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Crimson_red
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 14 Dec 2011
Posts: 113
Location: British Columbia, Canada
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 Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2012 2:07 pm Post subject: Dealing with Force Points |
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Specifically when player's use them in the climax. Over the years I've had a slight, but repetitive problem with the use of force points during climactic encounters. On one hand, this is when I want the PCs to use them and feel rewarded for their use and I feel this is also what the system wants, but on the other hand the use of a force point can be very overwhelming, ending a very difficult encounter in a single turn if used well.
Of course this isn't necessarily a bad thing, the player who pulls it off is usually grinning from ear to ear afterward and the others often cheering them on, but I find it can undermine the nature of the encounter when the PCs struggle though an adventure only to one shot the BBEG, so to speak. Examples include:
| EXAMPLES wrote: | In a homebrew solo game the PC had to move out of fortified position through a dark and claustrophobic utility tunnel system into a charon infested colony to reactivate the power station then reach the communication facility to contact a capital ship in orbit to use its turbolasers to obliterate the charon's main hive/base/thingy and send reinforcements. The game ran fabulously with the PC running scared, especially when he spotted the Charon leader following his team (and forcing them to leave rear guards behind). Eventually he made it to the communications facility and he had to hold the charon back as his team sent the message. When the climactic moment arrived and he came face to face with the leader, he ended the threat with one force point and a single turn.
The second occurrence was at the climax of the Starfall adventure. In the final encounter with Captain Kolaff in his AT-ST, before the first round of combat began, one of the players (the same as the previous game indecently) asked for a clarification, was the view ports open or closed. Suspecting what he was thinking I was Leary to reply but felt it was fair to say 'yes, but it's practically impossible to shoot anyone inside;' if they wanted to give it a try it was up to them and the difficulty was certainly well into the heroic range. Well he went for it and succeeded in ganking poor Captain Kolaff... I forget if he had a copilot and what happened to him if he did... Anyway the PCs were able to quickly 'mop up' so to speak after that. I did flood the space with reinforcements to to give them the feeling of a hectic, fighting escape.
Admittedly in both of these cases the players loved these adventures, and loved their endings (the first game was even praised as 'the best and most atmospheric adventure' he had ever played in, and the second as 'the best ending ever' referring to the PCs blasting out of the exploding Subjugator right at midnight during a New Years Eve one-shot adventure party), by any measure I should just count my blessings and chalk them both up as wins regardless of how I feel about those end encounters. Unfortunately I've never been quite happy with them.
In another set of adventures I ran over a summer a couple years ago, I had the PCs start a planetary resistance that ending in the capture of the planetary shields and their effective independence from the empire. In the last adventure I knew I wanted an epic fight between the PCs and an Imperial Inquisitor. Knowing that Force Points would bring it to a decisive end I equipped the the Inquisitor with her own. I did get that difficult and epic encounter I always wanted, but unfortunately my players felt disappointed with the encounter.... force points eventually gave them a decisive advantage, but immediate and obvious gains were largely absent and most the force points spent were left largely unrewarded, at least on the surface. In the end the plays expressed that they wished the the campaign had ended on the previous adventure when they capture the planets central communications hub and started a planet wide uprising.
In hindsight I probably should have jacked up the Inquisitors stats to make her a more significant threat in her own right without the aid of force points (she was mostly balanced relative to the PCs, she mustered approximately 8D or 9D offense/defense after MAPs, enough to deal with all the PCs. 8d, I think, was the average pool size for the PCs). The PCs were going to spend them anyway, having a number of them and knowing it was their last encounter. |
Anyway, I was wondering if other GMs have had similar problems with force points? Do you even consider this a problem? What have you done to deal with force points, and did/does it work? What has everyone's experiences been on the subject? |
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Kaloth Varsk
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 28 Jan 2012
Posts: 121
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| Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2012 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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I find ensamble villains work better than single villains for this very reason. As both a player and a GM, I recall force points making a lot of encounters anticlimatic.
I tend to shy away from Jedis as a GM, which helps a lot. Sure, the force points are good for hitting people, but blasters still only do so much damage. Lightsabers are just insane damage, and are a key reason that the game doesn't balance well with a Jedi in the party. |
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14133
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2012 5:00 pm Post subject: |
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In any of those one on ones, did the enemy also have FP to spend? CP?
