Question: has anyone played around with making stimpacks less powerful?

I'm running a more investigatory campaign, which is less combat focused, and as a result my players rarely end up in more than one encounter per day. Therefore they can always just take a couple of stimpacks to get them pretty much back to full health after every encounter. I can't see them ever bothering with putting XP into Medicine or purchasing a bacta tank.

I was wondering about changing "1 day" to "1 week", but that seems maybe a bit too punitive...thoughts?

In my upcoming non Star Wars campaign I plan on changing them to a temporary effect and the Wounds they restore wear off in 10 or 20 minutes.

Point to consider: Resilience checks to heal from critical injuries can be attempted once per week. Doesn't really seem to fit very well.

Why not make the "per session" instead of per day? That way it makes them a little more narrative, like most other things in this system, and a little less crunchy. I would hate to bookkeep things for a week in Star Wars. Critical injuries are bad enough to track; I don't want to have to track stim pack usage long-term

Couple of thoughts:

1) You could expand the uses of the Medicine skill to make it more enticing. If it's an investigatory campaign, maybe Medicine can be used for forensic examination. You could also introduce a recurring nemesis/faction that prefers the use of poison or biological weapons, necessitating Medicine checks to develop countermeasures.

2) Maybe this just isn't the sort of campaign where Medicine is useful, and that's okay. Some skills and talents become more or less useful depending on the nature of the campaign, and you don't necessarily need to try to cram a square peg into a round hole in order to make all options equally useful. I mean, if I were playing in a game that only rarely had combat encounters, I probably wouldn't bother investing XP into combat skills/talents in general aside from what I need to get to more investigative abilities, and that's not a bad thing per se.

A couple of critical injuries will get them scrambling for some competent medical care in no time.

50 minutes ago, Krieger22 said:

A couple of critical injuries will get them scrambling for some competent medical care in no time.

You read my mind. Hand out Critical Injurys more freely.

Another technique to use would be having physically draining encounters prior to the combat, suck the strain out of them since it's much harder to heal in a single day.

1 hour ago, Richardbuxton said:

You read my mind. Hand out Critical Injurys more freely.

And here comes the disruptor pistol-wielding gunslingers. /Oprah voice: You get a crit, you get a crit, everyone gets crits!!!

1 hour ago, Genuine said:

And here comes the disruptor pistol-wielding gunslingers. /Oprah voice: You get a crit, you get a crit, everyone gets crits!!!

Not really what I was thinking, but still a good one . What I was actually thinking was that, in normal situations where there is enough Advantage or Triumph to Crit but you have multiple different options for spending it, choose the Crit more often than you may otherwise decide.

17 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

Point to consider: Resilience checks to heal from critical injuries can be attempted once per week. Doesn't really seem to fit very well.

Why not make the "per session" instead of per day? That way it makes them a little more narrative, like most other things in this system, and a little less crunchy. I would hate to bookkeep things for a week in Star Wars. Critical injuries are bad enough to track; I don't want to have to track stim pack usage long-term

I don't really mind the "crunch" (although nobody likes extra book-keeping). Interesting idea of changing crits to "per session" though - you could also make stimpacks "per session", bringing them in line with each other. Hmm.

17 hours ago, 2P51 said:

In my upcoming non Star Wars campaign I plan on changing them to a temporary effect and the Wounds they restore wear off in 10 or 20 minutes.

Man, that sounds brutal. Let me know how it plays out.

17 hours ago, Kaigen said:

Couple of thoughts:

1) You could expand the uses of the Medicine skill to make it more enticing. If it's an investigatory campaign, maybe Medicine can be used for forensic examination. You could also introduce a recurring nemesis/faction that prefers the use of poison or biological weapons, necessitating Medicine checks to develop countermeasures.

2) Maybe this just isn't the sort of campaign where Medicine is useful, and that's okay. Some skills and talents become more or less useful depending on the nature of the campaign, and you don't necessarily need to try to cram a square peg into a round hole in order to make all options equally useful. I mean, if I were playing in a game that only rarely had combat encounters, I probably wouldn't bother investing XP into combat skills/talents in general aside from what I need to get to more investigative abilities, and that's not a bad thing per se.

