Attacking a Weapon

[CRMcNeill]

As part of my melee combat rule system, I have been looking for ways to balance out weaponry. For instance, a light-staff (Darth Maul's weapon) is more difficult to use, but provides added bonuses on attack and defense, due to the wielder having multiple blades with which to work. Directly attacking your opponent's weapon is rare, but it does happen in the films, which should make it a viable tactic in a game. As such, some points occur:

1) Per the RAW, all weapons have a Strength of 2D to resist damage. This is appropriate, IMO, as a weapon is not guaranteed to become more resistant to damage if it is larger than other types (indeed, the opposite may actually be true), but how do you handle weaponry that is constructed of some metal like phrik or cortosis alloy that can block a lightsaber blade? Simply make it immune to energy damage?

2) An interesting possibility for counterbalancing certain weapons is to make them easier targets to hit based on their size. For instance, a light-staff, for all of its advantages, could be more vulnerable to a strike against its hilt than a standard saber, simply by dint of being a larger target.

Thoughts?
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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]

The book already has called shot penalties based on the size of the item.. so striking a staff (1m+ size) incurs no more penalty than a base -5 to hit.. while hitting something say in the 7cm size bracket (one of those ionic tinglers lets say) gets you a -4d penalty.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]

Yeah, but where is the fun in that?
_________________
"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

[DougRed4]

Yeah, I think it works well the way the RAW spell it out. But I do agree that a larger item is generally easier to hit than a smaller one.

garhkal, attacking something the size of a full staff (something a full meter long) wouldn't have any penalty at all.

The hilt of Maul's double-bladed lightsaber (which supposedly is two lightsabers fused into one) would at most be about 56 cm. (as a normal lightsaber is about 11 inches/28 cm.); at that size it would fall into that 'no penalty' range (per 2R&E). Anything longer than 50 cm. (so 20 inches) is no penalty, while stuff 10-50 cm. (the length of a normal lightsaber) suffers a +1D to the difficulty.

[Naaman]

As for phril, you might say that only the lightsaber's base damage applies, or that only the control damage applies, whichever makes more sense to you. I would apply only the control damage.

[garhkal]

[vanir]

Our House rule is based on RAW for "aimed/prepared shots": a full round of preparation/aiming gives +1D bonus (plus modifiers like stock/scope, bracing, etc.). We extend this by saying instead of a random attack bonus to skill, you can pick an aimed hit location instead, eg. a "called shot" to the head at no attack bonus but transfer it to a +1D damage bonus. Further extension is taking this aimed shot within the combat round, at a -1D attack (MAP) penalty for a +1D damage bonus (plus location based soak modifiers). It's just moving around RAW values for applied circumstance and satisfies us, as a concise interpretation of expanded RAW.

We try to make most of our House rules like this rather than overcomplicate combat rounds with multiple rulesets, keeps the action quicker and PC declarations more adaptable without stalling gameplay for yet another custom ruleset for every new circumstantial variation of standard combat manoeuvres. At the point where a 15-second combat takes 2 hours of gameplay you get wise to these things.

Typical item strength is 2D sure. You can reinforce melee weapons with neutronium for 3D item strength, that can help.
Force-tempered weapons are listed as virtually indestructible by any normal means (hence sithswords survive millennia in perfect usable condition), that's where their ability to parry lightsabres (and ranged attacks) comes from, they simply never roll item damage. My House rule (described in EU) is that Force-tempered items can only be destroyed by meeting special RP conditions (such as tossing the One Ring back into the fires of Mordor).
The expanded ruleset Force power, Force Weapon (EU based) gives this property for its duration to a normal melee weapon (stated that doing this allows the weapon to parry all ranged attacks as well as parry lightsabres and gain lightsabre combat power bonuses to the melee weapon).
Echani weapons (cortosis alloy) parry lightsabres but aren't listed as capable of parrying ranged attacks, whereas Sithswords are. So it's up to a GM ruling, I think it's inferred they parry the Force-component of a lightsabre blade rather than contain an energy immunity, but my own House rule because I like echani weapons is they are immune to energy.

With specialised melee/lightsabre construction, we give a base modifier for the construction type, eg. duelling sabre/sword +1p attack bonus, double bladed sabre/blade +5 parry bonus; but then change the modifiers if the character is specialised for the type, ie. lightsabre: double bladed specialisation substitutes the modifier for +1D parries and +1D damage; a melee combat: fencing specialisation using a custom duelling sword (hilt modifications) gets +1D in melee vs other swords but -1D to dodge ranged attacks whilst in melee, whereas the lightsabre specialisation for the duelling lightsabre is Form II and simply combines the listed bonuses to +1D+1 vs other lightsabres and -1D to ranged parries.
Generally we tend to follow the guideline that if you add a bonus here for things like style specialisation you should impose a penalty somewhere else for game balance. But with modified equipment you can just get a minor bonus for spending more time/credits/trouble getting the item made to order.


I assume what you're trying to replicate in gameplay is Obi Wan's damage to Darth Maul's lightsabre. Seems to me that might already be arguably in RAW if you factor in a catastrophic mishap on Maul's parry that round. Skilled enough to still be successful, but catastrophic mishap means oops, he blocked it with the handle instead of the blade. Took no damage, but broke the weapon. Luckily it was two-in-one.

[DougRed4]

[garhkal]

It was more i was trying to put out both the book rules AND my hr (the +5) both together... so i can understand the confusion.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!