D&D 4E Traveller (D&D 4E Conversion)

[Medriev]

I want to preface this thread with a couple of things. Firstly, I am a massive fan of the Traveller universe and have been for around 25 years. IMHO it is far and away the best sci-fi setting that has ever been created and despite personal issues with some of its incarnations (TNE particularly) it remains my favourite. This is in no way intended to butcher or mangle the Traveller setting.

Secondly, as readers of my Story Hour thread will see, I am currently involved in a solitaire D&D campaign which takes up a lot of my spare time. I therefore wanted a way to enjoy the Traveller universe with as little effort as possible. I have enjoyed almost every edition of Traveller with the possible exception of TNE and all of the variations of its rules have been excellent. That said, adventure creation is always time consuming and something that I cannot fit in.

Thirdly, I am a huge fan of D&D and have been for a similar amount of time as I have been a fan of Traveller. To me, D&D 4E has proved to be a fantastic system that combines ease of learning with ease of use and with ease of encounter / adventure creation.

By now, if you didn't get it from the title of the thread, you can see where I'm going with this. The idea of combining 4E with Traveller in as simple a way as possible occurred to me last weekend and this week I have been working up a system. It is intended to be as straightforward as possible as I have no time to write up new classes with new power descriptions. Therefore, for the most part, I will be matching Traveller concepts with 4E ones so that the experience is likely to be a lot like playing D&D in space.

Grateful for comments on any of the following as this is very much a work in progress and any suggestions for tweaks or amendments would be helpful. If this works, i will start a solitaire playtest and post it as a Story Hour thread.

 

[Medriev]

Part 1 - Races

Aslan (Shifter): The fierce Aslan are honour-bound warriors whose principle loyalty is to their clan. Recently, two sub-species have been identified based around those who live Coreward of the Great Rift and those who live in the bulk of the Hierate to Rimward.
Darrian (Halfling): Agile and dexterous, the Darrians are renowned for their mastery of technology and art.
Droyne (Dragonborn): The droyne have resemble short, lizard-like creatures with stubby, vestigial wings. Some develop flight later in their careers but most remain flightless. All droyne have a close range breath weapon and are furious warriors when wounded.
Geonee (Dwarf): This stout human minor race has scattered throughout the Imperium since they formed an empire in the Massilia Sector before the founding of the Imperium.
Hivers (Gnome): Hivers are perhaps the strangest and least understood of the major races. They have evolved a camouflage mechanism that allows them to blend into their surroundings when threatened . They also master technology quickly and are well-respected interstellar travelers.
Ithklur (Half-Orc): Renowned as fierce warriors, the Ithklur generally serve the Hivers as mercenaries although some have become travelers and adventurers in their own right.
K’kree (Goliath): The race known as the Centaurs evolved from grazers but have developed a fiercely militaristic society. They are strong and hardy with thick hides and resemble the mythical creatures that they are often named after.
Mixed Human (Half-Elf): Many humans in the Imperium and elsewhere have no clear heritage, their bloodlines mixed by centuries of interstellar intermixing of the human races. Mixed race humans usually exhibit the true adaptability of their race and can master skills beyond their normal roles.
Solomani (Human): Widely regarded as the original human race, the Solomani are widely regarded as ‘typical humans’, whatever that means.
Syleans (Deva): Tall and often aloof, the Syleans are regarded with the awe reserved for a semi-mythical race beyond the Core. They are well-educated and can often recall obscure and forgotten facts from the mass of knowledge that they were given on Capital.
Vargr (Tiefling): The vargr are genetically engineered canines who for the most part regard themselves as superior to other races. They are fierce fighters with a dark side.
Vilani (Elf): The Vilani are careful and studious learners who show the same dedication to weaponcraft when it is required of them. They are renowned as sharp shooters.
Zhodani (Eladrin): One of the human major races and widely considered to be the masters of psionics. All Zhodani PCs have limited teleport abilities and Zhodani commandoes are renowned for their ability to psionically move about the battlefield.

