User talk:Eiji-kun/Not-Spelljammer

Fluff Stuff Assistance
Assistance offered! Since you want to tie helms to ships and make them take time and effort to attune or whatever, why not do the same with pilots? It makes ships annoying to transfer (or steal), but it also makes them potentially more powerful as you level up and can afford to unlock more stuff on them. It could also paint a big target on the pilot's back, making for some interesting story interactions (but not a drawback since "adventure finds you" is hardly a flaw in these games). There's plenty of influence in "Farscape" and "Space Cases" you could steal from along those lines.

Whatever you wind up with, you I hope you avoid making ships hard to acquire until high levels because of fears about cash or power grabs. It wasn't cool with Eberron airships and that stupid PrC, and it will be even less cool in a setting where flying a ship is even more central. I'd honestly rather have ships be common-ish than level gated (though level-gating aspects of the ship is certainly fine). - Tarkisflux Talk 19:29, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Alright, since community interest has been a known motivational booster (morale bonus?) to Eiji's article writing powers, I'll start off with some rambling and see what happen. First off, I'd really love to see this develop into something totally distinct from an existing, written property. That is, if you're going to make a slew of articles, tread new ground and don't just make Off Brand Spelljammer 2.0. Make it your thing. You'll be happier you did. Sure, it can (and should, likely) serve the same purpose of "wooden space boat adventure" or whatever. If you make it your own thing, you can branch out and make it a real beast that fits what you want rather than trying to cram that troll into a pretty dress and call her Mary. Also, Eiji, a few years back I worked up some easy Atmospheric Pressure rules and some non-standard planar travel rules (think "getting their by intent and desire" rather than location) that sorta work for unlimited-size planes. Though, they weren't entirely finished, they were about 90% or so from what I recall off the top of my head. If you'd be interested in that I can shoot you the files. Shoot you! Files!
 * Also, I'd really be disappointed if you didn't look through all the homebrew races for ones that already work for a setting modification like this project appears to be.
 * Also, I like the idea of a pilot having to attune to a ship properly to make it work (sorta like a few magic items already), and can be taken as an either magical or technological attuning ("we have synchronized" versus "gotta find all the right buttons, mate"). I guess that adds elements of Big O with a core memory and what was it... Outlaw Star? Yeah, you like cartoons. Find that inspiration. Cram into face. Process. Excrete cohesively themed campaign-setting altering rules. --Ganteka Future (talk) 01:01, 19 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Hmm, yes, I could have it that helms only work with X many people, and changing/adding more is pricy. Thus you want to keep the pilot alive, because if he dies you'll need to tow the ship (slow, may not be possible if your engines are too weak), scrap it (takes time, leaving your vulnerable, may not have the right tools), or just take just the helm (which as before isn't that valuable on its own).  Yeah, that'll work.


 * Good for PCs too, enemies may be more interested in capture than killing. Merciful weapons are suddenly valuable.


 * I like it.


 * Yeah I don't want ships to be TOO expensive. On the same token I can't make them free, I figured "affordable by 5th" was a good measure, and probably even sooner with shinanigans.  There's also the whole maintenance thing with ships, they're sure to get damaged or destroyed during adventures, so best to keep prices down to allow for that.  And yeah, Eberron ships were stupid expensive.  I'm adding a bit more detail into ships themselves, and I'm thinking the base frame is pretty cheap, it'll be adding a +5 Flaming Auto-Turret and +4 Demon Armor Plating that makes a ship expensive or not.


 * Actually that's not a bad idea. Comparing a ship to another PC whose mouth needs feeding.  The PC themselves is "free" while their cost comes in the form of the magic items they need to succeed.


 * (Suddenly Gantekas!) I do love my morale boosters, it seriously helps.  I don't know how much new ground I'll be treading since we have the same base concept (wooden boats in space as you said) though I suppose my only partial knowledge of Spelljammer fluff works for me then.  I can inport a lot of my Steamspace stuff in here too, like the bird race I was going to have.  I suppose it is a good idea to go picking through homebrew races too, I'll see what fits.  A few things will probably be the same (namely the tropish sort, like dwarves in flying iron castles and elves being in fruity butterfly ships) but the details all different.  I also like the Arcanium idea (it was the Arcana in Spelljammer) but I might divorce them from being wizards, or at least make it more vague.  One thing I have done already which I haven't explained, the Arcanium are not merely human wizards.  They're a different thing, like an Elan, that are made out of wizards.  I'm viewing them as a collective of Nylarthoteps who drop things good and bad on the world.  Wizards, no sense of right or wrong.


 * Oh, and they're listed as monsters, not a race, so no worries about a PC playing one. I'm not entirely sure the extent of their free will anyways.


