[D20 Future] Starship Rules

[Bagpuss]

Prefer the relative positioning rules as opposed to battlemat for space/fast vehicle combat, like the ones in the original Star Wars D20 rules (that everyone whined about until they got replaced), or the chase rules from Stargate Sg-1.

Battlemats and squares is always going to be impractical for starships that move in 3 dimensions, have thrust and inertia, can range in size from a compact car to larger than the empire state building, and can travel at speed from dead stop to close to 'c' or even beyond.

 

[Aussiegamer]

man that is one cool site

Thanks

 

[Aussiegamer]

3d gives me a head ache and takes too long to move around, so I will be sticking with 2d

The actual size mean nothing, as you just allow unlimited ships into one square, they just have to make a pilot check if they are actively avioding (thus not shooting that round) then tey don't have to.

 

[Ranger REG]

what rule where?

and that's my point OK you have a negative AC target, means you can hit it from futher away or with some special move that reduces the to hit etc. The final AC to the tohit is the only real factor that needs to be looked at.

And if there is a rule then d20F is not using it already.

SRD D&D3.5

don't see any mention of min 1 roll only a d20 roll added to the to hit v AC.

SRD d20 modern

says the same.

SRD 3.5e, CombatI section

Automatic Misses and Hits: A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on an attack roll is always a miss. A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a hit. A natural 20 is also a threat—a possible critical hit.

MSRD, msrdcombat section

A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on the attack roll is always a miss. A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a hit. A natural 20 is also always a threat—a possible critical hit.

Size alone, you can't have more than -8 penalty for both melee and ranged attack. You can apply other penalties that can bring Defense down to the negative, but not size because it applies to both ranged and melee attacks. I know it sucks for the Ultralight ships, but it would suck even more for the Superheavy if you include greater size penalty. You would have to put your most experienced pilot on Superheavy in order to compensate for the tremendous penalty, at least to bring the ship's Defense at least 3. If I were to base your logic on Star Trek even I wouldn't let "hotshot" Ensigh Tom Paris fly USS Voyager.

 

[Aussiegamer]

Ok we are talking about two seperate things, yes you can not "roll" on a d20 less than 1, why becuase the dice only has a 1.

But there is absolutely no reason that the target AC can not be negative, already in d20f, or the firers to hit can not be negative as well, already in d20f.

The d20 is used to breach the AC from what ever level the to hit is, thats all.

OK again looking at ONLY size you right now can only drop to 2. but why limit it? no reason. why not be able to drop it to say -24.

It is the base to which all other factors are added to or subtracted from.

The same with the to hit. Right now size mod drops it from 10 to 2. But then you can add BAB, feats, range factors.

Well there a point as well, range factors they go to -20 right now as well.

So if you are at max range you START with a -20 to hit, then add all sorts of other factors, but you could still end up negative. BUT with a nat 20 you can still hit.so...????

Are you going to change range factors mods as well? well no, as you already accept it in the game.

So this is just the opposite for AC and pretty much the same as To hit for size mods.

I have looked at the size mod for pilot and I think that it double dips, as it is also applied to the overall AC as well.

I am removing pilot mod for size out of the factoring for combat, but it will stay in for non combat like docking etc.

I still need to work on that. But I am sure I will come up with a good solution eventually.

 

[Xorial]

I havent seen the rules for the FTL speeds, but I think there is a misconception about how fast Star Trek Warp drives are. Compared to most SiFi settings, it is incredibly slow. When you compare the travel times from that setting with say, Star Wars, you find that Warp drives are lagging. Star Wars drives would be about the same speed as transwarp.

 

[Ranger REG]

I havent seen the rules for the FTL speeds, but I think there is a misconception about how fast Star Trek Warp drives are. Compared to most SiFi settings, it is incredibly slow. When you compare the travel times from that setting with say, Star Wars, you find that Warp drives are lagging. Star Wars drives would be about the same speed as transwarp.

You want to cite your sources, please?

 

[FoolishFrost]

You want to cite your sources, please?

I'll vouch for this: The map of the starwars setting is of an entire GALAXY...

And you can get from one end to the other like crossing a continent.

Pretty fast system if you ask me...

 

[tjoneslo]

You want to cite your sources, please?

The original Star Trek Technical Manual stated that Warp factors were n^3 times the speed of light. That is warp 1 was the speed of light, warp 2 was 2^3 or 8 times the speed of light, warp 10 was 1,000 times the speed of light.

The Star Trek Next Generation Technical Manual redefined warp speed to be n^5 times the speed of light. Supposedly because of the new engines. So warp 2 now becomes 32 times the speed of light, and warp 10 becomes 100,000 times the speed of light.

Crossing a light-year takes 1 year at warp 1. It takes 45 days at Warp 2 (old) or 11 days (new). To the nearest star is 189 days (old) or 48 days (new). At warp 10 one light year is about 9 hours, (old) or about 5 minutes (new).

The Traveller 1 week jump drive runs about warp 3-4 (old) depending upon distance, and the stutterwarp is about the same. I've never seen any star trek technical manual make the mistake of giving an acutal speed of travel through hyper-space.

 

[Chaldfont]

Much of this discussion hinges on what your campaign is all about. Are your PCs all fighter/mecha pilots (so there'll be tons of starship battles) or are they crew on an explorer/smuggler/merchant ship (there will be some space battles) or are they just travelling on a ship and get caught up in a battle (space battles happen rarely).

If all you want to do is have detailed, tactical space battles, you should just replace the d20F rules with Star Fleet Battles, or the space battle rules from Spacemaster (I forget the name, but they were very good--and in three dimensions).

If you want occasional, exciting, small scale battles, use Traveller or Star Wars d20 (the original rules--I also liked those much better than the more wargame oriented revised rules) or even modified d20F. Rule Zero comes in very handy for outliers (like Death Star scale ships). I think this was the original intent for d20F starship rules.

Otherwise just Rule Zero the whole fight if your battle is just one element in a much larger story.

I would have almost preferred that they leave the starship battle rules out of d20F to make room for other, more character scale rules like more equipment or more alien stats. How can you make a generic space battle system that models well the widely disparate settings of SciFI? There are so many different types. I might want one campaign with fast and furious fighter battles ala Star Wars but in another campaign play hard sci-fi sublight ship battles like cold war era nuclear submarine chess matches.