A part of my Let’s Read “Stars without Number” series. Go grab your free copy of SWN and join in.

Equipment and Vehicles

Encumbrance

• Readied Items – half Strength, rounded down
• Stowed Items – full Strength

A readied item is immediately available during a character’s turn. A stowed item is on the character’s person, but require more time to draw out.

The system appears quick and easy to adjudicate. Some items require more than one slot for being readied or stowed.

Credits and Money

A quick concession on the interchangability of credits from planet to planet, followed by stating that even precious metals may not be precious after extensive asteroid mining.

Equipment Legality

A reminder that different systems may have different laws for weapons and armor.

Forbidden Science

Thou shalt not:

• make tools of humankind – no genetic tech to enslave or control humanity
• create unbraked minds – AIs must be braked
• create devices of planetary destruction

Technology Levels

Postech – Any technology that is functional and maintainable since the campaign wide Scream Pretech – Pre-Scream technology more sophisticated than Postech

From sticks and stones (TL 0) to 2st century tech (TL 3) to Postech (TL 4) to Pretech (TL 5) and beyond.

To build a Spike-drive (and FTL transporation) you need TL 4.

Armor

Because no one likes getting shot.

• Primitive – useless against TL 4 and up weapons, but it’ll help against bows, arrows, revolver bullets
• Street armor – lightweight and wearable under normal cloths
• Combat armor – for military and law enforcement
• Powered armor – immune to TL 3 or lower weapons, a step below a mech

Different armor takes up 0, 1, or 2 slots along different tech levels.

Ranged Weapons

A variety of weapons from TL 1 up to TL 5, each taking 1 or 2 slots. Advantages of TL 2 weapons are ease of maintenance; most any planet with minimal tools will do.

Some weapons can fire in burst mode; Spend 3 rounds of ammunition to get a +2 to hit and damage.

Melee Weapons

An abstract list of weapons with two variables: size (small, medium, large) and technology (primitive and advanced). From there you, as a player, name the weapon. Monobloade, knife, pulse-guisarme, chainsword, etc.

Larger weapons do more damage, inflict more shock, and require more slots.

Plenty of variation and options.

Heavy Weapons

These weapons require tripods, fixed support, or vehicle mounting.

Some heavy weapons can lay down suppressive fire, using double ammo, and automatically hitting everyone for half damage to anyone not under hard cover.

General Equipment

• Ammo and Power
• Communications
• Computing Gear
• Field Equipment
• Pharmaceuticals
• Tools and Medical

A wide variety of equipment to support hacking, healing, communication, tinkering, and power.

Of particular note is the Lazarus Patch; A one time medical device that greatly reduces the difficulty (to 6 instead of 8) of the Heal skill check for reviving people.

Lifestyles, Employees, and Services

Guidance on how to pay for the type of lifestyle your character wants (or is living).

A quick chart of wages for employees by skill type and skill rank. And a chart for services and their costs – Bribes, forgeries, intensive medical care, interstellar mail, workshop rental, passage, and wildly decadent party. A laundry list of services an adventurer might want.

Vehicles & Drones

A list of vehicles and drones, and their game statistics. Plenty of interesting options.

Cyberware

Expensive personal modifications, that incur system strain; which reduces a character’s limit for psionic healing and stimulant drugs.

Artifacts

Stars without Number assumes a past when technology was more potent, even bordering on magic. This chapter provides some ideas of what that tech could be.

Modding and Building Equipment

Stars without Number provides a ruleset and framework for building and modifying equipment.

Modifications require three things: time, money, and pretech parts. Characters have ample time and can earn money, but to get pretech parts, they’ll need to search, scrounge, and adventure for it. And then spend time to maintain.

Characters may also build new equipment, choosing to jury-rig something, build it out normally, or even strive for a masterwork device (which allows a mod installation that requires no maintenance).

A character has a threshold of maximum maintenance – better of Int or Con modifier plus 3 times the character’s tech skill.

Conclusion

As is traditional with sci-fi, characters have access to a laundry list of equipment, many of which will require a significant number of credits or pretech components. All of which drive the characters towards adventure.

Which is what an equipment list should be; A list of aspirational items that the players seek to acquire.

