Xcom In 5e - OG Myth-Weavers

Notices


Creative Corner

Post your creative works here and show off your talent!


Xcom In 5e

   
Xcom In 5e

Okay so been tweaking a few things in 5e and changed a few things to make it work well for Xcom as a whole..
This is a very early piece of work and I have done very little work on this revamp of my initial system, but this is what I have for the revamp so far.
IF something is not covered here, it is either cause it functions as it would in 5e or I forgot to consider it, I will be adding to this occasionally if there are any interest for anyone to run a game with it when I am done.

A short TLDR for those who are not sure if they want to read it all.
Essentially I am trying to bring the spirit of the PC games (both the old and new one) into 5e, tweaking character progression heavily, tweaking a few rules and unifying all classes into one, that will be granted Specializations every 5 levels, this is so the player can entirely customize their own class based on these specializations. (Essentially mini archetypes from 5e)
The class is intentionally left very open and generic to allow as much customization as possible, feats will also generally play a bigger role.
Basic Stuff so farXcom Operative.
Skills: Choose 3 trained skills.
Proficiencies: Light armor, Medium Armor, Assault Carbine, Assault Rifle, Submachine gun, Pistol, shotgun, any non specialized melee weapon.
Saving throws: Choose 2.
Weight Capacity units: 10+str modifier.

1: Specialization.
2: Bonus Feat.
3: BOnus Skill.
4: Bonus Proficiency.
5: Specialization.
6: Favored Enemy.
7: All our bases shall not belong to you.
8: Bonus Feat.
9: Bonus Saving throw training.
10: Specialization.
11: Bonus Skill.
12: Favored Enemy.
13: Bonus proficiency.
14: Bonus Feat.
15: Specialization.
16: Onward for Humanity!
17: Bonuc Saving throw training.
18: Favored Enemy.
19: Skill Mastery.
20: Specialization, Bonus Feat.

-----

Favored Enemy.
Aliens... Spiteful creatures, while they are all feared and hated by Xcom, sometimes that pesky thin man breaks your nice new shotgun with their acid and it just ruins your day or that berserker decides to break your brand new mechanized arm, how dare he!
Favored Enemy allows the Xcom Operative to take the fight back and bring some payback, when fighting a favored Alien you gain +2 to all saves, attack rolls and Defense bonuses.

All our bases shall not belong to you.
Due to the experience fighting back the alien invaders the xcom operative knows the aliens are no different than us, a bullet the right spot kills them as dead as it does us. Therefore the Xcom Operative now has advantage on all panic checks.

Onward for Humanity!
The Xcom operative has become so familiar with tactical combat against a superior force, they have mastered the art of saying mobile while firing, weapons you can usually run with while shooting, you will now be able to sprint with, weapons you can usually walk and fire with, you can now run and fire with, etc.

-----
Explanations & mechanics of xcom.


Specialization.
This is essentially small mini classes, better known as archetypes in 5th edition D&D.

Equipment Proficiency.
Proficiency works differently in this, in the sense that each proficiency partially makes up for the downfalls of a weapon, as the elite of humanity xcom operatives can use every weapon efficienctly, but only those who mastered a weapon learned to bypass or reduce certain dawnfalls of a weapon.
Example of this: A Heavy Weapons Expert can reload an LMG it 1 and are capable of walking(not running or sprinting) while shooting without suffering disadvantage on his shots, where as everyone else has to be stationary to avoid disadvantage and takes 2 full rounds to reload an LMG.

Feats.
Feats can be brought with experience point, by delying progression in ones class until the feat cost has been paid, this experience cost does not apply when choosing a feat as a bonus feat.

Defense.
Better known as armor class in D&D works over all the same, however when and how bonuses to this are gained has been altered significantly, your worn armor decides your base defense score, you gain your dexterity modifier to defense when you sprint. When in cover you add your use cover skill to your defense or half your user cover skill if it's half cover.

Advantage & Disadvantage.
You can gain multiple advantages or disadvantages up to a maximum of 3.

