Low Passage

[NDS]

Low passage has always seemed a bit two dangerous to me. The unfortunate person stuck traveling by this method has about a 20% chance of dieing without a doctor present and about an 8% chance with. These numbers seem too high to me especially considering the number of people traveling by low passage as set by the commerce rules.

My idea was to change this to 1d6 damage every time a failure is rolled so the first couple of times results in some minor damage but multiple bad trips increases the danger. So, the third time a passenger fails their low passage survival role they would roll 3d6 damage.

I assume T20 will use a saving throw method but if the odds of dieing are still high I might use a d4 against life blood in the same fashion as above.

 

[lord irial]

The way I'd do it in d20 would be not alter the chance of a low-passage mishap, but make the detrimental effects a d3 Constitution and d3 Dexterity drain. This ability score drain would be "permanent" until some high-level medical attention was received, simulating nerve and tissue damage.

Just my two deci-credits; I'm not a playtester for T20.

 

[twb3]

I've always run low passage as pretty risky. It's certainly not a preferred way to travel, but if you need to go interstellar and don't have much capital, it is the only way to go. I think that there is sufficient historical background for the level of risk that people are willing to face in a journey that they feel will materially improve their lives for low passage to be used even if it is hazardous.

Also, in my campaigns I have always assumed that low berths were somewhat modular and that low passengers would not be revived at trans-shipment points if they are undertaking a long journey. This adds another element to low passage -- the chance that you are revived successfully, but have been misdirected in shipment and find yourself someplace that you did not expect to be at...

 

[vegascat]

My simple solution was, on a failed survival roll, take 1D6 damage to STR, CON, DEX. If the person falls below 0, he dies. The damage can be repaired depending on TL. A TL15 could repair 4 pts, TL14 3 pts, TL13 2pts, TL12 1pt per stat. The origional percentages meant that a family group would lose at least one member. Even mass migrations did not face those kind of odds.

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In the end, Murphy will rule

 

[notagoodusername]

Originally posted by NDS:
The unfortunate person stuck traveling by this method has about a 20% chance of dieing without a doctor present and about an 8% chance with.

I have to diagree with those numbers somewhat.

With Doctor:
A Doctor has a Medical Degree and 5 ranks in t/Med. The degree part, looking at the character creation worksheet, means that as a graduate he will have a minimum EDU of 14, for +2. Total skill minimum of +7. Against DC 10 that is a failure on a 1 or 2 only, so 1 in 10.

The DC for the Fort save is 6, but you get +1 per rank fo the attending medic (T20Lite pg50), so the DC is 1. As a 1 is always a failure then that is a 1 in 20 chance of failure.

1 in 10 followed by 1 in 20 works out as 1 in 200 (0.5%) passengers dead when the doctor present is straight out of med school. If he has a total of +9 nobody *ever* dies, as the roll of a 1 on a skill check is not an automatic failure (PHB pg 60).

This alters a bit if there is a lesser trained person on board, with the worst case of T/Med 1 and EDU 10 being 9 in 20 and 1 in 5, giving a 9 in 100, or 9%, fatality rate (assuming no Fort save bonus on behalf of the passenger).

Without Doctor:
The fatality rate without a trained medical supervisor present based on DC6 would be 25%, if nobody has a Fort save bonus. Even a +1 to +3 cuts that down a lot.

So looking at this, only travel on a ship with a licensed Doctor. Any passanger liner worth its salt will have a good doctor on board, so won't loose anyone most of the time. The smaller ships, strapped for cash to pay highly skilled doctors, may loose a few people in a decade.

Shane

 

[wrandrews]

I had a player that was running a merchant craft and decided to fire his doctor to reduce costs, and allowing a lesser skilled crew member to to tend to the medical duties.

I then informed of a certain Imperial regulation regarding the use of low berths without a doctor, and quaranteen for crews without a licensed physician. He kept the doctor.

 

[matrix cypher]

With Doctor:
A Doctor has a Medical Degree and 5 ranks in t/Med. The degree part, looking at the character creation worksheet, means that as a graduate he will have a minimum EDU of 14, for +2. Total skill minimum of +7. Against DC 10 that is a failure on a 1 or 2 only, so 1 in 10.

