Sapiens: Sci-fi Homebrew 4E Rules 1

Inspired by the flavor of Eclipse Phase and the familiarity of 4e, I sought to make a 4e-inspired ruleset to handle sci-fi. Here's my first stab, the result of a week or so of fiddling.

My goal is to capture action from settings like Aliens and Halo, with a variety of combat styles. The basic set-up is that instead of classes with powers, you design your character based on a variety of feats (you start with 4).

The main components of the system are the fighting styles. Each fighting style consists of two parts, each of which requires one feat. Style Basis gives some minor static ability, or a modifier to your basic attacks, and Style Expertise gives you a few tricks you can pull off if you battle surge (which you can only do a few times per combat) or have combat focus (which requires a standard action to achieve, but remains until you expend it to perform some sort of immediate interrupt).

For instance, the Two Weapon Fighter style lets you, instead of attacking with one weapon as a standard action, spend a standard and minor to make two attacks against the same target. That's the basic ability. If you spend a second feat to get the expertise, then a few times per combat you can battle surge to make two attacks (at the same or different targets) as one standard action, and if you have your combat focus you can expend it to reload two weapons at once, even if you have no free hands.

My goal of the combat system is to encourage different tempo. Usually you rely on basic attacks (modified by your styles), but occasionally you fall back to attain combat focus so you can pull off more interesting tricks.

I'd like your thoughts, especially if you can come up with some ideas for new fighting styles, or feats. As is, I figure the game runs out of options after 10th level or so.

Inspired by the flavor of Eclipse Phase and the familiarity of 4e, I sought to make a 4e-inspired ruleset to handle sci-fi. Here's my first stab, the result of a week or so of fiddling.

My goal is to capture action from settings like Aliens and Halo, with a variety of combat styles. The basic set-up is that instead of classes with powers, you design your character based on a variety of feats (you start with 4).

The main components of the system are the fighting styles. Each fighting style consists of two parts, each of which requires one feat. Style Basis gives some minor static ability, or a modifier to your basic attacks, and Style Expertise gives you a few tricks you can pull off if you battle surge (which you can only do a few times per combat) or have combat focus (which requires a standard action to achieve, but remains until you expend it to perform some sort of immediate interrupt).

For instance, the Two Weapon Fighter style lets you, instead of attacking with one weapon as a standard action, spend a standard and minor to make two attacks against the same target. That's the basic ability. If you spend a second feat to get the expertise, then a few times per combat you can battle surge to make two attacks (at the same or different targets) as one standard action, and if you have your combat focus you can expend it to reload two weapons at once, even if you have no free hands.

My goal of the combat system is to encourage different tempo. Usually you rely on basic attacks (modified by your styles), but occasionally you fall back to attain combat focus so you can pull off more interesting tricks.

I'd like your thoughts, especially if you can come up with some ideas for new fighting styles, or feats. As is, I figure the game runs out of options after 10th level or so.

Inspired by the flavor of Eclipse Phase and the familiarity of 4e, I sought to make a 4e-inspired ruleset to handle sci-fi. Here's my first stab, the result of a week or so of fiddling.

My goal is to capture action from settings like Aliens and Halo, with a variety of combat styles. The basic set-up is that instead of classes with powers, you design your character based on a variety of feats (you start with 4).

The main components of the system are the fighting styles. Each fighting style consists of two parts, each of which requires one feat. Style Basis gives some minor static ability, or a modifier to your basic attacks, and Style Expertise gives you a few tricks you can pull off if you battle surge (which you can only do a few times per combat) or have combat focus (which requires a standard action to achieve, but remains until you expend it to perform some sort of immediate interrupt).

For instance, the Two Weapon Fighter style lets you, instead of attacking with one weapon as a standard action, spend a standard and minor to make two attacks against the same target. That's the basic ability. If you spend a second feat to get the expertise, then a few times per combat you can battle surge to make two attacks (at the same or different targets) as one standard action, and if you have your combat focus you can expend it to reload two weapons at once, even if you have no free hands.

My goal of the combat system is to encourage different tempo. Usually you rely on basic attacks (modified by your styles), but occasionally you fall back to attain combat focus so you can pull off more interesting tricks.

I'd like your thoughts, especially if you can come up with some ideas for new fighting styles, or feats. As is, I figure the game runs out of options after 10th level or so.

