32 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

That's the (or one of) maddening thing about arguing about armor rules being "realistic" is that the entire damage system is absurdly abstract. Just the idea of accumulating wound points is ludicrous from a realism perspective and any system to factor armor into that will be equally so.

That.

Therefore, house rule it to your taste.

16 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Yes, because they're trying to interpret reality through the lense of the existing game system.

Yes, and you were still hit , weren't you? A deflection doesn't change that. Armor is shaped to optimize damage mitigation. How it does so varies from armor to armor.

I can't speak for Daeglan, but I've got thousands of hours of armored combat experience and I definitely have had that armor deflect a hit without me being hit.

Tramp, I truly would be curious for more info about your experiences in armor, because it seems like it's _so_ different from mine.

7 minutes ago, BrickSteelhead said:

I can't speak for Daeglan, but I've got thousands of hours of armored combat experience and I definitely have had that armor deflect a hit without me being hit.

Tramp, I truly would be curious for more info about your experiences in armor, because it seems like it's _so_ different from mine.

I dont have thousands of hours. but I have hundreds and I have had a lot of hits that just not get purchase on the armor and thus not transfer any energy to me.

15 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Having done actual sword fightling it is super tiring. Like after a couple minutes your ability to keep counterings drops off significantly. It wouldnt surprise me if stim packs also gave you stuff to improve blood oxygen absorption adrenaline boosters blood sugar boosters etc.

It is realistic but this is fantasy space opera and it's not something we really see in the setting very much, particularly needing medical attention like this.

I'm not saying parry/reflect shouldn't come without a cost - I think the Strain cost aspect is what it should be - it's the immersion break coming from the Wounds (another thing we don't see much of in the quite the way this system models it).

15 hours ago, Daeglan said:

As gm chris says if you do it your players will pick up on it.

I've tried that (still do it) and some follow the lead to some degree. I do still think there is narration fatigue - I know there is for me as a GM narrating a dozen or so attacks in a session - but I will try this specific approach the rest of the long campaign (~3 sessions left) of parried/reflected attacks involving multiple strikes/shots with a narrated amount deflected appropriate to the resulting damage (usually I just narrate it as a nick or a more substantial wound hitting the body or whatever).

2 hours ago, BrickSteelhead said:

I can't speak for Daeglan, but I've got thousands of hours of armored combat experience and I definitely have had that armor deflect a hit without me being hit.

Tramp, I truly would be curious for more info about your experiences in armor, because it seems like it's _so_ different from mine.

I think it's less about experience in armour, and more about what subjectively constitutes "being hit".

14 minutes ago, Jedi Ronin said:

It is realistic but this is fantasy space opera and it's not something we really see in the setting very much, particularly needing medical attention like this.

I'm not saying parry/reflect shouldn't come without a cost - I think the Strain cost aspect is what it should be - it's the immersion break coming from the Wounds (another thing we don't see much of in the quite the way this system models it).

probably because things just get screen wiped in the movies.

2 hours ago, BrickSteelhead said:

I can't speak for Daeglan, but I've got thousands of hours of armored combat experience and I definitely have had that armor deflect a hit without me being hit.

Tramp, I truly would be curious for more info about your experiences in armor, because it seems like it's _so_ different from mine.

2 hours ago, Daeglan said:

I dont have thousands of hours. but I have hundreds and I have had a lot of hits that just not get purchase on the armor and thus not transfer any energy to me.

I think Tramp's point is that properly modeled armor only has an effect if the projectile/weapon "hits" (touches) you and then it does it's job (armor only affect things that touch you, not making them "miss" you in a certain literal sense). So, the Defense Die is bad for this model because it adds Failure to the dice pool meaning the attack might miss you completely and not touch you (something armor doesn't do). That's why he spent so much time going over the combat rules and that a successful attack check meaning you got hit (even if Soak reduced it to 0).

