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Grungyape

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Posts posted by Grungyape

  1. Posted

    OK, so this makes sense then. 

    As I was told, DP are used to make large than life actions possible for players.  So, I think that's where we believed they could be used to take a second action.  I can live with that however. 

    I do try to stress to my players that they can be used to create dramatic situations that don't horridly break the adventure, such as when our Jedi took 2 strain to concentrate and force pull a support pillar down, collapsing the ceiling and  blocking off the approaching stormtroopers.  

    angelman2 reacted to this

  2. Posted

    52 minutes ago, whafrog said:

    Yes, like Triumphs and Despairs, they can not be used to cancel each other.

    It should be noted that, by RAW, spending a DP has about the same mechanical effect as spending a Triumph.  You can upgrade your dice pool in the same way, or cause narrative things to happen with about the same value.  If you start allowing things like second attacks, it makes them way more valuable, and the whole game, which already favours the attacker, turns far more lethal.  Any player who understand the mechanics would only ever use it for a second attack, because dice upgrades are piddly things by comparison.

    OK, is there a reference to this in any book, the "spending a DP has about the same mechanical effect as spending a Triumph" statement?

  3. Posted

    I believe I get "most" of the whole DP feature as I understand from pg 28-29 of the book.

    1 DP per player turn.

    The active person gets to decide first if they want to use one, the opposing plyer (or GM) gets to decide next if they use one.

    If using opposing dice, they all get added to the pool and roll...

    My confusion is, action sequence.  Normally the actions we've used them for have never had this type of setup so its never been a question... until now.

    Player A has first Init.
    BBEG has second Init.

    Player A wants to use a DP to take a second action (i.e. make a second attack).
    BBEG would like to use DP to prevent player A's second attack.  There are a list of things BBEG can do, but unless their specific action is important to WHEN they can take it, I'm just trying to understand how the sequence works.

    Does Player A get their normal attack, AND their second DP attack before the BBEG's DP triggers?   

     

  4. Posted

    1 minute ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

     

     

    @Grungyape, you should make sure your players understand the houserule up front and get feedback. Changes may be in order so that there is a chance for prompt medical intervention.

     

    Yep, and we did.  They actually prompted the original question after a night of book scanning for rules on instant death or coup de grâce.

    For the most part, we decided that normal minions don't likely do anything more then attack until your down, and then hand you over the the boss.  Rivals and Nemesis don't normally have a reason to perma-kill unless they have no other options, it's their "job" or it is a known story arc, i.e. our rival slaver.

    P-47 Thunderbolt reacted to this

  5. Posted

    10 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

    Eh, no. Bond villains refuse to kill Bond AFTER all opponents have been defeated and combat is over, and Bond is sitting tied up in a chair.

    This is about villains who take the time to make sure a defeated opponent becomes a dead opponent while there are still undefeated opponents shooting of lightsabering at them.

    Also, it would be seriously bad form on the part of a GM, especially in  Star Wars game. "The Stormtroopers ignore all the other PCs and execute Andy's unconscious character".

    So while valid, this is not even close to what was originally asked. 

    As stated in the original post, "no one is likely to stand over him and just keep shooting".

    The question wasn't about WHEN players/enemies were taking this action, it was that per RAW it didn't specifically have a coup de grâce option listed, so that IF you wanted to do this, it seemed like you'd have to literally stand over them shooting.  Wolfrider on the other hand specifically added in the "during combat" aspect.

    However, we may play a bit more aggressive than you, and that's OK.  Our group are all adults, we like the old school death happens philosophy.  We don't make a habit of it, but even in Star Wars movies, important characters lose their lives. My players, when combat is over, not only check the "dead" for gear, creds, and better weapons, but also make conscious decisions on what to do with (rivals/nemesis) still living.

     

     

  6. Posted

    37 minutes ago, WolfRider said:

    Why would someone engaged want to finish off a guy who's lying unconscious ? By engaged I mean the guy is actually fighting.

    And when an opponent is out of combat with one or more visible wounds and not moving at all, most people won't bother to verify if he / she's already dead, currently dying or just feigning death. They'd let him / her as cold meat because most of the time if something looks like dead it's because he / she is dead.

