Hi !

After... errm... not listening to the Order 66... errrm, yesterday, I went on GMPhil's blog and found this house rule of his: http://fragmentsfromtherim.blogspot.ca/2015/02/suspending-rules-snap-roll-action.html#comment-form

It's been written relatively recently, and I was thinking about introducing it in our game. But since I'm not a huge fan of house rules, I'd like to get some feedback on it beforehand.

Here's a quote from the rule's text:

SNAP ROLL - Out-Of-Turn Incidental

Pilot Only: Yes
Silhouette: 1-4
Speed: 2+
Quick reflexes and fly-by-wire systems are not only important in maneuvering a ship into a superior attack position, but are also helpful to quickly respond to enemy fire blasting away a ship's shields and hull. Snap Roll allows pilots to utilize the maneuverability of their ship and their own exceptional skill to suddenly react to incoming fire. The pilot quickly rolls, dives, or climbs to avoid part of the incoming attack as soon as his shields and armor start getting hit by a volley of blaster bolts, or he times his maneuver so only part of a missile's detonation affects his ship.

When his ship is successfully hit by a Gunnery combat check, the pilot can elect to take a Snap Roll Incidental action and reduce the damage of the attack by the sum of their ship's Handling plus the pilot's Ranks in Piloting (Planetary or Space, whichever is applicable to the vehicle he's controlling). This sudden dodge puts the ship, and the pilot, under extreme stress and g-forces; when this incidental action is taken the ship suffers 3 System Strain (bypassing Armor) as the high-G maneuver taxes on-board systems and support surfaces. Additionally, the pilot suffers 3 Strain (bypassing Soak) as those same G-forces pull, crush, and exhaust him.

If a person is wearing a flight suit that reduces the amount of Strain incurred from Critical Hits to the ship, they reduce the Strain they take from a Snap Roll action to 1. Droids are immune to the personal Strain damage as long as they are at a station, locked in a droid socket, or have some other means to prevent them from being bounced around the ship's interior.

I like how this simple addition of a single incidental manages to address a lot of the concerns about the flimsiness of player-controlled/nemesis-piloted starships. It doesn't require adding talents, new gear or spec's. It's linked to the number of Piloting ranks and ship handling. It is not the end all be all of starship defense, and doesn't compete with other, more powerful, talents (like Brilliant Evasion). It's merely there to avoid stray turbolaser shots, or help survive a couple of laser volleys. It also makes use of already existing talents often present on various piloting trees, like Grit or High-G training, plus it makes sense with worn starfighter flight suits.

When I did my math, I came to the same conclusion he did, that whoever shot first was almost always going to blow up the opposition. While this is fine for TIE fighters, especially crewed by minions, this is not so fine for PCs/Nemesis/Aces, who will most likely die a horrible vacuum death if they don't win the Initiative race.

I want to know what others think. Do they see a glaring problem with introducing this new incidental? Any design flaws I may have missed?

Well, part of the design philosophy for this system is based on defense generated partially by environmental factors but more by talents. I would hesitate before adding an action, no matter how well designed, that would alter that balance of game play.

It vaguely resembles the "roll with punch" rules from the Palladium system's hand to hand combat. It seems to have a decent drawback in the strain but it will make vehicular combat scenes last longer as both sides should use this rule. I would think that the squad rules from the GM kit would be more fitting to the setting as star fighters went boom very easily.

Personally I love the idea, I play an Ace myself and I've had a battle where I got shot once and my ship was destroyed (my gracious GM let me crash land it). And I couldn't help thinking "really that's all it took" and no matter how much skill I had in piloting if I lose initiative then I can instantly lose the battle. Anakin was never shot at once and was inatantly taken out of the battle, no he dodged the shots and fired back, so why should I. I even like the rule for NPCs because the guy who shot me out of the sky is now my nemesis and I wouldn't feel a sense of fulfillment if I just fired a single proton torpedo and boom he's gone.

Personally I love the idea, I play an Ace myself and I've had a battle where I got shot once and my ship was destroyed (my gracious GM let me crash land it). And I couldn't help thinking "really that's all it took" and no matter how much skill I had in piloting if I lose initiative then I can instantly lose the battle. Anakin was never shot at once and was inatantly taken out of the battle, no he dodged the shots and fired back, so why should I. I even like the rule for NPCs because the guy who shot me out of the sky is now my nemesis and I wouldn't feel a sense of fulfillment if I just fired a single proton torpedo and boom he's gone.