13 minutes ago, Jedi Ronin said:

I think Tramp's point is that properly modeled armor only has an effect if the projectile/weapon "hits" (touches) you and then it does it's job which does (real world) result in no injury or energy transfer. So, the Defense Die is bad for this model because it adds Failure to the dice pool meaning the attack might miss you completely and not touch you (something armor doesn't do). That's why he spent so much time going over the combat rules and that a successful attack check meaning you got hit (even if Soak reduced it to 0).

that is because he refuses to recognize the fact that the same symbol on different dice can mean different things narration wise. IE a failure on difficulty dice can mean you missed entirely. a failure on a setback die can mean you hit the cover or skipped off the armor or missed because of darkness or whatever which i believe is part of the design intent.

8 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

that is because he refuses to recognize the fact that the same symbol on different dice can mean different things narration wise. IE a failure on difficulty dice can mean you missed entirely. a failure on a setback die can mean you hit the cover or skipped off the armor or missed because of darkness or whatever which i believe is part of the design intent.

That's a fantastic point - I think it's even brought up in the GM section on narrating the dice.

Though to be fair I think I've landed in somewhat of the same situation as Tramp - he with armor and me with Reflect/Parry. The narrative and abstract aspects of the system mean it's workable but it still feels off to me (for the reasons we've been discussing).

15 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Having done actual sword fightling it is super tiring. Like after a couple minutes your ability to keep counterings drops off significantly. It wouldnt surprise me if stim packs also gave you stuff to improve blood oxygen absorption adrenaline boosters blood sugar boosters etc.

I have similar experience. This all reminds me of of "Runequest" and simulationist game systems. Back in 1978 Steve Perrin created the rules system for Greg Stafford's Gloranta setting. When it came time to write the combat rules, Steve based the hit location system on his experience in the Society for Creative Anachronism. Consequently, the most commonly hit location was the legs (which was Steve's experience). Characters more often ended up maimed or legless (sometimes after their first combat) than dying from what was more conventionally considered a mortal wound.

Most games have moved toward the abstracts (like wounds or hit-points) because truly simulationist rules are pretty clunky or time consuming and most players seem to prefer doing what they see on TV or in the movies.

35 minutes ago, Mistervimes said:

I have similar experience. This all reminds me of of "Runequest" and simulationist game systems. Back in 1978 Steve Perrin created the rules system for Greg Stafford's Gloranta setting. When it came time to write the combat rules, Steve based the hit location system on his experience in the Society for Creative Anachronism. Consequently, the most commonly hit location was the legs (which was Steve's experience). Characters more often ended up maimed or legless (sometimes after their first combat) than dying from what was more conventionally considered a mortal wound.

Most games have moved toward the abstracts (like wounds or hit-points) because truly simulationist rules are pretty clunky or time consuming and most players seem to prefer doing what they see on TV or in the movies.

and really do do all the math needed to be truly simulationist in an RPG you would need something like an MMO doing all the math for you...otherwise you would spend all your time rolling on a table to roll on another table to roll on another table to get a result. who has time for that?
I think the narrative dice system is an elegant way to achieve some of that detail with out bogging down on look ups

22 minutes ago, Jedi Ronin said:

That's a fantastic point - I think it's even brought up in the GM section on narrating the dice.

Though to be fair I think I've landed in somewhat of the same situation as Tramp - he with armor and me with Reflect/Parry. The narrative and abstract aspects of the system mean it's workable but it still feels off to me (for the reasons we've been discussing).

I think the main issue with the lightsabers is that they are narratively kinda broken given what we see them do on screen. The lightsaber profile from EotE and AoR is, in my opinion, the best representation of lightsabers, but they still have their drawbacks. The thing is, there is no good way to balance them mechanically and yet still represent what we see on screen. I have never seen lightsabers done well in a game. I haven't played a ton of Star Wars games, but I've watched a lot. One of the big reasons I gave up on watching KOTOR and SWTOR game-movies (I never did like the timeperiod either, but hey. It's Star Wars. I watched it anyway.) was because I couldn't stand the fight scenes (gameplay, not cutscenes) where they tagged each other with lightsabers approximately 57 times every single combat.

