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

[Mortilupo]

Have few points:
1) The Shortened Barrel Property should not give you advantage. Normall, you would be disadvantaged, this is two steps..it should just remove the disadvantage.

 

[Kokito]

this is actually awesome. any updates on this?

 

[Capn Charlie]

I have a few things in the pipe right now, just hammered by other concerns and projects. Right now in the development hopper:

*Refined Weapon and Armor mods system, with tier upgrades and concrete prices
*New Specializations (Powered Infantry, Sergeant, Oathsworn)
*New Feats (Better Hand to Hand capabilities)
*Finally actually finishing the hazard handbook

A few more passes and I will be satisfied with the general on the ground part of the system and be ready to start iterating space combat. The version of space combat I use at my table is pretty close to the written rules, just needs to be codified and set down.

After that, I want to do some setting work and write a few adventures, I have done tons of stuff for my weekly fifth age game, but none of it is up here, and I would like to get that out for people to see, even if for nothing but examples of what a fifth age campaign might look like.

There are a variety of additional feats and weapons hidden in the hazard handbook, I am considering whether I like leaving them there, or consolidating them in the main document. When I get to the various campaign setting books I won't be consolidating all that in, so this might be fine as well, but I am torn either way.

 

[Beleriphon]

There are a variety of additional feats and weapons hidden in the hazard handbook, I am considering whether I like leaving them there, or consolidating them in the main document. When I get to the various campaign setting books I won't be consolidating all that in, so this might be fine as well, but I am torn either way.

My suggestion: If it's a standardish weapon that only some groups use, then put in the main rules. Saves you space, much like you don't need the description of a greatsword to give one to a hobgoblin warlord a space pirate doesn't need special rules their gun. If its a special weapon only found among one type of creature then I'd keep it with that creature.

 

[GMMichael]

not my cup of Earl Grey but it's serviceable.

"Serviceable?" It's commendable! 5e could use a breath of fresh air or three. Stuff like this pushes the hobby in the right direction.

I'm more of a yerba mate drinker...would love to see a fluff-only companion piece.

 

[Syntallah]

"Serviceable?" It's commendable! 5e could use a breath of fresh air or three. Stuff like this pushes the hobby in the right direction.

I'm more of a yerba mate drinker...would love to see a fluff-only companion piece.

Agreed..!! I have borrowed heavily on this awesome body of work for my upcoming Star Wars 5E Campaign...

 

[MadBlue]

I really like this. Hard SF is my favorite genre of Science Fiction and I'm planning on adapting it for an alternate Transhuman Space-inspired game on non-D&D weekends. I was originally thinking of using Ultramodern 5E, but I really like how streamlined Fifth Age is.

One thing I was wondering is, why do the classes only go up to level 10? Is it to keep it lower-powered in comparison to D&D, or will there be another 10 levels? Personally, I like the idea that classes don't continue to rack up abilities and hit points, but it would be interesting for characters to continue to increase in proficiency.

 

[Syntallah]

I really like this. Hard SF is my favorite genre of Science Fiction and I'm planning on adapting it for an alternate Transhuman Space-inspired game on non-D&D weekends. I was originally thinking of using Ultramodern 5E, but I really like how streamlined Fifth Age is.

One thing I was wondering is, why do the classes only go up to level 10? Is it to keep it lower-powered in comparison to D&D, or will there be another 10 levels? Personally, I like the idea that classes don't continue to rack up abilities and hit points, but it would be interesting for characters to continue to increase in proficiency.

I have adapted these rules for my new 5E Star Wars game I'll be starting soon. I left the classes at 10 levels, and have adopted the mindset of the old E6 Rules (D&D 3E, wherein 6th level was the highest you could go, after which you picked a feat every time you would 'level up'). I simply went back through all of my books, and added feats that are less powerful, and more focused than 5E's feats. I call them Expansion Feats, and when a character would 'level up' to 11th level, they may pick a feat instead, but only from this Expansion List. This way, characters do advance in power and scope, but things don't get too far out of hand (i.e. I don't have to worry about balancing 20 levels of classes).

