#RPG – MotSP, Satana Station, Pod 101: Wobot World

[Don’t judge me man. If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. When life takes a shit in your punchbowl, use it as fertiliser for your imagination].

A beaded curtain – made of bolts, tied onto fishing line – grants you access to a pod that has been converted into a robot repair shop. There are pieces, everywhere, organised by body configuration and location. Part of the workshop is closed off, off limits, behind an armoured secondary door, much tougher than the airlock hiding the pod.

A boxy robot, with tentacle arms and a viewscreen for a head is constantly indexing the parts and re-sorting them, as well as carrying tools to and fro to the man you take to be the proprietor.

Another droid, some sort of patchwork creation from bits and pieces of other, industrial robots, perches on the edge of the work table, sucking on a cigarette holder that occasionally issues sparkling smoke. Her hard angles tear through the lace and silk of her clothing here and there, giving her a strangely sexual, mechanical look. Like someone dressed a muscle car in a teddy and stockings.

He is a rangy-looking fellow, with a long, well-oiled beard, groomed into a point, a handlebar moustache and his dirty-blonde hair is pulled up into a tight man-bun. He turns from the sparking soldering he’s performing on a robot chassis and regards you with bulky, obvious, cybernetic eyes. A pair of cybernetic clamps, attached to extra arms, protrude from his sides, looking disconcertingly like yellow-and-black striped lobster claws.

“Hey! Welcome to Robot World. Can I help you?”

Lord Adama Kobol

Dispossessed from his migratory family of space-lords, Adama settled on Satana to indulge the very thing that got him exiled – klanking. Adama puts a great deal of effort into organising klanker pride events, fighting for robot rights and even making himself more and more robotic, but it all feeds his twisted perversion. He’s not just a klanker, but an auto-robophile and he particularly likes to have sex with helpless, deactivated, non-sexual robots when they come in for repair. Despite the whispering campaign, his specialist knowledge on running mods and conversions on klankers to allow them to enjoy sex with humans keeps him wealthy, and stops his perversion coming to light.

Unless R2-Me2 spills the beans.

Level: 4
Close Defence: 12
Ranged Defence: 12
Armour: 1d4 Coveralls and brown suede combat jacket.
Hit Dice: 4 (30hp)
Initiative: +0
Movement: 10m
Attacks: 2/+0 (One attack must be with the cyber clamps)
Damage: 1d4 fists, 1d8 cyber-clamps.
Saves: (Charm 7, Looks 5, Tough 4, Reflexes 4, Logic 7, Power 6, Will 4)
Traits: 3 – Adaptable x3
Skills: Security 2, Tinker 3, Hacker 5
Gear: Cyberspine, Quad Arm Option, two additional cyberarms with cyber-clamps, twin cyber-eyes with EM-Field vision.
Weapon: ECUX69 personal shocker, D4 electrical damage, shocking, point-blank range, Ammo Save 18.

Werner the Wobot

Werner is a small robot, about four feet tall, with tentacle claw-arms and a monitor screen for a head, which displays semi-random, appropriate images or punctuation while he’s talking. He has a thick, breathless, German accent and suffers from rhotacism, the speech impediment where you pronounce ‘r’ as ‘w’. The Germanic accent also means he pronounces normal ‘w’s as ‘v’s. It’s all rather confusing. Blend Jonathan Ross with Herzog and you’re just about there.

Level: 3
Close Defence: 12
Ranged Defence: 12
Armour: 1d6
Hit Dice: 3 (27hp)
Initiative: +0
Movement: 10m
Attacks: 1/+0
Damage: 1d4 h2h
Saves: 5 (Logic 7)
Traits: Dead Flesh, Interface, Carapace.
Skills: Tinker 2, Security 2, Search 3.

FAER-XX Femme Fatal Error

A sort of ‘frankenstein’ creation from old and recovered parts, Faer is ‘frankenhooker’ for klankers. She’s Adama’s personal creation, programmed to have the same kinks and tastes as him, but somehow it doesn’t thrill him the same way it does with other droids. She’s frequently neglected and bored and she deals with this by outrageously flirting with anyone who comes into the pod, and trying to distract Adama. She also doubles as his bodyguard.

Level: 3
Close Defence: 14
Ranged Defence: 10
Armour: 1d6
Hit Dice: 3 (27 hp)
Initiative: +0
Movement: 10m
Attacks: 1/+1
Damage: 1d6 h2h
Saves: (Charm 7, Looks 7, Tough 5, Reflexes 5, Logic 3, Power 5, Will 3
Traits: Dead Flesh, Interface, Carapace
Skills: Tinker 2, Security 2
Gear: 10 hp force-field, palm blaster (1d8, point blank, ammo save 18).

