"The difference between a working starship and a drifting coffin? One good mechanic and a clean run of a bit of luck."
— Inscription on a Guild Mechanic's custom rig, Outer Sphere salvage yards
In the Rift-scarred void of the Starfall Galaxy, technology is survival—but it's never perfect. Cobbled-together systems, jury-rigged salvage, and Rift-corrupted circuitry mean that even the best gear can glitch at the worst moment. Your targeting system flickers and dies. Your cybernetic arm locks up mid-swing. Your drone companion stutters and jerks, servos grinding against corrupted code.
Glitching is the scavenger's curse, the mechanic's nightmare, and the android's existential dread. When your tech starts glitching, every action becomes a gamble—will your weapon fire, or will it seize? Will your armor's environmental systems hold, or will you choke on recycled air?
Guild engineers carry emergency bypass kits. Veterans learn to recognize the warning signs—the screen flicker, the servo whine, the split-second lag before catastrophic failure. In the endless dark between stars, when your gear glitches, you fix it fast—or you die slow.
The Glitching condition represents technological malfunction, system seizure, or cascade failure affecting creatures, objects, or equipment with the tech trait. Unlike simpler debuffs, Glitching creates escalating risk—a sticky condition that disrupts actions turn after turn, forcing characters to decide whether to push failing tech or take time to repair. It's mechanically similar to persistent damage but targets your action economy instead of your hit points.
Glitching
Source Player Core pg. 437
A glitching creature, hazard, or object with the tech trait experiences a combination of debilitating effects and seizing. The glitching condition always includes a value. If you have glitching equipment and take any action involving that equipment, you must attempt a flat check to see what occurs. If you have the glitching condition, you must attempt this flat check at the beginning of each of your turns. The DC of the flat check equals 5 plus your condition value or the item's condition value.
Critical Success: Reduce your glitching value by 1.
Success: You act as normal or use your equipment as normal.
Failur:e You take an item penalty to all your checks and DCs equal to your glitching value or the glitching value of the item you're attempting to use, including saving throws, attack modifiers, and the DCs of abilities, effects, and spells you use.
Critical Failure: A glitching object you tried to use doesn't function, and you lose the actions you took to attempt to use it. A glitching creature uses the same effect as a failure and is also stunned 1. A glitching hazard uses the same effect as a failure.
Special Considerations
Each piece of equipment tracks its glitching value separately. A glitching 2 weapon doesn't affect your glitching 1 armor.
Creatures with the tech trait (androids, robots, certain augmented beings) apply glitching to all their actions.
The glitching condition doesn't automatically end—it must be reduced to 0 through flat checks, repair actions, or abilities like the Mechanic's Troubleshoot mod.
Some effects can increase glitching value, making the condition progressively worse.
Typical Causes
Combat & Hostile Actions
The Discharge spell (Spell 3) inflicts glitching 1 (failure) or glitching 2 (critical failure) on creatures or objects with the tech trait.
Combat Hack skill feat allows hackers to inflict glitching 1 for 1 round
Electromagnetic pulses, Rift storms, and energy surges
Critical hits from certain weapons or abilities (especially shock weapons)
Environmental Hazards
Rift anomalies corrupting electronics
Extreme radiation or magnetic fields
Tech traps gone haywire
Prolonged exposure to hostile environments
Wear and Salvage
Poorly maintained or jury-rigged equipment
Salvaged tech with hidden flaws
Overclocking systems beyond safe limits
Ancient or experimental technology with unstable programming
Clearing Glitching
Natural Recovery
Roll the flat check at the start of each turn—critical success reduces the value by 1
Unlike persistent damage, there's no automatic "recovery" roll; you must keep acting (and risking penalties) until you roll well
Repair & Mitigation
Troubleshoot Mod (Mechanic): The Modify action's Troubleshoot mod reduces glitching by 1 as an action.
Percussive Maintenance (Feat): Smash the item against a hard surface; attempt DC 10 flat check to reduce glitching.
Reboot Systems: Some items allow an Interact action to restart software, reducing glitching value by 1.
Repair or Crafting Checks: At GM discretion, spending time with tools may reduce or remove glitching outside combat
Non-Combat Applications
Beyond firefights and starship duels, glitching shapes daily life in Starfall:
Guild Techs & Repair Shops: Diagnosing and clearing glitching conditions is standard work for mechanics and technicians. Guild contracts often specify glitch-free delivery.
Salvage Operations: Recovered tech often has lingering glitches. Smart scavengers test everything before relying on it.
Cybernetic Maintenance: Augmented individuals schedule regular tune-ups to prevent glitch accumulation in critical implants.
Legal & Insurance Claims: Tech failures caused by glitches can void warranties, trigger insurance disputes, or become evidence in liability cases.
Societal Impact
The Glitch Economy:
In Starfall's tech-dependent civilization, glitching conditions have spawned entire industries and cultural practices:
Diagnostic Guilds: Specialized technicians who can identify glitching sources and repair them efficiently command premium rates.
Glitch Insurance: High-risk professions (void miners, Rift explorers, combat mercs) pay for coverage that replaces glitching gear.
Redundant Systems Culture: Critical infrastructure always has backups. "Never trust a single system" is a survival maxim across the galaxy.
Tech Superstitions: Some spacers believe glitching is contagious, refusing to use gear that's been "infected." Others perform rituals—reboots, percussive maintenance, whispered prayers to the machine spirits.
Social Stigma: Androids and synthetic beings facing chronic glitching may be ostracized, viewed as unreliable or "corrupted."
Adventure Hooks
The Glitch Plague: A mysterious signal cascading through comm networks is causing mass glitching. Guild tech across an entire station is failing. Can the party trace the source before life support goes critical?
Rift-Touched Salvage: The party recovers powerful ancient tech from a Rift anomaly, but it has glitching 3. Clearing it requires rare components, dangerous rituals, or bargaining with the Chronologists Guild.
Sabotage & Espionage: A rival faction is planting glitch-inducing malware in the party's gear. Investigate the source, identify the saboteur, and clear the infection before a critical mission.
The Glitching Android: An NPC android ally starts glitching unpredictably—losing actions in combat, malfunctioning at key moments. Is it a hardware fault, Rift corruption, or something more sinister buried in their code?
Tech Duel: Challenge another mechanic to a high-stakes repair race: who can clear glitching from a starship's core systems fastest while hostile forces close in?
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