True20 for Sci-fi games

Salcor

First Post
I was wondering if there is anyone out there that uses True20 for their science fiction games. How is it at modeling cybernetics, starship combat, mecha/vehicle combat, advanced weapons, and powered armor? How do you model the advanced and prestige classes in this system? It seems like the damage system is similar to shadowrun (which I have played a lot of over the years.) Does it work better for science fantasy systems? How does it work fro Hard Scifi?


Salcor
 

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Depending upon how you want your mechanics to work and feel, True20 can very easily and elegantly do Sci-Fi with no effort at all, or it can be a rampaging siberian bear that never goes where you want it to.

If you want separate, distinct mechanics for each of those areas then you'll be disappointed. You'll need a couple of different supplements to get even halfway there, and you'll have to invent the rest.

On the other hand, if you're willing to reuse a number of mechanics then you'll quickly find yourself done with only a little bit of work and most of that being flavor text.

Advanced Weapons: given that laser weapons are already in the system, this requires almost no effort at all. There are enough listed weapons of enough different types and power levels that you can quickly get a feel for where your favorite super-gun should fit in. Powerful as a modern tank cannon? Ten damage. Powerful as a tomahawk cruise missile? Fifteen damage. Easy.

Advanced and Prestige classes: Feats. There are only three roles (and roles are different than classes, though it's difficult to see how initially) but the abilities of the character are defined by their feat choices. Anything that can't already be produced by the existing True20 rules (and there isn't much) can generally be distilled into a feat or maybe even a few feats that define the prestige class; decided on appropriate prerequisites and you're done.

Starship and Mecha/vehicle combat: Depends. I like to think that I've built a great system for starship and vehicular combat (thanks for the pimping, Dragon-Slayer) but I'm a bit biased. Alternatively, you can run them just like a character combat and you shouldn't have much trouble. Finally, you can invent your own method if you don't like any of the other options available. It's not too difficult once you have a basic idea of how you want things to work.
Battle-suit mechs (even the ones from Battletech) would work just like character combat. Use the mech's combat modifiers (including Toughness) instead of the pilot's for most things. Heck, you can even use both at the same time (poor humans are gonna die).

Flexibility: The system will run just about anything, from dreamscapes shaped by whim* to the most historically accurate adventure you've ever wanted to run; and it will do most of this as well or better than any other system you can find. It will do the science fantasy of Star Wars or the hard science fiction of [... mind blanking for examples].

Cybernetics: This is where a desire for distinct mechanics will become a serious problem. If you want separate mechanics for cybernetics then I would recommend looking into True20 Cybernetics (which can be purchased here) or poking through the True20 forums looking for cybernetics systems (which you can start doing here).
Personally, if I didn't just want to use cybernetics as replacements for lost body parts (which is what early cybernetics are always for), then I'd probably want them to provide benefits similar to some of the True20 powers. In that case I'd just write up a simple feat that let you acquire a cybernetic component that gave you the benefit of a power at a certain rank; cyber-adept (the Adept role) would allow you to push these components beyond their design limits, allowing you to use your adept rank or the implant's rank, whichever was higher.

Damage: The damage system is both like and unlike the latest edition of Shadowrun. There are separate tracks for lethal and non-lethal damage; non-lethal can potentially wrap around into lethal damage; lethal damage always inflicts the equivalent non-lethal condition in addition to it's lethal component. There is a bit of a death-spiral effect, where past damage makes future damage more likely and characters can easily be stuck in a loop of inactivity (unless they spend their heroic resource to act anyway). However, there is no survivability limit: a character can (theoretically) take an infinite number of tank shells, or go down to a single swipe by a house cat; it's all a matter of luck, toughness and whether or not the character has any heroic resources (Conviction) left to spend.

Overall: True20 can do what you want, and do it well and easily. I'd recommend picking up the hardcover, despite the lack of an updated printing. It comes with four example settings in the back, two of which are sci-fi (Japanese mecha and operatic science fiction), that make it worthwhile to put up with the flaws.

Good Luck!

*Sorry for the link, but I had trouble finding a simple summary of Nevermore that didn't require money to read. A free pdf product was the best I could do. My apologies for a probable violation of forum policy and general rudeness.
 

Ok, next question. How does True 20 do things like automatic weapons fire, and blast radius? I am thinking about True 20 because of the complete lack of support by Wizards for D20 Modern. How hard is it to convert a campaign setting? I am a really big into Dawning Star at the moment, has anyone made a True 20 conversion for this world? Are psionics handled well in True 20?

