How to create Tougher Travellers?

[Arkathan]

One way to make characters tougher - ignore the MgT damage hits End first.

The CT rule was for "first blood" - the first wound is taken in its entirety to a random characteristic (Str, Dex, or End), I didn't consider that in any way realistic so got rid of it. Now you only get "first blood" if you roll a natural 12 to hit. An optional rule for MgT would be an effect number of 6+ also triggers the "first blood " rule. But I digress.

Damage is then spread out per die to the characteristics as the damaged PC player decides.

Remember when each die of damage had to be assigned specifically to one single stat?

 

[Sigtrygg]

Remember?

I still do it that way...

I have AV reduce damage dice as per T4, one of the few bits of that game I still use.

 

[To Tha Moon!]

Give them as much armor as they can afford. Make sure you account for any EDU/encumbrance problems, if it's heavy armor. Or let them buy a Grav Belt. But walking around a city like you're in a War Zone would probably be frowned upon.

I do like that Personal Energy Screen. They had one in Fading Suns. And even in the novels Foundation and Dune.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Another thing to consider is healing potions and cure light wounds.

Traveller has never been particularly good at high TL healing, especially temporary emergency combat trauma mitigation:

Stim Pak - a cocktail of paintkiller, stimulants and the like that immediately restores 1 point to every physical characteristic that has been lowered.
Medi Kit - a higher TL more advanced version of the above that uses handwavium to restore 1d3 points to each characteristic.

Costs, TLs, allergic reaction are entirely up to the referee...

 

[swordtart]

Another thing to consider is healing potions and cure light wounds.

Traveller has never been particularly good at high TL healing, especially temporary emergency combat trauma mitigation:

Stim Pak - a cocktail of paintkiller, stimulants and the like that immediately restores 1 point to every physical characteristic that has been lowered.
Medi Kit - a higher TL more advanced version of the above that uses handwavium to restore 1d3 points to each characteristic.

Costs, TLs, allergic reaction are entirely up to the referee...

CSC now has the trauma pack to restore END even after "death".

First aid is pretty effective. With the best medikit you get DM+3 to the medic check and and as the amount of stat points restored is a function of effect, that can be 3 extra characteristic points restored.

Adhesive bandages cut down the time required for a medic check by 1 (time segment). Normal first aid is 1D rounds* so adhesive bandages would make that 1D-1 rounds. Applying First Aid is a significant action, and needs to be started within 1 minute of the injury. With 10 combat rounds to the minute, if they roll low the medic could move to a victim (as a minor action), treat them with adhesive bandages and complete the operation in time to move to another party next round. With optimal rolls and people close together the medic could treat 10 people that were all shot in the same combat round before they window of opportunity closed.

You could also take your time to apply first aid as it simply bumps the time from 1D x 6 seconds to 1D x 10 seconds. That +2 can make all the difference. With multiple injured parties a single medic might not have the luxury, but it is not impossible (though it may be an impossible choice since you won't know until you start how long it will actually take).

As I always say, a cheap expert package will either grant you the Medic Skill or give you a +1 to the check. Everyone should carry one and the better first aid kit in a belt pouch. If you you have a DM- for low EDU it would be better to just do what the expert package tells you even if you have Medic 0. You may be the only medic that can get to you. Trying to fix yourself when injuries impose negative DMs is not ideal, but if no-one can get to you it might be your only chance.

A personal medi-scanner gives you another DM+1 and is a wise investment. The portable medi-scanner is more cost effective but needs a few minutes to calibrate to each new patient. I would allow that to be done in advance of any injury and so it need only introduce a delay if you are treating someone you come across. The issue will be if the person carrying it is the other side of the battlefield.

Stacking these could be giving you +5 to whatever skill you have. With +2 for taking time, a decent Medic with a good EDU might never fail a check and could be restoring double digits on a good roll.

I would also advise everyone to carry a quick injector of Fast Drug and hit themselves up if they are badly injured (i.e. have lost all END but are still conscious). If you carry it in an obvious place the rest of the team can use it on you if you are beyond that point (no skill check required for something that basic). It is always embarrassing to not have your own when you need it because you helped a mate. Fast Drug will at least stop you dying.

