So for a bit of fun I used oggdude's really cool Character tool to recreate Han Solo and the Millenium Falcon up to his last scene in Episode VI.

I used a whooping 4000XP to finally be satisfied, but after all, Han did have a lot of stories and skills to show for in the old EU.

What I still didn't like was how the Falcon ended up. By the end I couldn't install the armor upgrade from the Carrack cruiser hull plating he used after the battle of Nar Shaddaa, because I had no more Hardpoints left.

Then I thought of an idea: The Falcon was a finicky beast of a machine. Why not implement a rule to have further hardpoints that also make the ship more prone to system failures?

So I wrote up this rule for excess hardpoints and want your opinions on it. Too harsh? Too easy? You tell me!

So here it is:

Excess Hardpoints

Sometimes a character wants to customize his ship even further beyond the Customization Hardpoint Threshold , stressing the boundaries of what the ship's systems can handle. In such cases he may add hardpoints to the limit, but must take 2 permanent threat on his checks in retribution for every hardpoint added this way.

So every excess Hardpoint adds further threat to each Piloting roll done for the ship, increasing the chance of negative sideeffects or even dangerous failures.

Gah! That's nasty.

Wouldn't lowering the System Strain Threshold by say three for the a new basic attachment be enough? Then allow a few mods for additional hard points that reduce it by a further three each time?

I've been tweaking a rule for a while for more hardpoints, but I'm always at a tossup there. I don't have my notebook with me, but I think I had something along the lines of:

1 HP == Silhouette x (10 or 20) ENC == -1 Handling == -1 Speed == Silhouette x1 System Strain

Granted, GM fiat wins out, but that was my line of thought

That all seems really complicated for this system. Not to say it couldn't work but it doesn't feel like FFG Star Wars to me.

New Attachment: "Braver than I thought"

Hard Points: 0

Cost: AFB - TBD

Vehicle may increase the number of Hard Points in total by one. Decrease System Strain of vehicle by 3.

3) Increase Hard Points by 1; decrease System Strain by 3 mods

...or something along those lines now that we have 0 HP mods from Fly Casual.

I thought about how the Falcon would always spin out, or have those system failures in ESB. And since it is said in the old canon, that this happened because Han put just too much stuff into his ship I searched for a way to make the systems fail or create setback effects. Giving the ship permanent setback dice wasn't cutting it for me and downgrading system strain and ahndling was not really it either, since the ship was hit multiple times and still was very maneuverable in the asteroid field, so I thought there must be something else. And that is where I thought about the most narrative way: to use threat.

Because threat doesn't always mean failure, only when you have no successes from the roll. But pehaps two threat is too heavy.

I figured if you come to that point where you want to push the boundaries of what is possible with your ship, your skill rating is already skyhigh and you have many talenst to counter it. But the more I think, perhaps one threat generated by every excess hard point would suffice. And perhaps make it so, that if there is netto threat left, the GM must use it for letting a system fail. Like e.g. a targeting array, and you need a mechanics or computer check to reboot it. (or perhaps a lucky fist).

I thought about how the Falcon would always spin out, or have those system failures in ESB. And since it is said in the old canon, that this happened because Han put just too much stuff into his ship I searched for a way to make the systems fail or create setback effects. Giving the ship permanent setback dice wasn't cutting it for me and downgrading system strain and ahndling was not really it either, since the ship was hit multiple times and still was very maneuverable in the asteroid field, so I thought there must be something else. And that is where I thought about the most narrative way: to use threat.

Because threat doesn't always mean failure, only when you have no successes from the roll. But pehaps two threat is too heavy.

I figured if you come to that point where you want to push the boundaries of what is possible with your ship, your skill rating is already skyhigh and you have many talenst to counter it. But the more I think, perhaps one threat generated by every excess hard point would suffice. And perhaps make it so, that if there is netto threat left, the GM must use it for letting a system fail. Like e.g. a targeting array, and you need a mechanics or computer check to reboot it. (or perhaps a lucky fist).

One threat per additional hard point seems much more reasonable. Still a bit harsh to my mind.

