3 minutes ago, wilsch said:

To add, if you really wanted to make the concept of Wounds-not-really-Wounds concrete, you change Soak to something like Luck, Wound Threshold to something like Fate, and stimpacks are a controlled resource called Heroism or whatever. Meet your Fate Threshold, and your character finally suffers an injury of consequence.

Something like this makes sense. Makes me wonder why it wasn't how it was designed in the first place. I'm just trying to get away from the 'hit points and healing potion spam' feel of the standard rules.

What might help is listening to the order 66 podcast Kung Pow Chicken. I think expectations need reset.

38 minutes ago, Erithtotl said:

Irrelevant. my poiny is they dont get hit. whether that is the incompetence of enemies or the power of the force or whatever, they dont get hit. Even with cover the average minion is going to hit a player without a dodge talent about 30-40% of the time, for a lot of damage, and most significantly there is nothing you can do about it.

I disagree that it is irrelevant. It's very relevant. The reason why the heroes don't get hit is that Storm troopers can't hit the broad side of a barn (actually it's "plot armor"). The thing is, though, in a game, things have to be relatively fair between PCs and NPCs to keep game balance. What's good for one side must be good for the other. However, to keep that cinematic feel of the movies, the developers also set it up so minions die very easily, and in large numbers, so that a group of minions is not that big of a threat overall, compared to a group of PCs since a minion group only gets one action. So a squad of 4 Stormtroopers will only get to attack once per round, whereas a party of four PCs gets four attacks, easily decimating the minion group, much like we see in the movies.

I know this is slightly off topic but whenever it comes up I always feel like I want to address it: Stormtroopers don't suck. I think a lot of what people cite as incompetence examples actually have explanations (see below). I also fully acknowledge that there is occasionally plot armor, specifically for the heroes, but I just want to challenge the notion that storm troopers aren't awful.

Episode 4:

• Corvette: Actual Battle. Rebel troops decimated by Stormtroopers.
• Jawa's sandcrawler: Actual Battle. "Only imperial's storm troopers are so precise"
• Princess Leia DeathStar rescue and escape: Fake battle: They let them Go...hence they intentionally missed.
• Deathstar battle: Actual Battle. Many X-wings destroyed by Tie Pilots.

Episode 5:

• Hoth: Actual Battle. Rebel troops decimated by Stormtroopers.
• Bespin: Fake battle:They were luring Luke into Vader's trap.
• Bespin: Actual battle: Leia, Lando, and Chewie escape. Legit missed on this one, though they do blast apart C3PO upon arrival. Chalk this one up to plot armor I suppose.

Episode 6:

• Endor Battle: Real Battle. Leia shot, R2D2 shot. Many Teddybears shot. (Despite being a literal screenplay, the book version does a better job of pointing out that there are just a **** ton of ewoks and that's how they overwhelmed the stormtroopers.
• 2nd deathstar Battle: Again, Many rebel ships destroyed by the Imperial Navy.

Also the Clonetroopers mow down Jedi like you wouldn't believe. Sure they had surprise and superior numbers on their side, but Jedi are no slouches either.

2 hours ago, Daeglan said:

What might help is listening to the order 66 podcast Kung Pow Chicken. I think expectations need reset.

That's one of the hardest things I had to overcome after 20 years of D6 (and 10 years of other RPGs before that), that the NarDS requires an entirely different mindset than what you'd play other systems with. Once you unlearn what you know, the game plays much easier.

I think I could comfortably split the issues into two categories.

There's the narrative / stylistic aspects like destiny points and advantages and threats.

Then there's mechanical choices like wounds, stim packs and talent trees.

For the former, I think it is the mindset change that you are all talking about. Even after 5 sessions we haven't gotten comfortable with the players describing die results rather than the GM and we still take the general adversarial relationship that D20 encourages (thus the issues around destiny points).

But for the latter, I think I can argue that the design decisions are not great. The wound/absorption/stimpack potion spam is not Star Wars flavor at all. I agree you can't make it play just like the movies because people only get hit in the movie when the plot demands it. But I think they could have come up with a better mechanic here that makes it feel less like someone in heavy armor enduring blaster shot after blaster shot and then drinking a health potion when they are hurt.

