FWIW, I don't think most of what I suggest is about nerfing the Empire as much as making it vaguely plausible that the Rebels win as often as they do. Especially that they win as often as they need to for the game in ways cool enough that players will actually want to do them.

As in, flying starfighters rather than setting IEDs.

You know how you make the players feel cool: By them overcoming crazy odds and beating competent opponents.

I dunno. Players often find that the odds are so stacked against them that the only way they can win is by GM fiat. Beating one person as good as you is hard enough. Beating ten who are better than you is just... not gonna happen without divine intervention.

Did an "Armor 5" fan on the dev team pay off ErikB to derail the thread twice?

And yes ErikB, your idea is pretty much nerfing the Empire and thereby losing out on the "crazy odds and competent opponents".

I dunno. Players often find that the odds are so stacked against them that the only way they can win is by GM fiat. Beating one person as good as you is hard enough. Beating ten who are better than you is just... not gonna happen without divine intervention.

... or the Force.

P.S. Thanks for the "setting IEDs" campaign hook!

And yes ErikB, your idea is pretty much nerfing the Empire and thereby losing out on the "crazy odds and competent opponents".

They can't really be crazy odds or the players would lose all the time. You need to give the impression of the players being the underdogs and yet still have them win most of the time.

And yes ErikB, your idea is pretty much nerfing the Empire and thereby losing out on the "crazy odds and competent opponents".

They can't really be crazy odds or the players would lose all the time. You need to give the impression of the players being the underdogs and yet still have them win most of the time.

They will win if they plan and don't just charge in blaster firing. They have to think like Rebels. They should avoid straight fights, they win the long game because they plan around the Empire's strengths. The Empire is large, highly disciplined, well trained and well equipped. So how do you beat that? You watch, for days. They have regular patrol patterns, they have standardized defense at most bases, but they often change small details, what is different about this base? Plan, even in space battles the players need to scout and plan. Don't have your X-wings marked up with rebel symbols and the Empire may even ignore them, or at least you can bluff past them (even easier with Y-wings, Z-95, and other fighters that aren't just used by Rebels like the X-wing often is).

I don't nerf the Hutts in EotE either; if my players charge into a Hutt palace to free a captured comrade then they will die, they need to do what Luke, Leia, and Lando did. Planning, Planning, and more Planning.

And yes ErikB, your idea is pretty much nerfing the Empire and thereby losing out on the "crazy odds and competent opponents".

They can't really be crazy odds or the players would lose all the time. You need to give the impression of the players being the underdogs and yet still have them win most of the time.

You either have a really bad GM or are a really bad GM if you're having such a hard time conceptualizing the PCs winning against competent Imperials.

The beta testing… we're doing it wrong

Feedback has been submitted. Why not let FFG take it into consideration while we move to the next issue.

Back to your books gentlemen. There's work to be done.

So how do you beat that? You watch, for days.

You need to makes sure, then, that the Rebels have a better spy network than the Imperials, so the Rebels know more about what the Empire is up to than the Empire knows what the Rebels are up to.

Easy - they don't.

I don't think that is going to be enormously helpful advice to most of the players of the game. On the whole in an RPG the PCs win, and I don't think a Star Wars RPG is really the place to be trying to challenge that.

Since when do they always win? That's fairly simplistic, and frankly kind of boring. The best games are when you don't always win, because then, when you do win, you relish it.

I believe surviving the adventure has priority... then again that depends on the gm for the most part!

On the whole, given that everyone is playing Rebels, it makes bugger all sense to not make the Rebels the cool side everyone wants to be on.

I can assure you now, no one shows up to watch the GM go on and on about how awesome his GMPCs are.

Sighs... yes I know what you mean.

I'm probably the only one who introduced a Jedi npc and he remained quite firmly in the background!

Trained one of the other players then after their base was attacked and he went off to rescue a child left in his care the PCs had the chance to do something about it and then because I wasn't running the next adventure promptly ignored the entire plotline, it was only later on they decided they wanted to change the timeline and have Luke go dark and get Yoda to train two of our characters instead.

Sorry I'm probably one of a minority who runs Star Wars and keeps the original trilogy as they are since there's loads of potential adventures that doesn't require you to swap places with someone in the movie because you can't imagine doing anything else!

So how do you beat that? You watch, for days.

You need to makes sure, then, that the Rebels have a better spy network than the Imperials, so the Rebels know more about what the Empire is up to than the Empire knows what the Rebels are up to.

That part at least is fairly simple. The Rebels know they're the underdog in this fight, and most of what they do is info gathering. Getting into a stand up fight is suicide, and except for the battle of Endor was something they didn't do, cause the know they would get flattened. Even that was a hail mary play.

Regardless, treat it like a shadowrun, scout, find a way in, hit the objective and then run like hell. What your cell does will hopefully benefit the Rebellion as a whole, even if you aren't aware of it.

Stealing ship movement orders, hitting supply depots, and undermining the Empire when you can is the job. Running the hell away from the superior force is how you live to do it tomorrow.

A stand up fight means something has gone wrong.

Better yet they work so the Empire either never learns they were there or when they do any reprisals is sent after them rather than the locals.

