Starfinder Mecha Rules for Starfinder?

[gamerprinter]

So I see several 3PP including Fat Goblin Games working on or is publishing Mecha rules for Starfinder - the ones that I've seen (haven't seen them all) are basing the design off the Vehicle rules which make sense. But in my thinking the Starship building rules works perfect (too a degree). You'd nix the thrusters replacing it with alternate mech capable Jump Jets, and you'd nix both Expansion Bays and Drift Engine, but everything else applies. Create a set of mecha size categories - maybe even using humanoid/monster sizes but minimum of Large to Colossal, or have some other alternate scale between ship and humanoid scale. You'd need to create Mecha frames for various tonnage (size) of Mechs. Power Core, systems, weapons would be the same as starships. I even see a preference in using the Starship Tactical rules for combat and movement - using hexes, facing, but reduce the scale of the Hex to say 25 feet diameter. If you want hand-to-hand Mecha fighting, just adapt the normal PC combat rules. For jump jets I'd include a critical fail of damaging yourself on failed piloting checks, and like BattleTech have rules for movement through water - the deeper it is the need for piloting checks to cross it, and trying to negotiate an icefield on a frozen world.

You'd adapt the actions like Charge, Overrun, Trample for it, and you might need some special feats for maximizing Mecha combat and movement, etc.

While the Vehicle rules seem the more obvious choice, reading both Starships and Vehicles - the Starship build rules to me, makes more sense, and is easier to pickup the alternate rules.

Thoughts?

 

[gamerprinter]

While I appreciate the XP, I'm starting to think that there's a lot of custom rules, besides Mecha, that I'll be putting into my homegame and eventually publishing.

For example, as I was trying to learn the Starship Building rules, I saw the lack of a cloaking device, and needed that for two ships I wanted to build (and built one so far). Here's my Cloaking Shield rules, though I got help from AskaPathfinder (an Australian PF/SF blogger) on the mechanics.

Cloaking Shield
BP = Shield BP cost + 10
PCU = Shield PC multiplied by the size of the ship (Tiny = 1, Small = 2, Medium = 3, Large = 4 and so on)

Effect = So long as the shield is at maximum capacity the starship can activate a cloaking shield which lasts for a number of hours equal to the tier of the ship. While cloaked it increases any DC to locate the starship by +20.

In addition the cloaking shield provides a 50% miss chance against attacks made with either Direct Fire or Targeting weapon (an additional 50% BP and PCU cost will defend against both) made against that shield.

Should the total SP of the starship drop by 25% the ship becomes partially hidden increasing the DCs by +10 and only providing a 25% miss chance.

If the total SP of the starship drops below 50% or if any of the shield arcs goes down completely then the cloaking shield is inactive and will regenerate as the shield would.

Note: because under the description of laser weapons in Starfinder, if targets are invisible, lasers can't target them - by Starfinder's logic since lasers are light emitting based weapons, since light passes through invisible targets - they can't get hit.

 

[Gfreak2x9]

I love the idea of Mechs in Starfinder! In fact I am trying to home brew my own rules for them as we speak, but I am struggling to do so! I really want to implicate something similar to the APUs from the Matrix. These would be small, one man units equipped with one heavy weapon at the end of each arm! I was thinking weapons like a Heavy Machine Gun in one arm and a Large Fangblade in the other. I don't want to replicate the APU's design exactly because I feel that the design is flawed! APU stands for Armored Personal Unit to which I respond with "What armor? The pilot is totally exposed!" I know that we aren't quite talking about the same thing but I agree with you! I hope rules for mechs come out soon, I feel the world wouldn't be complete without them. Here is a picture of the APUs from the Matrix for reference if anyone could point me in the right direction for a home brew!

 

[gamerprinter]

Well if you base it off Starfinder starship building rules, you can build mech frames (like ship frames) to cover various size and type of Mechs. So a power assisted frame unarmored as the smallest frame makes sense. Larger frames get armor, but all get weapon mounts, mech engines instead of thrusters for walking, fighting, wielding weapons, with available jump jets. Like starships they get computer, security, sensors, need a power core, weapons, shields. No need for expansion bays, crew quarters, maybe a bathroom, bridge and gunnery positions - so a mech could have a crew not just a pilot. Of course the small frames like the Matrix Mechs only has a pilot.

 

[Andor]

While the Starship building rules are a sensible format for mecha construction rules (also look at the classic battletech), my intuition is that the vehicle rules are probably the right section of the rules to run them under.

