We may play a campaign where the PCs each have a single-crewmember fighter, rather than one big, communal ship.
How would you allocate buildpoints in that situation? Would you split the party build points and have each player run a ship of lower tier than APL? Give each player the suggested buildpoints for the party's tier? Or do something in between?
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I would give them level -4, so start them at the CR 1/4 ship BPs. (I am assuming 4 players here, a party of 6 would be level -5). This would make it so that all the players together are a CR=their level encounter (as per table 11-2 in the CRB page 390).
This would put them at the appropriate level according to Paizo's encounter design. Of course, this has plenty of problems. Each one of their ships is going to be way easier to destroy than one ship would be, less AC, less hp, do less damage, not have crew to perform multiple crew tasks, etc. Then again, if you are always putting them up against similar opponents (bunch of small ships) then it should work out ok. Expect them to have trouble going up against a single CR appropriate ship though.
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I've given this some thought myself, and a conclusion I came to is that it can work reasonably okay if you let players take certain crew actions for eachother. Say you have a technomancer who'd have been your science officer on your shared ship normally, allow them to take the shield balancing action on any one fighter in their squadron. With how minor crew actions seem to work, he can still take minor actions to both glide and shoot once at a penalty while doing that. The same principles can apply to the engineer and captain, meaning people only need to take their own piloting and gunnery checks.
Cheers. I haven’t thought it through very completely, but I’d been thinking similarly (a “squadron leader” being able to take captain actions to boost anyone in the squadron, for example). Science officer is probably another role that would “make sense” to be allowed communally.
I would give them level -4, so start them at the CR 1/4 ship BPs. (I am assuming 4 players here, a party of 6 would be level -5). This would make it so that all the players together are a CR=their level encounter (as per table 11-2 in the CRB page 390).
This would put them at the appropriate level according to Paizo's encounter design. Of course, this has plenty of problems. Each one of their ships is going to be way easier to destroy than one ship would be, less AC, less hp, do less damage, not have crew to perform multiple crew tasks, etc. Then again, if you are always putting them up against similar opponents (bunch of small ships) then it should work out ok. Expect them to have trouble going up against a single CR appropriate ship though.
This sort of consideration made me think maybe I should boost their BP budget somewhat - at least for the extremely low tiers.
I’d worry that a long space battle might risk one player’s ship being taken out early, leaving them with nothing to do for a protracted time.
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I would give them level -4, so start them at the CR 1/4 ship BPs. (I am assuming 4 players here, a party of 6 would be level -5). This would make it so that all the players together are a CR=their level encounter (as per table 11-2 in the CRB page 390).
This would put them at the appropriate level according to Paizo's encounter design. Of course, this has plenty of problems. Each one of their ships is going to be way easier to destroy than one ship would be, less AC, less hp, do less damage, not have crew to perform multiple crew tasks, etc. Then again, if you are always putting them up against similar opponents (bunch of small ships) then it should work out ok. Expect them to have trouble going up against a single CR appropriate ship though.
This sort of consideration made me think maybe I should boost their BP budget somewhat - at least for the extremely low tiers.
I’d worry that a long space battle might risk one player’s ship being taken out early, leaving them with nothing to do for a protracted time.
You might let them come back into the fight using their Resolve Points or a dedicated ship combat version (Repair Points?), structured similarly to dying in combat. Leave the ship disabled for a round as R2-D2 completes emergency repairs, then have it come back with minimal functionality.
Alternatively, add a new Engineering action that allows an ally to stop by and repair your ship. Perhaps requiring a repair drone launcher the party can purchase with BP.
I would give them level -4, so start them at the CR 1/4 ship BPs. (I am assuming 4 players here, a party of 6 would be level -5). This would make it so that all the players together are a CR=their level encounter (as per table 11-2 in the CRB page 390).
This would put them at the appropriate level according to Paizo's encounter design. Of course, this has plenty of problems. Each one of their ships is going to be way easier to destroy than one ship would be, less AC, less hp, do less damage, not have crew to perform multiple crew tasks, etc. Then again, if you are always putting them up against similar opponents (bunch of small ships) then it should work out ok. Expect them to have trouble going up against a single CR appropriate ship though.
This sort of consideration made me think maybe I should boost their BP budget somewhat - at least for the extremely low tiers.
I’d worry that a long space battle might risk one player’s ship being taken out early, leaving them with nothing to do for a protracted time.