Armor.
Armor has a few different stats, an example of a piece of armor would be.
Name: Light titan armor.
Short description: A lighter version of the titan armor that maintains most of the mechanical enhancements to movement speed, strength, etc, however sacrifices some of it's defensive plating for added mobility.
Defense Bonus: 16 (This indicates how often the armor deflects incoming attacks)
Absorption: 10 (An attack has to do more damage than this to break through the armor to do full damage, if the damage is below this threshold, the wearer only takes half damage.
Movement Penalty/bonus: +10 ft (Some earlier armors without mechanized enhancements to performance will suffer penalties to movement, in this case however the armors mechanized enhancements add +10 ft to the wearers mobility compared to it's big brother the titan armor that has no penalties or bonuses.)
Other bonuses: Wearing the light titan armor, you add +2 to your dexterity bonus when sprinting due to the increased speed of the light titan armor, in addition to this you two times your strength modifiers on melee strikes and all strength related rolls count as having +2.
Weight Units Cost: 2 (Each Xcom Operative has a limited amount of Weight units they can take into battle with them)

Weapons.
As with armor, weapons have a few new statistics.
Name: Semi Automatic Pistol
Damage: 2D6 (This is the damage potential of the weapon.)
Critical: 19-20 (A critical strike with a weapon will ensure it does max damage)
Accurate Range: 50ft (every 10ft after this grants one disadvantage, starting at 51 ft.)
Penetration Power: Low. (This determines the kind of cover this weapon can break.)
Magazine size: 17 bullets. (This is the amount of ammo your weapon has, this does not in the case of all weapons indicate how many rounds the weapon can fire, as some weapons with different firing modes may fire multiple bullets each round)
Firing Modes: Semi Automatic "Single Shot" (The Semi automatic mode "Single shot indicates a well aimed shot, in the case of this particular weapon it means adding 1D6 extra to the damage), the second firing mode is Semi Automatic Burst (Semi automatic burst with this particular weapon allows you to shoot three times in a turn with this weapon, however if changing targets between shots your following shots has disadvantage, a player can choose to use additional shots on another enemy if the one they first shot at dies).. (Other firing modes exist with their own unique features)
Movement Speed Penalty: None, this weapon can be shot at any movement type other than sprinting.
Weight Unit cost: 1 (Weight units determine how much your character can carry, a pistol generally will cost 1 weight unit, where say an LMG will cost 4.)
Size: Small Sidearm.
Reload: Can be reloaded as a free action, even during a sprint.
Other bonuses: Pistols are considered sidearms and as such can be drawn as a bonus action. Pistols in particularly are very effective weapons on the run, as they can be freely reloaded while sprinting without penalty.

Cover.
Cover has a few different statistics to it.
Hardness: (The hardness of cover determines how powerful a weapon is required to break it, the hardness goes as such, Very low hardness, low, Medium, Hard, Very hard.. Something like Very low can be broken through by a pistol, however very hard? Will in most cases require heavy explosives)
Type: (Cover can be of two types, Full or Half... Full cover means you use your full Use Cover skill and add it to your defense, where as half cover only grants you half.
Moving between cover leaves you out in the open for one round if the piece of cover you are moving to are more than half your movement away.


Ability scores.
Some things have changed in this regard.
Constitution: Health is no longer tied to level, instead your health pool is equal to ten times your constitution score, so an xcom operative who has 12 constitution will have 120 health points.
In addition to that ability scores are no longer increased over levels, but instead increased during your time spent at the base, this particular system will seem very overpowered at first glance, but that is cause I haven't gotten around to making the other options one has when back at base.
Ability scores are increased by training, studying, etc back at base, when you attempt to increase a skill the player upon return to the base says to the GM that he wishes to attempt to increase one of his ability scores, this means rolling a D20 against the chosen ability score, if the roll is higher than the ability score, it increases by one, however if rolling a 1 on the roll, the player loses 1 in chosen ability score, every third time the player rolls a 1 on these increases, a random stat has their maximum lowered by 1, decided by a 1D6. (A standard human without modifications cannot go above 20 in any ability score)

Movement.
Your movement speed is 25 ft + 5ft per Dexterity modifier.
Walking.
Walking equals half your movement speed and carries no penalties or bonuses. Walking is a free action but cannot be combined with any other move action.
Running equals your movement speed and allows you to use your dexterity bonus to defense when out of cover. This action is a movement action.
Sprinting Equals one and a half times your movement speed and allows you to use twice your dexterity bonus when out of cover. This action is a standard action which means you can't attack while sprinting.

Overwatch.
You can choose not to attack on your turn and if an enemy moves within your line of sight you are allowed to take a shot at a -2 penalty against the target, in addition to any other penalties you might suffer.




SpecializationsAssault.
Run & Gun.
Run & Gun allows you to sprint as a movement action, though you take a -2 penalty to all attack rolls.

