I still need to settle on values but the character is largely good to go.
Think about each value based on where it shows up in the lifepath. When you were growing up, what did you learn that you took with you. When you were at the academy, what did you learn? what did you learn during your career, etc.
Get in there soon. We need the help :)
Should I help T'kara with the engines or roll to assist with something else?
Kreskin's giving the orders for now, so follow his "suggestions"!
You should try to reboot the weapons. It’s difficulty of 1 so the odds are in your favor. Don’t forget to spend momentum for extra dice and then roll untapped potential to get the momentum back.
Unfortunately this is the thing my character is weakest at and terrible rolls are not helping...
So a five on the 'Challenge Dice' only means I am adding to threat... is there any momentum being gained?
Edit: One Momentum I think
It’s fine. Weapons are the least of our worries. I’m sure you’ll get a second chance.
I'm going to go daring+engineering next time and hope the dice gods smile on me. I find the idea of the frustrated young officer kicking or thumping the console and it suddenly working again after all this failure amusing.
Well, you succeeded the last time, due to Toss' assist/reroll.
Ok thanks, a lot of the posting is going on while I'm at work so it's very easy to miss details while having to go through twenty or so posts.
My pleasure. You’re doing great.
I want to clarify something in the rules. I think you guys are approaching Tasks as an issue where you have to accumulate Successes. That isn't the case. You get to know the Difficulty of a Task because you are competent Starfleet personnel, but you aren't supposed to manipulate things after you roll. Obviously, with the preview function you could cheat, but you are supposed to make all of those decisions in advance and then roll.
Obviously, if you have questions about the ship assisting or something, you can certainly ask those.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. We're not supposed accumulate Successes? Aren't we?
Anyway, for my part I assure you the Preview function is not in use regarding die rolls.
I wasn't trying to suggest that anyone is cheating. Just acknowledging that it is easy to do. But that wasn't my main point.
What I mean is that when you are ready to attempt a Task, you are supposed to gather all of your dice pool and roll them. We've had a few occasions where someone has rolled their two dice, then in later posts gone looking for dice from the ship assistance, Momentum, etc. I think most of what is happening there is that we are new to the system and everyone is helping each other figure out what to roll and what various things can affect those rolls. That's all great. I just want to make sure people don't get the impression that you can roll you dice, get one success, then decide to spend some Momentum, then add a Threat, etc.
I'm not even sure that has happened, it just seemed like something that could happen to someone trying to understand the system.
Having a great time with this game.
By the way, I hope it isn't annoying that I capitalize game terms. My goal there is to help myself and other people new to the rules keep track of those terms, and also to be clear about when a word is being used in a rules sense rather than its general meaning.
In my research, I discovered that momentum caps off at six, so spend them if you got them!
I have yet to enforce the Momentum cap in any of the games I've run (which is not many sessions). I read some reviews that suggested that running out of Momentum really caused the game to grind to a halt. It hasn't been too much of a problem yet, but let's try it at 6 for the rest of this scenario and see how it goes.
It makes sense to me that you can roll assists after the fact, or even that the roller assumes the other character assists when they roll, assuming we are in a situation where the two characters are working together. This doesn't mean they have to be physically together, depending on circumstances. But I don't want to have people make a roll and then have another character charge into the room to "help out" when they weren't involved in that moment at all.
T'Karra, I'm failing to communicate the timeline here. If you look at the Adrift Challenge Sheet, the yellow highlight indicates that we are currently at 90 minutes. You can't start the engine restart process until 135 minutes. Your engineers have the installation of the new plasma injector under control
Lance, yes, the communication repair is underway. The only way to speed it up at this point is by spending Momentum.
She has the timeline right. As of 90 minutes, we have 2/3 of repair work complete. Crew are working on comms and engine and will guarantee success with time to spare. We have nothing to do (engineering-wise) until engine restart time.
Unless we want to ferret out the saboteur before ignition...
It may be a good idea to post the Current time at the top of the screen so we don't lose track of this. The spreadsheet is a little hard to follow.
