If I may - consider Die Hard. Over the course of the movie John McClain gets nicks and sprains and glass in his feet, burns and abrasions left and right - but nothing truly substantial. That nickel and dimeing of our hero over the course of an hour and a half is his wounds. Lots of bullets in his direction, but very little actual damage.

Except he was limping at the end so likely a crit or two.

Perhaps not narrate the blaster as hitting them in the chest and ignoring it,

Yes, more like "the shot graces your arm, leaving a nasty burn". Painful, but not debilitating. Save the straight-to-the-chest hits for the criticals.

I'm sorry if I led people to believe I was being any way serious when I was talking about the wookie.

Narratively I totally understand the concept of wound threshold, it sort does exactly what it says on the tin. It is the threshold/amount of damage that someone narratively can take prior to more serious injuries, or critical hits.

And I have in no way changed this facit or part of the system, I feel that some complaints on my mods, may have been made by people who haven't read them, or I just laid them out badly, or not the best way explained.

Going back to the wookie and only looking at it from a systematic view point, my wookie has brawn 5, with 1 purchase on dedication, he is also a force adept with enhance, giving him brawn 6, he was a marauder and bought both soak talents, and wears padded armour.. This gives him 10 soak... 10 base damage on a blaster pistol is 6 (sorry if my memory is wrong in this but please go with me) so a normal shot will require a minimum of 5 successes to in any way effect the wookies soak.... This I see as broken... No matter how you narrate it....

So I have altered the way things work, brawn already adds to wound threshold so it was a compound issue when it not only helps you 'absorb' damage (wnd thres) but also 'ignore' it (soak)

To the people saying the system is ok etc... This not for you, I'm really happy that the system is as awesome as it is for you, but for me there was some niggles and this is an attempt instead of just 'living' with it, to go well I love this system but I'd love it more it was a little more like this

Going back to the wookie and only looking at it from a systematic view point, my wookie has brawn 5, with 1 purchase on dedication, he is also a force adept with enhance, giving him brawn 6, he was a marauder and bought both soak talents, and wears padded armour.. This gives him 10 soak... 10 base damage on a blaster pistol is 6 (sorry if my memory is wrong in this but please go with me) so a normal shot will require a minimum of 5 successes to in any way effect the wookies soak.... This I see as broken... No matter how you narrate it.

Wouldn't a group of 5 stormtroopers (with the really big rifles) do enough damage to start laying in the hurt? Two minion groups far enough away from the target will get several rounds to shoot before they're in danger or being turned to paste by the Marauder. Throw one of those glue grenades into the mix to slow him down (or even just generic grenades) and some "set for stuns" and your Walking Carpet is going to be the Walking Dead in short order.

For a simple concept there seems to be a lot of disagreement on it.

Of course there is disagreements on it. The entire system and its contents are abstract and therefore completely subjective. That's why I love this system. Having been hamstrung by d20 for so long now, it's nice to be able to tell the stories I want to without being told by the rules what I can and can't do.

Just relax peeps

It seems like everyone sticks far too closely to the rules -- this game system is not meant for that, as far as I can tell. If your PCs are having too easy of a time, you as the GM have the prerogative to ramp up the difficulty in whatever way you think works. Make the bad guys harder to beat, make the difficulty checks harder, use your brain to come up with some crazy environmental situations that will give them more difficulty or setback dice. This is meant to be a very fluid system, but also is meant to let the PCs be the heroes -- so they're allowed to have lots of heavy wins sometimes, I think. You just have to put them in situations where they can't have those kind of wins, too. I follow the rules as best I can, but I think since this is my first time ever GMing I am a lot more willing to just go with the flow and bend the rules to let cool stuff happen. This is not a competition like DnD, you know? This is cooperative. Yeah, you want to make it challenging, but the fun is in the story and the cool **** they can do that they wouldn't be able to do in DnD.

All RPGs are cooperative and not a competition, including D&D. Unfortunately some think they are competitive but that is an issue with those playing and thinking that way, not the games.

Some things I've found...

