FFG Star Wars Mandalorian Stats

It is difficult to find a bad review of the flagship Disney+ original The Mandalorian. Most fans were cautiously optimistic, and even some critics of the recent movies were swayed by this return to a gritty, compelling mix of eastern (samurai) and western (cowboy) influences in a live action, episodic show.

SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t seen the first season of The Mandalorian, just pony up for a month of Disney+ and devour all eight episodes. We’re going to be discussing characters and plot points, so again, you have been warned.

The first few episodes focus on the titular character, but by the end of the first season, there are several characters that could make excellent PCs for an Edge of the Empire game. This is the first post of a series that will eventually make a complete party of six characters: Din Djardin, Cara Dune, IG-11, Kuill, Greef Karga, and of course, The Child.

Let me walk you through my process for Mando. I looked at a lot of careers and specializations, but ultimately went the most obvious route of Bounty Hunter: Gadgeteer from the core Edge of the Empire book. This is actually a pretty tough talent tree due to diverse characteristics for core skills and not great for people looking for an optimized build, but I felt it fit the character to a T. I used the Mandalorian species from Friends Like These which provides all 2s for characteristics, 105 starting XP, and one rank in any combat skill or one rank in two knowledge skills. I chose Gunnery since that is missing from the core skill set of the Gadgeteer. For initial skills I chose Perception, Piloting (Space), Piloting (Planetary), Ranged (Heavy), Ranged (Light), and Brawl.

I choose to build him out with 200 earned XP to represent his experience as a hunter before we meet him in the show. I boosted Brawn, Agility and Willpower to 3 with the starting XP, leaving me 15, which I used to pick up a rank of Mechanics and Melee. Making a bee line down the talent tree (with a few detours) for 200 XP I chose two ranks of Toughened, Jury Rigged, Armor Master, Tinkerer, Dedication (Agility), Point Blank, Spare Clip, and Improved Armor Master. These talents are well represented on screen by the amount of abuse he can take, his versatile gear (more in on this in a moment), and how often his armor saves his bacon. This left 40 XP to buy up a few more ranks in Ranged skills, Piloting (Space), Vigilance, and Athletics.

Let’s talk gear. As one would expect, the Mandalorian has several tricks up (or on) his sleeve. Luckily, a few of these were already started up in Boba Fett’s gear in the Allies and Adversaries sourcebook. This provides the weapon stats for the wrist-mounted flame thrower and whipcord Mando uses in several of the episodes. There are also templates for novice and veteran Mandalorian armor (2 Soak, 1 Defense) in the excellent Gadgets and Gear sourcebook, which provided details for the integrated tracking system that mechanically provides another rank of Vigilance. We see this on screen when he is tracking the (warm?) footprints of Cara Dune outside the backwater tavern in which they first meet.

His rifle posed an interesting challenge. Astute fans will recognize both the rifle, pistol and even overall look is a nod to the Star Wars holiday special. There are no FFG stats for that crazy tuning-fork that I could find.

In episode 3, Cara refers to it as a Pulse rifle, which made me think of a Pulse Cannon which does have stats; stats that fit remarkably well. Apparently I wasn’t the only one confused, as the storyboards in the credits from that same episode make the rifle look like a pulse cannon, albeit with the shock fork at the end. To account for this, I provided the Pulse Cannon with a Shock Pulse Emitter that provides Stun 4, Disorient 1 in melee. The pulse cannon itself can be fired normally for a decent 9 damage shot, pierce two. It should be noted it is slow firing 1, which is not ideal, but pretty well represented on screen as he aims between shots at long range. The rifle can also be primed to use its entire energy cell to gain Breach 1, Vicious 3. While not exactly a disrupter, you have a much better chance of vaporizing some Jawas if you are adding 30% to crit rolls.

I just gave him a vanilla blaster pistol, mostly because I couldn’t find any pistols that really looked like his and he already has a ton of weapons. I also included the vibroknife we see on screen in the mudhorn fight.

The “whistling birds” threw me for a bit of a loop. While mini-rockets are detailed in No Disintegrations, none of those really fit what the armorer creates for him. I used the stat block for the armor-piercing rocket and made it limited ammo 6. It looks like the actual launcher from the show has 10, but that seems a bit overpowered to put in the hands of a PC. There also isn’t really a mechanic to take out 4 guys simultaneously like he did on the show, but I would house-rule an extra rocket could launch for every two advantage on the attack roll to try and simulate that.

