Eratta and lightsabers

[Tancradus 12]

It is funny that "reflect" and "parry" are not as good as they should be.  Things like Quigon and Obi-one taking on 20-30 battle droids would not happen as there is a little damage added overtime... I understand that they have toned down the jedi's to let the other classes shine a little more, but sorry they are not jedi... 

 

I would be interested to see one of the master jedi's trees to better understand their ranks in these skills.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Tancradus

[MuttonchopMac 381]

Page 29 (start of Chapter II in the rulebook)'s first line explains that the game is focusing on the Imperial time period, not the prequels. They are Jedi, just not cast in the light of the prequels. Our reference from the established point of view that FFG laid out is pretty much Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi. Give him 3 ranks in Reflect and he can take 3 strain to negate 5 damage. Assuming Brawn 3 and Heavy Clothing, he can soak a total of 9 damage, meaning that most small arms won't do much until he runs out of Strain for activating Reflect. When he does run high on the Strain, he gets hit.

 

Basically, the glory days are over, and the handful of disciples of the Force don't have proper training facilities, numerous masters to train them, years devoted solely to study of the Force, or the archives to draw knowledge from. Hence the game's Jedi don't look like the prequels.

 

What Fantasy Flight Games gave you is true, from a certain point of view. You view may differ, but they're clear on what part of the films they're trying to replicate.

[Kilcannon 177]

If you wanted to run in a different time or run jedi from old I would recommend pairing up parry and reflect each time it is offered giving faster ways to get higher numbers. I would leave improved and supreme versions seperate but every time u take a reflect you go up in parry and vise versa after the initial purchase of each ability speperate.

[Hygric 420]

Quick point, Obi-Wan was a master of 4 of the lightsaber styles covered in the F&D book.  I've just run some numbers and here are his defences from those 4 trees alone:

 

Parry at rank 12, improved and supreme

Reflect at rank 11, improved and supreme

Centre of Being (improved) rank 1

Defensive Stance rank 3

Dodge rank 2

Defensive Training rank 3

Defensive Circle

 

I think soaking 14 points of blaster damage with Reflect alone is rather potent.

 

That's a heck of a lot of XP, but that is a Jedi Master of 4 lightsaber styles for you...

[Lareg 367]

Where do you get that Obi-Wan was a master of 4 ligthsaber styles? As far as i Know he was good at Ataru then switched to Soresu, which he throughly mastered. Has dabbled in Shien too. But where do you get that he mastered all 3 of them plus one more style?

[MuttonchopMac 381]

The wiki claims Ataru, Soresu, Shii-Cho, and Niman. I think that's more of conflicting authors, TV shows, comics, etc, claiming him as a master of a given form, than one single source saying he mastered all four. But Wookieepedia treats everything as canon, so yeah... 

[Gigerstreak 234]

Also, battle droids are minions. In minion groups one shot is what hits (not all of them). Say it is 4 groups of 6. That is 2 yellow and 3 green, vs 2 red and 3 black min... they might hit. Say that is 4 minion groups (for 24 total battle droids), if he alone is getting shot at, then he could reflect, attack (killing probably an entire group and healing his Strain with advantage) and then reflect, and reflect again. He probably has a soak of 3 and at least an inquisitor's ranks in deflect (7) so that would soak almost every hit from the 24 battledroids 4 actual shots. I'm pretty sure 20-30 battledroids wouldn't be a problem for a 1000+xp Obi-Wan.

[Ghostofman 8,319]

 Things like Quigon and Obi-one taking on 20-30 battle droids would not happen as there is a little damage added overtime...

...ok certain point of view but....

 

1) When in the films do we see Obi and/or Qui-gon take on 20-30 battledroids? A dozen maybe, but I don't think they ever take on 20+.

       So just offhand... group of 3 droids shooting with a skill of 2:2 at short range would generate around 11 Damage per turn... minus 4 soak (assuming Obi has a Brn of 3 and heavy clothing)= 7... minus say 1 rank in reflect = 4. Assuming Obi has a WT of 13 that would require 4 hits to take him out of action.

       By comparison lets say Obi has 2 ranks in Lightsaber. He'll do around 8 damage per turn, usually more. With Breach he'll ignore soak, allowing him to easily knock out a droid per turn, usually 2 or 3, allowing him to remove just under 1 group of droid per turn. Assuming Qui is at least as good, that allows them to take out 12 droids in 2-3 turns no problem.

Also at Engaged range the battledroids ability to hit will plummet to around 10 damage every 2 or 3 turns. further lengthening the Jedi's staying power....

 

Note that that's with fairly weak Jedi with unmodded sabers, A few adventures of XP, a mod or two,  and those number go up fast.

 

2) You know that Wounds don't have to represent actual hits. Generally that's more a mechanical representation of plot armor. Crits are the only true wound, and you can only actually die through crits.

