Dogfighting in terrain
Some house rules for Star Wars: Edge of the Empire
I ran our first serious spaceship combat session today. The PCs were dropping off some ryll to some Geonosian buyers when four of Teemo the Hutt's cloakshape fighters dropped in. The deal was happening atop on column of a "forest" of limestone columns, similar to Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. Cue a dogfight between the crew of the Krayt Fang and a minion pair of cloakshapes, while dodging around the scenery!
To help things along, I made a couple of changes while merging the combat and chase rules.
Positioning, not speed
First of all, since everyone's dodging terrain, absolute speed isn't that important. What's important is how fast you're going for the conditions, and I use the ship's Speed rating to represent acceleration and power.
At the start of every round, all pilots make a Positioning check as per pp. 240-1. This doesn't use up the pilot's Action for the round. Pilots independently declare their chosen speeds for the round. They can then bid, in turn, to increase the setback dice from the terrain, reflecting taking additional risks. All pilots must take additional setback dice equal to the highest bid.
After the bidding has finished, roll the Positioning check as per p. 240 and compare results with your opponent. You're after how many net successes and advantages each side gets when compared to the other.
| Speed difference | Range bands moved |
|---|---|
| 0-1 | Range remains unchanged |
| 2 | Move between close and short range |
| 4 | Move between short and medium range |
Net successes add to your speed for the purposes of changing the range of the encounter. You can also spend a success to either upgrade or downgrade something in a test in the rest of the round. Advantages and disadvantages get spent as per p. 236. A Despair means you crash into something (p. 242). A Triumph means you can ignore the Navigation Hazard setback dice when rolling positioning in the next round.
Once you've worked out the effective speed difference, the faster ship can change the range for the rest of the round, using costs to the right.
This change also means that the Accelerate/Declerate, Fly/Drive, and Punch It manoeuvres don't make any sense.
Example:
The Krayt Fang is being chased by two cloakshape fighters. The Krayt's pilot calls speed 2, the fighters call speed 4. The Krayt's pilot rolls GGY (skill) + K (handling) + RR (speed & silhouette) + KK (terrain), getting two failures and an advantage. The fighters roll GGY (skill) + RRPP (speed & silhouette) + KK (terrain), getting three failures and a disadvantage.
Because the fighters were faster, they can change the range from short to close range.
Both sides are fairly inept, but the Krayt slightly less so. The Krayt's pilot can spend the success to effectively increase the Krayt's speed to 3, cancelling the range change. Alternatively, she can keep it to apply an upgrade or downgrade to any one test this round. In addition, the Krayt's pilot spends effectively two advantages to impose a setback die on the fighters' next action.
See also
- My revised Gain the Advantage.
- A forum thread discussing this