As for talent trees, I think making the low level talents more interesting and actual grant you things you can do rather than tiny situational modifiers that can end up never occurring is pretty boring. You could say 'well Weapon Focus is just a +1 to hit and thats boring in D20', but at least you are likely going to use it every session. Removing a negative die from a skill where you might not have a negative die occur in a given session isn't very satisfying and I think could have been done a lot better.

25 minutes ago, Erithtotl said:

As for talent trees, I think making the low level talents more interesting and actual grant you things you can do rather than tiny situational modifiers that can end up never occurring is pretty boring. You could say 'well Weapon Focus is just a +1 to hit and thats boring in D20', but at least you are likely going to use it every session. Removing a negative die from a skill where you might not have a negative die occur in a given session isn't very satisfying and I think could have been done a lot better.

I recently house-ruled that any talent that "removes a setback die" does so if a setback die is present. However, If there are no setback dice, then it adds a boost. This makes the talent "always on" and gets a little more life out of those talents, plus everyone like bonuses . But you would need to talk to your GM about that. I personally haven't found it really effects the game balance, and as a side effect I'm getting better at finding more ways to give out setback (which comes with practice).

27 minutes ago, Erithtotl said:

But for the latter, I think I can argue that the design decisions are not great. The wound/absorption/stimpack potion spam is not Star Wars flavor at all. I agree you can't make it play just like the movies because people only get hit in the movie when the plot demands it. But I think they could have come up with a better mechanic here that makes it feel less like someone in heavy armor enduring blaster shot after blaster shot and then drinking a health potion when they are hurt.

If one of your characters is getting shot over and over again and stim-packing repeatedly, then your GM needs to stop picking on that PC and start spreading the "Love"(aka Hot laser Death) around . And Battles need to be shorter, 2-3 rounds, by 5 its just a slug fest.

Use of copious setback dice is a skill for the GM to use. Not only does it make combat less lethal, but gives those talents a place.

Star Wars fights and encounters almost always occur in not ideal conditions after all.

44 minutes ago, Erithtotl said:

The wound/absorption/stimpack potion spam is not Star Wars flavor at all.

See, that's what I'm not getting - in our fights, we don't see all that much stimpack use. Even on some of the longer and more epic ones - where a fight lasts 5 or perhaps 6 rounds - the stims hardly come out. After the battle, sure - but during? Occasionally - like the time I belly flopped out of a speeder surrounded by stormtroopers who then all shot. But as a rule, not all that much.

Is it that we're playing smarter and not just rolling the dice, reporting the results and moving on? I can't say without seeing your table in action.

44 minutes ago, Erithtotl said:

I think making the low level talents more interesting

Cite what you think are the boring ones.

45 minutes ago, Erithtotl said:

tiny situational modifiers that can end up never occurring

Your GM is failing at his job. He should be throwing all kinds of black dice at you - rain, being rushed, lack of tools, darkness, in the middle of a combat, drunk as a skunk - every chance he can get. Mind you, he should also be throwing blues your way too, it's not all one sided. So if these talents aren't coming into play, your GM sucks.

21 minutes ago, Desslok said:

See, that's what I'm not getting - in our fights, we don't see all that much stimpack use. Even on some of the longer and more epic ones - where a fight lasts 5 or perhaps 6 rounds - the stims hardly come out. After the battle, sure - but during? Occasionally - like the time I belly flopped out of a speeder surrounded by stormtroopers who then all shot. But as a rule, not all that much.

Is it that we're playing smarter and not just rolling the dice, reporting the results and moving on? I can't say without seeing your table in action.

Cite what you think are the boring ones.

Your GM is failing at his job. He should be throwing all kinds of black dice at you - rain, being rushed, lack of tools, darkness, in the middle of a combat, drunk as a skunk - every chance he can get. Mind you, he should also be throwing blues your way too, it's not all one sided. So if these talents aren't coming into play, your GM sucks.

