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Urban Stormtrooper ?
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 20, 2018 3:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:

A simple solution would be to generate some decent base stats and then apply a quality modifier to the skills, such as +1D for Veteran, +2D for Elite, etc. Something along those lines.


How's about.

BASE imperial trooper stats.

Dex 2d+2. Blaster 5d, brawl parry 4d, dodge 5d+2, grenade 4d+2.
Know 2d, willpower 4d, tactics 3d.
Mech 2d. Not sure if they should have anything here.
Per 2d+1. Search 3d+1
Str 3d. Brawl 5d.
Tech 2d. First aid 3d.


If a Experienced - add +2d to one primary skill, +1d to two secondary skills, +2 to 2 tertiary skills.

If Veteran - add +3d to one primary skill, +2d to two secondary skills, +1d to two tertiary skill, +1 to all other skills listed, and select 3 new skills to add based on 'area of focus', such as repulsor ops/repulsor repair and sensors if a biker scout. Also add +1 to one attribute.

If Elite, add +4d to one primary skill, +3d to two secondary skills, +2d to three tertiary skills, and +1d to all others. Add 5 new skills based on area of focus, gaining the +1 boost. Also add +1 to two attributes.
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TauntaunScout
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2018 2:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:


In "reality" you don't have such minor distinctions between troop types in terms of record qualifications.


True but in reality all soldiers have always fought on the same planet too. Logistics and training could be very different indeed. You could have a long record of service in SW that looks nothing like that of someone on earth.

I never got how stamina and willpower would work in relation to some of the things in Star Wars anyways, and it's not like my NPC's need to roll for that stuff, they just do it cause I say so. Like, stormtroopers are brainwashed ot be totally loyal, so maybe all willpower tests are resolved at easy difficulty for them.

Also, maybe they just don't need the stamina of 21st century soldiers. All indications are that 21st century soldiers do not have the stamina of 19th century ones. Civilians inducted into the military in the 1800's frequently wrote home about how basic training was way easier than life on the farm Shocked
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2018 4:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The point could easily be made that the selection process for elite units like Navy SEALs and Delta Force consists primarily of Stamina and Willpower skill rolls. During selection, recruits are pushed past the limits of physical endurance, with the goal of weeding out those who lack the necessary mental toughness. The true training part of being a SEAL doesn't begin until they pass selection and join an actual unit.

I agree with Naaman that soldiers should have an above-Attribute Stamina skill, and I don't think it should be taken as gospel that they don't just because WEG forgot to include it on their template.
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Whill
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2018 4:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
I agree with Naaman that soldiers should have an above-Attribute Stamina skill

I concur. Even my basic entry level standard stormtrooper has 2D+1 Strength and 3D stamina.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 6:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

TauntaunScout wrote:


I never got how stamina and willpower would work in relation to some of the things in Star Wars anyways, and it's not like my NPC's need to roll for that stuff, they just do it cause I say so. Like, stormtroopers are brainwashed ot be totally loyal, so maybe all willpower tests are resolved at easy difficulty for them.

Also, maybe they just don't need the stamina of 21st century soldiers. All indications are that 21st century soldiers do not have the stamina of 19th century ones. Civilians inducted into the military in the 1800's frequently wrote home about how basic training was way easier than life on the farm Shocked


Well, with respect to the 1800s, it would be hard to compare the training regimen of that kind of fighting force with a modern one.

The average soldier has 75 lbs of stuff to carry around nowadays, whereas in previous incarnations of the US military, there was a lot less to lug around.

Also, I'm no history buff, so it would be difficult to compare what warfare (and training for it) might have looked like when trench fighting was all the rage before we moved on to FIBUA, and jumping out of planes and storming beaches to skulking through jungles and deserts to modern day MOUT.

I can speculate that farm life is rugged and produces some physically above-baseline specimens, which would account for how "easy" basic training would have been back then. But I can't say I know that it was as physically demanding as a modern military training program.

