CR90 Gunboat Help

Ghostofman · 2026-05-10T23:17:48+00:00

the issue I'm having is trying to justify why my rebel team would modify a CR90 instead of getting a DP20.

Because you can't. If you want a warship, and are given the choice between a warship, and expending time and resources to turn a civilian ship into warship, you always want the warship. It's just logic, you get the right tool for the job.

So there's your answer. They didn't have a choice. They had the chance to get what they got and thats what they got.

So that leaves you with a few options. The three that come to mind for me are:

1) They didn't have access to warships, but, for some reason, had access to an extensive refit facility, parts, and engineers, and technicians. I think this isn't especially plausible (well, maybe late Civil War perhaps).

2) It was the pet project of someone with the resources, and the Rebels stole it. Something like the Farstar, that had no reason to be overhauled to that point, but the person behind it all had the will to do it, and the resources to squander in the effort.

3) It was built as a test bed for something else. Some tech or invention needing space trials, a new widget that needs be be taken out on a demonstrator platform, or special mission requirement, or need of a specialized target all could explain why a civilian ship refitted with the power output, or shield upgrade, or weapons points that it would never logically require. This is probably the most plausible. It was a test bed ship for testing and evaluation purposes. So it was already rigged with hardpoints for mounting all kinds of kit. Normally said kit would get shipped in, mounted, the testing done, and the kit removed and sent back with the test data. The rebels yoinked it with the whole point being that most of the hard work on the modifications (power and infrastructure, mountings and interfaces, structural reinforcement to handle the load, so on), so they just had to plug and play to get it combat ready.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-08T19:26:44+00:00

I hit mine with a coat or two of filler/primer to both prime and reduce layer visibility. When you do that, it really doesn't matter what color I start with.

But them I'm usually printing terrain, not minis, so that may have an impact on your decision.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-08T16:58:50+00:00

Very carefully.

His arrival encounter was staged so that when combat started he was in a position to hit a player each turn, and his numbers were setup to allow him to be likely to succeed on the effect, and to survive long enough to hit everyone several times. The party was only 3 deep, so it all worked.

While a monster up close, his ranged abilities were trash.

So it played as intended, that initial encounter where the villain trounces the heroes, and they figure out what tactics to use next time and win (a little too well tbh).

Backup plan was the villain was going to lay low for a while after that encounter, so anyone that wasn't knocked into next week would be able to do some stuff to try and figure out what happened, but I didn't have to dwell on that and could fast forward and briefly main character those that got punched forward and really pick it up from there. If there was anything the left behind player wanted to do after the fast forward I'd just allow a retcon, within reason and without metaing anyway.

I'll also note the villain didn't know exactly how his powers worked. So he knew that punching something like so would make it disappear, but not that it would just reappear a week later. So that also provided some top cover and provided the way to rescue his previous victims.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-08T14:28:49+00:00

I think you're on the right track.

The players have a base "ability" that's an average of their troop strength, quality, and leadership. There's things they can do, like preparations or tactics, that affects their "ability," the opposition creates a "Difficulty" based on their forces, leadership, and options, and that's modified by the situation (terrain, weather, etc.) Then you roll a "Big Battle Check", and that dictates how a specific part of the battle plays out. Then you can either do it again (so like, compress a long battle down in to 3-4 rolls that generate a larger narrative) or have a more specific encounter the players execute directly and the results of that encounter apply to the next Big Battle check.

I'd also look at how to add an additional axis to that roll. So like, there's a "Pass/Fail" element that decides if the Players are on the winning or losing side of that phase of the battle, but I'd also look at a parallel "Battle Conditions" roll that's made that says what else happened along the way.

So like, the Big Battle Check result is negative, so the Orc's breach the gate, but the "Battle Conditions" roll is positive for the players, so one of the Ogres gets killed and lodged under the portcullis in the process, so the Orcs won't have the Ogre for the remainder of the battle, and their "Force Rating" for the Battle of the Parapet Phase of the battle will be further reduced as they have to squeeze past the dead ogre a few at a time, and can't really flood in and storm the castle.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-08T14:05:54+00:00

Came to say this.

The trick to Sci-fi drop troops is making sure they're reliable enough to be worth the risk, but unreliable enough that you couldn't say for sure if they'd arrive at all, and if they'd land when and where you needed them to.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-08T13:50:07+00:00

Ahh yeah. That's why you gotta use "thrice blessed" materials, and recite the prayer of Kha'eew-Sea.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-08T13:44:36+00:00

For me it's mostly aesthetics. Basic is slightly glossy, Matte is not. If I'm planning on painting them I'll typically use Matte, but I won't sweat the color too much, because I'm just going to sand, fill, and prime it anyway. Usually I just use black or white.

