Seems like EotE treats lightsabers the way they deserve to be treated Deadly.

Lets imagine an Imperial Marauder [brawn 4 / Melee 3, Frenzied Attack, Feral Strength, Lethal Blows] armed with a lightsaber.

His attack pool is (after suffering 1 strain): 4 [Proficiency] + 2 [Difficulty] + any Defense and/or situational modifiers

His Damage is 10 + 1 (Feral Strength) + any successes vs. 0 soak (Lightsaber's Breach eats up to 10 soak)!

Also any [Advantage] is a Crit, with extras adding 10 to Crit roll (with +10 already from Lethal Blows)

Lemme just roll for fun… I'll add a Boost and 2 Setbacks…

1 Success + 1 Triumph + 1 Advantage (not the best really but ok)… that is 13 wounds & Crit Injury at +20

Now, when I think about giving the marauder 2 sabers (Ventress style), I shudder…

…for a Triumph or 2 Advantages I probably hit for 13 more unsoakable wounds, unless the extra Difficulty somehow messes with my roll.

And that is using the rules as we know them, without ANY Force support to combat skills.

Behold the awesome power of the elegant weapon

It also has Vicious 2 as a quality, meaning that Critical is increase by +20. XD I love the lightsaber in this, especially since all characters have to use it "untrained" (unless the GM brings in the Lightsaber skill as a custom one).

Technically, the Forsaken Jedi in the adversaries chapter has the Lightsaber skill, so it's in the book. Sorta.

Yeah, I forgot about Vicious I'm now picturing a wave of minions being cut to shreds.

Timberboar said:

Yeah, it's mentioned as a skill, but not one that's accessible to EotE characters by default (I'd imagine it would be available to PCs from Force and Destiny); but the GM has the option of incorporating it as a "custom" skill for this segment of the SWR game.

I'm almost wondering if maybe they went too far with lightsabers. I know in the d20 versions it was considered something of a lame weapon (unless you were a high-level Jedi in the OCR/RCR versions).

Between Breach and Vicious 2, there's almost no way anyone's going to survive getting smacked by a lightsaber, especially since it's Crit value is paltry 1; a single Advantage is enough to trigger a critical hit. That means whoever you hit is going to wind up with a lasting injury, even if they somehow do survive getting swatted with an ever-glowing beatstick o' doom.

Personally, I'm thinking that the base damage should be set at 8, putting it about on par with a heavy blaster pistol but not quite as much raw damage as a blaster rifle. This is fine because the blaster rifle doesn't have the ability to completely negate the target's Soak value like a lightsaber does, so far more of the lightsaber's damage is going to get through in the first place.

I would imagine when we do get Jedi Careers and Specializations, there'll be talents that up the damage on a lightsaber to reflect that while it's a dangerous weapon to start with, in the hands of a trained Jedi it's downright murderous.

I suppose the counter-points to that are that, given the time period, lightsabers are supposed to be EXTREMELY rare; furthermore, PCs have to use it untrained (as Lightsaber is the skill that is used, and it's considered a "custom" skill for the purposes of EotE that only gets brought in if the GM deems it appropriate); and finally… lightsabers are meant to be that devastatingly deadly, as per all of the SW media that includes them.

Shakespearian_Soldier said:

Well, a PC that's maxed out the combat applications of Sense can easily score a single Proficiency dice should they get their mitts on a lightsaber, plus anything a merciful GM might permit by way of a Lightsaber skill.

Timberboar said:

They actually state in one of the Skill area sidebars that Jedi use a lightsaber skill, if you need one, just add it… so it is literally as easy as writing it on the blank areas of the Character sheet if your GM is going to allow it.

Shakespearian_Soldier said:

I think it is worth remembering that while Edge of the Empire may not need rules for it, the system will eventually need to be able to generate the kind of Jedi action we know and love from the movies and supplementary media ( I like The Force Unleashed), and the system really needs to be designed around it now as trying to patch it in later will probably not work.

