Ship Captain and Battleships

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Ship Captain

"Did You Hear me? We're not taking evasive action! Point the bow towards the enemy flagship!"-Daitetsu Minase, captain of the Hagane


HD:8

Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Feature	Maneuvers Known	Stances Known
1	+0	+0	+0	+2	Battleship,  Maneuvers, Crew, Leader	1	1
2	+1	+0	+0	+3	Spirited	2	1
3	+1	+1	+1	+3	Bonus Feat	3	1
4	+2	+1	+1	+4	Custom Ship I	4	1
5	+2	+1	+1	+4	Spirit	4	2
6	+3	+2	+2	+5	1st Distinguished Officer	5	2
7	+3	+2	+2	+5	Custom Ship II	6	2
8	+4	+2	+2	+6	Spirit	7	2
9	+4	+3	+3	+6	Bonus Feat	8	2
10	+5	+3	+3	+7	Custom Ship III	9	2
11	+5	+3	+3	+7	Spirit	9	3
12	+6	+4	+4	+8	2nd Distinguished Officer	10	3
13	+6	+4	+4	+8	Custom Ship IV	11	3
14	+7	+4	+4	+9	Spirit	12	3
15	+7	+5	+5	+9	Bonus Feat	12	4
16	+8	+5	+5	+10	Custom Ship V	13	4
17	+8	+5	+5	+10	Spirit	14	4
18	+9	+6	+6	+11	Bonus Feat	15	4
19	+10	+6	+6	+11	Custom Ship VI	16	4
20	+10	+6	+6	+12	Legendary Leader	17	4

4 Skill points+int per level, quadruple at 1st level. Class skills: Balance, Concentration, Climb, Diplomacy, Jump, Spot, Listen, Appraise, Intimidate, Knowledge(any), Perform, Sense Motive

Proficiencies: A ship captain  is proficient with simple weapons, martial weapons, firearms and mechas.


Features:
Battleship: The Ship Captain has come in possession of a powerfull battleship by fate or hard work  (the details of which should be discussed with the DM). At 1st level, the Captain has access to a basic battleship. If the battleship is reduced to 0 HP it crashes into the ground, requiring one month of repairs to get it back into working condition. If the Ship Captain is at least 4th level, his crew can put the Ship back into action with just 10 minutes of quick repairs, however it will be three levels lower than  normal  until enough time has passed to fully repair it(including arsenal options).

The Battleship grows in power with its Captain's level as indicated in the battleship section, due to the captain's crew becoming more skilled and the Captain herself having more and more power to get needed supplies.

Maneuvers: The Ship Captain learns maneuvers and stances from the Ships Full of Hope discipline, as well as from one of the Ace Pilot, Burning Spirit, and Into the Danger Zone disciplines. To learn a maneuver of a given level, she must have a Pilot level of twice the maneuver level, minus one.  Her Pilot level is equal to her Ship Captain level plus half her other levels.

Crew: At 1st level, a Ship Captain gains a crew along with their battleship. This crew manages the actual workings of the ship, while the Captain gives the orders, supervises, and shouts a lot. The crew is, for the most part, only experienced at battleship maintenance and controlling.

Leader:At 1st level, the Ship Captain gains Leader as a bonus feat.

Spirited:Starting at 2nd level, each level of Ship Captain increases their maximum number of spirit points by 7. In addition, the Ship Captain learns one spirit, with an additional one learned at 5th level and every three levels therafter.

Spirits can be used as a free action at the begginning of your turn by paying their cost in spirit points (before you take any other action). You recover 5 spirit points per round up to your maximum. You can use multiple spirits in a turn, but only once each kind of spirit. Spirits that trigger in a condition like valor and alert  last 1 minute and then are lost if not triggered untill then.

Spirit List

Bonus Feat:Whenever this ability shows up, the Ship Captain may gain a feat from the list of pilot feats, provided she meets the prerequisites.

Custom Ship: At level 4, the Ship Captain has obtained custom upgrades created by the crew of the ship, or from some kind of patronage with resources to spare, allowing access to Arsenal options. Only one accessory may be used at a time, and only Accessories and Arsenal weapons of up to the level indicated on the Ship Captain table (I at level 4, II at level 7, ect) may be chosen. With one week of work, the Accessory and Arsenal weapons may be changed.

