Difficulty of Parrying a Blaster Bolt

[Naaman]

[Naaman]

One thing I'd like to point out here:

We go to a lot of effort to "make realistic" the rules.

But in reality, if you're being shot at from opposite sides, the best thing you can do is get out of the way: then your enemies will shoot each other.

It's easy to lose track of the idea that a missed blaster shot is still deadly: it's just not damaging the intended target.

If shooters are going to "tactics" the Jedi to death, they need to be held to similarly "realistic" standards. Flanking a Jedi on opposite sides puts them at risk of hitting each other with any stray shots (especially if we're talking about auto-fire weapons or otherwise bombarding the Jedi with "overwhelming" firepower). It becomes in your ally's best interest for the Jedi to deflect all of your shots (and in your best interest for all of your ally's shots to be successfully blocked), which kind of defeats the purpose of shooting at the Jedi in the first place....

[atgxtg]

[atgxtg]

Just another thought, but shields have a rating that get added to the soak of the target. So, what if lighsaber parry did something similar, either by adding the lightsaber's damage die to the Jedi's soak total or by subtracting the damage dice from the damage rating of the incoming attack? That way it would become more difficult to successful deflect bigger, more damaging bolts.

After all even Yoda can't deflect the Death Star.

[Bren]

While I don't necessarily roll it out, I do at least mentally compare the damage rating of the Jedi with lightsaber combat with the damage rating of the incoming attack. Long ago one of my players had their Jedi parry a blaster cannon (either from an AT-AT or an AT-ST). She used a Force Point not to up the parry roll, but to up the control damage bonus so the lightsaber damage was similar in magnitude to that of the walker.

[garhkal]

[Naaman]

That's not a bad idea.

[atgxtg]

[CRMcNeill]

[CRMcNeill]

Parrying energy blasts of higher scale can get pretty complicated, but I prefer a system that at least allows the Jedi to attempt it. A flat prohibition based on static dice levels circumvents the randomness of the dice, and the ability of characters to selectively boost their dice rolls via CP or FP. IMO, putting absolute prohibitions on characters goes against the spirit of the game; far better to put the Difficulty extremely high and let them try if they like.

A factor which has been addressed before is that the degree of miss will also be a factor. The example of Yoda parrying the Death Star is extreme to the point of being a reductio ad absurdum fallacy, but it does highlight the point I'm trying to make:

1) In order to attempt to parry a superlaser blast from the Death Star, the blast would have to strike somewhere within a ~2-3 meter radius of the Jedi's location, and the larger a blast gets, the less likely it is that it will do so.

2) Because of the amount of energy involved, precision accuracy isn't exactly necessary, as blast radius splash effects can be sufficiently lethal to smaller scale targets just by getting "close enough."

IMO, the simplest way to handle this is just to apply the Scale modifier to the difficulty to parry, which represents both the Difficulty of the Jedi successfully being in a location where they can parry and the larger, more energetic nature of the beam itself.

So, sure, Yoda can try to parry the Death Star, but he's looking at a 24D modifier to the Difficulty to do so.
_________________
"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

[CRMcNeill]

Missed this one somehow...

[garhkal]

[CRMcNeill]

A quick summation of the different modifiers...

1) A Jedi with Lightsaber Combat 'up' can parry all the blaster fire from a single fire arc at Easy Difficulty.

2). The Jedi's skill level is subsequently penalized if they must defend additional fire arcs:
One Arc: -0D
Two Adjoining Arcs: -1D
Two Opposing Arcs (Front/Rear or Left/Right): -2D
Three Arcs: -3D
Four Arcs: -4D

Optionally, this can be treated as multiple actions, with the defense of each arc rolled separately as a standard action for MAP purposes.

3). A single shooter firing semi-auto weapons may attempt to overload the Jedi's defenses by declaring a barrage attack, firing off as many accurate shots as their skill level permits. This is rolled just like the RAW for lightsaber vs. blaster, but the blaster shooter expends 1 round of ammo for every 3 points by which their Blaster roll exceeded the base Difficulty for their range to the Jedi.

4). Multiple shooters may coordinate their fire as per the RAW, with the bonuses added to that of the shooter with the highest skill level. Multiple shooters who are not coordinated may also combine their fire, but only receive 50% of the coordination bonus, rounded down.

5). Any weapon with Auto-Fire dice may add that value to their roll to hit the Jedi.

6). Shotgun-type weapons firing a spray of pellets also present major difficulties to Jedi, adding an additional 3D to the shooter's Gunnery roll to overcome the Jedi's parry.

7). Finally, larger-scale weapons apply their scale modifier to the Jedi's Difficulty to parry.

8 ). In addition, there are several types of weapons (flamethrowers, chem-sprayers, etc) that can't be parried by lightsabers at all.

So, it starts out pretty easy for the Jedi, as their defenses are pretty much immune to 1 or 2 shooters in a single arc, but as the numbers, types and directions of threats increase, so too does the Difficulty of deflecting all the shots.
_________________
"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]

Sounds about right, but i still feel, opposing arcs should be a lot harder to defend than just defending 4 arcs is..
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]