SWN Rules Explained: How the Warrior Class Works in Stars Without Number

Star Master Log

May 28

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Brian breaks down the warrior class from Stars Without Number, using Haleyy and Robert's infiltration of the exocyte in "Pick Up the Box" as a case study. He covers the class's attack bonus, hit point advantages, and guaranteed hit ability, then digs into how burst fire stacks with the gunslinger focus and why the unarmed combatant focus makes Haleyy's bare fists outpace a burst-fire combat rifle.

He covers:

(00:00) Introduction
(00:45) Episode overview: "Pick Up the Box"
(01:28) The Warrior Class
(03:20) The Warrior's Auto-Hit Ability
(05:16) Burst Fire and the Gunslinger Focus
(06:48) The Unarmed Combatant Focus
(08:19) Shock Damage

SWN Rules Explained drops every other Thursday, breaking down the mechanics behind Dark Star Adventurecast episodes.

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[00:00:00] Brian: Greetings, AdventureCast fans! Welcome back to Stars Without Number, Rules Explained, the miniseries where we go behind the narrative and take a look at the game mechanics that make a Dark Star AdventureCast episode tick. As usual, I'll be your host, Assistant Star Master and occasional backup Game Master, Brian. While your average AdventureCast episode is presented fiction first, this series gives us a chance to peek behind the scenes and pull apart the rules and rulings that determine how a session plays out. I'll break things down and give specific reference points to the rulebooks so listeners who are interested in the mechanical aspects of Stars Without Number and other tabletop systems can dig deeper into how the rules of a system affect the game that you play.
[00:00:45] Brian: The content from today's segment is inspired by the events of the latest Adventurecast episode, Pick Up the Box. The crew gears up to infiltrate the alien exocyte for a second time. This time, the fate of their friends and everyone at the auction might just be in their hands. If you haven't already listened to it, you should go check it out. The two soldiers in the group, Haley and Robert, take point in this episode. So what better time to talk about the warrior class in Stars Without Number? I'll talk about the class itself and what sets it apart from the others. I'll give some insight on the burst fire option of weapons and the unarmed combatant focus and how they make Robert and Haley so deadly. And I'll touch a little bit on shock damage and how that works.
[00:01:28] Brian: So if you've listened to my previous segments, I've talked a couple of times about the expert class in Stars Without Number and the benefits that experts get, but now I want to give more insight on what makes the warrior class stand out. You can find the details for the abilities of the warrior class in the Stars Without Number revised book on page 18. Essentially, the Stars Without Numbers system has three primary classes. The Expert, who focuses on succeeding on skill checks outside of combat, the Warrior, who specializes in dealing and surviving damage, and the Psychic, which gets access to special abilities that we'll cover in a future segment. Just like the Expert gets access to extra non-combat skills and foci at character creation, the Warrior gets extra combat skills and foci in equal measure.
[00:02:19] Brian: This lets warrior players choose to flavor their character with abilities that line up with the vision that they're going for. Maybe they're a sniper who attacks from long range, an armsman who is skilled with blades, a gunslinger who can draw their weapon in a flash, or an unarmed combatant who lets their fists do the talking. The full list of foci is on page 20 of the Stars Without Numbers revised book, and they're a big part of what makes two characters unique from each other. On top of the extra skills and foci, the warrior class gets two extra hit points every level and an improved attack bonus compared to the other classes. 2 HP might not sound like much, but after a few levels it becomes a significant difference in the survivability of the warrior compared to non-warriors. There's also a focus called Die Hard that can take this even further and give your character another two additional hit points per level. Sometimes the best offense is a good defense, and the best defense is just having a ton of health.
[00:03:20] Brian: A character that makes an attack in combat rolls a d20 and adds their relevant combat skill and their attack bonus. The full rules for how to run combat encounters start on page 48 of the Stars Without a Number revised rulebook. While experts and psychics have an attack bonus equal to half their level, a warrior's attack bonus is equal to their level. So that's essentially double the attack bonus of the other classes. It goes a long way to making sure the warriors have the best chance to deal out damage. But even with great stats, sometimes the dice just aren't in your favor. Luckily, the warriors have an ability for helping with that too. The warrior has a class ability that allows them to make one attack roll of theirs automatically hit or make one attack against them automatically miss once per scene in combat. So this is in contrast to the expert's ability, where the expert can choose to re-roll a skill check, the warrior just makes an attack automatically hit or miss. Warriors are considered extra lucky in combat, so sometimes an attack that seemed sure to miss will actually find its mark.
