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Difficulty of Parrying a Blaster Bolt
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 09, 2018 5:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Darklighter79 wrote:
For the clarification: if deflection is success and player wants to redirect shot at the attacker, he rolls a character scale hit but with the original scale damage? Plus optional ROE damage?

Correct. The challenge is parrying a beam of that size and power in the first place.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 11:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:


I can see that (and agree) for up to a certain BR of beam. So walker ok. Space transport? NO.. Beam's to wide to be blocked.



Where does the idea come from that the beams are wide? Is there film evidence of this? Best example I can think of is when Po shoots those storm troopers with his X-wing. The beams are needle thin, have no blast radius of any kind, and hit with surgical precision.

Do note that when he targets the ground at the feet of a group of storm troopers, the earth beneath them explodes and sends them flying, but the shots that hit the storm troopers directly nail them right in the chest with no collateral damage at all (despite Han and Chewie being in the physical custody of one of the ones who get's shot).

If it were me, I'd allow for the deflect, but the Jedi would be knocked over unless his roll was sufficient to overcome the scale of the attack. Furthermore, I'd allow the defensive part of deflection un-altered (Pilot would take the scale penalty), but I would discount the penalty when deciding whether the Jedi could redirect. If the reaction skill is a marginal success, Jedi is knocked over. If a solid success, Jedi is not knocked over. If a spectacular success, then Jedi can redirect. Though I would tend to apply a speed bonus to the pilot's dodge roll... just seems unlikely that the shot could be redirected at a target moving that fast reliably.
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 1:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
Where does the idea come from that the beams are wide? Is there film evidence of this? Best example I can think of is when Po shoots those storm troopers with his X-wing. The beams are needle thin, have no blast radius of any kind, and hit with surgical precision.

Do note that when he targets the ground at the feet of a group of storm troopers, the earth beneath them explodes and sends them flying, but the shots that hit the storm troopers directly nail them right in the chest with no collateral damage at all (despite Han and Chewie being in the physical custody of one of the ones who get's shot).

This is the same film that initiated the "I can see Hosnian Prime from my house" trope. I'm not going to take a scene JJ Abrams included for cinematic effect as scientific fact.

It's axiomatic that, if you want a weapon to do more damage, you build it bigger, and that includes making a wider barrel for a larger diameter discharge. The laser cannon on the AT-AT or the turbolasers on the Death Star are notably larger than that of a blaster rifle, and they inflict more damage, so it's reasonable to assume that part of how they pack more energy into a shot is by increasing the diameter of it.

Quote:
If it were me, I'd allow for the deflect, but the Jedi would be knocked over unless his roll was sufficient to overcome the scale of the attack.

Why would the Jedi be knocked over without the chance to resist being knocked over? The only instance in the EU of a Jedi with a lightsaber parrying an attack from a larger scale weapon was Luke parrying the main guns of an AT-AT in the first issue of Dark Empire, and he didn't get knocked over. Yes, it's Luke, but still it shows that it's possible to do this and not get knocked over.

Quote:
Furthermore, I'd allow the defensive part of deflection un-altered (Pilot would take the scale penalty), but I would discount the penalty when deciding whether the Jedi could redirect. If the reaction skill is a marginal success, Jedi is knocked over. If a solid success, Jedi is not knocked over. If a spectacular success, then Jedi can redirect.

There is actually another factor which the scale modifier addresses, which is the relative inaccuracy of larger scale weapons vs. smaller scale targets. I addressed this with my quick blast radius rule, in that a shot can miss and still inflict damage if it is proximity detonated or hits something nearby. In the case of an AT-AT shooting down at a character on the ground, any shots are going to hit the ground near the target for some degree of explosive effect. As such, any attempt to parry such attacks with a lightsaber is going to require that the Jedi defend a much wider area (he's having to reach with his saber to parry shots that weren't going to hit him directly).

Quote:
Though I would tend to apply a speed bonus to the pilot's dodge roll... just seems unlikely that the shot could be redirected at a target moving that fast reliably.