 

[Medriev]

Part 2 - Power Sources

Primitive (Primal): There are still many primitive cultures scattered throughout the Imperium and from these, many travelers take to the stars to explore the endless sky above that they have wondered about all their lives. They often credit their battle prowess to nature deities or to the stars themselves although a more mundane explanation usually lurks beneath the surface.
Stellar (Martial): Martial power is exactly what it seems with its practitioners wielding pistols and rifles that wound and kill enemies using the most effective method yet devised – a large dose of kinetic energy.
Imperial Tech (Divine): Travelers using this level of technology often appear to be wielding magic to more primitive cultures but in reality, they are using weapons and armour issued by whatever government they are loyal to. Generally, they favour laser weapons and are fiercely loyal to the government that they serve.
High Tech (Arcane): Those using this power source wield weapons truly in the realms of magic for the backward worlds of the Imperium. Only the elite are favoured with such weapons though once they have possession of such devices, their loyalty to whatever body issued them is not always unwavering. Typically they favour plasma and gauss weapons at the top end of known technologies.

 

[Medriev]

Part 3 - Classes

Classes - Primitive
Militia (Warden): As the primitive military of your home community, you had access to the best weapons and armour available, such as they were. Most militia are poorly paid and often take to the stars to try and make a living as mercenaries. Militia generally favour light armour but use either hardiness or clever tactics learned in the wilds of their home world to outwit enemies.
Nature Priest (Druid): Once the guardian of the wilderness beyond your tribal home or village, you may have taken to the stars to explore or because the gods of nature told you to go. You use herbs and stimulants to emulate the beasts that you once shared the wilds of your home world with. Nature priests favour either stalwart defense as guardians or predatory bursts of speed.
Spirit Priest (Shaman): A true priest, your spirit companion guides you in your travels and manifests for all to see when you need it. Generally, you keep your companion hidden as psionic powers are often frowned upon or outlawed in wider interstellar society.
Tribesman (Barbarian): You are a fierce warrior wielding primitive weapons who took to the stars to explore what lay beyond the world of your tribe or home village. You may have adapted to the use of simple gunpowder weapons or may favour the sword or spear that you brought with you when you left.

Classes – Stellar
Army (Fighter): A true professional fighter, you served either in the army on your home world or in the Imperial (or equivalent) army. You have possibly travelled throughout your career and are well acquainted with the most advanced gunpowder weapons. Some soldiers favour sub-machine-guns for close in fighting while others wield lighter pistols in one hand and wear heavier armour.
Corsair (Rogue): For a reason likely known only to you, you left your home world when you were young and took up the live of a pirate or privateer. You favour either lurking around the edges of battles and striking at enemies when you have the chance or fronting up to enemies before darting away before they can strike back.
Merchant (Warlord): Beginning your career as a drifter similar to the corsair, your life took a different path and instead, you served aboard the merchant ships that keep interstellar trade alive. You ended your career as the captain of a small trading vessel and whether you still captain the vessel or not, you think of yourself as “the skipper” whose word should be respected. You view your job as either leading your companions and inspiring them to greater feats or a tactician whose advice should be heeded as wisdom gathered by hard experience.
Scout (Ranger): You also took to the stars at an early age but you opted to be an explorer with the IISS or your own race’s equivalent. You have seen at least a hundred different planets and seen sights that many will never see in all of their travelling. You may have also acquired an animal companion in your explorations or perhaps you favour the hunting rifle that so many scouts rely on. Others fight close up with a pistol in each hand, daring the universe to kill them.

Classes – Imperial Tech
Agent (Avenger): You are a covert agent of whatever government you serve and are fanatically loyal. You likely took to the stars at an early age doing the bidding of your masters and you focus either on pursuing particular enemies or exacting revenge on those who you fell have wronged those you serve.
Marine (Paladin): Part of the elite space-born troops of your government, you have known little else but shipboard life since you entered adulthood. You view your role either as one of vengeance against the enemies of your government or as one of protection of those who dwell within the space that you defend.
Navy (Invoker): You have been part of a ship’s crew all of your adult life and for the most part view the stars as your home. Depending on the ships that you have served on, you view your role either as one of preserving the society that you serve or as one of attack, of taking the war to your enemies.
Noble (Cleric): Born into the aristocracy of your society, you believe that you were born to lead and as such, your own life and those of your companions should be preserved. You aid your companions with the best medical supplies money can buy and aid them from battle either from the front with pistol in hand or from the rear where you seek to aid your allies while picking off enemies that come within range. You are fiercely loyal to the society that granted you such a privileged position but naturally feel that you should lead your companions.

