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Fluesopp
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Joined: 31 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 6:15 am Post subject: |
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| Orion wrote: | | As far as your changes to lightsaber fighting goes, I don't feel that I understand enough about how it works in 1st ed to make any constructive comments. |
Sorry about that. I should have explained better. The basic first ed. rules only enables a force user to add his Control dice to the damage as an automatic effect. I like the fact that this is an automatic effect that doesn't need a force power, but I also like to make the Sense skill important for the hit roll.
To sum up. I want to add Sense dice to hit rolls, Control dice to damage. But at the same time I don't want jedis throwing around enormous dice pools and I don't want to bother with the Lightsaber combat power.
My solution it to let any jedi fight using a lightsaber with DEX + Sense, and do 5 + Control in damage. It is easier to be somewhat proficient as a beginning jedi, but at the same time the jedi doesn't overshadow everybody else later on.
| Orion wrote: | | With Dodging and parrying, I'm not sure why you didn't go with R&E's effects completely. A Full Reaction adds to the difficulty and a normal Reaction replaces it, even if it is lower than the original difficulty. It is possible to zig when you should have zagged. Would doing so somehow mess up 1st ed.'s mechanics? |
I'm not comfortable with full dodges, because it seems that you'll quickly become impossible to hit. And I don't like the rule where you have to take the lower roll. From an MGF point of view, spending an action to dodge should be beneficial. Thats why I want to run the game where you either take the higher of the dodge result or the basic difficulty +3. |
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cunning_kindred
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Joined: 25 Mar 2007
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Location: Southampton, England
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 6:54 am Post subject: |
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I saw a suggestion for a House Rule for the Force years ago. I can't seem to find a copy of it anywhere but maybe someone here might know where its lurking on the web. Anyway, it seems to fit what you are after quite well.
If I remember it went something like this:
Lightsabers use melee combat and melee parry as a normal melee weapon with the usual cut-yourself rules.
you purchase control, sense and alter as normal and each is associated with a particular normal skill - control (stamina), sense (search) and alter (lifting) [I think, this is from memory]
They each started at 1D and you increased them at twice the number before the D without a teacher or just with the number with.
You do not gain powers as you advance though but rather each power had to be purchased for 5 or 10 character points. The powers were each associated with a specific mundane skill.
So you had Healing (First Aid or Medicine), Melee Sense (Melee combat or melee parry), Martial Sense (brawling or brawling parry), Instinctive Astrogation (Astrogation), etc.
When you had the power you could substitute control when using that skill if its effects were restricted to you, sense if it involved awareness of your environment and you could use alter to affect others (and you wouldn't need any tools).
Damage could also be enhanced to 1/2 control instead of the normal damage for the attack.
Might not be what you were after at all. Reading your posts just reminded me of it so I thought I'd mention it. |
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Fluesopp
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Joined: 31 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 9:02 am Post subject: |
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| cunning_kindred wrote: |
I saw a suggestion for a House Rule for the Force years ago. I can't seem to find a copy of it anywhere but maybe someone here might know where its lurking on the web. Anyway, it seems to fit what you are after quite well. |
Interesting. It resembles a rule set I convinced my gm to try out more than two hard disc crashes ago. The rules made the force much more free form and was inspired by a rule set by a guy called Nick Eden. The rules were called Moon Wars, and was the star wars rules used in Glorantha. (Google knows where it can be found).
The rules consisted of three tables of difficulties for general force feats (one table for each skill) and additionally you could use the skills directly to increase your other skills. You'd just roll your skill and add the dice together. 3 = +1, 6 = +2, 10 = +1D etc. So a roll of 19 would add 1D+2 (1D for the first ten, then +2 for next six). Sense could improve all knowledge and perception skills, control dex and strength. Don't remember what we ruled for Alter, but symmetry could have made me rule that it could be used to influence Tech and Mech.
Lightsaber combat in these rules were just boosted Melee and Melee parry. Though, jedis could just as easily boost their blaster skill.