That's fair, although what would constitute a decent bonus that can be quickly generated in combat is the kicker. Perhaps just a flat bonus for speed based on the Speed Modifier codes from Mini-D6?
    Walking / Muscle-Powered Propulsion = 0D
    Ground Vehicle = +2D
    Aircraft = +5D
    Spacecraft = +10D

Then I'd add +1D if the craft is moving faster than 1x its Base Move. The only way to negate the speed bonus is to be using the same mode of Movement...
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 6:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes. "Cinematic (dramatic) effect" is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

But in all seriousness, if your remark about diameter is based on some kind of real world example (firearms?), then it is just not fully correct. .300 winmag is much more powerful thn. 308, despite the two having the same diameter. And 7.62x51 is far more powerful than 9x19 mm, etc. Likewise, .45 fired out of a pistol caliber carbine will be less powerful than. 357 fired out of a 5" or 6" handgun, despite the. 45 (larger diameter) being fired from a "larger" weapon.

Also, THE SAME ammo can be fired out of different barrel lengths and its power and range will be affected accordingly. If firearms is the basis for your claim, then the additional LENGTH of a starship's barrel COULD be a contributor to the weapon's greater damage. In either case, it's too easy to attribute the damage to whatever we as individuals imagine makes weapons deadly in SW.


Last edited by Naaman on Mon Sep 10, 2018 6:20 pm; edited 1 time in total
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 6:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
Yes. "Cinematic (dramatic) effect" is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

Yeah, because that's totally the same thing as a pattern of "dramatic pauses" across six different movies (ESB through RotS, plus RO) when combining TK with Lightsaber Combat.
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 6:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The premise is the same, even if the quantity is unequal.

If the films show or don't show something, and the rules disagree, then the rules are "wrong."
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 6:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
The premise is the same, even if the quantity is unequal.

If the films show or don't show something, and the rules disagree, then the rules are "wrong."

Unless there is an obvious contradiction, like the AT-AT scene in ESB, where it takes out a soldier just by hitting the ground near him. As opposed to a consistent pattern visible across multiple films in the OT and prequel era. I don't consider individual scenes cherry-picked from the sequels - which have plenty of questionable content already - to be sufficient grounds to override a pattern seen in multiple other films.
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 10:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Unless there is an obvious contradiction, like the AT-AT scene in ESB, where it takes out a soldier just by hitting the ground near him. As opposed to a consistent pattern visible across multiple films in the OT and prequel era. I don't consider individual scenes cherry-picked from the sequels - which have plenty of questionable content already - to be sufficient grounds to override a pattern seen in multiple other films.

I've noticed over and over again that you like whipping out these bashy statements for the sequels. But you have adapted things from the sequels and cited the sequels when developing things too. (Did TFA not influence your most recent bowcaster rules, for example?) Yet things other people bring up often elicit a 'That doesn't count because other stuff in the movie is question' from you. This comes across as discounting other contributions to the discussion. We are all guilty of cherry-picking the sequels and the entire Star Wars saga to what conforms with each of our diverse visions of Star Wars. I would like to see you not be so dismissive of others' citations of the sequels. Not everyone else will cherry pick the same way you do. If someone's suggestion doesn't work for you because it violates your vision of Star Wars, like X-Wing blaster cannons having thin beams, you could easily just say, "I prefer large starfighter-scale beams in my SWU" and spare everyone the film bash backed by inconsistently applied broadly dismissive statements.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 11:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
But in all seriousness, if your remark about diameter is based on some kind of real world example (firearms?), then it is just not fully correct. .300 winmag is much more powerful thn. 308, despite the two having the same diameter. And 7.62x51 is far more powerful than 9x19 mm, etc. Likewise, .45 fired out of a pistol caliber carbine will be less powerful than. 357 fired out of a 5" or 6" handgun, despite the. 45 (larger diameter) being fired from a "larger" weapon.

Would the same also apply to a .308 and, say, a 155mm Howitzer? You're comparing different classes of Character-Scale weapons. I'm talking about the difference between a Character-Scale weapon and a Starfighter or Walker Scale weapon.

