dodge this.

[ironymaiden]

at the end of the last session, my half of the party had taken over a power station and in the process blew up a militia transport and the squad inside. we also blacked out half the city. we did it to provide power to the ion cannon that the other half of the party used to take out a star destroyer. (of course, there was a bloodbath at the sleepy civilian installation, where at the hostile military facility a combo of Deception and Jedi mind trick got the job done.) we still spent a lot less time in combat than A the GM was prepared for; we keep roleplaying and skill checking ourselves to our goals instead of fighting our way there.

tonight my bodyguard and i skirmished at the spaceport, spun up the Dramatic Exit and airlifted the rest of the party Serenity-style from the top of the ion cannon tower where they had been fighting off the jetpacked reinforcements. (yunno, deception works fine on the people on the inside, everyone else notices the friendly fire.) then it was off to our rendezvous (we hope) and more info about our stolen salvaged cargo of golden electronics.

when we click, we really click. and we keep throwing A curves by making clever choices.

it felt great to finally get into space combat, except maybe i'm too good. the saga edition rules are slick, and they encourage multiclassing. so right now Stella is 5th level Scoundrel/1st level Noble. her family deals arms, mostly legally, she has her own grey market freight business; the family money gets her one sweet sweet ride. with hidden cargo areas, of course. your skill bonus stacks onto a D20 roll; Stella's current pilot check is +16. this means that beating a DC class 20 is pretty easy. add a co-pilot Aid Another +2 action and space combat is quick and bloodless - i dodge away damage until the gunners have had time to snipe away at our opponents. this is what Stella is built for, not bar brawls or fighting out of a fortified computer facility (she just doesn't have much of a BAB). it's fun and yields spectacular GM descriptions of success, but then we get where we're going and leave the ship.

i've been thinking in terms of the Han Solo archetype - she's got high intelligence, low wisdom, incredible piloting skills, and a blaster. that's it. for my crew, i have an ex-military tank type who takes care of me, and a Duros mechanic with a gambling problem. the noble, the imperial knight and the psychotic lonermystery survivalist guy helped us get the interdiction field down and get off that rock, but i'm not sure i want to keep them around...