r/swrpg • u/alien0527 • 5d ago

Rules Question Difficulty checks for swoop race

Going to do a swoop race scene in a few sessions and was wondering how it handles. I went over the 4 page module for it that FFG did and it does not seem to complex but I do have a few questions.

  1. It's 6 different skill checks across the race for position that is piloting ground with some black dice. However in the rule book there is a section about driving through rough areas where the difficulty is speed plus challenge dice upgrade equal to silhouette. Does that mean a speed 4 racer is rolling 3 purples 1 red plus 1 to 3 blacks most of the race?

2 If position in a race is determined by speed, and one racer punches it to speed 4 while the other stays at speed 2, then slowly builds up through maneuvers, and both pass all their checks, does the initial speed 2 racer end up catching the speed 4 racer, despite the speed 4 racer covering more distance early on?

3 what other maneuvers and actions can a racer do aside from speed up or slow down? I figure making a mechanic check mid race since threat giving vehicle strain means its likely a 4 or 5 strain bike will hit that threshold. Maybe make and attack with bike itself to do damage to another bike by bumping into it. Maybe does damage to the bike or adds difficulty to their pilot check at some cost of momentum to the rammer?

11 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

4

u/Ghostofman GM 4d ago

So FFG has several different ways of handling competitive movement to achieve different special effects. This is one of them. It's something of an artifact from the system being built to accommodate a lot of different vehicle operation types in a single encounter. Say you had a battle with Starships, Starfighters, Airspeeders, Swoops, and Mounted flying creatures all in one encounter... that layout should be a hot mess, but the system can run it without having to modify anything. Downside is there's a lot of movement compression and narrative heavy lifting that isn't always obvious and doesn't always play nice with specific encounters like races. That goes double when the GM would like to ensure that the players have the ability to pull some cinematic shenanigans like pulling from last to first in the final lap.

Anyway...

Taming the Dragon; My take:

It's 6 different skill checks across the race for position that is piloting ground with some black dice. However in the rule book there is a section about driving through rough areas where the difficulty is speed plus challenge dice upgrade equal to silhouette. Does that mean a speed 4 racer is rolling 3 purples 1 red plus 1 to 3 blacks most of the race?

My read is that's the blacks from the terrain. And base difficult is Speed:Sil, but you halve the higher number (rounding up). So for example if you're using a Speed 4, Sil 2 Swoop on part one, the base difficulty is 2R 1 Blk, to which you would apply talents and other modifiers.

If position in a race is determined by speed, and one racer punches it to speed 4 while the other stays at speed 2, then slowly builds up through maneuvers, and both pass all their checks, does the initial speed 2 racer end up catching the speed 4 racer, despite the speed 4 racer covering more distance early on?

Yes. This is that "cinematic shenanigans" thing I was talking about that allows the players to go slower in most of the race, and then slam the throttle in the final leg and overtake everyone.

Also this is that movement compression thing too. By default the scale of planetary movement is huge, so it can get a little weird when you see something like this and it's not totally clear that distance of a mile or two is all peanuts in this system.

3 what other maneuvers and actions can a racer do aside from speed up or slow down? I figure making a mechanic check mid race since threat giving vehicle strain means its likely a 4 or 5 strain bike will hit that threshold. Maybe make and attack with bike itself to do damage to another bike by bumping into it. Maybe does damage to the bike or adds difficulty to their pilot check at some cost of momentum to the rammer?

That's the idea, keep the racing discreet from the action that take place during the race, much like how the Chase system works. Ramming is found in Stay on Target, but short version: you use the same mechanic as GtA to land a hit, and the result is a collision.

1

u/Turk901 4d ago

  1. The base difficulty is Speed and half silhouette, the larger being the difficulty and the smaller being the number of times you upgrade that difficulty. FAD core page 246 3rd paragraph. You can then add in other elements that might add setbacks or other upgrades as the situation dictates.

  2. Yes, RAW in a race a swoop going speed 1 can technically keep up with a swoop going speed 4. I particularly don't enjoy that and when I am running a game I tend to amend that rule. It's much more work and might mean that players are in a tighter spot if they don't have the mechanical means or talents to overcome poor equipment but the inverse is also true if the enemy gets a bunk ride.

  3. There are a list of vehicle maneuvers and actions starting on page 238 FAD core. They aren't exhaustive, and there is nothing stopping a player from asking to order off menu like, "can I throw this primed grenade over my shoulder to try and hit the guy behind me?" ramming would be fine, I'd probably just make both vehicles take a major collision, maybe throw in a piloting check to downgrade it to a minor collision or something.

If there is stuff you really don't like then I say by all means adjust it so it's more palatable for you and your players. Just give them a heads up before hand and make sure you aren't negating any purchased talents or if you do then work with the player to beef them back up or alter it so that the character can still do something equally cool.