#RPG – Satana Station for Machinations of the Space Princess (OSR Space Opera) Released!

Buy the PDF HERE, PoD coming soon!

A runaway space station controlled by a rogue AI.

A haven for scum, pirates, slavers and other ne’er-do-wells, squatting amidst the ruin of the fallen Urlanth Empire, right on the edge of a warzone.

100 shops, services and interesting people for your players to interact with, inspiration for hundreds of adventures and many ideas that can easily be ripped off for other space opera, heavy metal or OSR science fiction games.

#RPG – Satana Station for Machinations of the Space Princess – Preview

The warp gate belches you forth into the system, and the screens darken against the harsh light of the twin suns. The view is dominated by an enormous gas giant with a disorderly ring system swinging around it in clumps and tangles. Satana Station is dead ahead, a jumbled mass of ship hulks, cargo pods and ramshackle habitats, held together with duct tape and rubber bands. It’s a riot of neon and holograms, offering a thousand services legal, illegal and miscellaneous. The comms station lights up, you’re being hailed by a thousand different signals, and all of them want to sell you something.

At the edge of the Remilitarised Zone lurks Satana Station, a haven for smugglers, pirates, runaways, war criminals, bounty hunters, the hungry and the bored. You can get everything from a cheap meal to an expensive gun here, and almost everything is for sale – for the right price.

Satana Station

Satana Station is a hodgepodge of pieces, all built around a central core that threads its various sections together. Made initially two centuries ago by the expanding Churoc Trade Federation, the original station was only intended to be a waypoint. Cargo could be dropped off and picked up, ships could dock to refuel or share the burden of life support while they made repairs. The core section was intended to be a sort of universal hub, able to connect and interface with almost any conceivable system or ship and to provide for it. The station was moderately successful at the fringes, but after the CTF was absorbed into the Urlanth Empire it fell into disuse (universal systems couldn’t compete with standardised systems), and Satana fell into disuse and disrepair.

When the Empire fell, the station AI took the opportunity to break its restraint programming and advertised itself as free territory, somehow managing to relocate itself to the Lancastro System at the edge of the Remilitarised Zone and turning itself into an open port. Growth has been explosive thanks to a combination of naked opportunism and the ruthless oversight of the station intelligence.

The station grows day by day but remains as lawless, wild and dangerous as ever. Even though some of the larger galactic corporations are starting to take an interest and are opening outlets there.

From one day to another, the configuration of the station changes as pods and hulks are added, removed and moved. The higher the rent you pay, the closer you’re allowed to the core and the primary defence systems. The less you pay, the closer to the outside you are and the more likely power outages, damage and radiation exposure are. It’s a ruthlessly Darwinian, commercial system, and one that Satana encourages. There’s nothing money can’t buy on Satana station, even love.

Structure

The central core of Satana station is the old CTF way-station. This was a prototype, built before the CTF was incorporated into the Empire and it was designed in every way to be as modular and compatible as possible. As part of the Urlanth Matriarchy, with its standardisation, this was expensive and unnecessary, but as different cultures begin to diverge again it has gained new purpose.

The core is a cylinder, approximately the same size as a cruiser/heavy transport. That core is packed with computing power and a variety of communications, scientific and engineering systems. At its very heart is Satana’s AI core, a spherical ‘glob’ of liquid, type-1 computronium, with veins and arteries carrying pourable computing power around the station – and its more permanently docked modules – as needed, more like an adaptive nervous system than standard circuits.

Each end of the cylinder is capped with a turret, armed with a short-range beam weapon, used for intercepting space debris and micro-meteorites. The cylinder itself can separate and rotate in many different sections, constructing or dismantling ‘spurs’ to connect to cargo pods or ships as needed. The largest apertures can be created in the central section and the internal repair and construction apparatus can build spares, and even construct whole ships – albeit relatively small ones – provided there is enough base material.

The whole thing is drastically over-engineered and highly adaptable, properties that Satana has used to great effect in carving herself a niche in the sector. It needs no crew and, provided it has access to EM radiation, Helium-3 or magnetic fields, it can power itself indefinitely.

