Star Trek d20?

[fireinthedust]

I'm looking for a good d20 system take on Star Trek. Why? Because it's so cool!
Campaign-book wise you'd have 4-5 eras to cover: Classic (Kirk), TnG (Picard), Ds9/Voyager upgrades, and Archer's era. You'd get different levels of ships, sure, but also different plot models (kirk would have greek-pantheon beings all over the place, and hippies; Picard would have stages set up for shakespearian anger-management classes for klingons, etc.)

Anyway: any sources on the internet that are good?

Theoretically it could be d20 future, but have some additionally Trek-oriented PrCs; a whack-load of ship designs and equipment; new races; and maps for each of the major sections of the ship (engineering, 10-forward, the bridge, cargo-bay whatever). Divide it up by the major eras, for ships (fed's and enemies/power levels), equipment, things like that. That and stats for major characters, obviously needed...

[Caelestion]

Have you got the Decipher system for Star Trek? They're pretty good source guides, whatever system you run (much like any GURPS book really).

[Diggorian]

Decipher's game is a decent rules set that resembles D20 in some ways. They own the official license. For D20 Future you're looking at a bunch of conversion work and houseruling.

I read this thread (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=171535&page=1&pp=30)at EN World that converted just about every Star Trek race into D20 species. It should save you alot of writing.

[TheThan]

One of my numerous projects is a D20 modern star trek campaign guide (for lack of a better description), the only thing I’ve really had to house rule is player races and a few pieces of equipment (klingon weapons and tricorders). Everything else is just fine really. I’ve already drawn stats up for a variety of star trek ships (mostly federation ships though). I’ve divided it up into three eras of play, startrek: enterprise era, original series era, and next generation era. The main differences are the types of ships the players will encounter and some of the races. The “core” races (Human, Elf Vulcan, Klingon for example) are found in all eras of play, but some of the others aren’t.
I’ve been taking a break from it and working on other stuff, I’ll get back around to it eventually. Wow I just checked that site and I like what I’ve seen so far.

[Diggorian]

Yeah, pretty comprehensive. I used it for my own attempts to model trek in a D20 campaign, but my players opted for a fantasy instead of sci-fi.

One problem I ran into were weapons. Phasers are amongst the most common Trek equipment and are by nature mega-overpowered. A move action worth of adjustments can be followed by a ranged touch attack blasting a clean hole through several meters of stone (1 meter having hardness 8 and 570 hp). Kill setting FTW!

Sure high tech armor and personal shields could be used, but we rarely see this in Trek. Dudes that get shot go down. I'm curious how others handled it.

[Piccamo]

Sure high tech armor and personal shields could be used, but we rarely see this in Trek. Dudes that get shot go down. I'm curious how others handled it.

Non-federation regularly wears armor (klingons, romulans, borg, etc). Also consider the energy requirements for constantly firing with a setting on Kill.

[Diggorian]

But Piccamo, their armor does nothing versus phasers, save for the Borg. Before they adapt, one shot brings them down too.

If a 578 hp blast through a meter of stone reduces the total weapon charge by half, that leaves five shots at 100 hp damage power (or 10 of 50 hp power).

[Piccamo]

You have to sacrifice "realism" for balance. Every other weapon in d20 uses a die-rolling system for damage and this should, too.

[fireinthedust]

Phasers: stun requires a saving throw, there's a heavy-wound setting, and a disintegrate setting (another saving throw) on a critical hit or something.
You wouldn't have a dungeon crawl with phasers. Generally it's frowned upon, and the kill setting would drain the weapon.

Also, you'd want to use defense/damage reduction, like in Star Wars d20. The lightsabres and the blasters/guns do loads of damage. Also, perhaps the wp/vp variant wouldn't be a bad idea, with disintegration going directly to wound points or something?

They'd be toned down in play, just like bullets are: TV has one-hit kills all the time, but in-game a character can have enough hit points that a shot that doesn't kill them is considered a flesh wound.

And Worf could take a few phaser shots easy. He's butch. Other klingons are NPCs of lower level.

And the borg have shields. Full stop.

[TheThan]

Phasers aren’t too over powered:

Weapon: Phaser, hand
Damage: 2d8
Critical: 20
Damage type: energy
Range Increment:40 ft
Rate of fire: single
Magazine: 50 box (energy cell)
Size: medium
Weight: 3lbs
Purchase DC: 17
Special properties: Stun mode, Variable charge
Stun Mode
One advantage of energy weapons over their ballistic and physical counterparts is that they are capable of altering their own output on the fly. With the stun module gadget, this means that an energy weapon can be used to apply nonlethal force. The stun module is an alternate firing mode; switching to or from stun mode is a free action (just like changing a weapon’s rate of fire). Whenever a character fires a weapon set to stun and successfully hits the target, the target must make a Fortitude save (DC 15) or be stunned for 1d4 rounds.