So here is my build. I feel like it may not be mechanically optimized, but represents what I saw on the screen. What do you think? Suggestions?

I had this post planned before the tragic news of Fantasy Flight Games shutting down Fantasy Flight Interactive and gutting the RPG department. Those designers created one of my favorite RPGs of all time in the form of Edge/Age/FaD. I plan on playing this game for years to come, and hope all those excellent people land on their feet and keep creating great stuff.

Star Wars Edge of the Empire – No Disintegrations Review

The day has finally arrived, and FFG has saved the best for last. No Disintegrations, the last career sourcebook for Edge of the Empire has finally hit the shelves, and it was worth the wait. This book follows the now very familiar three-section format. The first details new race and specialization options, the second focuses on gear and vehicles, and the third provides GMs with adventure ideas focused on the particular career. As someone who has been running plenty of bounty hunter games, I was eagerly awaiting this release over any other in the FFG RPG line, and it does not disappoint.

First up: new species. The Devaronians debuted in the Force and Destiny book, Nexus of Power, and are the devilish looking aliens first seen in the Mos Eisley cantina scene. Most notably, the species possess two livers, and add an automatic success to Resilience checks they make. Don’t get in a drinking contest with the devil. They also start with a 3 in cunning which will serve them well in a bounty hunting role. The other two races are new additions to the FFG Star Wars system: Clawdites and Kallerans. Clawdites are known for their shape-shifting doppelganger abilities, as showcased in episode II of the movies by Zam Wesell, the Clawdite hired to assassinate Padme. Mechanically, to change their appearance from their natural somewhat reptilian look, they suffer 3 strain and make an average Resilience check. Starting out with a rank in Resilience as their other species feature helps. These guys start with a 3 in cunning as well, and with their Changeling ability, offer a very compelling option for a bounty hunter. Kallerans were introduced in the Kanan: The Last Padawan comic. They can breathe through their skin which presents quite the paradox: they are strong but fragile, starting with a 3 in Brawn but only adding 8 for their initial wound threshold. Compare this with a Wookie adding 14 to their initial wound threshold and it is tough to make the case for a Kalleran PC. They have hypersensitive antennae which provides them with a rank in the Heightened Awareness talent, so could make an interesting force-sensitive PC, but seems like an odd choice as a bounty hunter.

New specializations in this book include the Martial Artist, Operator, and Skip Tracer. Martial artist has a lot of interesting talents focusing on unarmed strikes and parrying in melee and brawling combat. Clients often pay more for live acquisitions, though this particular specialization may appeal to more than just bounty hunters. This may be a compelling choice for smaller parties that require more well-rounded PCs instead of specialists. To the core bounty hunter skills of Athletics, Brawl, Perception, Piloting (Planetary), Piloting (Space), Ranged (Heavy), Streetwise and Vigiliance, Martial Artist adds another Athletics, Brawl, as well as Coordination and Discipline. Your key attributes would certainly be Brawn followed by Agility, but this would make you a good pilot and a good shot in addition to being the muscle. If you are looking to create an all bounty hunter group with highly specialized PCs, hand the piloting keys over to the Operator. They add Astrogation, Gunnery, as well as additional ranks of Piloting (Planetary) and Piloting (Space). With a nice mix of talents from Ace:Driver and Explorer: Navigator, your key characteristics would be Agility followed by Intellect. Talents like Debilitating Shot allow the operator to disable vehicles with gunnery checks, as well as Shortcut and Improved Shortcut making them superior racers and ideal during vehicular pursuit of an acquisition. The Skip Tracer may be the most versatile of all three, but it is also the least focused. They add Cool, Knowledge (Underworld), Negotiation and Skulduggery, all new skills to the bounty hunter tree with two out of the three relying on Presence. With talents like Bypass Security, Good Cop, and Hard-boiled this would make a solid choice as a leader for a bounty hunter group, and certainly who you would want in the room while negotiating the contract, but suffers from being a Jack of All Trades, Master of None. This would be a fun choice for a small group focusing on investigations/noir kind of adventures, but it will take a lot of experience before they are as good as a larger group with more specialists. Ideally, you would want a 3 in Presence, Agility, and Cunning, which will give you a good pool for most of your career skills.

