To be fair, a great many Systems have this problem of house-rules tending to create the need for more house-rules. And even more so in Narratively driven Systems like this.

But yeah, its a problem if you don't like the "director's chair" approach 😃

28 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

This would put most shielded fighters around Armor 4-5.

With Medium Lasers being Damage 6, so 7+ in use, that would give you 3-4+ HT per hit. Using GtA would be pretty critical to inflicting max damage with cannons. Not bad.

Of course weaker weapons would now be unviable. The Firespray's default Damage 3 autoblasers would kick out 4+ damage per shot, so shielded craft would often be able to shrug that off, or only be taking 1-2 HT per hit. Taking down another Starfighter with an Auto-blaster would be tricky, relying on a lot of consecutive hits to wear it down, if you can penetrate at all. Not good, but it's got it's uses. Would easily explain Jango vs. Obi mechanically, if not logically...

Larger craft is where you'd have real problems though.

An Armor 4 light Freighter is now sitting at Armor 5-6 with shields. An Armor 5 corvette is now sitting on Armor 6-7 all around, and can go up to Armor 9, and something with lots of shields like a Gozanti will get there even easier.

Killing a light Freighter or corvette is now getting tricky, requiring out-maneuvering and heavy weapons like Missiles and Torpedoes to take them out in a timely manner.

Big ships become pretty much invincible to being HTed by anything other than other big ships. Even something like the Interdictor is sitting on Armor 8 in 3 out of it's 4 arcs, while a dedicated heavy warship like the ISD is looking at Armor 13.

And of course unshielded craft will need to be deployed in greater numbers to offset the fact you'll be cutting them down like wheat by comparison (which isn't really a problem, just something that will need to be done).

This is part of my love/hate relationship with FFG's vehicle system. I love how they established a system that, when used in-context to both the films and the intent of a quick narrative "director's chair" approach, can do some really cool stuff, and usually mirror the films by RAW, or really close to it.

I hate how hard it is to explain that "director's chair" approach to people that are used to other systems with a more tight in tactical wargame format, and how the system is so built on that approach that any attempts to houserule anything is likely to have a ripple effect requiring more house-rules and adjustments to work at all level.

1) I am recommending to stick with RAW but as a not terrible alternative if the OP really really wants to try something else try this

2) Sil 4 and lower craft get to straight out choose the firearc they attack a sil 5+ ship from and I see no reason they wouldn't attack from the arc with the least defense, so if a cap ship was only defending against fighters they would do best to equalize their shields, but if they were defending against 1 other cap ship then it might be intelligent to angle its deflectors to protect against the other cap ship and expose themselves to the comparative small arms fire of the fighters, while using it's own fighters to defend against them. Which leaves us with the fighter vs fighter scenario if it's 1 on 1 GtA rules the day but a squadron against a squadron... well taking a quick shot at the guy on your wing mate's six so he can return the favor rather than trying to shake the guy on your six is the easy counter to GtA plus damage reduction shields. So unless it's 1 vs. 1 or the opposing side is crap at working as a team... it shouldn't be terrible. But see 1) (stick with RAW unless you find it so distasteful that you must try something else)

3) I've found ffg star wars to more fault tolerant to house rules than any other system that I've played (and also to need fewer house rules than any other system that I've played, except my own work in "progress"/"on hiatus" system which doesn't count either way because it's not done and from my perspective as the developer it's also house rules because I made all of the rules)

2 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

Sil 4 and lower craft get to straight out choose the firearc they attack a sil 5+ ship from

Nah, since Sil 5 and up track Arc conventionally, you'd have to maneuver to the arc to attack. That's why the "Move within the Close Range Band" option exists under fly/drive. So for a fighter to hit a Sil 5 ship in the unshielded arc you're talking a probable need to spend 1 maneuver moving, and then attack. Likewise hot Cap on Cap action would see the ships maneuvering around each other and shifting shields around.

Honestly, while numbers might need to be adjusted a smidge, I actually don't see the Corvette level as being a huge problem, and in fact it might make things more interesting since it encourages more than just hitting each other until one falls down, or making a point of using one weapon over another to get the job done.

