Feedback for the Dev's

By MrBaldwin, in General Discussion

Force and Destiny Beta feedback

  1. On p. 95 it lists a Force Deflection talent, but there is no description for the talent in the Talents chapter.
  2. On p. 155 it says cover grants +1 ranged defense, which contradicts Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion, which say cover provides ranged defense of 1. In a demo at Gencon, Sam Stewart played it as +1 ranged defense, which makes more sense anyways. Please keep it that way (change the prior books’ rules).
  3. In the descriptions of poisons on p. 127, it includes difficulties but it doesn’t say what skill is used for the check. It should probably say something about using Resilience to resist the poison.
  4. In previous books (Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion), the description for lightsabers mentioned that they cannot be affected by the Sunder weapon quality. I don’t see that in any of the descriptions on p. 124. That should be included. Lightsaber duels will be very disappointing if the first thing to happen is everyone’s lightsabers get sundered.
  5. Initial thoughts on the Parry and Reflect talents (p. 105 and 105): Maybe consider an exception for Reflect so that it cannot be used to reduce damage from weapons with the blast quality (like grenades and missiles). Also consider only allowing lightsabers or cortosis weapons to parry lightsabers. It is more complicated, but it fits with the fluff/universe, so Star Wars fans will readily understand it. Also consider combining them into one talent and maybe removing a few instances of them from the talent trees. As it is, they tend to dominate a few of the trees.
  6. Also, with the Reflect/Parry talents, how do they interact with multiple hits? For example, if someone scores two hits with autofire for 10 damage each, can the talent be activated twice for 6 strain and reduce each hit? It mentions “When the character suffers a hit”, so I assume it can be activated multiple times.
  7. The Duelist’s Training talent on p. 100 seems weak. You pay 10 xp for a talent that occasionally grants a benefit, but otherwise works as a disadvantage. I haven’t played with the talent yet, but to be fair I would skip it, so I probably never will.
  8. On p. 194, under Becoming Force Sensitive, it seems to say that if you don’t start with a career from Force and Destiny, you must first take one of the universal Force specializations from the other two core rulebooks before you can take a career from Force and Destiny. That means it would be a minimum of 60 xp put into just specializations for a character from Edge or Age to take specializations in this new book. I think the specializations in this book should include the “Gain Force Rating 1” line that the Exile and Emergent trees have, rather than only people who choose the associated career getting Force Rating 1 to start. That way, people don’t have to game their character creation as much if they want a characters with specializations from multiple books. For example, the way things are, being a Warrior: Aggressor who wants the Marauder tree from the Hired Gun Career only needs to spend 30 xp. A Hired Gun: Marauder who wants the Aggressor tree from the Warrior career needs to spend 60 xp, picking up Exile or Emergent along the way. That doesn’t seem fair.

Sorry if this stuff has been mentioned already.

Edit: I just realized that there are multiple boards for the F&D beta. Sorry for posting this here. Some of these would probably better fit in the Game Mechanics or Proofreading sections.

Edited by MrBaldwin

1. Interesting.

2. Good.

3. Resilience says it in the skill.

4. Interesting.

5. The common sense disclaimer is tacked onto Improved, should be on base as well.

6. Yes, can be used on multiple hits, it's an out of turn incidental.

7. Don't like it either.

8. Don't like it either, there should be something, like a universal apprentice tree, or something.

On point 8, I believe the consensus from one of the other threads is you can still *take* the specializations, and even the Force-user talents; you just aren't able to use the Force-user ones without having a Force Rating.

Concerning 7, I agree that Duelist's Training is terrible. I don't think there's any other talent that gives a character a flat negative like that - and is there any way to turn it off? I mean, if a player accidentally bought the talent would he be gimped forever, or could he say, "Yeah, I bought that talent but I'm not activating it. " Of course, if the player can activate and deactivate a passive talent as an incidental, then the penalty part would simply never come into play.

Good catch.

Force Deflection could have been an early working name for Reflect or Improved Reflect, or maybe even a talent to allow the character to use Reflect without needing a lightsaber, kinda like what Vader does in ESB when Han draws down on him. We've seen cases before where some bit of game text got left in the relevant table even though the item in question had been removed.

As for Sam running cover as providing a plus to ranged defense, did the character in question already have a Ranged Defense bonus? That's a pretty important question, because if the character didn't, then it could just be Sam using the simpler phrasing of "you gain +1 to your Ranged Defense" as opposed to "the cover provides you with Ranged Defense 1." And in the man's defense, he's likely been pretty busy, with both the run-up to GenCon and the event itself, running plenty of demo games as well as games in the FFG game room. And if it was one of the F&D demos, he may have just let it slide so that the folks playing the demo could have fun.

