personal forcefields

[garhkal]

In Sparks, there is one of our modules where an experimental backpack shield generator is being developed by the empire. When active, it provides 1d of shielding to the character, and lasts 2 hrs before needing to be recharged. If severely damaged, it needs at a min 5k in repair costs and a V.diff shield repair roll to fix.
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[vanir]

We used them sparingly in our campaigns some time ago, before we had many of the d6 sourcebooks available now so we had a lot more custom GM designed equipment and starships populating the gameworld.

In some cases the stuff we designed we like better than what we've found fairly recently in more comprehensive publication, but it has proved invaluable on cutting down sheer volume of work to give a sense of a large galaxy with a lot of variety in it.

We've transferred then a smattering of our old campaigning equipment and aliens designed by rotating GMs of our gaming group.
One of those was personal force fields, essentially a rare, complex and ridiculously expensive miniaturisation of mundane SW shielding tech, particle or energy shielding in character scale rather than vehicle scale. We kept it fairly simple, a belt mounted unit was cell powered and functioned for 1 minute then needed a new power cell. Mounted on armour it could be powered by a backpack generator in which case it overheated and had to be shut down for an hour, after ten minutes of operation.

But these were ridiculously expensive miniaturisation technology that only began to appear, almost uniquely (ie. extremely rarely), on high ranked ISB agents (to really toughen them up but still look secret agenty rather than like a bounty hunter), and specialised Imperial assassins as we approached the Dark Empire era in our campaign.

We were basically trying to update old tech and introduce a little new tech to give a sense of technological refinement/progression in our campaign.
I mean superlasers were in star destroyers, it seemed fair.

Plus there are sith amulets in RAW which give 1d force field protection against physical attacks, things like that so it's a highly specialised and rare item, but not imbalanced or inappropriate.

Basic strengths were like old 1e guidelines in 1d, 2d and 3d but none of us ever saw anything more than 2d and only one NPC ever had that, only about 3 had the 1d personal shields. Price is more expensive than the best powered armour: starfighter kind of price so you'd salvage one but probably wouldn't seek to purchase one or contract its construction, you'd go broke. They came in energy, particle or both types of shield.

They do actually work well, used sparingly, I found them useful as a GM with things like a deep cover ISB agent that, if discovered by the players before I can spring a trap or whatever, has a nice 1-2d bonus to his damage soak in combat, enough to escape and become a continuing villain or nemesis throughout an adventure or campaign, without being an all out Dark Jedi or conspicuous armoured up Imperial Hunter or tooled up Assassin. Just someone real incognito that can turn and do a Jason Bourne if he has to, without having to be Tremayne or Vader or something too unique.

[tetsuoh]

I strike again ha-HA!

necro thread ARISE!!!!!!!!



So, I have been looking for this for a while now... I want one of these for my own character I'm playing in our current game.

We recently decided we were going BY THE BOOKS.... thankfully those books still include our conversions set by cheshire.

CHESIRE!!

I would like to put my input on your device!!!!

I would think this agreeable, no?

2d Max additional soak - add an additional 0 to each category of shield price.

no more day long bonus - make them use a power pack and only last for 1 minute (I'd argue 5 minutes but am fine with 1 minute.)
In addition make them ablative as per the standard description. each time they attempt to soak they take 1 pip away from the shield value, shutting down once they hit 0, and needing a new power pack.

Furthermore make then auto override should the character take a wound. AND overcompensate should the character be mortally wounded. Needing to be repaired Very Difficult -Shield Repair.

1d packs cost 1k credits
2d packs cost 3k credits


Thoughts?

[Fallon Kell]

I've seen rules for destroyer droid-style shields that just provide 4D cover. Like any normal cover, they can take damage, and let some of the enemy fire through.
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Complete Starship Construction System