"Cite what you think are the boring ones. "

Everything that is a highly situational plus or minus one boost/black die to a single skill, often taken to get to the talent you actually want.

"Your GM is failing at his job. He should be throwing all kinds of black dice at you - rain, being rushed, lack of tools, darkness, in the middle of a combat, drunk as a skunk - every chance he can get. Mind you, he should also be throwing blues your way too, it's not all one sided. So if these talents aren't coming into play, your GM sucks."

This kind of toxic comment is what I had just complimented this forum for not falling back on. So my good friend, who is the GM, and is highly intelligent and played a lot of different systems, because he's not throwing 'tons of black and boost dice' at us, despite the book never suggesting that this is the way to play, sucks.

It's this kind of attitude that, rather than compelling people who are trying to find a way to adjust to this system, instead bail on it altogether.

22 minutes ago, Erithtotl said:

So my good friend, who is the GM, and is highly intelligent and played a lot of different systems, because he's not throwing 'tons of black and boost dice' at us, despite the book never suggesting that this is the way to play, sucks.

Yeah, it's not unnatural at all for a GM or players to feel like the tail's wagging the dog when Setbacks are implicitly being added to make a Remove Setback talent useful.

It's one of a fair amount of decisions that you wonder about since, in fact, huge dice pools (including and especially several Boost and Setback) make the core mechanic incredibly fun. Four Ability/Proficiency, three Difficulty/Challenge, four Boost/Setback? Exciting. What's more, while Boost and Setback probabilistically cancel for Success, Setbacks don't erase the Boost's increased chances for Advantage. Right there, formula for "more dice, more fun!" except for those darned talents that drain the pool.

Again, easy fix would be to add Boost for those talents, or for a much milder (if more swingy) increase, a Boost-Setback pair. And then, your GM has a little more freedom in naturally assigning Setbacks for situations.

If that's being toxic, then you have a really thin skin. If the GM is not using a game mechanic that allows those 'boring' black removal dice to be used, then I stand 100% by my statement that your GM is doing it wrong.

I also disagree that those black removal dice are highly situational and boring. I love the ability for my GM to give my character a nearly impossible task - fix this destroyed reactor console with only a spool of wire and a a 3/4th inch pinkney flange in under 30 seconds or the base blows up - and be able to wave away that handful of blacks that he's shoving at me with a cocky smile saying "Yeah, I got this."

2 minutes ago, wilsch said:

when Setbacks are implicitly being added to make a Remove Setback talent useful.

That's backwards tho. The GM doesn't add blacks to make the talent useful. The talent is useful because the GM is adding blacks.

When the GM hands over a pile of blacks when my engineer has to slice - a tree I dont have, where I am stuck with those dice - I keep kicking myself thinking "Man, one of these days I need to buy the slicer tree!" The tail is going to be wagged regardless of the dog is ready or not for that wag.

6 minutes ago, wilsch said:

easy fix would be to add Boost for those talents, or for a much milder (if more swingy) increase, a Boost-Setback pair

Why are you trying to fix something that the GM and players should be taking into account and doing anyway? "Grew up on Tatooine moisture farming did you? You're probably pretty familiar with these load liftters then. Have a blue while you try and repair that one. . . ."

45 minutes ago, Erithtotl said:

This kind of toxic comment is what I had just complimented this forum for not falling back on. So my good friend, who is the GM, and is highly intelligent and played a lot of different systems, because he's not throwing 'tons of black and boost dice' at us, despite the book never suggesting that this is the way to play, sucks.

It's this kind of attitude that, rather than compelling people who are trying to find a way to adjust to this system, instead bail on it altogether.

You should still stress the larger point to your GM: He should be handing out blacks and blues fairly liberally. I think you're right that the books don't call this out as much as they should, but any time a test is not in ideal circumstances, those blacks should come into play. This can be for unfamiliarity (you've never worked on a Y-wing before, so that Mechanics check gets 1 setback), social prejudices (this guy hates droids, so your droid's Charm check gets 2 setbacks), weather (it's raining, so add 1 setback to that Perception check), lack of tools (trying to jimmy the binders open with your toothbrush is going to cost you 2 setbacks), physical conditions (those three Corellian brandies at the bar have you feeling woozy; add 2 setbacks to that Deception check with the cop), etc.

