Matching the Show - Ideas Wanted!

[CZuschlag]

Psicorps idea:

Anticipation, Prophesy, or Precognition: Once per game, the Psicorps player can roll once any given ship's best Psychic Crew score. If it is equal or less than the Psychic Crew score not only delay their move, as per the Dilgar Pentacon rules, but they can select the ship of their choice as the ship being moved, provided that ship is of equal or lower priority level than the one exerting Precognition.

This cannot be used to force a whole squadron to move, unless the owner chooses not to break up a squadron in which the ship is a member.

The ship using the Psychic Crew score cannot use the special ability that turn to eliminate any special actions. No auxilliary craft may be used to implement Precognition.

Psicorps' Initiative Rating drops to +1 for the rest of the game after Precognition is invoked, whether it succeeds or not.

This could only be implemented in conjunction with a "Follow that Target" or similar action to avoid the total hosing of boresight-equipped ships.

Could use a lot of balancing work. Modeled after the prophetic powers of certain characters throughout the series.

 

[AdrianH]

Vorlon heavy cruiser absorbing beams fired from shadow vessels.

That just means the Shadow was unlucky on his damage rolls and either didn't get any criticals or didn't get any good ones. An average damage roll from even an Ancient Shadow ship's 6D quad damage laser is 24, adaptive armour takes that down to 12, which isn't much to a heavy cruiser, especially after 3D6 self repair.

Vorlon destroyer actually being capable of destroying a shadow ship in a single shot/ram action and surviving.

Allow Vorlons, Shadows, and indeed everyone else to use the "Ramming speed!" special action without needing to be crippled. I wouldn't count on the shot and ram being one single action, but if the destroyer gets a good enough hit to pin the Shadow ship, it can ram on its next movement.

Edit: Ooh, ooh - more special actions for Ancients, Vorlons and Shadows - and automatic passes for the special actions that they do get. Crew Quality for ships without crews, or with godlike ancient beings for crews, or with intelligent living hulls is a bit of an odd concept.
If you're going to lump a race with a very limited special action selection, you may as well let them use them more than 50% of the time when they try.

The ships might not have crews in the normal sense, but some intelligent living hulls might be more intelligent than others.

In general, beware of giving too much extra power to the Vorlons and Shadows, who are already pretty strong. If they're beefed up too much, nobody will want to play against them, turning everyone's Shadow and Vorlon fleets into a collection of paperweights... In particular, I have a Shadow fleet, I know someone who has or is waiting for a Vorlon fleet, and no way will I play against him if he gets telepathic disruption as well as physical disruption, he gets to pin and ram me in one go, and I'm not allowed to hurt his cruisers at all!

 

[Prophaniti]

As an EA 3rd ager, I'm thinking they should get some sort of bonus to ramming, as they seem to be a lot more inclined to do it than anyone else in the show (severed dreams and battle for Earth).

Omegas appear much more efficient at launching their fighter complements than the rules currently allow (severed dreams), perhaps some sort of enhanced effect of scramble scramble.

 

[CZuschlag]

pak'ma'ra idea:

Distributed Command:

The pak'ma'ra are normally a peaceful race that makes decisions in leisure, given lots of time, and with careful, considered logic and consensus. That thinking is not conducive to effective combat, but its decentralization can make for greater stability and a broader depth of command. Coupling this with the pak'ma'ra's excessive use of systems results in a unique decentralization of materiel on board.

Remove all references to Redundant Systems.

Any Vital Systems critical rolled on a pak'ma'ra ship is simply rerolled, inflicting one damage and one crew extra. Such single-point-of-control systems simply don't exist on pak'ma'ra ships; it is anathema to their moral philosophy.

Based on fluff from the Babylon 5 Wars Militaries of the League module (dubious canonicity!).

Repulsive:

pak'ma'ra ships are famed for their nauseous ... dietary conditions. As such, no one, but no one, wants to go inside a pak'ma'ra ship ---- ever. Even worse, of course, is being boarded by the Pak!

Unless specifically part of a scenario, pak'ma'ra ships cannot be targetted with the Stand Down and Prepare To Be Boarded special action.

pak'ma'ra may never issue the Stand Down and Prepare To Be Boarded special action. No one will ever listen.

 

[CZuschlag]

Gaim general idea:

Make Gaim ship crew quality a function of range from a Queen. This might lead to unusual formation structures. You'd have to seriously test this to see if this would make anything unique in practice.

 

[Da Boss]

CZ - nice ideas 8)

 

[Alexb83]

Vorlon heavy cruiser absorbing beams fired from shadow vessels.

That just means the Shadow was unlucky on his damage rolls and either didn't get any criticals or didn't get any good ones. An average damage roll from even an Ancient Shadow ship's 6D quad damage laser is 24, adaptive armour takes that down to 12, which isn't much to a heavy cruiser, especially after 3D6 self repair.

What we see in interludes and examinations is the vorlon 'vortex' at the front of the ship absorbing an incoming beam with a nice big bright flash and release of energy, like a defensive shield - we also see a separate impact on the hull of a heavy cruiser from another shot which clearly does damage (not much at all as you point out).

Edit: as for the psychic thing for Vorlons - we never see the Vorlons use telepathy against the Shadows themselves. However they are all clearly telepathic/telekinetic. I would say that you should perhaps give them the option to carry around a Lyta-alike on their ships as a refit (telepathic crew sorta thing) but normally just make it so that Psi-corps and other teeps get no benefit against vorlons, as the nearest vorlon pilot would be slapping them around inside their heads if they tried.