It's that Armor 13, Massive 2 ISD that's more of an issue, as it makes Torpedo bombing a lot harder, requiring a lot more success to penetrate and still requiring 4 Advantage or a Triumph to Crit. You'll probably have to either rework the base armor rating, or reduce Massive to get the thing to a manageable level. Unless of course you want torpedo bombers to not really threaten an ISD, which is not a totally unreasonable perspective to take from a GM-story-writer angle. It just makes Rogue One more of a stretch to explain (though to be fair it's already kinda hard).

3 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

Nah, since Sil 5 and up track Arc conventionally, you'd have to maneuver to the arc to attack. That's why the "Move within the Close Range Band" option exists under fly/drive. So for a fighter to hit a Sil 5 ship in the unshielded arc you're talking a probable need to spend 1 maneuver moving, and then attack. Likewise hot Cap on Cap action would see the ships maneuvering around each other and shifting shields around.

Honestly, while numbers might need to be adjusted a smidge, I actually don't see the Corvette level as being a huge problem, and in fact it might make things more interesting since it encourages more than just hitting each other until one falls down, or making a point of using one weapon over another to get the job done.

It's that Armor 13 , Massive 2 ISD that's more of an issue, as it makes Torpedo bombing a lot harder, requiring a lot more success to penetrate and still requiring 4 Advantage or a Triumph to Crit. You'll probably have to either rework the base armor rating, or reduce Massive to get the thing to a manageable level. Unless of course you want torpedo bombers to not really threaten an ISD, which is not a totally unreasonable perspective to take from a GM-story-writer angle. It just makes Rogue One more of a stretch to explain (though to be fair it's already kinda hard).

My advice to the starfighter pilot would be "Spend a maneuver and hit it in the unshielded arc." And fighters are support in cap ship vs cap ship, caps are angling their shields to protect against each other leaving a side exposed for star fighters with torpedoes to pound. At least that was my intention. Also you can't have defense greater than 4 in any arc so it limits how ridiculous armor can get. I think you think this is a bigger departure from RAW behavior than I think it is, but neither of us can know that without testing it, and I'm advocating stick with RAW don't use this.

But what I was thinking is that... Setback dice add failures (and threat), yes that can sometimes only reduce damage but other times it causes what would be a hit to miss entirely. With this house rule (damage reduction instead of randomly adding failure and threat) hits would get more common giving more opportunities for crits to happen (and there would also be less threat in the result pool to cancel the advantage needed to crit). Net result should be that crits get "a lot" (and I can't comment on what "a lot" means quantitatively) more common.

Alternatelly, you could use the same rule that that one piece of reactive armor has.

forget what it’s called, but it’s a set of personal scale armor that is Soak3, and grants a penalty to see if the wearer is wearing armor, but each time the wearer is hit the soak is reduced by 1. It gets restored by an Average mechanics check.

If Shields gave armor, it could be a similar thing. Each hit reduces the armor by 1, irrespective if any damage was caused. It can be restored with a check. Maybe cap it at 2 regained armor instead of the full value.

6 hours ago, Fl1nt said:

Fair point, although some would argue that the new bubble shields are the consequence of star wars taking a new direction since Episode 1.

I think it comes down to what flavour of Star Wars you and your group wants.

Do you want new and flashy or original and more gritty.

I suppose it's a matter of preference. However, Lucas himself did direct movies 1-3, so it is canon. I see it as limited special effects for movies 4-6, similar to how Star Trek movies of the same era didn't portray shields as actual energy barriers. It was always the intent of the developers, but to costly to do back then. Now though, CGI makes proper energy barrier-style shields very cost effective and simple to do. I don't fault anyone though for having a different perspective. It's a fantasy/scifi setting. Imagination and creativity is par for course!

6 hours ago, Fl1nt said:

On the point of mechanics.

I like the suggestion of EliasWindrider, it could certainly work for smaller ships and snubfighters.

I'd just be cautious as to prevent shield boost and angling deflectors making a ship impenetrable to other starfighter's weaponry, in turn making them invulnerable without the enemy gaining the advantage.

