Its Official: I HATE Vitality/Wound. You?

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

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.

Maybe its been a long day for me and I'm just blank...but on 3d8?! That's where you lost me.

EDIT: Okay, bonus to the damage...but with ranged weapons, that isn't all that common, and STILL isn't as often as you seem to be making it out to sound.

 

[kenobi65]

Having followed this thread since it started, I've come to a couple of conclusions.

- My experience with the SWRPG, extensive though it may be, is vastly different from that of some of the other posters. Ankh-Morpork Guard's experiences are close to mine, Remathilis's and Patryn's (among others) sound very different.

- The basic VP/WP system itself isn't highly deadly, I don't think. What seems to make it so are some of the particular cases:
--- Lightsabers wielded by those who get 2d8+ in bonus damage (exacerbated by lighsabers ignoring the DR of common armor)
--- Improved crit ranges, esp. those caused by weapon modifications
--- Special abilities (e.g., bounty hunter) that allow for additional damage

The lightsaber issue is the most troubling, since they are clearly the iconic weapon of the setting. Despite the fact that I personally don't have an issue with VP/WP, if there's enough people out there who find that lightsaber combat *is* broken, then maybe there's something there that needs to be fixed.

I theorize that it's the combo of high damage dice, ignoring DR, ability to improve crit range, etc. that's the problem, but that's just a theory.

Unfortunately, with SWRPG on the back burner at WotC (though they promise that it hasn't fallen off the back of the stove entirely), I don't see the issue being handled officially any time soon.

(BTW, in 60+ Living Force adventures I've played in, the deadliest combatant I've ever seen didn't even have a weapon. She was a Large, raged martial artist, tricked out with all of the Martial Arts feats and Power Attack. She was a crit FIEND, and it was only low dice rolls on damage, and the DR3 armor that two of our party were wearing, that kept her from killing 3 of our 6 PCs before we were able to drop her.)

 

[billd91]

The lightsaber issue is the most troubling, since they are clearly the iconic weapon of the setting. Despite the fact that I personally don't have an issue with VP/WP, if there's enough people out there who find that lightsaber combat *is* broken, then maybe there's something there that needs to be fixed.

Potential house rule to reduce the lightsaber's lethality with crits:
The bonus damage dice apply only to VP. Apply only a +1 per bonus die to WP when dealing a crit.

That way the lightsaber isn't an insta-kill but still gains some power as the jedi improves.
Just a brainstorm.

 

[genshou]

- The basic VP/WP system itself isn't highly deadly, I don't think. What seems to make it so are some of the particular cases:
--- Lightsabers wielded by those who get 2d8+ in bonus damage (exacerbated by lighsabers ignoring the DR of common armor)
--- Improved crit ranges, esp. those caused by weapon modifications
--- Special abilities (e.g., bounty hunter) that allow for additional damage

1) I've never liked how much extra damage lightsabers can do. One idea I had after this thread started stems from an old house rule on sneak attack as well as a newer house rule that implements a variant critical multiplier in vp/wp: just treat all the bonus dice as always going to vp first, even on a critical hit. Thus, a lightsaber that deals 6d8 damage in the hands of Mr. Uber-Jedi would deal 6d8 + Str damage, but on a critical hit that would change to 4d8 damage applied normally as well as 2d8 + Str directly to wound points. This means mooks are still just as royally screwed, but there are no more ridiculous "Aw, crap, my PC/plot-crucial NPC died in the first round because we're facing a Jedi/Dark Jedi and he got a lucky crit" moments.
2) I don't allow weapon modifications to have a threat range increase that stacks with anything else. While I agree with arguments about 3.5 screwing lower-multiplier weapons over with its new rules about keen + Improved Critical stacking, in Star Wars that's the smarter way of doing things.
3) See #1.

 

[billd91]

Low damage criticals are less common than high-damage criticals.

Which are, in turn, less common than mid-range crits. So again, focusing on the high end is a bit of an exaggeration.
I dunno, but I just don't think you're likely to see a whole lot of bonuses in ranged combat. Maybe +3 within 30', +2 outside of that assuming some kind of weapon specialization? What else are we talking here?

Melee may be a bit higher since a character's strength may range a ways up there, but then, if the bonus is a problem, house rule it away for lightsabers. You're doing damage with a nasty energy weapon. It seems reasonable that a strength bonus might not be all that applicable. Then you're looking at bonuses akin to the ranged bonuses anyway and what'll that top out at? Just a few?

