Star Frontiers

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I've been reading through Star Frontiers and Knight Hawks this past week - trying to decide if I want to setup a new campaign using it, or take a leap and use FrontierSpace. Or some kind of mixture in between.

I last ran SF in 2013, using it mostly by-the-book. It's still a lot of fun to play as-is, but these days I need some house rules to get past some rough spots.
 
Shadow Shack said:
Which rough spots are you contending with?
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Many of the usual complaints about Alpha Dawn that come up on forums and in Star Frontiersman magazine:

The lack of an entry-level Spaceship skill PSA. One that doesn't require high levels of foundational skills to break into, that would offer at least introductory piloting (for system ships, and those of Hull size 3 or less); or introductory engineering or astrogation. An option that would open up the Spacer path from the get-go, even if it got sufficiently harder to pilot larger Hull sizes, for example.

The Gollwin Academy cadet path is an option, but not what I'd want to use either. Meet the attribute requirements; make a series of attribute tests; and you graduate with Spacer skills AND get the (high) foundational skill levels. That's a bit overboard, IMO.

The imbalance in experience point costs among the PSAs. I'd prefer to balance out the cost across the PSAs so that skills advance at an equivalent rate. As is, advancement is easiest along the Military PSA, making it quicker to level up Weapon, Demolitions, and Martial Arts skills than those under the Technological and Biosocial PSAs.

The Ranged Weapon combat modifiers could use some adjustment, IMO.
I don't like the fact that firing at point-blank range is at base skill level, and short range is at a -10. A handful of weapons (all gyrojets and heavy weapons) have no ability to fire at PB range, meaning that any use of them is automatically at a -10 penalty. I'd rather shift the penalty scale, providing a bonus to hit at PB range, no modifier at S range, and increasing penalties at Medium, Long and Extreme range.

Soft cover. I don't like that obscuring factors, like darkness and smoke, are lumped into the category of soft cover. IMO, they should either prevent targeting or cause greater penalties to hit than -10.

Punching damage. I've typically house-ruled that a punch does 1D5 damage plus the modifier from a Strength score. I wouldn't mind including that Strength damage modifier with many melee weapons, except shock, electric, and stun weapons.
 
Sorry for the delay...

K_Peterson said:
The lack of an entry-level Spaceship skill PSA. One that doesn't require high levels of foundational skills to break into, that would offer at least introductory piloting (for system ships, and those of Hull size 3 or less); or introductory engineering or astrogation. An option that would open up the Spacer path from the get-go, even if it got sufficiently harder to pilot larger Hull sizes, for example.

The Gollwin Academy cadet path is an option, but not what I'd want to use either. Meet the attribute requirements; make a series of attribute tests; and you graduate with Spacer skills AND get the (high) foundational skill levels. That's a bit overboard, IMO.
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I always viewed Knight Hawks as the D&D equivalent of "name level", as I mentioned earlier in the thread ships aren't as common as most folks tend to believe in this game, which goes hand in hand with skilled operators...there's three battleships and maybe half a dozen Fleet Officers capable of piloting them.

Barring that, make the skills easier/make the ships more plentiful. A "skilled Frontier" comes to mind...it was detailed in one of the StarFrontiersman fanzines but is also hosted here:

http://starfrontiers.info/wiki/index.php/A_Skilled_Frontier

It has the "spacer" class and you can get the ship skills with minimal XP expenditures.

The imbalance in experience point costs among the PSAs. I'd prefer to balance out the cost across the PSAs so that skills advance at an equivalent rate. As is, advancement is easiest along the Military PSA, making it quicker to level up Weapon, Demolitions, and Martial Arts skills than those under the Technological and Biosocial PSAs.
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Adjust it to 3 or 4 XP increments across the board then. Skilled Frontier also addresses this.

