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

[MadBlue]

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.

Thanks for the reply. Level 10 seems fine. I like what you've done to balance the rules around that. I'll have to check out EL6, as I'm not familiar with that. I think I'm going to make up some pre-made level 4 characters to run a one-shot with my group to see what they think.

Oh, regarding Feats, how are they attained? Can you take one instead of the ability boost like in 5E? Is it possible to swap something out for a Feat at 1st level?

 

[Capn Charlie]

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.

The combat system isn't too drastically reworked. While some complexity is added there is a fair bit removed from the lack of spells and magic. The world can definitely be more lethal, especially if players make poor decisions. The biggest change, for most, is a much stronger focus on ranged combat. Moving into cover, and attempting to flank the enemy while avoiding being flanked (in the general sense, not the advantage to attack rolls sense) become very important, and lead to strategic combats that my particular group of players just love. Alternatively, you can just handle it abstractly with no map at all, more like space combat.

Thanks for the reply. Level 10 seems fine. I like what you've done to balance the rules around that. I'll have to check out EL6, as I'm not familiar with that. I think I'm going to make up some pre-made level 4 characters to run a one-shot with my group to see what they think.

Oh, regarding Feats, how are they attained? Can you take one instead of the ability boost like in 5E? Is it possible to swap something out for a Feat at 1st level?

I cannot believe I missed feat distribution. I just always assumed that most people would use the default method for 5e, allowing players to replace ability score increases with a feat selection, but then at the table I just started giving my players both, just to test the feats at first, but found it to be balanced just fine.

I will add in the appropriate rules text, and enable feat distribution by default.

Something to note is that backgrounds have notable effects, so I always considered them to fill the role of first level feats, but I could imagine an optional rule where a character permanently reduces an ability score by 2, or two ability scores by 1, to gain a single feat at first level. Or just give each character a first level feat. I will mull it over and create a rules option one way or another.

I also need to codify multi classing which is powerful and thematic with these classes. Every level you take creates truly interesting class combinations, and at my table I have seen some very interesting and powerful combinations. The Technician/Officer gets delegate as a bonus action, and an extra bonus action, allowing them to use leadership or inspiration on an ally, then grant them an additional attack.

 

[manpages]

I have registered on this forum specifically to thank the author of “Fifth Age” conversion. Love everything, including level 10 cap (even though it poses some problems with crossing “Fifth Age” with other D&D modifications).

Keep up the great work!

PS
Absolutely loved references to Futurama and Archer

 

[Vengeance76]

Would love to check this out... but I'm new and can't download it yet

 

[Capn Charlie]

Would love to check this out... but I'm new and can't download it yet

You should be able to download it here.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1339

I have registered on this forum specifically to thank the author of “Fifth Age” conversion. Love everything, including level 10 cap (even though it poses some problems with crossing “Fifth Age” with other D&D modifications).

Keep up the great work!

PS
Absolutely loved references to Futurama and Archer

Thanks man, it's comments like this that make me take the gun out of my mouth in the morning.

I have further updates incoming, just so much going on through the holidays, hard to find the time to write.

 

[CosmoZombie]

Hey Capn, from what I've read this is great!

However, your materials are looking a little plain. I'd be glad to start putting your books into The Homebrewery, as well as making a new character sheet in Inkscape or helping out however you want, if you'd like.

I eagerly await those further updates!

 

[MostlyDm]

Glad to see you're still working on this. I still haven't had a chance to run it, but it remains one of the coolest 5e homebrew products I've ever seen.

And I still think you made the best 5e "warlord" class I've ever seen.

 

[Capn Charlie]

View attachment Fifth Age (dec).pdf

Alright, here's the newest update.

