MCC Classes in Space Crawl

Continuing the adaptation of existing classes into Space Crawl:

• Sentinels – no reason not to allow them as an alternate type of warrior.  Drop the AI Recognition rolls (from all the classes).  Artifact checks only apply if the Sentinel is from a primitive planet background, in which case the Sentinel can use it to try to understand modern technology.
• Healers – any sort of medics, ships’ doctors, etc. Drop the AI Recognition rolls, but keep the Artifact checks for understanding alien/advanced medical technology.  Naturopathy is re-skinned as Medicine, and requires access to standard medical technology (at least a med-kit if not a sick bay or hospital).
• Rovers – can serve as an alternate form of Thief, particularly suited for scavengers and explorers of alien ruins. Drop the AI Recognition rolls, but keep the Artifact checks for understanding alien technology (or modern technology if from a primitive background)
• Shaman – are not really appropriate for Space Crawl, unless perhaps they are from a lost colony ship or world that actually is ruled by mad AIs.
• Manimals, Plantients, Mutants – can serve as instant random aliens for Space Crawl. A problem that SF games can have if the setting is intended to have a large array of alien species, a la the Star Wars cantina, Sector General, Valerian and Laureline, etc. is coming up with enough truly different alien species.  It’s nice to have hand-crafted aliens as the “major races” of the galaxy, but what about the rest? MCC offers a quick and dirty solution in the form of the three mutated classes.  In Space Crawl each individual rolled up is representative of an entire race of like creatures, although they may or may not be common in this part of the galaxy. None of the classes may use Glowburn, nor are their alien powers (mutations) particularly effected by exposure to radiation: they are normal abilities for that alien race.  As alien races, manimals won’t literally be derived from Earth animals, they merely bear a passing resemblance to some Earth animal (Space Gophers, anyone?); similarly Mutants won’t be exactly like humans except for their mutations, they can have pretty much any base physical type the player would like as long as it wouldn’t count as a mutant power in its own right (e.g. great size, or amoebic form)…by default though they can probably be pictured as relatively humaniform except for the color/texture of their skin. You can find random character generators for Manimals, Plantients and Mutants at Old School Adventures, and Purple Sorcerer should be adding upper-level MCC generators some time soon (you need to be 1st level before your mutations manifest in MCC).  When creating an alien character, the player can choose which mutant class to base it on, and should roll for powers as if at 1st level in MCC, even if rolling a 0-level character for a Space Crawl funnel. The character should roll for Background and any Service as normal.  When reaching 1st level, the alien has a choice of either taking one of the other classes and following its progression (allowing the player to play an alien Pilot or Sentinel, say) while losing all the abilities of the mutation class except the powers themselves (no pheromones for Plantients, mutant horror for Mutants, pack mentality for Manimals, etc.) and losing the reroll of passive mutations upon leveling up or they may stick with the base class and then they keep the other abilities and may reroll their passive powers each time they level up, to represent stages in their alien life-cycle.  When rolling for changes to passive powers a 1 does represent losing the power, and a 20 gaining a new power, as in the rules for saving throws against radiation exposure in MCC, to represent different stages in the alien life cycle sometimes causing more extreme physical changes. A future post will cover quickly coming up with alien race names, cultures, and so on.

 

featured image “Alien Bar” from Drinking on Mars