• Let people create the characters they want to play. I neither promote nor discourage buying attributes. I've never seen detrimental effects either way.
• After character creation skills have no cap other than the norm. Players that want their characters to have better dice pools can do so quickly enough if they so choose.
• Nothing wrong with lots of triumphs. Singles can be used for just about everything. Players should be looking to throw dice at other characters to help out or buffing themselves or making an awesome critical on a BBG. That's working as intended.
• Wounds and strain are nothing more than plot armour. Only there to simulate the wear and tear of combat (or other stresses) on characters. They are not literal damage. Just a mechanic to measure the amount of time someone can stay in the fight.
• As a GM I use common sense. No player in my game is going to tell me he is just going to stand there and take the shot. I'd tell him to put his head between his legs and kiss his ass goodbye. At minimum I'd tell him he's at 1 point over his wound threshold and to roll on the crit table adding 50 to the roll.
• Soak monsters do not bother me. If the player is having fun that is all that matters. As a GM I can come up with countless ways to take him out (and once in a while I might just show him whose Boss), but I would rather see him enjoy his character.

Ultimately I don't see your issues, but if doing all that work makes you happy, go for it.

Going back to the wookie and only looking at it from a systematic view point, my wookie has brawn 5, with 1 purchase on dedication, he is also a force adept with enhance, giving him brawn 6, he was a marauder and bought both soak talents, and wears padded armour.. This gives him 10 soak... 10 base damage on a blaster pistol is 6 (sorry if my memory is wrong in this but please go with me) so a normal shot will require a minimum of 5 successes to in any way effect the wookies soak.... This I see as broken... No matter how you narrate it.

Wouldn't a group of 5 stormtroopers (with the really big rifles) do enough damage to start laying in the hurt? Two minion groups far enough away from the target will get several rounds to shoot before they're in danger or being turned to paste by the Marauder. Throw one of those glue grenades into the mix to slow him down (or even just generic grenades) and some "set for stuns" and your Walking Carpet is going to be the Walking Dead in short order.

I am not saying I can't kill or challenge this wookie, I most certainly can, but I'm worried that something that will be challenging for the wookie will obliterate any of the other characters in my group... going to the other extreme the slicer pacifist with a soak of 3...

By almost leveling the playing field. the wookie would have 4 soak, under my alt rules, I can put in blaster pistol wielding thugs and threaten the wookie and not completely splatter-cate everyone else in the group.

These rules also slow down the progression to huge dice pool where no-one has any chance of missing and everyone does oodles of damage and its whoever wins initiate win the combat... boring combat... my players (i hope) now have more options in combat and more choice in what to do. How to mitigate damage, avoid being hit etc...

but the proof of the pudding is in the eating and well I'm chowing down at the end of the month for a good long session with one of my gaming groups.. the other is on hiatus as I'm currently running another game for them

All RPGs are cooperative and not a competition, including D&D. Unfortunately some think they are competitive but that is an issue with those playing and thinking that way, not the games

I agree in part, but Episode 24 of the Order 66 Podcast may disagree with you.

All RPGs are cooperative and not a competition, including D&D. Unfortunately some think they are competitive but that is an issue with those playing and thinking that way, not the games

I agree in part, but Episode 24 of the Order 66 Podcast may disagree with you.

Shrug. Wouldn't know. Never listen to the podcasts. And I mean that literally. Maybe give me a time stamp and I can listen to what they said or just give me a synopsis.

I am not saying I can't kill or challenge this wookie, I most certainly can, but I'm worried that something that will be challenging for the wookie will obliterate any of the other characters in my group... going to the other extreme the slicer pacifist with a soak of 3...

A fair point, and it doesn't always feel realistic to have the toughest guys always take on the toughest target. But again this is true of almost any game. A Paladin and Wizard in D&D will have different ACs and hit points, and if the Wizard is hit he's probably down, so you have to structure your encounters accordingly. On the player side, the job of the heavy is to run interference, so if the Wizard/Slicer pacifist is being threatened, the heavy is supposed to jump in there and put his body in the way...one of those unwritten rules of player conduct.

If your games are like most others, your players will develop Nemeses over time and those Nemeses will probably have a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents. Imagine the Nemesis conferring with his henchman about how to neutralize the players, destroy their armour, stun them, hack into their data pads, etc...there's no reason you can't bring all that to bear.

I am not saying I can't kill or challenge this wookie, I most certainly can, but I'm worried that something that will be challenging for the wookie will obliterate any of the other characters in my group... going to the other extreme the slicer pacifist with a soak of 3...

A fair point, and it doesn't always feel realistic to have the toughest guys always take on the toughest target. But again this is true of almost any game. A Paladin and Wizard in D&D will have different ACs and hit points, and if the Wizard is hit he's probably down, so you have to structure your encounters accordingly. On the player side, the job of the heavy is to run interference, so if the Wizard/Slicer pacifist is being threatened, the heavy is supposed to jump in there and put his body in the way...one of those unwritten rules of player conduct.

