Rules:KeepFlying2

From Heroes of the Great Tree

Contents 1 Character Generation Notes 2 Plot Points 2.1 Earning 2.2 Use 2.3 Pool and Advancement 3 Rules Notations 3.1 Multiple Turns 3.2 Flat-Feet 3.3 Initiative 3.4 Step Penalties 3.5 Movement 3.6 Defensive Actions 3.7 Called Shots 3.8 Combat Rolls 3.8.1 Personal Combat, Offensive Actions 3.8.2 Personal Combat, Defensive Actions 3.8.3 Vehicle Combat 3.9 Astrogation 3.10 Fuel 3.11 Mandarin 4 Equipment 4.1 Firearms 4.2 Communications Gear 4.3 Medical Supplies 4.4 Vehicles

Character Generation Notes

• Characters will be Veteran level. That's 48 attribute points and 68 skill points.
• Each character must have at least one asset and one complication.
• I'm not restricting any assets or complications right now, but I reverse the right to deny folks one when I see it on the character sheet.
• Starting money has changed. There's an opinion from some folks familiar with the game that it is too much, and I agree. You can start with a lot of equipment for what you're given. So, everyone starts with 750 credits (1075 if you take the Moneyed Individual asset and 325 if you take dead broke). That's enough to get you some basic supplies and a weapon and that's where I want everyone to start out.

Plot Points

Earning

You can earn extra plot points in one of two ways:

• When the GM asks you to do something before the next game and you do it, you get an extra plot point at the start of your next session.
• When you create something, such as art of some kind, a music video, a diary entry, a police report about your character's past, etc. you'll get a plot point at the start of your next session.

Use

• When you use plot points to buy dice, the number of plot points you roll determines the minimum value of your roll. Ex. Agatha needs to make this shot. If she misses, the entire crew buys the farm. So, she uses five plot points to buy a D10. She rolls a 4. Because she spent five plot points, the roll is bumped up to a 5.

Pool and Advancement

• Plot points are no longer tied to advancement points. You begin each session with six points and will earn more as the session continues. Any points you don't spend by the end of the session are forfeited.

Rules Notations

As a result of much discussion, here are the final results of the great rules debate of 2007 as well as additional rule notations.

Multiple Turns

• You describe your action on your turn. Each action you take beyond the first reduces all actions rolled that round by -1 step.
• Players can set aside actions to use as defense later. These actions still count towards the negative step penalty even if they aren't actually used during the round. They are lost if not used by the end of the round.
• Post-turn defense actions are performed with the step penalty established during your turn. They also apply a -1 step penalty per action to all your actions next round.

Flat-Feet

• The concept of flat-footed doesn't exist. You can always actively defend so long as you are aware of your opponent.

Initiative

• Initiative is rolled at the start of combat.
• If a character doesn't take any action during a round, that character's initiative raises to the maximum possible value.

Step Penalties

• Apply step penalties to skills first, then attributes when skills are reduced to d0 (or don't exist at all).
• If the attribute and skill are both reduced to d0 then the action in question cannot be performed.

Movement

• The first 15 feet movement is a free action.
• The second 15 foot costs 1 action.
• To move beyond that costs 1 action and you gain a number of feet equal to an Attribute+Athletics/Running check.

Defensive Actions

• If a character dodges, the minimum score they can get on their roll is a '7'. Higher roles (including any step penalties) obtain, but lower ones do not.

Called Shots

• You must be able to roll a skill die in order to make a called shot. If you are not trained in a weapon skill or penalties would reduce your skill to 0, you can only make a basic attack.

Combat Rolls

Personal Combat, Offensive Actions

• Firearms & Ranged Weapons: Agility + Gun Fu for straight attacks that do not involve aiming or called shots.
• Firearms & Ranged Weapons: Alertness + Gun Fu for attacks that involve aiming or called shots.
• Melee Weapons: Agility + Melee Weapon Combat (for weapons of finesse such as a rapier, katana, or whip).
• Melee Weapons: Strength + Melee Weapon Combat (for weapons of brute force such as clubs and axes).
• Unarmed Combat: Strength + Unarmed Combat.
• Heavy Weapons: Alertness + Heavy Weapons.