*I, not II, which is a hate crime

If a lightsaber hits it should severely wound, dismember, or kill. I hope they don't back down from that. Video game sabers are silly. Hit a stormtrooper 3 times? Think not. Jedi and sith can block and dodge them. Everyone else, use your ranged gadgets, learn to melee dodge, find some cortosis, or disarm them. No plan when fighting a saber should entail, "yeah I can take a few hits"

usgrandprix said:

I don't think you would want a system for Jedi duelling where 1 round in three someone (as in your character) fails their block roll and gets murderised or crippled though. It is going to feel very random and not very satisfying.

Or if block rates are up at 90% or something you could be there forever rolling attacks and defences, and then suddenly someone (as in your character) fails one and gets gutted. Also unsatisfying.

In short, ideally you want a system that reliably generates satisfying lightsabre fights and better lets them generate a decisive outcome without killing someone every time they happen. To keep the PCs alive and allow for recurring villains.

Let's not forget that they've seriously upped the lethality of EVERY weapon in this game, not just lightsabers. You're probably not going to be able to eat more than two, maybe three direct hits from a blaster pistol, and the rifles and explosive weapons are even rougher. The prospect of getting shot at is scary !

The critical wound system makes it so that you can cinematically keep on fighting, but you're definitely going to be hurting after getting nailed a couple of times with any weapon.

Cyril said:

I guess as much as anything, while that might be for this game, how is the system going to handle other playstyles where getting in gunfights and lightsabre duels is just something that happens?

AluminiumWolf said:

Like Qui-Gon? Or Darth Maul? Or Count Dooku? Or Obi-Wan? Or… pretty much ever character that we have ever watched get killed by a lightsaber? In fact, the only character I can think of ( and I am sure I might be wrong) who takes more than one blow from a Saber and comes out of it with fight left in him is Darth Vader.

It seems that the definition of lightsaber combat is that the people involved are incredibly skilled, and it only takes one blow to kill. I for one would embrace that style with all my heart, as it would allow for really cool and epic lightsaber duels.

AluminiumWolf said:

Why should it need to? There's a perfectly functional system for that kind of play style in Star Wars Saga Edition.

But obviously the system is going to handle gunfights and lightsaber duels and was built with them in mind, because they *are* going to happen. It's Star Wars after all. They're just going to be over much quicker than they are in the more recent iterations of the game. Characters and enemies don't have the health resources to fight in long, pitched battles that take half of a gaming session, and that's something I look forward to when I finally get it on the table. Being able to tell more story in a short amount of time is a wonderful thing. My Skype group just wrapped up what was nearly a year long Saga Edition campaign, playing three hours a night once a week. By the time we got around level 10-11, we had combats that spanned multiple weeks, because all of the numbers had inflated and while damage output scaled to some degree, it wasn't as fast as health resources.

*shrug*

I guess I feel there's lots of places for cinematic coolness to happen in the existing framework of these rules, jockeying for position on swoops, grappling on a desert skiff over the Great Pit of Carkoon, but always knowing that while you're the hero of the story, things can and do go badly for the heroes at times, and that's what this is going to emulate.

The system will also lend itself toward players and GM's taking a deeper interest in the particulars of a combat situation. Standing in the middle of a room next to enemies unloading a repeating blaster on full auto and hoping that the game mechanics see you through isn't really what this system is about. Trying to choke every possible advantage/boost for yourself whilst dishing out as much disadvantage/drawback to your oponents is the name of the game. Fights can drag on for a while, but only if both sides are, to quote Blane from Predator "dug in like an Alabama tick."

If a player finds themselves up against a well trained lightsaber wielder? They hopefully have one of their own, ample training, and the high ground. Or they can just test their luck and see how that holds out. Or they can try talking it out. Or they can run. Once it comes down to lightsabers, both combatants need to be at peace (or really mad and dark sidey) with the potential to get waxed on a wink of the dice.