If your games are like most others, your players will develop Nemeses over time and those Nemeses will probably have a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents. Imagine the Nemesis conferring with his henchman about how to neutralize the players, destroy their armour, stun them, hack into their data pads, etc...there's no reason you can't bring all that to bear.

Most definitely I can do this, once or twice, but it will feel like GM dickery, if I break the wookies vibro-ax or steal their equipment or have mobs that target specific weakness, all or most of the time... I prefer to delay that issue or even solve it so it will never happen(i hope), so I don't have to think up weird and wonderful thing to do to my players every week... sometimes yes.. not all the time though..

I guess my bottom line and answer to people saying you can work round all the issues in the system is...

Why should we have to?

Why should be have to narrative around the system short comings, why should I change the way the rules work from situation to situation (this is a terrible idea, as it breaks what I feel is the gm/player compact, and is a little bit of gm dickery)

I really like this system I love the dice mechanic and I'm trying to propose/find a solution to the issues I feel the system has and from what some people are saying, how they narrate around stuff like that.. plot armour etc.., other have issues as well

Well, because that's how role playing games work. ALL role playing games, not just FFG's engine. You play to the players strengths and weaknesses - if they're playing a support character, give them opportunities to use that support (and you design the Bad Guys with enough defenses that you need that support charactaer reducing their defenses or otherwise it would be a curb stomp). You arrange things so that the Meat Shield has to run interference on The Glass Canon. If you have someone who talks instead of fights - you let them set the stage before the combat begins. That's just good GMing.

From a purely story telling point, it's not unreasonable that everyone in the room is going to be concerned about the bellowing rampaging wookiee and not so much the mousey little guy with the data pad working quietly at the computer - so it's not that much of a stretch for all minion groups to choose their targets wisely.

My issue isn't with roleplaying games in general or how to actually play to player/characters strengths or weaknesses. My issue is I feel that the FFG role playing system can do better in simulating the Star Wars feel....

Roleplaying systems are designed, or are required to simulate in some way the look and feel of the genre you are wanting to play. The current vanilla FFG system is an amazing system, it would be brilliant at simulating the feel of all the 40k RPG games out there, better in my opinion than the existing systems by FFG. It is not a good system for star wars..

Star Wars is about fast quick combat where the heroes dodge out of the way of incoming fire and the bad guys wear lots of armour.. its about space dog-fighting.. its about the force...

I am trying to adjust this current system to enable it to capture that feel... starting with combat and then moving on to other areas I feel are lacking... emphasis on the I. I'm sure other people may love the system RAW, but I'm putting these rules together as an optional set.. if you don't like how X works perhaps this may work better.

Now I'm sure we could discuss ad infinitum the pros and cons on what I am doing here, but that is by the by I understand other people may not like what I am doing, but I'm putting this stuff up for those that might.. and may even go 'I like what you did here but wouldn't it be better if you did Y...'

I really don't need to be convinced that the system is better RAW and how I need to narrate around the issues, I feel that specific topic has had many many many posts, in many many many threads...

These are my alt rules.. I think that they may work.. I hope they will.. and I hope some of you out there may like them

When you display information on the internet, sorry people will comment on it. Some will like it, some will hate it, but the horde will amass. If you don't want comments, don't publish to the world.

Do as you wish - it's your table and all (and honestly you're far more articulate and reasonable than Gryphynx was - at least you've read the rules). I'm just saying that it seems to me that you're reinventing the wheel when there's a perfectly good stack of wheels just to your left.

But good luck - tell us how it turns out.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the system, perspective maybe. Empty a pistol into a person's chest and they're probably dead. Do it to a Grizzly bear and you're probably Grizzly poop. The characters in Star Wars ducked and weaved, that doesn't mean the whole galaxy does things that way. While Stormtrooper armor is portrayed as pointless in the films, it's wrongheaded to apply some logical argument about the relative value of its ballistic protection to something that was so clearly meant as purely an artistic expression. In other words you're trying to come up with a math formula for producing poetry.

About the wookie marauder, I've almost had the same issue in my group... I just told my players to take a step down to munchkinism : "if they have a soak 10 player next to a soak 3 player, then that other player will get his ass kicked over and over again in every fight if I try to challenge the uber munch soak 10". Then, so everyone could have fun, they spread out their XP more and have better rounded players... max soak is 8 and min soak is 4, so combat is more balanced and fun.