Although really it depends on what sort of mechs we're talking about. The lowest end of the mecha spectrum (including your APUs GFreak) already exist in the rules as powered armour. This is sufficient to cover the APU/Bubblegum Crisis/Starship Troopers level of personal armour sized mech. Something like the Tachikoma from Ghost in the Shell are also covered by the existing Drone rules.

Larger mechs in the 10-20 foot range (Covering the Large and Huge size categories in the person/vehicle scale) probably still belong in the vehicle scale of operations. They should be vulnerable to human scale weapons, so this seem about right. If we care about the cube-square law level of realism then this is where mechs should really top out. This aligns roughly to AT-STs/Locust mechs.

Growing past 20' we leave the realm of plausible physics, but hell this is a science fantasy game anyway. At this point shifting into the Starship scale may be appropriate. Conveniently enough the "Tiny" Starship category starts at 20' so sure, let's run with that.

From here you have to look at what fiction you want to represent in your games. Battletech gritty mech combat? Pacific Rim Kaiju punching action? Warhammer 40K city killers? Robotech/Transformers shape-shifting Mechs?

I'd probably set up my own scale for mechs that overlapped the personal vehicle scale on the lower end and up into the starship scale on the upper end. I can't imagine mechs needing to go past medium or at most large on the starship scale however.

 

[gamerprinter]

Where it came up for me. Not the current project which we're wrapping up the last one-shot and insuring all the checks fit to Starfinder, but the next one involves a garbage-prison world, where the warden and his staff observe the inmate population from orbiting space stations, drones and fighter-interceptors when the inmates are overstepping their bounds. They are not allowed to repair or build starships in order to escape - the station weapons and fighters prevent that, and cannot build the kind of weaponry that could pose a threat to the stations otherwise they are free to do what they want. Periodically new prisoners are dropped via prison barge with basic supplies, but prisoners are on their own. Monthly food and medicine drops are done, but the prisoners live on their own. Overlapping ranges of hover bike "motorcycle gangs" rule the planet constantly warring with each other. They've begun to build make-shift battle Mechs from scrap from the starship graveyards and battle each other - allowed technology by the warden stations. This is the setting of a set of one-shots that culminate in rescue attempt of a scientist hidden on this prison world.

 

[Jester David]

Honestly, I assumed most of the larger sets of heavy armour were pretty much mechs.

Making separate ridable mechs would be super tricky.
Either they have to be in line with other armour (at which point you could just reflavour that armour) or they have to have drawbacks equal to the benefits or the pilot would be overpowered compared to other characters. Or you just have to assume everyone is piloting mechs...
Or do a Voltron thing where everyone piles into the one large mech and Jaeger pilots it as a team.

 

[gamerprinter]

I assume those who want Mechs in the Starfinder game, would be playing a Mechs instead of starships. Now me, I'd rather spend my character level build points to a starship, but on the Starfinder FB community there seems to be many who aren't interested in flying starships - having an alternative in the form of Mechs is an option they might prefer.

It's not fair to compare a Mech to a power armored soldier, they're apples and oranges. Since I'm planning on using the Starship rules - no party would want a one-on-one face off with a starship, if they're armored infantry with hand-held weapons. Fighting a Mech would be equivalent to doing that. Mechs are meant to fight against armored vehicles or other Mechs, not individuals wearing armor. Besides on the larger Mechs I see more than a pilot inside, rather a full crew of pilot, gunners, engineers like a starship.

 

[Jester David]

It depends on the type of mech. If we're talking a Aliens loader, something the size of a Marvel comics sentinel or Optimus Prime, a Macross/Robotech VF-1 Valkyrie, Gundum, Voltron, or a Jaeger.
I can imagine a Robotech veritech fighter being more of a vehicle than a starship, and able to be damaged by PC scale attacks. It's probably Huge at best.

Of course... looking at starship scales, a Sentinel would be Tiny, and Voltron & Gipsy Danger would be Medium. Pretty much every Mechwarrior mech would be Tiny... So it's doable, but there won't be a lot of size differences. But you could pretty easily get the experience of having a Medium Voltron ship fighting a massive Galra Empire battleship.

 

[gamerprinter]

BattleTech type Mechs, the 100 tonners, like the 4-legged ones I'd see as comparable to an Imperial Walker from Star Wars. Sure a lot of smaller Mechs would be closer to an Aliens loader. If I use the Starfinder Starship rules, I'd create an alternate set of scales, like starship being different to humanoid scales, so Mech scales being somewhere between humanoid and starship scale. Or only allowing Tiny, Medium and Large, maybe Huge starship scale, nothing bigger though.