Aroooo

GURPS Cliffhangers is a great pulp era sourcebook. They did a very credible job on their recent 2nd edition release. Aroooo

Are you referring to the grapple arm? Hadn't thought of Extra Limb... Interesting idea. I'll look into it. Aroooo

Alien Legion It could have been mine. I did some guidelines for 4th Edition way back when. Shameless plug, but go here: http://www.foot-sloggers.com/ Its my fan site, blessed by Carl Potts himself. There is some talk of RPG in the works, but I can't talk about it, nor can I post my 4th Ed. stuff on that site. Once I get my B5 stuff done, I plan on revisiting my old stuff and update it for 5th. Anyone interested in seeing it, email me off list. Aroooo

Another great resource is the Federal Writers Project. If memory serves, it was a gov't sponsored project in the 30's and 40's to give out of work writers something to do. They produced guide books of the States (thats all I know of anyway). I have one on Illinois that I used constantly for my Justice Inc game. They are great resouces for 'period' information. I'll dig my copy up (its still in a box after a move) and post publisher info. Aroooo

In our Justice Inc. game we only use them for dramatic effect, not all the time. PC gets shot with a really big or unusual gun, or its a low level NPC thug type, then we'll use them. Aroooo

The other thing I'd like to do, but is low priority, is create 'professional' package deals. I'm working on Package deals for the other races as we speak. Aroooo

Sounds like an idea! I'm actually on a roll with the ships now that I've gotten a few under my belt. But I could use help with the rest of the equipment list - always a hard thing to compile for any game. There are some of the B5 standards like the Links, data pads, medlab equipment, flight suits, vac suits, etc. that need writups. Plus the general accutriments of any sci-fi game; a lot of which will probably appear in the Spacer's Toolkit, but would be nice to have something beforehand. If anyone wants to help, email your writups directly to me, and I'll start reviewing.

We're gaming with my group right now, and after our initial shock, that's our conclusion too. More souce material is great, and I'm happy to see any B5 product. I'll pick up a copy for sure, but I'm doubtfull we'll use the system - although I will reserve final judgement until till after I read it. Aroooo

Steve Said: "No -- as the text states, the determining factor is whether the attack could, if a high enough roll were achieved, do BODY damage. It doesn't have to actually roll that high. As long as it has the potential to roll that high, it ablates some of the defense." So, if a 3d6 RKA attacks a vehicle with 25 armor (ablative), since the max 3d6 could do is 18 body (generally), there would be no ablative effect. But if the same 3d6 RKA attacked a vehicle with 10 armor (ablative), the armor degrades no matter how much damage is done - 4 body or 12 body. Do I have that right?

Not to get into a d20 vs. the rest of the world argument, but ug! I found info on Mongoose's forum: http://www.mortality.net/board/read.php?TID=5234 "Mongoose Publishing is proud to announce the acquisition of the licence to produce the all new Babylon 5 roleplaying game from Warner Brothers Inc. This is a project we are all very excited about here at Mongoose, for we are all great fans of the television series and its many spin-offs – without a doubt, Babylon 5 is the greatest science fiction epic yet created. In many ways, the television series seems almost designed for roleplaying scenarios and campaigns, and we are putting all our efforts into ensuring the new game lives up to the milestone set by the licence. The Babylon 5 roleplaying game will be available in the latter part of May 2003 and, like other Mongoose Publishing games, will be heavily supported with material guaranteed to delight any serious fan of the show." There's more in their forum... Aroooo

Web Site Update Just an FYI, but I made some changes/updates to my B5 Hero site. The ship links have changed, so start from the top of the site: http://www.aroooo.com/rpg_stuff/b5/index.php Aroooo P.S. Anyone know how to get clean html out of Excel? Its killing me...

Web Site Update Just an FYI, but i made some changes/updates to my B5 Hero site. The ship links have changed, so start from the top of the site: http://www.aroooo.com/rpg_stuff/b5/index.php Aroooo

Steve, could you expand on the somewhat cryptic explanation of the optional Ablative rules on pg 78 of FRED: "...for a -1 limitation, every shot against which an Ablative Defense Power provides protection and which could, if a good enough roll were achieved, do BODY damage to the target will reduce the Defense Power by 5 Active Points, regardless of whether the target itself takes damage." Does this mean the attack has to exceed (penetrate) the defense and damage the target in order to reduce the defense 5 active points? What if the attack does not exceed the defense? No reduction? Thanks!

I understood it that if damage gets through, the ship takes damage as normal, and the defense looses 5 active points. But after re-reading it again, the wording is a little confusing. There are a lof of 'ifs' in the paragraph. I'll post a rules Q&A for clarification. Aroooo

High END/REC? The B5 Tech manual doesn't really cover how fusion batteries work in B5 - although they cover a lot of other stuff. Are they batteries in the true sense, which means they just store power? Or are they some kind of 'cold' fusion tech, and merely called batteries because they are small compared to a full blown fusion reactor? I know, I'm thinking too much If I drop REC down to 50, then its hard for the Fury to fight effectively for more than one turn or two. I might go as low as 100 REC for now. My group is going to start playtesting this weekend, so I'll have a better idea on performance soon. And like I mentioned earlier, for simplicity's sake, I may just make the weapons 0 END to ease the record keeping. Also, don't forget that there is a physical limitation that limits the ship to 12 hours of main power. Hm... maybe a continuing charge on the weapons??? Probably not strictly legal from a Hero point of view.... Aroooo