I'm considering using this rule in my upcomming game (On Monday! Whoot!), but I haven't decided if I want to do this as a general rule for using related skills (Increasing your Astrogation with Planetary Systems for instance) or making it another power for the force skills. |
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Fluesopp
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 9:18 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | If you read the oher threads i have commented on wild dice and complications, you would see i rarely have it actually be a complication. Most often it is just a "minus the wild dice and the highest other dice" ANd yes both the goodies and baddies get the "explosion effect" but so too do they get the negative of it. |
This is obviously a matter of taste and not right or wrong, so I'm not trying to convince you that my way is better. But for me this looks like an equation where I can simplify by removing a negative on both sides, and leave the sum the same.
I dislike random fumbles/complications. It is just a thing of mine  |
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Fluesopp
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 9:27 am Post subject: |
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| Yak Face wrote: | My group has a few house rules that don't get a lot of use, but are intended to add some options that are otherwise difficult to adjudicate on the fly. Most are inspired by movie action or heroic stories. One such that I like:
Heroic Sacrifice...
Specialization of Skills... |
I like both. Heroic Sacrifice might not be used a lot, but it is very appropriate for Star Wars. But would you allow the character to use a force point on the Strength roll? A wookiee should have a fair chance to survive a thermal detonator by doing this. It would still be risky, but it could happen.
And anything that can make knowledge skills more useful is good in my book. |
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Fluesopp
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 9:36 am Post subject: |
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Just to work on my rank...
| cunning_kindred wrote: | While that might seem intuitively true it is not so in practice. A large weapon in close quarters fighting poses significant difficulties. You are not just standing there poking someone with a big stick. They actively don't want you to poke them with it and there are several advantages when it comes to defending against a larger melee weapon. They take longer to swing or ready, the weapon is easier to stop and carries its momentum in a manner that is more difficult to control. Different melee weapons carry different advantage and disadvantages.
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Oh, we can have a looong debate about this. Our differences stem from radically different schools fo thought. What I like to call the "AD&D school of thought" and the "Runequest school of thought". AD&D because it introduced me to the notion that daggers are quick and giants are slow. Runequest because it convinced me that a spear wielder will have stabbed any knife fighter several times before the knife wielder got the chance to do any damage and that giants kill you dead at ten paces. Long befor you get the chance to do anything.
I'm a RQ guy btw |
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cunning_kindred
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Joined: 25 Mar 2007
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Location: Southampton, England
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 10:39 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Oh, we can have a looong debate about this. Our differences stem from radically different schools fo thought. What I like to call the "AD&D school of thought" and the "Runequest school of thought". AD&D because it introduced me to the notion that daggers are quick and giants are slow. Runequest because it convinced me that a spear wielder will have stabbed any knife fighter several times before the knife wielder got the chance to do any damage and that giants kill you dead at ten paces. Long befor you get the chance to do anything. |
In game terms: I'm in the "what ever seems best" category.
As for how difficult different types of melee weapons are to use I was making a comment about reality I think. Personally I'm too lazy to run around with real weapons so all my information is second hand - I know a few history re-enactment guys and have done quite a bit of research into military history for non-game reasons. It appears to me that the reason that there are so many different types of melee weapon it because there are different uses for them.
While in open field conflict the reach weapons offer many advantage, in close combat they become highly cumbersome. If you are looking for a relatively simple approximation for the star wars universe where most player conflict with be close quarters fighting then making larger and more cumbersome weapons more difficult to use seems to make sense. I tend to just adjust the difficulties as I see fit. As you say, I could write a very long list of pretty tables for different circumstances but I'd probably go crazy trying. |
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Rerun941
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Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 459
Location: San Antonio, TX
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 10:55 am Post subject: |
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Just a friendly reminder that the d6 system was never designed as a "realistic" system. d6 is primarily a cinematic, fast-play system. (I'm not saying that it CAN'T do realism, only that it's gonna take a lot of work to emulate reality.)
That said, d6 melee combat could use some "sprucing up" to make swordplay (and lightsaber combat) a little bit flashier than "roll to attack" "roll to parry"
It's supposed to be a cinematic system, after all. 
Just my two credits.
PS - if you're really into realistic gaming, I recommend GURPS.
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Luke - "Same as always."
