Altered & New Mechanics
  1. House Rules

Altered & New Mechanics

This section will cover any mechanics that have been altered from RAW (Rules As Written) or any new mechanics that have been added for the metcampaign.

Alternative Defense for Starships

When a starship performs the Evasive Maneuvers maneuver, in addition to the usual benefits it may add either its handling to its defense rating or half the ranks of piloting rounded up, to a minimum of zero and maximum of 4. This defense stacks with any provided by shields or by talents like Defensive Driving to a maximum of 4. This bonus is negated by the Gain the Advantage action, as with the normal benefits of Evasive Maneuvers.

Ammunition Functionality

In the case of weapons that require crafted ammunition to function the player takes the best of each positive Quality and worst of each negative Quality between the weapon and the ammunition. For example, if the base weapon has Crit 5, Inaccurate 2, Burn 3 and the ammunition has Crit 3, Inaccurate 1, Burn 2, the profile used in the attack would be Crit 3, Inaccurate 2, Burn 3.

Note: All craftable ammunition is usable with all narratively compatible RAW weapons. For example, Simple Projectile Ammunition is wholly compatible with the Corellian Compound Bow, and Solid Projectile Ammunition is compatible with the Arquebus. Smart Projectile Ammunition is meant to be compatible with both “Simple Ranged Weapons” and “Solid Projectile Weapons,” and any RAW weapon that is narratively justified.

When creating ammunition, descriptive language used to indicate what it is for is helpful for both the player and the GM for maintaining in-universe cohesion and believability.

Auto Spend of Despairs When an Ally is Engaged with an Enemy - (F-CRB; 217)

The wording on page 217 in the “Making Ranged Attacks at Engaged Targets” is revised as follows: “In addition, if the attacker’s check succeeds but generates at least [Despair], that [Despair] may be spent to make the attacker hit one of the individuals engaged with the target (of the GM’s choice), in addition to hitting the target.”

This revised wording is to give greater agency to the GM and to remove one of the only situations in the system in which the narrative result invalidates the success of the check.

Blinded Condition and the Blinded Crit - (F-CRB; 225)

When a character is blinded from sources other than the blinded crit (such as total darkness, blindfolds, etc.), the Blinded condition should be applied and is defined as follows: “A blinded character has three setbacks to combat checks and all other characters have 3 Concealment to them.” At GM discretion, the effects of the Blinded Condition can stack with the effects of the Blinded Crit.

Called Shots - (F-CRB; 207)

The Aim manuever's ruling "a specific item carried by the target, or a specific part of the target" can be used to perform non-lethal damage against the target instead. The automatic setbacks from using this ruling still apply. 

Critical Injuries Permanence - (F-CRB; 225)

We want to note that the permanence of any crit is player opt-in and should be discussed between player and GM as crit is issued. Critical injuries of explicit permanence in the crit table, such as the Maimed and Gruesome Injury crits will affect characters for the entirety of the session regardless of if the actual crit is treated on session or not, but the Temple will fully heal any otherwise permanent effects if the player so wishes. This is to foster a community of inclusion and players are reminded that at any time they may discuss with the GM or utilize the X-card on certain language if they are uncomfortable.

Critical Injuries Revisions - (F-CRB; 225)

The following critical injuries now read as follows:

  • Overpowered: The target leaves himself open, and the attacker may immediately hit again with the same weapon, dealing the same damage as the initial successful attack.

This is to remove the volatile nature of Overpowered, which is the only critical injury which can fail to produce a result or potentially even create a worse result for the active character. This change will allow Overpowered to be more consistent and to essentially function as a free version of Linked on any weapon.

  • Gruesome Injury: Roll 1d10 to determine which of the target's characteristics is affected: 1-3 for Brawn, 4-6 for Agility, 7 for Intellect, 8 for Cunning, 9 for Presence, 10 for Willpower. That characteristic is temporarily reduced by 1, to a minimum of 1. This critical injury lasts for two galactic cycles, two sessions, or one session and one galactic cycle (whichever combination occurs first).”

This change is to prevent characters from completely having their XP spends nullified or requiring a cybernetic to repair the damage, while still allowing the critical injury to be impactful. The session that the critical injury is received on does not count towards the two sessions needed to recover from it.