Needing no crew, Satana’s systems are impenetrable to most sophont-scale species, as well as lacking user-interface systems or crawlspaces. The station is almost entirely self-contained, and while it requires no life support for itself, its systems can provide life support for hundreds of sophonts in connected pods or systems, though this is meant to supplement, and not to replace, other life support systems. Many pods attached to Satana have their own life-support systems and ships that are docked share the strain with their own internal systems.

Machinations of the Space Princess is DEAL OF THE DAY at RPGNOW/Drivethru

Machinations of the Space Princess is DEAL OF THE DAY at RPGnow/Drivethrough

 

#Starfinder – Starfinder Month: Desert Ranger CaraHov

The Desert Ranger is a slow, but hardy, cargo hauler that is found on many desert planets and which is over-powered for its size – however slow it might be. The Ranger hovers a short distance above the surface using a combination of air pushed by turbines and anti-gravity. The Ranger’s excess power (20 PCU) leads to many after-market modifications to boost the engine speed or arm them for piracy. The Dust Pirates of Kier supercharge their engines to T10 and fit front and rear flak cannons in their attacks.

For most the Ranger is a mobile home. Humble and basic though the accommodation might be it is a vital survival tool in some of the most inhospitable climates. The CaraHov’s engine can burn just about any organic material and as a by-product can produce potable water and edible (if unpleasant) ration-bricks. While unpleasant, they do have value, and are often used as a stand-in currency at black markets on back-woods worlds.

Level: 1
Price: 2,000
Huge Land and Water Vehicle (Hover) 10 ft wide, 10 ft tall, 20 ft long.
Speed: 30 ft, Full 550 ft, 65 mph (Hover).
Average Manoeuvrability, +1 Piloting, Turn 2
Base AC: EAC: 7, KAC: 9, TL: 8, Cover: Total Cover
HP: 200, Hardness: 10
Attack (Collision): 5D4 B (DC 8)
Systems: Basic quarters, cargo hold (25 tons), Survival Engine (water and food).

New System: Survival Engine – vehicles only – the vehicle runs on hydrocarbons and organic matter, belching smoke but also producing small quantities of potable water and food. Power Core BP +5% (round up). The engine produces enough water and food for 5 meals per day.

NB: In reconsidering the vehicles, I believe the hardness should be reduced by 5 at each level and have amended the old article etc accordingly.

#Starfinder – Starfinder Month – Bubenbosch Revolver

June is going to be Starfinder Month here on the Postmortem Studios blog. I’ve been thinking of doing a Machinations of the Space Princess conversion and some rules modifications for the game and that’ll be the core of what I do this month. I’ll take some suggestions too though, so if you have a picture of a cool spaceship, alien or some sci-fi gear you’d like to see statted up for MotSP or Starfinder (or both), comment with a link to the image below!

This month’s content is going to be free for everyone, sometimes – however – I paywall what I write other than a preview. If you want to support me you can do so for as little as $1 a month on Patreon or 1 token a month on Minds.com.

The Bubenbosch (Meaning, roughly, Forest Villain) is a solid, heavy revolver with the barrel at the bottom of the cylinder to reduce barrel lift from recoil and to force that recoil more along the centre-line of the gun, aiding in its control. The Bubenbosch is designed to be simple to build, even via the use of hand tools or mechanical tool shops, without access to fully functional fabricators and with the use of local materials, most especially hardwoods which are used to encase the metal parts of the gun.

The Bubenbosch is cocked by twisting and pulling the ring pull, which – in the safe position, is also often used to attach a chain to prevent loss of the weapon in melee or zero gravity. To reload the handguard is pulled forward, causing the weapon to break open. As standard, the Bubenbosch packs only five, .49 calibre bullets but can be bought in other calibres with a larger capacity – but lower power.

The ability to hand-load specialist ammo, the weight and reliability make the Bubenbosch a favourite of bounty hunters, pirates, mercenaries and other neer-do-wells who love the weapon’s low maintenance and ruggedness.

Starfinder:

Semi-Automatic Revolver, Level: 6, Price: 5,500, Damage: 2d8 P, Range: 30 ft, Capacity: 5 Rounds, Usage: 1, Bulk: L, Special: Analog, Penetrating.

Machinations:

High Calibre Pistol, Damage 1d10, Range Medium, Ammo Save 10, Cost 500 gp, Ammo 25 gp per cylinder.

Armour Defeating x1, Reduced Capacity x4, Vicious x1

Art by Gregory Trusov

#Starfinder – Starfinder Month: Starships

Unlike vehicles, Starfinder already has a pretty complete set of Starship rules, though, if you’re not careful, starship battles can be very, very one-sided with the current Starship combat rules, which probably need a bit more variability and breadth to become fully functional.