In either case, though, its still true that military training focuses AT LEAST as much on mental fortitude as it does on physical fitness.

I would say that soldiers (those who embrace their role as such) are more resilient against certain mental/emotional stressors than a baseline human. Fear, despair, and fatigue are all "beneath" a soldier (which is to say, he can resist a greater amount of those influences than a baseline human before succumbing), while he is also capable of switching on and off certain other humanisms as appropriate to the situation, such as compassion or sympathy. To me, these indicate a higher than average willpower, even though willpower covers more than having resistance to those triggers.
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TauntaunScout
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

West End did some strange oversights. Like how the published scenarios always had illegal units in them, or characters who were charged SGP's for useless pieces of equipment. So it was never clear what we were supposed to be doing.

I think the only Stormtrooper skills they bothered with (at least in the core book) were ones they thought a GM would bother testing. NPC soldiers would just pass non-combat skill tests as the plot required. The wording on Stamina checks got so vague in 2nd edition, it shouldn't matter what an NPC's stamina is. "When pushed to their physical limits" they had to test. Confused I guess if you're an active duty soldier, running 5 miles shouldn't require a stamina test but if you're a couch potato it would, and both have a skill of 2D? West End wasn't known for tight rules.

Or maybe... most civilians actually have STR/DEX below 2D with more MEC/TEC/KNO dice based on their job? I tend to imagine most civilians having very inefficient dice pools, with lots of their dice broken up into pips. Compared to which a stormtrooper's 2D seems pretty good at DEX/STR combat tasks.

Now, in SWMB, NPC's can't dodge. Instead it seemed like the "average" stormtrooper got 2 dice in blaster and 2 dice in grenade. That was very common for published squads anyhow. So yeah, it's a big galaxy, your local stormtroopers don't necessarily function like mine!
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TauntaunScout
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
Well, with respect to the 1800s, it would be hard to compare the training regimen of that kind of fighting force with a modern one.

The average soldier has 75 lbs of stuff to carry around nowadays, whereas in previous incarnations of the US military, there was a lot less to lug around.


It's been 70ish pounds of gear for all organized soldiery for all of human written history. What that gear is changes quite a bit. But in the civil war people carried that much: Musket, cartridge box, cap box, bayonet, shelter half, wool blanket, rubber blanket, 3 days rations, spare socks, tin cup, tin plate, canteen, it all adds up pretty fast. Now, people would discard what they considered "dead weight", but commanders would frequently force the men to carry more than the standard amount of food and ammunition too, so it probably balanced out. But 70 pounds give or take is the working limit for the homo sapiens sapiens. A suit of knight's armor was about 70 pounds, Roman armor plus other stuff they had to haul was about 70 pounds, etc.

Only today has it inched up to more like 100 pounds, with lots of ruined knees and backs as a result Sad
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 6:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not exactly. If you want to count all the utility stuff (canteen, tin cup, etc), then today's soldiers are carrying well over 100 lbs. The 75 lbs includes just the tactical gear used for running missions (weapons, armor, night vision, gas mask, etc). Now, as far as everything a soldier brings TO theater, you're looking at 150ish lbs, easily, if not more.

And thats not including specialty gear, such as a radio pack or a machine gun, etc.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 6:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
Not exactly. If you want to count all the utility stuff (canteen, tin cup, etc), then today's soldiers are carrying well over 100 lbs. The 75 lbs includes just the tactical gear used for running missions (weapons, armor, night vision, gas mask, etc). Now, as far as everything a soldier brings TO theater, you're looking at 150ish lbs, easily, if not more.

And thats not including specialty gear, such as a radio pack or a machine gun, etc.

