Starship Position Sheets

[ post #1 ]

New poster here!

Hi, all! My gaming group just wrapped up a d20 SW campaign not too long ago, and while that campaign was running I came across some really good info and tools here.

So, I decided to repay my debt, and post something I came up with, in the hopes that others might benefit from it as well.

The impetus of creation was this: the entire party was serving as the "Heroic Crew" of a star transport. As veteran D&D players, we had no troubles at all with the ground-based portion of the game. As soon as we got into a spacefight, however, things immediately hit snags. Everyone knew how standard and move actions worked (attack and move, in SW parlance!), but no one knew how to handle recharging shields or jury-rigging the hyperdrive.

So, I created a set of ship's position-specific character sheets, laying out the basic tasks, DCs, and other rules pertinent to that position. Each player received the sheets appropriate to what that character would normally do.

They seemed to work pretty well, cutting way down on the number of rules-lookups happening during an average combat.

So, here they are! I hope someone else gets some use out of them, as well. Of course, I welcome any criticisms or suggestions any has to put forth.

I've also noticed a trend among sci-fi / fantasy board games (Doom, Runebound, Descent, etc.), specifically, they're all card-based. They also tend to have a lot fewer rules questions during play. So, I decided to work up a card-based, single-sheet version of the above, suitable for use by starfighter pilots. I think it's largely finished, though the cards are still under construction (using a M:tG card-editing utility). The base "Command Board" is included in the .zip file, as well.

Again, all comments are welcome!

Thanks again for the information, and I hope what I've posted is useful!

Attachment: starship_sheets.zip
This has been downloaded 522 time(s).

[ post #2 ]

Elvenshae, these are fantastic! You've done a great job of condensing and organizing all that stuff into a nice collection of things for the different stations to do. I'm really soryy that the game I'm currently running is going to be more for the snubs. Is that command sheet for snubs? The last game I ran had the PC's in a transport, and these things would have been perfect. You're awesome.
Keep up the good stuff! Your next task is to look over the existing and previous rules for space combat and rework them so that they are simpler and more cinematic. Or at least easier and faster to run.

__________________
"Nice scene. But you're right. A bazooka doesn't do the same thing as a dumpster." -Neal Stephenson

[ post #3 ]

Yes, the new Command Board is meant for snubfighters (or, really, any single-Heroic Crew ship).

It's meant to have, at a glance, every important number you'll need during starship combat. So, it's got your attack bonuses with 2 different weapons, your maneuverability bonus, all the modifiers for speed and defensive flying, etc.

The two card positions, in the bottom right, are to actually play your turn. So, if you decided to use a move action to pilot your ship, and then a standard action to fire once, you'd play the Maneuver Your Ship card and the Attack card.

The Maneuver Your Ship card tells that you can adjust your ship's speed (and move the marker on the Ship's Speed table) and move the indicated number of squares [while you play a single Stunt card (if you've got at least one rank in Pilot) and play as many Simple Maneuver cards as you want and are able to].

Then, you play the Attack card, which directs you to make a single attack with any weapon. Underneath the card's slot on the command board, there's a note that, since this isn't the Maneuver Your Ship card, you must move your ship a number of squares equal to its speed in its current direction.

EDIT: As for fixing the rules ... Oy. The starship combat rules are, currently, my least favorite part of the RCR SW d20 game. The reason I'm going to all this trouble is to try and fix them before I run a Rogue / Wraith Squadron-eque game for my group in the future.

I'm wondering if the new SW Minis starship game is going to make it all much easier.

Last edited by Elvenshae on 21 February 2006 at 02:03 PM

[ post #4 ]

The last game I ran had space combat as a sideline, something that only occurred occasionally. Also, the PC's were all in a transport together, like I said. In this next one I want there to be lots of snub-fighting, and the current rules are a bit ungainly.I keep trying to find a way to make it more like regular combat, or try to think like that, but with a slightly more involved movement part. That might be easier with snubs, since they're more like extensions of a character than you get with a group-crewed transport.
back to your cards, do you have matching attack, move, manuever, and stunt cards? These are of course things I could make myself, but if you already had something made, that'd be even better.
This is going to help my players (and me) immensely. Thanks.

__________________
"Nice scene. But you're right. A bazooka doesn't do the same thing as a dumpster." -Neal Stephenson

[ post #5 ]

back to your cards, do you have matching attack, move, manuever, and stunt cards? These are of course things I could make myself, but if you already had something made, that'd be even better

Actually, yes.

All the cards are color coded by ship's position:

White: Pilot (so movement, stunts, loss of control, etc.)
Blue: Sensor Operator (so the various sensor settings, etc.)
Black: Gunner (Attack, Full Attack, Multifire, etc.)
Red: Engineer (Power management, jury-rigged repairs, etc.)
Green: Shield Operator (Angling, regeneration, etc.)

