Battlestations: Deep Ones in Deep Space

[Gareth_Lazelle]

Rules Questions and comments:

Psychiatrist and Mentally Stable [p5]
Mentally stable seems far more powerful than Psychiatrist. Should it be restricted to Sanity skill checks for preventing Madness? (perhaps we should call those "Horror checks" to differentiate from becalm rolls, etc?).
That would still be fairly powerful, but not as broad, making the Psychiatrist ability more useful (Psychiatrist has both restrictions upon what you can spend the re-rolls on, and limited uses - it's only real advantage as written is the ability to get multiple re-rolls per die roll).

Becalm [p5]
Should this be a Diplomacy roll? (Diplomacy is a pretty poor ability at the moment, so I like the idea of giving it slightly more use - and this seems appropriate). It might be a worthy optional rule for players with the appropriate supplement (PoT)?

Eugene [p6]
Despite comments that Eugenes are weak, I think they have good stats (especially speed - they have the highest speed other than those races with variable speeds) and can wear (good) armour as well as having the luck ability. It's a shame they lose the equipment edge, but lets face it - it will get abused by player Eugenes handing equipment to other PCs... I guess if you really think they are weak you could consider the equipment to be "tailored for their use" when the second upgrade occurs, restricting the bonus to the character creating it?
There is a comment about "...the ability to infest the minds of people on overwatch or preparing...", but no description of this ability either there or in the GM section (unless I missed it)? Is it simply there to scare the players

Psionic Ability Chart [p36]
Do creatures get all abilities above the MD as well? (i.e.: does MD 3 give: Mentally Shielded, Stunner and Mind Warper, or just Mind Warper?)

[Gareth_Lazelle]

Proposed treasure item:

Elder Thing Lightening Gun
Damage: Variable
Weight: 5
Availability: N/A

The GM should secretly track the Lightening Guns charge level, which starts the scenario at zero unless otherwise noted.

Characters wielding a lightening gun may as an action make an Engineering Test (Athletics test???) against a target number of 8 (-3 penalty if the character does not have an empty hand). If failed the GM should secretly roll 1D6 and add the result to the Lightening Guns charge. If passed then the player may roll 2D6 and select which of the dice to add to the weapons charge. Unused charge slowly deteriorates, at the end of each turn the GM should secretly roll 1D6 / 2, rounding down (0-3 points), and remove that many charge points from the weapons total.

If the charge ever reaches 13+ the weapon discharges in the players hands, doing a number of dice of damage equal to charge/5 (round down). Any adjacent characters also take damage with half the number of dice and damage the characters module as if having failed an attack (below).

The player may as an action attack with the Lightening Gun. Roll to hit as normal, and if successful take as many dice as the weapons charge as the damage pool (at which point the charge drops to zero). One to three of these dice attack the target (roll 1D6 / 2, rounding fractions up, remove the dice from the pool when used). Any bots (or Brains in Jars) hit by this weapon take damage as if hit by an EMP weapon regardless of the number of charge lost to them.

Once the attack has been resolved, the lightening arcs towards nearby targets. Select the nearest character (hostile or friendly - even the attacker is vulnerable!) to the victim that has not already been attacked (dice randomly for ties) and place one dice from the pool in each space between the two characters to form a trail following the shortest possible path. Any remaining dice once the next target is reached can be used for an attack on the second character as noted above. Once resolved select a third target, etc.

In the unlikely event that you run out of targets before you run out of dice then any spare dice discharge into the hull. Roll one additional dice when checking for module damage in each module. Otherwise the attack ends when the damage pool is depleted.

Any ship modules the lightening arc passes through (the attackers, the targets, modules in between and any modules the arc passes through) must roll 1D6, being damaged on a roll of 6.

If the attack fails, roll all of the charge dice, with any sixes damaging the players module!

Good enough? Totally pants?

[Gareth_Lazelle]

Next Item:

Brain in a Jar
Weight 5
Move 0*
Hit Points 1*
Hands: 0*
Target Number: 8*

* No Brain in a jar attributes may be modified by any traits other than HP reduction from damage.

Special Abilities:
Brain in a Jar: Being in a Jar means that the character may not move alone, instead they may be picked up and carried around like any other item of equipment (willingly or unwillingly), and may (as an action made by the carrying character, bot, or foe) be placed into an adjacent Battlestation. The jar is armoured - subtract three from all damage. The jar may only perform battlestation actions, diplomacy actions and psionic actions, or other non-physical actions allowed by the GM.

EVA: The brain-tank has a built in life support unit. It does have a built-in drug dispenser, so adjacent characters may administer drugs freely to the Brain.

Interface: If positioned on a Battlestation an occupied Brain in a Jar may operate the Battlestation without needing a free hand.

Insane: Being transplanted into a Jar is somewhat traumatic. Immediately after transplantation, or at the beginning of each scenario make a Sanity test vs a difficulty of 11. The number of failures indicates the characters default sanity level. The character may never dip below that level of sanity for the remainder of the scenario for any reason (Luck may be used on this die roll, but like any Horror check, even if a success is rolled the character skill starts at level 1).

Transplantation: Any character with the Mad Science ability performing the Resuscitation Action (PG, p17) may choose to use an empty Brain in a Jar to gain a +12 bonus to the action! If successful the target is transplanted into the jar, and their attributes altered to match those above, gaining all of the noted special abilities, but keeping all skills, etc. The character may be returned to their body after the scenario if the situation allows it!

EMP Vulnerable: The jars life-support systems are vulnerable to EMP. Make an EMP check as if the Jar where a bot. If it fails it and the brain are destroyed or damaged exactly like bots.


Characters may end up in a jar by intent (a mad scientist character attempting resuscitation), bad luck (captured by aliens who don't appreciate all of the wasted space their prisoners bodies take up) or scenario.