Now let's see your new system...

XP wise, I don't understand why you changed the cost of skills.... if your players have really high-level skills, it probably means either they are super-specialized and really weak everywhere else, or you give out too much XP after each sessions.... In my opinion, the problem is not the system but your table.

The new Dive maneuver : it's the same thing as taking cover, but it costs a maneuver each rounds, so it's worse ; it's the same thing as Guarded Stance, but you don't get the Setback Dice to combat checks, so it's a little better.... Overall, why add it ?

The change to Cover : Increasing difficulty once or twice is gonna make a lot more shots miss... is this change really needed ?

Parry and Duck : Same skills has Parry and Reflect from Force & Destiny... but now can be used by anyone, not just the Lightsaber Forms, and you don't have to wield a Lightsaber (for both) or Melee weapon (for Parry)... With these, the Force Sensitive characters got nerfed. Poor design choice in my opinion.

With all that said... I think your modifications aren't that great... to me it's gonna make longer fights, where people are gonna miss lots of shots and where the only character that is gonna really shine is the fighter focused character with lots of ranks in his dedicated fighting skills (Ranged or Melee) because everybody else is gonna miss too often.

"a fight at medium range with everyone in cover and everyone taking the Dive maneuver, will make every shot a PPPPB difficulty...not even counting Dodge, Defensive Stance or Sidestep... good luck hitting your target"

Will it make the game better ?

Not in my book.

In the current system, hitting someone isn't that hard... with an average difficulty of PP, with some Boost dices from your fellow players, everyone can hit his target... Every player feel he contributed to the fight, even the tech-wiz (after he unlocked the door or stopped the alarm - which wont be at every fight)...

Hope it helps.

When you display information on the internet, sorry people will comment on it. Some will like it, some will hate it, but the horde will amass. If you don't want comments, don't publish to the world.

I'm sorry you took my prior post to mean that I didn't want comments, I do, I like them, but if the comments state over and over that I shouldn't need to change the system, and then quote me lots of examples on how I can work around the issues.. then they are just repeating over and over and over something I understand, so I apologise again if I may have come across a little short about those type of comments...

I understand all of this I can narrate around lots of things, but I feel the system needs fixing, and I've been thinking over how to do this since EOTE beta... this is my current fix..

This is fun to me I like trying to work our perceived flaws in systems I hope it will make me a better GM and designer of stuff for my players

Every time I see someone have a problem with soak and damage in this system it seems to be them thinking wounds are actual damage. They aren't. And all one has to do is look at what it takes to heal wounds. And what it takes to heal crits. Crits behave like real damage and wounds behave like physical stress that a red bull or other stimulant helps you push past.

It could just represent the wear and tear on them that the battle is causing. This could be physical wounds but it could also just mean they're getting more and more worn out by the fight.

The shot that pushes a character over their wound threshold is the shot that takes them out.

If I may - consider Die Hard. Over the course of the movie John McClain gets nicks and sprains and glass in his feet, burns and abrasions left and right - but nothing truly substantial. That nickel and dimeing of our hero over the course of an hour and a half is his wounds. Lots of bullets in his direction, but very little actual damage.

My issue isn't with roleplaying games in general or how to actually play to player/characters strengths or weaknesses. My issue is I feel that the FFG role playing system can do better in simulating the Star Wars feel....

Well, it's true that in canon there's either shooting, or lightsabers, or fisticuffs when both opponents drop their weapons. No Wookiees with vibro-axes, etc. I think your combat changes could certainly work so long as you tailored the opposition accordingly. At least dropping Brawn from Soak will encourage more running fights. If I was a player in your game I'd accept that much.

I'm not a fan of the skill XP costs though, it's way overkill. I get that the current arithmetic approach doesn't really convey the increased difficulty of maxing out a skill, but 125 for the 5th rank is too much...no one will spend 5-8 sessions with no improvements. A geometric approach with a flatter curve might be better, and doesn't need a formula: 5, 10, 20, 35, 55 for career, and add 5, 5, 10, 10, 15 for non-career. I think that would encourage the kind of play you want without it looking impossible.

If you do that though, you also have to revamp the Force powers, because now they're ridiculously cheap, relatively speaking...

Basically by changing a few things you're creating a ripple effect and you have to redesign the whole system. Personally I can tolerate or work around most issues* I have with the current system, and enjoy the benefits of a cohesive design. No offence intended, but you'll have a lot of work to do to approach that level of cohesiveness.