Dont forget that even if you only, say have some one with 1 rank in T/Med, or a scout with JOT. They can just take 10 on the skill roll and wa-la you have a successfuly revived traveller.

 

[Vargas]

My problem has been that low berth use to transport troops or a frozen watch, according to the rules, puts too many Marines and Navy pukes

at risk for my taste. Would you go into the freezer knowing there was a statistically significant chance of never waking up? And what would that say about the Imperium and how it values its military service members?

 

[vegascat]

They value their military the same as most dictatorships. The grunts are a tool to be used when other forms of diplomacy fail. They are a tool, nothing more, nothing less. They are an exense that must be monitored. If a military leader gets too powerful, has too many troops, or is too popular, that means he is a threat to the dictator. If you loose some troops for any reason, they can be easily enough replaced. It is the lives that are cheap, and the machinery that is expensive.
In a democratic government, the military does have some power to sway the government. Losses are not popular, because there is a camera crew right there in the grieving mothers face telling the nation how she is so proud of her son. That can get overdone very quickly in mass casualty situations, making for an unpopular war.
Remember, the Imperium is run by a dictator, not an elected representative.

 

[Vargas]

Vegascat- I understand what you're getting at but I'm not confident that that kind of attitude could persist for long. (Then again, MTU is less draconian than yours seems to be). Just my opinion mind. . .

 

[trader jim]

some time ago i had tons of stolen steak....ran out of galley freezer space.....put em in low berth.....didnt work out......sold em to VEGASCAT....heheheheheheheh

 

[trader jim]

some time ago i had tons of stolen steak....ran out of galley freezer space.....put em in low berth.....didnt work out......sold em to VEGASCAT....heheheheheheheh

 

[Rodina]

Well, one approach to this is perhaps assume that if you go into the Frozen Watch, you get paid even though you aren't experiencing any time, and - in all events - get paid not less than six months wages, even if they wake you up in a week. Considering that Imperial Marines draw, say Cr1000/month? in pay, and a Battlesuit is -oh - Cr200,000 - it's pretty small potatoes as a cost issue.

Now, that said, I've always taken the low berth danger to be on the "commercial" units which are installed in merchant ships - they're Amana or Frigidaire, not Industrial "Sub Zero" units - and once they get past warranty, they are a little tricky.

Most low passengers are pretty much dregs-of-society and customs and immigration officers often check the low passengers docs before a ship is allowed to defrost them. So, occasoinally, the fearless crew of the Paul Bunyan was forced to explain to some poor schmuck why they couldn't offload them at Glisten or Mertactor, but how they were very familiar with Collace and could recommend a very nice restaurant... hey... well even buy you dinner. Sorry for the trouble... : )

 

[TheColonel]

I think it is a result of game play and the limitations of the original 6 sided dice system. You could only generate a certain range of chances. I'm sure that the chances of dieing would actually be smaller. As stated in previous posts low berth passangers are still very valuable and profitable. Similiar to the great ocean liners of the early 20th century. Liners buit these huge ships because of the profits they made on the steerage class passengers. So larger intersteller passenger ships would spout about their safety record. Starships would perfer moving beings by low berth even more. No need to supply food/entertainment and you could literally stack them up like cord wood.

I'm sure there would be a core of middle class passengers that would perfer to travel low passage for the cost savings and lack of perceived travel time. There would probably be the same fear of travel that exists in certain people today.

As far as the military comments are concerned, the same would apply. All troop ships would have massive amounts of low berths. Also, as a military becomes more and more technically advanced, the level of training per individual increase dramaticlly. Therefore you don't want to lose that asset. Low berth survival rates would probably be highest on military transports.

 

[Liam Devlin]

All valid points, in a TU where life is cheap, but then so is low passage fares (1kcr.)

VegasCat-"My simple solution was, on a failed survival roll, take 1D6 damage to STR, CON, DEX. If the person falls below 0, he dies. The damage can be repaired depending on TL. A TL15 could repair 4 pts, TL14 3 pts, TL13 2pts, TL12 1pt per stat. The origional percentages meant that a family group would lose at least one member. Even mass migrations did not face those kind of odds.'
____________________
But low berth cryo crews/Timer clubs (my MT/HT blood showing, I'm afraid) come in at TL-8 & 9 (crude but they are their, remember the generation ships that founded the Reft for TCS?).

