Whoo boy, my development of this project has been on the backburner while we played high and now low fantasy.
The last revision I did was back in october. Alright, let me hit up some questions.
The last thing I playtested: I find most feedback saying that players want on the ground action, and not space combat, this has led me more and more to view the ship as a narrative device and not a major component of gameplay. I will still write up the rules (the prototype of which can be found in the older version, near the end).
I got to actually sit and play recently. I rolled (dealt?) a Greylian private detective with a huge fetish for early 20th century noir. He had a comically undersized fedora and a poor grasp of human culture, and made a lot of jokes about probing.
As for the Ace/Captain Inspire Dice: The captain and officer get LEVEL+CHA uses of inspire per day, and the Ace gets (Level*2)+CHA. So ten extra uses at capstone, while the captain gets only 15, but each one can hit multiple party members. A pretty fair trade off overall.
As to the Ace Capstone: This seems a lot better than it actually is, since the ace never gets multiple attacks in a round. Due to my modified action economy, this means that the Ace could.... Bonus action Inspire themselves, make an attack, get an additional action, as a reaction, inspire themselves, Make an attack, receive an additional action, now the ace has no actions or bonus actions to inspire themselves, and make one final attack, for three attacks per round at capstone, same as a marine, but using up 2 of their 25 charges of inspiration. In retrospect, this seems a little extensive, so I am considering giving them inspires equal to LEVEL+(CHA*2) instead.
This is on flavor for me, as the ace is supposed to be a cocky action hero, and getting to hog the limelight and do two or three heroic things is pretty spot on. Remember, those two extra actions can be to run, use devices, fly a ship, or whatever he needs to do to be the cocky fast talking alpha dog he is supposed to be.
As to Evasive Maneuvers: Your way achieves, mechanically and thematically, more or less exactly what I wanted, and in fewer steps. I'll be stealing that.
As for Scoundrel: The reason the scoundrel uses a Reaction is simple... bonus actions are a big commodity in my rules, and having to burn a bonus action for this effect just seemed like a bit much. Bonus actions power dual wielding, enhance autofire rifles, and are used by many class features. Also, I still consider rogue to be a bit underpowered, and having a way to turn on sneak seemed fine at the level.
As for the Bounty Hunter: I like the flat damage buff, that's elegant, it's a legitimate bonus, its perfect. Add that to the list of things I am stealing.
As to Backgrounds: Yes, there are a lot of backgrounds, but you will notice they have very mechanical abilities, and in my initial design are the core flavor and mechanic of a character, especially earthborn humans that may select two. Normal 5e backgrounds tend to be ignored by me as I write my own better story, while these offer a concrete mechanic and stay more firmly in my head while playing the character.
(In our most recent game, a character was a Synthetic with the Celebrity background, and had a head that was a pneumatic clamp painted up like a shark. He was famous for an übertube channel where he takes bites out of things. Several times in the adventure he was recognized on station and put teeth marks in peoples objects in lieu of autographs.)
I will try to push some more cycles of development at this, but right now am deep in a gritty low magic fantasy game (think thieves world, conan, or fafhrd and the grey mouser) and am designing heavily for that. I just got done doing a Weird War 2 game, and the gun rules I worked out here slotted in perfectly. I have struggled for years with guns at the tabletop and feel like I have a good system finally. It is what I will use if I convert over my PF post apocalyptic rules.
