I'd love to see the Saboteur talent tree have Bad Motivator--the ability to disable a device is exactly what a saboteur does. It currently appears in the third row of both Mechanic talent trees (EoE and AoR). What do you all think of replacing Rapid Recovery or Resolve with Bad Motivator?
Saboteur Talent Tree
I'll buy it.
Seems a fitting ability to me.
Yea, it's an obvious choice for this talent tree.
The Saboteur specialization seems much more suited to the "mad bomber" type than a subtle operative. I'm not saying that we can't ask them to change that, but right now it looks like a tossed grenade is more their trademark than cut lines or loosening key bolts.
It may be more of a "mad bomber" but I can see Bad Motivator being a viable option, as things just tend to "go wrong" around this guy, akin to a similar ability the Saboteur prestige class from Saga Edition (if the attacker rolls a natural 1, their weapon no longer works until repaired).
Of course, the question becomes what to drop to make room for Bad Motivator. Thinking maybe the Row 3 Resolve talent or Row 3 Rapid Recovery talent.
With enough Resolve, dropping Stun Grenades at your feet becomes a viable way of engaging in hand to hand combat...
With enough Resolve, dropping Stun Grenades at your feet becomes a viable way of engaging in hand to hand combat...
I could see a GM deciding that Resolve wouldn't apply since you're deliberately inflicting damage on yourself via that tactic as a means to counteract the inherent cheesiness of that tactic.
Saga Edition had a similar issue with the Scout class talent Evasion that cut the damage from area attacks in half if the attack hit, or dropped it to nothing if the area attack missed. Seems quite a few players got the great idea to overcome the very short range of grenades by rushing into melee, dropping the grenade, and then relying on their typically high Reflex Defense to "miss" themselves and thus take no damage due to the talent. Got called out for the cheese that it was on an Order 66 podcast, with the very good suggestion of not letting Evasion apply in that instance.
With enough Resolve, dropping Stun Grenades at your feet becomes a viable way of engaging in hand to hand combat...
I could see a GM deciding that Resolve wouldn't apply since you're deliberately inflicting damage on yourself via that tactic as a means to counteract the inherent cheesiness of that tactic.
Saga Edition had a similar issue with the Scout class talent Evasion that cut the damage from area attacks in half if the attack hit, or dropped it to nothing if the area attack missed. Seems quite a few players got the great idea to overcome the very short range of grenades by rushing into melee, dropping the grenade, and then relying on their typically high Reflex Defense to "miss" themselves and thus take no damage due to the talent. Got called out for the cheese that it was on an Order 66 podcast, with the very good suggestion of not letting Evasion apply in that instance.
Strangely, I see Resolve being useful for such a situation as the character can 'brace himself' for the expected discharge of the Stun Grenade (I'm used to WEG where the Stun Greande released and energy discharge similar to a blaster's stun setting). I'm not saying that there isn't some cheesiness to the tactic (but not as much as Pressure Point), but it's got it's downsides too (attracts attention and is going to cost a great deal of credits to use).
HappyDaze, I agree that you could get a "mad bomber"-type feel from this specialization, but I'd argue that it's because of two factors: 1) the lack of non-explosives sabotage talents, like Bad Motivator; and 2) the fact that there's no Demolition skill, or anything similar.
The only skills we have for that are Ranged (Light) (for throwing grenades) and Mechanics (for more hands-on sabotage). It's worth noting that the Saboteur does have Mechanics as a specialization skill. I would argue that a cut line or loosened bolt would fall under the Mechanics skill, and they can get up to Rank 2 without spending XP.
I don't think the intent was to imply that the Rebellion's saboteurs are all mad bombers rather than professionals; I think what we're seeing is the limitations of the way the specialization is written. I'm not sure that a Demolition skill would get enough use to warrant its inclusion, however.
Edited by Enoch52I think a large part of the reason the Saboteur has a more "demolition" feel is because the mechanic and slicer, the two other big techniques for sabotage, are already their own specialties. While one or two things being switched around, like the aforementioned bad motivator, might be good I think the main intentian was for players to pick up those specialties if they wanted that kind of feel.
On a slightly different note about this tree. The talent that adds one blast to "explosive weapons". How do we define "explosive"? Is it common sense grenades/missiles/mines, or anything with blast (flame projectors and spread barrel weapons). I would tend towards the former but I think that the classifications need tightening there.
I agree that the Saboteur is in a bit of an identity crisis. My biggest issue is the fact that the talent tree doesn't really focus on the saboteur at all -- he gets double rank in mechanics at character creation, yet none of his talents even play off the mechanic aspect at all. It's all strain management and explosions. If I were to just see the tree, I'd think grenadier or demolitionist or something.