 * I'll take your files, you know my email. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 01:51, 19 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Alright, just looked over the Factions section and... I feel like there needs to be a counterpoint to the Arcanium, something weird, mysterious, unknowable and ambush capable. Something that can hide even from the mighty Arcanium and pop out suddenly, vanishing again before reinforcements arrive to do anything. This thing shouldn't feel like a villain. It's more like a neutral third party that keeps the Arcanium in check by occupying their time, because even they can't stop it or figure it out, and that scares/bugs the crap out of them. Maybe these things show up, make off with supplies or people (perhaps things not really that important or even worth stealing, like large quantities of loose rocks, the side of a building, some cows, an elderly man, all the silver on a ship, stuff like that that there's no apparent rhyme or reason for). Maybe even details on their description is hard to come by because they generate a madness field or something (hallucinatory terrain + disguise self + immunity to divination?). Maybe these things are just from a far off location, and with all the exploring, other factions have invaded their space and they want to check out what's going on. Does this make sense? --Ganteka Future (talk) 04:21, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I figured the Arcanium didn't need a counter because they were aloof and, effectively, the mysterious and unknown schemers who may or may not be villians but don't appear to be (at least not now). That said, it sounds like you want Team Reavers ala Firefly.  The idea has come up before.  Maybe.  Does the fact that the Arcanium kind of fills in for the first part change anything? -- Eiji-kun (talk) 04:56, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Reavers feel more like the Bandit Not-Faction (being basically raiding space barbarians that are scary). I was thinking of something more along the lines of "not a humanlike intelligence". The other Factions appear to know that the Arcanium are up to something. This group would just be hysteria and confusion and boogeyman stories. I don't really have a good analog for describing them other than "the monsters under your bed", but in space. They may or may not be there, evidence surrounding them is hearsay and details are conflicting or ambiguous at best. If the Arcanium genuinely aren't that active (or visibly active) in their pursuits, then they probably don't need a counter, in which case these Oddenigmas would just be flavor rather than serving a distinct purpose (other than "there is mysterious stuff out there to explore"). --Ganteka Future (talk) 05:10, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Ah yes, your so called "Reapers" was it Commander Ganteka? I'll look into it... I'll call you, don't call me.  -- Eiji-kun (talk) 05:13, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Incoming Game Mechanics
Comments welcome, if you can understand my half-thought rambles. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 10:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Short random thought - did you consider modifying the combat paradigm a bit for large multi-section objects? Rather than the current "specific areas are harder to hit, suffer half damage (which is applied against ship), but apply status effects", why not give the individually targetable areas their own hit point pools, and apply statuses when those are depleated? And allow a miss on the specific section to be applied against the superstructure, and the general boat hp pool (so long as it would actually hit the terrible AC of the ship)? That opens up a few different crew actions (and I think you want large piles of crew actions to avoid some players having no tactical choices to make), many different ship hardening / targetting options, and makes it less of a gamble to target specific areas and more of a tactical decision based on how hardened the section is. Not sure if better or not, but thought I'd toss it out. - Tarkisflux Talk 18:58, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * It occurs to me that piloting in a firefight could wind up being really dull if it's not sorted early and designed around (particularly if position and heading is abstracted). What actions are there for a pilot to even take during a firefight? 'Evade', 'match evasion', 'ram', 'flee', 'overtake' (which may just be a function of speed and evade actually), and 'avoid obstacle / navigate hazard' seem to cover the pilot action space but they also seem like they'd fall into boredom pretty quickly. Roll to set evasion, wait for next round, repeat. There are times when you'd want to change your action up, but for the most part it seems like you'd pick one and run with it. Might want to give the pilot a second layer of actions to play with. Things off the top of my head - a power shuffling game so you can hand out bonuses and penalties to repair or gun actions (essentially merging some engineering with piloting); fixed gun emplacements tied to pilot console for things like broadsides attacks (essentially merging some gunnery with piloting); expand the helm attunement to include a range, so pilots can try to interfere with the attunement of opposing pilots if they stay within range (sort of a communication / hackery merger with piloting). Alternately, let the helm work on largely auto-pilot for these things, so the pilot can be off repairing damage or shooting in a non-fixed turret thingy. I'm not sure if any of those are actually good ideas or not, and I leave further exploration of them as an exercise to the reader :-p. - Tarkisflux Talk 22:44, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Or you could go with a Skies of Arcadia style system, where a PC (or perhaps specifically the pilot) could give up actions using evasive maneuvers to call out for a specific crewman to do something special which could grant either a smallish buff for a bit or something largerish immediately. --Undead_Knave (talk) 16:05, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I'll be working on it tonight, but a heads up of what I have planned. The pilot's functions are generally based on evading and doging, but they also have access to ship systems and basically act as a unit which can be anywhere in the ship at any time.  That is, a pilot can access weapons or other subsystems and use them.  Generally they don't, unless they're flying solo, because that takes actions on their part and why would you do that when you have other PCs to deal with.  A big part IS making things more interesting for crew aboard though, so I don't know how successful I am.


