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| Should characters be able to soak blaster bolts? |
| Yes |
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46% |
[ 14 ] |
| No |
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53% |
[ 16 ] |
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| Total Votes : 30 |
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Naaman
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 Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2021 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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| MrNexx wrote: | | CRMcNeill wrote: | | Whill wrote: | Game Option: Minimum Blaster Damage
At GM discretion, blaster weapons using the normal damage setting have a minimum damage of stunned, at least for soft fleshy target species such as humans. GMs electing to use this optional rule may decide that certain conditions still allow a no effect outcome if one is rolled, such as species with tough exteriors or characters wearing non-Stormtrooper armor. |
IMO, there should be some sort of dice threshold, where unarmored-yet-exceptionally-tough creatures (or at least tough relative to the weapon doing the damage, once Scale is accounted for) have a chance to shrug off hits that roll low enough. My initial thought was that a Damage roll that failed by 20 points or more should have no effect, but I haven't really put a lot of thought into it. |
I mean, as it stands, someone who rolls 0 net damage stuns someone. This just shifts that from 0 to -20 to 3, which I think is a bit big of a range.
Maybe -3? Or -Number of Dice of the Blaster? So, if I shoot you with a Blaster Pistol, you will be stunned from -4 to 3. If I use a Heavy Blaster, it will be -5 to 3.
It would still give blasters an advantage over melee weapons (including lightsabers and grenades, if we use "blaster" as our definition), it would scale with weapon type, but would not be quite so overwhelming unless the weapon itself were overwhelming. |
Yeah, its one of those things, that, if introduced (a "minimum" blaster damage) we have to go back one step and define what a "hit" with the blaster skill means in the first place.
Does a shot that skims the shoulder (only breaking the skin, drawing no blood and causing no muscle tissue damage) count as a hit or a miss? It really comes down to how the GM decides to describe what happened.
For example, a "hit" with a damage result of 0 isn't actually "zero" but rather, a successful opposed roll (the strength roll of the target sets the difficulty which must be met or exceeded by the damage roll; a difference of 0 means that the difficulty number was achieved).
If the damage roll is less than the strength roll, it means that the roll is failed.
So, if the GM says that a "hit" roll represents whether or not the blaster bolt makes physical contact with the target in any capacity, then that means that where/how much contact is entirely described by the damage roll (so, a net of less than zero would indicate the most minor of superficial flesh blemishes, while a result of 0-3 represents enough physical contact/impact/hit location to have some minor negative effect on the target).
"GM discretion" (as Whill articulates) is a decent way to cover such issues (case by case is the most flexible way to handle nuanced situations).
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Darklighter79
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| Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2021 3:04 pm Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Whill wrote: | Game Option: Minimum Blaster Damage
At GM discretion, blaster weapons using the normal damage setting have a minimum damage of stunned, at least for soft fleshy target species such as humans. GMs electing to use this optional rule may decide that certain conditions still allow a no effect outcome if one is rolled, such as species with tough exteriors or characters wearing non-Stormtrooper armor. |
IMO, there should be some sort of dice threshold, where unarmored-yet-exceptionally-tough creatures (or at least tough relative to the weapon doing the damage, once Scale is accounted for) have a chance to shrug off hits that roll low enough. My initial thought was that a Damage roll that failed by 20 points or more should have no effect, but I haven't really put a lot of thought into it. |
In 1 ed. it was: if two times the damage roll is less than strength roll, there is no effect, meaning no stun/ionization effect.
Source: Star Wars Rules Companion 1 ed.
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Whill
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| Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2021 1:59 am Post subject: Re: Soaking Blaster Bolts |
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| In the OP, Whill wrote: | | ...The 1e Rules Companion in 1989 was the first time soak came into the game, but it was regulated to when the resistance roll was more than double the damage roll... |
| Darklighter79 wrote: | In 1 ed. it was: if two times the damage roll is less than strength roll, there is no effect, meaning no stun/ionization effect.
Source: Star Wars Rules Companion 1 ed. |
Yes, that's another way to put it. That was part of my journey, both back then, and when I brought that back in more recent years, for a while, before settling on what I have now.
| Quote: | Game Option: Minimum Blaster Damage
At GM discretion, blaster weapons using the normal damage setting have a minimum damage of stunned, at least for soft fleshy target species such as humans. GMs electing to use this optional rule may decide that certain conditions still allow a no effect outcome if one is rolled, such as species with tough exteriors or characters wearing non-Stormtrooper armor. |
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Dr. Bidlo
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| Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2021 2:16 pm Post subject: |
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I like the RAW, which means there are chances that blaster, laser or even turbolasers do no registerable damage to a character, vehicle or ship. It is a game, so I don't really have a problem with it, especially when you consider there are plenty of things that can injure a character they cannot be avoided - a grenade blast in a tight corridor, a blast incoming of which they are not aware, etc.