Should I try (very badly) to start on the shields or does Kreskin want help? Security officer and what not
Ooooh, Kreskin is going to need your help on this one.
Thoss would be a good person to Assist here...once he has finished the shields calibrations that is he he.
Help me out a little on TOS lore around this:
Klingons can disguise themselves as human?
Is there a way to test for that?
Is there a way to detect who accessed the nacelle area, like a security unlock log?
Could someone have accessed the nacelle in flight?
A Klingon who was surgically altered to appear human could be detected through genetic scans, or by looking at their transporter logs, or with a tribble.
It wouldn't be safe to access the nacelle during flight. That is why you had to wait for it to cool off.
I'm not sure about the security log. I don't know of an example of anything like that, but it is reasonable, I guess.
"Mmmm, I love all this people food. I'm glad that everything on my plate is dead before it enters my mouth!"
"You know what really turns me on? Smooth foreheads."
"What? No! Today is a TERRIBLE day to die!"
“Hello Fellow Human! Shall we argue about whose politics are better and prove we care nothing for honor?”
“Your teeth, so stubby and even, like mine...which I’ve had since birth!
Damnit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a ...
No, wait. I am the doctor.
If that sounds workable/fun for you, then I will have her come to in her office in Med Bay shortly.
Character sheet can be found here.
Sounds fun to me. A nice foil for Lance
There's enough high ranking officers grilling the guy. No point having the scene too cluttered. I'm thinking Kerensky is going over security logs for any other signs of tampering.
Welcome, Doctor Bhalla!
Welcome, Doctor Bhalla!
Thank you, Captain. The good doctor is about to warn you that you have a saboteur on board and he is one of the med staff!
Welcome Doctor Bhalla!
Unlike normal Tasks, Extended Tasks cannot be overcome in a single attempt. Extended Tasks should be used sparingly, and only in situations where there is additional pressure or tension, such as during combat, or when there is only a limited amount of time to succeed. Extended Tasks use a mechanism similar to how damage is inflicted in combat, to represent activities which will take an uncertain amount of time and effort to complete, which is ideally suited to situations where there is an increasing peril or risk of harm the longer the activity takes to complete.
Additional information on Extended Tasks can be found on p. 282.
Extended Tasks have a few additional factors to consider over normal Tasks, which are described below:
WORK: each Extended Task has a Work track, which is a means of determining how much Work will be needed to overcome the Extended Task. Whenever a character succeeds at a Task as part of an Extended Task, it will make an amount of Work (described below), which is marked off from the Work track. A Work track normally has a value from five to twenty.
MAGNITUDE: each Extended Task has a Magnitude, normally a value from 1 to 5, which represents how large and complex an undertaking the Extended Task is. When a character achieves a number of Breakthroughs (described below) equal to the Extended Task’s Magnitude, the Extended Task is completely overcome.
RESISTANCE: some Extended Tasks are particularly arduous to overcome, and making progress is slower. This is covered by Resistance which reduces the amount of Work done from each Task. Most Extended Tasks do not have Resistance, but those that do tend to have no more than 3 Resistance.
An Extended Task also has a base Difficulty, which is used for all Tasks made to overcome the Extended Task. This base Difficulty can be modified on each Task as circumstances (such as Traits) dictate, but they all start from the same place. Whenever a character succeeds at a Task to overcome an Extended Task, there are a few additional steps to follow over and above the normal procedure for completing a Task.
1. The character rolls 2 , plus additional equal to the Discipline used for that Task. The total rolled on these dice is the amount of Work done.
2. If the Extended Task has any Resistance, reduce the Work done by the Resistance value. Any remaining Work is marked off from the Work track. Further, the character may have achieved one or two Breakthroughs, if either or both following conditions are fulfilled:
A. If five or more Work is made, after reduction for Resistance, the character also achieves a Breakthrough.
B. If the Work track is filled, or if one or more Work is made after reduction for Resistance, when the Work track was already full, the character achieves a Breakthrough.
