| 12 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
So this came up in the last few SFS games we had, and I was looking for a clarification.
The section on starship critical hits does not indicate anywhere that damage is doubled the way it is from personal combat, but instead causes a critical starship damage effect *if* the attack does any hull damage.
Because each phase has things happening simultaneously and without a true initiative (except the pilots), this became a bit confusing when we had more than one gunner.
1 Gunner: Critical 20 rolled, rolls out normal damage for 7 points, hits shields at 8, 1 shield left, no damage to hull, no crit effect. bummer.
1 Gunner: Critical 20 rolled, rolls out normal damage for 7 points, hits shields at 5, 2 points to hull, critical % effect rolled. huzzah!
2 Gunners: One hits, One crits, normal hit does 6 points of damage, crit does 7 points of damage, both targeting shield with 8 points. Hmmm
If I pool the damage together they clearly break through the shields, and the fact that one was a crit triggers the % roll. If I apply them in order, and the crit is handled first, then it wouldn't be enough on its own to break through the shields, so no crit effect occurs.
The pooling method seems to be the best way to handle this since everything is supposed to happen at the same time, and it doesn't seem right to penalize a player just because he rolled his crit *before* another player, but I wanted to see if there had been any discussion on this?
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The way I ran it is if a nat 20 is rolled and the total damage from all gunnery attacks break the shield, then a critical effect is rolled to determine the system. If a science officer targeted a system than that system was targeted.
Note, the targeting allowed by a science officer only impacts the gunnery attacks. If the total hull damage exceeds a critical threshold, that critical effect is rolled randomly.
Whatever you do, I would just make sure you apply it consistently to both PC ships and NPC ships.
However, I do agree with you that you should pool the rolls.
A great question! FAQ'd.
Interesting. It never occurred to me to combine attacks.
Do starship crits do double damage?
I am assuming not?
Unfortunately, no. I wish they did. Critical hits would be much more exciting. As it stands now, I always note my players are let down by "if the damage penetrates the shields, a random system will have -2 to checks".