Han - "That bad, huh?" |
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cunning_kindred
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Joined: 25 Mar 2007
Posts: 161
Location: Southampton, England
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 11:15 am Post subject: |
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 Oh, no.
I'm not into realistic roleplaying in the GURPS sense at all. I use a lot of modifiers and adjustments on the fly in combat and am even trying to codify those a bit for the rules I've put up on my web site - to spice up melee combat a bit as you said - but I wasn't advocating a realistic approach. I was simply saying that there was some justification for the rules as they currently stood in real world melee combat.
On a plus note, it has helped me clarify some rules that I've been trying to work out for a while. They will be joining the others on my web site shortly.
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Orion
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Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Fluesopp wrote: | Oh, we can have a looong debate about this. Our differences stem from radically different schools fo thought. What I like to call the "AD&D school of thought" and the "Runequest school of thought". AD&D because it introduced me to the notion that daggers are quick and giants are slow. Runequest because it convinced me that a spear wielder will have stabbed any knife fighter several times before the knife wielder got the chance to do any damage and that giants kill you dead at ten paces. Long befor you get the chance to do anything.
I'm a RQ guy btw |
Actually both schools of thought are correct at times. Since I have not played RQ, I do not know if it rules take the following into consideration. While cunning_kindred touched on the concept, I am going to explain it in a bit more detail. The advantages of reach only lasts as long as the target is kept within an effective zone. Let's talk about a Pike, the ultimate reach weapon, and say that it's point is about 12' out from the character. The effective striking zone for that character is from about 11' to about 16', why more effective distance out from the point than in? Simple, moving towards the target creates momentum that will aid in the strike, while moving away from the target creates momentum that needs to be overcome for a successful strike.
So once the target gets inside of 11', it becomes progressively more difficult for the pikeman to effectively attack them. Now pikes were generally used en mass to help mitigate this weakness, but the principle applies to pretty much all weapons that have a reach advantage. A sword's effective zone, depends on it length, once you get close enough that the swordsman cannot readily develop momentum for a swing or bring the point to bear in an easy manner, it essentially becomes useless, until the proper range is reestablished.
So I have a rough suggestion for a rule for you. In R&E melee weapons gain a bonus when dealing with unarmed opponents. It's +10 to attack and +5 to parry, what they are essentially representing is a reach advantage, though you could make arguments for the inclusion of other aspects. You could use these bonuses, or a modification of them, to represent reach differences with different weapons. Here's how I see it working, I'll use a sword against a dagger as an example. Since armed vs armed with reach differences is not quite the same as armed vs unarmed as both opponents must worry about the other weapon, I would not suggest applying them as a straight bonuses, but instead use them as a tiered difficulty.
The sword swinging at the dagger, the rolls are handled normally except if the daggers parry exceeds the swords attack by 10 then the dagger has closed the distance and gotten inside the sword, if it beats the swords attack but by less than 10 it avoids the strike but is kept at range. When attacking at range the dagger must beat the parry of the sword by 5 to close the distance, if it wins by less than it is still at range and you could either say that it didn't damage at all or scored damage to an extended limb, or perhaps darted in but was forced to retreat back. Now in Rerun's spirit of the cinematic once the dagger is inside the sword the sword must use brawling to attempt to separate them, after all how many times in movies have we seen swordsman get tied up and use a pommel strike of headbut to break things up again. This probably should be ran armed vs unarmed as the dagger really has the advantage here.
As I said it's rough but I thought I would share it with you.
Last edited by Orion on Thu Apr 02, 2009 6:41 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Fluesopp wrote: |
I'm not comfortable with full dodges, because it seems that you'll quickly become impossible to hit. And I don't like the rule where you have to take the lower roll. From an MGF point of view, spending an action to dodge should be beneficial. Thats why I want to run the game where you either take the higher of the dodge result or the basic difficulty +3. |
So they may not be hittable, but neither are they doing anything back to the baddies. And if one full dodges, he cannot do crud against the one who closed in to melee/brawl range. Also as someone who is in the military i can attest that a poor dodge CAN easily make one more hittable than what you were before you dodged.