 * One thing I do want to do is get into what are effectively maneuvers for pilots and crew. Access to maneuvers is based on skill ranks in piloting, but even those with no ranks have at least a little ability.  Thus you'll have counters, boosts, rushes, and occationally strikes (namely ramming there).  This is a more advanced thing I will get into, so for now their role as pilot is mostly defensive/battlefield control.


 * One of the other things is, since maps are abstracted, battlefield control and positioning is largely a function of gaining positive status effects for yourself. Say there is a nebula in the area, so you decide to fly into it to give yourself concealment.  Or goad an enemy into flying through an astroid field to get you and risk damage.  Or whatnots.


 * I suppose you could consider the pilot to be the "mount" in a mounted build. It's base function is movement, but it can also attack, and thus frees up the rider (the crew) to be making full attacks, casting spells, healing, or whatever else they are doing.  I do like your power shuffling idea, and will be using that.  It could make repairing something mid-combat easier, making otherwise hard checks easier and with better results.  As for hacking, that'll be a subsystem, I'm not touching it yet.


 * The reason I'm reluctant to give each subsystem its own hp pool is complexity: there can be a lot of subsystems, one for each weapon and all the normal things like the cockpit or engines. If you take a large Star Destroyer-esque ship, this quickly becomes unfeasible.  So I abstracted it so that, sure, you don't know that the 14th out of 300 weapons it has was damaged, but you know you did bust up the tractor beam so no more tractoring until its repaired.


 * Stay tuned. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 03:25, 8 March 2014 (UTC)


 * A test combat has been run. Please investigate.  Some numbers were BSed, but should be valid. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 04:06, 13 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Span helped me flesh out an idea I had to make combat a bit easier. Combat occurs in "zones" (as it already does with Melee, Close, Medium, Far, and Extreme range) but this time actually uses a map, not for exact positioning but showing abstract spaces.  Take a 15x15 Huge space on a D&D map (the size is arbitary, this is allows 9 ships at a time which seems more than reasonable).  This is a "zone", all ships in the zone are basically in "Close" range, with melee being a status effect like grappling (in fact they basically are the same thing at this point).  Ship speed ratings now determine how long it takes to move from zone to zone.  A ship may be able to do it in 1, 2, 4, or even a variable (1d4) amount of turns.  If a ship is in a different zone from another ship they are at "Medium" or "Far" or "Whatever" distance and some options are open or closed to them in terms of weaponry.


 * Thus I can populate zones with various environments and hazards only available when flying in that zone, and open up some mild battlefield control. Vertical space is irrelevent since its an abstraction, that you've gone "X miles" away that way to a new zone.  You can also open up traps like trying to navigate space with some zones having space mines or the like.


 * In this case, I may want to express speed ratings as percentages. Either having it taking SR 10 to jump from zone to zone instantly, or be like 1/2, or 1/4, or 1/8 for 2, 4, and 8 turns to change zones. I am not sure what's more inuitive yet. Let's call this the Semi-Map style. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 07:09, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

A Little Cracked
Gonna ramble off a bit here. I may have forgotten some things on the setting so far, so forgive as I ramble. What do you think of the idea of Space Cracks leading to locations instead of Spheres? The outcome is generally functionally the same, but with a few differences. Cracks are directional/have faces being more like portals/windows. Flying through cracks lets you get to your destination. Cracks may be observable only from "lining up your shot from a certain point" to see it and head for it, making navigation more interesting. Additionally, some cracks might be large and easy to pass through while others could be a tight fight or highly unstable ("gonna need a damn good ship or an excellent pilot to get through that one") without being shunted off target. The idea of cracks makes them sound either accidentally created, purposefully created but uncontrolled or naturally created and mysterious. Some cracks could be rimmed (like giant stargates in space... or like those rings in Cowboy Bebop I guess) and under control of toll by any given guild. What say you about this? --Ganteka Future (talk) 19:26, 5 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Amusingly it kind of already works that way, except the reason they are spheres is because that's what a "crack" would look like in 3D space. Making them 2D is possible, but I'd have to answer "what if you hit the edge".  Physics be odd yo.  A way you could also see the sphere is a 2D gate which is always facing you, so shooting in from the left has bullets fly out from the right on the other side, and vice versa.


 * When it comes to portal sizes, I have it set up that portals are normally "solid" and you can't pass through it, you'll either deflect it or crash into it, unless you're trying to pass through because spess magic. That prevents the problem of flying through space and then suddenly you run into a man-sized portal flying through your ship and shifting everything to another plane while leaving a hole in your ship.  It'll be deflected, or be large enough so that you will hopefully see it coming and move before a crash.  Either way you're not going to shift planes unless you were trying to.


 * I'm certain that stable gates do have things build around them Bebop style. It's actually a plot point that key strategic areas are desirable because they are stable, lead to important places, or the like.  In fact people can't just create spheres, they need to find them and hope they lead somewhere important and not to a random spot in a mountain or deep space. This leads to "cities" being build in orbit around particular spheres or clusters. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 03:25, 8 March 2014 (UTC)