6 minutes ago, Kirdan Kenobi said:

An important consideration for any GM who wants to nerf stimpacks (that I pointed out before) that I wanted to point out again since there are a bunch of people advocating requiring a medicine check to use a stimpack, is that not every party has a doctor or a medic. In parties that don't have them, stimpacks are the best way those parties can heal without going to a hospital, which has it's own set of problems. Sure, somebody in the party probably has a medpac, but they aren't likely to be able to heal more than a couple wounds with it, let alone a serious crit. Medicine is one of the more uncommon career skills, especially in edge.

But most parties have someone with an intellect score. Not necessarily a high one but even two greens with a couple of boost (assistance, right tools) gives a decent shot at healing. Also, nothing stops you from getting a few ranks in non career skills. If there isnt a doctor around those 5-10 extra xp for a rank or two moght be a sound investment.

47 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

Aw come on, how can ya hate it if you've never tried it?

Give Saga a chance! It just seems to line up with all your expectations that I've read this far, especially where this game seems to disappoint or come down at odds with how you see the movies playing out in terms of game mechanics.

You already know why; they scrapped everything that made the RCRB version any good and went back to everything I hated about D&D.

Hey, stimpaks can't grow back an arm.

6 hours ago, penpenpen said:

WEG did it first, and its not an unusual mechanic (successful defence negates attack). As I was brought up on BRP-based games, its pretty much my default setting.

Saga was pretty solid between levels 3 and 9 and had some innovative ways to handle armor. Did a decent job with starfighters too. But D20 handles level scaling bad on higher levels unless theres room for demigodhood.

Every system had its good and bad points. My favorite from WEG was the fact that a single stormtrooper was a credible threat, no matter how much XP you had. If they could hit, their rifle would rock your world. That was my problem in d20, every level you gained HP, so either you had to level up stormtroopers, or bring in other high level opponents, leaving the lowly trooper as scenery. FFG seems to have hit a decent middle ground on that end. Troopers are still dangerous in numbers, but less so as you go up. I'm just not fond of the glass cannon approach. It seems to breed initiative and autofire as the 2 most important combat features.

7 hours ago, themensch said:

Hey, stimpaks can't grow back an arm.

Dammit! I should never have trusted that trandoshan doctor!

I don't get all the fuss about Stimpacks.

In my games, we only take one maneuver to draw a stimpack and use it. We also have a medic with 2 ranks in Stimpack Specialization. Our characters usually carry 2 to 5 stimpack each. Since the fights are fast paced, it's very rare for an injured character to wait for the medic to move in and use a stim on him, so we usually use it the good old fashion way, ourselves with a lower healing count. Our character have around 200xp to their belt and some pretty normal gear too (no armor above 2 soak and weapons with around 7 to 9 dmg ; no auto-fire or lightsabers yet).

Games are tailored to give our players a real challenge and combat encounters usually come back to back quickly to put some pressure on our players. They have time to prepare for their coup `; making plans, scouting the place, getting the gear, but once its started, its pretty fast and deadly. So no natural healing between fights or multiple medpacks. Stimpacks are a must.

Even in our previous game, where our characters had more the 600xp each, stimpacks we usually pretty much needed. I had a character with improved armor master with an OP armor with 2 soak, cortosis and ranged defense 2 ; he also had around 17 wounds threshold to boot. In their final decisive battle in that campaign, I felt so joy die inside me when, after hitting him a few times and getting him above 10 wounds, he used a stim to negate 2 rounds of shooting at him. Other then that precise moment, I never once felt their were OP.

Rivals and Nemesis scale with the skills of my players, the number of Minions also. Environmental effects make hits harder for the character. Combats are made to challenge them, even with a few stimpacks uses. I make sure that they use their stimpacks carefully and can't easily resupply once the mission started. That makes each stimpack more precious.

My point is...
Are stimpacks the problem or something else ? (like giving the players too much downtime? or OP gear? or too easy encounters? or too many one-trick combat ponies? etc.)

Before changing the rules, make sure the problem isn't something else.
Maybe you should start by telling us what level of gear your characters are using? what is their XP level? what kind of fight do they get in? how much downtime do they get between significant encounters?

