Let's say I've set up guards in a room in order to trigger some sort of combat encounter. However, one of my players decides he's going to sneak up on one and take him out.

How do you guys roll that?

A stealth check to sneak up on him, and then a melee check? What determines a succesful take down?

Do you guys roll perception/or vigilance on the other guards to see if they noticed anything?

Do you track combat moves at this point, even if the other guards have no idea what's going on?

If the guard is a minion or rival, I would set a difficulty to sneak up and silently take him out, and work out the player's dice pool (perhaps combine the worst characteristic and skill rank of his Stealth and Melee dice pools). No structured combat turns unless combat actually starts. But I would still probably give the player the benefit of Quick Strike talent if he had it.

If he's a nemesis, a Stealth check opposed by his Perception would do, then if successful you can initiate combat, perhaps with the player automatically gaining the first slot in initiative.

I would do the opposed Stealth/Perception check. If the roll is just a success I would say you start combat and win initiative. Depending on the level of the success though I'd allow other results with the options listed in the table for Advantages and Triumphs. It lists 3 Advantages or a Triumph being able to disable an opponent. I think for Minions definitely or maybe even Rivals I would just say you take them out. For a Nemesis perhaps you get in a free hit and then it's initiative. Again, it would depend on the roll.

Make the Stealth vs Perception, upgraded once. Success means the rival/minion is taken down. Threat/Despair means they called out before expiring.

Stealth check to get close enough, then a melee or brawl roll to take him out is how I would do it.

You need to both sneak up and manage to kill the guy. Both of which requires 2 very different skill sets, and either action could fail.

If you absolutely have to make it two rolls, the attack should be success = kill, failure = just normal damage.

Missing a stealth check and starting a fight is fun (and it happens in the films). Perfectly sneaking up to a guy and then missing the unaware target is just lame.

If you absolutely have to make it two rolls, the attack should be success = kill, failure = just normal damage.

Missing a stealth check and starting a fight is fun (and it happens in the films). Perfectly sneaking up to a guy and then missing the unaware target is just lame.

Hitting and failing to do enough damage to drop the target bugs me too, but it's in the nature of hit point systems (which includes this game).

If you absolutely have to make it two rolls, the attack should be success = kill, failure = just normal damage.

Missing a stealth check and starting a fight is fun (and it happens in the films). Perfectly sneaking up to a guy and then missing the unaware target is just lame.

Hitting and failing to do enough damage to drop the target bugs me too, but it's in the nature of hit point systems (which includes this game).

Eh, Wound Threshold is there when you need it. There are times where you also need to disregard it and narrate an outcome. Even the core tells you to just end a fight once it gets boring.

If you get too beholden to these things, you'll end up with players shooting themselves in the head to show people how tough they are – which, you can do by a strict reading of RAW.

If you get too beholden to these things, you'll end up with players shooting themselves in the head to show people how tough they are – which, you can do by a strict reading of RAW.

I haven't seen that yet, but I have seen a Wookiee cut himself with a combat knife to do minimum damage (1 past his Soak) just to trigger Wookiee Rage. It was the start of my hate for the way Wookiee Rage is written.

It probably wasn't intended to work on self-inflicted damage, at least deliberately caused damage anyway.

I could see accidental damage counting, you get angry over the epic failure.

If you absolutely have to make it two rolls, the attack should be success = kill, failure = just normal damage.

If the Stealth check is successful, IMO you should get a boost of some sort to your attack roll. The more success you get on the Stealth check, the more boost/upgrade/whatever you should get.

Missing a stealth check and starting a fight is fun (and it happens in the films). Perfectly sneaking up to a guy and then missing the unaware target is just lame.

Actually, perfectly sneaking up on someone and then just whiffing the attack is perfectly legit. I have actually done that in real life. And you can certainly make it cinematic, if you try.

I haven't seen that yet, but I have seen a Wookiee cut himself with a combat knife to do minimum damage (1 past his Soak) just to trigger Wookiee Rage. It was the start of my hate for the way Wookiee Rage is written.

You only get one extra point of damage from Wookiee Rage, unless you’re critically injured — then it is two extra points.

I would never intentionally injure myself just for one or two extra points of damage per attack, although I will admit that I am not unhappy when I get injured during combat, because that means I will do extra damage. And I don’t always totally heal myself up after a combat, so that I can carry that into the next encounter.

But I would never intentionally injure myself just to get a little extra damage. It’s just not worth it.

That said, I have seen some psychos in the real world that would (and do) injure themselves just to get a little extra damage, or for whatever psychological advantage it will give them.

So, as GM, I might allow that kind of behavior in-game, but I would also make sure that other people notice and they probably would treat that Wookiee differently or maybe just a little harsher than might otherwise be expected.

I can't see how you'd ever be in the situation where you both need that extra point of damage AND haven't been damaged already.

Funny, just answered another post with the same answer.

I use the Two weapon fighting rule to merge two skill rolls into one slightly more difficult one.

If it were a minion or rival and the player was successful I'd kill them outright. A nemesis, would depend on the situation. Probably allow a critical roll with +10 per success, narratively that could be interesting.

Yeah, that hypothetical Wookiee should be considered truly psychotic, and treated as such.

I use the Two weapon fighting rule to merge two skill rolls into one slightly more difficult one.

