-= OBLIGATION =-

STEP 2: OBLIGATION

Explaination of what Obligatio is can be found on page 30 in the rulebook.

A player can either roll the 1D100 Dice to randomly get an Obligation or he/she choose one that fits his/hers characters description. The table is marked as 2-1 on page 30.

STARTING OBLIGATION

Each character start the game with 1 in Obligation. Players may choose to increase the size of their character's starting Obligation in order to gain additional starting experience and/or additional credits to purchase starting gear.

ADDITIONAL OBLIGATION

Default +1 Obligation +2 Obligation
default species starting XP +5 XP +10 XP
500 starting credits +1000 starting credits +2500 starting credits

Note that a character can only benefit from one source of bonus and a player can therefore only buy the +5 XP OR the +10 XP, not both. Same goes for starting credits. In total, maximum starting Obligation for any one character will be 5.

Adam wants an experienced and wellgeard character so he chooses to get both the +10 XP and the +2500 starting credits. This gives his character an Obligation of 5.

Therese is satisfied with her species starting XP but want a little extra cash, so she gets the +1000 starting credits. This gives her character an Obligation of 2.

OBLIGATION IN PLAY

Whenever a character is confronted with the nature of his Obligation he will at the GM's discretion suffer a number of Setback Dice equal to his/her Obligation value. A character with obligation towards a Debt could suffer Setback Dice when dealing for a reward, prices or just haggling with his broker. A character with Obligation towards Criminal could suffer his obligation value in Setback Dice when dealing with the law.

COUNTER SETBACK DICE

Having extra Setback Dice is never good, and perhaps a character has a very steep value in Obligation that the player wish to compensate for. He/she can do so by immediately suffer 2 strain per Setback Dice he/she wish to ignore on the roll.

Example in play: A character with Obligation 5 towards Family is being confronted by a knows gang that say they kidnapped the characters family and that they now want money. It is a nerv-vrecking situation and the GM decide to give the player's character 5 Setback Dice since this is in line with the characters Obligation (he really loves his family). The player however do not wish to roll the skillcheck to persuade the gang to release his family with a full 5 extra Setback Dice so he decide to lower the amount with 3, taking a heavy 6 strain hit on his character. Negotiations fail non the less due to a bad roll and the character has no choise but to blast his family free, but as combat begins he have still lost 6 strain and one of the gangers have his blaster set for stun…

-= SOAK =-

I houserule that all armors get another 2 more soak, except Heavy Battle Armor that gets 3 more soak. Simply to make armors better and actually be able to soak at all since Pierce always is a static value of 2. Also, if you intend to be in alot of combat it makes more sense that you invest in a good armor then just rely on being pumped.

This would mean that the following armors change their stat to the following:

TYPE DEFENSE SOAK
Heavy Clothing 0 3
Adverse Environment Gear 0 3
Padded Armor 0 4
Armored Clothing 1 3
Laminate 0 4
Heavy Battle Armor 1 5

-= AUTO-FIRE =-

A weapon with Auto-fire can be set to shoot in rapid succession and potentially spray an area with bolts, flechettes, slugs or other type of projectiles. Attacking with a weapon on Auto-fire is generally less accurate and the attacker must increase the difficulty of his attack roll by 1 difficulty dice.
The advantage in using Auto-fire is that it has the chance to hit multiple targets or strike a single target multiple times.
(as per original text on page 105, following is my houserule)
Auto-fire requires one success to activate and can be activated multiple times. Each time it does so, the weapon deals an additional hit to the target or another target engaged with the first target (if he selects additional targets, see page 137 for the rules covering walking fire). Each of these hits counts as an additional hit from that weapon, and each hit deals base damage of the weapon used. Any advantages scored during an Auto-fire can be used just like normal.

Example in play: An Agility 4 shooter with Skill of 3 would on an avarage score 4 Success and 3 Advantage. Correcting for avarage difficulty it would end up on 3 Success and 2 Advantage. In total 3 hits with the base damage on either 3 diffrent targets engaged with eachother or up to 3 hits on a single target and the shooter could immediate perform an free maneuver (cost 2 advantages).

Given the game is still in Beta and changes are still likely, it seems kind of premature to be making such broad "house rules," particularly as the very things you take issue with might be changed or resolved in an upcoming update.

I'll be blunt and say I really don't see the need to make all the various changes that you're proposing, especially as the rules are well over a month away from being "finalized" (based upon the December 1st cut-off date for feedback submissions).