1 hour ago, JP_JP said:

My point is...
Are stimpacks the problem or something else ? (like giving the players too much downtime? or OP gear? or too easy encounters? or too many one-trick combat ponies? etc.)

Mechanichally, they're fine. My problem is that they don't really gel with the (highly subjective) Star Wars feeling. I don't think they're broken, balance-wise, but it makes the game more akin to classic dungeon crawling where you tank a few hits, chug a potion and you're fine to face a new encounter. Which is fine, but it doesn't feel like star wars to me.

Then again, I bet there's a lot of people that like that kind of game play and prefer their Star Wars RPG to be the kind of RPG they like first, and flavored Star Wars second. But me? I'm a narrativistic simulationist at heart.

1 hour ago, penpenpen said:

Mechanichally, they're fine. My problem is that they don't really gel with the (highly subjective) Star Wars feeling. I don't think they're broken, balance-wise, but it makes the game more akin to classic dungeon crawling where you tank a few hits, chug a potion and you're fine to face a new encounter. Which is fine, but it doesn't feel like star wars to me.

Then again, I bet there's a lot of people that like that kind of game play and prefer their Star Wars RPG to be the kind of RPG they like first, and flavored Star Wars second. But me? I'm a narrativistic simulationist at heart.

I understand what you're saying here. I think its a compromise FFG made to keep combat fast and deadly. You could make fight more Star Warsy where your local friendly Storm Trooper misses most of its shots, but one hit takes down almost anybody. But that way, fight would probably take longer and be less interesting (miss fight isn't fun). Or you could make hits easier but deal less damage overall so your LFSS hits quite often, but isn't as devastating ; this way, you feel each round gets you closer to the end of the fight, each hit eating away some hitpoints until it's too late. Stimpacks are a way to help players stay up longer and able to chain fights faster to keep the game going.

I played the old WEG SW D6 RPG and I had tons of fun, but I think FFG is better because every player can contribute and feel useful whatever the encounter.
I can put up with health potions if it can keep the game faster and more fun for everyone.

Also, I find it very satisfying (as a player or a GM) when the encounter is over and one player got knocked out while the others have barely a few hitpoints left, where a miss would have doomed the crew. The players feel they have overcome something big and feel a sense of accomplishment. I don't feel you get the same feeling when you don't get hit once in a fight because hit = kill (or almost).

One last thing... Having Stimpacks also helps mitigate the advantage you get when you go first in a round, when you win the initiative. If shots where deadlier with no easy way to get back up, then the Initiative roll would matter way more and players would feel pressured to get those skills (Vigilance and Cool) up. Now I can have a slow Moe still useful even if he acts after everybody else.

For me, all these represents good reasons to trump a little Star Warsy feeling for a better gameplay experience.

I would have to agree with the peeps who suggest that, yes our heroes barely ever got hit with pure blaster bolts (though I might argue that they took a hella amount of strain damage), but a system that represents that is straight boring. Especially for the GM.

"Okay, the Stormtroopers go. Miss. The other stormtroopers go. Miss. The officer shoots. Miss. The mercenaries miss. Bossk misses. Last round of stormtroopers go, and they miss. Okay PCs go. Okay top of the round. The stormtroopers miss. The other stormtroopers miss. The officer misses. The mercenaries miss. Bossk, barely alive from being hit twice, flees. Last round of stormtroopers go, and they miss. Your turns. Okay, back to the top of the round. Stormtroopers miss again. The other stormtroopers go and miss too. The officer misses. The mercenaries go and miss. Finally, the last group of stormtroopers miss too."

So, they placed a way for PCs to get hit without dying immediately, and to go along with that, a way to replenish hits to keep the party on their feet.

Personally, I've never thought stimpaks were a problem. Even my tank in laminate armor and 18 wounds needs them to get through some of the fights, I rely on them to keep the party going. Blaster rifles can do a lot of damage, so can lightsabers. Often a stimpack is the difference between getting in that one last shot that downs the bad guys, or having a player sitting there twiddling their thumbs. I mean, in theory, I want to challenge my players, but I do want them to succeed and carry on most of the time.

