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Seattle, Washington, United States
I'm an old time roleplayer who became a soldier who became a veteran who became a developer who became a dba who became a manager who never gave up his dream of a better world. Even if I have to create it myself.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Star Wars: Space Combat House Rules, and a new Scroller

Within the context of ship-to-ship combat, I want to make the piloting skills more interesting and useful in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire (Age of Rebellion, Force and Destiny, et al); right now I view them as only useful in asteroid fields or such, and while that’s cool, I want to see them used more in combat. Abstraction is great for this game, but I want the pilot to have a skill-based effect on dogfighting.

Additionally, I want to slightly alter how a ship’s Handling and Speed affected ship combat. Flying a more maneuverable ship should be advantageous.  However, I do not want to over-complicate things, I want to keep combat resolution fast, and I want to keep the baseline design spirit for the game as much as possible.

So, I have sought the smallest set of changes possible for these and other minor design goals, like getting rid of speed prerequisites.  Here's the new rules for Gain the Advantage, Evasive Maneuvers, and Stay on Target.

Before that, though, here's my new video star wars scroller for the next adventure, which I once again made with Adobe After Effects.



Star Wars: Rogue from Mr. Blue on Vimeo.





Gain the Advantage
Maneuver
Pilot Only: Yes
Silhouette: 1-4 (both vessels involved)

This maneuver represents the constant, frantic give and take of a dogfight between small craft. To execute this maneuver, the pilot makes a Piloting check, opposed by the target's Piloting check. Each craft’s Handling is factored in to the roll. If the target’s speed is slower, a bonus die is added for each difference in speed. If the target’s speed is faster, then a setback die is added for each difference in speed.

If successful, the pilot may choose which of the target's defense zones is being targeted with any attacks made by his own craft. Furthermore, for every two successes beyond the first, attacks made against the target by the pilot's craft are upgraded once. These bonuses last until the end of the pilot’s next turn, unless the target succeeds at a Gain the Advantage maneuver against the originating craft prior to that.

(Design note: higher-level combat can now have higher-level modifications. Making it a maneuver instead of an action allows the pilot to still do something, like fire, in a single-crew craft. Yes, maneuvers generally shouldn't have checks, but they do occur from time to time in other situations.)



Evasive Maneuvers
Maneuver
Pilot Only: Yes
Silhouette: 1-4

Evasive Maneuvers reflects a pilot’s efforts to avoid incoming fire, collision, or other calamity. Executing Evasive Maneuvers adds a number of setback dice to all attacks made against the craft equal to the pilot’s Piloting skill, or the craft’s Handling, as chosen by the pilot. A smaller number can be chosen, if desired. This bonus cannot exceed the craft’s current speed, and lasts until the end of the pilot’s next turn.

All attacks made by the craft performing Evasive Maneuvers gain a number of setback dice equivalent to the number of defensive setback dice.

(Design note: using setback dice benefits specialists with the ability to eliminate them; also, I don’t believe that flying evasively should increase a gunner’s despair chance.)



Stay on Target
Maneuver
Pilot Only: Yes
Silhouette: 1-4

This reflects a pilot’s concentration and his ability to shut out combat related stresses and distractions to make sure a target is hit. All weapon checks from the pilot's craft gain a number of bonus dice equal to the pilot’s Piloting skill, or the craft’s Handling, as chosen by the pilot. This bonus cannot exceed the craft’s current speed, and lasts until the end of the pilot’s next turn.

All attacks made against the craft performing this maneuver are upgraded once, and the attacker may choose the defense zone being targeted.


(Design note: the penalty effectively increases the chance of a critical hit on the straight-flying vessel, which seems appropriate, so I kept the general penalty similar to RAW.)

3 comments:

  1. I've been wondering where you got to.

    Little Kobolds distracting you I think.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. More like an itty bitty troll ;)

      Delete
    2. Please tell me you painted it green and took a photo. . .

      Delete

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