Star Wars SECR's New Damage System.

[0-hr]

While I on the other hand find this approach horribly, horribly, bad and certainly will never use it outside of high-fantasy D&D. Adding a damage track to the hit point system is like packing mud over a sucking chest wound and saying now its all better. Well of course that's not actually a sucking chest wound, the hero magically turned it into a mere sratch! kewl... :\


d20 StarWars for Dummies - I guess it projected more proffit than just fixing the existing system.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

d20 StarWars for Dummies - I guess it projected more proffit than just fixing the existing system.

My enthusiasm is undiminished, even though you insinuate I'm a dummy .

 

[jonathan swift]

I like it, though really I'd prefer they did away with hit points and did just the damage track. But then the first RPGs I ever played were d6 Star Wars and Mechwarrior. All this hit point stuff makes my head hurt.

 

[Ranger REG]

While I on the other hand find this approach horribly, horribly, bad and certainly will never use it outside of high-fantasy D&D.

I wouldn't mind testing it on d20 Modern, without the vaguely mentioned threshold progression (for the increase, you'll need to either boost Con score or pick up multiple Improved Damage Threshold feats) ... as a replacement to the existing MDT.

 

[Ranger REG]

I like it, though really I'd prefer they did away with hit points and did just the damage track. But then the first RPGs I ever played were d6 Star Wars and Mechwarrior. All this hit point stuff makes my head hurt.

The MechWarrior RPG I played was 2e, and it has a condition monitor and each level of condition have a set number of boxes, virtually "hit points," when you look at it.

 

[0-hr]

My enthusiasm is undiminished, even though you insinuate I'm a dummy .

Nah, I'm just saying that my impression of the SAGA edition is that they've simplified things far more than I like - spinning it as "cinematic" and "streamlined" and then using all the tired old "abstract combat" excuses we've grown accustomed too with D&D. I think that they are aiming for a younger audience who is newer to gaming and willing to spend more. As I'm an old, impoverished veteran this approach makes me grumpy.

What I really liked about d20 Star Wars is that we could finally stop pretending that hit points and armor class were good ideas just because they've been around since Gary's garage in Wisconsin. It was a big step for d20 to finally admit that - and so it pains me to see the attempt scrapped in favor of the safety of the tried and true (and boring and unrealistic) system. This damage track thing may be a tiny improvment to vanilla D&D, but it strikes me as just a tacked-on variant rather than a new damage system - not nearly enougth to make hit points reasonable.

 

[Thaniel]

*snip*

I wish I were as able to make such judgment calls based on incomplete information.

I'll hold my vitriol until I see the final cut.

 

[jonathan swift]

The MechWarrior RPG I played was 2e, and it has a condition monitor and each level of condition have a set number of boxes, virtually "hit points," when you look at it.

Yes, but it wasn't DnD's "fine, fine, fine, fine DEAD!" type hit points either. And they didn't really really get raised a whole lot as you gained experience either.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

Nah, I'm just saying that my impression of the SAGA edition is that they've simplified things far more than I like - spinning it as "cinematic" and "streamlined" and then using all the tired old "abstract combat" excuses we've grown accustomed too with D&D. I think that they are aiming for a younger audience who is newer to gaming and willing to spend more. As I'm an old, impoverished veteran this approach makes me grumpy.

Just to make it very clear, I wasn't really offended. I understand some people are frustrated with hp systems (I used to be, myself) and that sometimes they need to vent.

What I really liked about d20 Star Wars is that we could finally stop pretending that hit points and armor class were good ideas just because they've been around since Gary's garage in Wisconsin. It was a big step for d20 to finally admit that - and so it pains me to see the attempt scrapped in favor of the safety of the tried and true (and boring and unrealistic) system. This damage track thing may be a tiny improvment to vanilla D&D, but it strikes me as just a tacked-on variant rather than a new damage system - not nearly enougth to make hit points reasonable.

Perhaps not, but I think the system will combine the ease of use of hps with the dynamism of a wound system. I trust WotC will do a good job of it, but I've been wrong before .

 

[AscentStudios]

I'm also extremely glad to see WOTC admit that, regardless of how many fans VP/WP have, it's not really suitable to anything approaching a cinematic game without some sort of workaround.

I disagree. Spycraft is routinely cited (or dismissed) as "cinematic" due in large part to the VP/WP system. I ran a 16 player game this weekend at ICON 26, in which many many cinematic things happened, and while some critical hits were inflicted and suffered, players were able to stay in the fight for a few hours. There was not even one death to critical hits, but there was much degraded performance suffered from crits suffered in the midst of combat. That seems plenty cinematic to me.

I look forward to seeing how the SECR's system works out. I also like systems in wich damage degrades performance, but I could see a pitfall with this system should the damage thresholds remain low - this could have the same complications as the D20M massive damage thresholds, with only knockouts being suffered than 0 hp/death. Certainly less lethal, but a character laid out early in a fight due to a lucky hit (even if he's not dying) is still frustrating and reduces the chances for heroics. No judgements until we see the final product though