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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 9130632" data-attributes="member: 85870">So I have to disagree with the premise that FFG Star Wars just "doesn't capture the right feel for Star Wars."This may not be true for everything, but the combat side of things is quite well done for a "Star Wars" feel.In the past, I believe [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] once described D&D 4e combat as having a sort of common feel to it -- characters get hammered early, then use their wits and assets to slowly turn the tide until they overcome. Sort of a "rally to save the day after an early setback" kind of a feel.FFG Star Wars combat doesn't follow 4e's paradigm, but it has a similar kind of structure. It's very much an "escalating risk as your resources and options slowly shrink, until you're forced to act boldly or abandon your intentions."Its hit points + fatigue points + critical hit chart makes it so that nearly every combat action has a result of some kind. You're always shifting the narrative of combat, even just a little, on nearly every throw of the dice. The way the player resource pools + abilities + triggers based on advantageous dice rolling makes it so that in an even fight, the winning side really comes down to who can best utilize their strengths in the situation. If two sides are just fighting an evenly matched pitched battle, eventually it comes to a point where resources are depleted, the enemy is about to break through your defenses / strategy, and you're going to have to do something bold and innovative in response, or else you'd better just retreat and live to fight another day.It's a really interesting sort of combat dynamic. It's very, very different from D&D. It's very different from Savage Worlds. It's very different from Ironsworn. In play it totally reminded me of the emotional swings watching Han try to fight his way into the shield bunker in Return of the Jedi, or the gold heist in Season 1 of Andor.Some things go right, but lots of obstacles crop up along the way, and hard choices have to get made. FFG Star Wars combat has this same kind of distinct tug of war going on. How much do you risk? How far do you let your resources dwindle until you have to break out of the current state of battle and do something to turn the tide?*Edit -- In retrospect, one of the things FFG Star Wars does well is telegraph when an opponent's grasp of victory is about to slip away. The overall tenor of a fight follows fairly closely with what the characters involved would be experiencing. It creates an interesting in-game narrative, where the game results are correlating one-to-one with the thought process of the character or NPC. "Man, this is getting away from me. If I don't get out of my current result loop, we're going to lose and probably get captured or worse."This also creates an interesting dynamic because Star Wars combat isn't necessarily considered to be "to the death." Surrender and capture, bargaining, and retreat are all presented in the source fiction as being viable ways of handling a battle rather than just simply slugging it out.</blockquote>

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