Editing Stars Without Number: Back in Black (section)

== House Rules ==

=== Characters & Character Generation ===
*After first level, characters gain double hit points.  
*New PCs start out one level below the lowest-level PC who has gained at least one level in the course of play.
*Hit Points: I reroll a character's entire pool of hit points each time they level.  You take the new result if it is higher.  If the new result is equal or lower to your current result, you instead gain one hit point.
*A character may reroll their entire pool of hit dice by spending one week on vacation, doing nothing of note (including travel!)  In this case, the new result must be taken even if it is worse.

=== Character Advancement ===
*Characters gain XP mostly by making money as adventurers.  Every 5 credits worth of loot, salvage, valuable data, etc. that the PCs take back to civilization and sell is worth one XP.  XP is pooled and divided between the characters evenly (excepting that Rook receives only half a share.)
*As noted in the recruitment thread, characters gain double skill points on leveling.  Please note the separation between class and non-class skills!
*When a character gains a level and spends skill points, they must deal with the training time and cost.  They should consult the table in the character advancement chapter, and add together the training cost for all skills they are training.  Spend this amount.  For every five hundred credits so spent, training takes one week.  Training must be done at a venue where training of that type and level is available.  When leveling, players should post their advancement plans and I'll inform them of any skills that will require time at different venues.
*While training, players can specify one skill they are raising to 1 or higher to use for a research project. This is a skill roll that can be rerolled using an Expert's unique power, to determine things like useful information, lost/proprietary drill routes, blackmail material on NPC's, etcetera. The GM always has the right to veto a project and request that you pick another one.

===Year 1 Tech Advances===

The following personal equipment is now available, at five times the book price. These items can only be purchased in Nyx, except for the Psitech items, which can only be purchased at the Black House.

*Grav Harness
*Toolkit/Pretech
*Grav Chute (TL5, the TL4 version was already available)
*Mind Blade
*Telekinetic Sling
*Thunder Gun

===Year 2 Tech Advances===

New items that are now available at 5x base price:
*Shear Rifle (but lacks burst fire capability)
*Metafocal Grenade
*Vacc Skin
*Inertial Shunt Nodes, Gecko Gravity Anchors, Level Two Direct Interfaces (See Polychrome, these are available only on Anumati, and Anumati's cyberware discount does not apply.)

Now available to private purchases at 2x base price:
*Naval Courier (Skyward Steel)
*Bulk Freighter (I have special rules for these, inquire if necessary)
*Bannerjee Model 12 (Skyward Steel/Banerjee Construction Solutions)
*Peerless (Bannerjee Construction Solutions)

New Custom Ship Upgrades:
*Generation 4 Life Support System: This increases the base life support duration for a ship to 4 weeks (or one month) from two weeks. The cost is 20,000 credits x the maximum crew rating of the ship. It's a pure upgrade resulting from more advanced technology, and costs no mass or power. It does add to the total cost of the vessel for purposes of determining maintenance costs.

