Help me work out my lightsaber combat house rules

[Naaman]

I've been playing d6 since 96 and usually play a Jedi. At first, it was fun to plow through enemies with total invincibility, but eventually, it get's a bit routine fighting anything (even the BBEG). So, I've come up with a revision to the rules to allow for more interesting fights while still allowing Jedi to be awesome. A lot of thought has gone into these rules and I will post my reasonings in following posts. Any critiques are welcome.

Here goes:

1) The lightsaber combat force power is completely removed and replaced with the following rules (there is no longer a need to roll control and/or sense to activate).

2) The Jedi rolls his lightsaber skill to wield his lightsaber.

3) He adds or subtracts his control dice to his damage with a lightsaber.

4) Any control dice not used to modify damage can be converted to a +1 bonus on his lightsaber skill roll (declare before rolling). A Jedi with 8D in lightsaber and 6D in control could roll 8D to attack/parry and 11D damage, or could roll 8D+6 to attack and parry and 5D damage (or anything in between).

5) The Jedi rolls sense to deflect blaster bolts (sense only, no lightsaber skill). If the sense roll succeeds by a margin of 10 or more (5 or more, maybe?), he may roll control to aim the deflected bolt at a target of his choice.

[Naaman]

Designer's Notes:

After watching the movies dozens of times from a roleplayer's point of view, it seems that certain things are consistent throughout all the movies and other things that are in the rules don't really need to be there.

The rules I've come up with do several things to satisfy my desire to accurately portray the movies while still allowing a more "balanced" experience.

First, I got rid of the lightsaber combat force power because it is just too powerful. It takes the fun and excitement out of the game. On the other hand, the lightsaber is a devastatingly effective weapon and I wanted to preserve that feature. The rules I have written above are in conjunction with (or perhaps inspired) an overhaul of several force powers that provide bonuses to combat rolls, but those revisions are not essential to these rules.

Second, the movies make it clear that the more skilled or "powerful" someone is with the force, the more dangerous they are with a lightsaber. Hence, I retained the added control dice to damage. However, we also know that Jedi use the force to enhance their combat prowess and I wanted to integrate that aspect of combat seamlessly, like it is in the movies. The movies often portray characters of different skill levels facing each other in lghtsaber duels. Darth Maul, for example, may have had a higher lightsaber skill than QuiGon Jinn, but QuiGon probably had more control than Darth Maul. Using the rules above, we may assume that QuiGon had a larger reserve of control to draw upon than Darth Maul, which allowed him to fight on the same (or even higher) level. (I rationalize that Obi-Wan used a force point to defeat Darth Maul, and that Darth Maul used up all his FPs and CPs by then, so he had none to counter with). Obi-Wan vs Dooku presents a similar situation. Obi-wan's defenses were so strong that Dooku had to use all of his control to amplify his lightsaber skill, so he was left with only base damage, which is why he did not sever an arm and a leg, yet against Anakin, who was much less skilled at the time, he lopped off an arm.

As for sense being used by itself to counter blaster fire... I think it's pretty self explanatory. The lightsaber itself has nothing to do with whether the Jedi can react quickly enough to deflect a blaster bolt. Only the Jedi's senses can alert him. If he is sensitive enough to the force, he'll know in enough time to make it work.

I imposed a margin of success on the sense roll for those who want to aim the bolt back at the shooter (or other target). This is because the movies make clear that good shooters are harder to defeat with their own blaster shots than poor ones. Jango overwhelmed that one dinosaur-looking Jedi, and even Mace Windu did not pop Jango with his own blaster bolts. Whereas droids get nailed by their own firepower repeatedly.

Finally, I wanted to allow Jedi to be different from each other. If more than one Jedi is in the group, it really changes how the two of them fight if one is awesome in control and so-so in sense (the melee guy), while a Jedi with a high sense skill will be great as a ranged combatant or defensive wall etc.

For what it's worth these rules also coincide with rules I've made for each of the seven forms. And the forms fit very nicely into the game, now that the force skills each have a different function in the combat mechanics.

For example, Yoda, a form 4 user, relies much more on control, while Obi-wan relies much more on sense for his form 3.

I hope that's a clear explanation. Comments, critiques welcome.

[garhkal]

So basically they always have LS combat up since it is no longer in game..
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[Esoomian]

That does seem to be what it says so the Jedi no longer get the MAP for keeping Lightsaber combat up, they no longer need to worry about not being able to get Lightsaber combat up and they don't have to worry about being surprised and caught without having Lightsaber combat up.

However if surprised they'd probably not have the option of putting any dice into damage and any additional damage they do robs them of additional to-hit bonuses so it seems fairly balanced.

On the whole it seems benificial to younger, less powerful Jedi and it stops the more experienced jedi becoming quite as amazing.
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[Bren]

Interesting idea. This seems better than the RAW. You've done some similar things to what I and others have done to modify lightsaber combat while still allowing for much of what we see in the movies.

By totally eliminating the lightsaber combat skill you have also avoided the problem of FP doubling both the lightsaber skill and the attack and damage bonus of lightsaber combat. That may be a good route to take.

One criticism, I don't think a trade off of 1D of control damage for +1 to lightsaber skill does much to increase defense or attack however. Your example of Qui-Gon fighting Darth Maul, if Maul was 2D better at lightsaber combat Qui-Gon would need to devote 7D of control to counter that skill difference. I don't he could be that much better than Darth Maul.

I used a somewhat different take on lightsaber combat that allows the Jedi to swap dice from a pool for attack, defense, or damage. This would allow one Jedi to drop his damage down to the base 5D and counter a pretty large difference in his attacker's lightsaber skill.

[Naaman]

Well, even though this is just speculation, I don't think QuiGon would be at a 2D disadvantage against Darth Maul, but even if that were the case, I think that QuiGon could afford to drop 7D in control (because he probably has more than 10D) and still hit with (at least) 8D damage, which is almost guaranteed to kill in one hit (assuming Darth Maul has a 4D or less strength).

I originally wrote it so that control dice carried over into a +2 bonus on lightsaber, but that seemed a little over the top. I really wanted to create a situation where the player felt like there was a true trade-off... a real choice to be made between attack/defense and damage.

Another solution that I played around with was to leave control as the damage, and just add a +1 bonus per die in sense to lightsaber skill. But I like separating the melee combat and ranged combat aspects into to separate deals, so that the Jedi relies on control to fight up close, and sense to detect incoming firepower. For me, it really creates a situation where I have to really think about where I want to place my character points.

I also don't like to have to do any extra math or roll three different skills to make one attack/parry/skill check etc. I wanted to unencumber the RAW. This is the best I've been able to come up with.

[Bren]

[atgxtg]

[Bren]

[atgxtg]

[Bren]

Sorry I realized after I typed it that my last statement could be taken as a serious point. When actually I intended it only as a humorous comment.

I presume those other Jedi are NPCs so they don't get to invoke an lengthy dueling mechanic. Mace, played by a known actor, is the movie equivalent of a PC - albeit a minor PC.

[Naaman]

[Naaman]

[atgxtg]

[Bren]