Eratta and lightsabers

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

 

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.

Two points to consider.

 

While the attack roll is a single roll, it accounts for several swings/shots made during the course of the one minute combat round, with the damage inflicted ultimately being the cumulative result of those attacks.  Mechanically, my PC might be making a single Lightsaber combat check to hit the Inquisitor he's dueling, but narratively my PC and the Inquisitor are trading blows over the course of that round, with the wounds that I inflicted on the Inquisitor after he used Parry being a combination of glancing blows and physical stress from blunting the full effect of my strikes.  Same goes for using Reflect, in that any wounds suffered after Reflect is accounted for is narratively the physical stress of keeping those blasters from putting holes in one's body as well as the glancing shots that slipped past my defenses.  It's been said that "real" damage in this game is not tracked by wounds, but instead by critical injuries; take a crit, and that's real, lasting damage, where wounds are more like minor cuts, scrapes, and burns that can easily be tended via a stimpack to allow the PC to ignore the pain and keep fighting.

 

Secondly, the PCs in this system are not fully-trained Jedi, which was something the FaD Beta made pretty clear and something I hope the final core rulebook also emphasizes.  They're people that have in various ways stumbled across bits of Jedi lore and training methods, especially when starting out, and even at "Knight Level" they've still a ways to go, and their doing it without the lifetime of proper training or the support network that the Jedi Order offered during the days of the Old Republic.  Even in Legends when Luke started trying to rebuild the Jedi Order, most of his recruits generally paled in comparison to the Jedi Knights of old in terms of their abilities, but those NJO Knights were still plenty capable.  Granted, a lot of that capability in both the old and new Jedi Knights was due to most of their opposition being minions, who aren't going to last very long against somebody with a lightsaber, which the game does reflect; a lightsaber is an incredibly dangerous weapon, more so than a blaster in some instances, and if you're not up to snuff when you pick a fight with a skilled lightsaber duelist, you're done for.

 

Part of the core design philosophy behind the entire system was that combat should be dangerous for the PCs, and that they shouldn't ever feel they're at a point where they can wade through their enemies with impunity.  One of the core problems with WotC's d20 versions was that after a certain point (usually 5th level), most run-of-the-mill opponents such as stormtroopers and Hutt-employed goons were pathetic jokes to the PC, forcing the GM to concoct newer and more powerful threats as the PCs gained levels.  With this system, a minion group of stormtroopers is still going to be a threat no matter how much XP a PC has under their belt. and we see this in RotS when clusters of clone troopers were able to take out several Jedi Knights and Masters, such as Ki Adi Mundi who simply got overwhelmed by enemy fire.  So even in the films the classically trained Jedi Knights were NOT invulnerable to enemy fire.  Heck, consider how many Jedi Knights wound up dead in the Geonosis Arena in AotC prior to Yoda conducting a gunship rescue of the survivors; Mace Windu went in with 200 Jedi, and roughly a dozen survived when it was all said and done, and these were Jedi that had undergone the lifetime of proper training.

[Angelalex242 101]

...Well, that depends on when you look at the NJO. By 36-40 ABY, Luke's people were generally on par with the old order. With himself and Jacen Solo standing in as equivalents of Yoda and Mace. (And both of them surpassed Yoda and Mace, respectively)

[SgtPimenta 0]

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.

Two points to consider.

 

(...)

So even in the films the classically trained Jedi Knights were NOT invulnerable to enemy fire.  Heck, consider how many Jedi Knights wound up dead in the Geonosis Arena in AotC prior to Yoda conducting a gunship rescue of the survivors; Mace Windu went in with 200 Jedi, and roughly a dozen survived when it was all said and done, and these were Jedi that had undergone the lifetime of proper training.

Did I said the jedis should be invulnerable? I think my exact words were "I don't think jedis should be invulnerable or anything".

Let me get this clear: a jedi character must not be immortal, nor impervious, nor invincible. That's not how I want my rpg characters, and jedis are no exception.

I only wish that

[Angelalex242 101]

For the record, I don't think Jedi are invincible either. I may use 2200 XP to create Obi Wan, but I spread it out quite a bit. He's far less...focused...then some people might be with that much XP to throw around.

[Jereru 171]

Invincible he is not... Resourceful he is... To deal with many different situations he is able, yes... A Jedi, resourceful and flexible must be... Just like water...

[SgtPimenta 0]

As I was saying: I only wish that the parry/reflect talents didn't look like a variation of armor/soak.

There's lots of talents and powers that do that. Frankly, the cover maneuver makes more sense than Parry/reflect - without making anyone invulnerable. I'm thinking about just using and describing this as "I'm taking cover behind my lightsaber and jedi mojo".

Edited July 25, 2015 by SgtPimenta

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

The problem with having the Parry and Reflect talents impact the dice pool is that it goes against one of the core tenets of the system, and that is to keep the dice pools manageable.  Thus the caps of 5 difficulty dice, 5 ranks in any skill, and a 6 in any characteristic.  It's also why getting mutliple setback or boost dice isn't an assured thing, as well as a multitude of talents that remove setback dice.

