House Rules and Character Options.

Aside from the change to character creation I listed there, here are the following house rules and character options I'll be using...

You're allowed to play one of the Star Frontier races converted to FrontierSpace as per the Frontier Explorer issue 23.

I'll also allow the Amiri, Maerann, and Sindaran example new alien species (Referee's Handbook pp.104-107) as other player playable species. Though, those will be rarer minor races, and I'll put a limit of one such race for the entire party.

Now, concerning the Defensive Suits. As I previously stated in the game's description page, I'm not a huge fan of armor that just "grants more HP" even if those "HP" are the suit's dedicated BP. So instead I've decided to make the following changes. Defensive Suits will, instead of granting an extra pool of BP, grant Damage Reduction (DR) which will be subtracted from the appropriate damage type before being applied to the player's own BP. So a ballistic suit will lower ballistic damage, a reflect suit will lower beam damage, etc. This change does not apply to Defensive Screens, as they already more or less work this way by consuming EUs.

Defensive Suits will still retain BP, albeit a lower amount of it, to represent the suit's durability (and still allow them to be repaired as per the normal rules). What will lower a Defensive Suit's BP will be a critical hit from an opponent, rolling a critical failure against an attack inflicting a type of damage the suit can protect against, suffering any sort of fire or acid damage, or any other situations I may deem appropriate (such as falling on spikes).

So the changes are as folllows:

Ballistic Suit
Grades: Civilian Security Military
BP (durability): 3 8 17
DR: 3 6 13

Reflec Suit
Grades: Civilian Security Military
BP (durability): 3 8 17
DR: 3 (B) 6 (B) 13 (B)


Note that this change will also mean that Novims of the Promise Ark will have a natural DR of 2 instead of BP+5 (see PHB p.36).

This will also similarly change the Dermal Plating Implant as follows.
Dermal Plating Implant
Grades: Modern High-Tech Cutting-Edge
BP (durability): 3 7 10
DR: 3 5 8
Note that since this implant increases bone growth and BP (durability) lost will regenerate after a period of time (probably calculated in weeks, though medical intervention might speed up the process).

All prices remain unchanged.

Edit: Damaged defensive suits.

Robot and Vehicle armor will also be similarly changed. Though, since those modified the robot's or vehicle's base BP, the changes are a bit different here... Prices remain unchanged.
Robot/Vehicle Armor Tables
Armor DR BP (durability)
Civilian-grade BP/14 BP/12
Security-grade BP/7 BP/6
Military-grade BP/4.5 BP/3
Note that some of the stock robots listed on pp.116-129 of the PHB had armor included in their equipment, so if purchased or encountered, their BP will have to be recalculated.

Finally, the las major change brought by the change to the armor rules are if a player wishes to create a custom alien species using the guidelines on pp.98-103 of the Referee's Guide (and Novim of the Promis Ark, p.36), natural armor will now grant a DR of 2 instead of BP+5. Though, it opens up the possibility to create a race with higher pain threshold or capable of enduring more punishment than others by gaining BP+5 for +1 species generation point, and similarly, create a species with a lower pain threshold, or incapable of taking solid hits by reducing BP-5 for -1 species generation point... the ability to absorb the first 5 BP of damage from each attacks that bypasses a protective suit of screen. (To come up to this new value, I deconstructed the Vrusk step by step through the alien species generation, and assuming that both Alien Shape and Ambidexterity cancelled each other out at an equal value, then its Carapace trait could only come up at +1 species generation point.)

As for psionic abilities (RHB pp.9-15), I'm using the Rare Psionics and Sensitive Only options.

The 3rd party supplement Adventure in the Deep (and to a lesser extents a published adventure by another 3rd party) tackle underwater adventuring, which FS simply did not cover in the core rules. Very interesting. I'll read up more on those and I'll probably end up using those if we ever do underwater stuff (if the party ever waterproof Trudy...), and give you a TL;DR of underwater rules, and what changes I made to them, if any...

Oh, concerning defensive suits, I completely forgot, any defensive suits at half BP/Durability (rounded down) or less will see its DR reduced by 2 until repaired. For example a Security-grade Reflec suit at 8 BP/Durability or less will now have a DR of 4 (B) until repaired.

A defensive suit reduced to 0 BP/Durability will offer no protection at all!

And just to be on the safe side, I'll remind you all that ballistic suits/defensive screens only stop ballistic (i.e. kinetic) damage, such as bullets, swords, sticks, gyrojets, falling, etc. The lack of a damage type noted in parenthesis does not mean it stops all types of damage such as beam, sonic, or electric!

P.80 of the PHB suggest to have other kits have limited provisions as an optional rule. This makes a lot of sense to me, and as such, the following kits will have 20 provisions and the following uses.

Disguise Kit
Note that a disguise kit can only help in changing your appearance. Voice and mannerism might require some other technology or skill checks. Also note that it is impossible for Vrusks to disguise themselves as members of other species (and will probably more difficult for members of other species to disguise themselves as Vrusks).
-> Make minor cosmetic changes to appearance, disguising yourself as the same species and gender. Costs 1 provision point.
-> Make major cosmetic changes to appearances, disguising yourself as different species or gender. Costs 2 provision points.
-> Disguising yourself as a specific member of the same species and gender. Costs 2 provision points.
-> Disguising yourself as a specific member of a different species or gender. Costs 3 provision points.
-> Make extreme cosmetic changes, disguising yourself as different species and gender. Costs 3 provision points.

Forgery Kit
Works of arts or simple letters or journal entries could also be forged using this kit, at the Referee’s discretion. To forge electronic data, records and encryptions, you will instead require the use of a techkit or security kit.
-> Forge low-security level documents. Costs 1 provision point.
-> Forge recent or relatively unknown letters, journal entries, or works of art. Costs 1 provision point.
-> Forge average-security level documents. Costs 2 provision points.
-> Forge old or somewhat popular letters, journal entries, or works of art. Costs 2 provision points.
-> Forge high or very-high security level documents. Costs 3 provision points.
-> Forge ancient or very popular letters, journal entries, or works of art. Costs 3 provision points.

Security Kit
-> Disarm a modern security system. Costs 1 provision point.
-> Disarm a high-tech security system. Costs 2 provision points.
-> Disarm a cutting edge security system. Costs 3 provision points.

Oh yeah, earlier I had decided to break ties in Init using AGL and PER...

Instead of using the old +/-10 for specialization (or +/-5 for broad specialization), we'll be using re-rolls!

• 1 re-roll per session for broad specialization.
• 2 re-rolls per session for regular specializations.

Critical failures cannot be re-rolled (though I could make a skill benefit that allows for that later...)

And since I'm making mentions of sessions here, we came to the agreement that a "session" would be comprised of 4-6 "encounters" as the case may be.