The Traveller Companion - PDF & Pre-Order
- Thread starter MongooseMatt
- Start date
I'm enjoying the Traveller Companion a lot. The few sections I've read so far (transponders,, starports, UWP data, travellermap) have already given me lots to think about in terms of how I can improve my reffing. (For one thing, I've been using travellemap for a couple of years, and never knew that it created world maps and full system data!)
Thanks to Martin and the rest of the creative team behind the book.
Dan.
PS Merry Christmas.
Thanks to Martin and the rest of the creative team behind the book.
Dan.
PS Merry Christmas.
middenface
Cosmic Mongoose
Page 165 final line
used to bombard a planet with asteroidal debris or
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used to bombard a planet with asteroidal debris or
Missing text.
A few errata from the PRE-CAREER OPTIONS chapter:
1): Colonial Upbringing (p.30) lacks the Entry number for TL9+. In addition, you need to insert a "1" in the Graduation Benefits ("Gain any two other skills listed above at level... ").
2): School of Hard Knocks (p.32) lacks the Entry number for SOC 7+.
3): Spacer Community (p.32, in the Graduation Benefits) says "Gain any three other skills listed above at level 0". Unfortunately, TWO skills only are available (once enrolled, you have four skills available -Vacc Suit starts at 1 already-, but you automatically get two of those at level 0 before rolling for Graduation).
1): Colonial Upbringing (p.30) lacks the Entry number for TL9+. In addition, you need to insert a "1" in the Graduation Benefits ("Gain any two other skills listed above at level... ").
2): School of Hard Knocks (p.32) lacks the Entry number for SOC 7+.
3): Spacer Community (p.32, in the Graduation Benefits) says "Gain any three other skills listed above at level 0". Unfortunately, TWO skills only are available (once enrolled, you have four skills available -Vacc Suit starts at 1 already-, but you automatically get two of those at level 0 before rolling for Graduation).
Old School
Mongoose
Adding to the above:Baldo said:
The Colonial Upbringing “graduation” states: “Gain any two other skills listed above at level or increase one skill already possessed by one level.” I assume that should be “at level 0”. Also, There are ten Level 0 skills listed above. How many do you get pre-graduation? Taken literally, you get all of them, but that is condatricted by the quoted statement, so I assume the author had a number in mind.
That said, I love the pre career options, the alternate character generation, the transponder and mortgage section, and the gas giant operations so far. And the starport section, while directly contradicting some of the statements in the core rulebook, is a welcome improvement.
All in all a great supplement!
Please, please, please correct the errata. This is my biggest complaint with mongoose. You have free proofreaders, and easy changes before going to print. And the pdfs can be corrected anytime!
Old School said:
I'm for the "you get all of them" option. Once graduated, you also get A): one skill from the list at level 1 and B): a choice between two more skills from the list at level 1 or an increase to ANY skill you have, in my opinion.
Another problem with Colonial Upbringing is the interesting fact you do NOT get a DM+1 bonus to qualify for the Citizen (colonist) career ("I'm fed up with shoveling shemdur, going star merc right now!", OK, but what if I just want to be a better Colonist?)...
And what about the DM-1 penalty "on all checks to achieve commission or promotion"? Need to know if this includes the Rogue and Scout (and Citizen?) careers too.
Old School
Mongoose
That’s not errata, that’s just your preference as referee. I would house rule that acceptance to the Citizen/Colonist career is automatic with conolial upbringing. I mean, you’re already there, right?
As written, the DM -1 to promotion applies to all careers. The scouts are eager to hire someone with your skills, but you’re still some yokel in the eyes of your superiors. Same with the criminal element. Simple country folk have always been looked down on.
As written, the DM -1 to promotion applies to all careers. The scouts are eager to hire someone with your skills, but you’re still some yokel in the eyes of your superiors. Same with the criminal element. Simple country folk have always been looked down on.
TrippyHippy
Emperor Mongoose
It may be the case, although I have got mine now.EwanS said:
Do ensure you have sent Matt Sprange a PM.