One threat per additional hard point seems much more reasonable. Still a bit harsh to my mind.

Yeah, maybe you're right.

But further reducing system strain makes the ship to prone to ion attacks, and that was too much in my mind.

Also this is where Copilots and engineers can shine, keeping the bucket of bolts together and working

One threat per additional hard point seems much more reasonable. Still a bit harsh to my mind.

Yeah, maybe you're right.

But further reducing system strain makes the ship to prone to ion attacks, and that was too much in my mind.

Also this is where Copilots and engineers can shine, keeping the bucket of bolts together and working

What if we combine the two ideas?

New Attachment: "Braver than I thought"

Hard Points: 0

Cost: AFB - TBD

Vehicle may increase the number of Hard Points in total by one. Decrease System Strain of vehicle by 3.

3) Increase Hard Points by 1; 1 automatic threat when using the attachment mods

One threat per additional hard point seems much more reasonable. Still a bit harsh to my mind.

Yeah, maybe you're right.

But further reducing system strain makes the ship to prone to ion attacks, and that was too much in my mind.

Also this is where Copilots and engineers can shine, keeping the bucket of bolts together and working

Only if we model it to System Strain. If we simply model it to threat they won't be able to keep fixing it.

You could always allow an attachment that provides 2 additional hard points along with a "Fragile" flaw that reduces the cost of critical hits against the vehicle by its value (the opposite of Massive), and have two Mods that add even more hard points at the cost of +10% on Critical Rolls (each) In short, the vessel can pack in a lot but becomes very susceptible to critical hits and system failures. You'd certainly need to be brave to consider flying such a ship on a regular basis.

Could it be that the Millenium Falcon is a Signature Vehicle and either Han or Chewie has the Rigger Spec from AoR? Some of your desired improvements could be explained by the talents of that Spec (Tuned Maneuvering Thruster, Bolstered Armor, etc.).

Edit: Fixed typo

Chemie is definitely a Rigger.

Could it be that the Millenium Falcon is a Signature Vehicle and either Han or Chewie has the Rigger Spec from AoR? Some of your desired improvements could be explained by the talents of that Spec (Tuned Maneuvering Thruster, Bolstered Armor, etc.).

Edit: Fixed typo

I did this, but guess what: Only ONE character can be the Rigger for one vehicle. And the problem is: It's still not enough! The Falcon is supposed to be as fast as an X-Wing, yet I can't push him beyond 4 without the proper talents. I wanted a version that didn't need that.

And then: the falcon still has more upgrades, than I can get on it with Rigger and the regular Hardpoints.

I'll post my version of Han and the Falcon. Then you'll see my problems.

I did this, but guess what: Only ONE character can be the Rigger for one vehicle. And the problem is: It's still not enough! The Falcon is supposed to be as fast as an X-Wing, yet I can't push him beyond 4 without the proper talents. I wanted a version that didn't need that.

IMO, this is the first mistake. Talents should definitely be able to push the ship to X-Wing class speeds, and who else other than Han or Chewie would have those kinds of talents?

And then: the falcon still has more upgrades, than I can get on it with Rigger and the regular Hardpoints.

I'll post my version of Han and the Falcon. Then you'll see my problems.

I’m AFB at the moment, but ISTR that there is a talent called Jury-Rigged that lets you add hard points to objects. Can’t you use that on ships as well? What if both Han and Chewie have a couple of ranks of that talent, and they both apply them to add as many hard points as are needed?

Keep in mind that there was never a time in the Falcon’s history where all attachments/mods were installed at the same time. Sometimes one got swapped out for something else, and then swapped back at a later time.

Also keep in mind that the Falcon was completely rebuilt from the keel up on at least one or two occasions, and those would be excellent opportunities for the builders to add more hard points than would normally be available on a YT-1300.

All those things considered, if you’re doing an NPC YBTC for Han that includes the Falcon, you could make the ship do or have whatever you want. I mean, you would effectively be the GM, and this is an NPC and NPCs don’t follow the same rules as PCs.

