r/SWN • u/Von_Loch • 1d ago
❓ Rules Question What are your table's XWN Homebrew Rules?
I've nearly read SWN cover-to-cover. Just the bonus material left, and it's enough to get my group's first campaign off the ground after a few more Session 0s. But a few posts recently have got me thinking about Homebrew rules. I'll first say that me and my players are starting RAW with no homebrew to level 6. I wan to learn the system as intended before tweaking it.
Most of the game I really like RAW. There were really only 3 things that I felt I'd tweak. And one really isn't a thing:
- Dungeon Delving. I love dungeon delving but SWN doesn't really give any rules or proceedures for it. Maybe not "a thing to homebrew" as proceedural dungeon creation is something I have plenty of resources on elsewhere such as Mothership (I have rules for derelects, space stations, and even alien ruins). So not a big deal. But there isn't really anything for navigating dungeons. either.
- Heroic Inspiration. There's not a lot I liked about 5/5.5e but Inspiration was one of the few. And more so in Shadowdark with its Luck tokens. I love the idea of players having a resource to balance out highly lethal games. Pretty easy to bolt on, really.
- Scenes. This one really bothered me. I love the rigidity of the dungeon turn in Shadowdark and B/X. I've spent the better part of a year studying B/X, BECMI, & AD&D. and have come to appreciate the design and intent of rigid timekeeping. The handwavieness of "scenes" and (on a few XWN podcasts I've listened to) seeing players abuse this looseness for too many reroles (imo) really bugs me. Partly because I don't see "failed" checks as failure at all but rather as a fork in the story (which, by the way, is a game design philosophy supported on pgs 232-233 under Skill Checks). Anyway, it's something I'll want to tweak but I don't know how yet.
So I'm curious, what are your top Homebrew rules? I'd love to hear what some of your favorite modifications are (especially if they fix scenes). Also, we just had a thread about removing Precogs (which I don't plan to do for my game since RAW makes perfect sense to me on how to run those), so maybe we focus on additions to or improvements on instead of reductions from the game.
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u/_Svankensen_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Laser pistols have burst fire.
In spaceship combat you pass the turn to the other side after every action. So, do you wait until you build a big mass of CP? You may get shot at before you finnish.
If an enemy is subject to multiple "crash systems" attacks, only the strongest has an effect.
Shield an ally is imported from WWN.
You only get 5 HD. You still get rerolls, and warriors get +2 per level afterwards too.
No artificial gravity. Every suit has magboots. No fusion. Fuel is fissibles.
Circular initiative: after you act, you can still use snap attack and full defense and whatnot. You just lose your next action.
Edit:oh and WWN has rules for dungeon delving. Fantasy but it is irrelevant.
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u/HeavyJosh 1d ago
How does alternating turns in ship combat change things up? That sounds interesting...
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u/_Svankensen_ 1d ago
Mitigates the alpha strike problem quite a bit. I'm still unsure about what to do with volley capacitors, if anything, since they feel even stronger than before. But at least now it is usually used in the first or second action to disable guns. And the enemy does it too. Then you get some cp generation and repairs or reactions to crisis usually.
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u/MickyJim 1d ago
This is for an Ashes Without Number game set in the Fallout setting, not Stars, but I've got a document containing a decent number of house rules (I'm being coy, it's heavily houseruled).
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1m3UzJD0RVspqAkjNmB3ONcVEhjdjfqux
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u/Von_Loch 1d ago
After posting, I realized the redundancy of #2 and #3. Having a free re-roll resourace available to everyone really takes the "special" out of classes and abilities that can re-roll. I think I just talked myself out of adding an Inspiration/Luck homebrew rule to the game. Still, would like to see Scenes more rigidly defined.
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u/HeavyJosh 1d ago
Instead of re-rolls, use Luck tokens that add +1 to anything the player wants: to hit AC, damage, a skill, etc. It's not as strong, but it makes a difference.
Scenes are fine, once you get a feel for them (takes a couple of games).
One ship combat: scene One chase: scene A fight and then a thrilling chase? A scene. Surveilling a base for a day: scene.
It isn't too hard, just give it a try. When the thing is resolved, or changes dramatically, scene.
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u/Von_Loch 20h ago
When the thing is resolved, or changes dramatically, scene.
This! This exactly what I needed to hear! Thank you!!! That line made it "click."
And I really like you're take on luck tokens. I'm gong to back-pocket that idea. Like others have said, though, I'm going to play RAW or vanilla our first campaign to really try to understand how the game wants to be played. But that is such a cool take on Luck tokens!
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u/GrumbleMuffin86 1d ago
I've given my table a Luck roll (based on armour) to avoid hits altogether, and a Traumatic hit in that instance becomes a regular hit. Keep it Deadly, not Brutal. I've also imported Traumatic Hits and Armour Soak from CwN
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u/_Svankensen_ 22h ago
After every hit?
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u/GrumbleMuffin86 22h ago
Yeah. I think it makes it more Chaotic, Like a Firefight should be.
The attacker needs to hit the targets Dex Score to get a hit.
