Playing a campaign during episode 2.. Clone wars

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

I am a real green ffg starc wars player and wonder how you can survive a lightsaber fight lol... It seems one hit and your dead lol

Depends on the specific saber, depends on the character. A starting PC will not do well. Characters from Clone Wars are several hundred to upwards of a 1000 xp equivalency, they will.

Have a high brawn which increased your Wound Threshold ranks in Tougheness (+WT), Durable (- Crit). But basically yes a newer character will not survive more than 1h it with a saber. Also if you are a saber user yourself, there are talents (Perry) that reduce incoming brawl, melee, and Lightsaber damage.

Eventually, you can buy or find Cortossis weave as an armor mod, which negates the breach to some extent.

First, keep in mind a character fresh out of chargen wouldn't be able to keep up with anybody you see in the movie. (Opinions on this vary, so what follows is just MHO.) You'll get closer if you use the "Knight level" rules, which kind of brings to you a young Padawan level, while 300+ XP brings you to a freshly dubbed Knight. With that in mind:

You need the Parry talent. Sense defense commits are also helpful, and talents like Dodge would also be essentials.

Also, if you're going to have an iconic and drawn out lightsaber duel, you could consider a different combat mechanic for special occasions...not something to be used casually, but only for a suitably dramatic or cinematic moment. For example, you could treat all Wounds as Strain until the Strain runs out. This allows you to spend Advantage recovering Strain. Or you could make combat rolls contested, which on average would reduce the damage being done. Or instead of contested, apply skill ranks as difficulty upgrades, or even as automatic damage reduction.

Again, I wouldn't recommend this for a normal combat scene: the game is designed to dish out damage to keep things moving. But if you had the right scene, it could be beneficial to have the combat take a longer time, perhaps letting others (non FS PCs) have time to do other critical things.

Some other things to consider: reducing Wound Threshold to zero doesn't automatically kill a character. If this is a single combat check from a lightsaber, and the PC doesn't have previous Critical Injuries, then unless the 'saber in question has a crystal with several Vicious mods it's mechanically impossible to kill a PC with it (barring narrative or exceptional circumstances). I'm away from my books, but I'd suggest re-reading the section on Wounds, Strain, and states of health (it's right around the crit table).

Some other things to consider: reducing Wound Threshold to zero doesn't automatically kill a character. If this is a single combat check from a lightsaber, and the PC doesn't have previous Critical Injuries, then unless the 'saber in question has a crystal with several Vicious mods it's mechanically impossible to kill a PC with it (barring narrative or exceptional circumstances). I'm away from my books, but I'd suggest re-reading the section on Wounds, Strain, and states of health (it's right around the crit table).

5 Ranks of parry and cortosis armor to protect your natural soak from breach should achieve the same thing. Most damage will go to strain as you keep using parry over and over again. :)

5 Ranks of parry and cortosis armor to protect your natural soak from breach should achieve the same thing. Most damage will go to strain as you keep using parry over and over again. :)

Agreed, though the cortosis armor may be hard to come by; the OP seemed to suggest to me a (common) misinterpretation of the rules by which a character that reaches 0 Wound Threshold is dead, which is explicitly not the case regardless of the weapon used.

Counterpoint: lightsabers are pretty fatal. Lets look at all the folks who got hit by a lightsaber and killed in one shot:

Hundreds of countless mooks

Qui Gon

Maul (kind of)

Big Daddy Fett

All the Jedi sent to arrest Palpatine

All the Trade Federation dudes on Mustafar

Walrus man

Kenobi

Bunches of dudes I'm forgetting about

Now compare that list to those who got hit and lived:

Vader

The Wampa

Vader again

Luke

Vader Thrice

Lesson we take away from this? Unless you are the chosen one, you're dead when you get poked with one of these.

Counterpoint: lightsabers are pretty fatal. Lets look at all the folks who got hit by a lightsaber and killed in one shot:

Hundreds of countless mooks

Qui Gon

Maul (kind of)

Big Daddy Fett

All the Jedi sent to arrest Palpatine

All the Trade Federation dudes on Mustafar

Walrus man

Kenobi

Bunches of dudes I'm forgetting about

Now compare that list to those who got hit and lived:

Vader

The Wampa

Vader again

Luke

Vader Thrice

Lesson we take away from this? Unless you are the chosen one, you're dead when you get poked with one of these.

Actually, Panda Baba (the Aqualish "walrus man" you mentioned) was not killed by Kenobi in the cantina. He was simply "disarmed" (literally).

And 1 of the Jedi sent to arrest Palpatine was thrown out the window,,,

Dooku lost his hands first before he was executed, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Maul, Ventress, Ahsoka were knocked out countless times, Grievous lost a lot of limbs, Maul lost his lower torso and his cybernetic legs too, his brother Savage Opress lost his arm and iirc one his cybernetic one too … both Skywalkers lets their hands, Kanan Jarus got blinded, and so on and on. There is a good amount of non lethal results of lightsaber combat in canon too.

But one thing is for sure, a lot of ranks in parry help a lot and strain can make all the difference in a duel between masters.

Edited by SEApocalypse

Also survived being hit by a light saber, Finn, Rey, and Kylo Ren...

Han, not so much...

Han, not so much...

I believe it when I don't see him in episode IX :P

Also survived being hit by a light saber, Finn, Rey, and Kylo Ren...

Correction: Rey never was hit with a lightsaber. She was pitched into a tree with the Force. Finn did get hit with a lightsaber, and the last time we saw him he was in critical condition/coma.

Kylo got a burn on his face, (personally, I think there should have been a lot more.)

Also Quigon was killed after multiple hits with a lightsaber , he was not a one shot kill, narratively he was hit multiple times (each time he parried avoiding most if not all the damage.

Edited by syrath

Kenobi got 'oneshotted' because he let Vader line up the perfect hit unopposed. Previously, Dooku took him out of a fight with what amounts to lightsaber fleshwounds.

Also survived being hit by a light saber, Finn, Rey, and Kylo Ren...

Correction:

Kylo got a burn on his face, (personally, I think there should have been a lot more.)

He also lost an arm or a hand if I am not mistaken.

Also survived being hit by a light saber, Finn, Rey, and Kylo Ren...

Correction:

Kylo got a burn on his face, (personally, I think there should have been a lot more.)

He also lost an arm or a hand if I am not mistaken.

I don't remember that somehow. When did you see that?

It's funny that I watched it four times and missed that.

Also survived being hit by a light saber, Finn, Rey, and Kylo Ren...

Correction:

Kylo got a burn on his face, (personally, I think there should have been a lot more.)

He also lost an arm or a hand if I am not mistaken.

I don't remember that somehow. When did you see that?

It's funny that I watched it four times and missed that.

He didn't lose any limbs.

His mind, maybe; but no limbs

Also survived being hit by a light saber, Finn, Rey, and Kylo Ren...

Correction:

Kylo got a burn on his face, (personally, I think there should have been a lot more.)

He also lost an arm or a hand if I am not mistaken.

I don't remember that somehow. When did you see that?

It's funny that I watched it four times and missed that.

He didn't lose any limbs.

That's what I thought. ;) You never know, though.