Though this would be rare if at all likely except on capital ships, which could become invulnerable to starfighters in one zone. But that poses a lesser problem since the fighters are much more maneuverable

I've recently been wondering something. Do we ever see a torpedo stopped by a shield? If a fighter can pass through a shield, is it possible torpedoes do as well? That would certainly makes torpedoes significantly more useful, especially against large capital ships with powerful shields. Torpedoes would be the go to weapon for medium to long ranges against capital ships, while getting in close gets fighters under the shield to hit the ship directly. Just a thought, not sure if it holds up to what we see on screen or in books (EU/Legends or Disney's new canon books).

3 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

My advice to the starfighter pilot would be "Spend a maneuver and hit it in the unshielded arc." And fighters are support in cap ship vs cap ship, caps are angling their shields to protect against each other leaving a side exposed for star fighters with torpedoes to pound. At least that was my intention. Also you can't have defense greater than 4 in any arc so it limits how ridiculous armor can get. I think you think this is a bigger departure from RAW behavior than I think it is, but neither of us can know that without testing it, and I'm advocating stick with RAW don't use this.

But what I was thinking is that... Setback dice add failures (and threat), yes that can sometimes only reduce damage but other times it causes what would be a hit to miss entirely. With this house rule (damage reduction instead of randomly adding failure and threat) hits would get more common giving more opportunities for crits to happen (and there would also be less threat in the result pool to cancel the advantage needed to crit). Net result should be that crits get "a lot" (and I can't comment on what "a lot" means quantitatively) more common.

Nah, not a huge departure from RAW, I mean it's got merit and it is kinda how WEG did shields actually.

It's more of a discussion about the role of Starfighters when talking capital ships, especially the big ones, and how it should all go. What scenes are you looking to create? How much should downing an ISD take? Since we haven't really seen this happen in the films, not to that level anyway.

I also think it's a question of scaling, again thinking about WEG and how they have what? 5 or 6 different scales. That was probably too many, but I see where they were coming from.

Honestly shields in Star Wars area mess because they're not consistent enough. Sometimes shots get through, sometimes they don't. It's not like Trek where they make it clear you pretty much need to chew totally through the shield before you can start hitting the hull. I mean, going by TLJ you'd probably need to have something where Range causes weapon damage to drop off too, though doing so adds another layer of system detail...

21 minutes ago, TalosX said:

I've recently been wondering something. Do we ever see a torpedo stopped by a shield? If a fighter can pass through a shield, is it possible torpedoes do as well? That would certainly makes torpedoes significantly more useful, especially against large capital ships with powerful shields. Torpedoes would be the go to weapon for medium to long ranges against capital ships, while getting in close gets fighters under the shield to hit the ship directly. Just a thought, not sure if it holds up to what we see on screen or in books (EU/Legends or Disney's new canon books).

Not clearly. In TPM we see the N-1s shooting torpedoes at the control ship, and an explosion, and no damage, but we never actually see a clear shield hit.

In WEG they actually had ships have 2 shields. The first was the actual one you moved around, the other was an unspoken inherent boost to hull ratings. Only way you knew about it was certain supplements mentioned situations where a ships shields were 100% down, and you have to reduce the hull code by 2 in addition to dropping the shields down to 0.

I thought maybe in ship combat that swapping the way Armor and shields work. I vaguely remember a couple references in the movies about not being able to penetrate shields. If the shields acted as a" soak" does then a certain shield rating would cause small scale weapons to be mostly useless unless someone rolled a really good hit. Armor could then act as "defense" that could deflect shots that penetrated a shield or lessen them to some effect. It is a bit wonky mechanically but makes more sense thematically.

23 minutes ago, Jawa4thewin said:

I thought maybe in ship combat that swapping the way Armor and shields work. I vaguely remember a couple references in the movies about not being able to penetrate shields. If the shields acted as a" soak" does then a certain shield rating would cause small scale weapons to be mostly useless unless someone rolled a really good hit. Armor could then act as "defense" that could deflect shots that penetrated a shield or lessen them to some effect. It is a bit wonky mechanically but makes more sense thematically.

Definitely not. Armor does not prevent someone or something from getting hit. Armor absorbs damage after it has been hit. Shields deflect hits before they can hit the actual target, so, on this Sense, the “defense” bonus fits to a degree.

