I have a player who will acquire a flying creature and I am not sure what to expect or how to make interesting encounters for him. Any advice would be welcome.

Well you should consider some limitations first...

Can he fit it onto another ship to take it to other worlds? If so will it be able to fly in those environments? (High Gravity or Toxic Environments etc...)

Can he afford to fee the thing?

Is it legal to keep on whatever worlds they will be travelling to?

How dangerous is the creature to others?

Doe she plan to engage other flying things with it? If so how sturdy is it? Can he mount any weapons on it?

...answering any of these things could be the start of any number of encounters in and of itself...8)

----

Officer; "Do you have a license for this...thing?"

Character; "Uh would it help if I said it was a herbivore?"

Officer; "What"

Character; "It's not dangerous..."

Officer; "What has that got to do with having a license or not?"

Character; "Well if it's not dangerous I shouldn't need a license should I?"

----

Mount; "Skrawk?"

Character: "No, don't eat the thing...it's bad for you."

Mount: *eats the thing*

Characetr: "Argh dammit no! Open your mouth, Open Your mouth right now!"

The group currently has a large freighter (5) which holds a smaller shuttle (3), so I am allowing him to bring it instead of the shuttle.

The creature is a Battle Hydra that he is bonded with (FR4), and does spend most of his loot money on animal supplies, though I should increase that when he gets the Hydra.

It would be unlicenced and probably highly illegal on any planet with a government. Doing illegal activities never stopped this group.

The creature is highly dangerous with a poison tail, sharp teeth and claws.

I wouldn't allow weapons on it, it's pretty lethal as it is. It has a high armor rating (10) but couldn't compete with starships. He wants to fly it, shoot his bow from on top of it and guide it to attack things.

Flying is fun. Flying with other creatures and jetpack users is super fun, some open unarmed or sometimes even armed swoopers or speeders make cool encounters too.

Keep in mind that using one of the creature's natural weapons requires a survival check of the pilot and thus consumes the riders action, flying and shooting the bow might be often harder, so keep those setbacks coming.

Exploring the terrain, flying past canyons over jungle, etc all interesting bases for such encounters.

Basically, check out Avatar and you should have plenty of ideas for air combat with such creatures and as well how hard and dangerous vehicle weapons are for them.

Side Note; what is FR4? And what book is the Battle Hydra In?

I ask because I have a Gand Pathfinder that is basically working up to Beastmaster/Rider and will eventually (Hopefully) have a Flying Mount too...8)

Force Rating 4, there is a force spec which can create animal bonds.

And battle hydra are as far as I know in no FFGSWRPG book so far, but have been in both previous RPGs. They are native to Yavin 4 and originally created by Sith Alchemy.

12 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Keep in mind that using one of the creature's natural weapons requires a survival check of the pilot and thus consumes the riders action, flying and shooting the bow might be often harder, so keep those setbacks coming.

He will be bonded with the creature, normally using a maneuver to give the creature a maneuver and action. I am not sure how these rules work together.

9 minutes ago, GandofGand said:

Side Note; what is FR4? And what book is the Battle Hydra In?

I ask because I have a Gand Pathfinder that is basically working up to Beastmaster/Rider and will eventually (Hopefully) have a Flying Mount too...8)

Force Rating 4, he is a Pathfinder/Hermit. They are F&D specs, but as that forums died down after arguing over trivial opinions, I made a post here too. The Battle Hydra is custom made. They freed a full grown one (Silhouette 3) from poachers and ended up with an egg. That was almost a year ago and it's just now come up that he has enough force rating to bond with the juvenile that grew out of the egg.

4 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Force Rating 4, there is a force spec which can create animal bonds.

And battle hydra are as far as I know in no FFGSWRPG book so far, but have been in both previous RPGs. They are native to Yavin 4 and originally created by Sith Alchemy.

He doesn't have it yet. We are finishing this act and moving ahead in time to when it will be no longer a baby.

Any advice on stating the thing would help out alot!

The Jedi Academy Sourcebook from west end games has them, converting those stats should be a good start, but they seem in general pretty powerful.

Thanks for that info, my PF is still only Rank 1 but paired with Executioner so in time, and with MUCH XP, will eventually have FR 4. Pretty sure by then I can find something to Bond WITH...8D

8 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

The Jedi Academy Sourcebook from west end games has them, converting those stats should be a good start, but they seem in general pretty powerful.

The fully grown one they encountered was very over powered. It was basically a vehicle with 20 cortosis armor and two separate attacks at 4/6 doing 10 damage plus success. It cleaned up over 40 poachers who were shooting missiles at it.

He is not getting that version, this one would be a juvenile.

Bonded flying mounts are frightening. The Bonded rules definitely allow the PC to spend a Manoeuvre to direct the creature. With that direction the creature can perform an Action and Manoeuvre. So effectively the creature can move and attack while the PC directs and attacks, neither suffering strain to do so.

The big thing is that you don't want to put this creature against Vehicle scale weapons, it will just die. And you don't want it to have vehicle scale weapons since then NPCS just die. Keep it tough but only Engage with other beasts or personal scale weapons.

For encounter ideas I definitely agree the smuggling of said creature should be a constant problem. Mostly heavily populated worlds will be a challenge. But small towns and colonies will likely find the thing very intimidating and require it be kept well away.

The other headache will be rich and powerful people wanting to acquire the beast for their entertainment. Hurts want if for the fighting pits, CorSec directors want to cage it and show off, Imperials want to experiment on it, then everything in between (think the pigs in the movie ******).

Feeding and controlling the beast should only be challenging in the right circumstances, I feel like this is the low hanging fruit and using it too much will just annoy the players. Obviously Survival when supplies are scarce can be a problem and be interesting, but not on a resource rich world. The thing doing naughty stuff should have a purpose, perhaps it knows something the PC's don't, "why does your pet always snarl at ol James our mentor, he is a nice guy" when James is really the BBEG!

13 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

Bonded flying mounts are frightening. The Bonded rules definitely allow the PC to spend a Manoeuvre to direct the creature. With that direction the creature can perform an Action and Manoeuvre. So effectively the creature can move and attack while the PC directs and attacks, neither suffering strain to do so.

The big thing is that you don't want to put this creature against Vehicle scale weapons, it will just die. And you don't want it to have vehicle scale weapons since then NPCS just die. Keep it tough but only Engage with other beasts or personal scale weapons.

For encounter ideas I definitely agree the smuggling of said creature should be a constant problem. Mostly heavily populated worlds will be a challenge. But small towns and colonies will likely find the thing very intimidating and require it be kept well away.

The other headache will be rich and powerful people wanting to acquire the beast for their entertainment. Hurts want if for the fighting pits, CorSec directors want to cage it and show off, Imperials want to experiment on it, then everything in between (think the pigs in the movie ******).

Feeding and controlling the beast should only be challenging in the right circumstances, I feel like this is the low hanging fruit and using it too much will just annoy the players. Obviously Survival when supplies are scarce can be a problem and be interesting, but not on a resource rich world. The thing doing naughty stuff should have a purpose, perhaps it knows something the PC's don't, "why does your pet always snarl at ol James our mentor, he is a nice guy" when James is really the BBEG!

It looks like the "best" Imperial units for a bonded flying creature to fight would be Jet Pack Troopers. They fly and shoot personal scale weapons.

Also swoop bike and flying beast cavalry work well. Then there are unarmed speeders that law enforcement uses.