wingsandsword
Legend
You mean less D&Dish? How is making combat more deadly making it less like a roleplaying game? Many games have systems that are a lot more deadly than WP/VP, and being able to shrug off many weapons hits with no real danger is a trademark feature of D&D, not RPG's in generalRemathilis said:
From running a yearlong Star Wars campaign, I never saw many critical hits vs. PC's, and looking at your example, I think I realize why, you need to realize you can't run Star Wars d20 like D&D and expect the same results.
Oh, being a Dark Side character doesn't let you get free Force Points for calling on the Dark Side. "Calling on the Dark Side" is just an option when spending an existing Force Point that grants low-level characters extra dice, but fewer dice to higher level characters (and Darksiders can only call on the Dark Side). Anytime you put a villain with Force Points in, you should expect injuries or fatalities, they are best reserved for major and recurring villains.
In most Star Wars games, the typical hostile encounter will be with goons, stormtroopers, or battle droids, all between 1st to 4th level characters with no VP that go down in one hit, and have weapons that crit on a 20 or 19-20, and characters can quickly get defense bonuses high enough that mean that they are hit only on a natural 20, especially with cover, fighting defensively, defensive martial arts, Lightsaber/Knight/Master Defense, Combat Expertise, and so on. A lack of VP in their opponents means that most of their foes will fall in one hit, which means the fight is over before an threats are likely to be rolled, and if the fight goes longer one side or the other may run before their luck runs out.
Also don't forget that armor grants DR against wound hits, and you can get up to DR 3 from light armor. A Soldier with a 12 CON could easily take better armor proficiencies with their bonus feats to get Medium and Heavy armor, or Toughness (15 WP with DR 7 is pretty good security against a stray blaster shot). Don't disregard Toughness, unlike D&D it's not a nearly useless feat, 3 WP can be a margin of survival.
Characters with personalized weapons, Improved Critical, Advanced Martial Arts and the like are supposed to be very rare. Lightsaber-wielding villains are not cannon fodder, and a party should pretty much never be facing an entire party of Dark Jedi or Sith (unless you're in a Tales of the Jedi/Knights of the Old Republic game, in which case the game should be deadly anyway, the TotJ comics were pretty deadly with Jedi getting killed by Sith a lot).
Running around with Lightsabers? The Lightsaber Defense feat tree might be good for you then, and don't forget Combat Expertise either. A high Defense is your best defense against a critical hit, as they still have to confirm.
When you put NPC's out with any enhanced-crit range abilities, you have to expect injuries, PC's have to know to play defensively as well. WP/VP isn't condusive to the D&D "let's all have a big brawl and stand around and whittle away at each other's Hit Points" style of play.
Look back to the movies, most of the fights are against thugs, troopers, droids and other low-level foes. Fights against higher level enemies are notable, and somebody often dies or the fight ends with a critical hit (Obi Wan v. Maul, Obi-Wan vs. Anakin, Luke vs. Vader both times, were all fights that ended on a critical hit). Luke and Leia each suffered critical hits from random blaster fire in Return of the Jedi (for a low damage roll), but both were signifcantly hurt out of nowhere by random fire.
Did make for more variety than the one BBEG I often see in DnD games.