=== Weaponry ===
*Weapons are -2 to hit against armor that is higher TL. Weapons are +2 against armor that is 1 TL lower, and usually ignore armor that is 2 or more Tech Levels lower.
*Spike Throwers are intended as assault weapons, to take out unprepared enemies in confined spaces.  Note their very poor range.  Additionally, they perform poorly against armor.  When attacking any vehicle with an Armor rating, they deal only half damage.  Damage is halved after applying armor.
*Void Carbines are intended to allow assaults on spacecraft, so that the crew can be killed while leaving the spacecraft intact.  They rip vacc suits like the Suit Ripper on page 35.  They are considered suspect weaponry, but are not a capital offense if a person is otherwise authorized to be armed.
*Mag pistols and mag rifles are the signature military technologies of humanity.  They tend to mitigate the effects of cover.  They subtract 2 from the armor rating of anything that can be damaged by non-gunnery scale weaponry (and that's at TL4, they may ignore the armor rating of objects below TL4.)  They usually overpenetrate through hard cover, and penalties to attack targets behind cover are lessened unless the cover is extremely tough, if the attacker has a means of accurately determining the location of the enemy.  
*Grenades are a topic of some concern for player characters, for obvious reasons (Hint: It's because player characters like to blow things up.)
**Each Readied grenade takes up 1 encumbrance by itself.
**Grenades deal 2d6 damage.
**When stowed, grenades can be carried in packages. A package of grenades contains 3, so you can get three stowed grenades into one package for one encumbrance. However, it takes one round to remove the grenades from the package in addition to the round to un-stow them.
**Under no circumstances can grenades or grenade launchers be carried through civilization without repercussions.
*Grenade Launchers can be equipped along with an appropriately modified firearm.  They use '''combat/gunnery.'''
**A grenade launcher adds one encumbrance to the encumbrance value of a longarm.
**Thrown grenades and grenade launcher grenades are not interchangeable.  You must specify which one you are carrying.
**They fire rounds which arm at 20 meters, and will not explode until they have flown at least that far (but beware ricochets...) and are pretty much direct-fire weapons with 50/150 meter ranges. Unlike thrown grenades, these detonate on impact rather than on a timer! The actual projectile can be fired out to 400 meters by arcing it, but they're wildly inaccurate at this range. I suppose under some circumstances you could find a use for that, but it wouldn't be any good for trying to pick off a specific enemy or group of enemies.
**Underslung grenade launchers have an internal magazine of three grenades.
**Launched grenades, unlike regular grenades, are loaded with high explosive warheads. They ignore the Armor of and can damage soft-skinned vehicles such as passenger cars. This is yet another reason you cannot use them anywhere outside of a war-zone.
**Also unlike thrown grenades, launched grenades deviate by 1d20 meters.  Yes, they can bounce back at you.  
**Using them inside a space ship may also be a bad idea. Just a thought.
**They're actually pretty expensive. You guys have enough money that it won't be an issue, though. If we haven't added an Armory to the ship then we will at the next opportunity, and that will cover it.

====Military flamethrower====

*Total of six encumbrance, two of which is carried readied (the sprayer-rifle) and four of which you can carry stowed (the fuel/pressure tanks.) You can carry extra tanks if you want. The flamethrower has an 80 meter range, with no range penalty. It can be used to attack small groups of enemies that are at least slightly cohesive, say up to six at once. Make one roll to-hit, a successful attack strikes all of them. Flamethrowers are uniquely able to have their fire bounced off walls or sprayed through apertures; in many circumstances the user of a flamethrower will be able to avoid the penalties from cover or even strike enemies who are fully under cover. 

*The flamethrower will deal 1d8 damage on the first successful hit, and the opponents will thereafter take 1d4 damage at the end of their next two subsequent actions. Further, any targeted group of enemies must immediately save versus fear (mental effect save) when attacked with a flamethrower or retreat via the best means available. Enemy forces who are attacked with flamethrowers may receive a -1 to their morale for any morale checks made during the battle. Flamethrowers can get ten shots per tank. 

*They can also be used to set buildings alight.

*5,000 credits for the flamethrower, 100 credits for additional fuel tanks.

==== Melee & Ranged Weapons ====

*Longarms are the weapon of choice for most large-scale infantry actions, but other weapons have their uses.  Specifically, melee weapons have an advantage in melee combat.
*Longarms cannot be fired into a melee without the risk of hitting the wrong target.  If you are in melee with no other allies, and are attempting to fire a longarm at opponents who are in melee with you, you must take a penalty of -2 to hit, and opponents will receive +2 to hit you.  On second and subsequent rounds of attempting to use a longarm in melee, you will automatically lose initiative.
*Pistols can be fired into a melee safely if the pistol-wielder is part of the melee.  They do not receive a penalty to hit, but melee-armed enemies will receive a +2 bonus to hit the pistol-wielder.

