My players have on multiple occasions used speeders to ram into opponents on foot.

As a result I decided to create some house rules around it:

Ramming a (Minion)

Piloting + handling vs highest targeted Co-ordination

SUCCESS = Minion death

Vehicle suffer a single Critical hit d100 - (ships defense + armour) x10

If result is zero Critical is cancelled.

Ramming a (Rival/Nemesis)

Piloting + handling vs highest targeted Co-ordination

SUCCESS = Critical hit d100 + ( No. of SUCCESSES + silhouette) x10

Vehicle suffer a single Critical hit d100 - (ships defense + armour) x10

If result is zero Critical is cancelled.

NPC Ramming a (Player)

Co-ordination vs Piloting + handling

FAILURE = Critical hit d100 + ( No. of FAILURES + silhouette) x10

Vehicle suffer a single Critical hit d100 - (ships defense + armour) x10

If result is zero Critical is cancelled.

Why Coordination and not a difficulty based on Sil like most other vehicle attacks?

Maybe I'm thinking bigger then you are, but while this would be ok for a landspeeder vs. person, considering the setting you may have to consider light freighter vs. jetpacks, or star destroyer vs. spacesuits eventually. A Sil based difficulty would allow the same rules across the board instead of having to figure out what skill is appropriate for the opposed check.

I thought the existing rules handled collisions well enough for vehicle vs vehicle. What I was encountering in my sessions were speeder bike vs persons. Hence the co-ordination check to jump out of the way. Situationally I would allow a different skill if the target wanted to try something other than dodging.

I think you need to delineate those orders of operation a little more clearly. "d100 - (ship's defense + armor) x 10" makes it look like you roll a d100, subtract the ship's defense and armor, and multiply the whole thing by 10. You'd have a demolished speeder nearly every time. It should probably read "d100 - [(ship's defense + armor) x 10]" for better clarity.

And I agree that dodging an attempted ram versus attempting to ram somebody should be separate but intertwined mechanics.

Thanks Captain, maths was never my strongest subject.

I thought the existing rules handled collisions well enough for vehicle vs vehicle. What I was encountering in my sessions were speeder bike vs persons. Hence the co-ordination check to jump out of the way. Situationally I would allow a different skill if the target wanted to try something other than dodging.

And you feel the Dodge talent wouldn't be the way to depict dodging out of the way?

I mean I kinda see what you're saying. "I want to use athletics to leap over the speeder all parkour style!"

Typically if you're doing something to actively defend yourself it just adds setback dice.The concern is by making it an opposed check you're dropping in the likelihood of those evil red dice and by extension a despair. Are you sure you want that? If your only concern is speederbike vs. person, maybe so. But I'd be worried about where it goes from there. A Star Destroyer ramming a person in a space suit (extreme example, but stay with me) and failing with a despair would probably generate some rather unintentionally comedic results...

Or succeeding with a despair "Good news, you hit and kill the target.... bad news, the big glass viewport needs to be washed, 2 setback to perception checks made from the bridge."

Also, speed kills... I'm thinking base damage would be like Force Move: Silhouette * 10. Then include a speed multiplier, e.g.: Silhouette * 10 * 2, or 40 points for a speeder going at speed 2. However, each speed over 1 should give an upgrade to the target, to increase the chance of despair.

I don't know about all that math Frog, but the concept of damage buff/difficulty buff for speed is actually kinda interesting....

With any rule at my table (RAW or house) I'll tweak it / abandon it on the fly if the situation merits it. If a starship were ramming a person then the person is dead and no damage to the vehicle. If the the narrative demands otherwise then I'll go with it.

I'm not intimidated by Despair, I introduce the chance for it frequently. My players really enjoy seeing a red dice in the pool as it ups the stakes making success sweeter. If Despair is rolled then we all collaborate on the result. Some of our best gaming moments have been due to Despair for the players and the NPCs

With regard to speed, I think I'd keep it as simple as I currently have it. If the speed feels like it should be a factor positive or negative I'll upgrade the dice pool and/or +10 to +30 on the critical roll.