Classes – High Tech
Army Ranger (Swordmage): You are the elite of your government’s army – a Sylean Ranger, an Aslan Clan Huscarl or something similar. You are equipped with the best equipment available in Charted Space and favour either direct combat with your enemies or holding them at bay with the plasma and gauss weapons that you wield.
Commando (Warlock): Usually serving in the marines, commandoes are the special forces of whichever government they serve. They are experts at a variety of combat styles and favour striking foes down from distance using deadly accurate rifles.
Higher Noble (Bard): As one of the elite of your society’s aristocracy you are a skilled orator and leader. You use the power of your words, accompanied by gunfire where it’s needed to either inspire your allies or confuse your enemies.
Naval Officer (Wizard): Either by rising though the ranks or by arranging a commission through wealth or influence, you became one of the elite of your government’s navy. You either still command a naval vessel or have become a crewmember aboard another ship and now favour either keeping your enemies at a distance and restricting them with your gunfire or destroying them with grenade rounds and flame bursts.
Scout Sniper (Sorcerer): You belong to an elite and small fighting force attached to your government’s scouts. In the Imperium, you were an S-3 Operative while in the Aslan Hierate, you were an elite assassin. Whatever your origins, you learned to let your weapon become a part of you and favour either targeting your enemies with unrelenting gunfire or sowing chaos among their ranks.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Personally I'm not convinced that power sources really fit into a sci-fi theme very well. If they do work at all I would think you'd want a totally different set. Like biotechnic, nanotechnic, psychic, not sure what else, but probably 1 or 2 more could be imagined.

Is there not already a d20 Traveler? I know it isn't based on 4e, but I would imagine it would provide some basis to work from.

Personally I was a real fan of the original version of Traveler. The later ones never really appealed so much. But to me the nice thing about it was the much closer to realistic game mechanics. If someone shot you, it HURT. Chances were you fell down and didn't get right back up again, yet characters were still pretty survivable overall. It was a nice balance. I don't see how a level based system can capture that.

Of course it would probably avoid the converse flaws of Traveler, like the total lack of any character advancement, and the strange perverse incentives of the career system.

It also seems to me that there would be a larger emphasis on a wider range of skills and less emphasis on powers in a system that had the feel of Traveler. Maybe a good bit of stuff that was handled via skills in the original could be powers, but then classes would have to be pretty narrowly defined by trades, so the classes would be something like pilot, programmer, crew, merc, scientist, etc. Those could be skills instead, but then what do you do about the sheer size of the skill list? I guess classes could give out a lot of starting skills.

The whole 'roles' concept seems a bit less germaine to Traveler as well. It isn't entirely inapplicable by any means, but most combat is quite different and D&D defines its roles so completely in terms of hand to hand combat that I have trouble with at least some roles. The other aspect of that is in D&D there is REALLY only one basic environment you fight in. Sure terrain changes, but the essential premise of hand to hand melee ground combat is pretty steady. Traveler was a LOT more wide open. You had ground combat (usually at range with guns, melee was a minor element), starship combat, zero-g combat, and possibly aerospace combat or other alien environment combat. Roles in the D&D sense aren't super applicable to most of those. They might be handled basically as skill challenges in a 4e Traveler, but skill challenges themselves don't couple with roles in any real fashion. So roles overall would, I think, be a much weaker thing in 4e Traveler. That will make class design a lot tougher.

I guess the final alternative WRT classes is just don't use them, make it a classless setting. 4e should work fine as a classless system. Class features basically go away, but most of them are pretty hard to define in terms of hard sci-fi anyway.

And that of course is the real nut of it to me, Traveler was hard sci-fi. Any setting that is going to feel like Traveler to me has to be pretty hard. Not sure 4e is really up to hard... but it is fun to consider anyway.

 

[Medriev]

Thanks. I agree with all that you have said above which is one of the reasons why this hasn't got any further at the moment. I toyed with other power sources, particularly psionics, but that would make it more common in the universe than is typical in Traveller.

I have d20 Traveller and my problem with its is that I've found it clunky rules-wise, particularly when you compare it to 4E. That said, as you say elsewhere in your post, Traveller is hard sci-fi and a certain amount of rules follows from this. The original Traveller and most subsequent incarnations are superb, up to and including the Mongoose version but my intention here was to try and save time by combining the ease of encounter design etc. of 4E with the Traveller Universe.

I quite like the idea of the parallel classes but the roles are difficult to reconcile without turning Traveller into a hand to hand combat game, which of course, it is not. My only solution at the moment is to have melee weapons equate to pistols and change the scale of encounter maps (and therefore the length of rounds). Still, there is no real reason for combatants to close to even a few yards with a pistol when they could be shooting at each other from farther out.