Trying not to copy errata others have already posted...
Page 44: "Pilot (spacecraft) 3...may perform two Piloting-related" - shouldn't this be "three Piloting-related"?
For Narrative Events where the exact Effect matters, such as when it results in damage that must be rolled, is it Effect 0, Effect 1, or what?
Page 45: cuts off at "allow a pretty accurate reconstruction of who fired from where to be". If that's roughly the end of the intended text, I suggest removing "to be" (and anything that was supposed to come after), replacing with a period.
Page 47: "more dangerous for low END Travellers" is missing the ending period.
Page 48: "(and thus a base initiative) of +1" is missing the ending period.
Page 50: why list END modifier, rather than just saying -3? A disabling wound means END is 0 (and thus END modifier is -3) already (along with DEX and STR) - or do you envision cases where this might not be the case?
Pages 55-56: is the highest gravity category Very High or Extreme? Page 55 lists Extreme but not Very High; Page 56 lists Very High but not Extreme.
Page 86: although it is implied given the other results, results 1-2 and 4-7 on the Starship landing table should say "km".
Page 88: it might be better, on the Strange Animals table, to make the first entry "0-" instead of "0", to clarify that negative results are possible and would not have a worse effect than listed for 0.
Page 90: the Persuade skill implies that a stingstorm is capable of speech. The description does not reinforce this belief. Perhaps a different skill was meant?
Page 99: "1D, 3D" hould be "1D+3D", that being the format (listed on page 87) for Composite.
Pages 132-133: the Port Defence table lists results up to "20 or more", despite being a 2D roll where the maximum DM possible is +6, so the maximum result possible is 18.
Chapter 23 or 25 should probably mention that M-drives drop to 1% efficiency beyond 1,000D from a planet/star/etc., assuming you're keeping that canon from other Traveller editions. This is the big thing limiting approaches to near-c travel: it takes a lot longer once you've accelerated enough that you've moved far enough away from your starting location. (1,000D from Sol - about 1,393,000,000,000 km - is between Jupiter and Uranus. Accelerating over this distance (starting at one end, nearly clipping Sol, and going straight out the far side) at 1-6 G can get you to a few percent of c.
Page 141 says that a crew may have no warning of jump precipitation, but page 143 says that jump precipitation may cause Very Bad Jumps, which are extremely difficult for an entire crew to not notice. Which one is it? (I'd lean toward the former, at least for OTU. The entire Bad Jump system - as listed mechanically - seems to add a lot more danger and misfortune than OTU canon would suggest is typical of jumps. Further, the Jump Variance subchapter suggests it would be routine for highly trained military crews to have a lot less variance than they normally do, and thus conflicts with other canon sources such as Agent of the Imperium, which describes a variance such as listed in Core as routine, expected, and planned for by Imperial naval crews.)
Page 147: "Even with a reactionless drive, a ship will run out of fuel before reaching lightspeed." - Better stated (especially since the sentence before this touched on the topic), "Even with a reactionless drive, it would take infinite time to reach lightspeed."
Page 148: "Unpowered satellites can remain in low Earth orbit for many years providing they are above an altitude of about 150km." For this statement, you want 400 km, not 150. I can claim my own IRL experience/credentials, but Wikipedia's easier to verify:
Same page: "1,275,000km, about four times the distance from the surface to the Moon" - 1,275,000/384,400 is about 3.3, which is closer to 3 than 4, so "a bit over three" would be more accurate than "about four".
Page 153: how can a Pilot roll apply to dodge mines if the roller is unaware of the minefield? If you don't know it's there (or at least, where it is), how can you know which way to go? Especially since detection, and acting on that information, is relegated to separate rules.
Page 154: shouldn't the procedures for detecting and getting through a minefield adjust their difficulty based on the density of the minefield? A Minimal field - 8 mines around the entirety of a Terra-sized planet - typically wouldn't present any approaching ship with 1D mines; neither would a minefield of 1,000,000,000 mines (roughly 2 mines per square kilometer a 400 km around Terra).