Some time tomorrow I may post the cards; they're not completely done, yet (I've still got some rules clarifications to go through ...) but for the most part they're usable.

[ post #6 ]

This is excelent!!! Good Stuff!

I am usually aloof when it comes to custom 'enhancements' (not made by myself) to the game. But this one I am definetly going to use.

It so brilliant that I am actually rendered speechless...

If this had been in the rulebook i know that we (my group) would have been running a whole lot more spacebattles than we are currently doing.

Looking forwards to the cards as well... a really smart way of handeling snubfighters if I may say so.


I am laminating these sheets and using wipe-away markers... it is working exelently!

[ post #7 ]

So, here's the BETA version of the cards.

Although there's a lot of cards in the full set, the theory behind them is that, generally speaking, you'll usually only care about two sets the majority of the time: Pilot and Gunner. These will be nearest to hand, and although there are a lot of pilot cards, they majority of the complicated ones deal with things like ramming and failed stunts - which you can largely set aside in their own pile until you need them.

Next, you'll care about things like Sensor and Shields. For shields, you've only got 4 total cards (since, at any one time, you'll only have one active regeneration and one passive regeneration card, with an angle card and a balance card). Sensors are a bit more involved, but are rarely used extensively outside of the initial stages of a battle and certain mission types (i.e., sneak in, identify some cargo, and sneak out).

Repair - where a large percentage of the cards is located - generally won't come up all that often during battle, but if it does, you'll have the cards on-hand.

Finally, the hope is that, eventually, people will memorize the most common cards they've used, and will no longer need to actually play them; instead, they'll only be there as references.

There's still a couplein this BETA set which need rules-work done on them (Ram attack, Starfighter Wing, various variable Repair DCs, etc.).

There's also some houserules in here (and in the initial sheets - sorry I forgot to call that out!). The big ones are:

1. I've got a house-ruled Angle the Deflector Shields, based more on what happens in the X-Wing series of games (where there's basically two shield "quad"rants). Also, I think that, generally speaking, angling the shields is usually a bad idea as the rules present it unless you're just running away from something. So, instead, I added a kicker: 1.5x DR in the angled direction, .5x DR to the adjacent directions, and no protection in the opposite direction. I've included both the House Rule card and the RCR card, anyway, so play with the one you like the best!

2. The scanning settings. In the RCR, the only appreciable difference between the various sensor settings is the Computer Use bonus and the max range. Other than detection, there's no mechanics for learning anything about other ships. So, I took some advice that appeared in a Jedi Counseling article, and expanded it to look more like the way the X-Wing games work.

3. Ion damage. I'm pretty uncertain of how it's really supposed to work (is it supposed to be impossible for someone with less than a +10 Computer Use bonus to repair Catastrophic Ion Damage?). So, I added a rule about "partial successes." I also don't like how 11 points of Ion Damage will shut down a starfighter and the Deathstar, but I haven't really worked on that, yet.

Oh, I also need to check on whether my example ships for shield regeneration by size are correct:

Fine / Diminutive: A-Wing
Tiny / Small: X-Wing
Medium: Gallofree Transport
Large / Huge: Nebulon B Frigate
Gargantuan / Colossal: Mon Cal Cruiser (80 series?)

Thanks, again, for everyone's comments. Criticisms are welcoime, as well, of course! (Especially things like, "Page X needs more whitespace! There's not enough room to write Y!" etc.).

[ post #8 ]

Here's the full set ...

[ post #9 ]

Let's try that again!

Here's Pilot Actions, Set A ...

Attachment: ships_actions_pilot_a.zip
This has been downloaded 178 time(s).

[ post #10 ]

Pilot Actions, Set B ...

Attachment: ships_actions_pilot_b.zip
This has been downloaded 167 time(s).

[ post #11 ]

Pilot Actions, Set C ...

Attachment: ships_actions_pilot_c.zip
This has been downloaded 151 time(s).

[ post #12 ]

... and Pilot Actions, Set D.

Attachment: ships_actions_pilot_d.zip
This has been downloaded 152 time(s).

[ post #13 ]

Moving onward, the paltry Gunner's Set.

Attachment: ships_actions_gunner.zip
This has been downloaded 150 time(s).

[ post #14 ]

Now, the very fancy Sensor Operator's set.

Attachment: ships_actions_sensor_operator.zip
This has been downloaded 152 time(s).

[ post #15 ]

The ever-popular Engineer's set ...

Attachment: ships_actions_engineer.zip
This has been downloaded 142 time(s).