Inspired by the flavor of Eclipse Phase and the familiarity of 4e, I sought to make a 4e-inspired ruleset to handle sci-fi. Here's my first stab, the result of a week or so of fiddling.

My goal is to capture action from settings like Aliens and Halo, with a variety of combat styles. The basic set-up is that instead of classes with powers, you design your character based on a variety of feats (you start with 4).

The main components of the system are the fighting styles. Each fighting style consists of two parts, each of which requires one feat. Style Basis gives some minor static ability, or a modifier to your basic attacks, and Style Expertise gives you a few tricks you can pull off if you battle surge (which you can only do a few times per combat) or have combat focus (which requires a standard action to achieve, but remains until you expend it to perform some sort of immediate interrupt).

For instance, the Two Weapon Fighter style lets you, instead of attacking with one weapon as a standard action, spend a standard and minor to make two attacks against the same target. That's the basic ability. If you spend a second feat to get the expertise, then a few times per combat you can battle surge to make two attacks (at the same or different targets) as one standard action, and if you have your combat focus you can expend it to reload two weapons at once, even if you have no free hands.

My goal of the combat system is to encourage different tempo. Usually you rely on basic attacks (modified by your styles), but occasionally you fall back to attain combat focus so you can pull off more interesting tricks.

I'd like your thoughts, especially if you can come up with some ideas for new fighting styles, or feats. As is, I figure the game runs out of options after 10th level or so.

Inspired by the flavor of Eclipse Phase and the familiarity of 4e, I sought to make a 4e-inspired ruleset to handle sci-fi. Here's my first stab, the result of a week or so of fiddling.

My goal is to capture action from settings like Aliens and Halo, with a variety of combat styles. The basic set-up is that instead of classes with powers, you design your character based on a variety of feats (you start with 4).

The main components of the system are the fighting styles. Each fighting style consists of two parts, each of which requires one feat. Style Basis gives some minor static ability, or a modifier to your basic attacks, and Style Expertise gives you a few tricks you can pull off if you battle surge (which you can only do a few times per combat) or have combat focus (which requires a standard action to achieve, but remains until you expend it to perform some sort of immediate interrupt).

For instance, the Two Weapon Fighter style lets you, instead of attacking with one weapon as a standard action, spend a standard and minor to make two attacks against the same target. That's the basic ability. If you spend a second feat to get the expertise, then a few times per combat you can battle surge to make two attacks (at the same or different targets) as one standard action, and if you have your combat focus you can expend it to reload two weapons at once, even if you have no free hands.

My goal of the combat system is to encourage different tempo. Usually you rely on basic attacks (modified by your styles), but occasionally you fall back to attain combat focus so you can pull off more interesting tricks.

I'd like your thoughts, especially if you can come up with some ideas for new fighting styles, or feats. As is, I figure the game runs out of options after 10th level or so.

Inspired by the flavor of Eclipse Phase and the familiarity of 4e, I sought to make a 4e-inspired ruleset to handle sci-fi. Here's my first stab, the result of a week or so of fiddling.

My goal is to capture action from settings like Aliens and Halo, with a variety of combat styles. The basic set-up is that instead of classes with powers, you design your character based on a variety of feats (you start with 4).

The main components of the system are the fighting styles. Each fighting style consists of two parts, each of which requires one feat. Style Basis gives some minor static ability, or a modifier to your basic attacks, and Style Expertise gives you a few tricks you can pull off if you battle surge (which you can only do a few times per combat) or have combat focus (which requires a standard action to achieve, but remains until you expend it to perform some sort of immediate interrupt).

For instance, the Two Weapon Fighter style lets you, instead of attacking with one weapon as a standard action, spend a standard and minor to make two attacks against the same target. That's the basic ability. If you spend a second feat to get the expertise, then a few times per combat you can battle surge to make two attacks (at the same or different targets) as one standard action, and if you have your combat focus you can expend it to reload two weapons at once, even if you have no free hands.

My goal of the combat system is to encourage different tempo. Usually you rely on basic attacks (modified by your styles), but occasionally you fall back to attain combat focus so you can pull off more interesting tricks.

I'd like your thoughts, especially if you can come up with some ideas for new fighting styles, or feats. As is, I figure the game runs out of options after 10th level or so.