How is everyone finding character advancement?

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How is everyone finding character advancement?

Postby Stephen » Tue Dec 11, 2012 4:31 pm

Hi Folks,

I'm prepping an S&S adventure for a big holiday gaming session, and I'm wondering how others are finding character advancement to be working.

Other rpgs offer rewards for adventuring that do not seem to be 'baked into' S&S, specifically equipment, spells, and skills/feats.

Spells and feats are self-explanatory; as the character advances, he/she has access to more spells and higher level (i.e. more powerful) spells. If you think of equipment as being sort of the S&S analog, then you kind of get that here, in that higher-level characters have access to more equipment units, and therefore can carry more (but see my comments on equipment below). There are no feats, and only 3 skills, so advancement there is limited (and no opportunity to customize the character).

When compared with fantasy rpgs, S&S has a somewhat abbreviated equipment list, and the added complexity of not allowing characters to keep or sell the stuff they find along the way. Other rpgs seem to place more emphasis on finding and keeping exotic stuff that makes the character more powerful in future adventures (or can be sold, and the money used to purchase other equipment that makes the character more powerful). S&S has no concept of money, and no market for equipment. Characters are expected to hand over their equipment at the end of each mission, so no opportunity to keep the space-age equivalent of a Hackmaster +12 that was found along the way.

Has anyone else run into this? If so, how have you handled it?

Thanks,
Stephen
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Re: How is everyone finding character advancement?

Postby sniderman » Tue Dec 11, 2012 7:15 pm

Haven't taken the system out for a testdrive yet, but one thing to do would be to reward the PCs for their service to the Confederation as they gain experience. As they prove their worth, they are given promotions, higher ranks, notoriety, status, better equipment, assigned to a better/faster ship, entrusted with more powerful weapons, sent on dangerous missions reserved for only the elite, tetc.

In other words, rather than finding/hoarding new weapons and gizmos, they're GIVEN new weapons and gizmos. Have a promotion ceremony when they go up a level. Reveal their new ship ala NCC-1701-A.
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Re: How is everyone finding character advancement?

Postby Stephen » Thu Dec 13, 2012 7:04 pm

I find myself wishing that psionics worked more like spells in D&D - as you increase in level, you gain access to more powerful psionic abilities.

I also find myself wishing that the equipment was a bit more stratified, so that as you increase in level, you gain access to better equipment. S&S sort of does that now, but for example there's only one medkit, and no matter how good of a doctor you are, you can only heal 1d3 of damage per character per day.
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Re: How is everyone finding character advancement?

Postby Stephen » Fri Dec 14, 2012 7:53 pm

One other suggestion (in case any of the Goblins are listening) - ship feats.

At various levels the characters gain a ship feat. This works sort of like a feat in d20, except that it is specific to your starship and your subclass. So for example, if you are an engineer you might get "Extra Power" as a feat, which would give your ship 10 extra EU in your PPB. This reflects the fact that you're a better engineer and you've been experimenting with the energizers to squeeze just a bit more efficiency out of the warp core, or whatever. Only the engineer could get this feat, but it would apply to whatever ship he/she happened to be the engineer on.

Other feats could include:
Extra teleporter capacity (for Engineers)
Extra beam banks (for Fire Control officers)
Extra torpedoes (for Fire Control officers)
Sensor jamming (for Communciation officers)
Extra sick bay capacity (for Medical officers)

You get the idea. This way, when one character goes up a level and gets an extra feat, the whole party benefits.

Just a suggestion. :)
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Re: How is everyone finding character advancement?

Postby Stephen » Mon Dec 17, 2012 5:13 pm

Another suggestion - at regular level intervals, the character can improve one ability score. Just a thought.
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Re: How is everyone finding character advancement?

Postby az_gamer » Thu Dec 20, 2012 6:27 am

Stephen wrote:One other suggestion (in case any of the Goblins are listening) - ship feats.

Other feats could include:
Extra teleporter capacity (for Engineers)
Extra beam banks (for Fire Control officers)
Extra torpedoes (for Fire Control officers)
Sensor jamming (for Communciation officers)
Extra sick bay capacity (for Medical officers)

You get the idea. This way, when one character goes up a level and gets an extra feat, the whole party benefits.

Just a suggestion. :)


This idea has a lot of merit. However, the weapons benefits would have to be re-examined so that they don't over balance the system. Maybe another approach would be to make the EU cost of things less for class specialties. In this way the specialist is more efficient and knows how to use the power system more efficiently. The problem of providing extra weapons is that ships could get over powered for their class and remove the challenge of resource management. A crew on a frigate may think twice about picking a fight with a Zangid destroyer and may have to out maneuver or think it to get out of the problem. The reverse also is true for large ships like dreadnaughts, if one were to arrive in a system the inhabitants may think the presence of such a powerful warship was a prelude to invasion and the crew would have to work harder to reassure the locals of their peaceful intentions.
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