Sunday, February 23, 2020

Spacer? I Hardly Knew Her! (GLOG Class: Specialist)

    The Company shipped out the stations before they did a full scan of the planemo. Turns out the promising initial readings were just cave systems affecting the probes. Now, there's a worthless rock three months' hypersleep away from anything else with a million credits of hardware floating around it.
    Full retrieval would cost more than the second-rate mining stations are worth, but the Company has never let anyone escape the consequences of the bosses' mistakes — so you and your crew got shipped out too. Good money after bad. If there's anything in those caves, the bosses would like you find out. If it's valuable, notify them as soon as possible. If it's dangerous, well... that's why you get hazard pay.


Source: edited from Confined Space Rescue Technician


Class: Deep Space Technician

    You're a generalist with years of experience working on deep space machinery. The job has taken you from one end of the galaxy to the other, from Czluis Van's sewers to Eriadu's orbital antennae to Manntel's zombie apocalypse. You've seen it all, you've fixed it all, and you've smashed it all with a crowbar.
    For every template you have in this class you gain +1 initiative and +1 save as your instincts improve. If you have at least one template in this class you can use light or medium armor (but not shields), and you never fumble while wielding wrenches, crowbars, plasma cutters or those nailguns which are made out of modified shotguns and are really fucking cool.

Skills: 1. Psychospatial Energetic Mechanophysics, 2. Opioid Use, 3. Heavy Machinery

Starting Equipment: A lightweight spacesuit (12 AC), an Information Detector (see list below), three oxygen bottles, three batteries, three rations, an additional piece of gear.
  • A Onsite Training, +2 HP
  • B Dead Man's Fist, +2 Sneak, +2 Move
  • C Extra Attack, +1 HP
  • D Trilogy
Onsite Training
    You've had a lot of jobs with some very odd requirements. To determine the contents of your CV, roll three times on this table. If you roll the same result twice you may take your pick of the result above or below. Results which give bonuses in specific situations stack when those situations overlap.
  1. HEV Expertise
    The Company's Hazardous Environment Suits are like a warm, clunky pair of ferroceramic pajamas. You are proficient in the use of heavy armor. If you can already wear heavy armor, you can wear it without the usual penalties.

  2. Drone Engineering
    Spy, bomb, repair, exploration — whatever the little bastards do, you've made them do it and patched them up afterwards. You don't need to roll to use a repair kit to fix a drone or robot.

  3. Pest Control
    Whether facing space rats, space spiders or space gremlins, you're cool under pressure and handy with a claw-hammer. You have +1 to-hit with light or medium melee weapons.

  4. Signal Repair
    Heights have never been a problem for you. You receive a +2 bonus to any rolls related to jump boosters, rocket boards, star-chutes, saves against vertigo, or anything else that could benefit from your experience with vertical engineering.

  5. Team Player
    There's no "I" in "Team" but there's a "Reassure" in "Save Versus Fear". If you pass a fear save, any party member who sees you gets a +4 bonus to save against that source.

  6. High-Attrition Survival Training
    You don't like to talk about why you're so good at breathing dead air. Your oxygen bottles last thirty minutes in a vacuum and eight hours in a low-oxygen environment.

  7. Equipment Maintenance
    The Company is pretty stingy with its repair budgets. You've got a lot of experience squeezing a few more uses out of centuries-old tools. You don't need to roll intelligence checks to repair gear or heavy machinery.

  8. Solutions Engineering
    For space technicians this is fancy business-talk for "has killed people and is willing to do so again". If you take a full round to steady yourself, you can add +2 to-hit to attack rolls with any ranged weapon (losing this bonus once you move).

  9. Red Cross Certification
    Most people think the Heimlich Maneuver is when you fly your ship really fast at a rock and then juke out of the way at the last second so your pursuers crash into it. Actually, that's a modern invention. The real Heimlich Maneuver is a medical technique. You can heal an injured friend for 1 HP over the course of ten minutes with a successful intelligence check. You can repeat this until you fail a check; then you can't heal anyone else until you get a good night's sleep.

  10. Universal Health Certification
    Your genetics are less of a shoddy patch-job than most humans of the forty-second century. +2 HP per level.

  11. Advanced Problem Solving Skills
    Your brief stint in Space University ended with a catastrophe when they figured out how you were cheating. When you would roll your worst stat check, roll your best instead.

  12. Deep Space Navigation Experience
    You were bridge crew on a messenger ship, once. Or maybe just a janitor. You can use space-chutes as personal sails and you always know the direction of the nearest star.

Dead Man's Fist
    You become proficient with a weapon the first time you roll a fumble while attacking with it. Hopefully you'll have more luck with the weapon than whoever you pulled it off of.

Trilogy
    Once per session, you escape from a situation probably lethal but plausibly avoidable. This includes a cave-in, falling down a deep hole, or being kidnapped by alien chimpanzees — but not getting shot in the face, cut in half by a door, or crashing into a star.


Deep Space Gear

  1. Misc. Resources. Each of these occupy ⅓ of a slot, and your home base probably has an arbitrary supply of each.
    • Batteries. Some gear requires these. Highly flammable
    • Oxygen Bottles. Can be plugged into a suit, or just nipped like a sports drink. Good for thirty minutes of breathing in a low-oxygen environment, or five in a vacuum.
    • Calories. If you're going to be away from home for a few days, you'll need to bring some good ol' SZARKART™ MEALS READY TO EAT. Guaranteed to not cause internal bleeding in up to 99% or more of consumers.
    • Adhesive. Stick things together. Fix a hole in a suit. Hold a component down. Honestly, this stuff is the most important thing you can carry. Holds about ten pounds of weight a dose.
    • Signalers. Shaped like a stick of dynamite. Programmable with a few bits, and Information Detectors can sniff them for about ten miles.
    • Repair Kits. Wire, tweezers, little bit of solder with disposable pen — everything you need to get a drone or a generator back online after something goes wrong. Removes notches from mechanical and electrical gear with a successful intelligence check, and is consumed whether or not the repair is successful.
    • Helium Sticks. When cracked, hang in the air and glow a faint teal for 48 hours.

