Below is my alternative system for Fading Suns. I think it provides some solutions to the problems inherent in the Fading Suns system, while at the same time trying to stay true to the original system.
After much deliberation and discussion, the ultimate decision for how to treat skills in Fading Suns has finally been reached.
Skills now have three factors - the Skill Rating, the Goal and the Critical Goal
Skill Rating; When a character possesses a skill, this is noted in the form of a number. This number represents the number of D6 that the character gets to roll. Each dice is an individual opportunity to score a Victory Point.
For example; a Shoot of 6 rolls 6d6 to determine Victory Points
Goal; This is the target number a D6 must roll to be considered a Victory Point. The Goal changes depending on the difficulty of the action;
Easy 3
Standard 4
Hard 5
Difficult 6
Extremely Hard 8
Implausible 10
When a 6 is scored, the dice is re-rolled and the score from this new roll (with a minus 1 to the score). If a second 6 is thrown, yet another dice minus 1 is added on ad infinitum.
For example; a character with a Shoot of 5 attempts to hit something with his blaster. The difficulty is placed at 4. The character then rolls 5d6, with the score of each individual dice checked against a Goal of 4. Every dice which scores 4 or above is a Victory Point.
Critical Goal; This is a secondary Goal which indicates a particularly successful attempt. Any dice which scores the Critical Goal scores an additional Victory Point too.
The Critical Goal is determined by adding a modifier determined by the relevant statistic to the base Goal.
| Statistic | Critical Goal |
| 18 | +1 |
| 17 | +2 |
| 16 | +2 |
| 15 | +2 |
| 14 | +3 |
| 13 | +3 |
| 12 | +3 |
| 11 | +4 |
| 10 | +5 |
| 9 | +6 |
| 8 | +7 |
| 7 | +8 |
| 6 | +9 |
| 5 | +10 |
| 4 | +10 |
| 3 | +11 |
| 2 | +11 |
| 1 | +12 |
For example; a character attempting to re-wire a Think Machine may have a difficulty of 6. His Tech score is 7 (yielding a +6 Critical Goal). Thus, every Think Machine dice that equals or exceeds 12 or more yields 2 Victory Points, not 1. Of course, if a dice equals or exceeds the Goal but not the Critical Goal, then it yields 1 Victory Point as normal.
Default Skill Use; When a character wishes to do something they do not have the skill for, then they must relay on their natural abilities. The character rolls a number of dice equal to the statistic governing the skill with the Goal modified by the characters Critical Goal Modifier for that statistic. The character may not score any Critical Goal successes on this roll - all successful dice will only yield 1 Victory Point. In some cases, the Referee is perfectly within his/her rights to say that the character simply cannot make a roll - they either know how to do it or they don't.
For example; a character without the Etiquette skill may use their Extrovert statistic instead. The Goal should have been 4, but since the character is unskilled, the Goal is now 10 (4 plus the characters Critical Goal Modifier for Extrovert 7 of +6). The character had better be lucky.
Critical Failure; Should a character ever score more 1's on a roll than Victory Points, then the character has scored a Critical Failure....something bad has occurred....
Statistics; If the Goal of any roll the character is less than the parent statistic, then the test automatically receives 1 Victory Point - some things are just easier for some people. If the Goal of any roll is greater than the parent statistic, then the test automatically loses 1 Victory Point - some people just have to work that little bit harder.
Victory Points yield additional DMG dice as normal. Damage is now determined by rolling a number of D6 equal to the DMG rating (including Victory Points) against a standard Goal of 3. Unless it is stated otherwise, DMG does not have a Critical Goal score, additionally, DMG and Armour Tests can never score Critical Failures.
Forms of attack which do are;
Attack Critical Goal Effect
Blaster 6 Every DMG point that scores a Critical Goal ignores Energy Shields
Laser 7 Every DMG point that scores a Critical Goal ignores non-metal armours.
Flamers 8 Every DMG point that scores a Critical Goal ignores Armour and Shields
Certain Slug Gun ammunition also has Critical Goal effects, but these will be discussed later.
