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The Sisko posted:Any general advice for a newbie GM and any advice in general for EotE? Blues are awesome, use them constantly as rewards for being Star Warsy. Also, the implied situation in a gunfight is everyone is behind some cover, leaning out and taking potshots/getting tagged, and characters aren't very sticky if they're used to Fighters being able to lock down enemies. So running gunfights are the norm. I made this, you may want to print it out and use it for combat, it helps to visualize range bands and engaged/not-engaged easier (use beads or whatever minis you have handy) Also, here's a HUGE list of things to spend advantages/Triumphs/threats/Despairs on if the players kinda blank.
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Mar 24, 2015 05:50
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Everblight posted:I made this, you may want to print it out and use it for combat, it helps to visualize range bands and engaged/not-engaged easier (use beads or whatever minis you have handy) Thats amazing, im going to start using this.
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Mar 24, 2015 05:56
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kingcom posted:Thats amazing, im going to start using this. If you're at all good at photoshop, I'd take out the various range band descriptors on the right, I wish I had never put them on it. Clone tool is your friend or even just fill with sand color. The ranges are not absolute, but rather everything is relative. In the same row as someone? You're "Close." One band over? "Medium" You could be at the very top (the one labeled extreme) and they're one row down (labeled long) and it's technically "Close" range. If you're in the same range band as someone, you can spend a maneuver and move both minis to the left-hand (greyed-out) column, now the two of you are engaged. (hopefully you got a nice ring  )
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Mar 24, 2015 06:13
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I still hate that it's easier to shoot someone two feet away than it is to swing a sword at him.
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Mar 24, 2015 06:37
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Thanks a while bunch for the friendly advice guys. I'm definelty printing out the chart with all the triumph/despair/advantage stuff though to be honest I don't what I'm looking at with the Range Band sheet , though that could be due to not being familiar with the system.
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Mar 24, 2015 06:48
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Swags posted:I still hate that it's easier to shoot someone two feet away than it is to swing a sword at him. Guns don't routinely come with Pierce and Vicious on them in great quantities, while vibroweapons do though 
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Mar 24, 2015 06:49
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The Sisko posted:Thanks a while bunch for the friendly advice guys. I'm definelty printing out the chart with all the triumph/despair/advantage stuff though to be honest I don't what I'm looking at with the Range Band sheet , though that could be due to not being familiar with the system. Basically there are 3 places you can be, and 1 modifier to those places, in all of Star Wars: EotE - close, medium and long range. So if you and a stormtrooper are next to each other, you're close. You can move 1 range band away from someone at the cost of 1 move action. (nobody is sticky, no Attacks of Opportunities, you just book it). Rather than track who is close/medium/far to everyone, just use minis/dice/coins to represent people and move them one band at a time, up or down. The modifier "engaged" really only comes up if someone wants to fistfight or stab someone, in which case if they are in the same range band (and thus close range), they can slide both their mini and the stabee's mini over to the grey left-hand side, and the two are now engaged. It costs a maneuver to leave engaged (which still leaves you at Close, and makes escaping difficult, at best you can run away getting stabbed every turn)
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Mar 24, 2015 06:53
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Everblight posted:Guns don't routinely come with Pierce and Vicious on them in great quantities, while vibroweapons do though Rifle has ten damage. Vibro sword by a guy with a three Brawn is what, eight damage? A few points of piercing doesn't make it better, it just flails about in an attempt to bring it up to par. Except the rifle can still shoot the guy two feet away at one die if he's not engaged. The sword is always two difficulty. I've just found it dumb since the first beginner box that a guy ten feet away can shoot me more easily than I can knife a guy next to me. And people might say "but gun difficulty increases if you engage them!" Yeah, but it only increases to how hard it always is for the knife guy if you've got a pistol. At a disadvantage the gunners are just even with the melee dudes. That seems very not Star Warsy to me.
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Mar 24, 2015 09:12
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Swags posted:Rifle has ten damage. Vibro sword by a guy with a three Brawn is what, eight damage? A few points of piercing doesn't make it better, it just flails about in an attempt to bring it up to par. Except the rifle can still shoot the guy two feet away at one die if he's not engaged. The sword is always two difficulty. Have you ever tried to fight someone with a melee weapon, even for fun? Not as easy compared to shooting them plus this is Star Wars and the only people who should be stabbing people regularly are space wizards with magic swords.