Did you even think to use them?>
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Crimson_red
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 14 Dec 2011
Posts: 113
Location: British Columbia, Canada
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| Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2012 5:26 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | In any of those one on ones, did the enemy also have FP to spend? CP?
Did you even think to use them?> |
lol, you know, I can't rightly remember. The first was from the late nineties and can't, I likely forgot. For the second I think I did, but I don't think I could take a full reaction and the original target number was greater than the following roll, like I said 'practically impossible' or so I thought.
I can't deny that is certainly the first direction a GM should turn. It was my thinking in the case of the final example. And introduces the chance of disappointment over wasting a FP. Then again, in that encounter, there were a lot of FPs flying around, not just one or two, so the risk is less otherwise... |
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Fallon Kell
Commodore
Joined: 07 Mar 2011
Posts: 1846
Location: Tacoma, WA
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 12:57 am Post subject: Re: Dealing with Force Points |
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| Crimson_red wrote: |
Anyway, I was wondering if other GMs have had similar problems with force points? Do you even consider this a problem? What have you done to deal with force points, and did/does it work? What has everyone's experiences been on the subject? |
I don't really consider this a problem, but my climactic encounters so far have been non-standard.
For example, my player's character flies fighter support off of a modified CR90 corvette. It was once attacked by a squadron of TIE bombers using proton torpedoes, and light fighter support. They were capably flown, but individually no match for my player's space superiority fighter. The issue was whether he could shoot down the squadron before they reached torpedoed the corvette to it's doom. He shot them down one and two per turn, but some of them survived long enough to get a salvo in and heavily damaged the corvette. There were five left by the time they made their second run, and my player used a force point to shoot down all five. Due to the heavy MAPs of flying the fighter in combat, and shooting at five bombers in a round he nearly missed two of them. A single torpedo hit probably would have lost him his mothership. It was exciting, and the fight lasted a few rounds, with the tables only finally turning at the end.
I use situations like this a lot. Several opponents of moderate threat are a little more resistant to FP burn, but still allow it to do something when used.
The other mitigating factor I use is simply not putting all my eggs in one basket. Right now, my player's character is stuck in a burning building surrounded by the other two factions of a three-way fight. Any exit he choses will have enemies outside, but not all of them; not even most of them. He would have to fight for awhile just to put himself in a position where he could attack all the targets at once.
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 2:06 am Post subject: |
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How did he get to shoot all 5 down before they got their first action off?
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Fallon Kell
Commodore
Joined: 07 Mar 2011
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Location: Tacoma, WA
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 2:47 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | How did he get to shoot all 5 down before they got their first action off? |
The round basically started with the TIEs passing the corvette and about to pull a half loop for their second and final attack. He was on their tails, so they had to loop, lock target, and fire before he got around to shooting them. Doable, but not easy.
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Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 11:25 am Post subject: Re: Dealing with Force Points |
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| Crimson_red wrote: | | Anyway, I was wondering if other GMs have had similar problems with force points? Do you even consider this a problem? What have you done to deal with force points, and did/does it work? What has everyone's experiences been on the subject? |
Sure it can be a problem. That is one reason some folks try to find alternate Lightsaber Dueling rules so that a duel looks more like the one in TPM or ESB rather than a single round of A and B each use a FP and now the 2D difference in skill (which allows the weaker character to barely survive by using CPs) is multiplied into a 4D difference in skill which, without the ability to use CPs, equals autodeath.
It looks like the problem you are having is a miss match in expectation between you and the players. You would like the final encounter to last more than one round and to seem tense and dramatic for multiple rounds while the players are perfectly happy to use their FP at the end to defeat the Big Bad in a single round. One reason for the mismatch is that the players, who do not know how tough the Big Bad is, may get enough emotional tension in the lead up whereas you, as the GM, know how little danger they are in during the lead up and are looking for a big finale with danger and tension. That's a natural mismatch. I often find the players, who don't know the NPC numbers or stats, find a scene far more dangerous (or sometimes far less dangerous) then I as the semi-all knowing GM find the scene. As the GM you can use description to try to clearly convey the level of threat, but at a certain point you have to just recognize the players' experience is what it is. - Long way of saying, if they are enjoying the one round one FP kills of the Big Bad, then let them enjoy it.