1 minute ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Definitely not. Armor does not prevent someone or something from getting hit. Armor absorbs damage after it has been hit. Shields deflect hits before they can hit the actual target, so, on this Sense, the “defense” bonus fits to a degree.

I don't ever remember seeing blasts deflected off in other directions in the movies. They were just absorbed. Armor does in fact prevent someone from getting hit by taking the hit itself, Kind of the definition of armor.

46 minutes ago, Jawa4thewin said:

I don't ever remember seeing blasts deflected off in other directions in the movies. They were just absorbed. Armor does in fact prevent someone from getting hit by taking the hit itself, Kind of the definition of armor.

Canonically the shields in Star Wars are specifically referred to as “deflector shields” , and as such deflect shots away before they can actually hit the ship itself. We see this in the movies. Remember in RotJ just before the Executor is destroyed. The shield officer tells Admiral Piett, “We just lost the bridge deflector shield!”and the movies show shots being deflected by deflector shields on numerous occasions.

The shields don’t simply absorb some damage, they completely block an attack from getting anywhere near the hull. As such, the ship is not hit at all. The shields deflect the attack.

By contrast, damage from shots that manage to get through the shields to actually hit a ship are at least partially absorbed by the ship’s armor. The armor doesn’t prevent the hit at all, it simply soaks as much damage as it is capable of doing, thus reducing the damage to the hull.

Defiantly not.

Just trying to offer an alternate view, not get into an argument. Chill out man

7 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

Nah, not a huge departure from RAW, I mean it's got merit and it is kinda how WEG did shields actually.

It's more of a discussion about the role of Starfighters when talking capital ships, especially the big ones, and how it should all go. What scenes are you looking to create? How much should downing an ISD take? Since we haven't really seen this happen in the films, not to that level anyway.

I also think it's a question of scaling, again thinking about WEG and how they have what? 5 or 6 different scales. That was probably too many, but I see where they were coming from.

Honestly shields in Star Wars area mess because they're not consistent enough. Sometimes shots get through, sometimes they don't. It's not like Trek where they make it clear you pretty much need to chew totally through the shield before you can start hitting the hull. I mean, going by TLJ you'd probably need to have something where Range causes weapon damage to drop off too, though doing so adds another layer of system detail...

Range already does cause damage to drop off a bit already. Range upgrades the check which means you're likely to rack up more failures which leads to less damage going through.

On 1/14/2019 at 6:21 PM, Tramp Graphics said:

Canonically the shields in Star Wars are specifically referred to as “deflector shields” , and as such deflect shots away before they can actually hit the ship itself. We see this in the movies. Remember in RotJ just before the Executor is destroyed. The shield officer tells Admiral Piett, “We just lost the bridge deflector shield!”and the movies show shots being deflected by deflector shields on numerous occasions.

The shields don’t simply absorb some damage, they completely block an attack from getting anywhere near the hull. As such, the ship is not hit at all. The shields deflect the attack. 

Shields actually have several names in canon: shields, deflector shields, ray shields, etc. I'm curious what you mean by "the movies show shots being deflected by the deflector shields on numerous occasions"? If you mean energy bolts hit the shields and are nullified/dissipate, then sure. I can't recall ever seeing any attacks deflected off a star ships shields in the movies.

13 minutes ago, TalosX said:

Shields actually have several names in canon: shields, deflector shields, ray shields, etc. I'm curious what you mean by "the movies show shots being deflected by the deflector shields on numerous occasions"? If you mean energy bolts hit the shields and are nullified/dissipate, then sure. I can't recall ever seeing any attacks deflected off a star ships shields in the movies.

Ray Shields are simply one among several different types of deflector shields.

