Well, that really comes into another question which is that I could use some help making gunfights interesting. I totally get the idea of using cover and the environment but that's really hard for me to manage when there's no maps of the areas and given the abstracted range rulings (it hurts my head a bit working out triangulations between enemies especially). If a PC says "well, I find some cover" it's hard for me to ever refuse if there's not a map, but as I understand it it only adds one setback die to attack?

For the characters:

1: Sullustan Seeker->Ataru Striker 2/5/2/1/2/2 Athletics 1 Lightsaber 1 Piloting (both) 1 Ranged Heavy 1, Jump Up, Ataru Technique, Parry 2, Reflect 1, Saber Swarm, Heavy Blaster Rifle w/Weapon Harness, Laminate Armor, Rubat/Ilum Double-bladed Lightsaber w/Curved Hilt and Triumph rolled during building for -1 Enc (is there a way to represent that in OggDude's program?). He is over Enc by 1 point because he swapped to Double Bladed Lightsaber from regular Saber without checking but we're fixing that next session. This guy ends most combats in 1 round.

2: Nautolan Guardian->Protector 5/2/2/2/1/2 Athletics 2 Cool 1 Mechanics 1 Melee 3 Resilience 1 Vigilance 1, Toughened 1, Force Protection, Center of Being, Padded Armor w/Mono-molectular edge w/Serrated edge.

3: Cerean Consular->Healer 2/1/5/2/2/2 Cool 1 Discipline 1 Lore 1 Medicine 1 Vigilance 1, Surgeon, Healing Trance, Physician, Force Heal Basic Power, Rubat/Ilum Lightsaber w/Critical Reduction mod free from self building. Outside of combat this guy is probably the sillest one of the lot - because there seem to be no untrained skill rules, Intellect 5 means he just mysteriously knows everything about everything! I think he's made every Knowledge roll so far in spite of having ranks in only 1 of the skills (and I'm not sure he knew he had that because it was down on his sheet as "Law")

4: Twilek Mystic->Makashi Duelist 1/2/2/2/2/5 Charm 3 Lightsaber 1 Perception 1 Vigilance 1, Resist Disarm, Makashi Technique, Duelist's Training, Parry 1, Ilum/Rubat Lightsaber unmodified.

5: Kel Dor Consular->Niman Disciple 1/2/2/2/5/2 Vigilance 2 Cool 1 Discipline 1 Education 1 Leadership 1 Lightsaber 1 Negotiation 1, Nobody's Fool, Niman Technique, Ilum/Rubat Lightsaber unmodified.

So far the typical combat goes:

- Everyone rolls initiative

- Char. 5 uses yyggg to win initiative and gives his slot to Char. 1 (yes, Char 5 is basically an initiative canary)

- Char. 1 autofires heavy blaster with ygggg and autofires to kill a minion group or rival/nemesis in one hit

- In a significant number of the given encounters that's all there is, but if not 2 will charge in

Use maps. Don't worry about grid squares. have a rough idea how far each range band is and go with it.

I think that the campaign is going well. Super Jedi Death Posse ftw!

It's nice to be playing some badass characters from the off, unlike D&D where you're cack until level 5+.

And the morality system forces us not to just brutally murder everybody that we come across. We were offering all of our opponents the chance to surrender (Or die). Doesn't get much more rp than that.

You could trying trebling or quadrupling number of bad guys per encounter? Would give my healer something to do in combat. Even soak 7 Brawny boy might have trouble tanking that?

Reminds me of the final stage of Kotor where the badass Jedi trio murdered their way past wave after wave of expendable Sith mooks.

Gaz

-a ton of stuff-

Cool thanks, Lemme run some numbers and I'll see what I can do to develop some encounter ideas for you to use.

What's the typical enemy composition looking like? Just the book verbatim or are you tweaking?

I think that the campaign is going well. Super Jedi Death Posse ftw!

It's nice to be playing some badass characters from the off, unlike D&D where you're cack until level 5+.

And the morality system forces us not to just brutally murder everybody that we come across. We were offering all of our opponents the chance to surrender (Or die). Doesn't get much more rp than that.

You could trying trebling or quadrupling number of bad guys per encounter? Would give my healer something to do in combat. Even soak 7 Brawny boy might have trouble tanking that?

Reminds me of the final stage of Kotor where the badass Jedi trio murdered their way past wave after wave of expendable Sith mooks.

Gaz

Ok, so at least one player thinks that a problem with other games he's played was that he didn't start with sufficient strength to feel heroic, and likes the idea of cutting through swaths of mooks.