If you wanted to to a PC YBTC for Han that also includes the Falcon, then the above factors might be more important to you.

I made some guidelines for adding extra CHPs on page 50 here. They're not great, but it reduces cargo space, costs a lot of cash and one could easily add some Bucket of Bolts effects from page 33 (same pdf) to cause more fun and games

I’m AFB at the moment, but ISTR that there is a talent called Jury-Rigged that lets you add hard points to objects. Can’t you use that on ships as well? What if both Han and Chewie have a couple of ranks of that talent, and they both apply them to add as many hard points as are needed?

The Tinkerer Talent allows a PC to "choose one piece of equipment and increases its number of hard points by one. He can only do this once per piece of equipment, but can modify a number of pieces of equipment equal to his ranks in Tinkerer." The majority of posts on previous threads have come to conclusion that "equipment" refers to items in the Gear and Equipment sections, not Starships.

The Tinkerer Talent allows a PC to "choose one piece of equipment and increases its number of hard points by one. He can only do this once per piece of equipment, but can modify a number of pieces of equipment equal to his ranks in Tinkerer." The majority of posts on previous threads have come to conclusion that "equipment" refers to items in the Gear and Equipment sections, not Starships.

Domingo is technically correct however this is one of those rules that it's not a stretch to make work on a PC's fighter or starship. To keep it from going all Munchkin just assume that the starship is a single piece of equipment not each component.

personally, I see no reason tinkerer should be restricted from vehicles or ships. The Outlaw Tech gets the talent twice (and specifically mentions working on ships in their description) and the Gadgeteer once. Still 1 additional hard point can mean a world of difference.

There's also Jegergryte's option of sacrificing cargo and lots of credits to add HP's. There is also the Intuitive Improvements talent from the Artisan in F&D. Up to 2 more possible HP there.

However, if you want to add HP and and want to model the systems going buggy, just say (as a 0 HP mod of course) if 1 HP is added, on a despair (more HP lowers the number of threat needed by 1; 2 HP, 3 threat needed, 3 HP 2 needed, etc) the GM can automatically roll on the Vehicle components critical chart. Fixing it requires 1 action per HP gained and a Mechanics roll with aa difficuty equal to the HP gained in this manner. Of coure the GM can always activate this as many times as threat or despair are rolled. These could be Piloting, Mechanics, or Computers rolls.

These would not be actual critical hits, just quirkiness of overloading your ship with stuff.

However, I would put a cap on how many HP could ever be added to no more than the Sil of the vehicle or Sil-1 by any of these house ruled methods

If using Jegergryte's cargo-HP solution, they can be combined, just still cap out the HP at Sil o Sil-1 total.

Just off the top of my head.

This way Han and Chewie could add 3-4 more HP, but had better hope they get more advantage than threat.

This would accunt for the hyperdrive malfunctioning in ESB, Chewie suceeded after Han scolded him, but rolled a couple of threats on the setback dice given...OOPPs. Unknowingly, one of the ships many droid brains decided to do a diagnostic of it at the most inappropriate time.

Han

"It's not my fault!" :-P

If you're worried about making a rule that can be exploited unfairly, why not just create items for your story that provide a bonus for 0 hard points with some bad side effect? Obtaining the item can be a story in itself. It could be a unique sort of thing, too. Like the specific part from a specific model ship constructed during a specific time at a specific shipyard can be used as a reverse digital polarizer on the PC's ship and that boosts the speed BUT it also affects strain or increases maintenance costs (I'd rather deal with a strain penalty that MIGHT come into play than deal with a hit to my purse that always comes into play) or makes the ship easier to detect (increase sensor range by 1 for ships to detect the PC ship, etc.

Maybe these add-ons can be like an Obligation. When it comes up, the ship suffers a malfunction. All that added speed or armor or whatever puts enough ship under enough stress that the hyperdrive speed value goes up or the shields fail or... whatever.

No "one rule fits all" created so no "insert exploit here" to deal with.

