Jedi Counselling 103 - Defense, Offense, and Rules on Mini Names

[Plane Sailing]

Jedi Counseling 103 - Defense, Offense, and Rules on Mini Names

is up now: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/sw20070531jc103

Basically covers the rationale behind the changes to Defence and Offence rules.

 

[Baby Samurai]

From what I've seen of the system (Saga), it will definitely add the movement, excitement and elegance to combat D&D I've been longing for.

Not to mention the nifty skill system and other goodies.

 

[Frostmarrow]

It looks so good I would like to use it for a fantasy game! Or a pulp game. Now that would be totally cool. Maybe I can bend it into shape.

I love the new grenade mechanic. Grenades are great but too often it's just a hassle to work it out. Now it's like fireballs anyone can keep handy.

 

[Stalker0]

The one thing I'm a little worried about is the concept of "whiffing" that I think will be more prevalent. High level characters seem to have pretty good defenses, and the attack bonuses don't keep up. Take those 10th level characters just posted (a 22 reflex defense). Now let's give the guy a full BAB and a very nice dex (18). So that's a +14 to hit, which means he hits on an 8 or better, so slightly better than 50%. But considering he doesn't have multiple attacks normally, many rounds he won't do any damage. Now, let's look at a medium BAB, +11, meaning the character will hit less than 50% of the time. That's a lot of rounds where you literally do nothing in combat.

 

[Blue]

It looks so good I would like to use it for a fantasy game! Or a pulp game. Now that would be totally cool. Maybe I can bend it into shape.

I love the new grenade mechanic. Grenades are great but too often it's just a hassle to work it out. Now it's like fireballs anyone can keep handy.

Some of the rules I like, some I think over simply it.

Take the grenade rules. It's effectively the same old rule (reflex for half), but now there is no chance to miss. Ever. By anyone. Someone's blind grandma can deliver a grenade with pinpoint accuracy at maximum range. And by pinpoint accuracy, I mean placing it such that it can get enemies but not friends who are in melee with them if you can manage to fit the burst in the right place.

Before, there was an element of doubt and risk - can I place the grenade right not to hit my friend? Now it just happens automagically.

Don't get me wrong - I like much of what they've done, and REALLY like a good chunk of it. I'm just worried that in some places the hunt of simplicity takes away from fun.

Cheers,
=Blue(23)

 

[Delgar]

Except that there are many ways to increase your attack bonus, through feats, talents. Not to mention Aid Attack, flank, charge. Now that range attackers can aid attack, the entire party can work together to bring down tough opponents because all of the aid bonus' stack. You can actually charge every round now that as long as terrain is in your favor.

You can withdraw as your move action 3 squares and then charge 3 squares and attack.

All in all, they way it looks like combat will fall out is that when your dealing with non-heroics they're going to drop like flies. I mean this is star wars there are LOTS of mooks. But when facing the BBEG, or the real threat, the combat is going to take a while and be more cinematic and your players are going to have to pull out all the stops just to take them down.

I love it. My copy arrives today.

 

[Baby Samurai]

You can withdraw as your move action 3 squares and then charge 3 squares and attack.

I thought charging is a full round action?

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I'm not worried about too much whiffing yet. Untill I see it as a problem in play, I'll assume it isn't, and here's why:

Pretty much all the combat rules are geared toward speeding up play on a round-to-round basis. If it takes half the time to resolve each PC's action, you'll get a chance to attempt something twice as often. Even if you only hit half as often (which I suspect is an exaggeration), you'll end up connecting with the same number of hits - and your total number of whiffs will go down because you won't be rolling iterative attacks that have a lower chance to hit than the primary in SWS.

Also, this edition seems to pretty strongly encourage large battle droid/stormtrooper/clone trooper/sith trooper/fringer mook squads as opposition for the PCs, with only the occasional heroic NPC. Which is itself pretty cool, provided it plays as fast as advertised.

Now, if play turns out to go fairly slowly despite the system tweaks, THEN the lowered offense becomes a concern.

 

[Henry]

Now, let's look at a medium BAB, +11, meaning the character will hit less than 50% of the time. That's a lot of rounds where you literally do nothing in combat.

That's intentional, as described. In order for a fight to last for more than a round or two, some people need to miss occasionally. And to be honest, it won't be 50% or more; in fact, looking at the talents and feats available to non-soldiers and non-jedi, they can very well hold their own in a firefight - I notice a number of defense-lowering abilities, rerolls on certain types of attacks, etc. So those Nobles and Scouts and Soundrels will be doing both pretty well for themselves as well as aiding the full-BAB types in cleaning house.

 

[Frostmarrow]

That's intentional, as described. In order for a fight to last for more than a round or two, some people need to miss occasionally. And to be honest, it won't be 50% or more; in fact, looking at the talents and feats available to non-soldiers and non-jedi, they can very well hold their own in a firefight - I notice a number of defense-lowering abilities, rerolls on certain types of attacks, etc. So those Nobles and Scouts and Soundrels will be doing both pretty well for themselves as well as aiding the full-BAB types in cleaning house.

Studies in computer games have shown (and without ever feeling the need to back up percentages on the internet) that in order to make the human psyche feel comfortable with a game a 70% success rate is optimal. I think they aim for that slot here. 50% chance of hitting plus various bonuses looks a lot like 70% to me.