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Orion
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Joined: 16 May 2008
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | Fluesopp wrote: |
I'm not comfortable with full dodges, because it seems that you'll quickly become impossible to hit. And I don't like the rule where you have to take the lower roll. From an MGF point of view, spending an action to dodge should be beneficial. Thats why I want to run the game where you either take the higher of the dodge result or the basic difficulty +3. |
So they may not be hittable, but neither are they doing anything back to the baddies. And if one full dodges, he cannot do crud against the one who closed in to melee/brawl range. Also as someone who is in the military i can attest that a poor dodge CAN easily make one more hittable than what you were before you dodged. |
Thank you for bringing that up, I had intended to in my previous post but was called away from the comp, so I didn't get to it. I have friends that are currently and previously in the military that I had discussed that with, but as my info is second hand, I feel it's better coming from you.
| Fleusopp wrote: | Sorry about that. I should have explained better. The basic first ed. rules only enables a force user to add his Control dice to the damage as an automatic effect. I like the fact that this is an automatic effect that doesn't need a force power, but I also like to make the Sense skill important for the hit roll.
To sum up. I want to add Sense dice to hit rolls, Control dice to damage. But at the same time I don't want jedis throwing around enormous dice pools and I don't want to bother with the Lightsaber combat power.
My solution it to let any jedi fight using a lightsaber with DEX + Sense, and do 5 + Control in damage. It is easier to be somewhat proficient as a beginning jedi, but at the same time the jedi doesn't overshadow everybody else later on. |
Nothing jumps out at me as being problematic, in fact I would be interested in hearing how it works out for you, as it seems it might be a nice solution.
| Fluesopp wrote: | This is obviously a matter of taste and not right or wrong, so I'm not trying to convince you that my way is better. But for me this looks like an equation where I can simplify by removing a negative on both sides, and leave the sum the same.
I dislike random fumbles/complications. It is just a thing of mine |
Nor am I trying to convince you that using them is better, but it is more balanced and does serve a purpose. As what your talking about means that Luck/Fate (whatever you wish to call it) only shows its beneficial side in your game.
The Wild 1 can keep players from becoming too complacent in their skills that have high die codes. Without it, players will eventually reach a point with some of their skills that things can start to become routine, with your only option of combating this being raising the difficulties, which can cause them to start complaining. |
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Fluesopp
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 3:43 am Post subject: |
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| Orion wrote: | | Actually both schools of thought are correct at times... |
This is true. Both systems are abstractions. The difference is in the initial assumptions about combat. Perhaps this is stems from the content of the games? AD&D came from dungeon-fighting and seems to assume close quarter melees. RQ focused on, among other things, bison riding lancers
| Orion wrote: | | The sword swinging at the dagger, the rolls are handled normally except if the daggers parry exceeds the swords attack by 10 then the dagger has closed the distance and gotten inside the sword... |
That is an interesting solution. I didn't actually plan on making reach matter, but I'll have to ponder this. |
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Fluesopp
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 3:56 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | So they may not be hittable, but neither are they doing anything back to the baddies. And if one full dodges, he cannot do crud against the one who closed in to melee/brawl range. Also as someone who is in the military i can attest that a poor dodge CAN easily make one more hittable than what you were before you dodged. |
Yes this is correct. But a lesson I leared from the roleplaying game Reign is that it is important to consider the balance between offence and defence. Making defence effective can give you drawn out combats and cautions players. Favoring offence can help you get furious combats and crazy stunts from the players. This can be complicated balancing act, but for Star Wars I'd like to err, if I have to, on the side of offence. But perhaps I'm favoring offence so much that the characters won't survive. Only time will tell. I'll let you know.
When it comes to dodging into harms way, I have no problem believing what you say. It actually makes perfect sense. But here I'm with Rerun941: realism isn't the main point. In a game, I'd be reluctant to punish players for taking actions. If you invest a reaction and take the corresponding MAP, then I think assuring at least some pay off is more fun for all. |
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Fluesopp
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 4:00 am Post subject: |
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Oh, and I'd just like to say that I'm very grateful for all replies and critiques. You have a really good thing going on this board. It is a long time since I've stumbled across a board that is more helpful and friendly.
Thanks guys |
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