Vehicle Combat

Epic Path \

The Basics

Vehicle combat rules are optional, since some campaign settings will have no use for them. Furthermore, some GM's may disagree with the approach outlined below, as it is quite different from the traditional ship vs. ship combat of other game systems.

Specifically, in order to ensure that every player is engaged in all aspects of the combat, these rules assume that each player will be piloting their own vehicle, and that they will typically be fighting multiple enemy vehicles. This mimics the way traditional melee combat works in as many ways as was practical. In fact, rules are included to mix vehicle combat directly with traditional melee combat encounters (e.g. PC ships versus monsters, or PC's versus NPC's in ships).

In a highly magical world, even in a pirates/high seas setting, or ancient Roman-style chariot combat, it's hard to imagine that any hero would put himself in the position of being a helpless passenger, hoping that the one PC who took ranks in a driving skill doesn't get the whole party killed. Even worse, such combats can sometimes stretch on for an hour or longer of real time, while the majority of the party can only sit around waiting for it to finish, with little input over the outcome, except that they might die of things go pear-shaped.

Instead, heroes being the resourceful folk that they are, we assume they'd want their own vehicle to join in with, supplying death and mayhem with their own flavor of subtlety (or lack thereof) and flair.

While it breaks the traditional motif of one pirate ship facing off against that imperial ship-of-the-line, the first rule of gaming is it should be fun. Giving each player a way to participate directly in the combat is more important, in our opinion, that keeping with traditions that have, historically, always failed to be fun (for everyone except that one bard with skill ranks to burn on random skills like Profession (Drover)).

Mother Ship (Optional)

We encourage the need for a central mother ship, piloted by one of the PC's, and larger than the other ships in the party, which acts as a central base and refueling/repair area for the smaller fighters that the rest of the party uses during combat encounters. It's not too huge a stretch to think that magical pirates might employ smaller, faster craft to gain advantages against their prey, or that the blue-sailed Ship-of-the-Line of Her Majesty's Navy might do the same. The mother ship is also the only vehicle that is capable of longer, independent voyages between settlements.

The mother ship is also a participant in the combat, but is less offensive and more defensive. For more details on why this is still fun, see Ship Classes, below.

However, this mother ship notion is entirely optional, purely for color, and to add a point of interest in combat (you have to defend your party's mother ship, and it's fruitful to single out the NPC mother ship over the less-important fighters). If it doesn't fit your campaign's theme, you could just as easily make all ships relatively equal to each other. There are no game mechanics that work better or worse without a mother ship in these rules.

Overview

All vehicle combat uses 2-D space, rather than 3-D space, even in cases where all the vehicles are capable of flight. This is to keep things simpler, especially in terms of miniatures on a map. Frankly, until your X-axis exceeds your Y-axis by a fair margin, there is no difference between 2-D and 3-D anyway, since diagonals are measured 1:1.

The combat round still consists of each player getting one standard, one move and one swift action. However, unlike traditional melee combats, each round begins with a Planning Phase, and then everyone takes their move actions simultaneously during the Movement Phase. It isn't until the Action Phase that initiatives are calculated, and each player takes their standard and swift actions in order.

During the Planning Phase, each ship-based participant must secretly select their movement, standard action and swift action for the round. Once everyone has had a chance to make their choice, all of these actions are revealed simultaneously, even the enemy NPC ships' actions, and no character can change those actions after the fact. If you declare you are going to attack this round, but after everyone moves, there's no one in your firing arc, you've wasted that action.

Next, all movement actions are performed, simultaneously and without regard to initiative, based on the movement each PC and NPC selected for the round.

Once that is done, initiatives are calculated, and each player takes their standard and swift actions during their turn.

The reason for changing the movement to simultaneous resolution is to emphasize that vehicle combat is kinetic. Vehicles rarely, if ever, move adjacent to their intended target, park in one square and unload with full attack actions until one or the other of them fall over dead. Instead, there are strafing runs, dog fights, and constant movement. Stopping in one place, even briefly, makes your ship an easy target.