Distinguished Officer: At 6th and 12th level, a member of the Ship Captain's crew has proved his worth, and has been promoted to become an Officer. Treat this officer as a cohort with all levels in the Ship Captain class, with the following exceptions - he uses the Elite Array for base stats, does not gain the Battleship or Custom Ship class features, nor does he gain the "Distinguished Officer" class feature. The first officer's level is the Ship Captain's minus two. The second officer's level is the Ship Captain's minus six. If the Ship Captain is killed, the highest ranking officer immediately gains the lost class features, and may take full command of the Battleship. If the officer takes command of the Battleship, he no longer provides the bonuses he did as an officer since they're too busy commanding the ship. Each officer fills a specific role and provides certain benefits in combat, selected from the list below. No officer type can be chosen more than once. Distinguished Officers may be changed at level up.

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Executive Officer- The Officer can use spirits during combat on the Ship Captain's turn.

Helmsman- For every four Ship Captain levels the officer has, he either increases the Battleship's maneuverability by one level or movement speeds by 10 mu. This configuration can be changed 1/round at the start of the Ship Captain's turn. Additionally, the officer grants a bonus to Balance and Ride checks for the purposes of flying or riding sleds and other objects equal to half his Ship Captain level.

Weapons Officer: The officer grants a to-hit bonus equal to his BaB to all attacks by the Battleship. By reducing this bonus by 5 (cannot reduce below 0), they may change the Main Beam Cannon to Area(Cone) or Area(Explosive) and/or double the Line/Cone length or double the reach of Area (Explosive) or combine two different types of area as long as they're touching each other or the battleship (like a line that ends with a burst as Explosive or two separate lines/cones).

Chief Engineer: The officer reduces the energy cost of each hit to the E-Field by 1/4 his Ship Captain level, plus one. In alternative with one week of work they may instal one extra Acessory of one tier lower they themselves would have access to, or two acessories of two tiers lower each, or three acessories three tiers lower each. Those extra Acessories may be purged off at any time to benefit from the E-Field cost reduction at any time even if it isn't the Battleship's captains turns. Restoring the same acessory configuration takes 8 hours of work, otherwise another week will be needed to change them.

Tactician- Once per round per six Ship Captain levels the officer can use a maneuver he knows which affects your allies that requires a Swift or Immediate action. The energy for this maneuver comes from the Battleship. If you can use this ability at least twice per round, you may consume two uses to perform a maneuver that uses a Standard action instead. If you can use this ability three times per round, you may consume three uses to perform a maneuver that uses a Full action instead. The Ship Captain and Tactician cannot use any maneuver which the other has already used that round. For the purposes of this ability, the officer acts at the same time as the Ship Captain.

Legendary Leader:At 20th level 1/hour as an Immediate action the Ship Captain can make his Leader aura affect all those who can see or hear him, regardless of distance.

Ship Captain ACF

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Combat Commander
Some captains will choose to forego secondary systems to get as many guns as they can on their ships.
Lose: Cannot have or take the Heats feat.
Special: The Battleship counts smaller than it is for the purpose of its Mecha Transport ability, down to small sized. For each size it counts smaller than its actual size, it gains +4 Arsenal space. So for example a gargantuan battleship that counted as medium for transport capacity would gain +12 arsenal space. The E-Field, anti-air guns, missile batteries and main beam cannons may be sacrificed too, gaining +4 arsenal space for each. Once this decision is made it cannot be changed.

Successor Ship
Your battleship is some cutting-edge technology from an ancient alien civilization.
Lose: E-Field, Anti-Air Guns, Main Beam Cannon, cannot have or take the Heats feat.
Gain: Your battleship gains the Distortion Field property and a Gravity Blast. It is a ranged weapon with 300 mu range, dealing 1d10 (B) damage costing 50 energy per shot, crit 17-20x2   and the Area(Line/Burst), Heavy, Power, Rending, Pinning and Concussive properties. For every extra Ship Captain level of the commander of the ship, increase the Gravity Blast damage by 1d10.

