Hi everybody,

Lately I have been reading some Star Wars books, and it is obvious that the raw regarding shields cannot reproduce what we see in the movies or read in the books. In Star Wars media, shields can take a certain amount of damage before going down. Once they do, the ship is dangerously exposed to damage and typically in trouble. Although its armour may help, the ship will suffer "critical" damage once the shields fail and will be destroyed fast easily.

Have any of you house ruled this part of the game? In a way that the effect of shields is not a random thing represented by the roll of dice, but catch more the flavour of the books and movies?

Thanks in advance.

Some people on this site suggested to treat shields like the reflect talent in F&D. Basically, take 3 system strain to absorb 2+ shield rating damage done to the ship.

It's been that way in the games, really, but not so much in the movies. Going back and watching, there just aren't many, if any, examples of ships taking damage to shields before critical hull damage. At Yavin, TIEs and X-Wings were going down to very little laser fire. Same thing at Endor. For the most part, in the media, ships blow up when they need to for the story, and they take shield hits and hull damage the same way.

As for a house rule, I don't know. I haven't done enough ship combat with the system to really know. We've done mainly ground combat when we play, but we've been doing other games for a while now. I've got a game coming up, though, so I'll see how it plays when I get there.

The movies never really make it clear how the shields are supposed to work. We do see that the Millenium Falcon in ANH is about to lose shields just before it jumps to hyperspace. In ESB, 3PO says " Sir, we just lost the main rear deflector shield. Neither case really makes it clear how much the shields are doing.

Fighters seem to go down pretty easily at the Battle of Yavin. Then again, that could simply be due to the shields having already been worn down significantly from turbolaser and TIE laser hits before they were finally shot down.

As far as the movies go, it seems to just be another plot device like hyperdrives where we never really see enough of them to fully know their capabilities. Shields protect the Falcon when they need to but fail when fighters need to get shot down.

Some people treat them as literal shields that will soak up damage until depleted (the X-Wing series of computer games handled them this way). I've heard some people express the opinion that due to the term "deflector shields" that perhaps they are something that deflects grazing shots but a dead-on hit will still penetrate (in which case the FFG system would make more sense).

So far I've been using RAW for shields. However, our campaign has only seen a few space combats and they've generally been pretty short, so it really hasn't been an issue. Plus I like having shields work a little differently than armor. But to each his own. If you wanted something more along what you have described, I think Laurefindel's idea is a good representation of that.

I haven't messed with RAW for shields as they seem to do just fine for my group but my group hasn't really done any major fighting other than a handful of sessions here and there.

Critical hits can "deplete" shields well enough to cover shields going down.

I haven't done anything about shields, I play them as written and they work just fine. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The best examples I’ve seen in Canon regarding shields actually come from recent episodes of Star Wars: Rebels. In particular, The Ghost takes multiple hits from the Imperial Cruisers, and those shots just splat on the shields.

Ablative armor that can be re-generated is my current best theory, but the mechanics of exactly how that works is not yet something I’ve come up with.

There might be other threads you can find that will help on this subject, but I’m not sure what to advise you for search terms that might be useful.

Please let us know as you continue to do your research on this subject.

I haven't done anything about shields, I play them as written and they work just fine. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Depends how you define "work just fine". If you mean a flavourless setback die that you can move around a bit, then I suppose you're right. But you can't get any kind of "Shields are taking a beating!" or "Shields are gone!" or "Boost the shields!" flavour out of that mechanic.

Here's a link to Emperor Norton's thread, which include the shield-as-parry rules:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/182940-starship-house-rules/

There is actually a talent that lowers those numbers - Overwhelm Defenses.

Hi everybody,

Lately I have been reading some Star Wars books, and it is obvious that the raw regarding shields cannot reproduce what we see in the movies or read in the books. In Star Wars media, shields can take a certain amount of damage before going down. Once they do, the ship is dangerously exposed to damage and typically in trouble. Although its armour may help, the ship will suffer "critical" damage once the shields fail and will be destroyed fast easily.

Have any of you house ruled this part of the game? In a way that the effect of shields is not a random thing represented by the roll of dice, but catch more the flavour of the books and movies?

Thanks in advance.

Actually the movies don't show the shields taking damage fully before the ship goes down. Only the media that came out after the X-wing games really shows that.

Ep I - the shields were still up, but the astromechs were getting blasted off the surface.

Ep IV - the fighters pass through the Death Stars shields to attack it and any surface shielding is overwhelmed by any shots unleashed.

