Ship to ground combat is deadlier than shown in the Canon

By GroggyGolem, in Game Masters

The vehicle damage aside for a moment, does anyone actually shoot their PCs with Disruptors, or HBRs, RAW? Either one is personal scale and essentially a PC eraser.

I haven't thrown disruptors at them yet, but I have used a HRB against them once, and I regularly throw LRB's at them. Nearly wiped them with a Tactician Nemesis and a LRB Rival with a couple minion squads, but my PC's have 2 LRB's and a HRB between them, they are heavily armed mercs who take really dangerous jobs.

The F&D group I’m working with right now uses three different techniques, to pretty good effect — especially when combined.

One guy is pretty good with a lightsaber and just jumps into battle and chops things up into little pieces. And he likes to Sunder their weapons, too. Because of his various talents in Makashi and the techniques he uses, he is almost impossible to hit in combat, but he does spend a lot of strain on Parry, doing second maneuvers, etc….

Another guy has some Recon Remotes that have been rigged with hold-out blasters, so he can control them from a distance and yet use them to shoot people.

The third person is FR2 and has invested a lot of points in Move, and so is frequently yanking weapons out of the hands of various opponents — or slamming them into each other, or walls, or whatever. I recently re-read the rules, and if the target is Silhouette 1, then the difficulty to attack them with Move is only one purple die.

But I’ll keep working on finding ways to challenge them. ;)

The vehicle damage aside for a moment, does anyone actually shoot their PCs with Disruptors, or HBRs, RAW? Either one is personal scale and essentially a PC eraser.

Not yet in Force and Destiny, but for sure in Edge of Empire. We had played that campaign for a while and had some pretty scary dudes in the party. Particularly the combat droid Gank with its fully armoured cortosis lined exoskeleton.

This patch makes force users and Jedi powerful against blaster fire (not invincible), we tried to emulate movies/series. Non so many Jedi were hit on movies or even TV shoes by non-area (like geonosian sonic weapons) and common blaster fire. The rule is just use the same value that you would use with common Reflect rules so:

Ex; Reflect 2: Adds 2+2 Failures to ranged attacks. Just change instead reduce damage to add Failures. The rest still the same. In our games this changes we made emulate movies/series a lot :)

"Area/Blast" weapons or melee combat (just for brave ones) is needed to defeat a Jedi (or pseudo). The counterpart is, if you get hit, you will receive full damage instead the mitigated one thanks to Reflect common rules. At maximum "common level" (5 Ranks, not the true limit but the most used) a really defensive Jedi/FU can add 7 Failures to an attack roll. With this, now you can Reflect (and return at GM's permission) fire from vehicle/starship scale.

Personally, I love it :D

I'm curious how you deal with Improved Reflect? Since you don't know if the attack actually hit you to begin with, how do you know when you can activate Improved Reflect? Also have you considered using Setback dice instead of adding Difficulty dice? Not a suggestion, I was just curious if you'd tried it?

No problem with that :) Use the same rules: 3 Threats/1 Despair. No need to make changes on that. At least for our games. About adding Difficulty, we considerer it, But, considering two points: Strain spenditure and how easy, even young padawans, deflect bolts, we prefered to add Failures :D

Edited by Josep Maria

I'm really strong against letting Jedi deflect starship weapons.

Ok it's done in the movie, but stretching it far, and a good Jedi can deflect a Death Star ray back by playing a bit Tekkaman on top of his fighter...

However, the problem is still present: Death Star vs Tiny Padawan is sure to be lethal, i don't care what the rules says. But they sometime would whant to deflect speedbike's blaster. And that's done in the movie, and pretty useful too.

I like Josep's house rules, deflect as a fixed failure.

Adding a ranged defense value (ie a setback dice) for each Reflect rank is so good and simple i really don't understand why is'nt the rule (and i feel like it was in Beta). Parry could be a melee defense rating, of course.

As for planetary weapons damaging characthers, maybe there's the need of more scale (ie: personal, vehicle, and spaceship's scale) or we could end up in speederbike weapons obliterating characthers (if they are planetary scale weapons) or doing nothing to another speederbike (if they are personel scale weapons).

Just my 2 cents

Yes, Planetary to Personal scale combat should usually be avoided at all costs, cause it tends to leave smoking boots behind instead of bodies.

.. and that is essentailly what my players have done on two occasions just to make a point... The 'baddies' took the hint after the second smoking crater and backed off for a bit... of course as GM I just wove in other complications when I rolled for Obligation :D

"Every man there go back inside, or we will blow a new crater in this little moon."

Hi kelpie!

You can add scales (I separate vehicle x5 from starship x10) but with "Death Star Ray" well, just say NO XD

I use to use a "hard cap" based on TV shows/movies. For example: Whats the biggest thing a jedi can deflect? Heavy vehicle artillery (that droid with rotating head and cannons) and starfighter attacks, so, until a new update, thats the hard cap I use.

The same in other fields, like the Force: Whats the biggest thing ever moved? A Confederacy Super Battle Tank, 22,02 meters (Silhouette 4). (In comics also AT-AT ar moved, but are in the same scale). So thats my limit.

Argue with your players, and gently and calmly, tell them that they CAN'T reflect shots from Death Star XD