    That's how it goes for PCs at my table, NPCs never finish them if they're unconscious and not moving. They only care if they were asked to make prisoners.

    Because 26 Bond movies could have been a lot shorter if he'd just finished off the bad guy during any of the three chances he had before the end of the movie.

    My players know leaving a Nemesis or Rival alive means they are likely coming back later.  Some they bargain with, some they coerce and flip, some are bargaining tools for the bigger boss.

    However, sometimes reinforcements arrive before the job can be done, sometimes "destiny" steps in and they survive beyond means, but rarely is anyone left alive without good reason. My bad guys play the same way. 

    ===

    Right now my players are on a prison moon, trying to rescue an old cyborg friend. A rival slave trader has captured their friend and has tortured him, eventually dismantling him and killing him.  The players are unaware that all that remains is his brain core.  The players suspect, and are correct, that the slave trader is not the big boss.  The brain core holds many answers. If my players fall while on rescue they know fully well they will be locked up, tortured and held for the "boss". but Erothus is force sensitive.  The slave trader is as well, but she was rejected from every teacher she had.  She has an obsession and hatred toward the force.  If Erothus falls, he will not be spared.

  8. Posted

    I see a lot of topics on this and most make decent sense.

    We had our first player go over threshold.  He went prone, knocked out, and incapacitated.  As it was the first time beyond threshold, so he also rolled on the crit table.

    This was his second roll on crit, so he did so at +10 (He now has 2 crits)

    If I am to understand it, he is out of combat, but... and here is my confusion, enemies can simply shoot him all they want now to a maximum of 2x threshold and unless they score a crit, it does nothing?

    I'm not saying I don't play my bad guys as bad guys, but apart from an incidental caught in a blast radius, no one is likely to stand over him and just keep shooting.

    I don't want my players to die, but I don't want them to feel secure when they are incapacitated that they are just fine.

  9. Posted · Edited by Grungyape

    A player asked, as we are now doing some force powers. 

    Influence: The most basic form of Influence does not allow the Force user to guide or shape the thoughts of others. He can merely strain their mind, inflicting stress and exhaustion. The basic power has one effect that can be triggered multiple times on the same or different targets.

    Does this mean that at minimum they MUST spend one force point AND inflict 1 strain at the base level of Influence.
    If they then want to activate Control for the emotional state, they are now spending a second force point, correct? (2 total)

    He wants to know if he can skip step 1 (strain) to go straight to step 2 (emotion)?  If he can, is he still charged the force point?

  11. Posted

    9 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

    Setting explosives is stressful, they've got to deal with it somehow. ^_^

    But no. The only reason they have those talents would be thematic. I don't really understand why Saboteur, but that's the way they did it.

    So since I'm not seeing any, are there any good specs (non force) that "spend" a lot of strain and would pair well with saboteur?

  15. Posted

    I know, SW doesn't have levels, but I do know that as the players gain XP, the adversaries need to adapt.

    The Long Story: 

    At *cough* 50, I've run RPG games at my house, and local game stores, for nearly 25 years.  D&D (most versions), Pathfinder, Iron Kingdoms and now d6 Star Wars.  Most of those games were designed to say if your level x you fight monster y.  Some had tools to say, if party has combined xp x, give them combined monster xp y.  Because the nature of those games was very standard, you could basically drop a few more points of hp and damage on anything, and fix the problem, or just swap out a monster from the book that was pre-made for level z. Not always fun, but it worked in a pinch.

    I don't see that in Star Wars.  I wish I had enough time to mod, adapt, rewrite my adversaries, pick out new weapons, talents, skills, etc. to fit my players xp values as we go, but I often don't... I don't want to seem lazy, but at my age, and job, I'm looking for a few easy tricks.  I don't want to lose the kids, and now adults, I have coming to game each week, but I can't seem to find enough tricks to understand how to keep pace with the characters.

    TL:DR:

    Is there a tool for advancing adversaries to fit better with player xp levels?

  18. Posted

    Last night while playing, I had a player that wanted to shoot past their adversary (they were in engineering on a ship) to hit a turbine engine that was powering an electrical field that was currently charging the floor.  The field was empowering the droid and helping to protect it. The adventure didn't really have anything written for this, I guessed it just assumed they would simply work to kill the droid, but I felt the idea was great.