You might let them come back into the fight using their Resolve Points or a dedicated ship combat version (Repair Points?), structured similarly to dying in combat. Leave the ship disabled for a round as R2-D2 completes emergency repairs, then have it come back with minimal functionality.
Alternatively, add a new Engineering action that allows an ally to stop by and repair your ship. Perhaps requiring a repair drone launcher the party can purchase with BP.
That’s an excellent idea, thanks. Including resolve points will work well for our group.
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I suggest rereading the starship chapter. There are rules in there talking about single pilot ships, minor actions, and starship resolve. They also talk about multiple PC ships for designing encounters.
The players will get one significant benefit, all their skill DCs will be lower. They will have much greater chance of success then their opponents since the DCs are based on starship tier. Say at level 5 they will be piloting tier 1 fighters up against other tier 1 ships. The enemy will have a +6 piloting skill vs the PC who could easily have +12, both needing to make the same DCs.
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I suggest rereading the starship chapter. There are rules in there talking about single pilot ships, minor actions, and starship resolve. They also talk about multiple PC ships for designing encounters.
The players will get one significant benefit, all their skill DCs will be lower. They will have much greater chance of success then their opponents since the DCs are based on starship tier. Say at level 5 they will be piloting tier 1 fighters up against other tier 1 ships. The enemy will have a +6 piloting skill vs the PC who could easily have +12, both needing to make the same DCs.
True.
This also means it's easier to repair one's own ship while the rest of the team is fighting. Not that you'd be out of the battle because you could minor action pilot & minor action gunner while doing an engineer action.Engineering is a common skill and a PC wouldn't need so much Int to make it a worthwhile option.
Alternatively, one could make a hive-mind fleet, one which on the hex-map has many different ships, but which runs similar to a single starship, i.e. has a single squad leader/captain, scouts running scans that feed data to everyone, engineers remotely running repair functions, etc. One might make an exception for piloting & gunning, with each running their own vehicle, even if only via minor actions due to preoccupation with other tasks.
As mentioned before, the quantity of firepower can make up for smaller ships having lower quality (which may be untrue anyway). If every PC is a gunner, that's a lot (even if at -2 as a minor action), plus when the enemy hurts a ship's system it only hinders one PC and when the enemy does excessive h.p. damage the extra goes wasted.
You could run some sample battles with your players to get a feel, and for them not to have everything at stake as you all learn the rules & group tactics. Keep us informed if you do. :)
I’m likely to be the DM, but might also be a player. We haven’t decided yet. I’ll let you know though.
We’re running multiple “minicampaigns” to get a feel for the rules while we wait for the AP to come out, so we’re happy enough to try something and have it fail spectacularly. :)
I suggest rereading the starship chapter. There are rules in there talking about single pilot ships, minor actions, and starship resolve. They also talk about multiple PC ships for designing encounters.
Cheers.
That bolded bit was what prompted my thoughts as to how to build the ships. My reading of that passage was that four PC ships of tier four would be treated as a tier seven ship (for the purposes of encounter design).
A tier seven ship is 180 BPs and splitting that four ways would mean a party of four PCs would not even have enough to each build a tier one ship.
I wondered whether it would be better to give them 115BPs each when they were at level seven (enough to each build a tier four ship). That seemed too generous to me, but 45BPs at level seven seemed too cheap.
The alternate approach was to give them 180BPs each, so that level seven PCs fly around in tier seven ships - then it would just be a matter of boosting the encounter difficulty, so they’d be facing enemies built assuming they were tier ten. To be honest, this would be my preferred option by default on the grounds that the game is designed for PCs to be flying ships where tier=APL. However, given the starship DC issue, I don’t have my usual confidence in this part of the system.
As someone who has a very flimsy grasp on the ship rules... wouldn't this just result in a huge glass cannon effect? The big thing would be to keep all the fighters in the same arc from their target (ideally a flank or aft arc) so that only one of the PC's group can be fired upon but then you have 4-8 shots from your group all going at the same targeted quadrant?
That would be a good strategy if multiple fighters were engaged with one, big enemy. I don’t have a problem with that though (and there are countermeasures available to the bigger ship) as I suspect that would be a good strategy “in reality”.
I've posted some words about this topic on a different thread; the best solution I thought of basically takes inspiration from the Battle of Endor from Return of the Jedi. It would make sense to have 1 larger command ship with some crew (Lando & Nien Numb in the Falcon) that could provide some captain and science officer actions to any friendly ship within sensor range (like Wedge & the Red Squadron boys.)
