Hi all,

I have just finished DMing D&D for a group of friends and decided to take a break from D&D and try Star Wars, so I bought a copy of the beginner box.

A few questions arose that I couldn't really answer so winged it to keep the game moving but now would like to know if there are more concrete rules.

1) A player was hidden from view from the 3 storm troopers guarding the control center. They wanted to lean out from the corner, aim and shoot the storm troopers.

I wasn't sure how to handle the maneuvers and initiative for this. I cannot find rules handling surprise when it comes to initiative. I had everyone role initiative as to me it seems like this would start combat, but if the PCs rolled badly and didn't get the 1st slot it didn't feel right. They did luckily, but still begs the question about surprise. With the maneuvers I said he could lean out from around a corner aim and then lean back with his one maneuver (shooting the guard obviously during this). Something felt 'off' about this though. I meant the stormtroopers had no target and wouldn't leave their post so he kept doing this while the other PCs ran after the approaching 2nd group of stormtroopers.

2) How do you tack distance to something whilst tracking distance from something?

Luckily we ran out of time and just wrapped up the adventure with a quick narrative and didn't have to figure this one out. But essentially how would I track the distance of the bad guys AT-ST to the comm post and also the distance the PCs were behind him, when on his turn he moves from extreme to long to the comm post. My PCs were split into 2 groups. One being medium distance behind him, and the other were short distance behind them.

3) The speeds of the vehicles didn't seem to matter, what's that about?

4) One shot from the troopers on bikes took out the PC on his bike, wow that seemed overpowered, is it really that easy to blow stuff up?

p.s. I have had to post this twice, as my first post just never appeared!

A couple of answers, not all depending on the Beginner game but from a more advanced point of view. The beginner game is, in my opinion, great for teaching the very basics (such as building a dice pool, making your first opposed test, etc.), but it lack the depth of the Core books. Of course. 😉

1) Initiative and maneuvers.

Asuming you rolled for initiative normally, it might well be possible for the Stormtroopers to have rolled higher that the player characters. Just have them "stand guard" (and do nothing) for their first initiative slots. Besides, surprise in Initiative is handled by either rolling initiative using the Cool skill (when aware of the opponent) or the Vigilance ski9ll (when unaware of the opponent. If the Stormtroopers still manage to score better, they have the initiative. Think about this in a narrative way. If the player character pokes out his head from around the corner to see where the Stormtroopers stand, the former might be seen by the latter. You could have used an action for those Stormtroopers to try and spot the player character (opposed check between Perception versus Stealth).

Maneuver wise, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. First of all, the limit of two maneuvers per turn (the second maneuver coming from 2 strain, or downgrading your action into that second maneuver). The way you describe this, I would probably think you saw this as maneuver 1 (peek out), maneuver 2 (aim), action (shoot), and maneuver 3 (back into cover). It seems wrong, because it is, in my opinion. Part of the action of making a combat check (which may be a single shot or a dozen, for the dice rolls it matters little), is peeking out and sinking back into cover. So I would say maneuver 1 (aim for a boost die to the combat check), action 1 (shoot). However, I would also not state that the player characters gets out of sight completely, nor that the Stormtroopers wouldn't leave their post. They may be minions, simple mooks in the story, but they're not dumb. Once the player character attacks, it may be in cover and force a setback die into the Stormtrooper's combat check, but I would never deny the Stormtroopers their attacks completely, unless the players specifically mentions their characters to get out of sight completely (a second maneuver, which would cost 2 strain as they already performed 1 maneuver, and an action).

As for the Stormtroopers not leaving their post... Why? They are being shot at! They gonna stand still as they don't see an attacker, and get shot again? They, too, could take cover, at the very least, scanning the area to see where the attacks came from . Chuck a concussion grenade at the general area, blasting cover and driving attackers into the open. Stormtroopers are perhaps mooks, but they aren't dumb set props that only interact with things in some 'line of sight'.

2) Distance.

With the narrative part of the system comes an abstract way of handling ranges and distances. You might say something is 2 meters away, an absolute and numerical distance, but is that in the 'engaged ranged band" or the 'short range band'? I say, it could be both, depending in circumstances. For a simple human with bare fists, this would probably be short range. A human with a force pike that can reach out for almosr 2 meters might see this distance as engaged instead.