==== New Weapons ====
*Some pistols are designed to be concealed.  They will usually have less range and ammunition capacity, but in return can be hidden beneath normal clothing.  Costs are the same as for the larger version.  Some worlds allow open carry but not concealed carry; Culture/Traveler 0 and access to a planetary data network will be sufficient to forewarn PCs who think to ask the GM what the local weapon laws are.  For double cost, these weapons will defeat TL3 security scans and can only be found with a pat-down search.  Even then, the dedicated PC might find ways of hiding them.
**Concealable Mag Pistols have a four round ammunition capacity and a range of 20/40.
**Concealable Laser Pistols have a seven round ammunition capacity and a range of 50/100.
**Concealable Thermal Pistols have a four round ammunition capacity and a range of 15/30.
*Sniper Rifles 
**Laser Sniper Rifle: +1 to hit, 2d10 damage, add your combat/energy skill to your damage rating if you take at least one round to aim.  Range 2000/4000. Has an enormous scope with low-light capability. Gets 5 shots from a Type A power cell. 4 Encumbrance, takes two rounds to fold from a briefcase-sized case out to the firing configuration, or one round to fold back. Fires from a bipod mount.
**Railgun: 3d8 damage, add your combat/projectile skill to your damage rating if you take at least one round to aim.  Range 1500/3000. Enormous scope with low-light capability. 3 round magazine. 5 encumbrance, takes two rounds to fold out from a briefcase-sized case out to firing configuration, or one round to fold back. Fires from a bipod mount. Loud.

=== Swarms ===
*Swarms are a mechanical way to represent fights with very large groups of enemies.
*A swarm's Strength is equal to the number of creatures in the swarm.
*A swarm's HP is equal to the average HP of a member of the swarm.
*A swarm's other stats, such as AC, Movement Rate, saving Throws, et cetera, remain the same.
**An attack that deals less damage than the swarm's HP has no effect
**An attack that deals damage equal to or greater than the swarm's HP reduces its strength by 1.  Some weapons listed below can reduce strength by more than one per attack.  For each multiple of the swarm's HP, Strength is reduced by one, up to the limit of that weapon.
**Bursts of automatic fire can reduce strength by up to 3.
**Area effect weapons deal double damage and do not have an upper limit on the amount of Strength they can remove, so long as in the referee's judgment the area could include that many creatures.  Reductions to damage from a successful save (The Swarm only makes a single save) or from having a low AC (as in the case of grenades) is applied before doubling.
**Suppressive fire weapons deal double damage instead of half damage, and have no limit on how much they can reduce enemy Strength.  If the swarm is under hard cover, they can make a save as normal.
**PCs with combat/primitive or combat/unarmed, who are using those skills, may make a number of melee or unarmed attacks equal to their skill rating +1 if the swarm is in melee with them, and they are using that type of attack.
**A group of enemies must have Strength at least double the number of PCs to be considered a swarm.  They only make one attack per PC (Ranged or melee, as appropriate.)  However, for every full multiple of the PCs number their strength is (double, triple, quadruple...) the swarm's attacks gain +1 to hit and damage.
**A swarm with Strength equal to at least four times the number of PCs may deal 1d4 damage (with no bonus) to PCs who are in powered armor or the equivalent, even if their weapons would normally not be able to affect an opponent in that type of armor.  This still requires a successful to-hit roll.

=== Madness & The Black House ===

I don't really like the way that the base rules absolutely fry someone for using psychic powers untrained. So, instead, I'm ruling that untrained use of psychic powers accumulates Madness. If you're careful, you can get away with it for a while. A lot of incoming students do; they may have been using their abilities in secret for a time before the agents picked them up. It's a lot less of a problem than it used to be, but it still happens.

A great deal of what happens in the first year or two of Psychic training is attempting to undo the accumulated Madness of the worst cases, or at least help the students to deal with it. The education of psychics tends to be heavy on history, culture and religion for exactly this reason; many students take comfort in mysticism (although its discouraged if it becomes excessive.) 

They also often are given pets to take care of. It's therapeutic. The Black House gets weird some times.

=== Talk Show Rules ===

Okay, these are going to be the rules for the talk show.

As always, creativity is rewarded. Also, these are going to be subject to what is going on in the fiction, and the results may be tilted or reinterpreted in that light.


Pre-Game

You need to be able to make a decent presentation of yourself. This can be seen as basically a wardrobe check. You can use an appropriate skill (Leadership, Business, Any Culture/World* skill if you are going to dress like a person from that world), modified by Wisdom, to dress like a person who belongs on television. If you hit at least a difficulty seven, you manage to present yourself appropriately. If you fail the check, you will receive a -1 to every check you make until you succeed at a check.