Might be fun to redirect the Empire's fury against some of their own, but pulling that off should be tough at the best of times...

Better yet they work so the Empire either never learns they were there or when they do any reprisals is sent after them rather than the locals. Might be fun to redirect the Empire's fury against some of their own, but pulling that off should be tough at the best of times...

Something I've decided needs to happen in one of my games.

Hand the players pregens and open with them coming out of hyperspace on the bleeding edge of the mass shadow, diving planetside and doing a high speed attack run on an Imp facility. Quick hit and run and out.

Then hand back their real sheets, it's a month earlier, and they need every piece of info they can get their hands on, so the Rebellion can hit said base.

Better yet they work so the Empire either never learns they were there or when they do any reprisals is sent after them rather than the locals. Might be fun to redirect the Empire's fury against some of their own, but pulling that off should be tough at the best of times...

Something I've decided needs to happen in one of my games.

Hand the players pregens and open with them coming out of hyperspace on the bleeding edge of the mass shadow, diving planetside and doing a high speed attack run on an Imp facility. Quick hit and run and out.

Then hand back their real sheets, it's a month earlier, and they need every piece of info they can get their hands on, so the Rebellion can hit said base.

Let's take this to the adventure ideas thread (enough of the X-wing thread derail, even if Donovan Morningfire's withdrawn from the thread and we're ignoring ErikB, I'm still sitting at "Armor 3 X-wing") because this sounds awesome as hell.

Better yet they work so the Empire either never learns they were there or when they do any reprisals is sent after them rather than the locals. Might be fun to redirect the Empire's fury against some of their own, but pulling that off should be tough at the best of times...

Something I've decided needs to happen in one of my games.Hand the players pregens and open with them coming out of hyperspace on the bleeding edge of the mass shadow, diving planetside and doing a high speed attack run on an Imp facility. Quick hit and run and out.Then hand back their real sheets, it's a month earlier, and they need every piece of info they can get their hands on, so the Rebellion can hit said base.

Let's take this to the adventure ideas thread (enough of the X-wing thread derail, even if Donovan Morningfire's withdrawn from the thread and we're ignoring ErikB, I'm still sitting at "Armor 3 X-wing") because this sounds awesome as hell.

Yeah, sorry about that, forgot which thread this was.

Anyway, Armor 3 for an X-Wing is the only thing that makes sense. It's better armored than a Tie, slightly, and almost as nimble, but it's a mix of armor, speed and shields that make it able to stand up to Ties, and even then, they aren't that much better, unless you are a superior pilot.

Armor 5 seems like to much of a good thing.

Ehh, the thing that led to Morningfire leaving the thread was, of all things, a difference of one point (3 vs. 4) since Armor 4 was his preference due to it being newer/more advanced than the Y-wing whereas I believe a bunch of us that he disagreed with we were treating it as an "absolute values" thing and Y-wing as more durable due to the bomber role despite its age, which he didn't agree with -- that we could see Armor 4 as still "too much of a good thing".

The reason I picked Armor 3 was because it both reflects the "upgraded Z-95 Headhunter" dynamic (I'm okay with that) and combines with the Speed/Handling stats to collectively form "a TIE/LN killer"... Y-wing-like durability, Z-95 Handling, TIE/LN speed and Linked 3?

Mind you, my TIE Defender is even more divergent from the AoR beta books... the X-wing just seems to need tweaking. (The X-wing having as much shielding as a Y-wing... "blame" that one on the Y-wing only having 1/-/-/1 instead of higher, low numbers is a trend in FFG SWRPG.)

Mind you, my TIE Defender is even more divergent from the AoR beta books...

It is almost as if people like to give their favourite ship the best stats.

(I THINK most peoples favourite ship would be the X-Wing, and therefore they should give it the best stats because that will make the most people happy, but there is no actual research there)

Ehh, the thing that led to Morningfire leaving the thread was, of all things, a difference of one point (3 vs. 4) since Armor 4 was his preference due to it being newer/more advanced than the Y-wing whereas I believe a bunch of us that he disagreed with we were treating it as an "absolute values" thing and Y-wing as more durable due to the bomber role despite its age, which he didn't agree with -- that we could see Armor 4 as still "too much of a good thing". The reason I picked Armor 3 was because it both reflects the "upgraded Z-95 Headhunter" dynamic (I'm okay with that) and combines with the Speed/Handling stats to collectively form "a TIE/LN killer"... Y-wing-like durability, Z-95 Handling, TIE/LN speed and Linked 3? Mind you, my TIE Defender is even more divergent from the AoR beta books... the X-wing just seems to need tweaking. (The X-wing having as much shielding as a Y-wing... "blame" that one on the Y-wing only having 1/-/-/1 instead of higher, low numbers is a trend in FFG SWRPG.)

I like the Y-Wing having slightly better armor but less handling, compared to the X-Wings slightly less armor but better handling. The Boost die helps the X deal with Ties, while the armor on the Y gives it a better chance of surviving it's attack run.

The Tie Defender, on the other hand, should eat rookie X-Wings for breakfast. Only the best of the Tie vets get to fly one of those suckers, and they didn't become the best by being sloppy.