Wheeling an Autodoc around with you isn't practical but a dedicated medi-droid is possible. Getting one with Medic 3 would be expensive, but a worthwhile investment, but even a Basic X brain can have Medic 1. With external equipment like a pre-calibrated portable medi-scanner etc. you could put together a basic model for very little outlay and it won't run the risk of trying to join the fight instead of doing it's job. With a good armour it could even manage this whilst under fire (though recovery to a safe location would be the preferred route).

If people are ducking into cover at the first injury rather than pushing their luck and a good medic is at hand to patch them up before they re-enter the fight, they could fight indefinitely.

* It should be noted that whilst the skill description says 1D rounds, the taking time table says First Aid is 1D minutes. I would be gald if someone could point out the errata as this is pretty important.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I was thinking of the sort of thin a character can do for themselves as part of their action sequence, and without having to look up stuff.

 

[swordtart]

There isn't that much to look up.

Every player learns the First Aid rule, we expect them to understand the damage rules anyway.
Every character has at least Medic 0 (as a background skill if nothing else), a First Aid kit and a dose of Fast Drug. Every player learns to take cover when wounded and apply a dressing or if they are badly wounded medically hibernate (if only to remove the requirement for the others to immediately come and help them).

Everything else is rolling it in glitter, but it is no harder than reading the rules on potions of healing, healing spells and the healing skills rules in 5th edition.

I fear the main issue is if you give the players a crutch they will start to rely on it.

 

[Randal]

Traveller is a game where you're not meant to be in a fair fight. And a lot of PC scheming goes into making any fight as one-sided as possible. This is a completely valid, rules-as-written way of playing that's a lot of fun.

But, since you're asking, you don't have to play it that way at all. You can in fact add in some simple houserules to make the PCs pretty heroic. I've done it in the past and it's a different game but no less fun. Here's what I'd do - which is some combination of the stuff below. You might treat it as a list of options rather than something to grab all of them - but again, if you want very heroic play, feel free to grab the lot.

a) The luck stat from the Traveller companion is really good. The PCs end up with a pool of points to avoid any dice roll they want, but they have to spend time earning them back or waiting for the end of the scenario. I think this might help you because you can literally shoot a PC in the head (just once) - and they can spend points to make that miss. It means character death mostly happens the second time they get into a lethal event, rather than immediately.

b) Add bennies. Again, I've done this in some games and I find it to be game changing rather than game-breaking. You simply say that a particular type of action (let's say something that PC would define as heroic - or simply cool roleplaying that emphasises character and everyone likes) - gives a bennie. Which can be say a poker chip. Then in any situation where the PCs fail a dice roll, they pay the bennie and get a reroll. If they fail a second time, take the consequences. I think this might help you because it makes PCs much more competent but still able to fail.

c) Enforce a floor to stats in character-gen. When the players roll for stats, tell them that if their dice don't all add up to more than the average (42 for six stats, or 49 if you have luck as a seventh) - then they can reroll 1's. And if they still don't make it, they can reroll the lot. That automatically removes the weak end of the PC pool. I think this might help you because it makes the PCs less stuck with mathematically weaker characters.

d) In character-gen, make skills less random. I.e. when they are rolling for the skill gained from a profession, let them pick any that match the dice roll (same row) that their character could have got, rather than making them choose the column in advance. I think this might help you because it let's the players be a bit more directed in where they end up building their character. It's a sort of middle-ground between a lifepath and a point build. You'll probably see them pick one skill and have at least 3 in it this way because players like to be good at something. But then more heroic play is all about that.

Anyway, all this will make the game "not Traveller" in some ways. But I don't think it'll be any less fun. And if your group wants something more like D&D, that's how I'd arrange it.

Thanks for these ideas. I think I'm going to make sure they have better stats at the start. It's not that they want Traveller more like D&D, its just that I can see them losing interest if they start throwing chrs into combat in a D&D way and having to roll new ones up most weeks.

 

[Sunsword]

Mongoosers,

I have been running sessions of Traveller in between our normal D&D campaign and it looks like my group would be interested in a Traveller campaign afterwards.
One snag is Travellers just can't take the relative pounding a D&D chr can so given my group need a carthartic scrap in a game after a week of work what can be done to improve Travellers' damage capacity/reststance?
Chucking them in a low berth with a slow pill and glass of water is rather like a D&D long rest but what else?

