On 12/31/2020 at 7:41 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

What if instead of the regular WT/Soak system, every hit was a crit, and Soak simply reduced the roll?

Yeah, this is more like WEG or Savage Worlds. Wounds/Crits are serious things, everything else is irrelevant. I like the general idea and considered it myself, but the implementation is the devil...considering that most damage exceeds most Soak (for a while), then most hits will cause crits, and rebalancing it all is a huge amount of work, with very little payoff imho.

I avoided this by keeping WT, but instead of calling them "wounds" I call them "physical strain", and I've pretty much got rid of the auto-incapacitation rules (and got rid of stim packs, which balances things). Exceeding WT still causes an auto-crit, so the player has incentive to not tank an encounter. If you keep the hit points (WT), it's still usually a quick progression into crit territory, but you also get an additional metric to measure a character's effort. I've contemplated letting the players use them as currency (like Strain, which I've relabeled "mental strain") to put out some exceptional effort, like spending 2 points to gain an extra Action (which could also cause a crit if the PC is above their WT).

9 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

For this to work, talent trees would need a complete redux and would likely be significantly shrunk in size, probably by removing a column from each or a similar tack in order to maintain the cost. @whafrog has talked before about redoing the talents system and simplifying it, and my approach would likely be comparable.

I have some json files and spreadsheets where I was going through all the talents and refactoring them. I also have a mostly functional java app to read a json character spec and generate a PDF. Then I got distracted, and then Covid hit and nobody is gaming much, so it's languished. But basically Talents are being grouped into 3 categories, refactored as needed:

1. Direct affecters: the talent has a direct and unconditional effect on a stat or dice pool. The benefit of these is you can build them into the character sheet
2. Skill options: these are talents that are pointless to separate from a skill, eg: Scathing Tirade could just be available at Coercion Rank 2; or Hamstring Shot could be available to anybody with a Ranged rank 3. Some of these might require a Strain expenditure.
3. Any unique, flavourful, or conditional-yet-potent Talent. These would be powerful, and uncommon, a PC might have 2 or 3 of these by the time they are well experienced.

If you want to look at the files you can pm me.

9 hours ago, whafrog said:

Yeah, this is more like WEG or Savage Worlds. Wounds/Crits are serious things, everything else is irrelevant. I like the general idea and considered it myself, but the implementation is the devil...considering that most damage exceeds most Soak (for a while), then most hits will cause crits, and rebalancing it all is a huge amount of work, with very little payoff imho.

I avoided this by keeping WT, but instead of calling them "wounds" I call them "physical strain", and I've pretty much got rid of the auto-incapacitation rules (and got rid of stim packs, which balances things). Exceeding WT still causes an auto-crit, so the player has incentive to not tank an encounter. If you keep the hit points (WT), it's still usually a quick progression into crit territory, but you also get an additional metric to measure a character's effort. I've contemplated letting the players use them as currency (like Strain, which I've relabeled "mental strain") to put out some exceptional effort, like spending 2 points to gain an extra Action (which could also cause a crit if the PC is above their WT).

Hmm, interesting. I have a tendency towards realism, so I don't like "plot armor" systems on the conceptual level, hence my inclination to remove "hit points."

The auto-incapacitation rules are definitely something I should think long and hard about, because incapacitation is a way to save a PC's life, where they go down and so aren't a target anymore (except, of course, in rare circumstances). It should certainly be more common than death. I'm thinking a good way to do that might be to have the top few results result in Incapacitation, and then have results above 100 (or 20, if I go that route) by the ones that can kill the PC.

And yes, I'd be getting rid of stimpacks for this. As the game is built and for my games, I'm fine with stimpacks, but for this overhaul I'd remove them. I'd likely add stims, which allow the person to recover Strain in the manner of a stimpack, but each adds a Setback to their actions (max 5) and frequent use can become addictive. The stims rule is one we've already implemented in my in-person game, though we keep stimpacks with the change that their effect wears off over time.

9 hours ago, whafrog said:

I have some json files and spreadsheets where I was going through all the talents and refactoring them. I also have a mostly functional java app to read a json character spec and generate a PDF. Then I got distracted, and then Covid hit and nobody is gaming much, so it's languished. But basically Talents are being grouped into 3 categories, refactored as needed:

1. Direct affecters: the talent has a direct and unconditional effect on a stat or dice pool. The benefit of these is you can build them into the character sheet
2. Skill options: these are talents that are pointless to separate from a skill, eg: Scathing Tirade could just be available at Coercion Rank 2; or Hamstring Shot could be available to anybody with a Ranged rank 3. Some of these might require a Strain expenditure.
3. Any unique, flavourful, or conditional-yet-potent Talent. These would be powerful, and uncommon, a PC might have 2 or 3 of these by the time they are well experienced.

If you want to look at the files you can pm me.

My approach would be somewhere between you and FFG. I like the talent trees, but I do think there can be unnecessary bloat. I think I'd end up closer to FFG than to you, as I still like FFG's approach and would keep most of the talents that don't tie in to the damage system the same. That said, I'm not sure where I'll end up and will PM you if I decide to follow your approach more closely.

A note on balance: I think I'm going to go with HappyDaze's suggestion of a d20, and I think I'll double the soak values. So twice Brawn, and double armor soak (though with the added flexibility, some armors would go up by one less or more than double, so Laminate would be 4 and Padded would be 3, Heavy Clothing would be 1, Mandalorian Armor would be 5, etc.).
So with a Soak of 4, a hit with a blaster pistol with 2 success would result in a crit of -2. That means if Death is 20 than it would take 3 hits, with a hot roll on the third, to actually kill a relatively unarmored character. With a blaster rifle, only one or two hits, with a hot roll.
I recognize the risk randomization can play, but I still allow a mathematical cushion in the numbers, granting flexibility to the GM and the players.

My philosophy when it comes to balancing is don't. I build encounters based on what I think makes sense, and let the players approach it as they see fit. Running away is a perfectly reasonable option in some circumstances. Then I might go back and check that it'll be a challenge for the PCs if I'm looking for a challenging fight, but I generally give it only a quick glance and a rough calculation. So far, it's worked out wonderfully, and I always keep one or two cards up my sleeve in case I need them (but always narratively justified). I generally put the story above the mechanics in these regards.

3 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

The auto-incapacitation rules are definitely something I should think long and hard about, because incapacitation is a way to save a PC's life, where they go down and so aren't a target anymore (except, of course, in rare circumstances). It should certainly be more common than death. I'm thinking a good way to do that might be to have the top few results result in Incapacitation, and then have results above 100 (or 20, if I go that route) by the ones that can kill the PC.

I should clarify that I'm not entirely removing incapacitation, it's just something I plan to toy with more. In my actual games so far, I've kept it, but made WT*2 before they have to roll Discipline or Resilience to stay up (and that gets harder and harder to do). What I'm really trying to avoid is a table of players with nothing to do, but I also don't want them to think they can't die...that can be worse!