 

3) Each attack roll in this system doesn't have to represent a single shot or swing, so each reflect can actually represent dozens of shots deflected.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Ghostofman

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

Between just three ranks each in Parry and Reflect with a Soak Value of 4, it becomes very difficult for a minion group to cause serious damage to a PC, or at least enough to really get the PC worried before the minion group gets skewered by a lightsaber.  Add in Sense and the control upgrade to upgrade an enemy's difficulty to attack you, and the chances of scoring a meaty hit (multiple successes) becomes less likely.

 

I've had a PC with just two ranks in Parry and Reflect and Soak Value of 3 that was able to reduce a lot of the damage being tossed his way from minion groups that were armed with blaster pistols.   I've got an Ataru Striker that's pretty good at avoiding damage thanks to Sense and a rank of Dodge, though the strain cost does start getting expensive rather quickly.  I've got another PC in a game that's on hold with 2 ranks of each (using a variant Shii-Cho Knight I posted during the Beta process) and a Soak Value of 4, so any attacks that do hit him are going to be reduced by 8 points, which combined with a 15 Wound Threshold means that even against stormtroopers it's going to take a few hits before I'm in trouble.  And with a Damage 7/Crit 1 lightsaber, it's gonna be pretty easy for me to plow through those same stormtroopers in an awful hurry.

 

As others have said, Parry and Reflect work fine for the Jedi-types during the Rebellion Era, which is when the games are set.  There's no Jedi Order to formerly train new Jedi Knight, so much of the training is "learn as you go" using specializations that generally reflect fragments of Jedi lore.

 

I've seen 300pt PCs built using Niman Disciple and Soresu Defender that could tank like crazy, especially the Soresu Defender with Defensive Circle to allow those few attacks that did hit to deal so little damage that Parry and Reflect just absorbed most of it outright, and then ensuring enough Threat was on the table to trigger Improved Parry or Improved Reflect as necessary.  And Niman Disciple makes a pretty solid secondary spec for any lightsaber user, as it adds 3 ranks of Parry and Reflect, 2 ranks of Defensive Training, and eventually the Force Rating talent.

[Kilcannon 177]

It is funny that "reflect" and "parry" are not as good as they should be.  Things like Quigon and Obi-one taking on 20-30 battle droids would not happen as there is a little damage added overtime... I understand that they have toned down the jedi's to let the other classes shine a little more, but sorry they are not jedi... 

 

I would be interested to see one of the master jedi's trees to better understand their ranks in these skills.

I am under impression the droids are minions. I'm also under the impression that some of the slicing and dicing was from Ataru Linked talent with a Force rating three. That's 7 to 10 damage from a saber and another 1 to 5 from successes and activate linked another 3 times of same damage and if extra advantages throw in a critical or two and you got lots of droid massacre. Then back to reality when they fought Darth Maul and damage wasn't even close to that due to Mauls parry ability.

[Decorus 672]

The wiki claims Ataru, Soresu, Shii-Cho, and Niman. I think that's more of conflicting authors, TV shows, comics, etc, claiming him as a master of a given form, than one single source saying he mastered all four. But Wookieepedia treats everything as canon, so yeah... 

 

If you remember when Obi Wan fight Dooku in  Episode 2 he complained about how disapointing Obi Wan was when Yoda had spoken so highly of him. Think on this Mace Windu has mastered 7 forms. Obi Wan mastering 4 isn't that hard of a stretch.

[Josep Maria 685]

I always considered that those talent trees and archetypes don't fully represent a Jedi with its maximum power level, but it's a closer version.

 

Players aren't Jedi, just sensible character that practiced some of their arts.

 

Also I want to add an Off-topic that a character with a FR of 4 or 5 with Makashi Finish and a good Lightsaber skill is a **** critical killing machine XD Killed one Brute - Inquisitor with just one hit XD

[usgrandprix 132]

To say deflect and parry are not weak in this system is disingenuous. They are.

 

Then the argument is, "should they be?" I don't think so. It's not that secret of an art. Luke was defecting them blind with minimal tutelage from Obi Wan.

 

If the system wants to restrict parry and reflect under the premise that they are hard to learn then it has no business trying to model Force Lightning.

 

Parry is particularly annoying. How many hits should you be able to take from a lightsaber? A LS hit is almost always an all or nothing proposition in the source.

Edited June 25, 2015 by usgrandprix

[mouthymerc 4,483]

Parry is particularly annoying. How many hits should you be able to take from a lightsaber? A LS hit is almost always an all or nothing proposition in the source.

If hits were an actual thing and not an abstraction that might be true. Parry is there to simulate the crashing of lightsabers we see in various media before one finally finishes off the other.

[kaosoe 7,573]

 

Parry is particularly annoying. How many hits should you be able to take from a lightsaber? A LS hit is almost always an all or nothing proposition in the source.

If hits were an actual thing and not an abstraction that might be true. Parry is there to simulate the crashing of lightsabers we see in various media before one finally finishes off the other.

 

 

 

Parry is particularly annoying. How many hits should you be able to take from a lightsaber? A LS hit is almost always an all or nothing proposition in the source.

If hits were an actual thing and not an abstraction that might be true. Parry is there to simulate the crashing of lightsabers we see in various media before one finally finishes off the other.