In the movies, if you get hit with a lightsaber, you're down. You don't always lose a limb (Obi-Wan in AotC, everybody who got stabbed in the gut, etc.), but you're down. As for Reflect, I can accept it somewhat for the idea of you deflect some of the blasts, but others get through. Again, there is just not a good way to balance it and yet stay true to what we see on screen. Then it is left to the narration.

I'd say that the best way to narrate Reflect is as deflecting all of the bolts, until you are incapacitated or you take a certain amount of wounds, then you narrate one getting through. An example of this in action would be with Ki-Adi Mundi in Episode 3. He deflected several blasts, and then went down. I'd say that was using Reflect, then the bleed-over exceeded his WT and it was narrated as the hail of bolts piercing his defenses.

Say for example, you've got Reflect 2 and Soak 4 (8 damage reduction). You are taking shots from a blaster rifle with 1 success. You narrate the first three attacks as being fully deflected, but you've taken 6 wounds. You then narrate the next attack as having a lucky shot that got through and hit you pretty hard, and even though it only deals 2 damage, it is as if it had hit you for 8 narratively. Coincidentally, you've eaten up just about all of your strain by now (technically you've only used 9 Strain, but add in strain from other abilities and second maneuvers, just to be generous) and your defenses are down. Next shot hits you for 6 wounds past Soak, potentially dropping you. This would be the Ki-Adi Mundi way of narrating it.

3 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I think the main issue with the lightsabers is that they are narratively kinda broken given what we see them do on screen. The lightsaber profile from EotE and AoR is, in my opinion, the best representation of lightsabers, but they still have their drawbacks. The thing is, there is no good way to balance them mechanically and yet still represent what we see on screen. I have never seen lightsabers done well in a game. I haven't played a ton of Star Wars games, but I've watched a lot. One of the big reasons I gave up on watching KOTOR and SWTOR game-movies (I never did like the timeperiod either, but hey. It's Star Wars. I watched it anyway.) was because I couldn't stand the fight scenes (gameplay, not cutscenes) where they tagged each other with lightsabers approximately 57 times every single combat.

In the movies, if you get hit with a lightsaber, you're down. You don't always lose a limb (Obi-Wan in AotC, everybody who got stabbed in the gut, etc.), but you're down. As for Reflect, I can accept it somewhat for the idea of you deflect some of the blasts, but others get through. Again, there is just not a good way to balance it and yet stay true to what we see on screen. Then it is left to the narration.

I'd say that the best way to narrate Reflect is as deflecting all of the bolts, until you are incapacitated or you take a certain amount of wounds, then you narrate one getting through. An example of this in action would be with Ki-Adi Mundi in Episode 3. He deflected several blasts, and then went down. I'd say that was using Reflect, then the bleed-over exceeded his WT and it was narrated as the hail of bolts piercing his defenses.

Say for example, you've got Reflect 2 and Soak 4 (8 damage reduction). You are taking shots from a blaster rifle with 1 success. You narrate the first three attacks as being fully deflected, but you've taken 6 wounds. You then narrate the next attack as having a lucky shot that got through and hit you pretty hard, and even though it only deals 2 damage, it is as if it had hit you for 8 narratively. Coincidentally, you've eaten up just about all of your strain by now (technically you've only used 9 Strain, but add in strain from other abilities and second maneuvers, just to be generous) and your defenses are down. Next shot hits you for 6 wounds past Soak, potentially dropping you. This would be the Ki-Adi Mundi way of narrating it.

That's interesting. I do think getting this just right is difficult. I've liked Saga Edition's approach the best so far where parry/reflect gave you a chance of negating the attack completely (though Jedi in that game could be broken for other related reasons...) but as I've been thinking this over in that system it's a somewhat similar scenario where you lose Hit Points instead of Wounds but it's still an abstract countdown of your health to where you're "injured" enough to be incapacitated (though Saga did have a condition track as well which actually imposed penalties on you as it went down unlike HP or Wounds).

