StarWars d20

[Ranger REG]

Alright, you got me there. I'm sorry I offended YOUR Jedi PC.

 

[LostSoul]

First there is the variance problem.

I'm not sure if I understand that... what I'm getting is that adding 10 to Difficulty 10 is a bigger problem to someone with 5D skill than adding 10 to Difficulty 15 to someone with 10D skill. (That is, adding the 10 has different effects based on your skill level.) And if you added 50% of the Difficulty, it would be worse for the higher skilled guy. Or am I lost on this?

I didn't have a problem with things; I used opposed rolls almost exclusively, and an intuitive idea about what the different Difficulty classes meant.

As far as background stuff goes - I can't argue with that; it's just a difference of taste. Typically, I trash everything WEG says, stick with the movies, and run things my way. This usually means more "edge" than you're used to.

 

[Agback]

I'm not sure if I understand that... what I'm getting is that adding 10 to Difficulty 10 is a bigger problem to someone with 5D skill than adding 10 to Difficulty 15 to someone with 10D skill. (That is, adding the 10 has different effects based on your skill level.) And if you added 50% of the Difficulty, it would be worse for the higher skilled guy. Or am I lost on this?

I didn't have a problem with things; I used opposed rolls almost exclusively, and an intuitive idea about what the different Difficulty classes meant.

Nope, you're not lost.

But the problem also exists with opposed checks. The performance gap between two characters scale neither with the ratio of their dice pools nor the difference between their dice pools.

And using an 'intuitive idea of difficulty classes' doesn't solve the problem. It is at best an agreement to pretend that nothing is going wrong when something plainly is.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Shard O'Glase]

edited to drop it already.

 

[LostSoul]

But the problem also exists with opposed checks. The performance gap between two characters scale neither with the ratio of their dice pools nor the difference between their dice pools.

And using an 'intuitive idea of difficulty classes' doesn't solve the problem. It is at best an agreement to pretend that nothing is going wrong when something plainly is.

I guess I don't see how the problem crops up in play.

They had this chart that rated the different levels of skill in real world terms - 2D was average adult, 4D was trained professional, 6D was an elite in that field. So when we'd be playing and the PCs would need to Con an Imperial tech, I'd just roll 2D vs. the PC's skill. If it was a con artist, then I'd roll 4D. If it was a hot-shot con artist (like Paul Newman in Sting), I'd roll 6D.

Now this seemed to work well, because I knew what the die codes meant in real world terms. However, I'm open to examples of problems cropping up.

 

[Jack Haggerty]

I guess I don't see how the problem crops up in play.

They had this chart that rated the different levels of skill in real world terms - 2D was average adult, 4D was trained professional, 6D was an elite in that field. So when we'd be playing and the PCs would need to Con an Imperial tech, I'd just roll 2D vs. the PC's skill. If it was a con artist, then I'd roll 4D. If it was a hot-shot con artist (like Paul Newman in Sting), I'd roll 6D.

Now this seemed to work well, because I knew what the die codes meant in real world terms. However, I'm open to examples of problems cropping up.

The problem isn't so much how to figure how many dice a person of a certain skill level should have, but the statistical math of the situation...

As you add dice, your average dice roll increases, and the chances for rolling that average roll increase, but your chance of getting either extreme decreases... The gaussian curve representing the odds of your dice roll gets taller and narrower. With more dice, you roll more reliably in the middle of the curve (and with a slightly higher middle), but not necessarily higher.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

I've played only the Revised Star Wars and WEG's d6 Star Wars, and I can say that I vastly prefer the new Revised game... why?

- Jedi. The amount of character points it took to build a Jedi on par with those in the movies in the d6 game was staggering to the point of ridiculousness. On the other hand, several of my players are now playing 7th-8th level Jedi PC's with powers on a similar level to those in the films. Our Jedi Master is a match for Obi as of Episode II, and the Guardians are both a match for Luke as of Episode VI. Doing this in the d6 game was next to impossible.

- The Skill System and Class System. See above. The d20 mechanic is much simpler and more effective than a die pool, and levels are very convenient for scaling the power of enemies (there just wasn't a good way of doing this in the old game.

The only thing I've found that I don't like is the vehicle and ship combat rules- the combat rules in the d6 RPG were much more elegant. But so far I prefer everything else.

The write ups for the characters from the films really don't concern me... the only character in the movies that is currently living during the time period I'm playing in is Yoda- and he's only a 7th level knight.

Anyway, I've never seen a game that is sufficiently cinematic to capture the feel of the movies, and I probably never will see such a game. So, to compensate, we burn our way through a lot of force points and I make a few dramatic liscense calls- it's all good.

Of course, there are some things I wonder about... last time we played, one of the PC's (a 5th level Noghri force adept), went from zero to SEVEN DSP's in under a minute, shooting off force lightning at his enemies and calling upon the dark side of the force. SEVEN IN A SINGLE MINUTE! Shouldn't there be a system shock roll for that? I'm suprised he didn't keel over from the shock of going over to the dark side so quickly... hmm...

 

[bwgwl]

The write ups for the characters from the films really don't concern me... the only character in the movies that is currently living during the time period I'm playing in is Yoda- and he's only a 7th level knight.

ha! that must be a hoot to see!

 

[Ds Da Man]

Well, I'm using CR1 for SW, and they haven't been that bad. Change Def bonus to damage reduction, I have my own starship rules, and jedis must be actively defending themselves from blasters to deflect, and I allow a reflex save for the returned blaster to do damage. I also have a point-blank shot rule that allows an extra die of damage if a PC or NPC is shot with only a five-foot gap, ten for rifles. All in all, it's the story, not the rules. that make a system flawed. Plus, the characters are all darkside characters, so I had to make my own house rules for lots of stuff. And 40 dollars for another frickin' storybook is a tad too much. Hopefully EPIII wont be out for awhile, or they'll come up with another rulebook. Just call some of the psionic powers "force" powers, and your characters will be able to do what jedi do in the move +some.

 

[LostSoul]

As you add dice, your average dice roll increases, and the chances for rolling that average roll increase, but your chance of getting either extreme decreases... The gaussian curve representing the odds of your dice roll gets taller and narrower. With more dice, you roll more reliably in the middle of the curve (and with a slightly higher middle), but not necessarily higher.

Okay, gotcha... now how does this impact on a game?

Is the problem that a 2D vs. 3D combat is much more likely to go to the 3D guy, while the 9D vs. 10D combat is much closer? Interesting. Does the fact that the 10D guy can take two 9D actions make any difference?