<div class='wide'> ## SWN House Rules </div> The following are some house rules I've come up with/stolen for SWN: - **Stat Rolling:** Stats are not rolled in order, and can be assigned however you choose. - **Stat Sharing:** Once everyone has rolled their stats, you can choose to take another player's array instead of your own. Multiple people can choose the same array. - **Background Shenanigans:** When choosing a background, you can choose your Free Skill from any background, and can choose to roll on any combination of Growth and Learning tables. Once you have generated all your skills, you can swap a level-0 in one skill for level-0 in a different one. - **Level 1 Health:** When rolling for health at level 1, roll twice and take the better result. - **Boosting Ability Scores:** Level requirements remain the same, but the skill point cost for improving an ability score now follows the pattern of 1/1/2/2/3 instead of 1/2/3/4/5. - **Pure Expert:** At the end of character creation, a full Expert can take one additional non-combat, non-psychic skill at level-0. - **Pure Warrior:** At the end of character creation, a full Warrior can take one additional combat skill at level-0. - **Luck Saves:** All characters have a Luck save in addition to Physical, Evasion, and Mental. Your Luck save is equal to 16 minus your character level, no modifiers. - **Ironhide:** Ironhide has the following additional benefits: When you are hit with an attack, you can reduce the damage taken by 2. At level 2, this reduction increases to half your level, rounded down. - **Holding an Action:** *Hold An Action* can be performed as an On Turn Action provided that the triggering event is specified. - **Splitting Movement:** A character *can* split their Move action, taking part of it before using their Main Action and the rest afterwards, if they so choose. - **Helping Hands:** When a PC attempts to help another PC with a skill check, the difficulty for the helping PC is treated as being 1 lower. - **Damage Carry Over:** When you kill a target with a ranged weapon and there are other targets within 2 metres of the first, you can apply any carry-over damage to those targets. This damage only applies if your initial attack roll would hit these targets, and requires that you spend one extra ammo per additional target. - **Commissar-ing It:** When engaged in melee combat while wielding a sidearm and a melee weapon at the same time, you can choose to take -1 to hit against enemies in melee range, dealing +2 damage on a hit. - **Drizzt-ing It:** While dual wielding melee weapons, you gain a +1 bonus to Shock damage. - **Reloading Bows:** Bows can be reloaded as an On Turn action, but only once per turn. - **Grenade Bounce:** Grenades cannot bounce more than 1/2 of the distance they are thrown, and always bounce away from the point from which they are thrown--unless there is some obvious obstacle (like a doorway) they might hit. - **Clubbing:** Clubbing a weapon is an On Turn Action, but can only be taken once per turn. - **Melee Disarming:** When you attempt to disarm an enemy, the enemy only gains a +2 bonus to their role. - **Ranged Disarming:** You can attempt to shoot an enemy's gun out of their hands by making a ranged attack roll with a -8 modifier, but only against a target within 10 metres per Shoot level of you. On a hit, the target must make a Physical saving throw (with a negative modifier equal to your Shoot level), dropping the weapon on a failure. If they fail by 5 points or more, the weapon is destroyed. - **Emission Dampers:** Emission Dampers can be activated at a lower intensity that does not cut in-system travel time in half, but grants only a +1 bonus to checks made to avoid detection. \pagebreak ### Ship Combat The following are some alternative ship combat rules, with significant inspiration taken from the ***Don't Use Command Points*** house rule (p. 237). The changes are as follows:: - **Command Points:** Command Points are gone. - **Department Actions:** Instead of spending Command Points to perform actions, each department can perform a single action from their respective lists. - **Star Captain:** Instead of granting 2 extra Command Points, this focus now allows the Captain to designate a department at the start of each turn, granting that department one additional action on that turn. - **Volley Capacitors:** Instead of granting 4 extra Command Points to be spent on Gunnery actions, this modification allows a gunner to either take the *Fire All Guns* action one additional time, the *Fire One Weapon* action two additional times, or the *Fire at a System* action one additional times. - **Haywire Systems:** The *Haywire Systems* crisis instead prevents actions from being taken in one department, which is determined randomly when the crises is first accepted (the Captain department cannot be blocked). #### Action Adjustments The following are some adjustments to certain preexisting actions, including the removal of actions that don't fit with the new system: - **(Captain) Support Department:** This action now allows a