Star Wars SECR's New Damage System.

[Victim]

Spycraft also doesn't let normal foes crit without a special quality, which goes a long way. Also, avg damage seems a bit lower - pistol damage is around ~7 (some of the good pistols were around d10+1 to d12+1) instead 10.5 (3d6 blaster pistol) - so characters are less likely to drop in a single crit, if we're going with 12-14 CON for most characters. Granted, rifle damage is pretty much equivalent. Finally, critical hits occur because of an allocation of meta level resources, not chance. So whether or not crits are problem depends pretty much entirely on the GC.

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.

Funny. I think it's a bigger thing to admit that your revolutionary changes were, in fact, not not such a good idea because however awesome they in theory, they don't work out in play.

Besides, it's generally older gamers who can spend more since they have more disposable income.

 

[AscentStudios]

Spycraft also doesn't let normal foes crit without a special quality, which goes a long way. Also, avg damage seems a bit lower - pistol damage is around ~7 (some of the good pistols were around d10+1 to d12+1) instead 10.5 (3d6 blaster pistol) - so characters are less likely to drop in a single crit, if we're going with 12-14 CON for most characters. Granted, rifle damage is pretty much equivalent. Finally, critical hits occur because of an allocation of meta level resources, not chance. So whether or not crits are problem depends pretty much entirely on the GC.

You know, I hadn't thought of the use of action dice to activate crits and mooks not being able to crit as being a workaround, but you've got a point. I guess I've never really considered these a reaction to failures of the VP/WP scheme, but certainly in the standard d20 roll to confirm crit situation it could get ugly. This is what happens when you stand close to your own work for a long time I reckon

 

[Kunimatyu]

It's an interesting idea, but right now, I think True20 does it better.

Hit points do have a lot of popular appeal these days, though, so if I were WotC I'd be reluctant to dismiss the idea.

 

[Ranger REG]

It's an interesting idea, but right now, I think True20 does it better.

Hit points do have a lot of popular appeal these days, though, so if I were WotC I'd be reluctant to dismiss the idea.

Well, I don't know if True20 have modified their weapon damage (a straight value) from their MnM and Blue Rose days, but most WotC fans do not like to abandon the concept of rolling for weapon damage.

BTW, good idea on using [d20 Modern] AP to "catch their breath" as a (move? attack?) action.

 

[Nine Hands]

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.

That was an awesome game BTW

I think part of Spycraft's ease with Vitality/Wounds is the need to spend resources (action dice) to activate criticals. This makes them much less likely to occur (especially against PCs, if the GM is running the game correctly). Hence increasing the cinematic feel without wiping the floor with people due to some really good dice rolls.

 

[Nine Hands]

Well, I don't know if True20 have modified their weapon damage (a straight value) from their MnM and Blue Rose days, but most WotC fans do not like to abandon the concept of rolling for weapon damage.

BTW, good idea on using [d20 Modern] AP to "catch their breath" as a (move? attack?) action.

Its a static value, added to 15 I believe. In my True 20 Star Wars game I just allowed the players to roll (since we did defense rolls too). It brought the damage down a bit (on average) but the feel was exactly the way I wanted it.

 

[Ranger REG]

Its a static value, added to 15 I believe. In my True 20 Star Wars game I just allowed the players to roll (since we did defense rolls too). It brought the damage down a bit (on average) but the feel was exactly the way I wanted it.

Straight. Static. Players would like to roll weapon damage, be it to apply toward their opponent's current health points or add to their opponent's save DC.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Straight. Static. Players would like to roll weapon damage, be it to apply toward their opponent's current health points or add to their opponent's save DC.

Which players? All of them?

I don't know that there is any evidence for such a sweeping assertion, although I can certainly understand if you and all the people you've met prefer to roll weapon damage.

The first game I ever saw with static weapon damage was Chivalry and Sorcery (remember that ), and I hated their static damage vs hit points system. True20 isn't like that though - it is the equivalent of a weapon hit forcing saves, and if you recall PsiHB originally had psions roll 1d20+x for the save DC, but they ditched it for the 3.5 XPH and went to the standard static DC. Is there anywhere in WotC products where players actually roll to set a save DC at the moment?

Anyway, it is trivial to change True20 die rolling conventions to a 'players roll all the dice' kind of thing, where instead of targets rolling a save vs a damage DC, players roll their damage against the targets save DC.

Cheers

 

[ValhallaGH]

Players would like to roll weapon damage, be it to apply toward their opponent's current health points or add to their opponent's save DC.

Wow, way to over-generalize from the specific.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Straight. Static. Players would like to roll weapon damage, be it to apply toward their opponent's current health points or add to their opponent's save DC.

Take Toughness save. Add 6. This is a monster's Toughness score.

Player rolls damage + d20. The amount they beat the monster's Toughness score determines how badly they wound it.