Appendix C — Vehicles

Vehicles are entities which can be Piloted by Characters. This can include typical vehicles such as cars and space-ships, but also includes mounts such as horses, and remote-controlled entities. Vehicles do not get their own turns in combat. To take Actions in combat, their Pilot must allocate their Actions to the Vehicle. That is, a Pilot can use their Movement to move the Vehicle, their Main Action to use the Vehicle's weapons, and likewise for any other actions the Vehicle may have.

Vehicles have their own stats that define them, similar to Characters. This includes Maximum Health, Hit Points, Ability Scores, Weapons, Armor, and Feats. There are two classes of Vehicle: Agile and Throttled. Agile Vehicles have a Speed, similar to Characters. Throttled Vehicles tend to be faster, but instead of having a Speed, they have a Max Speed, Acceleration, and Turn Speed.

Damage and Repair

Every vehicle has its own Max HP and HP. Damage works similar to how it does with Characters. If a Vehicle is below zero Hit Points, it is inoperable and cannot be given Actions. Vehicles that are organic, or otherwise self-repairing can regain health on their own via Rest. Vehicles that cannot self-heal require a Character to repair them. Repairing has the same requirements as Resting, but the Character can use a different relevant Ability for making the Heal Check. A Character cannot Rest while repairing, essentially allocating their Rest to the Vehicle as they do with Actions. If a Vehicle's Hit Points drop to the negative of its Maximum Health, it is destroyed and cannot be repaired.

Abilities

For each of the twelve Abilities, a Vehicle can have a Score, an Adjustment, or a Blank. When an Action is allocated to the Vehicle, or when the Vehicle is Targeted, these determine what is rolled for the Check. For an Ability with a Score, the Vehicle uses that Ability Score regardless of the Pilot's own. For an Ability with an Adjustment, the Vehicle uses the Pilot's Score, but adds an Adjustment to the Check. For an Ability with a Blank, the Vehicle will automatically fail any Checks that require it.

Movement

Agile Vehicles

Agile Vehicles are those that are relatively low-speed and high-maneuverability. They have a Speed stat like a Character would have, though typically much faster. They can be allocated their Pilot's Movement, and can move exactly as a Character can.

Throttled Vehicles

Throttled Vehicles move significantly faster, and as such, cannot stop or turn anywhere near as rapidly as the Agile Vehicles. Instead of having a Speed, Throttled Vehicles have a Max Speed, Acceleration, and Turn Speed. When in combat, they also have a Current Speed, and will be pointed in one of the eight grid directions.

The eight grid directions consist of the four cardinal grid directions and the diagonals between them. Each of these eight directions is called an Angle, and when you turn, you must turn to one of the two Angles that is closest.

Any number of times per Round, as part of Movement, the Pilot can turn the Vehicle. The Vehicle can be turned one Angle in either direction. Once a Vehicle has been turned, it must move forward before it can be turned again. Vehicle will have a Turn Speed of between 0 and 4, which determines the number of Angles away from where it started the Round it can be turned to at any point.

Once per turn, as part of a Movement, the Pilot can Accelerate or Decelerate. In doing so, they can add or subtract up to the Vehicle's Acceleration to the Current Speed. The Vehicle can only move directly forward in the direction it's facing, and must move exactly the distance of its Current Speed. A Throttled Vehicle that is inoperable must always decelerate until it reaches a Current Speed of zero.

Crashing

While an Agile Vehicle can always stop or turn before hitting an obstacle, this may not always be possible for a Throttled Vehicle. An obstacle has a stopping power, the amount of Current Speed it will take from a Vehicle before being pushed out of the way. The Vehicle will be stopped if the stopping power is greater than or equal to its Current Speed. For every 10 Current Speed taken, the obstacle deals 1d8 damage to both the Vehicle and to itself. So for instance, if a brick wall with 100 stopping power is hit by a car with a Current Speed of 150, the car will be slowed to 50 Current Speed, and both it and the wall will take 10d8 damage.

Occupants of the Vehicle are shielded from crashing damage as long as the Vehicle is operable. Any damage dealt beyond that threshold is dealt to the Vehicle and all occupants. For instance, if a car has 15 hp left, and takes 20 damage, the car will now be at -5 hp and all occupants will take 5 damage each.

High-Speed Chases

Often with Throttled Vehicles, the speeds involved would have the Vehicles leaving any reasonably sized battle maps within a round or two. To combat this, High-Speed Chases are treated differently.

A High-Speed Chase is initiated when multiple Throttled Vehicles are in Combat, moving at roughly the same Speed and Direction. When this happens, we can have the battle map follow the chase to keep things contained. During High-Speed Chases, one of the cardinal directions must be chosen by the GM as the forward direction. This is because the forward-backward directions are treated differently from the side-to-side directions.

At the start of every Round, a Standard Speed is set equal to the Players' Vehicle's Current Speed. All Vehicles have a Relative Speed, equal to their Current Speed minus the Standard Speed. Vehicles with a positive Relative Speed cannot move to any space behind them on any step, and Vehicles with a negative Relative Speed cannot move to any space ahead of them on any step.

As with how Current Speed usually works, all Vehicles must move exactly a number of spaces forward or backward equal to their Relative Speed. However, during High-Speed Chases, Vehicles cannot change their Angle away from the forward Angle. Instead, they can move one space left or right. This sideways movement can be used a number of times equal to twice their Turn Speed.