Space Colony
All space vessels must provide full living conditions to those inside, but for some providing living conditions is their main function.
Gain: The space colony has an average radius of roughly 6,4 Km/4 miles/3520 mu and an average length of 36 km/22 miles/19360 mu. A space colony cannot be much smaller or bigger without compromising its ability for self-sustenance. Operating at peak condition, a space colony can sustain about 10 million medium humanoids for any amount of time in comfortable conditions. It may theoretically sustain up two 20 million medium humanoids, but living conditions will be significantly worsened and there’s a percentual chance every month equal to the percentual population overcrowd that the colony collapses due to the extra stress (so a colony at 20 million people would have a overcrowd of 100% and result in a 100% chance the colony collapses in 1 month). Going over 20 millions means the overcrowd dies from hunger and riots. A colony with less population can afford to trade basic necessities with an overcrowded colony for services to balance things out, so a colony with 5 million could help sustain a colony with 15 million, assuming they remain no more than 100 miles away from each other. The colony doesn’t take any size penalty to AC. For virtually all pratical purposes, the space colony can be considered hollow and structures may be built inside as well as storing mechas and other supplies.

The colony is so massive and lacks a central power reactor so that even if reduced to 0 HP or lower it doesn’t explode right away but instead it breaks down over a period of 1d12 minutes. During this time it cannot recover HP by any means and is thus doomed, any population that hasn’t evacuated by then somehow will die. The colony can keep taking damage however, and if it reaches negative HP equal to its max before the time is up then it collapses right away. A destroyed colony takes at least 1d12 months to restore regardless of the ability used, assuming the captain survived.

Lose: The ship captain cannot multiclass, and the space colony can only work in space. Movement speed is reduced to 5 mu and never increases with ship captain levels. The space colony has no weapons and can never attack, having been designed for purely civilian purposes, and must rely in separate forces for protection. Should there be any combat inside the colony, ranged attacks that miss their target hit the colony instead automatically. Area attacks used inside always hit the colony as well.

Ship Captain-only Flaws

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LandShip(flaw): Your Battleship is incapable of atmospheric flight, instead having massive wheels that give it a land speed of 60 mu. It can fly with that speed in space (with clumsly maneuverability) thanks to helping thrusters, if it gets there through some method. If it somehow goes to a large body of water, your landship sinks until hitting a solid surface and from there can move at the bottom at half its land speed while taking a -2 penalty to AC and attack rolls.

Seaship(flaw): Your Battleship is incapable of flight, instead having turbines that give it a swim speed of 60 mu only over a liquid surface. It can fly with that speed in space (with clumsly maneuverability) thanks to helping thrusters, if it gets there through some method.

Submarine(flaw): Your Battleship is incapable of flight, instead having underwater turbines that give it a swim speed of 40 mu and takes no penalties for combat underwater. It can fly with that speed in space (with clumsly maneuverability) thanks to helping thrusters, if it gets there through some method.


Floating Fortress(flaw): Your Battleship can only fly in an atmosphere, and will be adrift if somehow taken to space.


Starship(flaw): Your Battleship can only fly in space, and will drop down like a giant rock if placed inside an atmosphere.
 

[Raineh Daze]

You've got Leader listed after Spirited in the text, when it should be the other way around.

[oslecamo]

BattleShips

Battleships are massive mobile bases blistering with weaponry. Altough they have exceptional firepower and armor, their massive bulkyness makes them easy targets, and also makes it hard for  them to fire back at smaller mobile targets. Thus they usually serve as the strong point of a mecha force, backing up smaller units and providing an Intelligence center for officers and support staff. They come in a series of forms, but overall they all follow the same chassis.
Battleship Base Stats

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HP:10+20 per captain level.
DR: 6/- plus +2 per captain level.
Energy Resistance: 3+3 per captain level to Cold, Acid, Fire, Electricity, Sonic.
Save bonus: 1/3 captain level, rounded down.
Natural Armor bonus: 4+ 1/2 Captain level.
Energy:100 by Default
Arsenal Space: 4 by Default. However Arsenal weapons mounted on a battleship deal damage as a medium sized mecha.
Hardpoints: 1 by default. A battleship includes facilities to change its own acessories and recharge its ammo over a period of 8 hours without other activity if no friendly base is available. Those hours need not be consecutive.
Speed: fly 40 mu by default, plus 5 mu per 2 captain levels, clumsy maneuverability. Can hover.
Weapons: All battleships have the following built-in weapons:

Weapon	Range	Attack Bonus	Damage (type)	Ammo	Energy Cost	Critical	Special
Anti-Air Guns	10 mu	+4	1d6(P)	20	-	x2	Defensive
Missile Battery (x2)	100 mu	+2	1d8(B)	10	-	x3	Twin-linked, Pinning, Disarming
Main Beam Cannon	200 mu	+0	1d12(S)	-	15	19-20x2	Area, Heavy, Power, Rending, Pushing, Downfall

For every extra Ship Captain level of the commander of the ship, increase the main beam cannon damage by 1d12, the missile battery damage by 1d8 and the Anti-Air damage by 1d6, and for every two Ship Captain levels increase the attack bonus by +1.
Size: huge by default. A captain may choose to start with a bigger battleship up to colossal size, but this won't grant any mechanical benefit besides being able to carry more mechas, filling a bigger space and bigger size penalty to AC and attack rolls. This decision may be changed whenever another Ship Captain level is gained.

Battleship Special Properties

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All Battleships share the following properties:
Amphibious: All battleships can act underwater whitout problems, but they still use their flight speed with Clumsy maneuverability.
E-Field: All attacks against a Battleship deal only ¾ damage before applying DR, rounded down, but the battleship loses 10 energy every time it is hit. Once per round, the captain can turn off or on this abilty as a free action. The E-Field also automatically turns off if the Battleship's energy drops below 10.
Mecha Transport: A battleship can load and carry one mecha of its own size, or two mechas of one size category smaller, or four mechas of two size categories smaller, and so on. Entering or exiting a battleship is a move action on the part of the mecha. The battleship can prevent  any unfriendlies from entering.
Mobile Base: A Battleship is assumed to have all the necessities to suport a group of mechas and his pilots for at least 1 month in confortable conditions, including repair and medic bays, food and ammo storages, holding and sleep cells, and at least one cafeteria and one entertainment room.
Cumbersome:A Battleship has no limbs capable of fine manipulation. It cannot make attacks of oportunity,  initiate grapples or trip (may still bullrush), but others can initiate trips and/or grapples against it (if a battleship succeeds on a defensive grapple check, it cannot choose to mainain it and the grapple ends). Opponents adjacent to a battleship count it as flat-footed and automatically confirm any threatened critical hits against it.
Cruising Speed:Battleships are expected to travel great distances. As a fullround action they can activate Cruising Speed, upon which their movement speeds are tripled and they don't use up any energy for moving, but cannot perform any other actions but basic movement. Exiting Cruising Speed is a free action.
Down with the Ship: Battleships have no escape pods for the pilot by default due to their nature.

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Reserved.

[oslecamo]

Reserved.

[Fzzr]

Our group was talking about ways to mix up Ship Captain builds, and we found that even though it can do some amount of combat and defense, there aren't really enough ways to distinguish those builds from each other without lots of multiclassing. When talking about ways to make the builds more varied, we came up with the idea of mixing up the Second/Third Officer class feature. Here's what we came up with:


Distinguished Officer

At 6th and 12th level, a member of the Ship Captain's crew has proved his worth, and has been promoted to become an Officer. Treat this officer as a cohort with all levels in the Ship Captain class, with the following exceptions - he does not gain the Battleship or Custom Ship class features, nor does he gain the "Distinguished Officer" class feature. The first officer's level is the Ship Captain's minus two. The second officer's level is the Ship Captain's minus six. If the Ship Captain is killed, the highest ranking officer immediately gains the lost class features, and may take full command of the Battleship. If the officer takes command of the Battleship, he no longer provides the bonuses he did as an officer. Each officer fills a specific role and provides certain benefits in combat, selected from the list below. No officer type can be chosen more than once.

Executive Officer: The Officer can use spirits during combat on the Ship Captain's turn like a passenger in another mecha.

Helmsman: For every four Ship Captain levels the officer has, he increases the Battleship's maneuverability by one level. Additionally, the officer grants a bonus to Balance checks for the purposes of flying equal to half his Ship Captain level.

