Powerplaying?

[Mamatried]

I have been in several discussions on powergaming and what is and is not a reasonable starting level for a beginner character.

in WEG D6 we have "all" skills with at minimum Attribute rank.

Dexterity: 4D
ALL Dexterity skills are at 4D.

Which is to me fairly reasonable.

Then I was looking over FFG star wars, it seems to me that is is a board miniature game "converted" into a rpg ish thing, with rules that in no way reflect the star wars setting.

I Argued that a recruit (my background) would have training (as in canon) BEFORE becoming his class
This issue came when my character wanted to use the training used in the academy to pilot a walker.....I didn't have the skill and was thus "worse" at this than someone never having trained with a walker, because they had more green dice.

I argued that because of training I should have the skill to 1, regardless of what the class offers as skills, because it is background and training.

In FFG you can be a pilot with no flight training, or a warrior with no combat training...etc.

I feel that a starting character should be reasonable powerful at start.....

To me a 20 yr old beginning character should be at least as powerful as an average 20 yr old of his species/type or what ever.

However is seems to me too many GMs are somewhat in the mindset that a starting character is an infant and must learn skills at the age of 20 , skill everyone knows from growing up.

To me the FFG system is a good system but in no way shape or form fits with star wars.

Look at starship sizes, you have tiny tiny fighters LARGER or equal in size to HUGE @$$ fighters......

To me the system is wrong when 8M long ships are longer than 15M ships
or when a coat of paint cost an external hardpoint.
The list goes on

How can you explain that knowing ALL skills is not the same as being overpowered.
And why do Starting characters have to be "blank" while others same age, less "in game exp" having more or better reflecting kills to training.

I find it odd, that is other systems a Diplomat can only have shooting guns as a hobby and get good at it by quitting his job and taking another, rather than training his gun skills and still keeping his job.

I would argue that a taxi driver with shooting guns as a hobby and shoot A LOT with his pistol, is better pistol shot than the infantry man who trains his rifle skill and hardly every use the pistol.
Rifle in this case the infantryman would win.
So how is it that people say WEG D& is so overpowering?

[Zarn]

It's basically that all characters are NOT created equal in WEG d6 that is the reason why WEG is sometimes considered overpowered. That, added to the Jedi problem - Force trained characters tend to dominate the battlefield when the first hundred-two hundred XP or so have been awarded - means some have strong opinions on the area.

One classic example is the "Blasterproof Wookiee", i.e. the inherent trouble with a STR 6D character. Another is the "Blasterproof Barabel", i.e. the inherent trouble with a character that gets bonuses to resist blaster fire and has a decent STR score to begin with. And then there's the races that have more than 12D standard, such as the very munchkin-prone Noghri race.

Generally, WEG Star Wars is much more 'pulp' in its form than the FFG Star Wars system (or the Genisys system, if you rip out the Star Wars part). Following the storytelling traditions of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Doc Savage, and whatever means that "I can't repair this, I've never seen it before" happens less often and you're firmly in "of course this plane can fly backwards; just give me a couple of hours!" territory.

People with no marksman training but fair coordination are decent shots from the get-go (high DEX). If you've flown a T-16 Skyhopper, you can fly an X-Wing. Never mind the extra bits and bobs with the hyperdrive and weapon systems. And so on and so forth. WEG doesn't worry too much about it. FFG tries to say something about it - which ends up being odd in some cases.

Of course, most of those who frequent THIS board have long since made their choice. In a galaxy far, far away.

[Mamatried]

I feel that the geneys system in star wars does NOT allow for one who have flown Skyhoppers to "be able aka skilled" in the x wing.

Also it makes sense in star wars thaat very few anything is really new, given the 50 000 years of what is to us at least super hi tech.
20 000+ years of hyperdrive and a society where thech is everywhere.
The is seems to me that once you do a genesys character they can breathe and walk, but need a skill to run.

I quit my group over a lightsaber issue.
I argued that I could BLOCK attacks without any feats or talents, but with skill alone...and I agreed that to redirect energy you needed training.

I can BLOCK or rather make a parry which is a block, with a sword using the skill alone, but not a lightsaber.......making the skill void in that system.

It is like I have to get xp and gain levels and talent to use the switch on the side of the gun that decides the semi or auto..........
When I was in the army it required no additional training......in FFG it needs 1 million XP.

This is where I like the pips.........it is not being skilled "fully" but reflects having some training in the skill(attribute).

If a canon character can not do what they do in canon in the game system then the game system is wrong for the setting.

