aramis said:

FFS, I agree with you that a rescale needs to happen! I will be upset if it DOESN'T happen at the vehicle scale. There is NO REASON not to rescale planetary speeders to intermediate between character and starships.

I don't think there is a need to add capital ship scale for the exact same reason there doesn't need to be more than 3 force powers: IT'S NOT THE FOCUS OF THE GAME. It doesn't matter if they're in the book or not; They don't need MORE attention/balance/mechanics/effort.

If you either don't want to or can't believe that a metic sh!tlton of rules, stats, and mechanics are going to change in the subsequent releases of this game, then you're the one that could not be more clueless and you are in serious need of a reality check. Sorry you don't like it, but… well, no. I'm not sorry: It's your problem, because you disagree with what the devs decided to do, not with me. Have fun losing that argument with them.

As far as personal weapons damaging starfighters, two things: First, handguns don't do **** to military aircraft, either grounded or aloft. And they shouldn't. This part of your argument is just f*cking stupid. Second, characters should be able to damage starfighters or other heavy vehicles using…

1. Breach weapons
2. exploitation of weak points
3. Seriously heavy firepower (missile tubes, E-WEBs. etc.)

Or some combination of these. All these options are already in the game and work fine. gribble is right in pointing out where the ACTUAL problems in the system lie, and that a vehicle rescale will go a long way to solving it.

Finally, there is absolutely no reason to believe that even heavy weapons should be able to damage, let along bring down, starfighters. This is absolutely not a priority in EotE because it's not relevant to the setting 99% of the time. Further, there's no precedent for this in the movies that I can recall. I may be wrong, but I don't think I am.

Seriously, get over yourself and maybe reconsider insulting people who are fundamentally agreeing with you , even if they manage to have their head further out of their @$$ than you do when they explain why at least part of your idea doesn't belong in the game because of the devs' previous design statements.

-WJL

LethalDose said:

I see no "Fundamental agreement". I see you arguing that scaling doesn't matter - and that's Idiocy. I see you arguing that "They can fix it later" - it would be better fixed NOW, because fixing it later will piss people off.

We see small arms used against ships ineffectively repeatedly in the movies - in fact each movie except ROTJ - which people wouldn't bother with if there weren't a slim chance of success.

We see Luke chop a speeder bike in two - and it's dubious he's got a 5 skill and attribute, and needs to do a massive hit to kill a speeder in one hit.

Clone Wars also shows small arms take down a hover tank.

aramis said:

Then you're a f***ing moron because in every response I've said I agree with adding a vehicle scale between character and starship.

-WJL

aramis said:

That's not entirely accurate. Luke doesn't exactly "chop it in two" - he chops off the stabiliser on the front. Frankly a speeder bike has armour 0 and 3 hull, so he's going to do 1/3 to 2/3 of it's entire hull with a single hit with a lightsaber. And that's after the bike had already been shot at a few times, potentially also doing some hull trauma. Not to mention the obvious potential of a vicious critical on it as well.

As I said - I think it's a fair reflection what we see in the OT .

In terms of starships, I think that is a fair reflection as well. Although we see people shoot at ships in the movies with personal weapons, that could just as easily be "fishing for Triumphs", or aiming to disable components as attempting to damge them. I think the fact that we've seen zero starships damaged by personal scale weapons means the system gets starships about right.

And I've already agreed about heavy blasters not being able to hurt most vehicles, which I think needs to be toned back a touch. Personally I'm in favor of a 1:5:10 scale between personal:vehicle:starships

Why is it that personal weapons can't damage vehicles or starships? Real world examples… We lost fighters and choppers due to ground fire from farmers and others during Vietnam. Birds can bring down jumbo jets. I get that a personal scale weapon can't do a large amount of damage overall to something the size of a fighter, but they can damage critical systems to bring them down.

This is something I have yet to see any RPG system properly demonstrate. The only real scaling that applies would be to break the larger vehicles down into smaller pieces, but that makes tons of more things that need to be tracked by the GM/players.

Kallabecca said:

I don't want to sound glib, but maybe because this game is trying to simulate the Star Wars OT and not the real world?

As I pointed out above, I think it does a pretty good job of simulating what we see in the movies, and I guess with things like "aim to hit specific vehicle component" (though admittedly that does require you to do damage) and Triumph/turn the tide of battle that the ability to "damage critical systems to bring them down" is present in the game.

