Was curious why there aren't any stats for the Cloud Cars for the Cloud Car Grand Prix in JOY. Was it just decided that they weren't needed since you could essentially run the race with just the NPC racer stats?

Thank you

CC

Most likely it's because the stats are in the Core Book. It does seem like something you should include in the adventure, though. I know space is tight, but a stat block for a major adventure component seems pretty important to have at your fingertips.

Agreed. Based on the readouts of the three teams competing against the players, they are all rather experienced and I would think they would have Cloud Cars that reflect the experience and/or sponsorship. Was a bit surprised.

They did include a “Wing Guard” variant of the Storm IV cloud car. See http://swrpg.viluppo.net/transportation/vehicles/category/32/

I just cranked out 4 modified Cloud Cars for this grand Prix event. It took me all of 20 minutes to do- with 2 hard points available and a pretty narrow scope (the vehicle is a racing vehicle- not general purpose like most) it was easy. Just read over the blurb on each racing teams strategy and picked modifications based on that.

Alright, things are a bit slow at the office today so I can kill sometime before I go home and post what I did- hopefully it will be of some use to other GMs I don't have the Driver sourcebook so I am sure there are several other modifications you can make with more resources. I used JOY and the Core Rulebook mods. JOY presents the option of stripping off the armor to increase speed by1, which I did for all of these cars.

1.) Hutt-6- Carbine Carrae

Sil 2, Speed 5, Handling +1, Hull 5, SS 7

Heavy Blaster Cannon, Repulsorlift (JOY p47- increase speed by +1 for duration of round by suffering 1 SS)

2.) HAWK-1- Stormhawks

Sil 1, Speed 5, Handling +1, Hul 5, SS 8

Light Cannons, Augmented Buffer (increase SS by 1, JOY P47), Manuever Thrusters increase Handling by 1, JOY p47, ECM suite- counts as Sil 1 when targeted- CRB P. 269)

3.) Lando's Baby- Rayzer

Sil 2, Speed5, Handling +2

Light cannons, Augmented Buffer, Manuever thrusters, Repulsorlift

I hope you folks can use these in your future adventures.

Well, just finished the big race Friday night. Here is what I can pass on as a fairly new EOE GM.

1- First time our party actually worked the Vehicle rules. I have been RPGing for 30 years now and I have to say that these rules are some of the easiest to deal with in terms of Vehicle combat and action. True, you do sacrifice some of the fun of positioning that you get with some other rules systems that are more detailed but I do think it works very well and I do like it.

2- I screwed up the first 3 buoys. I failed to realize that the players needed to make piloting checks to as they passed each buoy. That could have changed the outcome of the race- possibly. That being said, it was Friday and I was GMIng after work! Also, the module is a bit confusing in that "blaster fire is encouraged but destruction of each others vehicles is illegal." That is a bit of a problem with cloud cars who have 8 Hull- especially if they took the option in the module to strip off the 2 points of armor to increase their speed. I went with a blaster modification for the Hutt team which put them at a disadvantage as we determined that no vehicle would survive a direct hit from each other and the race would be over by buoy 2 or 3. Perhaps I could have said rather than the vehicle being destroyed, it was incapacitated. Still, doesn't make much of a difference as all the teams would be incapacitated by buoy 3.

3- So, that being said, I would add a vehicular modification to the Hutt speeder based on what I said before.

4- the PCs team finished first, followed closely by the Stormhawks. Hutt blew away Rayzor at Buoy 8 (per the text) so he was arrested and Rayzer met a flaming end.

5- having the pcs each run a cloud car was a good idea. They had to blow through 2 light side points to win. It was fun for me as a GM as our own player has a really fun Driver PC from another campaign. I let him use that PCs stats for "Merll" (the NPC this player group had to hire) so he could test his driver against other racers in a real life race. It was a great move.

6- I didn't follow the text rules to calculate who was in first, second and third place each round. I generally wanted the pcs to win. I felt like it might have been a bit tedious to calculate all that while trying to run the race but actually, it is very workable and I will do that next time.

Just a clarification, the Hull points on vehicle are "vehicle scale" ? so you need 10 points of standard blaster damage to reduce 1 Hull point right ?

I am sure 1 Armor = 10 Soak by the way

Just a clarification, the Hull points on vehicle are "vehicle scale" ? so you need 10 points of standard blaster damage to reduce 1 Hull point right ?

I am sure 1 Armor = 10 Soak by the way

Correct- these were vehicle mounted weapons they were shooting each other with- the light or heavy laser cannons.

Correct- these were vehicle mounted weapons they were shooting each other with- the light or heavy laser cannons.

IMO, they probably shouldn’t have been able to mount anything other than Light Blaster Cannons, and certainly not the autofire variant. I see this as a flaw in the adventure design.

Still, just two or three hits with the weakest vehicle weapon against a cloud car with only 8 HT and no armor, that would probably disable/destroy the vehicle pretty quickly.

Maybe only light Ion weapons instead, where an on-board mechanic could presumably recover System Strain as an action?

Maybe only light Ion weapons instead, where an on-board mechanic could presumably recover System Strain as an action?

Funny you should mention that as that is very similar to what ended up happening. When they shot out of the gate, Team Stormhawks performed their move action then decided to shoot at the PCs. They hit and blew him up. We decided that just wasn't going to work so what ended up happening was the drivers would push the limits of themselves and their cloud cars and then the copilot would recover system strain.

I went with the linked light laser cannons the book had on the "borrowed" cloud car yet they even proved quite lethal.

I've only skimmed that part of the adventure, but maybe the various gunners should make called shots to hit engines or the like, to disable without destroying?

I've only skimmed that part of the adventure, but maybe the various gunners should make called shots to hit engines or the like, to disable without destroying?

You would be disabling them while flying over a gas giant, so they would descend into the depths of the Jupiter-like planet and be crushed by the atmospheric pressure.

Frankly, I think it would be better to just be shot and blown up than to be disabled and have that happen.

When a vehicle goes over it's Hull Trauma, it's not immediately destroyed. Roll on the Crit table and see what happens. The odds of instant destruction are very low, and IIRC, there are emergency crews on hand to help retrieve fallen vehicles.

That said, it might be better to replace the blasters with ion weapons. While you would still be disabled, a couple guys in there frantically making mechanics checks might be able to get back in the race. Even if they're out, they should be able to get the engine going before they plummet to their deaths.

And that will make it all the more infuriating when Carbine starts using lethal weapons halfway through the race, out of clear sight of the judges...

When a vehicle goes over it's Hull Trauma, it's not immediately destroyed. Roll on the Crit table and see what happens. The odds of instant destruction are very low, and IIRC, there are emergency crews on hand to help retrieve fallen vehicles.

That said, it might be better to replace the blasters with ion weapons. While you would still be disabled, a couple guys in there frantically making mechanics checks might be able to get back in the race. Even if they're out, they should be able to get the engine going before they plummet to their deaths.

And that will make it all the more infuriating when Carbine starts using lethal weapons halfway through the race, out of clear sight of the judges...

Nice post- I think everyone has a tendency to just assume the worst when you get to 0 HP. I also like the ion solution- I think that would make for a very feasible alternative.