I am keen to have my players involved at the Battle of Scarif for my AoR campaign set BBY. I am looking for inspiration as how to have them included?

The pace battle is the obvious part, as they do have a Capital ship, and a few snubs. is there mass space combat rules somewhere? Or is it just the sames as the mass combat rules? The other idea I had would be to have them sneak onto the surface of Scarif to cause a diversion, or even have them as part of the ground troops that land.

I am interested to hear how you would run the Battle of Scarif if you were to play it out?

Mass Combat rules are used for both. In the table of force strengths, it is split between Land Forces and Space Forces.

If you have them as the ground forces that land, they will die. Period. (unless you violate canon)

If I were to run it, it would either be a Heroic-Level one-shot where the PCs die at the end, or I'd do something in space, but I'm not big on space combat so I can't give you much advise on that front.

One interesting, only somewhat canon-violating idea would be to have a strike team attempt to take control of the controls for the shield-gate.

31 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

If you have them as the ground forces that land, they will die. Period. (unless you violate canon)

Well...that isn't entirely true considering the PCs aren't on screen anyway Also, the whole planet wasn't destroyed by the Death Star as it was a tactical strike against the Citadel. If the PCs were near by, there may have been a chance for them to escape the area in a speeder or ship. Queue chase vs massive explosion.

32 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

One interesting, only somewhat canon-violating idea would be to have a strike team attempt to take control of the controls for the shield-gate.

The other idea I had, similar to this, is that there is a shield gate "receiver" on the opposite pole to the shield gate. Not big enough for capital ships to pass through, but important to take out to get the shields down?

1 minute ago, Andreievitch said:

Well...that isn't entirely true considering the PCs aren't on screen anyway Also, the whole planet wasn't destroyed by the Death Star as it was a tactical strike against the Citadel. If the PCs were near by, there may have been a chance for them to escape the area in a speeder or ship. Queue chase vs massive explosion.

The shield gate had closed behind them, their air support was overwhelmed by TIE strikers, and there was an ISD falling through the shield gate. Maybe you can have them escape, but it's pretty much a done deal. As far as escaping the blast, I doubt that's possible, but if you want to say that they can, it would be interesting to then have to try to get off the planet. Particularly the tsunamis, earthquakes, hazardous environmental conditions, etc. Something to help you with that aspect would be the Star Wars comic book series where Luke returns to Jedha "Ashes of Jedha" which shows the devastation caused by the Death Star.

5 minutes ago, Andreievitch said:

The other idea I had, similar to this, is that there is a shield gate "receiver" on the opposite pole to the shield gate. Not big enough for capital ships to pass through, but important to take out to get the shields down?

Possibly. But doesn't make a ton of sense considering that the shield gate is pretty much right on top of the important part of the planet. Why would they need a second one on the opposite side of the planet?

10 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

"Ashes of Jedha" which shows the devastation caused by the Death Star.

Surely you do recall that Cassian's U-Wing manage to escape the Jedha after the Death Star strike? Also, when the ISD fell through the shield gate then there was a whole atmosphere to suddenly escape from.

The players are heroes after all!

Yeah, but it escaped by hyperspacing out from pretty much within the blast radius.

I might be remembering it incorrectly, but my memory was that the ISD only took down the shield gate, not the planetary shield, but it's been a while since I watched it.

None of this is to tell you that you can't do something, it is your game after all, it is just my advice on the scenario as pertains to Canon.

26 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I might be remembering it incorrectly, but my memory was that the ISD only took down the shield gate, not the planetary shield, but it's been a while since I watched it.

Oh, that is actually interesting. I always assume the shield gate was also the generator...

But this clears up all!