On the sundering of lightsabers, I actually don't think it's a bad idea that bit of text was removed for F&D, as PCs will now have the option to simply build a new lightsaber. And we do see lightsabers being sundered in the films, such as Maul's double-bladed saber getting bisected and Dooku cutting the tip off of Anakin's second 'saber when he was trying to dual wield against the Count. For EotE and AoR it made since as those 'sabers were near-priceless works of art. About the only thing that would need to be added is a note saying that if a lightsaber is completely destroyed, the character can make a Mechanics check (probably Hard difficulty) to salvage the crystal and simply plant it into a new hilt, though they may have to start over in terms of modifying the weapon, just as a Marauder that had their tricked-out vibroaxe completely destroyed. Given the low cost of the hilts (300 credits for a basic ligthsaber hilt), repairing the effects the Sunder quality to the hilt itself isn't too painful unless the GM is keeping their group deliberately starved for credits.

On Parry/Reflect and multiple hits, you could trigger those talents on each hit, since the talents say "when hit" and each hit has been considered a separate effect for things like Autofire and Linked. You'd be burning strain like crazy to do it, but it could be done.

On Duelist's Training, while it is thematically appropriate (Makashi was noted to be lousy against multiple foes), I do agree the setback die is a bit much. Perhaps drop it down to the user generates an automatic threat when facing off against multiple opponents. And on a related tangent, the Multiple Opponents talent doesn't need a drawback added as the PC is already suffering a drawback in that they're squaring of against more than one opponent, particularly if it's a large minion group.

As for Sam running cover as providing a plus to ranged defense, did the character in question already have a Ranged Defense bonus? That's a pretty important question, because if the character didn't, then it could just be Sam using the simpler phrasing of "you gain +1 to your Ranged Defense" as opposed to "the cover provides you with Ranged Defense 1." And in the man's defense, he's likely been pretty busy, with both the run-up to GenCon and the event itself, running plenty of demo games as well as games in the FFG game room. And if it was one of the F&D demos, he may have just let it slide so that the folks playing the demo could have fun.

On the sundering of lightsabers, I actually don't think it's a bad idea that bit of text was removed for F&D, as PCs will now have the option to simply build a new lightsaber. And we do see lightsabers being sundered in the films, such as Maul's double-bladed saber getting bisected and Dooku cutting the tip off of Anakin's second 'saber when he was trying to dual wield against the Count. For EotE and AoR it made since as those 'sabers were near-priceless works of art. About the only thing that would need to be added is a note saying that if a lightsaber is completely destroyed, the character can make a Mechanics check (probably Hard difficulty) to salvage the crystal and simply plant it into a new hilt, though they may have to start over in terms of modifying the weapon, just as a Marauder that had their tricked-out vibroaxe completely destroyed. Given the low cost of the hilts (300 credits for a basic ligthsaber hilt), repairing the effects the Sunder quality to the hilt itself isn't too painful unless the GM is keeping their group deliberately starved for credits.

For cover providing +1 ranged defense, yes the character in question did have 1 ranged defense from armor already. It occurred to me that Sam could've played it that way to keep it fast and fun, but if that is the case, all the more reason to simply rule it that way in the book.

As far as lightsabers being sundered, yes it happened in the movies. However, the way these rules work, it happens far too easily in the game because advantage is generated so easily. If it is allowed, then per the rules, it will happen too often because it will be the most obvious way to spend advantage. Forget crits and forcing setbacks; if you destroy the other guy's lightsaber then that fight is as good as done. While it happened in the movies, it did not define any lightsaber duels in the movies. Even after Maul's lightsaber was "Sundered", he still had half to fight with. Per the rules, a double bladed lightsaber that gets Sundered enough to destroy it is completely useless. There is no such thing as sundering a weapon into half a weapon. If lightsabers can be sundered in this game per the normal rules for sundering, then sundering lightsabers will be what defines lightsaber combat. With the high dice pools people get, even early in character's careers, they will easily generate enough advantage to regularly sunder other lightsabers, much more often than the movies suggest. You can cite things like destiny to upgrade the difficulty to make lightsabers more difficult to sunder, but we all know that doesn't make enough of a difference. Difficulty dice simply don't keep pace with ability dice, end of story. Talents like Parry don't help, since they prevent damage after an attack hits. They do nothing to offset advantage generate by attacks. I would rather see a game where sundering a lightsaber is impossible per RAW by simply keeping the "cannot be sundered" feature of lightsabers intact, than a game where it happens every combat on the first attack role. If a GM decides that sundering a lightsaber is appropriate for the narrative, then they can use the destiny mechanic, or allow the players to use destiny to sunder a saber. Even then, it should be allowed very sparingly.

Besides, unlike most weapons a lightsaber is mostly energy. You'd think that feature would at least make it much more difficult to sunder.

If the rules stay the way they are in this beta book, people can get excited about the imagined realism or whatever of lightsabers getting sundered. Ultimately, they will be very disappointed when they start to see it happen all the time in play. Let's change that while we have the chance with this beta. Again, cutting people and their limbs is what defines the end of a duel in the movies, not cutting their lightsabers.

Edited by MrBaldwin

Most likely the Darth Maul example was a case of using two Triumphs to destroy a piece of equipment that the target is using, and not the activation of a Sunder.

