D20 Future Q&A With Rodney "Moridin" Thompson and JD Wiker!!

[Ranger REG]

I think I just gave it, actually.

Hit location charts are clunky, and slow down play. However, if you want them in your campaign, you can always adapt them from a book like The Galactic Campaign Guide (which is for personal combat, not starship combat, but the principle is the same).

Still, my recommendation is not to do so: Applying a hit location system to personal, vehicle, or starship combat makes the game more lethal for PCs, and while some players prefer a more lethal system, it takes a lot of fun out of the game if your character gets killed by a lucky hit (when you, your vehicle, or your ship still had full hit points).

It also virtually *demands* a "called-shot" system, which makes armor virtually useless, because as soon as players realize they can take a chance on an instant kill, they start going for it, regardless of the penalty. And when they get enough of a BAB that the penalty isn't that much of a penalty anymore, combats become ridiculously short, and PC kills depressingly frequent.

It's a level of realism that takes the fun out of the game. And it's worse than the level of realism represented by starships with high hit point totals, because at least *that* rule doesn't come up in every combat.

I can't say for sure that this is the opinion of all of the GMs, but I can't imagine it's far off the mark. (You'll notice that we didn't like the idea enough to include it in The Modern Player's Companion, even as an optional rule.)

I don't know. I've been a longtime Trek fan to know it is fun to try and take down the enemy ship's shield generators or weapons system or their FTL warp engine. It also give an Engineer type character something to fix any damage suffered during the battle.

Not only that, it does build excitement. Medics tries to reduce the level of casualties, Damage Control tries to put out fires and whatnot, Helm tries to maneuver the (capital) ship, whereas the Security officer tries to build a defensive and offensive strategy based on the Captain's orders. IOW, I WELCOME that one extra level of realism in a sci-fi game.

That and the fact we don't know what the hell is Decipher going to do with Star Trek (as well as Lord of the Rings) roleplaying game. They thought they could take on WotC in the RPG market as well as the TCG market, DESPITE that many of their games are from licensed IP NOT owned IP. They ended up biting more than they could chew (you try to dislodge a 2x4 stuck in your throat).

 

[The_Universe]

And this is why I like it when JD comes and helps me out. He has the answers I cannot provide!

ALSO: Could a moderator please change the title of the thread to "D20 Future Q&A With Rodney Thompson and JD Wiker" so that it doesn't looks like I'm hogging the show? JD's insight is at least as valuable as mine, if not more so.

Done! (Although I am not a moderator!)

 

[Holy Bovine]

I think my main problem with the starship combat as written is not so much the lack of hit location charts but the idea that a ship can 1000's of hp in damage and still function at peak capacity. Until that magic '0' is reached everything is working just fine. That just doesn't seem to sit right with me. Others will disagree but I feel something more was really needed here. The optional critical hit chart is very good for this and would probably be a excellent place to start on an expansion of the damges a capitial ship can suffer.

On a positive note - d20 Future has a ton of excellent stuff in it - from radition & gravity rules (you wouldn't believe how much I appreciate those!) to the campaign synopsis and cybertech. A very good job in a great many regards. Thank you!

 

[C. Baize]

I think I just gave it, actually.

Hit location charts are clunky, and slow down play. However, if you want them in your campaign, you can always adapt them from a book like The Galactic Campaign Guide (which is for personal combat, not starship combat, but the principle is the same).

Still, my recommendation is not to do so: Applying a hit location system to personal, vehicle, or starship combat makes the game more lethal for PCs, and while some players prefer a more lethal system, it takes a lot of fun out of the game if your character gets killed by a lucky hit (when you, your vehicle, or your ship still had full hit points).

It also virtually *demands* a "called-shot" system, which makes armor virtually useless, because as soon as players realize they can take a chance on an instant kill, they start going for it, regardless of the penalty. And when they get enough of a BAB that the penalty isn't that much of a penalty anymore, combats become ridiculously short, and PC kills depressingly frequent.

It's a level of realism that takes the fun out of the game. And it's worse than the level of realism represented by starships with high hit point totals, because at least *that* rule doesn't come up in every combat.

I can't say for sure that this is the opinion of all of the GMs, but I can't imagine it's far off the mark. (You'll notice that we didn't like the idea enough to include it in The Modern Player's Companion, even as an optional rule.)

I have to disagree with almost everything JD says here...
No offense, meant, of course.
I've been using a hit locations chart in game for going on 18 years. It's one quick extra roll, and from what I've seen it does nothing BUT enhance the fun of the combats.

"Hit.. 12 points of damage."
"Hit .. 12 points of damage to his forearm, that's going to leave a mark!"

How clunky is that?

