Hey folks,

Anyone here have an suggestions for making combat with an elite capital ship more engaging than with a ship crewed by a run of the mill Imperial crew?

I have an encounter with the ship of my campaigns BBEG coming up and want it to stand out as more difficult without making it just a more powerful vessel.

I was thinking assume a maximum minion group is assigned to everything (so YYGGG or YYYGG) on most checks.

Also assume subcommanders are in place over certain systems so that if the primary action of the ship generates advantage that advantage can be spent to take additional actions (performed by the numerous crew members). I was thinking one advantage per additional action which is assumed to succeed with one success. This also reduces the advantage used to score crits which will help the players stay alive longer. Triumph could be spent to make an actual check for the additional action (thus potentially succeeding with more than 1 success and even Triumph).

Example: Main weapon attack scores Triumph and 2 advantage. The cap ship spend the two advantage to boost shields and spoof missiles (which succeed with one success), and the Triumph to make a damage control check (which succeeds with however many success were rolled- thus potentially repairing more hull trauma).

Any other ideas?

What kind of ship(ships?) are the PCs using?

If it is a lot smaller I would do something like a trenchrun, where the PCs has to knock out subsystems.

If the PCs ship is the same size. Toss in a boarding action from the BBEGs cap ship.

Have the battle take place in an interesting environment. Like an asteroid field where the PCs have to dodge boulders, but th BBEGs cap ship just plows through the asteroids. Or maybe the BBEGs ship dives into the atmosphere of a gas giant, where the PCs have to dodge lightning strikes. The BBEG also pops out behind clouds to fire some shots and then hide again. You can also have the BBEG hyperjump to a new location after he takes some damage.

YT-1300 of course So at least 4 smaller than an Imperial class SD.

I have a house rule for using a larger ship as terrain (I use the Genisys rules for ships). You can only use a ship 2+ silhouettes larger than you as terrain (that is flying along its surface)- you must be moving faster than said larger ship and use the Dangerous Driving action. As a result any ship mounted weapons targeting you upgrade the attack difficulty once for each rank of slow firing that they have (in addition to any upgrades due to speed, evasive manuevers, etc). I figure slow firing weapons are the ones that suffer most from having a target in close- which seemed better than trying to simulate the oft seen difficulty of targeting small fast ships with heavy cap ship weapons (I'm looking at you Poe) by creating a "engaged" range for ships.

So an I-2 Star Destroyer vs a YT-1300?

"Listen, Neo. If you see one of those you do what WE do. RUN!!!!"

If my characters every get eager about going toe to toe with an I-2 Star Destroyer, my first question is always, "Do you have back-up characters handy?"

I intentionally Nerf the I-2's in my campaign to keep the PC"s ship from becoming an expanding sphere of star dust.

So my Imperial Gunnery Crews are rolling YGB and I do about four volleys per turn, every turn, until the PC's can escape weapons range (usually by kicking in the hyperdrive).

Another option is for the Star Destroyer to vector in a couple of flights of TIE Fighters who are using Evasive Maneuvers. A TIE Fighter can't stand up to a good volley from a Quad Cannon, but when they're dodging, they tend to stay in the sky a little longer and can't get really aggressive with their attacks.

Hmmm. If I were to go a bit more Epic, I might swap out the attacks with the Turbo Lasers for Ion Cannons and see if we can't kick in a Tractor Beam.

"You're ship is now slowly, inexorably being drawn to the opening hanger bay . . . ."

On ‎5‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 5:24 PM, FinarinPanjoro said:

I was thinking assume a maximum minion group is assigned to everything (so YYGGG or YYYGG) on most checks.

I would recommend against this. For battery attacks, the minion group size should be the number of guns - because no matter how huge a star destroyer's gunnery crew is, there's only one guy per turbolaser turret actually sat behind the gunsight .

However, feel free to up the stats of the crew. Using minion gunners with agility 3 not the agility 2 of generic navy gunners will essentially net you an extra green die and lines up well with 'elite crew'.

On ‎5‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 5:24 PM, FinarinPanjoro said:

Also assume subcommanders are in place over certain systems so that if the primary action of the ship generates advantage that advantage can be spent to take additional actions (performed by the numerous crew members). I was thinking one advantage per additional action which is assumed to succeed with one success. This also reduces the advantage used to score crits which will help the players stay alive longer. Triumph could be spent to make an actual check for the additional action (thus potentially succeeding with more than 1 success and even Triumph).

I wouldn't want to make it too over-complicated, but yes, copying the rules for generic astromechs from Stay On Target is possible - essentially allowing to cash in a triumph for a free action of some kind.

At the same time, I'd probably just give the ship a set number of actions per turn for the subcommanders. After all, logically the damage control team can be beavering away whether dice are rolled for the batteries firing or not.

Finally, the simplest one: presumably as your campaign's main villain, the bad guy is a nemesis-level enemy. Consider using the nemesis rules by allowing his Adversary trait to apply to checks targeting his ship and/or the nemesis-get-multiple-goes-per-turn rules.

Give the minions agi 4 instead of 3, add an advanced targeting array to the ship, making the ship elite.
Give the captain or admiral some impressive commodore talents. Make the pilot an Ace Rival or even a nemesis. #

Plenty of options.

Give the ship the ability " Elite crew: Upgrade any skill check once. "

Consider giving the crew as a whole a talent or two from the Ace specializations.

Give the ship an attachment or two.

Lot's of good suggestions here! Thank you!

Sorry, I was unclear I also use the number of weapons as the minion group number, but I also typically only attack a single target once per turn (so even if 20 turbolasers are firing it's a single attack against the PCs, but with a maxed out minion group).

On ‎6‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 8:01 PM, FinarinPanjoro said:

Lot's of good suggestions here! Thank you!

Sorry, I was unclear I also use the number of weapons as the minion group number, but I also typically only attack a single target once per turn (so even if 20 turbolasers are firing it's a single attack against the PCs, but with a maxed out minion group).

That's more or less correct. The ship-to-ship barrage attack rules include damage boosts based on 'the number of weapons', so even if you're firing a spread of 20 turbolasers, the ship still gets some benefit for the number of guns in the barrage.

When facing a heavy capital ship, I fire at the players once per turn, with as many guns as are available, such that the 'other half' fire next turn, and so on (most capital ship guns have slow-loading 1, so firing odd and even-numbered guns every other turn means a volley every turn without needing to think too much or make too many attacks at one initiative step)