Nb. when checking for DMG penetration etc against Energy Shields, take the total DMG delivered as the score. DMG penetrates after the damage has been totalled.
For example; a character yielding 7 dice of DMG scores 5 (with 2 Critical Goal successes). This is checked against a rating 5/10 Energy Shield. The shield activates and stops the DMG, but 2 penetrate. So the character takes 2 points of Vitality (as opposed to 5....since checking for penetration before would yield 2 going through and 3 left and since this does not equal to or exceed the minimum rating for the shield, the 3 would go through too).
Armour is measured by two ratings - a first score which indicates how much DMG is automatically stopped and a second score which indicates how many dice are rolled in an attempt to stop damage. Dice rolled in this way have a Goal of 3 and each success yields on 1 Victory Point. Each Victory Point stops an additional point of DMG. Nb. there is no Critical Goal for armour rolls in this manner.
For example; Chain mail has a rating of 3+3d. This means that 3 points of DMG are automatically stopped and there is a chance of up to 3 further points of DMG being stopped.
Modified Armour Ratings
Armour Defense Dex Pen Vig Pen Padded Clothing 1D Heavy Clothing 2D Leather Jerkin 3D Studded Leather 2D+1 Scale Mail 3D+2 -1 -1 Half Plate 4D+2 -1 -1 (0) Chain Mail 2D+4 -1 -2 (0) Plate Armour 3D+5 -2 -3 (0) Synthsilk 2D+2 Stiffsynth 3D+3 -1 Polymer Knit 4D+2 Flame Retardant +3D vs Fire Psi Cloak 10D NAS Suit 2D+2 -1 -1 Abar Leaf 4D+3 -1 Spikes +1D -1 Frictionless Gel 9D -2 Chameleon Suit 2D+2 Blur Suit 2 Morph Suit 6D+2 -1
Or you may roll the normal armour rating as dice at a certain difficulty set by the impacting weapon.
E.g. Ceramsteel protects at 14D. A Fusion Rilfe may have an Impact Rating of 5, which would mean that the Goal of each armour dice would be 5. Every success prevents one point of damage. Autofire
A character can fire up to 6 rounds in a Burst. A Burst can be peformed as part of a multiple action.
If a character fires more than 6 bullets, then it is considered Full Auto. Full Auto may not be performed as part of a multiple action. The maximum amount of bullets that a weapon can fire depends on the weapon;
Energy Pistol 4
Pistol Sized 6
SMG 8
Energy Rifle 8
Rifle Sized 12
Every additional bullet fired adds +1 Recoil, +1 DMG and every 2 bullets reduces Initiative by -1
A character may choose to spray their weapon, for either a greater chance of hitting or to hit multiple targets. This 'expends' bullets.
Every bullet expended attempting to hit -1 Goal to hit target
Nb. bullets used to increase a characters chances of hitting still incur Recoil penalties.
Every additional target costs one bullet, for every metre between targets there is an additional one bullet cost. Every bullet used to hit an additional person requires a seperate attack test (subject to the multiple opponent modifiers) with additional bullets pumped into a person yielding additional damage as normal.
For every additional bullet a target is hit with they receive a +1 Goal on their Dodge test.
Lasers which use Autofire do not suffer Recoil effects - instead, on DMG Tests, roll the additional DMG dice yielded seperately to the rest of DMG. If any two of those are a 1, then the weapon has burnt out - the weapon is useless until repaired. Make a note of how many 1's were scored in this manner - this is the amount of Victory Points needed to fix the item on a High-Tech Redemption roll.
Every weapon has a certain amount of kickback - this is the weapons Recoil. For every point of Recoil which exceeds a characters strength, their receive a +1 Goal for that attack test.
Skills now cost 3 Extra Points per level and Statistics now cost 4 Extra Points per level.
Additionally, no skill can be taken above 6 during character generation.
Sometimes what a character has at his disposal is not enough - sometimes a character will need to put that little bit more of effort into a task to get a better result. This is called 'Accenting' - whereby a character can either put a little bit more power into a roll at the cost of any finesse there may be or vice versa.
