54 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Well, both Han and Snoke's deaths were outside of standard structured combat, so the GM could very easily handwave it as them being the equivalent of "helpless" and thus any critical injury either resulted in an instant death result or the crit roll got a substantial bonus, or that any ranks of Adversary they might have are ignored when Kylo makes his Lightsaber combat check.

Also, (hoping this doesn't derail the thread into a discussion about how The Last Jedi was either written as a masterpiece of renewal, or as a piece of garbage) that was in a movie. Not in a game, but a pre-written script where no dice roll could unhinge the plans of the creator. I don't think any scene like Kylo Ren offing Snoke the way he did should ever be left to a dice pool roll, even one with many bonuses, as we assumingly have very little control over the individual dice themselves. If anything, such a scene during a game would probably have to be a completely narrative scene in order to work as it did. Some might then call it 'railroding the session into getting rid of an unwanted NPC (quite possibly from the previous GM).

?

I just suggested a means by which the particular deaths we see on the screen could be replicated in the game without just reducing it to a handwave, something that obviously sticks in the craw of more than a few folks in this thread.

That the results of a given scene shouldn't be left to dice rolls is true across the entirety of the films, as the protagonists frequently make the sort of decisions that players never would, and thus are reliant upon narrative direction in order to carry the plot of each given movie forward.

Besides which, isn't half the point of a Star Wars RPG the desire on the part of players to re-enact and recreate various scenes from the films, both old and new?

18 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

What about just having it be similar to other games, where their defense doesn't factor into the attack roll? If we're talking about minions, then sure, the "Make a stealth check, and they just die" rule seems fine, though it precludes taking out multiple people with a damage roll, which is a possible outcome for an attack on a minion group. And there is precedent in movies/tv/everything else, of some sneaky bada$$ getting the jump on 2-3 guards in a cluster, and taking them all out in a stealthy succession. Or multiple at once, ala Assassin's Creed double wrist blade kills, or Deus Ex's combo takedowns.

Plus, the "make stealth, they die" doesn't help when dealing with sneak attacks on Rivals/Nemesisesssess (i hate trying to pluralize that word )

How about just doing the Stealth vs Perception check, and if you succeed, the first attack on that target (or group if it's minions) will only be positive dice? That way there would be no way for any results to be negated, which is kind of the point of a sneak attack/attack of opportunity. You still might not kill them, in fact with a Rival/Nemesis, it should be a guarantee, but you are far more likely to roll a lot of successes, which could still get through their soak. This would also allow for the possibility, on a REALLY good attack, on a minion group, to drop more than just one with the check. Unless you rule the "Make Stealth, They Die" rule applies to the entire minion group.

That doesn't seem to unbalanced to me, as the difficulty of the Stealth check (and any possible boost die moving forward on the attack check), would still potentially prevent the sneak attack in the first place.

By raw if you do enough damage to kill one and also crit you can take out 2 minions in a minion group. Two weapon fighting might allow you to kill 2 more, and an ataru striker with lightsaber swarm a high force rating and a phase knife (which I think are in endless vigil) might take out a bunch as would a shii cho knight with sarlaac sweep and a phase knife.

20 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

By raw if you do enough damage to kill one and also crit you can take out 2 minions in a minion group. Two weapon fighting might allow you to kill 2 more, and an ataru striker with lightsaber swarm a high force rating and a phase knife (which I think are in endless vigil) might take out a bunch as would a shii cho knight with sarlaac sweep and a phase knife.

Yeah I know by RAW you can kill more than 1 minion in an attack , I only mentioned that because someone above suggested implementing a rule for just killing the minion if you succeed at a Stealth vs Perception check, and just narrate the result. Which is fine, but how do you determine how many die in that attack is my point. Since minion groups could be on average 3-5 people, do they all die from this Stealth vs Perception check? Only one? If more than one, how do you determine how many? If only one, then why not just do a regular attack with the chance of killing more or all of them?

Which is why I just suggested removing any difficulty dice on the attack if they succeed at the Stealth vs Perception check. That check isn't the attack, it simply determines if they are capable of doing the sneak attack next action. And to reflect this, there is no defense, which to me makes sense, since the difficulty of the check is supposed to factor in several things, including the target actively trying to not get hurt. Which shouldn't be a factor if they are surprised. Now you still might roll crap sure, and the target survives, but I dislike the idea of instant kills in this system, or trying to have different rules for Minions compared to Rival/Nemesis. The likelihood of the stealth vs perception going off against a powerful Rival/Nemesis is still going to be difficult, given Adversary ranks, and likely having good stats in Perception, so it would prevent going around stealth killing every enemy pretty easy, just by the nature of the dice mechanics. But it would still allow for the opportunity for such an attack, if the PC is skilled enough, without guaranteeing an instant kill.

