Eratta and lightsabers

[Ghostofman 8,319]

 

You cannot get a crit without a wound. 

Let me just glance at the rules......I'm pretty sure I can hit upon a situation.

 

gif of man in a glancing collision with an ice cream truck

Edited June 26, 2015 by Ghostofman

[SgtPimenta 0]

Sorry to bring back this discussion. I started to play this game just recently, and while I think it's a nice system, when it comes to lightsaber fights - specially parrying attacks and deflecting blasters - I don't think they did a great job.

Deflecting blaster is pratically the first thing Luke learns with Ben. And yet, he would need to learn 2 additional specs to learn that talent (one neutral Force Sensitive Exile/Emergent to get the FR 1, one out-of-career F&D spec to learn the REFLECT talent). That's a awful lot of XP to learn one of the most common trick of the jedi-trade.

 

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

 

I'm with usgrandprix in this matter. Wounds are a physical proposition. You can say it's abstract, that the blaster or the lightsaber didn't actually hit the character till he's critically injuried - but that's not RaW (see page 215 EotE, "States of Health" sidebar). A wounded character will benefit from medical care, bacta tanks and stim packs.

 

But let's roll with it. Let's say that critical injuries are the only real damage. Considering that lightsaber have a low Critical Rating, most hits will result in a critical injury anyway - and the PARRY talent will do nothing to stop these. That's a awkward proposition. So the jedi IS parrying, but he is being critically hit anyway? Doesn't make no sense to me 

[EldritchFire 499]

I would say that Luke's training with Obi-Wan to reflect the remote's attack isn't the Reflect talent, but the Sense power defense upgrade. "Streatch out with your feelings."

That's only a 40XP investment: 20 for FSEx/FSEm, 10 for the base Sense power, and 10 for the control upgrade.

-EF

[kaosoe 7,573]

If an attack is parried in such a way that its damage is reduced to 0, the attacker cannot activate a critical injury. Parry is applied before soak is applied, and if a resulting damage is 0 after soak is applied, the attacker cannot apply a critical injury.

Edited July 23, 2015 by kaosoe

[Lathrop 838]

 

Sorry to bring back this discussion. I started to play this game just recently, and while I think it's a nice system, when it comes to lightsaber fights - specially parrying attacks and deflecting blasters - I don't think they did a great job.

Deflecting blaster is pratically the first thing Luke learns with Ben. And yet, he would need to learn 2 additional specs to learn that talent (one neutral Force Sensitive Exile/Emergent to get the FR 1, one out-of-career F&D spec to learn the REFLECT talent). That's a awful lot of XP to learn one of the most common trick of the jedi-trade.

 

[...]

 

I'm with usgrandprix in this matter. Wounds are a physical proposition. You can say it's abstract, that the blaster or the lightsaber didn't actually hit the character till he's critically injuried - but that's not RaW (see page 215 EotE, "States of Health" sidebar). A wounded character will benefit from medical care, bacta tanks and stim packs.

 

But let's roll with it. Let's say that critical injuries are the only real damage. Considering that lightsaber have a low Critical Rating, most hits will result in a critical injury anyway - and the PARRY talent will do nothing to stop these. That's a awkward proposition. So the jedi IS parrying, but he is being critically hit anyway? Doesn't make no sense to me 

 

Even though the books are meant to sort of mimic Luke's journey, in terms of what would make sense in relation to his abilities and growth, he's probably just starting in Warrior/Starfighter Ace and just continues into other FaD specializations from there. Anyways.

 

Consider what you can do with Parry. You can block a Melee, Lightsaber, or Brawl check as long as you've got a Lightsaber or Melee weapon. So does it make sense that you can block a straight lightsaber attack with a wood Truncheon? No, because you're not. Just like you're not taking a lightsaber to the fist when your Brawl attack gets Parry'd by a lightsaber user. Like many things in the system it's not quite a literal thing and more of just a narrative thing. Which is what Wounds are, sometimes it's an actual hit, sometimes it isn't, that's where you have to use the narrative to make sense of things.

 

And as EldritchFire mentioned, the blocking of stun bolts can just be narration that Luke's Sense Defense upgrades to make the attack miss allowed him to block the attacks.

Edited July 23, 2015 by Lathrop

[Emperor Norton 397]

Also, remember that combat rounds can be up to 1 minute long.

 

Just because you parried enough to block 4 wounds of damage, doesn't mean you didn't get singed a few times on some other strikes.

