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Zarm R'keeg
Commander
Joined: 14 Apr 2012
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Location: PA
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 Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 10:48 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | Zarm R'keeg wrote: | | garhkal wrote: | | I have mentioned that before. Regular army troopers and even naval troopers seem to have better base stats than storm troopers do. So either A) there was a screw-up somewhere, or B) those stats listed already take into account the armor dex penalty. |
Or stormtroopers are supposed to be the lowest-tier grunts; the most basic canon fodder that can't hit the broad side of a barn, and were started that way intentionally.. |
Which if so, flies in the face of cannon where they are described in several scenes as being the ELITE of the empire. |
Sorry, I don't mean to sound contentious. Bummed by the 'Journey to' news and a little grumpy.  That said, I hae to strongly disagree. The stormtroopers were never- beyond maybe the first three minutes of ANH- shown as competent. An entire legion of the 'best troops' are dispatched by Ewoks and a small rebel band that the Imperials greatly outnumber. The Stormtroopers can't hit the broad side of a barn, to the point that this has become a cultural joke about them. I don't think they were ever intended to be the Elite. I think that WEG stats are correct, following on in the portrayal of the they-can-get-a-lucky-shot-but-you-also-have-a-good-shot-at-taking-on-massed-numbers-and-escaping-unharmed OT Stormtroopers.
IMHO, the Elite are folks like the royal guards, special commandos, specific units like the 501st. The average stormtrooper, on the other hand (discounting Vader's hand-picked squad from Legends) is lowest-end unit in the Imperial army. Other than Obi-wan's completely-unsubstatiated-by-seeing-them-in-action claim about their precision-shooting, I can't think of any evidence in canon that they are the Elite, and plenty in both the films and Rebels to indicate just the opposite, lacking marksmanship, competence, intelligence, tactics, or battle effectiveness. And I think the onscreen evidence really trumps the informed attributes of skill given by Owi-wan (marksmanship, not demonstrated onscreen) and Palpatine (applied to the entire legion, made up of various different units, and never actually demonstrated in their insane ability to scatter, loose, and be injured by rocks and sticks that look like they wouldn't penetrate the hard plastic the armor is made out of in real life, much less actual armor).
Sorry; this is probably coming off more aggressive than intended. Am I missing anything from canon in favor of Stormtrooper competence or prowess?
| RyanDarkstar wrote: | | Stormtroopers are deadly to everyone except Luke, Han, Lando, and Chewbacca. Leia was stunned (Tantive IV) and shot in the arm (Endor). 3PO was blown apart (Bespin), and R2 was incapacitated (Endor). The troopers on Tantive IV and Echo Base were decimated. A few Jawas and Ewoks bought it, too. |
Let's be fair about that. 3 of those 4 main-character hits were against stationary targets. Meanwhile, Luke was STANDING STILL in the Death Star docking bay and unharmed, a half-dozen couldn't chase down Han, an overwhleming number couldn't stop the group from escaping Cloud City.
We didn't see stormtroopers actually doing anything in Echo Base that I can recall; it was all devastated by AT-ATs. The Jawas happened offscreen so we don't know who hit them (only Obi-wan's claim that the marksmanship indicates stormtroopers), and I can't recall actually seeing any Ewoks hit by stormtroopers, only AT-STs.
Tantive IV, I'll give you- not without some losses and absurd close-range misses, but they clearly dominated the inexperienced-looking guards from a pacifist, weaponless planet...  (okay, snark aside, they really did have the major upper hand there).
And yes, several main characters were shot, but if you're going to posit that as evidence, it needs to be statistically compared to the proportion of time and the number of Stormtroopers faced in which they were NOT shot. And taken as a whole, Stomrtroopers are grossly ineffective, and demonstrate neither tactics, nor skills, befitting any unit that could be called 'Elite'.
I suspect I'm fighting an uphill battle against 90% of the Pit here, so I don't expect to convince anyone... but yeah, that's how I see it. (And based on products, I think the people at WEG and producing Rebels see it that way, too).
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DougRed4
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Joined: 18 Jan 2013
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Location: Seattle, WA
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| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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I agree with what RyanDarkstar and garhkal. They're clearly stated as being elite forces and are meant to be that. But the nature of the films - being space opera and fast and loose action - means they're also meant to miss a lot, even against stationary targets.
