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Converting Chamax

Daddicus

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I'm going to be running my gaming group through the three adventures in the double-adventure The Chamax Plague and its twin Horde soon. I'm converting it to T5.09 now in preparation for that.

This thread is to discuss the specifics of what needs to be converted, and then how should the conversion go.

As I see it, these items need changing in The Chamax Plague:

  1. Equipment
  2. Special equipment
  3. Time to the rescue
  4. Mudshark's specs
  5. Contract (especially the rewards)
  6. The 3 NPCs which come along.
  7. Chamax hits, armor, & wounds.
  8. Ship wall and bulkhead strengths?
  9. The Shaarin Challenger's specs
  10. Errata (original)

Is there anything I'm missing?
 
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#1 Equipment

If anybody has suggestions later, I'll add them to the list and number them along with the rest.

#1 & #2 Equipment:

Two components. The first is anything in the LBBs. That can change to anything in the 5.09 tome, pages 626-651.

The second component is the individual items in the "for this adventure" list of things we can buy. These are a little trickier, because we have to either equate them to something in the BBB's list, or define them anew for T5.

If you can think of an item in 5.09 that already exists in the rules, please reply and I'll mark that with a note.

Otherwise, I'll assume prices, sizes, costs, and descriptions can stay the way they are. Reply if you believe otherwise for any or all of them.

Here's the list:

Cable:
  1. 50m
  2. 3kg
  3. Cr100
  4. max 10
Wall Patches:
  1. steel/plastic w/ adhesive; use on high-pressure side only
  2. 1m x 1m
  3. Cr150
Medical Kit:
  1. first aid kit for non-doctors
  2. 200mm x 100mm
  3. 1kg
  4. Cr
Medscanner:
  1. several settings: vital signs or life detector (large animals @ < 50m)
  2. 100mm x 175mm x 20mm
  3. 1kg
  4. Cr
Radio Receiver, recorder/transmitter:
  1. signaling device; radio
  2. 25mm x 50mm x 50mm
  3. 0kg
  4. Cr800
Portable Airlock:
  1. inflatable chamber that can be attached to the vacuum side of a bulkhead.
  2. 500cm x 20cm x 200cm (deflated)
  3. 1.5m x 1.5m x 2m (inflated)
  4. 6kg
  5. Cr1000
 
#3 Time to Rescue

I've been trying to do the math so it seems real to the players, but I'm having trouble coming up with any logical path that makes it an exciting rescue without risking serious toastage for the players.

To get from Earth to the sun at 1g would take 2 days. The derelict can't be powered, or the problem becomes insurmountable; it would be fried long before we could catch them at the adventure's "2 day" timeframe.

So, what makes sense?
 
#4 Mudshark specs

I'm going to delay working on this. In my campaign, they'll have their own ship. So, only if something becomes more formal out of this would we need to spec this out.
 
#5 Contract

The contract will award Cr50,000 to each player, plus bonuses. I'm not familiar enough with either system to know whether that's excessive or light.

Can someone who understands the economics of both settings please come up with a "good" reward system?

Thanks!
 
#6 NPCs

It seems to me that doubling their skill levels would work, but the doc at medical-10 seems a little excessive. Perhaps medic-6 or 7, and add a couple other skills to make up for it?

Delaradi should probably get Fighter-1 and +1 auto-rifle, so the party has to take his threats of action seriously.

The red-shirt can be anything we like. :)
 
I've been trying to do the math so it seems real to the players, but I'm having trouble coming up with any logical path that makes it an exciting rescue without risking serious toastage for the players.


Do you really need to do the "rocket science"? Is one of your players actually going to compute a real intercept course?

To get from Earth to the sun at 1g would take 2 days. The derelict can't be powered, or the problem becomes insurmountable; it would be fried long before we could catch them at the adventure's "2 day" timeframe. So, what makes sense?

Following the adventure's set-up?

IIRC, Alenzar is located in an planetoid belt orbiting the primary in Orbit 1 or 2. Chamax is somewhat further out on the cool side of the Hab Zone and that zone is further out than Sol's Orbit 3.

The pinnace has been traveling for some time already because Chamax is further out from it's star than Earth is from Sol. The pinnace had also been thrusting for some period of time and built up a huge velocity but stopped thrusting either due to damage or fuel issues.

