I know the subject of unequal ST and WT resurfaces here occasionally, but it is one of the game elements that really irks my nerves. Especially considering introduction of long-range stun damage weapons in not-core books.

So has anyone tried the following idea (modelled after DnD 3.x): At character creation WT=ST, to determine the value add Brawn+Willpower and divide by 2.

Talents that add WT or ST add +2 to the base Threshold.

Now, when lethal damage is dealt, the wounds are added normally. But when strain is used or damaged, the value is subtracted parallel to wounds.

For example Bob has 15 Base Threshold. It means he has 15 wounds and 15 strain. In a combat he suffers 5 wounds. This also drops his ST to 10. So, round to he has 10 Wounds and 10 Strain. He then needs an extra maneuver so he spends 2 strain, so now he has 10 wounds and 8 strain.

Basically - suffering lethal damage also lowers strain. This way there is no meta-game thinking of using stun to bring down enemies 'because it's easier'.

What do you think?

Note: I'm not aiming here to start a discussion about the point of changing rules in general, if I like the game or not (I love it) etc. etc. Just seeking options and ideas.

I know the subject of unequal ST and WT resurfaces here occasionally, but it is one of the game elements that really irks my nerves. Especially considering introduction of long-range stun damage weapons in not-core books.

Where/what are these long-range stun damage weapons in not-core books?

Core p.157: "When weapons with a stun setting are used to deal stun damage, their range changes to short and cannot be increased." (emphasis mine)

As far as I'm aware, using stun makes a player have to get real close to their targets which puts them at greater risk than blasting away from distance and cover. It's not "easier" just something that is an option for players to perform if it suits their purposes for the story. While it is "faster" to incapacitate someone by stunning them with all checks being equal, I wouldn't say it was easier as they are put at a tactical disadvantage when having to attack from short range often without cover.

By "faster" I just mean that Strain Threshold is usually a few points lower than Wound Threshold but not always. Sometimes they are only a point or two off and usually my players have a few hits to spare when they are getting those kill shots in, so in those situations they could almost already be treated as equal.

I don't think we should ever drag DnD X into this. The systems are too dissimilar to be affective.

edisung, I think there's a rifle in Enter the Unknown that's stun only and has Long range (away from books right now). It's not a stun setting for that weapon, it's the only type of damage it's capable of (unless, y'know, you use it as a club).

Skie, I sort of see half a problem with the ST = WT thing. Grit becomes less valuable (Toughness is twice as effective and now pulls double duty). Also Strain is used for more than keeping you awake - all those Talents that burn Strain now have a significantly larger battery to draw from. As does taking an extra manoeuvre.

There is also the fact that strain can be recovered on almost every dice roll.

edisung, I think there's a rifle in Enter the Unknown that's stun only and has Long range (away from books right now). It's not a stun setting for that weapon, it's the only type of damage it's capable of (unless, y'know, you use it as a club).

You're right, the Blastech LBR-9 Stun Rifle has long range and 10 Stun Damage. Wow, did not read that bit as closely before as I did just now.

Anyway, back to OP, I think that if you're having trouble in your group with everyone stunning everyone down, then you could mitigate that by having Threat affect the weapon or possibly just make it hard for the PCs to get one. The rarity is only 4 but they mostly sell in Core Worlds. There are few and far between in the Outer Rim according to the descriptive text and they get picked up pretty quickly when they are available. The shop could be backordered or sold out when the PCs come looking. I think that the RAW allows for enough accommodation to get around your little problem before resorting to house rules that adapt DnD to the system.

To be honest, I really don't like cross-pollenating rpg systems and try to avoid house rules for the most part. That being said, my main focus is that everyone is having fun and will continue to come back to play. I don't really see a problem with your characters wanting to stun everything. The gun packs such a wallop that its similar to other heavy weapons, and may run the encounter more quickly, but as a GM you could always boost the NPC's stats here or there by including larger minion groups or more dangerous rivals and nemeses. Just a couple of suggestions...

edisung: there are 2 Long Range stun weapons in EtU and bow in SoF (arrows can be fitted with stun tips). They're reasonably cheap and obtainable. About you saying that there are no differences between ST and WT. At higher power levels - there are. There is an ex-PC NPC Nemesis in our game - a wookiee marauder. With 26 WT and 9 ST.

