Barefoottourguide said: Deadlands says throw whatever opposition you want or randomly generate at the PCs. They should know to pick their fights and run when they can't win. Garrett I don't know what Deadlands is, but this is basically the basis of my encounter design. Well, replace 'you want or randomly generate' with 'makes sense'. Jabba's palace isn't going to be protected by four level 1 thugs just because the PCs decide on a frontal assault and that would make for a 'balanced encounter'.

AluminiumWolf said: +++++Dying is not fun, but the risk need to be there+++++ Then how do you explain the near total non-existance of permadeath in the online gaming space? Because dying permanently due to lag or a bugged spawn is stupid and a lot less likely to happen at a gaming table. Seriously, can we drop this 'RPGs should be like video games' argument? We heard it already. We disagree. Enough is enough. Besides, being captured does not equal losing or dying. That's just postponing the winning 'till later. Sure, you can't surrender to a wolf or a zombie (let alone a zombie wolf), but an Imperial garrison would probably accept a surrender unless your GM is an ass. As an aside, you might not realize it, but most computer games have perma-death. You get shot in Gears of War? Game over. You get killed in Neverwinter Nights? Too bad. You lost. That you get a chance to go back in time and try again doesn't really change the fact that the death is quite permanent. The only CRPG I can think of that did this differently was Planescape: Torment. Also, if you want an RPG without perma-death (not counting the various raise dead options in D&D) you should check out Demon: the Fallen. But this is Star Wars. You're not playing an immortal angel, nor is there magic that can yank your soul back from Elysium. In Star Wars, the fear of death and the ambition to overcome mortality played a significant role in Anakin's fall. Palpatine devoted his entire life to the mere possibility of immortality. There are games that offer what you seem to want. Star Wars doesn't. And shouldn't. If you want to wade through puny mortals with impunity, I can recommend Exalted. You will never risk death from even armies of regular folk. If you want death to be an inconvenient, yet ultimately temporary, setback, Demon: the Fallen offers a setting where this actually makes sense. Enjoy.

AluminiumWolf said: I don't think players like surrendering any more than they like running away… Players don't like to lose. Players don't like rail-track story telling where there is no risk and no consequences to anything they do. Just because "you don't like it" doesn't mean it shouldn't be a viable option. I guarantee you that my character doesn't like to be captured by the Empire, but that doesn't mean it didn't make the story better when it happened. If there's no risk, success is meaningless. If a plan can't go bad, there's no point in making plans in the first place (and, to keep with the 'I know what every player on the planet want' rhetoric, players love to come up with elaborate plans). So yes. Sometimes you just have to realize that the fight is lost and it's better to live and fight another day, than to 'go down stupid'. I'm not surprised that you think players like to die from stupidity. I'm not one of your players. Thank goodness.

Exalted5 said: At the same time, if a player or nemesis is KO'd, it is possible they may get stimpacked back into the fight… so taking away slots may create more headaches. That said, it might be better to just leave them in? Considering FFG designed the WHFRPG, it might have been their intention anyway. I don't know how it's handled in WHFRPG, or how it was intended, but in our group it never occurred to us to remove initiative slots as combatants go down. The remaining just get to pick from the available slots (which, most of the time, would probably be the equivalent of removing the slowest slot, but in some cases it could still be useful)

I quite like the idea of using Cunning for Pilot (space). While Agility makes sense for fighter pilots, it really doesn't make sense for larger ships. Cunning would be a great compromise, as long as we maintain one skill for all space-faring ships.

LethalDose said: Just read the table of weapons closely in this week's patch notes. Noticed that Breach was removed from lightsabers. Seriously gotta disagree with this decision. Those glowsticks carved the **** out of vehicles (Capital ship blast doors, AT-AT underbellies and speeder bike control surfaces) and industrial equipment like it weren't no thang. Its gotta have at least pierce 5, but breach i thought was totally appropriate, and inherent to the weapon. Not looking for a fight or argument about this in the forum, just expressing an opinion because I think it was errata'd poorly. This is being house-ruled back into my game. -WJL I'm pretty sure the internal blast doors on a capital ship are not 'capital scale' in the sense that they are designed to withstand turbolaser battery fire. But either way, it has already been mentioned elsewhere that the table was in error. Lightsabers retain breach 1 but lose defensive 2. I still think breach is way off, but fine.