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Mar 24, 2015 12:37
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Outside of Jedi melee combat in the movies is brawling (which could use a boost) or... Gammoreans and Tusken Raiders. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be in the game or it should suck but even Chewbacca uses a ranged weapon in the fluff. Melee weapons are just different from ranged weapons. They don't do the same damage numbers but Vicious weapons add up quickly and spend advantage much more efficiently. Adding Brawn to a character makes one close to invincible, too.
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Mar 24, 2015 14:23
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I always just took it as the difference between being able to block or side-step a melee attack versus trying to block or dodge a Though thinking about this has made me realize it'd be really easy and thematic to throw in boost/setback dice for melee attacks depending on the difference in weapon reaches (e.g. vibroaxe vs. knife). So maybe consider using that to help balance out the difference in difficulty.
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Mar 24, 2015 15:12
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Also don't do what I did and completely ignore Fear rolls. The first time you take half your Wounds in a single Vibroaxe strike, you should probably roll a fear check, since that dude is gonna Vibroaxe you next turn, too. Also Fear checks are a good way to punish people for min-maxing and dumping the seemingly-extraneous mental stats and not buying at least a rank of discipline.
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Mar 24, 2015 15:44
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Swords take a lot more skill and training to kill someone compared to a gun. This is not some secret revelation.
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Mar 24, 2015 17:32
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To add sarcasm to this, yeah, the game about samurai space wizards of the future-past should totally be grounded in reality.
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Mar 24, 2015 20:00
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Fuzz posted:Swords take a lot more skill and training to kill someone compared to a gun. This is not some secret revelation. While playing the new hotline miami I've sometimes found it much harder to hit people with guns when they get up close than I do with a melee weapon therefore it must be hard to shoot someone at point blank range in real life too!
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Mar 24, 2015 20:06
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Anyone who somehow thinks swords are underpowered in this game or worse than ranged is crazy. Yes, you have to focus on melee combat to be good at it, and you can just throw a few points into light ranged and be tolerable for combat, but if you compare someone fully focused on melee vs. fully focused on ranged, light or heavy, then Melee is way better at just killing things. I've watched melee-users deal more damage in a single hit than four other ranged people did in their turns combined. It's pretty normal for focused melee-rs to deal more damage than a ranged person will do in two ish hits. Melee is just not something you 'dabble' in. Your mechanic doesn't put one dot into melee and hope to make hits, they are The Bruiser With A Melee Weapon.
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Mar 24, 2015 20:14
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KittyEmpress posted:Anyone who somehow thinks swords are underpowered in this game or worse than ranged is crazy. Yes, you have to focus on melee combat to be good at it, and you can just throw a few points into light ranged and be tolerable for combat, but if you compare someone fully focused on melee vs. fully focused on ranged, light or heavy, then Melee is way better at just killing things. I've watched melee-users deal more damage in a single hit than four other ranged people did in their turns combined. It's pretty normal for focused melee-rs to deal more damage than a ranged person will do in two ish hits. Isn't this an imbalance in itself? You have to specialize at melee to be good while others can put a point in ranged: light and be workable. Meanwhile, the guy that specializes at Ranged: Heavy and sinks the same amount of money into his rifle that you sank into your vibroblade is probably still going to be able to kill someone faster than a melee specialist, just like the ranged dabbler vs. the melee dabbler.
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Mar 24, 2015 20:32
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Swags posted:Isn't this an imbalance in itself? You have to specialize at melee to be good while others can put a point in ranged: light and be workable. Meanwhile, the guy that specializes at Ranged: Heavy and sinks the same amount of money into his rifle that you sank into your vibroblade is probably still going to be able to kill someone faster than a melee specialist, just like the ranged dabbler vs. the melee dabbler. The ranged specialist may be able to kill somebody faster, but the melee specialist will have an enormous amount of soak as a result.
