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Gamezdude
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Joined: 13 Sep 2014
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 Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 10:39 am Post subject: How do you figure out difficulty for charecters? |
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Every scenario when I include the stock stormtroopers combat drags like hel--
By that I mean, the players are shooting the storm troopers and visa versa, after 5 rounds + no one has been even scuffed. Everyone keeps missing!!!
I plan to go onto Dnd soon and leave star wars to my gf to do. Im already getting a sith fight sorted, however I dont want the last few adventures to be unbalenced and boring like the storm troopers all over again
Anyway, is there a rule of thumb about difficulty, say if all the players Attributes average at 4D then the enemy should average at 3D. Also is there one for specific skills for those key moments, i.e a lightsabre battle?
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cheshire
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| Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 12:24 pm Post subject: |
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Grimace came up with this rule of thumb a couple of years ago. It works really well for him, and though I haven't tested it out personally, enough of the things he's suggested have worked, and I trust his instincts.
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I've found that encounter balance goes generally like this:
NPC baddies should be about 2D less than a Player Character in their primary skill that will be used. So if you're envisioning a fight, the fighting skill should be about 2D less than the PCs fighting skill. This allows you to use 1-2 NPCs per PC. So if you have a group of 4 PCs, and the PC's primary skill in the encounter is at 7D, you can throw 4-6 NPCs at the players if the NPCs have 4D-5D in the primary skill.
When the NPCs have their primary skill equal to the PCs primary skill, you'll want to keep it either at about 75-100% of the PCs in number. So again, if you have 4 PCs, you'll want 3-4 NPCs if the NPCs have the same general skill level in the primary skill. From that point, for every 2D greater than the PCs, subtract 1 more NPC, with a minimum of 1 NPC against the group.
So if the group of 4 PCs had a general skill of 7D, and you had NPCs of 8D-9D, you'll either want 3 or 2 NPCs. If the NPCs had their primary skill of 10D+, compared to the PCs at 7D, then you'll only want 1 NPC.
In all cases, if you find that the PCs are simply getting too good at contending with only 1 or 2 NPCs of higher level, then make up the difference with lower skill level minions. So while the main bad guy might have 11D in the primary skill when going against the 4 PCs, you could also throw 3-4 NPCs that are at 4D-5D in skill. That gives the players something extra to chew on as well as the greater experienced NPC.
If you're having a non-combat encounter, such as an investigative encounter, or puzzle solving encounter, you'll want to generally provide challenges that are multi-faceted in difficulty. Attempt to keep the difficulties for things either realistic (especially if you're already established a difficulty for something in a prior adventure) or keep this in mind: (reminder, these are only rough numbers, so vary them to suit your game)
Skill dice = 3D Difficulty range for tasks = 10
Skill dice = 4D Difficulty range for tasks = 14
Skill dice = 5D Difficulty range for tasks = 20
Skill dice = 6D Difficulty range for tasks = 24
Skill dice = 7D Difficulty range for tasks = 28
Skill dice = 8D Difficulty range for tasks = 34
If you lower the difficulty by a few points for things, sometimes you can make a challenge a multi-roll sort of challenge, such as climbing a wall, or picking a lock. Require two or more rolls of lesser amounts. Generally speaking, these numbers should ONLY be used for the primary challenge of the encounter. So if they're attempting to steal a golden stature from a long forgotten temple, have them make a Sleight of Hand roll or some sort of manual dexterity roll, but put that particular difficulty at the high number. Thus it makes it a suitable challenge for them without it being out of the realm of their
capabilities. You don't want to have that high of difficulty number for speaking to the natives or some other skill roll that isn't pivotal to the challenge, but you do want to use the higher difficulties when they are in the primary skill challenge area.
Also, there isn't any adjustment for greater quantities of player characters when it comes to skills. And don't vary the difficulty number depending on the character attempting it. If you are pretty sure that Bob's character has 5D in the skill so you set the difficulty at 20, but then Joe announces that his character has that skill at 6D, don't change the difficulty. Just grin and bear it and let Joe roll. Sometimes luck or fate will have a play in how things work out for the group. And if luck should have it that you forget that
Joe's character can also do that particular skill, then that's the way it goes.
Hopefully this gives you some idea for determining encounter balance. |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10436
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 2:38 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Cheshire for posting Grimace's write-up. That's very helpful (like a lot of stuff he does).
What I want to do with the game system that should also help for balancing adventure challenge levels with the PCs is to alter the difficulty scale to dice roll averages. The increments of 5 and 10 were established simply for simplicity's sake - something the GM could easily determine on the fly without having to refer to a chart. I think the difficulty scale should mirror dice roll averages (rounded up):
1D - 4
2D - 7
3D - 11
4D - 14
5D - 18
6D - 21
7D - 25
8D - 28
9D - 32
10D - 35
And so on. Just throwing that out there.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 3:40 pm Post subject: |
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What are the stats of your pcs? Stormies by the book have 4d dodge and 5d blaster. BUT should be rolling 3d/4d cause of armor penalties. If they shoot AND dodge, that should drop to 2d/3d.
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shootingwomprats
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| Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 6:43 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | Stormies by the book have dodge and blaster .. BUT should be rolling 3d/4d cause of armor penalties |
I was thinking the exact same thing. If the players are even semi-competent with 4D in blaster and using one action, not moving more than 5 meters at a time should have little trouble hitting the Stormtroopers. They should also be spending Character Points to augment important rolls as well and there is the option of combining actions or taking time.
Typical Imperial Stormtrooper: Dexterity: 1D (see Notes), Blaster 3D, Brawling 3D, Brawling Parry 3D, Dodge 3D, Knowledge 2D, Mechanical: 2D, Perception: 2D, Strength: 2D (see Notes), Brawling: 3D, Technical: 2D. Move: 10. Equipment: Stormtrooper Armor: (+2D Physical, +1D Energy, -1D to DEX related skills). Notes: DEX penalty already removed from DEX and covered skills. These stats are taken from R&E p.209.
IF a Stormtrooper reactive doges it would more likely be instead of making his normal declared action (no MAP if one action declared, rolls 3D [11]). If in addition to the a single declared action (-1D MAP penalty, rolls 2D [7]). In my games Stormtroopers only declare a single action so no need to calculate MAPs.
If the PCs are typical at blaster 4D they will average 14 on a roll. This is enough to hit every time they shoot (equal or better than the Target Number to succeed). Even if they have blaster 3D it averages 11 and still enough to hit every time.
If they are using blasters that do 4D and 5D damage they will average 14 and 18 their rolls. Stormtroopers soak vs energy is 3D an average of 11. Either stunning (-1D to all skills for the rest of that round and the next) or wounding the Stormtrooper (-1D to all actions until healed).
Keep in mind if a Stormtrooper is stunned twice they are knocked unconscious. If a Stormtrooper is stunned or wounded 1 they are -1D to all skill rolls (blaster 2D [7], dodge 2D [7]). Wounded 2 is -2D to all skill rolls (blaster 1D [4], dodge [4].
From the numbers I have your players should be able to take a Stormtrooper down in two rounds with Blaster 4D (4D damage). Not sure why combat is bogging down for you or why the characters are not able to down the troopers.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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Perhaps he rolls better than average for his stormies, while the players roll under average for their PC's.
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