designated department to take one additional action this turn. - **(Comms) Crash Systems:** This action now prevents an enemy ship from taking one possible action, or from firing one weapon (targeted ship's choice). - **(Engineering) Boost Engines:** This action now increases the ship's speed by the engineer's Fix score or 2, whichever is higher. - **(Gunnery) Fire All Guns:** This action can now only be taken once per combat round. - **(Gunnery) Target Systems:** This action can no longer be taken. - **(General Actions) Above and Beyond:** On a success, this action now allows you to pass your action to a different department. On a failure, the designated department loses one action instead. - **(General Actions) Do Your Duty:** This action can no longer be taken. #### New Actions The following are some new actions that PC's can take: - **(Bridge) Ram Enemy Ship:** Roll an opposed Int/Pilot or Dex/Pilot skill check plus your ship's Speed against a designated enemy ship. The enemy pilot gains a +3 bonus to their roll, and both ships gain a -1 modifier per hull class. On a success, you ram the enemy ship, dealing 1d6 damage per hull class of your own ship, but taking half as much damage yourself. This damage has an AP quality equal to your own ship's armour value. - **(Bridge) Defensive Maneuvering:** Roll an opposed Int/Pilot or Dex/Pilot skill check plus your ship's Speed against a designated enemy ship. On a success, you reduce any damage your ship takes this turn by an amount equal to your Pilot skill. - **(Comms) Block Signals:** Roll an opposed Int/Program plus 2 per ship hull class against an enemy ship. On a success, you jam their long range comms, preventing them form sending a distress signal. - **(Engine) Boost Shields:** Roll Int/Fix versus difficulty 8. On a success, regenerate a number of lost shield points equal to your Fix skill times 3 for frigates, 4 for cruisers, and 6 for capital-class hulls. Each attempt of this action after the first success in a fight increases its difficulty by a cumulative +2. - **(Gunnery) Fire at a System:** Fire a single ship's weapon of your choice, targeting a ship's weapons, engine, or fittings the GM decides are vulnerable. Such targeted attacks take -4 to hit. On a hit, do half damage before applying Armor. If damage gets through the system is disabled or drive is degraded by 1 level. A gunner who succeeds on a DC 7 Shoot/Dex check can decide to deal no damage at all, to avoid destroying the enemy ship. Disabled systems hit again are destroyed. You may only take this action once per round. #### Fighters The following are some further-tailored rules for strike fighters: - **Multitasker:** A solo strike fighter pilot can take two actions, either both from the same department or one each from two different departments. - **Practiced Pair:** A pair of strike fighter pilots can take three actions between them, following the above rules. More than two actions cannot be taken in one department. - **Deal With a Crisis:** If a strike fighter pilot takes this action, they cannot take any other actions that turn, before or after taking this action. #### NPC Ships The following are the new rules for NPC ships: - **Civilian Ships & Fighters:** These ships can take two actions, either both from the same department or one each from different departments. Fighters that take the *Deal With a Crisis* action cannot take any other actions that turn, as described above. - **Military Ships & Pirates:** These ships can take three actions, only two of which can be from the Gunnery department. - **Native Spacers & Warships:** These ships can take four actions, only two of which can be from the Gunnery department. Such ships can sacrifice one action to 'refresh' the *Fire All Guns* action, allowing it to be used again at its usual cost. - **The Finest NPC Crews:** These ships can take five actions, only three of which can be from the Gunnery department. Such ships can sacrifice one action to 'refresh' the *Fire All Guns* action, allowing it to be used again at its usual cost. \pagebreak ### Shields In my settings, shields are more common, cause shields are awesome. Deflector arrays only cost 15,000 credits, force paves only cost 5,000 credits, and more basic versions of both are available for even cheaper. All such shields are counted as TL4. Ships and buildings can also be shielded. All ships of frigate class or larger are equipped with a Shield Generator fitting, at no extra Power/Mass cost. For the purposes of repairs, this fitting has a cost equal to 10% of the ship's base hull cost. A Shield Generator has the following properties/effects: - A certain portion of the ship's base hit points are converted into shield points. This varies depending on the hull type, as described in the table below. - If a ship that still has at least 1 shield point is targeted by the Fire at a System action but the damage dealt fails to reduce the ship's shield points to 0, the targeted system is not disabled (or the drive is not degraded). - If the Shield Generator fitting is disabled/destroyed, the