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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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 Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2019 1:08 pm Post subject: Revamping Concentration |
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Concentration has long been something of a head-scratcher for me. It's cited as the power Luke used when firing at the exhaust port on the Death Star, yet per WEG's own rules and the power description, he couldn't have used it.
I have a couple suggestions as to making the power work the way WEG says it should:Rather than limiting Concentration to a single skill use, allow it to be used on multiple skill rolls, subject to increased Difficulty. For every additional skill required to perform an action, increase the Difficulty for the Control roll to bring up Concentration by +10. This represents the added Difficulty required to concentrate on actions that are progressively more and more complex. On a successful activation, the Concentration bonus is applied to all declared skill rolls.
For example, on the Death Star run, Luke would've needed to make both a Piloting roll and a Gunnery roll. Concentration has a base Difficulty of Easy for one skill, which is bumped up to Difficult by the +10 modifier for 2 skills. Luke beats the Difficulty, thus bringing up Concentration. In the following round, he receives a +4D bonus to both Gunnery and Piloting.
Granted, with Luke's relatively low dice levels in Force skills as of that time, he'd probably have to spend a FP to be able to make a Difficult Control roll. However, under a Force Attribute system, where he is starting out with a base Force of 6D or 7D and building from there, a Difficult success is well within the realm of possibility.
On a side note, the description of Concentration is pretty vague as to exactly when FPs and CPs can be combined with Concentration. Is the bonus applied to the skill, which is then doubled by the FP, or tacked on after the doubling? The way I see it, it could go either way. Thoughts?
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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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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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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: Sat Jan 26, 2019 2:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | Luke fired two torpedos so there were at least three actions. |
Fire-linked: two torps fired as a single action.
_________________
"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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Whill
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2019 9:58 pm Post subject: Re: Revamping Concentration |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: |
On a side note, the description of Concentration is pretty vague as to exactly when FPs and CPs can be combined with Concentration. Is the bonus applied to the skill, which is then doubled by the FP, or tacked on after the doubling? The way I see it, it could go either way. Thoughts? |
I've always doubled the base skill, then added in concentration.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2019 10:16 pm Post subject: Re: Revamping Concentration |
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| garhkal wrote: | | I've always doubled the base skill, then added in concentration. |
I've considered that, but my rule of thumb has always been that a bonus based on the character's abilities gets added into before the Force Point. Something tech-based and/or external to the character, like Fire Control, would get added in after. Since not using FC was integral to the plot, there would need to be a pretty formidable bonus off-setting it.
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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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Kytross
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 8:51 am Post subject: |
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This is not a direct reply to the initial question, but I thought it was relevant.
Enhance Attribute gives a general bonus to skills over a few rounds, with a bigger bonus but less rounds with better rolls. The least bonus is +1D for 3 rounds, the medium bonus is +2D for 2 rounds, and the best bonus is +3D for 1 round. The +3D bonus can't effectively be used with concentration to enhance a separate skill, RAW, because it would be a second action in a round. The first and second bonus continue to affect the attribute after the first round they are rolled in without being 'kept up,' so they can be used with concentration by rolling Enhance Attribute in the first round and then using Concentration and the combat skill in the second round.
Concentration gives an effective +3D, after MAPS, for a single action in a round.
Combat Sense gives a +2D bonus to combat oriented skills for ten rounds and is not kept up. It can be rolled in the rounds prior to when you want to roll Concentration, in a similar manner to Enhance Attribute.
Between these three force powers you've got an effective +6D-7D for a combat skill for one round.
And no, none of this explains how Luke is able to do multiple things in the Death Star Trench because he only knows Concentration and Accelerate Healing at this point. |
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Naaman
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 10:42 am Post subject: |
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| Kytross wrote: | This is not a direct reply to the initial question, but I thought it was relevant.
Enhance Attribute gives a general bonus to skills over a few rounds, with a bigger bonus but less rounds with better rolls. The least bonus is +1D for 3 rounds, the medium bonus is +2D for 2 rounds, and the best bonus is +3D for 1 round. The +3D bonus can't effectively be used with concentration to enhance a separate skill, RAW, because it would be a second action in a round. The first and second bonus continue to affect the attribute after the first round they are rolled in without being 'kept up,' so they can be used with concentration by rolling Enhance Attribute in the first round and then using Concentration and the combat skill in the second round.
Concentration gives an effective +3D, after MAPS, for a single action in a round.
Combat Sense gives a +2D bonus to combat oriented skills for ten rounds and is not kept up. It can be rolled in the rounds prior to when you want to roll Concentration, in a similar manner to Enhance Attribute.
Between these three force powers you've got an effective +6D-7D for a combat skill for one round.
And no, none of this explains how Luke is able to do multiple things in the Death Star Trench because he only knows Concentration and Accelerate Healing at this point. |
FWIW, Enhance Attribute could have been used at max bonus (+3D) because the power allows the user to expend a character point to increase the duration of it's effect before the power expires.
Also, in the example given in the description of concnetration, the way WEG wrote it, they added ALL the bonuses and penalties first, then doubled. So, the gunnery skill + concentration bonus - MAPS and then times 2. IIRC, the total rolled came out to 18D using this formula. (I suppose it's possible that a different order of operations could also yield the same result, thus generating the confusion, but without the reference at hand to check the details, I'm assuming that my memory is accurate).
If we're talking about re-writing a force power, while we're at it, I've always thought it was dumb to have to take a MAP when the power itself forces you to use only one other action. That is, the power is meant to represent total focus on one specific thing so taking a MAP seems counter intuitive: it would "make more sense" from a game design perspective if the bonus were just 3D and no MAP (if a 3D bonus was the intent) or just let it be the full 4D. YMMV. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 5:01 pm Post subject: |
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I've long felt that many of the Force powers need an open-ended bonus system based on how well the Force user rolls to bring the power up, and Concentration is certainly a candidate for that...
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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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Kytross
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | I've long felt that many of the Force powers need an open-ended bonus system based on how well the Force user rolls to bring the power up, and Concentration is certainly a candidate for that... |
That would be interesting. The better the roll, the bigger the bonus. 4D to start, maybe max it out at 6D.
Do you guys allow players to roll a reactive dodge if they've used Concentration in the round? |
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garhkal
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| Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 3:14 am Post subject: |
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| Kytross wrote: |
Do you guys allow players to roll a reactive dodge if they've used Concentration in the round? |
As per the power, they can't do anything else in the round, Including dodging..
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Pel
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| Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 1:47 pm Post subject: |
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This is somewhat supported by the film. When Luke Concentrates (pun intended), Vader finally gets a target lock ('I have you now') only to suffer the timely interruption of Han & Chewie. While there's no direct evidence, I can see how WEG inferred the power's use and the rules that govern it.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 2:36 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | Kytross wrote: |
Do you guys allow players to roll a reactive dodge if they've used Concentration in the round? |
As per the power, they can't do anything else in the round, Including dodging.. |
But, also per WEG's rules, Luke couldn't've made his Piloting roll for flying at Full Speed while simultaneously firing his Proton Torpedoes. The point of this conversation is that, while WEG has stated that this was the power Luke used to fire his pro-torps, the power as written does not allow him to do so.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 4:03 pm Post subject: |
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Which is something i've brought up a # of times before to show that he couldn't have been using concentration..
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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| Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | Which is something i've brought up a # of times before to show that he couldn't have been using concentration.. |
Or (as suggested by the title of this topic) that Concentration should be rewritten so that it could be used as described.
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