Starfury Updated I've updated the Aurora Starfury: http://www.aroooo.com/rpg_stuff/b5/ships/starfury_aurora.php And done the Badger Starfury: http://www.aroooo.com/rpg_stuff/b5/ships/badger.html (Need to put the Badger into the same format as the Aurora. HTML code from Excel is a pain to clean up.) Comments? Aroooo

Okay, I did understand your point after all. Guess the coffee had set in enough I see your point about accel and combat vs. non-combat inches. I had reached a similar conclusion when reading SH. But 1600 inches of flight is a bit hard for most to accept For now I'll keep the flight speeds the way they are, just to be consistent with SH. When I get farther along I'll work on a better write-up for realistic space travel. Aroooo

I was with you till you got to the non-combat multiplier shouldn't figure part. Why would it figure in an atmosphere, but not in a vacuum? When I figured acceleration, I used total inches (including non-combat). SH said "maximum inches per turn" when figuring accel. Maybe my coffee just hasn't soaked in yet. Aroooo P.S. I too hope TUV clears some of this up, but it hasn't hit store shelves yet.

Body: I know. After looking at it it is too high. That number will be coming down. Defense: Again I defer to SH sample vehicles. I'm not sure I like it that way myself, but at least I'm consistant Personally, I would prefer all space vehicles just have a def of 5, and the rest as armor... So yes, its 25/25. Thrusters. Thanks for the kudo. The reason I gave it that much is this: if I understand the turn mode rules right, half the levels will allow the Fury to turn 180° as a single turn mode (based on 25" flight). The rest are for plain old maneuverability/pilot bonus. Maybe I should make them two sep. abilities? 5 levels for turn mode penalties only, the rest as pure bonus. Flight speed. Well, there you got me I was looking at it from two points: flight as compared to other vehicle writeups; and with the non-cbt multiple giving it 1km/s/s accel - based on SH's writeup. As for realistic movement - too complex for my gaming tastes. If you want to run more realistic numbers for me, I'll look at it. Thanks for looking and giving me feedback! Aroooo

Re: Re: B5 Hero: Aurora Starfury Thanks! I used the sample ships from SH as a guide. They did their power plants as immobile. Remember, its relative to the vehicle; so the power plants can't be moved within the ship. As for the high END, its enough to power most of the ship systems, including the forward autofire cannons, for a full turn. I too thought the number was high, but the max END usage per turn was about 480 END, so... big batteries. (It is a combat craft after all.) I originally had the weapons bought to 0 END, with the rest as req. END. I may go back to that. The grappling arm is used to capture and tow other vehicles. Its not part of the landing bay system. I bought it at 60 STR to match the STR of the ship. Sensors. Again, I used the sample vehicles as a guide. I left it that way for now, mainly for simplicity. Once our group figures out how we want to handle sensors, ECM, and ECCM, I may change that. But for now it works. The only thing I have not figured out yet is if I want to go through the trouble of making to cockpit a sep. vehicle (aka lifepod). I think I'll keep it simple and leave that as an FX. Aroooo

Well, I can say one thing for being snowed in for two days, I got time to write up a lot of stuff for my B5 conversion That being said, I've finished my first ship! The writeup for the Aurora Starfury can be found on my web site: http://www.aroooo.com/rpg_stuff/b5/ships/starfury_aurora.php (I didn't want to post something that long here.) Please take a moment and let me know what you think - but remember this is my first vehicle (in 5th ed.) so be nice Aroooo

There was a long thread at the temp forums on this issue. In Hero rules, Luck is the [easiest/best] way to do it. Just have everyone buy a d6 of Luck. There were a lot of other house rules mentioned, but i didn't save the thread... Aroooo

Its the other way around. -1 if STUN or BODY damage exceed defense; -1/2 if only BODY damage exceeds defenses. Armitage is right. Lower on pg 78 of FRED (which I missed before) there is a variant Ablative for -1. Essentially, if BODY damage gets through the defense, then the defense looses 5 active points of defense. Cool. Thats what I'll use. Aroooo

Not sure if this should go here, or the Rules Q&A, but since its Star Hero related, hopefully Steve will chime in too. In all the rules I've seen governing starship combat and damage, there is no real mention of STUN damage effects caused to ships. The rules only talk about BODY damage - which makes a fair amount of sense, since we are talking about a construct. Given that, why do the sample starships in SH list the Ablative limitation at -1, when pg 77 of FRED states Ablative vs. BODY only is worth [only] a -1/2 limitation? Or does that mean STUN damage really does count, and if so, what other repurcussions are there aside from the Ablative effects? Or does Ablative [vs. BODY only] get a -1 limitation for ships/vehicles, and I just missed the rule? Or does that mean I've got cabin fever from being snowed in and I've been staring at the starship design rules too long ? Aroooo

missiles in a dogfight Okay, in keeping with the thought that a missile is a vehicle (at least built as one ), how would you handle a missile in a dogfight? Starfighter A is in a dogfight with Starfighter B. In one turn, B launches a missile at A. Now you have 3 vehicles the dogfight. How is it resolved? This also begs the question, how do you handle a dogfight with multiple participants? 3 on 3 for instance... The writeup in 5E talks mainly about 1 on 1. I'm thinking that everyone rolls their combat piloting, and those numbers are compaired to each other as you figure out who is attacking whome - essentially the 3 on 3 becomes 3 1 on 1's. Aroooo