My feedback

[Iki]

First of all I want to congratulate the Wyvern Gamming team for the fantastic work.

I love the way they converted the D&D 5e rules to a modern and Sci-Fi system.

Below you can find my suggestions:

Typo’s I found in the Beta book:

 

Imperial vs. Metric: You can find the Imperial measurement in combination with the metric measurement system. I love that you have chosen the metric system, but I think you should incorporate the two measurement system so that all players are satisfied.

Pg 118 Long Jump (Also change the letter type like High Jump) : When you make a long jump, you cover a number of feet up to your Strength score if you move at least 2 meters on foot immediately before the jump.

Pg 118 High Jump: When you make a high jump, you leap into the air a number of feet equal to 3 + your Strength modifier

Pg 128 Paralyzed: Any Attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.

Pg 129 Prone: An Attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.

Pg 129 Unconscious: Any Attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.

Pg 193 Pack Tactics: The beast has advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one ally is within 5 feet of the creature and the ally isn’t incapacitated.

Pg 194 Pounce: If the beast moves at least 20 feet straight toward a creature

Pg 195 Standing Leap: The beast’s long jump is up to 10 feet and its high jump is up to 5 feet, with or without a running start.

Bonus Action: Pg 155 There is mentioning of the Rogue.

Extra info needed on Pg 16. What happens when you have received a skill, weapon, or tool proficiency from your origin and you also receive it with your class. Can you choose a new one?

Races:

 

Suggestions for additional player races:

Asgard

Crystalline Entities

Furlings

Oannes (1.13 "Fire And Water")

Oranians

Orbanians

Reol

Serrakin

 

Origins:

 Biome Origins: I’m missing some Biome based origins. Suggestions:

Aquatic origin: (Constitution +1, Choose Hold Breath: You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to two times your Constitution modifier or Natural Swimmer: You have a swimming speed of 6m.

High Gravity: You come from a world with a higher gravity

Low Gravity: You come from a world with a lower gravity

Low –Oxygen Atmosphere: You come from a world with a lower Oxygen Atmosphere.

 Background Origin: I’m missing some Background based origins. Suggestions:

Assassin: (Skill Proficiency: Stealth, Assassinate: During the first turn, the assassin has advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn’t taken a turn.

Miner

Spy (Remove the Tok’ra Spy from the racial Origins) and add the Spy to the background origins (Attribute: Charisma +1, Skill Proficiency: Deception, Passing: You gain advantage on any Charisma (Deception) checks to trick targets into believing you are someone else.

Martial Artist: Skill Proficiency: Acrobatics. Your unarmed strikes gain the finesse quality and you may use the acrobatics for the Grapple and Shove combat Contests.\

 

Classes:

I would start with 8 classes:

Diplomat: The Diplomat makes peaceful contact with new civilizations and maintaining relationships with allied groups.

Engineer: The Engineer maintains the wide range of technology used by the Phoenix site.

Infiltrator: The infiltrator is the teams acquisition specialist and gets his team unnoticed in difficult places.

Medic: The Medic keeps this team healthy and combat ready.

Officer: The Officer directs his team when the inevitable danger of Stargate travel rears its ugly head.

Scientist: The Scientist investigates the mysteries of new worlds and lost cultures.

Scout: The Scout keeps his team safe in the wilderness and behind enemy lines.

Warrior: The warrior is the martial backbone of the team.

 

Soldier: Rename the Soldier class to the Officer Class because it better reflects what it does, and do the following changes (also change some feats):

Saving Throws: Charisma and Wisdom

Skills: Intimidate, Persuasion, Perception

Orders (replaces Surge): As an action you can give orders to a number of allies equal to your Charisma modifier. The target of your orders can take an additional action on your turn (even an attack) as a bonus action. Character must complete a short or long rest before they benefit again from your orders.

Rally the troops (replaces Rally): At 2nd level, As an action you can rally a number of allies (including yourself) equal to your Charisma modifier. When not at full HP when initiative is rolled at the start of combat, they may immediately heal 1d10 HP. Once used they may not benefit from your ability until they take a long rest.

Guided Attack (replaces Weapon Training): At 3rd level a number of allies equal to your Charisma modifier that are within 5m of you increase their weapon (even improvised weapons) damage die by 1 step (max 1d12).