The opposite is true, as well, of course. Maybe being drunk gives you a boost on Charm checks, or wind at your back gives you 2 boosts on throwing that grenade with Ranged (Light). The point is that this is an easily overlooked part of the game, but all those talents you mention are a pretty good indication that setbacks are supposed to be thrown at players left and right. It may seem counterintuitive, but tell your GM to be free with the black dice!

6 hours ago, Erithtotl said:

I feel like I made it pretty clear. Its not Star Wars. In Star Wars, people don't run around getting shot constantly and popping drugs, or using super heavy armor to resist damage. They dodge, they take cover, and the bad guys generally are terribly inaccurate against heroes. The game already makes minions easy to kill, but they still hit for full damage, which doesn't fit the Star Wars universe at all.

You described it perfectly. In the movies (or Clone Wars for that matter), you can count on ONE HAND the number of times a major character gets shot. A system where you ROUTINELY take most of your hits in damage every fight doesn't in the slightest represent Star Wars. The wound/soak system feels a lot more like playing Diablo, where I'm spamming the 'potion' button in the middle of a fight.

I understand. It is a good point. I am always arguing about things not being Star Warsy when they occur in our playing group. Some gamers try to run SW like it is a special forces game. PC's geared out to the max, an arms race to see who can get the best armor and weapons, and Rebel-Empire forces going at it like they're on equal footing (Imperial tanks = Rebel Tanks, etc...) instead of a ragtag group of Rebels succeeding against all odds. You're right, SW character almost NEVER wear armor. it is socially unacceptable. The GM has to make it so.

I'd ask you to consider the number of times in the movies where the characters FIGHT. They don't get shot much because they don't fight much (no murder hoboing or fighting bounty hunters in the streets, or Stormtroopers at every turn. In the original movies, the fights are never about who the best shooter is or who is best with a lightsaber. The fights aren't even the main parts of the story. But, I am afraid that the gamer industry champions 'firepower'. For my group, I try to only have one combat a session. Sometimes, not even that. Blaster fights should be few and far between. It helps keep the SW feel.

8 hours ago, Erithtotl said:

I am actually the person in our group who is trying to make an argument for staying with the game. Unfortunately the only real strong argument I can find to sticking with it is Star Wars (and we have people arguing to go with the old d20 rules instead).

One thing you should realize (and maybe you do) is the embracing of the 'narrative' style of play is a reaction against the d20 style of play. To find the beauty in SW FFG, you have to see the faults in d20, IMHO. For example, in d20, a 100hp+ dude with -7 AC wades through zero-level minions without taking a scratch. Theoretically, he can waste an entire town with hundreds of people on his own. (...in FFG, everyone can be dangerous, which is more Star Warsy, as you mentioned about dodging vs armor).

Another d20 weakness is the necessity to have EVERY possible action/situation explained by set of rules or a table (wrestling table, martial arts table, unarmed combat table, roll 1d100 for the result, etc...). And also having every movement or gesture on a grid or miniature level where exact hexes or squares determine if you make it or not. Consider FFG where you have opposed brawl check and narrate what you do and how you do it (shoulder toss, body slam, groin kick). Yeah, every brawl check can be a groin kick!!! No table to roll on or some feat to purchase to be able to do something FUN! Consider, also, how they do range bands. Short is a few meters, maybe 30, maybe 20. Short to long is a maneuver, no measuring sticks or bogged-down precision needed. Get on with the game and stop worrying whether your blaster pistol hits 8 squares over or only 7.

