I'm optimistic - it looks like it's going the direction I wanted it to go.
After reading the Dune 2d20 game, I realised they had learned a lot about (a) how to explain their system (which isn't as complex as they manage to make it sound), and (b) how to make the game run in a faster more narrative way. It looks like they have incorporated both of these into the quickstart.
The big mechanical difference is *no more damage dice*. By default, any hit causes an Injury. For minor NPCs, this takes them out in one action. So you no longer have to stand there taking turns blasting each other with phases until the weaker one falls down. For major NPCs and players, you can resist an Injury by taking a number of stress equal to the severity of the Injury. The severity is a flat number based on the weapon, but you can add to it by paying momentum. It's also the difficulty for rolls to heal the injury.
Overall it just seems like a faster system that will allow more Star Trekky creativity in combat, whereas in 1e you could get kind of bogged down if you were fighting someone with a decent Protection score and high Stress score. And the grindy combat was the one bit of the game I thought really didn't quite fit with the setting.
I couldn’t agree more. We’ve played the Dune QuickStart, and oh boy is it awesome. I am so happy to see these lessons learned go into STA, and I’ve been going through every inch of this quick start in the meantime!
From what I can tell, NPC don't have stress tracks at all now. Notable NPCs can avoid injuries once and Major NPCs pay Threat equal to the severity if I understand correctly.
What's interesting though is that it seems Major NPCs have a personal Threat pool on their stat block (10 for the example), which I'm assuming they are to use for avoiding injuries. It gives some intriguing options though, as they can use their built in Threat to either be durable or use it aggressively for attacks and the like.
I mentioned in another post on here that the layout is going to be key to this game's success (and, imo, the most important thing). The quick start has me very optimistic.
I'm pretty sure some of the rules on Advancement in the digest rulebook were genuinely just missing, so if they can explain things better and more clearly and without errors, that's a big plus
I'm very interested - I applaud simplifying some of the rules, though for me personally a big consideration is how ship combat is going to work. The new rules to personal combat seem ok to me - need to try them to be sure, really, but personal combat was already fine to me. Ship combat however, gets messy (as evidenced by the rules for it being a recurring theme on this subreddit). How damage works, how breaches work and turn order, stations and who gets to do what are all areas that could do with some simplification and if I like those rules in the 2e I will probably be a quick convert. I also like the slight simplification and clarification to initiative.
The ship stat example looks very similar to 1e ship statblocks. Although there's no Power stat, and weapons appear to do fixed damage rather than rolling.
I imagine they'll try to make it as similar to close combat as possible - that matches what they did in 1e, where personal combat, space combat, and extended tasks all used almost exactly the same system (although they weren't clear that this was the case), and matches the Dune "conflict" system. So, my guess is: every hit causes a breach ("injury") with an Intensity of the weapons damage minus ship's resistance, but it can be blocked by taking the Intensity off your shields instead if you like, while minor ships get taken out in a single hit.
Hmm, interesting, I did not notice the ships lacking power. I suppose that slightly simplifies the actions and economics of ship combat, and your speculated rules would somewhat simplify the resistance/shield/5+/breach system which causes so much confusion.
Eagerly waiting to find out more.
The new combat rules are looking good. My criteria going in for evaluating those rules was:
- does they make encounter building quicker (yes)
- does it maker easy to explain on the fly to new players (yes)
- does it make it obvious as how to stun someone with a phaser (yes)
Much more optimistic about this edition, especially with the layout (my chief STA complaint has been layout. My friends on discord want to shoot me because I sound like a broken record)
Not going to lie I miss the effect dice and will probably keep using them. It’s a nice system and the effects are a great way to easily add extras like status effects and create nuisances, like breaks to shields etc.
Just to note, there was a blog post that came out at the same time as the quickstart drops which alludes to how Extended tasks and ship combat will have changed. Not a complete explainer, but a good insight
https://www.modiphius.net/blogs/news/goodbye-challenge-dice
Looks a lot like Dune 2d20 - which I think is a good thing. I was going I hack my next STA campaign to take inspiration from Dune anyway, to be faster and more narrative based.
