Star Wars would not be Star Wars without all of the cool starships and exciting space battles. Needless to say, players and gamemasters should be able to replicate these elements in a Star Wars roleplaying game. Starships of the Galaxy, the Star Wars D20 sourcebook of ships and space adventures, helps them do exactly that.
Starships of the Galaxy is a 110-page softcover book. The interior is entirely black and white, with the art consisting of still images from the Star Wars movies and original drawings. Each starship described in the book is accompanied by a photo (if it was in any of the films) or a drawing (usually if it wasn’t, though a few ships that were in the movies are represented by drawings rather than photos). Though the drawings are of good quality, it can occasionally be hard to tell which craft is which, as some drawings contain ships that have never been seen before. The book’s layout is well organized, and the text is easily readable.
The first of the book’s nine chapters, “Designing Starships,” provides a system that enables users to either construct new starships from scratch or modify one of the existing designs found later in the book. The point-based ship design system is easy to understand, yet has enough options to enable one to make just about any type of starship one can think of. Designers start by choosing the ship’s size class (ranging from fine to colossal), which determines base numbers for hull points, damage resistance, length, and mass in addition to providing a base construction point cost. From there, one spends points on the nine starship traits (automation, life support, stowage, consumables, hyperdrive, ion engines, shields, superstructure, and weapons suite) to give starships their desired characteristics. The size class of a ship determines how many points it can spend on the various traits; for example, a colossal ship can have many points worth of stowage space, but cannot spend as many points on ion engines as a diminutive vessel. The number of points spent on a ship’s design dictates the base cost of the ship in credits (prior to adding weapons and other options). Once points are spent on the nine traits, designers can choose additional options for ships such as weapons, extra armor, and improved communication or maneuvering systems. When this is done, the designer adds the cost of the extras to the base credit cost to get the total cost of the ship. The design system is so easy that nearly everyone will be comfortable with it after designing his or her first craft. But despite its simplicity, the system is very comprehensive and flexible.
The second chapter of the book, “Designing Space Stations,” introduces a new class of starship into the Star Wars RPG: the (you guessed it) space station. This class covers immobile space structures such as skyhooks and StarForge Station along with truly massive craft like Super Star Destroyers. Though some of the design specifics are different (space stations cannot move at faster than cruising speed, for example, and hyperdrives are considerably more expensive), for the most part this chapter is just like the previous one, as space stations are designed in the same way as their smaller counterparts.
Chapter Three, “Shipyard Secrets,” gives descriptions of the galaxy’s major shipyards and how their quality and size affect the speed at which they construct ships. Each shipyard is accompanied by a paragraph that describes its history, role in economic and military affairs, and the designs for which they are most known. These descriptions are probably the best (and definitely the most interesting) part of the chapter. Additionally, this chapter addresses how ships can be procured and modified through the black market along with instructions on how to handle both modification and regular maintenance of characters’ starships.
The next chapter, titled “New Rules,” focuses more on mechanical rather than setting details. It begins by suggesting starship-related uses for skills that you may or may not have thought of before. Some uses, like using the Computer Use skill to conduct HoloNet searches, have probably been considered by many players and GMs. However, the suggestions it makes for using the Force skills Battlemind and Farseeing (the former works as it does in normal combat, the latter provides fire control bonuses) in starship combat are more creative. The eight new feats presented in this chapter are of help to players who want more options with which to develop their spacer characters, although it would have been nice to have seen more non-combat feats. The new feats are Gunner, Expert Gunner, Maneuver Expertise, Pinpoint Accuracy, Rapid Gunner, Starship Point Blank Shot, and the Force feats of Force Dodge and Force Pilot. For brevity’s sake, I won’t describe these feats in detail, as they are already self-explanatory.
This chapter also introduces new prestige classes focused on starships. The Blockade Runner, to quote the book, “is to space transports what the starfighter ace is to smaller ships.” In other words, the blockade runner excels at piloting space transports. She has the special abilities of getting bonuses to her Pilot and Repair skills when operating familiar transports as well as increased defensive options when piloting these craft. The Deep Space Pilot specializes in long space voyages, whether it be for prospecting, exploring, or salvaging. His special abilities consist of enhanced uses of the Astrogate skill for hyperspace travel and sector familiarity, which gives bonuses to astrogation checks when the pilot is in familiar sectors. The Master Gunner prestige class is, predictably, someone who specializes in starship weaponry rather than piloting. Her class features include being able to take extra feats related to starship combat as well as gunnery familiarity and the disabling shot ability. Finally, the Naval Officer class is for characters who are part of an organized navy. It grants characters the abilities to enhance the quality of their ship’s crew (and at higher levels, the crew quality of multiple ships in a fleet) due to their leadership. All four prestige classes could easily be used for PCs or NPCs in just about any spacefaring Star Wars campaign, as none of them are too specialized or have prerequisites that are too steep.