[SgtPimenta 0]

 

If an attack is parried in such a way that its damage is reduced to 0, the attacker cannot activate a critical injury. Parry is applied before soak is applied, and if a resulting damage is 0 after soak is applied, the attacker cannot apply a critical injury.

 

Zero damage? Small chance of that. Don't Lightsabers have BREACH? Don't BREACH ignore 10 points of SOAK?

 

Even though the books are meant to sort of mimic Luke's journey, in terms of what would make sense in relation to his abilities and growth, he's probably just starting in Warrior/Starfighter Ace and just continues into other FaD specializations from there. Anyways.

 

Consider what you can do with Parry. You can block a Melee, Lightsaber, or Brawl check as long as you've got a Lightsaber or Melee weapon. So does it make sense that you can block a straight lightsaber attack with a wood Truncheon? No, because you're not. Just like you're not taking a lightsaber to the fist when your Brawl attack gets Parry'd by a lightsaber user. Like many things in the system it's not quite a literal thing and more of just a narrative thing. Which is what Wounds are, sometimes it's an actual hit, sometimes it isn't, that's where you have to use the narrative to make sense of things.

 

And as EldritchFire mentioned, the blocking of stun bolts can just be narration that Luke's Sense Defense upgrades to make the attack miss allowed him to block the attacks.

 

Miss an attack - that's what PARRY and REFLECT should do. The sense power, the Ranged/Melee Defense talent of EotE and AotR, they fell like what we are used to see in the source materials. The F&D talents don't.

 

Also, remember that combat rounds can be up to 1 minute long.

 

Just because you parried enough to block 4 wounds of damage, doesn't mean you didn't get singed a few times on some other strikes.

 

Singed is one thing. But there's a good chance that a lightsaber will do a lot more than just that. I'm talking about vicious critical injuries. And PARRY doesn't help at all against these.

[kaosoe 7,573]

 

If an attack is parried in such a way that its damage is reduced to 0, the attacker cannot activate a critical injury. Parry is applied before soak is applied, and if a resulting damage is 0 after soak is applied, the attacker cannot apply a critical injury.

 

Zero damage? Small chance of that. Don't Lightsabers have BREACH? Don't BREACH ignore 10 points of SOAK?.

Well. Yes, it would take several ranks of Parry (At least 5), but it's possible.

[Lathrop 838]

 

 

If an attack is parried in such a way that its damage is reduced to 0, the attacker cannot activate a critical injury. Parry is applied before soak is applied, and if a resulting damage is 0 after soak is applied, the attacker cannot apply a critical injury.

 

Zero damage? Small chance of that. Don't Lightsabers have BREACH? Don't BREACH ignore 10 points of SOAK?

 

He's saying that Parry's reduction of damage applies to the damage of the weapon itself. So if you can ignore the 7 (or more damage) from a basic Lightsaber, it doesn't matter if there is Soak, because the attack does no damage and effectively misses.

 

 

 

Miss an attack - that's what PARRY and REFLECT should do.

 

See above. You get enough ranks, you make attacks miss. And for most encounters with Blasters, the Blasters have to deal with your Soak after the reduction, which if the Reflect didn't deduce the damage to 0 before, it might then. And THEN it misses. Changing the talents to just straight out negate damage from an attack is some ridiculously overpowered stuff, and it would probably come with a vastly increased Strain cost and become a single, expensive talent.

 

 

 

Singed is one thing. But there's a good chance that a lightsaber will do a lot more than just that. I'm talking about vicious critical injuries. And PARRY doesn't help at all against these.

 

Said before, Parry can negate damage entirely with enough ranks, or if you've got some Cortosis clothing (which you probably should if you plan on fighting lightsaber-wielding enemies a lot, which you possibly seem to believe the players should be) and Parry, then you can use your Soak to ignore the rest of the damage. And no damage = no crits.

 

But besides that, lightsabers are dangerous. Crits happen even when characters are blocking. Vader can get knocked on his butt, get his arms cut off on multiple occasions, etc. With the current system, 2 lightsaber characters are whacking at each other and doing much smaller amounts of damage because of Parry. So the main way of taking the opponent down becomes criticals, which highlights the dangerous nature of lightsabers; and battles become a conflict of how the character should balance their Advantage - to up the critical and attempt to take the opponent out quicker, or to recover more strain so they can block for more turns. You change it so damage is negated entirely, and it becomes about getting 2 or 3 hits until the opponent loses all their strain to spend, and then you just whack them a couple more times until they go down. And it becomes a thing where even though criticals are an option when the target has no defenses, it becomes pointless and you're better off just knocking them out with a Stun bolt from a gun.

