Since there is no “race” bonus awarded in Gundam5e, Level 1 play is prone to being extra challenging for players or simply dull. For that reason you may choose to award players with the Human or Human Variant bonus as in D&D5e.

A Level 1 Player may choose to add +1 to all six of their Ability Scores OR add +1 to two ability scores as well as take a Feat.

This allows players to gain some special abilities or MS proficiency early on.

Submitted by Meat Man

There are many ways to equip your players for their first campaign. You may choose to give your players a standard loadout for their military service, or rely on on-site procurement for their weapons as opposed to the starting equipment afforded by their class.

Alternatively, you may have your players forego the starting equipment from their class and give them a starting amount of gilla to purchase supplies. $40k gilla is a fair amount that enables your players to purchase a basic MS, one or two weapons, and some standard gear.

Submitted by MidnightHatter 

Sometimes, The Enemies suit just looks SO much better than your suit. So, what are you doing to do about it? Sure, you COULD defeat it and drag it back to base and repair it, or you could pop that suit open, forcefully evacuate the pilot and Commandeer it for yourself.

(Any Check that is used to gain access to an enemy suit is referred to a Breeching Check, and actions made against the pilot of enemy suits are referred to as Hijacking checks)

For those who prefer a more peaceful solution, it’s possible that you would be able to just convince the pilot to surrender. This would also leave their suit free for the taking. This could be done a number of ways, you could bribe them to give you their suit. Threaten them and allow them to escape with their life. In order to do this the player must make a persuasion (CNG) check, with the enemy pilot making a Cunning save. Advantage could be granted to the player if the enemy is in an unfavourable position, such as being the last pilot left in their group, being surrounded/outnumbered or being close to being destroyed. I would recommend only allowing players to do this if the enemy is already losing.

If negotiations fall through however, Force is always an option, and for that, something with more finesse than a mobile suit will be required. If this happens to be the case, you may need something to help you brute force your way into the enemy mobile suit. The DM can decide on the DC of the check, I would recommend using the same DC for the same kind of mobile suit. (e.g. All Zaku II’s have the same DC)

There are 3 options for tools that can assist with your “advanced persuasion”. Each of these tools can be flavoured to something similar. Each of the Breaching tools can be used to attempt to forcefully breach a suit’s cockpit as an action. None of these can be used by the mobile suit, so the pilot must be out of the cockpit to use them.

To start with, A simple Crowbar, Usable as a Melee weapon as well as a tool to pry open a suit’s cockpit.

A small computerised device for opening the suit’s cockpit through hacking, could be re-flavoured into a mobile phone, or other such small device. This tool automatically changes the communications over to a predetermined friendly frequency.

A small Explosive designed to punch a hole through the outer armour of the cockpit. This does damage to both the suit AND pilot, and leaves a hole. This makes any future boarding check against this suit automatically succeed and leaves the pilot exposed to the elements. However, the charge must be detonated, this will cost a bonus action.

A Forceful Hijack encounter should take at minimum of 3 actions, but will normally take 4

• A Breeching Turn, The first action should be a turn to open the cockpit of the enemy suit. This is when your Breeching check with any tool you wish to use it
  
• A Removal Turn, this action is to dispose of the enemy pilot (If there is one) whether that is actually killing them or talking them into leaving is up to the player
  
• A Boarding Turn, this turn is for boarding the enemy suit, and it is only on this turn that you gain control of the mobile suit.

On the Boarding turn a bonus action can be spent to changeover communications to your squad/unit. Failure to do so means that the enemy will know where you are at all times until you swap the comms over.

In order to breach a little faster, You can take this Feat

By swapping suits, you leave your regular suit unoccupied. Which brings me to the rules for unoccupied suits. Any breeching checks performed against unoccupied suits are at advantage, the removal turn can be skipped if the breeching check succeeds. However, much like normal suits, If the suit’s cockpit hatch was removed through any means, much like occupied suits, the check automatically succeeds.

To assist with removal of enemy pilots, A new weapon has been made available.

With these rules you (or your players if you’re a DM) Can take enemy suits for themselves, be careful what you throw at them, cause it could seriously cut down on the next encounter if they get a hold of a powerful suit early on.

Submitted by UnusuallessPyro 

Impact on Weaponry

• Beam Weapons have a 1 damage dice penalty underwater (so a 1d8 beam weapon would do 1d6 instead). Ranged Beam weapons also have a ½ range penalty underwater. Both effects can be negated by equipping an Anti-Diffuser upgrade to the weapon which makes it function as written.
• Missiles are ineffective underwater. Any weapon that uses missiles can opt to use torpedoes instead which function the same as missiles (underwater but are ineffective anywhere else, now negate cover bonuses granted by mid depth)
• Ballistic weapons have ½ underwater unless they are equipped with Flechette rounds, which function normally underwater but have ½ range anywhere else.

