Mass Effect Tabletop RPG 2.22

It's here. I hope the rewritten 1st chapter will be clearer to all. The rest of the book stays the same with 3 minor rule changes; First Aid and Medicine skills moved to Knowledge; Paragon/Renegade points give now +15 in Con, Persuasion, Command and Intimidation tests instead of an automatic success; specialisations and advanced skills do not stack with the basic skills now.

Also the character sheet has been updated.

The promised character templates will be available soon on the blog.

Keep on gamin'!

Mass Effect D6 Tabletop RPG

Javik and other Protheans

After playing Mass Effect 3 I got inspired to incorporate
a prothean into my campaign.
Vern is one of the million protheans that supposed to wake up and lead the young races against the reapers. Due to
a massive power loss in the life pod systems most of the protheans did not survive the fifty thousand year long sleep. The pods were placed on remote worlds, some on the very edge of the known galaxy like Illos. Part of them where hidden on unhabited worlds, others on worlds habited by races with very small civilizational progress. The planets were carefully chosen so that the awakened protheans would have some kind of support for their fight against the Reapers. Many of the dormant were soldiers, others were scouts and scientists, most of them biotic, since the reapers were far more advanced technologicaly. On the chosen worlds, stashes of equipement were placed, vast databaks of valueble information stored and vaults hidden to be used as base of operations. It is impossible to determine why the power supply failed, probably it was the work of the reapers or a design flaw of the system, but majoryty of the pods had to be shut down. VI's which kept overwatch over the operation, were programmed to perserve as many pods as possible, for as long as possible. The plan failed and only a hadfull of the million are still in stasis, many of them will never wake unless they are found.

There is no option to play a protheans for my players as I find it would be very difficult to balance protheans against other races. Javik seems to be of similar power level as others characters in Mass Effect but after hearing his comments in the game and reading the fluff in the wikia I decided that protheans should have an advantage over other species in the game. This is what I came up with.

Protheans 

Attribute Dice: 19D 

Dexterity: 2D+1/4D+1

Knowledge: 2D/4D

Mechanical: 2D/4D

Perception: 2D+2/4D+2

Strength: 2D/4D

Technical: 2D/4D

Move: 10/12

Unique Abilities

Awareness: Thanks to the two pairs of eyes the protheans are very aware of their surroundings giving them +3 bonus to initiative.

Thick Carapace: Protheans bodies are covered with a thick, layered carapace that gives them +2 to their natural damage resistance.

Experience Transfer: By touching something or someone, a Prothean can recall its experiences. This ability enables to transfer complex ideas, with a Prothean being capable of learning a new skill or foreign language with a single touch. Protheans may learn new skills at 1 point cost and may also recall experiences and memories of others by paying 1 character point. In that case the GM is required to disclose any information from the target to the player.

Imperial Guard: Due to the nature of the time period all adults were required to serve in the imperial military. All protheans start with +2 to Dexterity: Ranged, Strength: Melee, Knowledge: Tactics and Perception: Command skills (maximum of 6).

Synthetic Hatred: Protheans condemn all synthetic life forms, they believe it is the root of all evil that has befallen them. Protheans will go out of their way to destroy any synthetic.

Cosmic Imperative: Protheans believe it to be the driving force in the universe and that the strong must flourish by dominating the weak for the greater good of all. That is why they are very headstrong in their pursuits. It is almost impossible to persuade a prothean to change a chosen course of action(add 2 levels of difficulty to any standard roll).

Unique Equipement:

Kinetic Stasis: Protheans possess elaborate mass-effect defense grids using barrier curtains and a kind of personal defense shield that acts like an energy bubble. It surrounds and levitates the individual who activated it. While inside, the person is impervious to harm but helpless, similar to a biotic stasis field talent. The field lasts for 3 rounds and has a cool-down of 10 rounds.

Prothean Particle Rifle: Is a very unique weapon that cannot overheat. It has an effective fire range of 40 meters and a 300 shot capacity. Damage of this rifle is 5D+6.

Prothean Imperial Armor: The armor is an mixture of exotic alloys. It gives a great deal of protection retaining a lot of flexibility. Its DR is 8 and the kinetic barriers last 12 points of damage.

Character Creation in Mass Effect Tabletop RPG

Character creation in Mass Effect d6 LeD is very simple. Take the attribute dice from the race template and distribute them between all attributes. Using the guidelines in the race description distribute 21 skill points among skills you want to have. Note that the number of skills under each attribute equals the total of dice before the governing attribute and the number of dice in knowledge. After that update you derived stats like hit points and defense values. At character creation the player gets all the talents for which the prerequisites are met at no cost. That's it!

To be fair the character won't be nearly as strong as commander Sheppard at the beginning of the first Mass Effect. So if You like your heroes to have more experience under their belt you should give them 30 or 40 points for skills to distribute. I like my players to start small and work their way to being a hero like Sheppard, but if You like to start at a specter level you should definitely allow more skill points at the beginning.