2

These are really excellent points. Thanks.

15 hours ago, Krieger22 said:

A couple of critical injuries will get them scrambling for some competent medical care in no time.

I was going to argue that Crits do a different thing, but...yeah, you're right, actually. A couple of extra crits would make them much, much more careful in encounters, would make Medicine more important, and would prevent the need to alter stimpacks.

My biggest problem with Stimpacks are cost and rarity. In most of my games I just say an attack on Thyferra or Bespin has resulted in a significantly diminished supply for the civilian market. That lets me increase the price, add low quality/dangerous knockoffs, make them unavailable in certain areas, etc. without seeming like I'm houserule balancing things.

3 minutes ago, SladeWeston said:

My biggest problem with Stimpacks are cost and rarity. In most of my games I just say an attack on Thyferra or Bespin has resulted in a significantly diminished supply for the civilian market. That lets me increase the price, add low quality/dangerous knockoffs, make them unavailable in certain areas, etc. without seeming like I'm houserule balancing things.

That makes sense. Sadly my game is set on Coruscant, with the PCs working for an underfunded but still legit government agency...so they get pretty uppity if they get denied really basic supplies like stimpacks!

1 hour ago, edwardavern said:

That makes sense. Sadly my game is set on Coruscant, with the PCs working for an underfunded but still legit government agency...so they get pretty uppity if they get denied really basic supplies like stimpacks!

The Imperial troops on the front lines dealing with the Rebellion need them more. *confiscates the PC's stimpacks* Your Emperor thanks you for your sacrifice. *walks off*

42 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

The Imperial troops on the front lines dealing with the Rebellion need them more. *confiscates the PC's stimpacks* Your Emperor thanks you for your sacrifice. *walks off*

Ha! Excellent. Sadly it's an Old Republic setting.

3 minutes ago, edwardavern said:

Ha! Excellent. Sadly it's an Old Republic setting.

The Imperial Republic troops on the front lines dealing with the Rebellion Sith Empire need them more. *confiscates the PC's stimpacks* Your Emperor Government thanks you for your sacrifice. *walks off*

We did away with stimpacks in our game years ago. There was just something... un-Star Wars-y about pumping healing potions into your veins after every firefight. It didn't feel thematically appropriate, and as other people mentioned it made some combat feel inconsequential. Worst of all, it meant that combat turned into an FPS-style scenario where people kept getting knocked out and revived, knocked out and revived, knocked out and revived... which just isn't something you see in Star Wars at all.

So our solution was to remove stimpacks from the game entirely. In exchange, PCs in my game do not become incapacitated when they exceed their wound threshold. Rather, they take a critical injury and I hand them a card that says "You are Wounded! You no longer receive a free maneuver during your turn. For every 5 wounds you go above your Wound Threshold, you receive another critical injury. In addition, you suffer one point of strain for every wound you take in excess of your Wound Threshold."

This has worked out incredibly for our group. Going over your WT is still heavily disincentivized, because losing your free maneuver sucks. But now when a PC takes a ton of damage they are still in the match and can still struggle to do something helpful, even if they're much weaker than before. It feels very cinematic, and leads to many intense situations where someone is powering through their near-fatal injuries to make a last ditch effort.

I'd strongly recommend playing this way. It has made our games much more fun.

Doesn't that completely negate the usefulness of the "hamstrung" critical injury?

During the EotE Beta, I toyed with the notion of changing stimpacks to only restore 1 wound and 1 strain, and that each PC got what equated to a "second wind" ala Saga Edition, where once per combat encounter they could spend an action to recover a number of Wounds, with the value alternating between their Brawn, Brawn x2, or a flat value of 5.

I ultimately discarded it the idea and stuck with stimpacks as written, but it might be worth more consideration if someone's looking to drop stimpacks as an "quick cure" in their games.

