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Kytross Line Captain
Joined: 28 Jan 2008 Posts: 798
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Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 9:05 pm Post subject: X-Wings vs Star Destroyers: Scale questions |
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I'm just starting an X-Wing campaign with new pilots and mostly new players. I have a few questions.
When you factor in scale do you add the bonus to cap ships' shields? It's a 6D difference between starfighters and Capital ships, which means the Cap ships roll +6D to resist damage. It makes sense to me that their shields would get the bonus too. The way I see it happening is the Cap ship adds 6D to their shields before they allocate them to the four different arcs by use of the shields skill.
I remember reading that starfighters are deployed more to get the Cap ships to keep their shields even then to actually destroy the ships. A 9D Proton torpedo still has the chance to do a little damage against a bare hull, even with the scale difference, but if the Cap ship has shields up it shouldn't do much of anything.
I've read and reread the rules on combined actions and a squadron of fighters working together can give one of their pilots a chance to do an additional 4D damage. I see this as the other fighters are 'clearing the path,' coordinating to let their best pilot get the best possible shot. Does that sound right?
Finally, in the X-Wing books one pilot can send his targetting data to another pilot or the entire squadron to do a barrage attack against a capital ship. I see this as something different then a combined action, rather, it is a specific, advanced tactic. One fighter targets the capital ship, flying in close and feeding their telemetry to the other squadron pilots who are roughly equidistant from the cap ship, they fire simultaneously and feed the first pilot's telemetry to their torpedos through their astromechs. If everything goes right 8-12 proton torpedoes will hit the capital ship in the same place in the same round. I think this should cause massive damage, and I'd like some suggestions on how to calculate that damage roll.
The only circumstance in which 'the barrage' could be used is if there were no fighters harrassing the squadron, so the enemy fighters whould have to be eliminated or otherwise occupied. Consequently it won't be a common tactic, but two of my players have read the x-wing novels and are looking forward to using the tactic in a cap ship battle.
Thank you in advance. |
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Hellcat Grand Moff
Joined: 29 Jul 2004 Posts: 11921 Location: New England
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Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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Ok, looking at the GM R&E screen:
Quote: | Lower to Higher
Lower scale adds modifier to attack roll; if target dodges, just use skill
Higher scale adds moddifier to resist damage; lower scale just rolls normally
Higher to Lower
Higher scale rolls normal attack; lower scale adds modifiers to dodge
Higher scale adds modifiers to damage roll, lower scale rolls normally to resist damage |
If you look in the R&E on Lower to Higher, it specifies the higher scale rolls both it's dodge skill and manuverability (ie a vehicle, walker, or starship would roll the appropriate piloting skill and add the manuverability) rather than just the dodge skill.
Basically the X-wing gets a 6D bonus to attack the Star Destroyer, but the ImpStar gets a 6D bonus to resist that damage. And if the shields are up on the ImpStar add them in. So if you take the typical Rebel Pilot of 4D in starship gunnery, they have 7D (4D in starship gunnery and 3D in fire control) to use there lasers and then add 6D (6D difference between Starfighter and Capital Ship scales) for 13D to hit the ImpStar with, but it can only do 6D in damage. The ImpStar only has 6D+1 to avoid being hit if it's a typical Impstar pilot at the helm (capital ship piloting 5D+1 required to pilot an ImpStar and 1D manuverability) but then it has 10D to resist (7D in it's hull and 3D in shields) with shields up and then adds a bonus of 6D for a full resistance of 16D. So the X-wing pilot has a just over double the chance of hitting the ImpStar as it has of evading, but the ImpStar has nearly three times the chance of resisting the damage the X-wing can deal out with it's lasers.
What you describe in the X-wing books is actually a little of both, a tactic and a combined action. It's also something else, communications maybe. Let's say it's Corran's flight, that's four X-wings firing on the same target potentially at the same point. Corran as flight leader has everyone lock on his target, this can be a simple tactic. Just tell Ooryl and the rest of the flight what ship he's attacking and have them fire on his command. This is a combined action, which Corran is taking part in. It's not just "Ok, I'm gonna hit that ImpStar Deuce over there. Go ahead and hit it when you feel like." It's "Ok flight, we're going to hit that ImpStar Deuce on my mark. Everyone get ready..... MARK!" And then everyone fires at a spot on the ImpStar Deuce when Corran's given the command. A full barrage means eight torps. But now their combining their action.