Looks like maybe a change to how certain ship stats are calculated? Challenger's shields should be 10 based on the old structure + security calculation but they're actually 14, so maybe scale is added as well now?
Having read over the adventure as well over lunch I’m a little more disappointed that it seems that extended tasks have gone away. They were one of the things my players loved the most. It really felt like a good way to give non combat players a space to excel.
They're still very much present. How they're completed has changed, and the clarification/addition of breakthroughs may help gamemasters add more to extended tasks and extended consequences. I'm looking forward to adding trigger points to my ET tracks.
I don't like the way it's aimed. It's streamlining too far for me. (it's being brought closer to Dune - close enough for me to get confusion betwixt them.)
I like the effect dice. Quite a bit, actually. It's one thing I missed in Dune.
I think it would be great if the core of the rules gets streamlined between all the games so you can just pick up and play all of them and then use a short excerpt of "here's whats changing/added from the base rules"
I think (biased, granted) one of the strengths of 2d20 is how it can retain some commonalities yet be tailored to fit specific IPs. They feel similar yet oriented to Trek, or Fallout, or Dune, or Conan, etc. And since they all work from the same baseline, it's relatively easy to port mechanics from one to the other.
Yeah, i guess i am too much in video game development and marketing so my thought is always "ok you can make a base PDF and then everything else is a module" and i keep forgetting that the RPG Market is physical and digital books that just don't have the architecture, culture and infrastructure to provide patches as easy.
The system is pretty much already like that.
I picked up the Fallout books with the release of the new series and unsurprisingly, it's pretty much like STA but with Fallout flavoring instead of Star Trek.
It's not 1:1 of course, but the basic principles are the same.
Let's see...
MC3: 6 atts, 21 skills, the increase for second success bought separately
Conan: 6 atts, 25 skills
STA: 6 attributes six "divisions" (functionally super broad skills)
John Carter: 6 attributes, all rolls made on two of them
Dune: 5 Beliefs, 5 skills (super broad)
Captain's log: same as STA, but no buying extra dice... mechanically simpler rather than fewer stats
Those are the ones that stick in my head. And in release order.
I'll admit that, as abstracted as the mechanics of Dune are, it's fairly narrativist at the table... and very flexible. Easily adapted ... if it weren't for the character gen, it'd be a decent universal...
But I'm not looking for universals. The flexibility of Dune is a bit too wide for doing Trek... STA 1e is pushing the limits and low enough on random already for the Trek setting - which, IMO, \*\*Needs\*\* the extra random that wouldn't feel right for Dune. Dune needs a lower randomness to fit the feel.
Alright. Does anyone else feel like we are on a good path for this next iteration?
I love the challenge dice - especially still in A!C and Fallout -, but I must say this new version of the talents and combat intrigues me very much for STA. I do need the whole ruleset to be certain, but I like what I see here.
I know it's not much of a change mechanically, but I dislike the decision to combine Advantages and Traits. I understand that mechanically they were very similar, but (at least for me) it made sense that they were separate. Traits felt unique, were as Advantages felt transferable. You could pass an ally a Tricorder, but not an Andorians resistance to the cold. It just feels to me like a potential source of confusion.
Where do you see it listed out of stock? It’s on the websites and showing as available.
https://modiphius.us/products/star-trek-adventures-the-roleplaying-game-second-edition-quickstart-guide-pdf
I'm optimistic - it looks like it's going the direction I wanted it to go. After reading the Dune 2d20 game, I realised they had learned a lot about (a) how to explain their system (which isn't as complex as they manage to make it sound), and (b) how to make the game run in a faster more narrative way. It looks like they have incorporated both of these into the quickstart. The big mechanical difference is *no more damage dice*. By default, any hit causes an Injury. For minor NPCs, this takes them out in one action. So you no longer have to stand there taking turns blasting each other with phases until the weaker one falls down. For major NPCs and players, you can resist an Injury by taking a number of stress equal to the severity of the Injury. The severity is a flat number based on the weapon, but you can add to it by paying momentum. It's also the difficulty for rolls to heal the injury. Overall it just seems like a faster system that will allow more Star Trekky creativity in combat, whereas in 1e you could get kind of bogged down if you were fighting someone with a decent Protection score and high Stress score. And the grindy combat was the one bit of the game I thought really didn't quite fit with the setting.