- armour
- leap for cover reaction
- Athletics: END

Does anyone have any house rules? Are there any armour combinations? Helpful cybernetics?

Thanks!

I hack a lot of games so I would try PC's being able to take damage equal to END x2 before applying it to STR or DEX.

 

[swordtart]

Thanks for these ideas. I think I'm going to make sure they have better stats at the start. It's not that they want Traveller more like D&D, its just that I can see them losing interest if they start throwing chrs into combat in a D&D way and having to roll new ones up most weeks.

Dead is also relative. People have survived "death" for a number of quirky reasons*. You could simply state that loss of your last stat means comatose rather than dead and you need to go into negatives equal to the total of your stats to be irretrievably dead (Stats are still treated as 0 for DMs etc.). Apply some expensive one-shot first aid supplies (or call a paramedic to do it for you) within 1 hour and the character can be recovered.

Future science could "raise dead" without it becoming a routine party ability (which it does as soon as the party cleric gets that spell). They might need to take a month out (while other characters train) for full recovery. With Slow drug 2 months becomes 1 day (at more expense).

Even if you doubled their stats you don't solve the underlying problem you just move it up the graph. Better stats also mean all the skill checks will get too easy. D&D makes the HP and the skill checks somewhat out of synch and +1 on D20 is very different from +1 on 2d6. To give them an extra 3 hit points in traveller means you are adding +1 on a skill check. An extra 3 hit points won't make much difference if they are wading in guns blazing.

You might fix the "die to easily" issue but make the game less fun as everything is too easy. If you change the skill checks to fix that then something else will go out of whack. It would be less impactful to just change the definition of the points that injury, incapacitation and non-recoverable death occur.

 

[rinku]

Rules as written don't actually define "killed" or detail how long a medic has to get a flatlined patient back. But under the RAW, Zero is the lowest characteristics can go, and if all of them are zero, the character is dead. But nothing says you cannot apply first aid to a dead patient.

In real life, depending on the nature of the injuries, you may have minutes to do something to bring a patient that is technically dead back from the brink. Obviously, we're not talking major dismemberment or burned to a crisp by plasma; that's a Referee call.

But assuming normal blunt trauma, lacerations, small arms fire and so forth, I'm good with 0 0 0 still allowing a first aid roll within the required minute. That passes the reality check.

Note that a Medic check that has an effect of +0 or +1 will only restore one point to one characteristic, meaning the character is still unconscious. An effect of +2 will at best leave one characteristic at zero, and that has to be END for the character to regain consciousness. A particularly lucky and heroic Medic check MIGHT get them more or less operational at reduced capacity... but that's within real world experience too. People can be stupidly tough.

Getting them into a cryoberth of some kind quickly might allow for death to be reversed at an appropriately equipped facility (although by definition a dead character has an END of zero and thus faces a battle for survival). Bujold's Mirror Dance is a good treatment of freezing a person who has been killed, including consequences and complications of that, as well as limitations (mostly explored in later books).

 

[MongooseBella]

One day we will get a podcast by Bella about all of the games run and the backstory on why a rule was tweaked.

Basically just me complaining that @MongooseChris has decided to 'run the game properly' and not let us 'ignore the rules completely in favour of doing a bit' @MongooseMatt on the other hand...

 

[MongooseChris]

To set the record straight, @MongooseMatt's ex-marine Traveller encouraged half the party to charge a group of armed and armoured Oghmans. The Travellers were outnumbered, outgunned, and outarmoured. The decision to attack them was ill-advised. The dice did the teaching in this scenario. I take no responsibility. All the while, the ex-marine remained a safe distance from the massacre that ensued and survived to tell the tale.

It was an HPK (half-party kill) in gaming terms.

 

[MongooseBella]

To set the record straight, @MongooseMatt's ex-marine Traveller encouraged half the party to charge a group of armed and armoured Oghmans. The Travellers were outnumbered, outgunned, and outarmoured. The decision to attack them was ill-advised. The dice did the teaching in this scenario. I take no responsibility. All the while, the ex-marine remained a safe distance from the massacre that ensued and survived to tell the tale.

It was an HPK (half-party kill) in gaming terms.

Whos gonna tell Teo's wife Chris? Who???

 

[Terry Mixon]

Whos gonna tell Teo's wife Chris? Who???

The Ex-Marine, it sounds like.