The upcoming Voidrunner's Codex takes inspiration from some of the best sci-fi shows as it expands your 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition games with a comprehensive set of sci-fi rules!
Invert the polaron frequency! Reconfigure the shield harmonics! Recollimate the reciprocating interface array!
The Science skill, and especially its technobabble specialty, can be used to leverage fringe scientific hypotheses and devise new and unorthodox solutions to technological problems (Engineering is then used to implement these measures). It is up to the Narrator whether technobabble is appropriate to a given situation, but many starship-based exploration challenges are ideal circumstances for such desperate measures.
To devise a quick technobabble solution, roll once on each column on the following table.
d8 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | amplify the | nucleonic | actuator |
| 2 | recalibrate the | auxiliary | manifold |
| 3 | oscillate the | ionic | stabilizer |
| 4 | harmonize the | verteron | field |
| 5 | invert the | reciprocating | capacitor |
| 6 | modulate the | shield | frequency |
| 7 | reconfigure the | polaron | relay |
| 9 | recollimate the | subspace | array |
Technobabble can achieve incredible things, but it does not come without risks!
Disadvantage. Technobabble attempts are always made with disadvantage.
Critical successes and failures. A critical failure (a natural roll of 1 which would have failed) results in the ship suffering one critical malfunction (see page @@). A critical success (a natural roll of 20 which would have succeeded) provides an expertise die to any further Science or Engineering checks while in this region.
Temporary. New technology devised in this manner is always only temporary, and applicable to the specific challenge being confronted. Once the challenge is overcome, the alterations no longer benefit the ship–perhaps there are unacceptable side-effects or risks, or the systems can only operate like this for a short while without exploding; or perhaps the solution was hyper-specific to this one single phenomena, and would be useless against even a similar event.
The Voidrunner's Codex launches early next month. Click here to be notified when we launch!