If you feel stimpacks are too powerful you could always reduce the efficacy down to first one does 3 wounds, and second does 1 , no third. This means that all the specs that have talents like stimpack specialist or similar, still can take advantage of it, or even reduce to one a day. This doesnt mess with the mechanics of the game as much while still making them useful , as a result of the reduced efficiency you could say they were also rarer and cost 3 to 5 times more to make 2 packs similar to 5 in normal games ,

As for them not being star warsy , The only example of healing we had was Luke in a bacta tank and given how quickly it repaired him it would make sense that there was a battlefield equivalent, but I do agree that 5 packs healing 15 wounds , is perhaps a bit high but remember a character with 15 wounds needs 30 to die 15 only has them passing out /effectively out of combat. It's criticals that are the real lasting effects.

Also remember the players are supposed to be the cinematic heroes of the game, having them out of commission because they are wounded isnt exactly cinematic, but having them get patched up mid combat is.

9 hours ago, edwardavern said:

That makes sense. Sadly my game is set on Coruscant, with the PCs working for an underfunded but still legit government agency...so they get pretty uppity if they get denied really basic supplies like stimpacks!

Are you kidding? Underfunded agency means they will audit overuse of stimpacks. Or just shut off the power. Or free transportation. An underfunded agency is always hurting for supplies, even what you consider "basic" supplies. I know the County I live in had to do some massively creative accounting in order to avoid firing large numbers of personnel. They had 2 agencies which were related, and 1 had full funding due to tax laws. The other got funding from the general fund and suffered about a 25% cut. To avoid firing everyone, they cut the reviewers by 4 days a week, but then had them hired by the other agency, who loaned them back for 4 days a week. When you met with them, they were always having to go 2 blocks down to make copies cause their copier quit. While they were there, they would pick up a box of pens. They pulled old computers out of the trash to get upgrades. But never fear, the director got a raise.

Here's a question: What do you imagine 'wounds' as being? Personally I don't think of them as being injuries, or even bruises. Criticals are the actual injuries. Wounds are physical exhaustion and fatigue; strain is mental & emotional stress and exhaustion. When Maul kicked Kenobi off the walkway in E1? Wounds. Shoves off balance, pushing hard to keep up, wounds. Actual lightsaber contact? Crits. Luke getting knocked over by Sandpeople? Wounds. Rolling around trying to avoid the stick? Wounds. Getting knocked out? Crit. Frankly, I think Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie all took a fair number of wounds escaping the Death Star, but only Ben got an actual crit. (#toosoon).

Stimpacks aren't closing cuts, bandaging sprains, or splinting broken bones; stimpacks are literally what they say they are, stimulants that help wash away fatigue toxins. They don't help with strain, but that's because strain is a mental thing, not a physical thing. And they don't help with crits either, as the aren't actually healing anyone.

The worst injuries I imagine wounds as being are things like getting shot with a paintball gun, or maybe getting tackled in a football/rugby game (A concussion is a crit).

Quote

A character is wounded if he has any number of wounds below his wound threshold. At this point, he's suffered a few cuts, bruises, and scrapes. However, he has not taken any permanent or incapacitating damage. He's a bit battered, but he's still hale and hearty overall.

AoR p. 229 gray box

1 minute ago, 2P51 said:

A character is wounded if he has any number of wounds below his wound threshold. At this point, he's suffered a few cuts, bruises, and scrapes. However, he has not taken any permanent or incapacitating damage. He's a bit battered, but he's still hale and hearty overall.

Exactly. He just played a football game, without getting hit too hard. A stimpack is just waking him back up for a double-header.

At the OP...

The best way, IMO, would be to shift them from 5 uses/day to "recover one use slot per day" without changing the use values... so if they top off, fine... but remember, PC's in the SW universe are granted stupidly high levels of "Plot Resistance" - not quite enough to qualify as "Script immunity", but awful close.