I suppose my suggestion is that, if you think stimpaks are too powerful, don't start breaking them or taking them away. Just increase the challenges that the PCs are facing to the point where their stimpaks aren't OP'd, but perhaps necessary. Increase your minion count by 1 slowly, and start hitting them for 9 or 10, or 12 points of damage instead of just 8. I love minions for that reason. Players don't like it when I start describing Stormtrooper Sgts commanding their squad of 6 or 7 to focus fire on the big guy. Or as others have suggested, do 3 or 4 fights in a character's 24 hour period, doesn't have to be the same session, but you might see a few more sweaty brows if they used all their stimpaks after the first encounter and are just starting their fourth.

Keep in mind, that stimpaks work both both ways. Having your nemesis equip a trio of stimpaks in a quick access pouch can prolong a fight you think was resolved too quickly, or give him the wounds he needs to make his escape. Players love it when they see their nemesis take 10 wounds of damage, then stimpak to heal 5. Love it.

Other items to consider before changing the rules: Availability. "Oh, sorry. The Empire came through and confiscated/bought/appropriated all my stimpaks. Yeah, ever since the Rebellion kicked up in earnest, it's nigh impossible to keep any of that in stock. If it's not the Empire grabbing them all, it's some thinly veiled Rebel operative looking to stockpile it for their own soldiers. Sorry, you might try further into the Core where there's less actual fighting."

And that's not including simply playing dirty. "Okay, you jab the stimpak applicator into your shoulder and hit the plunger. Oooo... remember that despair when you were looking for stuff and you thought it was the Imperial tail you lost? No, instead the merchant just sold you some cut and watered down stimpaks. You're healed for 1."

Anyway, I would just advise altering your encounter and adventure make up before houseruling things, especially if that houserule is designed to remove a tool that players have relied upon and enjoy. That's not going to go over well.

My players have mainly got them raiding imperial bases when they find emergency med pacs on the wall. Going shopping for large numbers of them in imperial monitored towns might not be safe. With numbers limited they are less of an issue.

Alright, points for enthusiasm and participation.

The question is not whether or NOT to Nerf. I'm going to definitely alter how stimpaks work in this pending campaign (and based on the feedback from the other players so far, this is going to be a thing).

The question is, by how much do I reduce their effectiveness?

And to be honest, if I wanted an RPG that modeled reality REALLY well, I'd be using GURPS IVth Edition (GIVE), but it's not great with the over the top cinematographic stunts that one would equate with Star Wars, and I have yet to see a decent application for using Force powers for GIVE (yet).

I DO love most of how FFG's rules balance force sensitives & muggles so that there isn't too much disparity. (I said TOO much). Besides, most (if not all) of the PC's are going to be force sensitive.

1 hour ago, Mark Caliber said:

The question is not whether or NOT to Nerf.

The question is, by how much do I reduce their effectiveness?

Yes, that was the question to the community, however it appears the advice we have for you is to not attempt to change the written rules in order to make things more challenging, but alter the challenges your players are presented with instead. Seems easier. I cannot speak for others, but perhaps I'm not understanding you correctly.

I'll use some silly humor, but this is what your problem sounds like to me: "Swords do too much damage in D&D. Every time I attack my 3rd level party with 5 goblins, the party wipes the floor with them. How much should I nerf swords by?"

I'm suggesting that you're choosing the wrong thing to alter.

An option would be to only allow one stimpack per encounter, or hour, and keep the 5 per day. That way they don't become the goto option in combat. They're useful but more limited.

Another option would be to make them temporary. A stimpak may heal 5 points, but those 5 points will fade in an hour, but the clock resets if another stimpack is used. So any character had better seek medical attention or risk going unconscious. This models the "stim" approach to stimpacks. They keep you going and help you overcome your bruises and fatigue, but you are going to feel it later if you don't see the doc.

8 hours ago, R5D8 said:

I would have to agree with the peeps who suggest that, yes our heroes barely ever got hit with pure blaster bolts (though I might argue that they took a hella amount of strain damage), but a system that represents that is straight boring. Especially for the GM.

