T5 Errata Discussion Thread

[rancke]

It's a flaw in *your* rules, while it's not a flaw in fridge's; you fill in your gap with a Skill, he creates his character's stories. There's plenty of room for interpretation.

No, it's a flaw in the rules all right. The ability of a referee to overlook or backstop flawed rules doesn't make the rules any less flawed. The notion of the Scouts assigning a ship to a detatched duty scout that can't operate it is just plain silly.

I, for one, like things the way they are, as there's room for some truly odd characters and stories that wouldn't arise in a Traveller Universe where all Scouts have Pilot Skill. Not to mention every one would need Astrogator, at least two, if not all four, flavours of Engineer, and Sensors as well to single-hand a ship.

Sounds like another flaw in the rules. The simplest solution would be to stop handing out ships in character creation and leave it to the referee to decide if the PCs have access to a ship or not. Ships are plot devices, not equipment. If I want my PCs to have a ship, I'll provide one for them. And it seems a tad unfair to have one of the PCs waste a mustering out benefit on something I'd have provided anyway.


Hans

 

[Shadowfax]

I don't find that language in my PDF or on the CD on page 3 of Personal Combat navigating from the index.html (menu) page, going directly via the Personal Combat link, or in the Core Rules master PDF on the CD (the top link on my CD menu page).

There is the Immediate Action special case which is 2D and fails on a 12.

(If it's autofailure were on all 6s, regardless of number of difficulty dice, the chances for automatic failure go down as the task becomes more difficult. Same things happen if it is "exactly 12" after 3 dice: 1D: -, 2D: 3%. 3D: 12%, 4D: 8%, 5D: 4%, 6D: <1%).

Well, what darned version do I have then? What version are you getting this from?

 

[LiminalMask]

Not to mention every one would need Astrogator, all four flavours of Engineer, and Sensors as well to single-hand a Scout ship.

Perhaps the solution, then, is to rewrite the description of the Scout career to keep from so strongly implying that all/most Scouts are loners in spaceships going from system to system.

 

[Rynak]

On page 100 it states Military Academy can teach any Soldier Skill, Leader or Tactics. On page 161 under Forward Observer it states "Soldier Skills. Forward Observer is one of the Soldier skills: Fighter, Forward Obs, Heavy Wpns, Navigator, Recon, and Sapper."

You can get Recon as a Citizen skill.
You can get Heavy Weapons as a Sergeant in the Marines or Soldier.
You can only get Forward Observer from the Military Academy.
Navigation (skill section lists as Navigator) is readily available from multiple careers.
A Citizen can get Sapper.

Seems like some of these skills should be a little easier to get for a Soldier besides going to the Military Academy, but this *may* be intentional, but this means that only officers can have the Forward Observer skills and only Citizens or officers can have Recon or Sapper skills.


Page 162 under Heavy Weapons "Weapon Repair. Gun Combat skill is sufficient to allow basic repairs to weapons (primarily replacing assemblies)." Gun Combat also shows up on page 132 "..... (the Knowledge Pistol is a subset of the Skill Gun Combat).....". Gun Combat doesn't show up in the skill lists and appears to have been replaced by Fighter. Assuming this, Fighter is sufficient to allow basic repairs to weapons.

 

[HG_B]

It's a flaw in *your* rules,

No, I didn't write that rule. It is a flaw in the game's rules.

 

[Shadowfax]

No, it's a flaw in the rules all right. The ability of a referee to overlook or backstop flawed rules doesn't make the rules any less flawed. The notion of the Scouts assigning a ship to a detatched duty scout that can't operate it is just plain silly.
Hans

While I mostly agree with you, I just want to point out that he could:
1. Hire a pilot
2. Make a mighty fine efficiency apartment out of that scout ship =)))

It would be better if they just gave everyone the skills they need to fly the ship. Or cut the ships out of the benefits. One way or the other.

I wonder what Marc Miller would say about this one? These "discrepancies" haven't been there since the days of the early game CT.

In book 1 of the CT game every scout got pilot skill. It was a rank & service skill, that you just sort of got as a free-be.

My guess is that later on down the line, when they were writing up the T5 they looked at detached duty and said, "Hey, these guys are just administrators that keep track of all the "reservist" Scouts. They don't need pilot." Or maybe that base pilot skill was just dropped.

 

[HG_B]

While I mostly agree with you, I just want to point out that he could:
1. Hire a pilot
2. Make a mighty fine efficiency apartment out of that scout ship =)))

For some reason I doubt that is the criteria that would be used by the Scouts to dole out ships...

 

[Bloo]

Seems like some of these skills should be a little easier to get for a Soldier besides going to the Military Academy, but this *may* be intentional, but this means that only officers can have the Forward Observer skills and only Citizens or officers can have Recon or Sapper skills.

Have you looked at the Soldier career errata that Don has posted?
Replace all instances of "Gunner" with "Soldier" in the skill tables, amongst other things.

 

[Bloo]

Well, what darned version do I have then? What version are you getting this from?

Disc from kickstarter.
Printed book from kickstarter.
Penultimate Draft PDF for Betas.

 

[fridge]

It's a flaw in *your* rules, while it's not a flaw in fridge's; you fill in your gap with a Skill, he creates his character's stories. There's plenty of room for interpretation.

I, for one, like things the way they are, as there's room for some truly odd characters and stories that wouldn't arise in a Traveller Universe where all Scouts have Pilot Skill.

Not to mention every one would need Astrogator, all four flavours of Engineer, and Sensors as well to single-hand a Scout ship.

I can see Kilandra's side of the argument...if a player wants a specific character concept the chance of rolling it randomly is low...the rules as written do not allow for character building, just random character generation.