Donovan Morningfire said: Ah yes, the game where the character with the highest life expectancy was the one with the highest movement rate. And the lowest perception score.

Donovan Morningfire said: The only problem I have with Lightsabers losing Defensive is that Vibro-Swords get to keep that same quality. As I suggested in the Week 3 update thread, how about keeping Defensive and Deflection, but adding a requirement to be able to use those talents, such as either having at least one rank in the Lightsaber skill and/or a Force Rating of 1 or better. I think it's to reflect how lightsabers are just plain harder to use than swords. Yes, a sword (and. perhaps, also lightsabers) is easier to parry with than most other weapons, but right now there's not really anything to indicate how hard a lightsaber is to wield without the training to do so. Removing the defensive quality is one way to do that. I don't really have an opinion on whether it's a good way to reflect that, though.

gribble said: I can think of at least two examples in Return of the Jedi, without having to think too hard. Probably the biggest was Luke chopping the front of a speeder bike on Endor - if that isn't a personal scale weapon ignoring vehicle/starship scale armour I don't know what is! He also used it to cut the binder cuffs off Han, Chewie, etc, although I guess it could be argued that was sunder. I'm sure there are more in the movies, not to mention the numerous books, comics, etc. I'm pretty sure those speeder bikes used to be character scale, anyway, so I had no issue with that. Now, if he'd cut the front, or a leg, off an AT-AT you'd have a point. Instead he opted to cut open the lock of a whatever hatch and stove a thermal detonator in there. I'm not really considering fanfic as an unbiased source of how awesome lightsabers/jedi are. The EU is notoriously skewered. Also, I'm not saying that a lightsaber shouldn't be able to cut through stuff. I just disagree with how much stuff we ever see being cut through effortlessly. Anyway, the topic of Breach was already dealt with. I disagree, but I accept the ruling.

selderane said: Learning means skill. I have no problem with Defensive being an extension of the Melee or Lightsaber skills. But inherent to the item itself? But some weapons are inherently easier to defend with than others. A sword, for instance, is easier to parry with than, say, an axe (this is actually one of the inherent advantages of the sword as a weapon). So in some cases it makes perfect sense to have the Defensive trait, to reflect that. Now, whether a razor-sharp beam of light is more inherently defensive than something else, I can't say.

