Void Age Playtest

We've already got one playtest planned for Void Age, a sci-fi game based off the same engine that runs 13th Age, but I'd like to get a 2nd one going if there's enough interest.

Void Age is set in the far future of the solar system. Earth is mostly abandoned after countless wars, and humanity is spread throughout the system, often modifying or even replacing their bodies with versions that suit them better. Mega-corps run most things now aside from a few old-style governments, and while disagreements generally don't progress to all-out war, there's always conflict simmering just under teh surface. Those that work for the mega-corps live in a near utopia, but those that don't often find themselves clinging onto the darker underbelly of society.

In the middle of this, the Orison have begun to appear through long-hidden jump gates scattered throughout the system, on Titan, on Europa, on Venus, on Earth. The anchors for those wormholes would have had to be built here long ago, before man even attained rudimentary spaceflight. Some hail the Orison as the gods that guided mankind, but the majority see them as a threat, and react with violence. They've been here for a generation now, and still no one knows why.

The exact nature of the adventure could range anywhere from running a secure courier service to ruin-diving in a mostly abandoned Europe to fighting the Orison as a member of SecNet, whatever there's interest in.

Here's more more details about the types of characters you can play...

SHEATHS (these take the place of races)

Flitter: Your conciousness is uploaded into a small drone, giving you active camoflaguethe ability to fly.
Median: You've had your genome cleaned, but that's about it. There's nothing wrong with being human.
Myriad: You're not just one sheath, you're many that lock together into a vaguely humanoid shape, but you can split apart into a swarm of tiny pieces when needed.
Fury: You're been bred for battle. Your genetic code has been tailored for endurance, strength, and aggression.
Ghost: This sheath is focused on stealth and infiltration. You can jump from one shadow to another with an integrated short-range jump gate generator.
Mentat: You've been engineered for brains over brawn, making you an irreplaceable problem-solver.
Octon: This sheath was originally meant for uplifted octopodes, but with a few firmware tweaks it's usable by human minds too.
Skav: Rats get everywhere, even in space, and that's exactly what the makers of the Skav were going for. A few upgrades like a prehensile tail and a size increase to make you useful were part of the package.


CLASSES

The Adept eschews technology, relying on his ancient martial arts and weapon training to survive.
The Deadeye is an excellent sniper, or an in-your-face gun-fu artist.
The Gatekeeper uses his wormhole generator to make his allies more mobile and turn the battlefield into a death trap for enemies.
The Glitch fights alongside hardlight holo-clones, letting her be everywhere at once.
The Nebula uses his nanites to provide support for allies and hinder foes.
The Phage is immune to the vast array of biological and techo-organic viruses she carries, but her enemies aren't.
The Psiblade uses the brute force power of his mind to fight, summoning a weapon made of psionic energy.
The Vector takes a more nuanced approach to his psionic abilities, warping reality with his mind.
The Zerker overloads his numerous cybernetic attachments to be an unstoppable killing machine.

I'm interested. I quite enjoyed 13th Age, AND need more SF in my gaming.

I would also be interested, been curious about trying the system.

Yeah...this sounds intersesting

I just realized I posted this in the wrong section, but I also don't know how to move it so I'm going to ignore that for now. >__>

Since this is a playtest, I can't send out the full book to anyone yet. What I can do is provide each of you a custom playtest packet with all the Networks (Icons) and the sheath and class you want to play.

If there's selections that definitely strike your interest, I'll shoot them over to you, and if you want more info on the stuff listed above, just ask and I'll answer.

You still could post a thread in the Game Tavern if you want to make sure people see this.

True, I doubt it would be hard to find another player that way.

On the topic of characters, I was interested primarily in the Phage, but the glitch sounds neat too. As for Sheath, the skav sounded fun (I like rats) but I could use some clarification. When it says "...prehensile tail and a size increase..." does that refer to the character being larger then the average human, or simply the fact they are larger then an actual rat.

Flitter, Ghost, and Octon are the Sheathes that jump out to me, in that order.
I could play any of the classes based on those descriptions, but Glitch, Gatekeeper and Vector are my top 3...in order again.

I'll do that. As far as the skav goes, they're larger than an actual rat, more about the size of a raccoon. (And a swarm of mostly holographic rats is not something I'd thought of until just now but sounds fun.)

One thing you'll notice about the classes is that they are not equally complex, however, because of the way damage and skills scale, every class can contribute equally.

---

somebox, your playtest packet is here: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/SJWj8XACe7

Each packet will have:
1) The class(es) and sheath(s) you're interested in.
2) The Networks which provide some background on the setting.
3) The character creation rules.

