Join The Infernal Brotherhood of the Scruffy Looking, Nerf Herders as they continue their How to Play West End Games’ Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition. Today, we are clarifying movement.You can pick up the original sourcebooks as PDF’s here: https://www.starwarstimeline.net/Westendgames.htm
Transcript
Intro
Welcome back to The Infernal Brotherhood of the Scruffy Looking, Nerf Herders! Today, we are discussing Chapter Two: Movement from the Rules Companion. Now, if you’ve looked at the optional combat rules on page 50 of your core book, you might have seen a system using movement points. However, the Rules Companion takes a different, more integrated approach. Instead of a “point-buy” system, it treats movement as a dynamic action tied to your character’s physical capabilities and the environment around them. We are shifting from abstract meters to a system of Speed Codes and Difficulty Numbers that make every chase feel like a scene straight out of the movies.
Description
The Rules Companion identifies four primary types of movement actions, and understanding the “why” behind them is key to mastering the game. The most common is the Speed Action. This represents pure movement at your character’s or vehicle’s normal limit. For a character on foot, your base speed code is determined by your Dexterity. If you have a Dexterity of 3D+2, the rules tell us to round that up to a speed code of 4D. This means you can declare up to four speed actions in a single round.
Now, why does that matter? Because each successful speed action moves you a specific distance based on your Scale. If you’re a character, one action moves you ten meters. If you’re an Imperial AT-AT, one action is a massive hundred meters. If you’re in a landspeeder, it’s two hundred and fifty meters. But here is the tactical catch: every speed action you declare counts against your total actions for the round. If our 3D+2 Rebel decides to take three speed actions to sprint thirty meters, they are already at a minus-two-die penalty for anything else they do, like firing a blaster or dodging. If they take all four possible speed actions, they are at a minus-three-die penalty. You have to decide: do I get to cover, or do I stay still so I can actually hit what I’m aiming at?
To actually move, you perform a Movement Roll. For a character on land, you roll your Dodge skill. If you are operating a vehicle, you roll your operator skill—like Repulsorlift Op—plus the vehicle’s speed code. This is a significant change because high-performance vehicles actually make it easier for you to succeed. You are rolling against a Difficulty Number that scales with your environment. A “Very Easy” move is running over a flat hangar floor, which only requires a 3. But the Rules Companion introduces a list of modifiers for terrain. Moving through a panicked crowd or racing a speeder bike through the thick forests of Endor while fighting off scouts can jump that difficulty to “Difficult” or even “Very Difficult.”
And you do not want to fail that roll. In the core rules, failing a move just meant you stopped. In the Rules Companion, Failing a Movement Roll means you have lost control. If you’re running, you slip and flounder. If you’re driving, your vehicle whirls out of control. If you collide with anything while out of control, you have to consult the new Collision Damage Chart, which is far more lethal than the core book’s old falling rules. For every three pips you fail the roll by, you lose one speed action, and that first lost action is exactly where the collision occurs. To regain control next round, you have to succeed on a new roll with a plus-five penalty to the difficulty. It makes high-speed chases feel genuinely dangerous.
If you need to move even faster than your base speed code allows, you can take an Overspeed Action. This represents pushing your body or your machine past its engineered limits. A successful overspeed action gives you one extra speed action for that round. However, this is the ultimate “Hail Mary” play: each overspeed action declared reduces all your die codes by 1D and increases your movement difficulty number by three. Imagine a pilot gunning the engines of a rickety freighter to escape a closing blast door—they are harder to hit because they’re fast, but they are also much more likely to crash because they’re pushing the ship too hard.
Finally, we have to discuss Maneuver and Ramming Actions. If you are involved in a chase, you can use a Maneuver Action to outthink your opponent. This is an opposed roll using your operator skill and the vehicle’s maneuver code. If you win, you “reserve” speed actions. This means you let your opponent move first, and then you use your reserved actions to react to them—perfect for “faking out” a TIE fighter or cutting off a bounty hunter in a narrow alley. If maneuvering fails, you can always resort to a Ramming Action. If you are within one movement action of your target, you make an opposed roll adding your hull or body strength. Depending on how much you beat their roll by, you could force them to lose control, or, if you roll three times their total, you can outright destroy the target vehicle. It turns movement from a way to get from point A to point B into a high-stakes game of predator and prey.
Outro
By treating movement as a series of tactical actions—speed, overspeed, maneuvers, and rams—the Rules Companion ensures that a chase is just as mechanically deep as a blaster fight. It’s no longer just about who has the higher stat; it’s about who is willing to take the risks to stay ahead.
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Until the Infernal Brotherhood convenes again, my fellow scruffy-looking nerf herders… “May the Force be with you.