Radio Free Covenant – A Podcast about the Science-Fiction Roleplaying Game "Covenant" and Urban Fantasy Novel "Crossing the Line"

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We said last time that we would talk about the types of damage that your character can face in Covenant. Let’s do that now.
Your character’s armor has a rating just like their weapons. If they are hit by a weapon or any other damage source, then you subtract your character’s armor defense rating from the damage rating of what hit them. Your character takes the rest. If their armor’s defense rating is higher than the damage rating, you don’t take any damage.
The problem is that different kinds of armor have different levels of protection from different damage sources.
For instance, a Kevlar vest might protect you from being shot with a gun, but only partial protection from a laser. In fact, your character’s armor rating drops by half if they’re struck by a damage source for which their armor isn’t designed. To keep track of these, both damage sources and armor have damage types:

• Kinetic Damage: Caused by something striking your character, usually at high speed
• Inertial Damage: Caused by your character falling or being tossed around a vehicle during a fight or a crash
• Thermal Damage: Caused by thermal energy being added to your character, usually by something burning like a torch, flare, or flamethrower
• Cold Damage: Caused by thermal energy being taken away from your character, usually by something cold like liquid nitrogen
• Electrical Damage: Caused by high-amperage electricity, like lightning or an electrical generator
• Chemical Damage: Caused by chemically active or corrosive compounds, like strong acids and bases
• Biological Damage: Caused by poisons and disease
• Radiant Damage: Caused by radioactive materials
• Psychological Damage: Caused by loss, trauma, or stress

Thermal and cold damage can also come from environmental sources. For instance, environmental thermal damage could come from exposure to a desert, while environmental cold damage could come from a snowstorm. This is important, because a character’s gear might react differently to environmental damage. A heavy coat might protect your character from the environmental cold damage of a snowstorm, but not from the cold damage of being splashed with liquid nitrogen.
We are also working with the idea of tech levels (TLs) for character gear, including armor and weapons. The tech levels are:

• Tech Level 1 (TL1): Muscle-powered. The period ranging from the Stone Age to the Iron Age is TL1.
• Tech Level 2 (TL2): Chemical-powered. Much of modern-day Earth is currently TL2.
• Tech Level 3 (TL3): Fusion or antimatter-powered. This includes lasers, rail guns, warp engines, and Lorentzian distorters. A TL3 civilization is approaching or at Type I on the Kardashev scale – that is, it can harness all the energy available on a planet.
• Tech Level 4 (TL4): Highly advanced technology powered by black holes, neutron stars, and other stellar objects, including hard light, programmable materials (or “smart goo”), and effective nanotech. A TL4 civilization is approaching or at Type II on the Kardashev scale – that is, it can harness all the energy available from a star or other stellar object.
• Tech Level 5 (TL5): Technology so advanced that it’s hard to distinguish from magic. A TL5 civilization is approaching or at Type III on the Kardashev scale – that is, it can harness all the energy available in a galaxy.

Armor is designed for a specific tech level. For instance, plate armor stops swords and arrows (TL1) but not bullets (TL2), while a Kevlar vest will stop bullets (TL2) but not knives or arrows (TL1). Armor and damage sources interact this way:

• Same Tech Level and Damage Type: Armor provides full protection
• Different Tech Level OR Damage Type: Armor provides half protection
• Different Tech Level AND Damage Type: Armor provides no protection

As you can see, tech levels add another level of complexity to Covenant. Only time and playtesting can tell whether they’re worth it. If they aren’t, they’ll be removed.
That’s it for now. Join us next time for a discussion of gender in the game.

(Don’t forget to tune in to the latest episode of the Radio Free Covenant podcast!)

Last week, we promised that we’d talk about how Covenant handles tactical movement during scenes. Let’s do that now.

Before we start, though, let’s narrow down our subject. When I say “tactical movement”, I mean the kind of character movement that needs a map or battle mat, including fights or any other scene where you need to know where your character is with some precision. Covenant handles this kind of movement with areas.