"During the battle, the Sphyrna-class corvette Lightmaker pushed the disabled Star Destroyer Persecutor into Scarif's Shield Gate and in turn, the planetary shield itself, creating an opening and allowing the Death Star plans to be transmitted to the Rebel Fleet.[3] Seconds later, the Death Star itself arrived, firing a low-power superlaser blast at the Imperial installation below and completely dissipating the planetary shield.[1]"

From: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Planetary_shield

So it was the Death Star blast that took out the shield. I can work with that still...that could give the PCs an avenue to escape...or die trying This game will be the last in the "3rd Series" of a campaign. They are all well over Knight level now so it should be risky, dangerous, edge of the seat, but fun!

I ran a one-shot with ~300XP characters playing a secret team that was dropped on the ground during the battle. It was intended to be a similar, mostly-suicide mission, with only one PC surviving a harrowing jump into a U-Wing as the Death Star fired. It was great fun.

Since the battle was predestined, I didn't mess with rolling Mass Combat pools, but I did occasionally roll to see if their ride survived to meet them.

I think there are plenty of ways you can work your group into Scarif. A parallel mission would be fun to set up and make your players feel like the achieved something. I like the idea about a group infiltrating the shield gate to try and shut it down. That's probably the route I would go with if I were to run this. At least until my players go off the rails and decide to go planetside. Maybe you run a mission for your group on the planet and have to stop a bunch of TIEs from launching or some AT-ACTs from mobilizing. I know the battle has a definitive end, but there's plenty of room for you and your players to squeeze something new in on the side. I have an NPC in the games I run who was on the ground at Scarif. He was shot on the beach and dragged to a U-Wing when it touched down to deploy reinforcements. The U-Wing managed to get away at the end.

You could also have them fight to the death on any of those mission ideas.

Nice one @Mortimire I like these suggestions.

Especially as there is a droid saboteur in the PC group. Sounds like he was made for the mission of boarding the shield gate There is also a Pilot in the group who is flying a B-Wing prototype (made by Quarrie). Slightly canon breaking but will flit the space battle nicely.

I just thought of one more. The B-Wings that disable the Star Destroyer with Ion Torpedoes make their move because their leader spotted an opening. What is this opening? Maybe your players board the Star destroyer and sabotage it from within. Then you can have them run for the exit as that ship is crashed into the other. That lets your group do something vital to the success of the mission and live to tell about it. You could even have you B-Wing pilot join the others in disabling the ship.

As far as the question about surviving the ground assault, one easy way you could pull this off, at least for the short term objective of "survive the death star beam blast" would be for them, to locate a handy, nearby cave system, and haul *** down into the subterranean levels for a while. You could have them do a literal dungeon crawl, trying to find another exit, and you could make up whatever crazy, Star Wars-esque monsters to populate the sub-levels with. The sciencey characters could focus on skill checks to try and find the paths that might lead them out, and also possible sources of food/water, while the combat types busy themselves with fighting off any beasties that come their way. If they got into the tunnels with say, a speeder (and thus not space-worthy), after they've made their way back to the surface, the story could shift to them trying to sift through the wreckage, looking for a ship that is servicable enough to take them into space, and then they have to GTFO.

Also, who cares if it's canon breaking? It's your gaming table, canon can just be...well, stuffed into a canon and shot.

2 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

locate a handy, nearby cave system, and haul *** down into the subterranean levels for a while.

Hmm... how to avoid traumatic tectonic event? Run underground into cave systems! What could possibly go wrong?

4 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Hmm... how to avoid traumatic tectonic event? Run underground into cave systems! What could possibly go wrong?

Given how few F's the SW franchise has given for actual physics and catastrophic results when the plot needed them to be ignored, I'm not too worried about it.