The two signature abilities are Always Get My Mark and Unmatched Devastation. Always Get My Mark is a narrative ability that basically fast forwards the plot until you start an encounter at your mark’s location. The book mentions the inherent issues with this as it has the ability to essentially skip the majority of an investigation/pursuit adventure and suggests this will always be a negotiation between the GM and the PC. I guess it could be cool, and I’ve never had a single character long enough to buy into one of the narrative signature abilities, but it doesn’t do a whole lot for me as a GM. It seems the cons far outweigh the pros. Unmatched Devastation is the more combat-oriented power, allowing a PC to make an additional combat check against the same target with increased difficulty and must be made with a non-ship/vehicle weapon not already used this turn. The “there was a firefight!” (NSFW language) scene from Boondock Saints immediately jumps to mind. With upgrades you can choose more targets and draw more weapons as well as move as an incidental for two strain. This ability would certainly allow a notorious bounty hunter to carve through crowds of mooks and create some truly memorable battles – especially for well-armed, outnumbered hunters.

Now to the gear! The second section of the book is definitely the highlight for me, as we now have official stats for Mandolorian armor and attachments, a few nice rifles, and five flavors of mini-rockets for either under-rifle launchers, pistol or wrist mounts: Anti-Armor, Explosive, Flechette, Incendiary, and Ion. There are also rocket attachments to increase range and improve accuracy as well as adding the Guided quality. They are awesome! There are a couple of melee weapons, including an ion pike that only does ion damage, but does 10 pierce 4! That would be a must have for a droid bounty. There are a few new interesting armor types, but of course the most intriguing is Mandalorian Armor with its five hard points. Armor attachments include micro-rocket launcher, integrated holsters, and repulsor-assisted lifting which reduces encumbrance so you can add more stuff! There is so much great gear in this book: holonet homing beacons, rocket boots, a holographic disguise matrix… the gear section is amazing.

But that is only half of it! In a brilliant stroke of brand synergy, the ships and vehicles section gives you EotE stats for almost every Scum ship in the X-wing miniatures game, since that faction is made up of all the famous bounty hunters from Star Wars. It stats out IG-88’s Aggressor Assault Fighter and provides a mechanic that makes it more maneuverable with safety limiters turned off, which causes 3 strain to organics, but only 1 to droids. The signature craft of 4-LOM and Zuckuss G1-A is provided as is the Kihraxz star fighter, YV-666 Hound’s Tooth and the soon-to-be-released C-ROC scum capitol ship.  It also stats out a few ships from recent Rebels episodes like the Mandolrian Protectorate starfighter and the Shadowcaster. The vehicle attachments include a minelayer and six types of mines! Unlike typical weapons, mines require a hard Piloting (Space) check and their damage equals the base for the mine plus uncancelled failures. Uncancelled threats can be used to trigger various qualities for the different types of mines.

The third section of the book is focused on the GM, and includes a lot of information for running investigations (which a lot of bounty hunts could certainly be) this is almost word-for-word identical to the section in Force and Destiny Endless Vigil, which is a bit disappointing. They do go into a bit more depth towards the end about creating obstacles and transistions between scenes, as well as creating an investigative campaign. If you were interesting in building these types of adventures and could only own one, I would certainly recommend this over Endless Vigil. Beyond that, there is some specific information for what benefits and risks go with being a guild bounty hunter as opposed to freelance, and outlines a few example investigative campaigns. The book ends with a section on rewards for different types of bounties and provides a table of sample bounties and modifiers in addition to exploits. Exploits provide a mechanical benefit to the bounty hunter based on performance after bringing back a Major or Legendary target. Some of these include: Humane: boost die to negotiation checks for bounties, but setback die for coercion checks about physical violence. Professional: may ask for a 10% advance on the next bounty after delivering a target within three days. Oppressor: hunter was a part of the rebel alliance or affiliate organization – adds 10% to bounties posted by the empire and increases the difficulty of social checks with rebels once.

Bottom line: This book is epic and amazing. If you only own one sourcebook for Edge of the Empire, this should be it.

ScareFest preview 2016

Scarefest 2015 – no filter

Fall is here! That means that AVLscarefest is only about a month away. Last year was a really fantastic time, and the organizers are going out of their way to apply feedback and make this year truly fantastic! From October 21-23 add set in the picturesque mountains of Montreat, NC, the old stone buildings of the campus and convention center set the mood for some spooky games of all types. Beyond the truly staggering amount of Pathfinder Society games, you’ll find thematically appropriate games of Call of Cthulhu, Dread, Ghostbusters, D&D adventurer’s league,  Dungeon Crawl Classics, Lankhmar, Cryptworld, Savage Kingdoms, Bolt Action, and many more! Get your ticket and sign up for games at the warhorn.

