Starship AC and TL


Rules Questions


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

Are the AC and TL for the ships given in the AP and SFS scenarios meant to have PC Piloting ranks added to them?

Page 320 of the CRB says:

“AC = 10 + the pilot’s ranks in the Piloting skill + the ship’s armor bonus + modifier based on the ship’s size + bonuses and penalties from successful or failed stunts and actions”

“TL = 10 + the pilot’s ranks in the Piloting skill + the ship’s bonus from defensive countermeasures + modifier based on the ship’s size + bonuses and penalties from successful or failed stunts and actions”

This implies that the AC and TL given are not complete. Is that the case?

Furthermore page 326 of the CRB describes the glide action: “Glide (Helm Phase, Minor) You move the starship at half its normal speed. The starship can take turns during this movement, but the starship’s distance between turns increases by 2. You can add your ranks in the Piloting skill to the starship’s AC and TL for this round. You can only take this action if no other pilot actions have been taken during the helm phase (including glide).”

Is the addition of these ranks already calculated into the AC or is it counted again?


You only get pilot tanks once, glide is a minor action someone takes if there is no dedicated pilot for that round. So even without a pilot, so long as someone performs a glide you still get a bonus to AC and TL. Remember if someone is in the pilot role then no one can perform the glide minor action.

Liberty's Edge

Yes, you need to add the PC Piloting ranks to the AC and TL.

For Glide, you would use the Piloting ranks of the PC who is doing the Glide. This may be different if a different character does the action.

The AC and TL will need to modified if a different character takes over the Pilot role.

Hope this helps.

Liberty's Edge

Torbyne wrote:
Remember if someone is in the pilot role then no one can perform the glide minor action.

This is not true. There could be character in the Pilot role but if that character does not take a Piloting action in the helm phase than a Glide action can preformed by the character in the Pilot role or a character in a different role.


depends on what you mean.
the bad guy stat blocks I believe have the pilot ranks added already.
the good guy stat block does not since it will change frequently.


rook1138 wrote:

depends on what you mean.

the bad guy stat blocks I believe have the pilot ranks added already.
the good guy stat block does not since it will change frequently.

I'm pretty sure that they actually add their entire skill bonus into it, which is a little silly.

Liberty's Edge

That stat blocks I have seen for starships do not add the entire skill, just the rank of the pilot for AC and TL.

The blocks I have seen are for SFS adventures.


Gary Bush wrote:

That stat blocks I have seen for starships do not add the entire skill, just the rank of the pilot for AC and TL.

The blocks I have seen are for SFS adventures.

Yeah, this was what I was referring to as well, but mostly for the AP stuff.


Gary Bush wrote:

That stat blocks I have seen for starships do not add the entire skill, just the rank of the pilot for AC and TL.

The blocks I have seen are for SFS adventures.

I was talking about the NPC starship statblocks in the core rule book.


The example ships in the CRB do not add the pilot's full skill bonus to AC or TL. Every number I've seen for the core ship defenses is entirely consistent with ranks, size modifier, armor, and countermeasure selection, and is exactly the same as you would get if you stuck a PC with the same number of ranks in the ship.

Gunnery checks are where they are using their full skill modifiers when they perhaps shouldn't, not AC and TL.

As for the original question, as has already been noted, NPC ships have already included Pilot ranks in their AC and TL, such as in the CRB. Ships intended for player use do not, as with the Sunrise Maiden and Hippocampus in Dead Suns 1.


Hithesius wrote:

The example ships in the CRB do not add the pilot's full skill bonus to AC or TL. Every number I've seen for the core ship defenses is entirely consistent with ranks, size modifier, armor, and countermeasure selection, and is exactly the same as you would get if you stuck a PC with the same number of ranks in the ship.

Gunnery checks are where they are using their full skill modifiers when they perhaps shouldn't, not AC and TL.

As for the original question, as has already been noted, NPC ships have already included Pilot ranks in their AC and TL, such as in the CRB. Ships intended for player use do not, as with the Sunrise Maiden and Hippocampus in Dead Suns 1.

Sorry, I was confusing myself. I meant their gunnery checks add their entire skill checks to it when the game says to only add the ranks. Maybe it's different for NPCs, but the game doesn't have a formula specifically for NPCs starship statblocks, which leads me to believe that it's an error.

Again, sorry for the confusion.


Huh, stupid question, but are Gunnery checks supposed to benefit from Dex bonuses? Or only from BAB/Pilot rank?


Gunnery receives the dexterity modifier, yes. A number of other possible things as well, given other ship actions, but a character cannot innately provide anything beyond BAB or Piloting ranks and their dexterity modifier.


Metaphysician wrote:
Huh, stupid question, but are Gunnery checks supposed to benefit from Dex bonuses? Or only from BAB/Pilot rank?

Ship checks benefit only from tanks or BAB + ability modifier. No skill focus, overclocking, edge, etc.

Liberty's Edge

Yes Gunnery checks include dex mod.

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