 

Games like HERO/Champions and Shadowrun are notorious for starting characters needing to roll 12+ six-sided dice as part of their action, and the dice pools only going up from there.

 

Plus, there are already talents that impact defense by upgrading the difficulty, so having Parry and Reflect do the same is just aping those talents.  And adding more setback dice runs into the problem of making the dice pools too large to be reasonably manageable.

 

With Parry and Reflect being what amounts to an extra level of soak, it also helps keep the game moving quicker and less chance of players forgetting they have certain defensive traits until after the roll is made.  Which does happen, even with players that have been playing this system since the EotE Beta.  And if they did go with the upgrade or add setback method, you'd probably have more players whining about how useless those talents are.  Even the defense upgrade for the Sense power occasionally gets knocked because it's not very reliable (it just upgrades the attacker's difficulty, and those negative dice can just as easily come up blank as they could double-failures), and point-for-point the left-hand side of the Sense power is probably one of the best defensive abilities in the entire game.

[Emperor Norton 397]

I'll be honest, I think using them as a sort of Soak is BRILLIANT design. Because of the fact that attack rolls represent a series of strikes over up to an entire minute, what better way to model it than basically consistently being able to cancel entire strikes (not attacks, individual strikes).

 

Adding black dice or upgrading the difficulty is just incredibly inconsistent in usefulness, it may do nothing at all. Reflect/Parry are honestly one of the MOST consistent defensive abilities outside of Enduring/Armor Mastery (also man, waiting for the Armorer tricked out in cortorsis armor and a style with heavy reflect/parry, he is going to be a nightmare to actually damage). It also slows down one of the biggest advantages lightsabers had: breach, and keeps lightsaber duels from being "he who hits first, wins" or a series of whiffs, which is what using parry as defense would do, if it actually managed to push things up high enough (which is unlikely, since the game heavily favors offense over defense when it comes to hit chance).

 

When you look at the system as a whole, the mechanic just fits and is infinitely more brilliant than anything else I could have come up with.

[Rakaydos 4,236]

I set up a climactic battle with the party's inquisitor today... and the first crit they rolled was Winded- the inquisitor cannot deliberately spend strain, and so cannot strain. Despite our super-durabilty houserule, she died in short order.

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

I set up a climactic battle with the party's inquisitor today... and the first crit they rolled was Winded- the inquisitor cannot deliberately spend strain, and so cannot strain. Despite our super-durabilty houserule, she died in short order.

It can happen.

 

I ran a test battle against in Inquisitor vs. a Human Shii-Cho Warrior and a Nautolan Marauder (both at Knight Level) during the FaD Beta, and pretty much had to throw the fight out because the Marauder inflicted a "Knocked Senseless" crit meaning the Inquisitor couldn't really do anything for the fight other than just sit there and be punching bag.

 

Also had an Inquisitor test fight where one of my buddies brought in a Mirialan Hunter with a heavy blaster rifle, and as the Inquisitor didn't have any ranks in Reflect, he went down hard in spite of his high soak value (Brawn 5, armored robes) simply from the autofire hits, which was assisted by a Togruta using their Pack Instinicts to bolster their aid maneuver.

[Emperor Norton 397]

To be honest, the system as a whole doesn't do multiple party members vs one villain very well. You need to be building your encounters with that in mind, unless you don't mind the occasional anticlimactic curbstomp.

Edited July 26, 2015 by Emperor Norton

[Ghostofman 8,319]

The crit system is pretty punishing, I've had a black Knight situation or two myself.

Have you ever come across a system that actually does it well? It seems the usual solution is to make them unhittable, a bullet sponge, or both.

[Rakaydos 4,236]

The crit system is pretty punishing, I've had a black Knight situation or two myself.

Have you ever come across a system that actually does it well? It seems the usual solution is to make them unhittable, a bullet sponge, or both.

Ive been working on some houserules, but theres still someissues popping up.

Making crits a bigger part of the damage system, while still being able to make someone pass out grom the pain (and take them out without pc killing), is difficult balance to reach.

[Emperor Norton 397]

If I was going to try to make a multi vs one combat in this game I would do some combination of the following:

 

1. A talent that makes crits cost +1 more advantage against the nemesis. Possibly 2 ranks.
2. A couple of ranks in the talent that reduces the crit roll by 10.
3. A custom ability that is 1/session flip a destiny point to reroll a crit result, to lower the likelihood of a few truly debilitating crit results.
4. A custom ability to allow them to take 2 full turns each round, to keep from losing the action economy so entirely.
5. 1.5-2x wounds & strain
6. Tricked out cortorsis armor
7. Good ranks in parry/reflect
8. improved parry/reflect for more out of turn damage
9. ranks of adversary.

You could MAYBE make a single character with the above who could hold his own against a party for several rounds using that.

Edited July 26, 2015 by Emperor Norton

[EldritchFire 499]

The EotE GM Screen, I believe, has rules that cover your #4, Norton. For nemesis-level opponents, add one initiative slot at the bottom of the order that only the nemesis can use, thus giving them two turns each round.