If it were a minion or rival and the player was successful I'd kill them outright. A nemesis, would depend on the situation. Probably allow a critical roll with +10 per success, narratively that could be interesting.

Good to know there looks to be a lot of consensus on this. It just seems to be a very sensible thing to do.

I'm with the good Doctor: sometimes the strict rules for damage need to be tossed for sake of the narrative. Like if you sneak up behind someone and pistol-whip them on the back of their head: a) if you use regular combat rules, that'll probably do minimal damage, but b) in real life, that'd generally knock someone unconscious. In this case, the rules must submit to the fun of the game and the sense of the narrative, as the Corebook itself regularly reminds us. To quote a wise pirate, "they're more like guidelines."

If it's a minion you can use the attack roll as written once you stealth up behind him. What kind of a weapon are you using? Probably a vibroknife for the classic slit throat. You can crit on two advantages, pretty easy for someone competent and trying to assassinate with skill. A crit is an auto-kill on a minion. So, those minion guards are no problem at all.

If it's a minion you can use the attack roll as written once you stealth up behind him. What kind of a weapon are you using? Probably a vibroknife for the classic slit throat. You can crit on two advantages, pretty easy for someone competent and trying to assassinate with skill. A crit is an auto-kill on a minion. So, those minion guards are no problem at all.

True, but I would tend to agree more with the following:

If you absolutely have to make it two rolls, the attack should be success = kill, failure = just normal damage.

Missing a stealth check and starting a fight is fun (and it happens in the films). Perfectly sneaking up to a guy and then missing the unaware target is just lame.

Missing the attack after succeeding on sneaking up behind the mook is lame.

Missing the attack after succeeding on sneaking up behind the mook is lame.

Lame or not, that happens in real life — and in the movies.

Regardless, the outcome can be cinematic, if you tell the story that way.

Missing the attack after succeeding on sneaking up behind the mook is lame.

Lame or not, that happens in real life — and in the movies.

Regardless, the outcome can be cinematic, if you tell the story that way.

There's a movie where a guy successfully sneaks up on another guy so that he's completely unaware, and then clean misses the strike to knock him out/stab him/cut his throat?

Missing the attack after succeeding on sneaking up behind the mook is lame.

Lame or not, that happens in real life — and in the movies.

Regardless, the outcome can be cinematic, if you tell the story that way.

There's a movie where a guy successfully sneaks up on another guy so that he's completely unaware, and then clean misses the strike to knock him out/stab him/cut his throat?

You mean like when the guy comes out of the next room and tries to shoot down Jules and Vincent but misses with every shot in Pulp Fiction? Or are you looking for when a protaganist fails? I'll have to do more thinking to remember such a scene.

Honestly it is pretty much a trope. Antaganists sneak up on protaganists and fail all the time, and vice versa. Although, more usually for protaganists to fail it has to be for a reason of plot. Sometimes it's to show off that the antaganist is really tough (like a robot or has some other form of protection) which keeps them from being so easily dispatched. Sometimes it's because it's too early in the movie to off an important character. Sometimes it's so that the plot can be twisted so that the protaganist isn't a murderer and has to come up with some other method to win.

If a character is decently skilled and/or you want to save time, sure condence it down to a single roll. But if the character isn't that skilled, or has never done such an assassination before, I'd probably rather have it be two rolls. Killing in a fight is much different than killing the unaware, which can lead to a failure.

You could just about argue Han on Endor as he gets right behind the speederbike trooper, then fluffs his melee by stepping on a twig at the last second.

That said, I do like the idea of making the attack difficulty trivial once your PC stealths their way into such an advantageous position. With any triumph or say 3a counting as a silent takedown.

Sometimes the target just needs to tie his shoe at the wrong (or right) time.

Edit: For clarity.

You could just about argue Han on Endor as he gets right behind the speederbike trooper, then fluffs his melee by stepping on a twig at the last second.

That said, I do like the idea of making the attack difficulty trivial once your PC stealths their way into such an advantageous position. With any triumph or say 3a counting as a silent takedown.

The 'Han on Endor' bit is a great example, but I don't think it necessitates 2 rolls.

To make sure we're on the same page, this isn't about whether or not a PC can fail to sneak-up-on and take-out someone; it's about whether you need an appropriate combat check after the Stealth check.

With the Han example, I think the stepping on the twig could be looked at several ways. Perhaps his Stealth roll (presumably against the Vigilance of the trooper(s)) failed, and thus combat starts. Or perhaps he succeeded with threat, so he gets an advantage on Initiative to act first, or perhaps even a free round before normal Initiative takes over.

However you want to interpret the Stealth vs. Vigilance check, I still think that requiring another check afterword is not in line with the philosophy of FFG's dice system. The point of FFG's design is to tell a cool story, with some rolls because it is a game, but not to get so caught up in rolling dice that you aren't in character and you lose sight of the narrative because you're overly focussed on the mechanics.

Admittedly, one extra dice roll doesn't mean you've gone crazy overboard, but it's the mentality (especially from other system's) of "I'm doing a mutli-step thing, so I have to make a bunch of checks," instead of using the multiple axes of the narrative dice (success/failure, advantage/threat, triumph/despair) to paint a large picture of what's going on.

Wow. my last post was complete gibberish, my fault guys. Edited for clarity.