A part of my Let’s Read “Stars without Number” series. Go grab your free copy of SWN and join in.

Systems

Stars without Number details:

• combat and healing
• scenes, durations, skill checks, saving throws

Remaining are:

• Hacking
• Character Advancement
• Environmental Hazards

Hacking

A quick discussion about accessing computers. You can hack in a Main Action if you spend an hour planning, or spend 10 minutes for an off-the-cuff. If you don’t have 10 minutes, you can spend a single Main Action at an increased penalty.

You can acquire data or control a system (for a short period of time). Progressive hacking attempts get harder. And failure means there is a chance of triggering an alarm.

And if you are hacking something corporate or government, you’ll need to have direct access to a line and sometimes through two points (via line shunt).

From hacking you can:

• Answer a specific question
• Get general information
• Complete database acquisition
• Suppress a system
• Subvert a system
• Sabotage a system

What I like about this system, is planning matters, but also sneaking in to gain access to a terminal or plant a line shunt matters. The planning of a hack is a team affair, and the skill check for hacking is a quick matter.

Character Advancement

Characters advance quick during the early levels – a session or two per level – up until level 4, then advancement begins slowing down. So that by level 11 you’ll need 12 or so sessions for advancement.

When you level up you:

• Roll your hit points again. Take the new result if its higher, or take the previous result + 1 if its lower.
• Increase your attack bonus, if applicable. Warriors increase each level, others gain a bonus every even level
• Improve each saving throw by 1.
• Gain and spend 3 skill points; Experts get 1 extra skill point.
• Choose a new Foci at level 2, 5, 7, and 10. If the Foci grants a skill rank, check the additional considerations.

Psychic’s may buy additional discipline techniques with their skill points.

Characters may buy, at most, 5 attribute boosts.

Environmental Hazards

SWN details the dangers of space:

• Falling
• Poisons
• Diseases
• Radiation
• Hard Vacuum

Training in Heal or Biopsionics can make all the difference in treating exposure to these hazards.

Conclusion

The Hacking system reminds me of Divination spells in D&D. Consider the availability of a tremendous amount of information, and its possible impact. Characters will most certainly seek information in their planning.

A part of my Let’s Read “Stars without Number” series. Go grab your free copy of SWN and join in.

Systems

Stars without Number details more systems than combat and healing. SWN also details:

• Scenes and Durations
• Saving Throws
• Skill Checks

Scenes and Durations

Instead of copious tracking of time by the minute and hour, there is the concept of a scene. Powers that last for a combat, or the duration of a break-in job, or a hostile negotiation.

I like this unit of measurement. There are further guidelines that its about 15-minutes and assumes a bit of rest between scenes, but is not a hard and fast rule.

Saving Throws

A quick discussion of saving throws. Somewhat familiar territory for anyone that’s played any version of Dungeons & Dragons. Like 2E and before, you roll a d20 and get above your save score.

The three saves: Physical, Evasion, and Mental – akin to 4th Edition D&D’s saving throws where the better of Str or Con modifies Physical; Dex or Int modifies Evasion; and Wis or Cha modifies Mental.

I like the following quick statement:

Mental saves can also be used when no other saving throw category seems to apply and only blind luck and ineffable intuition can save the hero.

I know as a GM there are times where I’m looking for a luck roll. This little sentence gives me clear permission to use the Mental saving throw as a luck test (considering that the luck save did not make it from the Core edition to the Revised edition).

Skill Checks

Here we have a deviation from the modern D&D systems. Skill checks use 2d6 plus skill rank plus ability modifier plus a possible situational modifier. And no ranks means -1 to the check, if you can even make it at all.

I like the explicit advice that failing at a check need not mean that you don’t accomplish it, but could mean you succeed with a complication; This is up to the GM.

And this advice is crucial for keeping a game going. If the characters need to get through a door or make a landing for the adventure to continue, let failure mean they get through the door or make the landing, but notify the guards, it takes longer, or the ship sustains serious damage on the landing. (see a previous blog post for more in depth discussion)

And as one would hope Stars without Numberprovides concrete guidance on setting the difficulty of a skill check. See the table below:

It also discusses when to call for a check and when not to call for a skill check:

As a general rule of thumb, if failure at a particular task would make the PC seem notably incompetent at their role in life, then they shouldn’t have to roll a skill check for it. In addition, if failure or success at a check really doesn’t matter in the game, if it won’t produce some interesting result either way, then a check shouldn’t be made.