Last year I had an absolute blast trying games I had never tried before like Deadlands Noir, Bolt Action, and Shadowrun. I also ran a pretty creepy table of Star Wars which became the impetus to get the Star Wars bounty hunter game going. This year I’ll be running Masks of Lankhmar and two sessions of Star Wars bounty hunters. Mike will be running the Shambling Un-dead and the Arwich Grinder!

New this year is a token system, in which players and GMs are all provided tokens that can be used to reward awesome role-playing, helping out around the con, and can be used at the end of the con to win some awesome prizes from local vendors. This encourages both excellent games and excellent community spirit. I can’t wait to see the results!

Don’t miss out on this fantastic con in the mountains. Try a game you have never played, or bring your favorite game to run. I’ll see you there!

Star Wars for One

Last weekend I set up another session of our Bounty Hunter campaign at our awesome FLGS the Wyverns Tale. Most weeks we have about 4-6 people show up, some weeks we have 12, some we have zero, but this week we had one, besides myself. Solitary FFG Star Wars is possible, but… if you’re just making up stories in your own head, maybe write a book? No, this week we had me and one PC. He was understandably nervous going on a solo bounty hunt, but really this seems like it would be a much more common scenario. One hunter means you get the whole bounty, rather than a share.

Given that it is difficult to predict how many PCs will show up in a given week, I built my encounters to be very flexible. Usually if a combat encounter involves minions, I’ll have 3 minions per PC making up the minion groups. One PC table = 3 minions (not the little one-eyed yellow kind, despite how much I would not mind taking a light repeating blaster to those). Rivals are usually a pretty decent challenge for most PCs, so I recommend adding them to encounters on a one to one basis with PCs for a moderately difficult encounter. A nemesis is going to be quite a challenge to solo for one PC. It is not impossible, but it will likely require a bit of luck and some very clever tactics on the part of the PC.

Beyond combat, social encounters can be very challenging for a lone PC, unless they have a particularly well-rounded character. Often when playing in large groups, it is very helpful to specialize in just a few skills. You can be the party “face” with a lot of social skills, the muscle, the sniper, the mechanic/slicer, or maybe the driver/gunner. With a smaller party, and especially a party of one, you need a diversified character. Some career specializations lend themselves to this better than others. Dangerous Covenants, the sourcebook for hired guns has great examples off both a specialist, and a generalist. Take the Heavy: nearly all skills and talents are related to making you a walking tank. Good luck with anything outside wielding the heaviest weapons with devastating efficacy. Not very effective during negotiations, unless those negotiations turn aggressive. On the other side of the coin you have the Enforcer: adding Brawl, Coercion, Knowledge (Underworld) and Streetwise. This is the darker side of a “face” character, but when you add those skills to the already diverse base set for hired gun of Athletics, Brawl (again), Discipline, Melee, Piloting (Planetary), Ranged (Light), Resilience, and Vigilance, you get a street tough that knows how to drive, shoot, brawl, and intimidate information out of underworld contacts. Maybe not someone you would send in for delicate political negotiations, but pretty good in most Edge of the Empire situations.

This past week, as really every week of the Bounty Hunter campaign was fantastically entertaining. The player ended up using his most experienced and well-equipped PC, despite having a fairly narrow skill set as a Bounty Hunter Assassin. Sometimes *not* having the appropriate skill led to some hilarious situations. Negotiating with a Drall duchess, investigating a missing person, and attempting to wheedle information from the Drall Wing Guard were not this PC’s strengths, but that added to the adventure as he caused quite a stir around the capital city of Mastogophorus. Most of the combat encounters he breezed through, since that is his wheelhouse, and in the final battle he held his own, despite going against three rivals through some skilled tactics and favorable rolls.

Starting the session we were both a bit anxious as to how one PC would be able to succeed, but by the end we both agreed it was an excellent adventure and all the more memorable thanks to having just one PC! For those of you attempting your own one on one Star Wars game, I would recommend planning a lot more encounters and encounter areas than if you were planning for a larger group. My typical three major act format usually takes a full group about 3-4 hours. With one PC we were done in two.

