d20 Ronin Arts Future Starship 04 - The Livingstone.pdf - Ronin Arts - R5700

Requires the use of the d20 Modern™ Roleplaying Game, published by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

THE LIVINGSTONE

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Ronin Arts Future: Starship 4 — The

Livingstone , the fourth in a new series of PDFs for

use with futuristic D20 System campaigns. This

series makes some assumptions about your campaign;

the starship designs in this series will be most useful

in campaigns in which the following statements are

true:

also be printed separately and added to your binder.

The schematic and silhouette page is designed to be

used as a player handout — it s what flashes up on their

ship systems when they attempt to ID a ship — and

GMs need only give the players the page when they

encounter a ship from this series.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Hammes has been freelancing in the role-

playing industry since 2001. Starting small, he has

steadily built his repertoire, and reputation, by work-

ing for such companies as Ronin Arts, Alderac

Entertainment Group, Dark Quest Games, and E.N.

Publishing. He is currently trying to balance his writ-

ing schedule with his role as stay-at-home father. To

catch the latest from Michael s Imagination, please

visit www.michaelhammes.com.

The campaign is not a hard science setting.

Campaigns that are more space opera/adventure

movie are the intended target for this series.

Starships are not rare or unusual. All of the star-

ships in this series assume that space travel is a stan-

dard and common occurrence — individuals either fly

their own ships or ride on passenger ships. Starships

and space travel are as common for characters as a

plane ride is for people of our reality.

Space combat is not uncommon. It s just anoth-

er exciting adventure when the player characters have

to engage the enemy while fleeing from some world

or other.

The campaign is packed with action. If things

aren t exploding, how much fun can the game really

be?

E-FUTURE TILES: STAR PATROL

The Livingstone design is based on SkeletonKey

Games e-Future Tiles: Star Freighter, Star Patrol,

and Star Hunter tile set. While this PDF can be easi-

ly used on its own you will get a lot more use out of

it in your game sessions if you construct the ship — at

miniatures scale — using the printable tiles.

To learn more about SkeletonKey Games please

visit their website at www.skeletonkeygames.com .

Most of the starships in this series are designed to

fill an even number of pages. This is so that you can

print the pages — back-to-back if you wish — and drop

them into a binder. This introduction, and the pages of

new starship equipment and assorted information, can

NEW RULES AND IDEAS

C RYONICS

Cryonics - The process of freezing and storing the

body of a diseased, recently deceased person to pre-

vent tissue decomposition so that at some future time

the person might be brought back to life upon devel-

opment of new medical cures.

One of the things that is not touched upon in the

SRD, but is a staple of much science fiction and future

speculation, is the idea of cryonics. And, to be honest,

it doesn’t need to be. Cryonics, while an interesting

concept, is not very relevant to a PC in an action-ori-

ented d20 Future campaign (except to maybe preserve

a severely injured PC until he or she can be gotten to

proper medical facilities). After all, what kind of role-

playing and adventuring goes on while a PC is frozen?

Nevertheless, it can have its uses.

CAMPAIGN TOOL

Cryonics is very effective as a campaign tool for

the GM to move PCs adventuring in one time (the d20

Modern setting) and transfer them to another time (the

d20 Future setting). How? Perhaps while defeating

their arch-villain, an evil dictator bent on unleashing

an incurable virus upon the world, the PCs are all

infected. Realizing that they only have little time to

live and with no hope of a cure, the PCs enter a cry-

onic state and are awakened in the future time.

In addition to cryonics being used to freeze and

store the bodies of the diseased and dying for a future

time when their afflictions might be cured, cryonics is

expected to see use for space travel. At least during the

early days (or if the campaign is based on realistic

travel times), when it takes years just to reach the edge

THE LIVINGSTONE

of the solar system, crews of spaceships would enter a

cryonic state in order to survive the long journey to

their destination. They would then remain in that cry-

onic state until reaching their destination many years

hence, or until they encounter an emergency (and

we’ve all seen that movie).

