Enlarge screen to full size and activate Word Wrap to view this document. THE TIME LORD COMPANION - EXPRESS EDITION SECOND EDITION - REVISED Introduction This is the second edition of this booklet and was designed as a set of rules to allow published adventures from FASA Corporation's Doctor Who Role Playing Game to be used in the Time Lord environment. To do this, the GM controlled characters and pre-generated Player Characters (PC's for short) need to be converted over to the Time Lord game system. This booklet provides the rules, tables, and guidelines to do this. Included in the Appendices are statistics for the Eighth doctor, presented in May 1996 in a made-for-TV movie shown simultaneously in the United States and the United Kingdom. Things new to the second edition of this booklet are a revised set of rules written by the co-creator of the game, Ian Marsh on creating Companions. Also included is Allen Shock's set of rules for creating characters. As this set of rules seem to be more elegant than mine, I have decided to use it instead, but not without some adaptations on my part. Doctor Who Role-Playing Game ©1986 FASA Corporation. All rights reserved. Doctor Who: Time Lord ©1991 Ian Marsh & Peter Darvill-Evans. All rights reserved. "Doctor Who" television series ©1963, 1991 British Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. My thanks go to Mr. Marsh and Mr. Shock for their publication of their rules on the Internet. Both articles are ©1997 and are the property of their respective authors. My spell checker has changed the British spellings of some words so my apologies go to Mr. Marsh and Mr. Shock for any unintentional alterations to their documents. Part I: Converting Characters Abilities The Doctor Who RPG attributes use a Roman numeral which refers to skill levels in the game. The conversion of these attributes is simple. Refer to the Attribute Comparison Chart below for each attribute and take the Roman numeral skill level and write its Arabic equivalent in the appropriate location on the Time Lord character sheet. If the converted skill level is higher than the "racial maximum" or lower than the "racial minimum" (see Ability Maximums chart in part II) reduce the score to the "racial maximum" or raise the score to the "racial minimum". Statistic Comparison Chart Doctor Who Time Lord Strength (STR) Strength (STR) Endurance (END) Not used in conversion Dexterity (DEX) Control (CTR) Charisma (CHA) Weight (WGT) Mentation (MNT) Knowledge (KNO) Intuition (INT) Determination (DET) Action Points (AP)/2 Move** (MOV) For example, John is converting the Professor to Time Lord (the Professor appears in the Doctor Who RPG module The Lords of Destiny) and needs to convert the DEX attribute to Time Lord. Looking at the score, John sees that the Professor has a skill level of IV. Remembering his basic Roman numeral/Arabic conversion, John writes down a 4 on the Time Lord character sheet on the Control portion of the sheet. Awareness and Size have no Doctor Who RPG equivalent. Roll a single die each for the Awareness and Size abilities and write the results on the Time Lord character sheet. Remember that if the score is higher than the racial maximum or lower than the racial minimum you must raise or lower the score to the minimum or maximum as appropriate. Doctor Who RPG Action Points are done slightly different from the rest of the statistics. Action Points are the only Doctor Who RPG attribute that does not use Roman numerals. This makes it even easier to convert, with one exception. Take the Action Point rating and divide it by two, and round up. In Time Lord, the maximum possible Move is 4. If the Action Point rating is 4 or greater after being divided by two, then the result is 4. Special Abilities In Time Lord, special abilities are based off of a controlling ability and modify the controlling ability by the special ability's score. The Doctor Who RPG uses a percentile system whose skills are not necessarily modified by a controlling attribute. The Doctor Who RPG masks these percentage numbers with a skill level presented in Roman numerals. Convert these skill levels by converting the Roman numeral to Arabic. After converting the skills in the Doctor Who RPG over to Time Lord, examine each skill and decide what ability in Time Lord they should modify. As an option, take the Doctor Who RPG skill, find a Time Lord special ability that comes close to duplicating the original skill, and use it instead at the level of the original Doctor Who skill. The special ability chart below provides a sample list of Doctor Who RPG skills and the Time Lord controlling ability they should be based off of (these skills are from the FASA Doctor Who RPG module The Lords of Destiny). Special Ability Chart Doctor Who Time Lord Administration Awareness Artistic Expression Awareness Gaming Awareness Leadership Awareness Public Performance Awareness Streetwise Awareness