I'll be blunt and say I really don't see the need to participate in an 17 pages rant about Lightsabers with all the various changes that you're proposing in that thread either, especially as the rules are well over a month away from being "finalized" (based upon the December 1st cut-off date for feedback submissions).

But each for his own I guess. I just want to shine extra light on to what me and my players find to be in the most need of a change. Thats all.

In order:

The obligation change is interesting. I don't like that it is triggered only by being "confronted with the nature of his Obligation", as that makes too much like flaws in other game systems, which are too easy for players to ignore by just avoiding getting in those situations. One of the things I really like about obligation in EotE (as opposed to flaws in other systems) is that you're pretty much guaranteed that you will be effected by it over the course of a campaign, and whether or not a player is effected can't be gamed around. That being said, obligation triggering did seem a little passive and weak, in the one session it's happened so far, so I kind of like the idea of an alternative mechanism like setback dice as opposed to reducing strain threshold (which also doesn't interact that well with other game mechanics and tracking).

The increased soak from armour I don't like. If anything, the main problem with soak is that it can get too high, and this change only makes that worse.

I also don't like the autofire change, for a couple of reasons. First, it doesn't do anything to bring the power of it against a single target under control. Secondly, it makes it inconsistent with all other weapon qualities that are triggered by advantage.

Ruskendrul said:

Then perhaps the title of the thread is misleading. By using "Houserules" in the subject, it can very easily be construed that you've stopped caring about what FFG does in regards to the Beta process. That and FFG is probably more likely to see your remarks in the various feedback threads.

But like you said, to each their own. I'll not bother your thread any further.

Obligations: I don't see the need for these changes, simply because they - in my opinion based on how I understand your write up - makes it less of a role playing element and more of a mechanic punishment. The logic isn't flawed, I just think it puts too much focus on the obligation as a mechanic - whereas I prefer it to help plot twists - and roleplaying happen - not necessarily as a rules mechanic punishing so dramatically, and potentially pointlessly.

Soak: Not needed - as I see it - when you look to other threads on how to turn a brawn character into ignoring most damage - adding these rules would make them invincible barring a lightsaber attack. With those additions a brawn 6 wookie - not a great feat to make after a few sessions of play - with a heavy battle armour would ignore 1 point of UCT damage… I just think its over powered armour, but that's me.

Autofire: I'll just say I agree with gribble…

I kinda like your obligation rules … but not so much the other suggestions, I actually like that armours are not THAT great in this game … since it just doesnt allign with the movie fluff to have all the heroes running around in battle armour … a silly cinematic rule I would even contemplate would be to say that armoursoak = Max of Armour OR ½ Presence - if u notice pretty people just dont wear big armours … just like in Warhammer 40K charismatic leaders dont need to wear helmets LOL

If the man wants to post his house rules, let him. I don't think he needs scorn for it. Feel free to critique his house rules, but to say it's pointless to post them is just….pointless.

Sturn said:

I was told that this is called the “yes, and rule” and it is the opposite of the “no, but rule.” Essentially add something constructively.

I have not thought much about soak, but what about:
[1] The higher of the Brawn or armor’s soak. Perhaps with a minimum of a +1 bonus from armor.
[2] Perhaps some (half) or all damage negated by soak becomes strain.
[3] Perhaps all hits do at least 1 point of damage.

As for obligation I want rules for how often you gain or loose it.
[1] I think every time your obligation is rolled that it should go down by 1.
[2] I think you should be made offers by the GM to gain stuff for obligation.
[3] I do not like the group obligation = infamy bit.

gribble said:

Jegergryte said:

Oups sorry about that. It should been stated that I also do not allow Brawn to be counted towards soak, as we use soak you can only get it from armors. My bad, seems the copy/paste did not agree with my fingers.

It is not that I do not like that Brawn can soak, only that it is to easy to make a soak-monster that will be pretty much immune to conventional weaponry. Putting a larger focus on armors would compensate for the lack of an attribute soaking and still let people interested in combat, suit up, and blast of.

darkrose50 said:

I really like the way you think regarding soak when it comes to soaking. If a person wearing a bulletproof west get hit in the chest by a handgun chanses are you will not die, but you will be either knocked down or knocked out. I did not quite understood your [1] but your [2] and [3] is excellent. This would mean even a min-maxed soakmonster would still have to worry about hits. Sure, he would soak pretty much all or all damage but some would convert to Strain, say half soaked, meaning a min-maxed Wookie could still be handled (still with great difficulty) with out being "Oh, now I need another E-web to bring him down" and not to mention what said weapon would do to the rest of the group.

