... I'm looking for a way to reintroduce Pegasus into our games. For awhile we took it out because no one really cared for it since it seemed so unbalanced, but I like the concept of it and I'm starting to think it feels just wrong to play without it (especially after spending the money for it, even though the plastic Basestars were entirely worth it by themselves xD).

So I was thinking what if whenever damage would be dealt to either Galactica or Pegasus, the Cylons always prioritized (unless a revealed Cylon was available to make the decision) Pegasus. This seems to make sense to me, since Galactica has a lot less firepower than Pegasus and for the most part, it seems the 'intelligent' thing to do; focus the high-damage output target that is fragile, instead of the medium-damage output target that is way fraking beefy. Does anyone see this as unbalanced? Or have any other thoughts on how to bring this more into 'balance'? I know this won't be quite a big deal with Exodus, but in the mean time it seems like we have zero need for Pilots and that really annoys me, since I love piloting vipers. It also would make it so we actually need an Engineer focused character too, since Pegasus would be taking a heavy beating.

I know JerusalemJones said he used a d12 when dealing damage, but he never elaborated on that. We used to use a d6 (1-3 Galactica, 4-6 Pegasus), but I'm starting to think prioritizing Pegasus makes more sense and seems more balanced...

Any thoughts?

I suspect that most groups apply some kind of house rule to damage on battlestars. As for my group, if the base method in the Pegasus book is on one end of the spectrum (the forgiving end), we're at the other. We do something that I believe was originally proposed by Bleached Lizard. When a Basestar fires, we roll once for Galactica and once for Pegasus. (In theory, each basestar can score two hits.) I used to think it sounded too severe, but now I think it's about right. Pegasus starts out powerful but fragile, and if we don't devote ourselves to shooting down basestars and repairing, it's likely to be destroyed at some point (as it was in the show), at which point the fleet will be down to just Galactica, which will function exactly as well as it did in the base game, and we say, "Oh well, it was a fun toy while it lasted."

Huh, as a human I've always wanted damage to go to Pegasus first and Galactica second. If either ship is going to be damaged four times before any repairs can be made, I'd rather it be Pegasus, leaving the Cylons no closer to victory, rather than Galactica, which would leave the humans potentially one basestar activation away from a loss.

@ Holy Outlaw: Hmmm, that is a pretty good idea that Bleached Lizard came up with. I think we may try using this little tweak! Thank you kindly for posting this!

But if anyone else has any comments or suggestions, I'd be more than happy to read them (:

You're welcome.

Ou i really dont like house rule ... but now we may make an exception ... i like Pegasus expansion, but i dont like that cylon cant win by destroying galactica anymore there (in fact they can if they put 10+ dmg on galactica, which is ridiculous).

In regards to us using a d12, we would roll randomly to determine where damage was applied, so that the player didn't get to choose ( we tended to damage Pegasus, using it as a damage sink). A few months back we just put all the damage tokens in a cloth bag and draw them randomly. It works for us, but sometimes you just want to damage a particualr ship (like the last token for Pegasus, or need to hit FTL and want to try for Galactica).

JerusalemJones said:

So given your way and the way Bleached Lizard does it (rolling for each battlestar), which would you say is better? To be honest, having a basestar roll for each ship sounds deadly, but also really cool! I haven't been able to try it out yet, but other people who have tried it says it sounds about right and makes it so you actually have to use repair cards/vipers/nukes (honestly, there has only been ONE game out of probably 20 where we used a nuke token because it was required. One nuke, out of two...) so it seems like it would force the admiral to use the nuke tokens more often too. So how effective would you say rolling a d12 is? Not to mention, some tokens are food loss/fuel loss/etc., how do you account for those? (:

Maleficus_Sadi said:

How does rolling once for each battlestar sound deadly? It returns the distribution of hits to exactly the same as it was in the base game. Though you are right in that you have to use repairs/nukes if you want to keep hold of Pegasus.

Bleached Lizard said:

Well that is true, but you're also essentially doubling the potential damage that basestars do while still having the same # of players. Meaning that the person who is assigned to repair the ships will be a little hard pressed to keep up if the basestars are simply getting a lot of good rolls in. Also, a Cylon Ambush Card like, "Besieged" can turn incredibly deadly if the basestars happen to roll 4+ on most/all 4 of their shots. That's 3-4 turns tubed for a support character running around repairing the damaged locals. And that is if he even has all of the repair cards necessary. If you ask me, I would definitely deem that 'deadly' . But it also sounds more intense too, so I'm down with trying it (:, but all in all, distribution of hits is the same, but it definitely becomes a bigger turn-sink for the engineer type characters (which in turn hurts the humans).