What defensive piloting talents have you taken?

By the way, your ship should not have been destroyed per RAW just disabled...unless there was a critical.

To argue the other side - the same rule could be applied and argued for the use of Athletics and/or coordination in personal scale combat. Someone who's more agile or moving more effectively should be harder to hit, right? Or what about how skill with a melee weapon should protect you in melee combat?

No where in the system does a skill improve your odds of survival. Why should pilot be any different?

This rule is basically necessary for balanced starfighter battles involving skilled combatants, otherwise it is pure initiative rush rocket tag, especially if anyone has torpedoes.

Terrain and defense in this system is simply just too weak, setback dice rarely do anything and even Evasive Maneuvers (which takes an action that is best spent on a Gunnery check) rarely makes a difference with it's upgrades. Pilot skill and ship handling should have an influence and how hard it is to hit/damage someone.

Personally I love the idea, I play an Ace myself and I've had a battle where I got shot once and my ship was destroyed (my gracious GM let me crash land it). And I couldn't help thinking "really that's all it took" and no matter how much skill I had in piloting if I lose initiative then I can instantly lose the battle. Anakin was never shot at once and was inatantly taken out of the battle, no he dodged the shots and fired back, so why should I. I even like the rule for NPCs because the guy who shot me out of the sky is now my nemesis and I wouldn't feel a sense of fulfillment if I just fired a single proton torpedo and boom he's gone.

What defensive piloting talents have you taken?

By the way, your ship should not have been destroyed per RAW just disabled...unless there was a critical.

Against high gunnery level foes most of those defensive talents don't make a difference. Only Hold Together really stands out...and for some stupid reason that skill isn't in the fighter jockey trees (unless you have an R7 in an E-Wing). Setback dice have almost no teeth, until you get a handful of them.

The difference between personal and vehicle scale combat is that combat focused characters have a lot more potent options (Dodge, Sidestep, etc) and can boost their soak more easily. And Torpedo type one shot items and Linked attacks are few and far between.

When I did my math, I came to the same conclusion he did, that whoever shot first was almost always going to blow up the opposition. While this is fine for TIE fighters, especially crewed by minions, this is not so fine for PCs/Nemesis/Aces, who will most likely die a horrible vacuum death if they don't win the Initiative race.

I feel I should point out that, in the case of PCs, Nemeses, and GM fiat for other characters, a ship that exceeds its Wound Threshold is simply out of the fight, not exploded: "...the ship's systems shut down, it reverts to emergency power, its sublight drives sputter out, and the ship is adrift. At this point, the ship is a near-lifeless hulk, effectively out of combat, and likely being evacuated."

Only a Critical Hit result of 154+ on the Vehicle Crit table is enough to actually kill your PCs outright (although 145+, 139+, and 127+ could easily result in death if appropriate measures aren't taken).

When I did my math, I came to the same conclusion he did, that whoever shot first was almost always going to blow up the opposition. While this is fine for TIE fighters, especially crewed by minions, this is not so fine for PCs/Nemesis/Aces, who will most likely die a horrible vacuum death if they don't win the Initiative race.

I feel I should point out that, in the case of PCs, Nemeses, and GM fiat for other characters, a ship that exceeds its Wound Threshold is simply out of the fight, not exploded: "...the ship's systems shut down, it reverts to emergency power, its sublight drives sputter out, and the ship is adrift. At this point, the ship is a near-lifeless hulk, effectively out of combat, and likely being evacuated."

Only a Critical Hit result of 154+ on the Vehicle Crit table is enough to actually kill your PCs outright (although 145+, 139+, and 127+ could easily result in death if appropriate measures aren't taken).

And fighters in Star Wars are usually represented as having ejector seats, though hopefully you get recovered before you suffocate.

The problem is that, even if the PC or NPC lives, they are still put out of the fight very easily even if they are highly skilled and invested deep into piloting talent trees.

