So let me set a scenario I need clarified:

My PCs jump in their freighter, Stormtroopers on their tail, and open fire with a turret weapon.

Is the damage output x10, like with Armor?

Couldn't find it in the core book, so if it is there, a page ref would be great.

Thanks

That is correct. Average ship weapons are about 3 damage, which would equal 30 personal scale damage. While this looks excessive, you will need to factor in silhouette differences. I believe if less that 2 below what your attacking with you add a difficultly die. So silhouette 5 freighter shooting silhouette 1 stormtrooper at long range would be a total of 6 difficultly. If they are only in silhouette 3 and short range it could be as low as two difficultly. My advice? Just narratively say they blast the troopers and fly away, unless there's something real important about shooting them.

Thanks, I totally agree with the narrative solution.

Beard hawk flubbed the difficulty a little, but is otherwise correct. Details are on page 230 of the FaD core. At the top of the page. In a giant highlighted box.

Beard hawk flubbed the difficulty a little, but is otherwise correct. Details are on page 230 of the FaD core. At the top of the page. In a giant highlighted box.

I was trying to go from memory. What is the correct silhouette vs difficultly

2 points larger target = Easy

Equal silhouette = Average

2 points smaller target = Hard

3 Points smaller target = Daunting

4 points smaller target = Formidable

Generally I would encourage GMs to make it impractical to use vehicle scale weapons against personal scale enemies outside of a last resort. There are a couple things you can do to make the decision to open fire with a vehicle weapon a bit less appealing. For example, rule that any equipment that the opponents carried is destroyed or damaged 3 steps when looted after they get taken out by a vehicle scale weapon. Make vehicle scale weapons inflict massive damage to the environment, which depending on where you are will lead to additional trouble. If there are any friendlies in the area you're firing at with vehicle scale weapons cause an automatic upgrade to the difficulty, with despairs hitting friendlies. The devastation caused by using huge weapons should be played up at all times, so when you make a fight easy by using vehicle weapons going through the area for loot or mission objectives afterward should be much harder because of fires, dust, collapsing structures, damaged equipment etc.

Superiority of firepower is a beautiful thing when you have it and a horrible atrocity when it's used against you. One thing to remember when using planetary scale weaponry against personal scale targets is that you totally win on range. With Close planetary scale range you can exceed Extreme personal scale range and you're only facing Difficulty 3.

From a GM standpoint it's a bit iffy to roll attacks against individual people from outside of close vehicle scale, because there would be no logical reason why you wouldn't just spontaneously get cratered by a heavy turbolaser on any planet that has a Star Destroyer in orbit if you mess with the local Stormtroopers if you treat those weapons as capable of such precision targeting. At those kinds of ranges I make vehicles roll attacks against the area the targets are in instead, and treat hits as environmental hazards. It's simply better action to have the players roll athletics/coordination/resilience to flee a collapsing/melting/exploding city block than to just have the hand of god reach down and do 100+ damage to an individual character.

Using a nuclear bomb to swat a fly should never be a viable tactic for players to use.

The Empire might DBZ an entire planet in order to make an example of it for other planets, but players should be actively discouraged from that kind of activity. Whatever they’re trying to achieve, the use of vehicle-scale weapons on personal scale targets should destroy the very thing they’re trying to do.

I’ve been in games where us players were allowed to get away with using shipboard weapons on personal scale targets. While that was great for us at the time, that game ended up being put on permanent hiatus in part because the GM couldn’t figure out how to handle the escalating levels of violence.

In my experience, there is nothing good that can come from that kind of behaviour.

From a GM standpoint it's a bit iffy to roll attacks against individual people from outside of close vehicle scale, because there would be no logical reason why you wouldn't just spontaneously get cratered by a heavy turbolaser on any planet that has a Star Destroyer in orbit if you mess with the local Stormtroopers if you treat those weapons as capable of such precision targeting. At those kinds of ranges I make vehicles roll attacks against the area the targets are in instead, and treat hits as environmental hazards. It's simply better action to have the players roll athletics/coordination/resilience to flee a collapsing/melting/exploding city block than to just have the hand of god reach down and do 100+ damage to an individual character.

