Using 4E D&D for a sci-fi campaign. Ideas?

[deadsmurf]

I think the DUNE explanation for the lack of lasers/energy weapons is a good one. Personal Energy shields have become so ubiquitous that they are no longer usable, because you never know who is wearing one, and if they interact there is an atomic sized eplosion (or larger) killing both sides. The idea of a spacing guild both in and out of your imperium (or whatever you were going to call it) is probably a good idea. Skips over the boring interplanetary travel parts (unless some important happens when you're traveling) and explains why ships haven't just strapped on lasers and blown up the enemy cities from space, avoiding the giant explosions.
It worked for Herbert's pseudo medieval setting, it can work for yours too!

Just make two levels of personal energy shielding - light and heavy, those correspond to leather and hide. Now the shielding wouldn't be perfect, projectiles coming in at the angles or right velocities, and blades for that matter, can still penetrate. Then you have a Kevlar-like body-armour (chain) and the two combination armors (Kevlar with energy shields built in, scale and plate) The rogue and ranger schools/styles especially train themselves in the way to penetrate enemy shields and armour, though the ancient automatic and semi-automatic weaponry is too inaccurate for this, so they generally have switched to bolt action rifles and pistols, which they can more fully control.

 

[pawsplay]

I'm thinking, don't piegonehole things. Just because D&D 4e doesn't have a ranged fighter doesn't mean you could not create a blaster-oriented build. As far as clerics, do they ALL worship the Creator? No evil clerics, no odd clerics on out of the way planets?

 

[Cyronax]

A lot of these ideas sound great, IMO. The DUNE Spacing Guild route, along with a reasonable method of having the PCs sometimes contribute to the success of a ship making its way safely through a challenge are necessary.

I also think you have a few premade official tools to use for inspiration. First, look to the Adventurer's Vault for the vehicle rules. Airships, the apparatus of kwalish, and the ornithopter are all example of barebones starships that you could use.

Graft on to these rules the concept of a 'navigational focus,' from the Manual of the Planes, and you really just found rules for starship combat and FTL travel. FTL travel can be accomplished using the equivalent of a Spelljammer + the Plane Shift ritual. All that puts the ability to control such travel in the Paragon tier, which gives the PCs a bit of time to play in the world before they become commanders of a starship in your setting.

C.I.D.

 

[Halivar]

I'm thinking, don't piegonehole things. Just because D&D 4e doesn't have a ranged fighter doesn't mean you could not create a blaster-oriented build. As far as clerics, do they ALL worship the Creator? No evil clerics, no odd clerics on out of the way planets?

Both of those points are completely valid. I have no intention of doing that much pigeon-holing. Thanks!

 

[Hawke]

I wonder how much damage would be done by reflavoring some of the fighter powers by simply making them ranged? The mark & combat challenge would have to be tweaked a bit... but the idea being they're doing "suppression fire" and if the marked individual took their eyes off that fire it'd suddenly become damaging.

I really like your ideas, though honestly I'm mostly interested in some fast & dirty crunch changes. If you continue with this as a project with a "released" set of ideas, I'd highly suggest you keep the mechanical changes as a separate part as much as possible with the fluff stuff (which is good, don't misunderstand me) elsewhere to make for easier porting to homebrew settings.

If you do a class-based ship game, I think it could be REALLY fun. I'd also take advantage of some of the power-styles in Martial Combat that give powers extra abilities when people have certain skills. Have it setup pretty basically and maybe only key one ability modifier/level to all the powers ships have to make it easy to swap into/out of characters. I'd also suggest keeping the # of powers lower, but use the recharge mechanic to keep the encounter powers in combat. You could eventually setup a whole system where you get to pick X amount of powers per class but only one of a given type (1 utility, 1 at-will, 1 daily (wmd type weapon?), 1 encounter) and swap in/out from the set list. So you might choose a cloaking daily utility or you might choose a raipidshift-encounter but you wouldn't choose both.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I have been running through some similar thought processes to these myself, though to a different end. You see, I have been doing a bit of a work on a way to use 4E rules to run an anime-style sci-fi mecha campaign. I am intending to make far more significant changes to the game than you seem to desire, and our goals are notably different, but there is some overlap.

For one thing, I suggest using the Repeating Crossbow from the Adventurer's Vault as the basis for firearms, rather than normal crossbows and bows. At the very least, using its magazine-based loading system rather than the ammo loading system used by the PHB ranged weapons is a bit closer to how people expect a gun to work.

Zero-G (non-spaceship) combat seems pretty easy to do in 4E, with just a few modifications to the basic Aerial Combat rules from the DMG. Actually, since the Remaining in the Air and Altitude Limit rules are unnecessary for describing Zero-G movement, it may be even easier than 4E's aerial combat. The Hover and Clumsy distinctions still apply very well, and the Crashing rules work great if you merely change the "fall to the ground" reference to "fly out of control in a random direction".

Another thing I like about 4E rules for a sci-fi setting is that so many random things that were hard to make rules for in older editions of the game can simply be described as Implements. You want to make a character class built around nanotechnology? Nanotech Implement. You want to make a class that can use electronic warfare and ECM? ECM Implement. You want a character that can hack into a rampaging robot in the middle of a fight? Hacking Implement.

 

[Kaodi]

I guess it was inevitable that I was not the only one who would think of how the 4e system could be made to work for mecha games. While I did not do a ton on thinking on it though, the only thing that really came to mind was that I would probably allow powers to be changed out during any refit or resupply, as they could often be described as special weapons instead of special powers.

Actually, I would perhaps ditch the class system for a mech system, and let people just use whatever non-mech powers they wanted.

Especially if you were making starship classes, I do not think there would be much point in using all eight classes. I think I would go with Fighter, Ranger, Warlord and Wizard. Though personally, I would probably use custom ship classes based on roles. The Will Defense would not be used for attack effects that actually caused damage, of course, but for status effects perhaps.

 

[Halivar]

I guess it was inevitable that I was not the only one who would think of how the 4e system could be made to work for mecha games. While I did not do a ton on thinking on it though, the only thing that really came to mind was that I would probably allow powers to be changed out during any refit or resupply, as they could often be described as special weapons instead of special powers.

Or do what vehicles in AV do: they have their powers, but they use your character's stats for things like to-hit and such. I imagine ships could work the same way.

 

[Cardboard Carnage]

Back in High School (AD&D Days) we did a short campaign (lasted a few months) where we had some sci-fi characters who went to the D&D world in a starship (think Star Trek) and the beamed down but were stranded there... We came up with stats for phaser pistols, and gave characters a hand held communicator device, but otherwise kept AD&D rules the same, so it was mostly the flavor... What we did, was started all of the characters at level 3 or 4 (it was low, but not 1st or 2nd level), and basically said that after spending some time on the D&D world, they had learned they had a talent for a certain class... for instance, the security officer became a fighter, the science officer became a mage (experimenting with magic), the doctor became a cleric, etc, etc...

Basically we just took the game and gave it a little fluff background and we were set to go.

I bet this would work even better with 4e because the system is so easy and streamlined...

Please post an update on his this does for you!

D.

 

[Kaodi]

" Races " could also be used to define different construction priorities for ships.

For instance: Tough, Agile, Workhorse and Flexible.