Verbal Interaction Awareness Armed Combat Control Carousing Control Unarmed Combat Control Life Sciences Knowledge Medical Sciences Knowledge Military Sciences Knowledge Environmental Suit Operation Knowledge Physical Sciences Knowledge Security Procedures Knowledge Social Sciences Knowledge Space Sciences Knowledge Technology Knowledge Temporal Science Knowledge Trivia Knowledge Vehicle Operation Knowledge *This is only a partial listing of Doctor Who RPG skills. All final rulings are determined by the GM. Combat Statistics The Doctor Who RPG combat skills are more specific than those used in Time Lord. Doctor Who RPG skills are identical to all other Doctor Who RPG skills and are converted in the same way, but with the added step of dividing the result by two and rounding up (similar to Action Points). All Doctor Who RPG combat skills are based off the Time Lord Control ability. Weapons and Armor Weapons and armor in the Time Lord game have been designed with the simplicity of the game in mind. The Doctor Who RPG weapons and armor should therefore use Time Lord's rules for weapons and armor. It is up to the GM to decide what damage the weapons do, and how much damage the armor provides. Usually a damage or protection rating is given, and the GM can extrapolate from that. It is highly recommended that the GM use the safe combat rules given in the Time Lord rule book. Recovery and Wounds For recovery and healing, use the rules provided in Time Lord. The rules in Time Lord do not provide for the Gallifreyan ability to regenerate. Part II provides a usable set of rules for Time Lord regeneration. Part II: Character and Creature Creation Overview The impetus for the second edition of this work was the downloading of two documents on Time Lord character creation from the Internet. The first document, written by Ian Marsh, one of the designers of Time Lord is a clarification of the companion creation rules presented in Time Lord. The second, written by Allen Shock, is a neater version of my original character creation system. Each of these systems can be found in the appendices, but these systems are too good not to use. To those who look carefully, portions of each character creation system will be seen in this work, especially Mr. Shocks character generation system, which provides for the creation of Gallifreyan PC's that Mr. Marsh's lacks. Mr. Marsh's starting equipment and experience systems were found to be very useful and were incorporated into this work. Characters Players create characters by purchasing abilities, special abilities, and equipment (if desired). If the character to be created is a companion, that character receives a total of 170 points to spend as desired. If the character is a Time Lord, then that character receives 235 points to spend as desired. The abilities are purchased according to the chart below, with Abilities being purchased first, Special Abilities second, and equipment last. Ability Point Cost Chart Level Cost Notes 1 1 2 4 3 9 Maximum level for Special Abilities 4 16 5 25 6 36 Maximum level for human Abilities* 7 49 Maximum level for Gallifreyan Knowledge and Determination 8 64 9 81 10 100 *See Ability Maximums Chart The following chart shows the minimum and maximum values for Humans and Gallifreyans. Ability Maximums Chart Ability Minimum Maximum* Notes Strength 2 5 2 = child, 5 = strongman Control 1 6 2 = klutz, 6 = daredevil acrobat Size 2 5 2 = a giant, 5 = a child or dwarf Weight 3 4 3 = small adult, 4 = large adult Move 1 4 1 = crippled, 4 = sprinter Knowledge 2 6 2 = primitive, 6 = genius Determination 1 6 1 = subservient, 6 = obsessive Awareness 1 6 1 = not in tune with surroundings 6 = sensitive to surroundings *The maximums for Gallifreyan characters are identical to humans except for the Knowledge and Determination attributes, which can reach a level of 7. Restrictions The Cheat Death special ability can only be purchased by PC's if they have Strength of 4 or less, and the total Ability (Strength + Cheat Death) cannot exceed 5. There are certain Special Abilities (Regenerative Powers, for example) that the GM may not wish humans to have. The GM has the final say on which Abilities can be purchased. This same restriction can also apply to Gallifreyans as well. Equipment Characters start with a set of clothing and nothing else. To acquire equipment, characters purchase them in a manner similar to abilities. Equipment generally is not a cost-effective purchase as there generally will be no use for things like money. Characters can also spend points to purchase status, such as rank within an organization such as UNIT. These organizations may also require that the character purchase other items like passes. The following is the list of equipment costs with examples. 1-point ability: Common everyday items. Examples: Golden star of mathematical excellence, Bag of Jelly Babies, Penknife. 