DwD Studios

Can't answer the first 2, but I do agree with the ablative armor. I figure to convert each 5 points of ablative armor into 1,2 or 3 DR, but I have not really worked the #'s yet. Could use the modern armor from covert ops as well.

Questions might get answered quicker on the google+ page.

The ablative armor was a must. We resisted it too at first, especially me. We started with DR, of course, like our other games. But the range of damage is so great in a sci fi game that we ended up with issues that tremendously affected the fun of the game. We had to have available defenses that could protect you against an 8D+ attack, but that totally immunized you against most normal attacks. If DR was too low it was nonsense against larger damage weapons. We spent months tweaking DR ranges but all our feedback was like "why would anyone ever buy weapons x, y, or z, when defense a, b, and c exists?" or "why would anyone even buy defense a, b, or c when weapons x, y, and z exist?" It was frustrating. I kept trying to fix it by tweaking the DR values but it NEVER brought the fun back to epic encounters.

So we went back to our roots. Star Frontiers had ablative damage. Your suit took some and so did you. You kept track of that damage until your suit was trashed. Effectively, that just gave you more hit points. Encounters were epic and fun because you could always cut your opponents down to size eventually.

Then we went back to our roots again. D&D this time. Dragons weren't immune to your sword, it just took a lot of whacking to cut the dragon down to size. Encounters were epic and fun.

So there needed to be a way to put the fun back into such encounters to allow for the epic ranges of damage present in a sci-fi game. So we tried ablative armor. Bam! That solved the problem, while simultaneously fitting perfectly in our genre. After all, even on the first page of the Player's Handbook where we make our mission statement for the game's theme, we say "in a frontier setting, resources are never what they could be." You're always having to ration what you have, repair things, etc. So now the technician, who can repair damage to armor, has more to do and has more of a niche to fill than he already did.

So ablative armor simultaneously fixed the game-mechanic problem while strongly supporting our theme. That was a win-win, and all the play testers, many of whom have played our other games and initially protested, agreed it solved the issue and brought fun back to epic encounters. When we then went to our external & unmoderated playtests, some Referees had a similar reaction, though through play they liked the way it worked.

Feel free to experiment - we encourage house rules and home re-theming. But don't be surprised if ya come back around to at least some level of ablation management :-)

yes - Referee's Handbook has star sector, star system, and planet generation guidelines. It does not have vehicle and ship construction rules, however.

We don't have a mechanical process for creating vehicles; we used our best judgment and provided a large number of vehicle types in the Player's Handbook, along with rules for modifying/upgrading those designs. In the Referee's Handbook we provide some rules for creating used/outdated vehicles with fun quirks all their own, along with how to tweak the existing models with tweaks to the core stat block in order to simulate specific models of vehicles. After all, Tri-Corp's jetcopter design might vary from those used by Kroll Corp.

We do, however, have a mechanical process for creating starships. But it's not perfect. I made it in Excel and it's functional but not commercial-worthy on its own. I may try to go back and build a step-by-step process out of that spreadsheet some day and share it. Until then, however, you can modify/upgrade starships using the guidelines in the Player's Handbook, and just like vehicles we have a process to create used/outdated starships with fun quirks along with specific-model-starships to make each organization's or each species' ships more unique.

The alternative to ablative armor is to run a game in which combat is very, very, very deadly, very, very, very quickly. Some people like that sort of game - it makes you think - but that would be a very different sort of game from DwD's other titles. More The Expanse, less Star Wars. There's certainly a place for such gritty, realistic games, but people who have bought DwD's other games are likely to not like it much. (And there are other games out there like that.)

Hmm. A bit concerned about the ablative dmg. not being easily adapted to dr. I am not a fan of large hit points totals to begin with, and if armor is just buying temp. hp's with no workable alternative then this may be difficult to fit in with what I want. I am still going to try and work something up, but if you have done that much testing on it I doubt I can come up with anything better.

Fair enough, Claybor. Not every game's mechanics are perfect for everyone.

Damage is classified into types, so there's always a workaround to take down a well-protected enemy. Foe has high protection against beam weapons? Hit it with a bullet. High protection against ballistic damage? Hit it with an electric/shock damage attack.

There are of course alternatives. As taustinoc says, you could set DR levels and accept whatever level of lethality it provides. My last version of the playtest document which had DR set them as follows. Don't forget damage types; there was DR for ballistic defenses, DR(B) for beam attacks, DR(S) for sonic, and DR(E) for electric shock.

Civilian armor provided DR 10.
Security armor provided DR 20.
Military armor provided DR 30.

Screens always worked the same way they do now, in all our playtests (drains EU source based on damage amount).

Feel free to use those values and let us know how you like them. Maybe some people will prefer DR? My playtesters complained that they had to carry around a one-of-each menu of weaponry... yours may differ.

I wasn't giving up. There's wayyyy too many good things about FS to give in that easily.

The lethality level actually may not be a big issue. (I plan on being a bit more generous with destiny as well which will tone it down.)

I just need to get in and start 'kicking the tires' as they say.

I plan on hitting the ground running as soon as the GM guide is available.

Thanks for sharing your numbers.

Thanks for all the comments.

Appreciate the issue of having to handle big damage variances - I think it comes down to the fact I'm just not a fan of ablative armour.

Also, the "pick what you want to kill you" approach seems a bit of a fiddle as well - I'm thinking of the classic Traveller Cloth & Reflec combo here. I'd like to at least be able to mitigate some damage of each type, say a combat armour suit that is 15/10 ballistic / beam (& I know there is nothing stopping me from doing that). I'll have a go with the DR numbers you mention.

Vehicle construction rules I can do without or borrow from another set of rules if I really need to but I'd really like to see something for ship construction. That seems a big miss.

I'm still looking forward to the ref's HB though.

Oh, btw, there are combat rules, ground & space?

Yep, there are sections with guidelines for personal, vehicle, and space combat.

Give it a try :-) Maybe you'll find that when a mechanic feeds a game's theme it might overrule you not being a fan of that specific mechanic.

I don't have any DR in the core mechanics, nor do I have armor which provides multiple forms of protection. However, there is NO rule preventing you from having such protection. The game is not exactly meant to be a total combat game, but in a campaign designed to be very military (which would be fun!), I'm sure "power armor" would be created, which not only would provide protection against multiple attack forms but might even include exoskeletal muscle augmentation. In fact, a whole sourcebook about heavily militarized offenses and defenses, with customization and variations in models, would be a fun sourcebook I sincerely hope someone wants to tackle writing!

Hmmm, ablative armor with the hit location rules from CO (I was thinking of using them anyway.) might actually work pretty well. I didn't like the idea of a player being totally unprotected once the armor points were depleted, but with hit location only that area would be. I think that makes it pretty interesting and opens up the use of hit location. It does involve quite a bit more bookkeeping and crunch though.

I love the ablative armor mechanic. It's different, but plays well.

I can understand why some might wrinkle their nose over "whittling away" BP from armor. Combats can drag out if both parties have quality armor on them. I personally will try out the ablative armor before I judge the system.

But it doesn't hurt to discuss some alternatives.

As DR seems to be off the table, have you looked into "degrading weapon damage potential"? You could group armor (and creature toughness to some degree) into some easily manageable categories and then apply a sort of damage threshold to them, like say "7". It would work like this: any damage dice that come up "7" or higher would be blocked by the armor. Total the sum of all non-blocked dice and you get the BP damage inflicted on the wearer. Of course, I have not tested this so this is just a quick idea that undoubtedly takes work.