A player who really wants to be good at this, can also do what every good player does, and actually focus on things that would give him the best chance. Lots of ranks in Stealth, a high Agility, buying the Stealth related talents, though admittedly this isn't as easy as every other skill, as there are very few talents for Stealth currently. Buying mods that will make their dagger more likely to do damage, having a high Brawn so they do more damage if they hit, buying talents that increase their Melee capability. Investing in the Infiltrator spec would be a good idea, as it has several talents that would help with sneak attacking, etc.

All of which would help to make a more effective sneak attack PC, without simply going with "Make Stealth, They Die"

3 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Yeah I know by RAW you can kill more than 1 minion in an attack , I only mentioned that because someone above suggested implementing a rule for just killing the minion if you succeed at a Stealth vs Perception check, and just narrate the result. Which is fine, but how do you determine how many die in that attack is my point. Since minion groups could be on average 3-5 people, do they all die from this Stealth vs Perception check? Only one? If more than one, how do you determine how many? If only one, then why not just do a regular attack with the chance of killing more or all of them?

Which is why I just suggested removing any difficulty dice on the attack if they succeed at the Stealth vs Perception check. That check isn't the attack, it simply determines if they are capable of doing the sneak attack next action. And to reflect this, there is no defense, which to me makes sense, since the difficulty of the check is supposed to factor in several things, including the target actively trying to not get hurt. Which shouldn't be a factor if they are surprised. Now you still might roll crap sure, and the target survives, but I dislike the idea of instant kills in this system, or trying to have different rules for Minions compared to Rival/Nemesis. The likelihood of the stealth vs perception going off against a powerful Rival/Nemesis is still going to be difficult, given Adversary ranks, and likely having good stats in Perception, so it would prevent going around stealth killing every enemy pretty easy, just by the nature of the dice mechanics. But it would still allow for the opportunity for such an attack, if the PC is skilled enough, without guaranteeing an instant kill.

A player who really wants to be good at this, can also do what every good player does, and actually focus on things that would give him the best chance. Lots of ranks in Stealth, a high Agility, buying the Stealth related talents, though admittedly this isn't as easy as every other skill, as there are very few talents for Stealth currently. Buying mods that will make their dagger more likely to do damage, having a high Brawn so they do more damage if they hit, buying talents that increase their Melee capability. Investing in the Infiltrator spec would be a good idea, as it has several talents that would help with sneak attacking, etc.

All of which would help to make a more effective sneak attack PC, without simply going with "Make Stealth, They Die"

yeah I can see that...

Kind of unrelated at the moment I'm drawing a blank on whether or not the crit insta kill also applies to rivals... I think not, but I'm not sure... anyone know this off the top of their head?

5 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

yeah I can see that...

Kind of unrelated at the moment I'm drawing a blank on whether or not the crit insta kill also applies to rivals... I think not, but I'm not sure... anyone know this off the top of their head?

I don't recall any special rule that excludes anyone, PC or NPC from the Death Critical. There's always GM ruling of course, but I don't think any RAW states it anywhere.

Just now, KungFuFerret said:

I don't recall any special rule that excludes anyone, PC or NPC from the Death Critical. There's always GM ruling of course, but I don't think any RAW states it anywhere.

minions "die" on any crit, you don't even roll, I can't definitively remember whether or not that also applies to rivals, I think not though.

Just now, EliasWindrider said:

minions "die" on any crit, you don't even roll, I can't definitively remember whether or not that also applies to rivals, I think not though.

I know they die on a crit, I didn't mention minions at all in my response.

3 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

I know they die on a crit, I didn't mention minions at all in my response.

to clarify the question: do you roll a percentile to determine which critical a rival takes (I think so) or do rivals, like minions, just die without rolling a percentile (I think not but don't remember for sure)?

1 minute ago, EliasWindrider said:

to clarify the question: do you roll a percentile to determine which critical a rival takes (I think so) or do rivals, like minions, just die without rolling a percentile (I think not but don't remember for sure)?

The "criticals make then instantly die" rule only applies to minions, as far as I've ever seen. So for Rivals and Nemesis, they would roll on the table as normal. Minions are meant to be squishy and disposable

22 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

The "criticals make then instantly die" rule only applies to minions, as far as I've ever seen. So for Rivals and Nemesis, they would roll on the table as normal. Minions are meant to be squishy and disposable

Yeah, you can roll crits for rivals & Nemesis. Especially if the players get a kick out of rolling on the crit table. As of late, I've just replied, "Ooo, he 'goes down.' And there's another batch of stormtroopers." He'll be back. After all "Mostly Dead" isn't the same thing as completely dead.

Goodness, this reminds me of that one time . . .

Story Setup. So two of the players are playing rube Mando's (They had the armor but no clan affiliation) and the GM is trying to help foster the players desires to 'play the Mando' and introduces a mentor. An actual clan affiliated Mandalorian.

I fight breaks out between one of the Rubes and the Mentor and the Mentor goes down to a crit . . . "Bleeding out."

The surviving (PC) characters start lamenting his tragic death.

