Tartan Patrol Cruiser/ Creature Builder

By amigoNUMBER1, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Hello everyone, might anyone have a write up for a Tartan Patrol cruiser?

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tartan-class_patrol_cruiser

Also are there any tools or advice for creature creation? Maybe any tool to convert creature from the d20 star wars game?

I can't wait to get all the pieces for my first campaign and i hope the players love it.

This is the basis that I've been using for conversions from Saga, which is fortunate because there is a Tartan -class Patrol Cruiser in The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide (as your link mentions). Based on that book's write-up, the aforementioned conversion guide and my own "guesstimation" (along the lines specified in that conversion guide):

Silhouette: 5

Speed: 4

Handling: 0

Defenses: Fore 2, Port 1, Starboard 1, Aft 2

Armor: 4

Hull Trauma Threshold: 78

System Strain Threshold: 25

Hull Type/Class: Corvette/Tartan.

Manufacturer: Damorian Manufacturing Corporation.

Hyperdrive: Primary: Class 2, Backup: Class 12.

Navicomputer: Yes.

Sensor Range: Long.

Ship's Complement: 70 officers and crew.

Encumbrance Capacity: 1000.

Passenger Capacity: 50 troops.

Consumables: One year.

Cost/Rarity: 2,520,000 credits ®/7.

Customization Hard Points: 2.

Weapons: Five Port, Five Starboard, Five Forward, and Five Aft Mounted Retractable Heavy Laser Cannons (Fire Arc Port or Starboard or Forward or Aft; Damage 6; Critical 3; Range [short]).

The Tartan -class' silhouette is counted as one less (Silhouette 4) when firing laser cannons (EotE CRB p. 267).

A GM may choose to group up to five laser cannons on the same firing arc on a Tartan -class and have them fire as a single minion group with up to five laser cannons firing as one at the same target, upgrading their check if the minion gunners have Gunnery as a group skill (EotE CRB p. 238).

Converter's notes : I didn't think of a way to represent its Empire at War power transfer (temporarily increased firepower but slowed shield regeneration and sublight speed) or its Force Unleashed Campaign Guide abilities (one less swift action required to recharge shields or reroute power -- thus usually requiring two swift actions to perform/complete either -- and being able to halve the DR of all enemy starfighters that remain within adjacent squares instead of attacking a specific target).

The official armament stats only go so far as to say "20 laser cannons", so I chose to divide them evenly between the facings, to treat them as heavy laser cannons (which page 228 describes as " mounted to capital ships as secondary weapons to deal with smaller ships ") and to disregard The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide 's treatment of the weapons as being two (2) point-defense laser cannon batteries of ten (10) cannons each, in order to make the Tartan -class a deadly opponent for any non-capital ship yet weaker than the capital ships in the EotE CRB despite having a higher Hull Trauma Threshold than any of them.

TL;DR : This build is somewhat intended to be optimized for defeating the very sorts of ships that your players are likely to be in, unless they somehow find their way into command of a capital ship... then it's the other way around. :D

Edited by Chortles

That's quite a good idea having the turrets group up as minions. The idea I had in mind would involve a good amount of pirate ships and the PCs attempting to ambush one of the Tartan is a session climatic small battle followed by a boarding sequence.

In essence minion grouping of the gunners is explained in the EotE CRB as representing " the ability of capital ships to hit other vessels through sheer volume of fire ." If you decide that the beings manning the cannons have Gunnery as one of their group skills, then I believe that they'd be attacking at Gunnery 4 if using all five cannons on a single facing to attack the same target!

If it seems like it'll be too difficult for your players to approach, then two immediate ways I see for you to reduce the difficulty would be to downgrade the cannons to light or medium which will either way reduce their Range from Short to Close, don't have all five guns on a facing attack the same target, and/or you can decide that the minion groups onboard the Tartan -class somehow don't have Gunnery as a group skill. :P

As i mentioned the PC's would have some pirate fighters to draw some fire. Maybe have a combination of heavy and light guns to tone it down a touch more.. Either way I do hope this is a challenging encounter.

Would you be able to inform me what your players will be using for their own ship(s)?

If you need to "tone it down a touch more", then I would not suggest going with "a combination of heavy and light guns"; I inferred that the Tartan -class has all "same type" cannons since since there's no "degree" of laser cannons listed anywhere the Tartan -class has been statted to say otherwise. Rather, I would suggest going "all medium" since that reduces the laser cannons' Range from Short to Close, or going "all light" if you want to also reduce the cannons' damage by 1, seeing as laser cannons all have the same Critical Rating of 3. Keep in mind that either of these would grant an advantage to starships with medium ion cannons (Silhouette 5+ starships only) or missile launchers -- in the latter case that's Skiprays and every fighter besides a TIE.

If you end up deciding instead to tone it up a touch more, due to the reputed quality of the Tartan -class design's fire control systems you could also deem the Advanced Targeting Array "attachment" to be part of the standard design with or without any of the upgrade mods (EotE CRB p. 269), just like the CloakShape stat block in the EotE CRB already includes the effects of the Curich Engineering Stabilizer Conversion Kit due to its ubiquity.

**

As far as the boarding sequence, other than the officers I'd suggest using naval trooper minion stats for both themselves and for "uniformed naval personnel who don't carry personal weapons unless in a desperate defense against boarders". Non-FFG sources have described the naval troopers as both shipboard security and performing other duties, so the likelihood of coming across them isn't just "if the players specifically go for the security forces' berths". Moreover, minion stat blocks are basically just their Characteristics, their Wound Threshold and their Soak (Brawn + armor) so unless there's two or more of them they don't even have Skills!

Edited by Chortles

The players have the Krayt fang with the only mod being a concussion missle tube. The pirates with them with be using Z 95

fighters. I havent quite worked out an appropriate amount. Needs testing. The hope being the PC's and NPC's will destroy the 4 groups of 5 laser cannons and then board. I think either have them all be medium without advanced targeting or all light with advanced tageting.

The narrative is that the players are trying to rescue a prisoner being held on the ship, kinda their fault or at least their roles, I would have them encountering some to few of the basic crew and a pair of better armed henchmen guarding the prisoner. The ships interior would probably be more of a dungeon crawl style area.

In that case, while the pirates' attacks wouldn't be affected because they were already at Easy difficulty (Silhouette 3 vs. Silhouette 5), both the Krayt Fang 's attacks and the Tartan -class' attacks would be affected by a Silhouette increase to 6 for the Tartan -class. As such, keeping Silhouette 5 while lowering the cannons to medium or light is a more incremental move, although one that either forces the Tartan -class into cannon range with your players and the pirates, whose concussion missiles give them the first-strike/Range advantage (as opposed to merely stand-off parity from the Tartan -class having heavy laser cannons).

If you go with light laser cannons with the Advanced Targeting Array, consider also treating it as having any or all of the modifications on page 269 installed and as part of the Tartan -class design.

As for "some to few of the basic crew", I'd also try using the Pirate Crew (EotE CRB p. 393) or Planetary Defense Force Trooper (EotE CRB p. 405) stat blocks as well under the guise of Imperial Navy personnel, so that Imperial Naval Officers may direct them -- again, depending on what your players can handle -- with the Imperial Naval Troopers (EotE CRB p. 403) as a baseline.

(My own design philosophy with SWRPGs is loath to use stormtroopers except in shows of force, "high value target" raids, "important position" defenses or other "special operations" of political significance -- there is, after all, an Imperial Army for dealing with the "rabble" -- hence my eschewing of stormtroopers as opponents for my envisioning of this scenario.)

Please feel free to PM me or request here if you would like me to offer any more starship or specialty troop stat blocks.