3. If the number of Breakthroughs achieved is equal to the Extended Task’s Magnitude, the Extended Task is complete. Otherwise, the base Difficulty of the Extended Task is reduced by one for each Breakthrough achieved, to a minimum of 0. If the base Difficulty has already been reduced to 0, each subsequent Breakthrough adds +1 to any future rolls for Work on this Extended Task.
EXTENDED TASKS AND MOMENTUM
Momentum generated on the Tasks that comprise an Extended Task can be used in all the normal ways, but there are a few Momentum Spends that apply specifically to Extended Tasks. These are listed in the table below.
EXTENDED TASKS AND EFFECTS
Due to the use of Challenge Dice on Extended Tasks, some consideration needs to be made for what happens when Effects are rolled. Under normal circumstances, the Challenge Dice used for an Extended Task have no special effects, and thus each Effect rolled simply counts as a 1, without any additional benefits. However, characters can obtain benefits which will trigger when Effects are rolled. If the character has multiple benefits, then all of them are triggered when an Effect is rolled.
TRIUMPHANT: If the character achieves a Breakthrough, and one or more Effects were rolled, then an additional Breakthrough is achieved.
SCRUTINIZE X: The character ignores X points of the Extended Task’s Resistance for each Effect rolled.
PROGRESSION X: The character makes an additional X Work for each Effect rolled.
More to come.
In a lot of ways, Extended Tasks are a lot like ship combat, but that may not be too helpful since we haven't done that yet.
I'm going to try to go step by step though my understanding of the rules, but like I said, this is my first Extended Task, so I may have something wrong.
This Extended Task starts with a Difficulty of 3, so any Task check has to achieve 3 success in order to count. Those checks have an Interval of 5 minutes. Like the other Intervals, attempting the task takes two Intervals unless you spend Momentum to reduce it to 1. (Intervals aren't in the rules for Extended Tasks. They may be unique to this adventure.)
So T'Karra would have to get 3 success to make any progress at all. Of course, the standard uses of Momentum, Threat, or Determination can be used for those checks. The check is also assisted by the Ship. Extra successes generate Momentum as usual.
On a successful check (3 or more successes), you roll 2 Challenge Dice. The total rolled on those dice is the Work done. This Extended Task has no Resistance, so we can ignore that. If you do 5 or more Work, you achieve a Breakthrough. How can that happen? 2 Challenge Dice can only get to a result of 4 at most. Well, you can spend Momentum at 1 to 1 to add additional work. You can also use Momentum to re-roll any number of Challenge Dice from the current Task.
Every time you achieve a Breakthrough, the base Difficulty decreases by 1. You need 3 Breakthroughs (equal to the Magnitude) to complete the Extended Task.
Progress of 12, a Magnitude of 3, and a base Difficulty of 3
And the Extended Task at hand is restarting the engines, correct?
Reeves runs around the bridge and flaps his arms like a chicken!
Poor Dr. Bhalla--always seems to be the last to know!
Ok, folks. That is technically the end of the first adventure. Usually, at this point I would want some posts wrapping things up and maybe a few concluding log entries.
If you guys are really interested in the plague plotline, we can extend into that, but it was written with the wormhole and the repairs being the focus of the episode.
Or we can move on to a new adventure. I have plenty of ideas for that.
This is also a good time to talk about any problems we are having. I'm always up for feedback.
I think we ought to wrap up the plague plotline in a "Captain's Log, Supplemental" and move on to a new adventure.
I'll admit I still have only a vague idea of how the skill system works, to say nothing of more complex challenges, social challenges or ship-to-ship combat!
Still, I'm having fun!
I did enjoy this adventure -- seeing as how we all survived -- but like Captain Reeves it was a learning experience to handle the new skill system, et al. Still I think I am getting a handle on it.
We can move onto the new adventure if everyone else is OK with that. I am not sure if I should rework Thoss here, or just roll with it. Any suggestions would be appreciated!