Hello,

When a character becomes incapacitated, we have been playing that the character is unconscious, and is unable to participate in the encounter further. This has had some negative reactions and comments from players.

I've not seen any information anywhere regarding player actions while incapacitated but I was wondering if anyone had come up with a house rule to allow limited actions?

Thanks!

Incapacitated in what manner? Most ways have you unconscious.

I really don't understand the "negative reactions" from your players. I've yet to see a roleplaying system where, if the damage taken exceeds whatever limit the rules have set, the character isn't out of the fight somehow. In D&D or Pathfinder you're out cold (and bleeding out) if your HP drops below 0, and it's much the same here. If they don't like being taken out of the fight they should use stimpack to heal themselves along the way, have a teammate revive them with a Medicine check, or be a little more careful when playing with loaded weapons.

Yeah, and it sucks to be out cold in D&D and Pathfinder (or worse mind controlled).

So after thinking about this I'm going to suggest that downed players narrate there actions while incapacitated, if they want. If there is anything that may impact the encounter I'm going to ask for a Daunting of Formidable Resilience check, with Setbacks as appropriate.

For example, our Toydarian, gets one shot'ed, he can wail and shout for assistance or drag himself to cover with a successful check. GM approval as normal.

Or just follow the rules? It's Star WARS not Star Carebears. I understand not being s **** to players and not having like a billion bad guys storm in blow them all away-- but if a guy goes down that's dramatic and should result in other PCs instantly changing the plans.

Example: we walked into a whompa den expecting to kill us some whompa...I almost got one-shorted and INSTANTLY our plan changed from getting money for whompa pelts turned to "RUUUUN!!!" I didn't complain--- not everything goes to plan...especially in Star Wars...a game about wars...in stars...

If the party has no hope of stabilizing the KO'd party member, you could always hand off one of the minion groups for him to play. The system doesn't have that much hidden information, so giving the player control of a pack of stormtroopers isn't really going to hurt anything.

Do what you wish, though if the players are getting WTed often enough for this to be an issue it might make more sense to revise your encounter design formula.

Or just follow the rules? It's Star WARS not Star Carebears. I understand not being s **** to players and not having like a billion bad guys storm in blow them all away-- but if a guy goes down that's dramatic and should result in other PCs instantly changing the plans.

Example: we walked into a whompa den expecting to kill us some whompa...I almost got one-shorted and INSTANTLY our plan changed from getting money for whompa pelts turned to "RUUUUN!!!" I didn't complain--- not everything goes to plan...especially in Star Wars...a game about wars...in stars...

Except this isn't just a wargame.

And if your character did actually get one-shot'ed then you wouldn't have been able to run, you'd just sit your turn out.

Don't get me wrong, every session is epic and cinematic - we have highs and lows, I'm just looking for ways to keep all players engaged during those moments of despair.

Besides in Empire Strikes Back, C-3PO actually get way more interesting AFTER he is incapacitated and it turns into a major plot twist in the story.

I have to admit, I was hoping for more creative input than "use a stim pack" and "just follow the rules".

There is no "i" in team, but there is an "i" in stimpack! If the group is upset that a PC cannot do something while incapacitiated, they should invest in some medical aids. In the meantime, the incapacitated player should just enjoy the dramatic tension.

If the party has no hope of stabilizing the KO'd party member, you could always hand off one of the minion groups for him to play. The system doesn't have that much hidden information, so giving the player control of a pack of stormtroopers isn't really going to hurt anything.

That might compound the problem once the minion group KO's another PC..."Red Rover, Red Rover, let Pash come over!" and then he has the other minion group?

Do what you wish, though if the players are getting WTed often enough for this to be an issue it might make more sense to revise your encounter design formula.

Yeah, I think that because our party is a mix of combat-focused and non-combat focused characters, it becomes easy to get caught out in a firefight.

Maybe signposting something in the encounter like a vent in the prison block, control room or some other way keeping the squishies involved but out of the direct line of fire may help.

I have to admit, I was hoping for more creative input than "use a stim pack" and "just follow the rules".

Sorry if my last post was a disappointment since we were writing at the same time. I suppose you could also allow the incapacitated PC to talk and whisper things like "Tell my wife I love her."

For example, our Toydarian, gets one shot'ed, he can wail and shout for assistance or drag himself to cover with a successful check. GM approval as normal.

Yeah, our Toydarian got one-shotted a couple of times. They do tend to have that problem.

