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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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 Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2019 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | If you did that, required someone to drop a FP, to have a chance to do something else in the round BESIDES going all out (or full dodging), would you still let them spend another FP in the round, to double their skill value? |
No. If I went that route, I'd most likely allow the FP to count for both (as in, doubles the skill roll and overrides the All-Out prohibition on that action).
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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.
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Bren
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Joined: 19 Aug 2010
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Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Naaman wrote: | | Essentially, I'm just wondering: where do you draw the line. |
Somewhere well to the left of humans lifting the Millennium Falcon unassisted or a blaster pistol punching a hole in a Star Destroyer. While both of these are statistically possibly (though extremely unlikely), as a GM I wouldn't bother rolling or allow a player to roll for these sorts of things as success is so absurd as to break my suspension of disbelief during (and after) the game.
I don't see a need to allow other actions with a full dodge as the effect of a better than ordinary dodge is already achievable by other means.
All-out movement as the only action seems an acceptable simplification of game reality to me. But I could also live with allowing a character to attempt other actions in combination with moving at an all-out speed. Though I think I'd have the character roll for movement (with applicable MAPs) before I allowed them to attempt to do anything else and if the movement roll failed, they lose or fail at all other actions that round as their ship careens wildly about. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16281
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 10:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | | Though I think I'd have the character roll for movement (with applicable MAPs) before I allowed them to attempt to do anything else and if the movement roll failed, they lose or fail at all other actions that round as their ship careens wildly about. |
That's fair. And considering some of the other possible results on the Movement Mishap Tables (as well as the Difficulty levels involved), careening about wildly might be a best case scenario for failure.
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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.
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Bren
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Joined: 19 Aug 2010
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Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 2:54 pm Post subject: |
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Definitely best case. 
On another matter, I've never been happy with the notion that a vehicle dodge having no effect* on the gunner's ability to hit.
Sure if the pilot is also the gunner there is a -1D MAP penalty for dodging on subsequent shots in the round. But it just seems like a high vehicle dodge should not only make it difficult for the bad guys to target the vehicle, but also make it difficult for anybody on the vehicle to target the bad guys.
I've also never been happy with the fact that a pilot/gunner has a worse chance to hit than a gunner who isn't the pilot. Seems like evasion by hte pilot (which causes the pilot a MAP penalty) should have an even greater effect on a gunner because the gunner (unlike the pilot) usually has no idea what direction the pilot is going to move to evade. Seems like the gunner should have a higher penalty than the pilot. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16281
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | | I've never been happy with the notion that a vehicle dodge having no effect* on the gunner's ability to hit. |
This is actually an issue with Dodge in general. Because of the either/or nature of a normal Dodge, a Dodging character is just as hard to hit at point Blank Range as he is at Long Range, which is decidedly not the case. There's something to be said for throwing out normal Dodges and making all Dodges Full Reactions to better reflect that.
| Quote: | | Sure if the pilot is also the gunner there is a -1D MAP penalty for dodging on subsequent shots in the round. But it just seems like a high vehicle dodge should not only make it difficult for the bad guys to target the vehicle, but also make it difficult for anybody on the vehicle to target the bad guys. |
One possibility there is a tech fix, and assume that ships with turreted weapons have stabilized turrets that neutralize sudden movement on the part of the platform. But yeah, apart from that, it's definitely an issue.
| Quote: | | I've also never been happy with the fact that a pilot/gunner has a worse chance to hit than a gunner who isn't the pilot. Seems like evasion by hte pilot (which causes the pilot a MAP penalty) should have an even greater effect on a gunner because the gunner (unlike the pilot) usually has no idea what direction the pilot is going to move to evade. Seems like the gunner should have a higher penalty than the pilot. |
It seems to me that there should be some distinction w/r/t pilot/gunners and fixed-forward weaponry. In the case of fighters, where the laser cannon are all locked in place relative to the frame, aiming the weapon is very much tied in with the Piloting roll. However, under the RAW, they're treated just like a steerable weapon mounted in the Front fire arc.