Lightning reflexes.
You gain your proficiency bonus to defense against overwatch shots.

Skill training (Athletics)
If you already possess the athletics skill, you gain skill mastery (Athletics).

-

Veteran Assault.
Close and Personal.
If you are within 10 ft of your target you automatically have advantage on attack rolls.

Rapid Shot.
After firing a shot, you are quick enough to line up a second shot, this means even when you shoot in your round, you are allowed to perform a overwatch shot at disadvantage.

Killer instinct.
If your target is are within one of your threatened squares, your attack is always a critical hit.

-

Assassin.
Sneak attack.
If you perform an attack against an enemy while in stealth or your target is unaware of your presence, your attack will do double damage and your damage roll will count as if you rolled the max possible, in addition to this you add your proficiency bonus to the damage.

Silent takedown.
Silenced pistols no longer suffer a damage and range penalty, in addition to that you can perform silent melee takedowns on organic creatures your own size or smaller without performing a roll. If the target is larger than you, you have to do a strength check against the targets strength, the target however has disadvantage.

Skill Training (Stealth)

If you already possess the Stealth skill, you gain skill mastery (Stealth).

-

Veteran Assassin.
Quickshot.
You can perform two shots with any sidearm every round, if these shots are done without moving, both will count as sneak attacks if the first one would count as one.

Martial Arts.
You have mastered the art of hand to hand and melee weapon combat, you can now apply your dexterity modifier or strength modifier to attack rolls with small or medium melee weapons, instead of being limited to only strength, in addition to that you add your proficiency bonus x2 to melee damage. Melee silent takedowns can now be done without a roll on any target one size larger than yourself.

Combat stealth.
You can now restealth during combat while performing movements, this stealth check however suffers disadvantage, you do not suffer disadvantage if done during a sprint.

I guess having it all just be one class makes character creation easy.

How are you going to do Psionics, and Research and Such? I'd like to help. Big X-com fan.

Well I am planning on making psionics feats that can be bought after research of it has happened.. for now I don't have immediate plans to incorporate a way for players to affect research mechanically, cause well more important things to do right now.

Essentially its one base class and then the specializations will incorporate various specialties, like an assassin who gains certain advantages when doing sneak attacks, or the assault who has certain bonuses to close range combat and such.
I plan to have every specialization have 2 ranks, you pick standard version one, then veteran one if you want that as well.
So two characters may have the same base class, but one will be an amazing sniper and another might be a medic.

But back to psionics, I was planning on having them high cost feats that could be bought the same way I mentioned in the opening post
Quote:
Feats.
Feats can be brought with experience point, by delying progression in ones class until the feat cost has been paid, this experience cost does not apply when choosing a feat as a bonus feat.
In addition to that it will have a corruption mechanic tied into it, only tinkering with concepts for that right now, so I don't really have any actual details other than I am trying to capture that feeling of "Is it wise to use the aliens toys against them? Are we going to lose our humanity in the process".

I would greatly appreciate some help, throw a PM my way and let me know what you would be interested in working on.

I feel that debate is better off as a roleplay debate rather than any kind of actual mechanic if you're going for X-com. Maybe bring in Exalt if you want to explore that.

ofcourse Exalt will be in there eventually, but for now I focus on mechanics, once the mechanics are nailed down, I will start creating all the "basic enemies" including both aliens and exalt.

Well I wanted to make psi powers a bit more powerful than in the game as they felt a but weak compared to the bug fuzz about it, but to do that it needs an actual downside to use it.
Plus there is a bit evidence of potential corruption in Xcom Enemy Unknown/within if you listen to the troops when they use psi powers.

I am also working a bit on an idea of alien sympathizers who actually joined the aliens as a minor sub-faction.

@Jestem
I will let you know if I need some playtesters.


@BTRbottom
I might look into making piloting possible at a later time, but it is one of those "sub systems" that are not as important as the core mechanics.
In addition to that, I need to somehow make it quick enough it wont bother the other players waiting for the one pilot in the group to finish his dogfight with a UFO, but still with enough options and interesting enough combat system that dog fighting does not become trivial.
So yeah really not worth devoting a lot of time to early on in working on this, however in time I will look into it.

Updated.
Added the assault and assassin specializations, as well as their veteran versions.
Added overwatch rules.
Added size and reload time to weapon example.
Added movement rules.





Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
User Alert System provided by Advanced User Tagging (Lite) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2024 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
Last Database Backup 2024-03-28 05:19:56pm local time
Myth-Weavers Status