[Star Wars] Saga Edition's New Damage System

[eyebeams]

The listed explanation for VP/WP's problems is kind of wacky, since it's out of context compared to other lethality benchmarks. A 40% chance of death by level 20 due to dumb luck? As opposed to what, exactly? There are a lot of flukey ways to die before 20th level. I bet that if someone actually crunched the numbers, that the chance of a typical D20 PC surviving to level 20 is actually probably close to zero if we don't count GM intervention.

This is really a signal that when it comes to some design issues some things just can't be practically tested with typical players and that when it comes to these things, designers go on gut feeling. Now Star Wars has a death spiral and that's supposed to be good. Previously, the in-house design position was that death spirals sucked and that hit points with random instant death thanks to MDT was a better design, but now that somebody figured out how to make it look native to D20 the tune changes. In short, nobody's opinions about death spirals, VP/WP or massive damage actually counted for much in the first place. They were all clever designs that could not be adequately playtested and were just tossed out there on a hunch, with post hoc justifications for why they were decent ideas.

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

No matter what we do, we can't playtest a game as thoroughly as it is by fans within a month of being released. Gary is the question-guy for Star Wars. His article represents not just his opinion but his explanation on why this change was made, which is based in part on feedback he's gotten from people actually playing the game over the past few years.

If my experience on Bullet Points is comparable, Gary has gotten hundreds if not thousands of emails from fans expressing their problems with the system as it exists, and the solutions that have worked in their own games. While that is not a definitive factor when redesigning a game, we'd be idiots (not to mention pretty arrogant) to ignore years of fan feedback about what works, what doesn't, and why.

Further, it's a mistake to judge any system in isolation. (And yeah, I know that's all you can do right now. I get that. In all seriousness, have fun taking it apart, just remember to look at the whole game later.) We made a lot of changes in Saga, and they all tie together. We had some overarching design concerns, and believe the totality of the Saga design do the best job fixing them. And believe me, the massive responsibility of changing things fans like did not escape us.

Speaking only for myself, I honestly think this game is better than any Star Wars rpg that came before. Of course not everyone will like it best, and I'm sorry about that. And I'm only human, so I could be wrong, have missed something obvious, or even be playing the game in a way no one else does. But we have gotten a lot of feedback, both on how the game did play and how it does now, so we're not just changing things for the sake of change.

 

[Nifft]

I'm really looking forward to this.

Even if it's not exactly what I want, I'll bet it's something I can adapt and steal.

Editing is sooooo much easier than writing...

Cheers, -- N

 

[Ranger REG]

So, with that disclaimer/PC statements out of the way.

Ranger REG: I am sorry if my rant lost my point to the OP. The new system will be bad if all it does is add more "paperwork" without giving any real benefit. For that to happen, BOTH players AND the GM will have to like the new system. If one side doesn't, there will be problems. Yes, we won't know until it is out. I was more saying that the explanation I read on the linked page didn't make it sound like anything more than extra paperwork to me. I won't know until it's released.

Well, you could try playing a d20 Modern game to see what it's like to use damage threshold based on Con. Of course, instead of a gradual decrease of performance due to injury, you'd just dropped (on a failed Fort save, mind you)

I don't mind the "extra paperwork" on this one (which shouldn't take more space in the HP section of the character sheet). I like to see (yet another) wound-level health model for the d20 System/SRD, as there are for other rules systems.

 

[eyebeams]

No matter what we do, we can't playtest a game as thoroughly as it is by fans within a month of being released. Gary is the question-guy for Star Wars. His article represents not just his opinion but his explanation on why this change was made, which is based in part on feedback he's gotten from people actually playing the game over the past few years.

If my experience on Bullet Points is comparable, Gary has gotten hundreds if not thousands of emails from fans expressing their problems with the system as it exists, and the solutions that have worked in their own games. While that is not a definitive factor when redesigning a game, we'd be idiots (not to mention pretty arrogant) to ignore years of fan feedback about what works, what doesn't, and why.

Further, it's a mistake to judge any system in isolation. (And yeah, I know that's all you can do right now. I get that. In all seriousness, have fun taking it apart, just remember to look at the whole game later.) We made a lot of changes in Saga, and they all tie together. We had some overarching design concerns, and believe the totality of the Saga design do the best job fixing them. And believe me, the massive responsibility of changing things fans like did not escape us.

