[Spoiler] Temple of the Twelve - Wilderness Trek

[Fleug]

So I love the idea of the PCs travelling into the jungle and facing many dangers, having to find their way beneath the canopy, avoiding dangerous creatures, facing the mold storm, struggling with the hot temperature... it provides a lot of ideas for the DM and many cool things can potentially happen. This is one of my favorite chapters in Dead Suns so far. I love the Ksariks!

But I have a question regarding something the author wrote at the beginning of this chapter : "How much time the PCs spend in pursuit not only prolongs their travel beyond their armors’ environmental protection but also grants the Cult of the Devourer more time to explore the Temple of the Twelve, prepare traps, and destroy valuable records."

Unless I read it wrong, nothing changes or depends on the time the PCs take to complete the journey. There's only a difference of XP reward. I don't really mind and I think it's meant to so that the DM can add more stuff depending on the time the trip takes, but I'd love to know your opinion. Am I missing something?

[rook1138]

I don't know about the changes for taking longer, but I know my party is looking at 12, not 10 days, since there are some in heavy armor, so speed is 25 not 30.
That being said, they aren't worried about the extra time for their environmental issues. We're on day 8, and so far the most anyone has used is 16 hours of life support.

Life Bubble is a great known spell. hits multiple targets and lasts multiple days, and negates the heat factor which is the main reason you'd be burning life support hours on your armor. So a single caster, casting it once a day, can get the whole party by the second day, so only some people need to use their life support on day 1 (12 hours). after that, the caster just re-ups it each day on the ones with the lowest duration left.

But yeah, since they're not making it in 10 days, but also not taking longer than 13 (the 2 lengths that dictate story XP for the trek), I'm not really gonna mess with much.

[rixu]

My party took over 13 days, thanks to really bad luck on with the rolls, so they missed the xp. They had no problems with the life support since the characters have the Backup generator armor upgrade from book 1 on the teams android. Since he does not need sleep and does most of the guard duties he can charge some armors every night while guarding :P

[rook1138]

I don't think the backup generator works with the environmental protection recharge since it is neither a starship nor an environmental recharge station (which are also available at places that have a battery charging station):
pg 198: "Recharging this duration requires access
to a functioning starship or an environment recharging station"
This makes me think it is more than a simple battery charge, but probably also filters, etc. BUT, I can see how one could also say it's the same thing, so :shrug:

However,

Androids need to sleep.
pg 43: "Due to their biological components, androids need to eat and sleep,"
unless he's got something else going for him that says otherwise (?)

[rixu]

Then again,

"Most of the recharging stations that replenish devices, such as batteries and power cells (see page 234), also recharge armor’s environmental protections"
and in the backup generators: "You can connect charged electric items such as batteries to this miniature generator to recharge them."

I ruled that since the armor is a charged electric item it can be charged. It is a bit of a gray area though, and I'm not sure if that was a good call to make...

EDIT: Then again, on batteries it is said "In addition to weapons, batteries can be used to power a wide array of items, including powered armor and technological items."
So you can charge batteries that could power powered armors but not basic armors? That also sounds strange.

[Lord Fyre]

rook1138 wrote:

Androids need to sleep.

pg 43: "Due to their biological components, androids need to eat and sleep,"
unless he's got something else going for him that says otherwise (?)

This may be a confusion because Androffan androids (Iron Gods) do not sleep.

It is an understandable mistake.

[sebastokrator]

rixu wrote:

Then again,

"Most of the recharging stations that replenish devices, such as batteries and power cells (see page 234), also recharge armor’s environmental protections"
and in the backup generators: "You can connect charged electric items such as batteries to this miniature generator to recharge them."

I ruled that since the armor is a charged electric item it can be charged. It is a bit of a gray area though, and I'm not sure if that was a good call to make...

EDIT: Then again, on batteries it is said "In addition to weapons, batteries can be used to power a wide array of items, including powered armor and technological items."
So you can charge batteries that could power powered armors but not basic armors? That also sounds strange.

I ruled the other way. Since most armor and environmental protection doesn't have a capacity or charge section written up about it I think it's probably not a battery and thus beyond the backup generator's ability to recharge

On the other hand I don't have a problem with it charging a battery that goes into power armor. That battery is a separate item that is distinguishable from the armor itself.

I envision the backup generator working like a station for rechargeable AA batteries; you can plug something in and charge it but you can't use it while it's charging.