Isn't this the same problem people usually have when trying to use main characters and EU? Every author under the sun worked so hard to one-up the others, the characters (and by extension the falcon) become cartoonish supermen well beyond the scope of the game, or even the source material?

A 4000XP Han should kinda be an indicator....

Or is it merely symptomatic of the wookieepedia effect, where everything has to have an epic backstory and be the best at whatever it is?

"The soft soap dispenser in the Millennium Falcons head is the last leader of the Cranton Gorforion, a long lost force using tribe of intelligent public restroom products. In 87ABY the resurrected Sith hand dryer known only as Darth RecieveBacon attempted to kindnap the Soft Soap Dispenser by turning Han Solo into a unicorn and drinking epic amount of red bantha energy drink. The attempt was thwarted when R2-D2 reconfigured Luke Skywalker's walker (itself an ancient Jedi library shelf dusting droid in disguise) to replace the clogged soft soap packet nozzle, freeing the Lord Gorforion's force spirit, who defeated RecieveBacon by installing a x0 hyperdrive into the Falcon, allowing it to be everywhere in the galaxy at once."

Isn't this the same problem people usually have when trying to use main characters and EU? Every author under the sun worked so hard to one-up the others, the characters (and by extension the falcon) become cartoonish supermen well beyond the scope of the game, or even the source material?

Or is it merely symptomatic of the wookieepedia effect, where everything has to have an epic backstory and be the best at whatever it is?

Considering Wookieepedia is, essentially, a catalogue of everything that's been written without discrimination, those are same problem. Also see: Sci-fi writers don't know scale, Serial Escalation, Welded Continuity, and the fact the the 'main characters' had to be in almost everything. (which, unfortunately, I can't dig out a trope for.)

Why do people always try to create famous characters using the rules for PCs? Are you going to play Han Solo in your next campaign? If not, why bother.

If he's going to be an NPC, give him the stats appropriate for the current situation, and improvise from there. The only reason, I can think of, for statting out film characters is to say at one point: "I've got 4001 XP; now I'm MIGHTIER than Han Solo!" So what? - By the way, 4000 XP is quite a lot powerful. I believe it only takes about 10.000 XP to learn everything in the Core Book.

Same with the Falcon: Is she an NPC's vehicle? Give her whatever you think she needs. Only if you think, you need a means for the PCs to build a ship like the Falcon, then: Make one that suits You best!

If it's about fairness: PCs need to be able to emulate everything an NPC can? Why not give them the Adversary talent on the way.

A wise man once said: " The main difference between physicists and engineers is, that engineers only solve problems they actually have."

Why do people always try to create famous characters using the rules for PCs? Are you going to play Han Solo in your next campaign? If not, why bother.

If he's going to be an NPC, give him the stats appropriate for the current situation, and improvise from there. The only reason, I can think of, for statting out film characters is to say at one point: "I've got 4001 XP; now I'm MIGHTIER than Han Solo!" So what? - By the way, 4000 XP is quite a lot powerful. I believe it only takes about 10.000 XP to learn everything in the Core Book.

Same with the Falcon: Is she an NPC's vehicle? Give her whatever you think she needs. Only if you think, you need a means for the PCs to build a ship like the Falcon, then: Make one that suits You best!

If it's about fairness: PCs need to be able to emulate everything an NPC can? Why not give them the Adversary talent on the way.

A wise man once said: " The main difference between physicists and engineers is, that engineers only solve problems they actually have."

OK, I get where you are comming from, and you are correct...from a ertain point of view ( :-P ) but I shal play Sith advocate on thhis one, at least from most of my gaming groups over my (too) many years.

Some of us come from older systems, specifically D6, thought d20 did it too, where all of the main characters were stated. For those, perhaps it's just about completiion, or nostalgia, or whatever. Every other Star Wars game before this one stated them, why not now?

For others, they might not have any acctual adventure planned, the GM is sick, or they just plain want to re-inact sceens from the movies or novels. See if they can pull off what was done on screen or page?

For others, they could just see tham as goals to reach, or benchmakrks to try and pass. "I want to fly as well as Commander Skywalker", or "I want to be as elloquent as Padme" or what ever.

