The Dragon: Once per episode, at the beginning of combat place an Advantage on the field representing a cunning tactic or strategy devised by Danara Pel.
NAME
USS Voyager
PROF.
MULTIROLE
CLASS
Sovereign Class Heavy Exploration Vessel
CONST
2371
SHIELDS
19/19
RESISTANCE
5
SCALE
6
POWER
Yup!
CREW SUPPORT
6
SMALL CRAFT
5
COMMS
ENGINES
STRUCTURE
COMPUTERS
SENSORS
WEAPONS
10
10
10
9
10
10
COMMAND
3
13
13
13
12
13
13
CONNING
2
12
12
12
11
12
12
ENGINEERING
2
12
12
12
11
12
12
SECURITY
3
13
13
13
12
13
13
SCIENCE
3
13
13
13
12
13
13
MEDICINE
2
12
12
12
11
12
12
TALENTS
Command Ship: When using Command tasks to create traits, may be assisted by the ship and can grant this trait to allied ships, away parties and landing teams the ship has a comlink with.
EMH: Can summon the EMH without needing to spend crew support.
High Resolution Sensors: +1 momentum when using sensors out of combat.
Improved Power Systems: Reduce the difficulty to Regain Power by 1 (to a minimum of 1) and can buy off complications for 1 momentum.
Improved Warp Drive: When going to warp, roll 1d20. If the roll is under the engine score, it does not cost Reserve Power:
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Saucer Separation: Can separate into two ships with Scale-1, and 1/2 their systems (round up.) This cannot be reversed outside of dry dock.
Sovereign Class: Voyager is a Sovereign class, meaning it has everything that a Sovereign class has.
Maquis Crew: A large portion of the crew is a part of the Maquis - and thus, not exactly on the up and up with Starfleet styles!
TRAITS
Starfleet Ship: The ships is a highly advanced starfleet ship with a well trained crew, holodecks, replicators and so on.
WEAPONS
Phaser Array
Range: Medium | Damage: 8 | Qualities: Area (can hit one target per momentum spent within the same zone), Spread (reduce the cost of Devastating Attack by -1 momentum, and make it Repeatable), Versatile 2 (add 2 momentum on a successful hit)
Photon Torpedo
Range: Long | Damage: 5 | Qualities: High Yield (when it inflicts a breach, add +1 breach - either improving the intensity or hitting a second system, attacker's choice.)
Quantum Torpedo
Range: Long | Damage: 6 | Qualities: Calibration (requires a prepare minor action before being fired), High Yield (See Above), Intense (-1 momentum cost to add to damage)
SCIENCE: Tuvok (Skilled: Science | Weakness: Emotionless)
COMMS: Lt. Bian T'are (Skilled: Communications | Weakness: Combat)
MEDICAL: The EMH (Skilled: Doctor | Weakness: Kind of a Dick)
ENGINEER: B'lanna Torres (Skilled: Engineering | Weakness: Also a dick)
SECONDARY CHARACTERS
Ensign Steve (Useless Security Goon)
Ensign Becky (plural fighter jock)
Petty Officer Third Class Jessie (Hard working engineer)
Crewman Billingsly (Dude, Billingsly!)
Crewman Chandra (Concerned Crewman)
Bifurcate (bidimensional robot girlfriend of Harry Kim)
Princess Lyan Positron (runaway daughter of magician most foul and girlfriend of Harry Kim)
Soria Flyte (Pegasus girl and girlfriend of Harry Kim)
Mirror Universe Trevor (he's fine!)
NAME
MRSS Val Jean
PROF.
TACOPS
CLASS
Keldon Class Heavy Cruiser
CONST
2370
SHIELDS
12/12
RESISTANCE
5
SCALE
4
POWER
7/7
CREW SUPPORT
4
SMALL CRAFT
3
COMMS
ENGINES
STRUCTURE
COMPUTERS
SENSORS
WEAPONS
BREACHES
0/4
0/4
0/4
0/4
0/4
0/4
9
9
9
8
7
10
COMMAND
3
12
12
12
11
10
13
CONNING
2
11
11
11
10
9
12
ENGINEERING
2
11
11
11
10
9
12
SECURITY
3
12
12
12
11
10
13
SCIENCE
1
10
10
10
9
8
11
MEDICINE
2
11
11
11
10
9
12
TALENTS
Electronic Warfare Suite: Whenever making a Jamming or Intercept communications check, can spend 2 momentum to select +1 target (repeatable.)