On the topic of Sunder, not every player is going to spend their Advantages to trigger that quality, since you'd need 4 Advantage on a single check to take a weapon from undamaged to destroyed in one go, and with Crit Rating of 2 for most lightsabers, it's going to be a lot more appealing to trigger a critical injury in the hopes of saddling the target with a debilitating injury that's not going to easily go away.

Plus... a Sundered lightsaber is a lot less fun to take from a defeated foe than a whole, working weapon. Players being players will want to nab working death-sticks, not pieces of one. ^_^

Plus... a Sundered lightsaber is a lot less fun to take from a defeated foe than a whole, working weapon. Players being players will want to nab working death-sticks, not pieces of one. ^_^

Thus my earlier point of including a sentence saying that the focusing crystal from a destroyed lightsaber can be recovered with a Mechanics check. The hilt itself is dirt cheap, and the sidebar on page 125 pretty strongly suggests that it's just a Negotiation (or appropriate Knowledge check) to "build" one based upon it's Rarity listing. Meaning acquiring a brand-new basic lightsaber hilt is an Average check and 300 credits; slap in the recovered crystal and you're off and running.

As for this being done to the players, it's a willing choice on the GM's part to make use of the Sunder quality; they can very easily choose not to use it against the players except at a dramatically appropriate moment, or limit their bad guy to only spending one or two Advantage to damage the weapon rather than destroying it outright.

Maybe make light sabers a minus 2 add for sundering. Ie it takes 2 more advanced to sunder them since they are mostly energy.

On the topic of Sunder, not every player is going to spend their Advantages to trigger that quality, since you'd need 4 Advantage on a single check to take a weapon from undamaged to destroyed in one go, and with Crit Rating of 2 for most lightsabers, it's going to be a lot more appealing to trigger a critical injury in the hopes of saddling the target with a debilitating injury that's not going to easily go away.

I completely disagree with you here. It only takes three to render an item completely unusable. Even using two advantage to moderately damage it to increase the difficulty of using it by one is still much better than most crits and just as good as some of the most damaging ones. And since lightsabers are no longer vicious by default, it makes their crits even weaker. Wrecking someone's primary weapon is a much better choice than scoring a crit. Plus, weapons might have other bonuses tied to them, like allowing someone to use parry/reflect, or providing defense bonuses. And destroying your opponent's lightsaber prevents them from hitting you with a (not so) nasty crit (or sundering your lightsaber).

Plus... a Sundered lightsaber is a lot less fun to take from a defeated foe than a whole, working weapon. Players being players will want to nab working death-sticks, not pieces of one. ^_^

If a GM lets the players get away with selling lightsabers on the black market without drawing the wrong attention, then that's their problem. If players collect the lightsabers of fallen enemies to keep them from falling into the wrong hands, then good on them.

As for this being done to the players, it's a willing choice on the GM's part to make use of the Sunder quality; they can very easily choose not to use it against the players except at a dramatically appropriate moment, or limit their bad guy to only spending one or two Advantage to damage the weapon rather than destroying it outright.

You're right, the GM can choose when to do it. But for the sake of crafting the rules, let's ignore that and look at it from the perspective of what the obvious choice would be for a character in the game, player or npc. The obvious choice is to sunder. Does that reflect what we see in the movies? No. Does it make sense? Not really, because by the time you're cutting through a lightsaber's hilt you're probably hacking through the hands that are holding it. The energy blade can't be sundered. I think that's why they were immune to the ability in previous books, not because they were so rare and valuable. Is sundering an extremely obvious choice per the rules, more so that what anything in the movies suggests? Absolutely. I realize the rules can't and don't need to be a perfect simulation of the movies, but the way the rules will work if lightsabers can be sundered simply doesn't feel like Star Wars.

The negative aspect of Duelist's Training is dirt in the game. What if the PC knows multiple forms? Seems like a d*ck move. I would ignore it.

I'm keeping sabers immune to sunder. I actually don't see much value in having sunder in the game -- I didn't miss it when they got rid of it in D&D. Players don't usually try to damage potential loot, and as a GM, I'm not interested in destroying PC equipment -- see above about d*ck moves.

Edited by Lorne

The negative aspect of Duelist's Training is dirt in the game. What if the PC knows multiple forms? Seems like a d*ck move. I would ignore it.

I'm keeping sabers immune to sunder. I actually don't see much value in having sunder in the game -- I didn't miss it when they got rid of it in D&D. Players don't usually try to damage potential loot, and as a GM, I'm not interested in destroying PC equipment -- see above about d*ck moves.

In our game since we have a "master" Mechanic (my character) we didn't mind having our equipment get damaged. We had a terribly fun (for me anyway) combat with Sniper Droids shooting our weapons and my character doing field repairs to keep us in the fight (the Droids were trying to Stun us, and snipe our weapons so we'd surrender, that I could fix one weapon per round keep us viable... though I did end up reducing two weapons to "spare parts" condition in the course of it...).

MrBaldwin, I was refering more to the player tendancy to loot for the sake of looting. =P I'm sure we've all encountered the kind of player who searches each downed foe in order to build up their private arsenal.