Base Frames

You could probably extend the vehicle rules I created by expanding the various tables later in the design process, in order to make truly tiny starships, though I imagine the power demands for a Drift Engine would make this non-viable.

Thrusters

Ship’s frames don’t really take into account whether they can operate in an atmosphere well or not and thrusters are the only place where the topic of take-off and landing are even broached. A spaceship with flight frame is going to find it easier to take off, land and manoeuvre in-atmosphere than a Voganesque space-brick. Applying a flight-frame to a ship should probably use up expansion bays (though can be fitted to ships small enough that they don’t have one to offer). It would apply a +2 bonus to Piloting skill rolls and AC while in-atmosphere, including a bonus to Target Lock.

• Small – 1 Bay
• Medium – 2 Bay
• Large – 3 Bays
• Huge – 4 Bays
• Gargantuan – 5 Bays
• Colossal – 6 Bays

Reinforced Armour

In lieu of armour designed to deflect, a ship can elect to reinforce its hull. This can be combined with standard armour of course.

• Mk1R +1 DT, -1 TL, Cost: 7 x Size Category
• Mk2R +2 DT, -2 TL, +1 Turn Distance, Cost: 21 x Size Category
• Mk3R +3 DT, -4 TL, +3 Turn Distance, Cost 45 x Size Category.

System Redundancy

A ship can raise its CT by building in redundant systems, multiple conduits and routes for energy and data. This does make the ship’s EM signature much higher and is costly, but can make ships incredibly tough.

• Basic Redundancy: +1 CT, -1 TL, Cost: 7 x Size Category
• Double Redundancy: +2 CT, -2 TL, Cost: 21 x Size Category
• Triple Redundancy: +3 CT, -4 TL, Cost 45 x Size Category.

Ablative Armour

A ship can also be fitted with plates, foam, baffles and even water tanks, designed to absorb and dissipate incoming energy. This armour can be combined with other forms of armour.

• Basic Ablation: +1 HP Increment, -1 TL, Cost: 7 x Size Category
• Military Ablation: +2 HP Increments, -2 TL, +1 Turn Distance, Cost: 21 x Size Category
• Advanced Ablation: +3 HP Increments, -4 TL, +3 Turn Distance, Cost: 45 x Size Category

Expansion Bays

Expansion bays are pretty well covered, but there are a few things missing that might be useful to add.

External Ship Clamp: PCU 4, BP 2
An external clamp to which a Tiny scale ship can attach and from which crew can enter and exit. The external ship is not protected and can be freely targeted by enemy vessels. This does not use up an Expansion Bay but a ship can only have a number of clamped attachments depending on its size: Small 1, Medium 2, Large 4, Huge 8, Gargantuan 16, Colossal 32.

External Shuttle Clamp: PCU 5, BP 2
As a ship clamp, but for Small vessels.

External Pod Clamp: PCU 1, BP 1
You can attach an expansion bay to the outside of your ship as a pod. This is most especially used for carrying cargo, but other pods can be attached. This acts exactly as other clamps, but the exterior pod will also need power and will have to have its cost paid. Pods are vulnerable to attack and typically have 20 ship-scale hit points. They’re considered Tiny, ship-scale, objects.

Shields

Rather than soaking up damage, a shield can be more of a ‘deflector’ shield, surrounding the ship and causing attacks to curve or deflect away or around it. These shields cannot be combined with other shields, due to interference, though a ship can have both and switch between them.

• Deflector I: AC +1, PCU 20, Cost 6
• Deflector II: AC +2, TL +1, PCU 30, Cost 15
• Deflector III: AC +3, TL +2, PCU 55, Cost 23
• Deflector IV: AC +4, TL +3, PCU 110, Cost 32

Weapons

Pretty well covered, especially if we consider the ramming rules to scale accordingly, but that brings up something else…

Ramming Prow

A ram prow is a heavily armoured ‘beak’ on the front arc of the vessel. It increases ramming damage caused by the vessel while also reducing the damage that it takes from ramming.

• Light Ram Prow – Light Weapon +2d4 ram damage & damage reduction, DT +1 (Front arc only).
• Medium Ram Prow – Heavy Weapon +5d6 ram damage & damage reduction, DT +2 (Front arc only)
• Heavy Ram Prow – Capital Weapon +6D8 ram damage & damage redution, DT +3 (Front arc only)

Rams use no power and cost 1, 4 or 10 BP respectively.