To quote Wookieepedia:

Quote

in:Canon articles, Technology stubs, Articles needing additional sources,

Deflector shield

Deflector shields, or simply shields, were energy fields that could protect starships,[1] battle stations,[2] ground-based structures,[3] and even armies from enemy assault. Several varieties of deflector shields existed, including ray shields which deflected or scattered energy (although sometimes they were not powerful enough to fully negate enemy fire) and particle shields which diffused impacts from high-velocity projectiles and proton weapons. A third type of shield, a concussion shield, repelled space debris and other solid objects. Most starships utilized a combination of ray and particle shielding for maximum protection, while larger ships could require multiple projectors to fully protect the ship, with a shield's intensity gradually diminishing with distance from its projector.[4]Some shields were one-way shields that only allowed a person to come in through the shield, but prevented passage back out through the shield. Droidekas had a built-in shield that deflected normal blaster fire but could not stop solid objects such as a thermal detonators or people passing through, so long as they moved slow enough.[5]

In all these cases, Deflector shields repel shots from hitting the target being protected rather than soaking damage that has hit the target. We see this with the Droidikas and with the Gungan shield generators as well. The shields completely prevented any shots from hitting their targets. Planetary shields are the same, the shields prevent shots from hitting the surface of the planet. Ship's shields prevent shots from hitting the ship, etc.

15 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Ray Shields are simply one among several different types of deflector shields.

To quote Wookieepedia:

In all these cases, Deflector shields repel shots from hitting the target being protected rather than soaking damage that has hit the target. We see this with the Droidikas and with the Gungan shield generators as well. The shields completely prevented any shots from hitting their targets. Planetary shields are the same, the shields prevent shots from hitting the surface of the planet. Ship's shields prevent shots from hitting the ship, etc.

Wookieepedia claims their are two types of shields, not several. Also, there is no canon statement anywhere in the movies, Disney-approved books, or cartoon series that back this up. It's a holdover from EU/Legends material. Just watched the Droidikas in Phantom Menace. Blaster bolts reflected by the Jedi hit their shield and dissipate. There is no deflection. The large Gungan shields dissipate any blast that hits them just like the Droidikas. The smaller hand-carried shields do deflect blasts, but that scene is the only instance of that occurring. No ships shields have ever been depicted as deflecting energy. I would say it's more likely the Gungan hand-carried shields are special, and not the norm.

2 minutes ago, TalosX said:

Wookieepedia claims their are two types of shields, not several. Also, there is no canon statement anywhere in the movies, Disney-approved books, or cartoon series that back this up. It's a holdover from EU/Legends material. Just watched the Droidikas in Phantom Menace. Blaster bolts reflected by the Jedi hit their shield and dissipate. There is no deflection. The large Gungan shields dissipate any blast that hits them just like the Droidikas. The smaller hand-carried shields do deflect blasts, but that scene is the only instance of that occurring. No ships shields have ever been depicted as deflecting energy. I would say it's more likely the Gungan hand-carried shields are special, and not the norm.

Three types: Ray, Particle, and Concussion. And, as the article says, Ray shields deflect or scatter the energy. And it is canon which refers to them as deflector shields. Regardless of whether the shot bounces off on a different vector, or is simply stopped dead, the shot doesn’t hit the target.

1 minute ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Three types: Ray, Particle, and Concussion. And, as the article says, Ray shields deflect or scatter the energy. And it is canon which refers to them as deflector shields. Regardless of whether the shot bounces off on a different vector, or is simply stopped dead, the shot doesn’t hit the target.

Oh I'm not debating that the shot doesn't hit. Just that I didn't see shots deflecting off anywhere. Probably got to hung up on "deflect". Oddly Star Wars shields aren't all that different from Star Trek shields. They stop the blast, but still do at least some minor damage. However, when a ship has no shields at all, it's pretty quickly torn to pieces!

18 hours ago, Darth Revenant said:

Range already does cause damage to drop off a bit already. Range upgrades the check which means you're likely to rack up more failures which leads to less damage going through.

But... there are no range modifiers in vehicle combat.

17 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

In all   these cases, Deflector shields repel shots from hitting the target being protected rather than soaking damage that has hit the target. We see this with the  Droidikas and with the Gungan shield generators as well. The shields completely prevented any shots from hitting their targets. Planetary shields are  the same, the shields prevent shots from hitting the surface of the planet. Ship's shields prevent shots from hitting   the ship  ,   etc. 

2 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Three types: Ray, Particle, and Concussion. And, as the article says, Ray shields                deflect or scatter the energy. And it is canon which refers to them as deflector shields. Regardless  of whether the shot bounces off on a different vector, or is simply stopped dead, the shot doesn’t hit the ta  rge  t  .

