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"Normals" vs. Jedi... a comparison

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Fluesopp
Cadet
Cadet

Joined: 31 Mar 2009
Posts: 16

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 5:36 am Post subject:

cunning_kindred wrote:

One of the major reasons we re-wrote the Force rules was because we wanted a system where I could actually let players use the Force - the way it is used in the Films - by all the Jedi.

Sorry to derail the thread, but have you posted your rewrite on the net? My sentiments regarding the force seem quite similar to yours, so I'm very interested in seeing how you have changed the force rules.

Rerun941
Commander

Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 459
Location: San Antonio, TX

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:25 am Post subject:

cunning_kindred wrote:

This kind of logic might sound reasonable (and it is in the rebellion era and New Jedi Order Era) but a starting Jedi in the Rise of the Empire Era already had Lightsaber Combat. Its basic training: Yoda taught it to him when he was eight.

What if I want to play a veteran bounty hunter (in any era)? What, you mean I have to start with 18D attributes and 7D skills just like everyone else? but I'm a "veteran"... that's not fair!

Same is true for Jedi... Oh, I want to play a 30 year old Jedi in the Rise of the Empire Era! What do you mean I have to start with 18D attributes and 7D skills just like everyone else? ...that's not fair!

This is where game balance trumps what we see in the movies. And let's face it, SWd6 was designed before the prequels so it doesn't emulate those movies as well as it does the classic trilogy.

The same is true for any other game system. "I want to play and old wizard like Gandalf!" "Ok, you start at level 1." "WHAT?!? but I'm an old and experienced wizard."
_________________
Han - "How're we doin'?"
Luke - "Same as always."
Han - "That bad, huh?"

cunning_kindred
Lieutenant Commander

Joined: 25 Mar 2007
Posts: 164
Location: Southampton, England

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:52 am Post subject:

Quote:

You can find all the rules at http://derriphan.110mb.com/Star%20Wars/Contents%20Page.html and I've posed a thread in the the House Rules section of the forum: http://www.rancorpit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2511

Quote:

The rules allow a character to start with lightsaber combat if player and GM are amenable but that's not my point at all. Your quite right that the current system cannot detail more advanced Force using characters at the start. I too believe that balance needs to trump certain in-universe issues.

That's one of my issues with the system. I'm not saying you should be able to create any character. I'm just saying that this type of character is important enough to the mythos of the Star Wars universe that it should be possible as early as possible. As things stand: its not possible at all. you can't start as one and if you ever become powerful enough to actually qualify as one you break the game (for all the reasons I've already outlined)

Quote:

This is where game balance trumps what we see in the movies. And let's face it, SWd6 was designed before the prequels so it doesn't emulate those movies as well as it does the classic trilogy.

Again. Agreed. Another reason why I think the Force system needs a re-vamp so it can deal with all Eras.

Quote:

The same is true for any other game system. "I want to play and old wizard like Gandalf!" "Ok, you start at level 1." "WHAT?!? but I'm an old and experienced wizard."

But I can play my way up to Gandalf and (most of the time) I won't break the system when I get there. Actually: no. correct that. In almost all versions of D&D I would but that's a problem with D&D and one which surely we should aim not to have plague our games as well.

Rerun941
Commander

Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 459
Location: San Antonio, TX

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:36 am Post subject:

cunning_kindred wrote:

I too believe that balance needs to trump certain in-universe issues.

Out of all of this, I think there's the heart of the matter.

Balance vs. In-universe story

In certain cases, balance needs to trump the in-universe and on the flip side, there are times when in-universe factors need to trump game balance.

I think we can agree on that?

The tricky part is knowing when to play your trump cards. Wink

_________________
Han - "How're we doin'?"
Luke - "Same as always."
Han - "That bad, huh?"

atgxtg
Rear Admiral

Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 2460

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 12:49 pm Post subject:

Rerun941 wrote:

cunning_kindred wrote:

I too believe that balance needs to trump certain in-universe issues.

Whoa! Hold the comlink!

I thinnk that not everyone has the same issues here. I'm not worried about "Game Balance" as in pairity between the players, that, IMO is mythical. Besides, I do believe than an experienced Jedi should be able to do things that make him tougher than most characters.

My major complain is with some of the powers, and with how d6 handles the Force in comapsion to what we see in the Prequel.

