D20 Future (SRD) what's (not so) good and what can be improved (and how)?

[Angel Tarragon]

Nope, but it's already crowded.

Nuts, I really don't want to plop down the money for Traveller D20 just because D20 Future does not contain this information. Can anybody point me to a website or any other cheap book that might have rules for creating worlds on the fly?

 

[Vigilance]

Hi Vigilance!



I'm slightly deviating from your point specifically, but for one thing I don't think a 1 Megaton Nuke should deal 16d8 damage, and by juxtaposing d20 Future with d20 Modern that means on average an M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank could survive a point blank nuclear strike!

Well, my take on that is this: the damage listed is specific to what a 1 MT nuke would do a starship. Not what it would do to a tank or to Regdar.

I think they were going from Trek Lore in which nuclear missiles were used in ship to ship combat during the Romulan war and these missiles were described as "primitive".

So my feeling is that the damage should only be applied against another starship and that if you feel the need to use a 1 MT nuke in your Blood and Guts game against a tank (or anything else) that you safely assume it will be destroyed

Chuck

 

[Zethnar]

If you really think this is what space combat will look like, then my friend, you are the one in need of some physics lessons. I could explain, but someone else has done it better:

Why rotation means little for maneuverability in space

It was a rough example for relative speeds

Who says that future TECH uses chemical based "thrusters"? Who says that there aren't computer-assisted propulsion systems that couldn't compensate for what the pilot's actions asked for on-the-fly, and the result being exactly what the D20-future rules "simulate"?

As I said, if you're happy with the rules then I'm glad you got something more out of the book than I did. Personally I dont think just slightly modifying the melee combat rules simulates much in the way of exciting space combat (not unless move to target, stop, shoot till target explodes, move to target, stop, shoot till target explodes is your idea of exciting).

As far as large ships being faster than small ones... forgive me... but isn't the Enterprise faster than most small ships in the Star Trek universe? And wasn't that a gigantic Star Destroyer successfully outrunning and chasing down that small Corellian Corvette in that movie... what was its name? Attack of.... no no... the Empire.... no no... Revenge of the.... no no... Star Wars! yeah that was it!

At the risk of making it sound like I know way too much about star wars, the smaller ship was faster and the only reason the star destroyer caught up was because it managed to knock out the smaller ships reactor (Dont ask why the lights were on when they boarded, emergency power maybe? I dont think Lucas thought too hard about it really).

In case you haven't figured it out, I really didn't find your math equations really made me want to crack open my dice bag, find some space scum, kill them and take their stuff.

But thanks for the lesson Professor

No problem, you were an excellent student

Although you are right, total and accurate physics doesnt make for a good combat system either (perhaps it would in a wargame). But in my case, a re-tooled melee combat system didnt really want to make me start hunting pirates across the outer reaches of the galaxy.

It could have been done much better, especially considering the vehicle combat rules (In the core book) are much more detailed than the starship ones.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That's the GMs job.

You have the Vulcan science officer's father come on board and have a heart attack, forcing the doctor to perform open heart surgery during the ship combat, having to make critical Concentration checks to avoid blowing his non-Xenomedic Treat Injury roll.

And of course having some robotic half-human cyborgs board the ship while it's stranded in the past will always give EVERYONE something to do.

Oh wait... can't have adventures about those, Newton never wrote Calculus equations to cover those situations.

Chuck

How many times do you want to abritarily combine space combat and "character"-combat/actions?

And half-human cyborgs boarding a ship stranded in the past is NOT a space combat situation.

It is not really a problem with Newton´s Calculus - it´s more a problem of me as the DM making the wrong kind of adventure for the characters - who simply aren´t all space combatants - and it is a weakness of the system that 4 character´s can´t really contribute meaningful and imaginative in space combat - at least if they are on the same ship. (SO, maybe it´s more a "setting"-mistake - everybody should have his own space ship.)
Meaningful and imaginiativecontributing does exclude the aid another option - it might be some kind of contribution, even meaningful, but it´s not really imaginative...

 

[Plane Sailing]

I liked the space combat rules quite a bit.

Much preferable to the fanboy fav systems that require an excel spreadsheet for ship design and a t-square for combat.

Everyone seems obsessed with "realism" in space combat games.

Hi Chuck,

I'm not hung up on "realism" at all - if a basic system is consistent with the tech assumed then that is basically OK with me (e.g. Mayday was basically newtonian and you used your thrusters to modify your "future position" vector and you could use gravity wells to change direction. Cool, pretty realistic in some ways but it was basically a traveller wargame. Others might have inertialess travel postulated which makes ignoring momentum etc fine.

That isn't my beef with what they wrote here though.

D&D melee combat is basically about individual combatants. In spaceships you could easily have each ship manned with many people who could all be contributing to the performance of their vehicle.

NONE of the earlier WotC vehicle/ship combat systems were slavishly based off the D&D melee mechanics - success or fail they recognised that the rules were modelling a fundamentally different /kind/ of combat than mano-a-mano.