On the other hand, you could try the following. One thing we do, is we often describe the use of a FP more dramatic and narratively. So if both the PC and the Big Bad use a FP for a round or two and it results in a stalement for a couple of rounds, then describe the scene dramatically with near misses, last minute parries, seat of the pants flying, and other exciting things so that, rather than the player feeling like they wasted a FP, they feel like they managed to fight the Big Bad - who is apparently very big and very bad - to a standstill for a round or two rather than being hacked to pieces (blasted to bits, torn apart, or whatever). Then, assuming the PCs win by spending just one more FP than the bad guys, dramatically describe how the PCs get the upper hand at the end. That may allow both you and the PCs to meet expectations. |
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Crimson_red
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 14 Dec 2011
Posts: 113
Location: British Columbia, Canada
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 12:10 pm Post subject: Re: Dealing with Force Points |
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| Bren wrote: | | It looks like the problem you are having is a miss match in expectation between you and the players. |
I can certainly see that, but on the other hand, I too want them to be pulling out the FPs in that final encounter. Its big, its epic, its what FPs were made for. As you said, people have gone as far as customs duelling rules to stretch these things out.
For a while now, I've seen it as a bit of a balancing act, one we don't always get right. In many respects I suspect the biggest boon I can have in this regard is experience, as I learn my players and learn the system, I should get better at finding that balance.
| Bren wrote: | | One thing we do, is we often describe the use of a FP more dramatic and narratively. |
I certainly agree on that, and when a player uses a FP to a decisive end, I usual give them full narrative control to describe those ends, they don't even need to have used a FP if it was sufficiantly grand or decisive enough. They love it, for a moment they have full narrative control to describe their actions and the environment's reactions to them.
Looking back, one of my weaknesses, particularly in that last example, I have likely failed to give narrative weight to moments when a FP is used, but no decisive end was achieved. In my third example above, there were so many FPs flying around (I loved it!) that I likely did not narrate their use in a manner that sufficiently excited my players.
Something to keep in mind for sure. |
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Fallon Kell wrote: | | garhkal wrote: | | How did he get to shoot all 5 down before they got their first action off? |
The round basically started with the TIEs passing the corvette and about to pull a half loop for their second and final attack. He was on their tails, so they had to loop, lock target, and fire before he got around to shooting them. Doable, but not easy. |
So loop - 1 action (he gets to shoot 1)
Lock target/fire - 1 action..
And unless his weapons were turretted, he would also be spending an action to maneuver to stay ON their tails.
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Volar the Healer
Jedi
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Location: Arizona, USA
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 12:05 pm Post subject: |
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I don't see a problem.
I thought that's how force points SHOULD be used - to strike down the big bad guy. In heroic fantasy the hero always has to wade through a sea of minions to get to the big bad guy. The big bad guy knows the players are a threat to him, something NPCs aren't, which is why the big bad guy always sends his minions after the players first - he's afraid. All bullies are cowards.
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Zarm R'keeg
Commander
Joined: 14 Apr 2012
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Location: PA
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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I think that some just express their remorse that using the climactic Force Point doesn't just make the boss battle easier, it more or less causes a complete anticlimaxing by resolving it too quickly. Which is sadly true, but- as you point out- that's exactly what they're there for. So, even if there is no middle ground, it's just something that we as GMs need to learn to live with; sometimes our ultra-fantastic final confrontation will be over in 2 seconds- that's just the way of things. 
(Meanwhile, sometimes some random punk will take out your players unexpectedly, or your young Jedi will decide to slice the weapon an enemy is hauling out from it's hiding place without stopping to make sure that it isn't a rocket launcher... so the game has a way of evening things out. The climaxes can be brought low, but the background splash-of-color Thug #2 can unexpectedly turn into a player-killer.)
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Fallon Kell
Commodore
Joined: 07 Mar 2011
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Location: Tacoma, WA
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: |
So loop - 1 action (he gets to shoot 1)
Lock target/fire - 1 action..
And unless his weapons were turretted, he would also be spending an action to maneuver to stay ON their tails. |
I run turning in tight formation as basically taking a turn. He, meanwhile, had enough distance to not have to turn.
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 8:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Zarm R'keeg wrote: | but the background splash-of-color Thug #2 can
unexpectedly turn into a player-killer.) |
Assuming thug 2 has a FP to spend 
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