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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next 5e - Need help with spaceship combat



deathbymanga
2016-05-15, 11:49 PM
So, I tried adding some space combat to my setting and the players didn't like it at all, so I figured I'd look for some help. I started them small because we were playtesting and I wanted to figure out all the kinks, but here's what we had.

1st - Balistas use Wisdom to hit and do 1d10+Wisdom for damage. My justification is that mounted, and highly sophisticated weaponry like this doesn't really need hand-eye coordination, nor raw power, but rather, really good aim. And Perception is a Wisdom skill, so they use wisdom to hit.

2nd - All player's took their turns at the same time. This is because the players were all in the same ship and only the pilot could really move the ship around, so it didn't make sense to divide heir actions. To make up for this, I never gave any of the enemy ships more than a single attack each since 1. It kept the action economy balanced, and 2. the ships were all small starfighters while they were in a big ship. Fighters and classes with Extra attacks could still make them in the ship though.

3rd - Ships weren't as mobile as people, so you need to fly in arcs. This was more to create a fun limitation to mobility to give big, powerful ships a disadvantage over smaller ships, which were faster, more maneuverable (i.e. can make tighter turns), hit lighter.


My players suggested afterwards adding some more variety to the weapons, such as EMPs, Lightning lances to damage shields but not hulls, etc. I'm worried that this might lead to power creep, but I'm not sure.


They also wanted more variety among the Player Roles, since the Wizard was the only one doing anything special (flying the ship and using his spell slots to heal it), while the other players were just sitting there making attack rolls and damage rolls.

I don't want this to turn into FTL though by making it too complex. How would you recomend making this better?

DeadpanSal
2016-05-16, 04:38 AM
I don't know what system you're using, but I would really advocate following a 4E Skill Challenge on ship crew duties. The problem with what you have is that only one person gets to do much. You need to broaden what's going on. If someone is piloting, and someone is doing repairs, that's a good start. But any good spaceship series will show you that there's way more that has to go on. Try to make six different possible activities that give bonuses to piloting checks that anyone can do. And then throw in something else on the side that have to be dealt with.

Piloting Check - Sets the ships' AC and moves through the field
Weapons (Wisdom Based Attack) - Chooses attacks and rolls for damage
Captain's Chair/Tactician (Intelligence Based) - Can grant attack bonuses or defenses as necessary
First Officer (Charisma Based) - Can grant a bonus to other players' actions and checks
Engineering - This can either be checks for maintenance or checks with more freeform applications (overcharge the engines with arcana for double move)

HAZARDS

At your discretion, or based on a chart, you can have events happen within the ship. If one of these occur, a player can remove themselves from the Skill Coordination to deal with them. If they're ignored, these often worsen.

Systems Failures - Depending on where the ship is damaged, or just faulty mechanisms, you can say that part of the machines go offline and need to be diagnosed and repaired.
Fires/Breaches - If a fire happens in the engine room, movement is hampered. If it happens in the bridge, no one can make checks until it's dealt with.
Boarded - Bring a batch of minions into a room and have a player deal with them.
Outside Interference - I dunno, a nebula pops in and goes supernova or something, keep listing stuff.

Basically, just decide how complicated you want an encounter to be and add more things that complicate the combat beyond simple attack rolls. If nothing major happens, let players coast through it. If you want to make them work, put them in an asteroid field and puncture the hull every time the piloting check is lower than 10. Good luck, sounds like a really fun campaign to DM.

deathbymanga
2016-05-16, 10:56 AM
I don't know what system you're using, but I would really advocate following a 4E Skill Challenge on ship crew duties. The problem with what you have is that only one person gets to do much. You need to broaden what's going on. If someone is piloting, and someone is doing repairs, that's a good start. But any good spaceship series will show you that there's way more that has to go on. Try to make six different possible activities that give bonuses to piloting checks that anyone can do. And then throw in something else on the side that have to be dealt with.

Piloting Check - Sets the ships' AC and moves through the field
Weapons (Wisdom Based Attack) - Chooses attacks and rolls for damage
Captain's Chair/Tactician (Intelligence Based) - Can grant attack bonuses or defenses as necessary
First Officer (Charisma Based) - Can grant a bonus to other players' actions and checks
Engineering - This can either be checks for maintenance or checks with more freeform applications (overcharge the engines with arcana for double move)

HAZARDS

At your discretion, or based on a chart, you can have events happen within the ship. If one of these occur, a player can remove themselves from the Skill Coordination to deal with them. If they're ignored, these often worsen.

Systems Failures - Depending on where the ship is damaged, or just faulty mechanisms, you can say that part of the machines go offline and need to be diagnosed and repaired.
Fires/Breaches - If a fire happens in the engine room, movement is hampered. If it happens in the bridge, no one can make checks until it's dealt with.
Boarded - Bring a batch of minions into a room and have a player deal with them.
Outside Interference - I dunno, a nebula pops in and goes supernova or something, keep listing stuff.

Basically, just decide how complicated you want an encounter to be and add more things that complicate the combat beyond simple attack rolls. If nothing major happens, let players coast through it. If you want to make them work, put them in an asteroid field and puncture the hull every time the piloting check is lower than 10. Good luck, sounds like a really fun campaign to DM.

I specifically picked the 5e Prefix, but I added it to the title as well to avoid confusion.

This is still good ideas, though this still only relegates each player to just making he same d20 role, which was one of their biggest complaints