Chrislee66 said: It would be wrong in relation to the source material to say that every Jedi is an exceptional individual by virtue of their personal capacities and abilities. It's certainly possible for someone extraordinary to content with certain Jedi on roughly even footing. That said, let's consider Jengo Fett. To say that he was peerless wouldn't be a stretch. He was so amazingly gifted, in fact, that he was sought out, above and beyond everyone in the galaxy, to serve as the template by which the new clone army would be minted. Now Jengo Fett killed Jedi, of that there can be no doubt. The Jedi he killed were special in their capacity to to use the force, but not necessarily as warriors. They had the advantage of the force and a bit of training, but they were still limited by their own capabilities. People with the ability to use the force were simply too rare to segregate them as such. The one time that Jengo Fett did encounter someone that approached his own skill as a combatant in addition to being a force-user he died. Quickly. It wasn't a long, drawn out encounter. He shot at Mace Windu, who deflected his attacks and then summarily decapitated him. The man that was selected to above the countless masses of the galactic population because of his consummate skill, was killed in seconds by the man that happened to be the best Jedi in the order, a much, much smaller sample group than the galaxy as a whole. Alright. Let's consider the fight between Mace Windu and Jango Fett. And let us assume that Jango was, indeed, peerless (I'd have use the term 'exceptional', but we can at least agree that he is probably extremly good at what he does). Mace, on the other hand, is described as one of the best warriors the jedi order has ever known. His mastery of the force is second only to Yoda, and his skills with a lightsaber is second to none. That's not the baseline for a Jedi PC party I'd want to see in a game (but, then again, neither is Jango). What actually happens in that fight? First Jango get run over by a monster. Then he realize that his jetpack is shot. Then he has a moment of stupid and starts firing his blasters at, you know, a jedi with a ready lightsaber. Nevermind the best lightsaber combatant in the known galaxy. In the end, what we see is a protagonist defeating an antagonist with hilarious ease, which is a fairly common tv trope. I don't think the message was ever "hey, that Jango guy was never a big deal after all." If you want to gauge ability, I think it is inherently unfair to use a 'protagonist' vs. 'antagonist' fight as a baseline for PC power. Of course the protagonist is going to win. That's like concluding that "speaks with a German accent" should reduce your starting characteristics because John McClane beats Hans Grüber in Die Hard. I think what you need to look at, instead, is how 'mixed groups' actually interact. Now, the prequels are essentially a story about jedi, so they are naturally skewered towards jedi-focused stories (and, thus, don't really spend a lot of time on 'group dynamics'). But even then, it's not like Padmé just sits around and wait to be rescued. She fully justifies her presence in just about any scene she's in… and while she can't jump tall buildings, she does have other talents to bring to the group. And that's disregarding the inherent unfairness in using Anakin or Luke as the baseline for anything. Han Solo manages to do pretty well without having the entire galaxy revolve around him. As does Obi-Wan, for that matter.

usgrandprix said: I was just thinking a blast door is about 5 points of armor. I just think there's a difference between what you can do just swinging your saber around (like scoring a direct hit on Vader without carving him in two) and what it takes some effort to accomplish (cutting your way through a starship-scale bulkhead). The former is a combat action, the latter is a narrative-style action. We know things exist that can cut through "just about everything". Like fusion cutters and whatnot. Lightsabers should be able to do this as well, but I think there's a big difference between swinging at something in combat, and taking the effort to carve through it. At no point do we see a lightsaber cut through a starship hull like it wasn't there. You know, the same way that you don't cut down a tree by hitting it with a chainsaw.

usgrandprix said: As far as the Qui Gon action, cutting into the door took only a few seconds. That's what breach reflects. No, Breach is the ability to penetrate starship-scale armour effortlessly. I think what you're looking for is the Pierce quality. I'm not saying that a few points of Pierce wouldn't be appropriate. Breach was totally overkill for what we ever see lightsabers actually do.

Sutter said: Given enough time, Qui-Gon would have made his way through how many layers of blast doors? Bolded for emphasis. This is exaxctly the point. Breach is the kind of power you need to cut through a blast door with a combat maneuver. Qui-Gon was using a lot more effort than a combat maneuver to cut through that door. That doesn't mean that a lightsaber shouldn't be able to cut through "just about anything" given enough time and effort, but that's not really what the Breach quality represents.

I think removing the breach quality from lightsabers was the right call. Lightsabers have really never been shown to cut through everything like it wasn't there, in any canon I'm familiar with. Breach is a combat maneuver that represent a quick slash of the blade cutting through everybody. While lightsabers have been shown to cut through stuff, generally this takes effort. Like cutting through a bulkhead with a plasma torch. Not just flicking your wrist. If anything, the writeup of the lightsaber could include a note that it can, with enough time and effort, cut through just about anything that isn't shielded or cortosis'ed. I could also see the argument for giving the weapon Pierce 1 or 2. Maybe. But that's not really make-or-break for me.