Feedback noted...

Use narration to describe the environment. Kind of like branching choices that will make things harder or easier, like a series of multiple choice envrioments; the easy "get closer/further route", the "find meaningful cover", or the "do something dramatic to get a short cut in the environment to get a special advantage". The key thing is to set the scene long before you roll inti.

For example a market place, describe the variety of stalls, how difficult it is to see from one to another, how the people respond to the adventurers. Stealth checks gain a bonus until the shooting starts and if the person is appropriately dressed. Or alternatively describe the people getting out of the way of the heavily armed party, which means their heavy weapons actually go against them if they lug them in a casual environment. Also, consider spiltting the location into broad areas, with members of the party/NPC's not really having line of sight unless they are in an ascent area (which might be a particlar range band..

Or a train, describe the bustle, the cramped environment of people packed into a commuite, describe the general positions and, on occasion a guy who starts casual conversation the party. You spot a vibroblade in the crowd, upgrade ranged checks, with dispairs killing innocent people equal to the result. Describe how the train isn't far above the rooftops, so if things go bad, the nearby window is a good avenue to move the counter o a new location.

You spot a fleeing group of bounty hunters on the rooftops, the small assortment of bounty hunters hop and run across the mult-leveled routes making it difficult. The players always have the option to advance toward them, take cover or alternatively try and gain an advantagous position if they are willing to give up shooting for that turn, with a success allowing them to actually get ahead of the bounty hunters by taking a short cut not available/not considered by them. Likewise they have to chose to stand ground or move slowly while firing, moving twice to get more ground, or do something risky to dramatically get ahead, only to be put into an awful situation if they fail (they fail to make any progress, or alternatively a fall could knock one out or end up below, forcing another bounty to pause to consider fetching him) on their section of shanty roof's. Use advantage/threat to describe either side using the environment to their advantage.

As you cross the clearing toward the bunker, blaster fire spits from the opening. After taking a moment to curse your lack of care, you have the choice of a very limited assortment of cover that can only support 2/3 of you, or alternatively may press on the bunker. You receive 3 setback dice due to the fortification this emplacement. Once engaged with the enplacement, the defenders receive the same setback on attacks outgoing toward that target.

Broadly speaking, forget about the maps and grids and imagine both parties constantly moving in motion, make note of how people spilt up.

Well, that really comes into another question which is that I could use some help making gunfights interesting. I totally get the idea of using cover and the environment but that's really hard for me to manage when there's no maps of the areas and given the abstracted range rulings (it hurts my head a bit working out triangulations between enemies especially). If a PC says "well, I find some cover" it's hard for me to ever refuse if there's not a map, but as I understand it it only adds one setback die to attack?

Don't let the fact that FFG didn't provide a map stop you from drawing a map if you need one. They have a different vision for their game but that vision isn't going to work for all and if it doesn't work for you you'll need to make adjustments yourself.

Also your PC's look to be glass cannons. They are great in one thing and that one thing only. Start hitting them where they are weak. Make minion groups larger so they can soak up auto fire. Toss in more minion groups and spread them out. Also don't reveal all the bad guys at once. Have back up arrive after the autofire is layed down. Have it come from different directions. Have bad guys get in the face of the ranged guy meanwhile keep people at range and behind cover to deal with the melee guy.

Or .... ask them to restat more balanced characters. I can not stress this enough but if the way they are gaming is making things to hard for you you need to sit down and tell them so and explain all the ways in which they are making the game harder for your to GM for and thus less fun.

Cool, but ok, how is it supposed to work within the vision of the game? I get there are other ways to do it but at the same time I'd like to know what the original intent was. If it involves the players acting differently then, well, how should they change their approach?

The problem with range bands is that even if we're just going with Theater of the Mind, any room more complex than a flat circular room only a few metres in radius runs the risk of at least one Medium range band existing inside it and this becomes very difficult to define if things aren't more precise. Most TOTM games use semantic or perception based ranged bands but SW invokes numbers of meters and thus still uses geometric ones.

You use narration. You don't really need to be as precise as other games. So if I as the GM says that the bad guys start at Medium range band then I know that I need to just move one more range band to be short range. Once I'm in short range it doesn't really matter how many feet there are. I just need to know what band I am in in relation to my target. Then as the GM you describe what's in the room in general. Some people can keep track of that stuff in their head. Other people will need visual aids. To a certain extent it falls upon the player to also keep in mind where they are in relation to others.