Critical Strike: At 3rd level as an action you can guide the attacks of a number of allies equal to your Charisma modifier. These allies critical range off the weapon they make the next attack with increase by 1 step.

Ability Score Improvement: At 4th level you can increase your Charisma or Constitution score by +2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by +1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Warrior: Make a new class that reflects a character that upgrades its individual combat capabilities. Making a build can result in a specialist using ranged weapons (Soldier) or melee weapons (Fighter or Martial Artist) (including unarmed combat)

HIT POINTS

Hit Points at 1st level: 10

Hit Points at Higher Levels: 5 per level

Hit Die: d10

PROFICIENCIES

Armor: Light and Heavy Armor

Weapons: Common weapons, Sidearms, Longarms

Tools: Camo Kit, Armor Kit, Weapon Kit

Saving Throws: Constitution, and Dexterity or Strength

Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Intimidate

WEAPON TRAINING

At 1st level you’ve trained to deal reliable damage with whatever weapon you wield, even improvised weapons. Increase the weapon die 1 step for weapons you are proficient with (Maximum 1d12, unarmed damage becomes 1d4).

Warrior Training: You are constantly training to improve your combat capability. Choose one combat feat (see page @@) at 1st level and an combat feat at 4th.

SURGE: At 2nd level, if you are not at full HP when initiative is rolled at the start of combat, you may immediately heal 1d10 HP. Once used you may not activate this ability again until you take a long rest

Warrior’s FLEXIBILITY: At 2nd level as a standard action you may activate a Combat feat that you don’t know (see page @@). This combat feat lasts for a number of rounds equal to your Wisdom modifier. When the duration has run out you may choose a Combat feat you know (if any) to re-activate automatically. Once you use this ability you cannot use it again until you’ve taken a long rest.

Combat Insight: At 3rd level you can take a bonus action on each of your turns in combat. This action can only be used only to Aim, Disarm, Grapple, or Shove.

IMPROVED CRITICAL: At 3rd level, choose a weapon type you are proficient with (such as longarm, side arm, or common). When using this weapon you score a critical hit on a 19 or 20.

ABILITY SCORE IMPROVEMENT

At 4th level you can increase your Constitution and your chosen Strength or Dexterity by +2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by +1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature

WEAPON MASTER: At 5th level, the minimum damage the warrior inflicts with a weapon he is proficient with is equal to his level + modifier.

 

Equipment:

Weapons:

Missing Special Rules:

Reach (This weapon adds 1m to your reach when you attack with it, as well as when determining your reach for opportunity attacks with it).

 

Thrown: If a weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon to make a ranged attack. If the weapon is a melee weapon, you use the same ability modifier for that attack roll and damage roll that you would use for a melee attack with the weapon. For example, if you throw a handaxe, you use your Strength, but if you throw a dagger, you can use either your Strength or your Dexterity, since the dagger has the finesse property.

Heavy: Small creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls with heavy weapons. A heavy weapon’s size and bulk make it too large for a Small creature to use effectively.

Light: A light weapon is small and easy to handle, making it ideal for use when fighting with two weapons.

Two-Handed: This weapon requires two hands when you attack with it.

Dual Weapons (Kusira gamma, …) You can use a double weapon to fight as if fighting with two weapons, but if you do, you incur all the normal attack penalties associated with fighting with two weapons, just as if you were using a one-handed weapon and a light weapon.

 

Missing Weapons:

Flexible weapons (Chain, Whip,…)

Blowgun

Garrote

Net

 

Tools:

Parachutes

 

Feats:

 

Former host (General): You where the former host of a Goa'uld or Tokra and you survived the procedure. As a result you have Naquadah in your bloodstream and can operate Goa'uld or Tokra technology.

Weapons Finesse (Combat):

MP 4

Choose one melee weapon, it gains the finesse quality.

 

Two Weapon Fighter (Combat):

MP 4

You do not suffer disadvantage for fighting with two weapons.

 

Combat:

Rules for 2 weapon fighting

Suggestion: Suffer disadvantage to attack with two weapons: If you hit do the extra damage equal to your off hand weapon (no attribute bonus applies).

Aim (Action): When you didn’t move before you make an attack you gain advantage on the attack.

 

Optional:

No NPC Attack Rolls:

Instead players roll a defense roll.

NPC attacks = 10 + modifiers (Attribute and Proficiency)

PC defense Roll = Dexterity Save = d20 + Dexterity + modifiers (Feats or Items)

If NPC has advantage -> PC has disadvantage on the defense roll instead.