[00:04:11] Brian: We joked about this ability in this week's episode of the AdventureCast because of how useful and impactful it can be. If a warrior is getting beaten up, a use of this ability to make an enemy's finishing blow go wide can turn the entire fight around. Not to mention the possibility of circumventing any additional combat altogether by turning their own misses into hits. When Robert goes for a snipe shot on the cultist at the door of the exo site from a distance, a miss could have drastically changed how the infiltration went down. The two unsuspecting cultists inside might have been warned about us and we could have had a huge firefight on our hands. Instead, Robert decides to turn his bad roll into a hit and we're able to begin sneaking inside undetected.
[00:05:16] Brian: Once we were in and started proper combat with the cultists, we saw Haley and Robert working as two sides of the metaphorical warrior coin. Robert uses his great dexterity combined with the burst fire option of his weapon to get insane rolls to hit. The 15 AC cultists were feeling confident in their armor until Robert rolls a 27 to hit. On page 67 of the Stars Without a Number Revised rulebook, there's a table that lists all the ranged weapons you might run into in your adventures. Some of those weapons, like the combat rifle that Robert uses, are listed as having this burst fire option. A character wielding one of these weapons can choose to fire multi-round bursts that chew through ammo more quickly, but also provide an additional plus two to attack rolls and damage rolls. On a weapon that already deals 1d12 base damage, this means that many basic enemies aren't surviving even a single turn against it. It does use more ammo than normal, so there is a downside, but if you have easy access to more power cells, or if you just need combat to end sooner rather than later, the cost to benefit is well worth it. And if that's not enough damage for you, Robert also has the gunslinger focus that allows him to add his shoot skill level to the damage of his shots as well. All told, his rifle is regularly attacking with a plus five to hit for 1d12 plus five damage.
[00:06:48] Brian: Haley, on the other hand, is our close quarters fighter. I believe she has canonically punched a hole straight through multiple foes, and she trains her fists by punching steel girders back on the Scapegoat, much to Felix's chagrin. This flavor for Haley's character comes from her taking the unarmed combatant focus at character creation. Normally, fighting with your bare hands is a last-ditch effort, or a way to deal with someone non-lethally. Attacking unarmed normally only deals 1d2 damage, plus the attacker's strength bonus and punch skill level. The full details are in the Melee Weapons section on page 68 of the Stars Without a Number revised book. With the unarmed combatant focus, Haley's fists suddenly do a whopping 1d6 plus 1 damage at punch 0 and a plus 1 strength bonus. As the character's punch skill increases, so does the damage die of their attacks. So at punch 2, Haley's bare fists are doing 1d10 plus 3 damage on a hit and potentially 3 shock damage on a miss. On top of that, the focus makes her fists count as melee weapons for the purposes of impeding the ranged attacks of other characters, as described on page 50 of the rules under Make a Ranged Attack. When looking at the specifics of this focus, it's easy to see how she was able to out-damage a burst-fire rifle in this week's episode, and why the crew has such reverence for her skills in hand-to-hand combat.
[00:08:19] Brian: On page 49 of the Stars Without a Number revised rules, the text mentions shock, a type of damage that is dealt by most melee weapons that represents little scrapes and cuts that can occur in battle, even if an attack roll was counted as a miss. The melee weapons table on page 68 gives the amount of shock damage that the weapon does plus the character's relevant attribute bonus and the maximum AC that the shock damage can affect. If a target has an AC equal to or less than the value listed, then they take that damage even if the attack misses. If the attack hits, it will never do less damage than the shock damage. The unarmed combatant focus gives Haley's fist a shock value equal to her punch skill versus AC-15. So even on a miss, she's still dealing some damage to most enemies.
[00:09:17] Brian: When the Stars Without Number rules describe the attack action, it's usually not just a single pull of the trigger or a single punch or kick. It's a short barrage of shots or blows that are represented mechanically by a single roll. And because of that, the shock rules allow you to get creative in the fiction with how a combat exchange might play out.
[00:09:24] Brian: Thanks for listening, but with that we have reached the end of our segment for this week. I hope you found some parts of this breakdown useful to running or playing your own games using Stars Without Number. Be sure to check out the full rules text in the book before making any rulings or decisions at your own table. I appreciate all the support and feedback that I've gotten on this segment. If you want to leave your thoughts or if you have rules or rulings questions that you're interested in hearing more about, drop us a line on our Patreon or on Reddit. If you like bonus content, stay tuned to the Dark Star Adventure Cast feed, because next week will be the latest Star Master log, where Jeff goes into detail about his designs and machinations when running our games. This week, he'll be talking about what it means to be unhallowed or untethered, what's the deal with Percy the Cat, and more. Thank you so much to everyone who listens and supports us, and until next time, keep following that signal.