House Rule - Background Endeavours

[The Hive Mind]

Dealing with Common, Lesser Endeavors or even spiraling Misfortunes

Sometimes a Rogue Trader is too busy swashbuckling his way across the galaxy fighting Xenos and plundering ships, he cant be everywhere at once so the rules below offer an alternative, in fact they are essential. These rules are presented in the High Factorum section of the forum as well.

Marshalling Resources
The Rogue Trader and his crew need to decide on what men or materials are needed to complete the common or lesser endeavour or handle the spiralling Misfortune.  It may be they have what they need and nothing further is needed, but this is often not the case and this is were attempts to acquire mercenaries, surveyors, intermediaries or other hired help. The difficulty of the acquisition test is modified by the quality of the Hirelings. A hirelings quality can be poor, common, good or best and is roughly the same as an item with a craftsmanship value.

Hireling Quality Modifiers:
Poor - (-20 command test)
Common - (+0 command test)
Good - (+10 command test)
Best - (+20 command test)

Rogue Traders may wish to hire ships or equipment to help in these endeavours, if for example a survey team is mapping a system then they are to need ships to do so, or perhaps a strike team needs transport and specialised equipment? Of course the Rogue Trader may have access to ships and specialised equipment... and thus no additional acquisition tests are needed. Or perhaps the Rogue Trader feels the team of underlings have to work it out themselves... All these factors could add or minus from the coming Command test.

Executing the Order
Typically the Rogue Trader makes a Command Test. This Command Test is modified by two factors, input from other Explorers and the quality of underlings set to the task. Other Explorers may help the character executing the endeavour by making 'relevant' skill tests. Such as a navigator making a navigation test to double check a Rogue Traders trade route, as long as it is relevant that is... Each successful skill test adds a +10 bonus to the Command Roll.
All modifiers for the quality of the underlings, any GM bonuses for additional equipment or transport and any bonuses added from assisting Explorers are applied to the Command Test that is now to be made.
For example: Lord Atreides has hired common Craftmanship surveyors (+0), To make up for this he hires half a dozen advanced survey ships for the surveyors to operate with, the GM declares these specialised ships give a (+10) modifier to the command test. 3 of the Explorers come up with successful and relevant skill test successes giving another (+30). The base chance of the command test being successful has now increased by +40.
A simple success nets a flat 50% chance the Background Endeavour will be a success, every degree of success increases this by 1 step and adversely each degree of failure does the same in the opposite.

Success, Failure, Time and Misfortune

Once the Command Test has been made and the chance of the Endeavours success has been recorded, the Explorer's part in the Endeavour are pretty much at an end. The responsibility of the Endeavour now falls squarely upon the Games Masters shoulders. (all praise the Hive Mind...)

What happens now is purely for the GM, but to give a better understanding of what's happening the information is presented below.

The GM has now recorded the success chance and needs to roll a d100 against this (please note maximum chance of success is 90%), any result under this is a success, signifying the endeavour goes of without a hitch. Rolling above the chance percentage means the endeavour is a bust and the Severity of Failure table is consulted...

Whether or not the Endeavour is a success or not the Gm will have placed a standard time frame upon it, for example charting a system require 8 months. The following table shows how long it actually took them and the results will not become apparent until then.

Completion Time
1-10 - 25%
11-25 - 50%
26-50 - 75%
51-70 - no change
71-80 - 125%
81-90 - 150%
91-100 - 200%

Reaping Reward and Dealing with Consequences

If the Endeavour was a success, the Explorers simply collect their Profit factor and achievement points and also has the possibility of providing the explorers with useful contacts that they can use in the future. This would be mentioned on the High Factorums report.

If the endeavour is a failure however a whole new set of problems arise for the Explorers. First they will be told how much money , if any has been lost on the endeavour. A failed endeavour nets no Profit factor and depending on the severity of the failure the Explorers could end up owing quite a bit of money to creditors and hirelings.

If this is a Endeavour is to deal with a Misfortune then -1d5 is removed from the profit factor loss, please note that spiralling Misfortunes have a GM set value they are working towards as well as a starting value, anywhere between 1 and 5, once it reaches completion it is permanent and nothing can be done to affect it. Once an endeavour has been sent to deal with the situation the Misfortune profit loss becomes locked at its current value and cannot be changed until the outcome of the Endeavour. This also means that even with a success sometimes not all profit is recovered, this is deliberate as the 41st millennium is a harsh and unforgiving place. in the case of failure the table below is consulted and can result in further loss on top of the initial profit loss.. harsh right...

Severity of Failure

01-49 Minor Mishap - Endeavour fails but no further Profit Factor is lost
50-65 Nuisance Mishap - 1 profit factor is lost
66-90 Grim Mishap - 2 profit factor is lost
90-00 Calamitous Mishap - 1d5 profit factor lost