Cybernetics that Grant Skill or Characteristic Improvements -

Clarity on how certain gear may be used, while being in keeping with our intentions, is very important. Even more so in something as "permanent" and personal as cybernetic enhancements/replacements. The rules for cybers are being clarified to make sure our assumptions match your assumptions.

  • The Cybernetic Appendage, or the Cyber Limbs in the CRBs may be used even if only replacing one limb, no pairs required. However, in order to benefit from the +1 to a characteristic from cybernetics, you must replace both limbs.
  • Note that we will look harshly on elective surgery to push a characteristic past 4 and the use of cybernetics in general to push a characteristic past 5. This is a matter of game balance and the Social Contract.
  • You may never use cybernetics to gain more than a single rank of any given skill. You may gain single ranks of multiple skills via multiple cybernetics.

Dark Side & Destiny Points - (F-CRB; 280)

To facilitate a more accessible, inviting, and persuasive Dark Side, when spending Dark Side Results to generate Force Points, the character is not required to spend a Destiny point. Consequently, how many Light Destiny Points there are in the pool has no bearing on the ability to spend Dark Side Results. Players still must suffer strain and conflict as normal.

Defense & Cover - (F-CRB; 207, 213, 219)

Defense from Cover no longer grants a base Defense. Instead, treat Cover as adding defense rather than granting defense. This does not affect the Defense Hard limit of 4.

Defense Hard Limit - (A-CRB Errata)

As is detailed in the Age of Rebellion Errata (Link), no character can have a Defense Rating higher than 4.

Encouraging Words (Errata) - (DoR 112)

This talent has had its language updated from its early printings as of Dawn of Rebellion, the ability to assist on failed checks now extends to short range rather than engaged.

Escalation

Escalation, a house rule where when a roll comes up with a 0 successes result it is re-rolled with both a positive and negative upgrade, is left up to a particular GM in JONE if they would like to implement or not. In general, here is the stance of each GM on escalation - however a GM has the right to not allow escalation on any roll:

  • Yes on escalation - BRD, Bronzy, SFB, Omni, Yako, Biotic, RKM, Puglord,
  • No on escalation - Jackh1

Force Rating Talent and Force Rating Hard Cap - (F-CRB; 143)

The Force Rating Talent now reads as follows: “Force talent. Each rank permanently increases the character's Force rating by 1. This cannot bring Force rating above 4.”

Additionally, Force rating cannot be brought above a 7 by any means. If Force rating would be increased to above a 7 by a combination of items and talents, it instead remains at 7. The only exception to this is the Knowledge is Strength talent, as detailed on Talents & Force Powers.

Hyperdrives, Astromechs & Critical Hits - (F-CRB 250-253)

  • The text on the 'Navicomputer Failure' Critical hit is contradictory with the text in 'Interstellar Travel' in chapter 7 of the core rulebook.  We will rule in favor of the players and allow jumps to lightspeed to be attempted at the increased difficulty detailed in Table 7-13 in the core rulebook.~
  • The text on the 'Navicomputer Failure' Critical hit is contradictory with the text of 'Component Hit' and 'Major Systems Failure' critical hits when cross referenced with table 7-10.
  • A ship that’s only navicomputer is an astromech droid that suffers the 'Navicomputer Failure' Critical hit may still attempt to jump to lightspeed at increased difficulty, and the droid still performs other functions of an astromech droid. 
  • A ship suffering from either the 'Component Hit' or 'Major Systems Failure' critical hits (where the chosen component is the support droid) lose all functions of the astromech droid, including its functions as a navicomputer.
  • The GM is free to use the prescribed difficulties in the core book or the alternative rules presented in Stay on Target to determine the difficulty of checks to jump to lightspeed under these circumstances.
  • A Ship suffering the effects of either the 'Component Hit' or 'Major Systems Failure' critical hits when the chosen component is the Hyperdrive can not jump to lightspeed until the effect is alleviated.
  • Reminder: ships can still dock and jump to lightspeed together.