Page 44: "Pilot (spacecraft) 3...may perform two Piloting-related" - shouldn't this be "three Piloting-related"?
For Narrative Events where the exact Effect matters, such as when it results in damage that must be rolled, is it Effect 0, Effect 1, or what?
Page 45: cuts off at "allow a pretty accurate reconstruction of who fired from where to be". If that's roughly the end of the intended text, I suggest removing "to be" (and anything that was supposed to come after), replacing with a period.
Page 47: "more dangerous for low END Travellers" is missing the ending period.
Page 48: "(and thus a base initiative) of +1" is missing the ending period.
Page 50: why list END modifier, rather than just saying -3? A disabling wound means END is 0 (and thus END modifier is -3) already (along with DEX and STR) - or do you envision cases where this might not be the case?
Pages 55-56: is the highest gravity category Very High or Extreme? Page 55 lists Extreme but not Very High; Page 56 lists Very High but not Extreme.
Page 86: although it is implied given the other results, results 1-2 and 4-7 on the Starship landing table should say "km".
Page 88: it might be better, on the Strange Animals table, to make the first entry "0-" instead of "0", to clarify that negative results are possible and would not have a worse effect than listed for 0.
Page 90: the Persuade skill implies that a stingstorm is capable of speech. The description does not reinforce this belief. Perhaps a different skill was meant?
Page 99: "1D, 3D" hould be "1D+3D", that being the format (listed on page 87) for Composite.
Pages 132-133: the Port Defence table lists results up to "20 or more", despite being a 2D roll where the maximum DM possible is +6, so the maximum result possible is 18.
Chapter 23 or 25 should probably mention that M-drives drop to 1% efficiency beyond 1,000D from a planet/star/etc., assuming you're keeping that canon from other Traveller editions. This is the big thing limiting approaches to near-c travel: it takes a lot longer once you've accelerated enough that you've moved far enough away from your starting location. (1,000D from Sol - about 1,393,000,000,000 km - is between Jupiter and Uranus. Accelerating over this distance (starting at one end, nearly clipping Sol, and going straight out the far side) at 1-6 G can get you to a few percent of c.
Page 141 says that a crew may have no warning of jump precipitation, but page 143 says that jump precipitation may cause Very Bad Jumps, which are extremely difficult for an entire crew to not notice. Which one is it? (I'd lean toward the former, at least for OTU. The entire Bad Jump system - as listed mechanically - seems to add a lot more danger and misfortune than OTU canon would suggest is typical of jumps. Further, the Jump Variance subchapter suggests it would be routine for highly trained military crews to have a lot less variance than they normally do, and thus conflicts with other canon sources such as Agent of the Imperium, which describes a variance such as listed in Core as routine, expected, and planned for by Imperial naval crews.)
Page 147: "Even with a reactionless drive, a ship will run out of fuel before reaching lightspeed." - Better stated (especially since the sentence before this touched on the topic), "Even with a reactionless drive, it would take infinite time to reach lightspeed."
Page 148: "Unpowered satellites can remain in low Earth orbit for many years providing they are above an altitude of about 150km." For this statement, you want 400 km, not 150. I can claim my own IRL experience/credentials, but Wikipedia's easier to verify:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit said:
Same page: "1,275,000km, about four times the distance from the surface to the Moon" - 1,275,000/384,400 is about 3.3, which is closer to 3 than 4, so "a bit over three" would be more accurate than "about four".
Page 153: how can a Pilot roll apply to dodge mines if the roller is unaware of the minefield? If you don't know it's there (or at least, where it is), how can you know which way to go? Especially since detection, and acting on that information, is relegated to separate rules.
Page 154: shouldn't the procedures for detecting and getting through a minefield adjust their difficulty based on the density of the minefield? A Minimal field - 8 mines around the entirety of a Terra-sized planet - typically wouldn't present any approaching ship with 1D mines; neither would a minefield of 1,000,000,000 mines (roughly 2 mines per square kilometer a 400 km around Terra).