And yes, they've been shown to be wildly inaccurate on Rebels, but that's especially so against Sabine with her 86D Dodge, and in the finale that was beyond ridiculous (something that very much marred an otherwise outstanding episode and series). Even then, if they're so horribly incompetent, why don't the Rebels just stand there and kill them all? They sure do a lot of running away, which pretty much contradicts your theory of them being incompetent.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 5:58 pm Post subject: |
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| DougRed4 wrote: | I agree with what RyanDarkstar and garhkal. They're clearly stated as being elite forces and are meant to be that. But the nature of the films - being space opera and fast and loose action - means they're also meant to miss a lot, even against stationary targets.
And yes, they've been shown to be wildly inaccurate on Rebels, but that's especially so against Sabine with her 86D Dodge, and in the finale that was beyond ridiculous (something that very much marred an otherwise outstanding episode and series). Even then, if they're so horribly incompetent, why don't the Rebels just stand there and kill them all? They sure do a lot of running away, which pretty much contradicts your theory of them being incompetent. |
True. How they are described (verbally) does not jive with how they were shown (visually), but since they were written to be the A'team enemies (shoot a lot but never hit) it causes a dichotomy.
Should we run them based on the visuals, or what they were wrote to be?
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cynanbloodbane
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| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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Han, Luke, Chewie and the rest were LUCKY! that's what heroes are, the lucky ones who pull off the insanely brave crap and sometimes even live through it.
Stormtroopers are the pants-wettingly scary, walking symbol of imperial power.
I'll stick with Obi Wan's assessment that "Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise."
I want my players to be thinking "Run Away!" at the first sign of a ST squad.
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Thx1138
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| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 8:44 pm Post subject: |
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| To be honest, unlike the clones who were going up against huge groups of droids all the time,stromtrooper have never been seen in huge engagements in star wars except for endor. |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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| RyanDarkstar wrote: | | While I enjoy using all other types of soldier or security personnel, stormtroopers are such an iconic part of Star Wars. I always have to have a few around, if just to emphasize the universe in game. |
I'm with you. It's just not Star Wars without seeing some stormtroopers every so often.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 12:25 am Post subject: |
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| cynanbloodbane wrote: | Han, Luke, Chewie and the rest were LUCKY! that's what heroes are, the lucky ones who pull off the insanely brave crap and sometimes even live through it.
Stormtroopers are the pants-wettingly scary, walking symbol of imperial power.
I'll stick with Obi Wan's assessment that "Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise."
I want my players to be thinking "Run Away!" at the first sign of a ST squad. |
I agree, and I added a house rule to better represent it. Current soak rules only allow you to apply CP to damage rolls, but I allow them to be applied to Dodges as an alternative. You can't spend CP on both dodge and damage resistance on the same shot, but you can pick one or the other.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 1:17 am Post subject: |
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Where are you getting that from C? By the rules you can spend up to 5cp on both the dodge roll AND the soak roll if you have enough CP.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 7:00 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | Where are you getting that from C? By the rules you can spend up to 5cp on both the dodge roll AND the soak roll if you have enough CP. |
Hmm. For some reason, when I proposed the idea here before, somebody said you could only spend CP on the damage soak...
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Kytross
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 8:04 am Post subject: |
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Zarm,
The Stormtroopers are elite. Very, very elite. We're simply in a galaxy of incompetents.
No one uses good tactics in any of the films. No one. A team of SEALs would wipe out every army in star wars. |
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Zarm R'keeg
Commander
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 8:50 am Post subject: |
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Wow. I can honestly say I have a very different viewpoint from everyone here.
Wish I could say that was a rare statement.
| DougRed4 wrote: |
And yes, they've been shown to be wildly inaccurate on Rebels, but that's especially so against Sabine with her 86D Dodge, and in the finale that was beyond ridiculous (something that very much marred an otherwise outstanding episode and series). |
Agreed. That scene was a bit painful to watch.
| cynanbloodbane wrote: |
Stormtroopers are the pants-wettingly scary, walking symbol of imperial power.
I'll stick with Obi Wan's assessment that "Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise."
