Soaking Blaster Bolts

[garhkal]

[Whill]

[MrNexx]

If I wanted to change the soak mechanics, I'd probably a variation on d6 Space's hand to hand damage... instead of simple Strength (as Star Wars uses), it's 1D+1 pip per die of Strength. So, at a 2D strength, your soak is 1D+2... not much different. At 3D, it's 2D. At 6D Strength, it's 3D. On top of this, you wear armor, making it much more attractive and useful.
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[Whill]

[MrNexx]

I have somehow internalized an imaginary version of d6 Space, to be honest.
_________________
"I've Seen Your Daily Routine. You Are Not Busy!"
“We're going to win this war, not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”
http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/

[Whill]

[CRMcNeill]

A thought on this, insofar as a simple rule...

Just tie it to armor. As in, if the character has an armor rating of +1D or more against energy damage, they can soak damage as per the RAW. If they don't, the minimum result for a successful hit is a Stunned result. This could be applied to physical damage, as well.
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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.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Whill]

[Antilles]

I allow my characters to soak blaster bolts, but I do it in the following way: since the adventure is played text-online (this way is easier), I interpret the "hit" or "miss" of the blaster shot taking into account not only blaster skill roll, but also damage skill roll. So, when a character (PC or NPC) "soak a blaster bolt", I usually say: "his stormtrooper armor resisted the impact..." or "the shot, although well aimed, scorched [insert PC's name here]'s vest...".

Maybe is not the best/realistic according to the rules solution, but maybe a good dramatic one.

[Mamatried]

I know that SWD6 is a game and that there are mechanics we need to consider.
However, people in real life DO have the ability to soak bullets, yes to a degree.

I am not thinking of armor in this context, but rather what we call a gracing blow, I have seen people taking shrapnel to the body, though with negilgble injuries, a few scratches and burns, nothing more......however he was dazed and confused, having little or no ability to fight for quite a while. I guess we could call it a stun, and a long lasting one.

Now I am on the fense about soaking as I belive that a dimishing soak is the most realistic and the best way.
and most often combined with penalties to actions.

I am thinkking that if you are shot, you are hit, but you roll so that you take no damage according to the mechanics, I would rule you may act, but at a severe penalty, though only for the next action.

so hero heroic took a balster shot to his armor, yes even as heroic as hero heroic is he chose to wear armor.
He rolls 3D6 + his 1D armor for a totla of 4D6= 20 a very ver good roll
the attacker rolls ery badly on his 5D stomtrooper carbine, and rolls 5D6 = 9.

Looking at the game mechanics this is negated ,which I disagree with.

I would argue he doesn't take injuries, but he looses his aim, his intiative and such. basically taking a penatly in pip upto full dice to his NEXT action in this round of combat, he also loose his intiative and will have to act either later in the round, or last.

He will during the round, the duration of his "daze" from the impact of the shot be at -1 to any and all actions until next intiative is rolled.

if he takes ijuries, I would add injuries and the penalties for them and then add in the penalties for being daze and feeling the sheer impact.

I have taken a 9mm to my vest once, lets say it was niether planned or anything I would like to repeat, but even the "small" calible knocked the wind out of me, took avay my initiave and aggression, I had re focus and then take my time after going down to gt up and then press on, this the sheer knietic impact, something I think the rules have negated, as we do see that blaster bolts have a heavy kientic impact as well.

So I would argue that if hit, you loose your intiative phase and must act later in the round, any attack or aiming, is reduced, so is any action that is not to gain back your focus, get back on your feet and the like.


So I would have a dimishing soak combined with penalties, fir gracing wounds and even the hit=0 damage.

how to make it into a tbale though is still a work in progress

[garhkal]

[Whill]

I had no issues with soaking physical damage as in RAW, and bullets against bullet proof protection would qualify as physical damage. I think it is quite reasonable for a GM to rule that soaking some physical damage still knocked the character down. My issue was with blasters, which do not exist in the real world. Our primary source for how they work is the SW films.

As I probably already mentioned, I already "interpret the results." We never see blasters cause what would be a stunned result in the films — Blasters seems to cause at least wounded for important characters and incapacitated or worse for mooks (including armored stormtroopers). I wasn't advocating removing stunned results for energy weapon damage. I already interpret stunned as grazes or very near misses. I do not use random hit location for characters in my game, because I handle hit location narratively through interpreting the results — I see what the wound result is and then decide where on the character's body the wound is to make it seem right for the wound severity and damage type.

Since I already reinterpret energy stuns as grazes or near misses, I didn't want to go one step further and also reinterpret soaking hits as misses. It seems easier to just have a minimum damage of stunned for blasters, except for certain circumstances as I wrote in my optional rule on the SW D6 Damage web page. But everyone should do whatever works best for them.
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[DougRed4]

I hadn't really thought about this much, but upon reflection, I agree that it's not something we really see in the source material (films).

I highly encourage my players to buy up lots of Dodge at character creation. And our addition of the Dazed condition (house rules can be found in my sig) alleviates even powerful characters like Wookiees just sitting there and allowing blaster bolts to bounce off their chests.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[CRMcNeill]

There's also my suggestion here of weapons having an effect less than Stunned. Inserting these into an expanded damaged chart could be a handy way of adding interim steps.
_________________
"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.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]