With the 2d6 system opposed skill checks notably favor the player characters; As compared to the usual “ties favor the aggressors.” Below is a table of probabilities of success for a PC.

Something feels right about 2d6 for skill checks. A bit less swingy.

A part of my Let’s Read “Stars without Number” series. Go grab your free copy of SWN and join in.

Systems – Combat and Healing

Breaking apart the Systems chapter into:

• combat, injury, death, and healing
• scenese, saving throws, skill checks, hacking, character advancement, and environmental hazards

While the introduction to the Systems section reiterates the dangers of combat; And nowhere does SWN better highlight the dangers than the injury, death, and healing subsection.

On to combat.

Combat

Yes. Its dangerous, and thank you again for reiterating. You roll 1d6 for your starting hit points.

PCs should be very certain that the odds are in their favor before they reach for their laser pistols, and even then, the gods of battle can be cruel.

Initiative

We roll a d8 + Dex for initiative and don’t re-roll at the end of the round.

Now some good news for PCs:

Most [of the time] PCs are not subject to surprise unless their guard is genuinely down at the moment of the ambush or attack.

SWN assumes that the characters are cautious. And only sudden and very unexpected attacks could even trigger an ambush. That’s some good news for players.

Types of Actions

There are four types:

• Main action – one per turn, can be used as a move action
• Move action – one per turn
• On turn action – any amount on your turn
• Instant action -any amount, any time

Easy movement is 10 meters; climbing, swimming, rough terrain halves that. You can’t split move between your main action.

“On turn” actions involve dropping an item, falling prone, speaking, drawing a Readied item, etc.

Hitting an enemy

To hit: Roll d20 + your base attack bonus + skill rank + ability modifier + circumstance modifiers. Untrained counts as -2 for skill rank.

Damage: Roll damage die plus relevant attribute modifier.

Shock: Some melee weapons do damage on a miss to those in insufficient armor; Add your relevant attribute modifier to that shock damage.

Neat. Melee combat is dangerous, and shock ensures sword fights don’t last too long. I like that it reiterates that HP reflects bumps and bruises until you get to those last HP, which reflect real damage.

Combat Actions

• Melee [Main] – is straight-forward
• Ranged [Main] – can’t attack using 2-handed range weapon if engaged in melee; take a -4 to hit if using a one-hand or thrown weapon in melee
• Make a Snap Attack [Instant] – if you haven’t went you can interrupt and make a Melee or Ranged attack at -4.
• Total defense [Main] – immune to shock, +2 AC until next turn
• Club up a weapon [Move] – shift your rifle to bash in some heads
• Run [Move] – move again
• Fighting withdrawal [Main] – Break out of melee without getting hit
• Use a Skill [Main]
• Ready or Stow an Item [Main] – move items from Stowed to a Ready state (eg. grab a potion from your pack)
• Reload a weapon [Main] – Looks like you better have ammo readied or you’re going to be spending two main actions reloading
• Pick up an item [Move]
• Stand Up [Move]
• Go Prone [On Turn]
• Hold an Action [Move] – Spend your move action to prepare to inject a main action later in the round before some other action.

From the list of actions there is a lot of tactical decisions. If you are a melee fighter, get up there and get in their business. You are a serious threat.

Should you as a player make a snap action? If you’re a pistol wielder being charged by a monoblade, a snap shot is just as good as firing into melee. So take it. Is someone disengaging form you as a melee master? Take a snap action to lay into them before they flee.

And if you’re a warrior, and have yet to use your auto-hit, snap with impunity; The best defense is a good offense.

Stars without Numbers advises that GMs not use snap actions for most NPC.

The second considerations is transitioning from Stowed to Readied. Don’t yet know what all can be Readied, but it appears that you’ll want those go to items to be Readied – pistol, ammunition, and knife.

