New Lightsaber Combat Variant

[DougRed4]

Here's kind of the basics of where I'm at, though this is still a work in progress.

The Force powers of Lightsaber Combat and Combat Sense may not be used.

Any character may use a lightsaber as a melee weapon, using its normal damage rating of 5D. When a character with the Control skill uses a lightsaber, he may add up to ½ of his Control skill to the damage. In addition, whenever a character with the Sense skill uses a lightsaber to parry an attack, he may add ½ of his Sense skill to the total. When used to parry, this is a reaction skill.

When computing half value of a Force skill, remove any pips, half the total, round up, and then add the pips back in again.

Armor only provides half value (round down).

[DougRed4]

I'm thinking a better way to reflect armor might be that each D of protection offers 1 point of protection instead.

So 1D armor offers 1 point, and 2D armor gives 2.

[Quetzacotl]

I always thought that only energy resistance in Armor counts and that physical armor doesnt count because lightsaber is, in my opinion, more of an energy weapon then a physical.
That's also why I find it strange that so many people want to change the damage to STR+5D, because well, the Lightsaber cuts through everything (if you look at the Movies), so STR shouldn't really matter ^^

[Naaman]

u started, no? When we cirst started playing, before we knew how LSC worked, we just used the base 5D damage. Any damage at all (even just one point) represented amputation. A successfull Strength roll negated all damage, as normal.

At first glance, adding sense only to parry rolls seems like a good idea, however, what about when two Jedi fight each other? Neither will ever hit the other because their attack rolls are so much loweer than the parry rolls.

If you want to see my house rules for just for another approach, Ill look them up and post you a link. Feel free to use anything that works for you.

Here ya go: http://www.rancorpit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=112469&sid=d1faa1d1f3d4b0f85e467ae0c322fc90

[DougRed4]

[Quetzacotl]

Well, the D6 has still a huge Range.

When we ignore the Wild Die, we get the Following:

A Jedi with 8D in Lightsaber and maybe 6D in Sense would get the following (ignoring MAPs):
14D => 14 - 84 for parry
8D => 8 - 48 for attack

in the Area of 14 to 48, they can still hit each other.

If i had to guess I would say that, ignoring the Wild Die, there is still around a chance of 10% to 20% that they could hit each other. Which is still much more then what we see in the Movies.

[Naaman]

Looks like the first part of my last post got. cut off. What I said was, "reducing damage and nerfing the protection provided by armor leaves you right where you started, no?"

[jmanski]

[Naaman]

The chances of "hitting" with the lightsaber are going to depend on how you define what a single attack roll represents. Does a single roll represent a single swing? Or Does it represent all the swordplay in the space of one round (5-6 seconds).

[Quetzacotl]

Most likely the first, since you can do multiple attacks in one round.

[DougRed4]

Yes, I've always viewed each attack as one swing, hence the multiple attack rules if you decide to attack more than once.

I'm okay with it being about 10-20%, plus I figure there's a chance - if one person rolls a "6" and the other person rolls a "1" that the succeeding character could get an advantage (perhaps of up to 3D), which could then improve those odds.

Even if it were only 10-20%, that's a huge improvement over what we see right now.

[CRMcNeill]

That's why I prefer the Dueling Blades method. Lightsaber fights in the films move at a much faster pace than 1 attack every five seconds. Under Dueling Blades, a single Lightsaber skill roll represents an entire round of attack and parry, with the result and advantage going to the character who rolled higher.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

[jmanski]

I'm of the "one roll means do whatever it takes to hit the thing" school of thought. To be cinematic, I feel like one roll = one attack and one attack = any number of swings or trigger pulls or whatever.

But, in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter? You either hit or you miss. The rest is story telling.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[Naaman]

The reason I brought it up is because hit percentage was mentioned. If 90% of "attacks" in the movies miss, and we assume that one attack roll represents one swing, then it's no wonder everyone misses all the time: massive MAPs.

The best way to win a duel, therefore, is to declare only two actions: a parry and an attack. This way, you get the highest possible chance to survive your opponent's sloppy barrage of 3, 4, 5 or 6 swings, AND he's suffering significant MAPs to his parry roll. This is the ONLY way anyone should ever fight in SW, because, after all, the first "hit" wins, so you'd have to make every "swing" count.

I would tend only to use multiple attacks if there are more than one opponent to face, and I can defeat at least one of them in the first try despite the MAP. Otherwise, I stick to one attack per opponent per round. There's really no good reason to make a second attack, since declaring multiple attacks reduces the chances of ALL of your attacks hitting.