 

[Capn Charlie]

But if you tried leveling up to confront some rival Empire, or some Corporate super ship, or some monolithic AI, or some massive army, or some organized crime family with droids and sim drugs or whatever, even topping off your levels you are still likely to be completely unable to do any of these things unless the DM has carefully crafted a narrative where the world's resources are provided to your character so that they might temporarily borrow them and use them for some task the DM wants you to achieve.

This guy gets it. Yes, this ruleset pairs best with strong narrative control. In most fantasy games the players have massive freedoms and can do just about anything they want to, to anyone. Less so in fifth edition, more suicidal to slap the king here, but it is still there... this assumption that their characters own the world and can do anything. In Fifth Age I tried to create a setting that made the players feel like their characters were just people, heroic people perhaps, but still just people. In a world where a government, or mega corp, can muster hundreds of ships and millions of people, you can't just go around firebombing things where you are bored, or indiscriminately slaughtering customs officials. However the same comes true when you want to go take down the planetary dictator, or the corrupt ceo, or whoever, it has to be a coalition effort that the pcs are just hte figureheads or leaders of.

A lot of this comes back to just how deadly an interesting spaceship is in a world without ridiculous space magic. Any ship fast enough to be a good narrative device is a planet killer, and the characters will have to be held accountable by powers that be at every turn. Some find this constraining, I find it liberating to have actual authorities in a world, so the players act more reasonably.

As for the 10 level cap, it is very much by design to keep overall numbers down in the reasonable tier. HP caps at a theoretical 200ish for a marine with max con and feats, an average military npc that might menace the players at end game might do two attacks a round for about 16 damage per shot, and might hit half the time, meaning that a couple of squads of goons can reasonably kill the toughest character in the game in a single round.

Additionally, the level differentials in fifth edition carry over fairly well to here, I had a guy roll a first level character and tag along with a 6th level party, and he did just fine. Bullets were scary, so he kept his head down, but still contributed to fights, and was just as good out of combat as anyone.

As for Leveling after ten: I always liked el6 and had plans of letting my crew do that if it came up. My routine group has played perhaps 40 or 50 sessions, almost a solid year of weeklies, and just hit level 9 at the end of the last story arc. There are so many avenues to feel like progress is being made in fifth age that needing to "ding" is not such a big deal.

One of the things you will notice is that I dragged down the feat power levels by quite a bit, with feats like Sharpshooter being broken down into 2 feats, and the -5+10 bit being nowhere to be seen. I tried to make available feats equivalent to a +1 ability score bonus, so if you ever want to drag in feats from other sources and it is a feat that offers +1 ability and something else, just hack off the ability bonus and you should be fine. Ostensibly, I state that a DM can use feats from any source they want, and this remains true, just know that full on 5e feats might be a bit too powerful, so exercise your best judgement.

I will write more concrete rules on leveling after 10 in the future, but have no plans of adding more than 10 levels to any existing classes. 10 seems like plenty.

I am gratified to know that my rules are useful to people, and I promise further development is forthcoming, just a crazy time for me right now. I am always happy to log on here and see this thread in the first couple dozen.

Final note: Short barrel needs looking at, as well as close combat ranged rules in general, it is on my to-do list.

 

[fweaks]

I was cruising the net looking for some help re-skinning DnD to sci-fi, when lo-and-behold what do I find! This is a phenomenal effort you've put in, and I might just use this wholesale.

However I'm a relatively novice GM(only ever played 5e, and even that only for a few campaigns) so I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be with the drastic reworking of the combat system... especially, I quite like the melee/ranged dynamics in 5e. Also I tend to play with people who are already a bit skittish about the lethality of 5e at earlier levels.

Still, keep up the good work! I'll be keeping an eye on this...