D&D 5E Fifth Age: A hard science fiction 5e conversion

transtemporal · Jun 22, 2015

Yaarel said:
By about year 2025, something comparable to our laptop will be as intelligent as a human. At this time, supercomputers will be even more intelligent.

Heh 2025. I had a good giggle at that. Turing-grade (let alone super-turing) AI is a good way off.

transtemporal · Jun 22, 2015

Awesome stuff OP.

I recognize some of the artwork though. It might pay to check the usage on it and credit the appropriate artist? Even if they allow its usage in personal projects, it's nice to acknowledge the artist.

Capn Charlie · Jun 22, 2015

unnatural 20 said:
I wonder how well this would mesh with say Dragonstar? It's basically D&D in Spaaaaaaace.

I've just started reading and enjoying it so far. Thanks! It looks great.

Edit: You included the BFG!

I tried to include a few fun references. The starship manufacturers are favorites of mine.

Yaarel · Jun 22, 2015

transtemporal said:
Heh 2025. I had a good giggle at that. Turing-grade (let alone super-turing) AI is a good way off.

That is why 2025 is a good test.

When Turing-grade computers are operational in 2025, it confirms the rate of acceleration of technology.

Beleriphon · Jun 24, 2015

Capn Charlie said:
I tried to include a few fun references. The starship manufacturers are favorites of mine.

Yeah, I like Farnsworth Interstellar as a spaceship manufacturer by way of buying a failing delivery service. Also, Tyson Astro-surveying is a great reference.

pinz · Jun 29, 2015

It looks neat to mean, personally I think you just need to keep in mind that sci fi is just another kind of fantasy. dont worry too much about the fluff just yet and make sure the rules are simple and easy to be digested by a PC group.

Morlock · Jul 1, 2015

Wow, Fifth Age. This is a very high quality pdf.

The illustrations are beautiful and present an appealing setting.

I'll say. That is one amazing crop of art you've dug up for your project, OP. Best art I can ever remember seeing in a sci-fi RPG, free or paid. There is a handful of pieces I'd drop or replace, but the vast majority of the art ranges from pretty good to amazing, with the average being way up there. Good art direction, too; most of it works really well together as a whole (have no idea if that's mostly from using a lot of work from 1 or 2 artists, or if you somehow managed to find several artists with similar styles). I just scrolled through this thing with my mouth agape. Now I guess I'll go back and read some of it.

Capn Charlie · Jul 2, 2015

Oh, I can take no credit for any of the artwork. Arrangement and selection I suppose, but I just shamelessly scoured the internet for pieces I found appropriate and arranged them to taste. You can see the places where I got desperate or just plain couldn't do better. The main goals I had going in though, art wise, was to have a similar style and to be tasteful. Fortunately, there is a lot more tasteful sci-fi art than I was expecting, sure there's a lot of chainmail bikinis in space, but I found a lot of inclusive pieces. Before I was done I had a source folder of some 400-500 images for this, and what you see is what it was winnowed down to.

I'd love to credit more artists, but the way I found most of this stuff I just had no clue who did it. I feel bad for that, but found the art was just too cool not to use for this sort of project.

Capn Charlie · Jul 2, 2015

By the by, there have been delays of my writing, but I have been delving deeper in playtest. The space combat rules feel solid, but I am getting feedback that the spaceship construction rules are overly complex, which is especially true for a 5e style game. I am considering cutting the spaceship construction rules entirely, and adding them to a second document that's just all complex fiddly bits, like itemizing and building synthetic chassis and similar unnecessarily complex systems.

General combat feels good, but I am getting a disconnect with cost on grenades. I want grenades to not entirely break the bank, but not to be quite so cheap either. With autofire rules they are not so unbalancing combat wise, especially seeing how only soldiers get multiple attacks and SHOULD be badass in combat.

Melee seems just kind of awful compared to ranged combat, which is as it should be. I am keeping that interesting with some bayonet options, but am starting to feel the lack of kung fu. Normally I am predisposed against martial arts in a fantasy game, but feel like it has more of a relevant place in sci-fi, perhaps not as a whole class, but maybe as a specialization for operative or soldier, or even just as a feat with level variable effects. Seeing as feats are still disabled for this test, I am left undecided.

JWO · Jul 2, 2015

This is a nice piece of work!

You can reverse image search in Google images. I would say that in general you should always credit the artist or just don't use their work.