Now yes, d6 SW was written before the Prequel, so WEG could only base the Force rules on what we see in the Original Trilogy. But, what view we get from the Orginal Trilogy is a bit skewed. Most ofwe see about the Force is from Luke's perspective. But Luke is the most powerful Force user ever, with an affinity for the Force that only other Skywalkers have.

Even so, there are some discrepancies between how the Force is protrayed in the films and in the RPG. Now ''ve said before that I think many of the problems were introduced by changes between the two editions of the RPG.

Now the Prequels give us a lot more to go on, since they put the Jedi front and center, and show us more about the Force. Sure, the Prequels have some bad stuff to them, and sure they retcon the story so much as to make Obi-wan one of the biggest liars since Harold Hill. But then, Lucas has started retconning the story as far back as Empire. Personally, I wished he would have kept lightsabers as a common weapon, and not killed the third series with ROTJ's "finish everyone off" approach.

But, I7d like to see the rules fit the setting rather than alter the setting to justify the rules.

Rerun941
Commander

Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 459
Location: San Antonio, TX

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:05 pm Post subject:

atgxtg wrote:

Whoa! Hold the comlink!

I think that not everyone has the same issues here. I'm not worried about "Game Balance" as in pairity between the players, that, IMO is mythical. Besides, I do believe than an experienced Jedi should be able to do things that make him tougher than most characters.

My major complaint is with some of the powers, and with how d6 handles the Force in comapsion to what we see in the Prequel.

I'm not sure what you mean here... can you explain? What do we see in the Prequels that isn't in d6?

atgxtg wrote:

Now yes, d6 SW was written before the Prequel, so WEG could only base the Force rules on what we see in the Original Trilogy. But, what view we get from the Orginal Trilogy is a bit skewed. Most of what we see about the Force is from Luke's perspective. But Luke is the most powerful Force user ever, with an affinity for the Force that only other Skywalkers have.

Even so, there are some discrepancies between how the Force is protrayed in the films and in the RPG. Now I've said before that I think many of the problems were introduced by changes between the two editions of the RPG.

What are these discrepancies? Can you provide specific examples?

atgxtg wrote:

Now the Prequels give us a lot more to go on, since they put the Jedi front and center, and show us more about the Force. Sure, the Prequels have some bad stuff to them, and sure they retcon the story so much as to make Obi-wan one of the biggest liars since Harold Hill. But then, Lucas has started retconning the story as far back as Empire. Personally, I wished he would have kept lightsabers as a common weapon, and not killed the third series with ROTJ's "finish everyone off" approach.

But, I'd like to see the rules fit the setting rather than alter the setting to justify the rules.

Can't disagree with you there. I hate some of the things Lucas has done (and allowed). But for that discussion, you'll have to go to this thread http://www.rancorpit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2482

Personally, I wish Jedi had been kept as mystic guardians of peace and freedom. These days they're just "OMG PWN the NOOB with my UBER glowstick!!!111!!ONEONE!!11!"

PS - Who's Harold Hill?
_________________
Han - "How're we doin'?"
Luke - "Same as always."
Han - "That bad, huh?"

cunning_kindred
Lieutenant Commander

Joined: 25 Mar 2007
Posts: 164
Location: Southampton, England

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:23 pm Post subject:

Quote:

But, I7d like to see the rules fit the setting rather than alter the setting to justify the rules.

My sentiment entirely. I've tried lots of different ways to do this but none of them work to everyone's complete satisfaction. You can try looking over the rules on my website for the one's that my group and I settled on (click on the www button at the bottom of this post or go to http://www.rancorpit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2511) but we tried many others:

We tried using the rules as outlined for Ta-Ree users and Dathomir witches in WEG stuff (which makes every power a separate skill) but frankly those rules are harsh and make force users rubbish.

We tried making lightsaber combat an advanced skill and then said that lightsaber combat added sense to that skill for the purposes of attacking and you could use control or the (A) lightsaber rating to determine extra damage - whichever was lower. In this way, you had to learn an advanced skill as well as the power before Lightsaber Combat become truly powerful

We applied a Force Point or character point cost to certain powers.

We tried something based on the Ta-Ree magic rules but made the skill a bit broader and put in a Force attribute so that they would all have a reasonable rating to start from: this worked reasonably well but it often felt overly complicated and I missed Control, Sense and Alter.

