Hello Testers,

Week six's update is here , and we're starting to look at starships and vehicles.

Had some ideas for starship conversions rolling around in my noggin, but was waiting for that chapter to get a look-see in terms of revisions before I really started putting pen to paper.

Looking forward to seeing what the new changes are.

And good to know that our thoughts regarding changes to skill and non-career specs costs are being considered.

Nice to see Side Step get fixed too

Is the new Damage Control Difficulty table (7-3) also intended to replace the Strain Repair Checks table on p147 (sorry, don't have the book handy to reference the table number…)?

I'm assuming yes…

gribble said:

In other news, I like how starship combat is looking like so far, I would still like a bit more clarification on how character scale interacts with vehicle scale (as well as perhaps changing the hull trauma and armor scales for planetary vehicles to 5x wounds/soak instead of 10x) but, other than that everything seems to like it should work well. I'll test these systems during the week and when my group gets together this friday, I should be able to give a in-depth critique of the new rules.

Nice to see that I did good on the airspeeder encounter towards the end of Crates of Krayts, by grouping them minions!

I like the chase rule, still looking for some clarification on the moving from long to medium or similar for starships with speeds less than 5.

About the blast sidebar for starship vs personal scale - what about laser cannons and the like, do they gain a blast-like ability for those engaged to the target? Like a blast 1 (ie blast 10 for personal scale beings).

I REALLY like the new table 7-@ - been thinking a bit along those lines.

Btw, been looking at the melee weapons table, I'd prefer the vibro weapons to have an increase of 1 in damage across the board… just saying.

@Donovan: Hey man, I've been working on a lot of conversions - would you look them over and give me some feedback? here (or the starship thread I mean) or on the google drive comment thingy, if you'd be so kind - I'd love some feedback on my chop-job of the SW Gamer 2 ships and the others.

3WhiteFox3 said:

Isn't that the old damage control table, not the Strain Repair Checks table? I.e.: I'm assuming this new table is actually intended to replace two old tables - is that correct?

Looks great. I'm very excited to see these changes, and I think they're all a step in the right direction. Just a few points:

TABLE 7-@… DURATIONS?

Many of the (awesome) new actions described in table 7-@ do not have a duration. I'm guessing alot of these manuevers' effects only last a single turn, but the final rules / next update should clarify. For example, it's ambiguous whether the defense increase gained from "Boost Shields" lasts one turn, or for the duration of the encounter.

TABLE 7-@… STACKABLE?

Similar to the above, it might be good to note whether the ship can benefit from multiple uses of the same manuever, or if it can only be affected once per round/encounter. Boost Shields, Fire Discipline, and Spoofing Missiles are good examples of potentially "stackable" manuever benefits.

GAIN THE ADVANTAGE… DURATION?

After reading the revised rules, I'm not clear whether things like "gain the advantage" are permanent until cancelled (per the second paragraph of the second column on page 155), or if it automatically ends at the end of the round, requiring the pilot to re-check the following round if we wants to regain advantage. Does anyone have a ruling on this?

BLAST WEAPONS

So, this is still a little nebulous as it is written. It seems to infer that all starship weapons with the blast quality hit everything in short personal range (i.e. when strafing ground targets), but deal blast damage normally in space (i.e. close range only). However, as it is worded, it sounds like they always blast out to short range, whether they're in space or not.

Maybe I'm not reading this correctly… anyone have insight on this?

Overall

Really like the update, and looking forward to giving it a run tomorrow night!

Exalted5 said:

This was on the news page

"In fact, these actions all fall under the umbrella of the “Perform a Skill Check” or “Use Complex Equipment” actions found on page 155."

Cheers

It's possible I'm just being dense, but I don't see where it says how long the effects of the skill check last.

ATHLETICS: I dont like the fact that you can now use Athletics to perform repairs on the ship - I get the idea that it would be nice for all characters to be able to contribute something during a fight, but seriously if the only thing you character can do is having Brawn 5, just realise you are pretty useless in lots of situations - characters should be encouraged to build somewhat balanced characters … - Now on the other hand if there were specific crits where beign strong would be an advantage when fixing them … then the big guy could help out the mechanic by lifting the heavy gizmo in place etc.

NEW VEHICLE CRIT SUGGESTION : btw I dont have the book here - so Im taking a leap based on memory - but as far as I remember, all vehicle combat crits are that …VEHICLE crits … wouldnt it be cool if there were some crits doing "pilot" damage ei. ship taking a nasty shake (Big Bada BOOM) …everybody on board make resillience checks or take a crit … that way the crew could get shaken up - bruised …adn the doctor onboard could potentially have something to do too !

Boehm said:

Guess Athletics would be for "percussion tuning"

Agree with both points.

ATHLETICS

I also thought Athletics was a bit of a strech - it just doesn't thematically fit or make any sense from my perspective. I would yank this rule out completely.

CREW CRITICALS

This is an awesome idea. How many times in the movies have we seen pilots all bloodied up and bruised after a fight (see: Battle of Hoth) in a speeder. The added benefit is that it really gives resilence another solid use, so I love it twice as much. I'm not sure how you might implement this though, as the current critical table is pretty packed - and I'm not sure where it would best fit (i.e in the middle, or somewhere near the gruesome end).

