Hi there,

how would you handle a combat encounter between a group of PCs and a vehicle (like a Walker or repulsor tank) without a TPK in the first round?

Cover, the fact that a Walker has some dead spots and of course the silhouette. And then environment. Think what the ewoks did in RotJ. Use the surroundings for the Advatage of the playes.

For example: picture the crew in Mos Eisley or any other desert planet city, fighting against an AT-ST. That thing is not mobile enough to negate the advantage rebels have to kill it. Climb on rooftops, jump over, take the thing over! Or drob a water tank o it from above, throw of his balance by driving a parked speeder into it's legs. Tell your troupe to be creative and use their environment.

Caption: Panic wildly and run away.

If you don't want a TPK, then have the enemy focus upon one or two characters until they are well and truly vaporized. Hopefully, this will give the others a chance to escape.

If you have it, the Onslaught at Arda I book has a good example. (Spoiler warning) At the end of the adventure, the PCs face off against a nemesis, an AT-ST and some stormtroopers, but there are a lot of ways to use the environment to their advantage, like sewer gates that can be opened, pipes can be shot to crash down on the walker and so on. Just provide them with a lot of options and let the PCs be creative.

Also, AT-STs and some other ground vehicles have personal scale weapons in addition to their big guns. A little trick I used was to not declare which weapon the walker was using before the roll. If it missed, I explained how its heavy blaster cannons tore down the environment, still making the PCs feel small, but if the roll was successful, I hit them with the personal scale concussion grenade launcher, which still really hurts, but doesn't immediately kill them.

And like the others said, silhouette plays to the PCs advantage: A silh. 3 walker has three purple dice when trying to hit a silh. 1 opponent (4 purples for silh. 0 like Charda-Fan), while infantry only rolls against one purple to hit the AT-ST (provided they have weapons that get through armor).

Hi there,

how would you handle a combat encounter between a group of PCs and a vehicle (like a Walker or repulsor tank) without a TPK in the first round?

How do you stop a tank as small infantry group without tank-buster equipment? ;-)

Besides, most vehicles don't have blast, so hopefully they just kill one player per turn. If it is a AT-AT you might get a few more turns if you abuse the difference in silhouette, daunting check, add setbacks from cover and hopefully some defensive talents to apply a few upgrades. The AT-AT should most of the time miss if you give him just a gunner minion.

You can reduce the amount of shots as well if you for example group up 5 repulsor tanks into one minion group, it certainly knocks out a character per turn, but so you are running basically on a time limit to get away, but on the plus side, the system

does not kill a character usually, even when it gets 150 damage in one shot. You are still just incapacitated and get a single crit which should be unlikely to reach the magical 151+ threshold.

Speaking of incapacitated, if your group is good on their feet, they might actually even carry away their wounded and use stealth to avoid further incoming fire fast enough, if they are not they might wake up in a bacta tank of an imperial facility … ready to get back into the tank after the interrogation droid is done with them. ;-)

You are still just incapacitated and get a single crit which should be unlikely to reach the magical 151+ threshold.

It's not a hard rule, but in the corebook on page 224 in the sidebar it says: "In these cases (when a character is incapacitated by a vehicle scale weapon), the GM should feel free to add +50 to the resulting Critical Injury roll." So yes, it can be quite possible to reach 151+, especially if the weapon has vicious or the gunner has lethal blows. Personally, when a PC is hit by a turbolaser I add about +300 to the crit roll

• Design the encounter. Don't just throw a vehicle at the players. Know where you want to go with it all. Figure out what to do at key turning points. What will you do after the first player KO, before the last?

You are still just incapacitated and get a single crit which should be unlikely to reach the magical 151+ threshold.

It's not a hard rule, but in the corebook on page 224 in the sidebar it says: "In these cases (when a character is incapacitated by a vehicle scale weapon), the GM should feel free to add +50 to the resulting Critical Injury roll." So yes, it can be quite possible to reach 151+, especially if the weapon has vicious or the gunner has lethal blows. Personally, when a PC is hit by a turbolaser I add about +300 to the crit roll

100 +50 = 150. Well within the 141+ "you die at the end of next round" crit but just 1 point shy of the 151+ "you die instantly" crit.

Hi there,

how would you handle a combat encounter between a group of PCs and a vehicle (like a Walker or repulsor tank) without a TPK in the first round?

