Hi!

I'm trying to wrap my head around something in the rules. When you participate in big battles, are there any "normal battles" what so ever which then leads up to a Mass combat check?

The reason why I wonder is in the example on page 77 during phase 2 it says: "After several rounds of blaster fire... decides to try something daring... uses the vehicle to batter down the exterior wall... At this point the GM decides that [players name] heroic deed has provided a perfect place to end Phase 2..."

It sounds like these are things that would happen during a regular combat encounter. Do you let the players fight for a couple of rounds in between the Mass combat checks?

Mass combat is the overarching picture of the battle, which the encounters that the PC's are or might be a part of, and can effect the overall battle. You can either roll every X rounds, or roll at key turning points as that example describes.

Another example would be the PC's are in fighters and attacking a TIE squadron, but there's an MC80 and a few corvettes attacking an ISD nearby, the mass combat roll is everything else going on outside the PC's fighting the TIE squadron, the fight between the capital ships, and any combat taking place between squadrons that are not near enough to be reached and fired upon by the PC's.

Yeah you can totally have mass combat rolls happening during normal combat (or vice versa, same thing). Cinematically it's like switching between two scenes, like Star Wars is so fond of doing.

Take for example the 4-part battle for Naboo, where a mass combat is taking place on the ground (Jar-Jar, a PC, is part of the scene), and Anakin is on autopilot flying a space assault mission, and Obi-Wan & Qui-Gon are dueling Darth Maul, and Padmé is infiltrating her own palace with her strike team.

Or the 3-scene battle of Endor. A massive space battle is taking place, amongst which Lando (a PC) and his crew are piloting the Millenium Falcon. Meanwhile, Han & Leia and the lot are on the surface of the planet and eventually get caught up in a mass combat of their own. And all this happens while Luke is with Vader and the Emperor on the Death Star, facing his own destiny.

1 hour ago, awayputurwpn said:

Take for example the 4-part battle for Naboo, where a mass combat is taking place on the ground (Jar-Jar, a PC, is part of the scene), and Anakin and R2-D2 are on autopilot flying a space assault mission, and Obi-Wan & Qui-Gon are dueling Darth Maul, and Padmé is infiltrating her own palace with her strike team.

Fixed that, only player character astromechs are that powerful.

Keep in mind that mass combat checks don't really happen in the same units of structured time as combat encounters. A typical combat encounter is usually just a few moments of a single mass combat phase.

Thanks guys!

On 3/15/2017 at 3:50 PM, SEApocalypse said:

Fixed that, only player character astromechs are that powerful.

Okay, sure

On 3/15/2017 at 5:50 PM, SEApocalypse said:

Fixed that, only player character astromechs are that powerful.

"And these spinning tricks...only Player-controlled astromechs are so precise."