FutureStarships.rtf

This material is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.

STARSHIPS

The rules for starship combat are based on the rules for character combat. Like character-scale combat, starship battles unfold on a square grid, with each starship occupying one or more squares on the grid. As with character-scale combat, starship battles play out in rounds.

The starship combat system presented here strikes a balance between realism and ease of play. The system can be made more realistic by adapting bits and pieces of the vehicle movement and combat rules to the 500-feet-per-square starship scale.

These basic starship combat rules also assume that all starships involved in the battle are crewed by nonheroic characters. What happens when heroes take the controls is discussed later.

STARSHIP TYPES AND SUBTYPES

Every starship has a type and a subtype. A starship’s type represents its relative mass and determines its fighting space (how many 500-foot squares it occupies) on the battle grid. There are five types of starships: ultralight, light, mediumweight, heavy, and superheavy.

A starship’s subtype identifies the ship’s basic purpose or configuration. Starship subtypes include the following: fighter, corvette, destroyer, strike cruiser, battleship, and freighter.

STARSHIP FIGHTING SPACE

Each square in starship scale measures 500 feet along a side (instead of 5 feet, as in character-scale combat). All starships, regardless of size, have a square fighting space. Some starships occupy a single 500-foot square, while others have a larger fighting space, as noted below.

An ultralight starship can be up to 250 feet long. It occupies a 250-foot-by-250-foot fighting space, and up to four ultralight starships can occupy a single 500-foot square.

A light starship measures 251–500 feet in length. It has a 500-foot-by-500-foot fighting space and occupies a single 500-foot square.

A mediumweight starship measures 501–1,000 feet in length. It occupies a 1,000-foot-by-1,000-foot fighting space (4 500-foot squares).

A heavy starship measures 1,001–1,500 feet long. It has a 1,500-foot-by-1,500-foot fighting space (9 500-foot squares).

A superheavy starship is 1,501 feet long or longer. The smallest superheavy starships (measuring 1,501–2,000 feet long) have a 2,000-foot-by-2,000-foot fighting space (16 500-foot squares), although larger fighting spaces are possible.

STARSHIP COMBAT SEQUENCE

Starship combat is played out in rounds. Each round, each starship acts in turn in a regular cycle. Generally, starship combat runs as follows.

Step 1: Every starship starts the battle flat-footed. Once a starship acts, it is no longer flat-footed.

Step 2: The GM determines which starships are aware of each other at the start of the battle. (Cloaking devices and other devices might hide a ship from another ship’s sensors.) If some but not all of the starships are aware of their enemies, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin. Starships that are aware of the enemies can act in the surprise round, so they roll for initiative. In initiative order (highest to lowest), starships that started the battle aware of their enemies each take one move or attack action. Starships that were unaware don’t get to act in the surprise round. If no starship or every starship begins the battle aware, there is no surprise round.

Step 3: Starships that have not yet rolled initiative do so. All starships are now ready to begin their first regular round.

Step 4: Starships act in initiative order. All crew aboard a starship act on the starship’s turn.

Step 5. When each starship has had a turn, the starship with the highest initiative acts again, and steps 4 and 5 repeat until combat ends.

COMBAT STATISTICS

Several fundamental statistics determine how well a starship performs in combat. This section summarizes these vital statistics, and the following sections detail how to use them.

ATTACK ROLL

An attack roll represents one starship’s attempt to strike another on its turn in a round. Most starships are armed with ranged weapons aimed by gunners.

When a starship makes an attack roll, roll 1d20 and add the appropriate modifiers (described below). If the result equals or beats the target’s Defense, the attack hits and deals damage. A starship’s attack roll is:

1d20 + gunner’s ranged attack bonus + range penalty + starship’s size modifier + targeting system’s equipment bonus

Gunner’s Ranged Attack Bonus: Unless noted otherwise, all starship gunners are assumed to have the Starship Gunnery feat. Without this feat, a starship gunner takes a –4 nonproficient penalty on attack rolls with starship weapons.

For simplicity, all gunners aboard a starship have identical ranged attack bonuses.

Range Penalty: The range penalty for a ranged weapon depends on what weapon the starship is using and the distance to the target. All ranged weapons have a range increment, as noted in Table: Starship Weapons.

As with character weapons, any attack from a distance of less than one range increment is not penalized for range. However, each full range increment causes a cumulative –2 penalty on the attack roll.

A beam weapon has a maximum range of 10 increments. A projectile weapon has an unlimited range, since projectiles don’t lose inertia in space.

Starship’s Size Modifier: Starships are Huge, Gargantuan, or Colossal in size. Table: Starship Sizes notes the size modifiers for ships of different sizes.