There are several ideas we came up with but decided they wouldn't even work for us (and never even play tested them): you could make Jedi buy the bonus to hit and damage that lightsaber combat grants them as advanced skills that cannot go higher than their sense and control, respectively.

You could make it just add 1/2 sense to hit and nothing to damage and then introduce something like martial arts moves to represent the Forms.

We also introduced Force Speed and Force Jump powers because they seemed vital to the more cinematic over-the-top nature of the Phantom Menace.

And lots of other things... but I can't remember them at the moment Smile

Most of the changes were involved in dealing with perceived discrepancies in the power level between different types of Jedi and non-Jedi in a game where there were a lot more Jedi than an original WEG was intended to have. Others were attempts to introduce more options and powers so that different Jedi had more room to explore the Force in different ways. Often Jedi characters will be portrayed as having some unique capability with the Force and this was something my player's would often want to explore.

Rerun941
Commander

Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 459
Location: San Antonio, TX

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:56 pm Post subject:

I'm reading your material, but it's slow going. (Work, family and gaming, you know) Laughing

cunning_kindred wrote:

We tried making lightsaber combat an advanced skill and then said that lightsaber combat added sense to that skill for the purposes of attacking and you could use control or the (A) lightsaber rating to determine extra damage - whichever was lower. In this way, you had to learn an advanced skill as well as the power before Lightsaber Combat become truly powerful

I thought of this idea, as well. And have wanted to try it as a house rule to see how it worked.

How did it work for you?
_________________
Han - "How're we doin'?"
Luke - "Same as always."
Han - "That bad, huh?"

atgxtg
Rear Admiral

Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 2460

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 2:10 pm Post subject:

Rerun941 wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean here... can you explain? What do we see in the Prequels that isn't in d6?

What are these discrepancies? Can you provide specific examples?

Sure. For starters it is pretty much impossible to do an iajutsu draw with a lightsaber in the RPG. The action sequencing rules make things like Yoda cutting down two clone troopers before they get to act a no go. Ditto Obi-won fight in the Catina. Especially if the Jedi has to raise lightsaber combat. Now in the films we do see see Jedi react and get LS up in time to deflect an attack.

Now there is supposed a FOrm of lightsaber use around this, but 2nd edtition sequencing rules work against it. Even the fast draw rules from the Corporate Sector Sourcebook would require the Jedi to prep LS combat in advance.

Additionally, Jedi do a lot of jumping around in combat. Now with the way the rules work, Yoda, Luke and Obi-wan can't attack a few times, defend, do a jump, cartwheel around the room or backflip. Their skill codes simply won't allow it with the MAPs.

I think a lot of this could be worked and much of the Force rules streamlined and simplified. For instance, I am thinking of having powers under multiple skills use one roll, lowest skill vs. highest difficulty.

Rerun941 wrote:

"I feel your pain." At least the new stuff is a step up from Droids and Ewoks. I7d still like to know why Lucas now states there is no more stroy despite years of saying that the Orginal films were the middle story. I suspect Lucas gutted the third story for ROTJ, and that Palpatine was supposeed to be the puppet figurehead of the military that he was in the ghostwritten novel.

Rerun941 wrote:

PS - Who's Harold Hill?

Main character from The Music Man. He is a con man who lies like a rug to convince a small town that they need to form a school band (and buy instruments and uniforms).

With the way the Prequel unfolds, much of what Obi-wan (and Yoda) tell Luke doesn't hold up. For instance, Anakin didn't turn to the Dark Side becuase Obi-wan couldn't train Jedi as good a Yoda, Yoda was there, and messed up just as badly. Not that Anakin's turning to the Dark Side is very believable. He screws up and then is too embarrassed to face it.

The whole thing feels as if the charterers are being "forced" to act a certain way, rather than they way they should have, in order to ensure everything ends up the way it should for Episode IV.

cunning_kindred
Lieutenant Commander

Joined: 25 Mar 2007
Posts: 164
Location: Southampton, England

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 2:57 pm Post subject:

Rerun941 wrote:

I'm reading your material, but it's slow going. (Work, family and gaming, you know) Laughing

cunning_kindred wrote:

I thought of this idea, as well. And have wanted to try it as a house rule to see how it worked.

How did it work for you?