[rook1138]

sebastokrator wrote:

rixu wrote:

Then again,

"Most of the recharging stations that replenish devices, such as batteries and power cells (see page 234), also recharge armor’s environmental protections"
and in the backup generators: "You can connect charged electric items such as batteries to this miniature generator to recharge them."

I ruled that since the armor is a charged electric item it can be charged. It is a bit of a gray area though, and I'm not sure if that was a good call to make...

EDIT: Then again, on batteries it is said "In addition to weapons, batteries can be used to power a wide array of items, including powered armor and technological items."
So you can charge batteries that could power powered armors but not basic armors? That also sounds strange.

I ruled the other way. Since most armor and environmental protection doesn't have a capacity or charge section written up about it I think it's probably not a battery and thus beyond the backup generator's ability to recharge

On the other hand I don't have a problem with it charging a battery that goes into power armor. That battery is a separate item that is distinguishable from the armor itself.

I envision the backup generator working like a station for rechargeable AA batteries; you can plug something in and charge it but you can't use it while it's charging.

I viewed the "recharging" of the environmental protections more like a series of hoses and plugs that you'd plug into the armor. some recharge the power portion, sure. the others clean out/flush the filters, respirators, personal waste systems, cleans the sweat out, etc; which is why I figured a backup generator was insufficient, it doesn't deal with a lot of that part...

[BastionofthePants]

The armor "recharging" mechanic is one of those cases where the mechanics and the lore just don't line up with each other very well.

Do you want to track it and make it part of the game's challenge?

If yes, then find a way to describe it where you need air filters, freon, and other forms of seals that cannot be replenished on the go.

If no, then handwave it.

[SuperBidi]

rixu wrote:

"Most of the recharging stations that replenish devices, such as batteries and power cells (see page 234), also recharge armor’s environmental protections"

Recharging stations. A backup generator is no recharging station.

rixu wrote:

I ruled that since the armor is a charged electric item it can be charged. It is a bit of a gray area though, and I'm not sure if that was a good call to make...

No it's not. Armors are no powered items. Only powered armor. This is important as some abilities allow you to disrupt powered items, and you can't use them on non-powered armors.

[JohnHawkins]

A suit of armour provides a lot of environmental protection and what it takes to recharge it is going to depend on what you have been using.
On this planet all you are using is the temperature control, this is essentially going to be the batterries running the cooling system, maybe water reservoirs but the environment is not an extreme desert or similar. So I would allow recharging the life support reservoirs just with electrical power.
Now if you are trekking across a Luna surface then you are using up Oxygen and other consumable supplies so if it was necessary to recharge a suit you would need access to oxygen or similar supplies to recharge the suits reservoirs. Probably.

If the suit is a sealed recycling system with sufficient power you may be able to reverse the respiration process and break down the C02 and other waste products to regain fresh Oxygen, water and food paste. Even then though I suspect that after sustained use filters and similar components are going to need repairing or refreshing as they suffer a degree of irreversible degradation over time.
Or of course the life support systems could use magic and over come all the real world issues possibly instead having new ones of their own.

It all depends how much effort you want to put your players too in surviving in hostile environments which is going to depend on the story and other factors. Also of course given the wide range of races in play what passes for a hostile climate to one race may be quite comfortable for others and visa-versa

[ThermalCat]

Check out the Thermal Capacitor and Filtered Rebreather armor upgrades, as they may interest the characters. If you want to allow your characters to use these, you may have to go off-script a little to give them an opportunity to acquire these at the beginning. Turhalu Point's decommissioned military base may still have a handful of staff, and some additional equipment that could be purchased with the right diplomatic rolls or additional credits.

[Brother Willi]

I agree that the way the module/equipment is written, a battery is insufficient to recharge armor.

My party used mobile hoteliers to great effect; I let them hack one into recharging their armor, but I figured the same supplies that let the hotelier work would recharge the armor systems.

[SuperBidi]

JohnHawkins wrote:

A suit of armour provides a lot of environmental protection and what it takes to recharge it is going to depend on what you have been using.

Most environmental protection a suit of armour provides don't need recharge.

Thermal protection just need layers of thermal resistant materials.
Radiation and vacuum protection just need the armor to be tightly sealed.
So, the only thing you really need to recharge is oxygen for atmosphere protection.