Long time no see, everyone. Predictably, I've overhauled the entire system yet again, so lemme give you a rundown of all the changes so far!

Voyager: Tactics 0.7 - Combat Ready!

NOTE: If you want access to any of the older versions of Voyager: Tactics, just lemme know on Discord or email.

Combat Ready! is a free combat module for the latest version of Voyager: Tactics! It includes most of character creation & all the rules needed to run combat.

Streamlined Voyager Creation

• All Sapient traits & quirks have been simplified to Potentials, a core aspect of your Voyager that you can invoke to narrate a successful action, once a mission
• Another Potential you have at Voyager creation is your Epithet: a title or alias that represents your backstory or reputation.
• These two Potentials streamlines your roleplay - instead of memorising skill lists & rolling Natural 1s for basic tasks, you simply can do what your Sapient or Epithet allows you to do - but once per mission, when you really want to take the spotlight or need to succeed at something crucial, you can invoke the power of your Voyager's Potential.
• (note that there will be skills in the final rulebook, but right now they're purely focused on exploration and aren't universal to every action possible - I felt it's better to be more specific to the setting Voyager wants to play into, rather than be a game that "does everything".)

Factions as Classes

• Factions & Ventures (classes) have been folded together into the same thing: Choose from one of the 9 evocative Factions in the Known World, which informs your player fantasy & "vibe":
• The EXDUS Operatives are high-tech troopers using jetpacks & rifles.
• The Heirs are blessed warriors carrying self-replicating Origin Weapons forged from fragments of the World Tree.
• The Rai-Musha Bladeguard is the perfect choice for every player wishing to fulfill their katana-wielding samurai fantasies, while the Night Fang Resistance leans into the fantasy of a ninja blending into the shadows.

Gear As Dice, Gear As Stats

• Inspired by Panic at the Dojo's dice system, the dice system has been overhauled. I have always encountered problems trying to make a fairly balanced tactical experience constantly struggling against the randomness of dice, while knowing I still want to use the funny rocks in the game. Panic at the Dojo presented a simple solution: rolling the dice first, then planning around the numbers rolled.
• Your combat attributes are determined by your gear, & your gear is represented by dice, creating your Loadout. You then spend these dice to perform actions. You can mix and match gear for creating various builds; rarer equipment may grant more effects or even more dice.
• Brave returns as a dice result: rolling the highest result on your dice means you can spend it to activate an even stronger effect from that weapon or piece of gear.

Action & Momentum

• The action system follows a fluid initiative - each "turn" you take during a round is called an Action Sequence: you "lock in" any amount of dice from your Loadout as part of your Sequence, and each dice locked in represents an action.  For example, you spend one movement die & two weapon dice: this is illustrated as walking up & attacking an enemy twice.
• You gain Momentum whenever you finish an Action Sequence. You can take all your actions in a single Sequence (essentially like a typical turn in a round), but you're incentivised to space out your turns & use some of your Sequences reactively. Six dice used in a single turn gives you +1 Momentum, but two dice used on three separate occasions gives you +3 Momentum instead.
• At a high enough Momentum level, you charge up your EX State. Your EX State can be imagined as your "super mode", making you more powerful the longer combat goes on. Different EX States grant your Voyager permanent buffs that easily sells their player fantasy: dealing doubled damage, entering stealth, reducing all damage taken, etc.
• Momentum is a fluid resource, and is the equivalent of Stamina/Mana/Spellslots in other RPGs. It can be gained and spent liberally, & the EX State gives you a constant reason to build it up; however, some situations and class abilities may force you to spend Momentum as a resource to activate powerful actions.

Polishing Battlemap Combat

• Voyager: Tactics always aims to dive into all the familiar joy of tactical grid combat while making the experience as streamlined as possible.
• Inspired from Lancer, all areas of effect and creature size is calculated using a universal Size system. Size 1 is anything that fits in 1 tile; Size 2 fits in a 2x2 tile space, and so on.
• Height, rather than being calculated in feet or tiles, is divided into abstract Elevation levels. Anything lower than the ceiling is Ground Level & counts as Low Elevation: things you interact with often like walls, furniture and most enemies. Anything above that is High, from cliff faces to watchtowers.
• Cover and all physical structures & obstacles follow a universal Toughness value, which is how many times it must take damage to be destroyed: Toughness 1 breaks in a single hit, i.e. rickety fences & flimsy crates; Toughness 3 are solid walls and metal structures that can take three solid hits before exposing you. When hiding behind them as Cover, it blocks all incoming damage until it breaks, that's it.
• Use these destructible environments to make the battlefield constantly shift, with areas of full cover becoming increasingly scarce, or having powerful abilities that add cover to the map for a significant advantage.

For GMs: Enemy Design & Threat

• More steps have been taken to make running enemies as straightforward & modular as possible, which continues in V0.7.
• A simple step-by-step process helps you determine any foe: its Role determines its behaviour & combat (e.g. a ranged Gunner vs. a melee Warrior), while any enemies of different types can be sorted according to Tiers, determining their HP & power in combat. (e.g. from the weakest Minions that KO in a single hit, to Elites that form the backbone of any miniboss encounter)
• The GM builds up Threat whenever the party spends Momentum or dice. There are two types of Threats: Basic & Special.
• Basic Threats can be activated to control any foe the GM likes, rather than tracking specific initiative spots for each one. These include simple actions like moving & attacking, or dodging a player's attack.
• Special Threats are unique & punctuate combat with dangerous commands that force the players to cooperate & adapt. They can be simple but pants-stainingly nerve-wracking, like making all foes in range attack at once, or as theatrical as the Tank lobbing a giant exploding boulder at you, creating a piece of terrain where it lands.

V0.7 has been refined over all subsequent versions to be as accessible to play as possible while still exploring cool ideas, so every player is super appreciated! You can send all feedback for Combat Ready! using this handy form.