Fast Targeting Systems: No +1 diff for called shots
Improved Hull Integrity: +1 Resistance
Cloaking Device: Spend 3 power, and make a Control+Engineering + Engines + Security check with a diff of 2. If successful, gain the Cloaked Trait (impossible to detect, cannot attack, shields are down.) It takes a minor action to decloak.
TRAITS
Cardassian Ship – Durable, uncomfortable, close, cramped and cheap. Thinks creature comforts are for other people and technical sophistication is for people who haven't spent decades starving to death. The fact that the starving could have been avoided if the government were less...you know, monstrous doesn't seem to have occurred to that many of them.
Okampan Crew – the crew are bright, perky, cheerful, and incredibly psychically powerful. Individually, they're all better than Vulcans, and as a gestalt? Who knows!
WEAPONS
Phaser Arrays
Power Cost: 1-3 | Range: Medium | Damage: 7-9cd (Spread: Hit +1 time at ½ damage per effect OR Area)
Versatile 2: Gain X bonus momentum with a successful hit
Disruptor Banks
Range: Medium | Damage: 8-10cd (Vicious 1: Each effect adds +1 damage)
Tractor Beam (Strength 3)
Crewman Stadi - Age 23, Betazoid, born Beta Colony-5 to Zani and Talwyn of the House of Riis, survived by her sisters Tari and Batri.
R'mor - age 182, Vulcan, burn on Romulus to R'tan and Leslali, survived by his twelve nieces and nephews across the Empire
I don't see either of these two fooling the Kazon; neither Adora or Catra are in a good headspace right now. Adora keeps tripping over her words and Catra is already spoiling for a fight. We may as well shoot first and beg forgiveness later.
I don't see either of these two fooling the Kazon; neither Adora or Catra are in a good headspace right now. Adora keeps tripping over her words and Catra is already spoiling for a fight. We may as well shoot first and beg forgiveness later.
[X] Catra, Maybe!
-[X] Yellow alert only. Put the bulky vessel between us and the planet and any other likely sensors, then raise shields and generally make it obvious we're not these "Xylions" without revealing we're Starfleet. Try to talk it out.
-[X] If that fails, *then* comes the excitement. Point out to Catra that if we don't try, Janeway will make it harder to have fun later.
[X] Catra, Maybe!
-[X] Yellow alert only. Put the bulky vessel between us and the planet and any other likely sensors, then raise shields and generally make it obvious we're not these "Xylions" without revealing we're Starfleet. Try to talk it out.
-[X] If that fails, *then* comes the excitement. Point out to Catra that if we don't try, Janeway will make it harder to have fun later.
Catra threw the ship into an immediate corkscrewing dodge - trying to bank away as the escort ship following the convoy launched a pair of sleek, deadly looking Kazon attack fighters. The two craft skimmed through space like lethal manta-rays, their curved frames and relatively simple construction belying the raw efficiency of building two phaser cannons synched right up to their dilithium stabilized antimatter reactors. It was a design that no self respecting Starfleet engineer would use, as it left the phasers entirely at the mercy of any fault between the two systems - isolated power cells provided redundancy and safety.
But if you just wanted a ship that could punch...
"Shields up!" Adora shouted, seconds before the strobing pulses of high energy particle guns started to whip past the ship, hitting the smokey, clouded surface of the planet under them. The blooms of orange fire in the clouds as the atmosphere itself lit up and crackling thunderheads flared around the ionizing radiation flashed through the cockpit as the planet spun by dizzily overhead - but a series of hard smacks to the shield meant that more than a few of those deadly bolts had hit. Adora's hand skimmed along a console-
And the wall panel next to her exploded with a spray of sparks. Molten metal splashed onto her arm and she clenched her teeth. "Emperor's wounds!" She hissed out, while Catra snapped her head back.
"Shit! Adora!" She said.
"Keep flying!" Adora said, her voice tight as her free hand skimmed along the controls. On her half of the view screen, a picture in picture view of one of the Kazon attack ships popped up. The computer targeting reticule picked out the center of the ship's mass - the most effective place for a shot...but Adora quickly retageted, her fingers punching in the commands. "Firing!"
The Irrawaddy's port mounted, fish angle lens phaser bank targeted and fired. Its beam slammed into the attack fighter's shields, which bulged, rippled, then bloomed inwards with a cracking, hazy interference pattern. For a single second, enough energy to melt bedrock kissed the brownish hull plating of the deliberately primitive craft - but then the Kazon peeled off with a spurt and hiss of needle thin, bright red impulse plumes. It was enough, their forward sensor array was a bubbling, hissing puddle of slag, drifting into space behind them.