I will concede that the way I worded that statement could be interpreted as saying that you had to make the barrel bigger, but this was not my intent. The key phrase there is "build it bigger", of which "increase the barrel diameter" is one facet. In the case of your first example, "build it bigger" means "~same diameter bullet with a longer cartridge holding more gunpowder." In the case of the second, the .357 has a longer casing which, again, allows it to pack more powder into the cartridge (I understand the bullet shape has an effect as well): "build it bigger."
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 11:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
I've noticed over and over again that you like whipping out these bashy statements for the sequels. But you have adapted things from the sequels and cited the sequels when developing things too.
I place the sequels lower in my personal hierarchy of canon than the other films. While I am not averse to including aspects of them that do not conflict, in the event of a conflict, I disregard the sequels. This is one of those instances. In particular, blasters throughout the films are shown to explosively detonate any matter they strike, with heavier blasters (the AT-ATs in ESB) able to bring down character-scale targets simply by hitting near them. The laser blasts in TFA contradict that, but since that's from the sequels, I disregard it.

Frankly, the only way that scene makes sense from a continuity perspective is if the X-Wings were using their smaller scale retractable belly guns to snipe character-scale targets on the ground...

Which is actually as decent an explanation as any. Fine, the scene is back in, but the X-Wings weren't shooting their main laser cannon, just the belly blaster (just rewatched the TFA opening scene on YouTube, and the blaster initially pops out facing forward, but then spins to cover the rear). Having a smaller-scale blaster works for a variety of reasons, including precision fire at small ground targets intermixed with friendlies.

Quote:
Did TFA not influence your most recent bowcaster rules, for example?

IIRC, it more ended up influencing my quick blast radius rules, although the Takodana battle did influence my decision to give bowcaster an explosive round option.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 12, 2018 3:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Whill wrote:
I've noticed over and over again that you like whipping out these bashy statements for the sequels. But you have adapted things from the sequels and cited the sequels when developing things too.
I place the sequels lower in my personal hierarchy of canon than the other films. While I am not averse to including aspects of them that do not conflict, in the event of a conflict, I disregard the sequels. This is one of those instances. In particular, blasters throughout the films are shown to explosively detonate any matter they strike, with heavier blasters (the AT-ATs in ESB) able to bring down character-scale targets simply by hitting near them. The laser blasts in TFA contradict that, but since that's from the sequels, I disregard it.

Frankly, the only way that scene makes sense from a continuity perspective is if the X-Wings were using their smaller scale retractable belly guns to snipe character-scale targets on the ground...

Which is actually as decent an explanation as any. Fine, the scene is back in, but the X-Wings weren't shooting their main laser cannon, just the belly blaster (just rewatched the TFA opening scene on YouTube, and the blaster initially pops out facing forward, but then spins to cover the rear). Having a smaller-scale blaster works for a variety of reasons, including precision fire at small ground targets intermixed with friendlies.

Quote:
Did TFA not influence your most recent bowcaster rules, for example?

IIRC, it more ended up influencing my quick blast radius rules, although the Takodana battle did influence my decision to give bowcaster an explosive round option.


I can live with that... but.... the scene I'm referencing, you can clearly see that it is the same guns used to shoot down the TIE fighters that was used to shoot storm troopers (the weapons that create the "X" shape of the ship itself).


With respect to a comparison between a .308 and a 155... I feel that is somewhat of a red herring:

Let's not lose track of the original question: what evidence do we have that the "diameter" of the blaster bolt ever gets to be any greater than that of, say, a lightsaber? My contentions are two:

1) If the basis for disallowing deflection is the size (diameter) of the blaster beam itself (not necessarily the presumed resulting blast "radius" generated upon impact), then what film evidence do we have for that?

2) If the lightsaber deflects the round while still allowing it to preserve all of it's energy, then we know that the round's impact against the lightsaber does not result in a transfer of energy, which is what is needed in order to have a damaging effect (or to otherwise realize the intended effects of the round being fired). That is to say: the lightsaber changes the direction of the blaster bolt's travel without triggering the effects of a blaster bolt's impact. If that is the case (which... it is), then any notion that the impact on the intended target would result in a "blast radius" is irrelevant because the energy of the bolt doesn't change. Only it's direction of travel changes.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 12, 2018 12:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
I can live with that... but.... the scene I'm referencing, you can clearly see that it is the same guns used to shoot down the TIE fighters that was used to shoot storm troopers (the weapons that create the "X" shape of the ship itself).

