Fallout: Yellowstone - Companions

Deimos

Grandini (player of Slim Al Swaywood) and I put together some NPC companions from our recent run of Fallout: Yellowstone, based on an old draft I found for Fallout: Two Sun. 

The players repeatedly recruited NPCs throughout the playtest, so it seemed appropriate to codify their behaviour into actual mechanics. If you want a Google Docs version of this supplement, find it here.

PREAMBLE

Like the classic Fallouts, companions exist to help fill out an under-strength group of player characters, lend them unique skills, add flavor to the game world, and generate new story hooks.

Some of the descriptions given here contradict/override the ones given in the GM materials.

Companions use the same rules as players. They level up between sessions and suffer crippled limbs at 0 HP instead of dying. The one exception is they will not burn Luck to adjust dice rolls.

ASHFAULT

Ashfault is a Green Sign, a junior roadwarrior in the Eighties. The 16-year-old biker is quickly becoming the pride of his warband, an expert mix of extreme violence and calm intelligence. He’s reasonable enough for a raider, lacking any crippling addictions or an overdeveloped cruel streak. If the Eighties need someone to work with outsiders, he’s their go-to choice.

An affable and pro-social psychopath, Ashfault has little interest in engaging in atrocities for his own self-gratification, but won’t begrudge his fellows indulging. The only thing that earns his ire is treachery; if the Searchers make a habit of renegading on agreements and look as if they might betray his family, he deserts the party and returns with a kill team of raiders.

STR 6, PER 5, END 6, CHA 6, INT 6, AGI 7, LUC 5

HP 12, Alertness 50%

SKILLS: Drive 50%, Repair 50%, Sneak 50%

ARMOR: 3 points of leather jacket and motorcycle helmet

ATTACKS: Sawed Off Shotgun (70%, 2D10, armor doubled) and 2D6 .00 buck shotshells

Tire Iron (50%, D8+1, STR test or be knocked down if user attacks from a bike)

LOOT: Binoculars, Mountain Bike (Drive to pilot, 10 miles an hour)

SPECIAL PERK - LIKE RIDING A BIKE: With Ashfault in the party, the Searchers can use his Drive skill in lieu of their own, allowing the party to travel by bike at 10 miles per hour on open terrain and 5 miles on rough terrain. He also acts as chauffeur if the Eighties grant the party a kettenkrad.

RECRUITMENT

Ashfault can be recruited at Pelican Springs if the Searchers decide to work for the Eighties, either by securing a route through the Khan blockade to the Roughnecks at Tower Junction for Milepost, or finding fissile material for Offramp and receiving a kettenkrad as a reward.

Pavlo Baiandin

FREEHAND

Freehand is a tribal from Tower Cap, a community built around the Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming. The Great Khans conquered her town, conscripting her and her sister Fourche, and bringing them to Yellowstone Park to cut lumber. After a drunken Khan foreman beat Fourche to death, she ran off and joined the Loggers guerilla war against the empire.

Freehand hates the Khans with a passion, and is bad at burying her enmity. She can pass herself off as a normal wastelander if she has to, but will likely be recognised by the garrison if she ever returns to Canyon Village. Attempts to work with the Khanate better come with a good excuse, else she deserts the party and turns the Loggers hostile against them.

STR 6, PER 7, END 5, CHA 5, INT 5, AGI 6, LUC 5

HP 11, Alertness 70%

SKILLS: Athletics 50%, Sneak 50%, Survival 50%

ARMOR: None

ATTACKS: Fire Axe (50%, D10+1, 3 AP)

Hunting Knife (50%, D6+1, 3 AP)

LOOT: 10d10 in looted Khan scrip, Bear Trap (D6, 3 AP, cripples leg)

SPECIAL PERK - TRAILBLAZER: With Freehand in the party, the Searchers automatically succeed all Survival rolls to navigate the wilderness, allowing them to travel at full speed even when offroading.

RECRUITMENT

The Loggers don’t allow women to fight, but Freehand is itching to strike out at the Khanate. She can be recruited after the Searchers visit Mary Mountain, so long as the party are on friendly terms with the Loggers and ostensibly hostile towards the Great Khans.

LEERING TIM

Leering Tim is a chem cook with the Old Khans, half psychonautic shaman, half combat medic. He learned a lot from the Followers, not just medical and scientific training, but also Old World concepts of Eastern Mysticism and conscious expansion, which is now his main preoccupation. Despite looking like a wizened Charles Manson, he’s saved plenty of lives, helped deliver babies, treat ODs, and mass-produce antibiotics in Follower labs out east.

