Building a better Time Lord

[Ezri's Toy]

I'm part of a club, USS Maddox, which maintains a master timeline of all fictional club events whether it comes from fan fiction, "persona" creation, or role-playing. Soon, we're going to formalize this a bit more and begin using the CODA ST rules.

One character in this timeline is an anomaly: Lord Jovan, a Time Lord from the Dr. Who universe who is stranded in the Star Trek universe's dimension. (Thus, there is no Dr. Who continuity to worry about.)

Now that we're going to begin role-playing our adventures and adding them to our timeline, I need to generate a CODA version of the Gallifreyan species.

I'm thinking of modifying the Trill rules to determine a Time Lord's number of past regenerations and perhaps using the brak'lul Klingon species ability to account for the two-hearts thing.

I don't know Dr. Who's continuity as well as I do Star Trek's. Is there anything special about Time Lords that I might be over-looking: A temporal intuition like the El-Aurians have, maybe ?

If you were building a Time Lord species for the CODA system, what would you include ?

[Phantom]

Ok, this is a little fast and loose.

I would use the attribute mods for the Vulcans
+1 Int, +2 Str, -2 Pres.

Time lords are more intelligent and stronger then the normal human. The Pres mod is for the somewhat arrogant outlook most Time Lords have toward un-time awakened species. Even the Doctor displayed this from time to time.

I like the use of Trill rules for past lives, should work with little adjustments.

Species Abilities:

Bi-Cardial: The more efficient Cardio-Pulmonary System of a Time Lord gives them a much higher level of endurance then most humans. They gain +2 Stamina reaction bonus

Scholarly: With their much extended life spans and the opportunity that Time Travel allows give a Time Lord ample time to work on certain skills. At the beginning of play select one skill and receive a +2 bonus.

Bonus Edge: Eidetic Memory

Regeneration: Not sure how exactly you would run this, but it is the Great Unequalizer...when non-Time Lord Characters are around. It should be accompanied by a fairly high level disadvantage.

Plus other Time Lords have exhibited many of the other Edges in the game...Particularly Psionic abilities.
Also, you could easily run into the "Elf Problem" with this type of character that LotRs sometimes has.

Anyway, hope this helped a bit. It has been a long time since I thought about the good Doctor.

[Ezri's Toy]

Originally posted by Phantom
Ok, this is a little fast and loose.

(snip)

Regeneration: Not sure how exactly you would run this, but it is the Great Unequalizer...when non-Time Lord Characters are around. It should be accompanied by a fairly high level disadvantage.

I was wondering about how to figure regenerations into game play.

The first one is obvious:

1) No regeneration takes place if the character is completely vaporized (which many phaser shots will do) or receives lethal injuries in which more than 50% of the body is destroyed.

2) Even the Doctor had trouble with his regenerations from time to time and I think this should be reflected in the rules when a character might be regenerated. I'm thinking of using one or a combination of the following ideas:

a) When a Time Lord character regenerates, roll 1d6. On a result of 1, the regeneration fails and the character dies.

b) When a Time Lord character regenerates, roll 1d6. On a result of 1 or 2, there's temporary debilitating complications to the regeneration. All Physical attributes are -1d6/2 for 2d6 game weeks. Character also suffers from amnesia (like the Doctor did once) and must make all Knowledge checks at +4 TN.

c) When a Time Lord character regenerates, completely new physical statistics are rolled for him or her.

Whattya think ?

[Phantom]

Originally posted by Ezri's Toy
I was wondering about how to figure regenerations into game play.

The first one is obvious:

1) No regeneration takes place if the character is completely vaporized (which many phaser shots will do) or receives lethal injuries in which more than 50% of the body is destroyed.

2) Even the Doctor had trouble with his regenerations from time to time and I think this should be reflected in the rules when a character might be regenerated. I'm thinking of using one or a combination of the following ideas:

a) When a Time Lord character regenerates, roll 1d6. On a result of 1, the regeneration fails and the character dies.

b) When a Time Lord character regenerates, roll 1d6. On a result of 1 or 2, there's temporary debilitating complications to the regeneration. All Physical attributes are -1d6/2 for 2d6 game weeks. Character also suffers from amnesia (like the Doctor did once) and must make all Knowledge checks at +4 TN.

c) When a Time Lord character regenerates, completely new physical statistics are rolled for him or her.

Whattya think ?

1) Quite right. There has to be something left to regenerate.

2) Ok, there's a problem here. The Doctor had some type of condition that caused his regenerations to go roughly. This isn't representative of all Time Lords, in fact ones (like Romana) could actually control their regenerative cycles and regenerate at will, no injury required.

I think a combination of all the above would work.


On a (1) Regeneration fails. Character in need of some serious ultra high tech healing facility (ie Gallifrey) or dies. This negates the near invulnerability that the ability gives mechanics wise.

(2) or (3) Dibilitating effects, as above.

(4) to (6) Everything goes smoothly. Maybe a little temp. confusion on what is going on around them.

This allows a "balancing effect" I think.

And, yes, as the body goes through some extream changes perhaps re rolling stats could be called for. It would certainly explain the difference between Troughton's Doctor and all the others.