The pinnace wasn't spotted leaving Chamax or even thrusting away from Chamax. Instead it's spotted when it's two days away from impacting the local primary. Just why the pinnace was spotted when it was spotted could be the result of many things.

Maybe the transponder was turned off or maybe it was damaged. Maybe the settled portion of the Alenzar belt had been "behind" the primary with regards to Chamax and only now orbited to a position where it could see the now un-powered pinnace. Maybe the sensors were down for repairs. Maybe "scope dopes" were out on strike.

All of those reasons don't really matter. All that really matters is that the authorities at Alenzar didn't spot and/or identify the pinnace until it was two days away from impacting the local primary and the PCs' ship is the only one with a chance of intercepting it before that occurs.

There needs to be no "back story" other than that.

I do hope you decide to continue converting Chamax to T5. Converting the Classics has helped MgT and should help T5 too.
 
The only thing, IMHO, that needs to be converted is the Chamax themselves, specifically their combat abilities to balance with the T5 combat system. I wouldn't fret over the gear so much, as it's all pretty generic. Yea, the party is given 10K for gear, but it's not really a balancing affect for the adventure. The money is basically enough to give them "all the gear they need".

So, I would focus on the animals and their combat effects, everything else is pretty straightforward.
 
The only thing, IMHO, that needs to be converted is the Chamax themselves, specifically their combat abilities to balance with the T5 combat system. I wouldn't fret over the gear so much, as it's all pretty generic. Yea, the party is given 10K for gear, but it's not really a balancing affect for the adventure. The money is basically enough to give them "all the gear they need".

So, I would focus on the animals and their combat effects, everything else is pretty straightforward.
I was thinking the same way about the gear, with two exceptions: The medscanner and the patching thing. Both of those are somewhat unique, and could be very valuable in parts of the three adventures.

I think what the original adventures did, though, was use those lists to highlight stuff you could buy. Many times, they were items that weren't in the regular equipment lists. But, for my money, T5 is complete in that respect, except for wacky things that are really intended for one specific adventure (but might prove useful otherwise).
 
Regarding the Chamax, that's certainly the most important piece of data to convert. My problem is that I have zero experience with combat in T5, and my experience in CT is 30 years old. Wait, almost 40 years old. Wow.

Anyhow, it seems to me that CT was more lethal than T5. Do folks agree?

If so, then the hit points for the Chamax, and their damage potential, should be nerfed.

If not, the opposite should occur.

My gut says that most weapons in CT would have had about a 2/3 or 3/4 chance of offing a hunter in one shot. Thoughts?
 
Something that WASN'T on my list: errata. Is there an official errata source? If so, will it come on the CT disk I just sent for?
 
I was thinking the same way about the gear, with two exceptions: The medscanner and the patching thing. Both of those are somewhat unique, and could be very valuable in parts of the three adventures.

Sure, but the point being that a) the players have enough money to purchase those items, and b) they're not particularly unbalancing. At worst they're provided by the company, they want them back, and perhaps they're some kind of "Beta" unit so that even if the party says "sorry, we lost it", the devices will inevitably fail after the adventure.

In short, it's not gear the team will likely keep or be able to keep. It's not a +5 magic sword with long term campaign effects. It's tool for the adventure, with the shtick that you simply don't hand it to the players, they need a teeny bit of insight to purchase in the first place. So, in the end, it doesn't really matter how much they cost.

As for the combat, simply run some examples a few times using CT. Take on the bugs with some shotguns and SMGs, and see what happens. Then try running the same things with T5, and see whether the animals wither and die or simply turn the party in to lunch. Then tweak the critters to taste.

In the end, the goal of the adventure is not to butcher the party, but simply provide them with, well, "adventure". Remember the definition of adventure is "a bad day fondly remembered". If the monsters are too weak, make more of them. Too strong, make them weaker or make less of them. All sorts of things you can do to keep them from overrunning the party.

I have a vague memory of this adventure, and I recall the party wiring up some warheads from the missiles on the ship and blowing the critters to smithereenies.

As for the NPCs in the adventure, those should be straightforward conversions as their stats don't really matter a whole lot. One is red shirt, the other are guides. They could be in wheel chairs for all it matters.