This was one of the very first rules changes we tried. Actually, quite reasonable. I think the reason we eventually drifted away from it was that it was more complicated and there were other issues in the game which we wanted to tackle and as we did the idea of lightsaber combat at all (with such big bonuses) became more and more unthinkable so we drifted to another system. Also, we wanted to expand things to include other martial arts.

Its odd but you often don't realize how powerful something is until you want to introduce something that's very much like it. We had a group of Force Users in the game that used a sword-based martial art called Sha'zu Kesa (you can find them in the Force rules on my site under Ki'ardi if you are interested). When it came to introducing Sha'zu Kesa I just couldn't do it. My system kept telling me it was too powerful even though I intensionally made it worse than Lightsaber combat - they only got the control bonus to perform disarms and sense to hit. After a time I realized it wasn't Sha'zu Kesa that was the problem - it was Lightsaber Combat. I couldn't introduce another lightsaber combat into the game, even a worse one, because deep down I was totally unhappy with how powerful lightsaber combat was.

That made us re-think things completely.

So - to answer your question - better for us than Lightsaber Combat is now but it wasn't enough of a reduction in power (for us) and we felt it was slightly too complicated. We wanted something simpler - though it did pave the way to a more complete martial arts system. Also, we wanted to bring the Forms into the game and it didn't seem to have quite enough flexibility to deal with seven Forms that were supposed to feel radically different.

Rerun941
Commander

Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 459
Location: San Antonio, TX

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 3:29 pm Post subject:

cunning_kindred wrote:

So - to answer your question - better for us than Lightsaber Combat is now but it wasn't enough of a reduction in power (for us) and we felt it was slightly too complicated. We wanted something simpler - though it did pave the way to a more complete martial arts system. Also, we wanted to bring the Forms into the game and it didn't seem to have quite enough flexibility to deal with seven Forms that were supposed to feel radically different.

Not to get too far off track, but here's what I came up with for both (A)Martial Arts and (A) Lightsaber that tried not to stray from the original rules...

Lightsaber as Advanced Skill:
Lightsaber (A) is a Dex skill related to Melee Combat
Must have Melee Combat and (Melee Parry?) at 5D.
Must spend 5 Character Points to gain the first 1D in Lightsaber (A)
The first 1D in Lightsaber (A) grants one special move (see Rules of Engagement pg 116).
Improving Lightsaber (A) costs twice the number in front of the D to improve one pip.
For each +1D increase in Lightsaber (A), the player may select another special move.

When using Melee Combat to wield a lightsaber, players may add any amount of Lightsaber (A) to your Melee Combat roll. If the difficulty is missed by more than 10, the character has injured himself. Players may never add Lightsaber (A) dice to the damage rolls. The player may not use any special moves when using Melee Combat to attack or defend with a lightsaber.

Lightsaber Combat Force Power
Characters must have 1D in Lightsaber (A) before they can use the Lightsaber Combat Force Power. After activating the Lightsaber Combat Force Power, the player rolls only the Lightsaber (A) skill dice and may add Sense skill dice to the attack roll. On a successful hit, the player may increase or decrease the amount of damage with their Control skill dice. When using the lightsaber this way, the player may use any special moves in addition to basic attack/parry rolls. Characters will not injure themselves except on a critical failure (1 on the Wild Die) at the GM’s discretion.

Martial Arts as Advanced Skill:
Martial Arts (A) is a Str skill related to Brawling
Must have Brawling (and Brawling Parry?) at 5D.
Must spend 2 Character Points to gain the first 1D in Martial Arts (A)
For each D in Martial Arts (A), the player may select one special move (see Rules of Engagement)
Improving Martial Arts (A) costs twice the number in front of the D to improve one pip
_________________
Han - "How're we doin'?"
Luke - "Same as always."
Han - "That bad, huh?"

atgxtg
Rear Admiral

Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 2460

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 3:46 pm Post subject:

I like the idea of Lightsaber Combat being an advanced skill under melee combat. It makes sense (oops). since a lot of the techniques would be based on sword techniques. If lightsaber were an advanced skill, I'd suggest dropping the "if you miss by 10" rule for those who have the advanced skill. Basically, that would be the first thing the character would learn-how to wield the thing without hitting onself. Not that it happens that much at 6D+ anyway. One thing I had thought of was breaking the Lightsaber Combat power down into two different powers. One for Sense/Skill and the second for Control/Damage. Or even Sense/Parry and Control/Attack, and tie the damage bonus to the attack roll (+1D per 5 over target difficulty).