Hide. Any idiot that stands in front of a tank should die. You don't beat tanks as infantry fighting fair in the open. It's also a GM setting themselves up for failure if they have unmounted PCs fighting adversarial vehicles in the open, so simply don't put them in that position.

Give them lots of cover. They should be able to see/hear a heavy vehicle coming. In a busy city setting or cluttered obscured battlefield the bad guys should have difficulty added to their initiative roll with concealed PCs getting the drop on the vehicle.

You shouldn't have starter PCs in those kind of fights, just like you wouldn't throw a bunch of 1st levels at a dragon in D&D.

Make sure they have some Joe Guns in the group equipped appropriately to succeed. If you have a group that doesn't really have a combat focus, having them fight an AT-ST or up is asking them to be wiped out.

I think I have found a better solution to the OP than my first answer:

Bring Y-Wings with Proton Bombs and Torpedos.

You are still just incapacitated and get a single crit which should be unlikely to reach the magical 151+ threshold.

It's not a hard rule, but in the corebook on page 224 in the sidebar it says: "In these cases (when a character is incapacitated by a vehicle scale weapon), the GM should feel free to add +50 to the resulting Critical Injury roll." So yes, it can be quite possible to reach 151+, especially if the weapon has vicious or the gunner has lethal blows. Personally, when a PC is hit by a turbolaser I add about +300 to the crit roll

Let's assume I roll a 100 on a D100. Let's assume I am a nasty GM and add +50 to that roll. That is the absolute maximum the first hit of a vehicle weapon can do. My crit is 150. My crit is still not 151+.

There are no vehicle scale weapon with vicious that I would be aware off. And there should be no vehicle weapons with vicious as this would be extremly for starship combat.

Don't flak cannons have vicious?

Also, sometimes players enter into scenes with unhealed critical injuries (I had one character that took two full sessions--about seven encounters plus hours of downtime--to get a nasty critical injury patched up). These can allow that first shot to do more than you bargained for.

I think I have found a better solution to the OP than my first answer:

Bring Y-Wings with Proton Bombs and Torpedos.

Battlefront reference?

Don't flak cannons have vicious?

Yes they have. They seem to be the only ones, exception to the rule, I just run through all vehicle weapons in oggs char gen.

I think I have found a better solution to the OP than my first answer:

Bring Y-Wings with Proton Bombs and Torpedos.

Battlefront reference?

No, RPG reference. Though hour nasty GM is totally reluctant to give us Y-Wings. Anything with proton weapons actually …we still use heavy firepower all the time, actually we just thrown proton bombs out of our cargo bay because we lacked proper launchers, it was our second session … embrace your inner terr… uhm … join the rebellion.

I forgot the most important part in my post: environmental details. In my "speeder-into-walker-legs" example I gave, you of course have to tell your players, that next to your battleground, there's a used-speeder salesman, having his peeders on display.

If they fight in a rocky desert like the Jundland Wastes, tell them beforehand of the huge rocks all around. If you have a force sensitive character with the Move power he might use on to get the "drop" on the tank. Or perhaps someone is a gadgeteer and can juryrig something to give the stone a repulsorlifted, catapultlike boost!

The more you describe the envronment the players fight in, the more you will give them ideas to use it to their advantage against the tank or walker.

Here a few more examples for different environments:

• Frozen Wastes: Lead it to a thin layer of ice and let them crash through
• Frozen Mountainrange: Avalanche! Be sure to get out of the way though!
• Desert Sands: Use whatever you have to create a viewproofscreen outta sand! The force or a grenade maybe.
• Rainforest: Vibroaxes can also be quite handy at cutting trees!

That's just a few of course. There are situations, where there is better for the PCs to run than to fight, you should tell that to your players beforehand.

I think I have found a better solution to the OP than my first answer:

Bring Y-Wings with Proton Bombs and Torpedos.

Battlefront reference?

Not a great game, but it does provide appropriate reactions to AT-STs. Those thing kill like crazy. Cover and striking from ambush are your best options. Heck, if I'm playing on the Rebel side, and I manage to grab an A-Wing or something, AT-ST hunting goes straight to the top of my priority list.