If the d20 roll for a PC defense roll is a 20, the attack fails regardless of any modifiers or the NPC Attack result.

If the If the d20 roll for a PC defense roll is a 1, the opponent has landed a critical hit.

If NPC has a higher critical range with a weapon (19-20) -> the character increases its critical failure an equal amount (1-2).

Feat (Dodge) or Items (Shield)that give a bonus to AC act as a bonus to the Defense roll

Advantage/Disadvantages:

An advantage and a disadvantage cancel each other out.

If you have more than one advantage/disadvantage left, roll two dice and pick the highest/lowest as usual, but add/subtract the total number of advantages/disadvantages to/from the result: +2/-2 if you have 2 advantages/disadvantages, +3/-3 if you have three, and +4/-4 if you have four or more.

http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2016/12/stacking-advantagedisadvantage-in-d-5e.html

 

 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Iki

[1001100x02]

Races:

On 5/2/2020 at 12:05 AM, Iki said:

<snip>

As a player, I'm good with the choice of races presented so far.

All those are however clearly fodder for a future expansion along the lines of d20Modern's Menace Manual. Something like "Stargate Command Guide to Allies & Aliens"

 

Origins:

Quote

 Biome Origins: I’m missing some Biome based origins. Suggestions:

Aquatic origin: (Constitution +1, Choose Hold Breath: You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to two times your Constitution modifier or Natural Swimmer: You have a swimming speed of 6m.

High Gravity: You come from a world with a higher gravity

Low Gravity: You come from a world with a lower gravity

Low –Oxygen Atmosphere: You come from a world with a lower Oxygen Atmosphere.

I'm with you on there being some obvious ones missing, especially if you're throwing Sailor in as a background choice.

AQUATIC
The waterways and oceans of the world are where your culture took root, giving rise to a people intimately familiar with the efforts and joys of earning a living from the water instead of the land.
Attribute: Strength +1
Natural Swimmer: You have a swimming speed of 6m.

 

UNDERWATER
You spend a significant portion of your life working beneath the surface of large bodies of water, maybe as a clearance diver or engineer. You've learned to deal with the pressures both literal and figurative of the deep.
Attribute: Constitution +1
Safe Harbour: You gain advantage on saves to avoid suffocation, unconsciousness, and panic / fear effects.

 

Quote

Background Origin: I’m missing some Background based origins. Suggestions:

Assassin: (Skill Proficiency: Stealth, Assassinate: During the first turn, the assassin has advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn’t taken a turn.

Miner

Spy (Remove the Tok’ra Spy from the racial Origins) and add the Spy to the background origins (Attribute: Charisma +1, Skill Proficiency: Deception, Passing: You gain advantage on any Charisma (Deception) checks to trick targets into believing you are someone else.

Martial Artist: Skill Proficiency: Acrobatics. Your unarmed strikes gain the finesse quality and you may use the acrobatics for the Grapple and Shove combat Contests.\

Assassin does have a storied history in heroic fiction, but my guess is that is probably doesn't quite fit the noble military action adventure vibe the Devs seem to be going for here. Terribly logical material for that Allies & Aliens expansion though because Tok'ra Urban Assassin would totally be a thing.

And I feel you on the spy thing. A general one would fit nicely with both Diplomat and Scout types from all races except maybe the unas, while the version of Passing the Tok'ra Spy origin currently has is weak and highly situational in a way none of the other species backgrounds are. Given that espionage is totally the thing tok'ra are best at however, I think they still deserve something along the lines of what you want to put into general population.

 

TOK'RA INFILTRATOR
Your study of other cultures makes you really good at faking being one of them
Required Race: Tok’Ra (but not Pangaran)
Attribute: Charisma +1
Blending: When making a Charisma (Deception) check to pass yourself off as other than a Tok'ra. you may use Wisdom (Culture) instead.

 

Classes:

Quote

 

I would start with 8 classes:

Diplomat: The Diplomat makes peaceful contact with new civilizations and maintaining relationships with allied groups.
Engineer: The Engineer maintains the wide range of technology used by the Phoenix site.
Infiltrator: The infiltrator is the teams acquisition specialist and gets his team unnoticed in difficult places.
Medic: The Medic keeps this team healthy and combat ready.
Officer: The Officer directs his team when the inevitable danger of Stargate travel rears its ugly head.
Scientist: The Scientist investigates the mysteries of new worlds and lost cultures.
Scout: The Scout keeps his team safe in the wilderness and behind enemy lines.
Warrior: The warrior is the martial backbone of the team.