Next, the chapter addresses what some feel is a major weakness of the Star Wars core rulebook: starship combat. Personally, I’ve always thought the original rules were fine, with the only drawback being the need for multiple starship templates and its difficulty in resolving large battles. But others did not care for the rules at all. Whether or not Starships of the Galaxy changes their opinion depends mostly on what they expect from a starship combat system.
The first part of the subsection clarifies elements of the original rules that may have confused players and GMs, such as increasing and decreasing range, turning, and reversing direction. Though these did not confuse me as originally presented, I can see how they could be tricky to understand. The subsection then adds rules for new maneuvers such as attack runs, docking, flybys, flying cover, tight wings, reversals, and strafing runs. These maneuvers are clearly presented and easy to implement. Also, new combat options including angling shields, damage to specific systems, critical hits, flanking, full attacks, pinning (if a vessel has tractor beams), and the acquiring of permanent ship flaws due to massive damage can add more detail and flavor to starship combats.
In addition, combat between starships and vehicles is clarified. Conducting combat between a starship and a vehicle requires converting one to the others speed and size scales (for example, a Diminutive starship would be considered a Huge vehicle, and a vehicle that could move 100 meters or more in a round would be considered to have a starship speed of cruising). The rules suggest using the starship rules for combat (including the simplified rules, which I will get to next), but the vehicle rules could be used instead if preferred. Though converting statistics is a bit of work, it is necessary since the starships and vehicles use such different systems. Though I don’t find this system ideal, I do find it workable and practical.
The last two pages of the chapter present the new streamlined system of starship combat that is suggested for large combats or GMs who prefer a simpler approach. Of course, GMs are free to use the original rules if they wish. The streamlined system uses a single range track rather than templates to keep track of all ships’ locations relative to one another. The track consists of nine adjacent squares, each of which represents a range increment (facing is ignored for the sake of simplicity). For example, if the characters’ shuttle is in square #4, the TIE fighters in squares #3 and #5 would be at short range, while the Bothan assault cruiser in square #8 would be at sensor range. The system has a strict sequence of allowed actions in which each craft has two action phases per round. During these phases, a pilot or gunner can move, fire a weapon, or make a maneuver. Most maneuvers found in the old system are present in the new system, though their exact effects have changed due to use of the range track. Attacks work much the same in the new system as they did in the old, though some rules (such as penalties for firing into a dogfight and limits to the number of weapons a capital ship can fire at smaller ships at point blank range) are not used, and others (attacks with missiles and torpedoes) are simplified. All in all, I was quite satisfied with the new starship combat system, and plan to implement it in my Star Wars games.
Chapter Five, “Adventures in Space,” starts by providing tips on how to run space-based games with groups of diverse characters. It suggests two possible ways of making sure all players stay involved: giving everyone something to do on a ship (for example, one character pilots, two man the guns, another makes repairs, or some characters operate the ship while others fight off opponents on the ship itself) and running multiple scenes at once (where the characters who aren’t pilots or gunners do things away from the ship). These tips are useful for GMs who have wondered how to keep characters busy during starship scenes. The next part of the chapter addresses miscellaneous subjects such as styles of adventures, potential space hazards and their effects, handling starship expenses, and how to use capital ships and space stations in your games. This is followed by descriptions of generic allies and enemies that could be encountered in space-based scenarios. As in other Star Wars books, statistics are given for low-, mid-, and high-level examples of each type. The allies and enemies include capital ship captains, dilettantes, docking authority officers, freighter captains, Jedi pilots, and port drifters. Also included are suggestions on how to incorporate the generic characters found in the core rulebook into starship-based adventures. The last part of the chapter contains generic starship maps for transports and capital ships. Only the key areas of capital ships (like bridges and docking bays) are presented, but modular maps of all parts of a space transport are provided so that GMs can arrange them however they wish. It would have been nice if this chapter included one or two short space-based adventures, but their absence does not hurt the book.
Chapters Six through Nine contain descriptions and statistics for starfighters, space transports, capital ships, and space stations, respectively. In all, 54 different craft make an appearance here, ranging from the humble Escape Pod to the omnipresent Lambda Shuttle to the staggeringly powerful Torpedo Sphere. No starships found in the core rulebook were reprinted for Starships of the Galaxy. Roughly equal numbers of starfighters, transports, and capital ships are present, while only five examples of space stations are included. Unique ships, such as Mara Jade’s shuttle and the Slave I, are also included. A sufficient range of ships is present that GMs should never want for vessels to use in their games.
In summary, I found Starships of the Galaxy to be very useful and an excellent addition to the Star Wars line. I would recommend it to anyone who wishes to use starships in their Star Wars adventures (which would probably be just about everyone). The book is almost free of flaws, and is a superior effort.
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