"Okay, the Stormtroopers go. Miss. The other stormtroopers go. Miss. The officer shoots. Miss. The mercenaries miss. Bossk misses. Last round of stormtroopers go, and they miss. Okay PCs go. Okay top of the round. The stormtroopers miss. The other stormtroopers miss. The officer misses. The mercenaries miss. Bossk, barely alive from being hit twice, flees. Last round of stormtroopers go, and they miss. Your turns. Okay, back to the top of the round. Stormtroopers miss again. The other stormtroopers go and miss too. The officer misses. The mercenaries go and miss. Finally, the last group of stormtroopers miss too."

So, they placed a way for PCs to get hit without dying immediately, and to go along with that, a way to replenish hits to keep the party on their feet.

Well, WEG used an active defense mechanic, ie the attacker rolls for his attack and the defender tries to beat the score with his roll to parry or dodge, possibly bettering his odds by electing to forgo his counter attack. It does lead to a lot of tense situations when that blaster cannon bolt misses your head by a hairs breadth.

The group I play in actually did make a little mod, by upping the difficulty of all combat checks by one which has worked reasonably well so far. I've held off using it in the campaign i GM so far, rather limiting the opposition (regular army and navy rather than stormtroopers to start with). I'm not sure the extra difficulty wouldn't make contributions in combat for unskilled PCs (rolling just two green dice) too hard.

I'm surprised that anyone would say stimpacks need nerfing. WT is so low in this system compared with weapon damage that PCs need stimpacks just to stay standing through a single tough combat. Unless they have reflect and parry.

Personally I’d start the nerf by removing the buff you gave them to halve the number of manoeuvres to use them. Costing only one manoeuvre means you can still move or aim or use many talents that you can’t when it needs both. Quick draw can allow it to still take one of course. Per the rules it is one to draw it and one to apply it.

Somebody asked about other things that I'm modifying and I've wondered if I should include it for the discussion, so trying to address the various inquiries. (Sorry if I miss your request).

The Characters are going to be 500+ points at the start of the campaign.

We are only going to use the core rules equipment and I MIGHT include select items from the addendum books but only if they aren't significantly superior to the Core equipment or break the core equipment. (Sorry, no custom grips).

The next thing that I'm doing is I'm going to reduce the total talent & trait soak by half (round down) and then add armors' soak normally.

The bad guys are ALSO going to have very low soak values. Most of the minions should serve as little more than pop up targets in most encounters. If you're familiar with the concept of the "Sledgehammer wielding eggshell" that's kinda what I'm planning for most minions. The Storm Troopers will have a bit of armor & mostly carry and use Blaster Carbines provided by the lowest bidder.

The other factor that I'm counting on is that the group IS going to be comprised of Force sensitives with talents in Dodge, Side-step, & Parry.

So those are all of the alterations (not including the stimpaks) that I am planning to implement.

3 hours ago, Mark Caliber said:

....

We are only going to use the core rules equipment and I MIGHT include select items from the addendum books but only if they aren't significantly superior to the Core equipment or break the core equipment. (Sorry, no custom grips).

The next thing that I'm doing is I'm going to reduce the total talent & trait soak by half (round down) and then add armors' soak normally.

The bad guys are ALSO going to have very low soak values. Most of the minions should serve as little more than pop up targets in most encounters...

The other factor that I'm counting on is that the group IS going to be comprised of Force sensitives with talents in Dodge, Side-step, & Parry.

...

Not to derail the thread, but I think these are bad ideas.

The first is an issue because everything in this game either has a drawback or is more expensive and/or has a higher rarity (meaning it would be difficult to find, and possibly more expensive than listed) than the core items. Also, as far as attachments to weapons and armor go, the ones from the core books tend to be the most powerful. The custom grip you mentioned for instance, sure it's one of the better attachments, as removing a setback die and giving a boost (from the accurate +1 mod) is probably worth the circumstantial penalty of two setback dice for non-owner usage, but is it really that much better than a Blaster Actuating Module, which, with a good mechanic, can give you +3 damage and Pierce 2 with the tradeoff of a setback die. Even if the setback die came up as a failure, if you still hit, you still net +4 damage from the mod? The mono-molecular edge and augmented spin barrel are probably the best attachments for their respective eligible weapons, and those are both core attachments too.