Personal Combat, Defensive Actions

• Dodging: Agility + Athletics. This is getting out of the way and can be used against all kinds of attacks.
• Blocking/Parrying: Agility + Unarmed Combat or Melee Weapon Combat.
  • If a defender blocks/parries using unarmed combat against an attacker using a melee weapon, the defender automatically takes full damage from the weapon unless the defender achieves an extraordinary success.

Vehicle Combat

• Vehicle and ship manuevering: Ship/Vehicle's Agility + Behind the Wheel Bonus (if appropriate) + character's Pilot skill..
• Vehicle and ship weapons fire: Alertness + Heavy Weapons (for those weapons which need to be aimed manually).
• Vehicle and ship weapons fire: Ship/Vehicle's Alertness + character's Heavy Weapons (for those weapons which are aimed through automatic targetting).

Astrogation

• With a good Int/Pilot/Astrogation roll a pilot can plot a course that will reduce the amount of time (and fuel) it takes to get from point A to point B in the verse.
  • Botch: Normal x2
  • Failure: Normal x1.5
  • Success: Normal
  • Extraordinary Success: Normal x.5

Fuel

There are a actually several different grades of fuel cell available for spaceships.

• Unrefined Fuel: This is the most basic type. It is cheaper than refined fuel but, due to impurities, doesn't go quite as far and makes a ship harder to maintain (-1 to ship's speed class, +2 to difficulty of maintenance rolls). Cost: 3 credits/ton.
• Refined Fuel: This is standard fuel. Price is the same as in the book. Cost: 5 credits/ton.
• Ultra-Refined Fuel: The cells are prepared in such a way as to be more efficient (+1 to ship's speed class, -2 to difficulty of maintenance rolls). Cost: 10 credits/tone.
• High Grade Fuel: You might say these cells are supercharged. They make you faster but are bad for the ship (+1 to ship's speed class, +2 to difficulty of maintenance rolls). Cost: 5 credits/ton.

One final option for ships is to outfit their ship with a ramscoop and processing plant. This allows the ship to skim gas giants or oceans, then process the hydrogen gained into unrefined fuel. The ramscoop/processing plant package takes up 10% of a ship's tonnage and costs 5,000 credits.

Mandarin

Because Mandarin is so prevalent, I'm going to tie it to Knowledge instead of Linguistics.

If you have a Knowledge of:

• D0: You know how to swear in Mandarin and that's it.
• D2: You can ask basic questions (how are you? where's the bathroom? why is your donkey stepping on my foot?)
• D4: You can speak and read/write the language, but poorly. More sophisticated words go over your head.
• D6: You are completely fluent.

Equipment

Firearms

We'll be using an alternate weapon list culled from the Serenity boards.

Name of Weapon	Damage	Range	ROF	Magazine	Cost	Weight	Availability
Longbow	d4 W	70 ft	1	N/A	6 cr	6 lbs	E
Crossbow	d4 W	125 ft	1/2 turns	N/A	8 cr	13 lbs	E
Powered Crossbow	d4 W	175 ft	2	6	24 cr	15 lbs	C
Derringer	d4 W	30 ft	1	2	14 cr	1 lb	E
Laser Pistol	d10 W	100 ft	3	10	330 cr	1.5 lbs	I
Machine Pistol	d6 W	60 ft	3/burst	15	36 cr	4 lbs	E
Pistol, Light	d4 W	60 ft	3	8	18 cr	2 lbs	E
Pistol, Heavy	d6 W	70 ft	3	15	27 cr	3 lbs	E
Revolver, Light	d6 W	50 ft	2	6	16 cr	2 lbs	E
Revolver, Heavy	d8 W	60 ft	2	6/8	24/31 cr	3 lbs	E
Assault Rifle, Light	d8 W	150 ft	3/burst/auto	30	60 cr	9 lbs	I
Assault Rifle, Heavy	d8 W	200 ft	3/burst/auto	40	120 cr	11 lbs	I
Rifle, Heavy	d8 W	250 ft	3	20	60 cr	15 lbs	C
Rifle, Hunting	d8 W	200 ft	3	10	30 cr	9 lbs	E
Rifle, Sniper	d8 W	1000 ft	3	20	140 cr	3 lbs	I
Rifle, Sonic	d8 S	15 ft	2	50	140 cr	3 lbs	I
Shotgun, Combat	d10 W	40 ft	3	10	150 cr	8 lbs	I
Shotgun, Double Barreled	d10/d12 W	40 ft	1	2	50 cr	10 lbs	R
Shotgun, Pump-action	d10 W	40 ft	2	5	50 cr	8 lbs	R
Shotgun, Sawed-off	same as original	20 ft	same as original	same as original	same as original	1/2 original	I
SMG, Light	d6 W	60 ft	3/burst/auto	35	40 cr	6 lbs	I
SMG, Heavy	d8 W	90 ft	3/burst/auto	50	80 cr	8 lbs	I

