Crew Salaries

[MasterGwydion]

Reading is hard. You do you, but the difficulty levels for the job mentioned make it unlikely that average is good enough. That’s just the way it is.

I agree that if you require rolls for every time that you jump, then the numbers included with the rules do not match the words that describe those rules. If you only require a roll, when it is "dramatic" in the ways described in the skills chapter, then it works just fine.

 

[Talon Greyfeather]

I don't understand rolling Astrogation/Engineering until you succeed. Why bother rolling at all?

IMTU, unless there is something else going on (chased by pirates, avoiding a blockade, skirting customs, systems failure or damage) I don't bother with the roll. It's normal, standard process/procedure. It has to be safe or it wouldn't be worth the risk.

However, if something else is going on, they roll once and we see where things land. Maybe it'll be good ... maybe not so good ... but I guarantee everyone is holding their breath on that roll.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I don't understand rolling Astrogation/Engineering until you succeed. Why bother rolling at all?

IMTU, unless there is something else going on (chased by pirates, avoiding a blockade, skirting customs, systems failure or damage) I don't bother with the roll. It's normal, standard process/procedure. It has to be safe or it wouldn't be worth the risk.

However, if something else is going on, they roll once and we see where things land. Maybe it'll be good ... maybe not so good ... but I guarantee everyone is holding their breath on that roll.

I do it the same way.

 

[rinku]

An average ship is Jump-1 or Jump-2. Those will employ the average Astrogators that can't get jobs on the J-3 and J-4 ships, which will be employing the cream.

While swordtart's point about university graduates is valid, it does not follow that those make up the majority of working Astrogators. I would have thought that Merchant trained crew would suffice for most ships. Especially if you're only willing to pay Astrogator 1 wages.

In regards to plenty of time to make the roll... well, sometimes you don't have the luxury, based on the rules and the situation. That is why the rules are there, so you CAN work out when to roll and when not to roll.

But I am also good to not roll if the target is 1+ or if it's 2+ but it won't affect the Engineering roll. Or if your flight to 100D is tens of hours.

 

[Condottiere]

You could ask the ship's janitor to do it.

He's got nothing else to do, while waiting for the plumbing to get clogged up.

 

[rinku]

"Astrographer? No, silly... I'm an Astrologer! You must have misread my resume. Now, where are my star charts...?"

 

[boggo2300]

Hmmm, can you JOT on a skill you don't have? just hope and pray you get a better result on an unskilled roll?

 

[rinku]

Mongoose doesn't seem to explicitly mention many situations where lack of actual skill prevents even an attempt at a task, but it was a thing for some tasks in some previous editions. You can't hold down any crew job without proper skill, for example, but you could prepare a meal without Steward skill, or attempt to pilot a ship on sheer Dexterity and JoT. Banes and increased difficulty would be likely, though. And you might catch a break in an atmosphere if you have Flyer skill, I guess.

 

[Vormaerin]

I don't understand the question. Jack of All Trades does nothing except reduce the penalty for unskilled use. So, yes, you can make unskilled rolls using Jack of All Trades. And you shouldn't be applying boons/banes or other modifiers, because the whole point of the "skill" is that it offsets those penalties. It even uses Pilot as the example skill.

Personally, I think JoAT should only let you "do things", not "know things". But there's nothing in the text that specifically says that. If your character somehow ends up with JoAT 3, they effectively have Skill-0 in any skill they choose to attempt.

Obviously, you can't get a legit qualification for a commercial space job with JoAT, since it is not possible to get skill 1 equivalent via JoAT.

 

[boggo2300]

I don't understand the question. Jack of All Trades does nothing except reduce the penalty for unskilled use. So, yes, you can make unskilled rolls using Jack of All Trades. And you shouldn't be applying boons/banes or other modifiers, because the whole point of the "skill" is that it offsets those penalties. It even uses Pilot as the example skill.