Basically the video games wanted to make the fighting more survivable for the player, so the made the shields the mechanic for doing that. Sort of like the healing packs you can run across in FPS games that instantly heal you to full. We don't have those in the RPG either. The writers of the books went off the videogames to make their main characters more durable.

Thanks for directing me to Norton's thread. There are some interesting ideas to boost space combat in this game.

I have a really big overhaul because, after re-watching Rebels, CW and movies, seems that shields are REALLY important, more than hull itself. When shields go down, the vehicle seems that gonna explode in not so much time.

The actual rule is cool, but doesn't get the "essence" about what should be. When I translate the rule I will post it here

EDIT: Here are the rule overhaul, two possible versions. We discarded the second one, but I will post it by the way.

• VERSION 1: Starships - Armor and Hull

  • Starships with Sil 4 or lower, have a maximum amount of Armor equal to Sil and Hull equivalent to Sil x5.

  • Starships with Sil 5 or upper , have a maximum amount of Armor equal to Sil and Hull equivalent to Sil x10 .

  • Shields: Work as Armor and Hit Points. Value equivalent up to Shields x2 and Hit Points equivalent to Shields x10. Divided by 2 (rounded down) with Sil 4 or inferior.

    • With remaining Shields, criticals still can be done but with a -10 per Sil. Recharge Action: Recover Sil + Success per Average (2) on Comp/Mech.

  • NOTE: After observing the "fragility" of starship hulls, I considered to reduce the Hull values by 1/2.

  • NOTE 2: Also, for survivability, double or increase Shield pool. Still analyzing this one.

  • NOTE 3: Special defense values that add Setbacks can still exist.

• Sample: Now, a Sil 7 Cruiser, Can have up to, in normal circumstances, Armor 7 and Hull 70 (Halved, rounded up 35, if we apply the NOTE). The Same Cruiser with old Shield value of 2, Have shields with Armor 4 and 40 Hit Points. (Doubled up to 80 is considering the Note 2).

- Final Result: This Cruiser with above 100 HP and 7 or 8 Armor, actually have the same or closer amount of "HP" but from different sources BUT the main difference is that if Shields fail, massive fire or critical that damages Shields, the ship would be REALLY exposed and vulnerable. Imagine a Ship with 35 Hull and 80 Shields.

• VERSION 2: Shields

They have a value called Shield X: Add X Failures to the attackers roll that are only applied if weapon BASE DAMAGE is equal or lower than a value called Shield Power (SP).

If Base Damage is higher than SP, then add Setbacks as usual.

Sample: The same Cruiser in the previous sample will have the next stats. Shields 2, Shield Power 7. This means that with weapons base damage of 7 or less, automatically adds 2 Failure, with the rest still add 2 Setbacks. I've got this sample values from using the same Shield Value (2) and using Hull to Determine Shield Power as general rule (7).

It's a easy, but not precise way to determine the values and make the conversion. A ship with really powerful shields, can have this values increased with independence of size and previous (old) shield value, but its an easy reference to convert it

• Consider if Shields with this version have a "time limit" before collapse.

EXTRA RULE: Like with Armors, I'm considering some rule to add a similar effect to Durable talent to armors and hulls. Maybe a big Starship reduces critical by X (based on Sil?) or Massive rules are enough? Personally, I like the Massive rule.

Good discussion!

Shields are a Mcguffin. The closest analogy most people see them as having is to "hit points" -- as in X-Wing/TIE Fighter. But this mechanic is only half-accurate when we look at the canonical IP.

Because of the inconsistency, I've been treating shields using RAW. I find it simple, if somewhat lacking in flavour. But it also works pretty well. So I'm definitely in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" camp.

My question is related to shields as shown in Episode 1 with the Droidekas. They were invulnerable to their own cannon shot reflected back. That would imply a serious soak improvement, not relected by even 3 black dice. Especially if Jedi with lightsabers couldn't advance and melee with them effectively.

My question is related to shields as shown in Episode 1 with the Droidekas.

I'd just make them invulnerable to most personal scale weapons, except missile tubes. Or give them Armour 2, which is effectively similar. But they would still have personal scale WT, so any hit that penetrates would toast them.

The same way that in some cases people use to divide scales (x5 and x10 instead x10). Consider that droideka shields are vehicle scale using those new rules.

Wall of Text Warning!