The procedure is as follows;
The character decides how they wish to accent the roll, either positively or negatively.
Positively accenting a roll allows the character to add a number of dice to their skill test up to and including their Passion statistic. However, for every dice added to this roll, the Goal for all dice is increased by +1.
Negatively accenting a roll allows the character to reduce the Goal of any test by a number of points equal to their Calm statistic. However, for every -1 to the Goal of a test, the number of dice used is reduced by 1.
Additionally, all accented rolls suffer from;
-3 Initiative
Additional actions may not be taken whilst Accenting an action.
Lore and research rolls may not be accented in this manner.
Although firing a slug pistol and blaster are very similar procedures, there are subtle differences which throw off the untrained.
This to reflect this, a character must purchase Weapon Familiarities with extra points and experience.
If you have do not have a Familiarity or Similarity with a weapon then you receive a +2 Goal modifier when using it. If you have either a Similarity (i.e. using a Blaster Pistol when trained to use a Slug Pistol) or a Familiarity (i.e. using a Slug Pistol when trained to use a Slug Rifle) this penalty is reduced to +1 Goal. If you have both - there is no penalty. Costs are in Benefices/Experience.
Nb. not knowing a Martial Art Technique does not impose penalty, but allows a character to learn maneuvers at special costs.
Similarity Cost Familiarity Cost *A Similarity is not required - but without a Familiarty the goal is + regardless
Mini 1/2
Pistol 2/4
Rifle 3/6
Shotgun 3/6
Flamegun 2/4
Stunner 2/4
Screecher 2/4
Slug 1/2
Blaster 3/6
Laser 2/4 +2 regardless
Rocketeer 3/6
*Crossbow 2/2
*Bow 2/2
*2H Blade 3/6
*1H Blade 2/4
*Small Blade 2/4
*2H Blunt 3/6
*1H Blunt 2/4
*Polearms 2/4
*Chain 3/6
Shaidan 3/6
Koto 2/4
Mantok 5/10
Iron Heel 3/6
Jox Kai Von 3/6
Graa 3/6
Each of the differing Martial Arts Techniques provides a bonus and penalty dependent on the actions it favours.
Shaidan practitioners; - may learn Fist Actions at one level lower the than the actions required level. - learn Kicks and Grapples at +1 Experience Cost - receive -1 Goal on Fist Actions
Koto practitioners; - may learn special Koto manuevers
Mantok practitioners
- may purchase any martial art manuever at one less experience - may spend 1 point of Wyrd once per attack to lower the Goal by 1 for one actionIron Heel practitioners;
- may learn Kick and Grapple actions at one level lower than the action's level - add 2 to the experience cost of any level 7 or higher combat action
Jox Boxing practioners;
- learn Grapple actions at one level lower than the action's required level
- add 2 to the experience cost of any kick actionsSince their are a myriad variety of weapons and weapons manufacturers in the Known Worlds, it is possible to purchase weapons of all qualities and makes.
To represent this, presented here are some rules to govern the quality of manufacture.
-1 Goal 1 Benefice 25% Mark Up Price
+1 DMG 1 Benefice 25% Mark Up Price (increases calibre, etc)
+1 Rate 1 Benefices 40% Mark Up Price
Autofire 2 Benefices 50% Mark Up Price (increases SIZ by 1)
Clip +1 1 Benefice* 10% Mark Up Price
-1 SIZ 2 Benefice 30% Mark Up Price (may only be bought once)
+1 Range 1 Benefice 25% Mark Up Price
*per +3
The reverse is also true - you can reduce DMG by 1 for -1 Benefice and a 25% Mark Down in Price
When creating Blessings & Curses use the following rules;
+/-1 to one skill in a specific situation 1 Extra Point
+/-1 to a broad area of skills in a specific situation 2 Extra Points
+/- 1 to one skill in a broad situatoin 2 Extra Points
+/- 1 to one statistic in a specific situation 2 Extra Points
+/- 1 to a statistic in a broad situation 3 Extra Points