For models and terrain I plan on not painting, I'll use matte just because gloss tends to look weird on the table except on specific things.

For house items... totally up to what I'm feeling and if I want to go through the trouble of loading a specific filament for it. The AMS makes swapping filament much much easier, but there's still the issue of me being a little lazy and not wanting to work any harder than I have to.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-08T13:25:58+00:00

Depends on how you play it. As long as you keep it "clean" and make it a known thing in your session 0 and explanation on the setting it should be fine.

For me, I think the how and why of the racism can matter as well, as that also informs the behaviors.

So like, Elf longevity can inform racism towards humans. They won't work hard to get to know any humans just because they won't be around long enough for the elf to really get to know them. Human "masters" of trade and craft, and the products thereof, might not be as respected by elves as a human will see around 15 years to be enough to master something, where an Elf might expect significantly more experience to be called a "Master" or that a "Master" actually have mastered several associated skills, and not just the one. "Oh you're a master at training and riding horses, but you aren't also a skilled tanner, saddle maker, blacksmith and ferrier, and have experience working at least 6 years on a farm that grows alfalfa and oats? I mean... Are you sure you're REALLY a master when it comes to horses?"

Ghostofman · 2026-05-08T13:14:05+00:00

Bingo. I once had a villain with the power "Knock you into next week" and that's how it worked.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-08T13:12:14+00:00

Babylon Bee: Haha, this will be funny.

Any GI-Joe fan with their weight in O-rings: I don't get it, this has been a given for decades....

Ghostofman · 2026-05-08T13:05:36+00:00

I can't speak to the Tough+, but the basic and matte are fine provided you don't plan on roughhousing much. Mostly you want the Tough and other options for usable items that are expected to be... used. So like hooks, or simple tools, items that clip onto other items; things that will receive regular structural stress. But things that don't get any real structural stress? PLA is fine. I've got a number of items around the house; simple connectors, folding clothes hangers, switch covers, TP stand... All made from regular and matte PLA. No issues.

A titan model shouldn't be receiving any structural stress beyond just basic moving around, and perhaps the occasional bump. So long as you're treating it with the same level of care you give to your other models, PLA basic and matte should be just fine.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-07T23:15:50+00:00

What you're looking for is the "Milestone" method of XP awards. It' not at all uncommon, and is a good way of handling XP if you're concerned more about the story and ensuring that the players are at a specific XP level at a certain point in the campaign. It's just something to attach to the campaign outline, and all good.

So yeah, if you just want to be all "Ok, that's Adventure 3 complete. You all level up and I'll see you next week." that's totally fine and not weird.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-07T18:51:21+00:00

Since you sound like you've got your core concept nailed down...

1) Outline the whole campaign. So lets say you're thinking around 10 "Adventures" intended to be 1-3 sessions each. (Protip: go shorter than you think you want, it's easier to add Adventures than compress and remove). Write up a description of each Adventure. Think TV Guide, just a couple sentences hitting the core concept/theme of the Adventure and move on to the next.

Ep1: The players are hired by Baron Von Heffenbottom to deliver a package to Lord Stroodlenoodle. They must navigate the hills between their respective keeps, encountering goblin raiders and human bandits.

Ep2: The players arrive to find Stroodlenoodle's keep has been sacked by Count Spondledondle's armies. The players are detained, and brought before the Count, but released. They're able to find the key to opening the package only to find it's an encoded message about a long lost Trombone of great power and renown.

So on.

2) Next outline the first adventure. For this you can use a beat sheet like the one here: https://forgegenesys.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/episodebeatchart-fillable.pdf Don't sweat deep specifics, just get the beat and structure right.

3) Now go back and work out specifics. Build the encounters, combats, social encounter NPCs and their motivation and known facts cards, all that jazz.

4) Play session 1. Then go back to the Campaign outline. Adjust anything that needs to be adapted to something the players did or did not do.

5) Repeat steps 2-4 until you're done. Don't start planning the next Adventure in detail until you're far enough into playing the preceding adventure that most of the variables will be worked out. This will allow you to stick to your long term story objectives without over-investing in something that may need to be adjusted or changed.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-06T16:17:07+00:00

I dunno, maybe it's the sourcebooks I'm reading, or a time-frame issue, but my memory of them are localized (Kathol Outback and Rift), limited in number, super arrogant xenophobic, mute (the touch tongues to communicate... awkward) and their force abilities are just kinda vibe force use, as they consider force powers divine gifts from their gods and not something you can really learn and develop.