Speaking only for myself, I honestly think this game is better than any Star Wars rpg that came before. Of course not everyone will like it best, and I'm sorry about that. And I'm only human, so I could be wrong, have missed something obvious, or even be playing the game in a way no one else does. But we have gotten a lot of feedback, both on how the game did play and how it does now, so we're not just changing things for the sake of change.

Please don't get the idea that what I'm saying is a *bad* thing. It simply is what it is. It's impossible to playtest character advancement through 267 sessions. We're talking about 1067 play hours to test a single mixed PC party (in person hours, around 5000-7000). Add expected feat tree advancement and a few multiclass options and you have no choice but to wing it, and I certainly respect that. But if the driving factor really is the feedback, I'd rather hear about that.

Now death spirals generally make combat more deterministic, since characters with disadvantages in combat get steadily worse. I'm not sure I really care for that. VP/WP does present the instant death problem, but so does D20 Modern with the save versus low massive damage mechanic. I'd say they were about equally bad. But VP/WP *does* do something very well, which I really wish WotC would pay more attention to: I *feels* like the type of combat you see in Star Wars, where VP provides a script immunity buffer and WP is actual contact injury. VP wasn't written like this, but this is how every group I encountered ever treated it.

I know that part of the design philosophy is to design to the needs of the game rather than emulation, but I think many gamers believe that some form of emulation is pretty important. And I'd like to have *something* that gets across the feel of Star Wars in that lots of stormtroopers shooting don't hit, but don't just light up the scenery, either.

 

[Klaus]

DnD in space Wohoo! not.

I know what my first house rule is going to be. Hit Points are one of my major problems with DnD, exporting them into other things that I like makes me like those other things less. People just don't get tough enough to take a hail of arrows when a single arrow was enough to kill them, it just doesn't work for me.

Funny you should say that.

From the article in the OP:

Over the years, some players have developed a terrible misconception that a character with 100 hit points can be shot almost a dozen times in the chest. Not true! Both a high-level soldier with 100 hit points and a stormtrooper with 10 hit points will be grievously injured and possibly killed by a single blaster wound to the chest. However, the high-level soldier will dodge the first nine shots, and the stormtrooper won't.

 

[Sammael]

The problem with HPs representing "bullet-dodging" is that there are at least two other things in the game that do the exact same thing: AC/Defense and saves.

EDIT: My preferred solution, from a purely logical standpoint, would be to

A) Integrate AC/Defense with Reflex save and have the player make a roll against the attack (rather than it being a flat value)

B) Make armor grant DR instead of a bonus to AC/Defense, thus ending up with a mechanism for soaking damage

C) Now we only have HP left to deal with; however, with the above two points covered, HP can now explicitly be taken to represent actual physical damage taken by your character, with level-based thresholds on what represents a "flesh wound" and what represents a serious injury. Serious injuries could then impose certain negative conditions on the PC, akin to the ones in the article.

I wonder if my proposed changes would actually slow the game down that much. Looking at them now, I don't have that feeling...

 

[MerricB]

The problem with HPs representing "bullet-dodging" is that there are at least two other things in the game that do the exact same thing: AC/Defense and saves.

Unfortunately, the other option is worse. In that case, you only have 10 hp and one lucky shot takes you down.

Cheers!

 

[Shalimar]

Unfortunately, the other option is worse. In that case, you only have 10 hp and one lucky shot takes you down.

Cheers!

Actually, the other option really isn't worse. Average damage from a blaster pistol would be 12 damage(4 each 3d6), even if it was a confirmed crit that wouldn't kill someone with a 10 con, it would drop them to -2. Even max damage with a blaster pistol (18) would just drop someone to -8 assuming they had a con of 10. I am more then fine with a character possibly dying from a dead on blaster shot. I'm not okay with a character laughing off a crtical hit from a greatsword.

I like a little realism in my games (to the extent that fantasy can be real), having characters able to jump off a cliff because they know they can't possibly be seriously hurt and they'll heal the boo boo over night just doesn't do it for me, and thanks to DnD that is what HP mean to me.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I always like the RuneQuest model (fixed hit points & hit points per location, armour per location which soaks damage, opposed checks to avoid damage)

Basically more powerful characters had access to better armour (including more powerful armour spells), and both attack and defence (parry) skills improved too.

The end result is that the Rune Lord can take on lesser foes with a very high chance of success, but there was always the threat that the trollkin might score a critical hit with his spear and you fail to parry it, and get discommoded.

Was this a huge barrier to character development and advancement? Actually it wasn't - the fixed hit points meant that abstraction disappeared and the mechanical model for combat matched 1 to 1 with the conceptual model. A definite win-win situation!

Cheers