I went back and watched the scene to refresh my memory before my previous comment, and I just watched it again. The problem is that the pattern of fire doesn't match with the rapid-fire vwip-vwip-vwip noise made when X-Wings fire their lasers. The bolts impacting in the scene where the troopers get taken out don't match that rate of fire, unless all of the missed shots somehow managed to hit somewhere off camera. What we see in the films is a relatively slow, precise pattern of placed shots. There is no scene that clearly shows both X-Wings firing their main cannon with those shots hitting stormtroopers. It's strongly implied, but still sufficiently ambiguous that it could go either way.


Quote:
With respect to a comparison between a .308 and a 155... I feel that is somewhat of a red herring:

Let's not lose track of the original question: what evidence do we have that the "diameter" of the blaster bolt ever gets to be any greater than that of, say, a lightsaber? My contentions are two:

1) If the basis for disallowing deflection is the size (diameter) of the blaster beam itself (not necessarily the presumed resulting blast "radius" generated upon impact), then what film evidence do we have for that?

If you dislike the 155mm comparison, then lets go with a 5.56 and 120mm main gun on an M1A1. Both are direct-fire weapons, but one is for killing much tougher targets, and fires a round that is larger and more powerful in all respects, including diameter, and thus the barrel must be sized to fit.

In the SWU, compare the size of the main guns on an AT-AT with that of blaster rifles, or even the AT-AT's own secondary guns. The barrels have noticeably different diameters. If you really want to go to extremes, look at the Death Star's superlaser. The beam it fires has to be measured against 1,200 meter-long capital ships, or against the bulk of the Death Star itself. Is it really your contention that, regardless of scale, energy weapons in the SWU all fire the same diameter of beam as hand-held personal weapons?

Is it really so hard to believe that weapons designers in the SWU, in trying to design the most powerful energy weapons they could to fit on various combat vehicles, wouldn't take advantage of an increase in beam width to pack more power into a shot?

Quote:
2) If the lightsaber deflects the round while still allowing it to preserve all of it's energy, then we know that the round's impact against the lightsaber does not result in a transfer of energy, which is what is needed in order to have a damaging effect (or to otherwise realize the intended effects of the round being fired). That is to say: the lightsaber changes the direction of the blaster bolt's travel without triggering the effects of a blaster bolt's impact. If that is the case (which... it is), then any notion that the impact on the intended target would result in a "blast radius" is irrelevant because the energy of the bolt doesn't change. Only it's direction of travel changes.

A blast radius only results if the blaster bolt strikes a physical object that can not either absorb or ricochet the bolt. A lightsaber is an energy field that must be generated by whatever level of tech is crammed into the hilt. That energy field will have limits, and the more powerful a blaster bolt is, the greater the chance that those limits will be exceeded.

To use the 5.56/120mm comparison again, if you were to fire a 5.56 at a large boulder, you'd get a ricochet (possibly coming right back at you) and a few rock chips. Do the same with a sabot or HEAT round from the 120mm and you shatter the boulder. The difference is whether the object being struck has enough structural integrity to resist the shot.

Same thing with a lightsaber. It has the "structural" integrity to effortlessly deflect / redirect / ricochet a blaster bolt. However, as the size and power of the beam scales up, the greater the amount of force exerted against the "structural" integrity of the lightsaber.

I see it in three parts:
    1). Beam Power (see above)

    2). Beam Diameter - A wider-diameter bolt requires much more precise placement of the saber blade to successfully parry the bolt without disrupting its integrity.

    3). Accuracy - The relative inaccuracy of larger scale weapons works against the Jedi in this case because a bolt does not have to strike the Jedi directly to inflict damage. A bolt from a Starfighter or Walker Scale cannon can hit the ground a meter or two away and still do enough secondary damage from blast and shrapnel effects to kill or wound the Jedi, and that sort of damage can't be parried by a lightsaber. As such, the Jedi has to defend a much wider area; rather than simply parrying the bolts that would strike him, he has to defend a circle several meters in diameter just to keep bolts from striking too close.