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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.
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Naaman
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Joined: 29 Jul 2011
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| Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 3:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | Definitely best case.
On another matter, I've never been happy with the notion that a vehicle dodge having no effect* on the gunner's ability to hit.
Sure if the pilot is also the gunner there is a -1D MAP penalty for dodging on subsequent shots in the round. But it just seems like a high vehicle dodge should not only make it difficult for the bad guys to target the vehicle, but also make it difficult for anybody on the vehicle to target the bad guys.
I've also never been happy with the fact that a pilot/gunner has a worse chance to hit than a gunner who isn't the pilot. Seems like evasion by hte pilot (which causes the pilot a MAP penalty) should have an even greater effect on a gunner because the gunner (unlike the pilot) usually has no idea what direction the pilot is going to move to evade. Seems like the gunner should have a higher penalty than the pilot. |
Hmmm.
I see where you're coming from, but I wonder, from a game balance perspective, what would be the poi t of even having a gunner if he is penalized more for not being the pilot?
The way I'm inclined to interpret things is that the targeting systems on space transports or heavy fighters like to B-Wing or Y-Wing would have compensators that "lock on" to the signatures of enemy ships (for example, friendly ships broadcast a signal that tells the targeting systems to reject them as targets), so that movements by the pilot are cancelled out by the targeting system.
This way, there is actually a point to having one of the party members be a gunner (even though his gunnery skill will likely be lower than the pilot's, his contribution will be meaningful even without having to dedicate a large chunck of CPs to gunnery skills).
Also, in case its relevant, having experience as a vehicle gunner, I can tell you that the pilot's movements aren't all that much of a hinderance. Generally, as soon as you feel the vehicle move, you take a brief moment to reorient/keep your balance, and then resume shooting.
Also, a high dodge skill by the pilot seems to me like it would make the gunner's life easier (potentially), representing the pilot's ability to move only just enough to not get hit while still maintaining a solid positional advantage over the opponent.
If you look at, for example, race car drivers, a high skill role represents the driver's ability to make maneuvers at the maximum possible speed while upsetting the vehicle's balance as little as physics will allow. For reasons like this, I'd submit that the gunner should not get MAPs for actions the pilot take.
However, I would agree that on a failed stunt role, the ship's balance is upset enough that it imposes a penalty on (or just prevents all together) the gunner's attack roll. |
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 11:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | Definitely best case.
On another matter, I've never been happy with the notion that a vehicle dodge having no effect* on the gunner's ability to hit.
Sure if the pilot is also the gunner there is a -1D MAP penalty for dodging on subsequent shots in the round. But it just seems like a high vehicle dodge should not only make it difficult for the bad guys to target the vehicle, but also make it difficult for anybody on the vehicle to target the bad guys.
I've also never been happy with the fact that a pilot/gunner has a worse chance to hit than a gunner who isn't the pilot. Seems like evasion by hte pilot (which causes the pilot a MAP penalty) should have an even greater effect on a gunner because the gunner (unlike the pilot) usually has no idea what direction the pilot is going to move to evade. Seems like the gunner should have a higher penalty than the pilot. |
Same. Especially when the pilot (Not gunning) is also doing a FULL dodge...
Hence why i often see HR's where 1/2 the result of their roll is used as a penalty for anyone in the ship shooting out.
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Naaman
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| Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 11:36 pm Post subject: |
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| So basically, the MORE SKILLED the pilot, the harder it is for his gunner to shoot? Sounds backwards to me... |
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Tupteq
Commander
Joined: 11 Apr 2007
Posts: 285
Location: Rzeszów, Poland
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| Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 6:31 am Post subject: |
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In our games we are using flat -3D to all actions onboard the ship, while it's making a full dodge or runs all-out. Pilot can do other things, but with -3D penalty plus MAP.