AluminiumWolf said: Slaunyeh said: Because 'cinematic' doesn't mean 'like a movie' Definition of cinematic adjective relating to the cinema:cinematic output having qualities characteristic of films:the cinematic feel of their video :0) Definition of CINEMATIC 1 : of, relating to, suggestive of, or suitable for motion pictures or the filming of motion pictures <cinematic principles and techniques> 2 : filmed and presented as a motion picture <cinematic fantasies> I'm sure no one will stop you from video recording your RPG sessions (except maybe your players), but that's generally not what we are referring to when talking about a cinematic style. The 'cinematic style' refers to techniques regarding telling a story through a visual medium, and "cinematic RPGs" tries to invoke some of that feel. "Like a video game" is not a storytelling technique. But I'm sure you already knew this, and are just copy-pasting half definitions to be an ass and not bother with the rest of the argument. I'm done here.

AluminiumWolf said: Hell, even the Holy Trinity in MMOs has the advantage of ensuring that a team of players have to work together to succeed. To be fair, it'd be more accurate to refer to the "Holy Trinity" as 'like D&D' than 'like video games'. Also, the grief a lot of people have with the holy trinity is the opinion that this is/should be the only team composition that has a chance for success. In a RPG where "thinking outside the box" to overcome problems is much more likely than in a video game, the 'holy trinity' is like the antithesis to creative thinking and "good roleplay". But I digress, I dislike the notion of the 'holy trinity' (as a required mechanic) as much in video games as I do in RPGs.

AluminiumWolf said: 'like a video game' is bad? RPGs are not movies. They are not video games either. But they are probably closer to video games than movies. What with being real time interactive and all. -- Is 'ludic' the equivalent word to 'cinematic'? Because 'cinematic' doesn't mean 'like a movie', but 'like a video game' does mean 'like a video game'. And, let's be honest, if you want to your RPGs to be as much like video games as possible, you might as well just play the video game? I'll guarantee you that the video game will do what you want better. But to answer the question, 'cinematic' is about how you present a story (which, incidentally, could include the story in a video game) whereas 'like a video game' doesn't really mean anything. Like a video game how? Hold down W to move forward? Explore caves full of conveniently placed medpacks? Scipted circular conversation with NPCs? There is no uniform way video games do things. If you say you want a RPG to be more 'like a video game', you haven't told us anything about what you actually want. Also, I think why some people have a somewhat harsh reaction to a term like 'like a video game', is that there are certain mechanical conveniences that we've trained ourselves to ignore in video games because they make the game better, but you'd probably have to explain in a RPG session. That could be, say, Lara Croft exploring a tomb that has been undisturbed for two thousand years, yet somehow is littered with ammunition and health packs. Or being unable to climb over (or move) that stack of barrels over there, barring you from exploring the rest of the city. We accept these things as mechanical limitations of video games, but you really shouldn't think too hard about it. RPGs (in general) require a sense of credibility to the setting. Video games are not held to the same standard, because we accept the limitations of the medium as a storytelling device, and we're prepared to ignore some, if not all, of what that entails. In the end, it's up to the individual player what they are really looking for in a game, but a RPG designed 'like a video game' would not be something I was personally interested in. I have video games for that. Now, ironically, I do enjoy video games that are 'like an RPG'.

Dulahan said: I DEFY you to name a broad concept (Not a specific alien) that isn't a Force User that can't be done just as easily in any other Sci Fi setting. So. Let me get this straight. Every setting can do a Han Solo-style character, but only Star Wars let you play Gandalf? Seriously? Maybe you should worry a little less about what you can do in other settings? You can probably find just about everything somewhere else, if that's what you want. And yes, this includes Jedi/psionics/whatever you want to call it. Seriously, when arguments boil down to "I could play a princess in any game", I really have to stop taking it seriously.

I spoke to a nice lady at my local gaming store, who told me they were trying to get their hands on some copies. She promised to let me know if they got any, so I guess they didn't manage to. Haven't heard anything. Ah well!