ship immediately loses all its current shield points. If the Shield Generator is repaired, the ship regains the amount of shield points it had before. - Outside of combat, a ship with a functioning Shield Generator regains 1/5th of its maximum shield points every hour. | Hull Type | Base Shield Points | |:---:|:-----------:| | Free Merchant | 5 | | Patrol Boat | 10 | | Corvette | 15 | | Heavy Frigate | 20 | | Bulk Freighter | 10 | | Fleet Cruiser | 25 | | Battleship | 45 | | Carrier | 30 | | Small Station | 40 | | Large Station | 50 | Shields can also be utilised as hangar 'doors' and as emergency seals when a ship's hull is breached. Shields for buildings are more of a plot device than anything. \columnbreak ### Fuel I'm also considering implementing some new rules for fuel, so that intrasystem travel actually costs something. I got most of my inspiration from a post by /user/PollinosisQc. Here are the changes: - A starship can now hold 10 units of fuel, not 1 load. - 1 unit of fuel costs 50 credits. - A spike drill consumes 5 units of fuel. - Travelling from one region to another consumes 1 unit of fuel. - Escaping combat consumes 1 unit of fuel. - Escaping a planet's gravity costs 1 unit of fuel. - When travelling within an atmosphere, 1 unit of fuel is consumed per three hours of flight. - A starship cannot complete an action if it does not have sufficient fuel. - Each installation of the Fuel Bunkers fitting allows a starship to hold an extra 10 units of fuel. - The Fuel Scoops fitting allows a starship to harvest 2 units of fuel per day from a gas giant or the penumbra of solar bodies. - A starship can carry extra units of fuel in its cargo bay. 1 Mass worth of Cargo Space can hold 5 units of fuel. - It takes an hour to transfer 1 unit of fuel from the cargo hold to the spike drive. - Trimming the course reduces the fuel cost of a spike drill by 1, in addition to its usual effects. - When trimming the course for intrasystem travel, a failure results in 1 additional unit of fuel being consumed, in addition to its usual effects. - The Fuel Bleed crisis instead causes a starship to jettison 5 units of fuel. - A starship with no fuel is slower by a factor of thirty when maneuvering in-system. For example, a starship with a Drive-3 spike drive and no fuel would take twenty days (2 divided by 3, then multiplied by 30) to travel from one region to another, or two and a half days to travel to a different location within a region. - A starship with no fuel is treated as having a disabled spike drive when in combat. \pagebreak ### Microgravity The following are some rules for fighting in microgravity, centred around the concept of 'Spin'. Spin reflects the degree to which you have lost stability and begun to spin. It is a bad thing, and each point of Spin you have imposes a -1 penalty to any roll that involves having to interact with things outside your spin, and half that to things that involve interacting with stuff within your spin (rounded down). Penalties capped at -5. Some things may be unaffected, like purely thought efforts (including many psychic powers), and so forth. However, at -5 penalty even psychics probably can't concentrate well enough to pull off their stuff. One of the main ways by which a character my accrue Spin is by using weapons. | Weapon Used | Spin | |:---:|:-----------:| | Standard Sidearm | +1 | | Standard Firearm | +2 | | Bow | +0 | | Throwing Weapon | +1 | | Void Carbine | +0 | | Laser Weapon | +0 | | Plasma Weapon | Standard | | Shear Rifle/Distortion<br>Cannon/Thunder Gun | +0 | | Heavy Machine Gun/<br>Railgun | +5 | | Vortex Cannon /<br>Anti-Vehicle Laser | +0 | | Edged Melee Weapon | +1 | | Blunt Melee Weapon | +Str Mod | | Unarmed Attack | +Str/Dex <br>Mod | Another way to gain Spin is by being hit by a weapon. For most such instances, the target takes the same Spin increase as the weapon imposes on the shooter. The exceptions are as follows: | Weapon Used | Spin | |:---:|:-----------:| | Laser Weapon | +1 | | Plasma Weapon | +1 | | Void Carbine | +1 | | Anti-Vehicle Laser | +3 | | Explosives | +5 | | Blunt Melee Weapon | +twice the<br>attacker's Str.<br>Mod | | Unarmed Attack | +twice the<br>attacker's Str./<br>Dex Mod | \columnbreak > ##### Blunt Weapons >Blunt weapons and unarmed attacks are pretty ineffective in microgravity, doing only half damage but inflicting significantly more spin than average. #### Reducing Spin A character with a means of propulsion can spend a Main Action to drop their spin to zero. Additionally, a character with a background in Spacer work or specific training in micogravity environments gains a 'buffer' point, reducing Spin penalties by an amount equal to their Str/Dex mod or 1, whichever is higher. Such a character still caps out at a -5 penalty, but they'd need 8 Spin to get there. A character can also prevent Spin by holding (or mag booting) onto a suitably large object. Grabbing onto such an object while spinning arrests a character's motion, dropping their Spin to zero, but requires a difficulty 5 Athletics check, modified by Spin as normal.