Lastly, the all-or-nothing d20 hit-or-miss system. Hence, in FFG you can still do something (good or bad) and have something to narrate with a poor roll. It beats "whiffing" with both weapons and saying. "I missed twice" as your turn. I'm sure there are more faults with d20 to pick at (like thousands of feats and talents), but you get the point. I, for one, intensely dislike going back to a hit-or-miss system, but I think the root of it is having a dislike for some of the things that d20 produces (like simply using Force Move ALL the time against everyone). Maybe your group likes being uber-tanks with hundreds of hps who can only be hit by other uber-tank npc's with 4 attacks a round? Sometimes, to have the SW experience, you have to dial back the d20 mentality. (My friend with the pistol-wielding Jawa seems to go done every combat. He doesn't learn so well.)

First off: Kudos for posting up your concerns for feedback. It sounds like you really want to like Edge of the Empire and the Narrative Dice System!

Other people have mentioned it, but the Order 66 Podcast really is an excellent resource. While all the episodes are good, Episodes 1, 7, and 24 are especially relevant (BTW: Episode 24 is the Kung Pow Chicken episode that's been mentioned, and I believe it discusses coming to EotE from a d20 game system).

Perhaps your whole group can get together and listen to them instead of your next game session? (just have your game books handy for reference.)

A related question: Advantages and Threat are pretty easy to deal with in combat, since there are clear tables for how to spend them.

But in situation like picking a lock, what does 4 advantages mean? Do people generally just treat any advantages as 'advantage' in this situation? Because it seems like quantifying the value of 2 vs 4 advantage is time consuming and confusing a lot of the time.

10 minutes ago, Erithtotl said:

But in situation like picking a lock, what does 4 advantages mean?

Four advantage:

You pick the lock super duper fast.

You pick the lock and leave it immaculate. Sherlock Holmes wouldn't be able to notice a thing out of place.

You pick the lock and gum up the works so that the person behind you can't get in.

You pick the lock so well that you utterly grock the mechanisms for this model and gain an upgrade the next time you roll.

You pick the lock and in gutting the mechanism, you find that they used a rare alloy in the tumbler. Collect 500 bucks next time you can find a rare metals dealer.

Two advantage:

You pick the lock but only grock it enough to get a boost next lock.

There's only 100 bucks worth of rare earth items.

You pick it juuuuuust before the guards come back. Everyone roll sneak with a boost to slip inside.

Triumph:

You pick the lock and accidently trip every lock on the base.

You pick the lock and the last person before you left a USB drive full of hutt porn on it. Reduce your Obligation by five next time you see your hutt patron.

8 hours ago, Erithtotl said:

While I get the explanations about wounds and getting hit, I don't really like them. Its definitely not intuitive, especially with the amount of damage that weapons can inflict. The game assumes you are going to get hit, and hit a lot (without various dodge talents, you will get hit roughly half the time, and the damage will often be at least half your hits. Even with cover you are getting hit 30-40% of the time, and this is by minions!). The soak mechanic in other games is very much about absorbing damage. Stimpacks basically don't exist in the movies, so making them a key part of the mechanics just seems like real bad game design. Imagine if in the movies every scene the characters were slapping on stims? It just feels like they didn't design this combat system for Star Wars but another game and slapped it on here.

I agree, and I've removed stimpacks from the game. (They might exist in future, but they'll be special items.) The solution (so far) has been, first, to double the WT. At the moment I'm still keeping the "you take a crit every time you're wounded after WT1", but we'll see how it plays. Second, the PC can recover WT via a Resilience roll (2+ successes), and they can do this as an Action. This is more in keeping, imho, with the idea that "wounds" are really "physical strain". At the moment I'm keep this at 5 times a day, with degrading effects, but, again, we'll see how it plays.

I really don't like the "incapacitated" part of the rules. The PCs should always be able to do something except in extreme, story-relevant, cases.

17 minutes ago, Erithtotl said:

But in situation like picking a lock, what does 4 advantages mean? Do people generally just treat any advantages as 'advantage' in this situation? Because it seems like quantifying the value of 2 vs 4 advantage is time consuming and confusing a lot of the time.

This is simply a matter of experience, but it's helpful to relax about it. The combat charts are useful, because they offer a scale of effect that you can then use to translate their effect for other skills. In combat, 2A gives a boost anyone on your team...that's not a lot, really, but it could be super handy in the right context.