It's possible to do complex rooms, you just kinda have to get used to thinking about the room as a whole and where you are in relation to what you want to do. Due to the nature of how range bands shift from person to person depending on where you are in relation to others markers might be a good idea for people who are new to using it and want to keep track of where things like cover are. In general you may want to map out the entire room in which combat takes place in and figure out where things are and then how far apart they are from one another. But you don't need a pericse measurement. You don't need to know that X starts at Z number of feet. Knowing that from one end of the corridor to the next is long range band is enough to help get you started. Then you just divide the room into general bands and then keep track of where people are, noting that movement will shift range bands some in relation to other characters. Typically the shift will be from medium to short or engaged.

Ultimately it takes work and practice to get used to. The range band system in my opinion represents a more fluid combat, in which distance from things is not a constant but instead relative. I don't need to think in precise feet just a general idea of where I want to be in relation to what I'm trying to hit.

I don't have trouble with range bands but I also spent a lot of years playing RPG's online in chat rooms which required us to be less concerned with exact measurements and more concerned with describing where we were and narrating combat encounters. So I find their system easy. It might help you to read some of the pbp games currently going on the forums and seeing how the GM's in those games are setting up combat.

Narration is key.

For prep just get some general ideas of what the area the players will be in and don't stress about having to define every little detail like you would in D&D or other such game. Rather let the players help define the environment.

For example if I know the players will be in a city I'd write down city on my notes then list of possible things in the area like crowds, traffic, parked speeders, neon lights, alleyways etc. I've also let my players know to feel free to try and shape the environment and during combat if they want to introduce something and I think it's reasonable I allow it. The point is they can help shape the scene in all of our heads and this takes a lot of load off the GM and makes the scene more fun and enjoyable for everyone as the players get drawn in and help lay everything out as they play.

Ie the players get jumped coming out of a cantina in the blue light district of Corella. I give a brief discription noting some hover traffic several meters up, some parked vehicles along the front of the building and a few onlookers nearby.

A player could then ask if there's an alley way near by they could move down, a crate or bike they could take cover behind, a ledge they could climb, etc and I judge if that's ok.

As for environmental effects that depends on what they're trying, so if they're trying to intimidate or use something like scathing tirade I might say the traffic overhead makes it hard to hear anything but loud shouts and so they gain 2 setback, or perhaps they're trying to shoot but I know they're concerned with not hitting bystanders so they get a setback to their checks as they're less quick to pull the trigger, etc

Ok - so we're actually using semantic zone based range bands (as in, "anywhere on the floor is short range from anywhere else, the gantry above is medium range") rather than rigid meter based ones? That sounds much more manageable.

My confusion is that in the book it states that short range is "up to a couple of metres" and medium is "up to a couple of dozen metres". The problem with this is, suppose you have 5 Stormtroopers standing in a line at Short range from each other, and a PC at short range from one of them. If they are at the limit of short range then depending on which stormtrooper they are at short range from, they may by Pythagoras be medium range from the one at the other end of the line. And since this is pretty important in a firefight - adding a difficulty dice - it seemed to be the sort of thing that would need tracking.

But if it's actually FATE-style zones that's OK, although it makes the PCs much more movable, but that's not necessarily bad!

2. Yes Force heal is great, And yes it follows the same rules for Stimpak use. Also one thing to consider if a player attempts a force heal on a character but rolls dark side and chooses NOT to use it one of the characters stimpak uses are still used.

I was not aware that attempts counted against the total use for a 24 hour period. Is there a reference you could provide that affirms this statement?

My confusion is that in the book it states that short range is "up to a couple of metres" and medium is "up to a couple of dozen metres". The problem with this is, suppose you have 5 Stormtroopers standing in a line at Short range from each other, and a PC at short range from one of them. If they are at the limit of short range then depending on which stormtrooper they are at short range from, they may by Pythagoras be medium range from the one at the other end of the line. And since this is pretty important in a firefight - adding a difficulty dice - it seemed to be the sort of thing that would need tracking.

The distance comparisons are for reference, not accuracy or serious use. Don't take them too literally. Also remember, unless you're doing something weird, grouped minions can be thought of as one character most of the time.

So in the example you give, assuming all the stormtroopers are a single minion group (effectively making them one character) then the range band a character is from them would be the same for all members of the group, actual distance and formation is just narrative.

And I've been busy with work so I haven't been on a computer much, but I've got a notebook of ideas for you I'll try to get you soon.