Of course, being in a cryonic state for decades or

even centuries causes the world outside to change. The

travelers could find that, upon awakening, the empty

planet they were set to explore is already a thriving

colony thanks to the development of superior engine

technologies. This ties in nicely with the idea of mov-

ing the PCs from one time to another, with the PCs as

the travelers that awaken to find vast changes in the

world (and maybe that the arch-villain they defeated

also had himself frozen, or perhaps his descendants

now rule the world with an iron fist, etc.). There are, of

course, many more possibilities, from finding that an

alien race has subjugated the PCs homeworld to being

the last survivors of their species; I’ll leave such par-

ticulars up to the GM.

Roll d100

Result

01-07

Individual is blind ( 01-25 left

eye, 26-50 right eye, 51-100

both eyes; blindness in one eye

throws off depth perception and

imposes a -4 penalty to all

ranged attacks and a -2 penalty

to Spot checks).

08-14

Individual is deaf ( 01-25 left

ear, 26-50 right ear, 51-100 both

ears; single ear deafness causes

-4 penalty to all Listen checks

and other hearing-dependent

skill checks).

15-21

Individual suffers spinal dam-

age ( 01-50 paraplegic, 51-100

quadriplegic).

22-28

Individual suffers nerve dam-

age and loses the use of one

limb ( 01-25 left arm, 26-50 left

leg, 51-75 right leg, 76-100).

TRANSPORTATION USE

While cryonics allow the transporting of a severe-

ly injured PC (or NPC) until he or she can get the prop-

er medical attention, cryonics is also very useful for

transporting potentially troublesome or lethal cargo.

Criminals, aliens, mutations, clones, and deadly virus-

es and diseases (did I mention captured/kidnapped

PCs?) are just a few of the creatures or things that

might be placed into a cryonic state in order to be

transported from one place to another. Naturally, some-

thing always seems to happen to such cargo; it

inevitably wakens (or is released) early and begins to

wreak havoc (we’ve all seen that movie too).

29-50

Individual suffers brain dam-

age ( 01-40 loses 1d4 points of

Intelligence permanently, 41-80

loses 1d4 points of Wisdom

permanently, 81-100 loses 1d4

points of Intelligence and 1d4

points of Wisdom permanent-

ly).

51-57

Individual suffers serious

scarring and disfigurement

( loses 1d4 points of Charisma

permanently).

58-62

Individual suffers nerve trau-

ma (loses 1d4 points of

Dexterity permanently).

QUICK RULES OF CRYONICS

In general, cryonics does not become a reality until

PL 6. At this point, drugs capable of preserving organs

(especially the brain) from suffering damage during a

long-term cryonic state as well as the procedures for

safely placing a person into and out of a cryonic state

become a reality.

At early PL 6 a cryonic specialist must still care-

fully monitor this process, and both placing an indi-

vidual into and out of a cryonic state requires the prop-

er equipment and a successful Treat Injury check (DC

25; considered surgery) on the part of the cryonic spe-

cialist. A failed Treat Injury check means that the indi-

vidual entering or exiting a cryonic state suffers some

sort of ill effect (usually one, but to make things inter-

esting the GM can use 1d4):

63-67

Individual suffers muscular

damage (loses 1d4 points of

Strength permanently).

68-87

Individual suffers great phys-

ical trauma ( loses 1d4 points

of Constitution permanently)

88-92

Individual becomes insane

(either permanent confusion

effect or GM picks from one of

the hundreds of mental afflic-

tions; paranoia and personality

changes are favorites).

93-100

Individual dies ( 01-35 cardiac

arrest; 36-100 brain aneurysm).

THE LIVINGSTONE

An individual cannot enter a cryonic state with-

out a cryonic specialist. An individual forced out of

a cryonic state without a cryonic specialist (i.e. due

to a power failure, computer error, damage to the

equipment) at a minimum suffers 1d4 of the ill

effects and will most likely also die (85% chance of

instant death in addition to the ill effects) since

there is no cryonic specialist to oversee the process

and administer the proper drugs.