 

Again, I see where you're going with this and I do love me some good infiltrator shenanigans (though I suspect that role is being seen as part of what the Scout might do in order to keep focus on team roles broadish). But "martial backbone of the team" does seem to miss the point I think the Devs are trying to make, which that while inevitable they're trying to move away from the standard D&D mindset and more towards the notion that even though it's mostly non-lethal here combat is the least preferred option.

You'll notice that by stripping the base attack bonus out of class design, basically everyone is inherently equally combat capable as everyone else. Yes where you put your attributes and feats will affect it somewhat, but everyone otherwise gets a similar result and picks up the damage boosting feats as they progress.

I see the attraction of a more dedicated heavy hitter than the somewhat generalist soldier might hold but I think you might need to rally some more support for the idea. Hopefull the Devs can expand on this when they reply to the thread.

 

More thoughts later

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by 1001100x02

[Sazeral]

Thanks!

[Iki]

A good idea is to have a scout feat or origin to have a loyal animal friend.

Ohter ideas:

specific type of Pilot feats or a Driver/Pilot Class (Combat pilot, would also be handeled as vehicle feats)

Adept class for characters that have special abilities (Telepathy, Nox rituals, Telekinesis,...)

 

[Bahamut_A6M5]

14 hours ago, Iki said:

A good idea is to have a scout feat or origin to have a loyal animal friend.

 

It could be a good idea for druids in D&D. But this is Stargate. An animal friend would be shunning contact with most alien species (as they do in D&D with the most weird monsters, such as undead, aberrations, etc.).

14 hours ago, Iki said:

specific type of Pilot feats or a Driver/Pilot Class (Combat pilot, would also be handeled as vehicle feats)

 

Too specialized class, a character of that kind would be fiddling her fingers most of the time, waiting for her chance to shine. And that would imply having in every mission at least a fragment where a vehicle would be involved. Better to have pilot/driving skills every character has access to than a specific class revolving around it.

14 hours ago, Iki said:

Adept class for characters that have special abilities (Telepathy, Nox rituals, Telekinesis,...)

 

No. Those kind of things are what give a sense of wonder when PCs behold them. But they aren't intended to be handled by PCs. Also, what you call "special abilities" related to a class are actually racial features or skills developed by a specific species (such as the Nox "rituals").

[1001100x02]

All the reason to have species-based feats.

I suspect, and certainly hope, that a future expansion book will have specific background origins for the various branches of the military that would give the soldier a reason to choose the tau'ri military option which at the moment effectively just gives them the choice of 4 kits (as they're already proficient in all kits awarded by this origin, the "choose again" ruling would need to apply) which though actually really useful doesn't really speak to anything iconic about what it's meant to represent.

 

[Iki]

Quote

It could be a good idea for druids in D&D. But this is Stargate. An animal friend would be shunning contact with most alien species (as they do in D&D with the most weird monsters, such as undead, aberrations, etc.).

First of all thank you for your feedback. I undertand what you mean but it many military forces use doggs very effectivelly. Even USA Delta force and Navy seals use them (https://www.insider.com/how-us-military-trains-dogs-navy-seal-delta-force-missions-2019-10)and there for the actual aplication on stargate missions could benefit from an animal compagnon. That said the phounix site is a multi species site, and maybe there are species where animal compagnon ar very common or even natural.

Quote

Too specialized class, a character of that kind would be fiddling her fingers most of the time, waiting for her chance to shine. And that would imply having in every mission at least a fragment where a vehicle would be involved. Better to have pilot/driving skills every character has access to than a specific class revolving around it.

Ya your probably right, I never looked it that way.

May be just a couple of feats could do the trick, and a hole chapter on the use of vehicle and possible feats is recomended.

If you see in the 3 stargate series aircraft/spacecraft are used regulary and can not be forgotting rule wise.

Quote

No. Those kind of things are what give a sense of wonder when PCs behold them. But they aren't intended to be handled by PCs. Also, what you call "special abilities" related to a class are actually racial features or skills developed by a specific species (such as the Nox "rituals").