I am hoping the shear lethality of lightsabers will make them a memorable occurance in the game. Sure characters weilding light sabers are going to be deadly, but since EotE assumes that lightsabers and the requisite training is hard to come by (not to mention a giant red flag in Imperial Space), they had better not roll a dispair symbol.

We have to assume that once rules for jedi knight careers hit the shelves, that there will be a whole host of force powers that make lightsabers both more deadly, and more epic to fight each other with. Until then, house-rule it or treat a lightsaber like the dangerous death machine that it is.

Besides, from what I've read over in the Force feedback thread, any cool lightsaber wielding individual is likely only seconds away from having an airspeeder force tossed and hit them in the chin to render their posturing and catch phrases obsolete.

Damocles346 said:

I suspect that once you try it you will see the downsides. :0)

DnD/Saga style inflatable hit points can be seen as representing this kind of fight. Attacks are not doing damage, but wearing down an opponent until the final strike that takes them out of the game.

And this has its advantages. It is more predictable - if rather than a 1/10 chance of killing someone outright, you take 10% of their hit points off, you can guarantee the fight will last ten rounds, where as with 1/10 chance of an instakill, they may be ganked on the first round, or you can keep missing the roll for ages.

Perhaps more important, you can see how they are going. If your hit points are depleting faster than your opponents, you can see you will lose and do something about it by running away or whatever. But if after an instakill round you are both still alive, well, it is exactly the same as it was before the round so you have no better idea of who is likely to win eventually.

Plus it really sucks to have a much loved character cut in half because you rolled a one on the first dice of a combat.

Now, I guess resources like fate points or whatever you can use to get you out of an instakill can mitigate this, but at that point the fate points ARE your hit points - the fight is over when you run out of fate points, same as if you run out of HP.

Or, in short, I frigging hate GURPS these days after years of trying to use it for entirely the wrong sort of games. Like, for instance, Star Wars. :-)

--

Personally I am still waiting for TTRPGs to catch up with the current thinking in video games and have 'health' regenerate if you hide behind cover for a few seconds.

Callidon said:

Well, after waiting YEARS for Space Marines to turn up in 40krpg and then having it not really work because the base system was never designed to handle them, I would suggest it might be better to assume nothing and request that these issues are addressed as soon as possible.

Agreed.

Lightsabers kill easily.

They chop off limbs without effort.

Jedi are able to parry their attacks frequently.

"Normal" characters can not.

These qualities reflect exactly what we see in the movies.

My OPINION is the physics of the RPG should reflect the physics we see in the movies whether they are "balanced" or not. GMs who do not like this can easily (and SHOULD) keep lightsabers out of the hands of players.

AluminiumWolf said:

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

AluminiumWolf said:

I've run Star Wars several times using GURPS and it always plays well with the style of the movies.

GoblynByte said:

Maybe in the next Space Marine "roleplaying" game.

Slaunyeh said:

Simmer down, guys. Ain't nothing wrong in that opinion.

Actually, AluminumWolf, I have seen systems that do something similar to the regen thing. Both 4th and 5th ed D&D have methods of taking a breather, and even SW Saga had a similar second wind that all heroic characters get. They have limits on them (Saga 1/day regain 1/4 HP, 4th ed same amount but a TON of times per day, and 5th allows you to… well, it's a bit more involved, and has options).

If one thinks of "health" in an RPG to model more than physical wounds, such as a combatants will to live, then taking a moment behind cover to collect your courage can make sense when you're healing up a bit, and I think having a bit of a limit to it makes sense (at least game-balance wise), and crit effects probably wouldn't heal right up per se.

Hey, I haven't pitched in this conversation yet, have I? ****, dudes, them lightsabers seem pretty deadly. I might throw in some extra purples to use them, or have the players find an OLD lightsaber, the kind with a belt battery from 4,000 years prior, and have it fizzle or something similar. Make 'em use those destiny points to have it charged for a scene, or even just a swing. I'll see in a few days, I'm sure.