This came up in my game last night. The book doesn't say anything soecifically about handing out Conflict when a PC kills someone in self-defense, ala Mace Windu killing Jango Fett. I've been just giving them one point if they kill someone in combat and the other party is trying to kill them. How have you done it?

Also, while I'm here, I may be confused on the Sunder rules. So my player tries to slice the gun out of a Mandalorian's hands. I tell him he needs to make a successful check and roll two advantage to do so. He rolls, succeeds with one threat. I rule that he strikes the Mandalorian, and then the damage from the lightsaber kills him. My players gets upset that he killed someone, especially since he was trying to just disarm them. I rule that disarming someone using a lightsaber is difficult, and it is very possible that you will kill them in the attempt. Am I doing Sunder right?

I think there's three tiers of sunder, but I only

Apply that to a PC. But when it can to the example I probably wouldn't have had the guy been killed, now maybe dismemberment. Or the gun starts to react badly after being sliced, giving the player and npc precious seconds before the gun blew up. Or the player got over zealous and uncaring with footing and whilst disarming tripped.

Still award him a conflict point for most of the above, but still allow the player what he wanted, and that's a living enemy not a filleted villain.

This came up in my game last night. The book doesn't say anything soecifically about handing out Conflict when a PC kills someone in self-defense, ala Mace Windu killing Jango Fett. I've been just giving them one point if they kill someone in combat and the other party is trying to kill them. How have you done it?

By the RAW there is no conflict for defending yourself, which is just as well because Luke would have racked up quite a lot of conflict every movie.

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You should be giving out Conflict for choices the PCs make, not rolls of the dice and your own determination of the result. In this case specifically, the player was attempting to diffuse the situation by sundering the weapon (the intended use case of the ability). You would be penalizing a Jedi-worthy choice because of bad luck or (depending on how you tell the story if the dice) necessity; not choice. This is also, in my opinion, not a terribly appropriate use of threat.

Like others have said, conflict should be awarded based on intent of their actions. If their enemies are fighting to the death and the players have no means of taking them out without just killing them, lest the players themselves risk death, then there shouldn't be conflict. If the enemies give up or start running off and players decide to kill them, even if the enemies started it, then that's conflict worthy.

I'd say dis-arming somebody is one of the easier things to do with a lightsaber. *rimshot*

But seriously, if the player was rolling to specifically disarm the enemy, and not just trying to do a general attack with extra advantages to be used towards Sunder, then the player just killing the enemy with a success and one threat would be a bad call. Otherwise, if it was a general attack, then it's fine if the attack would be enough to kill the guy anyways. If the check was specifically trying to disarm them, it'd need something like a Despair popping up to wind up as dismemberment/murder.

Yeah. stop penalizing them for defending themselves. That is bad GMing. Penalize them for excessive use of force or pursuing combat as their first choice etc.

"A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defence"

-Master Yoda

Evil, by definition, is gratuitous, going beyond what is necessary. No Conflict for merely defending yourself. (Although, it does bring to mind Arthur Dent's classic line after suddenly taking fire, "Why isn't anybody ever happy to see us?")

Also, OP is doing Sunder wrong. Just apply RAW: 1 advantage per step. Although, to be fair, the player may have insufficient system mastery: if your intent is to pull-off a stunt that requires lots of advantage, you'll need to pull-out all the tricks to get a bunch of boost dice. Regardless, narration should flow from the dice -- it doesn't do much good to declare your intent to sunder before rolling, though I would argue that if you're trying not to injure your opponent, you can elect to do no damage. But again, that's all the more reason to work the system however you can to generate advantage to merely inconvenience your targets...

Okay, cool beans. Thanks everyone. That makes a lot of sense about having conflict be generated from choices, and not from rolls of the dice. I'll implement that in my future games.

In regards to sundering, it sounds like the consensus is that if my player declares he's only going to try and disarm the opponent then I should make that be what happens on a successful hit, yes? That's fair, I can see how that would work. Would I be out of line, in that case, to increase the difficulty of that check? I personally see it as harder to disarm someone with a laser sword than to just swing and hit them with it. Perhaps upgrading the check, to represent the increased risk of the action?

I don't really know why that would be true but if that's what you're going for then, yes, increased difficulty is probably what you're looking for.

Would I be out of line, in that case, to increase the difficulty of that check? I personally see it as harder to disarm someone with a laser sword than to just swing and hit them with it. Perhaps upgrading the check, to represent the increased risk of the action?

It would fall under the category of spending a maneuver(s) to Aim. Check page 144/145.

In this case, it would be a matter of succeeding to knock the weapon from the enemy's hand, and then additional advantages could be used to use Sunder to damage/completely destroy the item if need be. Failing would just mean the player misses.

Okay, cool beans. Thanks everyone. That makes a lot of sense about having conflict be generated from choices, and not from rolls of the dice. I'll implement that in my future games.

In regards to sundering, it sounds like the consensus is that if my player declares he's only going to try and disarm the opponent then I should make that be what happens on a successful hit, yes? That's fair, I can see how that would work. Would I be out of line, in that case, to increase the difficulty of that check? I personally see it as harder to disarm someone with a laser sword than to just swing and hit them with it. Perhaps upgrading the check, to represent the increased risk of the action?