Combat Complications and Maneuvers

• Forcing Enemy Movement – hit with Punch (or Stab), deal no damage, then win at Punch (or Stab) or Exert. If you win move them 3 meters.
• Disarming a Foe – make an attack roll, deal no damage, then make weapon based skill check with the weapons used. The defender gets a +3 bonus. If attacker wins by 3 they get the weapon, otherwise it skitters 1d4 meters away.
• Execution Attacks – Spend a minute not drawing attention to yourself, don’t take any obvious action, then you can skip to hit and armor class, and instead roll a combat skill check (6 for point blank, 8 for normal, 10 for extreme); If you hit, it does max damage and must make a Physical save or be mortally wounded. PCs are vulnerable to this.
• Two-Weapon Fighting – You must have Skill level 1; take a -1 to hit and do +2 to damage. Do not add the second weapons Shock bonus.

The execution attacks are the biggest surprise. I’m fine with PCs setting up for an execution attack; It would likely require a series of checks to get into place. I’d have to think about executing a PC.

Injury, Death, and Healing

If an NPC drops to 0 hit points, its GM’s discretion. If a PC drops to 0 hit points, they have 6 rounds to live.

For a PC at 0 hit points, someone will need to take a Main Action to stabilize them – with Int/Heal or Dex/Heal. Use of the biopsionic technique Psychic Succor automatically stabilizes.

Increase the base DC by the number of rounds since they went down. Without tools this is a rather grim prospect.

Ten minutes after someone stabilizes you you wake up and regain 1 HP. From that point, until you get bed rest, any damage you take kills you outright. Treatment from advanced pharmaceutical stims or Biopsionic techniques avoids this fragility.

The recovery system bakes in recovery times based on tech level treatment available. Lower tech levels results in slower recovery, and at TL 2 or less recovery is not guaranteed.

If you plan to enter into combat, make sure you have a biopsion available, otherwise recovery is 1 HP per level per day of rest in a TL 4 medical care center.

Conclusion

Stars without Number combat shows the basic bones of B/X D&D with updates and clarifications drawn from the 3.X D&D lineage. The Shock and Snap Attack aspects of combat intrigue me and are something I look forward to seeing in play.

If you plan to get into combat, make sure you have a friend trained in Heal or Biopsionics. You’ll also want to have access to three lazarus patches; And have at least one of those Readied (so as to not spend an action retrieving them and raising the difficulty of the skill check).

A part of my Let’s Read “Stars without Number”series. Go grab your free copy of SWN and join in.

Psionics

Opens with game setting, psionic abilities are a congenital curse that unless trained lead to insanity. Nice fluff. Highlights that NPC psionics could be crazy. Also establishes that not every system or person is welcoming towards psionics.

It further explains that humanity’s past glories were built on insanity psionics, but collapsed during the Scream – a catastrophic event that drove every living psychic mad or killed them outright.

Nice. The game lays out the dangers of psionic usage, and the public’s potential distrust.

Psionic Powers and Techniques

Not everyone can access psionics. If you are Psychic you may gain ranks in each psionic discipline. If you are an Adventurer that is part Psychic, you may only gain ranks in one psionic discipline.

Psionics are a trained skill. Each psionic discipline is a skill and has a baseline technique. As you gain ranks in the discipline, you gain new techniques. And, if interested, you may use your skill points to buy additional techniques.

Psionics are fueled by effort, which look like power points. Effort is calculated as 1 plus highest Wisdom or Constitution modifier plus highest skill rank in a psionic discipline.

Some powers require you to spend effort for the day, others for the scene, and others require no effort at all. Interesting. Committing for the day and none at all seems easy on the book-keeping. The effort for a scene may create some complications in tracking effort.

Torching

The push your luck mechanic of Torching looks great. Roll on the torching result table to gain 1 point of effort that lasts until the end of the scene. Does that mean you can’t use this bonus effort for things that require committing effort for the day?

If you burn below 3 Wisdom, you go “Feral”. If you burn below 3 in any other ability, you die or become non-viable. Does that mean any character, regardless of Torching that drops below 3 for any ability score is removed from the game?

Feral psychics become NPCs and may torch with impunity (and without rolling on the chart). They have burned a pathway to unlimited effort, at the cost of sanity. And once “Feral” you can never go back.