From a GM standpoint it's a bit iffy to roll attacks against individual people from outside of close vehicle scale, because there would be no logical reason why you wouldn't just spontaneously get cratered by a heavy turbolaser on any planet that has a Star Destroyer in orbit if you mess with the local Stormtroopers if you treat those weapons as capable of such precision targeting. At those kinds of ranges I make vehicles roll attacks against the area the targets are in instead, and treat hits as environmental hazards. It's simply better action to have the players roll athletics/coordination/resilience to flee a collapsing/melting/exploding city block than to just have the hand of god reach down and do 100+ damage to an individual character.

That's what the Silhouette-based difficulty is doing. Small targets are harder to hit, especially if the firing unit is very large. However, if you're dumb enough to fight something equivalent to a modern attack helicopter and it decides to unload a 30mm autocannon on you, don't be surprised if it can target you quite effectively.

Using a nuclear bomb to swat a fly should never be a viable tactic for players to use.

The Empire might DBZ an entire planet in order to make an example of it for other planets, but players should be actively discouraged from that kind of activity. Whatever they’re trying to achieve, the use of vehicle-scale weapons on personal scale targets should destroy the very thing they’re trying to do.

I’ve been in games where us players were allowed to get away with using shipboard weapons on personal scale targets. While that was great for us at the time, that game ended up being put on permanent hiatus in part because the GM couldn’t figure out how to handle the escalating levels of violence.

In my experience, there is nothing good that can come from that kind of behaviour.

Your post has a very "I don't like this approach so it's the wrong way and I'll do everything possible to make those that use it suffer for it" vibe.

Some players like hunting rabbits with shotguns (with 00 buckshot). Sometimes you don't care that the target is obliterated, and sometimes that's exactly what you want to happen.

That's what the Silhouette-based difficulty is doing. Small targets are harder to hit, especially if the firing unit is very large. However, if you're dumb enough to fight something equivalent to a modern attack helicopter and it decides to unload a 30mm autocannon on you, don't be surprised if it can target you quite effectively.

Sorry, but the silhouette based difficulty is really not going to protect you from vehicles, given that a single success is lethal and the highest it ever goes is formidable.

I mean, for a TIE fighter to hit you it's only a hard gunnery check, a TIE pilot has agility 3, so every single time even a single TIE fighter fires on a player there is essentially a 50% chance that character takes 60+ damage and is immediately down. Now make it an actual minion squad of TIE fighters, so you're looking at party size in upgrades to the gunnery roll, that's definitely a dead player, and that's the DM being lenient and using minion rules as opposed to just letting them all roll a check. It simply begs the question what's more interesting at that point, letting the TIEs make attack rolls until a bunch of players are dead by treating it like a standard combat, or going to some kind of chase sequence where the players have to succeed at a variety of acrobatics tasks to get to cover while the area around them gets bombarded.

Same problem with a Star Destroyer. Sure, it's a formidable check, which would seem like it's very difficult for a Star Destroyer to snipe you from orbit, but in reality, the thing can bring 30 heavy turbolasers to bear in its forward arc, so no matter how you roll them the players are dead. An Imperial gunner has 2 agility, so 30 rolls of 2G vs. 5P, chances are one is a success, and one is all it takes. Count them as minion groups up to party size? That still leaves you with 6 groups of lasers rolling 4Y vs. 5P, against a party of 5, the chances to not get hit are still extremely slim. Count them as a single minion group of 30? Ok, one player is definitely dead. Count them as 3 minion groups of 10, by battery? Still at least one person dead. The only way the players aren't dead is if the DM decides a single imperial minion takes an Overwhelming Barrage check against them, but that's intentionally using the rules in the least useful way possible.

When you're talking player characters or a Nemesis, where pilots routinely have agility scores of 5 or better and several ranks in gunnery the formidable check to snipe a person with a vehicle weapon from a capital ship in orbit is also pretty easy. Firing from a silhouette 3 vehicle, which is the equivalent of a gunship at a person is no more difficult than taking a shot at long range in personal scale combat. For any character actually trained in doing this it's trivial.