Personally, I think JoAT should only let you "do things", not "know things". But there's nothing in the text that specifically says that. If your character somehow ends up with JoAT 3, they effectively have Skill-0 in any skill they choose to attempt.

Obviously, you can't get a legit qualification for a commercial space job with JoAT, since it is not possible to get skill 1 equivalent via JoAT.

I was sticking with the subject, and querying if JOT and unskilled would be enough to get you a job...it was a joke

 

[Condottiere]

You know, roleplaying.

The employer probably wouldn't know, if you keep rolling successes.

Potentially, you could learn on the job.

 

[boggo2300]

An average ship is Jump-1 or Jump-2. Those will employ the average Astrogators that can't get jobs on the J-3 and J-4 ships, which will be employing the cream.

While swordtart's point about university graduates is valid, it does not follow that those make up the majority of working Astrogators. I would have thought that Merchant trained crew would suffice for most ships. Especially if you're only willing to pay Astrogator 1 wages.

In regards to plenty of time to make the roll... well, sometimes you don't have the luxury, based on the rules and the situation. That is why the rules are there, so you CAN work out when to roll and when not to roll.

But I am also good to not roll if the target is 1+ or if it's 2+ but it won't affect the Engineering roll. Or if your flight to 100D is tens of hours.

Or to give your players something to do when they are serial jumping as quickly as they can travelling from system A to system B so they don't get bored...

 

[swordtart]

An average ship is Jump-1 or Jump-2. Those will employ the average Astrogators that can't get jobs on the J-3 and J-4 ships, which will be employing the cream.

Indeed as the J4+ ships will likely be spending more on fuel each jump than the wages crew combined. They are also likely to be significantly more profitable and a few extra KCredits on Astrogator pay will be lost in the noise.

While swordtart's point about university graduates is valid, it does not follow that those make up the majority of working Astrogators. I would have thought that Merchant trained crew would suffice for most ships. Especially if you're only willing to pay Astrogator 1 wages.

You can flip it and have Astrogator-1 Engineer-2 (not sure if RAW allows you to get that higher skill as say Engineer(Power)-1 and Engineer(Jump)-1.

Even the drop-outs could have Astrogator at 1. The main thing is you choose that skill to have at 1. Only scout has Astrogation as part of basic training and so guarantees the skill after a single term (even of you fail survival). Merchants are a particularly poor source of Astrogators as it is only available on the advanced education table.

Even a failure of 1 on the engineering roll is bad for a small trader. An extra d6 days delay reduces the number of jumps you can make between maintenance periods. Just being an extra D6x100D out could be very bad news if your fuel reserve for life support is at the line even if you do limp in there will again be delays or maybe recovery fees if you had to be rescued. A few extra creds a month eliminates this risk entirely. It will be a business decision like any other if the captain decides to take that risk.

In regards to plenty of time to make the roll... well, sometimes you don't have the luxury, based on the rules and the situation. That is why the rules are there, so you CAN work out when to roll and when not to roll.

The Astrogation roll is in transit and 10's of minutes, or maybe hours if you take time, unless you are in a fast ship leaving a small planet that is outside the star D100 limit, you are going to get at least 2 goes even of you take your time. That reduces the chance of failure from maybe 1 in 36 (once every 1.5 years on average) down to 1 in 1296 (once every 54 years).

If you are double jumping you might not have time to take your time, recalculation should probably be possible, but frankly the chance of an interception where you might need to jump again quickly should be vanishingly small. Space is big and sensors are only a birthday candle flame of illumination in a country of darkness. Jumping to 100D of a gas giant puts you in a huge spherical shell of possible end points. Guessing which one is astronomically unlikely.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I don't understand rolling Astrogation/Engineering until you succeed. Why bother rolling at all?

IMTU, unless there is something else going on (chased by pirates, avoiding a blockade, skirting customs, systems failure or damage) I don't bother with the roll. It's normal, standard process/procedure. It has to be safe or it wouldn't be worth the risk.