If you hit at least a twelve, you will gain a +1 to any one check you make during the show. You must declare you are using this bonus beforehand.


Rounds and Players

There will be three rounds, each representing about a half hour of air time. During each round, three members of the party and three NPCs may take an action. The three NPCs are Alkaylee and two expert commentators. No PC may act two rounds in a row; therefore each player character will act twice. Rook acts as part of your group and will also act twice. You can kibbitz as much as you want in the OOC thread, because Delan's telepathy will allow you to coordinate your actions.


The following actions are available. Other actions might also be available. There is some flexibility in what skill is used, but please don't try to just always push towards using your highest skill.

*What's your agenda here?: This action can be used against any participant who has acted at least once already. It is a perception check with a difficulty of 7. Success gives the party information about the purpose and likely subsequent actions of another participant. If Delan uses this action, her Empathy power gives her the option of using it against every NPC. In this instance, they will make a saving throw versus mental effect instead of her making a Perception check. The amount and type of information obtained will depend on the NPC's emotional state and what action they are attempting that round. This action always takes place at the end of a round.

*...but you aren't entitled to your own facts!: This action uses an appropriate knowledge-type skill. History and Tactics are the most obviously useful, but this is another area where creativity will be of great assistance. This action starts at Difficulty 7, and allows the establishment of a common ground of fact, which must be within reason. No later action can that rests on incompatible premises can be successful. This action can be countered by later uses of the same action; each subsequent use to alter the same factual landscape increases the difficulty by one. Facts which are not closely related or incompatible can be established without reference to each other's current difficulty. (For example, an Tech/Astronautic argument about the quality of Chittik vessels and a Steward argument about the effects on the State's coffers may indicate contradictory conclusions about the best course of action, but the facts themselves are not in contradiction.)

*Rhetoric: Once facts are established, a character can use Persuade to push the audience toward a conclusion. This will fail if the facts are later controverted. Build your argument on solid premises!

*Conclude: If Rhetoric was used successfully during a prior round, and has not been countered, then a use of Leadership can effectively seal the deal so far as the audience is concerned.

*Challenge Credentials: With this check (probably based on Persuade), you can compel another character to reveal the skills they have that are relevant to the discussion. This action will automatically succeed if the target has failed a check in the prior round. A character who has had their credentials challenged receives a -1 to all checks until they succeed on a check.

*Establish Credibility: With this check, using an appropriate skill, you demonstrate that your group has credibility. Everyone on your side gains a +1 to their checks on the next round of actions.

*Question Credibility: If you have already determined another party's agenda, you can reveal it and attempt to argue that they're too biased. If successful, everyone with that agenda will be at -1 to any future actions relevant to their agenda, unless they can manage to shake off the accusation of bias.

*Build Reputation: This action allows the user to gain temporary Reputation (or some other benefit) from an outside organization or group by self-promotion or promoting the agenda of that organization or group. This will have effects that only apply outside of the combat, and those effects may vary wildly.

*Provoke: This action may be taken in a round after an opponent has failed an action. The opponent may contest it with a roll of their own, but if the target loses the roll then they are removed from the show and may no longer act. The target may decide if they storm off, lose it and have their mic cut off, or what.

*Straw Man: The user of this action may (within reason) dishonestly impute a position to a target who has used ...but you aren't entitled to your own facts! in the prior round. The straw man must be a reasonable corollary to the facts the target established. If successful, that person must either accept that position or lose their next action to disclaim it (automatic success.)


Note: Culture/World specifically means a world, it does not include spacer, traveler, criminal, et cetera.

=== Trade ===

*Successful Trade, whether purchase or sale, usually requires at least a couple days on-planet. This may vary depending on what you are purchasing or selling, how much of it, and where.  On TL3 or 4 planets where electronic bills of lading and so forth are available, Trade can be done rapidly.  On lower-tech worlds, time may be required for buyers to come and go.
*I usually don't stack modifiers for supply and demand.  Instead, I use the most specifically applicable modifier.