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 5:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:

I went back and watched the scene to refresh my memory before my previous comment, and I just watched it again. The problem is that the pattern of fire doesn't match with the rapid-fire vwip-vwip-vwip noise made when X-Wings fire their lasers. The bolts impacting in the scene where the troopers get taken out don't match that rate of fire, unless all of the missed shots somehow managed to hit somewhere off camera. What we see in the films is a relatively slow, precise pattern of placed shots. There is no scene that clearly shows both X-Wings firing their main cannon with those shots hitting stormtroopers. It's strongly implied, but still sufficiently ambiguous that it could go either way.


No it can't. Just pause it when you see the X-Wing coming toward the camera.


CRMcNeill wrote:

If you dislike the 155mm comparison, then lets go with a 5.56 and 120mm main gun on an M1A1. Both are direct-fire weapons, but one is for killing much tougher targets, and fires a round that is larger and more powerful in all respects, including diameter, and thus the barrel must be sized to fit.


True. But, if a person is the target, that target can literally outmaneuver the gun itself, which is why the gunner would have to eat the scale penalty (yes, I get it: the Jedi is choosing to stand still, but that is because his precognition allows him to know whether to deflect or to dodge, hence why lightsaber "parrying" should incorporate "dodges" as part of what is understood to fall within the narrative. See Obi-Wan in Ep1. I'm sure you know which scene I'm referring to by now).

CRMcNeill wrote:

In the SWU, compare the size of the main guns on an AT-AT with that of blaster rifles, or even the AT-AT's own secondary guns. The barrels have noticeably different diameters. If you really want to go to extremes, look at the Death Star's superlaser. The beam it fires has to be measured against 1,200 meter-long capital ships, or against the bulk of the Death Star itself. Is it really your contention that, regardless of scale, energy weapons in the SWU all fire the same diameter of beam as hand-held personal weapons?


Not at all. I'm simply asking for a depiction that a confirms a starfighter's weapons are "too large" in diameter to be deflected by a lightsaber. And, why "diameter" should necessarily be the determining factor. I could hit a soccer ball with a baseball bat, for example, even though a soccer ball is much larger than a baseball. In fact, the soccer ball is much easier to hit and track visually than the baseball, which may validate the scale bonus that the smaller combatant should receive.


CRMcNeill wrote:

Is it really so hard to believe that weapons designers in the SWU, in trying to design the most powerful energy weapons they could to fit on various combat vehicles, wouldn't take advantage of an increase in beam width to pack more power into a shot?


Actually, maybe it is: the broader the beam, the less focused it is, and therefore the less intense. The sun, for example, doesn't fry ants on the sidewalk, but focus it's light through a magnifying glass backwards, and it cooks 'em right up.

CRMcNeill wrote:

A blast radius only results if the blaster bolt strikes a physical object that can not either absorb or ricochet the bolt. A lightsaber is an energy field that must be generated by whatever level of tech is crammed into the hilt. That energy field will have limits, and the more powerful a blaster bolt is, the greater the chance that those limits will be exceeded.

To use the 5.56/120mm comparison again, if you were to fire a 5.56 at a large boulder, you'd get a ricochet (possibly coming right back at you) and a few rock chips. Do the same with a sabot or HEAT round from the 120mm and you shatter the boulder. The difference is whether the object being struck has enough structural integrity to resist the shot.

Same thing with a lightsaber. It has the "structural" integrity to effortlessly deflect / redirect / ricochet a blaster bolt. However, as the size and power of the beam scales up, the greater the amount of force exerted against the "structural" integrity of the lightsaber.

I see it in three parts:
    1). Beam Power (see above)

    2). Beam Diameter - A wider-diameter bolt requires much more precise placement of the saber blade to successfully parry the bolt without disrupting its integrity.

    3). Accuracy - The relative inaccuracy of larger scale weapons works against the Jedi in this case because a bolt does not have to strike the Jedi directly to inflict damage. A bolt from a Starfighter or Walker Scale cannon can hit the ground a meter or two away and still do enough secondary damage from blast and shrapnel effects to kill or wound the Jedi, and that sort of damage can't be parried by a lightsaber. As such, the Jedi has to defend a much wider area; rather than simply parrying the bolts that would strike him, he has to defend a circle several meters in diameter just to keep bolts from striking too close.


I would submit that the lightsaber is probably the most advanced technology in the SWU and it seems to have the same relationship to technology as the the force does to natural laws. That is, it is not subject to the normal laws of "nature" or "tech."