Personally I love the idea, I play an Ace myself and I've had a battle where I got shot once and my ship was destroyed (my gracious GM let me crash land it). And I couldn't help thinking "really that's all it took" and no matter how much skill I had in piloting if I lose initiative then I can instantly lose the battle. Anakin was never shot at once and was inatantly taken out of the battle, no he dodged the shots and fired back, so why should I. I even like the rule for NPCs because the guy who shot me out of the sky is now my nemesis and I wouldn't feel a sense of fulfillment if I just fired a single proton torpedo and boom he's gone.

What defensive piloting talents have you taken?

By the way, your ship should not have been destroyed per RAW just disabled...unless there was a critical.

Well for me the definitive talents haven't really done much if I get hit a single time unfortunately

Oh I didn't know that, thanks, you learn something new every day

To argue the other side - the same rule could be applied and argued for the use of Athletics and/or coordination in personal scale combat. Someone who's more agile or moving more effectively should be harder to hit, right? Or what about how skill with a melee weapon should protect you in melee combat?

No where in the system does a skill improve your odds of survival. Why should pilot be any different?

To argue the other side - the same rule could be applied and argued for the use of Athletics and/or coordination in personal scale combat. Someone who's more agile or moving more effectively should be harder to hit, right? Or what about how skill with a melee weapon should protect you in melee combat?

No where in the system does a skill improve your odds of survival. Why should pilot be any different?

I can see where you are coming from but for personal scale you have abilities such as dodge/sidestep or parry/reflect for lightsabers. Well unfortunately piloting really doesn't have anything like those. And proton torpedoes are pretty much vehicle scale lightsabers and just like the base lightsabers from EotE and AoR proton torpedoes can easily take you down in a single hit. So since we don't get a nifty talent to protect us we have to resort to an out-of-turn skill that reflects our skill as a pilot

Just as an aside, proton torpedoes are generally intended to be used on transports and larger vehicles I always thought. At least so I vaguely recall from playing X-Wing video games. They seem really expensive to use against other snub fighters. When I GM I tend to use them if the opposition is well funded, or they have a specific need. The first movie's attack on the death star always struck me that way.

Interesting idea... not sure about the whole apply strain to this but not that, except when doing this, and speed 2 seems a little too slow to me... or was he thinking jetpacks perhaps?

I also kinda wonder if this game existed in a vacuum if we'd even be having this discussion. It seems like a lot of this discussion seems to come back to "Well when I played X-wing/TIE fighter/Rebel Assault/Starfighter/Rogue Squadron/The Didgeridoo this and that used to happen all the time, and I don't see that here."

Interesting idea... not sure about the whole apply strain to this but not that, except when doing this, and speed 2 seems a little too slow to me... or was he thinking jetpacks perhaps?

I also kinda wonder if this game existed in a vacuum if we'd even be having this discussion. It seems like a lot of this discussion seems to come back to "Well when I played X-wing/TIE fighter/Rebel Assault/Starfighter/Rogue Squadron/The Didgeridoo this and that used to happen all the time, and I don't see that here."

It is a good question, but as long as common sense and good game play are considered I hope that it doesn't get too out of hand. I only mention it because I have a limited amount of EU knowledge.

How about if the difficulty of the attacker's roll didn't depend on Silhouette (or not only on that), but on the target's piloting skill? It could make it very hard to bring down Anakin Skywalker whilst not messing with the canon fragility of starfighters. Silhouette could be added back in as boost / setback dice in some way.

It would be a problem for Minion groups to have the Piloting skill so you'd need to avoid that somehow... but has anything along these lines been tried?

To argue the other side - the same rule could be applied and argued for the use of Athletics and/or coordination in personal scale combat. Someone who's more agile or moving more effectively should be harder to hit, right? Or what about how skill with a melee weapon should protect you in melee combat?

No where in the system does a skill improve your odds of survival. Why should pilot be any different?

I can see where you are coming from but for personal scale you have abilities such as dodge/sidestep or parry/reflect for lightsabers. Well unfortunately piloting really doesn't have anything like those. And proton torpedoes are pretty much vehicle scale lightsabers and just like the base lightsabers from EotE and AoR proton torpedoes can easily take you down in a single hit. So since we don't get a nifty talent to protect us we have to resort to an out-of-turn skill that reflects our skill as a pilot

Just as an aside, proton torpedoes are generally intended to be used on transports and larger vehicles I always thought. At least so I vaguely recall from playing X-Wing video games. They seem really expensive to use against other snub fighters. When I GM I tend to use them if the opposition is well funded, or they have a specific need. The first movie's attack on the death star always struck me that way.