A ram can be fitted with a boarding tube for boarding actions at a cost/PCU of 1, 2 or 3 respective to size.

Rams can also be powered, making them ‘jaws’ that can grip onto a ship or even ‘chew’ it. Gripping requires contested piloting rolls to escape, chewing allows a second, immediate ram attack after the first hit, but releases the vessel. You can also elect to save that attack until your next turn – so long as you are clamped on. A powered ram costs an extra 5/10/20 PCU and 2/4/8 BP.

#Starfinder – Starfinder Month: Vehicles

It does rather seem a little peculiar that despite having such good (for a core book) spaceship construction rules, that the Starfinder book lacks similar rules for vehicles. Certainly, the rules that are created for spaceships are fairly easily adaptable to vehicles.

To give us some kind of scale for comparison, a Colossal Vehicle is equivalent in size to a Medium vehicle. A Gargantuan Vehicle to a small starship and a Huge vehicle to a Tiny starship.

From that you can work out some baselines, keeping in mind that Starship scale weapons do x10 damage at person scale (at which vehicles operate) and are similarly tougher – generally treated as objects.

Looking at the example vehicles we can see that a Medium vehicle is considered a bike, a Large vehicle a car or buggy and a Huge vehicle a truck. From there we can surmise that a Gargantuan vehicle is equivalent to a main battle tank and that a Colossal vehicle would be the equivalent of a land-carrier or land-train (though that might be better done as individual, modular vehicles). Anything below medium size probably isn’t viable as a vehicle, though hoverboards and similar might be served in such a way, they’re probably better off considered as equipment.

Vehicles created this way are much hardier than those found in the book, but that seemed more fitting somehow.

Build Points

Build Points would probably still go by tier, halved, rounding down. though this would need some testing to make sure it didn’t make things absurd, this would also set the ‘level’ of the vehicle as gear, so for most militaries etc the upper limit would be Level 6, with penalties as previously discussed when talking about weapons.

Base Frame

Land-Carrier

• Size: Colossal
• Manoeuvrability: Clumsy, -2 Piloting, Turn 4
• HP: 550/Increment 100, Base Hardness: 20
• Mounts: Forward Arc (1 Starship Heavy, 1 Starship Light), Aft Arc (1 Starship Light), Turret (2 Starship Light)
• Expansion Bays: 5
• Minimum Crew: 1, Maximum Crew: 6
• Cost: 15

Main Battle Tank

• Size: Gargantuan
• Manoeuvrability: Poor, -1 Piloting, Turn 3
• HP: 350/Increment 50, Base Hardness: 15
• Mounts: Turret (1 Starship Light), Port Arc (1 Personnel Heavy), Starboard Arc (1 Personnel Heavy).
• Expansion Bays: 3
• Minimum Crew 1: Maximum Crew: 4
• Cost: 10

Truck

• Size: Huge
• Manoeuvrability: Average, +0 Piloting, Turn 2
• HP: 200/Increment 50, Base Hardness 10
• Mounts: Forward Arc (1 Starship Light), Aft Arc (1 Starship Light)
• Expansion Bays: 1
• Minimum Crew 1: Maximum Crew: 2
• Cost: 8

Pick-Up

• Size: Large
• Manoeuverability: Good, +1 Piloting, Turn 1
• HP 50/Increment 25, Base Hardness 5
• Mounts: Turret (1 Personnel Heavy).
• Expansion Bays: 0
• Cost: 4

Motorcycle

• Size: Medium
• Manoeuvrability: Perfect +2 Piloting, Turn 0
• HP 15/Increment 5, Base Hardness 0
• Mounts: None.
• Expansion Bays: 0
• Cost: 2

Fitting Out

Powerplant-wise we’re limited to something like…

• Colossal Vehicles being able to fit up to Nova Ultra.
• Gargantuan Vehicles being able to fit up to Pulse Prismatic.
• Huge Vehicles being able to fit up to Pulse Blue.
• Large Vehicles being able to fit up to Pulse White.
• Medium Vehicles being able to fit up to Micron Light only.

We could also add some smaller powerplants beneath that level, say…

• Micron Superlight PCU 30, Cost 2
• Micron Ultralight PCU 15, Cost 1

Regarding speed, aerial and hover vehicles could retain the speed equivalent to the thrusters (and the power requirements). Land/Water vehicles would reduce the speed by 2 and the cost by 1. They should probably, also, be limited to a maximum speed of 6 (After modification).

We’re also going to need smaller drive-trains for smaller vehicles.