[Angelalex242 101]

I don't recall the jedi order...or even the sith...putting cortosis in everything. They had their parry talent to deal with opposing saber wielders.

 

Still, I think you can simulate the prequels with this system, it just takes a couple thousand XP to be a movie level hero. Or twice that to be Yoda/Sidious.

[Rakaydos 4,236]

I don't recall the jedi order...or even the sith...putting cortosis in everything. They had their parry talent to deal with opposing saber wielders.

 

Still, I think you can simulate the prequels with this system, it just takes a couple thousand XP to be a movie level hero. Or twice that to be Yoda/Sidious.

or just 300 XP to be Starkiller. That min-maxed bastard.

[Emperor Norton 397]

Also, remember that combat rounds can be up to 1 minute long.

 

Just because you parried enough to block 4 wounds of damage, doesn't mean you didn't get singed a few times on some other strikes.

 

Singed is one thing. But there's a good chance that a lightsaber will do a lot more than just that. I'm talking about vicious critical injuries. And PARRY doesn't help at all against these.

 

My feelings is that maybe you should keep most people with basic lightsabers, and not tricked out monstrosities and your characters wouldn't be getting hit with crazy crits all the time.

 

As for NPCs... let's just say this system doesn't support the "boss NPC" very well if they are fighting solo.

Edited July 24, 2015 by Emperor Norton

[usgrandprix 132]

SgtPimenta,

The easiest house rule is to keep Parry and Reflect as they are but allow them to be activated multiple times on one attack, which may even be allowed by RAW but I've been told otherwise.

With this option I prefer lowering the strain cost of additional activations (+1 per additional activation). I've got other rules but this is easiest.

Here's an example. A LS hit does 8 net damage.

With one rank of parry: Activate 3 times. Strain cost is 3+1+1=5. Stop 9 damage.

With two ranks of parry: Activate 2 times. Strain cost is 3+1=4. Stop 8 damage.

This way that strain really buys you something (stopping that crit +50 or whatever he's about to roll)

Obviously strain is a deciding factor and weakness in this system already. Easy to exploit. But even without this rule I have to "hold back" and ask my players to do the same.

[Angelalex242 101]

Well, it must also be remembered the jedi's probably spending all his credits on tricking out his lightsaber with the hard points available. (in prequel or EU eras, anyway). The Sith likewise have tricked out sabers. In any era.

 

'You gonna buy anything, master jedi?'

 

Nah. Saving up for my Krayt Dragon Pearl.

 

At any rate, I think it wise to judge these talents against the EoTE/AOR beast of a lightsaber, with damage 10, as a baseline of what parry needs to be able to deal with.

[Emperor Norton 397]

I think you are just working at an entirely different power level than the system assumes if you think a tricked out saber is something everyone will have.

[Ghostofman 8,319]

I think you are just working at an entirely different power level than the system assumes if you think a tricked out saber is something everyone will have.

He is. Follow his posts in other threads, he's more a follower of "the old ways" when it comes to the force, Jedi, ect. In his games Jedi are epic D&D level 30 style heroes.

 

Nothing wrong with that really, especially if you see Star Wars as more a high fantasy setting with lasers instead of crossbows.

 

But the Sci-fi vs. Sci-Fantasy vs. Reskinned Fantasy argument has been going of for a long time...

 

Image: Obi-wan Kenobi wearing a Youngling training helmet (kinda looks like a mixing bowl) on his head, captioned "It's totally awesome....from a certain point of view...."

Edited July 24, 2015 by Ghostofman

[EldritchFire 499]

Well, it must also be remembered the jedi's probably spending all his credits on tricking out his lightsaber with the hard points available. (in prequel or EU eras, anyway). The Sith likewise have tricked out sabers. In any era.

 

'You gonna buy anything, master jedi?'

 

Nah. Saving up for my Krayt Dragon Pearl.

 

At any rate, I think it wise to judge these talents against the EoTE/AOR beast of a lightsaber, with damage 10, as a baseline of what parry needs to be able to deal with.

 

I think that unwise. Remember that the first mod to a lightsaber is against a Hard (PPP) difficulty, and each additional mod increases the difficulty by 1. Obi-Wan doesn't have a Mechanics skill high enough to do more than one mod, if he's lucky. And not every Jedi is going to have a friend with enough skill that they trust with their lightsaber to fully mod it out—all the GM has to do is spend a Destiny Point and that one Despair result ruins the crystal.