So, yeah, if you're in a group of rebs pulling a full military operation, bring air support. If you're not, well, why are you fighting the armor anyway? You should be running like hell.

Armoured vehicles in general don't do so well against infantry in built-up areas. Even modern tanks have been forced to retreat by irregular forces using ambush tactics, IEDs and RPGs.

For examples of how infantry can deal with armour, read up on the trouble Soviet tanks had in Budapest during the Hungarian uprising in 1956. Alternatively, watch the final battle in Saving Private Ryan.

Armoured vehicles in general don't do so well against infantry in built-up areas. Even modern tanks have been forced to retreat by irregular forces using ambush tactics, IEDs and RPGs.

For examples of how infantry can deal with armour, read up on the trouble Soviet tanks had in Budapest during the Hungarian uprising in 1956. Alternatively, watch the final battle in Saving Private Ryan.

Read up on Grozny during the Chechen rebellion for a more modern take.

The net for the game is that if you are going to have the PCs fighting armor while on foot, they need to be ready for it. Popping out a couple AT-ATs to a group with only hand blasters gives the party one of two choices: Run away or die.

If they are ready, then you could make it alot more exciting. Make them find a position to try to get a shot at a weak point, then have them try to survive their attack. An example would be that they have to climb up a few stories to get high enough to try to take a point blank shot at the neck joint of an AT-AT then have the next AT-AT start shooting the building to bits after they cripple their target.

Armoured vehicles in general don't do so well against infantry in built-up areas. Even modern tanks have been forced to retreat by irregular forces using ambush tactics, IEDs and RPGs.

For examples of how infantry can deal with armour, read up on the trouble Soviet tanks had in Budapest during the Hungarian uprising in 1956. Alternatively, watch the final battle in Saving Private Ryan.

Why again requires being prepared and having explosives or anti vehicle weaponry. Even the Ewok style works with having large objects to crush them, but you simply need to be prepared, Handblasters certainly do not cut it and the easiest way would be always air support, at least in the star wars galaxy.

Armoured vehicles in general don't do so well against infantry in built-up areas. Even modern tanks have been forced to retreat by irregular forces using ambush tactics, IEDs and RPGs.

For examples of how infantry can deal with armour, read up on the trouble Soviet tanks had in Budapest during the Hungarian uprising in 1956. Alternatively, watch the final battle in Saving Private Ryan.

Why again requires being prepared and having explosives or anti vehicle weaponry. Even the Ewok style works with having large objects to crush them, but you simply need to be prepared, Handblasters certainly do not cut it and the easiest way would be always air support, at least in the star wars galaxy.

Again, in a big city envronment, there's bound to be a cargo skiff or a speeder truck around, which you can use as a makeshift battering ram agains a walker or even a tank. And if you surprise your PCs with a fight against a walker, such things should be there, if they are unprepared. Unless you really want them to flee the scene. If they come prepared to the fight, then such things can be there but don't need to.

Keep in mind that Destiny Points can be used to enhance the situation for the PCs.

Need a handy used speeder lot nearby? Flip a Destiny Point.

Need some big rocks in the area that you can hide behind? Flip a DP.

17 hours ago, bradknowles said:

Keep in mind that Destiny Points can be used to enhance the situation for the PCs.

Need a handy used speeder lot nearby? Flip a Destiny Point.

Need some big rocks in the area that you can hide behind? Flip a DP.

Good point! Gonna do that from now on! My players use far to few destiny points.

1. Figure out what it takes to defeat said vehicle.
2. Give the PCs access to that equipment.

1 hour ago, Concise Locket said:

1. Figure out what it takes to defeat said vehicle.
2. Give the PCs access to that equipment.

Only do that if you want a combat victory to be the only outcome. Typically, if PCs think they can win, then they'll fight without considering other options. Sometimes it's better to put an unwinnable fight on the horizon and see if the PCs still go for it. If they do, don't cheat them of a justly deserved defeat.

On 1/21/2017 at 4:21 AM, kingpin000 said:

Hi there,

how would you handle a combat encounter between a group of PCs and a vehicle (like a Walker or repulsor tank) without a TPK in the first round?

Unless the players have a vehicle of their own that has a planetary scale weapon or can call in some kind of air support, an AT-ST will turn them into oatmeal.

That said, having the first salvo vaporize a few random people is always enough incentive to run.