It becomes more complicated when they have to link targetting computers hit a single target in the same area. One fighter acts as a target spotter, picking out the target the flight is aiming for and the rest just fire on that spot. It also allows for the flight to more effeciently deal damage to the target. I admit it's been a little bit since I read any of the Rogue or Wraith Squadron books so I don't remember if a single pilot was able to fire all the torps or if it was simply one pilot sending their targeting telemetry to the others, but I believe it was the later. In which case the lead pilot takes command of the flight, squadron, or what not and feeds their data to the others then gives the command to fire. Everyone is combined in the action and their targetting computers are all having to be synched and communicate with each other to pull it off. _________________ FLUFFY for President!!!!
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Kytross Line Captain
Joined: 28 Jan 2008 Posts: 798
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Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:40 pm Post subject: |
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Ok, I need to clarify my initial question.
On attacking something of a higher scale do you add the bonus once to the shields and once to the hull, or do you add the bonus once to the combined shield and hull.
For instance, an imperial star destroyer has 3D sheilds and 7D hull. So do you think I should roll:
3D shields (+6D bonus) plus 7D hull (+6D bonus) for a total of 22D damage resist
or
3D shields plus 7D hull plus 6D bonus for a total of 16D damage resist
It makes more sense to me for the shields to get the bonus as well. They are significantly stronger shields then the 1D shields on the X-wing and I think the scaling system should reflect that. I haven't seen anything in the official literature that comments on it. Is there anything or should I homebrew up my own rules?
Any thoughts on what I should do for damage on a 'barrage' attack? |
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Gry Sarth Jedi
Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 5304 Location: Sao Paulo - Brazil
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 12:02 am Post subject: |
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No, you only add the scale dice once. The scale dice are added to the roll to resist damage, it doesn't matter how many elements combine into the final amount (hull, shield, armor), you add those up and then add the scale dice.
So, in the example you gave, you'd be rolling just 16D to resist damage. _________________ "He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them." |
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Hellcat Grand Moff
Joined: 29 Jul 2004 Posts: 11921 Location: New England
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 12:13 am Post subject: |
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I'd say combined because the shields are combined with the hull in order to resist damage regulary. At 16D you're talking a 95 as the best possible roll to resist damage without getting a 6 on the WD. What's the best possible on a 9D damage roll? 53. There's little chance of doing damage there. Of course that if you get all sixes on eight or 15 dice and a five on the WD, there's always the chance of a really bad or really good roll.
The rules on higher scale resisting lower scale damage just say to add the bonus difference to the higher scales attempts to resist damage, not that it's added once to shields and a second time to hull and then the two are combined. So I'd say you first combine the two and add the bonus in before rolling. _________________ FLUFFY for President!!!!
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Grimace Captain
Joined: 11 Oct 2004 Posts: 729 Location: Montana; Big Sky Country
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 12:32 am Post subject: |
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Actually, Gry, that's incorrect. Here's the official answer from Star Wars Adventure Journal #15, page 80:
Q: When a larger vessel is hit by a smaller one, does the scale die modifier of the larger vessel apply to both the shield roll and the hull roll? For example, against a starfighter scale proton torpedo (9D damage) would a Star Destroyer resist at 22D (7D hull + 6D capital scale hull modifier + shields 3D + 6D capital scale shields modifier)?
A: Yes, which gives you a fairly accurate idea of how difficult a Star Destroyer is to defeat. Bear in mind that it usually takes a squadron of X-wings or other starfighters (all targetting the same spot on the Star Destroyer's shields) to penetrate the capital ship's defenses. <snip>
So the scale does add to both the hull and the shields. |
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Kytross Line Captain
Joined: 28 Jan 2008 Posts: 798
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 12:35 am Post subject: |
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I'll do some test rolling but I came to these forums because you guys have more experience then I do. Most of the games I've been in or run we've had a poorly running ship to fly and that was it. Cap ships generally were an indication to give the ole hyperdrive a test run.
I'll move the barrage question to the house rules forum |
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atgxtg Rear Admiral
Joined: 22 Mar 2009 Posts: 2460
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 1:00 am Post subject: |
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One option, if you want to cut down a bit on the number of dice you are rolling is to simply replace some of the dice with a fixed value. For example, if every +2D from scaling was replaced with a flat +7, you could avoid rolling a dozen or more dice at a time, and get about the same results. |
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Kytross Line Captain
Joined: 28 Jan 2008 Posts: 798
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 3:34 am Post subject: |
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Nah, I love rolling dice. So does my group. I've got a guy in my group who's a horrible roleplayer, so he alway plays a wookiee, but he does basic arithmetic in his head faster then anyone short of an idiot savant. Good at tactics too. And starting bar brawls.
