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Outpost 5

A free to download rules light sci-fi rpg · By Nameless Designer

Grenades, actions each turn, armor, starting and max HP

A topic by BlackSwordPaleSlinger created Jun 14, 2025 Views: 221 Replies: 2
Viewing posts 1 to 3
(14 edits)

Grenades: They have normal and crit damage.  Some allow a Fort save.  This led to some confusion in game, but I think I take all that to mean that you still make an attack roll to see if hit, if a crit does the greater damage and then they roll a save as applicable.  What do you roll for that, though?  Agility?  Once for all in the effective range and compare that to the targets' defense, presumably (to save on excessive rolls and bogging down combat).  It's not seemingly Close Quarters or Firearms.  Is that right or hits are automatic, it's just a roll to see if the damage is critical or not?  The latter seems to make grenades a bit too powerful.  

Actions in combat: It states you can move or attack, not both on a turn.  I highly suggest allowing a move action and 1 other action.  Spending a turn on just moving makes for extended combat and less fun.

Armor: It states that armor is depleted before dipping into health damage.  That's all good, but does the armor absorb damage each turn or only until depleted?  It seems like it needs to be the latter and you might state as much.  This provides some balance and makes lesser enemies still a threat.  Otherwise, many enemies can only do 1-2 damage and they are completely nullified.  However, with health so low for starting PCs, I want to both make that the case and increase armor durability a bit in that case.  I think reducing armor protection by 1 each hit (after calculating damage and your choice of armor if a shield is in play on top of worn armor) is the sweet spot for me.  That way armor absorbs damage longer but still depletes and it makes you a little better against weaker opponents. 

Starting and max HP: Even with the armor changes I want to make starting HP 6 and max HP 12 for a bit more survive-ability.  I'm okay with death but quick, cheap ones are less fun.  A bit higher allows a character to make more of an impact before lights out.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, suggestions after running a session.

PS - I also made the house ruling that pack (storage slot) items are stored items and thus take an action to retrieve unlike ready, worn or items in hands. 

Developer

Hey there, thanks for trying out the game. In terms of answering your questions.

  • I use the "Firearms" skill for grenade attacks.
  • Only the stun grenade requires and additional save and I believe this is stated as the Fortitude skill and would apply to anyone in range. Anyone in range should use the attack roll result as the target score for saving (this may not have been explicitly stated I would have to check over the rules).
  • Actions are currently "move or act" on a rules as written basis. I was emulating the X-Com tactical style of combat and envisaging this to be a minis type game but feel free to adopt a "move and act" approach. 
  • Armour is intended to act as additional health points and depleted first before health so it effectively gets damaged and becomes useless after a few hits which increases the risk to the players. The intention was this game was quite deadly (almost like a funnel type game approach) but feel free to play around the with stats and approach to suit you. 

Once again, thanks for the feedback.  It's great to see that you have 'house ruled' the game to suit your own preferences.