Salcor
 

Autofire: Any weapon capable of automatic fire can be used on that setting without penalty. You have two options, either attack multiple squares (with a -1 to the attack per total squares attacked) or attack a single target. The limit on squares that can be attacked is the total attack bonus
True20 Adventure Roleplaying said:
Choose a line of 5-foot squares no greater in number than your attack bonus. You may make attack rolls to hit targets, one target at a time, starting at one end of the line and continuing to the other end. You suffer a penalty to each of your attack rolls equal to the total number of squares. If you miss one target, you may still attempt to hit the others.
If you attack a single target then you deal additional damage equal to half of the number by which you beat the target's defense. So an assault rifle (five damage) can be used to shoot a target; if you defeat his defense by ten then you deal an additional five damage for a total of ten damage: your dozen bullets hit him as hard as a tank cannon. However, if the base damage would be ineffective then the attack is ineffective no matter how much extra damage you deal.
The major downside is that there are no hard guidelines on how much ammunition is used per burst, so that's something Narrators need to think about.
There are also rules for covering and suppressing fire. Good stuff.

Areas: Blast areas are equal to a ten foot radius times the damage of the attack. So a basic frag grenade (five damage) has a fifty foot burst. Area attacks allow a reflex save for half damage (save DC is 10 + base damage). So that frag grenade has a DC 15 save. Area attacks automatically hit the target area as long as it is within range of the attacker and within line of sight. Only two rolls are made, saving throws (Reflex and Toughness).
As a house rule used by some, the damage drops by 1 per ten feat out from the radius. So two characters being attacked by a grenade need to know how far they are from it; if one is ten feet away from the explosion then he'll take 5 damage, while the second (who is 30 feet away) will only take 3 damage (-1 for being more than 10 feet, -1 for being more than 20 feet), and both can make reflex saves for half damage.

Psionics: The powers system is very generic, working well for both psychic powers and for magic, as well as for super-science. Mechanically, the system is actually more evocative of psionics than anything else. Just going through and banning inappropriate powers should get 90% of the work done for you.
For some excellent options for super-science and gadget creation, take a look at the True20 Companion.

As of January 2007, no one on the True20 forums had converted Dawning Star to True20. I'm not familiar with the settting but it actually shouldn't be too difficult. Most settings are a collection of flavor text with occaisional chunks of rules inserted. Converting those chunks over to True20 shouldn't be too difficult, especially given its d20 Modern base.
Creating a selection of Backgrounds will easily reflect most of the starting occupation and species options, equipment should be easily converted (especially as generic sci-fi weapons and spacecraft are already in the main book), and most of the base Modern and Future feats and talents are already available in True20. Converting the Dawning Star specific ones (that actually need to be converted, it's surprising how many feats and talents can be ignored or dropped because they would be repeating something that everyone can already do or that another feat already does) should be an easy process.

I hope that was helpful. Anything else?
 
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Hi, Sean. (One of our biggest DS supporters btw.)

Unfortunately, I can't report anything specific right now about our upcoming plans for DS, but I can say that we are working on something huge that might just make you smile. Thanks for your help, Valhalla. Clearly you're a big True20 supporter, and I'd say you've nailed alot of things about the conversion process in general.

To our DS fans: Sit tight. I know it seems like we've been laying low for a little while, but that's only because we're plotting and planning and putting those plans into motion. It is a potentially huge new direction for DS that would make the vaasi weep at its sheer audacity. :D
 

Justin D. Jacobson said:
Thanks for your help, Valhalla. Clearly you're a big True20 supporter, and I'd say you've nailed alot of things about the conversion process in general.
You're welcome, and thank you for the compliment.

[rampant speculation] So you're doing True20 Dawning Star!? Cool. Helping here reminded me that there was a cool sci-fi product coming out just as I was giving up on Modern. I'm tempted by the holiday sale but if you're doing a True20 version then I'll just wait for that to buy a copy. I'd have ended up running it with True20 anyway, so it will be nice to have all the work done for me already. [/rampant speculation]

If I'm terribly wrong then feel free to slap me down.

Edit: I've adjusted the above posts since I'm now near my books.
 
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Hmm, it would be interesting if they were doing a True20 version of dawning star, but I am sure Justin has tons of secret projects they are working on. It just seems that D20 Modern is seriously dying out, even Thrilling Tales is starting to dual stat their products, and there haven't been a whole lot of D20 Modern products released on RPGNow since 4E was announced. I am sure whatever Justin and the guys at Blue Devil games do, it will be great.

Salcor
 


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