I like the Y-Wing having slightly better armor but less handling, compared to the X-Wings slightly less armor but better handling. The Boost die helps the X deal with Ties, while the armor on the Y gives it a better chance of surviving it's attack run.

The Tie Defender, on the other hand, should eat rookie X-Wings for breakfast. Only the best of the Tie vets get to fly one of those suckers, and they didn't become the best by being sloppy.

Ehh, in the AoR book the above dynamic holds up with Hull Threshold, not Armor, though to date I don't recall anyone quibbling over that or the Handling, it was all about Armor and the implications of that on the overall survivability... though I vaguely recall Donovan Morningfire holding a minority view that the X-wing was so newer and advanced enough that it should be the more survivable (that if Armor 4 tipped the scales that that was okay) while the rest of the thread seemed to disagree.

Jon D, where would be the most on-topic place for me to post my own TIE Defender write-up?

I'd guess here in the mechanics sub forum. Since we don't have a general board like the EotE beta did, likely because the book hasn't shipped yet.

Actually, we do have a general board, I shouldn't post tired. Here is still a good place though.

The way I've always seen it, the B-wing was the bomber, the Y-wing was the figher bomber, the X-wing was an intermediate fighter with a moderate payload, and the A-wing was purely dogfighter.

The stats should match.

The way I've always seen it, the B-wing was the bomber, the Y-wing was the figher bomber, the X-wing was an intermediate fighter with a moderate payload, and the A-wing was purely dogfighter.

The stats should match.

Duplicate post.

In canon the X-wing has six torpedoes to the Y-wing's eight and the EotE Y-wing has its eight torpedoes, so while I don't have the AoR beta book that should be two torpedoes more and light ion cannons (plus a gunner and Fire Arc All in the S3) in the Y-wing's favor. The thing is, based on both the d6 stats ( Rebel Alliance Sourcebook ) and the Saga d20 stats ( Starships of the Galaxy ) the X-wing "should" essentially be a tweaked Z-95. Here's what I propose!

Silhouette: 3

Speed: 4

Handling: +1

Defense: Fore 1, Port -, Starboard -, Aft 0

Armor: 3

HT Threshold: 11

SS Threshold: 8

Hull Type/Class: Starfighter/T-65 X-Wing.

Manufacturer: Incom.

Hyperdrive: Primary: Class 1, Backup: None.

Navicomputer: None--Astromech Droid socket.

Sensor Range: Close.

Ship's Complement: One pilot, one astromech droid.

Encumbrance Capacity: 10.

Passenger Capacity: 0.

Consumables: One week.

Cost/Rarity: 90,000 credits/5.

Customization Hard Points: 1.

Weapons: Wingtip Mounted Medium Laser Cannons (Fire Arc Forward; Damage 6; Critical 3; Range [Close]; Linked 3), Forward Mounted Proton Torpedo Launchers (Fire Arc Forward; Damage 8; Critical 2; Range [short]; Breach 6, Blast 6, Guided 2, Limited Ammo 6, Linked 1, Slow-Firing 1).

As for the Y-wing, you're thinking of the separate "Y-wing Longprobe" variant (BTL-A4 LP) of the existing locked-forward turret version (BTL-A4) that's already in the EotE CRB, but in addition to the longer sensor range* it's also got a full navcomputer (not limited to the astromech droid's 10-jump memory) and a backup Class 6 hyperdrive, both where the gunner would have been on the two-seater (BTL-S3).

* In the d6 2nd Edition game's Rebel Alliance Sourcebook , the A4 LP has double the sensor range and focus area radius of the two-seater S3. Compared to the LP, the X-wing (T-65B) has only 5 less Search range and 1 less Focus radius, but 10 less Passive range and 20 less Scan range.

That's actually pretty close to the stats given! Speed is 5, Defense is 1/-/-/1, Armour 5 (the Big Debate) and HTT of 10., and cost of 120k. Other than that, you're spot on!

-EF

So wait, the X-WIngs don't have Quad Laser Cannons? I read those in the EotE rulebook and instantly thought they belong on the iconic craft.

So wait, the X-WIngs don't have Quad Laser Cannons? I read those in the EotE rulebook and instantly thought they belong on the iconic craft.

I believe the 'Linked 3' quality (meaning you can spend two advantage to score an extra hit, up to 3 times for a total of 4 hits if you can get 6 advantage) on the medium laser cannons is intended to represent it having 4 of them.

So wait, the X-WIngs don't have Quad Laser Cannons? I read those in the EotE rulebook and instantly thought they belong on the iconic craft.

I believe the 'Linked 3' quality (meaning you can spend two advantage to score an extra hit, up to 3 times for a total of 4 hits if you can get 6 advantage) on the medium laser cannons is intended to represent it having 4 of them.

OK, that would make sense. And it would be useful to cut a redundant vehicle weapon out of the game.

It should be added that the "quad laser cannon" in the EotE rulebook is more in line with the Millenium Falcon 's turrets than the X-wing's wingtip-mounted cannons, hence the game rules difference.