I'll pick a combo and let you know which this evening.

This does sound interesting... Could you send me the info on Ghost and Psiblade? I don't yet know if I can commit to the game, but I hope I'll be able to help out with the playtest.

I'd love to try the Mentat Nebula.

I'll let you decide if you want to have Glitch mushroom.

I have some really basic questions/issues about the Phage regarding their abilities I could use clarification for.

The Carrier ability lets me do free damage as a bonus action, the damage is only based on my level without any modifiers right? Never mind I was miscalculating weapon damage.

The only way to infect is when I (and only I) get a natural 18-20 on a damage roll (barring a few of the talents) yea? I'm asking because quite a few of the abilities require someone to be infected, but I'm not sure how reliably I can use infection, at least with my plan of shooting baddies, but I may have missed something obvious or am not seeing how to utilize their abilities properly.

One more thing I thought was peculiar is AC goes down the more armor you have. (I'm guessing that is just a typo lol)

Ok...Flitter Glitch it is, please.

RE: Phage

The AC is correct, but I can see how it looks weird. Essentially, the phage fights BEST out of armor. There's two ways to represent that in the Archmage system: 1) give attack penalties for using AC, and 2) reverse the AC. We went with 2 because we really didn't wan't to throw in attack penalties for the class, but if you want to switch it, I'm okay with that since it is a test after all. You could start with 12 AC across the board, and take a -1 attack penalty for light armor and -2 for heavy.

The Necromancer in 13th Age does something similar, getting an attack bonus for having very low base HP.

As far as the infection goes... I hadn't actually read that section so I visited about that, and I see the problem. The person who wrote that didn't want Infect to go off every time, but battles are so quick in 13th Age that he set the percentage too low. We're reworked it and rolled Carrier and Infect together.

Your playtest packet is updated with the rework.

Silim: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HyWrI6Zeb7

Qralloq: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HJFbDzxbm

MushroomMage: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HJQYFzlZ7

Do we want to continue this conversation here or move to the actual game forum? Because I have questions also...

Go ahead and do it here until everything is mostly finalized.

Ah that makes sense, thanks for all your help. I think I will stick with the less armor=more AC method. I should double check to make sure I'm doing character creation right, my class gets the three pathogenic traits (talents) to start, and 2 "mutations", those are just Feats correct? With all the usual restrictions one would expect.

Other then that everything looks great and I can start ironing out details regarding backstory. (also trying to find portraits of space squirrels but I might have to settle for a head-shot)

Somebox: Sorry, that's old wording and wasn't caught in the past pass. Mutations aren't a thing anymore. I've updated your sheet with the correct info. You do start with one feat, though.

Are there full character creation instructions?

I am very excited about this character. I think I like the setup a lot. I do have one question about the Glitch Holoclones, just to make sure i am grasping everything. It mentions that a 1st level character has a max of 3 clones and they refresh after a long rest. And then I destroy clones in using some Talents. It also mentions I can create clones with a successful basic attack. So...my reading of that is I can destroy a clone to use a Talent, but in a subsequent turn, if I hit with a basic attack I create a new clone, but I am limited to having 3 active holocones at first level. If I take a Long Rest and have less than 3 holoclones, when the rest is over I will have a total of 3 clones. Correct?

That is correct. As far as full character creation rules go, they're after the Network list.

Oh...thanks...i thought I looked at the whole doc...fuess not.

I wanted to know what kind of campaign we will be running. I'm up for pretty much anything, but wanted to get that squared away before I determine my network relationships (unless you wanna make that part of the setup).

The basic character beats are: Worked as a Technician, later became a Forensic pathologist (Someone who does autopsies), finally joined a private science lab focusing on dangerous and mysterious diseases. In the end most of the staff became infected and horribly mutated in some way, and only a scant few made it out alive, all the while contracting a myriad of the alien disease which creates a symbiotic bond between them. I wanted to avoid having them be dreary or mad scientist-esque, instead more positive and reasonable.

I was going to let you guys choose the type of setup, but my default scenario is this:

A megacorp has hired you to recover a data cache that was jettisoned from orbit around earth in an act of vandalism by FreeWeb. The problem is that they don't know exactly where it came down because the tracker was disabled. You'll have to figure out a way to find it in the wilds of Earth, and hope that there's not any more to the job than that.

Sounds interesting. I'll get my Nebula squared away today.

I can work with that scenario.

I am struggling a bit with the Unique Trait in this setting. I guess when magic and gods are involved it can be easy. Do you by chance have a list of examples?

You know what...I had an idea minutes after I posted this, so never mind I guess...unless other people want them.