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Mar 24, 2015 20:36
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Swags posted:Isn't this an imbalance in itself? You have to specialize at melee to be good while others can put a point in ranged: light and be workable. Meanwhile, the guy that specializes at Ranged: Heavy and sinks the same amount of money into his rifle that you sank into your vibroblade is probably still going to be able to kill someone faster than a melee specialist, just like the ranged dabbler vs. the melee dabbler. No, I specifically called out that a melee specialist is better than a ranged specialist. This is true in every case besides one where you use lots of credit hogging limited ammo weapons like rockets. A bounty hunter with a heavy ranged weapon will have more attacks, but each attack will do less damage. A bounty hunter with a melee weapon has to close to the correct range, but a single attack hitting can easily kill poo poo like rancors. Melee is hugely unbalanced, even disregarding stuff lie light sabers. A brawn focused melee character can start out dealing 11-12ish damage a hit, have a soak of like 10, and pierce two to three soak per attack. A ranged focused character can start out dealing 10 damage (this is the strongest weapon a starter character can buy) with a soak of 4-5, and no piercing. As levels get higher, both ranged and melee improve, but melee improves more, in my experience. Basically melee is worthless for dabblers but amazing for focusing, and ranged is what dabblers will use, but big guns that can match swords are generally single shot and expensive as gently caress.
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Mar 24, 2015 20:50
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Plus it's pretty easy to get a vibroweapon down to one advantage for a crit, meaning you can just poo poo out instant death checks if you invest in Vicious or improved crits. You can do something similar with disruptors, but those are a lot harder to acquire and carry around without causing trouble.
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Mar 24, 2015 21:47
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X-post from SWTOR thread, cause this is why I'm psyched for Armada:Hulk Smash! posted:Only tangentially related to SWTOR: Some dude hand made a Japanese-style short animated film based on the TIE Fighter games. 7 mins of neat animation and weird music choices await you! When wave 2 hits, I'm gonna run ImpStar + TIE swarm no matter if it's good or not. E: this was not the ffg star wars thread I was looking for. Still a rad video, though FishFood fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Mar 25, 2015 |
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Mar 24, 2015 22:27
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So the ranged vs melee debate. I've always found in games that ranged works way better against packs of enemies attacking you while melee is the style of choice for taking down a main villain. Running up and locking him down in a duel and dumping lots of vicious crits on them. A full melee character can keep up with ranged but they really shine when they are up against a combat focused nemesis and just get to take advantage of all disabling effects.
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Mar 25, 2015 00:33
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Having my players fight a force-using Nemesis in melee is always funny. You're in melee now? Force move! Boing! Unrelated: I sometimes let my players have a quick athletics/ranged check if an enemy throws a grenade at them so they can throw it back. It can lead to some really funny moments, especially if they try and toss it back, roll a despair, fumble it and take it straight in the face.
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Mar 25, 2015 01:07
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Endman posted:Having my players fight a force-using Nemesis in melee is always funny. You're in melee now? Force move! Boing! Player was trying to intimidate someone with a grenade going all 'ive got a thermal detonator!', arming it and being all cool. Rolled a despair, had him drop it and one of the other players decided to shoot out the lights to try and make a run for it. So the players were playing soccer with a thermal detonator in a pitch black room with strobe lights going on and off.
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Mar 25, 2015 01:11
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kingcom posted:So the ranged vs melee debate. I've always found in games that ranged works way better against packs of enemies attacking you while melee is the style of choice for taking down a main villain. Running up and locking him down in a duel and dumping lots of vicious crits on them. A full melee character can keep up with ranged but they really shine when they are up against a combat focused nemesis and just get to take advantage of all disabling effects. Yeah this is basically it. Ranged is good enough that against non-big bosses it can kill things fast enough that Melee isn't needed. I've watched a melee person one turn splat a main villain of a campaign though, which a ranged person wouldn't be capable of. Melee is really really good, but only gets to shine over ranged when something big and actually threatening is around, instead of a pack of smaller less threatening things.
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Mar 25, 2015 01:28
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KittyEmpress posted:Yeah this is basically it. Ranged is good enough that against non-big bosses it can kill things fast enough that Melee isn't needed. I've watched a melee person one turn splat a main villain of a campaign though, which a ranged person wouldn't be capable of. Melee is really really good, but only gets to shine over ranged when something big and actually threatening is around, instead of a pack of smaller less threatening things. This game seems pretty geared towards you playing out the original trilogy. Luke is shooting his blaster alongside everyone else for most of it but when vader shows up its time for a dramatic melee duel and this games mechanics actively encourage it.