That said, you may be out of the fight as far as taking “actions” is concerned, but you don’t necessarily have to be unconscious. I could imagine being able to scream or otherwise vocalize (perhaps even imparting useful information), and there’s always the Hard Headed talents that could be used.

One fundamental basis of RPGs is that once PCs run out of "health" they can no longer impact the game without having some aspect of their character built to allow that. It's the most effective ways to penalize players for poor choices or poor rolls. That's one of the main reason PCs attempt to avoid "dying". If they can still communicate while "dead" or "incapacitated", it really takes the teeth out of combat for squishy characters.

That said, stimpacks should be able to get a character conscious, at least, after combat -- unless the character took a Heavy Turbolaser Battery blast to the chest, then they need a bacta tank and a few months. The challenge I've found is when characters go unconscious from strain. As there's no analog to stimpacks for strain (that doesn't come back and bite them in the butt in an hour), overstrained characters tend to stay that way.

This is why it's been suggested that characters can still talk while their strain threshold has been exceeded, even if they can't take actions or maneuvers. In this case, since strain is such a challenge to remove, I'd allow them to manage to struggle along and keep up with the party as well as talk with them, though they'd be useless in a fight or any other challenge.

A couple of things.

Firstly, they could take the time to read up on abilities, equipment or actions that would reduce the risk of going down so quickly.

Secondly, as a GM I tend to direct combat more at the combat characters as that is generally what they are there for. This tends to reduce the chances for one shots and allows squishies the chance to take actions to improve their chances for survival.

Nobody likes being taken out but it happens.

Just some thoughts.

Maybe signposting something in the encounter like a vent in the prison block, control room or some other way keeping the squishies involved but out of the direct line of fire may help.

Try what Merc said too. Add a logic engine to your adversaries. Combat is sorta the inverse of instinctive violence. Our gut tells us when we want to kill something, to hit the weak guy first. Basic nature, when hunting you'll be more likely to eat a good meal if you go after the weak one instead of the strongest.

Ditch this line of thinking and put yourself in the position of the Stormtrooper. You're entering a firefight. You see... a guy in regular clothes with a pistol, and a guy in full armor with a repeating blaster, grenades, and scars on his face. Who's the bigger threat to you?

I'm not saying to murder the combat guys first, but I do think you may want to put more attention on them. Have the rival and a minion group shooting at them while one or two ungrouped minions go after the noncombatant types.

Also, review your players characters and design the encounter to fit. If they have high strain, use stun weapons. If they have high stealth, give em dark corners to duck into, and so on.

If you still see more then one KO per adventure, it's probably time to start scaling back the enemy numbers.

JustStick A Stimpac In Him And Move On.

Seriously, That Should Help. Remind Them About Toughened, And To Update Armors, And Attachments. There's Also That Talent That Lessens The CriticAl Hits By 10% They're Not Dead Until Then Reach That 140 On The Chart.

To Be Blunt, Sometimes Tpks Can Be Good. I Had To Do It A Few Times To My Group. It Taught Them Now To Arrange Themselves In Combat, How Better To Fill Their Roles, Alternative Ways Of Thinking Beyond "Shoot Blaster. Waif ForTurn"I Mean, Don't Seek It, But Don't Avoid If. They Also Need To Learn To Run Sometimes.

Some Advice: Cover. Give The Pcs Cover Options. Reward Them For Trying TGet Out Of Standing Out In Open And During Blaster Pistols Mindset. Have Your Bad Guys All Gang Up On One PC. When He Goes Down, They'll Realize That That's Not A Bad Idea. AndaWill Start Doing It Themselves. I Also Have Rules Sometimes 0 Isn't Unconscious. I've Let Them Hold Bloody Stumps Screaming.

Yeah, One Shots Suck. But They Happen Its Not An Every Occurrence. If If Is, They Need Better Armor, Soak, And To Escalate Their Tactics.

Oddly enough, because of a reading accident (Ie, we didn't read that closely) and coming from Rogue Trader, our group missed the whole "incapacitated over threshold" thing. Instead we assumed it was the same as what FFG did with Rogue Trader, and that your Wound Threshold was the amount of wounds you could take before taking real damage (ie critical hits). Unless your being hit with a vicious weapon and are particularly unlucky, your first critical won't take you out of the fight. But might convince the player to take full cover or otherwise duck out and let the combat characters deal with the problem.

Of course, the same is true for Rivals and Nemisis characters. Which is great for making sure Nemisis characters survive to make their dramatic escape.