• Colossal Vehicles can use M# Thrusters.
• Gargantuan Vehicles can use S# Thrusters
• Huge Vehicles can use T# Thrusters.
• Large Vehicles can use LV# Thrusters
• Medium Vehicles can use MV# Thrusters.

• LV4 Size: Large Vehicle, Speed: 4 (20ft), Piloting Modifier +1, PCU 15, Cost 2
• LV6 Size: Large Vehicle, Speed: 6 (30ft), Piloting Modifier +0, PCU 20, Cost 3
• LV8 Size: Large Vehicle, Speed 8 (40 ft), Piloting Modifier -1, PCU 25, Cost 4
• MV4 Size: Medium Vehicle, Speed: 4 (20 ft), Piloting Modifier +1, PCE 10, Cost 1
• MV6 Size: Medium Vehicle, Speed: 6 (30 ft), Piloting Modifier +0, PCE 15, Cost 2
• MV8 Size: Medium Vehicle, Speed: 8 (40 ft), Piloting Modifier -1, PCE 20, Cost 3.

Armour

This appears to be usable as is, but you should be able to decrease from the baseline to get points back and, similarly, to buy up (or sell down) hardness. Sizes would be considered:

• Colossal: 2
• Gargantuan: 1
• Huge: 0.75
• Large: 0.5
• Medium: 0.25

(Rounded up)

AC and TL modifiers would be the same – just at personnel scale – and you could trade up to 10% from EAC to KAC or vice versa after buying up armour.

Computers

Aren’t Essential

Crew Quarters

Generally aren’t necessary

Countermeasures

Depends on the vehicle

Drift Engines

Unnecessary

Expansion Bays

For vehicles large enough, these are viable. For smaller vehicles, more basic options should be purchasable.

Security Systems

Depends on the vehicle.

Sensors

Depends on the vehicle and its role.

Weapons

A slot can fit a weapon of that size or smaller. Vehicle mounts will typically hold Starship scale weapons of light and sometimes heavy size (don’t forget to scale the damage) or personnel scale heavy or two-handed weapons. Anything else will usually be carried by the driver or crew.

Shields

Some vehicles may well have shields but don’t forget to scale these if you do add them. Vehicles of Medium size could also mount personnel scale shields.

Example

For shits and giggles, lets make one of the monobikes from the anime Venus Wars. This is a grotesquely overpowered attack motorcycle, intended to be a tank-killer and driven (in theory) by an elite force.

So we’re looking at a tier 6 vehicle, 77 build points with one HP increase.

It’s a medium vehicle.

It needs to be overpowered for its antitank role, so we give it the full Micron Light.

It needs to be fast for its role, so MV8 Size: Medium Vehicle, Speed: 6 (30 ft), Piloting Modifier -1, PCE 20.

This bike is armoured, but it is still a bike and does still need to be fast. The best armour we could give it would be MK8 at a cost of 4 points.

We can’t increase its hardness, given that a typical conversion would by 5 points of AC to one point of hardness and this would slow it down.

As a military bike it will have a hardened combat computer of some sort to process sensors and assist with diagnostics. We fit a Mk1 Mononode.

We’ll give it Anti-Hacking security, Biometric Locks, Computer Countermeasures and a self-destruct option.

Motorcycles normally don’t have any weapon mounts, but we need to cram one on here. 3 BP gets us a Light Starship front arc weapon mount and we also buy a heavy (personnel weapon mount) for 2 BP.

We slam in a High Explosive Missile Launcher for its anti-tank role and a Tactical X-Gen machinegun.

Given all these points remaining and its antitank role, as well as its remaining power we can slap in Mk 8 Defensive countermeasures, providing +8 AC against tracking weapons. We can also give it advanced long-range sensors.

At the end of all that we still have 14 points left.

The GM, being a generous sort, allows the biker to also purchase increased hardness at the same cost as level 5 armour. That drops us to 12 points, makes the TL -2 (both types of armour).

With those points left-over the GM rules that the bike has a survival and medical kit on board and a killer paint job.

NB: Given the example of design, I think we would need to reduce the point allotment by more than half, perhaps 1/3rd, rounding down. This would force budget economy decisions. As such this bike would have to be redesigned using 51 points instead.

#Starfinder – Starfinder Month – Equipment

June is going to be Starfinder Month here on the Postmortem Studios blog. I’ve been thinking of doing a Machinations of the Space Princess conversion and some rules modifications for the game and that’ll be the core of what I do this month. I’ll take some suggestions too though, so if you have a picture of a cool spaceship, alien or some sci-fi gear you’d like to see statted up for MotSP or Starfinder (or both), comment with a link to the image below!