I think you need to delineate those orders of operation a little more clearly. "d100 - (ship's defense + armor) x 10" makes it look like you roll a d100, subtract the ship's defense and armor, and multiply the whole thing by 10. You'd have a demolished speeder nearly every time. It should probably read "d100 - [(ship's defense + armor) x 10]" for better clarity.

And I agree that dodging an attempted ram versus attempting to ram somebody should be separate but intertwined mechanics.

Actually, Cap'n, looks like you need to go back and check your order of operations. PEMDAS. The brackets are unneccessary.

Here endeth the math lesson.

i'm not sure that a Star Destroyer could actively maneuver to hit such a small target as a PC character in space. wouldn't it basically just lumber in the general direction? i'd imagine that if the character didn't fall out of their ship, directly in front of the Star Destroyer and unconscious that they'd have a chance to at least make an EVA "landing" upon the surface of the Star Destroyer. the character would likely have their own velocity as it's pretty difficult to end up completely still in space, so i'm not sure how you'd handle the differences of speed except through the difficulty of the coordination check.

I think unless you are almost exactly matching the speed of the capital ship you'll end up splatted like a bug if you try to land.

I think unless you are almost exactly matching the speed of the capital ship you'll end up splatted like a bug if you try to land.

I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Actually, Cap'n, looks like you need to go back and check your order of operations. PEMDAS. The brackets are unneccessary.

Here endeth the math lesson.

Dammit.

Full disclosure: I got my BA in Comparative Literature. I haven't taken a math course in at least six years.

I think it's something you need to handle narratively.

Having an AT-ST step on (ram) a man sized target isn't gonna do anything to the walker as the feet are designed to handle large amounts of force from that direction. It's like running over someone in your car. The tires don't care as that's what they do.

A deer hitting your car in the windshield is a whole different game. An Abrams tank hitting the same deer just makes a mess for the grunts to hose off. While your rules sort of capture that, they are unnecessarily complicated about it. We all know a tank vehicle (armor 3+) doesn't care about hitting squishy meat bags, while a speeder bike (armor 0) does.

Speed should matter as well. An A-wing has armor 2 so it hits a person at a slow speed (for an A-wing) the person is probably sporting some broken bones (criticals). If it does so at full velocity the person is chunky salsa, but the A-wing isn't doing so hot either.

All in all I think it's too complicated to write a flat rule to cover. You need to narrate it based on the situation in game. Actually hitting a mobile target with an AT-xx vehicle should be really difficult, while ramming with a speeder bike should be comparatively easy. That said the speeder bike will like the results a whole lot less.

Aservan, the bit about ease of hitting someone is somewhat captured in the Handling of the vehicles. A speeder bike (2 bootst) is going to be easier to hit someone with than an AT-AT (4 setbacks) [AFK, so numbers are estimates].

Aservan, the bit about ease of hitting someone is somewhat captured in the Handling of the vehicles. A speeder bike (2 bootst) is going to be easier to hit someone with than an AT-AT (4 setbacks) [AFK, so numbers are estimates].

Of course, but two boost dice is not the same thing as changing the difficulty. A third of the time a given boost die is useless. Same for setback making it more difficult. Boost and setback nudge things and make the swing in the roll greater. They don't drastically increase or decrease the base chance of success the way a difficulty modifier does.

Maybe a simple way to do it is based on silhouette? An AT-AT is bigger and will have a much harder time hitting while a bike is only a 2 (I think AFB) so has no difficulty increase.

I would actually make a piloting roll with the difficulty being the silhouette comparisons on table 7-4. Failure or threats means you hit the ground and took a few points of damage or strain.

Also with some of the incidents of such collisions in the movies (Anakin scraping bug droids, Anakin running over droids in the Naboo fighter, and Zam's speeder sliding on the ground) the star wars ships seem rather rugged and hardened that they are not going to take much damage in such collisions beyond scraping off some paint

Vehicle scale vs Character scale is rather cludgy when a speeder can be beyond extreme range one turn, and then on another move be in close to a character i don't think the speed is going to matter.

Of course, i would allow a player or Nemesis a chance to dodge out of the way in dramatic fashion at the last second. maybe an athletics roll.