JD did hit one thing right on the head, though... a lucky shot does have the potential to instakill. The players have ALWAYS taken this risk, rather than doing without the hit locations chart, regardless of the fact that it HAS in fact worked against them, a few times.

Every party is different, and my hit locations chart isn't for every group, by any stretch of the imagination.
What I'm saying here is that in the last almost 18 years since I created it, it has never significantly slowed play, and has enhanced the feel of combat, both by making it a bit more realistic, and in many cases leaving us laughing, afterward. This has been in my experience. Others' experiences may certainly vary.

For the most part, combats haven't been noticeably shorter, though it has happened a time or two... I like the cinematic feel of combat, so unless it's a serious wound or an instakill (quite infrequent, but it does happen), combat is all the same.
PC kills are really not frequent, either... VERY infrequently is a PC killed because of the hit locations chart.

This isn't anecdotal, I'm not saying what I think would happen full of hyperbole or exaggerations... I'm speaking from my own experiences, only.

 

[d4]

Well, there's always the system from Star Wars--but if you don't own a copy of that, the simple fix is simply to cut the hit points down, though I don't recommend cutting them down to any lower than 1/10th the current totals.

i think i've got everything you've written for Star Wars to date.

i've also got d20 Mecha, so now i have 3 d20 mecha/vehicle/starship combat systems to choose from.

edit: speaking of Star Wars, there's lots of good stuff in there to plunder for a d20 Future campaign. weapons, equipment, droids, aliens... i've been thinking about converting some of the Star Wars base classes into d20 Modern/Future advanced classes (specifically Fringer, Scout, Scoundrel, and Noble would be handy). most of the Star Wars prestige classes could be used as is with very little tweaking necessary.

 

[RodneyThompson]

"Hit.. 12 points of damage."
"Hit .. 12 points of damage to his forearm, that's going to leave a mark!"

How clunky is that?

Not clunky at all...but why do you need a hit location chart for that? Why can't that just be the normal description type stuff you use in combat? See, to me, hit points represent more than just how much damage you can take, encompassing everything from near-misses and glancing blows to actual physical damage. Otherwise, the HP increase as you gain experience makes little sense. Just because I've been in combat longer means my body can take more damage? Seems odd.

I agree with JD, though I love a hit location chart for critical hits only. Otherwise, you have to add in things like called shot mechanics (open for abuse, as stated above) and then a constant breakdown of hit points into individual body/ship parts. That might be fine for a starship, but annoying for characters with dynamic HP totals. Add in annoyances like autofire aiming etc, and it really gets overly complex, especially for a fast-paced game.

One point that I think is correct is this one:

I think my main problem with the starship combat as written is not so much the lack of hit location charts but the idea that a ship can 1000's of hp in damage and still function at peak capacity. Until that magic '0' is reached everything is working just fine. That just doesn't seem to sit right with me. Others will disagree but I feel something more was really needed here. The optional critical hit chart is very good for this and would probably be a excellent place to start on an expansion of the damges a capitial ship can suffer.

Bingo. I concur 100%. This is why I love a critical hit chart, but never use it in normal combat. And as the ship takes damage, all you need to do is make rolls on this chart. For example, a note that says "when a ship reaches 50%, 25%, 10%, and 5% hull points, roll on the critical hits table" suits me just fine.

While I sympathize with Ranger REG's desire to target ship components in combat, I don't think a distributed hull point system is the answer. After all, how would you cover all the possibilities? What's to say that one ship's shield generators don't take up 80% of its hull points, while another takes up a measly 10%? You can never cover all the possibilities like that. I have yet to find a suitable mechanic for targeting individual sections (such as Engineering, Bridge, etc.), though targeting individual weapon batteries, external shield generators, etc. is as simple as considering them individual targets with their own hull points, Defense, etc.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'm really uncomfortable with that idea, mainly because it doesn't make sense to me that the amount of cash a character has spent on himself changes his ECL. That's rather like saying that a character with heavy armor should be ECL +3 or whatever. I can see that logic for natural mutations (as opposed to genetic manipulations post-chargen), but purchasing cybernetics is no different to me than purchasing guns and armor.

Well, I'll have to disagree with you a bit here. Armor does take feats - indeed, the Modern designers ensured that if you don't have the feat you will not get the entire Defense bonus (in addition to hosing your attack rolls), and there's no point of taking firearms without at least taking Personal Firearms Proficiency.

IMC I will probably make the standard ability to use cybergear take a feat*, with Cybertaker letting you expand the limit, so to speak. It's not a huge change, IMO, but it does ensure something other than Wealth is being used as a balance tool.

* I like the way the drawbacks work for the cybergear; since anyone with cybergear is vulnerable to electricity, there's not too much metagaming required on the part of the players or GM to attack this vulnerability. Then again, there is a piece of cybergear that removes this penalty entirely, and the malfunctioning cybergear won't be coming up too often. So, a feat.