This does have the effect of making combat longer, and minions slightly weaker (in relative terms), but at least for our group, it makes the combats a lot more memorable, because combats are remembered by their injuries as much as they are by their enemies. (Particularly the jedi cutting off an arm, for example.)

It's the most effective ways to penalize players for poor choices or poor rolls.

I'm not sure players should be penalised for poor choices or poor rolls.

If a player is roleplaying their character well and the make a sub-optimal choice of gear or talent, if it fits with their character, why should there be a penalty?

In fact I'm not sure rolling a Despair requires penalisation, I think its just time for more awesome stuff to happen.

It's the most effective ways to penalize players for poor choices or poor rolls.

I'm not sure players should be penalised for poor choices or poor rolls.

If a player is roleplaying their character well and the make a sub-optimal choice of gear or talent, if it fits with their character, why should there be a penalty?

In fact I'm not sure rolling a Despair requires penalisation, I think its just time for more awesome stuff to happen.

I'm not saying it's a penality. but what i am saying is that their character might decide that their armor that they bought at the when they had very little money isn't as good as the new, stronger armor they couldn't afford then.

One thing you might consider is using maps and terrain and miniatures. Some times it is easier to make better combat decisions if you can see your cover options and thus can move to cover and total cover etc. I know I have an easier time making good use of terrain when I have the miniatures and terrain so i can take them into account.

I am biased towards the idea that if you are incapacitated then you are not going to be doing much. However, I do see some areas of note that are worth thinking about.

If you have combat characters and non-combat characters the question is, for whom do you make combat encounters? If you are designing combat to challenge the combat players then the non-combat guys are going to have a hard time of it.

I believe that if you have a player that wants to excel at a given skill there is nothing you can do. That Marauder with 8+ soak and 20+ wounds or the Slicer with 6 in his attribute and 4 skill levels. Creating encounters to challenge those sorts of skill levels is just going to punish the rest of the group.

Also, what are the players doing? Are the combat characters looking for trouble? Are they going point, scouting ahead and being the first one in the line of fire? Or, are the non-combat characters looking for trouble, trying to be John Rambo when they shouldn’t be trying and not looking at the combat guys for help and assistance?

As you don’t get XP for killing stuff, they can run away. Players not expected to fight shouldn’t or if they do have to they should be running into cover and ensuring that they don’t get blown up too early into the action.

Oh, forgot to add this to my earlier post. One of the other reasons we decided to skip the incapacitation and just do critical injuries was because we just couldn't figure out a cinematic or logical way the incapacitation made sense.

Look at the Critical Hits table, it starts around bad bruise. Therefore, anything that doesn't produce a critical must be less then a bruise. This works with wounds being your 'cinematic survival' points. So what happens when you run out of these - you suffer spontaneous existence failure and fall unconscious (or the equivalent). So somehow, without taking a single injury that will even leave a bruise, our warrior has been knocked out. Given that concussion is also on the Critical Hits table, this leaves fainting. So every badass jedi and bounty hunter faint if they're shot at for to long, even if they're never actually injured.

Or they're being stunned into unconsciousness by bullets. Which doesn't even seem physically possible. How do you knock someone out with a blaster bolt? If you can, why do you have a stun setting - your kill setting only knocks people out already! Having a critical hit table, particularly a very complete one like EotE's, just destroys any logic for being knocked out at wounds over threshold.

I'm a huge fan of how Guild Wars 2 handles downed characters- you get access to a second skillbar of weak abilities that you can use whilst waiting to be picked up/for combat to end, so you're always able to do something.

It might work to have downed characters reduced to 1 maneuver a turn- so they can use Assist on PCs who are still active, or crawl out of combat then take a maneuver to stim up. Maybe let them use a 'Distraction' maneuver to add a setback die to enemy rolls.

Don't try to justify anything in a RPG in terms of real life, what would kill a person outright will be nothing but a flesh wound to a character.

I'm a huge fan of how Guild Wars 2 handles downed characters- you get access to a second skillbar of weak abilities that you can use whilst waiting to be picked up/for combat to end, so you're always able to do something.

It might work to have downed characters reduced to 1 maneuver a turn- so they can use Assist on PCs who are still active, or crawl out of combat then take a maneuver to stim up. Maybe let them use a 'Distraction' maneuver to add a setback die to enemy rolls.

Is there any way to take them out so that they can't access these further abilities, or are they effectively "impotent but immortal" during this time?