With the advent of the Millennium Falcon/YT-1300 in the X-Wing miniatures game*, X-Wing gets more relevant to EoE. I'd like to use X-Wing as a ship to ship combat system for EoE, has anyone tried this? It's easy enough to double a character's piloting skill to get an X-Wing rating, but an obvious shortfall is that a character's gunnery skill is irrelevant in X-Wing. Has anyone any thoughts on this? I'll be posting this in both the EoE and X-Wing forums in case one faction has thoughts that the other doesn't. Many thanks.

* Yes, I was lucky in a Kessel Run event.

Hmmm, quite a few views, but no comments.My main problem is that while it's very easy to convert EoE pilot skill to X-Wing pilot skill, making an EoE character's gunnery skill relevant in XW is less straightforward. What do people think of allowing an attack reroll based on gunnery skill? Rank II, reroll 2 dice, rank III, 3 dice etc. After all, these characters will not have XW special abilities. The downside is that is does ignore existing character traits that may also allow rerolls. And should this be per attack, per combat or per game session. Or do people not think it's worth trying at all?

Truthfully, unless you're running a game where every PC has their own ship (which is not the default for EotE, instead putting the party in a single light transport), the two game systems are so radically different in approach that it probably wouldn't be worth the effort, especially if the players are still fairly new to the system

My group managed to get through the Beginner Box adventure in a single 4.5 hour session, and even though most of them managed to pick up on the dice pretty quickly, throwing the X-Wing game's mechanics at them while they were still getting a firm grip on EotE dice system would have caused the final space combat encounter to drag on for probably another hour.

As you noted, the main problem would be in using just the X-Wing game's system is converting stuff that the PCs could do that isn't really covered, such as running scanners, effecting quick repairs setting up targeting patterns for the ship's gunners, and so on.

I honestly think the EotE's way of handling starship combat (not as detailed, bit more freeform) is much better suited to an EotE campaign.

Now, if you're running a campaign where the PCs are all members of a fighter squadron, each with their own ships, that might be a different story.

Thanks for the comments, Donovan. I see your points, I really do. We've been playing EoE for a little while now and we're fine with the rules system. This group has a history of gaming out starship combat, whether using the old FASA game or Starmada for Trek gaming or Silent Death for GURPS and Shatterzone. We have been using the EoE RAW and yes, they do work just fine, but one of my players asked about the possibility of using miniatures for ship to ship segments. Now, I think X-Wing is a great game and I'd love to merge the two, but not at the expense of player interaction, so I thought I'd just test the water here and see if anyone had any thoughts. :-)

Thinking about this… I'd not use the combat mechanics of the X-Wing game. However, the arcs and maneuver templates… Allow any speed straight forward. Allow turns at speeds where allowed in the X-Wing game in green as ◊, white as ◊◊, Red as ◊◊◊◊. Speed 6 is a 5 plus a 1 straight (at either end).

Use range 1 as short, 2 as Medium, 3 as long.

I actually do the reverse - while playing X-Wing I'm RPGing in my head the whole time!

Just curious is anyone has had any luck with this so far.

My thoughts were to use the x-wing combat rules, but also add in some of EotE elements, like repairs, for player characters, and main villains. So going against an equal point squad of generic tie fighters, player characters would still be able to use the force pool and repair, which should keep them alive but still make it interesting.

Doubling pilot skill should work for pilot skill, but seems a little high. Maybe every 8 sided die is 1, and every 12 sided die is worth 2? So Vader, who is a 9 skill in x-wing, would be much harder to equal or surpass.

As for gunnery skill, I was thinking to split the medal cards (sorry, forgot technical term…the ones you buy, not the ones on the pilot cards) into offensive and defensive. Gunnery skill would apply to 'buying' offensive ones, and a shield skill, if it exists in EotE, would apply towards defensive ones. So if you had a gunnery of 4 eight sided dice, you could get any of those pilot upgrades that cost 4 points. I'd let the players choose any they could afford each combat, but not change once combat started.

Same goes for defense. Not sure if they have a shields skill in EotE yet though. Waiting for core book to come out, and only glanced at beginner game rules. If not I might have to invent a defensive pilot related skill.

Pilot skills in x-wing(the abolities on the pilot cards) would work the same way. If a player had a skill of 9 (using my formula of 1d8=1, 1d12 =2), which would be hard to do, you could have and pilot skill from Vader's or Wedge's on down. But I think I'd restrict the pilot skill to a pilot skill based on the ship they were currently in, because otherwise there are potentialy some crazy combinations that x-wing prevented already that I wouldn't want to mess with. So no using Luke's skill in an a- wing, for example.

