Encounters

Encounters are where the action of the Startroid game takes place, whether the encounter is a life-or-death battle against horrors from beyond the stars, a high-stakes negotiation with two competing employers, or an extended EVA walk along the outside of Arc-Ultimaterra, the last physical object before The Arc.

Encounters serve many purposes. They are the times when Startroid is most like a board game, rather than an exercise in cooperative storytelling. They are when you most often bring your numbers to bear. Even so, they should advance the story of an adventure; just look at what happens to Michael Bay movies when action does no such thing.

In an encounter, either you succeed in overcoming a challenge or you fail and have to face the consequences. When an encounter begins, everyone has something to do, and it's important for the whole group to work together to achieve success (and if you don't have something to do, then the thing you have to do is find something to do!).

Two kinds of encounters occur in most Startroid adventures: combat and noncombat encounters.

Combat Encounters

Combat encounters rely on your attack powers, movement abilities, some feats—just about every bit of rules material that appears on your character sheet. A combat encounter might include elements of a noncombat encounter. Chapter 9 provides the rules for combat encounters.

Noncombat Encounters

Noncombat encounters focus on skills, utilities, and your own wits, although sometimes attack powers can come in handy as well. Such encounters include dealing with traps and hazards, solving puzzles, and a broad category of situations called skill challenges.

A skill challenge occurs when exploration or social interaction becomes an encounter, with serious consequences for success or failure (your DM will not consider situations without serious consequences to be encounters and usually will not require any dice rolling). When you're making your way through an orbital platform or across nebulous strata, you typically don't take turns or make checks. But when you spring a trap or face a serious obstacle or hazard, you're in a skill challenge.

In a skill challenge, your goal is to accumulate a certain number of successful skill checks before rolling too many failures. Choices you make might give you bonuses on your checks, make some checks unnecessary, or otherwise help you through the challenge. Your DM sets the stage for a skill challenge by describing the obstacle you face and giving you some idea of the options you have in the encounter. Then you describe your actions and make checks until you either successfully complete the challenge or fail.

Chapter 5 describes the sorts of things you can attempt with your skills in a skill challenge. You can use a wide variety of skills, from Acrobatics and Athletics to Biology and Skulduggery. You might also use ability checks.