"That's one!" Adora hissed.
"Yeah, we'll show them to fuck with-" Catra started.
And the other attack fighter came in an oblique angle. A stuttering line of pulse-fire swept before the nose of the Irrawaddy as Catra dove them forward, angling towards the smokey planet that was now to the aft of them - but the pulse fire continued tracing - and then punched hard against their fore shields. Adora re-angled as fast as she could, but red and yellow flares popped up on her LCARS systems, like her console was coming down with some kind of horrible illness. The sudden lurch and sputter made her hiss. "Fuck! Our phaser banks are down!" She said. "They slagged the hatches - we can't launch torpedoes!"
Catra growled. "Lets see if you fuckers can dance."
"Catra, they're in attack fighters, we're in a bus!" Adora said, her hand going to her arm, the pain and throbbing ache of the burn still biting deep.
"Yeah. And I'm flying it."
Catra pushed forward and the console trilled and bleeped as the Irrawaddy dove towards the planetary surface. On the sensor scope, Adora saw that one of their hostiles was peeling away. The other, the undamaged one, was right on their ass. The clouds swept past the cockpit, and then they exploded into a chaotic landscape of grayish spires and thick mountains, winding canyons, and brilliant patches of shimmering blue, greens, pinks and purples. There was no time to admire the splotches of color - they seemed to be lakes? - Catra had already hit the first canyon. The Irrawaddy hummed as its barely functional deflector shields kissed the walls of the canyon and the RCS thrusters hissed and sputtered in the atmosphere. Adora, though, had no time to focus on anything but the grim sight on her scopes.
The red dot was right behind them.
"They're behind us!"
"I noticed," Catra said as a phaser bolt whipped by over their cockpit. She started to drive bob, even weave. The nacelle almost kissed a rock formation, then she skimmed down, narrowly avoiding an outcropping of rock. Another phaser bolt slammed into the canyon wall behind them, filling the space that they had just vacated with molten slag.
Adora knew, instantly, what she had to do. She pushed three buttons, snapped. "Override alpha two two four one!" She said, then sprang to her feet.
"Adora!"
"Keep flying!" Adora shouted, drawing her phaser one handed. She set it to maximum setting, wide angle, and fired into the floor right above the torpedo tubes. The floor hissed into a shimmering cloud of noxious smoke, which the vacs started to work to suck from the cockpit as fast as possible. She ignored it as she narrowed the beam, carving frantically.
"Adora, why are you shooting holes in our own frigging ship!?" Catra hissed. "He's right ontop of my tail!"
"Computer! Activate torpedo tubes three and four!" Adora shouted.
The computer chirruped. "Confirmed. Activating tubes three and four."
The hole she had cut into the fuselage, and the screaming wind, did not stop both Adora and Catra from hearing the hissing roar of the photon torpedoes engines kicking on - as they flew backwards out of the holes that Adora had cut into the belly of the runabout. It was quite possibly the ugliest, most ungainly launch of any torpedo since the first tracking warp capable torpedo had been fired by Lt. Malcon Reed, almost two centuries ago.
The torpedoes did not so much fly at the Kazon ship as they simply tumbled backwards into it, out of jagged, still hissing holes. The Danube class had not been designed to fire torpedoes backwards. That functionality was usually constructed onto starship rated vehicles, not shuttles nor runabouts.
Still.
Adora had found a way.
The Kazon attack fighter pilot had a few seconds of confusion, seeing the phaser beams lacing from the belly of their quarry.
Then they saw the three torpedoes tumbling through the air towards them, thrusters sputtering as they tried to right themselves in the few seconds between "launch" and impact.
Then the first hit the shields of their attack craft. They started to pull up-
And the second and third struck amidships and on the wing and the entire craft heeled off, hit the canyon wall, and smeared itself almost nearly a kilometer of stone.
Adora looked at the second torpedo tube in third tube - the one that hadn't launched. She had not reprogrammed them very well, and she was not not entirely sure if that was-
The entire Irrawaddy's power system glitched out. Consoles dimmed, sensors sputtered, and for a second, Catra's barely restrained claws were skittering on unresponsive glass. Adora remembered there were reasons why people did not usually create emergency torpedo holes in their ships. She threw herself into the chair, strapping in as Catra snarled softly. "I have just enough power to keep the inertial dampener up and fire the RCS one last time!" She said.