In this system nothing really happens when you lose Wounds - it's just a counter to an actual Wound really (Crits being an separate issue) so mechanically there's no reason to narrate taking Wounds as actually hurting you (related to some of what Daeglan has been saying where a Stim Pack is just a quick shot of something to get you going again and not actually treating injuries or wounds like a Medicine check would be). I think I remember Sam Stewart saying something like this on an Order 66 podcast (if I recall he said something like only Crits are actual injuries and wounds to the character). Though Wounds only recover 1 per night of rest unlike Strain so there's something more to them but again the gaining of Wounds doesn't hamper you at all. I'll keep considering it...

11 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

and really do do all the math needed to be truly simulationist in an RPG you would need something like an MMO doing all the math for you...otherwise you would spend all your time rolling on a table to roll on another table to roll on another table to get a result. who has time for that?
I think the narrative dice system is an elegant way to achieve some of that detail with out bogging down on look ups

I few years ago some friends decided that they wanted to play Rolemaster for old times' sake. I remembered how fun the crit tables were and decided to play. I had forgotten that there were something on the order of 2.3^100 skills and how impossible it was to remember them all. Then combat started and I could see all 40 years of my RPG experience stretching behind me and realized how glad I am that we live in a world with "Powered by the Apocalypse," "Genesys," and other narrative systems.

15 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I think the main issue with the lightsabers is that they are narratively kinda broken given what we see them do on screen...

I don't know. What we see them do on screen isn't that more impressive than what we can see regular swords do in historical/fantasy films. We see mooks get hit by them and instantly die (but generally not suffer any visible damage or dismemberments unles they're droids), and we see main villains like Vader and Kylo Ren take hits and barely be inconvenienced.

I think the Lightsaber's status as glowing death incarnate is very much something that comes from the games.

2 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

I don't know. What we see them do on screen isn't that more impressive than what we can see regular swords do in historical/fantasy films. We see mooks get hit by them and instantly die (but generally not suffer any visible damage or dismemberments unles they're droids), and we see main villains like Vader and Kylo Ren take hits and barely be inconvenienced.

I think the Lightsaber's status as glowing death incarnate is very much something that comes from the games.

looks at all the scenery around lightsaber fights and thinks maybe that might have something to do with it. The reality is in star wars pretty much any weapon is pretty instant death with out plot armor

Just now, micheldebruyn said:

I don't know. What we see them do on screen isn't that more impressive than what we can see regular swords do in historical/fantasy films. We see mooks get hit by them and instantly die (but generally not suffer any visible damage or dismemberments unles they're droids), and we see main villains like Vader and Kylo Ren take hits and barely be inconvenienced.

I think the Lightsaber's status as glowing death incarnate is very much something that comes from the games.

Not sure what you mean...

All the time (at least in the stuff before Disney's dismemberment embargo, and especially comic books) we saw mooks get dismembered (or very close to).

As for Kylo/Vader being barely inconvenienced, that was something I forgot to address. That is a decent way of narrating injuries from lightsabers, but if you'll recall, they were pretty much all glancing blows, not direct strikes. (and there weren't that many of them)

However, I was partly referring to easily cutting through solid objects and the like, not just what they do to opponents.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Not sure what you mean...

All the time (at least in the stuff before Disney's dismemberment embargo, and especially comic books) we saw mooks get dismembered (or very close to).

As for Kylo/Vader being barely inconvenienced, that was something I forgot to address. That is a decent way of narrating injuries from lightsabers, but if you'll recall, they were pretty much all glancing blows, not direct strikes. (and there weren't that many of them)

However, I was partly referring to easily cutting through solid objects and the like, not just what they do to opponents.

You should have a good look at the pretty much only time we see lightsabers used on organic mooks in the old movies: Luke versus Jabba's goons on the sail barge. He might as well swinging around a nerf bat for all the carnage it causes.

If anything, the Disney films are more brutal in their portrayal of lightsabers. We got the Vader corridor scene from Rogue One and some relatively graphic deaths in the Kylo and Rey versus Snoke's guards fight.

4 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

You should have a good look at the pretty much only time we see lightsabers used on organic mooks in the old movies: Luke versus Jabba's goons on the sail barge. He might as well swinging around a nerf bat for all the carnage it causes.