I've shared some rules with my players to see if they what they think. We're a few months off from our next EotE session atm, though, so we've only just begun to talk about them. They add some complexity but, IMO, they seem to do a better job of recreating what we see in the movies. They're simple in execution but translating them into rules made them a lot longer than I thought they'd be... so don't be too put off by what you read here. But, even with that disclaimer, I'm fully aware that the added complexity won't be for everyone.

Basically, shields do what they do in the CRB as far as adding setbacks to attacks equal to the shield rating. This is the Deflection Quality or, simply, the Deflection of the shields. Shields can also ablate (Silhouette x Shield Rating) when the arc they protect is successfully attacked. This is called the Ablation Quality or Ablation of the shields. However, they're "leaky" so there's no bubble of invulnerability thing going on.

1. Tally the damage from a hit as normal
2. Reduce this damage by the target ship's armor. If this reduces the damage to 0 or less, then the hit is ineffective. Go directly to Step 8.
3. Divide the remaining damage by the target ship's Silhouette. This much damage is immediately scored against the hull of the target ship.
4. The remaining damage is applied to the Ablation of the shields.
5. If damage remains, then this is applied to the ship's hull and resolved normally.
6. If the shields ablate any damage at all, then the shield in that arc has its rating reduced by 1 (also affecting the Deflection and Ablation of subsequent hits).
7. Resolve any critical hits, if necessary.
8. You're done! Earn some Coolness Points by describing what you just resolved in a cinematic way.

A couple of wrinkles:

Regeneration

Damaged shields will regenerate on their own. If an arc has a shield (it's not angled away, not blown due to a crit, etc.), it will regenerate 1 point to its rating after a full turn in which it does not ablate any damage. If you angle a shield to an arc, even if it was not attacked before it was angled, it will not begin regenerating until it remains in an arc that is not attacked for a full turn.

Angling Shields

You can angle shields as in the CRB but you're not limited to 1 point. You can angle any number... but just one per turn. So if you have 2 shields in front and 2 in rear, you can angle them to 3 / 1 in one turn then 4 / 0 the next. Angling them back works similarly. For regeneration purposes the shield that is built into the ship's stats to cover an arc is damaged first. Shields angled into the arc are damaged only after the original shield is damaged. The player can choose the order that shields take damage, if there are multiple shields angled to cover an arc, but once they've made their choice, that shield takes any damage until it is down or until it is angled into a new arc.

Overload Shield Generator

A new action, Overload Shield Generators, can allow a mechanic to speed up the regeneration of shields and even regenerate them in arcs that are taking fire. It required a hard (PPP) roll upgraded once for each point of shield rating that is currently lost. So a ship with 2 shields down as a result of ablating damage would require the mechanic to make a hard (RRP) roll. A success regenerates 1 to the shield rating. Each two advantage regenerates an additional, up to that arc's original shield rating. Shields that are angled to an arc require a separate roll to regenerate... but a Triumph will regenerate 1 rating of shields to a damaged shield that was angled into the ac the mechanic is repairing. This action can only be attempted once for each arc that has damaged shields.

Minions

The Deflection and Ablation of a minion group's shields only apply to an incoming hit once. Damage that penetrates the armor and the shields is applied to the hull of the minion ships. If a minion ship is destroyed, remaining damage is applied directly to the hull of the next minion ship in the group.

Hi everybody,

Lately I have been reading some Star Wars books, and it is obvious that the raw regarding shields cannot reproduce what we see in the movies or read in the books. In Star Wars media, shields can take a certain amount of damage before going down. Once they do, the ship is dangerously exposed to damage and typically in trouble. Although its armour may help, the ship will suffer "critical" damage once the shields fail and will be destroyed fast easily.

Have any of you house ruled this part of the game? In a way that the effect of shields is not a random thing represented by the roll of dice, but catch more the flavour of the books and movies?

Thanks in advance.

PM me...I've got a HR that's "fluffy", simple, and has worked quite well at my table.

I would be interested in hearing of your house rule also.

PM me...I've got a HR that's "fluffy", simple, and has worked quite well at my table.

I would be interested in hearing of your house rule also.

Yeah, spill it!

It must be a secret of epic fluffy secretness!

PM me...I've got a HR that's "fluffy", simple, and has worked quite well at my table.

When I try to send you a message I get this message

"The following errors were found

The member Alekzanter can not use the messaging system

This personal message has not been sent"

What have you done!?

Actually I was wondering, how does the shield rules work in the X-wing miniature game? Anybody knows here?

They act as hit points for the ship. Hits that aren't dodged drain the shields, then do hull damage when the shields are gone.