Rerun941
Commander

Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 459
Location: San Antonio, TX

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:06 pm Post subject:

atgxtg wrote:

I like the idea of Lightsaber Combat being an advanced skill under melee combat. It makes sense (oops). since a lot of the techniques would be based on sword techniques.

If lightsaber were an advanced skill, I'd suggest dropping the "if you miss by 10" rule for those who have the advanced skill. Basically, that would be the first thing the character would learn-how to wield the thing without hitting onself. Not that it happens that much at 6D+ anyway.

One thing I had thought of was breaking the Lightsaber Combat power down into two different powers. One for Sense/Skill and the second for Control/Damage. Or even Sense/Parry and Control/Attack, and tie the damage bonus to the attack roll (+1D per 5 over target difficulty).

In reply to your earlier post. Yoda had Danger Sense up. I dunno what a whatsits draw is, but if it means drawing your weapon and hitting first. That can be supported by Danger Sense and Combat Sense. Both of these force powers allow the Jedi to see what's coming and react first.

Yoda, Luke (Post-ESB), and Obi-Wan easily have enough Force Skill dice and Climb/Jump skill to overcome the MAP of hopping around the room. Climb/Jump 4D + Alter (Telekinesis) 8D -4D or 5D for the MAP.

Ok, on to the current topic...
Just wanted to point out that I explicitly stated that a Jedi who uses (A) Lightsaber and LS Combat cannot hurt himself (barring a 1 on the Wild die, GM's discretion)
_________________
Han - "How're we doin'?"
Luke - "Same as always."
Han - "That bad, huh?"

cunning_kindred
Lieutenant Commander

Joined: 25 Mar 2007
Posts: 164
Location: Southampton, England

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:57 pm Post subject:

Rerun941 wrote:

cunning_kindred wrote:

Yes that's pretty much what I did. We also said you couldn't add more control to your damage than you had dice in (A) Lightsaber and toward the end we made that a maneuver you needed to purchase. This didn't really help much of course because it was so good everyone just purchased it anyway. Also we used the name Lightsaber Combat for the (A) advanced skill and called the force power Martial Combat --- because we allowed it to advance other suitable (a) advanced skill martial arts as well - though you had to choice which martial art was advanced when you purchased the power.

Oh, yes, we also insisted on 5D in Melee Combat and Melee Parry. You had to split the (A) Lightsaber skill between them and you could use the advanced skill to hit and parry.

Quote:

One thing I had thought of was breaking the Lightsaber Combat power down into two different powers. One for Sense/Skill and the second for Control/Damage. Or even Sense/Parry and Control/Attack, and tie the damage bonus to the attack roll (+1D per 5 over target difficulty).

We tried that as well - both as separate powers and using the +1D per 5 points. The first works well enough but there is no significant improvement other than that you really should start to insist that use of the control skill for anything other than the most dire of circumstances is a dark side act. The second made it all the way through our rules editions until only a couple of editions back but generally its a bit cumbersome for during the game - Jedi take up too much of the GMs time anyway - and it didn't actually fix anything - at higher levels you still had too much of a bonus for too little cost.

Smile

garhkal
Sovereign Protector

Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14168
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 6:11 pm Post subject:

atgxtg wrote:

Its simply cheaper/easier for most Jedi to learn Accelerate Healing and Accelerate Another's Healing than it is to raise First Aid to a comparable level of effectiveness.

The Rebellion setting/fight for survival, had most Jedi I've seen, make raising Force Powers to a reliable level thier first priority, spending the lions share of their CPs on the Force. So it was natural to do something with the Force when possible.

Technically yes. But when you consider those who use it have to roll on the natural healing chart, which CAN make you worse off (get a low enough strength roll.
With first aid, you don't have the chance of potentially damaing them more.

Quote:

From a storytelling/GM perspective, this reeks of the Dark Side. The Jedi PC is spending gobs of CPs on Force Skills without the moral compass of a teacher to guide him. The GM should be tempting that PC with the Dark Side constantly. And if all he's doing is using the Force then he's constantly sending out ripples announcing his presence. This is especially dangerous during the Rebellion Era.

Which is why the sparks group uses (and i now use) a force 'wave' ideal where the more power you push (higher dice roll) when using force powers, the greater the wave you make.
Make one potent enough and the emperor's force hunters will be on your butt.
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