 

[Remathilis]

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.

My mortality is light when the Dark Jedi whips out 13-24 damage PER HIT on 2-3 good solid smacks (even at 9th level, thats 1/3 or 1/4 of my vitality per hit). I've gone toe-to-toe with a combatant that has taken me from full vitality to wound in one round and made me run like a scared child. With a Crit, it just means he cuts to the chase and downs me in a hit as opposed to several.

Again: It doesn't matter if I'm 1st or 30th level, my defense is 19 or 90, or my vitality is 1 or 1,000. If my DM rolls two descent numbers in a row and boom, Jedi-go-nite-nite.

And no a crit =/= death. However, a crit = a dang good chance you will be. At best, it means you'll have some time to read through the mainbook while your friends continue the fight.

Again, I'm not aganst lethality, PC death, or even getting knocked into negatives. I'm against how easy V/WP makes all of the above and how my DM's lucky die roll makes me a specator instead of an active element in many of the "epic" combats that dot the game. In a sense, the game DOES mirror the movies, I'm watching it all unfold rather than being able to DO something about it.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Maybe its been a long day for me and I'm just blank...but on 3d8?! That's where you lost me.

EDIT: Okay, bonus to the damage...but with ranged weapons, that isn't all that common, and STILL isn't as often as you seem to be making it out to sound.

Well, every Scoundrel in the game has a [potential] bonus to damage. Mastercraft weapons have a bonus to damage. Point Blank Shot provides a bonus to damage. The bounty hunter PrC gets a bonus to damage. Weapon Specialization provides a bonus to damage.

I could come up with others.

I picked 3d8 because it's a basic weapon range: heavy blasters, blaster rifles, and slightly improved lightsabers (which get Strength bonuses to damage).

 

[genshou]

Potential house rule to reduce the lightsaber's lethality with crits:
The bonus damage dice apply only to VP. Apply only a +1 per bonus die to WP when dealing a crit.

That way the lightsaber isn't an insta-kill but still gains some power as the jedi improves.
Just a brainstorm.

This same idea was generated for sneak attack damage in one of GlassJaw's threads while his Grim Tales ruleset was in development. I considered it for criticals with a lightsaber and decided it cuts down too much on the usefulness of those bonus dice when the opponent's vp is finally exhausted. With the rules I proposed in my post just above this one, the Jedi gets the same actual damage output as they normally would. Just not all to wound points.

 

[Ranger REG]

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.

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).

WP damage is superior because unlike a botched MDT save, WP injury is more survivable.

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?

 

[genshou]

I just had a brilliant idea

My mortality is light when the Dark Jedi whips out 13-24 damage PER HIT on 2-3 good solid smacks (even at 9th level, thats 1/3 or 1/4 of my vitality per hit). I've gone toe-to-toe with a combatant that has taken me from full vitality to wound in one round and made me run like a scared child. With a Crit, it just means he cuts to the chase and downs me in a hit as opposed to several.

Again: It doesn't matter if I'm 1st or 30th level, my defense is 19 or 90, or my vitality is 1 or 1,000. If my DM rolls two descent numbers in a row and boom, Jedi-go-nite-nite.

And no a crit =/= death. However, a crit = a dang good chance you will be. At best, it means you'll have some time to read through the mainbook while your friends continue the fight.

Again, I'm not aganst lethality, PC death, or even getting knocked into negatives. I'm against how easy V/WP makes all of the above and how my DM's lucky die roll makes me a specator instead of an active element in many of the "epic" combats that dot the game. In a sense, the game DOES mirror the movies, I'm watching it all unfold rather than being able to DO something about it.

NOW we're getting somewhere! Not that you weren't trying to get us there before, but thus far you were being hindered by professional thread hijackers such as myself

It can be a bothersome issue that PCs drop so quickly and with no regard to the number of vp they have, which is why their Defense goes up as they increase in level. Unfortunately, as attack bonuses increase faster, this does an inadequate job. The fact that high-level combat can become essentially a random crit-fest is something that's bothered me, but I'm willing to work around it to use the advantages the system offers. If someone can offer a suggestion that fixes this inherent problem without destroying the spirit of the rules, I'm stealing it immediately. One thought I had was that an enemy with a heroic class (one that grants vitality dice) get a +1 to their Defense per 2 or 3 character levels, applicable against confirmation rolls only. That has the potential to make high-level crits less unbalancing. Hmm, I will be playtesting these changes with my solo player when he moves back from WI at the end of October.