GM Chris said: This is a very old debate. I don't think I explained what I meant very well. Sorry about that. My point was that first off, droids differ from people in certain ways. Like the point you've made about droids wearing armour. A sidebar acknowledging this, or perhaps even rules for upgrading droids with armour bits (beyond cybernetics) would be a good idea (and if they don't, I can easily house rule it, but I don't use house rules while beta testing the game). When I say that droids should be different from other speicies, I don't actually mean that the char-gen rules for them should be different (although I wouldn't hate seeing a selectable "droid-type" option, a bit like the Gand get to pick between longs and no-lungs). What I mean is that I don't think the current rules are really equal to another species choice. I like the current droid rules, but don't think they are really balanced against the other species options. I also don't think they should be balanced against the other species. To me, it seems like they are more of an "advanced", or "roleplay" (*gasp*), choice and I think presenting them in the species chapter as just another option is a bit misleading. So, I'd like to see a section that goes into a little more detail about the implications of playing a droid.

I think the game, as currently written, is trying a little too hard to make Droids out to be "just another character species" with all the same rules as everyone else. While this makes everything easy, I also think it does something of a disservice to the people who enjoy the idea of playing a droid. Personally, I'd have preferred not to have droids in the species chapter, because it's not just another species option. Rather, I'd like to see a chapter dedicated to droids in general, which could include rules for droid PCs. Or, alternatively, a supplement about droids further down the line. We have a droid bounty hunter in our group, and the player really hates the idea of buying heavy clothing for his droid. But he also really needs the extra soak. It'd be fairly simple to make something up for that, but I'd prefer if the book didn't just ignore the issue.

cetiken said: Do you think a Jedi should be about as powerful as a smuggler? Random Bob the Smuggler? Definitely not. Jedi should (eventually) be much more powerful than an average human being. But then again, so should Han Solo. I don't understand why everyone's obsessed with the idea that Jedi PCs should be larger-than-life heroes and other PCs should just be normal random people. That is not what the Star Wars setting is all about. The protagonists of the story are exceptional beings, jedi or no jedi. (And on that note, I also don't think PC Jedi should be about as powerful as random Bob the Jedi who's gunned down in an arena on Geonosis or shot in the back by a couple of clone troopers.)

GoblynByte said: Inksplat said: Thinking of it, in both A New Hope and Empire, I don't think they ever -don't- run away, except for the Death Star attack run. Han chases down the stormtroopers… but then proceeds to retreat. Han, Chewie, and Luke stand out in the open in the Detention Center, but they had the advantage of surprise. Other than that, though, you're right. This has been one of my soap boxes for years. People define "being heroic" in RPGs as being able to stand out in the fray of bullets taking multiple hits and shaking them off like nothing happened. And somehow they think that's emulation of the source material. But that just doesn't jive with what we see in the movies. I've noticed that shift in my gaming group as well. Back in the day where we played Star Wars, being out-gunned and out-numbered was a regular thing. Sometimes you just had to retreat. Sometimes you got captured. Some of our best sessions started out with the players locked up in a detention cell thoroughly derailing the GMs plans. Fast forward ten years of D&D 3e 'balanced encounters'. Running away? Unthinkable. Getting captured (or *gasp* surrendering)? Never! And if a fight is unwinable it's the GM being a jerk or just bad at balancing encounters. I've run a good deal of Dark Heresy "therapy sessions" in recent years, but there's a lot of damage to be undone. We're not quite there yet. (And don't get me started on the "jedi should be better than everybody" nonsense.)

Librarian said: the same conversation went on with Star Wars the old republic they did the same named the basic class smuggler and the specialization within that class scoundrel. In Tor's case the main reason given was the iconic nature of the word smuggler in star wars even to individuals who are only passingly familiar with the movies. mabye not the best of reasons but to someone who wants to play a han solo character just seeing the name smuggler tells them that this is there class. Well, TOR also had the advantage that they'd already written your character story, so if you picked the smuggler class, you were a smuggler. That helps them get away with stuff like that. It's not that big of a deal in EotE, but I can see the argument for switching the two.