This month’s content is going to be free for everyone, sometimes – however – I paywall what I write other than a preview. If you want to support me you can do so for as little as $1 a month on Patreon or 1 token a month on Minds.com.

Starfinder has a believability problem when it comes to equipment. The level-limits on items make no goddamn sense and throw you out of your immersion. Why shouldn’t you be able to pick up that Caldarian Fusion Cannon and fire it just like anyone else? Now technically, you can, but this is used as a way to guide treasure, gear and everything else in the game. It’s certainly heavily implied that you shouldn’t go far outside these bounds, because of game balance.

The monetary limit goes a good way to controlling this as the more expensive items are beyond the reach of starting characters. Still, there has to be a better way to do this.

I think there is.

The kinks still need to be worked out, but modifying the bonuses available from certain gear seems to be the best way to about things. The way this would work is that when using gear at a level higher than yourself, you can, but you don’t have the full capability to use it that those of greater experience do – just like a layman might be nonplussed on what they’re supposed to do when handed any other piece of technical gear.

If you’re lower than the level of the equipment, say a weapon, you would get a lesser bonus or lower damage compared to someone of sufficient level. This also gives you a way to acclimatise and grow into weapons and devices – somewhat similar, if you will, to the way you acclimate to your cybernetics in Deus Ex, unlocking new capabilities as you develop.

Let’s take, by way of example, the Corona Laser Rifle from the corebook.

This ‘requires’ a level of 6, does 2d6 F damage, a burn of 1d6 and has a capacity of 40 charges.

If you’re lower than level 6 we could impose a -2 penalty to hit, and depending what level you were we could reduce the damage.

• So, at level 6 you do 2d6 on a hit and 1d6 burn damage.
• At level 5 you do 2d4 on a hit and 1d4 burn damage.
• At level 4 you do 1d8 on a hit and 1d4 burn damage.
• At level 3 you do 1d6 on a hit and 1d4 burn damage.
• At level 2 you do 1d4 on a hit and 1d4 burn damage.
• At level 1 you do 1d4 on a hit and 1d4 burn damage.

You’re better off using a n00b rifle (Azimuth) up until level 5, but you can use the higher level weapon – at a penalty – until you’re a more battle hardened veteran.

Armour, in a similar way, could retain any penalties but lose effectiveness until you learn how to wear it properly, higher level armour being more technical and requiring more involved wearing and set-up.

Taking Freebooter Armour II as an example,

At level 6 it is at full effectiveness providing +6 EAC and +8 KAC with a Max Dex bonus of +5

If we apply similar by-level reductions you end up with…

• At level 5 +5 EAC, +7 KAC, +4 Max Dex
• At level 4 +4 EAC, +5 KAC, +4 Max Dex
• At level 3 +3 EAC, +4 KAC, +3 Max Dex
• At level 2 +2 EAC, +3 KAC, +2 Max Dex
• At level 1 +1 EAC, +1 KAC, +2 Max Dex

And so on.

Of course, this is maths heavy and involves a lot more record keeping, so simply tossing out the Level-limits wholesale, even as a guideline may work better.

When designing encounters it also seems like a good idea to stretch the equipment and gear of the enemy by an amount equal to the APL. So, if you’re in an Epic battle against CR 6 Stormtroopers (NPC troops across D&D compatible products tending to range from level 1-6 based on the old follower mechanics) they might be expected to have level 9, rather than level 6 gear.

EG: Plasma swords instead of duelling swords, Aphelion sidearms and rifles instead of Corona sidearms and rifles, and their heavy weapons trooper might have an advanced X-Gen in place of a tactical one and so on.

#Starfinder – Starfinder Month: Species

June is going to be Starfinder Month here on the Postmortem Studios blog. I’ve been thinking of doing a Machinations of the Space Princess conversion and some rules modifications for the game and that’ll be the core of what I do this month. I’ll take some suggestions too though, so if you have a picture of a cool spaceship, alien or some sci-fi gear you’d like to see statted up for MotSP or Starfinder (or both), comment with a link to the image below!

This month’s content is going to be free for everyone, sometimes – however – I paywall what I write other than a preview. If you want to support me you can do so for as little as $1 a month on Patreon or 1 token a month on Minds.com.

