Aso. My players ended up on a forgotten planet, a post-apo setting. Think Mad Max or Doomsday. Naturally there are rag-tag vehicles (wheeled) and since ammunition and generally weapons are not so common, many of these vehicles feature spikes etc.

Now, my question to you, fellow Edge-of-Empirerers is: how would you resolve ramming?

My ad-hoc rule is damage dealt equals vehicles Sil+2 (for nice, shiny spikes). The ramming vehicle receives Sil. Of course this is vehicle scale. Speed probably should be a factor, but I don't want to overcomplicate this. Any ideas? Perhaps you have had a similiar issues in your games and can help out? Thanks in advance!

My first notion is that the rammed vehicle should take (Silhouette of ramming vehicle)+spike bonus, and the ramming vehicle should take (Silhouette of rammed vehicle). That way, ramming the Jawa Sandcrawler with your speeder bike will go as badly as you'd imagine.

If this is a big element of your campaign, you could create some vehicle mods that specifically impact ramming damage - spikes to boost it, but also oil slicks to reduce it or electrified panels to damage other rammers.

You could just go for the collision rules, or a variant thereof, causing critical hits rather than hull trauma, but hey, it's only a suggestion

The physicist in me says that damage should follow F=ma (because everything else does)

So I'd make that Damage = Silhouette*Speed, but that's going to seriously **** up your vehicle quick.

Yeah in one of the O66 podcasts someone (I think Sam) said to use collision rules. It was a big deal at the time because us peasants were still using the Beta book, which didn't have collision rules in it yet, so it ended up being a "leak" that the final rules would include collision rules...

I don't have the CRB in front of me at the moment. What are the collision rules?

If you do go for damage, I would definately include armor in there. The harder something is, the more damage it can do. Think if an APC hits a car the car takes most of the damage but if a car hits a car, they both take a good amount of damage.

Ramming speed!!

Yeah that O66 episode was answering what would happen to characters getting hit by a vehicle, and the general idea was "probably dead; or if you want them alive, give them a really bad critical injury."

Yeah...speed needs to be a factor to both vehicles. Just modify the collision rules a bit. Increase the d100 roll for the target, and decrease it for the rammer. Easy-peasy, Ewok-squeezy.

The reasons for this are twofold: I don't like reinventing the wheel (or ion drive), and damage done by a collision is way different than damage done by a weapon. Or at least that's the way it feels to me, and the way I'd run it. I like easy. Just grab a number somewhere in the vehicle's stat block, multiply it by 10, and use it to modify the d100 roll

Mixing all the ideas above: I think I'll use sil*speed, multiply the result by 10, add bonus for spikes (10 or 20), check the crit damage table. So a vehicle going with speed2, with sil 3, with spikes would deal 70+d100 crit. Oh, I think I could add/substract 20 or so for going head on, side to side etc...

Thanks!

The physicist in me says that damage should follow F=ma (because everything else does)

So I'd make that Damage = Silhouette*Speed, but that's going to seriously **** up your vehicle quick.

Following physics, ramming damage should follow P=mv (called momentum). If ramming damage would follow F=ma, you could end up doing zero damage when ramming at top speed, since you can move very fast but with zero acceleration.

Cheers,

Yepes

The physicist in me says that damage should follow F=ma (because everything else does)

So I'd make that Damage = Silhouette*Speed, but that's going to seriously **** up your vehicle quick.

Following physics, ramming damage should follow P=mv (called momentum). If ramming damage would follow F=ma, you could end up doing zero damage when ramming at top speed, since you can move very fast but with zero acceleration.

Cheers,

Yepes

When moving at top speed and ramming into something you have an acceleration. It just happens to be negative in that scenario. You'd be going from Speed 4 to Speed 0.

The other advantage of F=ma is that it fits into the theme. Luke doesn't use Momentum to blow up the Death Star, he uses the Force

We just had that situation come up just last night in a gaming session. The situation was the players were in a big speeder truck and decided to ram a minion group. I as the GM didn't wanna slow down the pace of the action or momentum of the battle to look it up so I just reasoned (on the fly) that since it was a collision and it would result in a Crit, and since it was a minion group who are killed by Crits in the first place and were in a "group" that each success on Pilot (Planetary) check would result in minion kill. It was a fast and easy and kept the action going. I looked it up later to figure if I had done it right but really couldn't find much, as the RAW don't really explain what happens to a minion group being rammed by a big vehicle.

Yeah in that situation I'd do the same, especially that minions are meant to die horribly - plus a piloting check, maybe. starting the topic I meant vehicle vs. vehicle.

I'm away from my book, but normal collisions cause a crit, with a -10 per point of defense, to the all parties involved. "Major collisions" are at -5 per point of defense instead of the -10.

So I'd say you're pretty on-target with what you decided to do!

-EF

I'm away from my book, but normal collisions cause a crit, with a -10 per point of defense, to the all parties involved. "Major collisions" are at -5 per point of defense instead of the -10.

So I'd say you're pretty on-target with what you decided to do!

-EF

I was looking for the collision rules the other day. Do you happen to remember what page they were on?

I don't, but I know it's a sidebar in the space combat chapter. I'll look for it when I get home today.

-EF

I don't have the core Rulebook at my fingertips, but the Collisions sidebar is on the same page or very close to the section on taking damage. I can double check when I am home later today. I've become very familiar with collision rules especially in getting creative with vehicular combat.

You mean in terms of collision rules? Major and Minor collisions automatically assume that something on the vehicle takes damage whether or not it takes hull trauma or system strain. So sideswiping someone would count as a minor collision, and a full on ram would be a major collision to both vehicles. Perhaps in future there may be a ram plate or some other vehicle upgrade that can reduce the severity on the ramming vehicle, and even upgrading it on the target. Ramming is supposed to be risky, so both vehicles get to roll an automatic critical on each ship which is reduced by the ship's defensive rating x5 for a major and x10 for a minor.

Right now, vehicles with a defensive rating of some description will fare better than those who don't. Needless to say, if an X-wing rams a tie fighter, it will go better for the X-wing...

I was looking for the collision rules the other day. Do you happen to remember what page they were on?

i think page 240 (i don't have the book front of me but that is what my notes say)

looked it up. it's page 242 in the charcoal coloured side bar