Its Official: I HATE Vitality/Wound. You?

[eyebeams]

You want a Fortitude saving throw first before applying any damage to WP???

Just go with d20 Modern MDT health system.

No, because the lowered Massive Damage Threshold mechanic sucks when it comes to respecting level. It's a binary system giving you a choice between nothing or character death. WP damage is superior because unlike a botched MDT save, WP injury is more survivable.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Your first example: An average roll on 4d8 is 18 points.

Also known as instant unconsciouness in nearly all cases - with healing severely limited, as well.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Also known as instant unconsciouness in nearly all cases - with healing severely limited, as well.

But unconscious is NOT dead. Especially in RPGs where there's usually a group of people. Being dropped unconscious will knock you out of the fight, but usually won't kill you because whoever's done it still has to worry about your friends. And again, this can be limited.

I keep seeing the assumption that the crit rolls are great and the characters doing these are optimized to do so. Well...what about the person being hit? There ARE defenses. DR 3 is damn good DR in SWd20, and since blaster pistols(3d6) are the most common weapons in the galaxy, it helps even more. Yes, lightsabers are dangerous and ignore armor...but not ALL armor. Cortosis can retain its DR or simply deactivate the lightsaber depending on which interpretation you want to do, but it prevents the damage. That's a defense.

And in lightsaber combat, especially, look at the movies. They don't just stand there and hit each other. They attack, and move. Attack and move. Full attacks are rare and only happen when someone gets cornered. Full Defense helps a lot.

The amount of damage from crits and how often they occur is simply being exaggerated far too much.

 

[Hammerhead]

At least in Grim Tales (like d20 Modern, only better!) you get knocked down to -1 when you fail your MDT save...not sure about d20 Modern.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

But unconscious is NOT dead.

Except, of course, when it is. You know, all those daring fights in dangerous locations that Star Wars is famous for. Or those bad guys who like to, as Rem put it, "Force Grip the unconscious guy."

I keep seeing the assumption that the crit rolls are great and the characters doing these are optimized to do so. Well...what about the person being hit? There ARE defenses. DR 3 is damn good DR in SWd20,

I disagree. I've found that DR is largely useless. First, nobody other than soldiers starts off knowing how to wear armor at all, even they need to spend feats to wear anything higher than light armor (DR ... 3? Max), and DR doesn't apply to Vitality damage.

Accordingly, the only time DR is at all useful is when you take a critical hit or when you're out of VP.

Subtracting 3 points of damage from a 3d6 or 3d8 damage roll isn't a lot. It's probably enough to drop you from "Immediately Dead" to "Gravely Wounded and Still Unconscious," but that's about it. Sometimes, it won't even save you then.

Yes, critical hits for 3 damage do happen. Of course they do. They just happen less often then critical hits for 24 damage (assuming a 3d8 weapon).

and since blaster pistols(3d6) are the most common weapons in the galaxy, it helps even more.

Blaster pistols are the most common civilian weapons in the galaxy. Whether that has any applicability to most SW campaigns remains to be proven.

Yes, lightsabers are dangerous and ignore armor...but not ALL armor. Cortosis can retain its DR or simply deactivate the lightsaber

Cortosis armor - that would be the stuff that no one knows about for most of the SW timeframe, right?

As in, it was known in the far distant past (KotOR-era), it's known about in the New Jedi Era (thanks to Luke and Corran Horn), but for vast stretches in the middle, it's not really present.

The amount of damage from crits and how often they occur is simply being exaggerated far too much.

In your opinion.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Yes, critical hits for 3 damage do happen. Of course they do. They just happen less often then critical hits for 24 damage (assuming a 3d8 weapon).

Huh...?

Cortosis armor - that would be the stuff that no one knows about for most of the SW timeframe, right?

As in, it was known in the far distant past (KotOR-era), it's known about in the New Jedi Era (thanks to Luke and Corran Horn), but for vast stretches in the middle, it's not really present.

And Jedi/lightsaber are out of the picture for an entire era in the game, arguably even the most popular era to run a game in...but we're still discussing them.

