Its Official: I HATE Vitality/Wound. You?

[genshou]

Bold added for emphasis.

Of course not. That's half the point of a messageboard, I think.

For me, it didn't work out well. I have this thing about RPGs. I had some not-fun experiences a long time ago and didn't play for a while, and I've since said that there's no point in playing if it isn't any fun. So my major concern when I'm gaming is Fun First. Stars died, planets aligned, and my group had a whizz-poor time with parts of the game. Not that it was all bad. We had lots and lots of fun. It just upset ME that parts of the game were seriously upsetting my PLAYERS and that I had to go through and start changing things on the fly to make it work.

And it seemed like alot of people were summing things up to: "PC death is good and makes for superior gaming." "If you use Jedi and Lightsabers, you're playing incorrectly." and "The system is great, you're all just whining and overreacting ... the proof is in the math."

It's not unfixable. It's not a bad game. Just wasn't for us, and I think there are some strong reasons why and that those reasons DO stand up under scrutiny and aren't the wild imaginings of somebody with freakish dice.

But I'm the same way about defending the Wealth mechanic from d20Modern for some reason. Ocassionally it's all I can do not to just go crazy and say: "You're a poopie-head! There, I said it!"



--fje

I'm understanding your viewpoint a lot better after that post, HeapThaumaturgist. I was starting to fall into the same trap as many others on the board, objectified by the text I bolded in the quote above. That's why I started throwing out possible rules solutions instead. Seeing as I've liked some of the ideas I've seen from you on EN World, would you care to look at my proposed changes and let me know what you think of them?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

This is the only argument I haven't figured out the point of yet. In D&D, higher-level characters tend to hit each other more frequently. How does SWd20 change this?

Well, let's compare three d20 characters. One is a Fighter / Rogue in the Eberron Campaign setting - as in, he's a flanker. The other's a Jedi Guardian - as in, he's a melee heavy. The other is a Soldier / Scoundrel, the SW version of the F / R.

All are 6th-level characters. I've ignored the ability enhancing magic possessed by the F / R, because all he's got are gloves of Dex, which improve his AC and his AB proportionately.

The F/R has a +1 mithral chain shirt and a +1 mithral buckler. He wields a +1 rapier. His "normal" AC is 22 (+5 shirt, +2 buckler, +1 Dodge, +4 Dex). His "normal" AB is +10 (+5 BAB, +1 Enh., +4 Dex), and he does 1d6+2 base damage. He's got 50 hit points (which is the maximum possible). He'll be able to knock himself out in 20 attacks (barring crits).

The Jedi Guardian has no armor (but has a class defense bonus) and wields a standard lightsaber. His "normal" AC is 17 (+5 Class bonus, +2 Dex). His "normal" AB is +10 (+6 BAB, +4 Str), and he does 3d8+6 base damage. He's got 78 VP and 16 WP. He'll be able to knock himself out himself in just under 7 attacks (barring crits).

The Soldier / Scoundrel has light armor (DR 2, which only protects against WP damage) and wields a mastercraft blaster rifle. His "normal" AC is 18 (+5 Class, +3 Dex). His "normal" AB is +8 (+5 BAB, +3 Dex), and he does 3d8+1 base damage. He's got 66 VP and 16 WP. He'll be able to knock himself out in just over 10 attacks (barring crits).

Note that I haven't included in any of this bonuses for flanking, sneak attacks, precise shots, point blank shots, etc. Additionally, the SW S / S has the ability to make multiple attacks per round, which would decrease the number of rounds required to knock himself out.

Obviously this isn't a straight, across the board analysis, but it is the kind of difference I'm talking about.

EDIT:

Additionally, the ECS character has, on-hand, a cleric with all his healing magic. The SW characters have, on hand, Jedi, who can generally heal in the realm of 1d6 Vitality Points once per hour per character.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

What breaks Jedi is Battlemind and Enhance Ability (especially Dex with Finesse, which is doubling up on Def and AB). The 5th level Guardian I illustrated earlier can take 10 on both of those skills before a battle begins and net a +5 bonus to attacks. So you're going from, say, +5 (BAB) + 3 (Dex) = +8 to +5 (BAB) +5 (Dex) + 3 (Force) for +13 ... That's a REALLY hefty jump. That's not out of the ordinary, either. You can take 10 on those skills, so you can pretty much always hit that number before a combat begins.

GENSHOU - I do like making Sneak Attack and Bonus Dice a different ... 'type' of dice. It's a simple and elegant change, which I'm all for, as it doesn't change anything but how the numbers we already generate are applied.

Our game I instituted a rule that when a Jedi was going to outright kill or drop somebody they could instead choose to lop off a limb and reduce that person to 0wp. Common house rule, it seems.