===Minion School===
[http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?728999-Stars-Without-Number-Volume-III-Let-s-Kill-the-Pope&p=18074555#post18074555 Minion School]
[http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?728999-Stars-Without-Number-Volume-III-Let-s-Kill-the-Pope&p=18076402#post18076402 And more on NPCs]

===Custom Spaceships===

Please note that one of my house rules is that the Atmospheric Configuration module is an inherent part of a ship's design. It must be factored into the vessel at the time of its construction, and cannot be added or removed later. Not all vessel types are available from all systems.

'''New Ship Class: Corvette'''

The Corvette sits in size between a Shuttle and a Free Merchant, and so it sort of straddles the line. Corvettes are too large to sit in a Fighter bay on a larger vessel. However, two Corvettes can occupy a single Frigate bay on a capital vessel. Corvettes gain five tons of Cargo Space per point of Free Mass spent on Cargo, and are able to accommodate fittings up to Frigate size. In the Ship Fittings charts, costs marked # are not multiplied for Corvettes, and costs marked * are multiplied times 5.


The Drekkar 
*Cost: 350k
*Speed: 3
*Armor: 2
*HP: 15
*Crew: 2/4
*AC: 6
*Power: 7
*Free Mass: 7
*Hardpoints: 1

The Drekkar is a Corvette hull produced by the Spacekea shipyards in the Wolf system.  It's a ship designed for light-duty scientific, exploration, and trade expeditions. The hull has an integral Atmospheric Configuration and Equipment Locker. Further, the area around the rear cargo bay door contains collapsible panels that can fold out into a prefabricated seven meter by seven meter by three meter room. This can only be used when the Drekkar is landed on a planetary surface and can't be separated from the ship without destroying it, but it can be put up or taken down in about an hour. It is configurable as a living, laboratory, or work space, and has electrical, water, and HVAC comparable to any other TL4 structure. Some small-time traders configure it as a literal storefront, and make sales directly from their cargo bay.


The Yacht
*Cost: 400k
*Speed 3
*Armor 1
*HP 15
*Crew 2/10
*AC 7
*Power 5
*Free Mass 8
*Hardpoints 0. 

The Yacht is a luxury vessel. They have a small integral lifeboat, but the capacity of the lifeboat never exceeds 5, even if the Extended Life Support fitting is installed. Yachts have double the normal yearly maintenance costs. Yachts are available in Anumati.


'''New Frigate-class hull: Runabout'''

Runabout
*Cost: 750k
*Speed: 3
*Armor: 1
*HP: 20
*Crew Min/Max 1/20
*AC: 5
*Power: 10
*Free Mass: 10
*Hardpoints: 2

===Dungeon Search Rules ===

This is a megadungeon in terms of In-Character size, but I'm dividing it into abstract zones rather than actually mapping out kilometers of corridor. I hope to be a tad more sophisticated about it than I was with the Chittik asteroid base. Generally speaking, a "zone" might be the size of a neighborhood, a power plant, or a mall. Something like that. It's big enough to have an extended scene in a movie, maybe several interesting things to look at or treasure to find, a combat or two. Things like that. Zones are connected to specific other zones. You can map it by just drawing a circle for a zone and a line to any other zones it connects to. Do not concern yourself with macro-scale measurements; I'm not hiding secret rooms that you need to triangulate to find. If I start specifying distances, it's because weapon range or movement or simply picturing the terrain might require it, not because we're dropping into something where you need to search every three meters for a secret door.


This is going to be run in half-hour turns. It takes a half-hour to do a basic "chunk" of exploration of a zone, basically to do something substantial. Some zones might take more than one turn to search. I'll tell you when you're done and what you've found. Doing something like restoring power to a dead generator or hacking a computer or other big projects takes a turn. Wiping the dust off of a long-disused holoprojector doesn't. If there are specific pieces of scenery you want to examine, they may or may not take a turn to go over, it depends on what they are and what you're doing. Basically declare your actions and I'll post time-stamps.


Traveling from one zone to another takes a turn. So, budget a minimum of three turns for a zone. 1 turn to search it and get the layout, 1 turn to do anything interesting if you think of anything interesting to do, and 1 turn to move on to the next one. That's an hour and a half.


I'll post a time-stamp every time you advance a turn.