I'm not disagreeing. You stated quite well why the guys with the bigger guns should be feared (although cover of various degrees is somewhat helpful).

In truth, the personal/planetary interface in this system is a glaring weakness. Even the old D6 system did it way better with it's simple but effective scaling rules.

Your post has a very "I don't like this approach so it's the wrong way and I'll do everything possible to make those that use it suffer for it" vibe.

That was not the intent. My intent was to share my experience with how I have seen games go quickly off the rails via these methods.

Some players like hunting rabbits with shotguns (with 00 buckshot). Sometimes you don't care that the target is obliterated, and sometimes that's exactly what you want to happen.

But it’s not quite like hunting rabbits with shotguns. Because the next generation of rabbits have to be able to go hunting humans with chain guns.

In my experience, when you go down this path, the level of violence quickly ramps up and you rapidly reach a point where everyone reaches for the next bigger rank of weapons above those that the other guy had, and that spiral ends in only one place. And that’s not a good place for a narrative-style game to wind up.

In other words, vehicle scale weapons on personal scale targets is very much a meta-Dark Side, and rapidly results in the end of the game.

Of course, I’m only speaking from my own experience here, but I have seen more than one game end this way.

Is there anyone here who has seen a game survive and continue to be healthy and happy and fun for everyone involved, even after bringing out the vehicle scale weapons on personal scale targets?

In truth, the personal/planetary interface in this system is a glaring weakness. Even the old D6 system did it way better with it's simple but effective scaling rules.

Yea, the intersection of vehicles and personal scale is kind of a weakness in this game, but the issue IMO grows out of how most combat checks are against pretty easy difficulties so you're mostly just rolling to see how much you win. There are just no checks that are truly unlikely to succeed in this game, which means difficulty scaling never actually moves a shot outside of the limits of possibility.

Your post has a very "I don't like this approach so it's the wrong way and I'll do everything possible to make those that use it suffer for it" vibe.

That was not the intent. My intent was to share my experience with how I have seen games go quickly off the rails via these methods.

Some players like hunting rabbits with shotguns (with 00 buckshot). Sometimes you don't care that the target is obliterated, and sometimes that's exactly what you want to happen.

But it’s not quite like hunting rabbits with shotguns. Because the next generation of rabbits have to be able to go hunting humans with chain guns.

In my experience, when you go down this path, the level of violence quickly ramps up and you rapidly reach a point where everyone reaches for the next bigger rank of weapons above those that the other guy had, and that spiral ends in only one place. And that’s not a good place for a narrative-style game to wind up.

In other words, vehicle scale weapons on personal scale targets is very much a meta-Dark Side, and rapidly results in the end of the game.

Of course, I’m only speaking from my own experience here, but I have seen more than one game end this way.

Is there anyone here who has seen a game survive and continue to be healthy and happy and fun for everyone involved, even after bringing out the vehicle scale weapons on personal scale targets?

In my games, I've seen more issues with using Move to toss Sil 2+ targets at people than I have with using planetary scale weapons against personal scale targets, but I understand the concern about escalation of force (pun unintended). One of the other glaring areas where it comes up is with lightsabers--once those are sufficiently upgraded, characters not using them have a tough time competing unless they "go crazy" with big'ol auto-fire weapons (and those get people groaning too).

In my games, I've seen more issues with using Move to toss Sil 2+ targets at people than I have with using planetary scale weapons against personal scale targets, but I understand the concern about escalation of force (pun unintended).

I do have my own problems with the way Move can be abused to toss people around and use them as weapons. I solved that by making it an Opposed Check to pick up an unwilling person, before doing the standard Ranged Heavy check to throw them.

And I do have problems with Move and tossing large objects, but that can be solved by not having much in the way of large objects to toss around. Or you don’t let people get that many Strength upgrades.