As for another way to deal with it...Dissipate energy. Or just don't get hit. Dodge, Full Defense, Cover, Concealment...blaster rifles. Those can all prevent lightsabers from doing damage to you, especially the last one.

In your opinion.

Same for you. You can't go stating things are fact and then call mine opinion. And not just you, specifically, but many things are being stated as facts that are blantly wrong. Lightsaber duels work just fine in the system. The fact that I've seen duels nearing 20 rounds and sometimes longer is proof that its just an opinion that it doesn't work, despite what some want people to believe.

And critical hits are not always confirmed. What dice are you using that always roll high when they need to and low when they don't?

 

[delericho]

Not death. *Possible* death. Remathilis, you keep intimating that a critical hit is an automatic kill, and it's just not so.

As a player, if I've been playing in a campaign for months, and carefully worked my character up to high level, the thought that a single shot from a random Stormtrooper can instantly end that character's life is not something that's I'm going to enjoy. Bear in mind that the sample Stormtrooper in the book uses a blaster rifle (3d8 damage). You can argue that a good GM would negate such a circumstance by fiat, but that doesn't affect my view of the system. Finally, it is worth noting that no matter how cautiously I play, it is extremely unlikely that my character will never get into a situation where he might suffer such an attack. (And if it is possible for me to do that, it sounds like a mighty dull campaign.)

As a GM, I would prefer a system where I can let the dice lie where they roll, and not have to worry every time Stormtrooper #24601 happens to roll a crit that this is going to undo months of campaign development. I expect to have to do some fudging with dice on occasion, but the less I have to do it, the better IMO.

A lot of people dislike effects in D&D that kill a PC on a failed save. However, at least in D&D coming back from the dead is fairly simple. In Star Wars it is not. That suggests that the presence of potentially insta-killing effects should be less common, not moreso.

 

[genshou]

As a player, if I've been playing in a campaign for months, and carefully worked my character up to high level, the thought that a single shot from a random Stormtrooper can instantly end that character's life is not something that's I'm going to enjoy. Bear in mind that the sample Stormtrooper in the book uses a blaster rifle (3d8 damage). You can argue that a good GM would negate such a circumstance by fiat, but that doesn't affect my view of the system. Finally, it is worth noting that no matter how cautiously I play, it is extremely unlikely that my character will never get into a situation where he might suffer such an attack. (And if it is possible for me to do that, it sounds like a mighty dull campaign.)

As a GM, I would prefer a system where I can let the dice lie where they roll, and not have to worry every time Stormtrooper #24601 happens to roll a crit that this is going to undo months of campaign development. I expect to have to do some fudging with dice on occasion, but the less I have to do it, the better IMO.

A lot of people dislike effects in D&D that kill a PC on a failed save. However, at least in D&D coming back from the dead is fairly simple. In Star Wars it is not. That suggests that the presence of potentially insta-killing effects should be less common, not moreso.

If there wasn't a system like the one that is presently in use, characters would face up to shot after shot from blaster rifles and rarely if ever would they show any sign of injury. I prefer the vp/wp. Honestly, I don't know what the problem is with having PCs who are mortal and could die at any moment. Sounds like real-world combat to me. I can't have any enjoyment in a game in which my characters never run the risk of dying. It's that fine line between devil-may-care braggadocio and the humorously mocked ideals of Sir Robin that I want my players' PCs as well as my own to fall under.

 

[genshou]

I like em. Aren't you supposed to have dead characters from time to time? Otherwise, the ones who remain aren't going to feel much like they can die, no matter how stupid (or unlucky) they are.

Good way to cut down on invincible hero complexes real fast is to throw their mortality into the light. That's very hard to do in D&D; much easier but very unpredictable in vp/wp. When a series of bad rolls makes the combat require more resources be exhausted but doesn't take any PCs out of the fight, things are either too easy or the hit point system is abstract in the wrong sort of way.

I'm all for vp/wp, both its benefits and its drawbacks.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Huh...?

Math, my friend.

In order to roll a crit for 3 points of damage on 3d8, you need to roll a 1-1-1 on three dice and not have any bonuses to that damage.

There are lots more ways to roll 24.

So, again, sure, a low-damage critical isn't much to worry about. Low damage criticals are less common than high-damage criticals.