With regard to your point on accuracy, I have no contention provided that the circumstances described are appropriate to the confrontation in question. In other words, I do not believe that all weapons of a particular scale necessarily have a blast radius upon impact. See my point about the magnifying glass. Sometimes, the purpose is to increase the focus to increase power/effectiveness, etc.

Also, in cases where a pilot is shooting at a Jedi (which I would expect to be exceedingly rare), I would allow the pilot to attempt it. I would also make him eat the scale penalty, but I would ignore the scale penalty (roll different colored scale dice for the Jedi) when determining whether 1) he could redirect the shot (which would get an additional speed penalty) and 2) if the resulting blast radius hit close enough to damage him (remember, the precognition would alert the Jedi that dodging or parrying is better or worse, etc).

In other words, a marginal success would be the Jedi dodging. A solid success would be the Jedi parrying, and a spectacular success would see the shot being redirected at the ship itself.

Just so it's clear: I don't see a problem with your interpretation from a logical standpoint.

I do feel that there is a lot of "how can we kill Jedi by making exceptions to the rules so that they are even more killable than non-Jedi" that gets tossed around fairly often. And I see no in-film basis for assuming that a lightsaber, which can repel other lightsaber beams (which are more powerful than starship weapons to begin with if we go by the movie characters' lightsaber damage which hovers around 15D+) would lack the "structural integrity" to repel virtually anything that fails to consume the entire space that the Jedi is occupying when it hits.
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 5:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:

I went back and watched the scene to refresh my memory before my previous comment, and I just watched it again. The problem is that the pattern of fire doesn't match with the rapid-fire vwip-vwip-vwip noise made when X-Wings fire their lasers. The bolts impacting in the scene where the troopers get taken out don't match that rate of fire, unless all of the missed shots somehow managed to hit somewhere off camera. What we see in the films is a relatively slow, precise pattern of placed shots. There is no scene that clearly shows both X-Wings firing their main cannon with those shots hitting stormtroopers. It's strongly implied, but still sufficiently ambiguous that it could go either way.


No it can't. Just pause it when you see the X-Wing coming toward the camera.


CRMcNeill wrote:

If you dislike the 155mm comparison, then lets go with a 5.56 and 120mm main gun on an M1A1. Both are direct-fire weapons, but one is for killing much tougher targets, and fires a round that is larger and more powerful in all respects, including diameter, and thus the barrel must be sized to fit.


True. But, if a person is the target, that target can literally outmaneuver the gun itself, which is why the gunner would have to eat the scale penalty (yes, I get it: the Jedi is choosing to stand still, but that is because his precognition allows him to know whether to deflect or to dodge, hence why lightsaber "parrying" should incorporate "dodges" as part of what is understood to fall within the narrative. See Obi-Wan in Ep1. I'm sure you know which scene I'm referring to by now).

CRMcNeill wrote:

In the SWU, compare the size of the main guns on an AT-AT with that of blaster rifles, or even the AT-AT's own secondary guns. The barrels have noticeably different diameters. If you really want to go to extremes, look at the Death Star's superlaser. The beam it fires has to be measured against 1,200 meter-long capital ships, or against the bulk of the Death Star itself. Is it really your contention that, regardless of scale, energy weapons in the SWU all fire the same diameter of beam as hand-held personal weapons?


Not at all. I'm simply asking for a depiction that a confirms a starfighter's weapons are "too large" in diameter to be deflected by a lightsaber. And, why "diameter" should necessarily be the determining factor. I could hit a soccer ball with a baseball bat, for example, even though a soccer ball is much larger than a baseball. In fact, the soccer ball is much easier to hit and track visually than the baseball, which may validate the scale bonus that the smaller combatant should receive.


CRMcNeill wrote:

Is it really so hard to believe that weapons designers in the SWU, in trying to design the most powerful energy weapons they could to fit on various combat vehicles, wouldn't take advantage of an increase in beam width to pack more power into a shot?


Actually, maybe it is: the broader the beam, the less focused it is, and therefore the less intense. The sun, for example, doesn't fry ants on the sidewalk, but focus it's light through a magnifying glass backwards, and it cooks 'em right up.