To argue the other side - the same rule could be applied and argued for the use of Athletics and/or coordination in personal scale combat. Someone who's more agile or moving more effectively should be harder to hit, right? Or what about how skill with a melee weapon should protect you in melee combat?

No where in the system does a skill improve your odds of survival. Why should pilot be any different?

I can see where you are coming from but for personal scale you have abilities such as dodge/sidestep or parry/reflect for lightsabers. Well unfortunately piloting really doesn't have anything like those. And proton torpedoes are pretty much vehicle scale lightsabers and just like the base lightsabers from EotE and AoR proton torpedoes can easily take you down in a single hit. So since we don't get a nifty talent to protect us we have to resort to an out-of-turn skill that reflects our skill as a pilot

Just as an aside, proton torpedoes are generally intended to be used on transports and larger vehicles I always thought. At least so I vaguely recall from playing X-Wing video games. They seem really expensive to use against other snub fighters. When I GM I tend to use them if the opposition is well funded, or they have a specific need. The first movie's attack on the death star always struck me that way.

Hmm that's a good point actually, for me my GM's Imperials aren't afraid to drop a few torpedoes on us Rebel Scum. But I've taken some pretty nasty pot shots as well that made it so that since I lost initiative I lost the battle much like how lightsaber battles before the addition of Parry and such.

That kinda sucks. While it can be hard to appropriately scale encounters sometimes, it usually is best to start light and bring in the reinforcements as needed to keep the battle exciting and fun. And always have some reason for the enemies to leave the immediate battle zone. You may not like where they are going, but it lessens the immediacy of the danger.

You may want to inquire with your GM about wingmen and squads to support you.

To answer the personal scale argument, now that we have Reflect/Parry, and when you add personal armor, high Brawn and ranks of Enduring, you can become very very very tanky. I GM a game where most PCs have 7+ Soak, and some go above 12. Most of them invested in Cortosis weave for their armor (they are quite rich and inhabit the farthest reaches of the Outer Rim, only going shopping on The Wheel or in Hutt space to avoid Imperial attention). A build focused on survival can make pistols and even blaster carbines relatively harmless. And ranks of Durable can make you quite good at coping with critical hits should attacks blast through Soak. In fact, a dedicated player can trivialize personal scale weapons if he wants to, though he/she'll still get wrecked by vehicles weapons (which works as intended!) or torrents of blaster shots in large amounts.

Here's a list I made of the various defenses not reliant on environment:

• Soak/Brawn (Enduring, Dedication, Armor Master, Heroic Resilience; can be bypassed, except cortosis)
• Toughness/Grit
• Durable
• Sense (two targets; commits Force die; no counters, maybe droids?)
• Misdirect (Control upgrade adding threats per committed force dice; infinite targets; doesn't work on droids)
• Protect (takes an action, costs a LOT of XP, force pips and a high rating)
• Reflect/Parry (can be bypassed, like fire, or be disarmed)
• Improved Hard Headed talent
• Coordination Dodge (Performer talent)
• Dodge/Defensive Stance/Side Step/Body Guard (uses tons of strain; lots of XP for the talents)
• Defense (can be canceled with Triumph/3 Adv.)
• Distracting Behavior (Performer talent chain)
• Against All Odds (Aggressor talent, Force and Destiny)
• Vigilance/Perception (higher Init. means time to act first and prepare, get into cover, draw weapon/shield, etc.)
• Stealth (useful at range, pretty much forces the enemy to spend Actions looking for you)
• Movement (Jet Pack? Force Jump? enemies have a harder time hitting you at range, plus it's an escape plan)

There is nowhere near that equivalent in starship battles, by far , so the comparison with personal combat doesn't stand. The tankiest Silhouette 3 starship is the meaty HWK-290 at 18 HT/18 ST, which can be upgraded to get an Armor of 3. Others are around HT 10, with a select few having a stock Armor at 3 (like the X-wing, though with only 1 Hard Point). At best, you can eat one turbolaser shot and be disabled with the next, but if the enemy has a Linked 1+ weapon, you will be fried in one Action.

