So, now that's cannon for a starship jumping into an atmosphere what does that do for your game? Will the interdictor ships work anymore? What does that do for blockades? Was the falcon only able to do that by disabling every safety feature in their hyperspace drive and would you allow players to do the same?

I'm currious how you fine folks will incorporate this into your games.

It was done once in the movie, as part of a do or die mission, by one of the premiere pilots in the galaxy.

I'd allow it.

Just like I'd allow everyone to reroll new characters if a Despair comes up.......

Interdictors are in new canon, so yes, they still do work. So your last question is your answer: the reason ships drop out is a safety feature, and Han disabled them.

Player: "I want to do crazy, stupid stuff like Han does!"

Me: "That's fine. Feel free to try and jump into the planet's atmosphere. The difficulty is . . . oh, why don't we say Daunting. And upgrade the dice from purple to red. ALL the dice."

Player: "Um, on second thought. . . ."

I'd say make it really difficult but not so hard that they'd never try it in dire circumstances - just like in the movie.

And if they fail I wouldn't wipe out the whole party I'd cripple the ship and impose Wound/Strain damage on the crew.

I think it's perfectly legitimate for players to try to do what they see in the movies.

I would say the gravity of a planet is <<<<<< than a gravity well created by an interdictor. So the Interdictor would still work. The way I would incorporate this into the game is to have a challenge at the highest rating and then add black dice for every instance you can think of. An then convert one purple to red for the possibility of despair.

I try to take Han's earlier statement to heart: "Flying through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops."

You could always jump into an atmosphere. You just cant jump into a gravity well. That was a superweapon, not a planet, so its gravity well may not have been past threshold at the top of its atmosphere. It did pack a sun into its interior without crushing everyone, so I imagine there was some gravity manipulation going on.

That aside, I pretty much agree that its a 'get all the red dice' difficulty and unless plot is there to save them, any despair means 'what do you want to play next week'. If there is a plot reason then they would all get wounded as their ship bounces across the landscape. I hope they find an alternate way off the planet....

That was a superweapon, not a planet, so its gravity well may not have been past threshold at the top of its atmosphere. It did pack a sun into its interior without crushing everyone, so I imagine there was some gravity manipulation going on.

Disagree on that. Starkiller base was a planet that housed a superweapon. It had terrestrial gravity and an ecosphere. I don't think there was anything special about it that allowed Han to pull off that maneuver. It's Han and the Falcon that are special, and that's why their gambit worked.

Edit: provided a hyperlink

I subscribe to plot armor more than the movie characters and/or ships being the greatest thing ever. Or "teh g8est eva!" for the more confrontational bunch. So to me, if a character from the movie can do it, so could any decently XP'd PC. There would definitely be risks involved, but I wouldn't let any of them simply kill the party. Maybe roll a despair and crash like Jedi Ronin mentioned above.

My esoteric star wars knowledge may be rusty, but it does make me curious where it really mentions what effects gravity has on hyperspace. It's not really in the movies, but does any of the FFG books give any explanations? If not, are we all relying on EU, WEG, and/or WotC for how it works?

Outside of jumping into an atmosphere though, why wouldn't any smuggler simply disable their safeties when traveling well known routes? No chance of interdiction at that point.

I'd say make it really difficult but not so hard that they'd never try it in dire circumstances - just like in the movie.

And if they fail I wouldn't wipe out the whole party I'd cripple the ship and impose Wound/Strain damage on the crew.

I think it's perfectly legitimate for players to try to do what they see in the movies.

So the same as getting shot at by any ship in combat. Doesn't strike me as a terribly epic move then if a couple TIE fighters with good shots impose the same consequence.

My esoteric star wars knowledge may be rusty, but it does make me curious where it really mentions what effects gravity has on hyperspace. It's not really in the movies, but does any of the FFG books give any explanations? If not, are we all relying on EU, WEG, and/or WotC for how it works?

As far as I know, we're all relying on WEG's interpretation (extrapolated through all these other sources), and that the limiter is a sensor package keeping an eye on the direction of travel, ready to go "Holy crap! There's something big enough to generate gravity in our way!" and turning off the hyperdrive faster than the slow meatbag pilot.

Outside of jumping into an atmosphere though, why wouldn't any smuggler simply disable their safeties when traveling well known routes? No chance of interdiction at that point.

Nothing, beyond plowing into something on the hyperlane that's not on the charts like a rouge comet or an asteroid.

Yeah, I would most definitely automatically upgrade the difficulty of any checks made with the hyperdrive limiters off. And I would make it plain to the players: you roll a Despair + Success with the limiters off, you'll get to your destination but the ship will be trashed. You roll a Despair + Failure, you'll be stranded in hyperspace with the ship trashed.

Give them some time to get to the escape pods or something maybe.

You could always jump into an atmosphere. You just cant jump into a gravity well. That was a superweapon, not a planet, so its gravity well may not have been past threshold at the top of its atmosphere. It did pack a sun into its interior without crushing everyone, so I imagine there was some gravity manipulation going on.

That aside, I pretty much agree that its a 'get all the red dice' difficulty and unless plot is there to save them, any despair means 'what do you want to play next week'. If there is a plot reason then they would all get wounded as their ship bounces across the landscape. I hope they find an alternate way off the planet....

A gravity well, according to http://www.spiralwishingwells.com/guide/gravitywells.html , a gravity well is this: " A gravity well is the result of the pull of gravity caused by a body in space such as a planet."