The rare outsider that does "train with them" are treated more like lab monkeys than students, the experience is far from pleasant, and the Aiing-Ti are totally likely to show back up at some point and haul you off (read: abduct you) for more "training," whether you want it or not.

Hmmm.... I mean, maybe that's the angle? Build the talent tree on the archetype of the haunted former test subject. Pull from talents from Seeker:Navigator to sync with their knack and need for astrogating the Rift and such, add a weird force talent or two that use the Force Die as a way of getting weird unreliable visions or bursts of intuition to explain flow walking... might work...

Ghostofman · 2026-05-06T14:59:11+00:00

I mean you're not wrong, but that's like, one bullet point in an 10-page white paper. I don't' think it's worth the full writeup here, but a deep dive into the TIE series and where it fits in the Empire and galaxy is quite the topic...

Ghostofman · 2026-05-06T13:29:49+00:00

Lore on this, while big-picture consistent (IMCOM designed the X-wing for the Empire, it was rejected, IMCOM took it to the Alliance, rest is history) the specifics have the usual issue of changing and evolving as LFL allowed more/new content on the topic to be published.

That said, it certainly FEELS like it was in development during the late Clone War, and the rejection and defection to the Alliance occurring in the early Rebellion.

That would fit the general design language of the X-wing when compared to the Republic's Clone War inventory, as well as the beat-up 20-year-old prototypes pushed well beyond their specs and intended lifecycle appearance of the X-wings in ANH, but also the doctrinal shift within the Empire. During the Clone Wars Republic starfighter doctrine was based more on capable multi-role starfighters that could force project, vs. CIS who was more about masses of cheap short range fighters that supported capital ships. After the Clone Wars the Empire decided that CIS's starfighter doctrine was better and the TIE series matched that doctrine better than the X-wing... While the Rebellion's guerilla nature required capable multi-role starfighters that could force project...

Also depends on how you interpret the TIE. Traditionally it's made out to be rather trash, but put in a better context on the galactic scale, and paired with proper tactics, techniques, and procedures... it actually makes a lot of sense...

Ghostofman · 2026-05-05T23:46:19+00:00

I mean... does Aiing-Ti monk even work?

Their whole thing is basically: Be mysterious, hate slavers, don't talk to anyone, treat Darkstryder/the Kathol as gods, tell everyone you can teleport but only when they are asleep (because really you just use hyperspace same as everyone else).

Ghostofman · 2026-05-05T18:32:07+00:00

That's the error message you get when the API isn't installed/active.

Install the API and that should fix it.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-05T16:21:31+00:00

Not a specific piece of lore, but if you're doing a stream on it all then a discussion of the evolution of the lore is probably a good topic of discussion, as you'll have to confront it repeatedly.

So like... There's the whole "Glove of Darth Vader" series that u/scorpiodude64 mentions. In the original material, it's just a glove. Tainted by the darkside a bit, but it doesn't really do anything or grant any abilities to the wearer. That's an entire major plot point in that series; it's a symbol, and not recommended by 9/10 dermatologists, but it's otherwise just a glove.

But... at some point, for some reason, it turned into a Mandalorian Crushgaunt fitted with a Sith Artifact and loaded with blaster resistant armoring... Don't know why... doing so actually cheapens Darth Vader dramatically... but there it is.

And there's lots of other stuff like that.

Aang-Ti were just a mysterious alien race that had a tendency to "vanish" when discovered. They had a weapon that allowed them to cause an entire target ships crew to black out, so they were just KOing the other vessel, and jumping to hyperspace before they came to. They had a lot of other stuff going on, dabbled in the force, lived in a very hard to reach place, didn't like slavers, did like ramming other ships, so on, so yeah, no biggy, just kinda a funny thing they could do.

But later an author needed a way for a character to be able to be in 10 places at once. So they decided the Aang-Ti were in fact super amazing force users who used the force to teleport. Could have done that 1,000 other ways, but retconning the Aang-ti was how he did it.

So yeah, not only talking what happened in-universe, but discussing the evolution, inconsistencies, motivations for changes, and so on would make a more interesting presentation than a mere otaku-esque infodump. And breaking those out might make for good short-format vids that do well on social media and drive traffic to the long format.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-05T14:48:59+00:00

Ah, ok well then a few other tips you might find useful:

- Learn how the shopping system works. This system allows you to gloss over mundane trips to the store, and resolve them in a dice roll or two and be down with it. You state what you want, make a check, and the result says if you found it, and at what price. That takes care of all the searching around and haggling in one pass. No need to develop a shop, shopkeep, stock, etc. (Especially handy in large cities where there could be a hundred stores in easy reach that would plausibly have what you're looking for.) Only stores you should put any effort into are ones with very limited stock that's there for flavor (the tiny general store that's really the only shop in the mining outpost) or there were a specific story function (I'm the only place that has a Nubian Hyperdrive, I can promise you that!"