  2. Spacer Suit. Comes in light, medium and HEV:
    • A light suit is 0 slots worn/3 carried, 12 AC, and doesn't restrict your movement at all. It's sealed against hard vacuum, and there's a little nozzle on the faceplate so you can sip from an oxy bottle.
    • A medium suit is 3 slots worn/6 carried, 14 AC, can be loaded with three oxygen bottles for no extra inventory space, and blocks half damage from temperature extremes or radiation while wearing it. When unpowered, automatically fail sneak checks and disadvantage on movement checks. Eats a battery in twelve hours.
    • An HEV Suit is specialized gear, 6 slots worn/9 carried, 16 AC, no damage from temperature extremes or radiation, inbuilt eight-hour tank of oxygen, disadvantage to any sneak check. When unpowered, your speed is cut to 5' a round and you automatically fail movement, sneak and initiative checks. Eats a battery in six hours.

  3. Cling-Cord. Fifty feet long, both ends have a button that makes them stick to almost anything (including itself). Can bear about one thousand pounds. 1 slot.

  4. Flare Gun, three flares. A launcher. Contains its own oxidants; these flares burn brightly in space. The gun can propel them about 100 feet, and the burning material will hang around, illuminating an area or setting things on fire. 1 slot for the gun, ⅓ for each individual flare.

  5. Ex-Foam. One tub of this volatile goop expands to a 10' cube over the course of a minute. If it has to shove things out of the way to do so, it has 10 strength. If someone has to chop it away, it has 12 AC and 20 HP. 2 slots.

  6. Eyeball Drone. Controllable up to half a mile. Floats around the air slightly slower than a human can walk. The controller lets you see out of its little camera. 1 slot for drone and controller. Eats a battery in six hours.

  7. Finger Drone. Controllable up to half a mile. Trundles along the ground slightly slower than a human can walk. The controller lets you designate up to 3 slots of items for it to carry, lift or retrieve. 1 slot for drone and controller. Eats a battery in six hours.

  8. Heavy Cutter. A big plasma torch. Projects a blade twelve inches long. Cuts through almost anything as fast as you can move it. Deals 3d6 damage at melee range, or can be converted into a terrible flamethrower to deal 2d6 damage at a range of thirty feet. Eats one battery a round.

  9. Fire Axe. They were using these things thousands of years ago on Tels, homeworld of  the human race. They may have been using this specific axe, in fact. It's ancient but sturdy. Heavy, 2 slots.

  10. Pulse Loom. While carried on your person, an omega-shaped halo casts brilliant bluish light for 60' around you. Eats one battery in twelve hours.

  11. Jump Boosters. Click onto the heels of your boots. They give you a 20' vertical on a planet, or free movement in zero-G. Eats one battery in twelve hours.

  12. Chemical Extinguisher. Choking, nasty green non-Newtonian powder-fluff-fluid. Clings to things and generally prevents reactions from happening. Asphyxiates living things better than a faceful of carbon monoxide. Prevents fire and acid damage. Three uses, 2 slots.

  13. Information Detector. Sniffs out signalers, answerables, traces of biological life, radioactivity, tachyons — all sorts of things. Eats one battery an hour.

  14. Wrist Answerable. Communicate anywhere in the heliosphere instantaneously, solar wind permitting. A space station would have a bigger one with longer range. Eats up one battery in twelve hours.

  15. Star-Chute. A solar sail in a backpack, essentially. Allows a safe descent from orbit to planetary surface, or from the top of a cliff to the bottom. Skilled wearers could use this to "surf" the solar winds in zero-G. 3 slots, or 0 if you're already wearing an HEV Suit.

  16. Crowbar. Three feet of steel, bent slightly at one end, curved around at the other. Iconic tool of the Space Technician's Guild. Medium, 1 slot.

  17. Revolver, 20 frangible shells. An actual weapon, though a few centuries out of date. The blued steel is scarred in some places and scorched in others, as if it has seen a lot of action. Light ranged weapon (60 feet). 1 slot for the gun, 1 slot for twenty shells.

  18. Rivet Piller, three spikes. A heavy sawn-off that propels twelve-inch steel rods through solid objects to secure them to other objects. Heavy ranged weapon (10 feet). 2 slots for the gun, ⅓ for each individual spike.

  19. Trauma Generator. Extends a powerful I-Field in a thirty-foot sphere. Anything with an intelligence score that enters the field must save against fear or take 1d6 damage and flee the generator. Eats one battery a year. 3 slots.

  20. Kidney Wrecker. A syringe containing a potent brew of microorganisms and nanomachines. Heals 1d6 health, exploding. Every time you inject yourself, make a save or lose one point of constitution. If the die explodes the loss is permanent; else, it comes back after a full night's rest.
  21.  
Rules for spaceships: use your favorite. system. Maybe I'll come up with one later.

5 comments:

  1. Love me some Kidney Wreckers. Love me all of this in fact, great stuff!

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  2. This is all excellent - are there plans for other classes of this type?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Of this type? Sort of; I was planning a space cultist (a la Pandorum, Dead Space, other scifi horror-y stuff), a ship AI (with randomly rolled motives known only to the player and DM), possibly an alien in human skin (no idea how a secret-role game would work in OSR so I would have to get creative). I'm coming up with material for a planned game.
      Thank you for your comment.

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    2. That all sounds great! I can't wait to see it!

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