Another major break from traditional melee combat is that vehicle combat requires the use of facing, and firing arcs. Most vehicles must line up their shots with the enemy before they can attack, and clever pilots will want to do so without exposing themselves to being lined up upon by the enemy at the same time. Maneuver and position are key.

These differences are even more interesting when vehicles square off against non-vehicle opponents. The vehicles have to follow the declared actions rule, resolve their movement before any attacks, must line up their attacks within their limited firing arcs, and must concern themselves with facing. Non-vehicle-borne creatures do not need to do any of these things. They have no facing, and they can decide all of their actions, and the order in which they are performed, without any need to reveal those plans beforehand, and without committing to them, able to adapt if the situation changes before their turn arrives. Creatures can react much more quickly, and target their enemies much more easily than vehicles can. Of course, vehicles are heavily armored, and inflict terrible damage on unfortified foes with their mighty siege weaponry. All-in-all, such encounters are exciting, and quite different from the norm.

Size and Space

Each square in vehicular combat is equal to 50 feet, instead of 5 feet.

Most PC's will start off in smaller fighter craft, which will typically be sized-small or sized-medium, each of which takes up a single 50-foot square. The ship itself is assumed to occupy the whole space, even if its actual dimensions are less than that.

Movement is measured in squares. Thus a movement like "Straight 4" would be moving forward 4 spaces, in the same direction the ship is currently facing, and leaving the ship's facing unchanged throughout the movement.

Each turn type describes exactly how it is performed, and when the ship's facing changes. Ships (nearly) always move in the direction they are facing, unless the movement type specifically states otherwise (e.g. barrel roll 3).

A ship's firing arc is always considered to be the 90-degree cone directly in front of it, in a square the size of the firing range. So a ship with a weapons range of 3 would have a firing arc that was 3x3 (150 feet by 150 feet), originating from the front face of the ship and always 45-degrees to each side of that face.

This is very easy to visualize on a square grid:

• If we imagine the top side of the square as north, and that our ship is facing north, and has a weapon range of 3, the firing arc is drawn 3 square diagonally to the northeast and 3 squares diagonally to the northwest, and 3 squares directly ahead of us (north), with our own ship's square being the bottom corner of a fat triangle. This is the shape of a firing arc when the ship's facing is towards the flat side of a square.
• If we imagine our ship is facing diagonally, say, northeast, and has a weapon range of 3, the firing arc is drawn directly north 3 squares, directly east 3 squares, and diagonally in front of us (northeast) 3 squares, forming a box which is actually 4x4 squares in shape, with our ship occupying the bottom right corner of the box. This is the shape of the firing arc when the ship's facing is towards a corner of a square.

Obviously, different weapon ranges will result in smaller or larger firing arcs, but the way they are visualized on the map remains the same.

A ship can fire into any square that is inside its firing arc. A ship cannot fire into any space outside of its firing arc, unless it has some special ability which allows it to specifically do so.

All turns are always either 45-degrees, 90-degrees or 180-degrees, and always remain either in the cardinal or ordinal directions of the square.

Diagonals are always treated as being 1:1, just as with traditional melee combat, even though, proportionally, this is inaccurate. It makes counting and visualizing MUCH easier, and since everyone follows the same rules, the weird mathematical exploits can be used by everyone equally. (Thanks, Pythagoras. Jerk.)

The Combat Round

Each combat round has a Planning Phase, a Movement Phase and an Action Phase.

Planning Phase

Each player secretly determines both their move action, their standard action, and their swift action (if available) before any actions are revealed.

Ideally, this is done with playing cards or some other thing which can be selected in secret, and then flipped over to reveal the chosen actions. Some suggestions on how to convert playing cards for this purpose are provided below.

Once selected, you can't change your mind in reaction to what everyone else did. Players can collaborate and plan at the table beforehand, but they must do so where the GM can listen, unless they have magic items or some other means of secret communication. As a result, it's usually better if players don't specify exactly what they're going to do.

