'm curious why Phasers do such pathetic damage?

Tobian, this was a complaint you had about how I did rewrote the rules compared to other settings. I don't have the rules for any of the other versions of Trek RPGs. Can you tell me how hard it is to a) hit a person in combat with a phaser and b) how much damage a phaser does (compared to the average life of a character) with respect to 1) ICON, 2) CODA, 3) GURPS, 4) FASA rules? I will rewrite or adapt phasers to a more appropriate power level after reviewing how other systems handle them.

[Tobian]

You don't really need to have all of those comparitive analogies for the other systems. My point is that Phasers are generally seen to do 4 types of damage..

Stun
Wound
Kill
Vapourise

Stun does no damage, so it's just a question of coming up with a mechanic to knock someone out without really harming them.. I'd say a Fortitude test?

Wound & Kill, these are variables.. they could easilly fit with your blaster ranges.. Generally, canonically, Phasers do 1-16 settings! 1-3 are light to heavy stun, 4-7 are thermal damage, so from pea shooter to ouch where'd my arm go! The Thermal effects can also be used to heat rocks.

8 is vapourise - and above that it's just for blowing structural stuff up, like collapsing a cave or shooting at Borgs (who have shields!)

TOS phasers might not have so many settings, but they definatelly range from 1-8 - and possibly more (In terms of power level) though they may have had fewer intergers.. Certainly Enterprise Phasers have only 2 settings - stun or kill (and no vape!)

Generally the tiny hand held 'micro cricket' Type one's do 1-8 and have a shorter battery life, the Type 2 have 1-16 and a good battery life and the rifles, (Type 3) have improved range, better armour penetration (as they use pulsed packets of energy) and have really long shelf life.. though they tend to be measured in units - light stun takes few, heavy stun takes more etc.. wearing down your 'charges' faster.

Looking at what you've done I'd say what you had was close to correct, If you wanted to keep it very simple I say 3 modes - stun - with a variable save based on how much 'damage' you roll. hurt - 2d8 type damage - Kill - no save - you're dead

You can then have special armour penetrating qualities for the larger guns, and more charges etc.

How easy it is to use a phaser.. Well really that should be factored based on regular skill checks.. the better you get, the easier it should be to hit someone, as you 'train'.

One note on the lethality of Phasers is.. Especially true to the Federation (and many other military organisations can do this) The phaser is generally stored in a safe place, and usually only the small hand phasers are carried by active guards etc) they can be disabled (usually by the Operations chief or Chief of security) remotelly, as they are all tied into the same failsafe security systems as everything else.. so a small child could NEVER pick up a phaser and shoot someone, as they have biometric identity checks (which bad guys of the week always manage to bypass ) and the OPS can set the general level of all of the phasers on board, if he wants too too, so if your players get shoot - happy - cripple them

[Silverstreak]

D20 really can't work well for Star Trek if you really think about it.

I mean the base classes would be pretty mundane and in order to be the command crew of a starship you'd all have to have prestigue classes and be high level because of skill levels needed.

But then, that's just my opinion, if someone could show me a way D20 might work, I may try it. But in all honesty, I can't see it working very well.

[Tobian]

I happen to agree, but I'm being objective.. and I had some time to kill

As I said perhaps working on an adapted version of Mutants and masterminds, without superpowers (maybe some for exceptionally gifted or wierd aliens) would be a more compatible D20 system.. Not all D20 is D&D

[REG]

D20 really can't work well for Star Trek if you really think about it.

I mean the base classes would be pretty mundane and in order to be the command crew of a starship you'd all have to have prestigue classes and be high level because of skill levels needed.

But then, that's just my opinion, if someone could show me a way D20 might work, I may try it. But in all honesty, I can't see it working very well.

Who ever said you HAVE to begin play with level 1 characters?

[Tobian]

You don't but with the basic premise that captain = level 10 at least (going traditionally) this means everyone has to start at this level (if you wanted a Captain to be a PC) and for there to be a reason why they weren't also captains, and start with highly overpowered characters (again based traditionally)

All of these things are purelly based on the concept of converting over PURE D&D / D20 Modern - BUT you could highly adapt the system so that it didn't matter, but there comes a point where you think - why am i bothering to base it on the D20 system because it's a completelly new system, which happens to use a 20 sided dice!

[REG]

To steal my own questioning statement: Who says you HAVE to begin play with level 10 characters?

When I create my character using LUGTrek, we get freebie points for every tour of duty we wish to take, and sometimes we take more than one at our own choosing BEFORE we begin play. That means some can start off as an experienced captain while others start off as department heads or an academy grad rookie at our own choosing.

Level 10? Good if you're using Mutants & Masterminds (the default starting level). But personally, level 7 is a good place for a starting ship captain, with just enough experience under his belt.

[Sea Tyger]

You don't but with the basic premise that captain = level 10 at least (going traditionally) this means everyone has to start at this level (if you wanted a Captain to be a PC) and for there to be a reason why they weren't also captains, and start with highly overpowered characters (again based traditionally)

Well, you have characters of different levels of ability in both ICON and CODA, so why can't you do that in a d20 game? Personally, if you don't tie rank to level (or advancement), you can easily use d20 (largely unmodified) for Trek.

[Silverstreak]

I don't know, D20 is level based, ICON and Coda are skill based. Star Trek is a skill based game, it isn't about who has the best Thac0 or the most hit points.

And honestly, the D20 skill system is horrid, even for D&D

[Tobian]

If you strip levels out of D20 - it isn't D20 - we are talking about a new made up system that uses a 20 sided dice!

because of the way the level system works you go up in everything each level, whereas with both CODA and ICON you could custom build a character who had excelent 'captain' skills (such as some promotion edges, diplomacy etc) without ALSO being good at dodging, hitting things and taking 5 times more damage.. As my D20 loathing friend says it's like having your level 20 Patrick Moore scientist with his Xylophone of death (which is a very funny image if you know who he is) . The point is you chose where the points are alocated rather than simply automatically going up in level. In either system you can't build a 'Captain' level character from a 'starter' character - but you could build it much lower with ICON or Coda - it's just this person will ONLY be good at leading people not at combat or dodging or absorbing damage.

Yes you could do this with M&M theoretically, but I have yet to see anyone do it YET

[Sea Tyger]

I didn't say "strip the levels" at all, Tobian; I said don't tie rank to level. I know you hate to hear this, but Coda advancements are levels in a way, and you can insert quite a bit of flexibility into class abilities. (The Coda-style tiered profession abilities setup would adapt very nicely over to d20 class abilities.)

It can be done and done well, without removing levels or classes, and still keeping the Trek feel to the universe.