I want my players to be thinking "Run Away!" at the first sign of a ST squad. |
I do agree that they are the terrifying symbol of Imperial oppression; but they do not have to be Elite-skilled to accomplish that. Unskilled Grunt #1 is still scary to the neighborhood family man because he is a man with a gun that can still harm his family. To the generic businessman or the random citizen, they are frightening because they represent the power of the entire Empire; any defiance would be met with the full force of the Empire. They can act with impunity because they are part of the faceless whole. Unless you're planning on fighting a one-man war against every troop on the planet, an occupying soldier is still a terrifying think, and still threatens the average man. Even to the typical soldier, they are still a dangerous threat, because they are men with armor and guns. Just because they're the lowest tier doesn't mean they can't still end lives.
In a similar way, a rag-tag band of untrained local insurgents, a trained, new-recruit soldier in the army, and a navy seal are all a scary threat if they're trying to kill you. It's not required for someone to be the seal to achieve that. So, the players should still be thinking 'run away!' when an entire squad is coming after them. But it's a false dichotomy to require them to be a unit full of supercommandos in order to be that, to the players or the rest of the galaxy.
| DougRed4 wrote: | | Even then, if they're so horribly incompetent, why don't the Rebels just stand there and kill them all? They sure do a lot of running away, which pretty much contradicts your theory of them being incompetent. |
Similar to the above, they run away because these men have guns, and the law of averages has to catch up with them eventually (as it does with Leia getting shot in the shoulder). The fact that troops are fled from does not mean that they aren't the least-competent level of troops. Yes, they can sometimes hit things. They are not UNABLE to kill. But there is a large divide between that and 'Elite.'
| garhkal wrote: |
Should we run them based on the visuals, or what they were wrote to be? |
That's the trouble, though. We disagree on who they were wrote to be in the first place. I don't see the evidence that they ever were written to be the Elites.
(Et al.)
Can some one assemble for me the case for Stormtrooper Elitism? That is what I am not seeing; maybe this will help to alleviate my confusion. Because I see only one line about precision that could be multiply interpreted (the 'blast points' are precise; that could just as easily mean that they chose their targets for maximum damage, as opposed to the Raiders, who would just shoot the place up with no deliberation on targets) and whose traditional interpretation is blatantly contradicted by the films (Storemtroopers can't hit stationary heroes who are hitting them; Tusken raiders can hit a small pod moving hundreds of miles an hour from on top of a cliff). Plus a sometimes-qualified statement about the Emperor's 'best troops' which is not stormtrooper-applicable because it is a mixed unit of multiple kinds of troops.
And I see the mythos built up around that one, demonstrably-inaccurate line, measured against the entire remainder of the runtime of the films, multiple extra-film sources and stats, and portrayals in spin-off media. Even their sheer numbers and what we've seen of their training seems to argue against their being the ones with the higher level of training or skill, since the Stormtrooper corps is the one anyone can enlist in; by nature, it would have to be equivalent to the regular army members, with variable skill levels and standardized training, rather than an upper echelons that those with higher training or skills make it to. I fell like that's pretty incontrovertible. Not that Stormtroopers are wholly incompetent- but that they are the baseline, the average and lowest tier, rather than the advanced-training/skill soldiers.
For me, this feels as if I were on a Star Trek forum, and in one episode, Captain Kirk said of his redshirts 'These men are the best at what they do,' and everyone taking that as evidence that the redshirts are meant to be badasses.
However, from the perspectives of everyone here who are certain that Stormtroopers are Elite, it is more like the 'Worf Effect'- wherein even though Worf was knocked down by nearly every new alien of the week (to demonstrate just how amazingly formidable and threatening they were), he was still supposed to be quite formidable and physically capable. The cumulative toll of situations he was placed in for dramatic necessity just didn't portray that very well.
I do understand the differing viewpoints; unfortunately, like another recent debate, this is one of those things that comes down to what was 'clearly intended' by the creators, which is subjectively perceived by each viewer. We can all agree about the effectiveness level onscreen, but the debate is whether this is an accurate portrayal (aka they're talked up plenty, but they're not the cream of the crop; they're the basic mass-produced cannon fodder rather than the highly-trained elites) or a 'Worf Effect' (they're really supposed to be the best the Empire has, the highly-trained elites, and that just doesn't come through from the scenarios they're put into onscreen). I (and others I've discussed this with) take the former- most everyone here takes the latter.