Coordination to me involves things like balancing and juggling. Athletics is jumping, leaping and sliding

thanks for the responses.

my approach to factoring in the reduced likelihood of damage to sturdier vehicles is using the armour to reduce the critical value.

speed is kind of represented abstractly through the handling of the vehicle which is used in the check.

i chose co-ordination as i felt agility was more appropriate for dodging a swift moving vehicle. i could easily see athletics being used instead.

Maybe use the Silhouette comparison chart for base difficulty, upgraded by the number of ranks in Athletics or Coordination? Certain talents, such as Dodge and possibly character defense should be considered too... and maybe if you're hit, you reduce the crit by a number of points equal to your soak, or is that getting too complicated?

Zombie I think your math needs work. An AT-AT still has around a 30% chance of a critical (nearly a third of the time). That's absurd when we know from Empire Strikes Back that it can step on a snow speeder with no ill affects. Certainly, an airplane is tougher than a puny human?

Certainly, an airplane is tougher than a puny human?

Speaking from experience, it depends on the aircraft.

How about this.

The Target may make a Coordination roll to evade the oncoming vehicle, difficulty at GM discretion.

Difficulty = Silhouette of vehicle + difference in Silhouette(74-Z Speeder Bike ramming a human would be 2+1) This could be modified based on other factors(target is unaware of danger/can't get out of the way/etc)

Modifiers: Add setback or boost dice equal to the vehicle's handling rating.

On success, target suffers a number of wounds equal to the vehicle's speed times 5 minus half soak, rounded up(armor only does so much when getting rammed by several tons of metal). The vehicle suffers a number of system strain equal to speed+silhouette of target minus armor. Any strain suffered in excess of threshold becomes hull trauma instead. For every 2 advantage on a successful roll, the target suffers a critical hit. For every 3 disadvantage on a successful roll, the vehicle suffers a crit. On a failure the vehicle misses the target and nothing further happens.

So a human hit by a 74-Z speeder traveling at speed 2 would suffer 10 wounds minus half his soak, plus any potential crits.

That same 74-Z speeder traveling at speed of 2 hitting a human would suffer 3 system strain. If the speeder already had 2 strain, it would suffer 2 strain and the last strain would become hull trauma instead.

This would make ramming someone with a fragile little speeder quite dangerous for both parties. The speeder might be able to do it once with no permanent damage, unless you were ramming a Hutt or Rancor.

On the other hand, a vehicle with armor and/or a high strain threshold won't suffer any real ill effects.

Certainly, an airplane is tougher than a puny human?

Speaking from experience, it depends on the aircraft.

See, there are these things called "birdstrikes," and they can be pretty devastating. Most aren't at all harmful to the pilots, but many can harm or even destroy certain mechanical systems. If you get an intake clogged with bird, or a strike manages to cause a fuel imbalance, you'll want to punch out of your aircraft before too long. Even at their most harmless, they can obscure your vision. Hell, I'm sure a well-placed birdstrike could bring down a Gundam, to say nothing of a speeder bike.

And that's just with the mass of a bird. When you hit a target with the mass of a human -- or maybe even a Trandoshan or a Wookiee? You'll be lucky if your vehicle ever runs again. My friend (thin) got hit by a truck when she was crossing the street; she ended up with a fractured leg, cracked ribs, and deep bruising, and that was after being thrown in excess of twenty feet. The truck was an F150 (beefy) and it was totaled by the crash.

That would be comparable to a full-size speeder. A speeder bike? With motorcycles, if you even hit a squirrel you're almost certain to end up dumping the bike.

In short, machines are fragile, and while greater mass will work against you, there's no such thing as coming out of a collision without a scratch.

I wouldn't use the fact a vehicle gets totaled as being indicative of actual damage. It just means the cost of vehicle repair exceeded the insured value of the vehicle.

The truck might have still run and would only have needed a couple grand in repairs.

You get a 30 year old beater car, you can total it by cracking the windshield. It'll run just fine.

Plenty of vehicles can splat a human and take only superficial damage.