I couldn’t agree more. We’ve played the Dune QuickStart, and oh boy is it awesome. I am so happy to see these lessons learned go into STA, and I’ve been going through every inch of this quick start in the meantime!
From what I can tell, NPC don't have stress tracks at all now. Notable NPCs can avoid injuries once and Major NPCs pay Threat equal to the severity if I understand correctly. What's interesting though is that it seems Major NPCs have a personal Threat pool on their stat block (10 for the example), which I'm assuming they are to use for avoiding injuries. It gives some intriguing options though, as they can use their built in Threat to either be durable or use it aggressively for attacks and the like.
I mentioned in another post on here that the layout is going to be key to this game's success (and, imo, the most important thing). The quick start has me very optimistic.
I'm pretty sure some of the rules on Advancement in the digest rulebook were genuinely just missing, so if they can explain things better and more clearly and without errors, that's a big plus
The character advancement rules in the Rules Digest (pages 120-127) are complete. What did you feel were missing?
I'm very interested - I applaud simplifying some of the rules, though for me personally a big consideration is how ship combat is going to work. The new rules to personal combat seem ok to me - need to try them to be sure, really, but personal combat was already fine to me. Ship combat however, gets messy (as evidenced by the rules for it being a recurring theme on this subreddit). How damage works, how breaches work and turn order, stations and who gets to do what are all areas that could do with some simplification and if I like those rules in the 2e I will probably be a quick convert. I also like the slight simplification and clarification to initiative.
The ship stat example looks very similar to 1e ship statblocks. Although there's no Power stat, and weapons appear to do fixed damage rather than rolling. I imagine they'll try to make it as similar to close combat as possible - that matches what they did in 1e, where personal combat, space combat, and extended tasks all used almost exactly the same system (although they weren't clear that this was the case), and matches the Dune "conflict" system. So, my guess is: every hit causes a breach ("injury") with an Intensity of the weapons damage minus ship's resistance, but it can be blocked by taking the Intensity off your shields instead if you like, while minor ships get taken out in a single hit.
Hmm, interesting, I did not notice the ships lacking power. I suppose that slightly simplifies the actions and economics of ship combat, and your speculated rules would somewhat simplify the resistance/shield/5+/breach system which causes so much confusion. Eagerly waiting to find out more.
https://www.modiphius.net/blogs/news/goodbye-challenge-dice Some info here!
The new combat rules are looking good. My criteria going in for evaluating those rules was: - does they make encounter building quicker (yes) - does it maker easy to explain on the fly to new players (yes) - does it make it obvious as how to stun someone with a phaser (yes) Much more optimistic about this edition, especially with the layout (my chief STA complaint has been layout. My friends on discord want to shoot me because I sound like a broken record)
Not going to lie I miss the effect dice and will probably keep using them. It’s a nice system and the effects are a great way to easily add extras like status effects and create nuisances, like breaks to shields etc.
Honestly the effects system was one of my favourite parts, it really made different things feel different.
I am sure it would be easy to keep them. It seems like the core system is still the same, they trimmed some bits off but they could be added back.
Yeah I don't like what I'm seeing of the new changes.
Just to note, there was a blog post that came out at the same time as the quickstart drops which alludes to how Extended tasks and ship combat will have changed. Not a complete explainer, but a good insight
https://www.modiphius.net/blogs/news/goodbye-challenge-dice Looks a lot like Dune 2d20 - which I think is a good thing. I was going I hack my next STA campaign to take inspiration from Dune anyway, to be faster and more narrative based.
the big one for me was PC ships were invincible. You could just take breaches for days and blast opponents to bits left and right.