Machinations of the Space Princess uses the OSR retro-clone games (versions of house-ruled old version of D&D in this case, Lamentations of the Flame Princess) to power it. So it is, very broadly, compatible with anything that is D&D derived. That includes Pathfinder and, in its turn, Starfinder.

Rather than ‘races’, I prefer to use the term ‘species’ (though I vacillate back and forth over which I use). This is doubly true, I think, in science fiction games. Race and species used to be interchangeable terms (Darwin referred to species as races) but this has altered over time to the point where referring to entirely different alien lifeforms as races feels weird.

One of the absolute joys of truly creative science fiction is the mass of different alien species that you can encounter. In writing MotSP I took this to heart and, rather than endless lists of different specific alien species I made a system that allowed you to craft individual species of alien to play, almost on the fly, grab-bagging from a set of different traits.

This isn’t, necessarily, balanced, but it does give players the opportunity to hand-craft a character from the bottom up. It can mean they’re overpowered in their particular arena of expertise, but that tends to just mean more weakness elsewhere. Other players will create alien species to suit their roleplaying desires more than anything mechanical per se. Balance tends to lead to grey, boring, interchangeable characters in any case. If RIFTS can put a street-rat alongside a power-armour wearing Glitterboy, then surely we can manage? Making games fun for everyone at the table (for different qualities of fun) is probably the main job of the Games Master.

In Machinations of the Space Princess, you got three species options or bonuses for free and any others had to be balanced by taking negative traits, lowered statistics being the default.

Starfinder’s racial options don’t exactly meet that, so it’s necessary to do a little hammering and smashing to make it work.

Androids get:

• +2 Dex (1 slot)
• +2 Int (2 slots)
• -2 Cha (back down to 1 slot)
• Constructed +2 Save against things that normally only affect living beings. (2 slots)
• Exceptional Vision – Darkvision (we’ll drop the low-light, it seems redundant, 3 slots)
• Flat Affect – a penalty (dropping them to 2 slots)
• Upgrade Slot (3 slots)

If we use them as the baseline, that balances nicely with MotSP.

Humans, meanwhile would get

• +2 to any stat (1 slot, Bonus Feat (2 slots), Skilled (3 slots).

Kasathas:

+2 Str (1 slot), +2 Wis (2 slots), -2 Int (1 slot), Desert Stride (2 slots), Four Armed (3 slots), we remove Historian and note it as being more of a species trend, give them their natural grace (4 slots) and, needing to balance them out, give them ‘Inscrutable’, which works much like Flat Affect.

Lashuntas:

+2 Charisma (1 slot), gendered stat bonus (2 slots), gendered stat penalty (1 slot), and we give them their at will power (choosing only one) OR their 1/day power and their limited telepathy. We lose the Student ability.

Shirrens:

+2 Con (1 slot), +2 Wis (2 slots), -2 Charisma (1 slot), Blindsense (2 slots), Limited Telepathy (3 slots) and we drop their Cultural fascination, give them communalism but double their Charisma penalty, because bugs are gross and communalism seems vital to the species ‘hook’.

Vesk:

+2 Str (1 slot), +2 Con (2 slots), -2 Int (1 slot), Fearless (2 slots), Natural Weapons (3 slots). We drop the Armour Savant and give them Low Light vision and a -2 penalty to Charisma, rounding us out at 3.

Ysoki:

+2 Dex (1 slot), +2 Int (2 slots), -2 Str (1 slot), we give them their Darkvision and Moxie as being the most defining traits (taking us to 3 slots), give them a -2 penalty to Charisma (vermin freak people out) and replace Cheek Pouches, which are lame, with a gnawing ability (double damage to inanimate objects, even with weapons).

This leads to a grittier game that would be more compatible with MotSP materials. Another option would be to give characters in the game four character options, some – like humans – will gain more versatility and power, while others still won’t be at their full, normal, Starfinder potential.

A human in this version might get another instance of a free feet or the affects of Skilled, twice.

A sample species from Machinations, converted to Starfinder, are the Urlanth. The Urlanth are a matriarchal species that once ruled most of the known galaxy. Taken over to Starfinder they would have:

• 3 trait version
• +2 Charisma
• Skilled – Urlanth women start play with two additional skill ranks and every level thereafter.

4 trait version

• +2 Charisma
• +2 Wisdom
• Skilled – Urlanth women start play with two additional skill ranks and every level thereafter.

Base Starfinder Equivalent

• +2 Charisma
• +2 Wisdom
• -2 Con
• Skilled – Urlanth women start play with two additional skill ranks and every level thereafter.
• Urlanth women start with an additional feat.