In d20 future they could have:

a) taken what was learnt from previous efforts to write rules for this kind of thing and extended/enhanced them

b) looked at the OGL rules created by others in the OGL/d20 market and build on the best of them (one of the main points of OGL IIRC)

c) had a go at writing something brand new from scratch


Instead it looks like they took the minimal effort approach of filing off the serial numbers from the PHB combat system and changing names. It was probably cheap and simple to do, but IMO it sucks. They would have done better with any other approach, or even left it out completely than this.

========

That is not to say I dislike the rest of d20 Future - not at all. I appreciate the thought and research that has gone into both backgrounds and rules mechanics in most of the rest of the book. It is full of really good stuff - just not the spaceship combat rules.

Cheers

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hello again Vigiliance!

Well, my take on that is this: the damage listed is specific to what a 1 MT nuke would do a starship. Not what it would do to a tank or to Regdar.

So at what point does the damage suddenly become Mega-damage?

The smallest spacecraft in d20 Future are smaller than Main Battle Tanks, so it can't be a scale thing.

It seems as if WotC completely sacrificed reality for simplicity, the trade off being that you completely lose any sense of verisimilitude.

I think they were going from Trek Lore in which nuclear missiles were used in ship to ship combat during the Romulan war and these missiles were described as "primitive".

I know a little about Trek-tech and Photon Torpedoes are only rated at about 18 Megatons with Quantum Torpedoes about three times as powerful.

Nukes may well be 'primitive' in terms of efficiency, certainly compared to the likes of Anti-Matter - but 18 Megatons is still only 18 Megatons; whatever way you slice it.

So my feeling is that the damage should only be applied against another starship and that if you feel the need to use a 1 MT nuke in your Blood and Guts game against a tank (or anything else) that you safely assume it will be destroyed

If I have to make up (or revise) the rules as I go along what use are d20 Modern and Future to me? Against the advice of Dr. "Bones" McCoy it seems that WotC have indeed changed the laws of physics. The result goes beyond even cinematic 'reality' and totally into the surreal - I mean (going by the rules) its not inconceivable that a 5th or 6th-level Tough Hero would survive a 1 Megaton Blast.

 

[Plane Sailing]

If you really think this is what space combat will look like, then my friend, you are the one in need of some physics lessons. I could explain, but someone else has done it better:

Why rotation means little for maneuverability in space

Interesting article, although there is one point that he seems to overlook (not that this affects your referencing him, Aurance).

And that is that rotational rate can have a lot to do with being able to bring weapons to bear. One of the things that I think the Babylon5 designers got right was the starfuries, with their big' 'ole attitude jets that allowed them to freely rotate on their axis while maintaining their forward velocity. Someone on your tail, flip through 180 and you are your own tail gunner. Some neat shots of starfuries rotating as they zip past a relatively stationery ship to maintain their firing solution.

So while rotation means little for ability to change direction, sure, there is another significant aspect of manoueverability which we don't want to overlook.

Cheers

 

[Ghostknight]

Any "cleaned up" versions of the SRD available?

Umm, getting off the topic here for a seconf, anyone know if someone has HTML'ed the Future SRD? OIr turned it into a neat little download?

 

[Ashardalon]

I wonder if a simple multiplication might help with the weapon damage? Say, all spaceship weapon damage (with the possible exception of mines) is multiplied by the PL of the weapon.

So,
Nuclear Missile - 16d8x6 (432)
Heavy Particle Beam - 16d8x7 (504)
Heavy Maser Cannon - 16d8x8 (576)
Blacklaser - 16d8x9 (648)

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Ashardalon mate!

I wonder if a simple multiplication might help with the weapon damage? Say, all spaceship weapon damage (with the possible exception of mines) is multiplied by the PL of the weapon.

So,
Nuclear Missile - 16d8x6 (432)
Heavy Particle Beam - 16d8x7 (504)
Heavy Maser Cannon - 16d8x8 (576)
Blacklaser - 16d8x9 (648)

Interesting, especially applied to melee weapons for Fantasy games.

My Toledo Steel Greatsword deals 6d6 (PL:x3) damage while your Iron Age shortsword only deals 1d6, not to mention 16d8 (PL:x8) for my Beamsword now.

Rather than a flat multiplier it might work better increasing base damage by one effective size category. This gels with the current mechanic of minimization of previous PL: weaponry.

eg. Renaissance Greatsword 2d6 base = +2 size categories for PL:3

New Damage = 4d6.

eg. Beamsword 1d8 longsword size base lets say - +7 size categories for PL:8.

New Damage = 12d8 damage.

Of course you could say that PL:2 (Dark Ages) or PL:3 (Renaissance) is the D&D base.

If PL:2 was the base then a Renaissance (PL:3) Greatsword would deal 2d8, and the longsword version of the Beamsword 12d6.

I don't see it solving the problems but it could be a useful step in the right direction and one that in the short term could help avoid completely reworking all the weapon damages.

For the heavier weapons:

16d8 Nuke

PL: 5 would become 48d8 (assuming a PL:2 base) - which is still a bit crappy.

However the problem with Nukes is that the yield is a flat amount regardless of the PL.

Also the damages for explosives are totally illogical in d20 Future so its a bad base to start at.