I have not yet reconciled skills yet either since, as you point out, Traveller had a lot! Not sure how this will work out if I do develop this further and I have no ideas on starship / vehicle / aerial combat.

Will post again if I come up with anything more but at the moment this idea is much like the Beowulf I'm afraid......dead in space.

 

[Gallowglacht]

I agree that D&D4 is a great game. I also agree that Traveller rocks (though I'm a TNE fan, more than classic) and that Traveller20 is far to fiddly and complex.

I think you can make D&D4 a solid basis for a D20 Traveller, however, not in the way you started. The powers system is modelled on a very different style of combat, and a lot more combat than normal traveller.

The basics of the game system are good though. Skills based on stats. Add half your level for experience. Experienced characters are better in Traveller too. Attacks based on stat plus a bonus for proficiency based on weapon/attack type versus defenses of 10 + 1/2 level + modifiers. Saves as a straight 10+ roll. All good as basic systems that mean all players can contribute.

Combat should be different though. Rarer and more lethal if you want to keep older Traveller feeling. Maybe steal the condition track from SW SAGA instead of hit points. Maybe steal a True20 type damage roll against a toughness stat based on armour and con, higher results put you further down the track. Don't have escalating Hit points, better characters are harder to hit, not harder to hurt.

For characters, roll stats. Give some skills and feats based on homeworld. Roll on a life path table to determine some stuff about your character growing up, maybe some contacts, some family details, minor equipment etc. Special results might give a feat or a skill.

Pick a starting carear; Makes character level 1. Gives them a trait. A trait might be Marine, Army, College etc. Bundle of proficencies, small bonus' etc. Player gets a skill or feat each level, so pick one now. Again roll on a carear lifepath table. Decide if the new player is ready to go, or wants to age and do another "term". Each term lasts between 2-4 years.

Each "term" raises the character a level and gains another feat/skill. Rolls on a lifepath table (note these tables should be mostly fluff) and allows access to skill training and feats. The player can swap skills learned earlier for skills on the list (ie a player from a poor dirtwater swaps Survival for Pilot, since he has been away from home and in space for 10 years) mainly so someones characterfull choices in the early game don't gimp them later, or they simply want to change and develop.

Put a limit on how many terms served for an ordinary game. As an option, you can play a "retired vet" type character, older than the limit, higher level, but has stat reductions and other age based disadvantages to balence. Or a rookie type, 1st level, but with some ability and talent boosts.

Lack of powers and escalating hitpoints means the players can play different level easier than in normal d20 games.

As players level, they get more skills, better defences and bigger experience bonus' to their skills. Give a new Talent every odd level (as your other stats boost at even levels, makes odd levels interesting too), perhaps that Marine becomes a Marine Commander, or joins the Navy instead.

Instead of powers, you can give the players action points/willpower/edge/whatever. They can spend points to save against damage, re-roll a failed check, gain an extra action and so on. Or to power special attacks or abilities gained through feats. For example spend an action point and a player with the Command trait can give their squad a bonus equal to their Chr adjustment to their squads saving throws and defences. Or give a squad member an extra action etc.
A higher level character gets more of these points to spend. They are replaced like willpower in Vampire games, or when a contact/dependant (from their lifepath) sends them a nice video to keep them company in the cold depths of space.

 

[silverwhisper]

medriev, i'm confused. as you yourself observe, traveler combat often involves non-melee weapons. i'm not at all convinced that a 4e take is a worthwhile enterprise, given the focus on squares and tactics. i understand what you're after here (i like your idea of mapping vargr to tieflings), but i can't help thinking SW: saga might be closer to what you really want, to be frank.

 

[Thaed]

Another tankard of homebrew please.

Traveller is traveller. 4E is 4E. The two are not really compatible in many ways.


If you're goal is ease of encounters, I would recommend creating a system to make encounters easier for Traveller rather than redesigning 4E to fit Traveller.

Traveller is not really based on gaining levels like 4E. It was more about creating a complete character of extensive experience, and then retiring him to a life of personal pursuit.

It is a skill based system, founded on allies, wealth, and power and their interrelation. Fighting monsters while occuring, is less important than social, economic, and political interaction in Traveller. Combat was something to be avoided by players less they find themselves creating a new character.

A man portable plasma gun can leave a horrible scar.

Traveller = focus on mostly non combat.

4E = focus on mostly combat.


I think the two rule sets are mutually exclusive. Though a complete rewrite of the 4E system could yield results, but then again would the drive be worth the destination.


Good luck.