I would be very cautious about reducing talent and trait soak. I've heard of GMs reducing Brawn soak before, but never talent soak. It's a bad idea from a game play perspective because these are talents that your players have spent xp on (and sometimes have to in order to advance through their specialization trees). Nerfing those specific talents just simply isn't fair, when those talents sometimes must be taken, and serve no other mechanical purpose. It's one thing to say that Jury rigged can't be used to reduce the cost of auto-fire, because jury rigged is a versatile talent and can be used on a number of things besides autofire. (Personally, I think the best approach is to say it can only be used once per round, if used to reduce the cost of autofire.) Talents like Enduring and Armor Master can't be used for anything else.

Reducing everyone's soak, especially he bad guys, is going to lead to rocket tag, where initiative ends up being the most important factor. This is especially true if you have someone with autofire and made worse by the initiative slot system. The PCs can just give the guy with autofire the first slot, and he will destroy at least half of the opposing force, and if you reduce soak, they might not even act at all. On the other hand, if the PCs lose initiative, a group of stormtroopers (or anything with blaster carbine/rifles or larger) could mess somebody up pretty fast. This is doubly true if you nerf healing too.

My experience is that talents like dodge and sidestep rarely prevent you from getting hit, at least by competent enemies, but what they do do, is reduce the number of net successes and advantages the attack generates, making you take less damage and fewer crits. This is particularly important in the context of soak, as someone with say 6 soak, who reduces a blaster rifle hit to one success will only take 4 damage. If you nerf soak, Dodge, sidestep, defensive stance, parry, and reflect, won't be nearly as meaningful.

Altering such a core mechanic like soak can have unintended consequences on game play, as I hope I've demonstrated.

Edit: It's your game, so it's your call on any alterations you want to make, but I would take the advice of people here and add more minions, and make your rivals and nemeses stronger before changing rules. Rules in RPGs usually exist for a reason, and changing them, as I said, can have unintended consequences. I'm not trying to be a negative Nancy, but I do want to help you with your game. =)

On 11/17/2017 at 1:47 PM, Tramp Graphics said:

I disagree with you there. A hit is still a hit in this game, but the wounds are only minor, flesh wounds, bruises, scratches, nicks, and scrapes, rather than critical wounds.

Not even those. 'Minor nick' is literally a critical hit. As are things like getting knocked off balance or getting knocked hard enough to drop what you're holding. When a football player gets tackled and fumbles the ball - that's a crit. That's all. Basically, anything that might in real life cause a doctor to take a look at you is a critical hit, even if its something you can walk off. (Remember, a lot of crits don't have an effect after the encounter)(Also remember that the NFL likes to ignore a lot of things that ordinary people would go to the doctor for). We see a lot of crits in the original trilogy, really. Luke getting KOed by the sand people, Luke getting clawed by the Wampa, Luke getting his hand cut off, Luke getting his cyborg hand shot by one of Jabba's thugs, Luke getting lightning bolted... and so on.

The key here, imho, is that getting 'hit' doesn't mean getting injured. Just because a blaster bolt doesn't connect with your flesh doesn't mean you didn't get hit. Narratively speaking there are lots of non-injury ways you can take wounds. Have you ever hit a ball with a bat or racket and had that weird vibration/shock effect hurt your hands a bit? Wounds, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lightsaber could do the same thing when reflecting blaster bolts. Maybe someone dove for cover a bit too enthusiastically while jumping out of the way of incoming fire. Another way to think of it is that wounds = pain. Pain is pain, and too much pain will mess you up, even without taking any real injuries. A hit is just an attack that causes pain, even if it doesn't necessarily injure the target.

Look at just the Sarlac pit battle - that rail-mounted blaster shot knocked Lando and a thug off a skiff, without actually hitting anyone. I'll bet Lando took wounds from that, and the GM probably activated Knockback or maybe used a triumph to knock him off the skiff. No injury, not even literally hit from the bolt, but he took damage from it. A second shot from the bolt knocked down Boba, despite missing (again). I'm guessing the GM rolled a despair against Luke's dodge/reflect/etc. Han with the staff doesn't directly manage to damage Boba, but he clearly rolled a triumph (to damage the jetpack), and the GM narrated the wounds as occurring when Boba slammed into the side of the sail barge. And so on.

