Hello all,

Just finished the beginner game with my son. Nice story line, but I had some questions concerning mechanics. I'm used to other RPGs, and found that the rules for FaD were a little non-descript in some cases.

For instance - the Critical table says to roll d100 on the crit table to see what the effect is, and it also shows possibilities of 150+.

However, there is no d100 in this game....and even if there were, how would you roll 150+? Can someone give me an example of how this is supposed to work?

Also, re the melee combat: in the beginner game, the fight with Malefax - that seemed WAY too easy. My son was playing two PCs, and then there was Malefax. The two PCs got the top two init spots, and went first. They approached with lightsabers out and attacked and killed him in two strokes.

When someone is using a lightsaber versus another melee weapon, is it really only two difficulty dice being added? It seems like it should be an opposed check (attacker's attack roll modified by challenge/difficulty made up of the defenders melee skill).

Am I doing the melee wrong or something?

Thanks!

Pretty sure it mentions somewhere that the only extra dice you'll need beyond what FFG provides, are 2d10s for rolling percentages. Given that most gamers have a full set of dice from games like D&D, coming up with 2d10s isn't usually very hard.

There are a lot of different talents and weapon qualities which will give you a bonus when rolling for Criticals. For instance, the Vicious weapon quality adds +10 for every rank. So if you had a weapon with Vicious 3, that would add +30 to whatever you roll. If you rolled 100, then it would be 130, which is why the chart goes that high.

Difficulty in melee is indeed only 2... but the target gets to include any applicable defense, and then gets to roll soak, before damage is actually applied to their wounds. In regards to lightsabers, they are a very powerful weapon, which is why players don't start out with them in the full game. The Beginner Box is meant to give you a taste of the game, so you're playing a somewhat more experienced character. Once you get the full game, and make fresh characters, you'll have to work your way back up to that level. And by the time you get there, you'll have a better feel for how to play characters that strong.

Additionally, SWRPG is great in that they didn't nerf lightsabers like other Star Wars RPGs have done. WotC's d20 Star Wars made them very lame, and it wasn't until you were a high level Jedi that they started to get good again. Whereas around here, they're a wicked plasma sword from the start. The downside is that the Empire will hunt you down if they find out you have one. These games are set around the time of Luke and Obi-Wan meeting up with Han, so Darth Vader is out there hunting for any remnants of the Jedi. If anybody sees your characters waving Lightsabers around in a dark alley fight, there will be Star Destroyers chasing you around forever after.

D100 is done by rolling 2 d10 dice; they aren't included and have to be acquired separately. There are abilities and weapons that can push the number rolled past 100.

Malefax is a pushover to begin with, and PCs in the core game don't normally start with lightsabers (not lethal ones, anyway) like the pregenerated characters do. Seems like you did everything else right.

Thanks to both of you. Yes, I do have d10's (more than I should, probably). I hadn't even thought of them.

Bkoran mentions rolling this with the weapon that rolled the crit. How does this work?

You roll to attack and receive the right dice combo to trigger the weapons crit. You then roll d100 and add the weapon's damage to the result and check the crit table to see what the injury is? Then that PC (the one that sustained the Crit) has the difficulty die(ce) as per the crit table for actions they take? Are we talking about only during combat, or all actions/skill checks, etc until the crit injury(ies) are removed?

Thanks!

Deal damage with a weapon (you have to be able to inflict at least 1 wound), then you trigger a critical, with the number of Advantage equal to the critical rating, or a single Triumph. Then you roll d100. If you have enough Advantages/Triumphs to trigger the critical more than once, you may add +10 to the roll for each time you can trigger it again (or you can spend them on something else); if the rating is 2, and you have a Triumph and 4 advantage, you can trigger the critical with the Triumph and add +20 to the roll. If the target is already suffering one or more critical injuries, it can increase the number by +10 (and I've suddenly forgotten if its +10 per injury, or just +10, but I think it's the former). A weapon can have the Vicious X quality (with X being 1 or higher), which adds +10 per rank. Likewise, a character can have the Lethal Blows talent, which adds +10 per rank. All of that will push the number above 100. But you don't add the damage of the weapon, you just deal wounds with that.