     

    A quick look, and I saw no rules for hitting or damaging inanimate objects.  The object was at the edge of short range 2, and obstructed by the field and droid 1, so I gave it a difficulty of 3. The engine was metal, not a quick creation or flimsy device, and recessed among other working gears.  Therefore, attacking with an energy weapon at range "I felt" was less effective, so I gave it a defense of 1 range.  I then took a wild guess on the soak value of the device.

     

    They hit it, and damaged it, but not destroying it.  Our session ended so we will continue next week.

     

    Good bad or indifferent, was there a chart or set of rules I should have, could have, used?

    Archlyte reacted to this

  20. Posted

    33 minutes ago, SufficientlyAdvancedMoronics said:

    The force ability listed there is actually two abilities that can be done with the same power. The first:

    ... is the base power in the tree, with one strength upgrade. The second: 

    ... is a Control ability that allows you to use the power differently, and with two 'Duration' upgrades. Personally, I'd get my PCs to roll the Influence check first - so that they commit to using dark or light pips - then let them pass or fail the Discipline check second to decide whether they pull it off or not. (It's not RAW to do it that way but I find it fun and so do my players)

    As a result, the player can either do step 1 of your list and inflict strain, or do step 3 then step 2 to force an emotional state on the target. 

    Can you detail this or explain it a bit more?  A quick walk-through on how this works (the way you do it)?

  21. Posted

    20 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

    One roll. The "Force Power Check" is what you do to activate the power (meaning 1 and 3 are the same thing). So you roll Discipline vs. Discipline and add your Force dice to it, spending the pips as you would for an unopposed check. A roll with a Force Rating of 2 and a Discipline of YYGG vs. a Discipline of YYG would look like this: YYGG-RRP-WW.

    Nice, thanks.  OK, and for my clarity, Discipline vs. Discipline truly is actually "Discipline"? Like if I'm using the force to lie to you and misdirect you, that's not like Deception vs Discipline?

  22. Posted

    As I'm reading online while at work, and don't have a book handy for reference.

    Was looking here: http://swa.stoogoff.com/#elaiza-jedi-in-exile

    And reading:

    Force Power: Influence: : Inflict 2 strain on engaged target. Make an opposed Discipline vs Discipline check, as well as an Influence Force Power check, if successful can force target to adopt an emotional state or believe something untrue for 3 rounds or 5 minutes.

    I am new to the game, I'm just starting to get a grasp on Force Powers, and want to clarify.  This power sounds like it requires three rolls, two checks, correct? 

    1. Roll Force Dice to activate
    2. Roll Discipline vs Discipline (is that literally the Discipline skill, or is that figurative "opposed" check such as Discipline or Willpower or whatever skill seems most appropriate?)
    3. Influence Force Power check? (is this in addition to the last roll, or is it somehow added to the last roll?)

    I am assuming 100% I am missing something because I don't see why you have to roll two contested rolls to use this.  Is the last upgrading the first?

     

     

  24. Posted

    This topic is old, and I hate to respond to it, but my question is directly connected to the OPs topic.

    These new class skills you get from a second or third spec, for example if you picked up Hired Gun (Coercion, Melee, Resilience, Survival) you get them AS class skills, but you DO or DON'T get to put 1 point into 2 of them?  That's the only part I'm not finding in the book.

    RLogue177 reacted to this

  25. Posted

    19 minutes ago, emsquared said:

    There's some interesting analogues that could be drawn from the Pathfinder chain of Talents like Animal Empathy, Animal Bond (+Improved AB), and Mental Bond ... You could develop a set like that around droids/remotes.

    This all makes me want to create a Force Techno-savant Spec...

    So this is how we've been thinking.  For example, earlier you mentioned Battle Meditation, but does that path really break if you remove the "living" ally aspect, and replace it with ally droid?  Same with your comment above, if the Pathfinder works specifically with droid instead of a beast, does it still work?

     

    We also looked at Harm (thematically) being electricity... and when you but range, it becomes a bolt of electricity.  If it simply does the damage mentioned, does it really matter what you pretend it is?

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