I understand that you are conserned with game balance. But I think the phounix site is a multi species site, and maybe there are species that have a whole aresenal of different special abilities like Telepathy and telekinesis. And there for I suggested it. But maybe it can be solved with species feats.

 

[Bahamut_A6M5]

13 minutes ago, Iki said:

First of all thank you for your feedback. I undertand what you mean but it many military forces use doggs very effectivelly. Even USA Delta force and Navy seals use them (https://www.insider.com/how-us-military-trains-dogs-navy-seal-delta-force-missions-2019-10)and there for the actual aplication on stargate missions could benefit from an animal compagnon. That said the phounix site is a multi species site, and maybe there are species where animal compagnon ar very common or even natural.

You are mistaking an animal friend with a trained animal. You don't need to be a scout or a specific race to order a trained animal to perform its routines; that's something almost anyone could do. So, there's no need for a background, just a skill in the line of Handle Animal and rules for teaching tricks to animals. Also, note an animal companion is not the same as a trained animal. The first is a friend, the second is a tool. That's a subtle difference most D&D players completely miss: you don't put a friend willingly into danger but most people won't hesitate throwing their animal companion into battle first (it's no surprise that most people choose animals like bears or wolves as "animal friends"). This fact jeopardizes the whole concept of "animal companion".

22 minutes ago, Iki said:

 

May be just a couple of feats could do the trick, and a hole chapter on the use of vehicle and possible feats is recomended.

If you see in the 3 stargate series aircraft/spacecraft are used regulary and can not be forgotting rule wise.

Actually, neither feats nor an extensive chapter on dealing with vehicles are needed. As it's been said, Wyvern Gaming is turning away from the heavy combat focus. So, the chances PCs are going to use a vehicle in combat are going to be rare, rare enough as to warrant that some general rules would suffice rather than a whole section of rules. Also, if you notice, in the series, vehicles most of the time are used for transport purposes and only in a few episodes have an actual importance (and even then, issues are more related to repairing the vehicle or fixing some problem than handling a ship).

32 minutes ago, Iki said:

I understand that you are conserned with game balance. But I think the phounix site is a multi species site, and maybe there are species that have a whole aresenal of different special abilities like Telepathy and telekinesis. And there for I suggested it. But maybe it can be solved with species feats.

SGP is multispecies, yes. There are Unas, Tok'ra, Aturen, Jaffa,... But species such as the Nox or the Hok'tar were never intended to have relevant weight in SG-1 (to be main character, so to speak). They were there for the sense of wonder ("whoa, did you see what that alien did?"), but never to be a permanent part of the show (Jonas Quinn developed precognition in a chapter as a plot device, just to lose it because his life was endangered; ascended Daniel Jackson made occasional appearences but never did a thing and the time he was about to strike Anubis down, he was stopped). The same way shows don't revolve around those abilities, neither a Stargate RPG should do. Powers such as telepathy and the like are to be beholden, not owned, by PCs in Stargate; otherwise, you risk trivializing them.

[1001100x02]

And don't forget that the creation of a hok'tar/psychic is a long standing goa'uld research project. It didn't get anywhere until Nirti got her hands on an Ancient gene resequencer and even then that didn't go well.

Then we have the ancient woman from antarctica with the healing hands who dies from the plague that the ancients sort ascension to escape. We have no idea what caused it as I recall, but it doesn't take a great leap to imagine just as the asgard's genetic engineering doomed them the ancients similarly doomed themselves.

TL;DR - superpowers in Stargate kill you.

[Bahamut_A6M5]

20 hours ago, 1001100x02 said:

Then we have the ancient woman from antarctica with the healing hands who dies from the plague that the ancients sort ascension to escape. We have no idea what caused it as I recall, but it doesn't take a great leap to imagine just as the asgard's genetic engineering doomed them the ancients similarly doomed themselves.

She was already sick when the SG-1 unfroze her, afflicted by the Ori bioplague which wiped the ancients. And the asgard genetic engineering wasn't their downfall; it was the lack of original genetic material, forcing them to clone their clones time and time again. Otherwise, Asgard make for a perfectly playable race, as they don't have special powers, they just rely on very advanced technology.

20 hours ago, 1001100x02 said:

TL;DR - superpowers in Stargate kill you.

I'd go one step closer and say superpowers in Stargate kill you if you aren't evolved enough XD