I would make it an Impossible difficulty, with 1 Upgrade, for the insanity of getting that close to a Planet in Hyperspace. The required Destiny point flip is a big part of the Heroics of this crazy task, it prevents them from upgrading the check with a DP too. I would also add a couple of setback for the safety systems being off. then finaly i would probably flip a DP myself to get 1 extra Upgrade on the check, so the difficulty pool would end up CCDDDSS.

I guess the bigger question for me is whether its Hans incredible Piloting skill or his ability to Astrogate that allowed him to complete this super human feat? Personally I'm drawn to Astrogation. its a good use of an under used skill.

But the way he controlled the exit from hyperspace kinda suggests to me its a Piloting check. This would then allow a good Co-Pilot to downgrade the check for them, making this something much more achievable.

Of course results of the Astrogation check could set the difficulty of the following Piloting check to not hit anything as you slow down.

It is perfectly feasible to repeat this for any planet, and, as such, can defeat pretty much any blockade. Here are a few reasons not to do it, if my players planned to do such a manuever.

It will require an astrogation check with five difficulty die. (is this called an "impossible" check? I am not going to bother looking it up.)

The check is upgraded a number of times equal to the ship's silhouette. (Smaller ships have better atmospheric capabilities)

The crew is given an area with radius two kilometers that they can land in. Where in this area is done by rolling a Force Die. Two light side points give an ideal location, one a decent one. One dark side point causes an inconvenient location, and two causes a very inconvient one, possibly one that destroys the ship. Destiny Points can be used to bypass this role an get an automatic result of one light side point.

The ship will automatically recieve twenty hull trauma, even if the check is successful. Each advantage reduces this by two, threat increases it by two. Triumph decreases it by five, and Despair increases it by five. The ship also recieves a critical hit.

A failed check causes the ship to automatically be destroyed. Side note: this means they crash into the planet while moving at a speed far faster than light. Side note #2: crahing into a planet while beyond the speed of light completely disintegrates the ship. Side note #3: everyone aboard is killed.

So, now that's cannon for a starship jumping into an atmosphere what does that do for your game? Will the interdictor ships work anymore? What does that do for blockades? Was the falcon only able to do that by disabling every safety feature in their hyperspace drive and would you allow players to do the same?

I'm currious how you fine folks will incorporate this into your games.

I don't have any plans to incorporate E7 material into my games. I enjoyed it as a film, but I don't think that the elements it changes are good for the game.

I appreciate the discussion and points of view everyone. I would like to say that I'm surprised by the number of folks that are willing to let their game end due to one bad die roll. I completely agree that it's a dangerous option only to be taken in dire of circumstances, but to say "whelp, I know the mission/widget/galaxy was on the line, but you guys didn't roll well so you're all dead, start making new characters." seems a little over reactive to me.

I wonder if episode 8 will bring any more challenges to our established vision of star wars.

I appreciate the discussion and points of view everyone. I would like to say that I'm surprised by the number of folks that are willing to let their game end due to one bad die roll. I completely agree that it's a dangerous option only to be taken in dire of circumstances, but to say "whelp, I know the mission/widget/galaxy was on the line, but you guys didn't roll well so you're all dead, start making new characters." seems a little over reactive to me.

I wonder if episode 8 will bring any more challenges to our established vision of star wars.

It's a game. In this one the players typically win, but there is always a chance they'll lose. What that loss costs them varies, but if they're going for big wins, then tragic losses are the other side of that coin. I don't see dramatic character death to be over-reactive when it occurs as rarely as it does in this game.

I think Han personally disabled the safety feature of his Navi-computer for this particular stunt, so I would probably upgrade at least a couple of the dice and raise the difficulty by one on an astronagivation. Basically, Han had calibrated a jump that would take them within atmosphere, with even the slightest detail out meaning that they could come out of hyperspace hundred of miles off course.

Despairs range from appearing in the wrong location (but still on the same planet) to being detected to crashing. Considering the costly nature of repairs to a ship, it makes the method unattractive aside from in the most urgent of circumstances.

I would like to say that I'm surprised by the number of folks that are willing to let their game end due to one bad die roll.

Would I kill my party on account of one bad die roll? No - the one time a player was killed due to the random finger of fate, I overturned the decision later on. So no, I'd never do that. However Despair does not mean death, it just means things got a whole lot more interesting. Blowing out a hyperdrive and leaving them stranded and shipless and equipmentless and weaponless stranded on an imperial Superweapon would be perfectly acceptable.

I'd kill em. I don't think what makes a super epic move super epic is that act itself, it's the risk and the consequence. If they risk and consequence mean some wounds and a disabled ship PCs get for free at CHARGEN, then there's nothing super epic about their effort at all. That and they will then just push the envelope into more and more over the top efforts with the mind frame that death is never a consequence.

The real heroes never come home....

By the way i'm happily ignoring the fact that Han seemed to manually dropped the Falcon out of hyperspace by pulling on a lever. I pretend thats him getting the sub-light engines up to full thrust in preparation for where they are about to be.

The movie presented the action as having two possible outcomes: success or death. If my PCs were dead set on replicating or performing a similar trick, then why mollycoddle them by reducing the danger? If the PCs are going to do anything that realistically can only end in awe-inspiring success or immediate death, then those are the consequences they will face.

Flip destiny point, allow for formidable check, upgrade it a few times for good measure.

As for random player character death. Death happens, fact of life. Even heroes, whether by choice, plot or random roll.

If my players would try something like this, and end up failing, producing lots of threats and one or more Despairs ...