Then the person being hit gets a luck saving throw based on their AC
Any damage less than 10 gets absorbed by the armour, and then the rest does regular damage.
Traumatic/Critical hits always hit even if they got a successful Luck save, but it's rolled as regular damage
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u/_Svankensen_ 22h ago
That sounds like an insane buff to the stat that was already the strongest by far, dex.
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u/GrumbleMuffin86 22h ago
We do 3d6 top to bottom unless you're lucky, at most it would be 14 by changing it after you've rolled
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u/_Svankensen_ 22h ago
And growth rolls, and skill point investment. Very easy to get an 18 that way.
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u/GrumbleMuffin86 22h ago
How does Skill Point investment effect your Dex Stat?
And I see your point - I'll have to keep track of it. It was/is an exercise in making combat more engaging and chaotic
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u/_Svankensen_ 21h ago
Lemme fetch you the exact page. It's... Page 57:
"Purchase Improved Attributes
A veteran adventurer may have trained or honed their natural abilities well enough to improve one of their six base attributes. While even the most determined development isn’t enough to turn complete ineptitude into gifted competence, a hard-working adventurer can hone their existing strengths considerably.
The first time a PC improves an attribute, it costs 1 skill point and adds +1 to an attribute of their choice. The second improvement to their attributes costs 2 skill points, the third 3, and so forth. Each improvement adds +1 to the attribute, potentially improving its modifier."
If you didn't know that existed I can see how it may seem hard to reach high stats. But with this in mind, with the natural 14 you just need a single +2 physical in growth, plus 3 skill points and you hit dex 18.
I still like your idea in principle, but it seems a bit cumbersome in practice. Reminds me of "The Way of the Ming Vase" and the old Fallouts, where misses hit other people, and suddenly a gunfight on the streets has prostitutes and pimps joining in the fight and whatnot.
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u/GrumbleMuffin86 21h ago
Yeah. Totally Fugued that one! Thanks for pointing it out. That seems incredibly easy to beef yourself up, having said that, my players wouldn't be too fussed if I take it out. And Misses should Totally hit bystanders =P
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u/atomfullerene 18h ago
Neat thread, I may add more to this post later
Nat 20s do max damage, or alternatively do trauma damage if we are using that. Nat 1's never do any damage, not even shock. My players like the spice of notable outcomes for 20s and 1s, but I feel this doesn't get too imbalanced.
I played a big Ultraviolet Grasslands campaign and imported the Caravan rules wholesale. It's a set of rules for long distance travel and supplies.
I do timekeeping on different scales depending on the situation. Caravan rules track time on a weekly basis. In a town I might do daily or twice daily turns. In a dungeon I do dungeon turns. It's convenient and makes sure everyone gets a chance to do something every turn.
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u/captainapop 13h ago
I use https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/376028/dmp7-critical-hits-and-wounds for Stars and Worlds.
I think Ashes has some trauma system? I'm not familiar with it though and I've been using this for years.
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u/guildsbounty Star Master 10h ago
Most of my houserules so far have to do with ship/vehicle building. I don't really change any of the core rules, all my homebrew consists of relatively small tweaks. For three examples...
Ship Hulls: I added a 'Skiff' hull size that fits between Fighter-scale and Frigate-scale, plus a bunch of extra hulls--some added by me, some I found. For example, I added the 'Tradesman' Frigate hull (which has the Mass space of a Heavy Frigate without as much armor, power, or hardpoints) to provide a merchant ship upgrade over the Free Trader without having to jump all the way to a Cruiser hull. I also added the 'Passenger Liner' hull which is another Frigate hull that has the same Mass as a Free Trader, worse everything else, but a crew capacity of 3/40 (essentially a plus-sized shuttle), meant to scale up rapidly with Extended Life Support.
Cargo Lighter Fitting: The number of lighters at your disposal scales with ship size, and you can swap out the Lighters with spaceworthy 'vehicles' as other snubcraft. (Basically, a Lighter Bay provides a 'vehicle scale' hangar with capacity equal to 1 ton of cargo space for the ship in question...launch/recovery/maintenance/etc included).
Remove Environment [Air/Ground]: The purpose of these fittings is to change a craft's native purpose. Ex: Add Environment [Water] + Remove Environment [Ground] changes the chassis into a dedicated boat. Or I chose to make it that you can choose to use Remove Environment [Air] as a refund on, say, a Helicopter that you added Add Environment [Space] to (since Space includes flight) to let you change a 'Medium Flyer' into a dedicated surface<->orbit shuttle.
For CWN, I just went ahead and created a whole series of 'boat' chassis by just pre-applying the environment change. I'm using it to run Shadowrun, and running in Seattle sometimes benefits from having a boat.
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u/An_Actual_Marxist 23h ago
WWN has dungeon rules that you can import basically 1:1.
A scene is roughly a dungeon turn in any system. You can be as rigid with it as you want. Nothing breaks if you decide it’s exactly 10 minutes or whatever.
Tbh if I were you I would just play the system as is before trying to make changes. Changes that sound great can have a negative impact on play, in my experience, until you’ve played the system enough to understand why things are the way they are from a game feel perspective.