Don't be too afraid to split the party. It sounds like you want to keep your options open, so there's no reason you can't have a few PCs in fighters and a few on the ground. The only real problem is that there's a limit to how many combat turns can pass before players begin to tire, so I would suggest nailing that down first and then structuring the combat around it. Once you've got a good idea how many turns it will take to complete the main objective, you can subdivide your timeline with smaller set-pieces. For instance, they make a mad dash through the shield on turn one, do a short atmospheric chase on turn two, execute a hasty landing or jump out of a moving vehicle on turn three, witness the arrival of the Death Star on turn four, and take cover on turn six, at at which point it fires. If you want to, give the Death Star a slot in the initiative order. (Probably at the very end, and only as a symbolic action to heighten the drama.) If the PCs split into two groups on the ground and in the air, you can keep them on the same page with complications: maybe there's a ground emplacement that needs to be taken care of because it's causing problems for the fighters- then a drop-ship that would threaten the ground team shows up, etc. As for a main objective, maybe they don't have one when the combat begins- if you've got a PC who's more of a commander or tactician type, let them use a skill roll to evaluate the situation. If I could make a recommendation, it seems plausible that a lesser Imperial commander would figure out what the rebels were up to and try to damage the communications array before anything (whatever it is) could be sent to the fleet. Remember that deleted scene where a TIE hazards Jyn when she's up on that gantry?

Well, good luck. Hope everyone has fun.

When I've had PCs at canon moments, I've always done my best to have them not change canon, BUT be able to CAUSE something to happen that IS canon. This is very tricky due to the shields and Death Star.

• The Hammerhead ship trying to ram the ISD needs an escort through the battle to the ISD. They made that happen.
• Just before Vader tossed the Rebel Troopers about, a platoon of Stormtroopers tried to attack first. They stopped them.
• Boarding to take out the shield gate? Well, if you don't want to change canon, the PCs will automatically fail. Perhaps some NPCs troops actually attempted this, but got bogged down by hoards of Stormtroopers. After the Admiral says, "I need a Hammerhead" and states his plan, he is reminded by a Commander that we have a boarding party pinned down in the gate complex. They need rescued before the ISD is pushed into it. They did that.
• Hard to have PCs on the ground without breaking canon. There isn't much time between gate opening and Death Star targeting, so they need to be there beforehand. When Blue Squadron shows up, you actually see on screen I think the number of craft that get in before the gate closes. I suppose you could try to say the PCs ship was part of that insertion, but we didn't get to see it on screen? Depending on who the PCs actually are, have them somehow on the planet BEFORE even the Rebel commandos arrive? For example if they aren't rebels, they could have been on their own secret job to steal some data for a rich client...when all **** breaks loose and they decide to help the rebels.
• If they are somehow on the surface during the battle, have them doing something off screen. Example: There were more AT-ACTs headed towards the rebels, but they stopped them. A large turbolaser complex was off-screen and needed taken out.
• At the end of the battle, there are quite a few rebels left behind on disabled ships. Stealth mission to rescue as many of them as possible before they are eventually hunted down by the Imperials.
• There COULD be a gap between Leia's Corvette fleeing, Vader's ISD chasing, and arriving at Tatooine. It's never explained how Vader followed the Corvette to Tatooine. Perhaps the Corvette first jumped to another system trying to lose Vader and not reveal where they were actually headed to (unsuccessfully). In between is some wiggle room where the PCs can get involved. We never see the two ships arrive out of hyperspace at the start of Ep. IV. Perhaps there is another pitched battle involving more then just the Corvette and Vader's ISD before the opening scene we see.

So I have run the battle of Scarrif as a one shot at my FLGS when I used to host intro to RPGs for the store.

I started with a mass combat space battle, using lots of ARMADA miniatures, as the team penetrated the shield before it was raised.

I then had the PC party travel to one of the islands, that had the Anti-Air control system in it. they had to ground assault the base and shut it down. (for this I used the whisper base map and tokens/ Rebellion minis (it was before Legion came out)

Then once they acheived that, the death star arrived and they had to escape in a stolen shuttle, the Tyderium

On 11/18/2019 at 7:33 PM, rogue_09 said:

I ran a one-shot with ~300XP characters playing a secret team that was dropped on the ground during the battle. It was intended to be a similar, mostly-suicide mission, with only one PC surviving a harrowing jump into a U-Wing as the Death Star fired. It was great fun.

I got to be honest, totally think that's what they should have done with Bodhi Rook. (Making that part of my headcanon now.)