hi,

one of my players is a beast rider and recently tamed his first beast, a Dalgo (Horse). I know the rules for riding a beast but there are no rules for fighting on the back of a beast? So how do you handle a mounted combat? Especially on the back of a "war horse".

I want to make him feel special on the back of his mount but any pc with a vibro-axe or a blaster is a better fighter (and more flexible) Furthermore, i don't see any other benefit than crossing more distance than non-mounted pcs.

Also, most of the time the mount is useless, because they have to wait for the other pcs (non-mounted) or they fly to another place with a shuttle that is to small for carrying a beast, or the terrain (buildings) is not suitable for a horse.

If they plan to take a ride with their speeder bikes, the beast rider can join but if they encounter a fight the rider is useless against vehicles :D

So, at the moment the beast is nothing more than a very bad speederbike ... :(

Overall i think the beastrider talent is not well planned :( or i am missing a huge point.

What do you think?

There are rules for it. they are in stay on Target. You treat a beast just like a vehicle. So just like you can fight from an unarmed speeder you can fight from a mount.

4 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

There are rules for it. they are in stay on Target. You treat a beast just like a vehicle. So just like you can fight from an unarmed speeder you can fight from a mount.

Ok but i have trouble managing vehicle combat against non vehicles

Lets take an example. They are in a jungle environment. Some thugs are hidden in the woods and open fire on the pcs.

How does that combat encounter work (only) for the beast rider? How does speed work in personell encounters. How does the attack work? Does he attack with his vibro-machete or use the dalgos trample?

When he uses his beast as a vehicle the beast has a permanent velocity like vehicles? When he moves to enganged ranged, does he pass through because of the permanent velocity ?

Speed of vehicles (and beasts) in personal scale encounters are a bit iffy. Accelerating works just like with a vehicle, so one maneuver to accelerate to speed 1. The tricky part is that speed 2 and higher allows to move from close to short range planetary scale per RAW, which is extreme range on personal scale. So, in a personal scale encounter, a rider can go wherever the **** he wants as soon as he got to speed 2.

In the campaign of a friend, he circumvents this "problem" by house-ruling that a beast or ground vehicle can go his current speed worth of maneuvers in one move maneuver (so with speed 3 he goes the same distance in one maneuver as 3 maneuvers would take him by foot).

The attack can be chosen, I think. The rider decides whether he attacks with his machete using a melee check, or trying to trample with his dalgo using a survival check. Note that they both are the same entity as long as the rider is mounted, and the mount doesn't get it's own initiative.

48 minutes ago, Dutzen said:

When he moves to enganged ranged, does he pass through because of the permanent velocity ?

This can be handled narratively imo. Mechanically, the beastrider moves to engaged with his target, and the target can counterattack with a melee weapon, but narratively, he rides past his target to strike it and then circles around to "stay" in engaged range. Though, it's well within the GM's right to demand a maneuver to stay at engaged range when going past a certain speed, to re-engage the target after riding past him.

Edit: Interestingly, the opposite of heaven gets censored, I didn't know that, though I deliberately didn't use explicit language.

Hmm,

does anyone have a beast-rider pc in his group and can give me some advice / feedback to involve the character in a better way?

I have only played EotE for a little bit, but it seems that an easy way to give a bonus to a mounted character is to allow a boost die on all (melee?) combat checks against unmounted opponents, and maybe give the player a free movement maneuver from the mount.

3 hours ago, k7e9 said:

I have only played EotE for a little bit, but it seems that an easy way to give a bonus to a mounted character is to allow a boost die on all (melee?) combat checks against unmounted opponents, and maybe give the player a free movement maneuver from the mount.

There are already rules for mounted characters. they are all in stay on target.

23 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

There are already rules for mounted characters. they are all in stay on target.

Which page? I don't see any satisfying rules to deal with my beastrider pc properly Especially in combat and most terrain (bringing the mount to a specific location)

I think the problem is that in most cases a speeder bike is better than a horse. However, as with all things there are exceptions. The main thing that I can see is the environment doesn't lend itself to speeder bikes, Hoth would be such an environment since the T-47's needed to be modified they used Tauntauns. Tatooine would be such an environment to a lesser extent since Obi-Wan (Star Wars Rebels), the Empire and Tuskan Raiders (A New Hope) all used beasts to get around. I also seem to remember a planet from Legends where repulser vehicles (like speeder bikes) didn't work at all. At least I think there was a planet like that...

For combat the advantage I can see is that the rider can move around and attack while mounted, then the mount might also be able to attack. But for bringing the mount to other locations then, yes the mount has special requirements for the type of ship they board.

One big advantage that living mounts have over vehicles was well summed-up by a remark which Obi-Wan made in the novelization of RotS: that he preferred living mounts because "a speeder doesn't care if it crashes".

22 hours ago, Vorzakk said:

One big advantage that living mounts have over vehicles was well summed-up by a remark which Obi-Wan made in the novelization of RotS: that he preferred living mounts because "a speeder doesn't care if it crashes".

Another is that mounts heal themselves, and need food, not fuel or parts.

I think a good bonus is that a beast can think, at least better than a bike, and you create an emotional link with it. So if you fell from you bike while speeding, the bike will just crash in a wall and it will be lost...

The beast will probably stop, turn back and come back to you, and if you are stunned after this bad fall, it can also defend yoûagainst bad guys running after you.

Some of the perqs and disadvantages can (and should) be handled narratively. For instance:

• A person mounted on a beast looks impressive, maybe even fearsome (and memorable), whereas a person on a speeder bike looks like every other person on a bike
• A Beastmaster might have a "Pied Piper" effect on pets and/or vermin if he spends too much time in one spot in a city
• A beast might develop a personality and essentially be part of the group. This could be good or bad, but entertaining either way
• It's not all sunshine and rainbows; animals excrete waste which often smells offensive and needs to be cleaned up. Especially if you're trying to flee and avoid leaving spoor and no other animals of that type exist on the planet you're currently on
• Beasts require maintenance much like speeders, just in a different fashion (tack & harness, shoes, special food, etc.)

Some other concrete points to consider:

• Ion weapons/grenades/mines will only annoy the beast but could be disastrous to a speeder
• Beasts can wear armor and it doesn't require hard points

Personally, I think that Beastriders shine in wilderness situations, particularly in a party which is not individually mounted. If everyone else has their own bike, it's not nearly so effective or unique. He'd make a great mounted scout for a party on foot or grouped together in a speeder truck or heavy vehicle. In the city? Not his thing, but you can work around it. Don't be afraid to split the party.

2 hours ago, SFC Snuffy said:

A beast might develop a personality and essentially be part of the group. This could be good or bad, but entertaining either way

It's not all sunshine and rainbows; animals excrete waste which often smells offensive and needs to be cleaned up. Especially if you're trying to flee and avoid leaving spoor and no other animals of that type exist on the planet you're currently on.

These two can actually be a lot of fun. Beasts and animal companions are great fodder for when advantage and threat are rolled. For instance, when my PCs were trying to sweet talk a secretary for a shipping company to give them some info on a shipping route, they failed their Charm check but rolled lots of Advantage. One of the players suggested that her animal friend had decided to build a nest in an open crate, throwing packing material all over the floor and distracting the secretary long enough for the PCs to swipe her datapad.