D20 Future Star Frontiers?

[Chaldfont]

Has anyone tried this? I'm playing around with converting some of the old SF modules to D20 Future. Most of it is straightforward but one of the things I am having trouble with is the equipment.

One of the cool things about SF was power management. Laser pistols did 1d10 damge per power unit (max of 10d10!). Rifles went up to 20! Clips held 20 power units, but you could attach the weapons to power backpacks for more capacity. Add to that defensive screens that absorbed damage and you would have to be really careful about managing your power usage.

But, in SF, characters had around 50+ hit points. In D20 Future, laser pistols do 2d8 damage--already enough to kill a 1st level character. Throw in the possibilities of criticals, Double Tap feat, etc and this could get ugly.

How would you model the SF laser pistols in D20 terms? Here are some options I thought of:

* Extra die per power unit. Lethal. Two shots in the clip doing 9d8 (avg 40.5) damage!
* Extra die per 2 power units, max setting of 5. Still pretty dangerous: 6d8 (avg 27)
* Extra point of damage per power unit. Better, but still pretty lethal. But the damage is not linear (1 power unit for 2d8, 2 power units for 2d8+1, etc) so there's no incentive to using higher power settings.
* Laser weapons work exactly as in D20 Future. Easy, but not as cool.

 

[Peterson]

My first thought would be to modify the Variable Charge gadget found in D20 Future and make it "standard gadget" for all laser weapons.

Changes to make could be more power for the time taken, longer end result, and "ammo depletion" factors (or Power Management).

Just a thought - and if its confusing, I'll explain more after work.

Peterson

 

[arscott]

via the double tap and burst fire rules.

 

[DnDChick]

How about giving a flat +1 or +2 to damage per power point expended? It still lets you vary the damage without being so overpowering as adding full dice of damage. Perhaps you could even just say that a 5 power point expence lets you decrease the critical threat range by 1.

If players complain that for a normal 1 point expenditure they get 2d8 damage, but each point after that adds only a little more, you could explain the discrepancy by saying that it takes more energy to amp up the laser frequency than it does to generate it in the first place.



Edit: Also ... did you catch the D20 Future web enhancement? That provides you the stats for the quintessential SF villains, the Sathar.

 

[Chaldfont]

Oh yeah. You can't do Star Frontiers without the Sathar!

I thought about using the variable charge gadget. I've actually used a modified version to model the Halo plasma pistol (if you're familiar with the video game). Thing I don't like about it is the loss of rounds while you charge the thing up. You are probably better off just making several attacks, instead of one big one.

Arscott: Yeah, I know. What do you do with Double Tap and Burst Fire if you jack up the per shot damage?

I thought about doing it this way: laser pistols and rifles do 1d6 damage per power unit. Pistols have a max setting of 5, rifles a 10. Almost no one would use setting 1 (why not use a projectile pistol instead?). Pistols and Rifles are semiautomatic, so no burst fire. Double Tap still only adds one die damage due to the "slow recharge rate" of the laser weapon, but you are only expend one extra power unit.

I dunno. It needs playtesting. I'm still very tempted to just use laser weapons as they are in D20 Future with no modification.

 

[DnDChick]

Oh yeah. You can't do Star Frontiers without the Sathar!

Here ya go!

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20modern/we/20040928a