"We're gonna crash, aren't we?" Adora whispered as the canyon slowed around them - but it was going from insanely fast to merely very fast.
Catra didn't respond. Adora clutched her wounded arm to her chest.
Ahead of them, a cave mouth was perched, a bit to the left of where the canyon veered off. Adrao was fairly sure that Catra would bank around the corner, and hope to put them down.
Catra twitched the inertial field, dragging the nose of the ship left. The cave mouth swelled, and Adora felt every second of her life pass before her eyes. Then Catra slammed her palm down on the RCS controls and the entire cave bloomed with smoke and steam and bits of debris as every last spurt of power in the flight systems slammed them to a stop. The runabout skimmed on a cushion of superheated air and agrav fields, then skidded to a stop with a screech of hull plating on stone. Then.
At last.
It stopped.
Adora sat there, panting, in the cockpit.
Catra slumped in her seat.
She blinked a few times.
Then, slowly, she leaned back in her seat, looking incredibly smug. She crossed her arms behind her neck, then looked at Adora. Then her smugness vanished - she saw the burned flesh, and the steam rising from Adora's arm. "Adora!" she said, scrambling from her seat, hurrying to her side.
Remarkably, your runabout CAN STILL FLY!? What do you do first?
[ ] Let Catra treat Adora's arm
[ ] Send Catra out to check where they landed, while Adora treats her own arm
[ ] Try and communicate with voyager
[ ] Throw on suits and just shoot the blockade to get back to Voyager
[ ] Write In
The Irrawaddy starts off with Catra making an Evasive Action maneuver! She gets...0 successes! Her turn ends and things shift to the Kazon patrol ships!
Patrol ship one moves in, rolling to try and maintain the momentum! ...and they get 3 successes, okay. Thanks guys! That puts the threat pool at 3 (I spent 2 threat to spawn two attack craft), which they then spend 2 on to sustain the momentum and let their gunner take a shot at the Irrawaddy! Since both ships have the Small Craft trait, the base difficulty is 2...and they get 3 successes AGAIN! Phaser cannons have versatile, so they end up with 3 threat, which they will spend to add +1 damage for 2, and bank the remaining.
5 damage versus the Irrawaddy, which takes the ship to 50% shields and SHAKES it! Adora picks casualties and minor damage, so the ship suffers a complication - we'll give Adora Burned Arm 1. Ouch!
Now, it's the Irrawaddy's turn! Adora will fire back with phaser banks! She gets 3s, which hits despite her +1 diff for the distraction due to her burned arm. Versatile gives her 2 momentum, which she'll use to create the trait of "Melted Sensor 1" for the attack fighter she hit. The banks do 4 damage to Attack Fighter 1 - which SHAKES it as well! NPCs always take "brace for impact", so, they lose 1 round of actions.
The second attack fighter swoops in with an impulse action (a minor action), then fires their phaser cannons...and fuck off, they get 3s AGAIN!? They will spend all their momentum on damage, which drops the Irrawaddy's shields to 0! The ship is SHAKEN and then takes a breach! Adora chooses to lose power - so, no going to warp... - and then the breach hits...*rolls* THE WEAPONS! Fuck off dice!? The breach (slagged Phaser Banks 1) is equal to or greater than half the ship's scale (of 1) breaches, so the weapon systems are DESTROYED, any action involving them automatically fail
ROUND TWO
Catra refuses to surrender. She takes an impulse action to fly down to the planet's surface (a minor action), then rolls to create a disadvantage: Weaving And Dodging Through Narrow Canyons! She gets 3s vs a diff of 2, creating the trait AND gaining 1 momentum, which is banked.
Attack Fighter 1 waives off (not wanting to risk it with the sensor), while Attack Fighter 2 jinks after! Normally, impulse is not rolled (a diff 0 action), but it's now a diff 1 action! and we'll throw in +2 Complication Range! ...and the fighter gets an INSANE 4 successes! They rolled a 4, 1 and 4! NUTS!!! Still, that's 3 threat, giving them 4 threat in total. They spend 2 threat to take a second action at +1 diff, then spend 2 threat to get a "They Came From...Behind!" trait to negate that diff! Now, the dodging and weaving trait REMAINS, so the diff is a flat 3!
They fire the phaser cannons!