Tim thinks Fia has a good head on her, though he wishes she respected their history more. Boris is a legend, but a hot head. Reggie is a shadow of himself; a good example of overdoing it. He'll never assist in harming his fellow Khans but he's open to negotiation with the Park’s various hostile tribes. Nothing wrong with sharing the peace pipe and talking things out.

STR 5, PER 6, END 7, CHA 7, INT 6, AGI 4, LUC 5

HP 12 Alertness 60%

SKILLS: Athletics 50%, Science 50%, Medicine 50%

ARMOR: 2 points of leather and gasmask

ATTACKS: 9mm SMG (40%, D10, autofire) and 4D20 rounds 9mm parabellum

Big Knife (40%, D6, 3 AP)

LOOT: Doctor’s Bag, Stimpak, Buffout, Mentats, Jet

SPECIAL PERK - CONTACT HIGH: With Tim in the party, the Searchers can split the effect of a consumed chem between two people, including Stimpaks. Tim can also make recommendations of what chems are best used by who and when. He’s a strong believer in better living through chemistry.

RECRUITMENT

Tim is hanging around Boris’ camp at the Museum of the Park Ranger, and is annoyed that no one wants to help him hunt some Strontium Dogs so he can synthesize Strontium Syrup. If the Searchers hunt down some prairie dogs for him, he’ll gladly join their journey throughout the park as an excuse to scavenge for new ingredients and meet new people. He’s heard the White Legs have lots of Datura and the Stoner’s are full of Stoner Soup. He wants to try both.

MOM

Mom was a super mutant midwife at Mariposa - the base where the original super mutants were created. It was her job to care for the freshly dipped mutants after they emerged from the vats. She was leading a physical therapy course for some new mutants out in the desert when the Vault Dweller nuked the base. When she realized there was no going home, she gathered her children and fled into the wastes.

Mom picked up more mutants on her way out of California. Along with humans - both disillusioned Children of the Cathedral, and wastelanders who weren’t welcome anywhere else. She spent a century watching her human family grow up, have children of their own, and die. She desperately wanted children of her own, more than anything else.

Mom came to Yellowstone following a rumor of a magical pool that could cure any illness. She spoke with the Stoners, who told her that the Prism would restore her womb and let her have children again, if she served it loyally.

STR 10, PER 5, END 8, CHA 6, INT 5, AGI 5, LUC 5

HP 18, Alertness 50%

SKILLS: Athletics 60%, Medicine 60%, Speech 60%

ARMOR: 4 points of tough skin and improvised plating

ATTACKS: Bumper Sword (60%, D12+5, 3 AP)

Thrown Cinderblock (60%, D6+5)

LOOT: A Stealth Boy she’s afraid to use, for fear of Nightkin neuroses

SPECIAL PERK - GET BEHIND ME: Mom can place herself in the path of an attack, suffering the damage instead of the original target. This doesn’t function versus AOE or autofire attacks.

RECRUITMENT

If the Searchers decide to serve the Prism, Mom is happy to go adventuring with them. It means she can leave her adoptive family at Madison, where they won’t be in harm's way.

Adam Adamowicz

RANGER RHONDIE

Rhondie is the leader of the Buffalo Knights, the melee specialists and warrior elite of the Yellowstone Rangers. She’s taken a firm stance against unwelcome visitors to the park, and can be found roaming Yellowstone searching for opportunities to undermine the Khanate.

If the Rangers ever decide to march to war, Rhondie will be leading the sortie from the front. Depending on the Searchers actions, this might mean she’s assisting them on a quest of their choosing, or hunting down and executing them for crimes against Yellowstone Park.

STR 6, PER 7, END 6, CHA 6, INT 6, AGI 7, LUC 5

HP 12, Alertness 70%

SKILLS: Athletics 75%, Stealth 75%, Survival 75%

ARMOR: 4 points of Tatanka hide jacket, helmet, and hubcap buckler

ATTACKS: Obsidian “Sword” (75%, D10+1, breaks if all its damage is ever blocked)

Police Baton (75%, D8+1)

LOOT: Ranger Ale

SPECIAL PERK - BUSHWHACK: With Ranger Rhondie in the party, any melee or unarmed attacks made from stealth are automatic critical hits, inflicting double damage. This ability also functions with bows or throwing weapons, but not explosives, firearms, or energy weapons.

RECRUITMENT

The Searchers can cash in a favour with the Rangers to have Rhondie accompany them. If they want to take on a bigger threat, she can call together a posse of 2D6 Rangers, but only once: the effort quickly exhausts the order’s small manpower pool.

Rhondie takes a pro-active stance against threats to “her” park. If impressed by the Searchers’ moral character, she can vouch for a “just war” against either the Prism, White Legs, Eighties, or the Khans, and stop the Rangers turning hostile if the party wipes them out.

Deimos