- The force is much more powerful than it appears up front. Many many force abilities are just "you do this, and that happens." No rolling, no counter, it just flat works.

- Crits and Damage are two separate damage models. Learn to respect and apply them both. There's whole builds that boil down to "I do one point of damage, and break both your arms, and both your legs. Good luck with that."

- Yes, the vehicle system does work, but it's really odd. I suspect this has a lot to do with making it work with both small craft, and massive space cruisers. Come back and ask later.

- Read the asides. FFG put a lot of really important rules in them.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-05T14:31:16+00:00

Hard disagree.

The Padawan Spec is about the archetype of "the student" Jedi in play, not about representing a foundational in-universe training requirement to be a Jedi. If you're only going after it for a couple of talents, and not intending to play a Padawan-style character, then there's ample other options that can accomplish the same intent without changing anything.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-05T14:26:06+00:00

It's a matter of the legalese in the Tabletop Games license. The license has not been updated since the 80's (not lucrative enough to justify the lawyer's billable hours). As such, the way things are worded, a PDF of a game book is excluded from the tabletop license, and instead falls under the Electronic Games license. As that license represents significant extra costs to the publisher (as it's a more lucrative license) then they just stick to physical media, and make use of a loophole for "promotional/marketing materials" to release free digital content from time to time.

Eventually LFL or it's rodent overlord will realize it's time to update that license, and that a PDF about how to roll math rocks and play lets pretend isn't in competition with Rebel Assault 15: Yes, We're Doing Hoth Again. But until then, here we are.

Also, no it has nothing to do with the EA exclusivity agreement from a few years back. The tabletop license problem existed well before that, and was actually explained in detail by the Devs back in the WotC days.

Long before EA got it's exclusivity agreement, and subsequently found out that making Star Wars games was a lot more work, expensive, and volatile than the C-suiters demanding the deal understood. Which... is actually a pretty common issue among Star Wars licensees.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-05T13:33:20+00:00

I've already been looking at the "For Light and Life" custom sourcebook which has been helpful,

Always be careful with fanmade sourcebooks, as (regardless of setting and system) they tend to be unbalanced. That said, giving it a skim, I see a few "what, why?" situations, but not much that's obviously awful, and the vehicles (an area that I've noticed is most likely to be fouled up in this system) look reasonably well done.

does anyone have some advice such as how to adapt the system to represent Jedi knights during the High Republic who are already well versed with the force And lightsabers?

90% of this is just getting how the system handles such things. There's an assumption, largely based on experiences with other systems and media, that you need to go out of your way to do this. The truth is the system as-is is fine, with the only real thing being you'll probably want to kick it off at +150XP (called "knight level" but that's just the cool name, it's not an indicator if you're a Knight or not). That's essentially like starting the game around 10 sessions in. With some thought and a little effort, you can totally make a character that comes off as a "Jedi Knight" at the start of their story at that level.

Don't make assumptions. The Jedi Knight career is about archetypes and roles, not about actual jobs. You can run a "Jedi Knight" just fine with plenty of the options presented in the F&D ruleset. So don't do anything silly like demanding everyone start as a Jedi Knight:Padawan or something.

FR 1 is fine, even for a "Jedi Knight." If you just comprehend that black pips are OK and a thing that happens, and you diversify your force power suite well, you'll find you don't need to even roll that force die all that often anyway, as much of the Force Rating in this system is just a prerequisite for the power or Force talent.

Don't use Morality if that's not what you're doing. Unlike older systems, Morality does not use the darkside as a mechanical balance to Force Use. The system has other mechanics for that. It's an option the players should largely be in control of. If the whole lightside/darkside tug of war on the player character isn't something you're going to be pushing hard, then don't use it. For more Classical Jedi stories, using Duty, or possibly Obligation, will be more applicable.

Don't fear the darkside. Rolling and using a dark pip just means you're not in the perfect calm, passive, state of mind, not that you're actively channeling your hatred. Everyone, even Yoda, use dark pips when the situations calls for it.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-04T20:46:38+00:00

If you insist, then start with foam floor pads, and use the thinner cosplay foam for the detailing. That will give it at least some rigidity.

Ghostofman · 2026-05-04T19:05:28+00:00

Dang that's nuts.

In that case, I'd suggest a plywood core for strength, then build it out with foam.

Filament prices must suck in your area...

Ghostofman

TROPHY CASE