I thought I took it from D6 Space, but now I can't find it. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16281
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:37 am Post subject: |
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| Tupteq wrote: | | In our games we are using flat -3D to all actions onboard the ship, while it's making a full dodge or runs all-out. Pilot can do other things, but with -3D penalty plus MAP. |
I would think that, in a world with acceleration compensators and the like, this should be applied a bit more selectively. It makes sense that sudden jolts like weapon strikes might partially override the acceleration compensation field (we see this plenty in the films), but it doesn't seem to be the case that characters get thrown around inside the ship just by sudden maneuvers.
| Quote: | | I thought I took it from D6 Space, but now I can't find it. |
There are several things I could've sworn I've seen in D6 Space, but now I can't find them...
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Bren
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| Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 1:39 pm Post subject: |
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OK, a number of people have replied. I’ll respond to each of you separately.
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | This is actually an issue with Dodge in general. Because of the either/or nature of a normal Dodge, a Dodging character is just as hard to hit at point Blank Range as he is at Long Range, which is decidedly not the case. There's something to be said for throwing out normal Dodges and making all Dodges Full Reactions to better reflect that. |
One could treat a full dodge as adding to the difficulty to hit for the entire round (or the rest of the round if the character isn’t acting first). And treat a reaction dodge as only providing protection for that phase rather than the entire round. That would make a full dodge better if opponents are taking multiple shots or shooting in different phases of the round, while still allowing the dodge to add to the range difficulty.
| Quote: | | One possibility there is a tech fix, and assume that ships with turreted weapons have stabilized turrets that neutralize sudden movement on the part of the platform. But yeah, apart from that, it's definitely an issue. |
A stabilized turret sounds way too high tech for the type of WWII era fighter combat that we see in Star Wars. Some movements will completely occlude the target though, like a ventral turret not being able to fire above the ship.
| Quote: | | It seems to me that there should be some distinction w/r/t pilot/gunners and fixed-forward weaponry. In the case of fighters, where the laser cannon are all locked in place relative to the frame, aiming the weapon is very much tied in with the Piloting roll. However, under the RAW, they're treated just like a steerable weapon mounted in the Front fire arc. |
True. Though I recall reading about WWI era pilots differing in their ability to shoot the MG which was fixed forward on 1-man fighters so I think there is precedent for gunnery being a factor. What I did when we played a starfighter pilot campaign was require the pilot to first acquire the target (piloting vs. piloting) if unsuccessful no shot was available. If successful the level of success determined whether the available shot was head-to-head, a side shot, or tail shot. |
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Bren
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| Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 1:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Naaman wrote: | | I see where you're coming from, but I wonder, from a game balance perspective, what would be the poi t of even having a gunner if he is penalized more for not being the pilot? |
The gunner only has to do one thing -- shoot and gunners allow more guns to be fired. In addition to making a piloting roll for movement the pilot may have other things to roll for (dodging, shields, also shooting a gun, or plotting a jump to hyperspace).
From what we see in the films with Han or Luke slewing the guns around on the Falcon, the tech doesn't seem to support efficient automatic and active tracking by the guns. What tracking there is seems like it is already covered by the Fire Control bonus for the weapon.
| Quote: | | Also, in case its relevant, having experience as a vehicle gunner, I can tell you that the pilot's movements aren't all that much of a hinderance. Generally, as soon as you feel the vehicle move, you take a brief moment to reorient/keep your balance, and then resume shooting. |
I don't have any experience with that, but the drastic movements we see in the films seems like those movements probably exceed the speed and degree of motion of any real world vehicle.
| Quote: | | Also, a high dodge skill by the pilot seems to me like it would make the gunner's life easier (potentially), representing the pilot's ability to move only just enough to not get hit while still maintaining a solid positional advantage over the opponent. |
That’s a good point. Perhaps doing something like I mentioned in my post to CRM, having the pilot make a piloting roll to acquire the target would cover that.
| Quote: | | However, I would agree that on a failed stunt role, the ship's balance is upset enough that it imposes a penalty on (or just prevents all together) the gunner's attack roll. |
I think this is something that everyone can agree with.
| Naaman wrote: | | So basically, the MORE SKILLED the pilot, the harder it is for his gunner to shoot? Sounds backwards to me... |
Looked at just like that, yeah. But consider that the difficulty for gunner isn't based on skill, but is based on the suddenness, speed, and range of motion of the dodge maneuver. A more skilled pilot can carry out a more difficult maneuver.