Healing and Stimpacks - (F-CRB;186)

Stimpacks are drastically changed in this meta-campaign to facilitate a larger emphasis on persistent wounds and Medicine and Force Heal. Stimpack wound recovery is temporary, and will be subtracted from Wound Totals at the end of session. When a character recovers wounds using a Stimpack, the player will record how many wounds they have recovered via the Stimpack. At the end of each session, the player will inform the GM of the total amount of Stimpack healing they have received during the session, and they will then have an opportunity to limit the fallout of the Stimpacks wearing off by rolling a Simple Resilience Check. Each Success on the Resilience Check removes 1 Wound from the total to be subtracted. Each 2 Advantages removes 1 Wound from the total to be subtracted. Each Triumph removes 3 Wounds from the total to be subtracted.

A character cannot be incapacitated as a result of stimpack fall off. If they would otherwise go over threshold, they are instead considered at threshold.

Note: Heal/Harm does count as a use of Stimpack for the purposes of limiting healing, but DOES NOT count towards this end-of-session Stimpack wound subtraction.

Immobilized - (F-CRB; 223)

The Immobilized condition now includes the following: “In addition to being unable to perform maneuvers, an immobilized character cannot voluntarily move by any non-maneuver sources, such as out-of-turn incidentals or actions.”

Ion Weaponry

Ion weaponry does no damage to living beings, but will shut down any external cybernetics until the end of the encounter on a hit that goes through a character’s Soak and any other damage-nullifying abilities (Parry, Protect, Reflect, etc). Cybernetics may be reactivated with a Hard (PPP) Mechanics check, or a Daunting (PPPP) Mechanics check if performed by the character whose cybernetic has been shut down.

Morality

Morality in JONE works differently from RAW. Potential morality gain shall be set by the tone of the session, representing the overall surroundings and environment for growth. Players will keep track of what throughout the course of the session are the sources of conflict as a result of their actions and at the end of the session determine their conflict appropriately. See Session Morality for the full system

Pull / Push

Pull and Push is a new power for JONE that allows the user to manipulate the movement of targets. The Force power and its an entire tree can be found here.

Second Specialization and Additional Career Skills

If, when purchasing a second and beyond specialization, a character already has one or more of the "Additional Career Skills" as a career skill, they may select one of the Career Skills instead and record that as a career skill for the character.

For example, a character that starts with Jedi Padawan as their initial career and specialization purchases Protector as their second specialization. They already have Athletics as a career skill, one of the skills they would normally gain as an Additional Career Skill. Rather than only getting three career skills from their specialization purchase, they consult the Guardian Career Skills and select Brawl to replace Athletics, gaining a total of four career skills.

Strain Recovery via Advantage Spend - (F-CRB; 212, 227)

When spending advantage in combat to recover strain per Table 6-2, a player may spend a maximum of three advantage results to recover strain. When making an end of encounter strain recovery roll, advantage results may be spent to recover strain.

Stun (Active) Weapon Quality

Weapons can not have their stun quality brought beyond 6 by any means.  Any weapons that innately have higher ratings are not decreased, but can not receive further increases. This change is in accordance with the requests of players and GMs to keep numbers more sane across the board.

Thrown Melee Weapons

Some weapons are ostensibly “throwable,” yet are not actually throwable by any means, as per RAW. This campaign wants to change that. Melee weapons may be thrown using the Ranged Light Skill or other skill as determined by the GM based on the situation, using the same profile as their melee, but with a default range of Short. The difficulty of this check will follow all rules for Ranged Attacks, with the difficulty of the check increased by 1.

Transmogrify - (UP; 33)

To clear up any vaguity in the language of talent’s long text, when crafting alchemical templates or other crafting rolls that would include Force Dice as a function of the craft, not transmogrify, one may still spend Force Points to generate Force before the GM uses the Dark Side Force Points to determine the flaws of the the items

Cap on Additional Triggers of the Critical Rating (FnD CRB pg. 165)

Given the easy access of characters to low critical rating weapons, in order to keep the game balanced and enjoyable for all participants, the following sentence is added to the end of the second paragraph under "Critical Rating": A character may trigger the critical rating of the weapon a maximum number of three times after the initial trigger, for a total of +30 to the Critical Injury roll before modifiers. Modifiers such as Vicious and Lethal Blows would apply as normal.