When I'm GMing I'll always give a favourable ear to someone who has an idea outside the box, even if the request scales somewhat above the actual narrative result. But I don't give a lot of time for it because I like to keep things moving. Really, the use of Advantages and Triumph for narrative effects should come from a natural desire of the PCs in the context of the situation. "If only we could clear those crates, then we could..." and voila, that's how 4A is spent. If that isn't forthcoming, then the go-tos for the narrative axis is:

• Strain recovery. I put in a lot of Strain effects and tend to spend small amounts of Threat as Strain against the PCs, so this is pretty valuable. If the GM is not adding Strain effects, then this has less value, but they should be doing that.
• Passing boost dice or upgrades. It's nice when the player can explain how ("I missed, but they flinched into your fist!"), but otherwise I don't care too much.

This takes care of probably 2/3rds of the narrative results, which makes the invention, player injection, and other narrative effects far more memorable when they arise spontaneously. Plus it takes the pressure off people feeling like they have to be super inventive all the time.

20 minutes ago, Erithtotl said:

A related question: Advantages and Threat are pretty easy to deal with in combat, since there are clear tables for how to spend them.

But in situation like picking a lock, what does 4 advantages mean? Do people generally just treat any advantages as 'advantage' in this situation? Because it seems like quantifying the value of 2 vs 4 advantage is time consuming and confusing a lot of the time.

I've found it helpful to think of Advantage as a positive result that is emphatically "not Success." Per rules, even a million Advantage can't undo Failure in the same check; but also, interpreting non-combat Advantage as completing a task better-er detracts from surplus Success. Indirect, future-oriented effects would fit better. So, in the case of a lock, maybe better understanding of the mechanism or code sequence that confers a Boost to other locks or security interfaces in the same system or location. You can set degree according to the number of Advantage (2 or 4) or confer a second effect that everyone agrees is worth a second pair of Advantage. (Were the roll a failure, that particular lock would resist further tampering, requiring brute force or another less efficient method, but another fresh one would be easier to pick.)

6 hours ago, Erithtotl said:

A related question: Advantages and Threat are pretty easy to deal with in combat, since there are clear tables for how to spend them.

But in situation like picking a lock, what does 4 advantages mean? Do people generally just treat any advantages as 'advantage' in this situation? Because it seems like quantifying the value of 2 vs 4 advantage is time consuming and confusing a lot of the time.

First, dont consume the time. If no one has an idea and the roller hasnt got any strain, just ignore it and move on. There is no law that says you have to use advantage, or threat for that matter.

Second, and more general to your last few responses, my group played nearly weekly for a year before we really started getting the hand of the narrative forces that drive this game. It takes a good deal of getting used to. 20 years of habits are harder to change. Especially if you play d20 as an adversarial game of players vs. GM.

As for talents, yes 5 pt talents are not always very useful. Thats why they are 5 pt talents. Yes, some of the talents may not get used all that often, but there is no rule in any game that says that every talent, feat, skill or what have you has to be used at all, must less every session. It is to some degree up to the players to push the game in the direction to use the talents. If you have 11 ranks of Convincing Demeanor but never tell a lie or pick a pocket, then it isnt the rules that are the problem, but more likely a flawed character concept. If you have 11 ranks of Convincing Demeanor and the GM never tosses a setback die your way when you tell lies, then either you arent trying hard enough or he isnt tossing enough setback out. One rank of Convincing Demeanor is to try to lie your way past a bouncer. 11 ranks is to try to convince the fleet admiral you are a Moff and need to borrow his fleet, and when you tell your GM that is what you are trying to do, he should get a pained look on his face and ask if he can borrow everyone's setback dice, cause he only bought 6 sets of dice.....

