Five Parsecs from Home - Part 4
Five Parsecs from Home is a tactical skirmish game with rpg elements. It's probably best described as 'X-COM meets Firefly'.
Their ship is damaged still. It has 19 Hull, of 25.
They’re blacklisted from taking jobs on Bollux because they botched their first one for the corporations.
They now have a bounty on them because word got out that they found an under the table job.
So each session they spend on the planet will gain them a new rival.
Rival encounters are rolled each session. If you roll equal to or less than the number of rivals you have on a d6, then instead of doing a job, you are now fighting a rival.
Which can make you fail the job if it needs to be completed during that session.
They had 2 rivals already. A third one would raise the odds to 50% that there would be a rival encounter.
So the crew made an important decision. One that was really risky.
They decided to leave the planet with their damaged ship.
They still had most of the fuel from their last attempt to leave. So they only paid 1 credit to top it off.
But here’s the thing...
If you try to leave a planet with a damaged ship, the ship takes 3d6 damage due to the weakened hull.
The max that can be rolled would be 18. And they have 19 Hull.
And then there’s the Travel Event Chart, where they could take damage from an asteroid or something.
So they threw caution to the wind and decided that staying here longer would be a worse fate.
They took off, and I rolled for damage.
And got 15.
Their Hull was knocked down to 4.
Then came the Travel Event roll.
And I got ‘uneventful trip’.
They had made it!
The crew arrives on Summer.
I roll to see if any Rivals followed, and one did- the Security Bots.
I also roll to get an idea of what Summer is like and get Interdiction.
They must leave the planet in 1d3 turns unless they succeed at a roll to obtain a permit.
They have 3 campaign turns.
They pay 1 credit for the crew upkeep.
Then pay 2 credits towards their debt, which goes up 1 more. Debt is now 6 credits.
Ship Hull is repaired by one point for free, and they spend 2 more credits for more repairs.
Hull is now at 7.
Credits remaining - 0
The crew sets out to do some tasks...
Wynston will look for a job,
Drake and Xandra will do some trading, and Gerard will look for a recruit to fill their ranks back up.
Wynston doesn’t find them a job.
Drake and Xandra manage to get a Med Patch. They also get some scraps that they turn around and resell for 1 credit profit.
Credits -1
Gerard finds a new recruit - Kivani, a human.
I had forgotten that new crew gains them a credit.
And since Drake and Xandra both joined after the pirate attack, they would still have 2 credits more.
So when they gain Kivani, I added 3 credits to their total.
Credits 4.
They give Kivani the Shotgun from the stash.
Renee uses the Med Patch and is returned to active duty.
Before they get a chance to look for an opportunity mission, I roll for Rival battle and I get a yes. There is a Rival battle.
Since they only have one here at the moment, it’s the Security Bots.
The battle with the Security Bots was another Raid.
For this session, I decided to play with physical minis.
I don't have any terrain, so a lot of real world items were used as proxies.
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| Their ship is state of the art |
The fight lasted a while because everyone did a better job of positioning.
They chose to try to out-reach the bots. The crew had two members with guns that could reach farther than the bots could.
However, midway through the battle, Xandra disappeared. This left Drake as the only member with a long reach.
So they were forced to stay a bot closer so Gerard and Kivani could try to break through with their shotguns.
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| The crew in physical form. (l-r) Gerard, Renee, Wynston, Drake, Xandra and Kivani |
After some time, they did manage to wear the bots out and defeat them without taking any casualties.
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| The persistent Security Bots |
Post-battle:
They collect 6 credits. Total 10 credits now.
And they found a damaged Hunting Rifle, which got added to their stash.
XP-
Gerard gained 4xp
Renee gained 3xp
Wynston gained 3xp
Drake gained 3xp
Xandra gained 3xp
Kivani gained 3xp
Campaign Event - Tax Man.
They are charged 4 credits for taxes.
New total - 6 credits
Character Event - Renee - Hard work
The Hull is repaired by 2 points.
Hull: 9
All in all, not bad for the session. They're still alive, the ship hasn't been destroyed and they're making some money.
We'll see if Summer turns out to be a better place for them than Bollux.
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