In a perfect world, we would have a list of maneuvers that the pilot could attempt, a degree of difficulty to perform each maneuver, and a set difficulty that the maneuvers provides against being hit (and a difficulty the maneuver adds to the ship hitting someone else). But it's not a perfect world so we have a simplification that mushes all those different things into one thing - the pilot's dodge roll. I would like to find a way not to completely ignore everything else about a maneuver except what it adds to that ship's dodge. Reasonable people will disagree on which of those other aspects of maneuver they do not want to ignore. |
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Raven Redstar
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| Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 1:50 pm Post subject: |
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I think a really skilled pilot should be able to perform a vehicle dodge AND set his gunner up for a shot. Perhaps something that should be considered is that a piloting dodge roll that massively beats his attacker's shot should be able to take some of the difference and give his gunner a small bonus.
Rolling super high on your dodge roll doesn't mean that you necessarily fly around like a madman: flipping, rolling, and banking like crazy. It should also be allowed that he's able to do quick, but smooth motion: enough to dodge at the last second and allow his gunner to return fire without too much difficulty.
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Naaman
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| Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 5:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Raven Redstar wrote: |
Rolling super high on your dodge roll doesn't mean that you necessarily fly around like a madman: flipping, rolling, and banking like crazy. It should also be allowed that he's able to do quick, but smooth motion: enough to dodge at the last second and allow his gunner to return fire without too much difficulty. |
Agreed.
| Bren wrote: |
From what we see in the films with Han or Luke slewing the guns around on the Falcon, the tech doesn't seem to support efficient automatic and active tracking by the guns. What tracking there is seems like it is already covered by the Fire Control bonus for the weapon.
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What I meant was that the fire control system itself already includes such things, not that there would be additional tech on top of what we see in (for example) the Millennium Falcon.
In any case, how long do you want combat to take? Imposing a greater-than-MAP penalty on attack rolls is only going to make combat take longer by reducing the frequency of hits (this will negatively affect the PCs relative to NPCs, since the majority of NPCs have fixed skill levels), while giving single-occupant craft piloted by NPCs a significant advantage relative to the RAW (makes it "easier" for them to deal with a fully crewed space transport operated by a PC party since any shot they fire has the same chance of hitting as RAW, but then imposes a greater penalty on the PC gunners than RAW).
| Bren wrote: | Looked at just like that, yeah. But consider that the difficulty for gunner isn't based on skill, but is based on the suddenness, speed, and range of motion of the dodge maneuver. A more skilled pilot can carry out a more difficult maneuver.
In a perfect world, we would have a list of maneuvers that the pilot could attempt, a degree of difficulty to perform each maneuver, and a set difficulty that the maneuvers provides against being hit (and a difficulty the maneuver adds to the ship hitting someone else). But it's not a perfect world so we have a simplification that mushes all those different things into one thing - the pilot's dodge roll. I would like to find a way not to completely ignore everything else about a maneuver except what it adds to that ship's dodge. Reasonable people will disagree on which of those other aspects of maneuver they do not want to ignore. |
Would you agree that it's harder to "just miss" getting hit than to bank hard and suddenly in a direction? The higher the dodge roll, the better the outcome should be, by my understanding of what a high roll means (it doesn't necessarily mean a more dramatic result, though if the objective is high drama, then it certainly could represent such).
(To your point about what we choose to ignore, in my opinion, an "attack roll" is not necessarily a single shot or trigger pull, but rather is representative of a typical type of attack by a given kind of weapon; while it may take several "shots" for Luke to actually hit the bogey, that particular volley that eventually succeeded may actually be the effect of a single attack roll, for example. In other words, just because Luke didn't hit with every single "shot" doesn't mean he was having a hard time due to Chewie's piloting).