Planning your move action

Each ship has a list of available moves it can make. Not every ship can make every kind of move, and some ships are better at some moves than others.

There are 17 basic moves (but only because each move includes a speed), and within those 17, there are three strengths of the move, dictating how easy it is for the pilot to pull off that particular move. Strengths are described as (red), meaning they cost 1 focus to perform, (yellow) meaning they cost no focus to perform, and (green) meaning you gain 1 focus for performing it. The fastest, most agile ships will frequently gain focus from their move action.

Basic Move Types

• Sudden Halt
• Straight 1 (move forward 1 square, facing unchanged)
• Straight 2 (move forward 2 squares, facing unchanged)
• Straight 3 (move forward 3 squares, facing unchanged)
• Straight 4 (move forward 4 squares, facing unchanged)
• Straight 5 (move forward 5 squares, facing unchanged)
• Straight 6 (move forward 6 squares, facing unchanged)
• Shallow Turn 2 (forward 1 square, 45-degree face change, forward 1 square)
• Shallow Turn 3 (forward 2 squares, 45-degree face change, forward 1 square)
• Shallow Turn 4 (forward 2 squares, 45-degree face change, forward 2 squares)
• Sharp Turn 2 (45-degree face change, forward 2 squares, 45-degree face change)
• Sharp Turn 3 (45-degree face change, forward 3 squares, 45-degree face change)
• Sharp Turn 4 (45-degree face change, forward 4 squares, 45-degree face change)
• U-Turn 3 (move forward 3 squares, facing reversed)
• U-Turn 4 (move forward 4 squares, facing reversed)
• Barrel Roll 2 (move 2 squares directly left or right, facing unchanged)
• Barrel Roll 3 (move 3 squares directly left or right, facing unchanged)

Note that the turn movements can be used to turn either left or right, but you must declare whether you are turning left or right at the same time the movement is selected.

Each ship picks out its available movement types at the time it is created, and can gain additional movement types (or trade up for better versions of existing movement types), based on ship level, or ship upgrades. It is common for a ship to have only 4 to 5 movement types available to it, and lower level or less agile ships may be very limited in which movement types they can select. Even the most agile ships will rarely have even as many as 10 available movement types.

It is possible for ships to have a top speed higher than 6, but only through upgrades or special abilities. If a ship has such a thing, they are not performed during the movement phase, but instead as swift actions (or sometimes free actions). Often, this non-move-action movement makes the ship considerably more adaptable to the surrounding combat.

Move Action Initiative Modifier

Many move actions include an initiative modifier, usually based on the actual speed of the maneuver selected, which is added to your initiative score for the round. Initiatives are not calculated until the start of the Action Phase (see below).

Planning Your Standard Action

All ships can perform the following standard actions:

• Double move a whole second move, which can be completely different from the first, and is chosen after all normal movement is resolved.
  • some ships have a higher speed during double moves (ship class and upgrades)
• attack make an attack roll against an enemy vehicle within range
• take aim make an attack roll against an enemy vehicle within range, but instead of doing damage if you hit, you gain a +2 bonus to your CMB when making attacks against that target, until the end of the encounter, or until it dies.
• evasive maneuvers gain a +2 dodge bonus to your ship's CMD until the end of the round.
• build focus make a skill check to build focus
• damage control shunt power to repairing damage and rebuilding shields

Note that most ships, especially once they are upgraded, have access to 1 or more additional standard actions. See the specific ship class or ship upgrade for details.

While all movement is performed simultaneously, standard (and swift) actions are performed on your initiative, taking turns with all other PC's and NPC's in the combat. The exception to this is the Evasive Maneuvers action, which occurs immediately after you reveal that it was your selection.

Planning Your Swift Action

Few pilots will even have a swift action available to them at low levels, but once they have access to 1 or more swift actions, they must secretly declare that swift action as part of their planning phase.

As with normal combat, you may only perform a single swift action on your turn. You may choose to perform your chosen swift action either before or after your standard action.

Action Points

Average Vehicle Stats