"You know, I thought he'd be tougher. Too bad he wasn't that good at melee combat." "Yeah, real shame."

And I pointed out (repeatedly) "No, he's 'bleeding out.'"

The characters continued this surreal banter of "A tragedy that he can't be saved. . . ."

"But he's only bleeding . . ."

"Yeah to bad he didn't pull through . . ."

Reminds me of the time while playing DND our dwarf decided to try and swim across a river in the middle of town, but sank under his heavy armor. Then the rest of us then role played our dumb as rocks characters standing around wondering if dwarves could breath water while he drowned.

To me in this game the only real damage is Criticals. The wound threshold seems more like minor cuts and bruises as well as luck and exhaustion. I advise the players in my games that Melee combat is situational unless you are a Jedi. Criticals will dispatch minions just fine as was already stated, and for Rival-level guards the challenge of such an encounter would seem to be something more than a quick sentry removal via knife attack. Not that it wouldn't be possible but that it would be very hard.

Because you can get Soak from the trees in the form of Enduring, and because of the overall description, it's seems to me that it's not just a factor of armor hardness and coverage. I don't see a clear way to get rid of Soak by pulling back a trooper's head or anything like that without having a big adjudication thing to worry about.

You could perhaps have your characters perform a grapple (Brawl) attack using the rules in the book and have it be assumed that the PC is choking off the sentry's windpipe and preventing a cry for help if they succeed. An engaged character has to expend a maneuver just to move away from a melee combatant, but you could say the Sentry must make a successful Brawl attack to escape the grapple before the sentry can use a maneuver to disengage.

A PC could approach the sentry and perform a Brawl attack, but with the knife in one hand, to grab the Sentry. If successful, the Sentry cannot move away or cry out, and the PC can make the knife attack on the next turn. I would give that knife attack a boost or maybe even an upgrade because the target character is somewhat restrained. If it's two on one even better.

5 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

I advise the players in my games that Melee combat is situational unless you are a Jedi.

I take it you've never seen a min-maxed Marauder in action then?

just to point out that the majority of sneaky character types with a focus on being able to attack, like infiltrator, assassin, even scout all have a few ranks of quick strike (2 to 3) and Id give the benefit of a PC who successfully sneaked up the bonus of a double aim to line up the attack, giving them 4 or 5 boost die to a 2 purple check, assuming a reasonable starting character with 2 melee ranks and 3 brawn you 're looking at 90% chance of rolling success with a 60% chance of rolling 3 or more, they also have a 93% chance of rolling advantage and 84% of rolling 2 or more, with a 17% chance of rolling a crit with 1% chance of a double crit. Those arent bad odds for a critical. Vibroknives can be cheaply upgraded , with a monomolecular edge to make it crit 1 , and a serrated edge to make it more vicious, they arent that bad IMO, but in the hands of an infiltrator commando or marauder they are tools of death IMO.

1 hour ago, syrath said:

just to point out that the majority of sneaky character types with a focus on ... even scout

I have NEVER before heard anyone suggest that Scout has any kind of focus. ?

4 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

I take it you've never seen a min-maxed Marauder in action then?

No I am the bane of min-maxers, so I've never seen that lol. I also have that rule where if you're not in cover your attacker gets a boost against you, as I didn't want a bunch of dudes with vibro-axes doing highland charges vs. troops with blasters.

I think a one roll resolution is a good way to handle this situation. You can vary the exact roll depending on circumstances (perhaps Stealth vs. Perception against a lone sentry or a Hard Melee role to dispatch a group quickly [setback] and quietly [setback]). Not every combat is important enough to pull out the structured time rules for, and if the only important question regarding the outcome of a fight is whether an alarm is raised, taking 30+ minutes to resolve it is overkill. Using one roll resolution also has the advantage of not forcing you to modify how structured time plays out, meaning you don't have to try to think of all the ways the players might break your house rule the next time they're face to face with a nemesis. Using a narrative resolution keeps the mechanics clean when you have to pull out a structured resolution.

On 8/27/2018 at 9:08 PM, HappyDaze said:

I have NEVER before heard anyone suggest that Scout has any kind of focus. ?

I actually disagree a bit on this. They lack the hyper focus of some other specs but if you have a look at what they have , there are two main tropes

2 quick strike, stalker and disorient talents - Lean towards the "catch them hunter side with a view to weakening them

Rapid Recovery/ Grit/ Short Cut /let's Ride all go towards a character that can chase down a target, or escape a predator easily while being able to recover much easier, whether they are on foot or driving.

Utility Belt is a catch all useful talent for letting them be the swiss army knife that always has something useful for any situation (shark repellant anyone)

Their strength is in chases , in particular outdoor chases. So in that respect they are like Operators except using athletics and piloting (planetary) instead of both piloting skills. The Infiltrator having Courier as a companion spec that boosts one aspect of it and the driver and to a lesser degree fringer bossting other parts of the explorer scout. I quite like the spec. Just started one recently after over a year stint with a Warden.