-----------------

* my only real beef is with Force Move, but I think I've managed to isolate the impact of my house rule

About the wookie marauder, I've almost had the same issue in my group... I just told my players to take a step down to munchkinism : "if they have a soak 10 player next to a soak 3 player, then that other player will get his ass kicked over and over again in every fight if I try to challenge the uber munch soak 10". Then, so everyone could have fun, they spread out their XP more and have better rounded players... max soak is 8 and min soak is 4, so combat is more balanced and fun.

My GM didn’t say anything to me on this subject. But I quickly learned early on that my Wookiee Marauder could take a lot of damage and should be the primary damage sponge for the group, and that if there is a huge imbalance in the level of Soak between the strongest and weakest characters, that would cause problems for combat.

So, I intentionally avoided getting a lot of armor for my Wookiee. He’s got a Catch Vest, and he’s gotten the talent to increase his Soak once or twice, but that’s it.

And I fully expect him to be in a lot of pain if we get into any combat. But then he’s got a high WT, and he carries a lot of stimpacks.

IMO, that’s the way that Wookiees are supposed to work. Or any melee monster, for that matter.

I'm sorry your experiences with munchkins have gone so poorly for you. If you're positive that forcing players to have tiny soak values and save xp for 30 sessions to reach rank 5 in a skill is easier than talking to the problem players and asking them to please tone-down their power-gaming, maybe you should abandon those players as a lost cause?

And whatever you do, don't play pathfinder with anyone you don't trust in this system

I agree with you, but have in mind that you are talking of another movie, another setting, a different feeling than Star Wars. I find that RPGs are more enjoyable when their system is designed to fit a certain atmosphere. We could play SW with the excellent Pendragon rules set but it won't fit.

Nope, I'll have to disagree with you - Star Wars - as in the ability to plug and play any story into the setting - is wildly adaptable and flexible. Samurai flicks? Not a problem. Spaghetti western? Done. Space opera? Duh. WWII movie? Done and done. Die Hard is completely representational of the typical death of a thousand cuts that wear a PC down, a great example of plot armor.

XP wise, I don't understand why you changed the cost of skills.... if your players have really high-level skills, it probably means either they are super-specialized and really weak everywhere else, or you give out too much XP after each sessions.... In my opinion, the problem is not the system but your table.

The new Dive maneuver : it's the same thing as taking cover, but it costs a maneuver each rounds, so it's worse ; it's the same thing as Guarded Stance, but you don't get the Setback Dice to combat checks, so it's a little better.... Overall, why add it ?

The change to Cover : Increasing difficulty once or twice is gonna make a lot more shots miss... is this change really needed ?

Parry and Duck : Same skills has Parry and Reflect from Force & Destiny... but now can be used by anyone, not just the Lightsaber Forms, and you don't have to wield a Lightsaber (for both) or Melee weapon (for Parry)... With these, the Force Sensitive characters got nerfed. Poor design choice in my opinion.

With all that said... I think your modifications aren't that great... to me it's gonna make longer fights, where people are gonna miss lots of shots and where the only character that is gonna really shine is the fighter focused character with lots of ranks in his dedicated fighting skills (Ranged or Melee) because everybody else is gonna miss too often.

"a fight at medium range with everyone in cover and everyone taking the Dive maneuver, will make every shot a PPPPB difficulty...not even counting Dodge, Defensive Stance or Sidestep... good luck hitting your target"

Going to start at the bottom

an unskilled human shooting at medium range as you described above, who aims twice will hit 32% of the time, remove 1 level of cover, or down to short range (its the same) and it equates to 41% chance, someone skilled (YG) it goes up to 46%

This is think is about right.. going to the level i was dealing with with my prior group (YYYYY) it goes up to 87%

The fights may miss more, but with the changes to soak, hits are going to hurt more, either wnd threashold or strain (parry and duck)

Force Sensitives haven't been nerfed they still have these options and they get the improved versions which are pure awesome.. By allowing non sensitives to use these talents I feel I have just plugged a gap in the system and added something that should have been added since the beginning

The Dive manoeuver is for situations where cover is not an option... yes cover is always a better choice, but some player may also want to run down that corridor charging the bad guys etc...

About the skill cost.. yes I may need to look at this, but currently one of my group is sitting at the 600 xp mark.. we played for over a year every week, hiatus atm.. my other group not so much of a problem only sit at 150xp mark.. but this is version 1 of my mods.. I am not submitting a finished product.. beta testing etc is needed

but thank you for the comments