There's a great story about Benicio Del Toro's character in "The Usual Suspects". He basically suggested that his character be most unintelligible since the only real reason he was there was to show Kaiser Soze was serious, so it didn't really matter what he said anyway. It's a pretty insightful observation, so you can see how that kind of logic can apply in a case like this.
 
Two might. But, your ideas are great, and should solve that problem.

Any RPG group with two rocket scientists is one I want to play in!

I do hope, however, that my usual blather can be of some use for you.

At worst they're provided by the company, they want them back, and perhaps they're some kind of "Beta" unit so that even if the party says "sorry, we lost it", the devices will inevitably fail after the adventure.

In short, it's not gear the team will likely keep or be able to keep. It's not a +5 magic sword with long term campaign effects. It's tool for the adventure, with the shtick that you simply don't hand it to the players, they need a teeny bit of insight to purchase in the first place. So, in the end, it doesn't really matter how much they cost.

That is an excellent piece of advice for any referee who wants to ensure his players get the equipment they need for the adventure without also giving away too much of an edge.

As for the combat, simply run some examples a few times using CT. Take on the bugs with some shotguns and SMGs, and see what happens. Then try running the same things with T5, and see whether the animals wither and die or simply turn the party in to lunch. Then tweak the critters to taste.

Another excellent piece of advice. Run a couple of "smoke tests" and tweak as needed.

In the end, the goal of the adventure is not to butcher the party, but simply provide them with, well, "adventure". Remember the definition of adventure is "a bad day fondly remembered". If the monsters are too weak, make more of them. Too strong, make them weaker or make less of them. All sorts of things you can do to keep them from overrunning the party.

Yet more insightful advice for this or any adventure.

I have a vague memory of this adventure, and I recall the party wiring up some warheads from the missiles on the ship and blowing the critters to smithereenies.

A session of The Chamax Plague was of the few times my players actually surprised me during play.

They'd failed to enter the grounded subbie for a second time when an attempt to open a side cargo hatch instead opened all the cargo hatches revealing the maternal and her nest in what had been the bow ATV bay. A hasty retreat back a couple hundred meters away to where their far trader was hovering a couple of dozen meters over desert then ensued.

As the referee, I first told the players they couldn't remain hovering for more than few hours as the contragrav equipment wasn't designed to operate in that manner for lengthy periods. (They'd gone into hover mode after their first failed attempt.) I then had the three (miraculously surviving) NPCs standing in the far trader's open forward cargo hatch observing the milling bugs. The Doctor was using his PRIS binoculars and muttering notes to himself, Pilot/Fiance was chewing his fingernails to the quick and whining about Lost Girlfriend, and Red Shirt was using his laser rifle to pot shot bugs out of frustration more than anything else.

After talking quietly among themselves, the players' leader approached me in character and asked Pilot/Boyfriend that, if the bugs were taken care of, he still thought the grounded subbie could be flown off. I said no because the visible damage was too great.

The players' nodded, picked up the dice, and said:

"Firing the port sandcaster..."

My jaw hit the table. I called for a break and began paging through the rules while thinking about what I should do. Much to my relief, another player quickly reminded me that Striker allowed sandcasters to be used as weapons. I agreed, pretended to look up something, asked the player with the dice a few general questions about where he was aiming, and told him to roll.

The roll really didn't matter. I'd already decided the plan would succeed; you simply must reward such original thinking at the game table.

The dice came to a stop. I nodded and began describing scenes like the sandcaster's hyper-velocity particles sleeting through the target zone, the desert sands in front and around the grounded subbie dancing, the subbie's bridge windows blowing out, a waterfall of sparks caused by sandcaster particles impacting the subbie's hull and wings, and the bugs basically melting.

You could argue that there should have been bugs milling around further inside the subbie which survived the sandcaster's hail. I decided, however, that the players' idea killed them all and opined later through The Doctor that all of the bug must have been drawn to the nest when the hatch opened to defend the revealed maternal.

The rest of the session defined anti-climatic. The players boarded the subbie's through the blown out bridge windows, retrieved the computer core, read the researcher's log, and then flew off to rescue them from the glacier cave they'd sheltered in.
 
THAT had to be fun. I'll give an after-action report once my party goes through it. They're usually good at coming up with that one little thing ... that never crossed my mind.

But, like you, that was incredibly original, and it just HAD to work. (I hope none of them read this post!)
 
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