Your chart leaves out the lower tech societies , are there minuses then for TL-11 thru 8?

Skills at Med for PCs/NPCs do offet the risks. IMTU, a ship's DR must have Med+2 at the least! (and EDU of A minimum).

For Imperial Troop ships, one may safely assume against the arguments that the Imperium cares not for frozen watch crews/troops, but has a DR (or team of drs & bots) on hand that can do the job adequately, as it is SOP for the Fleets.
IMTU, that means the lowest skill rating is 12 for med personel as DR, below that are corpsmen (medics).

Now a Free Trader with low passengers can indeed "stack em like cordwood", as the Colonel pointed out. But in TNE, there is that niggling detail of power--can you manage all systems aboard, and a hold full of corpsicles? at .001MW each berth? Add up your ships systems versus your FPP in MW output and see how they fare.
A Low berth takes up 7m3 (14m3 = 1 dtn). Now do you have the 1:1 berths or the IMperial ship 5 person berths? (These are larger, use more Juice up folks..Think about it).

 

[Liam Devlin]

Hmmmm. Have I too become a thread-ender?

"Most curious, and curiouser," said Alice.

Well, then let me steer this question to a new course, one brought up to me by my co-GM in our Ursula-TNE era campaign recently:

1.) How much time does it take to freeze a passenger/ frozen watch troop/spacer in a low berth IYTU?

2.) How much time does it take to revive same sophont from low berth?

3.) How long can you exist and still be revived from lowberth?

To quote our own Traveller forum born sage of wisdom, plop101 , "Lend me your brains!"

 

[princelian]

Trader (CJ) Scott wrote:

Dont forget that even if you only, say have some one with 1 rank in T/Med, or a scout with JOT. They can just take 10 on the skill roll and wa-la you have a successfuly revived traveller.

Don't forget that very few people can Take 10 on a roll that has a potentially negative outcome, such as killing the Low Berth occupant. The only example in T20 I can think of is someone with the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) feat; hence, an Army doctor who's been trained to ACT in a crisis can Take 10 on the revival roll, but a merchie doctor can't.

Now, that merchie doctor might have T/Med-9 and an Edu of 14 and not need to roll, of course, but that's a different issue.

Bottom line, in T20, if you don't want dead Low Passengers, keep someone around with a total T/Med modifier of +9 or better, and you'll auto-succeed on the first roll and not require a Fort save. Better yet, that someone should have T/Med modifier of +11 or +13 in case something (like ship damage) has given you a negative DM.

 

[Plankowner]

Well, I can give the Imperial Navy answer to how long it takes to revive a Low Passage: Less than 1 combat round.

Per High Guard page 33 under the discussion of The Frozen Watch:

"Replacement personnel are kept available in low berths for continuous replacement of casualties and battle losses; between battles, the frozen watch can be revived ans used to restore lost crew. (emphasis mine)

If people can be continuously revived during combat, that means that you can revive someone within 1 HG combat round, 20 minutes.

I would say that a civilian vessel could revive people in 10 minutes total time to being fully functional (or dead). This gives the military types time to get to their replacement posts within the single combat round.

This time frame also matches some of the cinematic cold sleep things we have seen on TV and in the movies pretty well. Perhaps at lower TLs it would take longer.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Hmmmm. Have I too become a thread-ender?

Can you give a more recent example of this phenomenon? (Dude, it ended in 2002, and you're just now noticing? )

Originally posted by Plankowner:
I would say that a civilian vessel could revive people in 10 minutes total time to being ... dead.

I would think the janitor could do it faster than that....

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Plankowner:
Well, I can give the Imperial Navy answer to how long it takes to revive a Low Passage: Less than 1 combat round.

Per High Guard page 33 under the discussion of The Frozen Watch:

"Replacement personnel are kept available in low berths for continuous replacement of casualties and battle losses; between battles, the frozen watch can be revived ans used to restore lost crew. (emphasis mine)

Keep reading

on page 44 it states that reviving the frozen watch takes two turns - so that's forty minutes