Placing an individual into or out of a full cryon-

ic state requires 4 hours. An individual is sedated

within 1 minute of beginning the process to enter a

cryonic state and is not fully revived until the last

10 minutes of exiting the cryonic state (and is then

groggy and disoriented for an hour thereafter).

If the GM wishes to make the process more haz-

ardous, he or she may require a Treat Injury check

every hour and can also require the individual enter-

ing or exiting a cryonic state to succeed at a

Fortitude save (DC 20), either once, or every hour,

with failure resulting some sort of ill effect as illus-

trated above.

As cryonic research progresses through PL 6,

the risk begins to be minimized and more of the

process becomes automated. In the latter stages of

PL 6, a cryonic specialist is still required to bring an

individual into the cryonic state (by performing a

physical and tailoring the process to the individual’s

physical and mental limitations), but the procedure

has been more standardized and automated so that

the Treat Injury check is reduced (DC 15).

Furthermore, the individual can now be brought out

of a cryonic state purely by automation. However,

this does require initial set-up and input from a cry-

onic specialist and is thus subject to the same Treat

Injury check (DC 15) to account for the cryonic

specialist’s skill and automation errors.

At PL 7 and beyond the cryonic process

becomes fully automated; in order to enter a cryon-

ic state, an individual must do nothing more than

enter a chamber set up for this process. At this

point, the process is so safe that unless there is

deliberate sabotage, or a catastrophic equipment

failure, there is no chance of suffering any ill effects

(except perhaps a case of vertigo or indigestion).

Entering and exiting a cryonic state requires 30

minutes, with the individual being sedated within 1

minute of beginning the process and also being

fully revived 1 minute before the end of the process

(and being in full possession of his or her faculties

within 1d4 minutes of completing the process).

Finally, keep in mind that, at least as far as trav-

el is concerned, cryonics really applies mostly to

those campaigns that use realistic travel times (see

Realistic Space Travel) where it can take years to

travel between systems. If fantastic travel times are

employed, or there are other ways to move rapidly

between systems (such as jump gates), travel times

are dramatically reduced (see Fantastic Space

Travel) and the need for cryonics, at least as for nor-

mal space travel is concerned, is also greatly

reduced.

S HIPS AND T HEIR

A RMS AND A RMAMENTS

Whether civilian ships have weapons, and what

kind of weapons and armor they have, depends

entirely on what kind of a campaign the GM is run-

ning and where a ship is going to operate.

No matter what, military ships will always have

the best available arms and armor, but when you

read through the SRD, you see that every ship gets

some form of weapon; even a lowly garbage scow

has a pair of lasers. The question becomes, is this

actually realistic?

Taking a look at ships of the current day, you

don’t find weaponry mounted on most civilian ships

(pirate ships and other criminal vessels excepted)

because it is not necessary (and is also outlawed in

territorial waters). However, there have been times

when civilian ships have had weapons mounted on

them. A good example would be the ocean liners

that were used to ferry troops and cargo ships dur-

ing WWII. These ships were equipped with some

armament (chiefly anti-aircraft and small guns to

shoot at submarines) because it was wartime. Once

wartime was over, the armaments were removed.

From this example you can assume that it is the

environment that is the determining factor of

whether a civilian vessel will have weaponry. If a

hauler is operating in a safe system it probably

won’t have any weaponry mounted.

If it operates in an area where there is a good

possibility of assault, such as areas where pirates

are known to operate, it would carry at least some

weapons as a deterrent.

If it operates in a war zone, it might not only

have better armaments, but also better armor.

Again, this is nothing that will compete with an

actual military starship, but the best possible to give

it a fighting chance in a battle.