20 hours ago, DurosSpacer said:

I understand. It is a good point. I am always arguing about things not being Star Warsy when they occur in our playing group. Some gamers try to run SW like it is a special forces game. PC's geared out to the max, an arms race to see who can get the best armor and weapons, and Rebel-Empire forces going at it like they're on equal footing (Imperial tanks = Rebel Tanks, etc...) instead of a ragtag group of Rebels succeeding against all odds. You're right, SW character almost NEVER wear armor. it is socially unacceptable. The GM has to make it so.

I'd ask you to consider the number of times in the movies where the characters FIGHT. They don't get shot much because they don't fight much (no murder hoboing or fighting bounty hunters in the streets, or Stormtroopers at every turn. In the original movies, the fights are never about who the best shooter is or who is best with a lightsaber. The fights aren't even the main parts of the story. But, I am afraid that the gamer industry champions 'firepower'. For my group, I try to only have one combat a session. Sometimes, not even that. Blaster fights should be few and far between. It helps keep the SW feel.

One thing you should realize (and maybe you do) is the embracing of the 'narrative' style of play is a reaction against the d20 style of play. To find the beauty in SW FFG, you have to see the faults in d20, IMHO. For example, in d20, a 100hp+ dude with -7 AC wades through zero-level minions without taking a scratch. Theoretically, he can waste an entire town with hundreds of people on his own. (...in FFG, everyone can be dangerous, which is more Star Warsy, as you mentioned about dodging vs armor).

Another d20 weakness is the necessity to have EVERY possible action/situation explained by set of rules or a table (wrestling table, martial arts table, unarmed combat table, roll 1d100 for the result, etc...). And also having every movement or gesture on a grid or miniature level where exact hexes or squares determine if you make it or not. Consider FFG where you have opposed brawl check and narrate what you do and how you do it (shoulder toss, body slam, groin kick). Yeah, every brawl check can be a groin kick!!! No table to roll on or some feat to purchase to be able to do something FUN! Consider, also, how they do range bands. Short is a few meters, maybe 30, maybe 20. Short to long is a maneuver, no measuring sticks or bogged-down precision needed. Get on with the game and stop worrying whether your blaster pistol hits 8 squares over or only 7.

Lastly, the all-or-nothing d20 hit-or-miss system. Hence, in FFG you can still do something (good or bad) and have something to narrate with a poor roll. It beats "whiffing" with both weapons and saying. "I missed twice" as your turn. I'm sure there are more faults with d20 to pick at (like thousands of feats and talents), but you get the point. I, for one, intensely dislike going back to a hit-or-miss system, but I think the root of it is having a dislike for some of the things that d20 produces (like simply using Force Move ALL the time against everyone). Maybe your group likes being uber-tanks with hundreds of hps who can only be hit by other uber-tank npc's with 4 attacks a round? Sometimes, to have the SW experience, you have to dial back the d20 mentality. (My friend with the pistol-wielding Jawa seems to go done every combat. He doesn't learn so well.)

Wel, to be clear, it isn't always unacceptible, or uncharacteristic for an SW PC to wear armor. It really depends upon that character's career and/or culture. IF the character is a Mandalorian, for example, then that character should almost never be out of his/her armor.

On 10/31/2017 at 0:01 PM, Erithtotl said:

Irrelevant. my poiny is they dont get hit. whether that is the incompetence of enemies or the power of the force or whatever, they dont get hit. Even with cover the average minion is going to hit a player without a dodge talent about 30-40% of the time, for a lot of damage, and most significantly there is nothing you can do about it.

You are right they dont get hit. But wounds are not getting hit. Crits are the real hits. This becomes very obvious when you look at wounds vs crits. You can go up to wound threshold and come back with no effect. It is only crits that have any lasting effect. It is only crits that can kill. This is an example i see of you guys needing to reset expectations.

I don't agree with that at all, suffering Wounds is suffering physical hits. The RAW support this.

Quote

Damage to a character's physical body is tracked using wounds.

AoR p. 229

Just now, 2P51 said:

I don't agree with that at all, suffering Wounds is suffering physical hits. The RAW support this.

Except that it isnt really. As it is temporary "damage" that a stimulant "heals". It does not behave like real damage. It behaves more like physical fatigue.