One of the other glaring areas where it comes up is with lightsabers--once those are sufficiently upgraded, characters not using them have a tough time competing unless they "go crazy" with big'ol auto-fire weapons (and those get people groaning too).

The only campaign I actually ran was F&D, but it was relatively low-level characters and it didn’t last long.

All these problems can also be solved by reminding the players that whatever the PCs do, the NPCs can also do. And trusting your players to not be excessively OP.

But these are all very valid concerns.

So let me set a scenario I need clarified:

My PCs jump in their freighter, Stormtroopers on their tail, and open fire with a turret weapon.

Is the damage output x10, like with Armor?

Couldn't find it in the core book, so if it is there, a page ref would be great.

Thanks

Mechanically speaking you are correct (as others have already pointed out), it is 10 x damage at person scale when using a vehicle scale weapon.

Narritively speaking, it would depend on where this encounter is taking place. If it was out in the hinterland, where there is no legal authority, its more plausible, though the idea that the weapons would be easily available to 'turn on' and fired at an onrushing storm trooper strains my suspension of disbelief a bit. I wouldn't hesitate at all for this sequence of events to take a couple of rounds (e.g. maneuver to enter the ship, maneuver to enter gunnery station, maneuver to "engage" with gunnery station, action to fire said weapon).

If the encounter was taking place in a space port of some sort, things change radically. No port authority in the galaxy is going to look kindly at any ship powering up weapons while docked (assuming they even let this ship enter port with weapons in any status other than 'disabled' status), let alone actually firing those weapons. And if that port authority is Imperial controlled, or even Imperial friendly, using those weapons against the lawful military of the planet is going to get you into LOTS of trouble. Given the players in question already demonstrated they are willing to use vehicle scale firepower, they should expect a deterrent response of equal or greater firepower in said encounter.

Using excessive firepower will draw an excessive response.

"Is there anyone here who has seen a game survive and continue to be healthy and happy and fun for everyone involved, even after bringing out the vehicle scale weapons on personal scale targets?"

I brought out the campaigns antagonist to fight their Jedi mentor. After quick skirmish the Fated Duel between Jedi and Inquisitor ended and the group started to take off in their starship, mentor safely onboard loading ramp. At that point the Inquisitor was just standing on the landing pad. A reckless PC opened fire from the cannons on the ship. He rolled well and I said they saw the Inquisitor go flying through the air but there was smoke and fire now all over the pad. The navigator thought it wasn't going to be enough and took another shot before leaving. Another lucky success and the whole landing pad was taken out. It fell into the city below most likely causing alot of damage. The Police had already shown up and chased the ship until it could hyperspace off world.

The PCs were impressed, I was not. That Inquisitor came back, more-machine-than-man, and they had to bribe their Hutt boss alot of money to cover all the trouble, taking away half their next bounty.

The group learned their lesson and hasn't been a problem since.

Move is only a major problem if you let people activate it in two different ways simultaneously, by letting them designate targets for an attack and objects to attack with all in the same action. If you treat move attacks as "Every enemy that takes damage must be accounted for in the attack roll and magnitude" instead of "For everything that takes damage you get to designate another thing that also takes damage" the power is fine really. At that point picking up one person and smashing them into another person just means making a check against the harder to hit person and activating the second hit by spending two advantages on the attack roll and a force pip to trigger magnitude. That's not actually all that powerful. If someone wants to throw a silhouette 4 objects the restriction should simply be how many of those are actually in the battlespace. If you don't put any big heavy objects that can easily be tossed around in the space, or have them break after the first attack made with them move becomes pretty manageable. throwing silhouette 1 creatures only does 10 damage, there are MUCH scarier weapons than that at personal scale.

If someone wants to throw a silhouette 4 objects the restriction should simply be how many of those are actually in the battlespace. If you don't put any big heavy objects that can easily be tossed around in the space,

That’s basically what I did.

throwing silhouette 1 creatures only does 10 damage, there are MUCH scarier weapons than that at personal scale.

But “encouraging” PCs to toss NPCs around like ragdolls and using one NPC as a weapon to hit another NPC is another problem that I also wanted to avoid.