 

And even if it's not lightsaber on lightsaber, it's a simple matter to reskin a parried hit with a narrow dodge or a shallow hit.

[usgrandprix 132]

Say you hand wave three shallow hits. How do you explain the three crits that could have come with them?

 

And FWIW I still think sabers could do with a custom crit chart.

Edited June 25, 2015 by usgrandprix

[mouthymerc 4,483]

Say you hand wave three shallow hits. How do you explain the three crits that could have come with them?

 

Easily. Because damage is an abstraction rather than a literal simulation. They can be described in various ways depending on the type of critical result.

[usgrandprix 132]

I'm cool if that works for you but I see otherwise. Of course it's an abstraction. everything in the game is. That's a pretty easy place to go in an RPG discussion.

 

I see this parry/deflect issue going to the whole "hits aren't hits and wounds aren't wounds" argument but it never really comes up when we are talking about the precise armor on an x-wing.

 

I'd rather talk about how the mechanics model the source and I think they do not.

 

Also the book clearly says a hit is a hit so if you're going the abstraction route you really have to refute what is written.

[ShiKage 282]

 

Say you hand wave three shallow hits. How do you explain the three crits that could have come with them?

 

Easily. Because damage is an abstraction rather than a literal simulation. They can be described in various ways depending on the type of critical result.

 

One system I read, and now forget which but I think it may have been one of the more recent D&D versions.. had an explanation of hit points which I particularly liked and found useful. Hit Points are not intended to reflect solely physical damage such as cuts, scrape, broken limbs, etc.. but all of the aspects that go into your character being able to carry on fighting. This includes mental and physical fatigue, actual physical damage and various other factors. Carrying that over to here, it means in a lightsaber fight one can score a success in their attack but not kill people because you are instead wearing them down through your attacks and weakening the opponent until you manage to land that final strike.

[Josep Maria 685]

Based on answers from developers, the real damage on Edge are criticals. I cannot say exactly what are Wounds (probably minor brushes as people said) and Strain is a mixture between mental and also physical fatigue a bit too.

 

In our games we are considering to use different rules with Parry and Reflect, but we are still considering it. But I want to say that the actual P/R rules are pretty cool as a general concept.

 

Also we are considering that future updates or even Force Signature Abilities will add some new properties, but until the moment, seems just fine to us

[mouthymerc 4,483]

One system I read, and now forget which but I think it may have been one of the more recent D&D versions.. had an explanation of hit points which I particularly liked and found useful. Hit Points are not intended to reflect solely physical damage such as cuts, scrape, broken limbs, etc.. but all of the aspects that go into your character being able to carry on fighting. This includes mental and physical fatigue, actual physical damage and various other factors. Carrying that over to here, it means in a lightsaber fight one can score a success in their attack but not kill people because you are instead wearing them down through your attacks and weakening the opponent until you manage to land that final strike.

 

That is an explanation I have seen in various games in one form or another. Anyone wanting to take damage too literally is only setting themselves up for disappointment. Anyone wanting lightsabers et al to be more realistic? Reduce all the critical activation amounts to one advantage and give them various amounts of the Vicious quality from 5 (most blasters) to 10 (lightsabers) and you will have a fairly realistic (if short) game.

[Josep Maria 685]

Also try to think that there are 2 major types of NPC's/PC's that are Minions and Rival/Nemesis.

 

The second ones are almost the same but Minions will hit with just one hit, like in movies, but "heroes" or important NPC's will offer some "resistance" on combat. Unless is a cinematic moment, heroes never us to die or get hurt so often, so, the general mechanics sense seems pretty ok.

 

A lightsaber kill with just on hit and not at the same time

[usgrandprix 132]

The game has a mechanic for lessening the chance for being hit. Upgrade difficulty and/or add setback. There are tons of things that do that so they lower your chance of being hit at all--if it's one shot or ten or in the heart or on the shoulder. Talents, armor, spending a DP, certain maneuvers, cover, etc. all can keep you from getting hit at all. I just think LS defense should too.

 

Wounds are 100% a physical proposition. They are healed by stim packs and stopped by soak (based on a physical stat) and armor. If the devs want me to think otherwise then they would not have included strain. You cannot get a crit without a wound. 

 

I'm really not sure how we got here from there, though. It's like we're talking about a completely different topic. I'd just like to talk about deflect and parry stopping hits like they do in the source. I don't think they do. Other things in the same game do.

[usgrandprix 132]

Anyone wanting to take damage too literally is only setting themselves up for disappointment.

Only if you'd like to see defense work as it does in several other ways in the game already.

Anyone wanting lightsabers et al to be more realistic? Reduce all the critical activation amounts to one advantage and give them various amounts of the Vicious quality from 5 (most blasters) to 10 (lightsabers) and you will have a fairly realistic (if short) game.

Clever people, and I expect nothing less from FFG, can see degrees to solutions.

[mouthymerc 4,483]

They already have their solution. It is the game we have. It works well with a combination of factors. Will it please everyone? Nope. If it doesn't suit your purposes you have several options.