Targeting System’s Equipment Bonus: Most starships have computerized targeting systems to help gunners train weapons on targets. A standard targeting system provides an equipment bonus on the gunner’s attack roll depending on the ship’s size: Huge +1, Gargantuan +2, Colossal +3. Improved targeting systems (see Starship Sensors) grant higher bonuses. Table: Starship Sizes summarizes the targeting system equipment bonuses for ships of different sizes.

Automatic Misses and Hits: As in character combat, a natural 1 on the attack roll is always a miss. A natural 20 is always a hit. A natural 20 also always threatens a critical hit (see Critical Hits, below).

DEFENSE

A starship’s Defense represents how difficult it is to hit in combat. It’s the attack roll result that an enemy ship needs to achieve a hit. In general, starships are easy to hit, which is why they rely on armor to absorb damage (see Starship Armor, below).

A starship’s Defense is partly determined by the skill of the pilot or the quality of its automatic pilot system.

PILOTED SHIPS

A starship with a living pilot has a Defense equal to:

10 + starship’s size modifier + pilot’s class bonus to Defense + pilot’s Dexterity modifier

Starship’s Size Modifier: The bigger a starship is, the easier it is to hit in combat. The smaller it is, the harder it is to hit. Size modifiers are shown on Table: Starship Sizes.

Pilot’s Class Bonus to Defense: The pilot imparts her class bonus to Defense to the ship’s Defense. This bonus applies even if the starship is flat-footed or otherwise denied the pilot’s Dexterity bonus to its Defense.

All starship pilots are assumed to have the appropriate Starship Operation feat. Consequently, they apply their full class bonus to Defense (instead of one-half the modifier) to a starship’s Defense.

Pilot’s Dexterity Modifier: In any given round, a pilot may choose to transfer her full Dexterity bonus to the starship’s Defense. However, doing so forces the pilot to focus entirely on flying the ship, and consequently the pilot loses the Dexterity bonus to her own Defense for the round.

A pilot cannot apply her Dexterity bonus to a starship’s Defense if she or the starship is flat-footed.

AUTOPILOTED SHIPS

Every starship comes equipped with a basic autopilot system that enables it to dodge enemy fire without need for a pilot. A starship on autopilot has a Defense equal to:

10 + starship’s size modifier + autopilot system’s equipment bonus

Starship’s Size Modifier: Size modifiers are shown on Table: Starship Sizes.

Autopilot System’s Equipment Bonus: An autopilot system provides an equipment bonus to Defense depending on the ship’s size: Huge +1, Gargantuan +2, Colossal +3. A ship equipped with an improved autopilot system (see Starship Defense Systems) gains a higher bonus.

CREW

The quality of the crew determines how well a starship performs in and out of combat. Unless otherwise noted, every starship has a trained crew of nonheroic characters. However, situations could arise where a starship must rely on an untrained crew. Conversely, expert crews and ace crews are also available—for the right price. Table: Crew Quality compares four different qualities of crew: untrained, trained, expert, and ace.

Skill Check Modifier: Apply this modifier to all skill checks made by crew.

Pilot’s Dexterity Modifier: A pilot’s Dexterity modifier applies to the starship’s initiative rolls and the starship’s Defense.

Pilot’s Class Bonus to Defense: A pilot’s class bonus to Defense applies to the starship’s Defense and to opposed grapple checks.

Gunner’s Attack Bonus: A gunner’s attack bonus applies to all ranged attacks made by the ship.

Modifier to Starship’s Base Purchase DC: The amount by which the crew increases the base purchase DC of the ship. (This modifier is already factored in to the base purchase DCs of the ships presented below.)

CREW IMPROVEMENT

To improve in quality, a starship’s crew of nonheroic characters must “put in the hours” and gain combat experience. Table: Crew Improvement shows the length of the crew’s tour of duty and the number of ship-to-ship battles the crew must survive to be considered of a particular quality. A crew cannot be elevated to a higher quality until it meets the minimum required time spent serving aboard the ship and the minimum amount of ship-to-ship combat experience.

DAMAGE

When a starship hits with a weapon, it deals damage according to the type of weapon (see Table: Starship Weapons). Damage is deducted from the target’s current hit points. If a starship’s hit points are reduced to 0 or fewer, the ship is in bad shape (see Hit Points, below).

MULTIPLYING DAMAGE

Sometimes a starship weapon multiplies damage by some factor, such as when it scores a critical hit. Just as in character combat, you can either roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results, or roll the damage once and multiply the result by the given multiplier.

Bonus damage represented as extra dice, such as from the Engineer’s weapon upgrade class ability, is an exception. Do not multiply bonus damage dice when a starship scores a critical hit.

CRITICAL HITS

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