And roll 2 successes...and a NAT 20! I'll actually ADD +1 to their "came from behind" trait, so they're RIGHT behind the Irrawaddy!
Adora's turn! At +1 diff, she rolls, with +1 dice from using her momentum, to try and create a trait...and gets 2s! Not enough! She will spend her Determination, since I want this to succeed, for a re-roll and gets 3s! She creates a trait: "One In the Tube" - there's a single torpedo that can fire!
ROUND THREE!
A trait can make something possible or impossible - and right now, the Slagged Phaser Banks makes firing weapons impossible...and the One in the Tube makes it possible! Catra, seeing that they have 0 momentum, GOES HAM! HOG WILD! She throws down 3 threat to get +2d20 ONTOP of throwing down 3 threat to fire torpedoes...AS A SALVO!!!! So she's rolling a full 5d20 pool for this torpedo attack, with a minor action to aim!
She gets 5s (with a re-roll) vs a diff of 1! 2 Momentum! She spends the 3 momentum to get DEVESTATING ATTACK THREE TIMES!
So, the Irrawaddy's microtorps do 3 damage! The incoming ship has 8 shields, so it takes 3, 2, 2, and 2 damage. That shakes them, then breaches them 4 times! 2 breaches to structure takes it to critical damage, then the extra breaches DESTROY IT UTTERLY!
Then I, the GM, spend 6 threat to create "We're Gonna Craaaash!" 3, adding +3 diff to the normal flying roll of diff 0!
Catra rolls a remarkable 2s!
She still crashes.
Collision damage is Scale + Number of Zones moved, which is 2, for a total of 3 damage with Devastating and Piercing. This does 1 breach to the *rolls* very nice sensor package you have!
...I just realized that Catra actually got -2 diff for her shooting thanks to the "They came from behind" 2 trait, so she got +2 momentum for a total of 3, which she will spend on +2 dice for her piloting pool, getting 3s, and thus, not crashing. Goddam, Catra!
Star Trek: Adventures 2nd edition is SO good and it's changes are remarkably minimal. Challenge Dice are gone - now, weapons just do a flat damage, with, get this, momentum being the main damage add! So, you no longer have to do weird math about like, is it better to spend momentum on bonus challenge dice, or will I roll enough effects for this to be valuable - no, everything is momentum! Breaches no longer have SPECIFIC things, instead, they just...like, they're traits!
Also, like, traits work the same, they're just explained so much better and are way more clear in how they're used, and they threw in the fact that traits have intensities - so, like, you can have "Burned Arm 1" and "Burned Arm 4" - one adds +1 diff, one adds +4 diff!
But, like, look at how traits are explained!
Each trait can be placed into a simple statement, such as one of those below, and if that statement makes sense, then it applies. If it doesn't make sense, then it doesn't apply.
Because I am [character trait], this activity is…
Because of [situation or location trait], this activity is…
Because I have [equipment trait], this activity is…
The end of each of those statements is going to be "easier," "harder," "possible," "impossible," or "unchanged."
Also, the way damage works...ah! It's just...SO SMART! If you take damage, say, 4 damage from a phaser? That creates a damaged trait of that severity - indicating the difficulty to heal it. A phaser on stun means its a diff 4 check to wake someone from stun (but since traits last as long as they would last, you can also just wait for the stun to wear off.) But this severity is also how much stress it costs to avoid the damage! +1 damage for 2 momentum! Then a lot of old qualities have been reworked. Vicious used to add +1 damage per effect, which changes the dice math for the challenge dice, which...like, it's fun!
But counterpoint, now Vicious changes the cost for adding damage from 2 to 1!
ELEGANT!!!!!!!
There's another mechanic that they didn't change at all, they just explained better. Values and determination! So, Determination is basically a super momentum, it lets you re-roll dice pools, it lets you set a die to a nat 1 before you roll, it lets you create or remove a trait. But regaining it was always so...weird, I didn't get it, but now I do get it: If you allow a value to cause a complication for your party, you get a Determination point.
Ergo, you want a value that causes problems! You want CHARACTER FLAWS!!! so you can get determination after you tag your positive values to USE IT!
Which actually means I can now, like, use Determination in a more interesting way than "once per episode"
I.E, if you choose an option that creates a complication based on a character's personal flaw, that's +1 Determination to spend later!
The wild thing is how small a lot of these changes are, but how BIG the impacts are. The whole system has just been refined and tightened up and it just crackles now, I love it.