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Mar 25, 2015 01:31
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kingcom posted:Player was trying to intimidate someone with a grenade going all 'ive got a thermal detonator!', arming it and being all cool. Rolled a despair, had him drop it and one of the other players decided to shoot out the lights to try and make a run for it. So the players were playing soccer with a thermal detonator in a pitch black room with strobe lights going on and off. That sounds hilarious. Someone get JJ Abrams on the phone, I want this in the next film.
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Mar 25, 2015 02:01
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KittyEmpress posted:Yeah this is basically it. Ranged is good enough that against non-big bosses it can kill things fast enough that Melee isn't needed. I've watched a melee person one turn splat a main villain of a campaign though, which a ranged person wouldn't be capable of. Melee is really really good, but only gets to shine over ranged when something big and actually threatening is around, instead of a pack of smaller less threatening things. I accidentally one-shotted the end boss of our last game. My droid came prepared to fight an AT-AT on foot, with a heavy repeating blaster hooked to a weapon harness, and four hired droids to help me put it on in battle. When the Moff and his retinue slid out on ropes I already had the drop on him and turned him to paste before his guard could form his super armor. I honestly feel a little bad when i saw the DM's face as he counted down the the guys hit points and armor. I did make sure to tell him I didn't plan on carrying this thing around as my main weapon. I just wanted to hang out the cargo bay door and shoot stuff with a space minigun while chewing on a restraining bolt like a cigar  .Gunnery IS a whole different kettle of fish though. WaywardWoodwose fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Mar 25, 2015 |
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Mar 25, 2015 04:20
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Gunnery is amazing, as it should be. Gun emplacements and startship sized weapons of course outpace most melee weapons, besides maybe Lightsabers. But yeah, not quite the same as an easily carried rifle/carbine. Though in the Mando game I'm running, the droid (with two points in gunnery and 5 agility) and two mandos (each with four strength, one with four int and other with three.) plus their mechanic-mando have worked together to mount and hold up a gun emplacement they've stolen to the droid. They eventually abandoned it after about two sessions of using it, when it ran out of energy, but it was pretty funny. I let them do it because it amused me. They completely slaughtered their way past an encounter I intended for them to sneak by with it, but who cares, they were having fun.
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Mar 25, 2015 04:59
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KittyEmpress posted:but who cares, they were having fun. This is the correct attitude to GMing this game, imho.
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Mar 25, 2015 05:54
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Someone earlier in the thread mentioned Scoundrel as being a bad specialization; are there any other specializations (or flat out careers) that just don't work as advertised, either because they end up improving something else or because they're just plain no good?
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Mar 25, 2015 11:40
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ProfessorCirno posted:Someone earlier in the thread mentioned Scoundrel as being a bad specialization; are there any other specializations (or flat out careers) that just don't work as advertised, either because they end up improving something else or because they're just plain no good? I think the issue is that the Scoundrel is a jack of all trades class, the pilot one for example has a lot of non-piloty things in the talent tree that say the Ace from AoR doesn't have. It all depends on who you want to be, a Han Solo well rounded person or Wedge Antilies super pilot.
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Mar 25, 2015 11:55
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Yup, the Scoundrel can be a decent pilot, face, or fighter, but isn't built to be as good at any as their dedicated careers. Mostly it's a good way to pick up skills and they have some good combat talents.