I believe that the RAW covers aiming for a held item. I want to say you add setbacks based on the object's size, but don't have a book on hand to check.

Alternatively, I think something like three Advantages can be used to disarm an opponent.

Something to keep in mind if you're interested in this as a vehicle for Morality is that a combatant being removed from the fight doesn't automatically mean they're dead; just incapacitated in some way. After combat, if the player decides to walk around coup de grace'ing all the bodies with a lightsaber to make sure they're dead, that's going to rack of plenty of conflict.

I don't know if this will be helpful but I just read the new SW novel Kenobi, it was a quick read, it was like A New Dawn in that it's written for young adults but it was okay (I didn't like that they kept the sort of whiny Kenobi from TPM, I liked A New Dawn better). What it did handle well I thought was how a Jedi handles killing and (he kills quite a few folks) and when and how he uses his Force abilities and Lightsaber while trying to remain out of the spotlight. I think it's a good guide for anyone playing or running a game FU PCs.

http://www.amazon.com/Kenobi-Star-Wars-Jackson-Miller/dp/0345546830

Okay, cool beans. Thanks everyone. That makes a lot of sense about having conflict be generated from choices, and not from rolls of the dice. I'll implement that in my future games.

In regards to sundering, it sounds like the consensus is that if my player declares he's only going to try and disarm the opponent then I should make that be what happens on a successful hit, yes? That's fair, I can see how that would work. Would I be out of line, in that case, to increase the difficulty of that check? I personally see it as harder to disarm someone with a laser sword than to just swing and hit them with it. Perhaps upgrading the check, to represent the increased risk of the action?

I believe that the RAW covers aiming for a held item. I want to say you add setbacks based on the object's size, but don't have a book on hand to check.

Alternatively, I think something like three Advantages can be used to disarm an opponent.

Yeah,

1) Sunder is like a kicker. You can activate Sunder on a hit for 1 Advantage, and so if you hit & roll 4 Advantage and don't want to cause a critical injury, you can still destroy the dude's weapon.

2) However, if you're specifically trying to disarm (not kill), you must take maneuver to aim, suffer 2 setbacks, and make an attack roll against the thing you target is holding (or perhaps your target's arm).

There are other ways of disarming...like spending 3 Advantage (or 2 with the Sun Djem talent) or using the Move power. But if you're just imprecisely swinging a lightsaber at a guy, there's a good chance the guy is gonna wind up dead.

As to the OP's Sunder situation, that is not a good way of going about things To be fair, if the player was trying to do one thing and ended up doing another, the Threat could account for that; but I would require more than 1 Threat, especially if the player thought he was rolling to disarm, and NOT kill, the guy.

Edit: fixed...Sunder can only be activated on a successful hit, per the last sentence of the "Item Qualities" introduction text.

This came up in my game last night. The book doesn't say anything soecifically about handing out Conflict when a PC kills someone in self-defense, ala Mace Windu killing Jango Fett. I've been just giving them one point if they kill someone in combat and the other party is trying to kill them. How have you done it?

Consider the intent behind the action as well as the PC's options. Consider also the PC's feelings on the matter. Does he feel any conflict at this taking of life? If so, even if it was in self-defense, maybe give him 1 Conflict simply because he's doubting his own good intentions.

Consider also whether the action would make the Emperor do his little cackle and go, "Good...good!"

Then you might have a clearer idea on how to doll out Conflict

As GM, the other thing we can do to control difficulty is to spend dark destiny. In the above example, I would allow the player to make the roll, but I would spend a destiny point. On a despair result, he hit the guy instead of the weapon, deal damage as normal. I don't award conflict if they are defending themselves. In your example, a good narrative could have been, As you lunge in swinging your saber, the Mandalorian, being a savvy warrior, saw the attack coming, and twisted away from the disarming attempt. The saber succeeded in slicing through part of the weapon (2 advantages = moderate damage (increase diff by 1)), but as he twisted away, he attempted a round-house kick to the side of your head, which you ducked, but that put you off balance, suffer 1 black die on your next action (1 Threat).

As GM, the other thing we can do to control difficulty is to spend dark destiny. In the above example, I would allow the player to make the roll, but I would spend a destiny point. On a despair result, he hit the guy instead of the weapon, deal damage as normal. I don't award conflict if they are defending themselves. In your example, a good narrative could have been, As you lunge in swinging your saber, the Mandalorian, being a savvy warrior, saw the attack coming, and twisted away from the disarming attempt. The saber succeeded in slicing through part of the weapon (2 advantages = moderate damage (increase diff by 1)), but as he twisted away, he attempted a round-house kick to the side of your head, which you ducked, but that put you off balance, suffer 1 black die on your next action (1 Threat).

Good example, except for the 2 Advantage and 1 Threat on the same check

But yeah, if a player wanted to do x specific thing , I would say "okay here's the difficulty," not, "here's the difficulty AND you need to succeed with 2 Advantages." Advantages are supposed to impart a secondary benefit resulting from your attempt to do x specific thing , and should not be required to perform x specific thing.

So Sunder is a secondary benefit (resulting from Advantages) garnered from attacking a target; but if the character is trying to hit a specific object, then it's an attack roll against the specific object with a success meaning you succeed .