Hence elsewhere on this board there is a thread by Bloo discussing a point buy system. Also nothing wrong with the ref and player negotiating some skill swaps to get the character concept the player wants to play.

Given previous versions had Pilot as an automatic skill for Scouts, I think it is worth raising in the errata thread for a clarification from Marc. Other careers get automatic skills, some at the start, others once specific ranks have been achieved.

 

[Vladika]

Not every Air Force officer is a trained pilot. Most in fact aren't. Most Scouts would be in support services pretty much like any other military or service branch.

That being said, a scout mustering out with a ship obviously should have pilot skill. Just give it to them with the ship.

 

[Vladika]

Perhaps the solution, then, is to rewrite the description of the Scout career to keep from so strongly implying that all/most Scouts are loners in spaceships going from system to system.

Well, there are 4 staterooms on a scout ship for a reason. Stands to reason they would be in use most of the time. You do pay life support for all of them on every trip...

 

[Murdoc]

Yeah, I miss some of the automatic skills given in some of the other versions. Vacc Suit for scouts made a lot of sense, for instance, given how much time they spent in space and in hostile environments. I think some of the other careers (that don't have ranks) should have these. Also, I am disappointed with how narrow the Scout career has become, either a loner exploration scout, or courier, where you used to be able to be part of a team of exploration/survey types. Who crews those Donosev's anyway? Anyway, I don't mind a character not having the skills to run a ship they have, that just means that they need more crew, and have all along. Just stop saying (in the rules) that all non-courier scouts are always alone. I always saw that role as for advanced scouts anyway, because they can run a ship by themselves.

 

[Reban]

Just my 2 Credits, but when I read the "loner scout" description in the career I recalled that:

• Scouts have no rank system
• Scouts work in small teams (~4 max on a Type S)
• Scout teams are formed ad-hoc for the mission/survey at hand
• X-Boats have always been signle crew (a bit like truckers)

I didn't read it as "every Scout is Forever Alone on a little ship in the big dark" even though that's how it appears to be written.

Scouts to me aren't like the military with a strong esprit de corps, they are individuals with skills who can plug into a team to achieve a goal and then move on. Service in the scouts means small teams coalescing and dispersing over the course of a term. Scouts respect experience rather than rank.

They have ego driven motivations such as

• Make new discoveries and name them after themselves
• Profit from their discoveries
• Boldly go where no sophont has gone before

Just think of all the famous explorers in earth history. They are leaders but many can also be described as loners, driven and set apart from the crowd.

 

[Rynak]

No. My internet is dead right now. So, if you get one skill of soldier, do you get all soldier skills at 1?

 

[kilandra]

Just my 2 Credits, but when I read the "loner scout" description in the career I recalled that:

• Scouts have no rank system
• Scouts work in small teams (~4 max on a Type S)
• Scout teams are formed ad-hoc for the mission/survey at hand
• X-Boats have always been signle crew (a bit like truckers)

I didn't read it as "every Scout is Forever Alone on a little ship in the big dark" even though that's how it appears to be written.

Scouts to me aren't like the military with a strong esprit de corps, they are individuals with skills who can plug into a team to achieve a goal and then move on. Service in the scouts means small teams coalescing and dispersing over the course of a term. Scouts respect experience rather than rank.

They have ego driven motivations such as

• Make new discoveries and name them after themselves
• Profit from their discoveries
• Boldly go where no sophont has gone before

Just think of all the famous explorers in earth history. They are leaders but many can also be described as loners, driven and set apart from the crowd.

For those of us new to the system we have only what in the book to work with rather then a knowledge of previous versions or setting details and for this book there is nothing about teams of scouts, under Duties has them as either a "Solitary explorer" or as "Couriers" both are fully solo activities as described by this book. So for players new to the setting this career as described in this book is a solo one unless the Referee personal provides a re-written description.

 

[Jazzlvraz]

...if you get one skill of soldier, do you get all soldier skills at 1?

No, p.144 says for certain Skills, 10 in all, that you get Knowledge first and second, and then starting with the third award you get the Skill in its entirety.

 

[Bloo]

For those of us new to the system we have only what in the book to work with rather then a knowledge of previous versions or setting details and for this book there is nothing about teams of scouts, under Duties has them as either a "Solitary explorer" or as "Couriers" both are fully solo activities as described by this book. So for players new to the setting this career as described in this book is a solo one unless the Referee personal provides a re-written description.

This is a great point. Consider T5 overall. How much space is devoted to each career? One page that is mostly tables. If you look at the functional definitions through the process of chargen (risk and reward):
Scouts are couriers or loner discoverers who risk their sanity.
Rogues are all con artists/complicated heist planners (no thugs, pirates, or those who profit by violence), who risk 8 years in prison.
Agents are all undercover agents.

There's always been some desire and effort to keep Traveller chargen setting independent, but it can't be pure. The mechanisms in chargen define the universe somewhat. I think the mechanisms we have now, are often too narrow (Rogue and Agent especially). Each would certainly have benefited from a page or so of description for context.

 

[Murdoc]

I think the mechanisms we have now, are often too narrow (Rogue and Agent especially). Each would certainly have benefited from a page or so of description for context.

Yeah, I've been saying the same things about Rogues (and others) in another thread recently: http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=432775&postcount=3

 

[aramis]

Well, there are 4 staterooms on a scout ship for a reason. Stands to reason they would be in use most of the time. You do pay life support for all of them on every trip...

It's worth noting that many editions do not have you pay LS on unoccupied staterooms. MGT was the first that explicitly did charge for them.