Thus, even though the write-up of the

Livingstone shows it armed with 2 fire-linked heavy

THE LIVINGSTONE

lasers, the GM should not feel bound by this. If the

Livingstone is operating in a peaceful area, the GM

can decide that there is no reason for it to be armed

at all. Conversely, if the Livingstone is operating in

a lawless area or even a warzone, the GM can give

it much more powerful armaments (and perhaps

even bump up the Hit Dice in order to add another

weapon) as well as better armor.

adds +500 feet and the presence of alloy plating sub-

tracts -500 feet leaving the ship with a tactical speed

of 3,000 feet. However, the Hauler is listed with a tac-

tical speed of 2,500 feet. The same error is evident in

the Destroyer, the Bulk Freighter, the Cruiser, the

Battleship, the Fleet Carrier, and the Heavy Transport.

Thus, either the math is in error, or the bonus for

the Fusion Torch engine was meant to be +0 ft.

Although ultimately this is up to the GM to decide, in

this book it is assumed that the math in the SRD is in

error and as a result the aforementioned ships should

have their tactical speeds increased by +500 feet.

This has been taken into account with the

Livingstone , which is powered by a fusion torch and

protected by alloy plating, thus giving it a tactical

speed of 3,000 feet.

I MPORTANT N OTE

The SRD write-up of ships with a fusion torch,

such as the Hauler and Destroyer subtype, is in error.

In the case of the Hauler, assuming a universal base

speed of 3,000 feet, the presence of a fusion torch

BASIC INFORMATION

The Livingstone is a unique ship whose most

obvious features are the four bays containing 28

cryonic pods. It is these pods that are the focus of

the ship and allow the Livingstone to fulfill a num-

ber of different roles:

Colony Scout Ship - as people begin to take the

first tentative steps to colonizing the planets,

colony scout ships are sent out to promising planets

and star systems. These ships are crewed by scien-

tists of all stripes and tasked with ensuring that a

planet is indeed safe for colonization. The crews

enter a cryonic state for their multi-year journey,

awaken when they arrive at their destination, con-

duct their research, and communicate back to their

sponsor. If a planet suitable for colonization has

indeed been found, larger colony ships subsequent-

ly follow.

Floating Laboratory - the Livingstone makes

an excellent space-based laboratory (especially of

the illegal/outlawed kind; why else would it need to

be able to move about in space?). Her cryonic pods

can easily be assumed to be experiment pods where

her crew of scientists (with some guards) conducts

various experiments. And what kind of experi-

ments? Genetic manipulation, cloning, mutation

research, designer viruses, and xenobiology, what-

ever is most effective for the GM’s campaign.

Hospital Ship - The Livingstone can serve as a

hospital ship, perhaps as part of a smaller military

fleet, a private mercenary organization, or a private

company (perhaps space mining). Her cryonic pods

keep those that are severely injured or diseased

alive until they are attended to by the crew of doc-

tors and nurses in her operating room.

Morgue Ship - For those beyond medical hope,

the Livingstone serves as a transport back to their

home planet where they can receive a proper bur-

ial. This just cries out for a “zombies-in-space”

kind of thing, especially when you consider her

crew of bored (and unarmed) orderlies.

Prison Transporter - The Livingstone trans-

ports only the most dangerous prisoners, keeping

them in a cryonic state throughout their journey.

Sure she’s staffed with guards, but you just know

that when the prisoners thaw out, they won’t be

able to handle it.

As a flipside of this, the Livingstone could be

used to keep hostages or kidnap victims “on ice”

for some powerful pirates, corporation, or govern-

ment.

Specimen Transporter - This is a spin on the

floating laboratory, but instead of producing the

specimens, the Livingstone transports them. This is

ideal for introducing new aliens or races as well as

some biological horror or other. On a more benign

level, she could be transporting plant specimens

from recently discovered planets that promise to

hold the cure for a variety of ills. In this case, she

might be crewed by nothing but scientists, or she

might have a mixture of scientists and guards.

The point is that while the Livingstone is not a

combat ship or something that the PCs would get

much use out of owning, she makes an ideal plat-

form for any number of adventures.

d20 Ronin Arts Future Starship 04 - The Livingstone.pdf

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