I can't really remember that scene off the top of my head, but what little memory I have of it was not a great camera angle for seeing what was going on (by design). That scene aside, I hereby point you to the first time we see a lightsaber in use on-screen: Ponda Baba loses his arm.

5 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

If anything, the Disney films are more brutal in their portrayal of lightsabers. We got the Vader corridor scene from Rogue One and some relatively graphic deaths in the Kylo and Rey versus Snoke's guards fight.

The Vader scene was great, but I don't see how that contradicts my point about dismemberment. As for the fight with Snoke's guards, we've seen more graphic deaths in the Clone Wars. However, this latter bit makes my point for me. The Imperial Royal Guards (the closest comparison to Snoke's guards) from Allies and Adversaries are Nemesis-level. They wouldn't be taken out by a single strike, and yet they are in the movie (or occasionally a quick one-two, which is really just a narration of a single attack).

How about having reflect as an incidental, that cost 2 strain, as an Opposed roll. Enemy targets you, but to succeed he has to roll his ranged attack vs your Lightsaber.

If he succeeds he hit you. If he fails it gets reflected with 0 damage. If he gets 3 threat or a despair it gets reelected back at him.

Just thinking out loud.

8 hours ago, Mistervimes said:

I few years ago some friends decided that they wanted to play Rolemaster for old times' sake. I remembered how fun the crit tables were and decided to play. I had forgotten that there were something on the order of 2.3^100 skills and how impossible it was to remember them all. Then combat started and I could see all 40 years of my RPG experience stretching behind me and realized how glad I am that we live in a world with "Powered by the Apocalypse," "Genesys," and other narrative systems.

Heh. I got a book published last year for the swedish fantasy RPG Eon, expanding on it's combat system.

The base game, in it's 4th edition is quite simplified from previous editions, melee combat now simply being a case of:

* Rolling opposed checks for combatants

* Assuming the attacker wins, roll damage and hit location

* Spend any advantages gained from rolling well on the attack roll

* Subtract armor and then, assuming the reduced damage is high enough, roll on the critical injury chart appropriate for the hit location and damage type (crushing, slashing or piercing)

* Apply effects and roll to se if the injury knocks you out or kills you. In some cases, you might also have to roll to check whether bones are broken or limbs severed...

Oh, rolls are usually made with 2-5 exploding D6, where any sixes are rerolled with 2D6, which also have the potential of exploding. So rolls aren't exactly super fast to resolve.

Ok, It's really not as bad as it's sounds and I really like the system (to the point where I co-wrote a 250-ish page book adding more detail to this particular aspect of the system) but yeah, the change of pace Star Wars offers is really nice. But sometimes, I want that gritty, grimy, gruesome detail.

...

And yes, I feel comfortable tooting my own horn about this only due to there currently being no plans for translating Eon into english, and thus very few, if any, of you will ever get to read it and subject me to your withering critique of my work. 😓

8 minutes ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

How about having reflect as an incidental, that cost 2 strain, as an Opposed roll. Enemy targets you, but to succeed he has to roll his ranged attack vs your Lightsaber.

If he succeeds he hit you. If he fails it gets reflected with 0 damage. If he gets 3 threat or a despair it gets reelected back at him.

Just thinking out loud.

What would increased ranks do?

I'm thinking reflect becomes a more expensive Talent. Higher up in lightsaber focused trees. With maybe no improvement. *shrug*

@penpenpen

This way it shows the skill and training needed to achieve it, and it cant be done for too long without the force user succumbing to overwhelming fire. Which is what we see in the movies. It rewards those with high ST and lots of ranks in Lightsaber, which shows their commitment.

1 hour ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

How about having reflect as an incidental, that cost 2 strain, as an Opposed roll. Enemy targets you, but to succeed he has to roll his ranged attack vs your Lightsaber.

If he succeeds he hit you. If he fails it gets reflected with 0 damage. If he gets 3 threat or a despair it gets reelected back at him.

Just thinking out loud.

I guess if you want to bog down the game....basically it would double the length of combat with out real benefit.