Even in the Star Wars universe the various craft can die the "death of a thousand blaster bolts". Even the Millennium Falcon took damage from personal weapons. It wasn't until the shields were brought up that the damage stopped.

gribble said:

What you can't do reliably is get the needed damage to a ship to be able to use the triumph.

If not rescaling, then the best solution is to declare a triumph can be used to count as 1 point of ship-scale damage when personal scale energy weapons are used against vehicles.

Rescaling now is still a much better solution.

aramis said:

I'm not even sure what that means…

I'm referring to the triumph effect that states "Do something vital to turn the tide of battle". Damage has nothing to do with it… rather using the triumph to temporarily disable a ship system, or cause it to veer off course and into something hazardous, or even be forced to land.

gribble said:

And turning the tide of battle shouldn't duplicate a prohibited effect (doing a system hit when you haven't done damage), which is why I hadn't though that way.

aramis said:

This isn't a "prohibited effect" at all. The triumph isn't being used to cause a critical hit, it's being used to "turn the tide of battle", and its up to the player to describe the use (and, in our games, for the GM to allow. We've decided that GM's can 'hijack' players' triumphs for a variety of reasons).

If a player is attacking a starship and rolls a triumph on his/her attack roll, if it it fails, s/he could choose to use it to disable a stabilizer, therefore forcing the ship to land. The ship takes no damage, takes not critical system damage, suffers no bonuses to future critical rolls, etc.

Again, it's NOT A CRITICAL HIT SO ITS NOT PROHIBITED!!!!

If the GM thinks it's an overreach, either mechanically or narratively, then he steps in, does his job, and moderates the effect.

-WJL

LethalDose said:

LethalDose said:

Yep, this is exactly the sort of thing the "turn the tide of battle" result is intended for. Note it isn't actually a critical hit, but it may be just as beneficial as one (which is IMO, not only 100% within the rules, but also 100% fair given that the triumph effect should be at least as potent as a critical).

I don't really see a problem with a triumph dealing a crit even if you did no damage. Maybe negate any viscous/deadly blows bonuses, but IMO triumph should be just that. Triumph. Despair should be equally awefuI in some way too. If despair can "break" a weapon (run it out of ammo) shouldn't triumph be capable of basically the same thing?

triumph, to me exists almost to break the rules, so let it be awesome. But that's me.

Thebearisdriving said:

aramis said:

definitely more common. But that's part of the fun.

I've only seen them come up 4 times or so, within the 6 or so games, even with generous prof dice. I think almost everytime the roll didn't actually succeed.

I almost think that triumphs shouldn't cancel in the same way as a regular success, but that might interfere with the simplicity of the games dice.

Thebearisdriving said:

Triumphs don't cancel like Successes. The Success part of the Triumph is cancelled by a Failure, but the rest of the Triumph effect is left intact.

Kallabecca said:

which made some interesting results… 1 roll, 2 triumph, 3 failures, 3 threats…

aramis said:

Prime example of how something like that might play out, Han trying to "hotwire" the bunker door in RotJ.

He blows the roll in spectacular fashion, but the player spends the Triumph to "change the course of the battle," namely by giving the NPC Ewok forces a leg-up against the AT-STs by having the walkers be lured into a series of pre-set traps. Or maybe even enabling Chewie's player to take over one of the enemy AT-STs in the first place.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Kallabecca said:

yeah… That I know. But a triumph without success is not nearly as inspiring in player minds, and there aren't enough suggestions in the book to give players a good guidance on what can be done.

It would be nice if triumph could be traded in for a success after all failures are removed, or maybe the success from a triumph could only be removed by a despair.

In the end, a better list of ideas for what triumph can do would really help to guide players and GMs to making the most from the result.

but how does Han failing his hotwire ( blowing the roll) actually influence those events. He did nothing.

I imagine it something like this:

…

Anthony: Well crap, that shot takes out r2-d2 - "My goodness! Artoo, why did you have to be so brave?".

Harrison: Hmmm… "Well, I suppose I could hotwire this thing". George, Han attempts to open the door of the bunker. That's a skullduggery roll - three proficiency dice and one ability die.