At Silhouette 4, freighters like the Ghtroc 720 are absolute tanks in comparison (though it's like putting all your eggs in one, albeit rock solid, basket), but were not really talking snubfighters if our reference point becomes a bunch of freighters, right? Even the most tricked out snubfighter, with an Ace/Pilot/Rigger/Squadron Leader player boasting shields at 4, with Tricky Target and other such talents must absolutely rely on Brilliant Evasion to survive a fight, or better: Unmatched Survivability and This One is Mine . But arguing that this is a solution would be like quoting the Hired Gun's Unmatched Protection or Last One Standing as proof in a discussion of combat balance. Signature abilities are narrative epic feats, not run-of-the-mill everyday things, they cannot be used as yardstick.

Proof that the lack of tankiness is detrimental to the feel of starship battles is that most space combat examples given on the boards, or some podcasts, and even in Stay on Target, advise GMs to NOT attack fighters with the weapon load-out of Capital ships, and rely instead on environmental effects based on Threat/Despair/Advantage/Triumph tables. The reason is obvious, with spaceships disabled so easily, it wouldn't be fun for anyone.

Also, most example fights only include minions with abysmal dice pools of 2-3 yellows and a green, which seems to be the statistical limit after which gunner teams become too deadly. But this is an illusion of safety, because even the lowliest of gunners might make those turbolasers activate their Linked quality, with a russian roulette randomness.

If a mechanic requires ad hoc rule adjudication to work as people expect cinematically, I consider a fix to be in order. My question is more to the effect of what that fix should be.

Edit: I am not a fan of house rules in general, by the way. But I'm not going to be held back by codes from doing what is necessary to achieve victor ... I mean fun space battles.

If a mechanic requires ad hoc rule adjudication to work as people expect cinematically, I consider a fix to be in order. My question is more to the effect of what that fix should be.

That is why I suggested the Squad rules which you have already referenced in another post. I suppose the answer you are looking for really depends on what section of the mechanics you find lacking. I would suggest you run a few sample fights with that house rule to determine if it meets with your approval. Having not done so, I can only speculate with what I read. The strain is a good balance as I mentioned before, but I hesitate to circumvent the design philosophy.

If you feel up for it, perhaps create a handful of new defensive piloting talents as a universal specialization intended to help star fighter pilots. Make it similar to Recruit but with your specific needs.

The problem with squad rules, is that it mostly works for GMs trying to protect important adversaries. Unless the PCs are sadistic enough to willingly sacrifice allied NPCs by having them taken out instead... I don't see this as much of a solution. Squads function narratively in pretty specific circumstances.

The whole problem can be summed up as: how to account for Obi-Wan successfully surviving so many close calls in space battles if he didn't have a Pilot spec? (he doesn't seem like the kind of Jedi delving into a piloting tree at all, at most he had a few ranks) He didn't rely on Anakin "taking the shot" for him, but he did seem to be able to defend himself a bit.

The following video might be the worse possible example to prove my point, being the paramount example of capital ships acting as environmental effects triggered by Threats/Despairs/Advantages/Triumphs, but still we see quite a nice snap-roll going on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWoGkrt5Upg

The problem with squad rules, is that it mostly works for GMs trying to protect important adversaries. Unless the PCs are sadistic enough to willingly sacrifice allied NPCs by having them taken out instead... I don't see this as much of a solution. Squads function narratively in pretty specific circumstances.

I honestly see them used in the Death Star attack in the first movie. We feel for the poor Red and Gold wing pilots, but frankly their narrative job was to protect Luke long enough for him to succeed.

Now, if there isn't a ready supply of cannon-fodder that can get difficult. Looking at your other thread with the massive battle you have planned, I think they would be really useful in your campaign. If it is just a tight knit group, you are absolutely correct and there is very little narrative room for them.

This still feels like trying to put in a screw with a hammer. The primary complaints are that ships are disabled to easily - "one-shotted" as it's often called. So why are we talking about increasing evasion?

Would it not be simpler to increase all of the ship's armor values? If an x-wing had, say 6 Armor, then each hit wouldn't matter so much, would it? How about 6 armor Tie Fighters? Or maybe double all hull points and strain for anyone who isn't a minion?

In reference to this particular house rule, I would be worried about making Pilot the uber-skill. Should a well-rounded Politico really be in the same survivability class as an Ace Pilot, just because they both spent 50xp on Pilot (Space)?