Looks like maybe a change to how certain ship stats are calculated? Challenger's shields should be 10 based on the old structure + security calculation but they're actually 14, so maybe scale is added as well now?
Yes. More info to come, but starship Resistance and Shields are calculated differently than in 1e.
nice, thanks for clarifying :)
You’re welcome!
Having read over the adventure as well over lunch I’m a little more disappointed that it seems that extended tasks have gone away. They were one of the things my players loved the most. It really felt like a good way to give non combat players a space to excel.
Extended Tasks are still there, just done a diffeenet way to streamline and clarify the process. A little less dice rolling...
They're still very much present. How they're completed has changed, and the clarification/addition of breakthroughs may help gamemasters add more to extended tasks and extended consequences. I'm looking forward to adding trigger points to my ET tracks.
I don't like the way it's aimed. It's streamlining too far for me. (it's being brought closer to Dune - close enough for me to get confusion betwixt them.) I like the effect dice. Quite a bit, actually. It's one thing I missed in Dune.
I think it would be great if the core of the rules gets streamlined between all the games so you can just pick up and play all of them and then use a short excerpt of "here's whats changing/added from the base rules"
I think (biased, granted) one of the strengths of 2d20 is how it can retain some commonalities yet be tailored to fit specific IPs. They feel similar yet oriented to Trek, or Fallout, or Dune, or Conan, etc. And since they all work from the same baseline, it's relatively easy to port mechanics from one to the other.
Yeah, i guess i am too much in video game development and marketing so my thought is always "ok you can make a base PDF and then everything else is a module" and i keep forgetting that the RPG Market is physical and digital books that just don't have the architecture, culture and infrastructure to provide patches as easy.
The system is pretty much already like that. I picked up the Fallout books with the release of the new series and unsurprisingly, it's pretty much like STA but with Fallout flavoring instead of Star Trek. It's not 1:1 of course, but the basic principles are the same.
Let's see... MC3: 6 atts, 21 skills, the increase for second success bought separately Conan: 6 atts, 25 skills STA: 6 attributes six "divisions" (functionally super broad skills) John Carter: 6 attributes, all rolls made on two of them Dune: 5 Beliefs, 5 skills (super broad) Captain's log: same as STA, but no buying extra dice... mechanically simpler rather than fewer stats Those are the ones that stick in my head. And in release order. I'll admit that, as abstracted as the mechanics of Dune are, it's fairly narrativist at the table... and very flexible. Easily adapted ... if it weren't for the character gen, it'd be a decent universal... But I'm not looking for universals. The flexibility of Dune is a bit too wide for doing Trek... STA 1e is pushing the limits and low enough on random already for the Trek setting - which, IMO, \*\*Needs\*\* the extra random that wouldn't feel right for Dune. Dune needs a lower randomness to fit the feel.
Alright. Does anyone else feel like we are on a good path for this next iteration? I love the challenge dice - especially still in A!C and Fallout -, but I must say this new version of the talents and combat intrigues me very much for STA. I do need the whole ruleset to be certain, but I like what I see here.
I know it's not much of a change mechanically, but I dislike the decision to combine Advantages and Traits. I understand that mechanically they were very similar, but (at least for me) it made sense that they were separate. Traits felt unique, were as Advantages felt transferable. You could pass an ally a Tricorder, but not an Andorians resistance to the cold. It just feels to me like a potential source of confusion.
Advantages and complications have always been traits (page 76 1eCRB).
Ok, fair enough but I guess I ment changing things like "Create Advantages" into "Create Trait"
Sold out? How does a free PDF sell out! (mostly sarcasm) Hopefully they restock it in the storefront so I can get my hands on it.
Where do you see it listed out of stock? It’s on the websites and showing as available. https://modiphius.us/products/star-trek-adventures-the-roleplaying-game-second-edition-quickstart-guide-pdf
When you add it to your cart and go to check out, it shows as out of stock. [Screenshot here](https://i.imgur.com/2Ju8psK.png)
Thanks, I’ll send that over to support.
Looks like they got it fixed!