Old School
Mongoose
Just saw this is the top seller on drivethrurpg. Nice!
Garran said:
One could use the Psion career in the Core book, and let the player make choices (instead of rolling for events et al) that come out to a rough equivalent of a career package. Possibly limit to no more than 3 terms, if the player will consistently choose good rolls (as most players will).
It's come up on the Discord, that severe jump intrusions are a high-odds slow death sentence. 2D+10% per day, over 7 days, comes out to a total of over 100% often enough that it's almost not worth rolling.
One solution might be to make it 2D+5%. Another might be to let people do something about it: if you're on a ship, and you know it'll probably all go away by the time you leave jumpspace if you do nothing, you're probably going to try to fix it, right? Perhaps give everyone (even the people untrained in it, though they may be better off task chaining to boost the enginers) one Engineer (J-drive) check per day at Routine (6+) difficulty; any positive Effect spares that many Hull from intrusions that day. (For example, on a Type-S Scout with 40 Hull, if the one engineer gets an average roll of 10 - after boosts from skill and task chains - then that spares an average of 4 Hull per day, which is 10%. Intrusions thus tale an average of 7% each day; over 7 days that's 49%: still major damage, but thanks to the engineer the crew can survive.)
One solution might be to make it 2D+5%. Another might be to let people do something about it: if you're on a ship, and you know it'll probably all go away by the time you leave jumpspace if you do nothing, you're probably going to try to fix it, right? Perhaps give everyone (even the people untrained in it, though they may be better off task chaining to boost the enginers) one Engineer (J-drive) check per day at Routine (6+) difficulty; any positive Effect spares that many Hull from intrusions that day. (For example, on a Type-S Scout with 40 Hull, if the one engineer gets an average roll of 10 - after boosts from skill and task chains - then that spares an average of 4 Hull per day, which is 10%. Intrusions thus tale an average of 7% each day; over 7 days that's 49%: still major damage, but thanks to the engineer the crew can survive.)
I wanted to see how good A Diplomat I could make using only what I know of The Traveller Companion Rules So roughly how good A Diplomat is my Npc SS 12 Noble that has Diplomat /5 that's derived from /2 for being a noble, +/2 for 2 connection boosts and +1 for a finalization boost and depending on the situation can add either +2 for her Social Scale 12, +1 for her Edu 10 or +0 for her Int 8
Some more comments on the pre-career options:
1. The Colonial Upbringing, Spacer Community, Psionic Community, and School of Hard Knocks should probably be “first term only”. Technically, pre-career options can be taken up until 3rd term (see p14, core book), but “upbringing” pre-career options don’t make much sense in terms 2 or 3, especially when they give penalties to enlistment.
2. The psionic community is an odd one, since it has a PSI bonus for enlistment, but the character won’t receive testing unless he/she qualifies, and hence won’t know his/her PSI ex-ante.
3. Colonial upbringing has a finishing age of 22+2D3. That’s odd to have a random age rather than a set number of terms. I think it would be tidier to just call it 2 terms. As an aside, this is *rough* if you fail to graduate.
1. The Colonial Upbringing, Spacer Community, Psionic Community, and School of Hard Knocks should probably be “first term only”. Technically, pre-career options can be taken up until 3rd term (see p14, core book), but “upbringing” pre-career options don’t make much sense in terms 2 or 3, especially when they give penalties to enlistment.
2. The psionic community is an odd one, since it has a PSI bonus for enlistment, but the character won’t receive testing unless he/she qualifies, and hence won’t know his/her PSI ex-ante.
3. Colonial upbringing has a finishing age of 22+2D3. That’s odd to have a random age rather than a set number of terms. I think it would be tidier to just call it 2 terms. As an aside, this is *rough* if you fail to graduate.
Old School
Mongoose
Tupper said:
I like the odd ages. As for failing to graduate, just consider it "died during character creation" and start over. It's an honored Traveller tradition!