So, unlike in regular x-wing game, the players could get 2 pilot upgrades, one for offense and one for defense. And they could repair, etc. Droids would be actual equipment they'd have to come across while role playing.

So bottom line, this would let me make a squad as the GM that is roughly the same points based on pilot skills and available ships, but since player characters could also repair their ships, and get a "free" defensive pilot upgrade (as I wouldn't count that towards their total), they should have a significant advantage, but it should still be close. And everyone would be engaged in a space battle.

I plan on adding a sub-plot to the first adventure, from beginner book (mild spoiler alert) where a local businessman/smuggler was supplying spice to teemo, but gets shafted on his last shipment because Teemo is producing his own now. Teemo is basically forcing him to sell at 1/2 price, because he already unloaded it (Teemo always dealt fairly with him before this). So this guy offers to have his men fly cover to them when/if they can get their ship and escape the planet, and if they steal his shipment back from Teemo. When the time comes to escape, all the smuggler's pilots have been captured or bought by Teemo, so the players will have to fly their own escort in his (junky)a,x,y wings. Since Teemo is no longer buying from him, and his pilots have defected, he'll finance the ships to the players afterwards, as long as they keep making payments.

Basically I'll give them broken fighters they can repair and upgrade as the games go on.

Please share any thoughts or opinions on this.

One last thing though - to those asking "why bother?", I know EotE is NOT a tactical game, and this is adding tactics to space combat. I think it will work though because the average encounter (vs thugs in a melee combat) will still be fast and generic, which is great because it won't slow down the game. But for a conclusion to an adventure, that kind of combat mighyfeel a little too generic. I'll try to have adventures end with starship combat. Hopefully it will give a bigger sense of accomplishment to the end of a mission. I think an hour per space combat would be likely.

EotE and X-Wing are such different systems that they would not work together. Even with tinkering it makes it hard to say what should be equivelents. The Millenium Falcon has an attack cap of 3 dice (d8s) in X-wing, where as a gunner in a turret can possibly roll 5 proficiency and 1 ability dice (5d12 and 1d8). Then there comes the issue with advantages which only exist in EotE, The two completely different crit systems. Heck mechanically they are extremely different. Then look at the manuevers, in EotE my group is treating space exactly how the combat should be treated. Three dimensional and it doesn't work like you are in an atmosphere/gravity of a planet. In space all you have to worry about is Mass and Inertia. Meaning that you can pull stunts that are impossible with planes. Such as turning right where you are with out needing to do the entire plane arc turn, etc. X-Wing is a game that uses gravity/atmosphere dogfight mechanics to keep it interesting.

Just do what I do and use the miniatures for the vehicles if that is what you want. In fact it looks pretty cool having the mini's there for people to reference for distances even if I am not drawing out maps on a mat/paper or building them with the various things I have. Additionally you will have players who will be left out and/or don't want to do X-Wing for it.

Whitemare,

I do completely agree with the why bother. If you cannot see the tactical stuff involved with normal encounters in EotE and feel that the only way to get that is by using miniature battles for that, I am sorry for you. It seems from where I am sitting you: 1) Don't have faith in the people you play with to actually come up with plans. 2) Have a hard time thinking out tactics not defined by a miniature battle system. 3) Just have a huge thing for the X-Wing system. Then I could just be wrong on my assumptions.

I play X-Wing and as a player in EotE and I would be extremely pissed to lose my character in that game to an X-Wing miniatures game thrown into the EotE system. In X-Wing I do not care if I win or lose, I am playing that for fun. in EotE or any RPG for that matter I am still playing for fun, but I am also investing myself into a character for story. Plus I have rarely seen a game where one side never loses a ship in X-Wing. So unless you are going to be gimping the stats for their opponents, you are definately going to be losing PC's quite a bit. Also remember that the X-Wings are all held by the Rebellion at this point in time that the games are set in. So if they have X-Wings and are not rebels, there is something really wrong and they are most likely going to be hunted by the Rebellion as well. Though that could make for an interesting story.

Though your idea would be nice for some one offs of just doing X-Wing that way that doesn't affect the EotE campaign. Despite what I say, if you and your players are fine with it, then go for it. All that matters in the end is that you all are having fun.