ATHLETICS: I for one totally understand how this fits here. When I imagine it, I see the party Wookiee pushing with all his might to bend a shattered panel back into place or hold a gaping hole in the hull shut by bracing himself against the shattered metal while risking exposing himself to vacuum. Very heroic if you ask me!

CREW CRITS: Great idea! Totally in favor! It could even be as simple as rolling on the Personal Crit table every time the ship takes a Crit above 100. Maybe subtracting 50 on the Personal Crit table to prevent it from getting out of hand.

beeblebrox said:

I totally get your take on teh athletics - I just think that the people with actual mechanic skill should have a significant advantage ?! Personally I would love to see different kids of damage … damage requiring Mechanic(Brawn) and Mechanic(Int) to fix …

Regarding the crits - I like the simplicity of your idea …but I really do like my idea of making Resilliance be a part of it perhaps simply say any time ship is hit by attack causing damage > 3x Siluette? crew is rattled around and must make a resillience check to avoid a crit (upgrade one die if strapped into a pilot seat + any other situational mods) … (this way crew is more protected on a big ship than in a small fighter .. )

I love using Athletics for damage control ("Manual Repair"). The text is very clear that it needs to "make sense" and that the GM might not allow it in certain situations.

"If the GM allows, and the crewmember has the proper tools for the job…"

That's pretty cut-and-dry. It's up to the GM. As a GM, I'd almost never see anything like this happening in a snub-fighter - but on a heavily damaged transport, it can represent lifting a massive plate over a damaged system, forcing engine components back into alignment, or even a (HIGHLY cinematic) kicking of the engine to get it to start (think of Chewie banging on the hyperdrive motivator with his hyrdro-spanner in rage, or Han flipping on the cockpit controls in the Falcon , having them blink off - then blink back on after a sharp bang on the console).

And keep in mind that Manual Repairs can only be used to fix hull-trauma (per the text), and thus, can ONLY be used once-per encounter. Mechanics checks still have an advantage, as they can be used every round to fix system strain.

And if you want Mechanics to have an advantage? Just make the difficulty a bit higher for an Athletics check. It reminds me a lot of the skill challenge system in Saga. If a player were to propose to me an that he use Endurance or Athletics (which we house rule in Saga) in a space-based skill challenge, I would be overjoyed!

I would like to see a lot of similar, refrence tables in the back of the book, for all the combat, and ship actions, basic Advanctage/Threat Triumph/Despair uses etc.

also I'm totally on board with the crew damage if X happens to the vehicle/ship they are in.

Although making Resiliance vs the damage (slippery slope) will only make Resiliance a must have skill for everyone. Maybe only some strain damage instead.

On the Athletics to make repairs.Mechanics does make more sense to me, but in ESB Han is twisting around in the bowles of the Falcon, flipping switches, etc. making repairs, just before entering the asteroid field. And I can personally vouch for athletics, running up and down a ladder multiple times both to set up and winterize the swamp cooler every year.

Maybe it just needs a side bar as a suggestion for GMs, to allow someone to use it for repairs in a pinch.

Odd place for this, but how may erratas ago did someone way disruptors aren't important to Star Wars, and pull their primary effect? Was it because nobody likes "save vs death" effects? Because while I agree I don't, either, it seems weird to have disruptors that don't disintegrate people. I think they are still high Vicious, and maybe that does cover it, but I am still sort of surprised that the whole mechanic was pulled.

venkelos said:

IIRC, the disruptor does its damage based on breaking up the molecular bonds that hold a target together. It takes more than one hit to completely 'debond' the target's constituent atoms. However, having a high damage rating coupled with vicious is good enough, IMO, to represent that.

The "insta-death" thing was never part of disruptor weapons. It was perpetuated when people see the final shot that does in the target, but that was after a few good hits already.

-EF

EldritchFire said:

Yes.

Yes it was.

pg 111. Top of the first column. Any hit can spend 5 adv and reduce the target to dust. The target is permanently, irrevocably, completely f*cking dead.

-WJL

venkelos said:

This was pulled on week 3. I thought it was actually earlier.

-WJL

LethalDose said:

I think he is referring to other sources - like EU novels, comics and the like - when saying this about disruptors - not the beta book. And I tend to agree with him, can't recollect any sources (except the beta-book) that had this take on the weapon. Although I haven't really checked or looked for it.

Jegergryte said:

Yeah, sorry. I meant that the insta-death was never part of the EU disruptors. They were nasty, and hurt like a ***** - much worse than a blaster bolt - but we're never actually capable of 1-shot kills.

-EF

EldritchFire said:

This is pretty much correct. We didn't start to see 1-shot kill disruptors until the "EU" spawning from video games. The Jedi Knight series comes to mind, with Jedi Knight II and Jedi Knight III: Jedi Academy being the major culprits, here.

GM Chris said:

You mean Dark Forces III and Dark Forces IV? I mean, the Jedi Knight game's full title is Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight. They decided that Kyle Katarn, the main character of Dark Forces, needed to be a Jedi. So they made the second game his "coming of age" story. Then they did two more games with Kyle Katarn in his Jedi role, and just seemed to forget the actual title of the series

[/soapbox]

I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

-EF