I decided on having a Ghost in the Machine: Sometimes My holoclones DO exhibit personality a personality of their own. One specific personality...that of a young (20 something woman) who looks a lot like my first love. She died in a mysterious accident years ago.

It doesn't neccesarily have to be magic-based or over-the-top. For instance:

I've won second place in the Hyperfest Asteroid Run seven years straight. I think someone's cheating.

I don't remember how old I am, but I do remember the corporate wars. Something happened that makes my memory fuzzy, but I know that if I'm killed, I have a backup hidden somewhere on Earth.

I hear the Orison whispering in my head.

Those are good examples...and I thought of one a few minutes after I posted that. Thanks.

Cool!

I just saw the edit. I like that idea. That can get worked in very well.

That sounds like an interesting plot hook. Would we be freelancers who accepted the contract, or have ties to the megacorp as regular employees?

A different question I was curious about: can people switch sheathes fairly easily given the opportunity? Say they are usually a mentat but change into a flitter for specialized tasks, and simply change back a few days later.

We can easily mix the two, so feel free to make your character whichever you'd like, employee or freelancer.

As far as sheaths go, yes, it's possible to switch. In game terms you can switch when you level as long as facilities are available. As far as story goes, it's a fairly involved process that takes a couple days depending on the sheath. You might have to relearn how to use your arms for instance if you go from Octon to Fury.

I have finished and submitted my Flitter Glitch, Tengu Perfect. I built a former celebrity bodyguard turned 'Johnny Mnemonic' style courier. I took the Phantom Glamour Exploit and Adventure level feat allowing the little red tin can to impersonate specific individuals, this goes with one of their backgrounds also.

Here is a link to the image I describe for the actual character description, the little robot, not the big one. This is what Tengu looks like when not projecting a hologram.

This is what Tengu looks like typically when using their holographic human disguise.

I like it. A lot. Some good backstory in there too that I can exploit work with. >__>

Questions

-Gear section says we get a Prototype, but I couldn't see rules for that
-not sure what to do with Background points
-is there a penalty for Heavy armor?

I'll submit the character as is, but still need to address the above and pick my Unique Thing

My character seems all good to go, I feel like I wrote a doozy of a backstory, but hopefully there is some stuff you can work with. Not sure how numerous Phages are usually so I with the belief that they are extremely rare, at least to humans.

Appearance wise Skav's are very similar to squirrels, and about the size of raccoons. Portrait-wise I will rock a decent face I cropped based on this image. Clothing will typically be a utility jumpsuit with a lab coat (why not).

Backgrounds
Backgrounds take the place of specific skills. For instance, if I was a Archive Librarian, I could use that background when I needed to search for something or when I needed to project authority perhaps. You have eight points to spread between any backgrounds you want, and you can have up to 4 points in each.

Armor
Each class has its own AC range and penalties for wearing out-type armor. It'll be in your class write-up.

Prototypes
I don't have the prototype list complete yet, but Prototypes are Void Age's version of magic weapons, so you can pick anything from here and just re-flavor it.

Somebox, you're good to go. I can definitely work in at least some of that backstory. As far as rarity goes, that's part of what you get to decide, so yeah, they'll be very rare. You've probably never met another one - not that they'd necessarily tell you even if you did; you're a health ministry's nightmare.

---

I'm going to go ahead and get the startup posting out of the way later today and let everyone jump in, since the first little bit will probably be mostly RP anyway.

Sorry to nit-pick...but in the rules and in 13th Age a Background is maxed out at 5...you said 4. Just want to be sure which number. The Glitch gets a free extra Background that says it is at max.

In my previous experience with 13th Age, Backgrounds were described to me as jobs and hobbies your character had before the adventure begins. You can think of them as groups of skills. A Hacker will know how to use a computer, but specifically how to get past common security protocols, but isn't necessarily the best at playing video games. A Professional Athlete will likely be good at running and jumping probably, as well as any specific skills their sport requires like ice skating for hockey or pole-vaulting for track & field, but isn't great at negotiations unless they also spent time working as an talent agent. Just some other examples.

Also...I chose to adapt the Ring of Resilience into Recovery Nano Capsule. It manufactures and releases a swarm of nanos that can repair damage, be it to flesh or machine. In game terms it lets me use a Recovery once, mid-battle, and recharges on a 6+ afterward.

Nope, I meant five, sorry.

And yeah, that's a good way to look at backgrounds. Also, if you have a special-use case of a background that isn't readily apparent, that's when you get to tell a little story about WHY your character is good at that.

Game forums are ready to go btw.