Pretty much everything else that’s available as of now works as written though there could certainly be exceptions.

Depth Levels (The part you’ve been waiting for)

My main idea with this was to come up with 3-4 depth levels as to make the mechanic relevant and impactful while also not being too complex for players figuring out how to make the most of it.

Changing Depth Levels (regardless of whether you go up or down) requires half of your Movement speed

Surface Depth 

Right on the surface where ships and general use MS are going to spend most of their time. 

Combat on this level works as normal since Units are either very close to or right on the surface although torpedoes can still be used on waterborne targets

Shallow Depth

This depth is close enough to the surface for most MS to be effective despite being underwater.

Underwater combat rules apply starting at this depth onwards, combat between MS’s or Submersible vehicles on this level follow the general rules for undersea combat. 

MS’s and Submersible vehicles have half cover from weapon attacks from the surface other than torpedoes

Mid Depth

This Middling depth is where most combat between Mobile Suits and other Submersible vehicles will take place

In order to descend to this depth, a Mobile Suit or Vehicle* must have an Amphibious movement speed

If a MS or submersible vehicle would receive an attack from a surface depth based weapon  other than torpedoes, (such as an MS standing on a battleship) the defending MS is considered to have three quarters cover. 

Combat between MS’s or Submersible vehicles on this level follow the general rules for undersea combat. 

Low Depth

This depth can only be accessed by Submarines and Mobile Suits with the Amphibious tag as other vessels are incapable of dealing with the immense pressure

The pressure of this Depth level causes Torpedoes to prematurely detonate, rendering them useless.

Amphibious MS’s and Submarines in Low Depth have total cover against Surface level attacks (with the exception of depth charges which I’m also working on) and Surface level targets have Three Quarters cover against attacks from this depth level

Amphibious MS’s and Subs in Low Depth have Three Quarters cover against attacks from Shallow Depth attackers, who have half cover against attacks made from Low Depth

MS and Subs in Low Depth have half cover against attacks from Mid Depth attackers and vice versa

*Hazard Depth (I just thought of this Depth as I was writing this. Thoughts on it would be great)

Same requirements as low depth

Nothing can attack or be attacked in this zone

Anything in here has total cover from any attack but takes X Squared force damage (from the water pressure compromising the MS/ Sub) where X is the number of turn orders it has spent in this zone. ( So if an Aqua GM has spent 3 turns in this zone it would take 9 force damage)

Recommendations for applying Depth levels

While these rules were made with the Ocean in mind, they can also be used for other sources of water. Here’s my suggestion on how you might implement Depth levels into other bodies of water

Pond/River: Shallow and Mid Depths 

Lake/Sea: Shallow, Mid, Low Depths

on.

Submitted by G1Scorponok

Where to get a custom mobile suit?

To begin customising a mobile suit, you must meet one or both of the following requirements;

1. you must obtain the following feat (this allows any suit too be customised)

2. Obtain a Mobile suit with the “Custom” tag (you will not be able to build one from scratch, only modify the existing suit)

Once you have your custom suit, You can create (or modify if you only have requirement 2) your mobile suit.

How to create a custom Mobile Suit.

A custom mobile suit has 4 stats; Armour, Evasion, Loadout and System Capability.

System capability is added by this module, it is the measure of how many upgrades the mobile suit can handle

If you are modifying an existing suit the first 3 stats are already calculated. To calculate the System capability, work out the average (mean), then half the result. 

For example; a MS-07B Gouf has an Armour of 11, an evasion of 10 and a loadout of 10. This results in an average of 10.3, rounding it to the closest number being 10. Then halving the result gives a system capability of 5.

To create a suit from scratch, you start with 28 points (this can be changed by your DM so check with them first), These points can be spent between stats. The point cost is below:

Limb System

A mobile suit has 6 Base body parts; Head,Torso, Left Arm, Right arm, Left leg and Right leg. Installed upgrades are installed into one or all of these limbs.

However, be careful what limb you install upgrades onto, as limbs can be removed through combat.

Limb removal

If a critical hit is landed on a mobile suit, Roll a second attack, if that hits, Roll a d6 and remove a limb based on the result, see the table below:

Any upgrades installed in a limb when it is lost is removed from your use, but not from your system capability, replacing the limb with a new one will restore the system capability and repairing the lost one will restore the upgrade and system capability. 

Submitted by UnusuallessPyro