That said for other game settings, like firefly the geneys system is awesome, it is just not in any way star wars.

[garhkal]

[Mamatried]

But are blasters THAT fast? I will argue I can toss a ball faster, but maybe not longer.

As to recruits, yes it would depend on branch of service, but that is about it.

Lets take rebels, they were getting wedge, then still in traning aka NOT a pilot as in having the class, but the skill, in this case ( for the system) the 2 background skills, or addtional skills for human.
They would cover a general flight training IF we call that phase of the character s in the academy and once the cahracter is finished...as in added the class skills and xp etc then the character is ready.

If wedge, did not use his addtional 2 skills on piloting, he would by the rules be a pilot without the skill which makes no sense......as he would not have a skill package like in D6 where also every day stuff and other stuff counts.

I would not I think enjoy a game where a pilot can ONLY fly, a gunner can only shoot, a diplomat is the one only one not making grunting sounds etc.

I can't see why skills should have different costs, be locked to classes, why a holovid celebrity named chuck norris, can't chuck his norris....becyse his existance is impossible.

Look at the falcon, by FFG ruels it can not exist as it is far too modified for the 4-6 hardpoints..that also include paint and change of cd player.

Nah I have to say having played all the SW RPGs the D& one despite its flaws is the best one and the one making most sense to me

[Dredwulf60]

[Mamatried]

[Kytross]

The argument can be made that blaster bolts are slowed down on screen to let the audience see what is happening, much like adding sound into the space battles.

Or you can argue that you are seeing the afterimage of the bolt itself, much like when swinging a lightsaber the blade has an after image.

At a sufficiently high skill level it would be theoretically possible to parry a blaster bolt with a lightsaber, much as master swordsmen can cut bullets in half.

And yes, D6 is the best system around for Star Wars.

[Whill]

As someone who has a lot of the books, who's played it once with an experienced GM, and who's run it once, I can say that the FFG Star Wars game system sucks. It's not good for Star Wars, but I can't imagine any setting or genre I would like to play an RPG for using this system. It's oppressively crunchy. They took WotC's d20-based SW game's business model to a whole new level. Instead of making a big book of alien species, they give you three or four new species per book, and there are even some duplicate species between the different sub-lines. And I hate the dice (I have four sets of them). But the artwork's good. FFG's Star Wars is the third top selling RPG after D&D and Pathfinder. I think that it is safe to say that is mostly because it is Star Wars.

[garhkal]

[Zarn]

Using on-screen data, blaster bolts fired in an atmosphere seems to travel at about 130 mph (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukokXOTFabM) while blaster bolts fired in a vacuum seems to travel quite a bit faster (https://www.wired.com/2012/05/star-wars-blaster-speed/).

I've always considered that to be a Rule of Cool thing - I would expect blaster bolts to travel at least as fast as bullets, but it might be interesting if the density of the atmosphere impacted the speed of the projectile itself to a significant degree.

[Mamatried]

I am quite sure it is meant for blaster bolts to be slower than normal slugthrower bullets.

After all, in this rule set, and rightfully so a slugthrower projectile is both unblockable and untraceable.
Hence why to assassins in the galaxy use slugthrowers.
And why this overly effective against jedi.

I would argue that even at 130km/h if this the on planet speed of a fired blaster, then this matches quite well with the visual star wars we all know

[garhkal]

The only reason WE see the bolts is for cinematography. NOT indictive that bolts are slower than even the slowest bullet.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Mamatried]

[Kytross]

You're not dodging the blaster bolt or the bullet. You are reacting to the actions taken by the person doing the shooting. You are reacting to them bringing the weapon on target. You are reacting to them drawing the weapon. You are not reacting to them moving their finger slightly to fire the weapon, you don't have enough time.

If a shooter already has you in his sights with his finger on the trigger there is no realistic way to know when or if they are going to move that finger a fraction of a centimeter. You cannot dodge. If you start to move, even slightly, and the shooter is prepared to kill you, then he will shoot, and if his aim is good, you will die.

In the fantasy world of Star Wars, you can use the force to know the shot is coming. That gives you 5 seconds to dodge the bullet.

We use the idiom 'dodged a bullet' even though we are not dodging the bullet.

We use idioms for all sorts of things. The sun does not rise, the earth rotates, yet we still call it a sunrise.

Having said all that, and acknowledging that blaster bolts probably work like tracer bullets, you are seeing the after image of the flash, not where the bullet itself is, if you still want blaster rounds to move at 130mph,, or kph, it's your game, do what works for you.