I'm not sure if it's more appropriate to necropost on an old threat or start a new one. Seeing as how the various House Rule threads are off the front page, I'm going to err on the side of assuming they've run their course and start something new.

I'm not asking for House Rules though no harm in sharing them. I'd like to run a few passed this group for comment, review, suggestion, etc. I know now every group would want to use them. House rules are, by nature, good for the house they're being used in. You can play Monopoly with a pile of money in the center waiting for someone to land on Free Parking... or not.

So as not to clutter things up, I'll put each rule in a separate post.

Damage Control

Pilot Only: No

Silhouette: Any

Speed: Any

This action is an attempt to mitigate some of the stress caused to a vehicle's systems through combat or accident. Using this action, any Player Character who makes a successful Mechanics check recovers one point of system strain. The difficulty of the Mechanics check is determined by the amount of strain the ship is currently suffering compared to the SS Threshold of the ship. Damage Control can be attempted as many times as needed to reduce a ship's system strain to zero. Only special circumstances would make it not possible to try again on a failed check even if a Threat is rolled..

System Strain is:

< ½ SS Threshold = Easy

>= ½ SS Threshold = Average

> SS Threshold = Hard

Likewise, a mechanic can even repair some of the damage dealt to a vehicle during an ongoing fight, although this is much trickier. In general, PCs can only attempt one Damage Control check to reduce HT per hit that causes HT to the ship (be it a laser, asteroid collision, etc.). Each hit should be recorded separately and the player declares which hit he is rolling against when he takes the Damage Control action. The base difficulty of this check is determined by the amount of total HT the ship has suffered as determined by the table below.

Hull Trauma is:

< ½ HT Threshold = Average

>= ½ HT Threshold = Hard

> HT Threshold = Formidable

Succeeding against this difficulty will repair a single point of HT. A skilled mechanic can attempt to repair more damage than this, up to the number of HT scored by the hit being repaired, by upgrading the difficulty of the check once for each additional point of HT he is trying to repair.

While trying to repair HT, a failed roll simply repairs no HT for that hit on that turn and the attempt may be repeated. A Threat may indicate that the damage from a particular hit can not be repaired until the ship is in a proper repair facility. A Despair may cause further damage (equal to the number of points the mechanic is attempting to repair) as well as create further issues for the mechanic to deal with (hull breach causing vented atmosphere, overloaded circuits causing a critical system to be disabled, etc.) as something goes horribly wrong until another Damage Control action at the same difficulty can address it. When addressing such an issue, HT would not be repaired.

Regardless of how many points the mechanic attempts to repair, if the roll succeeds, 3 Advantages may be spent to repair an additional point of HT so long as the HT repaired does not exceed the damage originally scored by the hit being addressed.

Example: The Rim Runner is in a battle as it leaves Ord Mantell. After a couple of hits have been scored on its hull, Zix is attempting to do some Damage Control to repair the the Hull Trauma. The first hit scored two points of damage. Total damage against the ship is less than half the HT Threshold so the Mechanics check is Easy (2 purples). Zix tries to repair an extra point of HT which would completely repair the damage from that hit. This upgrades the difficulty to easy (1 red / 1 purple). The result of his roll is Success x 1 / Advantage x 3. Based on the Success, Zix has successfully repaired the 2 HT he was trying to address. The 3 Advantages would have allowed another point to be repaired but, as the hit only scored 2 HT, there is nothing more to repair.

On the next turn, Zix attends to a more serious hit. This one was for 9 HT. Zix wants to try to repair 6 HT bumping the difficulty to Red / Red / Red. Zix fails this check but no Threats are rolled so he can try again.

On the next turn, he tries to repair 4 HT from the hit. The difficulty is Red / Red. The result of this check is a failure with a Failure / Threat / Despair / Advantage x 3. As the roll is a failure, the Advantages can not be used to repair a point of HT. Because of the Threat, he can not repair this damage until the ship is in a repair facility. Worse, based on the Despair rolled, the repair actually caused 4 HT (the amount Zix was attempting to repair) and a circuit blowout resulting in the ship's dorsal cannons losing power.

On the following turn, Zix can make a roll against the same difficulty as the check that had resulted included the d. If succeeds against this difficulty (Red / Red) succeeds, he will repair no HT but he will reestablish the circuit to the dorsal cannons, allowing them to fire... and it looks like the PC's will need it!

Characters can also use this action to repair Critical Hits per the rules in the CRB.

The GM is the final arbitrator as to whether a character can attempt HT or Critical Hit repairs at all (a snubfighter pilot could not climb out of his cockpit during a dogfight to patch his wing, nor could a speeder biker re-attach a control surface while driving through a forest).

Special Note: Solid Repairs talent can be used as part of the Damage Control action once per encounter. The talent may be declared and applied after a successful roll.

Why'd I change Damage Control?

• To give the mechanic more to do.
• To give the PC's more staying power.
• To make staying in a fight something other than a bankrupting decision.

Jobs are paying about 10K each. They might scavenge up another 5K or so if they're really diligent about it. At around 500Cr/HT, getting into any kind of serious fight, which seem to be staples of the movies, they'd be spending every penny on repairs.

Based on the fights they have had, they'll still be paying a huge chunk of change on their ship but not so much that they they have every reason to make each fight all about getting out of it ASAP. That's ok in general but it isn't if it's all the time. I've been GM'ing sine 1978 so I know I can toss in wrinkles here or there but, when I do that, I want it to be different and dramatic and not, "The reason we can't immediately jump to hyperspace of the week".

Probably best to let this one marinate before I post more, I think. But a few thumbnails of the other rules:

1. GtA got a big treatment. Borrowed from something I read here (and I am a bad, bad person for not noting the contributor's name... but I will!). A few added requirements to use GtA (must be in weapon range, for example). A few more effects (target can't use maneuvers that affect range to any vehicle with GtA against it... including Chase rules, target can break GtA from multiple ships that have it, if the target uses the terrain to conduct a maneuver to shake the ships with GtA - flying through the superstructure of a space station under construction, for example), the GM can arbitrate whether the ships with GtA have to perform the same maneuver to keep their advantage... this is mainly to replicate the whole Asteroid Field scene in ESB).

2. Standardized when a task can or can't be reattempted. Seemed some could be, some couldn't, some couldn't be under this condition others couldn't be under that condition... I opted to make one rule. Well... 2. It works a little differently in structured time than in non-structured time but both systems rely on the dice to help tell that story.

3. Plotting a hyperspace course in structured time is a matter of making an Astrogation check each turn to build up a tally of Successes until a threshold is reached. Once its reached, the ship can jump (making a roll based on the CRB)... but the Threats / Advantages tallied can affect the final roll's difficulty. This was to give the astrogator more to do, too... particularly since the astrogator in my group is a very "combat adverse" character. We saw him sitting around until the turns passed where he could finally make the astrogation check with a random roll to co-pilot tossed in from time to time and he seemed a little unhappy. Now he actually has enough to do that he has to choose and, IMO, that's a good thing.