You might need quite a few players to do this though, or if you wanted to keep all the players on the same wavelength, the command ship could be GM managed and basically just hang back and give orders. If you wanted to run this full PC, I expect that you could get away with a 3-seater (pilot/cap/gun or pilot/cap/science) as a command shuttle, and 2 or 3 escorts.
Each fighter may need an R2-unit.
Yeah, like R2-D2 in star wars. R2 acted like the ship's mechanic and science officer for Luke's X-wing fighter.
I agree that having one "command ship" is also a good idea. Not everyone is going to be a good pilot. That gives them something to do.
As someone who has a very flimsy grasp on the ship rules... wouldn't this just result in a huge glass cannon effect? The big thing would be to keep all the fighters in the same arc from their target (ideally a flank or aft arc) so that only one of the PC's group can be fired upon but then you have 4-8 shots from your group all going at the same targeted quadrant?
It depends on the range. A heavy laser array (Short range) fires at all targets in a single arc. Even without a heavy laser array, an explorer or transport hull can mount three weapons per arc and three weapons in a turret; with three gunners taking the Fire at Will action, that's six attacks (granted, at -4) vs. the PCs' fighters.
Is anyone able to report back about how their attempts at squadron combat have fared?
I guess that makes a whole lot of sense actually, per..
Multiple Ships
If the PCs have more than one starship, use the highest-tier ship’s tier as a base and add 1 to this value for each additional starship within at least 2 tiers of that starship. If none are within 2 tiers, add up the tiers of all the additional starships and add 1 to the base value if the total is equals or exceeds the base starship’s tier. Use this modified value when determining the encounter’s difficulty.
Which means when doing a squadron of like-powered ships, each PC would be flying a ship of tier = APL - (# PCs - 1)
Having a minimum of tier 1/4 makes them a little OP in the beginning, but a group of 5 or 6 could also go the route of 1 or 2 crafts (respectively) being a two-seater. Then they would still follow the 4PC track.APL 2, each pilots a tier 1/3 ship
APL 3, each pilots a tier 1/2 ship
APL 4, each pilots a tier 1 ship
APL 5, each pilots a tier 2 ship
Etc.
APL 2, each pilots a tier 1/4 ship
APL 3, each pilots a tier 1/3 ship
APL 4, each pilots a tier 1/2 ship
APL 5, each pilots a tier 1 ship
APL 6, each pilots a tier 2 ship
Etc.
APL 2, each pilots a tier 1/4 ship
APL 3, each pilots a tier 1/4 ship
APL 4, each pilots a tier 1/3 ship
APL 5, each pilots a tier 1/2 ship
APL 6, each pilots a tier 1 ship
APL 7, each pilots a tier 2 ship
Etc.
Dang, if that's how it works, that's a HUGE advantage in BP to spend. Does the limitation in available actions make it less viable, though? I would think having each character being forced to split their actions between pilot and gunner every round would limit how effective they are. That, coupled with the smaller ships lower hp, seems like an invitation to short, lossy fights. But, I haven't run it yet, so it may just seem that way.
Actually a good pilot is by default a good gunner. Snapshot is only a -2 to hit, so you can be very effective with a crew of 2. One to pilot and shoot, the other to captain, engineer, or science officer whichever is expected to be the best thing to do in a given round.
Actually a good pilot is by default a good gunner. Snapshot is only a -2 to hit, so you can be very effective with a crew of 2. One to pilot and shoot, the other to captain, engineer, or science officer whichever is expected to be the best thing to do in a given round.
And really, the best option for light craft would be to go with a Fighter frame for that tasty HP boost and the extra guns. Plus it allows you to pair the party two to a ship so you can have one handling the piloting and another handling gunnery (or repairs, or science, whatever you need).
Personally I want a tiny craft that has quareters and a single expansion bay. Something like this.
Personal Craft
Tiny
maneuver good (+1 piloting, turn 1)
HP 30 (increment 5; DT-:CT 7
Mounts
forward 1L
Basic quarters (cannot be upgraded)
Expansion bay 1
Min crew 1, max crew 2
Cost 10
As far as light craft we currently have I like the fighter for getting the max speed and 2 crew members, and the shuttle for having perfect maneuverability. I've found that we rarely have more than one gunner so a shuttle with a turret is just fine for guns.