This time around he's playing a recovered spice addict wookiee who got addicted to glitterstim while imprisoned on Kessel. Now he's a rebel pilot.
Anyway one of my other players is a 13 year old girl who keeps racing him to see who can add up the die roll first. The game within the game. She's playing one of the astromechs. |
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atgxtg Rear Admiral
Joined: 22 Mar 2009 Posts: 2460
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 5:34 am Post subject: |
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On of my players is an engineer, who loves to add up his totals and almost always gets them wrong.
And I bought a bunch of small dice to make rolling larger numbers of dice easier. But...
...I personally feel that rolling and adding up large quantities of dice is one of the drawbacks to SW D6. I think that Legend System D6 is much faster because of this. |
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Gry Sarth Jedi
Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 5304 Location: Sao Paulo - Brazil
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 8:04 am Post subject: |
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Grimace wrote: | Actually, Gry, that's incorrect. Here's the official answer from Star Wars Adventure Journal #15, page 80: |
Wow, that's really surprising. And I really hate that ruling. It really makes very little sense to add the scale dice to every element that composes a roll to resist damage. By that logic, if you have a Speeder-scale droid with STR 4D, who would normally roll 6D to resist a character-scale attack, if you added some flimsy armour that would give him +1 to resist damage, then he would automatically get another +2D scale dice for that, for a total of 8D+1. It just makes no sense. _________________ "He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them." |
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cheshire Arbiter-General (Moderator)
Joined: 04 Jan 2004 Posts: 4853
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 8:44 am Post subject: |
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I think that's why WEG tended to put armor on larger droids very sparingly. _________________ __________________________________
Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind. |
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Grimace Captain
Joined: 11 Oct 2004 Posts: 729 Location: Montana; Big Sky Country
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 12:41 pm Post subject: |
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Gry Sarth wrote: | And I really hate that ruling. It really makes very little sense to add the scale dice to every element that composes a roll to resist damage. |
Yeah, it's not the best, but it is how the designers of the game envisioned the use to the "added dice" method of scaling. That's one of the reasons why I don't use that scale method. Something that may have a fair bit of dice gets worse by using that method of scaling. |
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atgxtg Rear Admiral
Joined: 22 Mar 2009 Posts: 2460
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 3:19 pm Post subject: |
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Gry Sarth wrote: | Grimace wrote: | Actually, Gry, that's incorrect. Here's the official answer from Star Wars Adventure Journal #15, page 80: |
Wow, that's really surprising. And I really hate that ruling. It really makes very little sense to add the scale dice to every element that composes a roll to resist damage. By that logic, if you have a Speeder-scale droid with STR 4D, who would normally roll 6D to resist a character-scale attack, if you added some flimsy armour that would give him +1 to resist damage, then he would automatically get another +2D scale dice for that, for a total of 8D+1. It just makes no sense. |
It does explain why starfighters tend to use ion cannons and proton torpeoes against captial ships though. Ion Cannons bypass the shields, and the proton torpeoes are not affected by ray shielding.
Of couse back when SWAJ #15 came out, they were using the older, more powerful scaling rules (from 2E), too. So a combined attack from a squadron was worth +3D instead of +2D (every little bit helps).
Toss in one of the options for increasing damage from SpecForces and the ISD could be in big trouble. |
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ZzaphodD Rear Admiral
Joined: 28 Nov 2009 Posts: 2426
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 8:46 pm Post subject: |
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Gry Sarth wrote: | Grimace wrote: | Actually, Gry, that's incorrect. Here's the official answer from Star Wars Adventure Journal #15, page 80: |
Wow, that's really surprising. And I really hate that ruling. It really makes very little sense to add the scale dice to every element that composes a roll to resist damage. By that logic, if you have a Speeder-scale droid with STR 4D, who would normally roll 6D to resist a character-scale attack, if you added some flimsy armour that would give him +1 to resist damage, then he would automatically get another +2D scale dice for that, for a total of 8D+1. It just makes no sense. |
I honestly think that WEG answer was pulled out of the *ss without thinking and not used without thinking carefully.
1. If you compare to 1st ed scaling the +6D should be applied once. In 1st ed each die were just used differently, the numer of dice did not change.
2. By the Rulebook the scale dice are added to the resistance roll, which in this case should be the total of Hull and any Shield Dice.
3. Perhaps the answer is one of those 'instant rewrites' that sometimes happens when people dont think. In this case, I really have to get that Skipray Blastboat out of my players hand. A 16D+1 'Resistance' roll vs Starfighter scale ships seems a bit over the top! |
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