One last thing, in case it makes a difference: if the gunner is aware of all the same things that the pilot is, then it's reasonable that he would be able to intuit the pilot's evasive maneuvers since he knows how many, and where, all the threats are, and presumably has enough common sense to make a tactical assessment.
Also, we may be able to draw from other movies. In Top Gun, for example, the pilot communicates his decisions/maneuvers in real time with his crew and wingman, so maybe we could assume that the same is standard practice in SW?
On the other hand, for crew that are unfamiliar with each other (or are otherwise of a motley nature), perhaps there should be a penalty of some kind to represent the lack of coordination between the team members. |
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Bren
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| Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 5:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Naaman wrote: | | What I meant was that the fire control system itself already includes such things, not that there would be additional tech on top of what we see in (for example) the Millennium Falcon. |
I see it as helping the gunner to target (which is what the FC bonus represents) not doing anything automatically. So no, I don’t see the gun or turret nullifying the effect of the pilot’s maneuvers.
| Quote: | | In any case, how long do you want combat to take? |
Not too long. But I also want the effects (or non-effects) of one action on another (piloting and gunnery) make sense in the WWI/WWII style of aerial We seem to disagree on what effects and non-effects make sense to ourselves.
| Quote: | | Would you agree that it's harder to "just miss" getting hit than to bank hard and suddenly in a direction? |
No I would not. Sometimes “just miss” would work, but often it would not. The resolution of the current system is insufficient to separate one case from the other. Where we seem to be differing really is you seem to assume (or want to assume) that usually just missing works, whereas I am envisioning (and so I want to assume) that more dramatic movements are the norm.
| Quote: | | <sensible idea about an attack roll possibly representing multiple shots> |
Sometimes one attack is one shot and sometimes it isn’t. But in general I agree with you.
To elaborate on that point, since different hand weapons have differing ammo capacities, I’d like a simple way to figure out how many shots were fired in an attack. I suppose a simple solution would be to say each attack with a blaster pistol or blaster rifle is 1D6 shots.
Repeating blasters fire multiple shots e.g. a Light Repeating Blaster has an ammo capacity of 25 because each trigger pull is firing multiple shots. I already assume things like an X-wings Quad Laser cannons fire four shots and I allow the pilot to decide whether they are combining all 4 shots (the standard FC and Damage) or firing paired (FC +1D, DAM -1D) or singly (FC +2D.
| Quote: | | One last thing, in case it makes a difference: if the gunner is aware of all the same things that the pilot is, then it's reasonable that he would be able to intuit the pilot's evasive maneuvers since he knows how many, and where, all the threats are, and presumably has enough common sense to make a tactical assessment. |
I think it is unreasonable to assume the gunner is aware of all the same things. For one things, they typically have a different view of what’s outside the ship and a lot of Star Wars space combat is done at fairly close range with the Mark I eyeball rather than at longer ranges using radar (or the SW equivalent sensors). Even if the gunner were aware of everything, it is unlikely that there is always only one best move for the pilot to make. So unless the gunner is a mind reader he won’t always know for certain what maneuver is coming up.
I agree that it would be fun and dramatic if once and a while two characters with a lot of shared experience like Han and Chewie would be in a situation where one knew what the other was about to do. But it can’t be very dramatic if a pilot and gunner do this all the time.
| Quote: | | Also, we may be able to draw from other movies. In Top Gun, for example, the pilot communicates his decisions/maneuvers in real time with his crew and wingman, so maybe we could assume that the same is standard practice in SW? |
One could, but I’m not sure I want to do that. In part because I see the SW tech as acting more like tech from around 1930-1944 and not like 1980s tech.
| Quote: | | On the other hand, for crew that are unfamiliar with each other (or are otherwise of a motley nature), perhaps there should be a penalty of some kind to represent the lack of coordination between the team members. |
Or assume unfamiliarity as the base case and provide a bonus for experienced, well integrated, and practiced crews. |
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