The players are the heroes of the story, so should not die the first time a random blaster shot hits them. Also, the rules go both ways - PCs and NPCs. We are all free to modify the rules as fits for our styles, of course, and this is merely my opinion. |
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Whill
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| Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2021 2:47 pm Post subject: |
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Of course. As I stated in the thread, my modification is to assuage my disbelief suspension because characters soaking blaster bolts takes me out of the universe. If you don't have the same problem, then great. More power to you.
But getting stunned instead of soak will rarely be the difference in leading a PC to death or not. It's not mathematically impossible that with the accumulation of multiple wound statuses over the course of a battle, but it is not that likely. I think sometimes people forget this house rule is only substituting a stun for a soak.
And like every mod, this rule is taken out of context of my entire house damage system, which helps heroes not die in other ways while still protecting a large degree of disbelief suspension.
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Dr. Bidlo
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| Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2021 2:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Understood. But to answer your base question, I personally have no problem with characters soaking damage. |
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MrNexx
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| Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2021 3:10 pm Post subject: |
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So, this works in Savage Worlds, but might be an interesting option:
You have to pay to soak.
Savage Worlds has a metagame currency, Bennies. Most "Wild Cards" (important characters, both player and non) start with 3 per session, and you get more through good play and some luck, and you spend them for various things, like rerolling failed tests. (GMs also get a pool to spend for any of their characters)
But if you take damage, you can also pay to make a soak roll. Without the soak roll, you take the damage you take.
This could work well in Star Wars, if you had a more available metagame currency (CP and FP are there, but you don't get them as freely as Bennies). PC gets shot? Spend a benny, soak the shot. Stormtrooper gets shot? GM doesn't bother to spend a benny for just a stormtrooper, so he dies (extras also can only take 1 wound, whereas Wild Cards can take 3).
If I were to incorporate this into d6, I'd have it replace Force Points. You get 3 per session, get extra for playing up Story Factors (template, racial, self-chosen), and can spend them to double a roll (declared before rolling), reroll (declared after rolling), or soak.
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Whill
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| Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2021 8:17 pm Post subject: |
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| MrNexx wrote: | So, this works in Savage Worlds, but might be an interesting option:
You have to pay to soak.
Savage Worlds has a metagame currency, Bennies. Most "Wild Cards" (important characters, both player and non) start with 3 per session, and you get more through good play and some luck, and you spend them for various things, like rerolling failed tests. (GMs also get a pool to spend for any of their characters)
But if you take damage, you can also pay to make a soak roll. Without the soak roll, you take the damage you take.
This could work well in Star Wars, if you had a more available metagame currency (CP and FP are there, but you don't get them as freely as Bennies). PC gets shot? Spend a benny, soak the shot. Stormtrooper gets shot? GM doesn't bother to spend a benny for just a stormtrooper, so he dies (extras also can only take 1 wound, whereas Wild Cards can take 3).
If I were to incorporate this into d6, I'd have it replace Force Points. You get 3 per session, get extra for playing up Story Factors (template, racial, self-chosen), and can spend them to double a roll (declared before rolling), reroll (declared after rolling), or soak. |
Thanks, but I don't think any players would feel it is worth spending a FP to change a stun result into a soak. They would just take the stun and keep the FP.
I personally have no issues with stunned or worse damage results for blasters. The only issue was with soak. So even if we made it spending only a CP to change a stun into a soak, I wouldn't implement that because that is the opposite direction of RAW: reducing damage sometimes. I increase damage (slightly) when a soak result is rolled for a blaster hit, unless there is some extenuating circumstance that makes the soak more feasible. Even if I allowed a blaster soak once per character per adventure, the problem is that characters soaking blaster bolts at all slaps me right out of the Star Wars universe.
I see the game as the group co-creating a story that takes place in the SWU. The rules help with that. My optional rule for blaster damage applies to PCs and NPCs both, for the sake of my disbelief suspension. Use CPs and FPs as is RAW to boost your dodge roll so you don't get hit in the first place.
But the poll shows that half the users who voted feel it is ok for characters to soak blaster bolts, so these suggestions may be useful to them. Thanks.
EDIT: See the "Star Wars D6 Damage" link in my signature.
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