Some players, myself included, look at your "average" NPC and build appropriately from there. If I want to be a fighter pilot, I look at the NPC fighter pilot and match as close as I can to those "core" skills and individualize from there. If I want to say my character graduated an Ace from the accademy, I want ot have the skills/attributes of an Ace to back it up. Having the main characters stated could give some of those that have trouble a way to achieve certain character goals without a lot of stress on what to take next.

But each to their own. In this particular system, with the limits of 5 for skills and 6/7 for attributes, it's all going to come down to specialization and talent choices. DoesHan have a Pilot (Space) of 4, deffinately, 5 perhaps, but what talents does he have to enhance the limited range of the dice pool.

I for one, really hope they put out stats for the main characters in future supplements. I can't see this happening until they really finish with all of the career books first.

Yes, can you have Han perform a Corellian Sendoff by rolling his Knitting skill against an Easy? Sure, it's your game, do it how you will for your narrative. Me, I like narrative with structure, hence the rules, and would like to see options, even if they are very far off options, for the rules to allow what is in the fluff, Cannon or Legend.

Now, as for giving the PC's Adversary, a lot of them already have better. I personally think Adversary was put in there as an easy GM mechanic to represent a multitude of Talent trees without having 3 page write ups for every mook, monster and master.

Just my 2 credits. The only rule of gaming is "have fun". Everyone's idea of that is slightly different. The one link all of us have here for fun is it's Star Wars.

I do remember the olden days, too. And I was one of those perfectionist GMs myself; Hell, i statted out every minor fishmonger the PCs might eventually meet, completely with background and character quirks. And yes, it was nice to know that with starfighter piloting 10d +1 you'd be the best pilot in the galaxy.

But the times, they're a-changin'; it's the 3rd millenium now, and all. With hindsight, all that was a terrible waste of time, in my humble opinion.

As for the Adversary: That was intended to be hyperbolic... So, Thank You!

Same with the Falcon: Is she an NPC's vehicle? Give her whatever you think she needs. Only if you think, you need a means for the PCs to build a ship like the Falcon, then: Make one that suits You best!

If it's about fairness: PCs need to be able to emulate everything an NPC can? Why not give them the Adversary talent on the way.

A wise man once said: " The main difference between physicists and engineers is, that engineers only solve problems they actually have."

I've spent some time looking at ALL the Falcon's mods from various sources. I got (and trying to be generous/forgiving with hard point cost) :

AX 108 groundbuzzer - 1 HP

Cloaked Smuggling Compartments - 1 HP

Rapid Cargo Evacuation Chute - 1 HP

Duralloy Plating - 2 HP

Kuat Shield Generator - 2 HP....

Novaldex S/G - 2 HP....

Nordoxicon S/G - 2 HP... these 3 s/g's give the Falcon 'warship-grade shielding'

2 x Arakyd ST2 Conc. Missile Launchers - 2 HP

.5 H/drive - 1 HP

Cryogenic Hibernation Capsule - 1 HP (only because the glorifeid in-ship radio and glorified drinks cabinet,,, sorry, Interior Broadcast Suite and Onboard Amenites Unit cost 1 HP each)

(Upgraded Comms Array - 1 HP)

(Ion Turbine - 1 HP)

The last 2 are in brackets as it is 'implied' IN MY OPINION either by the films, Solo Trilogy books or WEG/D20 system that the Falcon MAY have these mods - so that's AT LEAST 15 HARD POINTS OF MODS,,,, *facepalm*... Hmmmm, seems a few more H/P's there than the alloted 6 for a YT1300 IMO

http://members.shaw.ca/david.p.z.888/star_wars/millennium_falcon.html

This is, of course, very tongue-in-cheek, and I've edited after finding another Falcon mods/HP thread. I'm not happy with the HP allocation TBH but I'm enjoying the game immensely... except when my son decides that his Bounty Hunter decides to '...shank...' some stromtrooper with his Assasin's Creed inspired wristsheath vibroknife...but that's another story.