Remathilis
Legend
Background: I've been playing Star Wars Revised d20 for about a year now, with occasional outbursts of D&D. Because of this, I feel comfortable to say this:
I hate vitality/wound points. Why?
Critical Hits. For those uninitiated, in V/WP you have a number of vitality based on your class and level (like D&D hit points) PLUS a wound pool equal to your con score (+ any applicable feats, like toughness).
So a first level solider (fighter) with a 14 con has 12 vitality, 14 wound.
Once you run out of vitality, you begin taking wound. Wound damage fatigues you and you must make a DC 5+ wound damage to keep standing. At 0 wound, your staggered, -1 your dying like in D&D.
So far so good, right?
Here is the kicker. Critical hits ignore your vitality points and go straight to wound. It doesn't matter if you have 1 vitality or 1,000, the damage is straight to wound.
Your Wound pool never increases cept by feats like toughness or increasing your con score.
Most normal beings have a wound pool of 1-20. Typical weapons do blaster 3d6 damage, lightsabers can do up to 6d8 (!).
Its descently easy to improve your threat range in both SWd20 and D&D. Lightsabers with a threat of 16-20 is not uncommon.
What does all this mean?
Combat under V/WP is essentially russian roulette. The game becames an almost grisly game of "who rolls the most 20s" usually. A tech spec (a non combat class) and a Jedi have the same chance of surviving a critical assuming equal con scores. Poison/con loss messes you up three ways (it removes vitality from lowering your con mod, removes wound points, and lowers your con score, all of which can kill you). While it accurately represents the chance of death that combat SHOULD have, it more often than not means your players are going to get knocked out/killed in a blow no matter if they are first or 30th level. In fact, you have a WORSE chance of survival at higher levels because enemies can usually get better crit threats and do more damage to your puny wound pool.
It works in reverse too. A GM's major antagonist can be killed in one freak d20 roll, ruining a whole plot or even campaign. Vitality is nothing more a way of measuring "not crits", 90% of all character deaths happen because of crits, not vitality then wound loss.
Oh yeah, did anyone else know that you can use a force point to confirm a crit if you use the force on an attack dice? This means usually, your defense bonus is nothing more than a speed bump for a dedicated assassin. Same goes for a scoundrel's "lucky" class ability.
While this all might be realistic and even in line with the SW mindset, it makes for TERRIBLE gaming IMHO. It hinges all fights not really on skill but on the blind luck of "who gets the first 20". An Ewok can kill Darth Vader with a simple high roll or two. Getting critted also means your (effectively) out of the game for the rest of the combat. Stormtrooper lucks out and rolls a 20 + confirm? Your 10th level Jedi is laying on the ground for an entire combat, even (and especially) before he could even act...
While HP is unrealistic (20th level fighter vs. 200 goblins. Guess who wins?) it does do two things correctly: sacrifices realism for playability and protrays PCs and HEROES, not some dudes. My fighter will be in a world of hurt from a great-axe crit from that raging orc, but chances are he'll have enough HP to either retreat or survive long enought to finish the orc. In V/WP? the Fighter's sausage.
My rant is done. Anyone else want to share horror stories of V/WP or try to convince me my group is more lucky than normal with those 20? I like the idea in concept, but the mounds of dead character sheets I've seen leave me on the fence about it in practice...
I hate vitality/wound points. Why?
Critical Hits. For those uninitiated, in V/WP you have a number of vitality based on your class and level (like D&D hit points) PLUS a wound pool equal to your con score (+ any applicable feats, like toughness).
So a first level solider (fighter) with a 14 con has 12 vitality, 14 wound.
Once you run out of vitality, you begin taking wound. Wound damage fatigues you and you must make a DC 5+ wound damage to keep standing. At 0 wound, your staggered, -1 your dying like in D&D.
So far so good, right?
Here is the kicker. Critical hits ignore your vitality points and go straight to wound. It doesn't matter if you have 1 vitality or 1,000, the damage is straight to wound.
Your Wound pool never increases cept by feats like toughness or increasing your con score.
Most normal beings have a wound pool of 1-20. Typical weapons do blaster 3d6 damage, lightsabers can do up to 6d8 (!).
Its descently easy to improve your threat range in both SWd20 and D&D. Lightsabers with a threat of 16-20 is not uncommon.
What does all this mean?
Combat under V/WP is essentially russian roulette. The game becames an almost grisly game of "who rolls the most 20s" usually. A tech spec (a non combat class) and a Jedi have the same chance of surviving a critical assuming equal con scores. Poison/con loss messes you up three ways (it removes vitality from lowering your con mod, removes wound points, and lowers your con score, all of which can kill you). While it accurately represents the chance of death that combat SHOULD have, it more often than not means your players are going to get knocked out/killed in a blow no matter if they are first or 30th level. In fact, you have a WORSE chance of survival at higher levels because enemies can usually get better crit threats and do more damage to your puny wound pool.
It works in reverse too. A GM's major antagonist can be killed in one freak d20 roll, ruining a whole plot or even campaign. Vitality is nothing more a way of measuring "not crits", 90% of all character deaths happen because of crits, not vitality then wound loss.
Oh yeah, did anyone else know that you can use a force point to confirm a crit if you use the force on an attack dice? This means usually, your defense bonus is nothing more than a speed bump for a dedicated assassin. Same goes for a scoundrel's "lucky" class ability.
While this all might be realistic and even in line with the SW mindset, it makes for TERRIBLE gaming IMHO. It hinges all fights not really on skill but on the blind luck of "who gets the first 20". An Ewok can kill Darth Vader with a simple high roll or two. Getting critted also means your (effectively) out of the game for the rest of the combat. Stormtrooper lucks out and rolls a 20 + confirm? Your 10th level Jedi is laying on the ground for an entire combat, even (and especially) before he could even act...
While HP is unrealistic (20th level fighter vs. 200 goblins. Guess who wins?) it does do two things correctly: sacrifices realism for playability and protrays PCs and HEROES, not some dudes. My fighter will be in a world of hurt from a great-axe crit from that raging orc, but chances are he'll have enough HP to either retreat or survive long enought to finish the orc. In V/WP? the Fighter's sausage.
My rant is done. Anyone else want to share horror stories of V/WP or try to convince me my group is more lucky than normal with those 20? I like the idea in concept, but the mounds of dead character sheets I've seen leave me on the fence about it in practice...