If PCs want to force-move them into a wall, I can live with that. We see that in canon.

Force-crush is also canon, although that would be the Bind power and not Move.

But playing tiddly-winks with them and tossing them into each other, that’s not really something we see in canon. And yet, this game makes that kind of mechanic pretty easy, if you don’t otherwise do something to reduce/eliminate that kind of behaviour.

Move is only a major problem if you let people activate it in two different ways simultaneously, by letting them designate targets for an attack and objects to attack with all in the same action. If you treat move attacks as "Every enemy that takes damage must be accounted for in the attack roll and magnitude" instead of "For everything that takes damage you get to designate another thing that also takes damage" the power is fine really. At that point picking up one person and smashing them into another person just means making a check against the harder to hit person and activating the second hit by spending two advantages on the attack roll and a force pip to trigger magnitude. That's not actually all that powerful. If someone wants to throw a silhouette 4 objects the restriction should simply be how many of those are actually in the battlespace. If you don't put any big heavy objects that can easily be tossed around in the space, or have them break after the first attack made with them move becomes pretty manageable. throwing silhouette 1 creatures only does 10 damage, there are MUCH scarier weapons than that at personal scale.

A broken Sil 4 object is still a Sil 4 object, and all of those endless chants we see of "don't make featureless battlefields because those are boring" runs into the issue that they usually have at least a few large objects. Keep in mind that there is an upgrade that allows you to rip objects out of secured housings, so using Move to pull machinery off of walls or branches down from trees isn't out of the question.

But playing tiddly-winks with them and tossing them into each other, that’s not really something we see in canon. And yet, this game makes that kind of mechanic pretty easy, if you don’t otherwise do something to reduce/eliminate that kind of behaviour.

I mean, if you want to read the rules in the most literal way, it doesn't say anywhere in the rules for move that you can actually move a person at all. It only ever mentions objects and items, never once does it use the words enemy, ally, person or target which denote an opponent in the parlance of FFGs rules. I think the reason why the rules are so screwed up is because they were written without the intent of actually being able to move enemies. It's only because we've seen people use move on other people and droids a bunch of times in the movies that people read "object" as "anything". The second you take object to actually mean object the rules make perfect sense.

We know that the rules as written by FFG differentiate between a person and an object, because for example the rules for Misdirect state: "unable to perceive a person or object of silhouette 1 or smaller" Why would it say "person or object" if objects included people?

The Bind power is what allows you to manipulate people. It even contains a control upgrade that allows the user to move the target one range band closer or further away. Ironically the sidebar on the Bind power also contains the only mention in the book of using Move on a person, however, denotes it as an exception to the rules as written, that the GM allows in special circumstances.

I think all the trouble with Move simply comes out of the fact that people treat Move as "Move Anything" when in reality it is "Move Object", while Bind is the power that is meant for physically manipulating people.

A broken Sil 4 object is still a Sil 4 object, and all of those endless chants we see of "don't make featureless battlefields because those are boring" runs into the issue that they usually have at least a few large objects. Keep in mind that there is an upgrade that allows you to rip objects out of secured housings, so using Move to pull machinery off of walls or branches down from trees isn't out of the question.

It could break into two silhouette 3 objects. If you're in open terrain there is obviously never a shortage of sil4 objects, you could just grab a huge chunk of ground and bury someone with it after all. If you're inside of a spaceship or some kind of interior space and you start ripping millennium falcon sized pieces of machinery off walls chances are you're going to cause cave-ins, decompression, fires, and all kinds of other problems. Simply ripping apart the building you're in should never be a good idea.

Simply ripping apart the building I'm in can sometimes be a wonderful idea! Think of the damage Obi-Wan could have done while aboard the DS1...

Simply ripping apart the building I'm in can sometimes be a wonderful idea! Think of the damage Obi-Wan could have done while aboard the DS1...

He might have been able to do that once. But then he probably would have “Become One With The Force” much sooner, and wouldn’t have been able to stop Darth Vader from easily capturing and shredding the rest of the crew.