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Mar 25, 2015 15:03
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My issue is with the Scoundrel specialization of the Smuggler class (admittedly, I'm used to WotC's name for the classes so I keep mixing them up). As advertised, the Scoundrel is "Part con artist, part gunslinger, and part cantina brawler," and "quick-witted, quick on his feet, and quick to get himself into a great deal of trouble at the drop of a hat." As described by the book, "the Scoundrel is kind of an all-purpose character... he may or may not be a pilot, but it's almost certain that he's got many of the rogue-style abilities a group might need." Their talent tree doesn't really back that up. There are 20 talents in the tree: -1 is taken up by Dedication, as usual -2 are taken up by Toughened for +2 wound threshold -3 are taken up by Black Market Contacts, which lets you reduce rarity 1 per rank when buying goods, at a 50% increase in cost -3 are Convincing Demeanor, which lets you remove a black die per rank from Deception or Skullduggery checks -2 are Hidden Storage, which lets you have secret compartments to hide up to your ranks in the talent in encumbrance -2 are Quick Strike, adding a blue die per rank to combat checks against people who haven't acted yet -2 are Rapid Reaction, letting you suffer strain to upgrade your initiative checks once per rank -2 are Side Step, letting you make a maneuver to upgrade difficulty of ranged attacks against you by one per rank, taking the same amount of strain -1 is Quick Draw, letting you draw or holster items as an incidental -1 is Soft Spot, letting you spend a Destiny point to add your Cunning to damage -1 is Natural Charmer, letting you reroll a Charm or Deception check once per session For a Jack of All Trades character, the problem is that they have way too many repeated talents, with Black Market Contacts in particular standing out as perhaps the most repetitive because it's only function is to get you rare items at even more ridiculous prices- it doesn't even get you any benefit when fencing an item. Convincing Demeanor isn't bad, but it's at the front of the tree and how often do you routinely encounter three black die on your Deception checks? Hidden Storage is alright if you're routinely going places where your gear isn't allowed, while Quick Strike is only effective in the first round of the fight (though Rapid Reaction increases the odds of you getting that first strike), leaving you with Side Step to try to keep yourself alive through the rest (though you have two abilities that require strain to use and nothing that boosts your strain threshold). Quick Draw is good, Natural Charmer is useful, and Soft Spot is expensive, but works well enough if you've got the Cunning score for some of your other Scoundrel skills. The basic problem is that the Scoundrel doesn't have too many interesting and central talents because its lack of focus is by design. Honestly, if they really wanted to emphasize the Jack of All Trades nature of the Scoundrel, they could probably have pared down some of the repeated talents and filled those spots by letting them dabble in other abilities. At least Fly Casual came out with the Charmer specialization, which is much better at the fast-talking part that I thought the Smuggler was supposed to be good at.
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Mar 25, 2015 15:40
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So, without any volunteers or a party gathered, I went whole hog on this game and system. I like everything I've seen and just picked up Lords of Nal Hutta this afternoon in the hopes that that and Suns of Fortune will give me fodder for some criminal fun. I showed off the core book at a recent game and everyone was very impressed. I used a couple anecdotes from this thread about how the system works and seems to foster an improvisational mindset to gaming and now I have a couple enthusiastic volunteers. Can't wait to get started and have been noting the gm tips that folks have offered up here.
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Mar 25, 2015 23:00
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Crosspost from Hot Modrons
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Mar 29, 2015 01:14
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After months of trying to get our group into EotE and AoR, including both beginner modules, last night we started our campaign as a filler game for when were down too many to play Deadlands (our current primary game) - with missing players "staying on the ship." The players had a blast, and picked up on the mechanics quickly (though I'm still a little shaky as a DM in this system, our first outside of d20). We're running as Imperials, dispatched undercover to infiltrate the Rebel Terrorists and end their campaign of injustice in the galaxy, following the assassination of the Emperor on the peaceful space station DS that was in the orbit of the Endor's Forest Moon. A few quick beginner questions: how do you resolve successes/failures with a ton of advantage or threat? Or a neutral result with many of one or the other? Do the players still get the benefits or consequences? I rolled it into cinematic results, bursting pipes, droids tripping, etc, but had to hand out a metric fuckton of boost and black dice. It felt ridiculous.
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Mar 30, 2015 14:10
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Tuxedo Jack posted:A few quick beginner questions: how do you resolve successes/failures with a ton of advantage or threat? Or a neutral result with many of one or the other? Do the players still get the benefits or consequences? I rolled it into cinematic results, bursting pipes, droids tripping, etc, but had to hand out a metric fuckton of boost and black dice. It felt ridiculous. I assume by a "neutral result" you mean an equal amount of successes and failures. If that's the case, that actually results in a failure since there are no net successes. As for throwing boost and black dice out by the truckload, you're doing it right.
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Mar 30, 2015 17:07
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Yeah, basically every check should have both boost and setback dice on them, and evrry roll should be a handful.
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Apr 2, 2015 23:16
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Checks in this system follow two simple rules: 1: Players love to roll lots of dice. 2: Many dice means a larger range of possible outcomes and potential computations. Win-win.
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Apr 3, 2015 13:22
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