Areas are somewhat abstract, in terms of game mechanics. They occupy a space somewhere between theater-of-the-mind and map-based combat.

In Covenant, areas are generally 10 meters square, but they can be smaller or larger. In fact, during spaceship fights, the areas can measure thousands and even millions of kilometers on a side.

There are two types of areas, which can exist side-by-side on the same scene map:

• Areas that are walled off and accessible to each other only by doors or windows (e.g., the rooms in a building or spaceship, etc.)
• Arbitrary sections of a larger space (e.g., a long corridor, a hangar, an outside field, etc.)

Areas are important, not just to show where characters are in relation to each other, but who they can attack and who can in turn attack them. Characters can make three kinds of attacks in Covenant:

• Close Attacks: Characters can generally make close attacks (e.g., attacks with fists, swords, spears, etc.) against any other character in the same area. This is because characters are assumed to be constantly maneuvering and jockeying for position during a fight.
• Ranged Attacks: Character can make ranged attacks (e.g., with bows, guns, throw weapons, etc.) against characters in other areas. The number of areas separating attacker and defender during a ranged attack is the attack’s range.
• Area Attacks: Characters can make area attacks (e.g., with grenades, machine guns, etc.) against every character in 1 area. These type of attacks can potentially damage every character in 1 area, be they friend or foe. Generally speaking, characters can make area attacks into any area where they can make ranged attacks. However, specific area attacks may break this guideline; the attack will specify if it does and when in its description.

Read on for two examples of how areas are used in Covenant.

Continue reading “Covenant Game Design: Areas and Tactical Movement”

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Covenant is filled with sapient species of wildly different sizes, from tiny acoes to hulking valka Matriarchs. We handle that by assigning everything – people, creatures, even gear and vehicles – a numerical size based on their longest dimension. See the following table (one of the few tables you’ll see in Covenant’s rules, I’m proud to say):

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These sizes can be adjusted, by the way. Something thin like a snake might have its size reduced by 1, while something massive like an elephant might have its size increased by one.

This system allows both players and the FM to compare relative sizes during opposed bids, especially attack and stealth bids.

• For every 1 size the attacker is smaller than the defender:
  • Add 1 advantage to attack and stealth bids
  • Subtract 5 from weapon damage
• For every 1 size the attacker is larger than the defender:
  • Add 1 disadvantage to attack and stealth bids
  • Add 5 to weapon damage

Let’s look at some examples:

• A human (size 5) is fighting a valka male (size 4). The human:
  • Adds 1 disadvantage to attack and stealth bids
  • Add 5 from weapon damage
• A human (size 5) is fighting an aco (size 3). The human:
  • Adds 2 disadvantage to attack and stealth bids
  • Adds 10 from weapon damage
• A human (size 5) is fighting a valka Matriarch (size 6). The human:
  • Adds 1 advantage to attack and stealth bids
  • Subtracts 5 from weapon damage

Sizes can also be adjusted by the target’s cover and stance. Both effectively reduce the target’s size. For cover (which also includes shields), it depends on how much of the target is covered:

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For stance, it depends on how upright the target is:

• Standing Stance:
  • Add 0 advantages to ranged attack bids
  • Add 0 advantages to defense bids vs. ranged attacks
  • Add 0 disadvantages to defense bids vs. close quarter attacks
• Kneeling Stance:
  • Add 1 advantage to ranged attack bids
  • Add 1 advantage to defense bids vs. ranged attacks
  • Add 1 disadvantage to defense bids vs. close quarter attacks
• Prone Stance:
  • Add 2 advantages to ranged attack bids
  • Add 2 advantages to defense bids vs. ranged attacks
  • Add 2 disadvantages to defense bids vs. close quarter attacks

Characters can also make called shots against parts of a target’s body. Called shots adjust attack bids based on which part of the target’s body is being attacked:

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Well, that’s a long post, and it’s late. Tune in next time for when we talk about how Covenant handles tactical movement during scenes.