Point is, the range bands (engaged, short, medium, long and extreme) are not absolute numbers, but indicators of possible interaction. If you can touch it, it's probably at engaged rage (a special version of short), if you can throw an explosive charge at your comrade, or speak to him reasonably normal, it's probably short range. Think of such narrative states when looking at the range bands.

Another thing to keep in mind is, that this is not D&D. That game uses a grid and specific movement speeds in feet per turn (usually six squares in a straight line). Forget about that. When the player characters mention they try to keep up with a walker, they and the walker are moving simultaneously. The abstract way of handling this, is rather refreshing. In D&D, the characters would have a speed of 30, the walker a speed of 40, so each complete round the walker would increase the distance by another 10 feet. In this system, Star Wars, characters of foot might actually overtake the walker. Just use the dice results. If the characters want to overtake the walker, and they make an opposed check for this (for example, their survival check versus a difficulty equal to the Walker pilot's Piloting (Planetary) skill), they may spend advantages (narratively) to close the distance as " they are walking underneath the canopy of the forest. Their human bodies significantly smaller than an AT-ST, they are far less hindered by branches overhead, and they simply march around tree trunks where the walker needs to more carefully traverse those ".

Again, distance and speed are narrative, not absolutes, in this game.

3) Vehicle speed.

Vehicles have a speed statistic, but as I mentioned, it is narrative. It does matter, however. Having a better (current) speed also means that in a chase the faster participant has an advantage. You might, quite literally, add boost dice to a dice pool for the faster participant in a chase. This would mean, in a space chase for example, that an opposed piloting check with boost dice for being faster (or setback dice for being slower) means the faster participant has better chances of success. Speed matters. But not simply as an absolute value.

Note that this can be turned around too, narratively. If the chase is held within a dense asteroid field, for example, a higher (current) Speed might add setback dice instead of boosts! " I'm going in too fast! AAAAAGH! " *static as one comm signal goes dead.*

4) Ease of destruction.

Yes. The system is destructive. Characters have a finite number of strain and wounds, and through talents such as Grit and Toughened these values increase. But not as much as, for example, gaining a D&D fighter level and rolling a D10 plus modifiers to increase hitpoints. A lucky hit might as well deplete a lot of wounds, even against relatively powerful characters in Star Wars. Add in debilitating critical hit results and both characters and vehicles can be rather easy to damage. Long live defense and soak.

However, death (and destruction) isn't as easily triggered. You must actually stack a couple of critical hits, of the Vicous item quality, because you wouldn't be able to roll that juicy 150 (death) result from the critical hit table using just a D100. Also, I have rarely seen a massive damage overload to cause a character death. Simply shoot the downed again until they have enough wounds of damage, and they automatically die. Ships explode. Death Stars vanish. But as I said, I rarely saw this happen.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the reply, it has helped greatly.

About the chase though, I am not sure I explained my 'problem' well enough.

When a PC or NPC has to track how far he is from something behind and something in front which one is used when calculating distance brackets and how does it effect the other.

e.g.) NPC is short distance in front of a PC behind him, but long distance from his goal in front of him. It is the NPCs turn and I want him to advance forwards towards his goal. Does the maneuver use the long to medium bracket of the goal in front of him requiring 2 maneuvers or does he use 1 maneuver to go from short to medium from the PC behind him. If the former, then what distance should he be considered from the PC, if the latter what distance is he from his goal?

Maybe I am over complicating this but as range brackets matter for weapon shots or to 'trigger' an event, I would like to wrap my head around this.

Cheers.

Chases have a specific rule subset in the core books since they add a level of complication.

When in a chase, it's better to deal with the participants' relative position to each other only. Essentially have them operate within a Chase Bubble. The characters make a check at the beginning of the round in lieu of their standard maneuver to determine their distance from each other within the Bubble.

If you're working toward a static goal, I would move the whole Chase Bubble as a unit along that track. In your case, the NPC drives the Bubble's location. On a successful check, the Bubble moves one range band closer to the goal. The PC chasing could also close the gap within the Bubble if they land more successes.

Chases add a little crunch to an otherwise chewy nougat system, but in the end, it's all delicious candy.