On your Obligation I think you are very close to the core but still making good points, especially [3] witch is one of the main reason I houserule Obligation when we play to a more narrative mechanic choosen by the player and with an effect that can be carried out as opportunity arise, not due to a random dice-roll before anything even happend.

Right, I see. Considering removing the brawn-to-soak mechanic this could work. My only worry is that my non-combat like characters will be even weaker in combat. I'd suggest keeping the original soak values, and use half brawn - round up - as soak, which mean everyone will have 1, and no one higher than 3 (unless a cybernetic implant increaseing brawn justifies increased soak - this I don't know). Its a small table if people feel the math's a problem:

• Brawn 1-2; Soak = 1
• Brawn 3-4; Soak = 2
• Brawn 5-6; Soak = 3

Armour adding to this in the normal way would limit the soak monsters. On a side note I must say I like the idea of armour soak converting to strain - not sure it's a point though. I guess I'm semi-blessed with no min-maxers.

Yeah, I like the idea of 1/2 Brawn plus original armour values.

I originally liked the idea of the higher of armour or Brawn, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to encourage weaklings to wear armour and front-line fighters (more likely the have high Brawn) not to… which seems a bit skew-whiff.

Jegergryte said:

Its not a bad idea … However, unlike in most fantasy settings where I normally believe armour should be GOOD … and emphasising both its advantages and disadvantages is a major thing for me … I do believe that in SW in order to stay with the atmospfere armour should NOT be too good …I mean NONE of the heroes from the movies runs around in armour!! - and they only wear stormtrooper armour to disguise themselves dumping it as soon as staying disguised is a moot point … so thematically I would even be completely fine with saying armour soak = max of ½PRE or armour (assuming our heroes from the movies were somewhat charismatic, it would then make sense for them to dump their armour) …whereas from a "realism" pow this would ofcause be nonsense …

regarding soak in general - one worry I have is that at the moment unless you are a melee forcussed character pretty much the only reason anyone really has to raise brawn is to increase soak … IMO the increase to wounds is pretty insignificant …if you detach the major part of soak from the brawn stat, why shouldnt everyone play twilecks or boothans with brawn 1?? Agility and Cunning are already very very good stats … with IMO Will and Brawn being the underdogs … - If we reduce brawn importance for soak … I would personally feel that it should be increased in importance in some other way - perhaps going back to having melee being an opposed check with Melee(brawn) vs. Melee/Brawl (Brawn)??

Ruskendrul said:

After several playtests our group now abandoned the initial Soak system. First we have dumped Brawn as a contributer to Soak, making it a little less of a one trick pony to a strong trick pony since it it even without out soak it will still boost Brawl and Melee damage, Skillchecks, Wounds and carrying capacity.

All armors in the game are at vanilla values and still provides soak, just as normal.

Since a normal character has Brawn 2 and a more combat oriented character usually has at least 3 in Brawn we instead lowered the over all damage on all Weapons. In avarage we lowerd the weapons damage with 2 or 3, but some got an even larger cut to make sure the game would feel somewhat balanced but still just as deadly as the vanilla numbers.

Holdout Blaster from 5 to 4
Light Blaster Pistol from 5 to 4
Blaster Pistol from 6 to 5
Heavy Blaster Pistol from 7 to 6

Blaster Carbine from 9 to 7
Blaster Rifle from 9 to 7
Heavy Blaster Rifle from 10 to 8
Light Repeating Blaster from 11 to 9
Heavy Repeating Blaster from 15 to 12
Bowcaster from 10 to 8
Ionization Blaster from 10 to 8
Disruptor Pistol from 10 to 8
Disruptor Rifle from 10 to 8

Slugthrower Pistol Unchanged, still 4
Slugthrower Rifle from 7 to 6

Bola/Net from 2 to 1

Flame Projector from 8 to 6
Missile Tube unchanged, still 20
Frag grenade unchanged, still 8
Stun Grenade unchanged, still 8
Thermal Detonator unchanged, still 20

Brass Knuckles from +1 to 0 (we also rule that unarmed damage inflict Strain but if you wear Brass Knuckles you inflict wounds)
Shock Gloves unchanged, still +0

Rest of the Melee weapons we did not see any reason to change at all.