Col Orange: Grit and Toughness become the same talent, so in any tree they appear the PC just adds +2 to Base Threshold. Yes, this makes non-combat characters more resilient, but I don't have problem with this, since non-combat careers don't have that many of these talents in their trees. Yes, thank you for pointing out that strain becomes easier to obtain and thus spent on activites... But I'm not sure I remember a game (we've been playing once a week since September) that anyone had problems with running out of strain... If that causes problems it can be ruled that strain can be regained only once per encounter, or 1strain per round, or nothing at all - only after the encounter ends.

We don't have this problem in our game (yet) but I was thinking that it might be easier to double Brawn when calculating Soak versus stun damage. So big, mean, characters are harder to stun without affecting strain used to buy maneuvers and stuff like that.

Rather than doubling Brawn, perhaps use Brawn + Willpower.

There is also the fact that strain can be recovered on almost every dice roll.

One could also choose to not neglect Willpower at creation so that their strain pool is in better shape.

As an added thought, there is also, Second Wind, Resolve, and Rapid Recovery. I hardly see this as an issue between the ability to spend Advantages to 'heal' Strain on the go, and Talents that add layers of Strain soak (Resolve), additional heal on the fly options, and buff your ability to self heal Strain at the end of an encounter.

Color me cynical, but I'm willing to bet this issue stems from someone that made a Wookie Marauder with 5 points in Brawn at creation and now is ticked because they've played and realize their Strain pool sux.

Color me cynical, but I'm willing to bet this issue stems from someone that made a Wookie Marauder with 5 points in Brawn at creation and now is ticked because they've played and realize their Strain pool sux.

Not really, as I explained before, this is a major NPC (who yes, started as a PC). He is supposed to be a terrible enemy, but being a marauder he doesn't have many options of increasing ST. So, he is this huge, frightening wookie, with Soak 9 and 9 strain. Increasing his willpower will only add 1-2 pts of strain.

For now I'll probably leave the rules as they are, but I'm just looking for ideas - like the ones offered by Hedgehobbit and HappyDaze.

Wookie Marauder, thought so. 9 soak also, and you wonder why he is vulnerable to Strain? He is supposed to be, because whomever spent all their xp on Brawn and raising Soak. Nothing wrong with the RAW, they are working as intended.

If you're worried about Stun Damage/Stun Setting then Brawn (for Soak) tends to help more than Willpower.

As for being able to shrug off Strain with every roll, that's no help when the amount of Strain piles on so fast that you go from 0 Strain to over your threshold between actions. In such cases, only Soak and Resolve along with Grit are going to help, but Grit is weak compared to Toughened and Resolve is pretty uncommon (especially in combat specs).

There are other things to do. Take cover. Don't get close, or get close really quickly. Wear armour that has ranged defense.

Worse case, be thankful that the opponent is trying to take you alive. As for complaining about one weapon, unless every foe has it, it's a non issue.

Strain Can be recovered a lot easier than wounds, and since most weapons with stun have really poor range, you can use tactics.

Exactly. The game is about trade offs and compromises in character creation. If one chooses the galactic standard for glass jaw and Strain at creation in the Wookiee race with its 6 point disparity Wounds to Strain and a 1 in Willpower your Strain is going to be a problem. If one chooses to ignore that weakness that isn't a rules issue, it's a conscious choice.

Yes, but I get it. From a GM-PC point of view it's all fair and great. But as a GM I want an enemy that doesn't fold after two shots, because players know that marauders have low strain. There is a cognitive dilemma here - players know, but do their characters know? Why should/shouldn't they? If fighters are universally easy to stun, why everybody is developing and using standard energy weapons? On the other hand I don't want artificially pump up ST against all rules.

How is it artificial to field opponents that challenge your players? I mean isn't the Adversary talent itself a contrived narrative tool for raising the challenge level to players? I don't see how making an opponent not have a glass jaw is any different.

Not really, as I explained before, this is a major NPC (who yes, started as a PC). He is supposed to be a terrible enemy, but being a marauder he doesn't have many options of increasing ST. So, he is this huge, frightening wookie, with Soak 9 and 9 strain. Increasing his willpower will only add 1-2 pts of strain.

If he is an NPC, change him to fit your concept with a wave of your GM hand. Give him 26 WT and 22 ST and any talent you think makes sense as Wookie Marauder. Slap a few levels of adversary to him, give him Advanced Nemesis so he can take two actions, and some soaking armor and he will turn from a two hit wonder into a challenge.

If your players complain when your Wookie Marauder don't go down in two shots, you can look at them with a smile and say, "You must not be in Kansas anymore Dorthy, it looks like ZugZug the Wookie Marauder is bearing down on your position. Unless you want to flip some destiny tokens for four pairs of ruby slippers you had better buckle up, he looks mad. Go ahead and roll a cool check."

