Hello everyone. So I am looking for a little advice. Does Adversary impact starfighter combat? I ask this because I've been running the game as that this works with no issue.

However, Allies and Adversaries introduces "Starship Adversary" which reads: "Upgrade difficulty of all combat checks against a ship this character is commanding once."

Now part of me thinks that this implies that Adversary has no impact on starship combat. However, another part of me is thinking it through like this: Adversary probably works in starfighter to starfightership combat because that ship has one pilot but on a capital ship, which is not being piloted by the adversary merely 'commanding it', it doesn't work thus the use of the term 'a ship this character is commanding once'.

What are your thoughts on adversary and starship combat?

32 minutes ago, Ebak said:

Adversary probably works in starfighter to starfightership combat because that ship has one pilot but on a capital ship, which is not being piloted by the adversary merely 'commanding it', it doesn't work thus the use of the term 'a ship this character is commanding once'.

Sounds about right to me.

Adversary triggers when you target a character with a combat check. In vehicle combat, you target the enemy vehicle (most of the time, anyway). So if you go by what the rules say, Adversary doesn't help them when you're shooting at their starfighter.

That said, the Adversary talent exists to reduce the workload for the GM. It makes sense to have it apply to vehicle combat too, just so that the GM doesn't have to deal with too many different talents on their NPCs.

I think Starship Adversary is there to say 'if you fought them face-to-face, he'd be no tougher than a regular NPC, but when in command of a starship, he's more dangerous.' - in other words, a more restrictive version of Adversary that only applies to starship command. For example, Admiral Piett has Starship Adversary 1; Grand Admiral Thrawn has Adversary 2. In person, Thrawn is more difficult to face, but it doesn't make sense that a Star Destroyer commanded by Piett would be more worthy of the difficulty upgrade than one commanded by Thrawn.

I, personally, would go with 'it depends on who it is and the situation'. I know it's not a by-the-book interpretation of the rules, so it would depend on the nature of the GM and group.

For example: Vader is scary. Vader in a TIE deserves the Adversary upgrade over a regular TIE of the same type. Vader aboard a Star Destroyer? You bet that the bridge crew (at the very least) knows that Vader's on that ship, and will push their crew and ship to earn that Adversary rating.

However, someone like Chewbacca, although worthy of Adversary in-person, likely wouldn't have any impact on the operations of a cruiser that he was aboard.