[pauli]

There is a comment about "...the ability to infest the minds of people on overwatch or preparing...", but no description of this ability either there or in the GM section (unless I missed it)?

I too noticed this anomaly.  I think one of the scenarios mentioned something about this.  Will re-read this evening to confirm.

- Pauli

[Gareth_Lazelle]

Something slightly different,

I think that games featuring followers of certain dark Gods should probably be somewhat flavoured by the Gods tenets.

So, to begin with:

Azathoth
Outside the ordered universe is that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.

Themes: Destruction.
Cult: No particular followers or servitors.
Special Scenario Notes:
When dice are rolled for damage regardless of the cause, and die showing a 1, 2 or 3 should be immediately re-rolled. Luck and further re-rolls may then be used.

Cthugha
He hung motionless in a black, forbidding sky and at first thought he was suspended somewhere in the intrasolar deeps much closer to the Sun than on Earth. But then he realized that the dully gleaming orb which floated before his dreaming vision was not the Sun. Ugly dark blotches mottled the dull orange surface and great columns of spinning flame arced around the rim.... [He watched] the titan sunspots drift slowly across the hideous disc, at times growing larger and merging into great gaping chasms in the fiery atmosphere, while at others dwindling almost to nothingness.... Something was stirring deep within that fiery atmosphere; something monstrous that roared an insatiable anger against the chains of the Elder Gods which had bound it there for an eternity.... Unable to resist, utterly powerless to control his movements, he was diving headlong towards that ravening chaos, that age-old intelligence which was Cthugha.

Themes: Fire
Cult: No particular followers. Servitors include Fire Vampires.
Special Scenario Rules: When rolling to determine whether a target ignites, re-roll any failures. Burning targets rolling for fire-damage immediately re-roll all dice showing 1-3 before making any other re-rolls, etc.

[pauli]

Not terribly relevant but fun nonetheless:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOHJUrcVdJk


- Pauli

[Gareth_Lazelle]

Awesome!

[FoxMccloudy]

Heya,

I believe the rules for the Eugene's NPCs you want are in the mission "Plum Possum" (page 57). Notice that for the mission, it works as a special rule for the players, not an active action for the NPCs.

Fox

[Cadet Kiwi Paul-018]

What are peoples experience of Deep Ones?

We have tried and liked it but some players found it frustrating (and scary)

[Commodore JJ]

i don't think it's scary, in fact i think it's lacking in the horror department. it's not Cthulhu Mythos shocking!, it's more like Casper what?.
they are frustrating puzzles, with only one way to solve it. some of the missions are poorly written, just like the description for the eugenes.
it's suppose to be more a RPG expansion, but it lacks the drive.

btw Gareth, i like your changes it adds to the theme the book is lacking in. good job.

[Kapitän Zukunft]

dear all,

I am a lovecraft fan for many many year and was exited as I got DOIDS in my hands. I just read the player part and was very disappointed.
1. The whole Madness thing is very negative. In all other books we have a positive character development and now the heros get quirks! That is not to bear for a hero with rank 7-8 who played the basic book and won 1 or 2 civil wars to get a quirk because he has seen a monster. Surly not when the hero has "calm" and "unflappable". A deep one can not be worse than a Zoallan.

2. We will not play it with our heros, we will make new ones for this trip. 

3.The eugene as player character is really a pity. That is a shame as I hoed to play a Roy Betty kind of replicant.
My proposition to polish the eugene a little bit:
Alien Ability: The flame which shines double as bright shines only half as long....
At creation can the eugne spent on one on one basis Luck points into ability points as he likes.
The idea is that a soulless being has less luck, but is more powerful then any human.
Anyway they have only a 4 year live span.. 


have fun..
greetings 

[Gareth_Lazelle]

A deep one can not be worse than a Zoallan.

I do wonder if DOiDS is best played with Human-only crews - it just seems somehow to be more Lovecraft,

[Jason Siadek]

I am a lovecraft fan for many many year and was exited as I got DOIDS in my hands. I just read the player part and was very disappointed.
1. The whole Madness thing is very negative. In all other books we have a positive character development and now the heros get quirks! That is not to bear for a hero with rank 7-8 who played the basic book and won 1 or 2 civil wars to get a quirk because he has seen a monster. Surly not when the hero has "calm" and "unflappable". A deep one can not be worse than a Zoallan.

As a Lovecraft fan you should know: every story ends where the hero ends up deformed, insane, or worse!  I think you're missing the idea that quirks are temporary, and that you just have to requisition treatment to handle it.  For Rank 7 heroes, that's a way to mitigate their Christmas after every mission.  Risking your heroes is part of the horror of the expansion, so I'm sorry if you were off-put.  It's a very deadly expansion, too!

I'm very happy with the feedback I've been getting, and our artist Doug Kovacs made a freaky gallery of images to add to the lore of the Battlestations universe.  The equipment and ideas from Gareth are great!

-j*

[Commodore JJ]

We will not play it with our heros, we will make new ones for this trip.  Grin

good idea, or you could just run a couple of the missions....don't run it as a campaign.sorry, my mistake, there are no campaign rules. just run some missions in your normal campaign to throw the heroes off.

The eugene as player character is really a pity. That is a shame as I hoed to play a Roy Betty kind of replicant.
My proposition to polish the eugene a little bit:
Alien Ability: The flame which shines double as bright shines only half as long....
At creation can the eugne spent on one on one basis Luck points into ability points as he likes.
The idea is that a soulless being has less luck, but is more powerful then any human.
Anyway they have only a 4 year live span..  Grin

i like this, shows creativity. it is sad how they turned out in the book.

stay well,

jj