This may just be an irreconcilable difference; perception/intent-based issues seem to be. But I do want to try and understand what is being perceived about stromtroopers by those advocating their elite-level status. What, to you (discounting actions and looking at the intent that they failed to portray), is the evidence/implication that the Stormtroopers are meant to be the Navy SEALs of their universe? Besides the aforementioned 'too accurate' line? (Or is that really it?)
EDIT: Edited about 32,000 times to try and eliminate all the putting-of-foot-in-mouth. If I missed one, my bad.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | garhkal wrote: | | Where are you getting that from C? By the rules you can spend up to 5cp on both the dodge roll AND the soak roll if you have enough CP. |
Hmm. For some reason, when I proposed the idea here before, somebody said you could only spend CP on the damage soak... |
Maybe that was how that person does it.
But going by the rules, page 84, you can spend CP for
| Quote: |
• Two to improve a skill or attribute roll.
• Two to increase the damage of an attack. (This often
counts as an evil action.)
• Five to improve a specialization roll.
• Five on any use of dodge, melee parry or brawling
parry, parries when using the lightsaber skill, or dodging
when piloting a vehicle or starship.
• Five to increase a Strength roll to resist damage.
• A character may not spend Character Points on
another character's actions.
• A character can spend Character Points during
scenes, but only for one continuous action. The bonus
ends as soon as the character does something else. |
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DougRed4
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 6:51 pm Post subject: |
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I was going to address crmc's soak/Dodge understanding, too, but it looks like garhk got that one.
As for Stormtroopers, some of what I base my perception of stormtroopers on is (ironically enough, given how Zarm gives so much more credence to it than I do) the EU itself.
From WEG's Imperial Sourcebook: "Imperial stormtroopers form the Empire's elite shock troops"
Decipher's Stormtrooper flavor text (for the CCG): "One of countless elite shock troops totally loyal to the Emperor. Unquestioningly follow orders. Willing to sacrifice their lives to accomplish a mission. First-strike forces."
Both of those are about two decades old, but I'm pretty sure I read other stuff like in the old movie posters from the 70s, or from Star Wars Insider and other sources over the years.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 2:14 am Post subject: |
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We have all the RPG fluff, etc., that describes stormtroopers as elite, and then in the films we have an entire legion of the Emperor's "best troops" get bested by primitive furry little teddy bears. It's humorous to see all the arguments for both sides of this contradiction, but for me the only way to reconcile these things is to say that stormtroopers vary wildly in quality. I set stormtrooper stats at whatever I feel is needed by the story at the time. Clone troopers can vary in age and experience (and in genetic host quality since there could have been many different templates for clones after Jango Fett died). Recruits can vary in quality. There is no reason why stormtroopers don't come in weak mooks, elite badasses, and everything in between (and the legion at Endor was the wrong one due to a clerical error). Of course, the Imperial propaganda machine is going to say that they are all "elite" soldiers. Don't believe the hype is actually universal.
The primary value of Imperial stormtroopers is not consistency of ability. It's numerical superiority, ubiquity, and an enemy with fearsome faceless anonymity. Its the symbolism of the whole more than what's actually inside of each individual suit of armor.
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Zarm R'keeg
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| Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2015 9:33 am Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | We have all the RPG fluff, etc., that describes stormtroopers as elite, and then in the films we have an entire legion of the Emperor's "best troops" get bested by primitive furry little teddy bears. It's humorous to see all the arguments for both sides of this contradiction, but for me the only way to reconcile these things is to say that stormtroopers vary wildly in quality. I set stormtrooper stats at whatever I feel is needed by the story at the time. Clone troopers can vary in age and experience (and in genetic host quality since there could have been many different templates for clones after Jango Fett died). Recruits can vary in quality. There is no reason why stormtroopers don't come in weak mooks, elite badasses, and everything in between (and the legion at Endor was the wrong one due to a clerical error). Of course, the Imperial propaganda machine is going to say that they are all "elite" soldiers. Don't believe the hype is actually universal. |
...Fair enough!
| Whill wrote: | | The primary value of Imperial stormtroopers is not consistency of ability. It's numerical superiority, ubiquity, and an enemy with fearsome faceless anonymity. Its the symbolism of the whole more than what's actually inside of each individual suit of armor. |
Very true!
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