Version: 0.5


Notes
• Gloemn technicians should be less bouncy now that Prodigious leap is limited to once per round.
• Soldiers may now specialize as Mobile Infantry, taking advantage of the new armor mods system
• Officers now less snooty, able to take the Sergeant specialization, allowing them to lead from the front.
• Savages can now owe humans a life debt, allowing them to take the Oathsworn specialization
• Bounty hunters now deal additional sneak attack dice with their Always Get my Man feature.
• Savage Warriors can now target a similar number of creatures with ranged or melee attacks.
• Feats can now be gained and used by the core rules.
• Martial Artists may now specialize further with the Judo and Kung Fu feats.
• The covering fire feat now states in particular that it can be used for ranged flanking.
• Robot CRs bumped slightly to counteract unstoppable Robomancer battle spam
• Defensive characters may now equip and benefit from shields.
• Flashbangs have had limiting factors added
• Modifications rules expanded to offer pricing models and many expanded options
• New prototype items have been catalogued


All that I am really unhappy with is my final vision of the Sergeant. It was going to be handled as a "pet" class where you controlled a small fireteam of mook soldiers. My tables consistently run more than 5-6 people though, and I just couldn't bring myself to add more entities on the table. I might just add "hireling" rules for followers, and let it be handled narratively.

Oathsworn defender's vengeance ability is probably too strong.

Martial arts characters... it feels like a class that isn't a class. Should I make an archetype for martial arts, even though it is just a string of bonus feats and a combat style? I don't know. Savage hunters (primitive ninjas) are truly terrifying, which is neat.

Thanks for keeping up with the project. If you want to run a few pages of it through homebrewery and share how it looks that might be worthwhile. I have a sci-fi page template I bought off of Dm's Guild but never got around to implementing it, I am notoriously flippant about graphical issues though, so maybe a prettier package would make more people give the project a chance.

 

[CosmoZombie]

View attachment 79192

Alright, here's the newest update.

Version: 0.5


Notes
•Gloemn technicians should be less bouncy now that Prodigious leap is limited to once per round.
•Soldiers may now specialize as Mobile Infantry, taking advantage of the new armor mods system
•Officers now less snooty, able to take the Sergeant specialization, allowing them to lead from the front.
•Savages can now owe humans a life debt, allowing them to take the Oathsworn specialization
•Bounty hunters now deal additional sneak attack dice with their Always Get my Man feature.
•Savage Warriors can now target a similar number of creatures with ranged or melee attacks.
•Feats can now be gained and used by the core rules.
•Martial Artists may now specialize further with the Judo and Kung Fu feats.
•The covering fire feat now states in particular that it can be used for ranged flanking.
•Robot CRs bumped slightly to counteract unstoppable Robomancer battle spam
•Defensive characters may now equip and benefit from shields.
•Flashbangs have had limiting factors added
•Modifications rules expanded to offer pricing models and many expanded options
•New prototype items have been catalogued


All that I am really unhappy with is my final vision of the Sergeant. It was going to be handled as a "pet" class where you controlled a small fireteam of mook soldiers. My tables consistently run more than 5-6 people though, and I just couldn't bring myself to add more entities on the table. I might just add "hireling" rules for followers, and let it be handled narratively.

Oathsworn defender's vengeance ability is probably too strong.

Martial arts characters... it feels like a class that isn't a class. Should I make an archetype for martial arts, even though it is just a string of bonus feats and a combat style? I don't know. Savage hunters (primitive ninjas) are truly terrifying, which is neat.

Thanks for keeping up with the project. If you want to run a few pages of it through homebrewery and share how it looks that might be worthwhile. I have a sci-fi page template I bought off of Dm's Guild but never got around to implementing it, I am notoriously flippant about graphical issues though, so maybe a prettier package would make more people give the project a chance.

Awesome, I'll be looking through this when I get home. Also when I get home, I'll attach a pdf of the first probably 10 pages (what I've put through Homebrewery so far just for curiosity).

~Cosmo
Sent from the EN World Mobile App

 

[CosmoZombie]

Hey man, I got the first few pages through the Homebrewery. It's not much, but I think it looks pretty good.

View attachment The Homebrewery - NaturalCrit.pdf