If you feel the defensive talents available to Ace Pilots are insufficient to increase their survivability, why not just replace them with better version - maybe even version taken directly from Personal Combat? Make their Durability, Enduring, Grit & Toughness apply to their ships instead of to them. Make an "Evade" talent that replicated the text on Reflect. Say that Dodge/Defensive Stance/Side Step/Body Guard can be used on vehicle scale, or make vehicular equivalents.

Or maybe double all hull points and strain for anyone who isn't a minion?

I include this as part of my personal "vehical scale" houserules, nerfing vehicular weapons without nerfing vehicular surviviability by halving the damage scale (sil 4 or less are x5, not x10) and doubling hull/SS so turbolasers are just as survivable as they used to be. :/

The problem with squad rules, is that it mostly works for GMs trying to protect important adversaries. Unless the PCs are sadistic enough to willingly sacrifice allied NPCs by having them taken out instead... I don't see this as much of a solution. Squads function narratively in pretty specific circumstances.

While you've brought up some really good points, this one I disagree on. Imperial Valor is for protecting important NPCs, Squads are for everyone.

Now the players don't have to LIKE that they lose NPCs, but it is Star Wars after all. In war people die. Look at the Battle of Yavin. Biggs, Porkins, even Wedge were all minions squadroned with Luke. When Porkins got splashed Luke didn't celebrate that the fat guy took the hit for him. He just accepted it and moved on.

In a lot of games and stories these days we're conditioned to believe the hero/PC must take responsibility for the NPC types below them and work to keep them alive. (Mass Effect 2's loyalty mechanic->suicide mission comes to mind.) So we usually do lame little tricks like having the minion groups not be attached to the player as a way of freeing them from feeling like it's their fault ole Jed took a disruptor to the face. I even had a GM rewrite the squadron rules specifically to make the NPCs more survivable. (It didn't really work out 100% but it was a worthy attempt)

And that's kinda the genius here. The squad/squadron mechanic works just fine, especially when held up to the AoR backdrop. EotE is a game about people with money problems. So every time that freighter takes a hit, that's 500c/HT your character isn't putting toward his obligation. But AoR is a game about war. Damage to your fighter is just something that happens, most players shouldn't have to pay out of pocket to repair their x-wing, it'll just happen. But every time Porkins, or Biggs, or Dak gets greased, that's a pilot they aren't getting back...but it's also just part of what happens, and the players need to accept that or they may never get that Duty ranking in the long run.

Honestly I'm half-tempted to write a 2-3 adventure minicampaign starring the players as TIE pilots just to make the most extreme use of this....

OK, say I agree with you, and we use the Squadron rules for starfighter combat. Let's say the players have access to a steady stream of minions and a bevy of snubfighters as well, which happens to be true in my campaign as well (they kind of acquired a Venator... and have quite a few ol' V-wings as well). Let's also say they are driving an ARC-170 supported by minion pilots in the V-wings.

The squadron rules say that if targeted, the squadron leader gets to redirect a successful hit «he or his vessel suffers to a minion in his [...] squadron instead, which destroys, disables, or otherwise eliminates that minion from the encounter, at the GM's discretion». Also, the squadron may be able to bolster its defense by using one of many formations during the attack, notably "Evasive Maneuvers" and "Screen Formation". How would you adjudicate the whole "at the GM's discretion" with starship combat? Would you destroy (some?) ships, only disable them, "eliminate [them] from the encounter"? It puts a different pressure on the GM if the PCs actually own the ships (credit cost), or care about their squad-mates (relationship cost). But the difference in space battles is that if the ships are destroyed, the "credit cost" is immense, pressuring the GM to make the right decision about the ships that have been hit.

Maybe the cost is different if the players are part of the Rebel Alliance, and expect the funds and other pilots to be provided by the rebellion. In the case of the Edge of the Empire "standard setting", space battles do take place , and as a GM of a group of Super Rich™ PC's, for whom the expenses of space combat would be directly subtracted from their quarterly earnings ( ), I could understand the frustration of losing several spacecrafts worth 70,000+ credits a piece. Also, contrary to the Alliance, criminal PCs have to recruit (or pay) for their minions personally.

Or maybe I'm just a tad too worried.