Biopsionics

First we get an introduction to system strain. How much psionic healing, cybernetic implants, and powerful drugs can a character endure. Did anyone say Shadowrun?

Medic! This discipline is all about healing and physical tissue manipulation. The core technique provides the healing, and from there you can

• treat poison
• perform remote healing
• keep pressing on as their dying
• regenerate targets
• burst heal
• quicken healing
• shapechange
• inflict massive damage and cancer
• boost strength and dexterity and hit points
• self-resurrect

An interesting set of effects, albeit healing focused. I think I’d add biopsionic weaponry as a level-1 technique. But for now, lets move on.

Metapsionics

The how-I-make-my-other-disciplines-stronger discipline. The core technique increases your saves vs. psionics, allows you to detect psionics, gain effort, and unlock a less permanent torching option. An interesting meta-grab bag.

The techniques are:

• conceal psionic capabilities
• trace the origins of a psionic power they notice
• learn to apply biopsionics and telepathy to Virtual Intellegence (VI) and Artificial Intellegince (AI)
• fail a psionic save, accept the effect, to have an auto-success against the original attacker
• disrupt ongoing psychic effects
• queue up a psionic power that can later be triggered quickly
• connect psychic minds and everyone shares their psychic skills
• create a static haze that inflicts damage on the target when they use psionics
• become a psychic tutor
• inflict saving throw penalties on psychic powers
• remove the requirement from one technique for committing effort
• develop an immunity to one psionic discipline, and extend that immunity

Precognition

Always tricky to do this right. After all, does anyone know what’s going to happen in a game session?

The core technique, oracle, allows the psychic to ask a question and gaze into the future to gain a vision from their vantage point.

Additional techniques are:

• go first in initiative
• declare that they brought some gear
• gain Spidey sense
• enable a re-roll on a failed hit, save, or skill check
• force a re-roll against someone attacking the psychic
• rewind 6 seconds of time
• force a target to roll with disadvantage until they succeed on a save (that is not disadvantaged)
• force a seemingly random physical event to happen (eg. pick a roullette number)
• secure yourself from death
• declare a prophecy and it comes to pass (some restrictions may apply)

Telekinesis

The core technique moves objects with your mind.

Other techniques:

• wall climb and water walk
• create equivalent of a vacc suit for you and even your 6 best friends
• create weapons and armor out of force
• negate a physical attack
• grease!
• move things with your mind without committing effort
• burn things with your brain
• create a force construct
• bash things as though a heavy weapon or ship canon
• reflect a missed attack at an opponent
• pick someone to be a puppet
• fly and bring others with you

Telepathy

The core technique probes a person’s mind, without that person being aware of such probing. Needless to say, nobody likes a telepath.

Other techniques:

• ease the effort of contacting another mind
• enable two-way communication via telepathic connection
• very long distance telepathy
• force someone to not think about something
• instill an impulse to take action
• clobber them with your brain
• edit their memory
• link several minds to operate in coordinated concert

Teleportation

The core technique allows teleportation, extending to planetary range at rank 4. They need to have been there or seen it. Nice.

There is a nice segment on teleportation and legal systems. Most systems will summarily execute someone that commits a crime using teleportation.

Other techniques:

• teleportation requires a move action instead of your main action
• gain 360 vision; a little odd that this is not precognition
• teleport self and others
• perceive a location that you could teleport to
• know the location of an imprinted object (within range of your teleportation)
• blur yourself and even dodge an attack
• teleport in and out disallowing others to respond
• teleport into places you haven’t seen – even from one spaceship to another
• teleport people against their will

Teleportation boarding party! Or pop in, drop a bomb, and pop out.

Conclusion

I enjoy the varied psionic powers and the niche of each discipline. The effort mechanic looks simple to understand and straight forward to use. And torching provides a mechanic that cleaves close to the narrative assumptions that psychics can press their powers to a point of pain and nose bleeds.

Psychics have a powerful toolkit, but a limited pool of effort to draw from – the most effort you could have is 9 (1 + 2 for a modifier + 4 for rank + 2 for core metapsionic technique). That is a lot of mind magic, but a clever player will burn through that quite fast.