 

-EF

[Emperor Norton 397]

i think the real trick though is to not do 1vmany at all. Its kind of boring anyway. Give everyone things to do!

 

Your two jedi fight off a pair of inquisitors at the entrance to the bunker, while the soldier and mechanic are infiltrating the bunker to gain some vital piece of information/disable something/etc, while your pilot and another character are in the skies in a transport providing air support and keeping the extraction point clear of TIEs. That is much more climactic than: Hey, all you guys, fight that one inquisitor.

[Angelalex242 101]

If I was going to try to make a multi vs one combat in this game I would do some combination of the following:

 

1. A talent that makes crits cost +1 more advantage against the nemesis. Possibly 2 ranks.
2. A couple of ranks in the talent that reduces the crit roll by 10.
3. A custom ability that is 1/session flip a destiny point to reroll a crit result, to lower the likelihood of a few truly debilitating crit results.
4. A custom ability to allow them to take 2 full turns each round, to keep from losing the action economy so entirely.
5. 1.5-2x wounds & strain
6. Tricked out cortorsis armor
7. Good ranks in parry/reflect
8. improved parry/reflect for more out of turn damage
9. ranks of adversary.

You could MAYBE make a single character with the above who could hold his own against a party for several rounds using that.

 

There already is such a character. Goes by Vader. There's an even stronger such character. Goes by Sidious.

[tinkerghost 101]

i think the real trick though is to not do 1vmany at all. Its kind of boring anyway. Give everyone things to do!

 

Your two jedi fight off a pair of inquisitors at the entrance to the bunker, while the soldier and mechanic are infiltrating the bunker to gain some vital piece of information/disable something/etc, while your pilot and another character are in the skies in a transport providing air support and keeping the extraction point clear of TIEs. That is much more climactic than: Hey, all you guys, fight that one inquisitor.

The total sum of my Drall's combat training was: "Keep the pointy end towards whatever is trying to kill you & try not to die until we get there." He's the medic/engineer/slicer/neverending font of useless knowledge - but combat is not where it's at.

 

Hack the engineering command tree to to inject an overload warning into the fusion generators emergency shutdown system? - covered.

Reverse the airlock door sensor so it shows green & opens directly into a vacuum? - covered

Fire on the horde of Stormtroopers chasing you down the corridor? - Did I mention I can open the airlock directly into the the vacuum?

[Emperor Norton 397]

Yeah, that was why the techie was with the soldier in my example. He is there to slice through locks/disable things/etc. etc.

[Emperor Norton 397]

There already is such a character. Goes by Vader. There's an even stronger such character. Goes by Sidious.

Oh, man, yeah, how did I forget Vader and Palpatine existed right? Its not like I was talking about how I would handle that type of character in the system for people who wanted to do it! I was totally saying that it was entirely impossible for those types of characters to exist in the Star Wars Universe! Clearly.

/sarcasm.

Seriously man, I'm not sure how your "witty" one liner was in any way a response to what I posted.

[Angelalex242 101]

I'm saying you're overcomplicating things. When a character like Vader takes the field, PCs typically know they can't throw dice at him and expect to win. His reputation proceeds him.

 

So for someone like him, you might use a simple 'cinematic mode', rather like the cutscene of a videogame, then trying to dice him out.

 

Or, ya know, you could actually build him as a PC with 3k XP, maybe 3500, but if you haven't got that kind of time...

[Emperor Norton 397]

Its not over-complicating things to try and provide a mechanical solution to an issue some people have with a tabletop RPG.

I could handle anything by just narrating it away, but then, it stops being fun for me as a GM, we stop having any surprises. Mechanics are there to give a framework for the improbable to happen. If something is a forgone conclusion, either the GM or the Players have screwed up royally.

Also, building him as a character with thousands and thousands of XP would not do anything to actually fix the reasons why 1vsMany doesn't work: 1. A single crit can devastate an individual character, 2. Action economy. It also ignores the fundamental reason that adversaries are built differently than PCs: its overcomplicated.

Edited July 26, 2015 by Emperor Norton

[Jereru 171]

Well, the list posted by EmperorNorton has some things I always use for BBGs. It's very important to make them resilient enough so they can last for a few rounds, while not killing 1-2 PC each time they swing.

In a game like this, Adversary does the trick -more difficult to hit/get advantages. I would also use minions to pose additional threats which shouldn't be ignored.

Just remember this is not a GM vs Players thing. You want the BBG to play its role and make the encounter epic, not to kill the PCs (unless... no, NO!). Sometimes the PCs get lucky and kill him faster, sometimes he gets lucky and takes down someone's leg or arm. But that's what happens when you roll dice, uh?

[Angelalex242 101]

I'm sure Lord Vader can do something about crits. He has as many ranks of parry as are possible, an equal amount of reflect, and is wearing cybernetics all over.

[Krieger22 2,471]

Just pile on some ranks in Durable. That's what I do when I want a Big Bad to keep from getting one-shotted by my crit monster players in combat. That plus a few ranks in Adversary plus some ranks in a defensive talent like Dodge to trigger when the combat monster PCs open fire will typically ensure that he'll be standing upright and dealing damage for at least a couple of rounds.