Ammunition generally costs 1 credit for 20 shots.

Communications Gear

There are four types of communication's gear listed between the main rulebook and Six-shooters and Spaceships. Here's the break down on my rulings on each:

• Ship-Linked Handset: A small 3x3 inch box that allows communication from person to ship and ship to person but not from person to person.
  • Range: Roughly 25 miles. More if there's a sat network to hook into.
  • Cost: 3.2 credits/box
• Micro Transmitter: A very small device about the size and shape of a hearing aid. Allows communication to everyone in the network but can't discriminate between individuals.
  • Range: Roughly 300 feet.
  • Cost: 8 credits/unit
• Earwig: An earpiece and microphone, roughly the size of a bluetooth device. It allows communication to everyone in the network and uses voice commands to discriminate between individuals if needed. Earwings make use of a central transmission link. This could be a commpack or a spaceship.
  • Range: One mile radius around central transmitter.
  • Cost: 2 credits/unit
• Commlink: Something more akin to the modern direct link phone. Usually either a small box or a headset. Allows for communication to everyone in the network or just to specific individuals.
  • Range: Ten miles.
  • Cost: 7.2 credits/unit (hand held), 10 credits/unit (headphone)

Medical Supplies

• Standard and Emergency Medical Supplies are bought in lots of 30 units. Each time a Medical Expertise roll is made to treat an illness or injury, one unit is used. Example: DD has been stabbed in the stomach. She's suffering mighty bad, haven taken 9 wounds. Surgery to help her go on the mend is a complex action with a difficulty of 75. That'll take quite a few rolls. If the Doc ends up making 15 rolls to achieve a 75, he ends up using 15 units of medical supplies. That's half of one lot.
  • Standard medical supplies and emergency medical supplies need to be noted separately from each other. Standard medical supplies can be used for any surgery but only give a bonus (of +1 step) if the patient is suffering from 4 wounds or fewer. Emergency medical supplies can be used for any surgery and give a +2 step bonus, assuming that the medical emergency isn't something extreme (such as reattaching a body part or performing an organ transplant). A doctor may use one unit of emergency medical supplies and one unit of standard medical supplies together when dealing with minor problems (1-4 wounds) to gain a +3 step bonus. Normally 1 unit of medical supplies is used for every roll made. When using both standard and emergency supplies, 1 unit of each is used for every roll made.
  • For the Hooked complication: In the minor version of the complication, one week's worth of feeding the habit uses one unit of medical supplies. In the major version of the complication, one unit of medical supplies feeds the addiction for three days.
• Propoxin is bought by the bottle. Legal cost is 40 credits. Black market runs around 80. A full bottle has about 90 doses if used with some restraint.

Vehicles

• The cost of vehicles (but not specifically fuel or other expenses) should all be multiplied by ten when determining final price. For example, the small mule in the book costs 350 credits, not 50. The large mule costs 500 credits, not 50.

Heroes of the Great Tree Topics
Heroes of the Great Tree	Barsaive • Adepts • NPCs • House Rules
Impossibilities	I-verse background • Player Characters • NPCs • House Rules
Phantapunk	Aeryn Background • Player Characters • NPCs • House Rules
Concrete & Crimson	World Background • Scoobies • NPCs • House Rules
Keep Flying	The 'Verse • The Crew • NPCs • House Rules
Polybius	The World • Investigators • NPCs • House Rules
Labyrinth	The World • PCs • NPCs • House Rules• Leads
Arkham by Cyberlight	The City • The Runners • Everyone Else • House Rules
Keep Flying v2	The 'Verse • The Crew • Other Folk • House Rules