Weapons Officer: The officer grants a to-hit bonus equal to his BaB to all attacks by the Battleship.

Chief Engineer: The officer reduces the energy cost of each hit to the E-Field by 1/4 his Ship Captain level, plus one.

Tactician: Once per round per six Ship Captain levels the officer can use a maneuver he knows which affects your allies that requires a Swift or Immediate action. The energy for this maneuver comes from the Battleship. If you can use this ability at least twice per round, you may consume two uses to perform a maneuver that uses a Standard action instead. If you can use this ability three times per round, you may consume three uses to perform a maneuver that uses a Full action instead. The Ship Captain and Tactician cannot use any maneuver which the other has already used that round. For the purposes of this ability, the officer acts at the same time as the Ship Captain.


The basic concept is to let the Ship Captain be especially good at various things without making any of them a must-take. A buff-focused build probably wants a Tactician first and then a Chief Engineer or XO depending on how they act in combat. An offensive build will want a Weapons Officer first and then Chief Engineer, Helmsman, or XO. A defensive build will want Chief Engineer first and then Tactician or XO.

Note: Helmsman doesn’t fit cleanly in any of the builds, but we included it because a certain player wants to be able to make a BB surf into the atmosphere on a piece of debris*, which probably requires Perfect maneuverability.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uULjjKgHPkE

[oslecamo]

I quite like that idea. Added your expanded officer list and took the liberty of granting some extra options to each besides the spirit/maneuvers ones.

Although I should point out that

Executive Officer: The Officer can use spirits during combat on the Ship Captain's turn like a passenger in another mecha.

Passengers can no longer use spirits while riding inside unless they have a specific class feature for that. It's been in the intro section for quite some time now, although seems like I forgot to add it to the changelog.

Note: Helmsman doesn’t fit cleanly in any of the builds, but we included it because a certain player wants to be able to make a BB surf into the atmosphere on a piece of debris*, which probably requires Perfect maneuverability.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uULjjKgHPkE

(really need to watch the Macross Frontier movie). That reminds me I've been tinkering with adding Ride to the "New Uses for Old Skills" thread precisely to emulate surfing on asteroids/shields//missiles/other mechas, but now that you mention it Balance kinda fits that too. Well they're both Dex based skills, may as well allow to use either. Let's see if I can finish that today.

Something else I've pondered is if "Atmosphere re-entry" should have their own intro in Exotic Enviroments. It is kinda of a staple of real mecha shows, but in the other hand usually one or two episodes and only lasts a few moments.

[Fzzr]

Oh, I haven't had occasion to have a passenger for a while. Good to know.

Glad you like it! Nice additions, too. That's a cool way to get the new Area variants onto a BB without major shenanigans.

Note: You ended up with an extra [/spoiler] in there. Also, "Inmediate" in the Legendary Leader description should be spelled "Immediate".

[oslecamo]

Cleaned up, thanks.

[Fzzr]

Now that sled/shield riding is a thing, recommend updating Helmsman to read:

For every four Ship Captain levels the officer has, he either increases the Battleship's maneuverability by one level or movement speeds by 10 mu. This configuration can be changed 1/round at the start of the Ship Captain's turn. Additionally, the officer grants a bonus to Balance and Ride checks for the purposes of flying or riding sleds and other objects equal to half his Ship Captain level.

[oslecamo]

Done for the sake of better storywriting.

[YuweaCurtis]

Does first level of Ship Captain give SP?
Do you mean for the hardpoint to be in the basic ship stats when Custom Ship isn't till 4th level?
Distinguished Officer is still 2nd ams 3rd Officer on class chart.
Could be missing it, but the type of area isnt listed on the Battleship's main cannon.
What about Starship Captian spefic feats that alter the battleship being active when they are in seperate mecha?

[oslecamo]

-No.
-Yes, super robots also get hardpoint by default. Custom ship unlocks delayed arsenal access, but you could still fill the hardpoint with, say, civilian clothes.
-Fixed, now named 1st and 2nd Distinguished Officers.
-If no type of area is listed, it defaults to line as per the Area description.
-The feats would still work normally if the captain is away and alive.