One time I let a player take 5 DSP to "be left for dead" when he was reduced to -15WP on a critical hit. They were fighting around a Dark Side tainted pool (set pieces, as I said before) and we had him fall in the pool. When they fished him out later there was a pink scar bisecting him from shoulder to the opposite arm-pit, and he was missing the fore-arm on that side continuing the line ... and after that he was never quite "the same", but it worked better for us than some "other Jedi" showing up in the middle of our "Dude We're Stranded On Tatooine" scene. It was alot of fun to RP him limping around at -9wp, the Healer working on him, and them having to pawn their speeder to get cyber installed in a black market chop-shop on Nar Shadaa.

We liked the "Training Sabers" which did different WP and VP damage, so messing with the bonus dice works well for me.

I think differentiating too much between crits and normal attacks, as far as Def and DR and the like goes, would be too complex. I think a big big change I'll make if I run again would be a GT style AP system in place of the Force Points as they exist currently.

We also used some Jed-buffing house rules from the Jedi Counseling articles, though, that helped toward the end ... one that let them "Exhaust" FP for 10 Ghost VP to spend only on powers, letting them use some of their powers more often, and letting un-exhausted FP alter Force Skill costs. This was to address some of the lack of "cool" that the Jedi had where the single best tactic in the game became the obvious Jedi Buff'n'Whack ... they weren't afraid to use "Ghost" VP on things like Move Object disarms and Force Push trips and Force Assist jumps and the like ... more wuxia. We wanted a Clone Wars cartoon style Jedi, just a bit.

I almost want to remove Battlemind and Enhance Ability from the game. Really I don't see where those are too based in anything going on in the source material. You could add an "Enhance Defense" skill as well, but all this is doing is bringing Jedi far far above all the other classes. It would be better, I think, to give them more options of what to do with Force Powers rather than giving them insane Total Attack Bonus.

--fje

 

[Ranger REG]

"Sorry Bob. I know you rolled a 20 and confrimed, but I need this bad guy for another part of the story, so the hit just deals normal damage instead."

Dude, I mean the GM's authority to fudge his own roll in order to advance the story. If the players altered your story, give them credit.

You guys need to read the Role-Playing Game Manifesto.

*Sighs heavily and shakes head in disappointment* I can't wait for human extinction.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

You guys need to read the Role-Playing Game Manifesto.

*Sighs heavily and shakes head in disappointment* I can't wait for human extinction.

Why wait when it's so easy to start at home! Baby steps.



--fje

 

[Ranger REG]

Why wait when it's so easy to start at home! Baby steps.



--fje

Because homicide is still a crime.

Better to have meteors the size of New Zealand hit us now. It worked against the dinosaurs.

 

[specks]

Remathilis,

May I ask why you still keep playing SWd20? It sounds like what you're saying is that the game has large enough holes that you can drive a Death Star through it? Has your group expressed an interest in another game?

Just askin!

 

[billd91]

What we wanted was flashing lightsaber wuxia and morality plays.
<snip>
What most upset ME was the PLAYER reactions. Fun went WAY WAY down. People were drumming their fingers, getting irritated, sighing, tossing down dice. It was the best I could do to keep up, and we ended up with a dozen house rules in place before things rounded up, but the system just wasn't designed to do what they wanted to do. They wanted to get all wuxia and saber it up, making Jump checks between pillars and emploring fallen padawans back to the light side of the Force. They wanted to be Luke and Yoda and Darth Maul. They were the nameless jedi knights getting mowed down by Battle Droids on Geonosis.

Sounds like the ruleset for you might be more like Feng Shui. One thing about SW, the mooks aren't that tough and get mowed down, but they can pack a punch. In Feng Shui, they're mostly an excuse for coming up with cool descriptions for mowing them down.

 

[eyebeams]

Unlike D&D variant massive damage rules, you don't die instantly. You failed your Fort save and you either dying (-1 hp; if attack is lethal) or unconscious (0 hp; if attack is nonlethal).

Ah, so you're relaying on DM fiat to save you, by assuming nobody exercises a coup de grace on you. That's not a rules-based argument.

And yet you feel the need to add Fort save to resist applying damage to WP. And if damage do apply to WP, you must roll Fort save again to stay conscious. Any more uses of Fort save do you wish to add?

Why would you need to roll a fort save to stay conscious any time you take WP damage? In any event, if you feel this isless fair than being knocked to dying/unconsciousness in one shot reagrdless of hit points, you and I are operating on highly incompatible ideas, to the point where discussing it further with you is probably a waste of both of our times.

 

[Remathilis]

Remathilis,

May I ask why you still keep playing SWd20? It sounds like what you're saying is that the game has large enough holes that you can drive a Death Star through it? Has your group expressed an interest in another game?

Just askin!

Fair Question.

I'm no longer DMing. I couldn't handle it, not just from a mechancial perspective, but a general burnout. the DM to which I play under is throughly sick of medieval sword-n-sorcery, so Star Wars (with all its worts) is something he'd rather be playing. To that end, some of us would rather be back to D&D, others don't care.

The current compromise is that I'll be DMing D&D, he'll be DMing SWs. I think that will work out well.