The Ubiquitous d%

By Alekzanter, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Next to all the nifty custom dice, the d% seems oddly out of place...to me any way. I've been mulling the idea of removing it from play. One idea comes from...oh, that site where Angry gets angry... The basis is to replace d% with Challenge dice.

Has anybody done something similar?

I dearly wish they'd done away with percentiles.

The game is at its best when they are using the special dice.

I don't play with Obligation, Duty or Conflict, so mostly the only time we use % is criticals...

I haven't tried to swap them out yet, but I'd be interesting in seeing other people's attempts.

Bit of a strange design choice to be honest.

I think its the granularity they wanted, but a steadily growing pool of dice could probably be made to work.

Speaking mostly of the Critical system you would need entirely new crit tables and talents would need to be re-worded to be dice pool modifiers instead of flat +10/-10 to rolls.

If a critical was say a single difficulty dice on the chart, Vicious, Lethal Blows and extra crits on an attack add setback, previous criticals upgrade the checks.

Perhaps the number of failure determines the severity of the injury while the threat and despair add complications or effects from a list specific to each severity category.

When I have some more time I'll post up my thoughts.

FfG produced a deck of critical hit cards.

You'll need the table for this as well but you could take the 1-100 cards shuffle them up and then draw at random.

You either then use that critical hit or if you have modifiers simply take the number on the cards and use the table.

How important is it having specific critical injury effects? It adds a layer of detail, but is that layer necessary? How many times have you rolled "Nicked" and everyone around the table groans? The other end of the pendulum swing is the excitement generated when lopping off the limb of your nemesis. But are these effects a need, or just superfluous?

A "rewrite" should take this into consideration.

Some of even the below 100 criticals are devastating. Overpowered and Winded are examples.

Some of even the below 100 criticals are devastating. Overpowered and Winded are examples.

Or Hamstrung, as my Inquisitor just discovered.

I have no problem with the percentage dice for crits. That's what percentage dice are for: picking things from a big list. It's the best tool for the job.

I agree, the dice system hieroglyphics and results are abstract to a certain degree, but the results are also mechanical. You're still counting #s of successes, advantages, triumphs on a roll, adding base damage and coming up with a numerical result.

Oh crap, 2P, whafrog, Maelora!!!! Another soon to be locked down thread!!!! :) !!!

I don't have a problem with using the % dice. I also use them for other reasons too. Some times for just wierd decisions, I will make a % cheek. So I have integrated them into my game in other ways.

I can't imagine trying to read a chart and seeing if they got FFFFTTTTTT or FFFFTTTTT to see if they are winded or not. Just using my two D10 is a lot easier. Also, since my players have the books, they can look up the crit chart while I'm doing something else.

I have found this game loves critical hits, and while they are serious, they are not like the critical hits of other systems where they are super serious/deadly. So wracking up a few crits in one scene is not too hard, and I like that.

Again, I like the system as developed, but this is coming from the super fan boy, who "sees no evil" from FFG. :) I don't see the problem with it, or a need to get rid of the % dice, but if you do, and you end up changing it, and your group enjoys it, great.

Next to all the nifty custom dice, the d% seems oddly out of place...to me any way. I've been mulling the idea of removing it from play. One idea comes from...oh, that site where Angry gets angry... The basis is to replace d% with Challenge dice.

Has anybody done something similar?

The advantage of the d100 is that is makes it very easy to design the chance of a given problem happening and modifiers just shift the mean without changing the variance of a roll. So, +40 on the roll is easy to understand.

Could this be done, sure, but it takes a better understanding of the stats of the dice to know what results should be put where on a given Success/Advantage (or Failure/Threat) result to not have things like Death show up more often than "Bum Leg". Especially when you consider the stacking effect and how that changes the Mean and Variance of a result when dice are added. When do you add another Challenge die to the check? Should 1 Rank of Vicious? What about 5 Ranks of Vicious?

As I've found from looking at the results, the dice are able to generate something akin to the standard Gaussian Bell curve, but with a 2D transformation as Successes and Advantages actually oppose each other on the die (The more successes you roll, the fewer Advantages you can get and vice versa).

Some of even the below 100 criticals are devastating. Overpowered and Winded are examples.

Or Hamstrung, as my Inquisitor just discovered.

I have no problem with the percentage dice for crits. That's what percentage dice are for: picking things from a big list. It's the best tool for the job.

Hamstring an NPC and the fight pretty much dries up and blows away. That F'er is BRUTAL!

It could possibly be redone to using a dice pool. Ever success is 1, every advantage is 5 and every triumph is 10. Then numbers on the chart might have to be re-worked though. You could do it with either different pools for each weapon or even use a re-roll of the attackers dice pool.

Just a thought. I think the % is a much easier solution.

Oh crap, 2P, whafrog, Maelora!!!! Another soon to be locked down thread!!!! :) !!!

Edit: (bows out)

Edited by Alekzanter

You did get an answer on the layers of effects, multiple answers, which were yes.

Some of even the below 100 criticals are devastating. Overpowered and Winded are examples.

A system hit on the vehicle charts can end participation in a fight or chase rather quick...

You're being silly. One of the things I like best about RPGs isthe random developments one encounters, that goes back to D&D wandering monsters and their treasure. d100 is a simple randomizing tool

I'm pretty sure at some point in development they were just using the FFG dice, trying to figure out this big critical chart and the obligation mechanic, when someone just said, "Okay guys, I know we said we were just gonna use our dice, but this is a mess. Wanna just have some percentile dice?"

This was met with a chorus of, "Oh my god, I'm so glad someone said it!."

Next to all the nifty custom dice, the d% seems oddly out of place...to me any way. I've been mulling the idea of removing it from play. One idea comes from...oh, that site where Angry gets angry... The basis is to replace d% with Challenge dice.

Has anybody done something similar?

Seems like a lot of hassle to fix a very minor (to me) problem. You'd need to start by remaking the entire critical chart. Then you'd have to rework all the talents that effect crits to make sure the talents all keep relative value in your new system. Then you would have to teach an entirely new critical system to your players. For my taste it is a lot easier to just roll a quick d% and move on. I mean your complaint is that the d% is a little out of place, do you really need a massive overhaul to adjust it when it'd be a lot simpler to just shrug it off and roll with it?

If only the critical decks played nicely with the % roll.

If only the critical decks played nicely with the % roll.

You could separate out the severity levels of crits and for each crit activation say you can choose a selection from the more severe group of cards.

If only the critical decks played nicely with the % roll.

You could separate out the severity levels of crits and for each crit activation say you can choose a selection from the more severe group of cards.

If only rolling a D100 with modifiers wasn't the simplest way to make a random selection from a list of possibilities...

I'm not advocating for it. Just suggesting it as an option. Personally I don't see any reason to fix things that aren't broken.

Nobody else feeling, that the critical results are not very powerful against NPCs? To often even, with Lethal blows and Vicious 2-3 you see: The NPC gets an effect that doesn bother him actually.

Sure against PCs they are always at least nasty. My Droid for example is "maimed" right now, which will cost him over 2000 credits to repair, not to speak that he currently has no way to repair himself (he is the best mechanic of the group and we are underway) and cant really fight anymore.