Trampy, maybe you shouldn't take the correlation of fictional physics and a fairly arbitrary set of game rules so seriously when both are mostly there for narrative purposes.

The game system lets you fluff what happens pretty much however you like and we all know that a new piece of star wars media tomorrow that makes all we thought we knew about how shields work invalid. There are no hard and fast rules, and it doesn't matter one bit if shields are deflecting or absorbing shots to wether you use soak or setback die rules to symbolize shields protecting you. It can be fluffed either way.

2 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

But... there are no range modifiers in vehicle combat.

Trampy, maybe you shouldn't take the correlation of fictional physics and a fairly arbitrary set of game rules so seriously when both are mostly there for narrative purposes.

The game system lets you fluff what happens pretty much however you like and we all know that a new piece of star wars media tomorrow that makes all we thought we knew about how shields work invalid. There are no hard and fast rules, and it doesn't matter one bit if shields are deflecting or absorbing shots to wether you use soak or setback die rules to symbolize shields protecting you. It can be fluffed either way.

That last statement is where we disagree. For the shot's damage to be soaked, it has to actually hit the target. From the canon, we actually see that the shields prevent shots from making any contact with the target in question. That is why they add Setback dice whereas armor applies Soak.

7 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

That last statement is where we disagree. For the shot's damage to be soaked, it has to actually hit the target. From the canon, we actually see that the shields prevent shots from making any contact with the target in question. That is why they add Setback dice whereas armor applies Soak.

A literal plate of armor can give you a defense rating. Or soak. It's still a plate.

A vaguely defined energy field that stops laserbolts from killing you by stopping them before they hit could do so by soaking it or making it miss. This is not a simulationistic game.

Just now, penpenpen said:

A literal plate of armor can give you a defense rating. Or soak. It's still a plate.

A vaguely defined energy field that stops laserbolts from killing you by stopping them before they hit could do so by soaking it or making it miss. This is not a simulationistic game.

Nope. There is a difference between soaking damage that has actually hit you, and preventing a shot from hitting you at all. Armor soaks damage that has hit you. Energy shields stop the shot from hitting you at all. That is both narrative and how they actually work.

5 hours ago, penpenpen said:

But... there are no range modifiers in vehicle combat.

Trampy, maybe you shouldn't take the correlation of fictional physics and a fairly arbitrary set of game rules so seriously when both are mostly there for narrative purposes.

The game system lets you fluff what happens pretty much however you like and we all know that a new piece of star wars media tomorrow that makes all we thought we knew about how shields work invalid. There are no hard and fast rules, and it doesn't matter one bit if shields are deflecting or absorbing shots to wether you use soak or setback die rules to symbolize shields protecting you. It can be fluffed either way.

Shhhh, stop destroying my argument with facts.

20 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Nope. There is a difference between soaking damage that has actually hit you, and preventing a shot from hitting you at all. Armor soaks damage that has hit you. Energy shields stop the shot from hitting you at all. That is both narrative and how they actually work.

Armor ed clothing
Heavy battle armor
Armor ed robes
Wing Commander Armor ed Flight Suit
Mountaineer Armor
Armor ed Drop Suit
Mandalorian Armor

What to these all have in common? I'll tell you: a defense rating . Also they're armor. Like solid plates that are impacted by hits.

Of course, you could argue that all of these incorporate shield technology, or something like a threat-predicting droid brain that tells the wearer to duck or something like that. In fact, if you did, I'm sure you'd also back that up canon evidence to support it. I don't know where you'd find it, but I trust your mad wookieepedia skills.

Or, you could perhaps claim that this is different . As we're talking about shields, personal scale armor is irrelevant exceeeept... theres that pesky Personal Deflector Shield from EotE that also gives a defense rating. But no, maybe this is different- different, like that just because the rules mean one thing in one case (personal armor, in this case), doesn't mean that they apply the same way to every other case (like starship shields).

If you go for that argument, well then you've got me beat by pointing out the crucial flaw in your own logic way before I did. Well done!

Break out of your rigid thinking, man. Considering the mental gymnastics tricks I've seen you pull, you should be pretty limber in the old brainpan.