May the Fourth Be With You

 

A few weeks back, I was roped into trying my hand at running a session of the Fantasy Flight RPG Star Wars “Edge of Empire” at the local Bounty Hunter’s Guild at The Wyvern’s Tale in Asheville, North Carolina. It’s a weekly (or semi-weekly) “drop in” game that Kevin has posted about before, and since I had played several games figured I would step up and try my hand at GMing.

It was a complete blast!

I am normally a person who preps like crazy. As noted before, I have a penchant for making detailed binders for trips and for campaigns. The story-telling nature of the typical Star Wars game, however, doesn’t lend itself to my normal GM style. Stepping way outside of my comfort zone, I came up with a basic premise with three “scenes” to make the entire game. First up, an alien xeno-archaeologist (with a bounty on his head) discovers a hidden temple and needs rescue; there’s unique environmental effects which cause havoc (and preclude the use of the bounty hunter’s overpowered normal transport) and causes their ship to crash to the planet’s surface; and at last a big scary beast to scare the bounty hunters off.

For the first part, I decided to make the alien a Brizzit and that he would have a protocol droid translator who was demolished. The temple he was hiding out in was dedicated to the Sith, and there would be a Sith or Sith-spirit present. The second part would be the planet itself: heavy electrical storms in the high altitude meant that any vehicle without specialty shielding would almost certainly crash (luckily the Bounty Hunter’s patron had just such a ship); and finally, for the third scene I’d have to create a creature loosely based on the Krayt dragon, but capable of flying for the final battle, followed by rescue from another ship.

I tried to play it fast and loose. I figured the first scene would be a combo: quick RP interaction with the Hutt boss and outline of the mission followed by a piloting / mechanics check scenario as they try to navigate the horrific lightning storm. Right from the get-go that didn’t go according to plan. With a double-Triumph and setback dies removed from the check due to some crazy co-pilot talents, the ship sailed down with minor damage, enough that I ruled there was a hull breach and they’d need to set down for repairs.

The second scene was originally supposed to be interaction with the alien (who did not speak Basic) and repairs to the protocol droid, and that went as planned for the most part. We didn’t have a real ‘face’ character so without too much misunderstanding the repairs were effected and the Brizzit convinced the group to take cover from the approaching storm in the temple itself.

This is the point at which having tried to plan on every contingency would have been a very bad mistake. The original idea was to very cinematically have the Sith Master drop in front of the hole made by blasting through the wall, threatening the PCs and then being swallowed (fancy red lightsaber and all) by the humongous “dragon” and the smaller ones (still quite dangerous) leaping in to attack.

Of course, two of the PCs got first attack and one of them rolled a Triumph (again!) to shoot the lightsaber out of his hands and the other one did some crazy maneuvering to roll around and grab it. At this point, things are very much off the rails. A Chadra-fan mechanic skill monkey with a lightsaber can just about ruin any campaign, so I had to think fast. Additional fire from the high-powered assassin droid and several rounds of crits from the Bounty Hunters rocked the Sith back on his heels and it was only a matter of time before he fell.

Now I felt it was time to panic. I knew I’d have to get that away from them somehow, and then it hit me: this was the “treasure” the Brizzit and his no-good protocol droid were after the whole time! I played up the fact that the storm wouldn’t be abating for several hours and they were in for a long repair session, but afterwards they’d be good to go. With a few nudges about how exhausted they were, everyone played right into my hands by putting the assassin droid as “guard” while the rest of the crew napped. One restraining bolt later and the “xeno-archaeologist” steals the lightsaber off the sleepy Chadra-fan and runs out into the storm to “escape” while the droid fought everyone who was waking up.

Cue the music and it’s the other bad guy who gets scooped up by the big “dragon”(along with that saber)… and everything from there continued more or less as planned. They killed the big thing (again thanks to a lot of crits), got the ship up and out of the storm and away back to home base. They had to explain why their bounty was dead and the ship had a hole and they really had nothing to offer beyond the location of an old Sith temple. The Hutt (and by extension me) took some pity on them, swore them to secrecy saying he may have a buyer for that sort of information (and a potential plot hook for another game).

All in all, I had a great time with a low-prep way of running and everyone seemed to have a good time. The game lends itself to a different style of GMing than I am used to and I really enjoyed it when all is said and done. Kevin pointed out that only I could make a Star Wars game with space wizards and thunder dragons. Rightly so.

With it being May the Fourth today would be a good day to write down some ideas of your own for your Star Wars campaign. Just look out for those untrustworthy droids…