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

[RigaMortus2]

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.

Cheers,
=Blue(23)

If I understand correctly, this is basically an attack roll. So you can still fail to hit the targets with a roll of a natural 1.

If you don't roll a 1, but you also don't beat their Reflex Defense score, you did not place the grenade optimally, so the targets in the area only take half damage. With the old system, you would pick a square you were tossing the grenade to, and have to hit AC 5. That's not very hard to do, so I guess that is why they took that out and simplified it.

So you have 4 things that can happen:
(1) Totally miss by rolling nat 1
(2) Deal half damage by not succeeding to overcome the Reflex Defense.
(3) Deal full damage by succeeding the Reflex Defense.
(4) Just read you can't crit on a grenade as it is an area attack. But a nat 20 is still "always a hit"

But I see your point, and agree with you. I had the same concern.

 

[Armistice]

Semi-official errata is that all area affect attacks need to beat a general Defense of 10 in order to be effective. This includes effects like Whirlwind attack as well as grenades.

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

In regards to Defense scores and mooks...

Finally played 1st SW game under Saga Ed Rules last night.

And yes, the mooks (in this case slavers and pirates; Lvl 3 Non-Heroics) will drop like flies against a party of player characters (in my case, six PCs each at level 6). But then again, they're supposed to drop like flies because they're mooks. And since bad guys with heroic levels should only be used for the finale of the adventure, combat shouldn't be over in a breeze (that was one if the big problems with RCR, especially when Jedi got involved). The big fight was against a level 8 Scoundrel and his four level NH 3/Scout 6 cohorts, and there was just enough drama to keep the players from getting bored with the fight (the Noble proved just how powerful of a support character the class can be thanks to her talent selections) and it took co-ordinated actions and Force Points on the part of the PCs to finally drop the Scoundrel.

Also one other thing to consider when squaring off against a high-level big bad are Destiny Points. If they're used in the game, being able to drop a Destiny Point for an automatic critical hit is a pretty potent effect, especially if the character is using a feat to further bolster their damage output (such as Power Attack, Rapid Shot, and Rapid Strike, where the penalty to hit becomes meaningless after spending a Destiny Point).

I think the thing to remember is that you shouldn't be using the Heroic classes for non-critical combat encounters; save the straight Heroic classed bad guys for the big finale.