In my head -- the saboteur to an engineer career is like assassin to the bounty hunter tree. Rather than fixing or constructing things in a professional way (like an engineer might), the saboteur is sneaky and deceptive and smart enough to break things in a more subtle way than just blowing them up. Anyone can aim a tube missile at a computer and take the main system down -- but the saboteur would have the knowledge to know that if you exploit this weird quirk in a particular ship, you can reroute the power from the laser cannons to the hyperdrive you could warpspeed someone to their death during a gunfight (just an example, don't know if that's possible). Or maybe just removing the wiring as inconspicuously as possible to cut off hyperdrive completely, and waiting play sessions later to see the fruits of his labor as he successfully escapes an otherwise difficult encounter. And then the guile to pull it off these shenanigans -- dressing up in a mechanic's uniform, climbing through the air ducts, lock picking the door to the docking bay. Or acting as a mole in an Imperial military briefing and setting everyone off course as you explain the "new" findings for the Rebel's wearabouts. Yes, he's an engineer, but he has a sense of adventure and social skills to be much more valuable in the disruptive side of things.
Right now, I feel the tree just encourages me to stockpile grenades and take as many actions a turn as I can running around and getting into position. There's really nothing saboteur about that to me. At least build two "separate" ways to play your saboteur into the talent tree, sort of like how the smuggler has all the combat skills on the right and all the smuggling on the left.
Even on the subject of "demolitionist", he seems rather weak. I like the idea of two paths for Saboteur: a subtle path and a boom path. When I read into the specialization, I imagined boom, but I can see how the more subtle options fit well too.
As for the boom side, there really isn't much built into the rules to accommodate that. This is a game focused on war, and in war there definitely should be explosions, and lots of them. I want to be able to charge the shield generator on Endor, plant the charges, and get out of there before they go off while blasting Stormtroopers along the way. Right now, the rules don't really accommodate that.
Now I'm not advocating a complicated (or tacked on) demolitions sub-system. The way I see it, the simplest way to handle this would be a sidebar similar to the gambling sidebar from EotE. Make demolitions a use of Mechanics, where a single success rolled against the size, strength, and complexity of the target (expressed in negative dice) would mean your demolition succeeded. Boom! Advantage could mean positive collateral damage (if successful) or partial destruction (if failure) and Threat could mean negative collateral damage or partial destruction. Despair would have obvious, and epic, consequences, such as trapping yourself in the rubble or accidentally destroying your getaway vehicle in the blast.
To go along with this, the equipment section would also need a single new item: demolition charge. I don't think we need various grades of explosives or distinctive "shaped charges" or "detonite strips" or whatever. That's too complicated, the same way I don't need rules on how concrete is worth more purple dice than steel. I just want to know how heavy and expensive my charges are. It would be up to the GM to decide how many I need to complete the job, but it would be relative and not having enough or having too many would fall into the boost/setback realm. If you really want to give demolitionists toys, drop some prices for remote detonators or trip wires in there too, but please keep it as simple as possible. One item could seriously cover the whole concept.
Here's what I wrote to explain my thoughts in more detail to my PbP group, which will start play this weekend.
So say Han Solo is trying to blow up the Endor shield generator. He wants to completely destroy it, and it's a mid-sized building that is well reinforced, but it also has a pretty powerful reactor inside of it, which would make destroying it much easier. Getting to the reactor is the first step, and serves as the majority of the mission. The GM tells Han's player that he'll need 10 "explosive charges" to have "the proper tools for the job" if they can make it to the reactor. Each charge has an Encumbrance value of 2, so getting the charges there is a challenge in itself. Finally, they get there and Han prepares to make the check.
Based on the building and Han's goal, the GM decides that it is a Daunting (:Difficulty::Difficulty::Difficulty::Difficulty:) Mechanics check. He also decides that the military level construction increases the difficulty by 1, the battle raging outside grants a :Setback:, and he also flips a destiny point because it's the climax of the campaign. So the total negative dice pool is :Difficulty::Difficulty::Challenge::Challenge::Setback:.
Han has 3 Intellect, Mechanics 2, and a talent that allows him to remove a :Setback: for Mechanics checks. Chewie is also assisting him, and has Mechanics 3. Han's player assembles a dice pool containing :Proficiency::Proficiency::Proficiency::Difficulty::Difficulty::Challenge::Challenge:. By my Excel-assisted math, that gives him a 41% chance of at least 1 Success. Sounds about right to me. Now say he lost a few charges along the way. I would add a :Setback:. Say he brought even more charges than he needed. I would add a :Boost:.
If he generates Advantage, great! The blast might also take out the nearby landing pad or damage a walker. Threat? Some of his allies are caught in the blast. Triumph? The explosion is so demoralizing that some of the Stormtroopers surrender. Despair? Han gets trapped in the rubble.
This system is easily scalable to other sized explosions, simply say you need less charges. You don't need any knowledge of actual demolition techniques, and you can do the math in about a minute without having to look up any equipment qualities. I think it's extremely cinematic too! When I'm watching Star Wars, I don't want to see Han measuring the thickness of the walls or carefully placing charges on pylons. I want to see him frantically latching them anywhere they'll stick, starting the timer, and rushing out of there blasting Stormtrooopers along the way!
If it doesn't show up as a sidebar in the final copy of AoR, you'll probably see demolitions handled in Dangerous Covenants that's slated to come out the beginning of next year.
If it doesn't show up as a sidebar in the final copy of AoR, you'll probably see demolitions handled in Dangerous Covenants that's slated to come out the beginning of next year.
I'm sure it will considering there is a Demolitionist spec.