 

It's wisest to start with the base crystal as the assumption, since not all Jedi take the Artisan spec.

 

-EF

[dfn 88]

Remember that the first mod to a lightsaber is against a Hard (PPP) difficulty...

I thought this was errata'd so that the difficulty is reduced by 2?

[EldritchFire 499]

 

Remember that the first mod to a lightsaber is against a Hard (PPP) difficulty...

I thought this was errata'd so that the difficulty is reduced by 2?

 

 

 

You're right, I forgot about that. That's the problem with working off of the beta copy

 

The first mod is Easy (P) then, and goes up from there. So It's pretty safe to assume two successful mods,yes?

 

-EF

[Angelalex242 101]

Well...

 

Define a mod. Is the first mod 'changing out the crystal to this nifty Krayt Dragon Pearl'? Or is the first mod 'bringing extra potential out of the crystal by adding all the extras Krayt Dragon Pearls have?'

 

My ideal saber is a tricked out Krayt Pearl/Curved Hilt/ShadowSheath/Quality Hilt. '

 

How many rolls at what difficulty does it take to actually do that?

 

(Good thing my preferred style is Shien. Artisan is in career.)

[deraforia 169]

Well...

Define a mod. Is the first mod 'changing out the crystal to this nifty Krayt Dragon Pearl'? Or is the first mod 'bringing extra potential out of the crystal by adding all the extras Krayt Dragon Pearls have?'

My ideal saber is a tricked out Krayt Pearl/Curved Hilt/ShadowSheath/Quality Hilt. '

How many rolls at what difficulty does it take to actually do that?

(Good thing my preferred style is Shien. Artisan is in career.)

Those are attachments. You add attachments to your lightsaber with no test. You can add modifications to the attachments. Shadowsheath and Superior don't have any mods. Curved hilt has just one, so it's just one check at Easy difficulty. The Krayt Dragon Pearl has four, so that's an Easy, an Average, a Hard, and a Daunting test. Also, with the crystal, you get to add force dice and spend pips towards more successes or advantages. I think that's how it works anyway. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. Edited July 25, 2015 by deraforia

[BigSpoon 373]

That sounds about right. The hardest part about tricking out a lightsaber with a KDP, isn't the cost or the checks for mods, it is finding the pearl itself. The pearls already in existence out in the universe are a very rare and valuable trinket and it would be highly unlikely that their owners will give them up even for 100 times the book price. Your other option is to go Krayt hunting and hope you get lucky and win, and then pray to the Force that you are absurdly lucky and the dragon you killed has a crystal in its stomach. Both options present a very high degree of difficulty no matter what era you play in.

Edited July 25, 2015 by BigSpoon

[Angelalex242 101]

...Well, that's not a problem for Sith, but it is admittedly a problem for Jedi.

 

Sith have the advantage of 'want, take, have.'

 

"Give me the Pearl."

"No"

*Force choke*

"Well, that was easy."

[Rakaydos 4,236]

...Well, that's not a problem for Sith, but it is admittedly a problem for Jedi.

 

Sith have the advantage of 'want, take, have.'

 

"Give me the Pearl."

"No"

*Force choke*

"Well, that was easy."

...right, lets get into a force duel with someone who is badass enough to have beaten a Krayt Dragon themselves. That will end well...

[SgtPimenta 0]

SgtPimenta,The easiest house rule is to keep Parry and Reflect as they are but allow them to be activated multiple times on one attack, which may even be allowed by RAW but I've been told otherwise.With this option I prefer lowering the strain cost of additional activations (+1 per additional activation). I've got other rules but this is easiest.Here's an example. A LS hit does 8 net damage.With one rank of parry: Activate 3 times. Strain cost is 3+1+1=5. Stop 9 damage.With two ranks of parry: Activate 2 times. Strain cost is 3+1=4. Stop 8 damage.This way that strain really buys you something (stopping that crit +50 or whatever he's about to roll)Obviously strain is a deciding factor and weakness in this system already. Easy to exploit. But even without this rule I have to "hold back" and ask my players to do the same.

I'll try that, thanks. The bottom line is, I don't think that the system emulates all the parrying and deflecting we are used to see in the movies.

Sure, I understand the need to balance different classes, and I don't think jedis should be invulnerable or anything. But i think the Parry talent (and Reflect) should increase the chance of a character of avoid an attack (increasing Defense, difficult of attacks, etc, like other talents/powers do). The way it is Raw, it just don't look like what a jedi should be doing.

Just my two credits.