Hull Breaching is very rare in this game, since it requires a crit roll of 127-133.
But there are also weapons that are specifically designed to poke 'oles in your ship, such as concussion missiles or proton torpedoes (or even–*shudder*–assault concussion missiles and heavy proton torpedoes).
So, my thought is rather simple: If the weapon’s Breach rating (equals or?) exceeds the vehicle’s Armor, it automatically inflicts the Major Hull Breach critical hit.
If that seems a little harsh, then the attacker can spend 2 Advantage on a successful attack to inflict the Major Hull Breach critical hit.
I think it makes space battles a little bit more realistic and makes these weapons just a little bit scarier. Pirate threatens to launch concussion missiles? “We’ve got enough HT to tank it, we’ll be fine. Just book it out of here,” becomes “AHHHHHH!!!”
Thoughts?
I’m thinking about making a complete overhaul of the Ship and Vehicle system, so you may see more of these sorts of things on occasion.
I like that! First thing you do when getting into space combat is donning atmospheric gear! Just in case! Though should def treat hull breaches like they do in the Expanse. Two 1 foot wide holes on opposite sides of a room leaked slowly enough to give the occupants 5 or so minutes to seal the holes with enough breathable atmosphere left over to not suffocate!
No. It’s not that I want higher crit results, it’s that armor-piercing munitions should be able to rip holes in relatively thin-skinned vessels without the ship having multiple crits and then hitting that 7% window of opportunity.
When you look at real-world torpedoes, they are specifically designed to punch large holes in ships below the waterline. That’s also what proton torpedoes and, to a lesser extent, concussion missiles are designed to do, except this time the entire ship is “below the waterline” because it’s in space.
I think that the whole critical table thing is an artefact of the past. I love them, I’m a big fan of Rolemaster, HARP, and MERP, and I do like the tables, but they do not necessarily mesh well with some styles of gaming, and some logics.
I’m a bit unsure as to what, beyond fear, you want to attain here. This means that you get a specific crit very easily. This may be “realistic”, but it doesn’t mesh or serve the style of the system, or Star Wars as I know and play it (but that’s only valid around my table, so you don’t need to care about that ).
I agree that this would be a neat way of going, at least in some Genesys settings if not Star Wars, but I’d forgo the whole critical hit table then, and implemented something like a condition tracker and losses, akin to system they use in The Expanse RPG. That’d change the system too much though, and is pointless much work for a relatively small and insignificant gain. Unless this would be a significant gain to you and your players’ experience.
You could go for a “minor hull breach” effect instead, as a non-critical effect (so no +10 to subsequent crit hits), that doubles the time for losing air and depressurising, but is otherwise similar in effect. The increased time makes repair more possible (if you allow it to be repaired mid-encounter), it increases likelihood of getting space suits on in time, and the non-crit status means you don’t bypass normal rules for crits to get a desired high-end crit.
I’d require the Breach rating, and require 3 advantages if Breach equals Armor, and then substract one if Breach is higher than Armor rating, or add one if Breach is lower than Armor rating. This could arguably be applied to any starship weapon with Breach. Right? You could also make it a called-shot mechanic though couldn’t you? Use the setback-dice aim to get this effect, but perhaps torpedoes and missiles are better at this, so they only incur 1 setback dice on a single-aim, an no setback on a double-aim.
For my players (in my current game) this would be overkill… they fly a Pathfinder, and while I haven’t breached their hull, they limp out of every starship combat encounter … I see their fear every time they encounter someone unknown or I describe an imperial starship in their vicinity …
Yes, cool, more realistic which I’m inclined to do, but I’ve seen other posts how to “make starship combat more survivable” and this seems to go the other way. I have little space battle experience so can’t judge one way or the other.
How would this interact with this House Rule for Shields? (Couldn’t find where I got it from to give proper credit; sorry) Should Breach pierce shields too?
The thing is, we don’t see the effects of torpedoes or missiles very often, at least not on the good guys’ ships. As far as blaster and laser cannons, yeah it hits the armor, dissipates, is blocked by the shields, etc. But missiles? I believe the good guys’ ships are generally spared missiles because of the potentially catastrophic effect they could have. The exception is with instances where they are hit by the weapon’s Blast quality. I believe there have been a couple examples of that.
The only other thing I can think of is when Poe and Finn got shot down, and they were shot down.
What I’m trying to gain is a more interesting and “realistic” way of handling missiles. The way I see it, if a concussion missile or proton torpedo hits a starfighter, that thing’s probably going bye-bye anyway, and probably should. However, if it hits a sil 4+ ship, a hull breach becomes a very interesting thing to deal with. Part of my point in mechanics like this is giving the GM and the PCs tools. More interesting ways of going about things, more niche qualities to separate different weapons.
The suggestion of a “minor hull breach” is interesting. I’ll have to think about how to implement that, but I may just take your idea. I’m not sure whether it should add +10 or not though.
For your Advantage cost suggestion, I think I’ll take it for Breach =/> Armor, but not when Breach < Armor. That makes it too accessible, I think. Especially because that means a light turbolaser could breach a Star Destroyer’s hull with 4 Advantage or a Triumph.
One other way to go about this would be to add a new quality for specific weapons. So Concussion Missiles, Proton Torpedoes, and Proton Bombs get the “__” quality, which means if their Breach quality equals or exceeds armor, spend 2 Advantage to breach the hull.
I don’t use that houserule, but my shields houserule is that it operates like Reflect. So you have to get through shields before Breach applies, and then Breach applies against Armor.
Most of the time though, that’s elementary at best. The distinction rarely comes into play.
At a glance, it looks like shields provide X many points of ablative deflection, worn off after going through armor? Then Breach would pass through the armor, but wouldn’t affect the hull until all the ablative protection from Shields is gone.
As for making space combat more survivable for small craft, there are several things I’m working on to adjust space combat, much of which will have the effect of making it hard to hit small, fast moving craft. I’m trying to calibrate space combat to 1. be fun, 2. make sense, and 3. be balanced. I put balanced last because if the first two are true, then balance will either be there or be irrelevant. But if I put balanced first, it can throw off the other two.
Do you have a multiplier for shields in your house rule? That one I found starts with *6 for small Sil ships, so 1 Shield stops 6 damage at Sil 2-3. Though reading it more closely, applying Armor before shields doesn’t make sense to me; should be shields first, then armor.
No, that’s mostly accounted for simply by different ships having different shield strengths.
So a Star Destroyer with 3 points of shields adds 3 Setback to the check. If it succeeds, the the Star Destroyer can suffer 3 System Strain to reduce damage by 5 before applying Armor. With 8 Armor, that means it already takes 14 damage/Breach to get into hull or crit the ship, so a multiplier is unnecessary.
Ah, I see. You still apply Setback.
Does every ship/pilot have the option to expend system strain to have shields “reflect” some damage? Or are there talents involved?
I still like the idea of “shields at X%!” and “transfer power to shields” narrative & maneuvers that the other houserule I found provides.
Yes, from the Ewok who hopped in an A-Wing he found laying around to the Empire’s foremost TIE baron. It’s simply a matter of how good your ship is.
It still retains the Boost Shields and Angle Deflector Shields Action and Maneuver from the RAW, and the “shields at X%!” is covered by System Strain Threshold. When you’re taking on too much System Strain, you won’t be able to use the “Reflect” ability, and that can represent your shields failing.
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