Variable Charge
As with the stun module gadget, the variable charge gadget takes advantage of an energy weapon’s ability to modify the damage caused by its own shots. This gadget gives the user the ability to “power up” his or her shots by focusing more energy into a single blast. A weapon with the variable charge gadget may be primed as an attack action, increasing the damage of its next shot by +1 die. For example, a weapon that normally deals 2d6 points of damage deals 3d6 points of damage after being primed for one round. A weapon may be primed for up to three rounds. If primed for more than three rounds, it becomes unstable; on the fourth round the weapon must be fired or else it explodes and deals the fully charged damage (normal weapon damage, +4 dice) to the user. When this occurs, the weapon is completely destroyed.

[Diggorian]

Vitality/wounds was the way I was gonna go. Describing hits as near misses works; so Worf dodges alot of phaser fire (that does Vit. damage) but nameless mooks and ensigns take it in the chest ... and die (wounds only).

Still, makes phasers less phasey, but you can get away with it.

[fireinthedust]

Vitality/wounds was the way I was gonna go. Describing hits as near misses works; so Worf dodges alot of phaser fire (that does Vit. damage) but nameless mooks and ensigns take it in the chest ... and die (wounds only).

Still, makes phasers less phasey, but you can get away with it.

I'd say juse add the stun setting from Star Wars d20: fort save to knock them out.

Keep in mind that blasting like that was to simplify the action on the TV show. You'd have five seconds of air time, and you wanted to end combat quick. You also oculdn't have the same sorts of creatures or characters as in an rpg game: special effects as big as your imagination can hold, y'dig?

so even just damage plus a stun setting and you're fine. Maybe it ignores hardness, like adamantine or lightsabres? Maybe there's a disintegrate setting?

[TheThan]

You know I sort of feel like I’m being ignored here…

Anyway all the rules for this stuff is already in D20 modern-future, for example you don’t need a special rule for disintegration. That’s what massive damage threshold is there for in the first place. Plus the problem with the vitality/wound point system is that it’s very easy to loose characters in combat (not that there’s a lot of combat in star trek). Considering the only (relatively important) character to die was Tasha Yar, you probably don’t want to make it so dangerous for your players so that when they do get into a fight, they stand a strong chance of dying. Otherwise the Enterprise would need a new bridge crew every time they went into a battle.

Also adding the stun setting from starwars is unnecessary, since IT ALREADY EXSISTS. As I showed in my last post, which used information gleaned from the D20 modern-future srd. That at least in my opinion is a fairly accurate depiction of a star trek hand phaser.

Ignoring hardness? You probably won’t need that for anything anyway. Unless you’re throwing in a lot of “cave in” scenes, where they burn their way out with their phaser.

It seems like you guys are looking too far into other sources. When what you really need is already in front of you.

[Diggorian]

Quick combats arent that great I find cause the margin of error allowed to PC's is slim. Fort save stunning is a multiple-use save or suck effect. Vitality/hitpoints usually grant an edge over ordinary minions, but with this mechanic the playing field becomes very level.

I'd suggest stun doing D&D like subdual damage. If the amount forces a massive damage save which fails, they're KOed. Once it damages wound points they're exhausted or pass out when the total stun damage exceeds Vitality/wounds.

Yeah, phasers as portrayed in the series would do touch attacks and ignore hardness/armor except starship hulls.

[Guild_Master]

I purchased Prime Directive d20. It is Star Trek D20. It is only Kirk era and the history is a little different from the Star Trek canon. But it is excellent for all your star trek d20 needs. It has the d20 phaser, klingons, ect. I hope this helps. http://www.starfleetgames.com/prime/pd-d20.htm

[Caelestion]

The site looks good and, from the look of it, their three current books and airmail outside the US comes to only $100 (£50 in my case). Not bad at all.

[Guild_Master]

The only problem I have play star trek rpgs is that most of my table are not "trekers", making understanding the setting difficult and the enthusiasm low. I don’t how to improve my star trek gaming. Any suggestions?

[Diggorian]

I game with mostly non-trekkers too.

A DM friend of mine pointed out that this could be an advantage in some ways, since they dont have many metagame prejudices.

[YPU]

I game with mostly non-trekkers too.

A DM friend of mine pointed out that this could be an advantage in some ways, since they dont have many metagame prejudices.

This could indeed be useful. Many of the trek series have a high exploration feeling, to go where no man has gone before. You could, if they aren’t trekkers at al, partially copy episodes that would make good adventures. It helps you as well, I couldn’t run a trek game because my girlfriend knows way more of the setting then I do. Taking into account her dad is such a trekker that he even has the pinball in his living room. This way you can be sure people aren’t going to go boing in the middle of your explanation about things that work differently then you thought.