However, if something else is going on, they roll once and we see where things land. Maybe it'll be good ... maybe not so good ... but I guarantee everyone is holding their breath on that roll.

Yeah, this seems unique to Astrogation. This means that I can keep rolling until I get a 12 and then add whatever My Effect is on to the Engineering check. Either it was designed to be broken or the person that wrote it, as well as those responsible for proofreading it, are morons.

 

[swordtart]

I don't understand rolling Astrogation/Engineering until you succeed. Why bother rolling at all?

IMTU, unless there is something else going on (chased by pirates, avoiding a blockade, skirting customs, systems failure or damage) I don't bother with the roll. It's normal, standard process/procedure. It has to be safe or it wouldn't be worth the risk.

However, if something else is going on, they roll once and we see where things land. Maybe it'll be good ... maybe not so good ... but I guarantee everyone is holding their breath on that roll.

The chance to re-roll is not unique to Astrogation. If you fail any roll you can have another go. Most of the time you simply waste time (that you might not have). Some skills will have a negative effect if you fail such as the engineering check to jump, that is a one shot, you either succeed and jump or you fail and misjump to some degree. If you are trying to climb a low wall and fail you can have another go, if you try to climb a cliff and fail you might fall to your death. You can make multiple attempts to shoot someone, each costs a bullet etc.

If it offends you, you could always apply the effects of the previous roll as a negative modifier to the new roll or simply introduce a negative consequence of failing the roll, or introduce a house rule that if you get an effect -6 you have failed so badly that you cannot recover. However with an easy skill check it is hard to justify a serious negative impact with an effect that might only be -1.

It annoyed one of my players that they could make several attempts to gather rumours at a party (every 1D hours) , but got only one and done roll to graduate after 4 years at university.

Skill checks are advised when one of 4 conditions apply:
• The Travellers are in danger, - not on the routine journey out to the jump point.
• The task is especially difficult or hazardous - the task is specifically Easy and not hazardous (though a badly botched roll might make it so).
• The Travellers are under the pressure of time - not usually.
• Success or failure is especially important or interesting. - This should not apply unless specific circumstances require it and not for something where failure is a one in a million chance.

If being chased by pirates and you choose to have another go then there will be a consequence (presumably the pirates get closer or maybe get some shots off), that doesn't mean that you deny the player the option to take that consequence.

I wouldn't not roll if failure was possible, even as a remote chance as if you don't then you reduce a remote chance to no chance. Do that and players will learn to cut corners assuming there is no consequence. If the players can get the skill check down to the point failure is impossible but it is still part of a task chain they could fail then we'll still roll it (it takes a few seconds and is usually in the boring part of the trip anyway so it won't break the flow of the narrative). If they choose to try again after failing then usually there will be some inter-character banter which isn't a bad thing. If they choose to risk it and end up failing the chain then there will be plenty of intercharacter banter and adventure.

Astrogation is such a niche skill you need to roll it every chance you get

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on whether the character actually knows he succeeded.

Perhaps, have the Dungeon Master roll the dice, secretly.

Intuition may indicate if the roll succeeded, or failed, and by how much.

 

[boggo2300]

One thing I haven't seen anyone bring up in this thread, which was a thing in CT... Working Passage

 

[MasterGwydion]

One thing I haven't seen anyone bring up in this thread, which was a thing in CT... Working Passage

Isn't this a thing in MgT2 as well? I could have sworn that I saw it somewhere, but I have no idea where.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I don't understand rolling Astrogation/Engineering until you succeed. Why bother rolling at all?

I believe that for Jump it is only the Astrogator that rolls till they succeed, then you are committed and the Engineer is the one holding the ball and only gets one roll. In the 2016 companion the Engineer does get to add the Astrogators effect to his roll so it becomes easier.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

This means that I can keep rolling until I get a 12

My understanding is that the astrogator only knows either success or failure not how much of a success or failure.

If you want to make it more failure prone add a sensor modification. The cheap SOB with basic sensors better have a great astrogator.