A PC suffering a critical injury suffers the effects as they are described, but they 'retain' the injury until it is healed, even if the negative effects wear off. The difficulty rating of a critical is how difficult it is to heal the injury with a Medicine check (or a Mechanics check, if we're talking about critical hits on vehicles).

Like Blackbird said, the attack and damage are separate from the Critical roll.

1) You make an attack (applying their defenses if any), they apply soak to the damage, and then wounds are tallied. So long as there was some damage actually suffered (soak didn't completely negate) then you can activate the Critical.

2) Depending on how many Advantages and Triumphs you have to spend, the qualities of your weapon, and the traits you've trained... you roll 2d10 (1 for 10's place, 1 for 1's place). Add +10 for every time you activate the Crit (if it cost 2 Advantages, and you rolled 4, you could activate twice). Add +10 for every Triumph you spend (1 Triumph can activate a Crit regardless of cost). And add any bonuses from weapon Qualities or Traits. The damage from the initial attack does not apply.

Depending on what Critical(s) they suffer, will determine what penalties they take. Some effects may be lasting, some may only apply to your next action. The Severity listed on the chart is for healing that Critical, it doesn't have anything to do with the effect. Even if the effect has passed, the Critical still applies. Every consecutive Critical gets +10 for each unhealed Critical still on you. You get 3 Critical injuries, that's +30 in addition to everything else.

For example...

Peter Pewpew takes a shot at Tommy Target with his Heavy Blaster Pistol. He rolls Agility 3 + Ranged (Light) 4, against an Average difficulty with no modifiers. So the dice pool is YYYGPP. In the end, Peter scores 3 Advantages and 1 Triumph. Since the Triumph also counts as a Success, the attack succeeds and deals 8 damage (base 7 + 1 per net success). Tommy soaks 3, leaving 5 wounds suffered.

The Crit on a Heavy Blaster is 3, which Peter did score 3 Advantages. But he also scored a Triumph, which can trigger a Crit regardless of the cost. So he's going to roll d100 + 10 for the extra Crit. He only rolls 12, which would be "Sudden Jolt" causing Tommy to drop whatever is in his hand. But the extra +10 raises the Crit up to 22. Instead, Tommy is "Off Balance" and suffers 1 black Setback die to his next skill check. Once he makes a skill check, that penalty goes away.

Even after that next skill check, Tommy is still Critically injured. Until he / someone makes an Easy Medicine check to get rid of his "Off Balance", any further Criticals rolled against him will get an automatic +10.

Let's say Peter shoots him again for the exact same results. This time the 12 rolled becomes a 32 because of the additional +10 for already having a Critical injury. Now Tommy is "Stunned" until the end of his next turn. And the next Crit against him will get +20 for there being 2 Critical injuries already. So it's possible to continue stacking up Critical injuries until the results are pretty terrible.

In addition, whenever a character suffers more wounds than his woundthreshold he will automaticly suffer a critical Injuri, if you trigger now trigger a crit you´ll go right to +10 with the first activasion.

In the example it would be like this.

Peter Pewpew is lucky again and hits Tommy Target again with the same result. But this time poor Tommy Targets wounds exceed his limit, he falls over and suffers an automatical critical injurie, since Peter wants to be sure to kill Tommy of he uses his triumph and the advantages to activate the crit abillity of his Blaster.

Now Peter has to roll the d100 (for exceeding the woundthreshold) +30 (for the former three critical injuries) + 20 (for both weapon crit triggerings),

This time Tommy is very unfourtunate and rolls 96 (dubble 0) and has to add the 50 which results in a total critroll of 146: "The end is nigh" Tommy will die on the end of his next turn... only a very good (and very fast) and very Daunting medical check can save him now...