2-point ability: A useful item of some worth. Examples: Hunting knife, Binoculars, Radio. 3-point ability: An item of notable worth or a low position of authority. Examples: Melee weapons such as a sword, Projectile weapons like a bow, rank of sergeant. 4-point ability: A valuable item or a position of moderate responsibility. Examples: Security pass for UNIT, reliable guns, rank of captain. 5-point ability: An exceptionally valuable item or a position of power. Examples: Item like the sonic screwdriver, national head of UNIT, presidency. Unused Abilities A character need not be generated using all his abilities; some may be held unspent to gain an appropriate skill when the player needs. This helps reflect an inherent talent for a subject that the character has never tackled before. Experience Time Lord characters should advance their skills only slowly as gaining even one point in ability represents a great leap in skill. To this end, at the end of each adventure, a player may make one roll of the dice to increase one of his character's special abilities by one point. If the player chooses not to roll the dice at the end of one adventure, it increases his chance of learning at the end of a subsequent adventure. The basic object is to beat the difference between the number of adventures a character has gone without making an experience roll and the desired total ability. After a player makes an experience roll, regardless of whether it succeeds or fails, the number of adventures resets to 0. Each time a character successfully makes an experience roll, the difficulty to make the next roll increases by 1. This penalty is cumulative. Example: Patrick has Knowledge 4 and wishes to learn Cybernetics 1 after a close call with the Cybermen in his first adventure. He must beat a difference of 4 to learn the ability (desired total ability is 5). If he waited until the end of his second adventure, he would need to beat a difference of 3. At all times, the GM decides when an adventure concludes and experience rolls can be made. No more than one special ability can be improved per roll. Common abilities may never be increased in this manner. If the experience roll is for an ability which is not appropriate to the adventure, the GM should increase the difficulty of succeeding at the experience roll. Gallifreyan Regeneration In the Time Lord game, Regenerative Powers is probably the most important Time Lord ability for Time Lords. The rules, although providing for the ability of regeneration, do not provide a satisfactory resolution to the success of the Regenerative Powers test. After regeneration, the Time Lord character will be somewhat weak from the regeneration process. Roll the dice and find the difference on the chart below and reduce the common abilities of the Time Lord character by the amount shown on the Regeneration Effects Chart. This decrease is temporary. Beat a difference of 3 once per adventure to restore the abilities to their normal levels. Regeneration Effects Chart Difference STR WGT CON SIZ KNO DET AWR MOV 0 -0 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -0 1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -0 2 -2 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -2 -1 3 -2 -2 -1 -1 -1 -2 -2 -1 4 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -3 -2 5 -2 -2 -2 -2 -3 -3 -3 -2 Occasionally, a Time Lord's skills will disappear and new ones will appear with the change in personality of a Time Lord. To achieve this, roll the dice. The difference is the number of skills that disappear to be replaced by new ones. There are certain skills that are central to a Time Lord and cannot disappear from the character's sheet. These skills are listed below. The player chooses new skills to replace the old ones. These skills may not appear on the previous version of the Time Lord (the one that just regenerated). If they have appeared on older versions of the same character, they can be used on the new version. Assign the values from the old abilities to the new abilities chosen by the player. Non-replaceable Time Lord Special Abilities Strength: Cheat Death, Iron Constitution, Regenerative Powers* Control: Bench Thumping, Sleight of Hand, Stealth Move: Running Knowledge: Electronics, First Aid, MacGuffin, Medicine, Pseudoscience, Science, TARDIS Determination: Indomitable Will Awareness: Striking Appearance *Can be replaced with Absorb Form. See below. A Time Lord may regenerate a maximum of twelve times in this manner. If a thirteenth regeneration is attempted, the Time Lord dies. The sole exception to this is the special ability Absorb Form, originally available only to The Master. This ability is available to unscrupulous Time Lords only after attaining the twelfth and final regeneration and only if the Time Lord can track down The Master. If a Time Lord character chooses to take Absorb Form, that character will lose the Regenerative Powers special ability and replace