This is likely where sci-fi level tech comes into play. How much of this stuff can be integrated into a full-body armor suit, and/or fashioned out of super-light weight material? A stormtrooper ends up having almost everything you mentioned literally built into his armor.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 12:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

True, a storm trooper's armor/body glove and belt, contain 100m of rope, cantine, rations (doesn't say how much though), 2 med packs, 2 grenades, a comlink, night vision (part of MFTAS), gas mask (in their helmet). So all they really need is their gun. BUT marines are often supposed to be in the field, Independent of a base for sometimes weeks.. so need all their own water, food, a tent to sleep in.. That does add up.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 12:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Naaman wrote:
Not exactly. If you want to count all the utility stuff (canteen, tin cup, etc), then today's soldiers are carrying well over 100 lbs. The 75 lbs includes just the tactical gear used for running missions (weapons, armor, night vision, gas mask, etc). Now, as far as everything a soldier brings TO theater, you're looking at 150ish lbs, easily, if not more.

And thats not including specialty gear, such as a radio pack or a machine gun, etc.

This is likely where sci-fi level tech comes into play. How much of this stuff can be integrated into a full-body armor suit, and/or fashioned out of super-light weight material? A stormtrooper ends up having almost everything you mentioned literally built into his armor.


True. But that doesn't mean you lower the fitness standard. The point of cutting weight is to make the soldier faster, more effective. If you lower the fitness standard, then you cancel out the benefits of reduced weight.

Also, there is escalation to consider: when lightweight armor comes out that defeats current weapons tech, the weapons get more powerful, so armor has to be reinforced, etc...

Unless someone wants to make an argument that a -2D dex penalty represents "ultra lightweight materials."
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TauntaunScout
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 3:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
Not exactly. If you want to count all the utility stuff (canteen, tin cup, etc), then today's soldiers are carrying well over 100 lbs. The 75 lbs includes just the tactical gear used for running missions (weapons, armor, night vision, gas mask, etc). Now, as far as everything a soldier brings TO theater, you're looking at 150ish lbs, easily, if not more.

And thats not including specialty gear, such as a radio pack or a machine gun, etc.


Move the goal post much? You said they didn't have 75 lbs to lug around back in the day, I pointed out that they did, and now you're saying if we count everything it's 150. I was counting everything because in the 19th century, the tin cup got carried into firefights and fistfights alike. It was part of the combat load.

I know soldiers today carry 100+ pounds but it's a very bad idea for human skeletons no matter how much they train, and our society is an anomaly for having them doing so. And the DoD knows it. We'll most likely change back to 75 pounds or less, sooner or later. Average loads have gone up around 60 pounds or something since I was born, they have to come back down, they're ruining too many spines and knees. I think the 150 lb load is a blip on the radar of human history, there are very, very few examples of historical soldiers carrying more than 75 lbs, usually less. Ergo, I presume that stormtroopers also carry no more than 75 lbs. Probably a lot less.

Going by the vague rules of 2nd edition, the GM can just decide that even at 2D Stamina, a given situation doesn't "push the limits" of a trained soldier and not make them test, but does push the limits of a landspeeder repairman, and make him roll 2D6 to keep up.
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Whill
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2020 12:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In 2018, Whill wrote:
...So this discussion really cements it for me. Shock Troopers are my elite urban "MP" stormtroopers. Shadow Scouts are the Special Forces commandos with urban+ training. Patrol Troopers are my "Street Troopers". There could be riot troopers or other lower level urban based troopers which could be regular stormtroopers with some additional training and equipment.

I got a Shadow Stormtrooper action figure because they look so cool and they remind me of my black stormtroopers I made up for this game back in high school. In addition to the stormtroopers of the above quote, I have Death Troopers in my SWU, but for black stormtroopers I just like the classic stormtrooper helmet better.

So I've added Shadow Troopers to my SWU. I'm thinking maybe they are elite cyborgs like Death Troopers, but not devoted specifically to the Death Star projects like Death Troopers are. Or maybe they are Death Troopers who just get new helmets after all the Death Troopers stationed on Scarif all died in RO. Maybe they handle more than just Death Star II security.
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