Monday, October 19, 2020

Mothership - Assorted House Rules and Items

Just a handful of house rules and items I'm contemplating for Mothership, no biggie.
  • If a character has the Biology, Genetics, First Aid, and Pathology skills, they are also treated as having the Surgery skill.
    • Alternatively, just give everyone 3 extra skill points at character creation.
  • Upon leveling up, if a character cannot gain any more Resolve (due to having reached the maximum previously), and they have no Stress, Phobias, or Addictions to remove, they gain 1 Frosty Point. At any time, the player may spend a Frosty Point to either heal all Stress or to remove one Phobia or Addiction. Spent Points are permanently lost.
    • After a character reaches level 10, they gain 1 Frosty Point for every additional 125 XP they earn.
  • One class of ship can be converted to another class through upgrades (see Player's Survival Guide page 28.1). This way, ships can exceed their normal maximum Hull Points (by up to three times), and can change which specific Vehicle Specialization applies to them.
    • The ship must include all of the required modules of the new class.
    • The ship must have between the minimum Hull Points and three times the maximum Hull Points of the new class. (E.g. A troop ship with 300 Hull Points could be converted to a cutter, but it could not be converted to a research vessel without a reduction of at least 30 Hull Points.)
    • In addition to the usual upgrade costs (adding modules, Hull Points, etc.), conversion to a new ship class costs 100,000 credits times the new class' normal maximum Hull Points.
    • It costs no additional fee besides the usual upgrade costs to exceed a ship's normal maximum Hull Points without conversion to another class. However, a brand new ship of any class cannot be bought with more than its normal maximum Hull Points. No ship can be upgraded to more than triple its current class' maximum Hull Points.
    • (If this system ends up being too complicated or creates undesired side effects, I might just triple the maximum Hull Points of all ship classes across the board, or even disregard the maximums altogether and call it a day.)
  • Once a character wearing heavy armor (e.g. Vaccsuit or Advanced Battle Dress) succeeds on a Strength Check to move their full Speed allotment in combat, they do not need to make any more Strength Checks to do so for the rest of the combat encounter.
  • The Pulse Rifle now has an ammo capacity of 2(6), and the SMG has a capacity of 2(10).
  • New Weapon: The "Smart Gun" from Aliens - Same as a Pulse Rifle, except:
    • The Smart-link System adds +10 (Combat if wearing HUD)
    • Ammo capacity is 2(12)
    • No Thermal Scope or Grenade Launcher
  • New Ground Vehicle: Westwood Series Group Transport Tractor
    • Costs 70,000 Credits
    • Hull 2, Armor 25, Speed 30 (150 km/h), Capacity 6 Passengers
    • Thermal Vision up to 200m, exterior video cameras with 20x magnification, Short- and Long-Range Comms, basic computer systems
    • Pressurized interior with up to 3 days of oxygen and life support for 6 people
  • Another d10 Trinkets:
    • 1 - Towel with a picture of a green cartoon alien face saying "DON'T PANIC"
    • 2 - Tiny decorative vial of tritium
    • 3 - Fish tank platform shoes with robotic goldfish
    • 4 - Business card from a retrofuturist colony (designed to autodial a certain number when inserted into a phone)
    • 5 - Fidget cube
    • 6 - Zen garden rake
    • 7 - Metal bolt with a long ribbon tied to it
    • 8 - Origami crane made from fancy hotel stationery
    • 9 - Switchblade comb
    • 10 - Snowglobe full of comet dust
  • Another d10 Patches:
  • If I ever use the star map from the 1991 Aliens Adventure Game, I'll probably count the numbers between the planets as the number of hyperspace jumps it would take for a 1-Rated Jump Drive to get from one planet to the next. The higher your Jump Drive rating, the more jumps you can "do at once," so you'd divide the distance by your Jump Drive rating and round up to the next whole number.. Example: The distance from Honeycomb to New Chicago** is 12 jumps, so a ship with a 5-Rated Jump Drive could get there in 3 jumps.
    • As for travelling with thrusters alone, compare your ship's Speed to the "Interstellar" column on the table on page 27.1 of the Player's Survival Guide. Since the planets on the map are all in different solar systems, each number represents the travel time in years at Speed 10-30, months at Speed 31-50, or weeks at Speed 51-80.
*Farting optional.
**I love these mundane planet names.

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