3 hours ago, syrath said:

If you feel stimpacks are too powerful you could always reduce the efficacy down to first one does 3 wounds, and second does 1 , no third. This means that all the specs that have talents like stimpack specialist or similar, still can take advantage of it, or even reduce to one a day. This doesnt mess with the mechanics of the game as much while still making them useful , as a result of the reduced efficiency you could say they were also rarer and cost 3 to 5 times more to make 2 packs similar to 5 in normal games ,

As for them not being star warsy , The only example of healing we had was Luke in a bacta tank and given how quickly it repaired him it would make sense that there was a battlefield equivalent, but I do agree that 5 packs healing 15 wounds , is perhaps a bit high but remember a character with 15 wounds needs 30 to die 15 only has them passing out /effectively out of combat. It's criticals that are the real lasting effects.

Also remember the players are supposed to be the cinematic heroes of the game, having them out of commission because they are wounded isnt exactly cinematic, but having them get patched up mid combat is.

RAW, double WT isn't dead. Only crits kill. To assure a kill, 131+ on the crit table is needed. Which means at least 4 crits (barring vicious).

The double WT point is just the point where further damage takes no longer to heal... and thus isn't tracked... but it can still generate 1+ (1/5 wounds) critical hits, plus any from threat/triumph spends.

PC's and Nemesis NPC's have a lot of built-in script immunity.

1 hour ago, AK_Aramis said:

At the OP...

The best way, IMO, would be to shift them from 5 uses/day to "recover one use slot per day" without changing the use values... so if they top off, fine... but remember, PC's in the SW universe are granted stupidly high levels of "Plot Resistance" - not quite enough to qualify as "Script immunity", but awful close.

RAW, double WT isn't dead. Only crits kill. To assure a kill, 131+ on the crit table is needed. Which means at least 4 crits (barring vicious).

The double WT point is just the point where further damage takes no longer to heal... and thus isn't tracked... but it can still generate 1+ (1/5 wounds) critical hits, plus any from threat/triumph spends.

PC's and Nemesis NPC's have a lot of built-in script immunity.

Not RAWX, but confirmed by the decs in an order66 webcast episode

9 hours ago, Edgookin said:

Are you kidding? Underfunded agency means they will audit overuse of stimpacks. Or just shut off the power. Or free transportation. An underfunded agency is always hurting for supplies, even what you consider "basic" supplies. I know the County I live in had to do some massively creative accounting in order to avoid firing large numbers of personnel. They had 2 agencies which were related, and 1 had full funding due to tax laws. The other got funding from the general fund and suffered about a 25% cut. To avoid firing everyone, they cut the reviewers by 4 days a week, but then had them hired by the other agency, who loaned them back for 4 days a week. When you met with them, they were always having to go 2 blocks down to make copies cause their copier quit. While they were there, they would pick up a box of pens. They pulled old computers out of the trash to get upgrades. But never fear, the director got a raise.

So, while I agree with the broad point here, I just worry that that level of book-keeping (in-game book-keeping, rather than GM book-keeping) would detract from actual gameplay.

7 hours ago, Genuine said:

Here's a question: What do you imagine 'wounds' as being? Personally I don't think of them as being injuries, or even bruises. Criticals are the actual injuries. Wounds are physical exhaustion and fatigue; strain is mental & emotional stress and exhaustion. When Maul kicked Kenobi off the walkway in E1? Wounds. Shoves off balance, pushing hard to keep up, wounds. Actual lightsaber contact? Crits. Luke getting knocked over by Sandpeople? Wounds. Rolling around trying to avoid the stick? Wounds. Getting knocked out? Crit. Frankly, I think Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie all took a fair number of wounds escaping the Death Star, but only Ben got an actual crit. (#toosoon).

Stimpacks aren't closing cuts, bandaging sprains, or splinting broken bones; stimpacks are literally what they say they are, stimulants that help wash away fatigue toxins. They don't help with strain, but that's because strain is a mental thing, not a physical thing. And they don't help with crits either, as the aren't actually healing anyone.

The worst injuries I imagine wounds as being are things like getting shot with a paintball gun, or maybe getting tackled in a football/rugby game (A concussion is a crit).

5

7 hours ago, 2P51 said:

AoR p. 229 gray box

I hadn't actually noticed that box before - thanks. And this ties in with Genuine's points as well. Cheers guys.