Stimpacks don't heal, they remove pain. They don't knit bones together, or cause wounds to heal, or stop bleeding. They're just a bandaid and Tylenol in a quick-administer form.

Aaaannnyyywwwwaaaayyy.... on the point. GM is gonna nerf stimpacks, he'll nerf stimpacks. Ordinarily I maintain that you should be extremely careful with houserules, as there are always unintended consequences. You want combat to be more risky and fast, fine, but be careful you aren't invalidating entire character concepts. I'm reading your changes, and I feel like one of the things you're doing is making melee combat even worse in comparison to ranged, in addition to encouraging rocket tag. Seriously, without the increased soak from brawn, and without the soak and toughness related talents in the melee trees, then there is far, far less reason to ever take those. Even lightsabers are getting nerfed in a sideways manner - breach is far less useful when everyone has less soak to weaken that auto-blaster. Even some races get a sideways nerf - anything that starts with a bonus to brawn is less useful, and Droids get even harder to make work, because their free endurance is less useful out the gate.

Frankly, with the changes you've described I'm not sure if I'd ever play anything other than an auto-blasting ranged guy. Everyone is too squishy to trust building someone without a strong offense, and the other offense types just don't measure up at all anymore.

How about this for a nerf technique that doesn't alter the rules and is in keeping with the spirit and word of the rules? Just keep your players so poor that spending 25 credits for a stimpack is something to think long and hard over.

Consulting the good book yields the following:

Quote

A wide variety of effects can inflict physical damage- blaster shots, an angry wampa’s claws, frag grenades, and falling. Damage to a character's physical body is tracked using wounds.

And:

Quote

A character is wounded if he has any number of wounds less than 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.

So, can we agree on that, according to the official wording, wounds are actual physical damage, such as that caused by a blaster, shrapnel or wampa claws?

And stimpacks make this damage go away, at least for practical purposes, pretty much instantly.

Everyone is of course free to interpret wounds as near misses that deplete character shields if it fits their narrative better, but that would be their own (re)interpretation of the rules.

3 hours ago, penpenpen said:

So, can we agree on that, according to the official wording, wounds are actual physical damage, such as that caused by a blaster, shrapnel or wampa claws?

Sure, physical strain, cuts, bruises, scrapes caused by blasters, shrapnel or wampa claws. Obviously no direct hits, because those don't leave bruises, a few cuts and scrapes, but instead would create incapacitating damage. Right?
"Battered, but he is still hale and hearty overall." Direct hits are basically out of question.

Take note of the blasts that blasters actually create when they don't directly hit people. Does this fit that "bruises and scrapes" quote?

edit: And yes, I am aware that my argument breaks down once slugthrower come into play. I am not saying that the system is perfect, but it seems to cover the flavor of those star wars stories rather well imho. And btw, critical hits are a pain, a really bad pain in the neck.

12 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Sure, physical strain, cuts, bruises, scrapes caused by blasters, shrapnel or wampa claws. Obviously no direct hits, because those don't leave bruises, a few cuts and scrapes, but instead would create incapacitating damage. Right?
"Battered, but he is still hale and hearty overall." Direct hits are basically out of question.

Take note of the blasts that blasters actually create when they don't directly hit people. Does this fit that "bruises and scrapes" quote?

I'm fine with this interpretation. It also makes it clear that a hit is in fact a hit, if only a grazing one or a slight splattering of shrapnel from a near miss, and should leave a mark.

2 hours ago, penpenpen said:

I'm fine with this interpretation. It also makes it clear that a hit is in fact a hit, if only a grazing one or a slight splattering of shrapnel from a near miss, and should leave a mark.

Ayup. My examples involved the blaster in question missing its target entirely, but still doing damage. That big gun in the sarlaac battle never directly hit anyone, but it sure knocked a bunch of people down. Similarly, I'll bet Luke took some wounds when the rancor picked him up, too. He took those from claws, even though it didn't open him up at all.

You could also address it narratively... make them Restricted, and enforce it within the story.

Call them Military Issue only.

Ratchet up the price.

Make them hard to find.

Raids on Imperial outposts to get stims for the Rebellion/Black Market is good fun for everyone...