it with Absorb Form at level 1. Once per adventure, the Time Lord with Absorb Form must beat a difference of 1 to retain the body he inhabits or else he must attempt a transfer to another body using Absorb Form. Failure of the transfer will kill the character. Also note that the newest incarnation of The Master (in the Doctor Who movie) suffered from this same problem and this rule should apply to all incarnations of this character. Creatures Not In The Time Lord Rule Book The GM creates aliens by using the rules presented earlier in this section. Aliens get 200 points by which they can purchase abilities and special abilities. Sometimes (often) the alien will have natural weaponry (claws, spines, etc.). Natural weapons have an equipment cost of 2 points per weapon, compared to 4 for reliable weapons such as blasters (which some aliens have in addition to their natural weapons). Any other weapons cost the amounts given in the Equipment paragraph of the Character Creation rules. Play balance is a must, so these creatures should be playtested before being used in a campaign. Appendix A Characters From The Doctor Who Movie The Eighth Doctor Character: Eighth Doctor Player: Apparent Age: Mid 30's Species: Human/Gallifreyan Hybrid Equipment: Bag of Jelly Babies, Sonic Screwdriver, Pocket Watch, TARDIS Key Abilities and Special Abilities Strength: 4. Cheat Death 2, Iron Constitution 2, Regenerative Powers 1 Control: 4. Bench Thumping 1, Leaping 1, Sleight of Hand 2, Stealth 2 Size: 3 Weight: 4 Move: 3. Running 1 Knowledge: 7. Computing 1, Detective Powers 1, Electronics 2, First Aid 1, MacGuffin 2, Medicine 2, Pseudoscience 2, Science 2, TARDIS 2, Temporal Science 2 Determination: 6. Indomitable Will 1, Strong Passion 2 (Grace Holloway) Awareness: 5. Intuition 1, Striking Appearance 1 Description: The eighth Doctor borrows a lot of personality traits from the fourth Doctor with a dash of the sixth Doctor thrown in. Dressed in a dark coat with brown pants and black shoes, this incarnation of the Doctor is of a serious mind when performing a task but when necessary, can affect a disarming personality similar to the fourth incarnation, including the Jelly Babies. Unlike the other incarnations, the eighth Doctor is half human. Upon exiting the TARDIS on New Year's Eve of 1999, the seventh Doctor was shot, taken to a hospital to be worked on by doctors and, subsequently, died there. When this incarnation died, a microscopic camera was left within the body. In the morgue, the seventh Doctor's body underwent regeneration. As the doctor remarked later, the anesthesia almost inhibited the regeneration process. Somehow, the combination of the anesthesia and the microscopic camera altered the regeneration process enough to change the Doctor's body from a full Gallifreyan to a Human/Gallifreyan hybrid. In addition, the regeneration process has brought to the surface the Doctor's romantic side. rather than being protective of his companions, he might become personally involved with them instead of maintaining a protector/charge relationship like his other selves. Grace Holloway Character: Grace Holloway Player: Apparent Age: Mid 30's Species: Human Equipment: Medical Kit, Cellular Telephone Abilities and Special Abilities Strength: 3. Cheat Death 2 Control: 4. Dancing 1 Size: 3 Weight: 3 Move: 3. Running 1, Driving 2 Knowledge: 5. First Aid 2, Medicine 2, Poisons 1, Science 2, Computing 1, Law 1 Determination: 3. Indomitable Will 1 Awareness: 5. Intuition 2, Con 1, Eloquence 1, Musicianship 1 (Piano), Bureaucracy 1 Description: Grace Holloway was the surgeon working on the Doctor when he died. A few days later, the Doctor, in his new incarnation, found her and talked with her about the Master. After seeing the effects of the Master's handiwork on Earth, she agreed to help him on his quest to stop the Master. As a surgeon, Grace has very good medical capability and can readily handle herself in just about any situation, no matter how outlandish. Most of her skills are geared towards medical pursuits as she has spent a lot of time as a surgeon. Most of her other skills were enhanced by her adventures with the doctor. Grace Holloway normally appears wearing a beige blouse and pants with gray shoes. She also wears a brown coat. Appendix B Clarifications To Time Lord Rules Appendix 1: Creating Companions Here are the new rules presented by Ian Marsh for creating companions. These rules supersede the rules presented in the Time Lord rule book. Sections of these rules and the rules in Appendix C were integrated into the character generation system presented in Part II. Appendix C Alternate Character Creation System This is the other character creation system from which the character generation system presented in Part II was derived. Both available on the Internet at the Doctor Who RPG home page at: http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~type40/who-rpg.html