Crazy Good Piloting Abilities

[Doug Taylor]

As I've worked on a hotshot pilot character for my son, I've been quite surprised by a few of the Professional Abilities, almost wondering if they are too strong.

Keep in mind that my son's character is an Ensign (8 advancements), and he has 9 skill levels in System Operation (Flight Control). His total that he rolls is no less than 18!!!

He gets that by:

Skill Level: 9
Intellect of 10: +2
Flight Control specialty: +2
Astrogation Professional Ability: +2
Skill Focus (3D Thinking) +2
Fit: +1

Now, in addition to that, he has the following Professional Abilities (paraphrased below):

Combat Piloting: One additional helm maneuver per round without suffering any additional action penalties.
Dogfighter: While at helm, ship receives +2 to all helm maneuvers.
Evasive Maneuvers: Rolls 3d6 and keeps the highest two rolls for maneuver actions in space combat.

Am I reading "Combat Piloting" correctly? Does the ship get an additional helm maneuver per turn? or does he himself get that extra action (as he pilots the ship on the bridge)?

Even if it's just him (getting the extra helm maneuver), he still gets a +18 to his roll, adds 2 to all of his Helm maneuvers, and gets to roll 3d6 and keep the best 2 for all maneuvers in space! I suspect he's going to put Luke Skywalker and Maverick from Top Gun to shame!

[Fugazi Grrl]

Sounds like a very interesting and fascinating character. He should meet my Baxala Sodi - my main PC. She's a Lieutenant commander with a total of +16 to her con rolls.

Systems Ops +10
Flight Control Specialty +2
Skill Focus 3D Thinking edge +2
Fit edge +1 (Sys Ops being a Physical skill)
Intellect Modifier +1

Baxala also has the Reckless flaw, but rather than apply a -1 to Physical tests we use the version of Reckless in the Lord of the Rings corebook, because it makes more sense as to what recklessness is. The Reckless flaw, as described in the Trek rules is actually a "Clumsy" flaw. And in the house rules we use, we have that covered by including a Clumsy flaw; -1 to all Physical Tests.

Since the CODA system was designed to be cinematic in its play style (as was its predecessor, ICON) it is easy to come up with a bad-a$$ character with very little effort. Which helps, because as I'm sure I've mentioned before, my Narrator does not like character's failing their tasks. Her stories usually depend on flamboyant heroics to get to the end of the plot.

As far as the Combat Piloting professional ability - as long as your son's character is on duty at the helm the ship gets the extra maneuver because he is piloting it.

[Doug Taylor]

That seems insane to me (getting the third action per turn), especially after reading the whole tense battle between the starship Drake and the Klingon they fought. Oh well, I guess it's just Helm maneuvers that the extra applies to, so it's not like they will get extra attacks (though in a way they will, since the extra one simply needs to be a Helm maneuver and that gives more room to do additional Tactics maneuvers).

I suppose many good starships will have a skilled pilot with the same ability, though, (to keep things tense and interesting!).

Thanks for the confirmation, FG. The two characters look very much the same; the only difference I could spot was that my son's PC gets a +2 from having an Intellect of 10 (he rolled insanely well for starting stats, getting nothing less than an 8).

[Fugazi Grrl]

I've never created a character by rolling dice.

Well, I did once, and the character was so weak, I enjoyed watching him die of his own incompetence.

And since then I have never done it. My Narrator wont even allow characters created that way in play.

Of course, she's a big GURPS fan, and all GURPS characters are built on a point-system. There's a similar system in ICON, but the ICON rules seem to prefer the template/overlay system. ICON technically has two methods of creating characters, and so does CODA.

CODA has the random-roll method, and the "pick" method.

Baxala's +1, from her Intellect comes from her 8 attribute score. She has very average Intellect, below-average Strength (she's a kind of small girl), and unusually high Agility.

Ergo, her being clumsy from the Reckless flaw didn't make much sense.

[Doug Taylor]

Yeah, I have players that prefer the pick method as the dice so often betray them.

To me the random method is much more fun, as it gives you more variety. I even end up "rolling up" the NPCs I use. If a certain stat is too low, I simply improve it with Advancements. So far it has worked fine, even when I end up with some bad rolls. I like the way that you can throw out the worst three rolls, as this seems to take care of those times you roll a 2 or a 3.

[Fugazi Grrl]

We love to roll up planets, using the Worlds PDF - it creates a wide variety of possibilities. But, since I usually roll 3 or snake-eyes (trust me, my characters burn courage points like no-body's business !), rolling up characters leaves me with a lot of bad rolls.

I love using the character-generator from Pat Goodman's website for creating NPCs, like Bessie's Ferengi holo-porn director (don't ask !).

Sometimes it works the other way around - too many high rolls. I wanted Baxala to be really, unbelievably fast & agile (since she fights like Cynthia Rothrock), but just an "average" as far as intellect and perception went.

It was funny, when she took on a whole warehouse full of bad guys in combat, kicked every body's butt, then had to search one of the unconscious combatants for the keys to the binders on the ambassador she was rescuing.

She couldn't find them, so she woke the dude up, asked him where the keys were, then knocked him out again !