Oh yeah, and I can't see how glowing skin should, for balance reasons, take up a cyberslot, so I'm changing that too

 

[Furluge]

It applies to all of the ship's attacks, every round.

Ok then could you explain something else to me then? The Strike Cruiser PL7 has the option of having one of a set of two batteries of weapons. Let's say for example we use it as written and we pick the first set of weapons for it. So it has a battery of 4 antimatter guns and a battery of 3 plasma missiles. The antimatter guns' listed attack bonus of +4 seems to be right, since this ship has -8 for colossal size, +5 for improved targeting computer, +4 for the gunners attack bonus. That gives us a total of +1. Now the battery configuration of the guns adds a +3 because there's 3 guns in the battery after the first, which added to our +1 gives us a +4, which is listed by the weapon. However on this same set of guns it lists the 3 plasma missiles as having a -2 bonus. Why? If the targeting computer works on all attacks then shouldn't it be at a +3 bonus? I came to my conclusion on the targeting computer after I noted that the plasma missles was down by 5, the bonus for the targeting computer. Is the attack bonus a typo in the book, or is there something else that is lowering the attack bonus for the battery of plasma missiles?

I'm really uncomfortable with that idea, mainly because it doesn't make sense to me that the amount of cash a character has spent on himself changes his ECL. That's rather like saying that a character with heavy armor should be ECL +3 or whatever. I can see that logic for natural mutations (as opposed to genetic manipulations post-chargen), but purchasing cybernetics is no different to me than purchasing guns and armor.

Well perhaps I should explain, I'm beginning work on writing an adapataion of the online setting for a MUSH. The setting is focused around a series of factions. Characters can start in factions of their choice but some have different benefits. The more military of the factions modify new enlistees (cybernetics, genetic engineering, or robotics.) and in the case of the ones employing robots they're enhanced above the norm at the time of construction. However some of the organizations provide none of these benefits, and so I'm pondering writing these heavily modified specimens as if they're a seperate race with an ECL or I'm also considering representing this as PrC which represents enlistment which gives these benefits. I mean I suppose I could use the requistion method of awarding these things but then we have characters of the same level, one that's very weak and one that's obscenely strong from their modifications given at no cost to them. I've also pondered just allowing new characters that have belong to these organizations as part of their character to allow them X dollars worth of upgrades as part of creating their character. (Once again, to represent how much their organization has put into building/engineering them.) but shouldn't there still be some ECL attached, or should I just have the less fortunate faction players have to deal with always being unequal?

You really should suggest that to Wizards.

Heh, how?

Bingo. I concur 100%. This is why I love a critical hit chart, but never use it in normal combat. And as the ship takes damage, all you need to do is make rolls on this chart. For example, a note that says "when a ship reaches 50%, 25%, 10%, and 5% hull points, roll on the critical hits table" suits me just fine.

Yeah that does work out pretty well as it ensures that the critical hits to help make sure that damaged ships are slowly reduced in effectiveness. However perhaps I'm a bit more liberal in that I think there's no need and that if we just let critical hits happen (I guess I just like the idea of keeping those crits that important.), they'll reduce the ships effectiveness in combat on their own without needing an assured "critical hit as HP are lost mechanic". Of course that's just the way it seems to me, it'd have to be playtested to see how it works. (Perhaps if the threat range on all weapons were increased by one it'd make this just more likely enough.)

If you really want to make a ship be assured to lose effectiveness as time goes on rather than leaving it up to the critical hits you could just add a -1 for each 25% HP the ship loses, making it cumulative and stacking with everything else. It could represent the slow loss of crew and it still keeps the critical hits exciting.

Of course I /still/ think we're focusing too much on destroying the ships. I think it'd be more likely for the ships to retreat from battle when they're down by a margin of HP damage they can't seem to close in on. I mean think how long it takes to repair all those HPs of damage, and the $$. I mean why sit around when every turn you're always at a large HP deficit behind your opponent. Why wait to hit 0 HP?

 

[d4]

Is the attack bonus a typo in the book, or is there something else that is lowering the attack bonus for the battery of plasma missiles?

i'm assuming, that just like with characters, the primary attack is at full BAB, and the secondary attack is at -5.

 

[Furluge]

i'm assuming, that just like with characters, the primary attack is at full BAB, and the secondary attack is at -5.

Yeah that does seem to be the case, but it isn't mentioned, and it's something I think should be because remember with characters those additional attacks only come from Base Attack Bonus, but a ship has no BAB to be used to designate the # of attacks. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks of additional tacks not in "-5 per additional attack." and more along the lines of the multiple BAB bonuses we're used to seeing. Would have been nice to have that noted when the attack (ranged) action was said to allow multiple attacks per round.