The Ranged Weapon combat modifiers could use some adjustment, IMO.
I don't like the fact that firing at point-blank range is at base skill level, and short range is at a -10. A handful of weapons (all gyrojets and heavy weapons) have no ability to fire at PB range, meaning that any use of them is automatically at a -10 penalty. I'd rather shift the penalty scale, providing a bonus to hit at PB range, no modifier at S range, and increasing penalties at Medium, Long and Extreme range.

Soft cover. I don't like that obscuring factors, like darkness and smoke, are lumped into the category of soft cover. IMO, they should either prevent targeting or cause greater penalties to hit than -10.
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Honestly the incredibly low weapon lethality bothers me far more than the range modifiers. The simple fact that your average unarmored person can survive a full ten round burst at point blank from an automatic rifle is just way too far fetched for range modifiers to become an issue. It's like the (non-Hollywood) old west where gunfighters would reload several times each before someone gets killed, with the difference being the westerners had ammo inconsistencies that caused misses versus numerous hits that do....nothing.

Punching damage. I've typically house-ruled that a punch does 1D5 damage plus the modifier from a Strength score. I wouldn't mind including that Strength damage modifier with many melee weapons, except shock, electric, and stun weapons.
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I incorporate that same d5 plus PS house rule as well. Melee weapons really don't need the bonus....unlike the ranged weapons, melee weapons actually cause a little more damage. Not much more, mind you... ;)
 
While scouring the Internets for information about the latest Star Frontiers news, I stumbled across a Dungeons & Dragons 5E conversion some madman published a couple of years ago. You can find it here. I haven't tried it, but while it seems incomplete, it also doesn't seem halfbad.
 
Apparition said:
While scouring the Internets for information about the latest Star Frontiers news, I stumbled across a Dungeons & Dragons 5E conversion some madman published a couple of years ago. You can find it here. I haven't tried it, but while it seems incomplete, it also doesn't seem halfbad.
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I always check for starship rules first, but was not surprised they are not included. To me Star Frontiers didn't shine until it got Knight Hawks.

It comes with some nice links:


Source reference material:
  1. http://www.wizards.com/d20modern/images
  2. http://starfrontiers.wikia.com
  3. http://starfrontiers.wikia.com/wiki/Dralasites
  4. http://starfrontiers.wikia.com/wiki/Vrusk
  5. http://starfrontiers.wikia.com/wiki/Yazirian
  6. http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules
  7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliding_flight
  8. http://www.starfrontiers.us
  9. http://www.starfrontiers.com/Rules
  10. https://www.facebook.com/groups/DnD5th
  11. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20modern
  12. http://starfrontiersman.com/data/issues/SFMan17.pdf
  13. http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop/players-basic-rules
 
The crew behind the old Starfrontiersman fanzine are publishing the fanzine once again. Introducing Starfrontiersman, Volume Two:





The first few issues are already up and available on DriveThruRPG here.

I'm not exactly sure what they're thinking, after WotC sent those C&D letters flying around six years ago...
 
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WotC changed tack awhile ago and allowed fan content, which is why Frontier Explorer existed for a fair few years after pausing for a while waiting for WotC to make up it's mind. FE stopped due to lack of free time for the editor, so now Star Frontiersman has stepped in to fill the gap.
 
I've had fun running old games with all their faults intact. I suppose it's less sustainable for a long campaign.
 
I’m working on public domain spiritual successors that aren’t owned by transient corpos. I have to make changes for the sake of avoiding copyright infringement without knowing whether it’s even necessary or not, but it’s better than anxiously waiting for Hasbro to finally pull the plug.
 
AppleJax said:
I’m working on public domain spiritual successors that aren’t owned by transient corpos. I have to make changes for the sake of avoiding copyright infringement without knowing whether it’s even necessary or not, but it’s better than anxiously waiting for Hasbro to finally pull the plug.
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You can only copyright the way rules are presented, not the actual rules.
 
Parkaboy said:
I've had fun running old games with all their faults intact. I suppose it's less sustainable for a long campaign.
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Back in the day I ran the various published adventures as a series of campaigns. Even the Volturnus adventures are a kind of campaign. Either way, it didn't cause any problems.
 
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