I saw a thread making new rules for pod racing but wnat to keep more with the core rules. Probably some variation on the rules used for chases.

How you done pod racing in your game, what rules did you use and do you think it went well?

Over in the compiled resources thread is my houserules document. That has my modified chase rules, which I would use for a podrace. The gist of the rules is that the player goal is to win the race/chase and the NPC goal is to hinder their progress. If allies are part of the scene but not piloting, any action they take can assist the pilot in achieving their goals. If multiple pilots are part of the scene, say a group of x-wings being chased by an imperial light cruiser, then each pilot is responsible for their own escape. The initial piloting check sets up the amount of rounds available as well as the amount of success symbols needed to resolve the encounter successfully. In this way there is a variable setup for the encounter, based on the PC pilot's skill vs the NPC pilot's skill. I've only managed to use these rules a little and you might find tweaking them will help you get the challenge you want out of the encounter. These rules are designed to keep chases fast-paced and are there for them to be quickly resolved based on my preference of not wanting a 40-minute-long chase scene.

Make a list of obstacles. Each round all the racers roll to get through the obstacle using the normal speed/silhouette rules. Pilots get a number of points each round equal to their speed. Whoever has the most points at the end wins. Pilots have to balance going really fast against high difficulty rolls. And changing speeds becomes interesting if they know the course ahead of time or can see upcoming obstacles and react by accelerating/decelerating/punching it

On 1/12/2018 at 8:03 PM, Cael said:

Make a list of obstacles. Each round all the racers roll to get through the obstacle using the normal speed/silhouette rules. Pilots get a number of points each round equal to their speed. Whoever has the most points at the end wins. Pilots have to balance going really fast against high difficulty rolls. And changing speeds becomes interesting if they know the course ahead of time or can see upcoming obstacles and react by accelerating/decelerating/punching it

I used a system similar to this using set difficulties and a recommended speed for each section of the course. The pilot gets a description of the upcoming course and selects a speed. He then is told the recommended speed and has to add setback dice to his piloting check for every point he is over the limit. Recommended speeds are of course inversely proportional to the difficulty.

What I also added was to incorporate the risk of crashing. If the pilot fails to make his piloting check he takes strain equal to the difference between his speed and the recommended speed + number of net failures generated.

He must then slow down and reroll the piloting check. Repeat until the pilot succeeds his piloting check or he runs out of strain and crashes.

If total accumulated strain is greater than character strain + system strain thresholds, Pilot crashes and must roll for a critical injury. Vehicle is destroyed.

There is always opportunity for shenanigans too. I hid a few bad guys in various legs of the race. Luckily the party found them and drove them away. But not before a bad guy took a pot shot at the racer and wounding him, but not seriously.

I'm actually designing a course (my PCs are a podracing team) but I want it to be a little better than what I presently have. I'm ripping directly from Jewel of Yavin but there's so much more I feel like I need to add to make this interesting and not end too early or drag on. This is supposed to be the prime action for them.

Sons of Fortune has a modular encounter that has a swoop race and rules for running it. It wouldn't be very hard to adapt those rules for Podracing, or to use as a starting point for your own house-rules. (Best part is, you don't actually need Sons of Fortune to get it, it's also available to download on EotE's product page.)