CRMcNeill wrote:

A blast radius only results if the blaster bolt strikes a physical object that can not either absorb or ricochet the bolt. A lightsaber is an energy field that must be generated by whatever level of tech is crammed into the hilt. That energy field will have limits, and the more powerful a blaster bolt is, the greater the chance that those limits will be exceeded.

To use the 5.56/120mm comparison again, if you were to fire a 5.56 at a large boulder, you'd get a ricochet (possibly coming right back at you) and a few rock chips. Do the same with a sabot or HEAT round from the 120mm and you shatter the boulder. The difference is whether the object being struck has enough structural integrity to resist the shot.

Same thing with a lightsaber. It has the "structural" integrity to effortlessly deflect / redirect / ricochet a blaster bolt. However, as the size and power of the beam scales up, the greater the amount of force exerted against the "structural" integrity of the lightsaber.

I see it in three parts:
    1). Beam Power (see above)

    2). Beam Diameter - A wider-diameter bolt requires much more precise placement of the saber blade to successfully parry the bolt without disrupting its integrity.

    3). Accuracy - The relative inaccuracy of larger scale weapons works against the Jedi in this case because a bolt does not have to strike the Jedi directly to inflict damage. A bolt from a Starfighter or Walker Scale cannon can hit the ground a meter or two away and still do enough secondary damage from blast and shrapnel effects to kill or wound the Jedi, and that sort of damage can't be parried by a lightsaber. As such, the Jedi has to defend a much wider area; rather than simply parrying the bolts that would strike him, he has to defend a circle several meters in diameter just to keep bolts from striking too close.


I would submit that the lightsaber is probably the most advanced technology in the SWU and it seems to have the same relationship to technology as the the force does to natural laws. That is, it is not subject to the normal laws of "nature" or "tech."

With regard to your point on accuracy, I have no contention provided that the circumstances described are appropriate to the confrontation in question. In other words, I do not believe that all weapons of a particular scale necessarily have a blast radius upon impact. See my point about the magnifying glass. Sometimes, the purpose is to increase the focus to increase power/effectiveness, etc.

Also, in cases where a pilot is shooting at a Jedi (which I would expect to be exceedingly rare), I would allow the pilot to attempt it. I would also make him eat the scale penalty, but I would ignore the scale penalty (roll different colored scale dice for the Jedi) when determining whether 1) he could redirect the shot (which would get an additional speed penalty) and 2) if the resulting blast radius hit close enough to damage him (remember, the precognition would alert the Jedi that dodging or parrying is better or worse, etc).

In other words, a marginal success would be the Jedi dodging. A solid success would be the Jedi parrying, and a spectacular success would see the shot being redirected at the ship itself.

Just so it's clear: I don't see a problem with your interpretation from a logical standpoint.

I do feel that there is a lot of "how can we kill Jedi by making exceptions to the rules so that they are even more killable than non-Jedi" that gets tossed around fairly often. And I see no in-film basis for assuming that a lightsaber, which can repel other lightsaber beams (which are more powerful than starship weapons to begin with if we go by the movie characters' lightsaber damage which hovers around 15D+) would lack the "structural integrity" to repel virtually anything that fails to consume the entire space that the Jedi is occupying when it hits.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 12:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
No it can't. Just pause it when you see the X-Wing coming toward the camera.

I've watched the scene multiple times. The audio and the fire rate just don't match up to the X-Wing's rapid-fire in that scene. As I said, the only way it works is if ALL the shots that didn't actually hit stormtroopers went so far wide as to not be visible on screen, which wouldn't match with the sheer accuracy of what we do see. That's what I mean by "sufficiently ambiguous."

Quote:
I'm simply asking for a depiction that a confirms a starfighter's weapons are "too large" in diameter to be deflected by a lightsaber. And, why "diameter" should necessarily be the determining factor.

Seeing as how there are no actual scenes in the films where a lightsaber is used to parry larger-scale weapons, this rule concept is based largely on anecdotal evidence (the size of the main barrels on an AT-AT combined with the energy they pack when they hit, along with Obi-wan getting strafed by the Slave One in AotC).

And I'm not saying diameter is the determining factor, merely that it is a factor, along with several others (see my previous three points).

