Star Wars RPG – How to Use Space Combat in Your Campaign

Ship to ship combat has always been an important part of the Star Wars universe, and the same should hold true for a campaign in the Star Wars RPG. While there’s rules for space combat in each of the core rule books for the game, they can be a bit complicated at first glance. Aspiring GMs and even players may want a more condensed version of the rules at first, as any campaign can be improved by adding in a few encounters in space. For a full explanation, players should look in the Starship and Vehicle Combat section of the rulebook, but this should help players get started.

The Star Wars RPG is unique because it allows players to tell various different kinds of stories. A group of aspiring Jedi might seek training and mastery over the force in Star Wars: Force and Destiny, while an elite team of Imperial Agents would use Age of Rebellion to carry out their mission. In all of these cases, ship to ship combat can be important aspect of play, which is likely the reason it can be found in every book. The Star Wars universe is massive, and players will need to venture into space in order to traverse it. Naturally, that isn’t a safe endeavor in the slightest.

Rules as written, initiative works a little differently in space combat than it does in typical fights. As usual, each player will roll either Cool or Vigilance (Cool in most cases, but Vigilance is used in a surprise attack scenario), and this will determine the order of play. Instead of each player or enemy acting on their own initiative, though, players can choose which order they want their team to act in. If the pilot rolls really high Cool, the players can choose to let the gunner go during that initative and the pilot will act later.

In a lot of cases this makes sense, especially when multiple players are manning the same ship. In a freighter, for example, there might be a pilot, co-pilot, two or more gunners, and an engineer all working together to keep things running. Combat can be awkward if players are working around initiative to get things done. In cases where players are flying individual starfighters, it probably makes more sense to ignore this rule and have each character act on their own turn.

Just like in personal combat, each starship gets a maneuver and an action or two maneuvers in a turn. This isn’t as simple as just moving however, and pilots can perform a variety of unique maneuvers to accomplish different things. There are six main maneuvers that pilots need to keep in mind while they fight. The most basic action players can take is to accelerate or decelerate, allowing them to increase or decrease their speed by one. Each ship has a specific max speed they can’t exceed, and obviously the minimum speed would be a full stop at speed zero.

Speed isn’t measured in terms of distance over time, but rather is relative to other speed bands. If a ship’s speed is 3, it doesn’t matter how fast they’re actually moving, just that they are faster than another ship moving at speed 2. Here’s a brief explanation of the other five maneuvers:

Fly – Move closer to a target at the same speed as the player.
Evasive Maneuvers – Upgrade the Difficulty of attacks made against or by the starship.
Stay on Target – Upgrade the ability check of attacks made against or by the starship.
Punch It – Increase ship’s speed to maximum capacity at the cost of one ship strain per speed gained.
Angle Deflector Shields – Reassign a defense point from one side of the ship to another.

In terms of actions that characters can take while aboard a star ship, the most common one will be to fire one of the ship’s on-board weapons. This is very similar to how standard attacks are made with a few exceptions. First of all, players will typically use Gunnery rather than Ranged Light or Ranged Heavy, and the difficulty is determined differently as well. As long as players are within range, their difficulty is determined by the difference in size between ships. It’s harder to hit ships that are smaller than the player’s and much easier to hit ships that are larger.

In terms of other actions, pilots can choose to Gain the Advantage. Rules for this action can be found in the book, but it makes firing on a target easier. Damage Control allows players to repair any breaches to the hull the ship might have sustained, and can be performed by anyone on the ship. There is an entire chart full of other actions such as Jam Radars, Boost Shields, Scan the Enemy, Spoof Missiles, and more that players can opt to do.

These rules should be enough for players to get into the basics of ship-to-ship combat, but the most important rule hasn’t been stated yet. Ultimately, space combat in the Star Wars RPG is very abstract, and Game Masters shouldn’t worry about digging too deep into the rules. If a player describes a cool maneuver they’d like to perform, it’s up to the Game Master to determine how the player can try this even if it isn’t explicitly stated in the rules.

The same goes for speed and range. Those wanting to know exactly where each ship is should play the tabletop wargame X-Wing, as this approach is much less concrete. In a chase, the GM simply needs to briefly consider both ship’s speed and use that to determine approximately what range band they are in. This is one case in which the “rule of cool” should always take precedence as players will enjoy a space battle much more if they don’t feel bound by the minutiae of the rules and can focus on strategy and having fun.

The Star Wars RPG is available now.

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