If we are talking about players then it is a different story. I think WT and ST were separated in the game for many reasons and changing the way they are calculated will change many aspects of the game that would be need to to be further modified, which then changes more things that need to be modified. That being said its your game and what works for you and your group is a good thing.

Yes, but I get it. From a GM-PC point of view it's all fair and great. But as a GM I want an enemy that doesn't fold after two shots, because players know that marauders have low strain. There is a cognitive dilemma here - players know, but do their characters know? Why should/shouldn't they? If fighters are universally easy to stun, why everybody is developing and using standard energy weapons? On the other hand I don't want artificially pump up ST against all rules.

Easy. Build a maruader that doesn't have low strain. Your players will never see that coming.

Also, they shouldn't be metagaming.

But as a GM I want an enemy that doesn't fold after two shots, because players know that marauders have low strain.

As a GM, you don't have to advertise he's a marauder. Why would you? Then, you reconfigure your Wookiee so that lower Brawn (but higher skill ranks in Melee), higher Willpower, has branched into other spec trees to boost Strain, etc. This isn't D&D, you aren't limited by class options. Finally, give the Wookiee some friends...

I don't know what the problem is other than you seem to be applying D&D-style monolithics to more open system.

Edit: Deve beat me to it

Not really, as I explained before, this is a major NPC (who yes, started as a PC). He is supposed to be a terrible enemy, but being a marauder he doesn't have many options of increasing ST. So, he is this huge, frightening wookie, with Soak 9 and 9 strain. Increasing his willpower will only add 1-2 pts of strain.

If he's an NPC, you can just arbitrarily boost his ST and explain that as him getting lots of ranks of Grit, Resolve, Second Wind, and whatever.

As a player with a Wookiee Maurauder that has Brawn 5 and Willpower 1, and a WT of 27 and an ST of 10, I feel for the person who used to play this character. But I have a plan for what I'm going to do to raise the ST of my Wookiee, and that basically amounts to getting lots of Grit, Resolve, Second Wind, and whatever. Oh, and I'll raise his Willpower every time I get Dedication.

But the rules for what happens with PCs do not apply to NPCs. With NPCs, you can throw all the character generation rules out the window, and do whatever fits the concept for the character.

I am AFB right now, but there is a line in the Adversary section of the CRB that says NPCs should NOT follow the same character creation rules as PC characters. So you can really build your character however you want, no need at all to follow the character creation rules.

When I build my NPCs, I come up with a concept and an idea of what they should be capable of then dip into all the talent trees necessary to build that NPC. Plus they get the Adversary talent if they are a real threat.

So it is not really against the rules to bump up their ST within reason, or to give them extra wounds or more soak or whatever. What your players are doing is metagaming.

Not really, as I explained before, this is a major NPC (who yes, started as a PC). He is supposed to be a terrible enemy, but being a marauder he doesn't have many options of increasing ST. So, he is this huge, frightening wookie, with Soak 9 and 9 strain. Increasing his willpower will only add 1-2 pts of strain.

If he's an NPC, you can just arbitrarily boost his ST and explain that as him getting lots of ranks of Grit, Resolve, Second Wind, and whatever.

Never show the man behind the curtain. You don't have to explain anything but it certainly helps if you employ a few theatrics.

GM: "You see a hulking figure of a wookie emerge from the darkness. Soon, it becomes apparent who he is—your old companion, Foobacca. He looks... Different... Bigger? He screams, grabs one of the surviving droids from the previous gladiator battle, and hefts it high in the air before smashing it down over his head in a shower of sparks and broken servo actuators. The droid whimpers only briefly before its eyes go dark, its twisted chassis rendered asunder. Red hydraulic fluid trickles down the wookie's face like blood from a brutally vanquished enemy as he stares at you with murderous intent. The crowd goes wild and begins stamping and chanting his name.

You only thought you knew who he was. This is no ordinary wookie. Roll initiative."

Yeah perhaps I was too locked on the concept of building NPCs the same way PCs are built, thanks for pointing that out! On the other hand there is playing according to the rules

But, It has happened before (in Dark Heresy) when a supposedly epic end battle with a corrupted priest ended after 2 rounds with him being splattered, soo there went my epic campaign ending.

Yeah perhaps I was too locked on the concept of building NPCs the same way PCs are built, thanks for pointing that out! On the other hand there is playing according to the rules

Rules? There's only one rule: Thou Shalt Have Fun

Ok, there are probably a few other rules like: Do Not Lick The Dice

What?!?.................No dice licking??..............F that!