The only EU reference of which I am aware is in the opening pages of Dark Empire, where Luke parries the main cannon of an AT-AT back at itself, as part of a montage demonstrating how powerful Luke had become.

Quote:
Actually, maybe it is: the broader the beam, the less focused it is, and therefore the less intense. The sun, for example, doesn't fry ants on the sidewalk, but focus it's light through a magnifying glass backwards, and it cooks 'em right up.

So, your argument is that, because the blast from a Death Star is wider than that of a blaster rifle, it is... less... intense? Every sci-fi genre that uses wider-barreled weaponry as scale increases (Bolo, Hammer's Slammers, etc) does so to justify packing more power into an energy beam, not less. I fail to see why Star Wars would be any different.

Quote:
I would submit that the lightsaber is probably the most advanced technology in the SWU and it seems to have the same relationship to technology as the the force does to natural laws. That is, it is not subject to the normal laws of "nature" or "tech."

And I submit that, even though we may not know what those limits are, they still exist, and should be accounted for in some way. While I do not think, for example, that a Jedi should be able to parry a blast from the Death Star's superlaser, arbitrarily ruling that it can not be done is not the appropriate way to deal with it. There needs to be a rule in place as to why it can't be done, and even possibly a path for a power-gaming Jedi character to attempt it (even though the odds on the dice essentially guarantee that it is impossible). The best way to do that is with the Scale modifier, as a +24D modifier to Difficulty when trying to Parry is effectively saying, "you can't do that," just without actually saying it.

Quote:
With regard to your point on accuracy, I have no contention provided that the circumstances described are appropriate to the confrontation in question. In other words, I do not believe that all weapons of a particular scale necessarily have a blast radius upon impact. See my point about the magnifying glass. Sometimes, the purpose is to increase the focus to increase power/effectiveness, etc.

I factored that into my blast radius rules, as well, in that some weapons are going to have a more confined effect than others (energy beam weapons in particular). Any blast radius is going to be the result of the beam expending its energy into a target that explosively detonates, creating secondary effects that have the potential to injure or kill those nearby.

Quote:
True. But, if a person is the target, that target can literally outmaneuver the gun itself, which is why the gunner would have to eat the scale penalty (yes, I get it: the Jedi is choosing to stand still, but that is because his precognition allows him to know whether to deflect or to dodge, hence why lightsaber "parrying" should incorporate "dodges" as part of what is understood to fall within the narrative. See Obi-Wan in Ep1. I'm sure you know which scene I'm referring to by now).
Quote:
I do feel that there is a lot of "how can we kill Jedi by making exceptions to the rules so that they are even more killable than non-Jedi" that gets tossed around fairly often. And I see no in-film basis for assuming that a lightsaber, which can repel other lightsaber beams (which are more powerful than starship weapons to begin with if we go by the movie characters' lightsaber damage which hovers around 15D+) would lack the "structural integrity" to repel virtually anything that fails to consume the entire space that the Jedi is occupying when it hits.
The problem I see is more with how Lightsaber Combat is structured. I'd say the film evidence doesn't support adding Control to the lightsaber's damage, and what a lightsaber can do would be better served by writing different stats for the lightsaber than building it into the Jedi holding it. Right now, the Jedi is extremely potent when holding a lightsaber, but as soon as he shuts it off, his combat prowess drops off precipitously.

IMO, a properly structured Jedi Combat power would be a combination of Lightsaber Combat and Combat Sense, usable with any combat-oriented Dexterity skill (basically, everything but Pickpocket). That way, a Jedi being strafed by a starfighter could just roll Dodge, with the Combat Sense augmenting the appropriate skill.

That being said, I do see your point insofar as Dodge being incorporated into Lightsaber Combat, and that adding Scale to Difficulty to Parry in general does make a Jedi more vulnerable than it should. As a compromise, just add Scale to Difficulty to Lightsaber Parry only if the Jedi intends to direct the bolt back at the shooter. This allows the Jedi to evade normally under all other circumstances, but represents the added Difficulty of A) being at the precise location needed to parry the blast, and B) parrying a beam that is more powerful - of which beam diameter is a factor - than a normal, Character-Scale blaster weapon.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

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