I’m going through a lot of my early notes on the Galaxy Pirates design and playtest. January 19, 2012 my base materials were D20 Modern, D20 Future and Pathfinder 1e which I felt had improved things over the 3.0 baseline of D20 Modern. I have changed player names to player or their character’s race and class. I have added in italics anywhere we’ve since made a change.

Design Notes: January 19, 2012

After Saturday’s playtest my Robot Field Medic/Engineer player said

Robots need repair rules equivalent to Treat Injury, at least handwaved PC Robots nearly indistinguishable from Meatbag PCs.

I agree, and I’ll be working on something to fit that.

All Scopes are now Gadgets, the Equipment pricelist will be adjusted to suit that better. I will be coming up with a Fire Selector switch gadget that allows fully automatic weapons to have a single shot mode.

I will be creating a Perception DC for all weapons as the shotguns used in the Zombie scenario are louder than the Assassin character’s Plasma Pistol, but nearly the same as the Robot Marine’s man portable .50 cal. Anyhow just throwing that out the players seemed to agree that noise level would add another dimension to weapon choice besides which one does the most damage. (I found a DoD work environment document that has decibel levels for lots of loud things the military does and a decibel chart from Make it Louder that’s really comprehensive)

http://www.makeitlouder.com/Decibel%20Level%20Chart.txt

From Saturday’s Zombie scenario.

We found out that at AC 13 and 12 HP, the Zombies popped satisfyingly with slightly above average damage rolls from the 2d8 shotguns. The Marine and Assassin preferred their own weapons over the shotguns. The Zombies were as tough as typical movie Zombies for a 4th level party.

I determined I should give the Zombies Claw and Bite attacks because Slam doesn’t feel in-genre for Zombies. The claws and bite might do LESS damage than the Slam attack, but the primary fear of a modern Zombie movie is getting scraped, cut or bitten, not them bumping into you.

Also the Fast Zombies are supposed to be able to get off a Full round attack if they stand still, as written that’s a Slam and another Slam? I feel like a Claw and Bite or two Claws with no special followup attack would be in genre for a modern Zombie.

I haven’t made the above changes, but they feel right based on the playtest. (The Fast Zombies from the playtest became the Voidborn)

The Slavern Smuggler now faces the potential that he’ll become a Zombie, something D&D Zombies didn’t do. Ghouls, Mummies, Vampires, but not Zombies. Modern Zombies can infect you so there is the fear factor even if they don’t kill you, that you might become one. (After 2 rounds of playtesting Fast Zombies that infect you feel a lot like underpowered Ghouls without the sentience)

This is the Template I found on the Web, mine had 13 AC and Reflex save of 0 for some reason. The Slams were doing 1d6+3 not 1d6+4.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/zombie/zombie-fast

Rich if you’ve made it this far, I have decided to bring back the Barbarian Elemental Rage Powers from the Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide, but only for Marauders that are Robots, this could include the Medium Sized Berserkers and the Fire Giant sized Destroyers. So say a Plasma Destroyer might have some Fire Elemental Rage Powers. (We’re sticking with Kopek PCs called Tinkerers integrating Destroyer/Berserker weapons back into their bodies in order to access Elemental Rage powers. All the Berserker/Kopek tech has distributed memory/consciousness such that the weapons are somewhere between a cursed item and an intelligent item.)

(The Marauder may end up as a set of options for the Wrathful Warrior fighting style Soldier)

Feel free to ping me with any questions, or comment on any of the design thoughts above.

And Now?

The Assassin would probably be an Operative, the Bounty Hunter would be options for the Hunter fighting style Soldier. The Smuggler might be an Operative type class. the Field Medic was built to have Soldier pieces and healer pieces, it might be best built on an Envoy frame, or some Archetype of Envoy and Soldier. The Engineer class we had would probably do fine as a type of Mechanic. The Zombies became the Voidborn, but those are going to get an overhaul to include a disease track for the infection as well as a template for making things into Zombies. Our original playtest used Christopher West’s Cargo Docks map, pick some of the 10×10 containers on the map as a spawn point and it makes a nice zombie maze. The zombies from zombies the tile game are cheap and you need a lot of them around to do it justice, but the Voidborn are getting a 2D pawn upgrade when we upgrade the book.

Poster Map #3 – Mass Transit #2, Cargo Docks & Offworld Transport Facility

If you have any feedback about this post or our books please feel free to contact us.

Paul

Evilrobotgames at Gmail.com