George: The bunker lock is very secure - I'll call it three difficulty dice, with two of those upgraded to challenge dice.

Harrison: Two upgrades? What the?

George: It looks like they've taken special precautions against this door being opened, even though they didn't know you were coming… you also suffer a setback die as you're in a rush, another because of the distraction of the firefight going on around you and a final one for lack of the proper tools.

Harrison: Looks glumly at all the dark dice in his pool - well, I guess I have to give it a go - I'll spend a destiny point to upgrade the final ability die.

Mark: Hey - I might need some of those, and we don't have many left - I've got to take on both Vader *and* the Emperor!

Carrie: Sighs in the direction of Mark - "I'll cover you" - George, Leia takes cover behind the bunker wall and provides Han with covering fire - does that count as an assistance on his roll, seeing as he doesn't have to worry so much about the firefight?

George: Sure, but your blaster skills won't apply, so you grant Harrison a boost die on the roll. Now, before you make that roll we'll cut BIlly in the space battle…

…

George: Back to the bunker doors - Harrison, I believe you were about to roll to open the blast door?

Han: Yep, heres my roll - I see a couple of Triumphs! "I think I got it! Got it!"

George: Not so fast - you might have got 2 Triumphs, but totalling it up I see… 3 nett failures, and 3 nett threats. Not only do you fail to open the door, but a second blast doors slams down, and… say a scout trooper gets a free maneuver to start sneaking around the bunker to a flanking position.

Han: Bugger… looks like we're in a bad position. Still, I have those two Triumphs to spend. George, looks like the storm troopers have their hands full with fighting off the ewoks and concentrating on the action at the bunker door. Can I spend them to give Chewie an opportunity to sneak up to one of those walkers?

George: Sure, there is an opening there for Peter on his next turn - we'll see what he can do with it. Not only that, but you can use the second Triumph to upgrade the next roll he makes.

Peter: Good, I'm probably going to need it with what I have planned…

George: But before that, it's the storm troopers turn - the group of minions in the front will shoot at Leia, and the scout will spend two maneuvers to sneak around from his flanking position and get the drop on Han.

…

Yes, I know that technically Chewie took the walker before the scene at the bunker doors, but as we all know things can often happen out of chronological order at the gaming table… and the stories afterwards are subject to dramatic licence…

Well done sir.

gribble said:

Seems reasonable, but I feel like his action should directly produce the results.

I suppose my POV is limitted by thinking that the triumph should be generated more directly by the character performing the actions, as opposed to the universe aligning with the group at large.

To be clear, your explanation is fine, except that the triumph feels unnatural in it's application when not stemming from the action so it seems like reaching no matter what. But that's not your fault, it's mine.

I think a guide for what triumph cannot accomplish would be handy, to say that this is not possible with triumph, so as to create a boundary. Part of my issue with the destiny is that it's not well defined, and by defining what it isn't, what effects would be outside its perview would be helpful. More than anything I'd like to see players more excited about triumph, because presently, my players are almost bummed out by triumph, where they'd rather see two successes. Just my experience.

Thebearisdriving said:

This is going to be a tough drink to swig for many gamers, Bear. ;-) But we have to remove our minds from the "d20 mindset" where we only control our own player's actions mathematically and perhaps add a bonus to another player. It's… well… "deeper" than that. Each player's rolls collaboratively tell the story, in all aspects. This means several things that are awesome for Star Wars roleplaying. It means that minor or "weak" characters (indiviudually) can still heavily influence the outcome of events.

Though I shudder to bring it up - there is one semi-recurring character in the prequels that epitomizes this: Jar Jar Binks. That character is built poorly, and rolls more threat and miss than anyone else. But it's the "story impacting" versions of his triumphs that effect everything else going on for the better (mostly).

And I don't think you're going to get a "hard list" for what you can accomplish with Triumph. I think it kinda goes against what the designers intended. You can use triumph to "Turn the Tide of Battle". That's… HUGE. And intentionally BROAD. And leaves it entirely up to the GM. :-)

As you and I have commented on these boards before, this is going to drive min-max players used to using the rules to "beat the GM" completely insane ! With any luck, they'll learn to love leaving that behind. [shrug] But the players' collective rolls (and roles) are going to influence the entire story as a whole, often indirectly or marginally - but in large ways.