[Star Wars] Saga Edition's New Damage System

[EvilDwarf]

How about those others?

Several folks have posted that the new Saga damage tracker reminds them of other systems, like Shadowrun or WEG d6.

Anyone care to share a bit o' summary of how these others worked? Did they include a feature like the increasing damage threshold talked about for Saga?

I, for one, am really eager to see what WoTC has come up with.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

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..

Being knocked unconscious has almost the same effect as dying in a game: it's not fun. Especially in games where easy healing (like D&D) isn't available.

Cheers!

 

[Remathilis]

People are treating the possibility of dying from a blaster bolt to the chest like its undesirable (from a system standpoint). Aside from Jedi powers like absorbtion, or just being a Gammorean, a blaster bolt to the chest should have a chance of killing a character. Storm Troopers in armor were dying from blaster shots, that is part of the setting, blasters are not water guns or they wouldn't use them, if a person cannot die from a blaster shot, then the game is not Star Wars.

Allow poeple to spend a force point to unconfirm a critical against them, but the idea that a baster bolt is a deadly thing has to be there for Star Wars.

Actually, it IS undesirable. It fosters a number of specific attitudes among players...

1.) My character cannot come back from the dead, so I will do everything in my power to MAKE SURE he doesn't die.
2.) I will min-max out my character, often at the expense of non-combat abilities, just to keep him from dying. Even if it means my noble having a higher con than cha.
3.) I will make soldiers, jedi, and other "combat" classes so good, I can kill anything in 1-2 rounds, because every round I'm exposed to harm is a round I can (and very likely will) die from. Non combat characters (scoundrels, nobles, tech specs) are best served hiding in some corner waiting for and watching the combat monsters to kill everything quickly.
4.) I will run from any combatant I cannot easily kill, often resorting to ambush, sunder, stun, or planetary bombardment to fight any foe I know I cannot take easily.
5.) I will never engage a dark jedi, sith, or any other lightsaber wielder in combat. A lightsaber in the hands of a moderately high-level force-user is a TPK on legs.
6.) If I have to fight such a foe, winning will usually be through attrition, not skill. Often, the person left standing is the one who rolled the highest during the fight.

Couple this with a few other system flaws (defense that doesn't scale fast enough, balance of jedi vs. non-jedi, general uselessness of armor) and you get a system the produces many more Han Solo pragmatics than Luke Skywalker optimists. I guess thats fine if you like grim-n-gritty cynical mercs making there way in the empire, but I like heroic jedi standing against overwhelming odds and triumphing, and I don't get that in d20 SW without 20 pages of house rules.

Bring on Saga!

 

[eyebeams]

I don't agree with this. Barring regeneration, an unconcious character is out of the fight. why waste a full round action and become exposed to AoO for a CdG?

That's easy; there are more of you than them. If you have someone to cover you, it's in your interest to make sure the opponent doesn't make a comeback.

 

[eyebeams]

This seems as though it assumes an unnecessarily adversarial style of play between GM and players. A GM could set challenges to kill any PCs at any time they wanted, but they don't because the aim is for a fun game.

And for some, the fun is in meeting challenges where opponents act in their tactical self-interest, challenging the players to overcome them without any special help from the GM. And in fact, though the GM *could* set impossible challenges, the fact is that there are already fairly well-defined parameters for appropriate challenges in the system -- in other words, there are rules to handle it.

A lot of RPGs in the 80s and 90s got a lot of mileage out of "The system says this, but ignore its implications and use a golden rule." It just doesn't cut mustard when it comes to contemporary design because it makes a a certain style of play mandatory. In essence, you're telling me that I'm to not use Saga's damage system for tactical play because the system doesn't support it. If someone else defines what fun is, then it ain't fun.

As others have said, in a fun game unconscious characters could be ignored (how would someone know whether they are alive or dead without checking?) or more likely captured for interrogation and the adventure continues with different (classic) options.

I'd have quite a stretch to think of any genre of RPG where automatic CDG of fallen foes is the obvious thing for a GM to do - perhaps in a horror or zombie game?

Uncle Owen! Aunt Beru!

If my *choice* to have fun (as opposed to the choice I'm being told is mandatory) lies with tactical challenges, people who want to kill the characters will do whatever they can to kill the characters. That means that if they can coup de grace a hero, they will. In Saga, the outcome of such decisions are dumped back into my lap, since characters can get knocked into helplessness regardless of remaining HP.

This isn't a unique problem with SW Saga. It's also an issue in D20 Modern's low Massive Death Thresholds.

 

[eyebeams]

Several folks have posted that the new Saga damage tracker reminds them of other systems, like Shadowrun or WEG d6.

Anyone care to share a bit o' summary of how these others worked? Did they include a feature like the increasing damage threshold talked about for Saga?

I, for one, am really eager to see what WoTC has come up with.

Cheers!

In old WoD you subtracted base damage from a soak value (equal to Stamina, armour or both) and applied it to your Health. Damage creates an increasing penalty to actions. Soak essentially has the same function as the damage threshold (and is literally the threshold before damage starts affecting the character) and is either raised by increasing the associated character trait, getting better armor or employing supernatural powers of one kind or another.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Oh yes it does. Ask me how many times I roll a natural 19 during a lightsaber combat and "didn't confirm" the roll even there was no real chance of him missing on that follow-up attack.

The Problem with V/WP wasn't stormtroopers rolling 3d6 vs. my 12 con scoundrel, it was sith lords rolling 4d8+12 (rage, enhance ability, two-handed use lightsaber) Against my 16 con Jedi Guardian.

The problem here isn't with VP/WP though - it was with the design decision to give hugely scaling damage for lightsabres in a mechanic that demands static damage dice.

If they had made lightsabres static 3d8 damage (and don't apply str bonus to damage perhaps?), then you wouldn't see the problem.

If they had a proper 'parry' mechanic then equivalent skilled combatants could actually have a duel like in the movies, but they didn't, so you can't.

I was using a VP/WP mechanism in 1e D&D very successfully; it is a fine mechanic that got torpedoed by other design decisions that were made in SWd20.

 

[irdeggman]

The new system reminds me somewhat of the old system used in Alternity with different types of damage (which seem to correspond to the "conditions"). Alternity had Stun, wound, fatigue and mortal.

In general, I liked that system.

 

[Klaus]

Several folks have posted that the new Saga damage tracker reminds them of other systems, like Shadowrun or WEG d6.

Anyone care to share a bit o' summary of how these others worked? Did they include a feature like the increasing damage threshold talked about for Saga?

I, for one, am really eager to see what WoTC has come up with.

Cheers!

All IIRC:

Shadowrun has two 10-box Condition Monitors, one for Lethal and one for Nonlethal damage. If you take Light damage, you cross off a box. If you take Moderate damage, you cross off three boxes (if you take 3 Light damages, you enter Moderate territory). If you take Serious damage, you cross off 5 boxes. If you run out of nonlethal boxes, your damage starts being tracked in the lethal monitor (but the you're unconscious). If you run oout of lethal boxes, you're dead.

Each condition (Light, Moderate and Serious) entails a penalty, and lethal/nonlethal penalties stack. This causes a death spiral effect, in that the more injured you are, the more likely you are of getting injured some more. The first person to take a hit is the most likely to lose a fight.

 

[hong]

That's easy; there are more of you than them. If you have someone to cover you, it's in your interest to make sure the opponent doesn't make a comeback.

Meh. Execute the guy who's not shooting back _after_ you've taken down/driven off the guys who _are_ shooting back. It's not like he's going to magically wake up.